Raven (Kindred #1) (35 page)

Sunday. All Grant had told her was that he would pick her up after three. It ended up being almost five by the time she got the call. When he did arrive, he was in the van she had hired for him. She got in, received a muted hello and then the journey was silent until she couldn’t take it anymore.

He hadn’t told her where they were going, but they were heading south in the direction of McCormack Manor, not that she assumed that was their destination. The sun would be setting in an hour or two and she didn’t relish the idea of being alone in the dark under threat of attack.

“Is Sutcliffe coming alone?” she asked, speaking loud enough that her words could be heard over the pounding of her heartbeat.

“He’s bringing two men,” he said and added some reassurance before she could voice dismay. “They will only be there to load the device securely in the back of their vehicle for transport.”

She and Grant were alone, without back-up, and she was disturbed by the idea of how they would hold up against two trained thugs. Grant was a novice in these sort of dangerous, clandestine affairs, and she feared that he hadn’t considered everything that could go wrong.

Despite the termination of their intimate relationship, she wanted to know that Raven was perched on a roof nearby with his crosshairs pinned to anyone who might do her harm. But there was no hope of that. No one knew they were here or that this meeting was happening.

Grant drove into an abandoned docking area past a broken fence and over a rusted chain that was strewn across the concrete road. The irony was, if it wasn’t for all of the condemned warehouses and the towering cranes, they would probably be able to see the McCormack peninsula from here. Her former sanctuary was just a couple of miles away.

Heading toward a mildew covered, grey corrugated building, she read the word “Atlas” in flaking faded paint on the half sign left hanging above the massive entrance. Driving inside, she saw nothing but bare concrete, rusted pipes and stairways, and stripped down machinery, long since forgotten. The roofless structure hadn’t endured well in the sea air. The windows had rusted and there was broken glass scattered between the weeds growing through the cracks in the structure.

The setting was apt, yet unexpected because enough money was being exchanged today that this could have been done at the Ritz. The point of the location was secrecy. A deal could be done here, property exchanged, and there would be no evidence that the incident had ever happened.

But the isolation that reassured Sutcliffe and Grant only concerned her. Grant maneuvered the vehicle so that it was inside, parallel to the entrance, facing a sidewall, and then he cut the engine. They were here. It was time. She tried to be discreet about wiping the sweat from her palms onto her knee-length skirt, but her nerves were making her shake.

She didn’t notice anyone else. But their position meant they’d have their backs to the space when they climbed out of the vehicle. Being vulnerable and unaware like that increased her agitation.

Grant got out first, showing no fear, but she wished she had the Kindred in her ear or a camera on her necklace for them to keep an eye on proceedings. Before she had a chance to leave the van, another engine rumbled and in Grant’s side mirror was the reflection of an identical van pulling up beside theirs. Jumping out before the newcomers had a chance to alight their vehicle, Zara hurried to catch up with Grant who was opening the back of their van.

In the hold was a single metallic case and a brown box, less than a meter cubed. “That’s the device?” she asked him.

“Eight of them plus a control grid,” he said, stopping the doors at right angles to where they had been.

“Eight,” she said, having not considered the potential of selling multiple devices. “How did you have eight assembled so quickly?”

Grant grinned and slapped his hands together, invigorated by their progress. “Are you kidding? Sutcliffe wanted twenty of them originally. This is the last of the stock brought down from Quebec before the accident. Two of them are prototype units, but we won’t tell him that,” he said, leaning in to talk from the corner of his mouth like this was all one big joke. “Speed was more important to him than quantity. Bids were per unit. He requested the lesser number because he knew we could deliver fast.”

So that was why his bid had been accepted. Grant made it seem like the deal wasn’t about money. In truth, he’d just wanted the deal done and the cash in his account. Sutcliffe’s flexibility provided him the opportunity for that. The other bidders would have ordered more units, thus requiring Grant to create another Winter Chill plant.

“Why didn’t you sell a lesser number to all three bidders?”

“Exclusivity makes a deal more lucrative” he said and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You know that.”

How he could be treating this like any other business deal still eluded her. Her ears were beginning to ring as her consciousness slid out of reality. This couldn’t be happening. She shouldn’t be standing here at Grant’s side. She should have blown the lid off the deal. But without evidence to show authorities, they would never have taken her seriously. And Brodie had taught her about the consequences of threatening to reveal a plot. If Grant hadn’t killed her then Sutcliffe or one of the others would have.

“The viruses are in the case,” Grant said and handed her their vehicle keys.

“Viruses,” she murmured.

“Yeah, they should be refrigerated, so we should probably haul ass.”

His jubilation had to be nervous energy. She couldn’t believe that he was actually excited about what was going to take place here. The other engine stopped and Grant headed away from her in the direction of the second vehicle to greet Sutcliffe.

Alone, she stared into the almost empty van. This was a nondescript vehicle, which was much larger than they needed. The only reason she could decipher for using such a mode of transport was to divert future investigators. If Game Time was unleashed, the authorities would eventually trace the device back to here. Using an unmarked van with misleading dimensions might delay them in finding out the truth.

In that split second, Zara imagined the news stories, how they would start with an unusual outbreak of some disease and then the panic that would ensue. No one would know the truth until it was too late and Zara dreaded the potential of what lay ahead.

And eight devices! Eight. One could lead to so much needless death, and Grant was handing over eight. They could be positioned to poison cities, to wipe out civilizations of people who didn’t subscribe to the bearer’s ideologies.

“Your fair woman, Miss. Bandini!”

Sutcliffe’s voice made her spin around. Grant and his buyer were moving into the void of the warehouse a dozen feet from where she was at the back of the van. They were drinking something and it took her a minute to realize it was champagne. Horrified that they could be celebrating, her mouth fell open, but when two stocky figures appeared around the shielding van door, she stumbled back and forgot about the alcohol.

