Authors: Shannon McKenna
“OK, whatever,” he muttered.
“You’ll be safe,” Miles went on. “It’s almost a mile from the main road, and there’s no way the place can be connected to you.”
“Anything new about the transcript?”
“Nothing yet. I tried to find something on the Wycleff Library, but came up blank. I was hoping Kirk could help, but so much for that. He had a packed suitcase, and an e-ticket for Denver. That’s all I know.”
“OK. Thanks, man.”
After he hung up, he set to listening to Kasyanov’s monologue again, to keep his mind busy, since when he let his thoughts run wild, they trampled right through Nina’s head. But the only thing he gleaned from the scrubbed version was that Kasyanov said something that sounded like “party for” before she said “graves.”
Party for graves?
Huh. Sounded like fun. The Wycleff Library reference seemed promising, but he’d had no luck digging on his smartphone, either.
After the sixth time through, he switched it off and turned to her. “The simax those guys were talking about in your apartment,” he said. “It’s got to be p-s-i. Psi-max, as in, maximizing your psi.”
Nina’s brows snapped together. “Makes sense,” she said. “I wish I knew what the hell she was talking about when she says
‘graves.’ ”
“She says it in English,” he said. “Just that one word. In the scrubbed version, it sounds like ‘a party for graves.’ Which makes even less sense. Something hidden in a grave?”
“Brrr,”
she murmured. “I sure hope not.”
“Bruno had to dig up a grave to find something,” he told her.
She gave him a suspicious look. “Get out of here,” she said.
“You mean, moldering corpse and all?”
“Three moldering corpses were involved, as I recall.”
“Well, Helga said she’d been imprisoned for three years, and this drug formula is new. So it’s not languishing in a grave. Thank God.”
They were quiet, each carefully sealed inside themselves as they got closer to Lannis Lake. When they got out of the bus, a cab driver came toward them. “Aaro and Nina?” he asked.
“That’s us,” he said.
The guy had been paid and briefed on address and directions, to Aaro’s relief. Nothing was required of him but sitting in the backseat, slack-jawed with exhaustion, his arm clamped around Nina.
Lakeside Road was narrow and twisty. The driver slowed, and turned into an entrance so overgrown it was barely visible. They got out in front of a cabin by a lake that shimmered in the fading twilight, through trees and undergrowth. The cab bumped away over the rocky driveway. Aaro set out to find the key in the cinder block. There were several of them, all inhabited by spiders. When he finally found it, Nina was gone. He looked around cursing, his heart in his throat, until he saw her on the walkway leading to the floating dock.
Her back was to him, gazing at the water. “We aren’t safe here.”
He pondered that hard truth as he admired her ass from behind. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how they found us before, so I can’t guarantee they won’t find us again.”
“I know how they did.” She turned around, and looked at him, her voice barely audible. “They’re on that drug. Like me.”
He fought the idea. “But Helga said she didn’t give it to them.
They injected it into her, instead. To test it, probably.”
“Maybe not this formula,” Nina said. “But she’s been cooking it for them for three years. They’re all enhanced. In one way or another.”
Feeling powerless always made him feel inexplicably furious.
“And so?” he snarled. “Fuck it. So we run until they get us. So we fight until we die. End of story.”
“Fight with what? We have to use every weapon we have.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing, Nina? Sitting around with my thumb up my ass? I’m being as pro-active as I know how to be!”
“No. I mean . . .” Her voice trailed off, like she was afraid to say it.
“What?” he demanded. “Spit it out!”
“Your aunt said you have talent, too,” she stated. “She said, you never let it out of its cage.”
“Yeah? My aunt said a lot of things. She also spent most of her adult life in a psych ward, stoned out of her mind on anti -
psychotics.”
She hugged herself, gazing at the glassy lake. “I can see how somebody with this ability could wind up in a psych ward. I also think that she knew exactly what she was talking about. About you.”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” he said, through gritted teeth.
She spun on him. “You call what’s happening a fairy tale?”
“No, I call it a cautionary tale! Get the fuck indoors. My skin is crawling.”
The place smelled of dust, mildew. A combined living room and kitchen. Bedrooms and a bath on the far side. The furniture was shrouded in sheets. Picture windows, covered with dark drapes, led out to a big deck that overlooked the lake.
