Fight or Flight (21 page)

Time slowed. She pushed with her back leg, but her forward leg began to give way. The knife continued to rotate. She jerked, trying to cut him, but he had her too tightly. His face turned red but he grinned again, knowing he was winning.

With a surge of desperation, Regan drove her right knee upward. It connected solidly with his balls. His eyes bulged, and his breath came out in a high, almost inaudible scream. His grip loosened and his legs sagged, though he struggled to stay up. Regan shoved against his neck and he held on as he fell backward. She released the knife as they landed in a heap, terrified it would gut her.

Someone caught her by the shoulders and pulled her away from the goon, who rolled onto his stomach, now gasping. Regan spun, her vision blurring, her determination to keep fighting outstripping her ability as she nearly knocked herself over. But Tyler held her shoulders, keeping her on her feet. The cuffs dangled from his ankle, the smashed chair a few feet away.

She was about to thank him when someone shouted his name. They turned to the man striding toward them, his hat pulled back, his face furious.

“Your father’s going to be pissed,” he called. “What the hell are you doing?”

His father? Regan looked at Ben, who was lying ignored at the base of the fireplace wall. She looked back at Tyler, who scowled.

“Shut up!” he yelled and made a motion to wave the man away.

Confused, Regan scanned the room and the much-reduced activity. Bodies lay everywhere, some moving, some still, all in black. She spotted Jeanne through the archway into the foyer. The woman stood with her back to a wall, pistols in both hands. As Regan watched, she fired one. A body fell into view. Jeanne spun as another person rushed her.

The man yelling at Tyler had reached them now. Tyler released Regan and stepped in front of her. She slowly backed away. The man got in Tyler’s face, roaring something about loyalty and following orders. Regan barely processed it until he said Archie Sloane. Then it all clicked.

Archie was Tyler’s father.

She stood in shock for one precious second before her mind began to race. Ben was hurt, but now ignored. Jeanne fought, but most of the activity was centered here in this room. Near Regan. If the security team hadn’t been close, she knew most of the attackers would have been on her, and she’d be dead—or taken? But during the fighting, they’d left Tyler alone.

Tyler’s father had killed Scott. Had killed Alan. Tried to kill her, abduct Kelsey, use her as a weapon. Tyler had known all this and hadn’t told her.

Betrayal poured through her, the pain enough to make her collapse if another, simultaneous thought hadn’t immediately countered it.

Archie had known where she was, had come after her with a full force. Even if his intent was to capture her, he didn’t seem too concerned about her getting killed in crossfire. Which meant he didn’t need her to get to Kelsey.

Which meant they knew where Kelsey was.

Later, Regan would not have been able to explain how she got out of the house. Slices in her jeans and cuts on her side and arm indicated she’d gone through the broken window. She didn’t really remember fighting, but she had to have. There was a bruise on her cheek as if she’d been punched, and another on her left ribs.

But it was all a blur until she came to awareness, speeding down the road in the black car that had delivered them to the house. One hand clutched her pistol and the steering wheel, while the other lay pressed flat against the knife on her thigh. She was cold, a block of ice from deep inside all the way to her fingertips.

And she was being followed.

The car was luxuriously appointed, with walnut trim and leather upholstery. Regan set the gun on the console and found the controls for the heat, pressing a button for the seat warmer, too. It made her slightly more comfortable, though nothing touched the cold at her core.

She was at least a day’s drive from Tyler’s house. She couldn’t fly back, having little money, no safe ID, no vehicle on the other end, and people chasing her.

Seated in a custom holder at the base of the console was a walkie-talkie. It kept squawking, the voices giving her notice that Tyler, with a couple of Harrison’s men, was chasing bad guys who were chasing her. She must have gotten a head start on them because it sounded as if they were a few miles back. She was doing eighty now, though she suspected she’d been going faster when she’d been in the fugue state, or whatever it was.

Darkness had fallen early because of the rain, which had lightened. The wipers flashed across the windshield intermittently, the headlights on automatically in the dark, and the steering wheel responded to the tiniest correction. It felt a bit like flying.

She glanced at the gas tank. Nearly full. Where the hell was she? She paid attention until she passed a sign for CA-20. A mile later she approached one for I-5. Shit. She’d been on the road nearly an hour. She’d blacked out that long? What else had she done?

