The Protected tfp-4
Page 14
But it had been.
And if he didn’t find those two soon . . .
The phone rang.
Part of him didn’t want to answer. Closing his eyes, he said a quick prayer that his voice wouldn’t shake.
Then he answered. His bowels almost turned to water as nothing but dead air greeted him.
Seconds of silence ticked away, and unable to handle it another moment, he said, “I have promising news. I tracked them down to their most recent location. They’ve been living here for a while, I believe.”
“And do you have my son?”
Squeezing his eyes closed, he clenched one hand into a fist. “No, señor. I don’t. But we’re getting closer and I have found more useful tools to help locate them. Now that I have, it shouldn’t be long.”
“It had better not be. I’ve been far more lenient with you than with your predecessor. Do not make me regret that, Esteban.”
Esteban swallowed the spit pooling in his mouth. “Of course not. Thank you for your trust. For this opportunity. I will—”
The phone went dead.
* * *
REYES stared outside.
Turquoise waters glistened under the sun. Carefully tended gardens with vivid bursts of flowers stretched out in all directions.
His domain.
His property.
He’d worked hard for this.
He was respected. Feared.
People knew his name and knew to stay out of his way. Some of the most powerful men and women in the world owed him. He had secrets of those powerful people tucked away that could be used to destroy so many lives.
He had more money than he could ever hope to spend in his lifetime.
But the things he wanted the most eluded him. He wanted his son back in his home, and he wanted that pendejo dead.
Simple. It should really be simple.
There was a knock at the door.
He ignored it, rage still churning inside him.
“Ignacio, may I come in?”
Despite his anger, the woman’s low voice pricked at something inside him. She . . . she was like a drug to him. He’d never touched any of the products he sold. They were the fall of too many men, he knew, and he wouldn’t be like them. But this woman . . . she was a safe addiction. And only his. Turning, he called out her name and watched as she entered.
Her long hair, pale and thick, fell to her hips. A bikini, lush and red, barely covered her curves, and he brooded as she came to him.
He had money.
He had power.
He had this beautiful woman.
And yet he couldn’t get his hands on the child. That child . . . the absolute pinnacle of his power. But was he here? Where he belonged? No.
Reaching out, he touched his finger to her lower lip.
She closed her hand around his wrist and smiled at him.
“You’re not happy,” she said softly. “Is it the same problem bothering you?”
“Yes.” He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “The man I’ve hired to solve it isn’t working out. I think I need to remove him from the equation and find somebody else.”
She pushed her fingers into his hair. “Maybe you can worry about all of that later . . .” She arched against him and pressed her lips to his jaw. “Worry about me for now.”
* * *
IT was a lousy, long-ass forty-five minutes and Vaughnne felt like she was going to come out of her skin.
Her very hot, tight, itchy skin.
She just felt that much worse, every time she looked over at the bed and saw Alex huddling in on himself, clutching at his belly as he slept fitfully. His dusky skin was flushed, and the few times she’d touched him, he’d felt hot enough to burn her hand.
Each time she’d touched him, she’d felt the weight of Gus’s gaze slamming into the back of her head, like he was ready to snap her neck if she so much as moved wrong around the boy. She had no doubt he was ready to do just that.
His words echoed through her mind, over and over.
There is nobody, and I mean this with every bit of strength I have in me, absolutely nobody who means as much to me as that boy. I can, and have, killed for him. I will do it again, without blinking. Am I understood?
He’d been trying to scare her, she knew. Yeah, some part of her had been a bit thrown by his intensity, but he obviously had no idea just how far she would go to protect somebody she loved. She’d been ready to throw her badge away, her life away. Everything, if it would have saved her sister.
She hadn’t been able to save her.
So she’d been ready to do the same thing just to avenge her.
Daylin . . .
Her heart ached as an image of her sister’s smiling little face flashed through her mind.
Daylin had been just four the last time Vaughnne had seen her. Four years old. Vaughnne had been fifteen years old the day her father threw her out into the streets, when he realized he hadn’t been going crazy, that Vaughnne really was able to whisper into people’s minds. He’d thought it was the devil’s work. That was what he’d claimed. She knew better now.
Psychic ability tended to stick to families. If one person was psychic, chances were there was somebody else in the same gene pool who had abilities, too. It could range from just being very, very astute with an insight that just seemed way too sharp to be natural, to abilities like Vaughnne’s. To freaky-ass shit like Tucker could compel, and everything in between.
She’d gotten her abilities from her father. She realized that now, with the wisdom that came from distance and age. She’d often wondered why he’d hated her so much, and now she knew. It wasn’t hate . . . it was fear. Fear of something he hadn’t understood, fear of something inside himself that he’d never been able to control.
She had no idea what his ability had been, but she knew she wasn’t wrong.
He’d chased her away, while her mother stood there, wringing her hands and crying. They’d just . . . thrown her away, and Vaughnne had never seen her sister again. She never would have known her baby sister was missing if she hadn’t been watching things on her own. He hadn’t once tried to call her. She’d found out nearly a week later, when she’d been doing one of her infrequent stops by his Facebook page, one he’d never bothered to make private. There had been a plea to help find his baby girl.
