Carter (12 page)

It took him forty minutes to find him, or at least the women that were with him. The older woman was talking to someone, and all Daniel could think about was she was a doddering old bag that did this daily. But when one of the women came up to her and guided her away from him, Daniel had an uneasy feeling that something was about to go shit up bad. He started to back away when a voice behind him spoke.

“You’re not what I expected.” Daniel turned slowly and looked at the kid. This close he could see that he was younger than he’d thought and looked familiar. “You’re going to get it soon, but for now, I’m going to stand here and wait until the others are far away.”

Then it occurred to him, but before he could tell the kid who he was, he smiled at him. Daniel felt like a fly on a sticky tape and someone was about to swat his ass. When he took a step from him, the kid laughed.

“You’ve come all this way to kidnap me and you’re going to run with your tail between your legs?” The tisking that the boy did at him made Daniel think he was being toyed with. “I am playing with you, Mr. Murphy. Scaring you as well, I think. And all of a sudden, I’m thinking I like the effect. Shall I scare you more?”

“Come with me.” The boy cocked his head. “Right now, and I won’t hurt your mother. You come peacefully and tell her to come as well, and I’ll not treat you as I first thought about.”

“Really? You think that’ll be all it takes? Me just come along with you and things will work out?” Daniel nodded. “I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed about that then. Nothing is going to be going well for you for a very long time. And there is no way that I’m going with you anywhere. Not now, not ever.”

“You will do as I told you, and for once you’ll get off your ass and do just what I want. I’m sick of people thinking that I’m nothing to them. Didn’t your mother tell you that I hate to be disappointed? I’m not a nice person when I don’t get my way.”

“You’re not a nice person anyway. Grandmother told me you weren’t. And my mom said you were a bastard. I believe she had it about half right. You’re a bastard, but only in the sense that you’re mean and you’re never nice. What do you think?” Daniel looked around for help. He had come here with a bodyguard and Victor. When the kid laughed again, he looked at him. “No one is coming to help you. I want to talk to you first. Then perhaps if you don’t do anything stupid, I’ll let you go with just a warning.”

“A warning. What if I told you I was armed and if I wanted to, I could just shoot the people you came with and take you anyway? I’m trying to make this easy on you.” The kid laughed again. “What the hell is your name? I’ve already figured you are my grandson, so what do I call you?”

“You know I’m not going to tell you that either. And I want you to leave us alone. We’re not going to help you, and if you persist, then one of us will have to kill you.” He looked over his shoulder, and Daniel had an insane urge to run. “Or perhaps she will. It’s not my mom, but I think she’ll mess you up pretty well all the same. I just learned that a bodyguard will protect me at all costs. Yours will…well, you won’t survive this should I tell her to take you.”

He looked around and didn’t see anyone. It was as if his body had a mind of its own, and Daniel turned all the way around to look at the Amazon-like woman standing behind him. When she waved, just her fingers, Daniel felt the hair on his arms dance, and the little he had on his neck seemed to try to shrink back into his skin. The boy laughed again.

“This is not fucking funny. I’m telling you right now to come with me and do as you’re told or so help me, I’ll shoot the lot of you and take you anyway.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Daniel glared at the kid. If he was honest with himself, he was terrified to touch the boy. There was something very…well, terrifying about the way he just seemed to know that Daniel wasn’t going to hurt him. Ever. And he was pretty sure he knew it was terrifying. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t tell me your name. Did she happen to name you after me? That would be just like her. To get back at me somehow like that.”

“No. She named me a great and powerful name. And it has the meaning of
greatest
in some families. To her it meant strong, someone that she could look up to.” Daniel almost made the remark that she had named Max after her father anyway, but the boy spoke before he could. “She said that it was the opposite of what you are. The furthest from you in both character, had you had one, and strength.”

Daniel wasn’t sure what to say to him, so he said nothing at all. The woman behind him only stood there, and Daniel had a feeling she was waiting on the kid. Whatever it was between them, he’d had enough.

“Come with me and we’ll do this quietly.” The kid just stood there, and Daniel moved to him. As soon as something touched him on the back of the head, he knew it was a gun. “This is not going to go well for any of you if you piss me off more.”

The kid just walked away. Daniel watched him as he moved to where the older woman was with the other two. When the person behind him gave him a firm but gentle push, Daniel moved with her.

“He said I’m not allowed to kill you. Yet. But should you give me any trouble, he said for me to do what I want with you. Are you? I mean, would you give me some trouble? It would make my entire year if you would.” Daniel did nothing but what she directed him to do. There was no way he was going to let this bitch hurt him when he was going to get that kid and her as well. “You might want to rethink that a lot too. ‘Getting me,’ whatever that means, will most assuredly get you killed.”