Sutcliffe chuckled and came over to hand her a flute, then took her arm to lead her over to Grant’s position. “You have nothing to fear. They are my men,” Sutcliffe said and raised his glass. “To good friends and deals done.”

Grant and Sutcliffe’s glasses met and then touched hers before they sipped, but she wasn’t in the mood to rejoice, so she didn’t drink.

Sutcliffe sipped from his flute a second time. “I am sure you will get to know my men very well. This deal will be the first of many. I can feel it. We’re going to do great work together cleansing our polluted world.”

He wasn’t talking about chemical pollution. He meant people and the word ‘cleanse’ made her nauseous. Sutcliffe’s goons spent time examining the van door and the packages without touching anything and she wondered what they were expecting to find.

“What are they doing?” she asked, observing their scrutiny.

“A formality,” Sutcliffe said, shaking an aloft hand in a flippant gesture. “They’re confirming everything is in order and that nothing has been rigged.”

Rigged for what? Neither she nor Grant were explosive experts and if the packages went up in smoke then she and Grant would go right along with them. Glancing at a sheathed knife on the hip of one lackey, she gasped and the condensation on her champagne flute made the chalice slip out of her fingers.

The delicate glass shattered on the dirty concrete. But before she could apologize or even look up from the mess, one of Sutcliffe’s men staggered, bounced off the truck door, and collapsed onto the floor. The second man fell less than a second later and she was still gawping at their prone forms when Sutcliffe and Grant leapt away and ran to the shadows beneath a crumbling stairway.

“Zara,” Grant hissed. She whirled around to see him cowering beside Sutcliffe who was on the ground wearing a grimace and clutching his leg.

It didn’t click to her what had happened until she looked back at the men sprawled on the ground behind the van. A dark, wet stain began to seep onto the floor beneath them and she got it. They were dead. Someone had shot them. A sniper. A sharpshooter…

Spinning on the spot, she fixated upward to the empty space where the roof had once been and examined the buildings overlooking theirs.

Brodie was out there.

She couldn’t see him—couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary—but she didn’t need to. He was there. Somehow, he knew where they were, he was watching, and he’d mistaken her mishap for a signal, for the signal.

Grant began to snap his fingers to get her attention and found more volume. “Zara! Get over here!” he insisted.

“A sniper!” Sutcliffe wailed, rocking and rubbing his leg. “You double-crossing, good for nothing—“

“No,” Grant said. The party was over and his delight was replaced by fear and anger. “No, this wasn’t us.”

When their eyes locked, Zara knew he was thinking of his brother. But Grant’s annoyance seeped away as it was overtaken by an expression of shock. There in the doorway was another person, who moved around Sutcliffe’s van and into the open space of the warehouse with his hands up to show that he had no weapon. Though if Brodie was still on a nearby roof, this man didn’t need a weapon.

“Art,” Grant exhaled.

She remained in place, swinging in the wind between her faction’s shelter and the van containing the weapon. No one was paying her any attention and she had no fear that Brodie would put a bullet in her. If he’d wanted to, she’d have gone down after Sutcliffe’s men.

In a cool, soothing tone, Art spoke clearly, almost like a professional negotiator. “We’re here to resolve this. We’re here to tell you no deal will be done today,” Art said, maintaining his focus on Grant.

“You keep out of this! It’s nothing to do with you,” Grant barked. “You put him up there, didn’t you? This was your doing! You came to ruin this!”

Unruffled, Art didn’t react to Grant’s anger, which was why he’d have come to make this connection as opposed to Brodie. Art knew how to keep his cool. Brodie was too volatile to make first contact in this kind of fraught scenario.

“We came to make you see sense and we’re family, boy. Someone suggested talk might get through to you. You’re not alone. You’re one of us… you don’t have to do this. Whatever the problem is, we’ll figure it out as a family.”

“One of you?” Grant said in a voice so dark she might almost have mistaken him for Brodie. “You came to talk me down because he could never bring himself to talk to me. I’m not one of you, he’d never let that happen.”

“What the hell is this?” Sutcliffe asked, still sniveling.

Sutcliffe hadn’t been hit, as far as she’d seen anyway, but his tone suggested that he was in pain. There was no time for her to speculate about his injuries and no one answered Sutcliffe’s question because another person materialized in the entrance, and the whole room went into suspended animation.

Her shock wasn’t exclusive; Grant had to feel it too. This was the last person who she ever would have expected to show himself. It was Brodie, tall and merciless in his dark jeans and leather jacket. There was no weapon in his hand, and he didn’t spare her or the men he’d killed a glance.

Without a flicker of emotion, he went to Art’s side, and then moved a few steps further, stopping only when he was about equidistance from her in relation to Grant. She was right in the middle of the two brothers, but Grant was the sole aim of Brodie’s focus.

“You’re one dumb motherfucker, Saint,” Brodie said in that husky snarl that her body immediately reacted to as though they were alone in his dark bedroom. “You think this shit was what you needed to do to get my attention?”

No one could mistake how mad he was, or how hard he was working to dampen and control the rage that radiated through him. The fury that vibrated his form could have seen them all dead. But he remained aloof and maintained his empty expression.

“Is that—“

“Can it, Sutcliffe,” Brodie snapped when Albert Sutcliffe thought to talk. “This is a family matter.”

“The Raven,” Sutcliffe’s said in a distant tone, making it clear that her once-upon-a-time-lover had a reputation that preceded him or previous business with the Brit.

“Yes, I suppose I should make the introductions,” Grant said. “Zara this is my younger brother and my uncle. These are the men responsible for the destruction of our Quebec plant and the men working there. The men responsible for delaying our business, Albert.”