by Regan Black
Veil of Justice
Shadows of Justice Book Three
By Regan Black
Published by Getaway Reads at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 R. Bailey
Cover art by Karl Warren
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the express written permission from the author.
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Discover other titles by Regan Black at Smashwords.com:
Dream Works (Shadows of Justice)
From the Ashes (Shadows of Justice)
Breaking New Ground (Hobbitville Saga)
For all my fans, friends, and family who insisted I go back and get Nathan out of prison.
Thank You!!!
Prologue
From her perch above Miriam's tomb, the goddess looked over the dead city of Petra. So unfair that she was tethered here while the world moved on without her. Oh, her reach was vast, but what she needed, what she so desperately wanted, she'd yet to find.
Her power grew stronger as the sunlight faded and still she waited, trusting the wisdom of patience so close to the end game.
Assistants, minions really, came and went with various reports of successes and failures. Success she rewarded with another day of life. Failures died, slowly, as blood and brain were siphoned away with delicious precision.
The demon goddess known by many names licked her lips and listened for the clue that someone must unveil.
"Magnificent Nin."
She crooked a skeletal finger in invitation.
"The map box has been found."
She straightened to her full height, still waiting, rather than shout with premature joy. "Show me this."
The speaker approached, a woman she noted, head bowed as was proper. She signaled the guard to hold her, ignoring the screams as she peeled away scalp and bone to touch the brain itself.
Life flowed up through her fingers and the prized knowledge with it. Her messenger had caught the eye of a well-built young man, and enticed him to share his secrets. Not all, to the man's credit, but his look alone was enough to investigate further.
There were not many left with the strong jaw, dark eyes, and innate solitude that marked the guardian lineage. His name slipped into her consciousness, Darius. A fine young man with worthy goals, but his inexperience would cost him.
Dearly.
Nin thought briefly of the countless men and women she'd sent searching for the Guardians when those she'd sent after the specific treasures never returned.
After all this time, after so many bargains struck and broken, she had what she needed.
To honor the messenger, she made the kill swift, leaving the husk of the body to her guards. They must move quickly, before young Darius wised up. Nin wished for days long gone when she would have had her choice of generals to set to this task.
She vowed those days would return, her worshippers would once more fill this city and many others, but for now, only one of her servants was equipped for such a strike.
ONE
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. Winston Churchill
Chicago, October 2096
Kelly sighed under the soft assault of his lips against her neck. The reaction set fiery tingles racing down her arm, her side, to her toes. His hands traced her ribs, sending her other side into delighted spasms. It was too much, too overwhelming. And every inch of her prayed he wouldn’t stop this time.
He hovered, deftly evading her touch. She ached for the feel of his firm, hot flesh in her hands. She moaned, her breath mingling with his, her desire shifting into an all new gear. They’d never shared so much. In all his visits, they’d never risked a physical declaration like this.
God, what had they been waiting for?
"Nathan," she murmured, arching into his touch. Her body ignited under his, hungry for everything he could give, eager to give him everything she had in return.
Her clothes fell away and she lay bare before him, body and soul. She felt no shame, no hesitation, only need. She could do this, this which she’d never done before. With him she could, and would, find that blissful union perfected by the joining of two matched hearts.
An alarm sounded. Not anything like the fireworks or musical crescendos she’d expected from song lyrics and steamy books. Harsh and shrill it badgered her dreamy senses into submission.
Regretfully, she pulled away from her pleading lover to deal with the alarm.
* * *
Nathan Burkhardt dropped from the delectable dream with a resounding thud. How could she? He knew she’d been enjoying it as much as he. He knew it because he’d been right there in her head with her. So why shove him out and away when they’d been on the brink of something so unprecedented and stunning he wasn’t sure they’d ever get it back.
He growled and rolled over to stare at the smooth gray wall of his cell. Knowing the volatility of his imprisoned life, he couldn’t believe she’d left him. She was smart. Smart enough to understand every moment they had might be the last.
"Wax poetic much?" he muttered, pitching his voice too low to be overheard by the guards – human or electronic.
She might’ve broken their unique contact because she’d been scared. He’d sensed her innocence moments before she vanished.
He ached for her more knowing that detail. She’d been ready for him. Just for him. Then she’d just been gone. It must be fear.
Calming down a bit, Nathan reached out across space, looking for the woman who kept him sane in this hell-hole, but she was completely unavailable, as if she’d never existed at all. No. It couldn't be illusion. He was not losing his mind to the circumstance. He searched again and again came up empty.
He wanted to pound his fists into the wall, to pound out his frustration with her, this damned mission, and life in general. Doing so would only rouse his cell mate and the guards. That combination was as likely to kill him tonight as a wrong glance between inmates over tomorrow’s breakfast.