He saw Victor across the mall coming toward him. When he was close enough that he had to see them, Daniel actually felt better. But when he walked by them as if he’d not seen them at all, fear began to trickle down his spine.

“What have you done to me?” She told him nothing. As yet. “I demand that you go back in there and get my grandson. I’m taking him with me. And if you think to interfere again, I’ll call the police. I have every right to take him with me.”

“You don’t have shit and we both know it. And as for the police helping you? What makes you think they’ll see you any more than that man did? Victor Guy is his name, and while he’s very loyal to a point, he, like you, is only human. I am not.” Daniel struggled then, having had enough of her and that boy. When he turned to look at her, every part of him seemed to recoil in fear. “Yeah, you see me for what I am. Few do.”

Her body wasn’t just not human. Daniel wasn’t sure what it was. The covering was dark, plastic looking, and he’d bet that it was her skin. Her face was elongated and also covered in the same sort of material, but it didn’t diminish her mouth, which was filled with the sharpest looking fangs he’d ever seen. Eyes the color of the deepest pansies, dark purple in color, looked back at him, and he was sure that she was blinking sideways. But the sword in her right hand scared him a great deal more than the gun in the other. And she had wings, incandescent ones that were as wide as she was tall.

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” She didn’t answer him but stood over him, at least a good five or so inches. “I just want my grandson and daughter. I need them to come home.”

“You should really learn to live with disappointment.” She stretched her neck, and her wings seemed to spread enough that he thought she could carry him away. Daniel took a step back. “Take my advice. Go home and forget you were ever married and had a child, and for the love of all that you are, forget the boy. He’s going to be your biggest disappointment.”

“Like his mother? She never did what she was told. And now she thinks to keep me from what’s mine. I won’t have it. Do you hear me? I won’t have it.” She looked around, then back at him. “I’m going to make sure you fall when I get them back, whatever you are. I’m going to end your entire race.”

She lifted him up by his neck, a feat that made his bladder let go and his heart pound in his chest. When she was eye to eye with him, he could see the anger there, her need to kill him. Daniel was sure that if he’d had anything in his belly, he would have spewed that on her as well.

“Get out of here.” Daniel felt his body hurl through the air. When he slammed against a wall, he slid down it and felt as if he’d been broken. Not his spirit but his body. He was going to get them, make them all pay for today…as soon as he was healthy. Closing his eyes when the crowd started to gather, Daniel decided that it was over for them all. Them being dead was paramount to his way of thinking.

Chapter 12

“I can’t hire you as the sheriff now. As much as I’d like to.” Murph had expected that, but when she stood up, he asked her to have a seat. “The reason I can’t might surprise you. I’d very much like to tell you why. And to apologize again for not seeing you yesterday like we’d set up. I was…I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Does it matter? I mean, I know that I missed a lot of work, and the fact that you’ve agreed to tell me face to face means a great deal to me.” Sheriff Ben Jones nodded but smiled at her. “You know something.”

Murph could have looked, but she was pretty sure that whatever was in his head wasn’t anything she wanted to see. The man looked worn out, tired, and beyond the point of where he should have been working. She knew that he had cancer, and if the pack of cigarettes on his desk meant anything, he really didn’t care. She started to stand again when he leaned forward in his chair. The creaking of it made her smile inwardly. Carter’s did the same thing when he sat in his at the office.

“I talked to your brother-in-law.” She sat down. Now what had Misha done? “Not just one, actually, but all of them. Including that husband of yours. Rider told me if I didn’t hire you that I should be shot. He does get his panties in a twist, doesn’t he?”

“You have no idea.” Murph leaned back in her chair. “So, did the rest of them tell you that I was bad news? I’m sure that whatever they said to you, most of it would be true or pretty close to it.”

Ben laughed. “No. They sang your praises and told me what a jewel you are. I got so curious that I looked you up.”

“And again, whatever you found I’m sure it’s true.” He nodded and she squirmed a little. “I’m not sure what you think you know about me, Sheriff, but I am a good worker. I close some of my cases and I don’t break the rules.”

“You don’t. And to say that you close some of your cases is a gross understatement. You’ve closed them all. And some that you weren’t even working on. I’d say that you’re about the best cop I’ve ever read about. Then I came across this.” The file flew across his desk, and Murph picked it up. “No one in the department that you worked in before had any idea, did they?”