She took the ramp for I-5, mercifully as empty as 20 had been. She stretched to open the glove compartment, but all it held was a packet with the car’s registration and some maintenance paperwork. The center console held an unopened bag of cashews, a pack of gum, a spare set of car keys—where had she gotten the ones in the ignition?—and what appeared to be a second battery for the walkie-talkie. There was no GPS in the console, but she was certain the car was marked with it. So she had to stay ahead of them, and not backtracking would be a damned good way to do it. She hit the map light above her and looked around, spotting an elasticized leather pocket in the door. She slid a hand into it. Bingo. A U.S. road atlas.

A short distance later she pulled off the highway at a wide spot in the shoulder, hoping the others weren’t very close. The radio had gone silent. Maybe she was out of range, or maybe they realized she had one and switched channels.

She took a few minutes to plot a route. I-80 would take her all the way through Nebraska. She weighed the pros and cons of staying on such a direct route. Pro was getting to Kelsey fastest, which won out over losing the people behind her. She could head north at Omaha instead of Des Moines, where Tyler would expect her to go because of familiarity.

The word brought forth a flood of recent memory and the realization of just how close she’d let Tyler get. Pain burst from her chest, blinding her for precious seconds. She didn’t want this. There was no time for loss and betrayal and hatred. She had to get to Kelsey.

As always, her focus sharpened and cleared away the rest when she thought of her daughter. She took a deep breath, turned off the heater, and got back on the road.

Averaging eighty miles an hour and stopping for no more than five minutes at a time to fuel the car, go to the bathroom, and buy snacks and caffeinated gum, drinks and mints, Regan made the final approach to the house just over twenty-four hours after she’d regained awareness. She’d fought to stay awake at times, blasting the radio, driving with the window down, pinching herself, and sucking down so much caffeine and energy shots she’d vomited about five hours ago.

Now, she couldn’t have dozed off if someone hit her on the head. Her foot pressed harder and harder on the accelerator, the car speeding up to match her racing heart, until the tires caught dirt at one point and she almost spun out. She took a few deep breaths and slowed down, regained control, and counted the last five minutes by seconds.

There were tire tracks at the side of the house. Her heart stopped racing. Stopped beating entirely for two counts before thudding back so hard it cramped. Someone had been here. Might still be here. After a brief debate whether to go to the back or inside, she shoved the car into park and grabbed the keys before racing in through the unlocked front door.

“Kelsey!” she shouted into the cavernous silence. She knew before she finished the word that no one was in here. “Van! Tom!”

Nothing.

“Be methodical,” she muttered.
Don’t run off half-cocked
. She searched the downstairs, checking the bathroom and the closet before rushing upstairs and doing the same. No one was in the bedrooms, under the beds, in the upstairs closets. She yanked on the rope pull for the attic access, but when paint cracked and dust showered onto the clean floor below it, she knew no one had gone up there.

She checked the bathroom last and found the window open and footprints in the tub. She leaned out and looked down. A white towel was on the ground directly below. The yard, oddly lit by the late twilight, appeared deserted. But—

Regan’s heart skipped again. The doors to the run-down barn out back were hanging open.

She raced back downstairs and outside, her feet flying as she crossed the lawn, shouting her daughter’s name. She stopped dead when she reached the edge of the barn entrance. Momentarily surprised to see a vintage Corvette gleaming beneath a coating of dust, she hovered there. The driver’s door was open, the keys in the ignition. What the hell…?

Slow down, look at everything
. The dirt just inside the door was marked up. Not just footprints but marks that could have been made by sliding feet, a fallen body. She put her hand on the door for balance as she started to move inside and edge by the car. Her ring finger went through the wood. She stopped and looked. It was a clean hole, recently made. A bullet hole?

“Fuck.” She couldn’t help herself. The barn was only one room, no loft, but she called Kelsey’s name again, anyway, then Van’s and Tom’s for good measure. Then she listened.

And heard them.

Shouts, muffled and incoherent, but nearby. She circled the car, pausing every few feet to listen, and the voices grew slightly louder. She looked to the right and saw a canvas tarp lying bunched, half on the car, half on the ground. She pulled it away and found a radiator sticking out onto the floor, obviously awry when compared to the neat shelves surrounding her.

Exhaustion took that moment to descend on her. When she shoved at the unit, it didn’t move. Her feet did, sliding out from under her and hitting the car, which knocked her onto her knees. She barely avoided smacking her chin on the metal. When she got back to her feet her legs shook, joined by her arms when she tried to push the thing again.