And Vaughnne’s first look at her sister in more than a year had been on a missing poster.
The grief still hit her hard.
“Why the FBI?”
Pulled out of the pit of grief and memory, Vaughnne looked up and found Gus watching her from his position by the window. Abruptly, she realized there was something . . . practiced . . . about the way he stood. Too practiced. Not like he was posing, although she’d seen enough of that, too. No, this was the carriage of a man who knew how to . . . protect. How to fight. How to hunt. Attack.
Fighter. That much, she knew. She’d seen the clues and already pieced them together, but it went deeper than that. There were fighters, like cops. And then there were those who were modern-day berserkers, warriors without any real equal. Navy Seals, Airborne Rangers . . . but she didn’t think he was from here. Where had he learned . . . whatever he did, she wondered.
He’d turned all the lights off save for a dim one by the bed, enough so that the boy could see. He stood lost in the shadows, his hands empty . . . empty, and ready.
“Well?”
Swallowing, she looked away from him and shrugged. “Why not?”
He snorted. “I can think of a thousand reasons. Why work for the government? I don’t imagine it’s for the money, or the glory.”
“All about the glory,” she said soberly, shooting him a quick glance. “I get up every damn morning and do my workout and my mantra is for the glory of the FBI.”
Gus just stared at her.
Obviously, her sense of humor wasn’t appealing. Rolling her eyes, she rose from her chair and started to pace. “It just fit. I
was a kid in trouble . . . a lot of trouble. The man who heads up my unit has a knack for finding the people who’ll fit best into his unit. I’d just come off a stint in juvie and—”
“Juvie?”
She lifted a brow. “Juvenile detention center. I was something of a problem child.” That last trip in, she’d stolen some food, and when she’d gotten caught by the store owner, she’d beaten the shit out of him. Not because he’d caught her. But when he did catch her, he’d decided he’d take it out of her in a rather inappropriate manner. Of course, nobody had believed her.
The story was a little different when he was arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor two years later, but by then, she was out of the system and busting her ass to get her GED so she could get into college. Still, it had been a pleasure to see that man going to jail.
“Anyway, it was right before I was eighteen and I was reading in the paper about this woman who’d found a kid down south. She was one of the bloodhounds in the unit, although I didn’t really know about them. I headed down there—my gut told me that was what I needed to do. I wanted to talk to her. I hadn’t realized there were others like me until then and I . . . hell, I don’t know. I wanted to talk to her. She was in the hospital—I never did talk to her, but her boss? I did talk to him. He told me I wasn’t ready. Had to get my GED, had to go to college. Had to get myself together and under control—in other words, I had to stay out of trouble. He helped me get my life together, and he was there walking me through the mess while I did just that.” She shrugged self-consciously and looked away. “When I got out of college, I told him I was ready. He didn’t have much to say to that, but a few days later, the paperwork showed up at my place.”
“Paperwork?”
She lifted a brow. “You don’t just walk into the FBI and say, Hey . . . I want a job, Gus.”
Swiping her palms down her jeans, she moved over by the bed and touched her palm to Alex’s brow again. “He’s still so damned hot,” she muttered.
“We should put him in a cool bath.”
Vaughnne shook her head. “Bad idea. I’ve taken basic first aid courses . . . sometimes it comes in handy. Doctors don’t always think that’s the wisest thing these days. Sometimes the body reacts by the fever shooting even higher.”
Rising, she checked the time. “The doctor will be here soon.”
Gus looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he just went back to staring out the window. “You never really answered. Why the FBI?”
“Because it fit. I’ve seen too many monsters, too many assholes in my life. I know what it’s like to be victimized and I hate it. With the Bureau, I have a chance to use what I can do to help people. I don’t have to hide what I am all the time and I can actually use it to make a living.” She shrugged and then suppressed a wince as the movement sent pain streaking up her neck to echo through her skull. She was too damn tight, too damn tense. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d have time to work in a massage or anything in the next few days, next few weeks, either. “Nothing else is going to come up in my life that lets me use what I can do the way this does.”
“And how can you use it?” Gus continued to stare at her. “How does your . . . talking . . . thing make you at all useful?”
“Pair me with a telepath who can receive as well as send and the two of us can go infiltrate damn near anything without having to worry about being spied on or caught because we had to reach out and make contact with the unit. For that matter, I can always be in contact with my unit. My range is pretty much limitless.” She smirked at him and added, “Just in case you’re thinking you can use me for hostage purposes or something. It’s a bad idea. I can reach out and touch somebody, so to speak, anytime I want.”
One black brow arched fractionally as he studied her face. “Anybody?”
