Incriminating Evidence (14 page)

She was going to die.

A
lec drove far too fast on the rutted dirt road and arrived at Isabel’s cabin less than twenty minutes after their call had abruptly cut off. After he lost connection with her, he’d dialed Nicole and instructed her to rouse Falcon and send them to Isabel’s. He estimated the team was five minutes behind him.

The night was still and quiet at her cabin. The only indication something had occurred was the shattered front window. A breeze stirred the wildflowers as he climbed out of the vehicle, causing them to ripple in a shadowed, sepia-hued wave. The calm normalness of it set his nerves on edge.

He scanned the area, then decided to approach the cabin head-on. With his pistol in a two-handed grip, he darted for the front door. He should wait for backup but feared Isabel didn’t have that sort of time. “Isabel?” he shouted through the shattered window.

No hurled rock had broken the double-pane window. The glass had fractured across the entire surface—just like his car windshield. A high-pitched sound wave had probably shattered it—similar to infrasound but a different frequency.

With his back to the wall, he twisted the knob on the front door—it was unlocked—and shoved it open. He entered, gun out, shifting from target to target until he was certain the room was clear.

There was no sign of Isabel, but the room was a wreck. The couch was on its side, lodged in the archway between living room and kitchen. Bookshelves lay facedown on the floor, with the contents scattered beneath.

What the hell?

“Isabel?” he called out again.

An eerie screech came from the corner, behind an overturned end table. Alec crouched down and saw wide, glowing eyes. Gandalf. Cowering. Was he injured?

He reached toward the cat, slowly, tentatively. “Where’s Isabel?” he asked the cat, feeling foolish even as he said the words. Gandalf didn’t hiss or strike out, and Alec stroked the soft fur. The cat mewed in a way that seemed to signal Alec’s touch was okay. He wanted to pull the creature out and check for injuries, but he needed to find Isabel first.

He stood and hit the Redial button on his cell, hoping to hell she’d answer this time. He startled when the tinny notes of a muffled song—he recognized the tune as “Call Me Maybe”—filled the cabin. The chorus repeated. The song was a ringtone.

She’d had the phone for only a few hours, and she’d downloaded “Call Me Maybe” for his ringtone. He was fairly certain he knew what that meant. He’d celebrate that little victory as soon as he knew she was okay.

He followed the music, but it cut out before he could find the phone. He dialed again and searched the kitchen, which looked normal in comparison to the overturned living room.

The sound came from under the range.

He plucked out the phone. The screen was cracked. It must have taken a fall before it slid beneath the appliance.

Where the hell was Isabel?

Chapter Eleven

I
sabel jolted awake, unsure what had pulled her from sleep. Then she heard it again. The song was playing. Someone was calling her. Not just someone. Alec. That was his ringtone.

She groaned and rolled over in her bed, then yelped at a sharp pain that shot up her wrist. What the hell? Her wrist throbbed. She was bleary and her head hurt as if she’d had too much to drink, and she couldn’t remember how she’d injured her wrist. Her stomach rolled. Had she vomited?

How much did I drink?

She’d had half a beer at the Roadhouse. Given the pain in her head, she felt like she’d had several. Maybe she’d opened a bottle of wine after Alec left? It seemed like she’d remember that.

“Isabel?” someone shouted from the living room.

She pulled her pillow over her head and groaned. Bad enough he’d called and woken her, but he was
here
?

Was it morning already? The gray light through the window hadn’t given much hint as to time, and she wasn’t a fan of opening her eyes to check the clock.

No way could she hike out with him today. All she wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep off the worst hangover of her life. “Go away,” she muttered into the mattress.

“Jesus, Iz. I was scared to death. What happened?”

“Leave me alone. I just need sleep.”

“You need to tell me what happened. I heard the explosion.”

He could hear her head exploding? That made no sense. “Nothing happened. I just have a hangover. Go away.” She curled into a ball, then whimpered when she again put her weight on her wrist. “Why does my wrist hurt?” she whispered. She turned over and met Alec’s concerned gaze. “Did I drink too much last night?”

Oh God. What if she’d had too much to drink and slept with Alec? She glanced at her alarm clock. It was just after one in the morning. Why else would he be here this time of night?

Alec swore and sat on the edge of the bed, which bounced under his weight, causing a spike of pain in her miserable head. “No, honey. Unless you tied one on after I left, but somehow I doubt it. You called me less than a half hour ago. Someone was shooting bear bangers outside the cabin. Then the window shattered, and you were in pain. Our call cut out right after I heard an explosion.” He took her hand and gently probed her wrist. “I drove straight here. Falcon team will be here any second. I just found your phone under the range.”

“I called you?” She shook her head, but that was a mistake. Her stomach lurched again.

He brushed a loose curl from her forehead. “I think you were hit by infrasound. I suspect it’s how I was attacked yesterday, and may be what happened to Vin.”

