Blood Bound (44 page)

“Yes, but shadows that don’t penetrate the infrared spectrum are very…shallow, for lack of a better term. They’re not deep enough to walk through for something like ninety-nine percent of shadow-walkers. With the infrared grid, the room is actually completely lit and impenetrable for virtually all Travelers, even if you see shadows in the visible spectrum.”

“Wow, that sounds complicated. And expensive,” Anne said, and I could see the wheels in her head turning. If comprehensive infrared lighting was the only way to protect her daughter, she wouldn’t be able to
afford
to house Hadley.

“They can afford it,” I assured her.

“We can’t afford
not
to have it,” Cavazos said. “My enemies are…numerous, and we’ve foiled two abduction attempts on Isabel this year alone.”

Anne paled and suddenly looked as if she might vomit. “They want money?”

“For Isa,” Michaela said. “Most of them just want Ruben dead.”

I laughed out loud, and for once, Meika didn’t look as if she’d like to rip my head off.

“So you’re saying there’s no way to shadow-walk into Tower’s house? What about emergencies? What if someone does get in and Tower needs help? He’s not going to call the police….” A safe assumption, considering how much of his business was illegal. “So how would he get his men there in a hurry?”

Michaela shrugged. “I’m sure he has at least one darkroom. We have three of them, in different parts of the house.”

“Darkroom? Like photographers use?” This part of Cavazos’s life was all new to me—I’d never been allowed to roam free in their house.

“No, more like a closet. Darkrooms are special entrances and exits for Travelers to use. There is no infrared light. Just one standard overhead light, which is kept off unless you need to lock the house down for some reason. I use ours all the time, and if you have staff, or close friends or family who are Travelers, they can use it, too.” Like we were using the bathroom, keeping it dark for Kori, just in case. “Some of the wealthier families even keep full-time Travelers as chauffeurs.”

Figures. I could barely afford my own car, and Tower was probably paying someone to take his wife shopping without ever stepping outside.

“Great.” I shrugged. “If you’re pretty sure Tower has one or two of these darkrooms, you can just bring us in one at a time, right?”

“Assuming I had any desire to touch you without a blade in my other hand…yeah.” She shrugged, but the reminder that we’d never be friends came through loud and clear. “I could get you into his darkroom, unless it’s locked down. But you’d have nowhere to go from there. The typical darkroom has a steel door with concealed hinges and a dead bolt thicker than my wrist. If you try to cut through it, you’ll trigger the alarm, which will then trigger a lockdown. The light will come on and you’ll be trapped in that fucking closet until his men come in and get you. Or just gas you through the ventiv p>

I turned to Cavazos, trying not to sound any more dazed than I hopefully looked. “Is she serious?”

He lifted one dark brow. “Our darkrooms are currently equipped for both tear gas and carbon monoxide.”

“Daaamn.” Maybe I didn’t want to wander around in his house after all…. “So, how do the locks work? Fingerprint? Retinal scan? Voice recognition?”

“Voice recognition is an inferior technology,” Cavazos said. “We tried it for a while, but I got locked out of the house every time I got a cold. And most syndicate members aren’t willing to have their fingerprints on file anywhere.” For obvious reasons. “Retinal scanners are still prohibitively expensive for most people, even considering the benefits.” He shrugged. “We had three of them installed last month. However, I have it on good authority that Tower has yet to make the switch.”

I frowned. “How the hell do you know that?”

“I took a Reader with me when we went to price the units we just had installed, to make sure we were getting the best possible deal on the best possible equipment. At that time, Tower hadn’t placed an order from any of the top three manufacturers. And even if he’s placed an order since then, he hasn’t had time to get them delivered and installed.”

“So how do you unlock his darkrooms?” Anne asked, clearly fascinated.

Another shrug. “He’s probably still using key cards, like the system we just replaced. The digital code is changed every morning, and there’s a card coder right outside each darkroom. You just run a fresh card through the coder before you leave, and it’s good for that day.”

“What about an employee coming in for the first time that day?”

