Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
“Don’t go anywhere, baby,” he breathed. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
And Mac couldn’t stop herself from grabbing his arm. She couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Who
are
you?”
Shane laughed again—more heat in the darkness, his breath warm against her cheek. “Funny, I was going to ask
you
that. Right after I asked the more important question: Can we do that again?”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” she managed.
He leaned in to kiss her, longer this time, slower, and she felt herself melting against him. “Hmm,” he said. And then he got off the bed, but not to vanish into the kitchen. Instead he went to the window and pulled up the shade, just a little. Just enough to let some silvery light shine into the room so that Mac could see him. So that he could see her.
“That’s better,” he said, as he rejoined her on the bed, smiling into her eyes. He then proceeded to look her over very thoroughly.
Mac laughed as he turned her over slightly, then lifted first one of her arms and then the other. “What are you—”
“So far no tattoos,” he confirmed. “Although maybe under that sock …”
Her ankle barely hurt at all anymore, and she reached down and pulled off her sock. She wiggled her toes, rotated her foot to the left and then to the right. She’d always healed faster when she had sex, but she’d been right. Because this time? It had been off-the-charts.
“Wow, it really doesn’t look that bad,” Shane said.
“It cramps sometimes,” she said—again not a lie, but not exactly the truth. “But see? No tattoos.”
“Hmm,” he said. “One more place to check …” He gently but very firmly pushed open her legs as she laughed again. “Definitely no tattoos. Although maybe I should look more closely …”
Smiling, she pushed herself up onto her elbows to watch him as he kissed the inside of her thigh.
Shane looked up into her eyes, smiling back at her. “For the record,” he said. “If you want more? I’m
always
ready. And if I’m not? I’ll improvise.” He looked back down at her, then met her eyes one more time before leaning in to kiss her again. And again. And …
Mac heard herself moan.
And this time?
She came in slow motion, with her fingers laced through Shane Laughlin’s beautiful hair.
The line between being a man and a god was a thin one that was far too easy for a Greater-Than to cross.
Bach couldn’t help but think about that as he drove Anna Taylor to the Obermeyer Institute.
She hadn’t given him her consent.
Of course, once they arrived at the Institute, and she saw the guard at the gate and the sign-in procedure, she’d feel more at ease. And then she’d see the bustle of activity, even this late at night. And
then
she’d meet Elliot and talk to him, and all of her remaining doubts would vanish. Elliot had that effect on people.
Elliot would also help Bach explain who had taken Nika and why.
Until then, Bach had to keep up the constant reassurances so that Anna wouldn’t panic—which meant that he was going to spend the next twenty minutes inside of her.
And okay,
that
came out wrong. Even as just a fleeting thought, shared with absolutely no one, it was inappropriate.
He was going to spend the next twenty minutes
inside of her head
.
Which was probably a thousand times more intimate than any sexual act could ever be.
Bach carefully double-shielded his own thoughts, because letting
slip the fact that he was thinking, even peripherally, about sex right now, while he
was
inside of Anna’s head … That wouldn’t be good.
He focused on the positive. He
was
going to find Nika.
Still, he could feel Anna’s discomfort rising as he signaled for the entrance ramp onto the Mass Pike. He glanced over to find her watching him, her dark brown eyes wide, and her pretty face illuminated by the light from the dash.
“We’re going to find your sister,” he said, echoing the very words he was planting in her mind, along with
Joe Bach can be trusted, you’re safe with him, everything will be explained at the Obermeyer Institute
. “But it’ll help me to know the details of her abduction—who was the last person who saw her and when. Do you know if she made it to school today, or was she grabbed before she got there?”
Anna nodded. Bach knew she believed that the sooner they found her sister, the better—although she had no
real
idea of the danger that Nika was in, that she herself was in, too. She was also a firm believer in action, and she hated the fact that—for at least the next twenty minutes—she was being forced to sit still.
And even though Bach was inside of her head, there was a difference between providing calming assurances—and tromping around, uninvited, while helping himself to her memories and thoughts. He also knew that talking about this would make her feel—at least a little bit—as if she were doing
something
to help get her sister back.