Nina flipped on a light, and Aaro practically jumped out of his skin. “Turn that off! We’ll look like a Christmas tree out here!”
She flipped the light off, enveloping them in shadowy gloom.
“I was just going to look for something to eat. Hard to cook in the dark.”
Aaro’s stomach twitched. He opened the freezer, which was amazingly functional. Some grubbing around yielded a handful of Lean Cuisines. He pulled out five, threw them in the micro -
wave to nuke. “There,” he said. “See? I cooked.”
“Wow,” Nina murmured. “The confidence, the skill, the flair.
That was sexy, Aaro. I love to see a guy strut his stuff in the kitchen.”
It didn’t take much to make his body zing into alertness.
“Yeah? You think that was good?” he asked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
She was silent for a long moment. “Would that be a good idea?”
God, yes. The best idea. The only idea.
“What was it you said yesterday, about seizing the day?”
“Was that only yesterday? Seems like years,” she murmured.
“So, you want to seize the day, Aaro?”
He took a step toward her. “I want to seize everything.”
Startled laughter choked in her throat, making her cough.
“What?” he asked. “What’s so goddamn funny?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just not used to being treated like a sexual object. It still startles me.”
“Get used to it,” he advised.
They stared at each other, and he realized that he was actually enjoying the taut silence, the energy buzzing between them like a wire drawn tight. His body hummed with awareness, hunger.
On impulse, he let out a slow breath, releasing the tension in his head, the locked jaw, the grinding teeth . . . and pictured the vault door, easing open. Heat and light rushed into cramped, tight places. His chest felt suddenly hot, like a furnace blasted out of his chest. It almost hurt.
She took a startled step back. “My God, Aaro,” she whispered.
“It’s what I thought you wanted,” he said. “Lose the clothes, Nina.”
“Wow. My feminist sensibilities are outraged,” she murmured.
“Yeah? I’ll outrage them like they’ve never been outraged before.”
She glowed at him, luminous. Like a torch in the darkness, not to his eyes, but to all his other, secret senses.
She licked her lips. “And I thought that beneath your mask was the heart of a gallant cavalier.”
“No way. This is taking too long, Nina. Are you fucking with me?”
Her smile made his balls tighten. “I’m working up to it,” she said.
“Work faster,” he suggested.
Miles stared morosely out the window of Lily’s hospital room. Wondering if sending them to the cabin was the right thing to do. Hey, what could possibly go wrong? He suppressed a bark of laughter.
He glanced down at the smartphone, dangling from his fingers. Thinking of fingers was a mistake. The image of Kirk’s mangled hands and feet made his belly seize up. He’d been wishing for something to drive the image of Cindy banging the rocker out of his mind. But at this point, Cindy and her rocker would be a relief.
Lily wandered over to look out the window with him. “I’m so sorry you had to see that this morning.”
“I’m all right. You’re not supposed to be on your feet, are you?”
“That’s right,” Bruno said, from the door. “Get back in bed, Lil.” A few strides brought him over to her. He swept her up into his arms.
She swatted at him. “Stop that! I’m huge! You’ll hurt yourself!”
“I can carry you both,” he said, hauling her to the bed. “I think you just get up because you get off on it when I sweep you off your feet.”
“I’m just sick of lying down,” she complained.
Bruno leaned down and kissed her, so thoroughly that Miles had to curl his lip and avert his eyes. Public displays of passion stuck in his craw these days. At great length, the kissy-face sounds eased off.
“Do you think they’ll really be safe there?” Lily asked fretfully.
Miles shrugged. “Not particularly.”
Bruno gave him the hairy eyeball, and Miles glared back at him, defiant. “What do you want from me? You want me to lie to her?”
“Yeah,” Bruno said truculently. “What the fuck is the matter with you, man? Why upset the pregnant lady?”
Lily patted her guy’s shoulder. “Nothing would upset me as much as being lied to.”
Miles shook his head. “I just feel like I’m missing something.”
“That’s because you are,” Bruno said. “I’m sorry about that guy this morning, but you’re not the only one feeling bad. Remember that.”
Fuck you, man.
