One Foot in the Grave (15 page)

Juan didn’t reply, but his silence said it all.

“Juan.” I swiveled to face him. “You’re the only one who isn’t operating with clouded judgment. There’s more to a person than their temperature. You’ve seen
enough to know that. Don’t let them fuck everything up because of prejudice. Just look at all the facts before rushing to condemn anyone, that’s all I ask.”

“I owe you,
querida
. You’ve saved my life many times.” Juan’s normal playfulness was gone, and he was equally somber. “I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your lover…I owe him nothing.”

I took his hand and squeezed it. “Then do it for me.
Please
. For me.”

The door swung open as Don and Tate returned. Don was the first to speak.

“Cat, I’m sending some men to escort your mother here, where she’ll be safe until we’ve determined who’s behind the threat on your life. It’s just precautionary. I have some calls to make and a few other employees to round up, so you can wait in your office. The compound will be locked down when they leave, as you requested. We’ll speak when they return.”

My stomach twisted with anxiety but I squelched it. Bones had told me to trust him. This time, I’d do just that.

“Fine. Go ahead. Get my mom.”

Tate grabbed Juan’s arm and almost yanked him out the door. “We’re on our way.”

T
IME LIMPED ALONG. IT WAS WELL OVER
three hours before I heard activity at the far end of the compound. Several of my team were there, talking in loud, excited voices. That was the only way in from the exterior to the fourth sub-level, where we housed the vampires. I strained my ears, then heard the unmistakable alarm bells for the reinforced elevator that was only used for transporting the capsule inside.

I barged straight into Don’s office. He’d been on the phone, and with a supremely confident air, he set it down.

“They’re back, and they’ve got the capsule with them. What the fuck is going on, Don?”

“Sit down.” He inclined his head toward the chair, and with a huff I sat. “I’m afraid I have some disturbing news, Cat. I didn’t tell you before because I couldn’t risk you endangering yourself by leaving. Your mother
called me earlier because she was afraid. Apparently your new vampire boyfriend phoned her to say he was coming over. Once he got there, he attacked her. She’s okay, just cuts and bruises. After we arrived, he, ah, surrendered and was brought here. Already he’s implied that he knows who’s after you and that he’s in on it. The men are securing him now, and then they will question him in detail.”

“I want to see him,” I said at once.

Don shook his head. “Not a chance. You’re too emotionally involved, and it’s clouded your objectivity. As of an hour ago, your access to the lower levels is restricted. You are to have no contact with any of the vampires. I’m sorry, but your actions have determined my response. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Many others have also fallen prey to their influence. Let this be a lesson to you, and I’ll keep you informed.”

He was dismissing me. I jumped to my feet, pissed.

“Fine, if you want to be all brass balls about it, then let me talk to Tate before he questions him. You can at least do that. Bring Tate up here if you’re so goddamn worried I’ll cause a scene downstairs. He can meet me in my office.”

Don gave me a look of thinly veiled annoyance, but picked up his phone and placed the call.

“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

I slammed the door behind me.

If Tate expected me to be quivering on my couch when he opened my door, he was disappointed. Coolly I sat behind my desk and waved a hand at the door.

“Shut it.”

Tate closed it and then folded his arms across his chest.

“I came like you asked, but you can save your breath, Cat. Nothing you say will change anything. We caught him red-handed at your mother’s. She’s lucky to be alive, if you can see past your concern over your lover to be bothered with that.”

He looked mildly disgusted with me, yet his heartbeat still accelerated when I went to stand near him.

“Oh, I care more than you imagine, Tate. Not just about him, but about you as well. That’s why I’m going to ask you this first, and hope you do the right thing. Take Juan with you and let him out. Then we’re locking down the building in emergency mode and finding out who our mole is. We can do this two ways, but it
will
get done.”

His nostrils flared as he shook his head. “You’ve lost your mind, Cat. Just absolutely lost it! God, no fuck can be worth throwing your life away for—”

“I love him,” I interrupted.

He cursed viciously before finishing with “Now I
know
you’re crazy! You’ve only been seeing him a couple weeks and you think you’re in love? That’s fucking nuts!”

He grasped my shoulders and gave me a hard shake. I just closed my hands over his.

“Tate, once you accused me of not trusting anyone. You were right—I haven’t. I’m going to trust you now, though, and I hope you’ll trust me. When you saw him today, when you looked in his eyes and
really
saw him…didn’t he look familiar?”

