A dazed breath hissed out.
“You okay?” Sebastian spoke against her ear, the susurration of breath creating delicate tingles across impossibly sensitive skin.
“Fine.” Kat forced her breath to even, her mind to focus. “What am I looking for?”
“Down the street. Eleven o’clock. Black sedan.”
Kat followed his directions and caught sight of the car. As they watched, the driver’s door swung open, followed by the rear passenger door. A huge man, almost as thick around the neck as the waist, emerged from the driver’s side. On the other side, a gangly kid, no older than sixteen, she thought, climbed out and stood on the sidewalk. The kid sauntered to the front passenger window and leaned inside.
“It’s them.” Kat turned to study Sebastian. “The ones that killed Tio Felix.”
“I know who they are,” he reminded her flatly. “I assume they’ve been waiting for the same thing we are. For the police to leave and for us to go into the house.”
The man and boy walked along the sidewalk, and the boy kept twisting to check their tail. They closed the distance, and Kat’s fingers dug into the powerful leg beneath her hand. “That’s the man that killed Tio Felix.”
“The big one?”
Kat gave a short nod. He was only ten feet away, across a narrow street. There was the monster who’d tortured an old man. In constant refrain, she could hear the caustic demand for answers and the screams when Tio Felix refused to give them what they wanted.
Her muscles bunched, and Kat surged forward, but Sebastian clinched her rigid frame tight. “Don’t! Kat, honey, listen to me. They see you, they’ll kill you.” He spoke quickly, urgently, trying to break through the haze that he knew swirled inside her. Vengeance had a way of clouding judgment and stalling coherent thought. “Kat, baby, don’t. We’ll get them. I promise. We’ll get the men who hurt Felix. I swear.”
Impotent, furious, she struggled to break free. “You promise? That’s supposed to satisfy me?” Kat craned her neck to face him, the movement awkward and painful. Like the swarm of emotions that threatened to topple her. Anger, untamed, demanding anger, insisted on release. “What are your promises worth, Sebastian?”
Sebastian simply watched her. Loosening his hold, he answered her without inflection. As though he could no longer stand to touch her, his arms fell completely away. “I don’t make promises I intend to break.”
“And what about the ones you don’t intend to break? What about the ones that become tiresome?” Kat teetered again, but she steadied herself, unwilling to touch him. The storm of rage passed, leaving only emptiness and a hollow that begged to be filled.
But Sebastian Caine, despite the strong hands and the soulful eyes that invited her deep, was no one’s salvation. She clutched the fabric of his shirt in her fist. “When your client or these men or someone else pays you to betray me, what then? What will you do?”
He smiled then, a cool, inscrutable curve that chilled Kat to the bone. Sebastian heard the doubt and the longing. Something loosed inside him, and he wanted to quell her distrust. Satisfy the yearning that flashed in eyes glazed with the shock of loss that had not yet settled. Tugging her fist away from his shirt, he smoothed the rumpled fabric. Unable to do either, he gently set her away from him. “I’ll do my job.”
Kat refused to be mollified by the vague pledge. She heard something, wanted to hear a vow that would ease the ache of grief. “Which one? Which job will you do? The one you’ve been paid for?”
He didn’t have to answer her, Sebastian reminded himself. No debts, except the ones he felt like paying. Maybe he’d promised Felix to find Katelyn, but he’d made no assurances about later. Guarantees, vows, promises—words that tied a person down. Made easy choices infinitely harder. Made living without regret impossible. No regret, he repeated silently, his cardinal rule.
Yet, in the time he’d spent with Katelyn, he learned that she wouldn’t be satisfied with less than his oath. Damned if he’d give it. Narrowing his eyes, Sebastian bit out, “The men who killed Felix will pay, Katelyn. Trust me. Don’t trust me. Doesn’t matter. It’s not about you.”
Katelyn studied him, watched as his jaw clenched, the tendons straining along his neck. She didn’t know exactly what payment he would mete out. For once, the pacifist in her didn’t care. Instead, she leaned forward. Without a word, she brushed her lips against the flat line of his. A whisper of touch that sparked deep inside her and she drew away, feeling as though she’d kissed flame.
