“What am I supposed to do?” Her voice rose from her anguish. Raphael hated her now that she’d joined with Will. Raphael might hurt Jake just to make her suffer.
Lowering his face to hers, Will spoke softly. “Let’s just go after Alex first. Raphael needs Alex more than ever. There’s a good chance Alex might know where he is.”
Every part of her screamed no. Once again, she was abandoning her son. But as hard as it was to admit, Will was right. She had no real choice. What if Alex knew where Jake was? What if he was part of it? For the first time since Will came up with his plan to confront Alex, Emma was completely on board. Fighting back tears, she nodded.
She’d torture Alex herself if it meant finding her son.
Chapter Thirteen
Will was amazed that they’d made good time getting to St. Louis. Construction was always an issue on I-70, but it was as if the gods were favoring them today. Will almost snorted at the thought. The manipulative elemental men controlling their lives were the only gods he knew, and they were definitely not favoring him or Emma.
If Raphael really had taken Jake from Aiden and forced him to destroy a city to upset his mother, it was not only effective, but a move Will admired as a military leader. Emma was distracted and distraught—two things neither of them could afford at the moment. It not only weakened their bond but also their defenses. The move was the perfect sabotage, not that he’d confess such a thing to Emma. He’d rather that she continue focusing her anger on something else. Or in this case, someone else.
Jake’s possible change of captors was the perfect excuse for her to see Alex. She was more than eager to talk to him now. While Will was grateful he didn’t have to worry about her forcing an excuse to see Alex, at the moment, he was more worried that she’d cause a scene. He doubted that killing Alex would be easy, but he’d hoped to use Emma’s energy control over the Air element to subdue him until Will could complete the job. He hadn’t told Emma that part of the plan yet, unsure she’d go along with it. But now he wouldn’t put it past her to subdue Alex and kill him herself.
Will had no problem with that, but it needed to be done as quietly as possible so they’d have time to escape. Emma’s emotions could be a double-edged sword.
He checked them into a hotel several blocks from where Alex was staying. It was nicer than their usual accommodations, but it was close to Alex. If it came to a chase, Will hoped they’d be able to lose their pursuers on foot without having to resort to guns or using their powers. He planned to make his move in the middle of the night, his goal to have only one fatality. But if it came to a chase, he wanted as few people as possible in the line of fire.
In South Dakota, it had been easy to avoid civilian casualties. The compound they broke into was in the middle of nowhere. But Albuquerque was proof of what happened when elements were let loose to fight, and apparently Little Rock too. He didn’t want a repeat in St. Louis. He was sure Emma couldn’t handle the guilt, and he wasn’t sure he could either. The memories of the fire in the Iraqi school still lurked at the edges of his mind.
For the first time since coming up with his plan to kill Alex, Will began to question his decision. Not the death sentence for Alex, but where to carry it out. St. Louis was far from ideal, but it was the least populated area Alex would be in for the next few days, as well as the closest. He had to look at it from a military perspective. If he didn’t kill Alex now, the death count could rise much higher. And killing Alex would put Jake into the final four.
What if the final battle happened in a densely populated area like Atlanta? Or New York City? Or even Hong Kong? Who was to say they’d stay on the North American continent? Every military operation figured in the possibility of collateral damage. This was no different.
As soon as she entered the hotel room, Emma turned on the television and sat on the edge of the bed. It only took a couple of clicks of the remote for her to find news coverage of the Little Rock disaster. Reports flooded all the major networks.
Will sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her back, relieved that she didn’t shrug it off.
The footage showed more of the same destruction, news crews filming as everyone speculated about what had happened.
The camera cut to an older man behind a desk. “While seismologists are attributing the quake to the New Madrid fault line, no one can explain how a 7.6 magnitude quake could be isolated to a four-block-square area. For answers we turn to Dr. Renee Sever with The Simmons Institute.”
The camera cut to a woman standing in front of a geological map.
“Dr. Sever, can you explain what happened in Little Rock?”
A grim smile tightened her mouth. “This is unprecedented. We have no scientific explanation for this occurrence. It goes against the laws of physics for a quake of this magnitude to be restricted to such a localized area.”
“But there was damage and additional quakes miles away from the epicenter.”
“True, but we would have expected the ripples of a quake this size to be larger in both intensity and distance. It’s as though very specific energy was centralized in one area.”
The camera cut to the news anchor. He leaned forward on his desk, toward the camera, resting his weight on his arm. “But how do you explain the storm?”
The doctor’s eyes widened. “I’m a seismologist, not a meteorologist, but I would say this was a once-in-a-trillion incident. It was purely coincidence, plain and simple. Call it bad timing or extremely bad luck.”
“Doctor, you call this a one-in-a-trillion incident, but this same thing happened in Albuquerque a week ago.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Both locations are known to be close to fault lines. It’s not uncommon for quakes to occur on multiple faults.”
