Collector's Item (12 page)

“Yes, sir,” Agent Winston replied, his voice rough. He slipped out of the room without a backward glance.

Ham looked down at the nurse and nodded toward the needle. “I think we can dispense with that, ma’am.”

She lowered her hand, but pinned Ham with a cool stare. “It’s protocol, sir. Violent patients have to be stabilized to prevent shifting. We’re a hospital, not a zoo.” She turned to glare at Peyton. “No matter how much like animals they may behave.”

Memories of grade-school teachers flashed through Peyton’s mind. He dropped his arms and gave a shallow bow. “I apologize. I over-reacted. I won’t do it again.” He finished with a careful smile. Her glare softened, a little.

Ham added. “I’ll take responsibility. I was coming to have him discharged.”

She huffed once, turned on her heels, and disappeared from view toward the nurses’ station.

Peyton let out a breath. “Regular battle-ax.”

“Tending injured shifters is not a job for the meek,” Ham pointed out as he pushed the door half-closed. He frowned when he turned back to face Peyton. “Now, you want to tell me what that was all about?”

Peyton opened the closet door. He smiled. KT must have had his old duster cleaned. It, a clean shirt and pants hung from the rod, folded socks and boxers on the shelf above, a pair of shoes on the floor. “Winston said someone’s kidnapped KT Marant. It was Torne, wasn’t it?”

“We don’t know for sure who did it,” Ham said. “But the big question is what does that have to do with what happened in here?”

“I’m going after them. Winston tried to stop me.”

Out the corner of his eye, Peyton saw Ham settle in the bedside chair. Ham balanced his hat on his knee and looked at Peyton. “Why?”

Peyton flashed for a second on the memory of KT sitting there just moments ago and then shoved the thought aside. He needed to concentrate on the situation. No distractions. No emotional investment. He pulled everything, except the duster and shoes, out of the closet and went into the bathroom, leaving the door half-open.

“Because I have the best chance of catching Torne,” Peyton replied, raising his voice just enough to carry into the other room. “I know their organization better than anyone in the Alliance, and I’ve got connections. You’re going to need my help on this, trust me.”

“There may be some validity to your assumption, but it didn’t require you almost putting one of my men on medical leave.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to stop me.”

Peyton shucked off the hospital gown and inspected the three new scars in the mirror. Still pink and shiny, they would soon fade to match the others.

He shrugged into the shirt. “What do you know so far?”

“We’re tracking the limo by GPS,” Ham said. “Marant always rents from the same company when he’s in New York. He arranged for them to shuttle KT to and from their penthouse. The driver was found in an alley nearby, pretty badly sliced up. He’s in surgery, but expected to pull through.”

“Knife or claws?” Peyton asked.

“Both.”

Peyton growled. “Patricia Tercelon.”

Ham grunted. “A shifter, no doubt, but the man’s been unconscious since they found him, so we don’t have a positive ID yet.”

Peyton stuck his head out the bathroom door. “It’s Patricia. I’d put money on it.”

Ham brushed a hand across his crew cut. “She’s been in it from the first, hasn’t she?”

Peyton nodded before he turned back to continue dressing. “Looks like it. Would explain a lot. Like why so many shifters have disappeared without a fight. If she’s bringing them in, they’d never expect it until the last moment.”

Peyton pulled the pants off the hanger and shoved his feet into the legs. He grit his teeth against the strain. “So, were you really coming to sign my release?”

“When I got the call that KT Marant had been kidnapped, I guessed that it was that or you’d bust yourself out. Seems I was right.”

Peyton bit back a quick reply. Why add to Ham’s arsenal? Instead, he focused on the matter at hand. “You’re gonna need me on this. You’ll have your hands full with Anton Marant.”

“Touché. And you should be thanking me. That nurse had a pair of the biggest orderlies I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo. If they’d double-teamed you, you’d be in traction right about now.”

Peyton stared at his reflection in the mirror. His hair needed cutting, and the pitiful excuse for a razor the nurse had given him that morning had not gotten close enough to prevent the faintest shadow of a beard. However, it was the wildness in his eyes that caught his attention. He hadn’t seen that look in his own eyes since, well, in a long time.

