Raja.
When talking equations, something about that woman did not fit. A cousin? Granted, cousins don’t often bear family resemblance, but Raja was—well, damn—she was beautiful. Not that the other woman wasn’t attractive, but Raja was different. Exotic. Even caked in perspiration and dust, she possessed a regal aura. Distrust gnawed at him and he hated it, but it was the nature of the beast.
Wilmington - 86 miles.
On the dashboard the orange digital numbers read 2:30am. Once he got home, he would shower, sleep for a couple of hours, and arrive at the office ready to receive the inevitable reprimand. But chastise him as they will, he still had a lead—a man at Diego’s side that no one had witnessed before. Who was this man? A relative?
It must be why she likes you.
It was a figure of speech. Nothing more.
Wilmington - 79 miles.
Craig opened the window, hoping the breeze would keep him alert, but the humid air did not help. It was sultry. Wet. It reminded him of the depths of that lake, and the shimmering blonde web that lurked beneath.
Eight minutes. She had been down there for eight minutes.
* * *
“So, you lost him?” The implied word, again, hung heavily in the air.
“I was tied up. Literally.”
“How’d you get loose?” Wally Zwyor sat across the desk from him, his navy blue necktie weaving a course down his stomach like a highway across the Alps.
“I—” This extremely hot woman in silver pants burned the ropes. “You know me. I’m always crafty,” Craig grinned.
“Crafty enough to earn yourself a stay of execution for going rogue.” Wally waved a bagel at him. “The fact that you went AWOL leaked about ten minutes before you called with the news about your run-in with Diego.” Wally bit into the bagel.
Craig looked beyond the man’s beefy shoulder into the glass-paneled office behind him. Special Agent In Charge, Gordon Gradkowski was on the phone. As misfortune would have it, he picked that moment to glance up and make eye contact with Craig, waving his hand in an impatient summons.
“Shit,” Craig mumbled.
“Wuh-woh,” Wally chewed. “He saw you?”
“Yeah, time to go deal with this.”
The bagel traveled like a baseball down Wally’s throat. “It won’t be bad if you have something tangible.”
Which I don’t.
“Look, Wal,” Craig said. “No matter what, I owe you for the tip. You can tell me over a beer where you dug up that address.”
“What tip?” Wally plumped his cheek up into a wink.
In the background, Gordon’s hand beckoned like that of the ferryman on the River Styx.
“Well,” Craig stood, his muscles feeling way older than those of a thirty-three year-old. “Time to face the music.”
Wally raised the rest of his bagel in salute.
Fifteen minutes later, Craig returned, red-faced and more determined than ever to locate Diego Carlo. Expecting a lynch mob, Craig received a modicum of respect from Gordon for being one of the few agents to survive captivity from the drug lord. Doing his best to downplay the civilian’s role in his escape, Craig wasn’t so much worrying about his ego, as he was protecting the pretty stranger. Something about her and that whole situation nagged at him. As much as he believed the three Pattersons were innocent neighbors...they were lying…and now it was time for his fingers to start digging for the reason why. Dig for the Kings. Dig for the Pattersons. Dig for Raja.
Before delving in, he crossed the office to grab his mug from the utility cart and pour a cup of coffee. Two hours of sleep wasn’t going to produce sharp results without this injection. Several discrete glimpses were cast in his direction. This field office wasn’t as large as some of the others. The four agents who all averted their heads when he looked up were well aware that he had taken off on his own— against orders. They did not sneer, nor did they seem impressed. It was the mild curiosity spawned by cramped quarters. These were blue-blood agents, as he called them. Born and bred for the job. Either the FBI was in their ancestry, or they possessed the money and schooling that the feds were sometimes attracted to.
