The Order Boxed Set (80 page)

“It’s a date.”

The horn sounded again, and he sighed.

“You’re a good friend to help him like this,” Faith said.

“I’m not doing this for Christian, but for Tara. I’ve only found her. If I lose her now—”

“Found her? I don’t understand. What is Tara to you? I thought she was just your friend’s wife.” She had the impression there was no love lost between Tara and Ash. Or had that been on Tara’s side only? Maybe Ash loved her, maybe he’d made a pass at her, and she’d spurned him, and that’s why she sounded as though she hated him.

“Christian Roth and I will never be friends. He only lives because my daughter loves him.”

Shock hit her in the gut driving away the last ripples of pleasure. “Your daughter? Tara is your
daughter
?”

He turned back to her, a frown on his face. “You didn’t know?”

“How the hell could I?”

His frown deepened.

“I presumed someone must have mentioned it.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes. Oh God, she was instrumental in the kidnapping of Ash’s daughter. It was bad enough when Tara had been nothing more than his friend’s wife. But his
daughter
?

He would never, never forgive her.

A wave of cold ran over her and she tried to pull herself together. She took a deep breath. “No, no one mentioned it. What about her mother, where is she?”

“Lily was her mother, and she’s dead. Look, I have to go.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Call me if you find anything.”

“We’ll find her if we have to rip this city to pieces to do so. And those responsible will suffer the fires of hell.”

Great. Something else to look forward to.

Chapter Thirteen

Tara was Ash’s daughter.

How could she have missed that?

She searched through everything that had happened, hunting for a clue, but there had been no hint. It wasn’t as though the two looked anything similar.

No, apparently Tara took after her beautiful mother, who had been pure and good and…

How could you dislike a dead person? She was jealous, and she hated that. The hard lines of Ash’s face had softened when he spoke of Lily.

Faith’s anger had deserted her the minute Ash walked out the door. He’d seemed slightly perplexed by her attitude. And why shouldn’t he be?

She was pretty confused herself.

She’d just had the most mind-blowing orgasm of her life at the hands of a man who she was supposedly spying on. The man whose daughter had been kidnapped by the people she worked for.

Pushing herself up, she peered out of the window. The vehicle Ash had driven her home in was still parked at the curb outside her front door. Faith could make out a figure in the driver’s seat. Her babysitter for the night. Who she wasn’t to let in, because he wasn’t housetrained and an asshole.

They wouldn’t be babysitting her if they knew the truth.

How had her life become so complicated?

What did she really think about Ash? It had been years since she had let a man close like that. She’d had a few relationships, but they never survived the strictures of her job. And her job had always come first.

Maybe Ash attracted her because he was so different. Maybe she’d always gone for nice men because she knew that if it came down to a competition between them and her job, her job would always win out.

Had that changed?

Her head was going to split, though she knew it wasn’t due to her illness.

While she might tell herself that she hadn’t known, that she hadn’t actively set Tara up to be taken, it was her fault. She should have told them immediately about her suspicions. Loyalty to the job was the only thing that kept her silent. And that loyalty was the reason she was guilt-ridden.

The problem was she didn’t know what she wanted to believe.

Either her bosses were in the wrong and they had kidnapped an innocent woman, which would mean the good guys were no longer good. At that point, her whole world would fall apart.

Or her bosses were right, Christian Roth was one of the bad guys, and she was coming to care for a man who was involved in God knew what. The thought brought her up short.

Coming to care for Ash? Since when?

She had no right to care for anyone? Or to lead a man on to think they could have a future together when the truth was she was unlikely to have any sort of future with anyone.

Tomorrow, she would uncover the truth. Somehow. And afterward, she would decide where to go from there.

…

She woke the next morning from an unsettled sleep. She had to go into the hospital on her way to work, and she wasn’t looking forward to that.

