How Spy I Am (48 page)

Which I’d left lying
on the pallet of C4.

Which was now blown
all over hell’s half-acre. I’d have to ride my dirt bike to
town.

It was probably a good
thing I couldn’t hear the wail I felt in my throat.

After an eternal
fifteen minutes of icy wind and rough road, I idled up to the back
edge of the park.

I spent a few moments
stifling my moans while I pried my numb fingers off the handgrips,
the returning blood burning and tingling. My stiffened body
reluctantly straightened, and I carefully secured the motorbike on
its kickstand. If it fell over now, I was done.

My hearing had
returned oddly distorted. The sound of my hair swishing against my
jacket seemed deafeningly loud while soft, fluffy silence muffled
the night noises. Long shivers racked my body, wrenching my
injuries into fresh protests.

I started to remove my
helmet but thought better of it. It obstructed my peripheral
vision, but at least it held a few vestiges of heat. I was already
sluggish with cold, and the faint voice of my remaining intellect
advised ‘shock and hypothermia’.

Yeah. Whatever.

Just one more thing to
do.

I plodded in the
direction of the playground, not even caring enough to flit from
bush to bush in approved spy fashion. Robert probably wouldn’t show
up anyway.

At last, I sagged
against the climbing frame. Lucky I’d stuffed my tiny flashlight
into the inside pocket of my jacket.

I flashed the light
three times and waited.

Moments later, a hard
blow to my back sent me sprawling face-first into the gravel, my
breath catching in agony. First my right, then my left arm were
twisted behind me, and the sharp familiar pain of a nylon tie
jerked tightly around my wrists. Another cinched my ankles seconds
later and I lay gasping, too stunned to even struggle.

My captor jerked me
roughly onto my back and yanked off my helmet, nearly ripping my
ears off in the process. I let out a yelp, and blinding light
flashed into my face.

Rough hands bit into
my shoulders, my head smacking repeatedly into the gravel as my
captor shook me violently.

At last, I registered
his words.

“You! Dammit, you!
You… you… idiot!”

He flung me back
against the ground where I lay floating in a sea of pain.

After a long moment,
the flashlight seared my retinas again. “Are you all right?”

I groaned and dragged
in a short, excruciating breath. “Yeah. Turn off the fucking
light.”

A click plunged us
into darkness, and I lay blinking at the brilliant afterimages.

“You idiot,” Kasper
hissed. “I told you to stay out of the way!”

“I was just standing
here.” I sucked in another shallow breath on a groan. “He said to
flash a light three times, so I did.”

“No, you moron, I said
that!”

A silent moment later
the flashlight clicked on again, this time pointed at the ground
beside me, and I stared up at Kasper’s unattractive face in the
dimly reflected glow. His gaze was fixed on me with what looked
like fear.

“Tell me…” His voice
came out in a hoarse whisper, and he cleared his throat. “Tell me
exactly what your message was.”

“I can’t remember
exactly. Something like eleven o’clock, same place, flash light
three times. What message did you get?”

“He said it was the
last chance before he disappeared for good.”

“
I
said
that!”

We stared at each
other for a few seconds.

“You sent that
message?” His gaze bored into me.

Slow despair oozed
through my veins as I grasped the obvious at last. “Yes.”

His face collapsed.
“You. You…” He gulped audibly. “Why did you activate the
keep-alive?”

“What keep-alive?”

“The crossword
puzzles, you moron.” He stared at me in the dimness. “Tell me you
haven’t been doing the crossword puzzles…”

“Yeah.” My voice was a
hoarse rasp. “You mean… That was your keep-alive? Oh, God.”

I sucked in a
trembling breath. “Oh, God. Robert did them every night. I caught
him at it a few times and he always closed them right away, but I
love crossword puzzles, and I bugged him about it until he let me
play. We did them together every night. After he died, I just kept
doing them… For old times’ sake…”

Kasper sank to the
ground, his whisper barely disturbing the silence. “So you and I
have just been sending messages to each other.” He closed his eyes,
pain carving deep lines in his face. “He’s really dead. My best
friend.”

The last of my
strength drained away, my heart wringing with grief as bright as
fresh blood.

Robert had loved me
after all. Had risked and lost his life to protect me nearly three
years ago.