“The last person to see Nika,” Anna told him, “that I know of, so far, is her English Lit teacher, Erika Hodgeman. I spoke to her on the phone. Nika was in her final class of the day. Nothing seemed unusual, she wasn’t upset, she’d handed her homework assignment in, aced a pop quiz. I asked Ms. Hodgeman if she knew whether Nika had made any new friends recently, and …” Anna shook her head. “She said she didn’t really know, but that Nika came into class alone, and left alone. Same way she always did.”
“So she left school,” Bach said through Anna’s burst of sadness that her little sister was still struggling to fit in, “at
what
time?”
“At 2:27,” she told him, and then smiled wanly at his questioning glance. “She texted me then. See, I’m usually there to meet her—I make a point to walk her home after school—we meet at the corner. But I got a call that morning, for a job interview. So I texted Nika, telling her where I’d be. She texted me back after classes were over, at 2:27, with a
good luck
.”
“Where was the interview?” Bach asked.
“Downtown,” Anna said, frowning slightly. There was something bothering her about it—the interview.
So he pushed. “What was it for?”
“Does that matter?” she asked.
“It might.”
She sighed, then said, “It was for a secretarial position at Montgomery and Lowden, a law firm specializing in bankruptcies. It’s down near Government Center. I knew when I walked in that it was a waste of time. They were looking for someone older. There was confusion, too, about my appointment. I wasn’t on the list and they didn’t even have my résumé on file. So that was … awkward.”
“And yet someone called you to go in,” he pointed out.
She looked at him again, and he could both see and feel her realization. And as she suddenly turned and opened her daypack, he knew she was looking for her cell phone.
He watched her, one eye on the road, as she searched.
She was lovely, with a riot of dark curls cascading down her back, and dark brown eyes that would’ve revealed everything she was feeling, even if he hadn’t set up camp in her mind. Her face was pretty enough, with gorgeous mocha-colored skin and a smooth complexion, but it wouldn’t launch one ship, let alone a thousand—until she smiled.
When she’d smiled …
He tried to dissect what he’d seen, so that it would make sense, but it didn’t and he couldn’t. Her mouth was a mouth, perhaps slightly more generous than most, with lips that made him think a little too much about the simple pleasure of a kiss, so much so that he had to stop watching her and focus on the road.
It was strange, what he was feeling. Strange—and unwelcome.
Bach had always felt that he was lucky. He appreciated beautiful women. He enjoyed their company, their conversation, their companionship. But he’d never let himself get sidetracked or distracted by sexual attraction. He’d succeeded in shutting down that part of himself.
And if he ever did feel a glimmer of desire’s deep pull, it was never something that he couldn’t immediately control.
It made his life significantly less complicated.
Back in the monastery, there had been quite a few Greater-Thans who’d had trouble with the idea of celibacy. And, as Bach had found out tonight, Stephen Diaz apparently still struggled with their monk-like lifestyle.
But Bach never had.
His theory was that he’d succeeded, at an early age, in completely and irrevocably linking sexual attraction to the idea of romantic love. He hadn’t done it on purpose—it had just happened that way, for him. And if the war hadn’t interrupted, he and sweet Annie Ryan would’ve been one of those couples who’d married after high school and lived out their lives in deep contentment and harmony.
But the war
had
interrupted. The war—and a whole lot more.
And now Annie was gone, and Bach was alone. And since love at first sight was a ridiculous concept—one
couldn’t
love someone they didn’t know, the idea was absurd—he’d traveled through most of his life certain in his knowledge that, because he didn’t love? He didn’t desire.
Enter Anna Taylor. Whose richly complex mind Bach had entered with barely any hesitation.
Whom he certainly now knew a whole lot better than he had ten minutes ago.
She’d found her phone, and scrolled her way back to the call she’d received earlier that day. “It’s a 781 area code,” she told him triumphantly. “They called me to come in for the job interview just before noon.”
