In less than ten seconds his friend appeared at a dead run, with Lonzo and Trahern not far behind. One look at Devlin’s face and D.J. withheld whatever smart-ass comment he’d been about to make.
“What’s up?”
“I’m heading over to the lab to check on Dr. Young.”
“Is something wrong?” Trahern pushed past Lonzo. “Do you need me to come with you?”
“I don’t know yet. She’s not answering either the lab phone or her cell. It could be nothing, but that isn’t like her.”
“You’re right. It isn’t.” Trahern’s own worry showed in the chill of his eyes. “Let me know if you need backup.”
“Thanks, I will.” He started for the door. “I’ll call with an update as soon as I know anything.”
• • •
He drove straight to the private parking garage provided for the Regents and their staff. The place was virtually empty, the day shift having gone home. No one stuck around much past 6:00 P.M. unless the barrier was acting up and wounded Paladins were expected.
After locking the car, he walked around to the front door of the building. Once inside, his sense of unease increased geometrically when he saw the guard station was empty. Even when the guard was shorthanded, Colonel Kincade insisted that the front desk be fully manned. The guards stationed there were the first line of defense for the whole building, 24/7. Additionally, they were responsible for monitoring the cameras and microphones in security-sensitive areas like the labs.
He pulled out his cell and hit speed dial; D.J. answered on the first ring.
“The place feels empty and there are no guards at the desk. I’m going back to my car to retrieve my weapons. I’ll need you to shut down the sensors long enough for me to get in without sounding the alarm. Can you do that?”
He waited impatiently while D.J. conferred with someone, most likely Cullen. What one of them couldn’t do on a computer, the other could. It didn’t take long. Just as he expected, D.J. promised him a minimum of sixty seconds of downtime.
“Thanks, D.J. I’ll ring your phone twice when I’m ready and then count to thirty before crossing the sensors. Tell Trahern he might want to head this way.”
He was relieved to hear that his friend was already on the way and should arrive shortly. More and more, his gut was telling him that something was horribly wrong.
When he returned to the lobby with his weapons, it was still deserted. He punched in D.J.’s number and disconnected after two rings. Staring at the clock on the wall, he impatiently counted down the seconds until he could safely cross. He allowed an extra ten seconds, but even so, he half expected the alarms to start clanging away.
The silence was thick with tension as he crossed to the entrance of Laurel’s lab. He walked with a hunter’s stealth, gun in hand. His sword hung at his side. It was only when the Paladins fought the Others that they resorted to weapons from ancient times. But here, safely distant from the fragile barrier, he preferred a more modern weapon, one that would make quick work of any son of a bitch who dared threaten his woman.
He approached the door to her lab from the side, working his way to the small windows that would allow him a quick glimpse into the room. It didn’t take long to decide that the lab was empty, at least as much of it as he could see. He shoved the door open far enough to step through, holding his gun with both hands. Other than the soft mechanical whir of the lab equipment, the room was silent. And empty.
After settling the gun back in the waistband of his jeans, he started in one corner of the lab and began checking the counters and cabinets and even the empty patient beds for any sign of violence or clues as to what had happened to Laurel. The only thing in the wastebasket was the wadded-up wrapper from the sandwich he’d made for Laurel’s lunch. He’d known in his gut that she wouldn’t have broken her promise to remain in the building; the crumbs and plastic bag confirmed that.
He slammed his hand down on the counter in frustration. Maybe she’d been called away for a late meeting, but he’d never seen her leave her purse sitting out on the cabinet. And wouldn’t she have taken her laptop?
His cellphone rang, shattering the silence. The number on the screen was Laurel’s, and he knew even before he answered that something was terribly wrong.
“Bane here.”
“Devlin?”
He thought her voice was a bit shaky, but the reception on the call sucked. Either she was almost out of the service area, or somewhere that interfered with electronics.
“Where are you, Laurel? And who are you with?” He kept his voice calm, pacing back and forth across the lab.
“I can’t tell you that, but right now I’m fine.”
Implying that she wouldn’t be for long. He’d kill the bastard three times over.
“He said to tell you that he’ll let you know when he wants you to join the party.”
The line went dead, then his phone rang again. It was D.J,. telling him that Trahern had arrived and was about to enter the building.
The other Paladin stepped through the lab door just as Devlin stuffed the phone back in his pocket. Trahern lowered his gun and put it back in his shoulder holster, taking in the empty lab with his chilling gaze. “She’s gone.”
“He’s got her,” Devlin said.
“Other than he’s a dead man, do we know anything about him?” Trahern moved closer, but kept maneuvering room between them in case of any unexpected threats.
“No. He told her to tell me that he’d let me know when I’d be invited ‘to join their party.’” Images of what the bastard might have in mind for Laurel flashed through his head, making him want to howl with fury.
“So we find them first.” Trahern nodded toward the laptop. “Did you check it to see if she had time to leave us a clue?”
Devlin swore and booted up the laptop. It was a pretty remote possibility, but the fact that he hadn’t even thought to check worried him, because it showed how messed up he was. “No recent entries.”