And I had defiled his
memory with ugly suspicion.

“Yes…” The words
barely escaped my scalded throat. “He… He’s really… d-dead.”

I don’t know how long
I lay in silence, the throbbing in my body a distant counterpoint
to the fresh sharp pain in my heart. Eventually Kasper leaned over
to cut the nylon ties and I sprawled in limp apathy on the icy
ground, shivering in long waves. Maybe I could die here.
Hypothermia was probably a pretty easy way to go.

His hands closed
around my shoulders to shake me again. “Get up.”

I spoke through
chattering teeth. “B-bite me.”

“I can’t imagine what
Robert saw in you,” he sniffed. “You are a thoroughly objectionable
woman.”

“F-fuck you v-very
m-much.” I tried not to care, but a tiny flame of irritation
kindled. “I c-can’t imagine what he s-saw in you. You’re a
f-fucking d-dickhead.”

“Of course I am.” He
hauled me to my feet despite the spasmodic shower of verbal abuse I
delivered between my convulsive shivers. “Shut up and get out of
here,” he snapped. “I have some Knights to hunt.”

“N-no, you d-don’t. I
b-blew them all up t-tonight.”

“What?” He stared, his
jaw dangling.

“I s-said I b-blew
them up. They’re t-toast.”

His shout exploded the
silence of the night. “You
moron
! That was my… They were
mine
! Mine! My revenge… my
purpose
! My chance to give
Irina peace! And…” His voice faltered. Dropped to a whisper. “And…
Robert…”

I laid a hand on his
shoulder, my heart squeezing. “K-Kasper, I’m s-sorry.”

Somehow I managed to
stumble back to my dirt bike and get aboard. I took the shortest
route to Kane’s office, barely feeling the bitter wind.

My numb indifference
lifted for a moment at the sight of the small darkened house still
standing unscathed in its quiet yard. The glimmer of satisfaction
gave me almost enough energy to dismount.

My leaden leg caught
on the seat, toppling both me and the bike onto the curb. I lay
whimpering quietly on the sidewalk until the pain in my pinned leg
impelled me to struggle out from underneath the bike. I crept to my
feet and tottered to the front door only to realize my key had been
lost with my waist pouch.

Despair buckled my
knees and I slid down the door, clutching at the doorknob in a
futile attempt to remain upright.

The door swung open
and I sprawled onto the floor of the darkened vestibule.

After a moment of
sodden incomprehension, a few wisps of adrenaline trickled into my
bloodstream. I struggled to my hands and knees and drew my Glock.
Kane and Spider would never leave the door unlocked.

I should search the
house. I’d watched Kane clear my house often enough to know how to
do it. But ponderous exhaustion dragged at my limbs and agonizing
shivers convulsed my body. I couldn’t even make it to my feet, let
alone through the house.

My torpid brain served
up one last useful instruction, and I crawled over to drag the
phone off Spider’s desk. A moment of sheer dumb gratitude made me
press the receiver to my heart at the sound of the dial tone.
Steadying my shaking hands against the floor, I managed to punch in
the number for Kane’s cell.

“Kane.” His voice was
a raw rasp.

“I’m at y-your office.
The d-door w-was unlocked. B-be c-careful, s-somebody m-might’ve
b-broken in…” My words came from far away, and I slumped down to
curl around the receiver, taking comfort from the sound of his
voice without comprehending his words.

Suddenly, Kane was
beside me. “Aydan!” His voice vibrated with tension.

“I’m f-fine,” I
mumbled. “C-clear the h-house.”

His hand stroked over
my hair, and then he was gone. I drifted until he returned and
knelt beside me. His gentle hands performed a rapid examination of
my limbs while he spoke.

“The house is clear. I
must have left the door unlocked. I was watching your tracker when
it disappeared and a few seconds later I heard the explosion. I
knew it had to be big if I heard it underground. I tried to trace
your cell phone. It was gone, too, and I just… ran.”

He stroked my hair
gently away from my face. “I drove to your last known position. I
could tell how bad it was even from a mile away. I found your truck
abandoned. When you called I was… searching the blast site. Hoping
you’d somehow survived…” His lips brushed my temple. “Aydan. Aydan,
talk to me.”

I struggled to sit up,
tremors racking me.

