Mortal Ties

by Eileen Wilks

  The room smelled of cats, people, peppers, and ginger. Chinese takeout, he guessed, glancing at the square dining table, where a foam container held what remained of today’s lunch.

  With his immediate territory charted, he took Machek up on his invitation to sit, choosing one end of the couch. The end nearest his newfound kin. He drew in a slow breath and learned that Machek was a good deal more anxious than he looked. And guilty about something.

  Machek met his gaze. Blinked. “This is disconcerting, isn’t it? Especially when you look like my much-younger brother, not older. If you’ll tell me who does your work, I know any number of people who’d love to make him rich.”

  Work? Oh—plastic surgery. Rule smiled a trifle grimly. “Clean living.”

  Machek snorted.

  Cullen sat while they were talking, taking the other wing chair. Scott fell back to the wall sheltering the stairway, where he could keep an eye on most of the room. Lily holstered her weapon, advanced toward Jasper, and held out her hand. “It’s good to meet you.”

  His eyebrows flew up. “Is it?” But he rose automatically and accepted her outstretched hand.

  “Well,” she said after they shook, “that’s a surprise.” She glanced at Cullen. “It’s a very slight Gift, but it feels like yours.”

  Cullen leaned forward, studying Machek intently.

  Machek frowned at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You must have seen the wrong news clips, or you’d know that I’m a touch sensitive.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Cullen said. “You’re right. He’s a sorcerer.”

  Machek stiffened. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m frequently ridiculous. You’re still a sorcerer.”

  “But—” Machek drew a breath, exhaled, and waved one hand. “Never mind. I have a touch of the Sight. It doesn’t make me a sorcerer, but if you—”

  Cullen didn’t let him finish. “What do you think a sorcerer is, anyway?”

  “The legal definition is someone who sources their spells outside themselves. Since I don’t have any spells—”

  “The legal definition is bullshit. You must know that. You’ve stolen enough texts to understand—”

  “I steal them. I don’t read them.”

  Cullen looked astonished. “You must.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind,” Lily said, finally sitting down herself next to Rule. “Whatever you call your Gift, it must come in handy in your profession. No one can pass a dummy magical item off as the real thing when you can see the magic, or lack of it.”

  He cast her a wary glance. “Yes, well, I’m retired, actually. Or was. Is he”—a nod at Scott—“just going to stand there?”

  “Yes,” Rule said.

  Machek’s eyebrows lifted. “What is he—a bodyguard? Do you trail bodyguards everywhere?”

  “Yes,” Rule said again. “Every so often, someone tries to kill me or Lily. I’d like to hear about the deal you wanted to make.”

  “We should get to it, shouldn’t we?” But instead of launching into explanation, he leaned forward, head down, rubbing his hands together as if they ached. “I want,” he began. Stopped, and muttered, “No, I’m making this too complicated. Keep it simple.” He drew a ragged breath and raised his head. “This would have been easier if you’d brought Cynna Weaver. She could have found…they took something of mine, you see. Something I want back. But you wouldn’t bring your Finder, so I have to ask for my side of the deal first. After that, I’ll tell you everything. Do whatever you ask.”

  Rule’s lips twisted. “We’re supposed to give you what you want and trust that you’ll honor your end of the deal afterward?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He glanced at Lily. “You did insist on bringing the authorities along, in the person of your fiancée. Once I’m all officially confessed, I may not be free to retrieve what’s mine.”

  “Speaking of which—” Lily began.

  “No. We won’t speak of it. Not at all.”

  Very softly she asked, “Where’s Adam?”

  His eyes widened. Just for a second, so briefly she would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching closely. “Out of town.”

  “They’ve got him, don’t they? Whoever ‘they’ may be, they’ve got your partner, Adam King.”

  EIGHTEEN

  JASPER Machek shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

  Lily studied him. He had good control, but he didn’t do stone-face as well as his brother. He couldn’t keep the fear out of his eyes…eyes so much like Rule’s, except for the crow’s-feet, the subtle toughening of skin that comes with age. “Easy enough to prove. A phone call would do the trick.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything.”

  “You might want to rethink that. Kidnapping’s a felony. Failure to disclose a felony is a felony.”

  “There’s nothing to disclose. Adam likes to get away from everything sometimes, doesn’t even take his cell phone. I won’t tell you where he is because, well, I don’t want him to know about this. Any of this.”

  “I suspect he’ll notice when you go to jail.”

  “I’m hoping you won’t arrest me.” He rubbed both hands along his thighs and essayed a smile, directing it at Cullen. “That would be in part up to you, I imagine. If you get your item back—with damages,” he added quickly. “Payment for the, uh, insult and inconvenience—maybe you won’t feel the need to press charges.”

  Cullen responded to that with a scornful curl of his lip.

  Machek just smiled. “Money’s useful. Think about it.”

  He didn’t really care, Lily thought. Staying out of jail wasn’t what mattered at the moment. Later it might, but not now. “Okay,” she said, mildly. “We won’t talk about Adam. How long has your stolen whatever-it-is been missing?’