Dammit. This wasn’t going to work. She checked the shelves and found a rope, tying one end to the radiator and threading it through a support brace under the nearest shelf. The angle wasn’t right to drag the unit across the dirt, but when she braced her back on the car and her foot on the radiator and heaved, the radiator lifted just enough for a shove with her foot to move it several inches before it thudded to the floor. The voices underneath her went quiet. She could see a metal ring now, embedded into the dirt from the weight of the radiator, and guessed where the lines of the trap door might be. Two more heave-shoves later, she was able, with difficulty, to pry the wooden door out of the dirt.

She leaned over the entrance, knowing how foolish it was to present such an easy target but too sluggish and eager to find her daughter to care. She stuck her hand in front of her face to block the bright beam of light hitting her.

“Thank God,” breathed Van when she saw Regan. A second later Regan flinched out of the way when a ladder poked up through the opening. Van climbed up first, throwing herself into Regan’s arms and hugging her so tight she couldn’t draw breath.

“Are you okay?” The girl vibrated with tension under Regan’s hands, but wouldn’t let go when Regan tried to shift her away. She looked at Tom when he emerged from the hole in the ground, his face smudged with dirt and despair. An answering echo pierced Regan’s already-damaged heart.

Kelsey hadn’t come out of the hole.

“Where is she?” She went for calm, but the words came out shrill. “Where is my daughter?”

She realized Van was endlessly whispering. “I’msosorry I’msosorry I’msosorry.”

Tom shook his head. “We don’t know.”

When Kelsey came to, everything was dark. She lay on a bare mattress, untied, and tried not to moan at the pain in her head and the dryness of her mouth. A flash of memory brought back the sting of a needle in her arm. They’d caught her, and she didn’t know where she was. But she felt too crappy to be scared.

Moving might alert someone she was awake, but she couldn’t help herself. Nausea welled up and she rolled, waving her arm around next to the bed automatically, not really expecting to find anything. But her hand collided with a plastic trashcan and she grabbed it just in time to empty her stomach.

She groaned, rolling back onto the bed and wishing she had a pillow. “Never eat bananas again.” She rested and let her head clear a bit. Maybe vomiting had been a good thing, because it seemed to push along whatever they’d put in her system. Slowly she regained her ability to think, the surest antidote to fear. She vowed not to entertain even an ounce of it. She was getting out of here. Period.

No one had come, so they either weren’t monitoring her or didn’t care she was awake. She got to her feet by degrees, then turned and knelt on the bed to feel the wall next to it. It was smooth, like painted drywall, and warm. In fact, the whole room was warm, and the image in her head of a dank cement cell disappeared.

She felt the entire wall above the bed, but there were no windows or anything hanging that might help her. She climbed off the bed and shuffled around the room, one hand on the wall, the other waving in front of her so she wouldn’t hit anything. She’d only gone a few feet when she bumped into a piece of furniture. It was varnished and had six drawers—a dresser. The top was clean—not dusty—and clear except for a lamp on the surface. She clicked the button a few times, but the light didn’t come on.

The rest of the wall was empty. The next wall had a closet almost in the corner. She opened the door but couldn’t find a light switch or dangling string, and feeling around in there didn’t seem like a good idea. A few empty wire hangers on the rod were all she touched before she closed the door to check it out later. A few feet beyond the closet she found the main door, which seemed dead-bolted from the outside. Kelsey ran her fingers up and down the wall until she found a switch. She held her breath and flipped it upward.

“Wow.”

In the muted glow from the very small, frilly-shaded lamp on the dresser, she looked around a bedroom freakishly like a child’s dream room.

The walls were painted lavender, a color echoed in the little lamp, the carpet, and flowers painted on the white dresser as well as a desk and armoire on the last wall. Purple kittens and puppies pranced along a wallpaper border near the ceiling. At the head of the bed was a tall bookcase filled with what looked like children’s books. The bed itself was white metal tubing, the head and footboards simple arcs, and an eyelet dust ruffle hung below the bare, thin mattress. She went to the closet and opened it, finding the rod empty of clothes but the shelf filled with a little girl’s toys: ponies and a Barbie head for hairstyling, pink and white Legos—she didn’t know they made such a thing—and baby dolls and stuffed animals.

“What the hell is this place?”

“It’s your room.”

Kelsey jumped a mile at the voice behind her. She hadn’t heard the door open or the man behind her come in. She spun and started to pull back her fist, but lost the advantage when she froze at what she saw.

Part of her registered the sterile, white, glow-bright hallway like the science labs in action flicks. But the rest of her goggled at how much the man in front of her looked like Tyler Sloane.