He walked out. Bruno called out after him, but he strode on without turning. He was in too foul a mood to make nice.
He headed out to his truck. There might still be someone in the faculty office to talk to. He had to keep moving, keep active, or those images of Kirk would pile up on him and suffocate him.
He tooled around on his smartphone for coordinates. Back to Wentworth. Same road he’d taken this morning, but that was a different Miles. A callow guy, obsessed with the cheating ex-girlfriend. Now all he saw in his mind’s eye was the professor, without his fingers and toes. And various other important bits of business.
He parked outside the science faculty building, and hesitated before getting out, thinking of one of Sean McCloud’s many lectures about maximizing his assets.
You got the looks, but you’ve gotta
work it! The biceps alone would get you noticed! Back straight, hair
slicked back. You’re a six-five beefcake! Chest out! You’ve got good teeth!
Use them!”
“And the nose?” he’d asked drily, fingering his schnoz.
“Be grateful for the nose. The nose pulls it all together and makes it
special. Otherwise you’re just another pretty face.”
That last bit was just spin, but whatever. He shrugged off his jacket to better display the results of all those hours in the gym.
Gazed at his face in the mirror. Pallid, haunted. Not very pretty.
Fuck it. His looks weren’t important enough to command his attention right now.
The faculty office had a subdued atmosphere of shock and grief. People in the office were bunched up in tight groups, nervously muttering. Some wept. One hefty old dame with an iron-gray cap of hair and a body like a brick approached him. “Can I help you, sir?”
He tried flashing the teeth at her. She looked grimly unmoved.
“Ah, yes. My name is Miles Davenport,” he offered. “I was wondering if I could speak to Dr. Joseph Kirk’s personal assistant.”
“We all helped Professor Kirk,” she said. “You can talk to me.”
Okay, fine. He regrouped, and dug out a card. “I’m with a private investigative agency. Professor Kirk’s family has hired me to look into—”
“Are you a journalist?” she demanded.
He blinked. “Uh, no, as I said, I’m with a private—”
“The police have already been here.”
“I’m collaborating with the police,” he said, though it wasn’t quite true. Only a matter of time, though. He would indeed col-laborate with the police, at the earliest opportunity, and to the very best of his abilities. “The professor’s family—”
“Professor Kirk had no family,” she said triumphantly. “His ex-wife died years ago. His daughter disappeared last year.”
“I’m looking into that, too. I was hired by Lara’s cousin.”
Leetle bitty stretch, that one. “I’m trying to figure out if what happened to Professor Kirk is connected to his daughter’s disappearance. I know that he was planning on traveling today, to Denver. Do you know why?”
The woman folded her arms over her large chest and stuck out her chin, studying him. He gazed back. No bullshit with the pearly whites or the biceps was going to work with this Amazon.
He went for the earnest, sincere, grim and yet studly vibe. A Davy McCloud approach. Easier to execute than sparkling charm.
She scrutinized him, gave him a nod. “Come on back, then.”
He followed as she stumped through cubicles. He drew curious glances as he went, but kept his eyes trained on the Amazon.
This was her domain. If anyone had the goods to give up, it was going to be her.
She led him into a small, crowded office. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you, but Joseph was sick with worry after Lara disappeared, so thank the good Lord if someone is trying to find her. The poor girl doesn’t have anyone left to nag the police.
You’ll keep looking for her?”
He opened his mouth to explain that he actually hadn’t made any progress on Lara Kirk’s disappearance, since he had just learned of her existence yesterday. He met her anxious, reddened eyes, and stopped.
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
She looked satisfied. “Good. Now, I already told all this to the police, but I’m not sure how well they were listening.”
“Did you ever meet her?” he asked.
“Joseph brought her by last spring. Beautiful girl. Talented, too. Joseph showed me a catalog of her sculptures once. I’m not one for visual art, but even I could see she had something special.
Joseph was so proud. When she disappeared, he . . .” Her mouth began to shake.
Miles discreetly turned his head, and caught sight of another Lara picture on the professor’s desk. Lara, in a bathing suit, hoisting herself up onto a wooden dock. Her slim, curvy body was beaded with drops of water. Innocent, fresh, drop-dead, blow-your-mind gorgeous.