“Of course he did. I’ve been over that goddamn video
for hours! And I’m the one who spotted him outside your house the other night.”

I tightened my hands. “Not from last night or the video. Further back. To be fair, you only saw him for a second, but it was a memorable one. After all, you shot him. Right before the car plowed into him.”

“That’s—”

Tate stopped. A growing look of awareness dawned on his features. He stared at me with widening eyes, and then his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line.

“
Well.
” The word was soft. “Didn’t you play us all for fools, Catherine Crawfield?”

I took in a deep breath. “It’s Bones, the vampire I told you I’d loved and killed in Ohio, but I didn’t kill him. I left him and passed another body off as his. I hadn’t seen him until recently, when he was at Denise’s wedding. This was all a setup today to get Bones in here so he could find the turncoat. He knew if he went to my mother’s that she’d call in the troops, and I’d told him the only way in was that capsule or dead. Bones chose the capsule, despite the risk that he might be killed once he was strapped inside.”

Tate still looked shell-shocked. “I almost did kill him. I had him in those restraints, and I knew all I had to do was shake him and those spikes would shred his heart. Juan stopped me. He told me we were questioning him first before condemning him. It’s been over four years. You haven’t seen this vampire until recently, but you’ve been in love with him this whole time?”

“Yes.”

Tate laughed, a harsh little bark. “Of course you have. But that doesn’t mean I’m breaking every rule
ever implemented about vampires to let him out.”

“He
is
getting out.” My fingers cut into his hands. “The only question is, will you be conscious when he does? You’re my friend, Tate. In many ways, my best friend, but I want to be very clear—I’ll get him out and destroy anyone in my way to do it. You. Juan. Don. Anyone. I want you with me, as my partner and my friend, but I
will
do it alone if I have no other choice.”

He looked like he wanted to slap me. “Goddamn you, Cat. Goddamn you! You’ve been with him a total of what? Six months? You’ve been by my side for over four fucking years! Is he worth that much to you? More than all you’ve fought for and all you’ve done? Think, for Christ’s sake!”

I stared straight into his eyes and didn’t hesitate. “Yes, he is. Maybe you don’t understand. Have you ever owed someone everything? All your strengths, all your victories, every last thing that’s meant anything in your life…and it can be traced back to one single person? That’s what Bones is to me.”

Tate suddenly yanked me closer. “You bitch, I do understand, because that’s what you are to me.”

I didn’t shove him back, but let him stand with only an inch between us. “If I passed on anything of value, it’s because I first learned it from him. So then you owe him, too.”

Something sparked in his midnight gaze even as his shoulders slumped. “I don’t owe him shit. But yeah…I owe you. Is this your price?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” Better to negotiate than beat him senseless.

“There’s more to it than opening that capsule, Cat.
There are four levels of highly trained guards, and there will be an automatic lockdown as soon as someone spots a prisoner strolling the halls. He can’t green-eye all of them into submission;
some
one will trigger the alarm. You know this, you designed it!”

“That’s why you’re going down there nice and casual with Juan, and I’m going to stay up here and override the security.”

Tate moved away from me and started to pace. “Don changed your computer clearance as soon as he found out about you and the vampire. Your codes won’t work anymore. Even mine only go so far.”

Ignoring that, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.

“Randy, we’re on schedule. In exactly ten minutes pull the plug. All levels except four and the connecting elevator back up to one. Full shutoff, prehistoric. Kiss Denise for me. I owe you.”

I hung up and gazed at Tate. “Go down now. In ten minutes, all the power will shut off and this place will be a tomb. Appropriate, don’t you think, since we
are
letting out a dead man. The only things that will work will be the ones I want to work. Did you really think after all these years I wouldn’t have left myself with some back-door passwords in case Don turned on me?”

He stood up with a look of disbelief.

“If you could do all of that, why did you bother to ask me for help?”

“You’re my friend,” I repeated, pulling open a desk drawer and then tucking the gun it held into my pants. “And I still want to lead this team, although none of you seem to believe that. Hurry, you only have nine minutes now…”

Denise had been correct about Randy. He was indeed a genius with computers. With the passwords I gave him, he’d hacked into the mainframe and dropped a virus that he remotely controlled. It froze out everything. Even the phones didn’t work. The neighboring cell phone tower, which intercepted our wireless signals, had also just experienced a power failure. My phone was satellite and still operated, and when the lights went out, I was the only one who didn’t gasp at the sudden dark. I just went to the elevator and waited.

