by Cassie Miles
Even in repose, she was vibrant. The light from the dashboard caught on the wisps of hair that fell across her forehead. Her nose twitched. Her lips were bruised from a thousand kisses, but she was smiling like a woman who had been well satisfied from an afternoon of loving.
Blake considered himself a very lucky man to be with her.
Doubling back through traffic, he watched headlights and looked for other signs that they were being followed. No need to worry about bugs or GPS devices. Not in this car. A built-in scrambler made their movements untraceable.
He merged onto the highway and checked his G-Shock wristwatch. The Pyro concert started at ten, which gave him enough time to get there.
It was hard for him to think of Peter Gregory/Pyro as a rock star. Or a criminal mastermind. In Blake’s mind, Peter had always been a brat—the only son of Lou Gregory who was a friend and coworker of his dad.
They had first met ten years ago, just after Blake’s dad had joined the group practice. The office staff, their families and friends had gathered at the Gregory home for Lou’s fiftieth birthday party.
Both Blake and Peter had been fifteen, and their parents had expected them to hang out together—an intention that went bad when Peter threw a hissy fit and locked himself in his bedroom, refusing to come out. Blake remembered feeling relieved; he wasn’t interested in getting friendly with a scrawny, pale-skinned, spoiled whiner who couldn’t get over himself long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” to his own father.
Over the years, he and Peter had bumped into each other a half-dozen times at various family and office get-togethers. Their standard practice was to give each other a nod and find somebody else to talk with.
Blake should have looked closer at Pyro, should have recognized him as a threat.
Eve exhaled a soft little sigh and shifted position to get more comfortable in the soft leather upholstery. She’d been as surprised as he had been when they had looked up Pyro online and sampled his post-apocalyptic, techno-metal rock. His sound wasn’t unusual—a hard-driving beat with a discordant keyboard refrain. The lyrics were the revelation.
His latest featured song was about “The Twenty-Four.” They would rise up together, these powerful yet unknown heroes with superpowers, and they would conquer the world. All would bow before them. Twenty-four. No coincidence that it was the same number as the subjects in the Prentice-Jantzen study.
At Latimer’s house, when they had told him about his genetic parents, Pyro had claimed to be happily astonished. Liar! Not only was he aware of the study but he’d given considerable thought to their supposed genetic superiority. Hell, he’d written a damn ballad to sing their praises.
Additionally, he had access to the office where Blake’s father might have kept his notes. Pyro could easily have stolen the research notes or made copies.
But why would he care? As a supposed rock star, it was to his advantage to claim a weird parentage. If Pyro’s psychological profile showed a tendency toward antisocial personality disorder, he’d wear that label like a badge of honor.
Exiting the highway, Blake negotiated the stop-and-go city traffic on the route to Bowman Hall on Colfax Avenue, an old redstone building that had been through many transformations since its early days as an opera house. The marquee announced, “Tonight Only. Pyro.” The doors had opened, and a grungy crowd jostled each other on the sidewalk to get inside.
With a little effort, Blake figured that he and Eve could fit in with the rest of the audience. True, he had a military haircut, but he hadn’t shaved in two days. Nor would Eve stand out. She was, as usual, wearing a weird T-shirt with a winged monster and the word Jabberwocky in Gothic script. She claimed the shirt was a tribute to Lewis Carroll, a mathematician. Oh, yeah, she’d blend right in.
But he didn’t want to risk taking her into a crowd. There were too many distractions, too many chances for someone to grab her.
As he parallel-parked on a neighboring street where the old mansions had been converted to offices, she wakened. When she stretched and yawned, her arms fully extended over the dashboard. Her fingers opened wide and curled shut. She hunched her shoulders, then relaxed. When she looked at him, her eyes were bright and alert. “I’m ready.”
“That was a speedy wake-up.”
“Da Vinci said sleep is a waste of time. All our bodies only need a twenty-minute nap every four or five hours to stay refreshed. To tell the truth, I prefer the Einstein plan.”