“What was that for?” The gruff question escaped before Sebastian realized he asked.
“Thank you.” Kat arched her throat and stared out the window at the afternoon sky, the blue pure and brilliant. Clouds drifted easily, meandering across. A condor swooped low and called to its mate. “It looks the same,” she murmured.
Sebastian followed the flight of the bird, ignoring the arousal that speared through him from one simple sweep against his mouth. A mouth that craved more of that fleeting contact. More of the hot, silky depths he’d tasted that morning. Instead, he focused on her statement. “What looks the same? The sky?”
“Yes. Like it did when I arrived. How can it look the same? Everything else is different.”
Sebastian couldn’t agree more. He hadn’t signed on for this, damnit. His contract was clear and simple. And within reach. But, for once, he needed to know more than the location of his target and his fee. Her fault. Turning, he asked, “What is the Cinchona, Katelyn?”
The bald question caught her off guard, and she slowly lowered her head. “I told you. It’s a manuscript that leads to Incan treasure.”
Sebastian shook his head. He was tired of hearing it and the pithy explanation. “Three men don’t kill an old man in his home and hunt his niece for the myth of gold. If they’re smart, they don’t return to the scene of the crime and wait out the police. We’re being hunted, Kat, and I deserve to know why.”
Kat didn’t look up. She hadn’t expected him to challenge her lie. She wasn’t used to telling them. Men like Sebastian dealt in feints and half-truths. “The Incas’ gold would be worth millions today. The diary—”
“The diary doesn’t talk about gold, Kat. Father Borrero does mention ancient dynasties. The Chavin and the Nazca and the Moche. They predated the Incas by nearly half a millennium. And they are native to Peru, not Bahia.”
Impressed despite the trap she found herself in, Kat forced herself to think quickly. “It’s the diary of an explorer. He must have studied the various cultures along his route to the gold.”
“I’m not a scholar, Dr. Lyda, but I do read Spanish pretty well. Borrero wasn’t some Spanish conquistador explorer. Half the text of the diary is in Latin, which I also read a little because of my mother’s mistaken belief that Catholic school might ease the devil out of me.” Sebastian snaked out a hand and snatched the pack that had been shoved behind her with his gear. Before Kat could protest, he yanked out the diary and held it up. “The man who wrote this wasn’t an explorer, Kat. He was a priest, who was scared and confused and who’d found something so big, he tried to encode it. What is the Cinchona?”
“The diary is the Cinchona, like I told you.” She set her mouth. “If you’ve read the diary, you know about it.”
“No.” Sebastian retorted. Before she managed to counter, he held up a hand for silence. He eased around Kat to check out the pair who had gone into the house. The boy ambled down the sidewalk, arms loaded with a bundle wrapped in fabric. Close behind, the big man loped along, his arms filled with booty as well.
“They’re stealing his things,” Kat gasped.
“Very specific things.” Sebastian concurred. As they watched, the skinny boy dived into the backseat. With a heavy jerk, the older man opened the front door and wedged himself inside. Soon, the car engine turned over, and the sedan merged onto the street. Sebastian shook his head when Kat gave him a questioning glance.
Kat said nothing more. Instead, she checked Sebastian’s narrowe
d gaze and tried to follow its line of sight. Ahead of them, the sedan turned right.
“Not yet.”
Less than ninety seconds later, the sedan circled the house for a second time. Then a third. After ten more minutes of circles and pauses, the black sedan rolled down the street, no turns.
Sebastian stood and helped Kat to her feet. She stretched muscles that threatened to spasm. When she bowed back, arching her back in a deep U curve that looked as alluring as it did painful, Sebastian turned away to gather their supplies.
Once he decided it was safe to turn around, he handed the canvas pack to Kat. “We’ve got an hour at the most. We need to get inside, get what you came for, and get out.”
“Sure.”
“And while we look, you are going to tell me the truth about the Cinchona, aren’t you?”
Kat stood motionless. The truth was, she didn’t know much more about the Cinchona than he did. Nevertheless, she’d sworn to her uncle that she would deliver it to people who were not Sebastian’s clients. Eventually, their divided loyalties would require a sacrifice.
It wouldn’t be hers.