She closed her eyes and tried to remember. Bear bangers, pain, and an explosion?

The pain part sounded right.

Noise in the front room indicated Falcon had arrived. Alec left her alone to get dressed and met with his team.

She could hear the low hum of intense conversation through the door, but her head hurt too much to make sense of it. Was this how Alec had felt Thursday evening when he came to? If so, no wonder he’d been disoriented and attacked her. If anything, he had to have felt even worse, given the blow to the head on top of general malaise.

And she’d really like to know what had happened to her wrist.

She drank a large glass of water, popped two ibuprofen, and entered her tiny living room, which was overrun by Raptor operatives rearranging her furniture. Even Nicole was here. The only member of Falcon missing was Ted Godfrey.

Could Ted be the man who’d shot the bear bangers? She tried to remember, but the whole event felt just beyond her reach.

Alec hung back as Nicole checked out Isabel’s wrist and demanded an ice pack, which Nate Sufentes—who’d been one of Vin’s closest friends—promptly provided.

“Thanks, Nate,” Isabel said. Through it all, she felt Alec’s gaze, watching her interact with his team. Until he saw her talking with Brad at the tavern, he’d likely been oblivious to how well she knew everyone, and she wondered what he thought now that he knew his own people hadn’t vilified her for her crusade, or declared her crazy—at least, not to her face.

“Where’s Gandalf?” she asked.

“He was hiding in the corner, behind the table, when I arrived,” Alec said. “But he took off through the pet door as soon as everyone showed up.”

That made sense. Gandalf didn’t like strangers. She’d been surprised he’d tolerated Alec earlier, but then, she’d been gone overnight, and he was late getting fed. “He was okay?”

“He was scared, but when he ran out, he didn’t seem to be injured,” Alec said.

That was a relief, but she would worry until she saw him for herself. She settled into the couch, listening to the operatives discuss what might have happened. Slowly, the nasty hangover feeling lifted—far faster than it would have if she’d really had too many drinks.

She rubbed her head and closed her eyes, trying desperately to remember the call she’d made to Alec. Flashes of memory returned, as he filled in his side of the conversation. The bear bangers sounded familiar—but then, it had happened a few other times—she could be remembering another night.

Her living room window was gone, now a puddle of glass that glistened in the glow of the sconce gaslights, and her furniture was all skewed, the bookshelf next to the mantle overturned. She paused, her gaze on the lights. Between the wall-mounted gaslights and her stark furnishing, there wasn’t a lot that would be damaged if there’d been an explosion outside that caused the earth to shake. There were no lamps to smash or bric-a-brac to shatter. She wasn’t a bric-a-brac sort of person.

In her mind, she had a déjà vu-type image of her couch mid-tumble, the shelf toppling. She’d witnessed a massive earthquake in her living room.

She slowly rose and crossed the short distance to the mantle. Conversation and speculation around her stopped as she bent down to retrieve the photo of her and Vin, which lay on the floor. She turned it to the dim light and saw the hairline crack that split the glass, a rift between siblings that hadn’t been there hours ago when Alec studied the photo.

She couldn’t help it; her eyes teared at the symbolic but all too real fracture. She closed them against the burn and again saw her furniture in flight. She’d slammed into the back door, her wrist taking the brunt of impact. She’d twisted to see the damage, viewing the living room through the kitchen archway. The coffee table had rolled left, the couch right.

“My computer was on the coffee table before the earthquake.”

“Earthquake?” Alec asked.

“For lack of a better word. The explosion that upended the room… There was no fire. No smoke. But it wrecked the room like an earthquake. It’s why the furniture was jumbled.” She glanced around the room. “But where is my computer?”

Chapter Twelve

A
lec found the news article on his cell phone and recited the web address for everyone so they too could load it on their phones. He then settled next to Isabel so she could read along with him.

Pentagon Eyes Nonexplosive Airwave Weapon as Nonlethal Solution

Simon Barstow, the CEO of Apex, a private security and nonlethal weapons manufacturing company based in Oregon, was in Virginia yesterday showing the Pentagon his company’s latest innovation: Airwave®, a nonlethal—if used at a safe distance—weapon Barstow claims is ideal for crowd control.

Airwave, a pulsed energy projectile, shoots a plasma beam, which heats air so quickly it causes the air to “explode” without fire or spark. The exploding air is felt as a shock wave, which contains enough force to upend people and objects in its path. In a demonstration presented to military officials, a midsize sedan targeted from twenty-five feet away rocked heavily, while test dummies ten feet away were lifted and hurled up to five feet.

“I received a briefing on Wednesday, right before the Pentagon demonstration,” Alec said after he finished reading. “And saw the article Thursday morning. I’d planned to discuss Barstow’s experimentation with nonlethals during today’s meeting with Keith Hatcher.”