“Don’t use your phone to call them back,” he said, handing her his own phone. “Use mine. And after you input the number, shut your own phone off.”
He felt her doubt surge. Who was he, what was she doing in his car, and why should she trust him?
Joe Bach will find Nika
.
Joe Bach will never hurt you
.
All of your questions will be answered.…
He felt her surrender again, and she did as he’d instructed, keying the number into his phone, and then putting it to her ear so she could listen, her arms crossed, her face intense, her eyes slightly unfocused.
“It’s ringing,” she murmured, glancing at him.
Bach nodded, and activated the backup phone that was here in the car, pushing the buttons on the steering wheel that would connect him with OI. “If it goes to voice mail, don’t leave a message,” he advised her, and she nodded.
And then he could feel her disappointment as she cut the connection. “It just stopped ringing,” she reported, “and then there was a beep.”
Over at OI, Elliot picked up. “I see from your GPS that you’re on your way back in.”
“I am,” Bach said. “With Anna Taylor. You’re on speaker. We have a phone number that we want looked up. You want to connect me to—”
“Hell no, Maestro. I can do it,” Elliot said. “Piece of cake. Hello, Anna, sister of Nika Taylor. What’s the number?”
Bach glanced at Anna, who read the digits off his phone.
“I’m Elliot, by the way. I’ll meet you when you get here and … Huh. According to our computer, that number belongs to an as-of-yet unactivated disposable cell phone.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Anna said.
“It actually does,” Bach told her. “If a hacker had access to the number—”
“Hang on
just
a sec,” Elliot interrupted. “I’m getting a little
more info.… It’s part of the Blacklight communication network, and they sell both their hardware and airware at …” He sighed dramatically. “Just about every mega-store in America. Sorry. That doesn’t help you very much at all, does it? Did you get a ransom call from that number?”
“No,” Bach answered him. “But someone used it to call Anna—Miss Taylor—to make sure she was tied up at the time she usually walks Nika home from school—which was when we believe the girl was kidnapped.”
Anna was pissed. And upset with herself. “I should’ve called the firm to verify.”
“Why would you?” Bach asked her. “It was a job interview. Whoever did this knew you were looking for work. And that’s probably not all they know about you. I think we can be thankful they didn’t use a more permanent approach to get you out of the picture, right from the start.”
The next girl’s family was probably not going to be that lucky.
From over at OI, Elliot said, “I got your ETA at about ten minutes. We’ll be ready for you.”
“Thanks,” Bach said. “Hempford’s status?” He asked, even though he knew the answer. It was kind of obvious, since Elliot was not only out by the computers, but he’d taken the time to track down the cell phone info, instead of handing it off to a subordinate.
“I’m sorry, Joseph. He didn’t make it,” Elliot told him.
Shit
. “I want to know what this man had in common with every other addict who jokered at first use,” Bach said. “I want details. Nothing should be considered insignificant or irrelevant.”
“I’m already on it,” Elliot said. “His bathroom was blue. His car was a BMW. He wore silk boxers. He was married to his third wife, who was thirty-one years younger. He drank boutique merlot, shipped from Sonoma, California. He graduated from Boston College in 1985 …”
“Over and out,” Bach said, and cut the connection.
“Jokered,” Anna Taylor said as she gazed at him. She repeated his words.
“Every other addict who jokered …?”
Bach nodded. Maybe this was a good place to start the explanations. “You ever watch
Batman
?”
“The old movie. With … was it George Clooney?”
“Clooney played Batman, too. But I’m thinking of the one with Christian Bale. There’s this character, a super-villain, who calls himself the Joker. He’s particularly frightening because he’s completely insane.”
Anna was watching him, listening carefully. “And addicts who
joker
…”
“Are drug users who lose their minds,” he told her. “There’s something in this particular drug that makes a significant portion of the population go insane.”
“Crystal meth?” she asked anxiously. “Because I think one of my neighbors is a meth user.”
“Not meth.” Bach shook his head. “This is where,” he told her as he took the exit for Route 30, “it gets a little strange.”