  “You’ve got things switched.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg at the knee. He had long legs, much like his brother’s, to go with a similar build—tall and lean, with wide shoulders and slim hips. He was lighter than Rule, though—less muscular, with elbows and shoulder blades and knees providing an emphatic punctuation where bone met bone. He slid a glance Rule’s way. “I won’t discuss my stolen property, but I love to talk about Adam. That would be a distraction, though, wouldn’t it? A waste of time, and I have a deadline. I have to give them what they want or they’ll destroy my property.”

  “And you don’t have the prototype anymore. Or so you told Rule.”

  “We should make that deal before I say more.”

  “My boss will have to approve any deal I make. At this point you haven’t given me much reason to push him for any kind of deal.”

  He frowned. Fidgeted with his hands—long fingers, a little longer than Rule’s—rubbing them on his legs again. “I need to stay free until my property is recovered. After that I can talk about all kinds of things, and we can renegotiate. If you can agree—or get your boss to agree—to that much, we have a deal.”

  “The timing of an arrest is up to me. I can agree to delay it until you have your property back.”

  “Good.” His breath gusted out. “That’s good. We have a deal.”

  “You need the prototype to get your property back, but you told Rule you don’t have it anymore.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who took it? How? Where were you?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll answer all that gladly, but not yet.”

  “We can’t recover it if you won’t tell us anything.”

  “Oh, I don’t expect you to. I had to tell them the prototype was missing. These aren’t people you can lie to.”

  “They?”

  “Their identities will be up for discussion later, not now. Fortunately, they agreed to a substitution. Instead of the prototype, they’ll take the man who made it.”

  Cullen barked out a laugh. “First you steal from me, then you want me to exchange myself for your lover? With balls that big, I don’t see how you
get your jeans zipped in the morning.”

  “It’s a wonder,” Machek said agreeably. “But I thought…I may be all wrong about this, but I thought this wasn’t entirely up to you. If Rule orders you to do something, you have to do it, don’t you?”

  Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “And you thought I’d exchange Cullen for what you insist is an object, not a person?”

  “Well…” He spread his hands. “I thought you’d come up with a way to make the exchange, then reclaim him. I leave it to you to figure out how to do that. As to why you’d go to all that trouble—”

  “And a certain amount of risk,” Rule said dryly.

  “And risk,” Machek agreed. “Judging by your actions in Washington in October, I’d say you’re willing to risk quite a lot to protect others. But perhaps there has to be some self-interest involved, too. Something of importance to you or your people, such as the man you claim was behind the attacks in October. You’d want to find him if you could.”

  “Robert Friar?” Lily said sharply. “You know where he is?’

  “Not precisely. Not his exact location. But he’s in California, and I have information that may lead you to him.”

  “Is he behind all this? Did he hire you?”

  Machek slid her a glance as opaque as Rule at his most closed down. “I won’t answer questions until I have my property back.”

  He meant it. Lily was convinced of that. How much of the rest did he mean? He’d stepped around certain statements meticulously, as a man might who preferred to speak truth, but was constrained from real honesty. Or as a clever and expert liar might. He didn’t claim to know where Friar was. He didn’t say Friar was behind this. He implied the possibility, but he wouldn’t say who had kidnapped his partner. He wouldn’t admit King had been taken.

  If Lily weren’t here, he might have told Rule that much of the truth, instead of talking about “property.” Even with Lily here he might have taken that risk if they’d brought Cynna along, hoping she could find King before his captors realized the FBI was involved. Instead, they’d brought Cullen. How convenient, he’d said. “How is the exchange—” Her phone chimed the opening to “Boy” by Ra Ra Riot…Beth’s ring tone. Lily grimaced and reached into her purse to turn the ringer off. “How will the exchange be handled?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll get a call sometime today or tonight with the details.”

  Rule spoke. “You had us meet you here at your home. I take it this mysterious they know you’re talking to us. What do they think you’re telling us?”

  His eyes flashed with what might be amusement. “Why, right now I’m telling you that I’m acting as a go-between for the real thief, who is now willing to sell it back to you in order to avoid those violent types who attacked him and tried—unsuccessfully—to steal it from him last night.”

  Lily’s eyebrows lifted. “They assumed I wouldn’t see through that and arrest you?”

  “They expressed confidence in my ability to talk you out of that until you had the prototype back. To keep you busy, I’m to feed you misinformation about the attempted snatch so you’ll look in the wrong places until it’s time for the exchange. Then I lure Seabourne to the place named.”

  “Just Cullen?” Lily asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m to bring him alone if I can, but they accept that you might not agree to that. Once we’re all in place, ah…” He cast Cullen an apologetic look. “Seabourne will be incapacitated with wolfbane.”

  Rule said, “Do you know how, exactly, they plan to do that? It’s not as easy to do as it might seem, given your success with the stuff on Big Sister.”

  “They didn’t say. I assumed they’d burn it, but assumptions aren’t the best guide. Should I try to find out when they call?”

  Rule shook his head. “Too easy to make them suspicious. They’ll expect you to be focused on getting King…on getting your property back, not on what they do with Cullen.”

  “They know I’ve some concern about his welfare. That’s how I pried out of them that they’d be using wolfbane. They assured me he’d be treated gently, that he’s no use to them dead.”