“Some experts are suggesting terrorist warfare was used to create the devastation in Albuquerque. Surveillance footage taken from a bank shows a man and a woman standing still in the middle of the destruction while everyone else is running away.”
They didn’t show the footage, and Will wondered how clear the images were. Did the authorities know it was Emma? Did they have a clear image of her face?
“There is no technology in existence capable of creating such devastation.”
“How do you explain the storms in both locations at the same time?”
“Conspiracy theorists are having a field day with this, but I assure you that this is a fluke. It’s Albuquerque’s monsoon season. Sporadic storms are a common occurrence in August.”
The coverage continued, with reporters interviewing credentialed experts, all offering different theories. The news team cut to images of groups standing on street corners with signs reading “The End is Near” and “Sinners Repent. Judgment Day is Here.” Some attributed the disasters to the devastation predicted by the ancient Mayan calendar. Others cited aliens.
Emma’s back was rigid as she watched with a glazed look. Will took the remote from her clenched hand and turned off the TV. He expected some protest from her, but she sat still for several moments. He would have preferred an emotional outburst to the icy silence.
She stood. “What do we need to do to see Alex?”
“Do you want to talk about what happened in Little Rock?”
Lifting an eyebrow, she stared at him. “What the fuck is there to talk about? Raphael not only had my son but forced him to help kill hundreds of people. I need to find Jake, and Alex might know where he is. Tell me what we have to do to get to him, and what I need to do once we find him.”
Will heaved a sigh and grabbed the laptop. “Ideally, we would have gotten here at least a day earlier and checked out the physical location. I’ve tried to find some schematics online but haven’t been able to find anything yet. If James were here…” He cleared his throat. “He might have been able to find them. We could consider calling James to see if he could help.”
“No James.”
He didn’t blame her. The last time they were together, James had w
anted to hand her over to the Vinco Potentia, but Will knew James had tried to keep him safe. In fact, James had put his life on the line to help Will and Emma escape from the parking garage. He’d dragged James into this mess back in July when he’d shown up on his driveway with broken ribs, but James was far from an innocent victim. He’d been working with the Vinco Potentia the entire time to hand Emma over. Nevertheless, Will couldn’t ignore the only reason James had done any of it.
To save Will.
He didn’t want to involve James, but Will and Emma were facing threats from lots of fronts and there were only two of them. Granted, they hadn’t seen the Vinco Potentia in over a week, but he wasn’t naïve enough to stop considering them a threat. He hoped to get more information about them from Alex too. “No James for now.”
Anger flashed in her eyes.
He was prepared for another fight, but she waited in silence. Choose your battles. It looked like Emma had chosen hers.
“I’d like to examine the property in person, but I’m concerned they will be watching for us and know what we look like. For all we know, they have footage of you from Albuquerque with Raphael. But I need to know the weak points in Alex’s security team, and you and I can’t go together. One of us in a disguise could likely get away with it, but Alex is sure to have given our physical descriptions and photos to his men. If we’re together, they’re bound to discover us, but if we split up, we might be able to pull it off.”
“So then we split up.”
He hesitated.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you pull that macho caveman shit on me now. I’ve pulled your ass out of more than one frying pan, and you know it. I can take care of myself.”
Emma was right, but the thought of letting her walk alone into a potentially dangerous situation scared the shit out of him.
“What do we need to do?”
He made himself ignore his fear and treat this like any other mission. Booting up the computer, he loaded the page with a rough diagram of the hotel layout. “The dinner is going to be in the grand ballroom. We obviously don’t want to try anything then. I need to find out what room Alex is staying in, and for security reasons that’s going to be a closely guarded secret. The best way to find that out is for one or both of us to dress up as hotel employees.”
“But I thought you wanted me to contact Alex and tell him I want to talk. Why don’t I get him to tell me his hotel room?”
“For one thing, I’m not sure he’ll tell you. He won’t exactly trust your motives. Second, it would alert him to our presence. If he’s smart, he’ll put out extra security. I suggest we get some information on his room first, then you call him.”
“So you want us both to dress up and sneak around the hotel first?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you just pull out the Will charisma and charm the pants off some female employee?”
His jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t want you to literally charm her pants off, but yes. Why not channel that power?”
He processed her suggestion for several seconds. It might work. “You don’t care?”
“You’re coming back to me, right? I have a mark on my back that says you are. Just don’t take it too far.”
Pulling her against his chest, he lifted her chin to look into his eyes. “You know there’s no one but you.”
Her eyes softened for the first time since that morning. “I know, and I’m counting on that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
“So you’ll stay here while I go do this.”
“No. I’m going to do my own snooping. We just won’t be together.”
“Wait—”
“Look, we both know how persuasive you can be, but it won’t hurt for both of us to do this. Plus, I plan to look around so I’ll know the layout of the hotel in case something goes wrong. And we’ve learned from past experience that things tend to go wrong. If I’ve gone through the stairwells and backdoors myself, I’ll have a better chance of getting away if it comes to that.”
