Sorry, she sent back to him.
Bach didn’t respond. He just looked down at Caine, who was strapped to a hospital bed, still unconscious from whatever drugs Diaz’s team had shot into his bloodstream.
If they could have, Mac would’ve gone with Bach, directly into Caine’s head. But not even Bach was capable of doing that. So what he was going to have to do was reach into Caine’s odious mind and pull out a series of images. He’d hold them in his own head, and pull Mac in. She’d be able to sift through and identify, hopefully easily, if they were fantasy or true memory.
Yeah, this was going to suck ass.
“More than you can know,” Bach murmured his agreement. He looked at her. I’m going to keep you close. I won’t let you go.
Mac nodded. I’d appreciate that, sir. And I am sorry. Not just about what I said, but … There’s a lot of bullshit in my own head that you’re probably going to run into.
Bach smiled at that. When is there ever not?
“Ha,” she said. “Ha.”
He glanced at her as he held out his hand—which was a giant hint and a half that this was going to be worse than she could imagine, since her relationship with Bach usually involved as little touching as possible.
Still, she took hold of him. She felt him say Brace. And just like that, she fell into the violent and horrific nightmare that was Devon Caine, knowing that, whatever she experienced …?
Bach was getting it supersized, and dozens of times worse.
TWENTY-THREE
Mac was sitting alone in the otherwise empty bar.
Stephen sat down next to her, but she didn’t look up. She’d lined a row of drinks—it looked like whiskey—in front of her and was downing them one after the other, with the rather clear intention of self-anesthetization.
She’d obviously helped herself. Louise wasn’t behind the bar. In fact, she was nowhere in sight, which was good. It would allow the two Greater-Thans to talk freely.
“We’ll find Nika another way,” Stephen said, and only then did Mac look at him.
“I should have been able to do it,” she said. “But I couldn’t.”
“That wasn’t about you,” Stephen told her. “That was about Caine. The guy’s insane. If he honestly can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, his daydreams are going to read as memories. It wasn’t you, Michelle.”
Mac nodded, but he knew she didn’t believe him.
“Dr. Bach couldn’t do it either,” he pointed out.
She nodded again, toying with her glass.
“It must be twice as hard,” he said gently, “knowing that you sifted through that horror-show without a positive outcome. Like you need more nightmares than you already have.”
“They’d been using him,” Mac told Stephen. “Caine. He was working for them—and not just by helping them move their product.”
Stephen nodded. When it came to acquisitions—the Organization’s intentionally bland term for the kidnapping and exploitation of little girls—Caine would be an asset. “He has the talents they need—targeting and trolling …”
“Not just that.” Her voice was tight. “They pay him—they fucking pay him—to go into their holding rooms and play the bogeyman.”
“Oh, God.” He closed his eyes. The Organization imprisoned the girls they acquired in rooms where they were kept in constant terror. He could only imagine what a man like Caine would do. But then he didn’t have to imagine, because Mac told him.
“He’s allowed to pick one—just one. One’s all it takes. And one’s enough for him, because he knows he’ll be back, probably the next day,” she said. “And it’s like the best shopping spree ever. For Caine, it’s like being a kid in a candy shop with a hundreddollar gift card. So it takes him awhile, but he finally makes his choice.” Mac’s voice got even harder. “And he rapes her. In front of the others.”
And the fear the girls felt would increase their adrenaline and trigger the hormones and proteins that made their blood more potent, so the Organization could use it to make their drug.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Stephen murmured.
“But when they really want to shake things up? The bastards who run these places?” Mac said, her voice shaking. “They let him kill the girl he’s raped. Again—right there. It goes in stages. The girls who’ve just been brought in are terrified to start with. So it doesn’t take much to set them off. A guy with a scarred face comes into the room. And everyone screams because he’s so scary looking. Then he comes in with a knife and starts randomly slashing. And then, after they get immune to that, he kills one of them. And it goes like that for a while. Maybe he’ll kill one of them, maybe he won’t. But then they get tired—they’ve been bled so often—their energy drops. And some of them probably start to think that death wouldn’t be that bad. A flash of the knife—it’ll be over nice and quick. So the fear levels just aren’t the same. Which is when management calls for Caine, and he comes in and shows those girls just how bad it could get, because he doesn’t kill his victims quickly. He likes to hear them scream.”