“He would have to use the intercom,” Michaela said. “There’s a button by the door, and when you press it, the lockdown light comes on so the security camera can see who’s there. Say your name into the speaker, and if you are approved, the guard will unlock the door, and you can grab a key card in the hall. If you’re not approved…” She shrugged. “Start holding your breath.”

The possibilities tumbled around in my head. “So…we need a key card. Preferably one less than a day old…”

Anne sighed and ran one hand through her hair. “We have to get into his house to get a key card. But if we could get into his house, we wouldn’t need the damn card in the first place. What’s that called? A paradox?”

“It is called good security,” Michaela said.

“Wait a minute…” My pulse jumped a little in reaction to my new idea—not a certainty, but certainly a possibility. “Why don’t we just have the key delivered, by someone who would definitely have one, if there’s actually a key to be had?”

“Kori?” Anne’s brows rose over the possibility, and I nodded slowly. “She’s not just going to hand her key over. Assuming she has one.”

“No, and if we take it from her, we can’t let her go back and report to Tower.”

“Who the hell is Kori?” Meika asked, and I could swear I saw the fingers of her right hand clench around air, as if she were wishing for the blade Ruben had confiscated.

“Another friend of…” At the last moment, I decided not to mention Elle. Surely that would have been the fastest way to bring Meika’s inner bitch roaring back to the surface. “Ours,” I finished lamely. “She’s one of Tower’s Travelers.”

Michaela’s expression darkened like a cloud had just rolled across the sky. “How many friends do you
have
on the west side of town?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know I had any, until today. But the point is that I think I can get her here. I might need some help subduing her—” which I hated to do at all, considering she probably
wanted
to help us “—but after that, keeping her here should be as easy as tying her to a chair and leaving the lights on.” I met Cavazos’s gaze steadily, hoping he wouldn’t decide this was one of those times I was fun to mess with. “But you have to swear you won’t let anyone hurt her.”

“Why would I want her hurt?” he asked, not even trying to look innocent.

“Because she works for Tower? Because she took your daughter to him? Because she’s a beautiful woman who does really interesting things when she’s mad? Take your pick. Just swear you won’t let anyone hurt her.”

“What will I get in return?” he asked, his voice low and intimate enough to make his wife scowl.

“Your daughter,” I snapped.

Finally he nodded. “I swear I won’t let anyone hurt her if she plays nice.” Unfortunately,
nice
wasn’t a descriptor I’d ever heard used in reference to Kori. But that was the best I was going to get. “Fine.” I sighed, then gulped the last of the water from my bottle. “She’ll be traveling into the bathroom, so I’ll text her there.” Because otherwise, she could show up before we got into place. Or…she could make us wait in the dark for an hour. “I’ll need some help.”

Michaela shrugged and stood, but I shook my head. No way was I going to stand alone in the dark with her. Not after she’d nearly nicked my femoral artery the last time. She couldn’t have changed
that
much in the past hour.

I glanced at Anne and sighed again. She couldn’t do it. She may be able to shoot a stranger in immediate defense of her daughter’s life, but she couldn’t hit a friend when no one was in right-this-minute mortal peril. And, honestly, I kind of liked that about her. It was nice to finally have someone in my life who balked at the idea of killing someone.

Cam was out of the question, of course, so that only left…Cavazos, who stood waiting for me to come to that realization. “After you.” He gestured toward the hall, and I sucked in a deep breath, then reluctantly led the way into the shadows.

Twenty-Eight

I
n the dark, with the door closed, I sat on the edge of the tub holding a roll of duct tape in one hand and my phone in the other. Cam had left the tape on the counter when we’d taped up the window earlier. “Here.” I handed the roll to Ruben when he sat on the tub next to me, his thigh and shoulder touching mine. “Tear off a strip to go over her mouth.” That way she couldn’t ask me or Anne for help, which would ruin our entire plan.

“My pleasure.” His voice resonated with sincerity, and I hated him a little more, having heard it. “If she’s smart, she won’t come,” he said, as he ripped a length of tape from the roll. “Tower will kill her for this, when he finds out.”

“She doesn’t know what we’re planning,” I whispered. “But she’d come even if she did, if she could possibly find a way. She feels bad enough about giving Hadley to Tower, and she wants to make it right.”