“Emma, I’m going to be with you when we go after Alex.”
“I know, but we might need to split up. I want to be able to do this on my own if I have to.”
He wanted to argue with her, but she had a point.
“But I’m going to shower first. I’ve been in a car for a day and a half. I stink and I look like crap.” She walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
He was glad she wasn’t as distraught and angry as before, but her one-eighty was a concern. What was going through her head? He wanted to ask, but the closed door told him a discussion wasn’t an option. He knew she wouldn’t tell him until she was ready.
Forty-five minutes later, Emma was eager to leave the room, but Will held her back with last-minute instructions.
“I don’t know what they’ll be expecting from either of us, but I doubt they’ll be expecting you to look like this.”
Will had gone to the hotel gift shop while she showered and bought her a floppy hat, sunglasses, and a purse. She dressed in a skirt and button-down blouse, with a little makeup and her hair loose. She looked different than Alex was used to seeing her. Will was counting on that.
“You walk the hotel, get familiar with the exits, and then come back.”
“I’ll be fine, Will.”
He put a handgun in her purse. “I know, but I can still worry.”
She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. “I’ll be fine.”
He slipped an arm around her back, holding her close to him. “You’re not trained for this. This isn’t a game. The Vinco Potentia’s men could be waiting for you.” His voice lowered. “I can’t lose you, Emma.”
“And I can’t lose you, but we both know this is the right thing for me to do. They don’t know we’re here. Alex probably thinks you and I are hiding somewhere preparing for the final battle. Or going after Raphael. Don’t worry.” She kissed him again. “You’re the one who needs to be careful.”
“I’m the one who’s trained for this.”
“Still…” Pulling away from him, she reached for the door. “I’ll see you back here in about an hour.”
If you need me, call.
She nodded and left the room.
***
Emma walked through the lobby of the Crescent, displaying an air of confidence she didn’t feel. She’d stuffed her fear for Jake into the recesses of her mind, focusing on the one thing that might help her find him. Alex.
Alex would most likely be staying in a suite and she knew the suites in most hotels were on the top floors. She headed for the elevator bank.
The doors opened and a couple emerged, arm in arm and obviously in love. Emma ignored the thought of Will that popped into her mind. She brushed past them and examined the elevator panel. As she suspected, the twentieth and twenty-first floors needed a key to gain access, so she pushed the button marked nineteen. The doors closed but a hand stuck through the crack, forcing them back open.
A man in a gray suit walked onto the elevator and turned to face the front. He ignored her, but his actions seemed too purposeful.
She tensed, the hairs on her arm tingling. He hadn’t pushed a button on the panel.
The elevator stopped on the second floor and a family in wet swimsuits got on, dripping water onto the floor. The man in the suit wrinkled his nose and took a step closer to Emma. A little boy pressed for the fifteenth floor. The children shivered and chattered until they got off.
Emma considered getting off with them but knew it would look suspicious. She needed to see this through. The man didn’t move away from her as the family exited.
The doors opened on her floor and he indicated she should go first. She hated to put her back to him but saw no other way around it. Stepping into the hall, she opened her purse and pretended to look for her room key. The man walked past her down the hall without looking back before he entered a room.
Relieved that she had overrea
cted, she headed the opposite direction, taking note of a utility closet halfway between the elevator and the end of the hallway. She saw the door to the stairwell, managed to slip inside without anyone noticing, and went up. The door to the twentieth floor was locked, but at the twenty-first, the knob turned. Hesitating, she peered through the crack and found an empty hall.
Emma doubted she’d be stopped if someone found her here. Then again, security might be tight with Alex’s visit. She could just say she followed someone else off the elevator and got lost. Taking a deep breath, she eased through the door, half-expecting men with guns to jump out and attack her. All that greeted her was the soft hum of the air conditioning blowing from the vents overhead.
The muffled thud of her shoes echoed in the hall, and her heart rate sped up in anticipation. Of what, she wasn’t sure. This was too easy. Too effortless. Surely if Alex was here security would be tighter, but he might be on the floor below. She’d stroll through the hall, make note of the closets and niches, and exit through the stairwell at the opposite end. Then she’d head down to the lower levels and check escape routes to the street.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open as she approached. A quick glance inside the car revealed it was empty. She forced herself to calm down. Panicking wouldn’t help anything. But what were the chances an empty elevator would open on a floor that required a key?
Three doors from the stairwell she felt a wave of power. The door to one of the rooms opened. Emma stopped in her tracks when she saw the man in the doorway.
Alex.
Chapter Fourteen
Alex stood in the doorway wearing gray pants and a blue shirt, several buttons undone at the top. Leaning into the frame with an air of nonchalance, he gave her his television smile. “Hello, Emma. I’ve been expecting you.”
She froze, her brain scrambling to form a coherent answer.
He took a step back. “Come on in.”
Redemption (The Chosen #4) Page 14