Dear God …
Mac’s face twisted again. “If Bach hadn’t been in there with me?” she said. “I would’ve killed him.”
“Devon Caine’s not going to hurt anybody ever again,” Stephen promised her.
“But they’ll find someone else to hurt them,” she said. “D, we’ve got to get those girls out of that nightmare.”
“We’re working on it. You know that.”
Mac nodded again, struggling to control her emotions. She drained another glass. Pulled the last one closer as she exhaled hard. “Listen to me, bitching and moaning to you, while you have your own nasty-ass nightmare to deal with.”
“Yeah,” Stephen said, drawing the word out. “And then there’s that.”
She glanced at him. “Wasn’t it you who once told me that the last skill you wanted—the dead last—was the ability to see the future?”
He smiled tightly. “That would be me.”
“You could lose that talent,” Mac told him. “I’ve dropped back down to fifty-one.”
She said it so nonchalantly, but Stephen wasn’t fooled. He knew exactly what she meant—that she and Shane were history. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged and tossed back her last drink—the row of which suddenly made even more sense.
“Doesn’t it bother you,” she asked him, “knowing that you’re using Elliot the way you are? I mean, really, D. Would you have hooked up with him if he didn’t raise your integration levels?”
“Eventually,” Stephen said. “I’ve been working my way toward him for a while.”
Mac looked at him and laughed. “Yeah, right, eventually, like when you both turned eighty?”
“Probably before that.”
Mac nodded. “You know, I felt you before. When you and El were in his office. There was so much love in the room, I kinda threw up in my mouth.”
Stephen smiled. “Jealousy’ll do that.”
She sat back on the stool. “I don’t get how you’re just suddenly okay with it. I mean, you just accept the fact that Elliot loves you? He suddenly genuinely loves you. And it’s not at all because you look the way you look …?”
“I’m sure that plays into it,” Stephen told her. “It plays into my attraction for him—it always has.” He shifted toward her. “I know it seems fast, but … To answer your question, yes. I accept the fact that he genuinely loves me. The telepathic connection was key, though, in convincing me. Spending time in his head is … It’s like an hour together is the same as if we spent three weeks just talking. It’s crazy how comfortable and right it feels. And El’s so open and … Trusting. He’s so ready to be loved. If you want to know the truth, I’m exactly what he’s been waiting for, all his life. And we’re both very much okay with that.”
“He loves you because you’re special,” she persisted.
“Damn right, I’m special.” Stephen smiled. “H
e is, too. Michelle, I know it’s scary to let someone like Shane get that close,” he told her quietly, but she cut him off with a laugh and a disbelieving look.
“You have no idea. With your fairy-tale, happily-ever-after, found-your-soul-mate bullshit? Yeah, it must’ve been real scary falling into Elliot’s perfect arms.”
“How about knowing that it ends with him taking bullets in his chest and throat, and bleeding out?” Stephen asked her. “Is that scary enough for you?”
She was silent.
“You know, whether my vision—or whatever the hell it was—was real or just a result of low blood sugar and lack of sleep,” he told her, “the truth is, it could end that way at any time—for either of us. For any of us.” If they weren’t already on the Organization’s hit list, they’d all be there soon enough. “For me, it’s scary to think that I used to believe it was better to be alone. How could that be better? It’s safer, yeah. But it’s not better.”
“You have no idea,” she said again, as if her life was hard while his was easy.