He smiled, then wrinkled his nose. “The sedative
did
make you a bit woozy, then?” He came into the room to retrieve the trashcan. Kelsey started to bolt, but the open doorway was blocked by a totally new goon. He literally filled the space, his shoulders wedging against the sides and his head brushing the top. She decided to call him Bulldozer.

The Tyler clone handed Bulldozer the trashcan. “Dispose of this, please. Then come back.” He closed the door in the man’s face and locked the deadbolt with a key, which he pocketed. He left his hand in the pocket, which made picking it impossible even if he let her get close enough.

“Now then, Kelsey Miller, my name is Archie Sloane.” He sat on the bed and frowned at the bare mattress. “I can’t believe they didn’t put sheets on the bed.”

“You’re Tyler Sloane’s…what? Father?” He had more lines around his eyes and mouth, and his hair was a darker shade of blond, surrounding his head more like a lion’s mane than the surfer look Tyler had.

He beamed at her as he would a precocious student. “Yes, I am indeed Tyler’s father.”

Kelsey’s heart sank. She’d been so sure her mother had found a perfect match. This betrayal would kill her.

If Tyler hadn’t already done the job.

She swallowed hard. “Where’s my mother?”

Archie frowned again. “I don’t know. We were trying to get her at the Harrison mansion this evening, but she managed to get away. My men lost track of her in Nebraska.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll catch up to her again. We always do.”

Don’t bet on it
. But Kelsey tried to look despairing instead of fiercely loyal. It wasn’t hard. She had to find a way to escape this facility—assuming it was a facility. Which, once again, meant information and maybe a devious strategy.

Much as it renewed her nausea, she crossed the room and sat next to Archie. “Why am I here?” she asked in a deliberately small voice.

He patted her hand. “You’re to be part of a very important program, my dear. It’s been your destiny since the day you were conceived, believe it or not.”

You killed my father didn’t you, you bastard?
She had to look away so he wouldn’t see her hatred. “I don’t understand.”

He launched into a gleeful tale of discovery and progress, and if he hadn’t peppered it with casual mentions of murder and deception and a cavalier disregard for her mother and his own son, it would have been a good story. Kelsey now understood why she never got sick, why her father had made her mother run, and even why Archie hadn’t found them for so many years. She kept her face averted toward the rug because revulsion and hate had set themselves up permanently behind her eyes—she could feel it, a burning fire he might not even notice, he was so wrapped up in his tale.

Strangely, despite her awareness that he’d killed, she wasn’t afraid of him. He needed her alive, which gave her a lot of power. She didn’t think he realized that. Plus, he wasn’t exactly imposing. The Bulldozer, he was another story, but even he was still harnessed by the whole “keep her alive” thing.

Since Archie was being so chatty, she decided to pump him for more answers.

“Did you set up Tyler next door to us, or did my grandparents?”

Archie’s face fell. “It was not me. I’ve been estranged from my son for ten years.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, and Kelsey wondered if she dared ask another question. But she decided to be patient, and finally he said, “We didn’t see eye to eye on my work.”

She just bet. “And how do I…fit in with your work?”

“You’ll understand in good time.” He tilted his head to look down at her, and a new look came into his eyes, one to make her understand the word
avarice
a little better than high school vocabulary lessons had. “Tell me, Miss Kelsey, when was the last time you had a cold?”

She almost lied automatically and said two weeks ago, but at the last second realized this might be the key to everything. If she gave the wrong answer, he’d probably kill her. “I’ve never had a cold,” she admitted.

“Excellent.”

She let out her breath slowly.

He stood and crossed to the door. “You’ll have to remain in this room for now. Perhaps when you’ve been here for a while, you’ll be allowed supervised strolls around the facility.”

So she’d been right. “How big is it? Is it underground?”

He merely smiled and began to close the door. She wracked her brain for something to keep him in here, keep him talking.

“Wait! Can I at least get something good to read?” She held up a Little Golden Book. “I outgrew these a decade ago.”

Archie blushed. “I’m afraid I wasn’t prepared for your age.”

“What, eighteen years go by and you don’t count them?” she snarked automatically.

His chagrin turned to defensive anger. “There were far more important things to take my attention than updating your reading material every six months. Make do.”

Kelsey cursed and kicked the dresser, pleased to see a mark from her sneaker. For a second she thought about letting it all out and destroying the room, but common sense prevailed. She’d create more openings by being agreeable and cooperative.

She returned to the bed and spun, falling on her back and staring up at the ceiling. She’d gotten a few answers today, and Archie would no doubt spill more.

It was a start.