“I have to have had a connection with them. Even if I’ve just seen them face-to-face one time . . . that’s all I need. If I know them personally, the contact is stronger.” She didn’t mention that distance could be a factor. No point in making her ability look less impressive. Sending a message to Jones in D.C. from here wasn’t an issue. She’d be in debilitating pain for a long, long while afterward, but if the need was extreme, she could do it several times over as long as adrenaline kept her going. She’d just pay for it afterward.
“So you have to have seen the person,” he said slowly.
“Yes.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you see the men earlier? Those who came to attack us?”
Ahhhh . . . I see. Smiling a little, she inclined her head. “Yes. I did.” Then she shrugged and turned away. “But I’d rather not reach out and make that connection blindly, so don’t go asking me to play messenger girl.”
“Why?”
She shot him a look. “Because they tracked your boy. If I send a message without knowing just how capable they are, it’s entirely possible they can track me. And my job is to keep him safe. I can’t do that if I’m leading his attackers to his door, now can I?”
Any answer he might have made was cut short. She saw him stiffen at the window, watched as he pulled out that deadly Sig Sauer he liked to shove in her ribs every few hours.
“Somebody just pulled into the parking lot,” he said quietly.
Vaughnne pulled out her phone.
Gus continued to stand there, watching. “They are just sitting in the car—”
Her phone chimed with an incoming message.
You asked for a house call? –Grady
* * *
“IF I had to guess, without doing any kind of lab work, I’d say a UTI.”
Gus stared at the doctor like he thought she was going to chop off the kid’s hands and feet and feed him to alligators. Vaughnne carefully kept her body between them, although Dr. Grady was probably used to working around temperamental, pissed-off people. She didn’t even seem perturbed at being called to come to a hotel in the middle of the night.
“A UTI.” Gus spat the words out like somebody had shoved his mouth full of horse shit.
Vaughnne glanced over at him. “A urinary infection. Somewhere in the kidneys or bladder.”
“I know what it is,” Gus said, giving her a withering look. “But how would he get one? He is a healthy boy.”
“Anybody can get one,” Dr. Grady said gently. “He’s also a preteen boy. Boys his age are often too busy to slow down and drink as much as they should. That can predispose you to a UTI. Sometimes their body hygiene starts to slip.”
Something flashed in Gus’s eyes, and as he took a step forward, Vaughnne slammed a hand against his chest. “Throttle back, big guy,” she warned. “She’s not wrong. I’ve known more than my share of kids his age. You tell them to get in the bath ten times before they do it and they are out in the blink of an eye. They barely have time to get wet, much less really bathe. She’s not saying you’re not taking care of him and she’s not calling him a sloppy little heathen, either. So chill out.”
Dr. Grady’s brows had arched up high over her eyes by the time Vaughnne was done. “Exactly so, Vaughnne. If he’s not drinking adequate fluids, if he’s not using proper body hygiene . . . that could do it. Is he circumcised?”
Gus’s face went tight and harsh flags of color rode on his cheeks. “No, I don’t think he is.”
“Good grief.” Vaughnne rolled her eyes and turned to the doctor. “Gus has only been his guardian for a few years. The parenting gig is a new thing for him. I think some of this is making him uncomfortable.” She shrugged as she tossed it out there and gave the doctor a look that hopefully conveyed . . . guys, what can you do?
The doctor studied Vaughnne consideringly and then turned away. “If he isn’t circumcised, that’s more of an issue, then. It’s even more important that he’s cleaning himself properly. I need a urine specimen.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a cup, as well as a little square packet. Holding them out, she looked back at Gus. “We need to wake him and you need to get him to void.”
Sighing, Vaughnne said, “If you can’t do this, Gus, I’ll do it. But I suspect it will be easier if it’s his uncle helping him, not some chick he barely knows.”
Gus nodded shortly. “Leave us for a bit.”
Vaughnne met the doctor’s eyes and the doctor inclined her head. “I’ll wait on the patio,” Vaughnne said.
The doctor could cover the hall. If Gus was going to try to escape, it would most likely be this way . . . closest route to the car.
And if he did go through the hall, the doc could send her a message. Vaughnne wasn’t terribly friendly with Grady, but she knew her. Jones had sent one of the doctors from the Bureau. She didn’t practice medicine much, but Grady knew her stuff.
And she carried a weapon, so if Gus tried to intimidate her, he’d be in for a surprise.
Of course, if he pulled the methods he liked to use on her . . .
Stop it, she told herself as she slid out onto the patio. She had to stop it and preferably now.
The last thing she needed to be thinking about was Gus using that damn near overpowering sexuality of his. Especially on another woman.
* * *
IT took a good twenty minutes to get Alex to wake up enough to get him into the bathroom, and by the time they were done, Gus wasn’t sure who was more embarrassed. He’d bet on himself.
If Alex wasn’t so miserably sick, the boy probably would have died from mortification.
It was a shame that when Gus looked in the mirror, he saw a man who was red-faced. A simple fact of life and he couldn’t handle it without feeling like he needed somebody to walk him through it. Consuelo, could I mess this up any more? he wondered as he made sure Alex washed up before they left the bathroom.