And that pissed him off a little, which made him throw her some snark. “And then there’s the fact that maybe if you weren’t down to fifty-one,” he pointed out, “you might’ve been able to see the truth in Devon Caine.”
That got him a deservedly dark look. “You really think I haven’t thought of that?”
“I was just rubbing it in,” he said. “Pouring salt onto your foolishness.”
“I’m foolish?” she asked, shaking her head. “Foolish would be …” Her voice broke, and for one heartbreaking moment, her face twisted, and Stephen thought she actually might to start to cry.
But her face morphed immediately into her standard semi-bored half-scowl, and she said, “I’m being practical.”
“You say practical, I say foolish.”
“Shouldn’t you be prying Elliot from his office, and throwing him over your shoulder, forcing him to stop working and come home?” she asked. “Or is the sex going to be a once-every-fifteen-years thing?”
Stephen smiled at that absurdity.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said. And her tough-bitch mask broke again. “Seriously, D, I’m really happy for you. I am. Elliot’s amazing. I’ve loved him right from the first day he came in for that job interview.”
“Me, too,” he told her. He gently nudged her leg with his boot. “I’m going to need your help to keep him safe.”
“You got it,” she told him, zero hesitation. “You know it.”
“Good.” He knocked on the bar. “I gotta go. But oh. My reason for looking for you. I took Caine’s cell from his apartment, and Analysis was able to track his wanderings via his phone’s GPS. I don’t think he knew how it works, because he didn’t shut it off. He’s never even wiped the memory. As a result—”
Mac was already sitting up straighter on the barstool. “We know where he’s been—and where he’s gone! Do we have the route he took after grabbing Nika Taylor?”
“We do.” Stephen held up one hand. “We’ve got a surveillance team not only tracing his footsteps, but also staking out any location where he spent any time at all. But we do know, unfortunately, that he went to his apartment from Rickie Littleton’s garage. Littleton—or someone else—may have taken Nika in. Or it might’ve been a handoff, right in the street. You know, here’s the girl, here’s your cash.”
“Or Caine was in charge of taking Nika in, but he took a little unauthorized side trip home with her first.” Mac’s face was tight. “I want to see that list.”
“It’s in your e-mail,” Stephen said. “You were cc’d a copy. It came in about fifteen minutes ago—along with Analysis’s list of locations. You know, the list that they compiled after they tracked all twenty-three vehicles that left Littleton’s South Boston garage? It took them awhile. Of course, there’s nothing on there that pops …”
Mac had taken her phone out and was scrolling through her e-mail. She clicked the message from Analysis open, and scrolled down … “Shit!”
“What?”
“I know this address.” Mac looked up at Stephen, and the darkness in her eyes made a chill go down his back. “According to this, Caine was only home for two hours after leaving Littleton’s garage, and then he went to Western Ave. Number two-ten. Littleton used to go there all the time, to get paid. We never found absolute proof that it’s an official Org building, but it is.”
“It’s not on our list,” he told her. “Not even of suspected Organization holdings.”
“It will be,” she said, sliding down off her stool. “It should be. Now that Littleton’s dead, those reports should’ve been filed.”
“Analysis has been a little busy,” Stephen pointed out. “Have you filed your report on Littleton?”
That should have made Mac laugh, or at least smile. Her allergies to paperwork were legendary. Instead she only looked grim. “Nika’s there. She’s gotta be.”
“If she’s there, we’ll find her,” Stephen tried to reassure her. “There’s nothing you can do that we’re not already doing.”
“Yeah there is,” Mac said as she took her jacket off the stool’s back and slipped it on. “I can blow the fricking roof off the place and get her out!”
Stephen stood up, too, intending to block her, or at least slow her down, saying, “That’s not the plan—”
“Fuck the plan!”
Behind the bar—one at a time—the bottles broke, exploding with a spray of liquor and glass.
“What the hell, Michelle?” Stephen said, ducking for cover, and pulling his jacket up over his head to shield himself.