Lance,
Max growled. Peyton’s eyes narrowed.

Yeah, Lance. Peyton’d seen that look in his mirror for months after they found Lance’s mutilated body. The memory ignited a fire in Peyton’s gut. Now, KT was in the Collectors’ hands.

Peyton gripped the edges of the stainless steel sink and hung his head to take a slow breath. Distance. He needed distance. What had Ham said? Orderlies?

“Bigger than Dutch?” he asked.

Dutch Simmons was the biggest man Peyton had ever met. At six feet seven, 240 plus pounds of muscle, Dutch had hands like sledgehammers and reflexes like steel springs. He had pounded everyone in their platoon into the mats without breaking a sweat, accumulating an unrivaled string of competitive awards. He had gone into the Protectors with them and, last Peyton heard, was serving overseas.

“No one’s bigger than Dutch,” Hamilton replied.

Peyton took several more deep breaths while he waited for his pulse to level out and then raised his head. The face that stared back looked more like the one he saw on a regular basis. Calm, cool—nothing to give away his thoughts. He pushed himself away from the basin, swept his hands through his hair, and stepped back into the room as he buckled his belt. “Well, then, I’d say the odds were no better than fifty-fifty.”

Ham looked around the room. “Good thing this is a private room. With that ego, there’s no room for another patient.”

“Comes with the territory.” Feeling Ham’s assessing gaze, Peyton kept his movements smooth, despite the continued throbbing from chest and shoulder muscles. He snagged the duster and shoes out of the closet, tossed the duster on the bed and shoved his feet into his shoes. He shrugged into the duster.

“Let’s go. I want in on the hunt.”

Chapter Twelve

KT came awake with a jolt, but kept still
. How long have I been out? Where are we?

She lay curled on her side, arms behind her back, knees bent. The cool pressure of metal around her wrists had to be handcuffs. A faint crackling sound accompanied the soft huff of breathing.

She took a careful sniff and recognized Patricia’s favorite perfume of oriental spices with the underlying touch of fur. That scent had once been one of comfort for a grieving KT. After KT’s mother’s death, Patricia had spent more time in the Marant compound than the Tercelon compound.

Despite her aunt’s strange behavior in the limo and her obvious involvement with Torne and the Collectors, KT still couldn’t reconcile the difference. Something was wrong with Patricia—emotional break, drugs—whatever it was, KT suspected it wasn’t something she would like.

Along with her aunt’s scent, KT caught the rich aroma of strong coffee overlapping scents of human males, damp wool, and wood smoke along with leaves, mold, and evergreens. So, they’d ditched the limo and headed for the backwoods?

“No need to pretend. I know you’re awake.” Patricia’s voice came from somewhere above and to the left.

KT opened her eyes and wriggled into a sitting position. A chain connected the handcuffs that encircled her wrists and her ankles. It gave at her pull. Maybe enough leeway to stand, but not much. She jerked at the chain, but it was threaded through the frame of the bed which was bolted to the floor.

While the sedative had worn off, the aerosol salison must have been followed by an injection. Andi remained all but comatose in KT’s consciousness.

KT glared at her aunt. “What in the hell is going on? Why are you doing this?”

“You’re becoming tiresomely repetitive, KT. As we said in the limo, the ‘what’ should be pretty obvious—we’ve kidnapped you.” Patricia lifted her cup and took a sip.

Seated in a wooden rocking chair next to a cozy fire in the stone fireplace, Patricia might have been chatting with a friend. In worn jeans and heavy cable-knit sweater, with her wavy hair caught back in a high ponytail and just the barest touch of make-up, she looked almost charmingly outdoorsy.

KT glanced around—two doors, one behind and to the right and one to the far left, heavy curtains along one wall probably covered wide picture windows. A private, and doubtless off-the-records hidey-hole in the woods, she suspected. The designer version of a hunting lodge, complete with exposed log walls, heavy wooden furniture, colorful woven rugs and wall hangings, and a few stuffed trophy heads.