  Cullen snorted his opinion of that.

  “Don’t get fancy,” Lily said to Machek. “Find out anything you can about the location and means of the proposed exchange, but don’t go beyond that.” She looked at Rule, wondering where he wanted this to go. He met her gaze, but his was shuttered, telling her nothing.

  When in doubt, ask questions. Lily did, coming back to the same ones in multiple ways, until Machek politely suggested she could either arrest him or leave, but he hoped they’d agree to the exchange. And at last Rule spoke again.

  “We can’t agree to anything without more information,” he said, standing. “When you know the where, when, and how for this proposed exchange, call me and we’ll discuss it.”

  “I have your number,” Machek said calmly, rising like a good host whose guests were departing.

  He hid differently than Rule did, Lily thought. He used lightheartedness for a shield. “And mine,” she added, taking out one of her cards and setting it on the cluttered coffee table. “Just in case.”

  NINETEEN

  THEY were gone. At last they were gone. Thank God.

  Jasper closed the door and scrubbed his face with both hands as if he could erase some of the lies he’d told. No point in dwelling on it. He’d done what he had to do.

  No, that was lying to himself, a sin at least as bad as lying to others and often far more destructive. He’d chosen to put Adam’s life above these strangers’ welfare. However terrible a choice it might be, it had been his to make, and he had to admit that. If one of those strangers was his half brother, did that matter?

  Not enough, he thought as he headed back to the couch where he’d snatched a few hours of sleep last night. He’d cleared away the pillow and blanket before Rule Turner and his entourage arrived. It was the first time they’d been put away since that bastard took Adam. Funny how his innate tidiness had fled ever since he got that phone call. He’d been deliberately leaving clutter around as if that would create a homing beacon for his messy partner. Adam would laugh when he saw…

  God, he hoped Adam would still be able to laugh.

  He sank onto the couch and picked up the card that Rule’s fiancée had left. Lily Yu. He turned it over as if he might find a clue on its blank back. She sure didn’t look like an FBI agent…she had the serious part down, but she was so little. Pretty, too, though somehow that word didn’t seem to fit. Flowers were pretty. She was…compact, he decided. As if something much larger had been crammed into a deceptively small size.

  Odd choice for his brother to make. He couldn’t picture Lily Yu putting up with a partner’s roving eye, but what did he know? Nothing, really, about the lady, and not much more about the man who shared half Jasper’s genetic inheritance. No more than however many zillion others who occasionally read a gossip mag. Jasper didn’t pick them up ordinarily, but he’d been curious. Now and then he’d toyed with the idea of meeting Rule Turner. Like when his mom was dying and he learned how much Isen Turner had paid for over the years. Or when he first came out. He’d come boiling out of the damn closet, pissed at the world, and that had seemed like a great target for his anger—the overwhelmingly hetero half brother who was sure to be disgusted.

  If he’d been disgusted today, he’d hidden it well. But he’d hidden everything well, hadn’t he? Jasper had seen a certain intensity, but he had no idea what the man was feeling intense about. Maybe Rule wasn’t the heedless tomcat he’d been made out to be. Maybe he used to be, but had changed. Now and then people did.

  The resemblance had startled Jasper. It had never seemed that strong in photos or on TV, but when he looked into his brother’s eyes…and just why did Rule look so damn young? He was six years older than Jasper, but he looked fifteen years younger. The best surgeon in the world didn’t give you back young skin. Could it be a lupi thing? Maybe in addition to being preternaturally strong an
d sexy, they didn’t age.

  That was an unsettling thought. But what about this day wasn’t unsettling, grim, terrifying—

  His phone buzzed. His heart jumped in his chest, loathing and longing coupling promiscuously with fear, shame, and more—a veritable orgy of feelings that had him snatching the phone up quickly, then hesitating. He didn’t recognize the number, but Adam’s kidnapper never called from the same number twice. “Yes?”

  “You did well, Jasper.” It was a warm voice, friendly, with just the right touch of sympathy, the kind of voice that could coax a smile from a sullen child.

  Fresh diarrhea was warm, too. And just about as welcome. This wasn’t the voice Jasper longed for. “I’ll speak with Adam now.”

  “Will you?” The amusement was light, not without that tracery of sympathy.

  “That’s our deal. You want me to remain confident that you’ll honor your end, don’t you? You want me to go on believing that Adam is alive and that I’ll get him back.”

  “I do enjoy dealing with an intelligent man,” his nemesis said in an approving way. “And yet I suspect that hope would work as well as certainty. Maybe better. It might be helpful for me to find out.”

  Fear broke out the razor blades and sawed at Jasper’s gut. “I’m not a very optimistic person. I need certainty to keep me motivated. I’ll speak with Adam now, or I’ll speak to Lily Yu.”

  “The laborer is worthy of his hire, I suppose. The Bible is wrong about a great deal,” he added, “but there are nuggets of wisdom among the debris. You’ve done as you were told, and you will receive your agreed-upon pay…since Adam is in fact quite well, though not particularly happy at the moment. First, however, I have instructions about tonight.”