He pondered their choices. “Call D.J. and have him send Cullen over to check out the guard station. Maybe one of the cameras caught the bastard on film. If nothing else, he can bring up the logs to see which guards were scheduled to be on duty today.”
While Trahern made the call, he forced himself to breathe deeply, searching for the battle calm that came over him just before the barrier came down and the Others came pouring through.
The barrier. There was something about the barrier. He reached over to snatch Trahern’s phone out of his hand.
“D.J., did you follow up on that blip you noticed earlier? The one you said was in one of the remote tunnels?”
No, he hadn’t had time to check yet, but it had only been that one time.
“Where are the tunnels located? Can you tell me that?”
D.J.’s answer had him running for the door, with Trahern right on his heels.
“Where are we going now?”
“Earlier, something triggered the sensors in a remote tunnel—remote only because it’s not near the barrier, but it’s right under this building. D.J.’s researching the layout to tell me how to access the tunnel from here. Otherwise we’ll have to go down through the Center and backtrack. Until he calls with more information, all we can do is search.”
Three hallways converged at the lobby. They picked the one on the left first because it was the shortest. The two of them did a standard search pattern, first one and then the other leading the charge into each room and office they passed. Most rooms were dark, the normal occupants obviously gone for the day.
They started down the second hallway. About halfway down, they struck pay dirt. A woman’s shoe was lying near the head of a staircase, and Devlin knew even before he got a good look at it that it was Laurel’s. What he didn’t know was whether she was leaving him a trail to follow, or if her captor had tossed it there as a red herring.
When Trahern caught up with him, Devlin showed him the shoe. “It’s Laurel’s.”
&nb
sp; “Think she’s the one who left it there?”
“I’d like to think so, but there’s no way of telling.” He considered their options. “Any idea where that staircase leads?”
Trahern gave the obvious answer. “Down.”
“Thanks.” Devlin set the shoe back down. “I figure the stairs are our best choice, but we should do a quick check of the rest of this floor before committing ourselves. I’ll finish this end. You take the other. If D.J. calls back, I’ll let you know.”
It didn’t take long to finish their search, which turned up nothing. The kidnapper would have been a fool to take Laurel to one of the upper floors where they could be cornered with no exits. No, they either left the building through a ground level door or found another way out. Dragging an unwilling woman, especially one missing at least one shoe, out onto a public street even for the minute or two it would take to reach a car was too risky.
That left the staircase. Devlin’s phone rang just as Trahern returned. When Devlin looked at him, he shook his head. Nothing, which only confirmed what he’d suspected.
“Give me good news, D.J.”
His friend’s report didn’t take long.
“Thanks. No, stay there. I may need you to call in the troops. We’ll keep you posted when we can.”
He told Trahern, “There’s a climate-controlled vault on the lowest floor of the building that houses the Regent’s records. According to the schematics that D.J. pulled up, the only access is through a door at the bottom of these steps, and you have to know the security codes to open it.”
“I assume D.J. is taking care of that little problem for us.”
Devlin shrugged. “He’s going to try, but if that fails, I’ll blast the fucking thing open.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Chapter 14
Devlin checked his gun and the slide of his sword in his scabbard while Trahern did the same thing. When they were both ready, Devlin started down the first flight of steps. At the landing, they stopped and leapfrogged the rest of the way down, offering each other cover in case the kidnapper wasn’t working alone.
When they reached the bottom, the first thing Devlin noticed was that the door to the records room was slightly ajar. He dialed D.J.
“Did you open the door? No? That’s what I thought.” He disconnected before D.J. could ask any questions of his own.
“Devlin, look.” Trahern was pointing toward the corner.
Laurel’s other shoe was lying in the shadows, almost out of sight under the staircase. That convinced him that Laurel was leaving the clues. If her captor had wanted to lay a false trail, he would have left the shoe out where Devlin couldn’t have missed it. It was definitely Laurel, trying with limited resources to lead her rescuers straight to her. He hoped she drew comfort from her faith that he’d come after her. And once he got her back, he wasn’t going to let her go, come hell or high water.
But right now it was time to see what was behind door number three. “Shall we?”
Trahern nodded and followed him through the door and into the darkness.
• • •
The cold seeped into Laurel’s bones as Sergeant Purefoy dragged her through an endless maze of tunnels. At first she’d tried to keep track of all the twists and turns, but gave up when she realized that his route doubled and tripled back on itself. Even if she managed to break free and escape, she had little hope of finding her way back to the elevator that had brought them down into this hell.
Just when she thought he would never stop, he took a sudden turn to the left. The abrupt change in direction almost sent her stumbling to her knees, and she fought to keep her feet. Purefoy looked down the narrow passage he’d chosen and nodded as if satisfied. Laurel couldn’t see anything that distinguished it from any of the others, but didn’t care. She was just glad to stop running for a few minutes. Then she saw what was tucked back against the wall and her stomach did a slow roll.
“Welcome to your new temporary home.” Purefoy’s mouth twisted into a nasty grin as he led her to a narrow cast-iron bed with stained mattress ticking. “I know it’s not much on the amenities, but you aren’t exactly here on vacation, are you?”
She yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I’d tell you to go to hell, Purefoy, but you’ll get there soon enough. About five minutes after Devlin Bane gets his hands on you—if you’re lucky. Otherwise, it could take hours.” Her show of bravado went a long way toward bolstering her spirits. His eyes immediately flickered back the way they’d come, telling her she’d scored a hit.
“Shut up, bitch.”
“Make me.” She knew the minute the dare slipped out that she’d made a major tactical error. The man was already running on nerves and adrenaline. She didn’t need him to add testosterone to the mix.
His hand lashed out to jerk her toward him. “I figure if you like what Bane dishes out in bed, you probably like it rough.”
She could feel the heat pouring off him despite the damp chill in the air. It was a struggle to keep her voice calm. “Don’t do this, Sergeant Purefoy. You know you really don’t want this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I want this a lot.”
He ran his free hand up to her shoulder and then back down to knead her breasts hard enough to make her wince in pain. Then he cupped her bottom and squeezed, pulling her against his body. When he tried to kiss her, she jerked away at the last second. He retaliated by fisting his hand in her hair and dragging her face around to plant a wet, sloppy kiss on her mouth. When she tried to resist, he yanked her hair hard enough to make her cry out. She almost gagged when he thrust his tongue into her mouth. To make him stop, she bit down hard.
Purefoy yelped and jumped back, cursing and spitting blood. He slapped her hard enough to make her jaw ache, but at least he made no other move toward her. She’d have another bruise on her cheek, but that little bit of defiance made her feel less helpless.
“Hold out your wrist.”
He dangled a pair of handcuffs in front of her face. The manic gleam in his eyes told her that he hoped she’d make him use force. She slowly lifted her hand, the sick feeling in her stomach growing worse. With a quick shove, he sent her flying back onto the bed. He straddled her and snapped a cuff onto her left hand and the other to the rusty metal headboard.
“I’d ask if you were comfortable, but once the Others find you, comfort will be the last of your worries.”
He jerked on the handcuffs to make sure they were secure, then leaned down to plant another sloppy kiss. With a cheery wave, he headed back the way they’d come, leaving her alone in the damp chill of the tunnel. At first, she remained motionless, listening to the sound of his footsteps fading. Because the passageways seemed to circle around one another, she couldn’t be sure that he’d really gone very far. He could just be lurking nearby to see if she tried to escape.
Why had he picked this particular location to leave her? For its remoteness and its proximity to the barrier? Although she’d seen photographs and film of the barrier, neither had done it justice. In the dim light, the luminescent wall at the far end of the tunnel glowed in a myriad of colors and shimmering textures that she knew no names for.
Her first impulse would have been to reach out and touch it if she hadn’t known better. More than one of her Paladins had gotten burns from run-ins with the barrier when they were fighting. It was as deadly as it was beautiful.
She decided she didn’t care what Purefoy was doing. Even if he stayed gone, there was always the chance the barrier would flicker, leaving her at the mercy of the Others. She shoved that idea to the back of her mind, refusing to let fear incapacitate her, and concentrated on trying to get free.
Her first few tugs on the handcuffs were tentative, to see if the metal had any give in it at all. The results were discouraging. With just that little bit of effort, the cuff had worn a sore place on her wrist. She struggled to sit up, finding it more difficult than she expected without the use of her hands and arms for balan
ce. Turning to face the headboard, she braced her feet against it and jerked backward, throwing her full weight behind the effort.
Blood dripped down her forearm, but the weld that attached the pipe to the rest of the frame didn’t budge. She breathed deeply, ignoring the pain, and worked herself up to another try. This time she yanked and fell back, allowing herself to yell. Back in college, she’d taken a semester of judo where the teacher had encouraged all of the students to vocalize loudly whenever they practiced. She didn’t know if it was the second try or the hollering that helped, but she felt some give in the frame.
Unfortunately, the heavier pipe itself remained intact. She wasn’t sure how many more times she could try before she did serious injury to herself. On the other hand, the damp cold of the tunnel was bound to sap her strength if she remained motionless for much longer.
Setting her feet, she inhaled deeply through her nose and released the breath through her mouth. But before she could lunge, a high-pitched buzzing started, growing in intensity until it felt as if someone were stabbing her eardrums with an ice pick.
Sinking down onto the mattress, she watched in horror as the barrier pulsed with ugly splotches of color. Every so often, she thought she caught a glimpse of someone moving on the other side…an Other waiting to cross into her world. It had to be. And from what she knew of their general physiology, it was most likely a fully grown male.
Fear, cold and bitter tasting, crept through her. If the barrier were to fail, it wouldn’t matter if Purefoy returned. An attack from an Other would play right into his plans: If he made it look as if she’d died at their hands, he might actually get away with kidnapping her. He’d left no obvious clues as to his identity.
Up until this point, she’d managed to remain focused on escaping and waiting for Devlin to find her. With this new and immediate threat, however, what should she do? Think…she had to think. She was used to analyzing data and then deciding on a course of action. Doing her best to ignore the buzzing, she looked at her surroundings.
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