Dread weighed her down on so many levels. For the first time, she wished she had someone she could talk things over with, maybe even come with her this morning and hold her hand. How pathetic was that? But she’d relied on herself for too long, and now there was no one she felt comfortable enough with to share her troubles.

A vision of Ash flashed before her eyes. But she was staying away from him until she’d worked out what she should do next.

The truth was, she was entirely alone in the world. At the thought, she rubbed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her forehead. She didn’t know what to do and so much depended on her.

The black vehicle was parked in exactly the same place. A tall guy with a military haircut, but casually dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt, jumped out and shook her hand.

“I’m Guy,” he said. “I’m to stick with you today. Take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Good. I need to drop into the hospital, pick up some paperwork. We can go there first.” At least there were some advantages to this babysitting thing.

…

Faith had believed she was ready for this, but as she sat across from the doctor, she had to fight the urge to put her hands over her ears. Instead, she knotted her fingers tight on her lap to stop the shaking as his monotone words hammered into her brain.

“I’m sorry.” The doctor finally shut up.

She swallowed, then cleared her throat. “Me, too.”

Part of her wanted to just go, curl up in a ball in the dark somewhere, clamp her eyes shut, and just wait for it to happen. Stop fighting the inevitable. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t expected this, but for the first time it really sank in—she was going to die.

Heat washed over her. Then cold. She didn’t want to die. Not now. An image of Ash flashed up in her mind. In that moment, she craved his presence with a desperation she hadn’t known could exist. Needed him to wrap her up in his arms, tell her everything would be all right. Lie to her…

“Is there someone I can call?” the doctor asked.

She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine.”

Another lie. But this was too much on top of everything that was going on in her life. So she took a deep breath and pushed it to the back of her mind. She’d deal with it later. But really, what was there to deal with?

It was just a matter of time.

Only thing was she didn’t know how long.

And there were things she needed to do first. She was acting on autopilot as Guy drove her to the office. Luckily, he didn’t try and talk to her; she wasn’t up to polite conversation.

She sat down at her desk and started up the computer, then punched in her mother’s file, except it was gone. In its place was a label—a single letter—A. She went to her own file, thinking she could use the link that had taken her into the file yesterday. But the link was gone.

She punched up file classifications. “A” was “Archived.”

As she sipped her coffee, she cast her mind back to what she had read the previous day. Her mother’s file had been labeled with an F. She looked the reference up and found it corresponded to “Fund-raiser.”

What the hell did that mean?

She jumped up, strode across the room, and hammered on the colonel’s door, pushing it open without waiting for an answer. The colonel glanced up his eyes narrowing on her.

“Faith, how are you?”

She stepped into the room. “The file on my mother. It’s gone.”

“Not gone. Merely archived. Father O’Brien thought it might be stressful for you. No child should see their parents like that.”

She mulled that over. If it had come from the colonel, she would have considered it a load of bollocks; caring did not seem to be his strong point. But perhaps a priest might think like that.

Then she remembered Father O’Brien’s cold eyes and decided no—whatever the reason her mother’s file was now unavailable—saving her feelings didn’t come into it. Without waiting to be asked, she took the chair opposite the colonel and studied him for a moment.

“Okay, tell me. Why do you think Roth was involved in my mother’s death?”

“Roth was in Carlisle at the time. He was in discussions to buy the company where your mother worked. We believe he met her there.”

Something about this wasn’t right. That night, the front door had opened, she’d heard murmured voices, and a man had stepped into the hallway. And then…nothing.

She had never been able to give the police a description of him. She was sure she’d seen him, but whenever she tried to pull his face into focus, something went blank in her brain.

But he’d been blond, not black-haired. She’d swear on it, but she forced herself to nod. “Why? Why did he kill her?”

“Who knows why these creatures behave as they do. Perhaps he was overcome by hunger. Perhaps he’d always planned to kill her. We don’t know.”

“Where’s Tara Roth?”

The colonel’s eyes narrowed at the change of subject. “She’s safe.”