She bobbed her head once in assent. “I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t much. The Cinchona is a guide. To immortality.”
Chapter 12
“Immortality?”
“That’s what Tio Felix told me. But before he had a chance to explain, the men came. I took the manuscript and the diary and ran. The rest of the answers have to be somewhere inside the house.”
With Kat taking the lead, they crossed the street quickly. Next door, a redbrick house squatted on a postage-stamp yard decorated by a festoon of wildflowers. A suspicious dog of indeterminate breeding sniffed the air as they sprinted past. The animal sent up a cautionary howl. Sebastian glared at the hound, who subsided into offended whimpers.
Despite the sophisticated security system inside, Estrada had not bothered with the rudiments of gating off his home. A low hedge of green separated the two properties. Only the neighbor’s dog watched their progress as Sebastian tapped Kat’s elbow and guided her around to the rear entrance he’d used the night before. Black slate echoed dully as they crept toward the door.
Mountain orchids bloomed in profusions of magenta and tangerine, standing in heavy clay pots along the walkway. The walkway wound through the center of the wide sweep of yard, which contained the most remarkable garden he’d ever seen. In the night, Sebastian had paid scant attention to their presence, intent instead on breaching Estrada’s sanctuary.
“Amazing.” He paused, scanning the carefully plotted space. Wooden stakes jutted up from the ground, twined with thin wire to cordon off the sections. From his swift count, Sebastian noted more than fifty distinct sections. “Is Felix how you came by your talent?”
Kat nodded. “When I used to visit, we’d spend hours out here. I learned Spanish and Latin from Tio Felix. Told me Latin was the language that plants spoke to each other and that Spanish was the way they talked to the world.” The memory brought a sad smile to her mouth. “I learned everything from him.”
Not everything, Sebastian corrected silently. If she had, they’d know why the Cinchona was worth having Felix and Katelyn dead. But instead of reminding her, he knelt at the ornate lock, surrounded by scents he’d barely noticed the night before. Now, though, he thought how their scent reminded him of funerals and mourning.
Kat crouched at his side, turned away to scan for visitors. That she’d taken up post without instruction impressed him. Not many—woman or man—would be able to tamp down on the maelstrom that he knew swirled inside her. Grief, rage, distrust, and frustration, with a healthy dose of vengeance. The perfect cocktail for a vigilante. A death sentence for a career criminal. Sebastian glanced at her still profile. Beneath the stark, unyielding beauty lay a conscience that rebelled against the life he’d chosen. Sooner or later, that prickly sense of right and wrong would fight its way out again. Too bad, he thought wryly. She’d make an excellent partner in crime.
Putting aside his fantasy, Sebastain swung the backpack off his shoulder and onto the flagstone portico. He released the metal clasp and flicked open the canvas flap. Shuffling her belongings aside, he reached down to the bottom of the bag to retrieve his toolkit. The bundle of metal wrapped in black suede felt was seductively familiar against his palm.
Kat glanced over. Sebastian had a case laid on the ground, and he picked over the dull gleam of metal like a surgeon choosing a scalpel. As she watched, he adroitly snapped together two slim rods of tempered steel. When he inserted the pronged tool into the lock, she reached over to stop his hands from releasing the latch.
“What about the alarm?” She spoke in a hushed, tense whisper. “Did you disarm it?”
“No need.” Sebastian patted the slender fingers curved around his wrist, their touch cool. “Our friends managed to wander inside without setting off sirens, which tells me that the police were either careless or unable to figure out how to rearm Felix’s system.”
“Oh.” Kat gave a satisfied nod.
After a couple of seconds, Sebastian smiled and pointedly looked down at the fingers still curved against his skin. “My hand.”
Kat snatched her fingers away as though singed. “Oh, sorry.”
“No problem.” Five seconds later, the satisfying click of release signaled success. In silence, Sebastian swiftly repacked his tools. He rose and tugged at Kat’s sleeveless arm. Tucking her behind him, he eased the door open.
Caution urged him to tell Kat to stay outside, but he knew she wouldn’t listen. And he needed her inside. What ever clues hid inside Estrada’s house, Kat would be the one to find them. He’d combed the house thoroughly yesterday, with only his new partner to show for his trouble. He pushed the door open wider, into the kitchen.