“What’s that?”
“Eight to ten hours a night.” She tugged on his sleeve. “Let’s pick up our backstage passes at the box office and watch the concert.”
“Not necessary.” After the short online sampling, he really didn’t want to subject his ears to Pyro’s techno-rock wailing. “Our goal is to get Pyro alone after the show and ask him a couple of questions.”
She shrugged. “If he’s guilty, why would he talk to us?”
“Ego.”
Surrounded by his groupies, Pyro wouldn’t want to look weak by avoiding them. “In that ‘Twenty-Four’ song, he planned to lead the rest of us into a brilliant future. You and me? He sees us as his followers.”
“Not likely.”
“Maybe you’re his queen.”
“Even worse.” She rested her hand on her belly. “What if this is Pyro’s baby? Do you think it was him? That he paid Prentice to do the IVF procedure on me?”
“Doesn’t fit his persona,” he said. “Pyro thinks he’s all-powerful and irresistible. He’d try to seduce you.”
But Pyro hadn’t contacted them. They’d found him. What was he up to? The rocker was playing a game, but the end goal remained a mystery. The only course of action that made sense to Blake was face-to-face confrontation.
“When we see him,” Eve said, “what should we do?”
“I could beat a confession out of him.”
“Seriously, Blake.”
“He already lied once, pretending that he didn’t know about the study. I want to know why. What else is he hiding?” He checked his watch. “Let’s give him a half hour or so to get the concert rolling.”
She unfastened her seat belt and leaned toward him. “Do you think Ms. Mercedes would be jealous if I kissed you?”
“This is a very sexy vehicle.” He shot his seat back and pulled her onto his lap. “But you have special features that the car can’t match.”
As they kissed, he told himself that an effective bodyguard wouldn’t allow himself to be preoccupied with romance. But he just couldn’t keep his hands off his beautiful, willing partner.
THOUGH THEY STOPPED short of having sex in a car parked on a city street, the windows of the Mercedes were steamed up when Eve got out. Not exactly classy, but she felt too good to care.
Blake strode around the hood to join her on the sidewalk. In an attempt to disguise his military bearing and look like a Pyro fan, he’d allowed her to line his eyes with kohl. He’d stripped off his button-down shirt, which he tied around his waist to hide his holster. His sleeveless white T-shirt showed off his tattoo and his muscular arms. In her opinion, he was so outrageously masculine that nobody would dare question his right to be anywhere he chose.
Her Pyro fan disguise was to mess up her hair and tie a knot in her Jabberwocky shirt to make it tight across her breasts. Blake had convinced her to leave her purse in the car, but she stowed her cell phone and the stun gun in her pockets.
As they strolled along the street in the warm June night, she realized this was the closest they’d come to a date. With all the passion they’d shared, he hadn’t even taken her out to dinner. “When this is over, we should go out.”
“Out where?”
Apparently, the eyeliner had lowered his IQ by a solid fifty points. “To dinner and a movie. A moonlit carriage ride though the city. Dancing might be involved.”
“A date.” He took her hand. “I wish we had more time. I’ve only got a couple more weeks on leave.”
After his leave was up, he’d be g
one. Back to the Middle East or wherever. She didn’t want to think about how sad she’d be when he left.
As they approached the box office, she noticed clumps of people standing around near the entrance. Some were smoking. Several wore black shirts with red letters that identified them as Pyro staff. How many people were needed to put on a concert like this? From the clip they’d watched online, she knew that Pyro used a lot of fireworks in his act, including an effect called the “Wall of Flame.”
While Blake picked up their backstage passes, she focused on two of the Pyro staff who wore dark glasses even though it was night. The taller guy had a gold pinkie ring with an amber stone. Cleft chin. Small ears. His companion had a pug nose, big ears and a paunch around his middle.