Craig had none of these qualifications. People looked at him and they saw the lanky wide receiver from high school—someone they predicted would go on to a successful football career in college, and possibly the pros. Craig’s parents did not have a lot of money, but what they did not have in capital assets, they made up for with love and adoration. Looking back—while others might have been getting cars from their parents in their junior and senior years, he had two people who sat in those stands for every game, some games in twenty-degree weather. He could still see them huddled together under a blanket, their claps muffled by mittens, but his mother’s “GO Craig” registered louder than most military aircraft.
Some parents might teach their kids how to read, how to play tennis, or how to care for a cockatoo. Craig’s parents taught him how to manage a budget on very little income. Mom was a stickler for writing every figure down in her notebook and Craig began to treat that notebook as a giant word problem—as if coming up with the proper formula could produce more money. As a kid, he would spend hours poring through her numbers, trying to find a calculation that was wrong.
Despite his parents working long hours, dinner was always spent together at the kitchen table, a festive recap of the crazy events of the day. Craig never really wanted for anything. College would have to come from a scholarship, though, and it was not football that he earned it on, but rather his mathematical skills.
He had met Beth in college and they fell in love and spent four years that way. They wanted to wait until they graduated and he was settled in a position before they got married. Though the accounting job he ended up in paid well, it was hard to lose that stigma that he was not producing enough money for her. He kept telling her to wait until the next raise. It traveled through the grapevine that the FBI was looking to recruit ‘numbers’ guys for their Financial Crime division. Craig saw this as a great opportunity. With him at Quantico, though, and his subsequent need to relocate, Beth finally ran out of patience.
Craig never blamed her. He had loved her, but at the time he was too young and ambitious, and hell-bent on making money. Now, over ten years later, money wasn’t much of a motivation anymore. He saw to it that his parents were comfortable, but other than that he had no one to share it with. Ironically, he longed for what his parents had when they struggled.
Eventually his career took a turn, and the prowess with numbers was left behind. The Financial Crime division easily morphed into drug-related crimes because of the numbers involved. And then Diego happened…and any promise of a personal life ceased. In some ways he was relieved that Beth was not around, because if nothing else had, his fanatical chase of Diego Carlo would have destroyed their relationship.
Ready to start in on the search, Craig reached for his coffee cup. Inside it was a yellow sticky note. A grin tugged at the corner of his lip. He glanced up at the sound of Wally’s chair squeaking. The man’s back was to him, but his heavy shoulders shrugged.
Craig grabbed the note.
Samuel and Angelina King. Deceased 9/14/09. Car accident.
That was not astonishing news. Diego had been known to have a fleet of administrators combing the obituaries, searching for properties he could easily appropriate. There would be no listing of deed transferal. On paper, the Kings would still be the owners of that farm, but there was no doubt that Diego would have paid off the relatives. In most cases these strategies involved poverty-stricken descendants, willing to take the money to assuage their sorrows. Fleetingly Craig wondered if anything had happened to his parents when he was younger...would someone like Diego have approached him?
It was just surprising to see Diego branching out that far west. That fact motivated Craig...it impelled him. The more powerful Diego grew, the less of an opportunity Craig would have to take him down. Already, the eyes of the Washington D
C branch were upon the drug dealer. With this last admonishment, Craig had been given the proverbial pat on the hand. There there. Let the big boys handle it now.
To hell with that.
Opening the search bar, the first thing he typed was, RAJA PATTERSON.
There were a few hits, but nothing that related to the woman he was tied to a pole with. Next up, AIMEE PATTERSON.
Whoa.
Leaning forward, using his shoulders to cloak his screen from anyone passing behind him, Craig clicked on the image of a younger version of the woman he had met.
ENDANGERED MISSING
Aimee Patterson
DOB: 5/5/84
Missing: 6/14/2001
Age Now: 18 years
Updated 6/20/2006 - Case closed.
His first thought was that the numbers didn’t add up. The woman he met looked like she was maybe in her late twenties. But there was no denying that the image in front of him was a teenage version of the Aimee Patterson who had sat across from him at the dining room table.