Nathan held himself in check, as he’d been doing for too many long, long months. Through sheer willpower he restrained the urge to shatter the prison doors and simply walk out. Lately he’d been so full of pent up fury he might be strong enough to do it.
Boots sounded in the hallway, stomping closer. Deep voices were quiet, but unmistakably angry. In self preservation, Nathan feigned sleep, refusing to turn from the wall even when his cell door rolled open with a rasp across the track.
"B-21187! On your feet!"
Nathan rolled out of his bunk before the officer finished barking the order. He held his hands out, palms open and down, waiting for the shackles.
They wouldn’t care that he was unaware of any violations he might’ve unwittingly committed. The hierarchy in prison was simple: guards followed a chain of command, prisoners followed guard orders. It only got complicated when you showed a streak of independence – or when you
didn’t have anything of value to pay off those who could make life easier.
With nothing of value beyond his loose grip on sanity, Nathan kept his eyes down to hide both his contempt and his remaining courage as the wrist shackles locked tightly into place.
He let them push him roughly down the cell block, cooperating only as much as he dared. It was a fine, exhausting line he danced on. Anything would set them off. Too easy and the prisoner was mocked and abused. Too stubborn and the prisoner could wake up in the infirmary days later with extensive inexplicable injuries.
So Nathan trudged behind one guard, flanked by two others. They didn’t have to say anything for him to know they were angry and for the umpteenth time since this agonizing assignment began, he wished for his sister Petra's empathic talents. Her ability to absorb and diffuse intense emotions would go a long way to ease this tour of duty.
All thought vanished as the guards turned him down a narrow hall. They weren’t going to the warden’s office as he’d hoped. The smell tipped him off before they even reached the doubled chain link door. They were sending him to solitary.
The hole.
Solitary confinement was an earthly hell supposedly banned as part of the prison reform act of 2052. Nathan had boned up on prison reform ideals, the reality, and prisoner rights in preparation for this mission.
He’d heard the rumors about solitary, and shrugged them off, knowing this facility had passed codes inspection just a few months prior to his incarceration. He’d actually relished his mission, knowing whatever he did in the pursuit of justice, solitary was one horrific threshold he wouldn’t have to cross.
But now the doors slid open, the guards shoved him through to the staff on the other side, and Nathan panicked for the first time in his near-thirty years of life.
His wrist shackles burst apart and fell to the floor. The gruff voices went silent as guards stared, dumbfounded. Using the momentary surprise, Nathan envisioned his path to freedom, but the guards recovered too quickly. Voices rose on a tide of foul curses, burly bodies swelled up from all sides, and Nathan, weakened from months of prison life collapsed under their brutal methods.
* * *
"She’s dead," Petra Callahan said when the latest lead on her missing assistant, Kelly, petered out. "She must be. She’s completely off the radar. Including mine."
"We’ll find her." Jaden Michaels struggled to find the right words to soothe her sister. "Between Kincaid’s resources, Gideon’s covert options, and Cleveland’s hacking we’ll find her."
Jaden's assurances rang hollow in her own ears. More than six months had passed without any word from Kelly and Petra was losing hope fast. In addition, she’d taken to muttering about her naiveté for blindly trusting a woman she apparently hadn't known very well at all.
"I thought this lead on Nathan's Mustang had real potential," Petra confided quietly.
Jaden nodded, looking for some way to comfort her sister. A hug not only seemed inadequate, as sensitive as Petra was to every emotion these days, the physical contact might cause more harm. Jaden had plenty of memories rolling around in her head that her empathic sister just didn’t need to encounter.
Feeling helpless, Jaden turned her attention to the holographic map of the United States projected at the end of the library work table. A small red dot marked every report on vehicles like the one Kelly was last seen driving toward Indianapolis. Green spots of color showed potential sightings of Kelly herself. So far, every sighting had been bogus. Where could the woman have run off to with an antique car? More importantly why had she run off at all?
Jaden spared a glance at Petra, eyes still glued to a computer monitor as she zipped through a continuous stream of email. Praying Petra stayed distracted, Jaden replaced the map image with a spread sheet of facilities using security programs created by Randall Burkhardt, Petra’s father.
The man’s genius had revolutionized electronic banking and provided nearly faultless locking systems for vaults, prisons, and labs around the world. In short, if you wanted it safe, you used Burkhardt code.
Bucking the general consensus of their team, Jaden felt this was how they’d eventually find Kelly. Shortly after Petra's assistant disappeared, so had the Burkhardt client list, along with his formulaic notes about his work.
Those facts, combined with a total absence of financial or personal history for Kelly older than five years, had Jaden cringing at the ramifications.
"I felt that," Petra said, turning from the monitor and rubbing her eyes.