Her eidetic memory kicked in. She knew them. They were the two men in business suits who had broken into her house. They turned away from her and went through the glass doors that led into the theater lobby. As she watched, they went through a door at the far left. It almost seemed as if they wanted her to see them.
Blake joined her and slipped her backstage pass around her neck. She looked up at him. “I saw the guys who tried to grab me at my house.”
His pretense at being a laid-back Pyro fan transformed. His body tensed, ready for action. The liner around his dark eyes made him look fierce. “Where are they?”
She pointed to the interior of the lobby. “They went through that door. To the left.”
“Stay with me, Eve. Behind me.”
Though she hadn’t noticed him pulling his weapon, the Sig Sauer was in his hand. Keeping the gun close to his side so it wasn’t obvious, he moved quickly into the lobby.
At one time, this theatre might have been a rococo jewel box. Not anymore. The floor was dirty brown tile. The fancy moldings and the walls were painted black. Two sets of double doors led into the auditorium. From inside, she heard crashing drums and a wailing keyboard solo.
Nobody else was in the lobby. Apprehensive, she glanced to the left and the right. “It seemed like they wanted me to see them. This could be a trap.”
When he opened the door, sound erupted. The place was packed. People were waving their arms, cheering and dancing in front of their seats and in the aisles. There was a sense of the music building toward a screaming crescendo.
Blake closed the door and stepped back. “Were they wearing staff shirts?”
“Yes.”
“You might be right about a trap. We’ll take a different route. They probably went backstage.”
Outside, they ran around the side of the building toward the rear. At the stage door, a husky man in a Pyro staff shirt stood guard. The door was open, and an undercurrent of noise pulsated into the night.
Blake paused. He took out his cell phone. “I’m calling Detective Gable. We need backup.”
Good plan. Her heart hammered inside her rib cage. Peering toward the street, she saw a threat in every shadow. They should go back to the car, lock the doors and wait for the police to arrive.
Blake snapped his phone closed. “Gable’s on the way. Should be here in fifteen minutes.”
“And we’ll wait for him,” she said hopefully.
“These guys have gotten away from me twice. It’s not going to happen again. I’ll take you to the car. You can wait there.”
Alone and unprotected? Even though the Mercedes had reinforced armored siding and bulletproof glass, she felt safer with him. “I’ll stay with you.”
“Is that a logical decision?”
Nothing she felt about him was rational, but she knew that if something bad happened to him while she was hiding in the car, she’d never forgive herself. “Let’s go.”
At the stage door, Blake concealed his gun and flashed their passes. They entered the backstage area.
The brilliant stage lights focused on Pyro. In the wings, it was dark. There was a lot of clutter from cables and ropes and a lot of space, both horizontal and vertical. Heavy curtains rose two stories high. Above them were catwalks. The backstage crew gathered near the curtains as though preparing to do…something important, maybe the “Wall of Flame” effect. Was Pyro reaching his finale?
Blake kept his back to the wall. “Do you see them?”
The music was so loud, she could barely hear him. “They vanished.”
“We can go behind the back curtain to the other side.”
“Wait.”
With Blake close beside her, she went over to a guy with shoulder-length dreadlocks and showed him her backstage pass. Leaning close so he could hear her over the music, she said, “I’m looking for two guys on your staff. They always wear dark glasses.”
When he nodded, his dreads bounced. He pointed toward a doorway without a door. A dim light shone from within, showing a stairwell leading down.
Blake guided her toward that light. There was nothing sexual about the way his hand rested on her waist. He was directing her. “As a general rule,” he said, “it’s not a good idea to ask the enemy for directions.”
“At least we have a direction.”
“Or we’re being pointed toward an ambush.”
It stood to reason that these men had also been the ones who had attacked at Blake’s house with guns blazing. They were dangerous. The sensible thing was to turn back, but Blake didn’t hesitate.