When the doors slid open, Bones was right in front of me. I threw my arms around him even as I gave directions to Tate and Juan, who were backed warily into the far corner.

“Guard this door. No one gets close, not even Don.”

“What are you doing?” Tate asked as they stepped past us out of the elevator.

“Giving him blood. That box drained him. He needs a refill.”

“Cat, Jesus—”

I hit the manual button and the elevator doors closed, effectively cutting off Tate’s protests.

“I knew you’d come through, luv,” Bones said.

I hugged him hard. “God, I’ve been worried sick these past few hours!”

He kissed me, gently exploring every crevice of my mouth while running his hands over me. I clutched him, feeling sick over the multiple holes in his clothes where the silver prongs from the capsule had pierced him.

“No need for foreplay,” I whispered, breaking the kiss. “Just bite me already.”

Bones laughed low. “You are ever impatient.”

Then his lips trailed to my neck as he pushed my hair back. His tongue circled the hollow in my throat for a moment before his fangs sank into me.

I shivered, instinctively clutching him tighter at those twin stabs of sensation. This felt different from the other two times he’d bitten me. Less erotic and more predatory. Still, my heart raced, my knees went deliciously weak, and that same strange warmth crept over me.

The elevator doors opened right as Bones lifted his head. There was an ominous sound of a gun cocking as I pulled mine out of my pants at the same time.

“Back off, Tate! You shoot and I fire back.”

We must have looked quite the sight, Bones licking the last drops of my blood off his fangs and me with my gun pointed at everyone but the vampire drinking me. Hell, I could understand Tate’s reaction, but that didn’t mean I was letting him shoot Bones. Juan also had his gun drawn but at least it was lowered. Smart man.

Bones eyed Tate and didn’t bother to sheathe his fangs. “Don’t fret over her safety, mate. I’d never hurt her, but I’ve seen the way you look at her, so you don’t have that same pass.”

“Tate,” I said warningly. “Drop the gun.”

Tate stared at me. “Goddamn, Cat. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s all right, Kitten,” Bones said. “He won’t shoot.”

Tate lowered his gun even as the sudden dizziness from blood loss made me sway. Bones took my gun and casually handed it to Juan, who gaped at him in amazement.

“You called her Kitten? And she let you? She put me in a
coma
for three
day
s when I called her that! My balls never recovered from her smashing them into my
spine
!”

“And well she should have,” Bones agreed. “She’s my Kitten, and no one else’s.”

I poked him in the chest. “Do you mind? I’m a little woozy here.”

“Apologies, luv.”

He lifted me off my feet as his fangs cut into his tongue with a snap of his jaws. There were so many other ways for me to get blood from him, but I was figuring he’d chosen this one because of his comment to Tate. I kissed him back while swallowing those needed drops. How like Bones to kill two birds with one stone—both staking his claim and replenishing my strength at the same time.

Don picked that moment to come striding through the throngs of stunned spectators just in time to see me curled inside a vampire’s arms with my feet dangling off the ground.

“What the
hell
is going on?”

Bones set me down and went to my boss in a blink of speed. To Don’s credit, he didn’t try to run.

“You must be very determined to kill me to go to such lengths,” he flatly commented, squaring his shoulders.

“I’m not here for you, old chap,” Bones said, looking him up and down thoroughly. “I’m here to find out what rat you’ve got in your garden. But first we’re going to have a chat, the three of us. You’ve kept her in the dark long enough.”

“Tate, Juan, make sure no one comes through that
door and no one tries to get frisky. The place is secured, but someone could pull a weapon. Keep sharp.”

I inclined my head toward Don’s office. “After you, boss.”

Don took his seat like it was any other visit and not a hostage situation, and we sat across from him.

“Don, I’d like to introduce you to Bones. The real Bones, not the impostor on ice in the fridge. You’ll remember him from Ohio, where he gave the highway a whole new look.”

“All these years, Cat,” Don said with sadness. “You’ve been working the other side this whole time. Bravo, I was totally fooled.”

My mouth opened in outrage, but Bones beat me to it. “You ungrateful sod, the only reason I’m not picking you out of my teeth now is because of her. She fancies you a decent man, not that I agree, and has in no way betrayed your trust.
You
can hardly say the same.”

I rolled my eyes. A death threat, gee, great way to start out a talk.

“I haven’t played you at all, Don,” I said. “When I left Ohio, I thought I was leaving Bones behind for good. He tracked me down and found me only two weeks ago, and I have never done anything to betray this operation.”