KT’s gaze returned to her aunt. Patricia lowered the cup and began to tap her nails on the side. “The ‘why’ will take a bit more explanation.”

KT gave her chains another jerk and lifted one eyebrow. “I guess I’ve got the time.”

“You always had a smart mouth, KT, but I’d advise you to keep it in check. Torne won’t find it as endearing as I do.” Patricia set the cup aside on a small end table and leaned forward, elbows on knees. The rocker creaked and, now that her head felt clearer, KT began to pick up more sounds outside. Birdsong, wind in the boughs of trees, the irregular thwack of someone chopping wood—Torne?

Patricia steepled her fingertips together and stared at them as she spoke. “They say vengeance is a dish best served cold. And it takes quite a bit of preparation to do it right.”

“Vengeance?” KT stared, struggling to reconcile her memories of her aunt with the hard-edged stranger wearing Patricia’s face. “I don’t understand.”

The barest flicker might have crossed Patricia’s gaze, but the tight smile and tense body remained unchanged. “I know you don’t, and believe me, I didn’t plan on bringing you into this. But then you had to get all heroic and come searching for me, thereby making yourself an irresistible target for Torne. And what Torne wants, Torne…well, you should understand that one.” Patricia shook her head. “It’s Anton’s fault, of course, but he’ll never accept the blame, just like he never accepted the blame for Dani’s death.”

“Excuse me?” KT blinked at the unexpected segue. “What does Mother’s murder have to do with this?”

“That bullet was meant for Anton,” Patricia replied, the intensity of her voice like razor-wire on KT’s skin. “Dani wasn’t even supposed to be at that meeting. She was supposed to be meeting me for lunch, not seated on that terrace with Anton.”

KT’s skin crawled beneath her aunt’s stare, but she kept her gaze on Patricia. “An assassin hired by Humanity First killed Mother, not Father.” KT swallowed hard around her own pain at the memory. “He’s always blamed himself for her death, but it wasn’t his fault.”

Patricia’s controlled expression shattered into a snarl. “It was!” She stopped, took a deep breath, and continued in a calmer tone. “If he hadn’t been trying to push us all out into the open like that, it never would have happened. We were safe in the background, underground. Exposing ourselves to the world made us easy targets.”

“That’s not true. We had to come out,” KT said. “The Collectors were hunting us like the ultimate big game. It was come out or risk becoming extinct.”

Patricia shook her head slowly, her voice just a tad shaky. “No, it’s all Anton’s fault. He insisted she accompany him to the meeting, that she be the supportive spouse to his crusading lead. And then when she died, he moved on. He just moved on!”

KT put all the conviction she could into her voice, though her temples throbbed from the sheer lunacy of Patricia’s reasoning. “You’re wrong. Father’s not like that.” She paused, then shook her head. “He was devastated, but he’s the Alpha of the Marant clan. He dedicated himself to making sure her death was not in vain, that the cause they both believed in succeeded.”

Patricia’s laughter rang harsh and bitter. “Don’t be naïve. Her death just gave him a better platform. The sorrowing widower carrying on the good fight in spite of personal misfortune.” Her lips curled back from her teeth. “He used her death as a springboard to launch his political career and never looked back.”

KT blinked in stunned amazement at Patricia’s myopic view of Anton Marant. “How can you say that? He’s never forgiven himself. He lives with it every day.”

“And well he should,” Patricia said, her eyes brilliant with fury. “He murdered her as surely as the assassin who fired the bullet. Him and his precious Alliance.”

She sniffed and sat back in the chair again, her expression smug. “Well, things aren’t going so smoothly for the Alliance now, what with all the kidnappings. It’s beginning to look weak, and we both know how the weak fare in our culture. The Alliance is going to crumble, and when it does, it’ll take Anton with it.”

KT leaned forward. “Patricia, think about what you’re doing. Think about what you’ve done. You’ve turned fellow paranormals over to the Collectors to die.”

A cold smile curved Patricia’s lips. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made.” The smile and the casual words made KT’s skin crawl.

Appalled, KT edged back. “You can’t mean that.”