She opened the file and started to close it. There were several tabs hanging out to the side, and she went to the first one. It was the article in the paper that stated that all twelve of the members of a large cartel were arrested, and that nine of them were high up on the food chain in one of the largest drug rings in the country. Murph knew what the article had said about this unknown cop and the reporter’s speculations on why someone would be so stupid as to not give their name. The next tab was a blurry picture of the house that she’d been brought out of. The only way you could tell it was her was if you knew she’d been there, and only if you had some very expensive equipment to try and clear up her face. The mask over her face wouldn’t have hidden her from the picture, much less from the world once they saw it. She’d known the photographer was there and had moved on purpose.

“You think this was me?” Ben nodded. “I wasn’t even around then. I’ve told others the same thing, and you aren’t going to find anything different than they did.”

He handed her a picture. When she looked at it Murph felt herself shiver, not in fear but something very close to it. Ben nodded to the picture as he continued.

“I have an inside guy that works at the hospital where you were taken right after the shooting. He said the fact that you lived was something he would never have believed, and that you left the hospital four days later proved to him that showing that picture around would get him killed by some very strong people. He only showed me because he’s my brother-in-law and owes me some money.”

She’d been shot eleven times, most of them in the chest and all of them at point blank range. They’d trapped her, cornered her in a room where she’d not only had nowhere to go, but nothing to hide behind. Nic had come to her then. Not only had he destroyed the men shooting her, but he’d also helped her make it to the hospital. Days later he’d come back, telling her it was dangerous for her to be there, and had healed her completely.

“You don’t want this sort of thing happening in your town. I can understand that.” He grinned at her. “You’re making me very nervous right now.”

“Misha told me that to hire you would be the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Said that you were brilliant in detective work and reasoning, and that you were smart on your feet as well. Told me that you solved the case they were on almost before you landed. High praise from him. Misha is a good man.”

“But you’re not going to hire me to take your job when you retire.” Ben shook his head sadly. “Well, that makes perfect sense to me. Christ, where the hell do you get your logic? The Big Book of Stupid Mistakes?”

Murph felt stupid the moment she let her temper take her mouth. When she stood up this time, so did he. When he put out his hand, she stared at it, then at the man. He was smiling at her again.

“You’re going to be a good addition to Misha’s team.” Murph told him she’d never said she’d take the job. “You should. You need to. Andrew said that you were a pleasure to work with until you got pissy. Then he said not only did you make things right, but you worked too hard to do it. Thomas said he’d work with you every day and never tire of watching you work out a solution. But the real reason I’m not hiring you is because, as much as I’d like to have you take my place, it would be a waste of a good cop. And you are a great cop.”

“I’m no different than most of the other people who work in this job.” Ben shook his head, his hand still out there. “You should know that touching you gives me all kinds of information you might not generally share. I can…I will be able to tell you things about you that most, even your doctors, won’t know.”

“I’m dying. And soon. The doctor told me that I have less than six weeks left. Today, talking to you, is the last thing I’m going to do as a cop in this little burg. Take my hand, Murph, and tell me straight out…is he telling me the truth?”

She touched her fingers to his wrist first, then their palms met. The power from him startled her at first, then she realized what she was feeling. It was the drugs, not power. The man was really taking a great deal of them, and they weren’t doing much for the pain he was still in. She also knew that the doctors were wrong. He had less than a week to live, not six.

When they let go, she sat down. In the few times she’d spoken to the man she knew him to be a good person, highly respected as well as an honest cop. He sat down as well, and Murph could see what it had cost him to come in here and talk to her today. Murph could also see how he was going to deal with it, and she didn’t really blame him. Even as badly as he was feeling right now, it was going to get worse. And he knew it as well.

“I know some people that can take all that away from you. The pain, the cancer, and the other things the meds are doing to you.” He shook his head. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that. You have less than a week, Ben. Less if what I think you’re going to do should happen today.”

“Can’t do this to my family. My wife knows what I’m doing.” She nodded. “Even though she’s been gone a long time, I talk to her like she’s lying beside me every night. Miss her something terrible right now. My boys…I got two of them, and they’re helping as much as they can, but…well, they both have families and I’m draining them as well.”

“They’ll not think of it that way.” He nodded and looked away from her. “Ben, you’re going to hurt them by doing this; you know that, right?”

“I wrote to them. Both of them. Told them why I’m doing this and told them that I’m just tired.” Ben turned and looked at her then. “I’m so very tired, Murph. I’ve been dealing with this for so long, it seems like forever. I’m ready, and if they’re honest with themselves when I’m gone, they’ll think it was for the best.”

She took his hand again and felt his resolve as well as his love for his family. The man really was ready. When he came around the desk with her, Murph hugged him to her and felt him sobbing against her shoulder. When he finished, he told her he was sorry and backed away from her.

“Do me a favor, Murph…have a good life. Live it to the fullest and then some. Work with that family of yours and make the world safe for a lot of people. Being a cop here…well, I’d rather see you doing bigger and better things. You’re destined for it.”