“That sounds more like you than Kori.”

“You don’t even know her!” I snapped, my thumb hovering over the text-message icon on the disposable cell phone I’d borrowed from Cam. I couldn’t use mine, because I’d already texted from it, and she’d recognize my number.

“But I know you.”

I looked up at him, wishing he could see in the dark so he’d know how thoroughly pissed off I was. “You don’t know me. Don’t
ever
think you know me. The only things you know about me are the things you made me do, and that illustrates your character, not mine.”

Cavazos laughed softly. “I didn’t make you take the mark on your thigh. That bond was
your
idea, to free Caballero. And I didn’t make you risk my anger and your own life by bringing your friends here, even before you knew Hadley was mine. You did that on your own, to help a child you barely know.”

“Shut up.” I didn’t want to hear his assessment of my character.

“Your hard shell protects some very soft innards, Olivia. That’s what makes you so much fun to play with. If that shell had cracked, even just once, I might have been done with you then and there. Well, I would have fucked you first,
then
I would have been done with you. But the more I poke at your armor, the stronger it gets. Just like Michaela. Only there might be just a
bit
too much pressure on her shell,” he admitted, finally.

“I don’t think you give a shit what’s behind my ‘shell,’ Ruben. I think you just want to crack it for your own amusement.”

He laughed again. “Isn’t that what I said?”

I closed my eyes, trying to mentally block him out and concentrate on the task at hand. Then I opened my eyes and started typing, which was a real pain in the ass in the dark, on the new phone’s numeric-only keyboard.

It’s Cam. New phone. Need to see you at Liv’s love nest. now.

I17;d hesitated to tell her Cam got a new phone, even though I was impersonating him on my own, because she might have to tell Tower that before she came over. But then I realized Tower had probably already figured that out, when Cam stopped answering his old number, which had surely been called after Kori brought Hadley in.

“Not sure how long this’ll take,” I said, flipping the phone closed, suddenly acutely aware of how cold and hard the tub was. But that was better than Ruben’s evil warmth any day.

“Olivia—” he began, and he sounded so serious I was sure I wouldn’t want to hear whatever he had to say.

“Shh. If she hears us talking when she gets here, she’ll just walk straight back through the shadow and we’ll be screwed.”

Cavazos made no reply, and I attributed his uncharacteristic moment of cooperation to the fact that he wanted his daughter back.

We sat like that in silence for several minutes and by the time my eyes adjusted to the tiny crack of light bleeding beneath the door from the hallway, each breath either of us took sounded like the hiss from a closed air vent—intrusive, harsh and obvious. The wait was excruciating.

Then, all at once the air felt different. A silhouette stepped into existence right in front of us—a darker, human-shape among the shadows. Tall and slim, long hair that would have been pale and straight in the light. Definitely Kori—as if I’d had any doubt.

Cavazos was off the tub before I even knew he was going to move. He grabbed her arms and Kori grunted in surprise as I lunged past them both to flip the light switch on the wall. When I turned, Cavazos held her from behind by both elbows. White-blond hair had fallen over her face, but her dark-eyed gaze was still piercing through the pale strands of hair.

“We got her!” I pulled open the bathroom door, belatedly hoping that Cam hadn’t heard me through whatever music he was playing. He needed plausible deniability, or he’d have to turn himself in to Tower. And probably take Kori with him.

“Liv, what the
fuck?
” Kori demanded, tossing her hair to clear her line of sight.

“I’m sorry.” I snatched the strip of tape Ruben had left hanging from the counter and slapped it over her mouth, catching a strand of hair in the process. Then I reached for her front pocket as footsteps headed toward us from the hall. Yelling something unintelligible from behind her gag, Kori threw her hips back to avoid my hand and nearly knocked Cavazos off balance, but he recovered quickly and tightened his grip on her arms. Kori groaned when he wrenched her shoulders, glaring at me wordlessly.

Anne stared at us from the doorway and Kori continued to buck while I pulled her gun from her shoulder holster, then dug into her pocket for her phone.

Kori’s eyes went wide when she saw Anne, and though I couldn’t understand her individual words, her inarticulate demand to be released came through loud and clear.