Digging up the case number he learned that she had been presumably abducted at 17 years of age, and after a five-year massive manhunt the case was quietly closed upon her return home.
Craig kept digging. Further research produced a college degree in engineering at North Carolina State University, followed by a Project Engineer title at the Ford Motor plant. Alright, she did say that she worked for the automotive plant. But...missing at 17…for five years?
An image of the thirteen-year-old in New Bern with long black hair, a tentative smile, and an inconspicuous backpack sprang to mind. Diego had used that thirteen-year-old to traffic drugs. Could Diego have abducted the seventeen-year-old Aimee Patterson and recruited her for his illegal dealings? If Aimee spent five years with that man, then she knew a hell of a lot about him.
Grabbing his car keys from the desk, Craig managed a composed stroll over to Wally’s desk. With a sleight of hand he slapped down a yellow sticky note that read, GOING BACK, and then he stalked out of the office.
* * *
Standing at the window, Raja watched silently as Aimee cupped her head in her hands, her elbows resting on the dining room table.
“He is gone. It’s over,” Zak assured.
“The FBI doesn’t just go away,” Aimee countered. “If only we could get back to the Horus.”
“You would go back there?” Zak leaned against the doorjamb.
“Of course I would. You would both be safe there.”
Raja turned back to the window, listening to the myriad sounds of sunrise—sounds she could not identify. It was as if the woods had awakened and summoned her to delve into that hazy sanctuary.
“You would not be happy, Aim.” Zak reasoned.
Her hands slapped down on the table. “Of course I would.”
“And what about your parents?”
“At this point, I’m sure they assume that I will disappear again in five years. They know you now,” she pointed out. “They know I am cared for.”
“We could take them with us,” he offered.
Aimee laughed. “I think they’ll pass on that...but it’s all a moot point anyway. You are right. I don’t run away from things. We have to survive this spell, and survive Special Agent Craig Buchanan.”
Special Agent Craig Buchanan. Raja recited the words in her head. It was a long name. Craig was much better.
On Anthum men were sedate for the most part. There were the few exceptions, like Salvan, but he was not right. Anger was tempered on Anthum. Laughs subdued. Wit withheld. Even Zak had been around the diluted personalities long enough to be subjected to its influence...until Aimee. Charismatic. Intelligent. Talkative, Aimee. She contradicted the profile of the Anthumians.
From what she knew of men, Raja best equated Craig to a warrior on a mission. But unlike the warriors she had met, he was not sedate and meticulous. The warriors of the Horus were focused, best described as unflappable. He was loud, anxious, and tenacious. And his eyes were dark. She had never seen dark eyes before. Not black like the galaxy, but deep sepia, like the trunk of one of the lofty trees flanking the lake. His eyes were of Earth and they fascinated her.
“Aimee,” Zak stepped over to settle his hands on her slumped shoulders. “We’ve faced far worse crises. Is this local authority any more intimidating than a Koron?”
Raja watched as Aimee’s lips twitched. Aimee looked so beautiful when she smiled. Her cheeks flared with color, and her hair was a rich vibrant shade...also like Earth. In comparison, Raja felt pale, nearly invisible.
“No,” Aimee laughed. “I’d like to see this Craig Buchanan take on a ten-foot-tall rock creature.”
He took on two men, Raja thought. And he would have gone back to finish them if it wasn’t for her. He was protecting her. That was an odd notion. A man...protecting her?
“Aimee?” she hesitated. “What was on Craig Buchanan’s cheek? It was an odd marking, like the crescent of a planet—or a moon.”
Aimee stared at her quizzically, and then grinned. “A scar.”
“A scar?”
“He must have been cut at some point and it left a scar.”
A scar. “Skin that does not heal?”
“Sometimes. If it’s a deep enough cut. Before you created your serum, what would happen on the Horus if you had to replace a vital organ in surgery? Did it not leave a scar?”