Kane’s strong arms
closed around me, tucking me close to his heart. He tilted my chin
up to look down into my eyes. “I thought I’d lost you. Talk to me.
Please say something.”

For an instant,
Robert’s gentle smile hovered in my mind, his arms as warm around
me in memory as Kane’s real-life embrace. I gulped hard.

“It’s o-over.” My
voice was choked, and I cleared my throat before trying again.
“You’re s-safe.”

And my husband had
loved me.

The trembling spread
to my lips, and I hid my face against Kane’s broad chest. My voice
was a ragged whisper. “I k-killed a d-dog t-tonight.”

“What?” He caressed my
hair, his lips moving softly against my temple. “What did you
say?”

My numb shell
shattered into shards of pain. “I b-blew up a p-poor innocent
d-
dog
…”

The tears overwhelmed
me and I sobbed helplessly into his chest.

Kane held me close,
rocking me and stroking my hair until I finally subsided into
hiccups that tore fishhooks of pain through my battered ribs.

“S-sorry,” I
whispered.

“It’s all right.” He
stroked my hair one more time before pulling away far enough to
coax my chin up. I met his eyes awkwardly, but he smiled and leaned
down to kiss me lightly. “Come on,” he whispered against my lips.
“We’d better get you to the hospital.”

“I’m f-fine.” I pulled
away and tried to stand, but my protests wavered into mumbling when
the room swam around me.

His arms closed around
me again, and I let the warm, safe darkness claim me.

“Ms. Kelly.” Stemp’s
flat voice invaded my ears, and I groaned. The effort of dragging
my eyelids open shot dull pain through my skull and I groaned
again, struggling to focus on his face.

“Yeah.” My voice was a
dry croak.

“Welcome back.” I
didn’t bother to respond to that, and after a moment he continued.
“We need to debrief.”

“…’Kay.” I cast a
bleary glance around the hospital room. “We secure?”

“Yes. This room is
soundproof and unmonitored.”

“Kane?” My voice
rasped in my dry throat, and I fumbled for the water glass beside
my bed.

“I’m here.”

I cranked my head
around with an effort that stabbed jagged knives through my neck
and ribs to discover him sitting beside the head of my bed.

“Come around here
where I can see you.”

He smiled and obeyed,
dragging his chair around to sit beside Stemp at the foot of the
bed.

“Okay.” I gathered my
thoughts for a moment while I sipped some more water. “Long
story.”

I took a deep breath
that punished my aching ribs and began to outline everything I’d
learned about the Knights and their years of spying and subterfuge,
leaving out all mention of Kasper and Robert.

When my voice trailed
off into scratchy coughing at last, Stemp leaned forward while I
sipped water, his gaze intent. “How did you get Irina’s key?”

Damn, I had hoped he
wouldn’t notice my convenient omission. I kept my gaze level. “Sam
had it at his house.”

“You broke in and
stole it.” I met his eyes and said nothing. After a moment, he
spoke again. “Terry Sherman is still at large?”

“Far as I know.”

“We discovered three
red-haired, brown-eyed women who looked approximately your age in
the wreckage of the house outside town.”

My heart stuttered to
a halt. “Were they…”

“Injured, but all
expected to survive. So they must be the remaining mages?”

I drew a breath of
relief. “I guess. Except for Terry’s mage, Plum Blossom. Tammy
Mellor. Sam said Terry was offline, so they must have escaped
together.”

“So Kraus was the
mastermind.”

“Yes… But he never
actually committed treason. And his intentions were good.” I
debated internally for a moment, exhaustion slowing my thoughts. No
choice. I was going to have to trust Stemp. “Sam called me this
afternoon on my cell phone. He’s hitchhiking. You should be able to
narrow down his location if you track the call record.” I tried for
a steely-eyed glare and succeeded in a painful squint. “I need him
alive. And I need Betty’s key. I don’t know whether Sam has it or
whether it’s still in Macon.”

Stemp rose. “I’ll deal
with it. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Wait. You’re going to
want this.” I handed over my watch. “My network key is inside.
Sorry about the trank gun. It blew up with the warehouse.”

Stemp accepted the
watch. “So a very frightened young security guard’s babblings about
a secret agent with a Star Trek stun gun can be dismissed as
concussion-induced hallucination, wouldn’t you say?”