But she’d already turned away, as if she didn’t even notice. She just headed for the door, pulling her gloves out of her pocket and slipping them on, even as she kicked her speed up to a jog and then a run.
Stephen scrambled after her, skidding on the gin- and tequila-soused tile as the lights in the room continued to pop and spark. By the time he reached the lounge door, he could see through the glass panel that she was nearly at the end of the hall and still picking up speed.
He yanked the door handle, and nearly dislocated his shoulder. What the …? He tried the other door, but it, too, was locked. He focused, trying to use his power to flip the lock, but it didn’t budge. He couldn’t open the damn thing—she was somehow jamming it.
“Shit! Mac!” He pounded on the door.
One last bottle exploded from behind the bar, and he jumped, and when he turned to look back down the hall, Mac was gone.
He reached for his phone, dialing Elliot even as he went to the nearest comm-station and activated it. “Computer, access SL. Link me to Security.”
Elliot picked up his phone. “I’m so sorry, but I’m still not done—”
Stephen interrupted him. “I need you to authorize a jot scan for Mac—immediately.”
Elliot didn’t hesitate. He raised his voice. “Computer, jot scan Dr. Michelle Mackenzie, STAT.” Back into his phone, “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Mac is … Shit, El, is it possible for a Greater-Than to joker?”
“What?” Elliot said. “No.” But then he switched it to, “I don’t know. Jesus, your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I suppose anything’s possible.”
The comm-station beeped as Patty Gilbert from Security appeared on the computer screen, via webcam. “Sir, is there an issue with which you need assistance?”
“Hang on, El.” Stephen opened the connection to Security. “Affirmative, Ms. Gilbert,” he said. “Send an immediate message to all personnel. If they see or encounter Dr. Mackenzie, they must keep their distance. I have reason to believe she’s leaving the building—just let her go.”
“Yes, sir.” Gilbert had to be curious, but she knew him well enough not to ask questions.
He shut the connection and went back to Elliot. “Do me a favor,” he said.
“Anything.”
“Go to the barracks and get Shane Laughlin. Meet me in the south lobby.”
“Consider it done.”
“El, wait,” Stephen said before Elliot hung up. “Don’t go outside.”
“I’m going to kind of need to,” Elliot pointed out, “if we’re going after Mac.”
“Shane and I are going,” Stephen told him as he went back to the door. This time, with Mac long out of range, he got it open. He went out, moving swiftly toward the elevators that would take him to Bach’s office. “With Dr. Bach.”
On the other end of the phone, Elliot was silent and his subtext was clear. This was going to get old, fast.
But Stephen had his own subtext to his answering silence: Too bad.
“I’ll get Laughlin and meet you in the south lobby,” Elliot finally said.
“Thank you,” Stephen said, and hanging up, he started to run.
They’d returned to the scene of the crime.
It was a ridiculous thing to be thinking, but Anna couldn’t help herself as she sat on the sofa in Bach’s office.
Besides, it wasn’t even true. Bach’s childhood bedroom had been the real scene of the crime—except no crime had been committed. Nothing illegal, anyway.
Anna heard the toilet flush and the water running in the sink in Bach’s private bathroom—the water closet, he called it in his quaintly old-fashioned way—and she braced herself.
Whatever had happened with the “spelunking” of Devon Caine’s savagely twisted mind had been ugly, and Elliot had been called in to help Mac and Joseph, who’d both experienced some rather extreme physical distress.
Apparently, Caine was a monster, with an impenetrable mind that was filled with darkness. Finding him was a good thing, because it got him off the streets. But it brought them no closer to locating Nika.
And Anna realized that it was down to Bach—and the connection he’d established with Nika, via Anna’s dreams.
Bach had ended up isolating himself for about fifteen minutes of what he called balancing meditation, while Mac, looking a little dazed after having lost her dinner in the security lobby’s trash can, waved off Elliot and staggered away.
Born to Darkness Page 40