“What’s that smell?” Kat sniffed at the air, nose wrinkled in concentration.
“Blood and bleach,” Sebastian answered shortly as he locked the door and shot the dead bolt. He moved forward, feet soundless against the boards. He hated cleaning up after the dead and hated talking about it. When she would have asked another question, he tossed her a look that warned against further conversation.
Blood and bleach. Kat repressed a shudder and fell silent. Instead, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other as they moved through the wide kitchen. Copper pots gleamed from silver hooks that descended from the ceiling. Black granite stretched around the periphery, interrupted only by the metallic shine of appliances. On her last visit, Kat recalled, she and her uncle had worked together at the center island, making paella and laughing about nonsense.
If she closed her eyes, she could hear the deep rumble that was Tio Felix’s laugh, the hearty sound bringing a smile to all who heard it. Why would anyone mute such a glorious sound over a sheaf of papers from centuries ago? It made no sense, she seethed. No sense that he was dead and she was alive and that she was back where it had happened. Where she’d hidden and whimpered and mewled while he died. Flashes of image and sound jumbled in her head. A lifetime of vacations. Snatches of conversations, the Spanish familiar and urgent. Tio Felix.
“My Kat, watch the plants.” Strong brown hands lifting a copper pot filled with boiled roots that smelled of cinnamon and sage. Six-year-old Kat watched the bubbling concoction with fascinated eyes. “Plants can give life, can take it just as quickly. The plants know the world, my dear. Listen to them.”
“Bahia is not your home, Katelyn. But it is yours. And you belong to it.” Sitting in the study, cuddled beside him, a gilt-edged tome spread across their laps. At ten, Kat skimmed the ancient Spanish words mixed with the language Tio Felix called Latin. The shaky handwriting talked of murder and war, appealing to her imagination. “We are born of Peru, but Bahia is not Peru’s daughter. Bahia holds life. Remember that.”
Kneeling in the garden, hands buried in rich black soil. Thirteen and enamored, she gently scooped out homes for species she’d never seen before. Asking her uncle to tell her why h
e gardened, why he loved it as she did. In a cascade of memory, she recalled his cryptic answer. “Kat, we may try to bury our sins, but they speak through the earth. In faith, thou shalt find salvation. In devotion, thou shalt find peace. In the least of these, He places eternity.”
Kat saw herself at seventeen, cataloging the roots that he laid on the butcher block counter. Her uncle’s face wreathed in melancholy. “Tio Felix, why are you sad?”
“Because I have not my own children, and my work isn’t done.”
“I can do it for you. I can do your work.”
“One day, my Kat. One day, if I do not finish it. But you are the daughter of America, not of Bahia.”
“I could be. If you want. My mother is from here, so I can be too.”
“If I do not finish my penance, it may be meted out before I am ready. Then, my lovely Kat, Bahia will need you. And I will call for you. Will you come?”
“Always.”
The memories flooded, receded with such force, Kat collided with Sebastian at the archway leading into the main house.
“Sorry.” Kat mumbled the apology, as Sebastian turned on his heel to steady her. Around her, the room dipped and spun.
“Kat?” Sebastian clasped her shoulders firmly, felt a shudder rise through the tight, tense body. “Kat? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.” She lied, swaying. Tio Felix had been telling her then, she realized. He had known even then what would happen to him. That she’d have to finish his penance, what ever it was. No matter what. “I don’t know why I’ve become so clumsy.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Hearing the trembles that cascaded through her voice, Sebastian slipped his hand along her bare arm. Beneath his palms, he felt a chill shiver across her skin that had little to do with the stifled air inside the mansion, the house where she’d seen her uncle murdered.
Sebastian choked off the curse he would have aimed at himself. Katelyn wasn’t a professional, used to the smell of death and its cover-up. She was a niece trying to stand in for her uncle, a woman determined to make right the worst kinds of evil. And all he did was snap at her. Instantly contrite, he rubbed lightly at the cold that raised gooseflesh along her skin. “Honey, why don’t we sit down?”
Secrets and Lies Page 13