As she left the building, she made her way down the street blindly. This was why she never formed attachments to people. When they died, and everyone did, she knew that it hurt a great deal.

She was standing in front of a store, not even sure what it was that she was looking at, when the gun touched the back of her neck. Looking at the reflection in the glass, she grinned at the man holding it on her.

“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life.” He hit her in the head and it was all she remembered.

~~~

Carter fell out of his chair. He could hear Misha asking him if he was all right, but he was too busy trying to figure out what he was feeling right now to answer. Murph was in trouble and he had to go to her. Before he could stand and move to get her, Max was standing in front of him. He could tell that he’d felt it as well.

“She’s in the back of a van going south on Main Street.” Misha started yelling for the rest of the people in the house as Max continued. “Mom’s been hurt, but just enough to knock her out. The man who took her is…he’s with my grandda.”

“He’s in the van or simply working for him?” Max thought about it before answering him that he didn’t know which. But he did work for Daniel. “You know where they’re taking her? And what they’re planning to do?”

“No, sir. I know that she’s hurt and that she’s in a van.” Tears filled Max’s eyes, and Carter pulled him to him. “I don’t want her hurt, and this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have egged that man on at the mall.”

“You did the right thing, Max. Even your mom said you did. It’s going to make him stupid, and stupid people make the biggest mistakes.” Carter had heard the story when they’d returned home yesterday, and now it seemed that Murph had been right. He was going to step up his game and he’d taken Carter’s mate. “We can’t do much until we hear from Murph. Once we find out where she is, we’re going to go in with our cats out and guns blazing; all right?”

Max nodded and sat down next to him on the floor. Misha and his brothers were standing around them as Max told them what he’d felt.

“She was sad and I started to ask her what had happened. But she was really mad then, and she was with this man. He hit her and then nothing, but I could see the van in the window she’d been in front of. It’s a yellow construction van with a faded picture of a truck on it. The phone number is only one number now, but I don’t think it’s going to do us any good.” Carter had him write it all down anyway. “My grandda is part of the reason that she’s been taken. The man keeps thinking about the bonus he’s going to get.”

“You can feel him?” Max nodded at him. “Do you know his name? Where he might live? Anything?”

“His name is Victor Guy and I don’t know where he lives, but he does work for this company called Retrieval. I’m not sure what they retrieve, but that’s the name of the company.” Misha had had a big board brought in and he was writing as quickly as Max spoke. “I touched him once, in the mall when I was there yesterday. He has it in his head that my grandfather is off his rocker, but he’ll do whatever he deems necessary to get us to him.”

“Victor Guy has been working for what appears to be a front company for Daniel Murphy. Their motto is ‘we get you what you want on time.’ It doesn’t really specify what they’ll get you, but it says here that there are some same day services for a cost.” Carter watched Thomas as he continued. “Guy has worked for this company for nearly seven years. And in that time…let me see, out of five hundred reviews, most of them are five star. There is a single one star review that states that they got the job done, but their methods were a bit on the violent side.”

An hour later they were still no closer to finding her. When Linyah showed up with Leila, she sat with them quietly. Max got up and sat next to her when Carter got up off the floor. He wondered if either of them were able to contact her when Leila spoke up.

“Not while she’s unconscious we can’t. Awake we could just go and get her, but not this way. Energy is what we need to figure out where she is.” Carter nodded and smiled when she did. “I’m going to kill him when I find him, too.”

“Not if I get to him first.”

She nodded and held Max. He wasn’t crying any longer, but he was sad. Carter wanted Murph back now, and he wanted this thing over with. When Misha asked to speak to him, he nearly told him now was not a good time. But his brother might know something.

“I’ve spoken to Ben Jones, the sheriff. I knew that she had that appointment with him today, and he said she was all right when she left him. He’s out now trying to find her, and asking questions around town about the van.” Carter nodded. “Ben doesn’t have long to live. I guess Murph and he had a conversation about it, and she told him less than a week. What he’s doing for her now might kill him.”

“Tell him to stand down.” Misha nodded. “You already did, I guess. Then let him do this for her. She wanted to work for him, but…I’d rather she came and worked with us.”

“Ben said that he told her he wasn’t giving her the job because she was coming to work for us. He said that he knew that she was in on a bust a few years ago, and that while she didn’t deny it, he was pretty sure she was upset that he’d figured it out.” Carter asked him what bust. Instead of answering him, he handed him a thumb drive and told him to watch it. “Nic just gave me this. It’s the surveillance video from the house she was in when a bust went very wrong. It’s...he told me to let you see it. There are…he said not to let her son see it. It’s pretty graphic.”