Raja considered this for a moment. “Ummm, yes, I see what you’re saying. We had salves to administer to such wounds until the skin completely healed.” Again she hesitated. “So Craig Buchanan has been cut deeply in the face? In a war, do you think?”
When Aimee smiled, Raja always felt an involuntary desire to mimic the gesture.
“No, I doubt it was in a war. It looked like an old wound. Maybe even from his childhood.”
The thought of a child being wounded and bearing a mark for the rest of his life disturbed her.
What was that?
Her head jerked to the window. There was nothing out there. High grass flanked a tar-paved area. Unruly bushes formed a barricade on the side of the house opposite the driveway. An overhead porch light left on from the previous evening clashed with the rising sun. It cast useless radiance on the empty driveway. The police car either had switched out like it had last night, or it was making its rounds over at the King property.
Poplar trees stood docile with no wind to shiver through their leaves. And yet, she was certain she had heard a sound...a foreign disturbance. In the reflection of the glass, Aimee chatted amiably, but Zak’s head inclined towards the window as well.
Interesting. Did their hearing exceed Aimee’s? It was not something Raja had noticed on the Horus. It might be a trick of the atmosphere again. Before she could contemplate it any further, a motor sounded in the driveway. She peeked out, but relaxed when she recognized it. The car, however, had not been the source of the clamor that startled her.
When the doorbell rang Aimee rose with dread in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Raja assured. “It’s your father.”
The transformation was immediate. Fear was abandoned and Aimee flounced around the table to haul open the door. When Tom Patterson entered, he handed a box to Raja and winked.
A box? A box for me? Her nose twitched as she smelled the contents without opening it. She smiled at the elder man. No one had ever given her anything, let alone something as cherished as this.
“I didn’t know if you wanted more of the same, so I grabbed a little variety from the bakery department this morning,” he explained.
Variety? No powdered sugar?
Raja set the box down on the table while the melee of hugs and handshakes ensued behind her. It was a simple white box, with folded corners, perfectly symmetrical. Its beauty was in what it concealed...a simple, pale shell, secreting the allure inside. And it was given to her! For an irrational moment she wanted to pick it up and clutch it to her chest. Another part of her contemplated snatching it and running up the
stairs to conceal it with her belongings—to later be appreciated in private.
“Oh, donuts.” Zak opened the box and reached in to grab one. He had it halfway to his mouth when he saw her face.
“I got those for Raja, Zak.” Tom explained, setting down another box. “I brought you guys bagels. Aimee loves bagels.”
“Yes, he got this for me,” Raja whispered, not sure Zak was even listening.
Zak dropped the donut back in the box, and Raja rushed forward to close the lid. Beside it she eyed the other white carton—the one with bagels inside. It was nowhere near as beautiful as her box. Discreetly she hauled hers to the far end of the table.
Aimee’s father gave her and Zak a brief perusal, seemingly pleased with their new attire. Self-conscious, Raja rubbed a hand across her thigh. The cotton dress was comfortable, but it felt strange to have air brush against her legs. Aimee had called it a summer dress. The concept of a seasonal uniform was intriguing. There was one climate on the Horus, ren after ren after ren. This simple dress exposed her arms all the way to her shoulders. As she twisted one limb in front of her face, she realized how pale it was in comparison to everyone else in the room. But it was the same color as her beautiful donut box, surely that made it attractive in its own right?
“So,” Tom Patterson clapped his hands together. “Is everyone ready for the tour of the plant?”
Confronted with tentative expressions, his enthusiasm waned.
“What?” He looked at Aimee. “I thought you said they would enjoy this. I thought Zak wanted to work with you.”
Aimee set her bagel down. “No, no. We want to go,” she assured. “We’re excited.”
Only a short time ago, Aimee had confessed to Raja that she was afraid to tell her father about the incident at the Kings and bring him more stress. He was handling their arrival so well. It would be brutal to jeopardize that.
Beyond : Series Bundle (9781311505637) Page 49