Jaden tried to shrug it off. "Whoops. Guess I’d better tone down my judgmental vibes."
Petra smiled, but it was weak and her face was pasty. Jaden wasn’t sure if stress or pregnancy was the real cause, so she asked, "Morning sickness again?"
"No, that’s fading," Petra admitted with a happy pat on her gently rounded stomach. "Honestly, it’s Nathan more than Kelly. His office has lost all contact with him. The tracer went silent when he was moved."
Jaden cringed again, but this time managed to hide it from Petra. "Moved where?"
Petra’s big eyes swam with tears and she blinked furiously, refusing to let them fall. "That’s just it. No one knows."
Jaden restored the map image before kneeling by her sister. Slowly, she reached up to stroke the shock of gray hair at Petra’s temple, making every effort to keep the contact light. "Nathan’s strong, you know that."
Petra nodded.
"You have to let him handle it his way." Jaden knew Petra and Nathan had been close, and even without any empathic gifts of her own, she could see how this separation tore at Petra’s heart.
Petra released her breath in a series of short, frustrated puffs. "I believe Nathan and Kelly were communicating more than she admitted."
Jaden agreed, but didn’t dare interrupt.
"I can only think of one reason Kelly has no personal history," Petra grumbled. "But no one will confirm any connection between Kelly and any special ops offices."
Considering a variety of other, darker possibilities, Jaden withheld comment.
* * *
Kelly wished for death as she watched the sun sinking behind the western ridge. She soaked up this last view of the place she'd called home. Nothing could comfort her now. Nothing could ever be the same in this place.
In the blink of an eye, her entire world was destroyed. Not just by the horrible, heavy grief of the murder of her father and six brothers. That hadn’t quite become reality for her yet. At the moment, the worst thing was the utter devastation of a way of life she’d valued and loved. No matter that she’d left it to travel, explore, and find her own place.
She’d been shoved out of the nest when her father insisted she had no place in the family legacy. It wasn’t a woman’s work to guard and protect, he’d said time and again, regardless of how hard she trained to prove herself equal to the boys.
He’d said it so often she would have withered away if she hadn’t run off.
The distant landscape of Monument Valley gleamed gold and rose and copper while the temperature fell in time with the sun. She’d loved it here, planned on a life full of service and then she'd been tossed aside.
"All things work for the good."
The voice belonged to her eldest sister-in-law, Serena, but the phrase was her father’s.
Kelly shook her head in denial. "What good can come from this slaughter?"
"You," Serena replied with her trademark patience. "You came home, Calisto. All will be well."
Kelly shivered against hearing her real name spoken for the first time in five years. What girl worth her grit aspired to personify a chalice? Naming herself had been the first joy she'd claimed when she made her new life. At the moment, there was no joy. She wanted to lash out and indulge her rage and her loss, but Serena wasn't the right target.
"He thought they were invincible," Kelly said at last, referring to her father. "He forced me out, pushed me away because I wasn’t needed."
"Another go
od thing, it turns out."
Kelly gritted her teeth. Why couldn’t Serena get it? Why did she have to keep spouting calm and hope when the entire world had just lost a significant measure of both?
"If you’d been here, you’d only be dead too and then all would be lost."
Oh, she’d be damned if she’d accept her father’s summary rejection as wisdom at this point. He’d discounted her abilities and was probably even now arguing with God, worried she couldn’t handle the demands and honor entrusted to the men of the family for countless generations. "This isn’t woman’s work," she said, perfectly mocking her father’s hard line.
Serena had the audacity to laugh. The sound startled a giggle out of Kelly too. It grew into hilarity and momentarily eased the awful, tight fist strangling her heart.
"Calisto, your place has always been wherever you’ve made it. What can we do to help you?"
Kelly considered the sparse facts she’d learned in the days since she’d been home. The deadly strike had come in the middle of the day. Those on duty, her father and the eldest two of her six brothers, had been cut down while stationed near the caves. Three more were slain as they'd arrived to investigate the first distress call. All of them slaughtered like so many sheep.
The memory of the body of her youngest brother, Darius, plagued her. He'd earned defensive wounds before he'd been carefully eviscerated and left for the scavengers.
Her mother and sisters had done what they could to preserve any evidence around the caves, but nothing truly helpful remained by the time Kelly arrived.
Everything indicated the assailant was known, for the men of her family were too protective, too picky, to let a stranger so close to the treasure they guarded. Regardless of the scenarios she ran through her mind, nothing explained the lack of struggle. While the men of her family were faithful to a fault and gentle, compassionate men at the core, all of them were fully trained to kill with both common and unique methods. They were men who’d rarely had to prove their skills. And now they were all dead, their skills rendered useless at the most crucial time.