“I want to be in on the interrogation. If she knows anything…”

“She’s unlikely to know anything about your mother. She was only three years old at the time and had no connection with Roth.”

“Where did she grow up? What about her family?”

“She was brought up in Yorkshire by an aunt—dead now. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father is unknown.”

Or not.

Faith had to convince the colonel that she was willing to believe, that he could trust her. First, she needed to see for herself, hear what Tara Roth knew, and make sure she was being treated okay. At least then Faith could set aside a little of her guilt.

“So, if Roth killed my mother. What are you going to do about it?”

“Good. I knew you would be with us once you learned the facts. So, Roth is a vampire.”

Yeah, of course he was. But she bit back the words and gave an encouraging nod.

“But we know very little about them. We also don’t know what allegiances he has, whether there are others like him. If we go up against him directly, what sort of retaliation can we expect?”

“Have you tried to take him before?”

“Twice. Both times the teams disappeared without trace.”

“So you thought his wife would be an easier target.”

“Exactly.”

He sounded pleased that she’d caught on so quickly. But she couldn’t believe the immorality of his response. You didn’t target innocent people to get to their loved ones.

“We’ll get what information we can from her,” he continued. “Then perhaps use her as leverage against Roth. Maybe even get him working for us, telling us everything he knows.”

He was almost rubbing his hands together.

“So where is she?” she asked again.

“Downstairs.”

“I want to see her.”

“No reason why not. The next session is scheduled for this afternoon.”

The next session—which meant they had already questioned her.

…

Unease had grown inside her, becoming a solid lump in her throat. She tried to swallow it as she followed the colonel down the corridor to the elevator. The colonel bent over the retinal scan, let them through, and they continued down a set of concrete stairs. Below ground all pretense of decoration had been abandoned. The walls were whitewashed and strip lighting ran along the ceiling.

“How’s it going with Ashton Delacourt?” the colonel asked.

“Good,” she replied. Something made her wonder if they were watching her or at least monitoring her movements, so she decided to stick to the truth as much as possible. “We had dinner last night. He says there might be a job for me at CR International. Apparently, they’re recruiting.”

“Good work. That might be useful.”

No way was she going undercover. Then she remembered the doctor’s words that morning. It probably wasn’t going to be an issue anyway.

Finally, the colonel stopped in front of a metal door. He slotted in his card and bent down to clear another retinal scan. The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open and stepped into a small room.

Faith followed him, her throat dry. She didn’t know what she expected, maybe Tara, but the room they entered was empty of everything, including people and furniture. The walls were white except for the one opposite the door, which had a black window of glass running the length of the room.

The colonel stopped by the glass and pressed a button on the wall.

“We’re ready.”

He stepped back. Faith stayed behind him, unable to banish the sense of dread that lay heavy in her stomach.

A light flashed on, revealing the room beyond. The window was a one-way mirror allowing them to watch the interrogation. Then everything stopped as she caught sight of the woman huddled in the corner of the room.

Tara sat on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest, arms wrapped around her. As the light came on, she raised her head and blinked.

Faith swallowed the gasp that rose up in her throat.

The jeans and bright T-shirt were gone. Tara was dressed in gray sweats and a white tank top. The top was stained dark, and it took Faith a moment to realize it was blood. Her lip was swollen and one eye shut. Tearstains tracked down her cheek, and it was the sight of those that broke something inside Faith.

“Is this necessary?”

The colonel cast her a surprised glance. “Remember what Roth is,” he said. “Do you think your mother is the only innocent he has killed over the years? And do you really think this woman could be ignorant of his crimes?”

She looked at Tara again and a wave of heat washed through her, followed by a blast of cold. Why hadn’t she expected this? She’d been deluding herself that the “good guys” wouldn’t hurt an innocent woman. Nausea rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down. The colonel had to believe they were on the same side. “I suppose so,” she said. “Has she told you anything useful yet?”