As they descended to the basement, she reached into her pocket and took out the stun gun. How did this thing work? She opened the safety and squeezed. Electricity arced between the two prongs on the end. It seemed too small to do serious damage.
On the bottom stair, he paused. As soon as they stepped into the open, they’d be an easy target. The music throbbed above them—not as loud down here. The beat was an echo, reminding her of the danger, heightening her fear.
Blake poked his head outside the stairwell and drew back quickly. “There’s a hallway with a door.”
“Okay.” Why was he telling her?
“Ready?”
She repeated, “Okay.”
Blake slung his arm around her waist and pulled her across the hallway at the foot of the stairs in a swift move. He twisted the handle on the door. Locked! Using his shoulder, he crashed through. They were inside a dark room.
The first thing she did was hit the light switch.
A single bare bulb illuminated a storage room, packed with boxes, old props and dusty costumes. The smell of grit and filth disgusted her.
Blake pulled her close. “I didn’t get a real good look out there. Beyond this hallway, there’s an open space—a big room. Not many lights. Theater junk scattered around.”
“They could be hiding anywhere.” Ready to pop out and open fire. “I say we wait for the police.”
“We could use the backup,” he agreed. “I’m guessing that this basement extends all the way under the stage to the opposite side. There must be several exits. They could escape before Gable gets here.”
And he wanted to apprehend them in the worst way. She understood. These men were his best lead to finding his father’s murderer. “What do we do?”
“Make them reveal their position. Draw their fire.”
Her heart thudded. “You want them to shoot at us?”
“Not exactly.”
Literally trusting him with her life, she said, “Tell me what to do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Blake based his attack on two factors: these two hired guns weren’t experienced in combat, and they were cowards. Twice before, they’d run from him. More difficult was the problem of engaging in a firefight while keeping Eve safe. He couldn’t leave her in this room where she could be easily captured.
He told her to stay low, to find a hiding place in the larger room outside the hallway and to use her stun gun if anyone approached her. Any minute, Detective Gable would be here.
“Why not wait for him?” she asked.
“Gable’s smart,” he said. “He’ll block the backstage exits. But he won’t have the manpower to monitor the audience. The Pyro st
aff can use the crowd to escape.”
“The whole staff? Do you think they’re all involved?”
“Don’t know. All I’m worried about right now is apprehending these two.”
Grabbing junk from the prop room, he threw together a dummy target that would go ahead of them. He had to move fast, to provoke gunfire before they knew what they were shooting at.
He turned to her. “Ready?”
She nodded mutely. Her eyes were wide but not fearful. Her bravery touched him. He would die to protect this woman.
While the music throbbed from overhead, he dashed from the hallway into the larger room. In the dim light, he saw open space, junk and shadows. With one hand, he thrust the makeshift dummy in front of them. The other hand held his gun.
A flash of gunfire showed the position of his adversaries. Straight ahead and to the left.
Blake threw the dummy to the right and ducked behind a crate. They were only ten feet from the gunmen. “Stay here,” he told Eve.
He moved away from her, drawing their fire. He was close enough that he could see them when they peeked out to shoot. He returned fire. Even louder than the music, he heard a shout. One of them had been hit.
The other man took off running. The son of a bitch was going to get away. Again.
Blake couldn’t pursue until he knew the first gunman was no longer a threat. He approached the place where he’d seen gunfire. The man was down. Bleeding. Unconscious.
Blake took his gun and ran across the basement. He was just in time to see the second man, the taller one, dive into the stairwell.
He followed. A narrow flight of stairs led straight up to an open doorway. He aimed both handguns in front of him, ready to blast anyone stupid enough to get in his way.
Without firing a shot, he emerged in the backstage area. Under normal circumstances, his two-gun entrance would have attracted attention. But the backstage area was busy with what had to be the climax to the concert. The lights onstage flashed and flared. Smoke machines blew a heavy mist across the floor. He caught a glimpse of Pyro breathing fire.
