In a Fix (10 page)

Thomas glanced at his Rolex. “The tow truck will be here in about three minutes. Just so you know.”

Mark laughed. “You lawyers are retaliatory bastards, aren’t you? Hey Billy, do me a favor, will you?” He tossed his keys across the office. Billy caught them and left, looking happy to make his exit.

Mark strolled over to my desk and perched one leg on the edge, his knee pushing aside my secondhand mahogany pen caddy. “Okay, Ciel. There is a way you can help.” He ignored the warning look on Thomas’s face.

“How?” I eyed him suspiciously.

“Tell me where you sent Mina. It’ll save me time if I don’t have to check out all your hidey-holes.”

Thomas relaxed. I think. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him. Mark looked at me blandly.

“You mean there’s actually something you don’t already know? How refreshing.” I sat and, careful not to disturb the rock and parchment, readjusted my pen caddy. (Territorial?
Moi?
Just a tad.)

He shrugged. “I could find out easily enough, but why waste time? Look, I just want to make sure she’s still all right.”

“Why wouldn’t she be? No one but me knows where she is—I don’t keep that information in the files here.” On my laptop, maybe, but he’d made that safe, right? It would be rude to question his competence by bringing it up now.

“You don’t think anyone—anyone at all—might have been watching when she left?”

“We were careful. I’m
always
careful,” I said, my eyes unconsciously seeking the reassurance of the polished leather album full of thank-you cards and letters from my satisfied clients. At least
they
all thought I was good at my job, great even.

“I’m sure you are.” The patience in his voice went down a notch. “And that probably suffices for most of your jobs, but this one is different. Whoever took Trey will be looking for Mina, too.”

“And they’ll find me. Give me a bodyguard if you’re so worried, but Mina is fine where she is.”

“Can you be absolutely certain?” Thomas piped in, maddeningly reasonable again.

“Yes.”
The laptop, Ciel.
“No! I don’t know, let me think.” I swiveled my chair toward the window behind me so I wouldn’t have to look at the two of them staring holes into me. The view wasn’t much—another old building across the street—but at least the dawn was beginning to cast a rosy glow on it. The thing was, they were right. Even if the laptop was secure, how could I be positive Mina wasn’t at risk?

I have three undisclosed locations where I send my clients while I’m filling in for them: a remote island beach, a secluded cabin by a lake in upstate New York, and a middle-of-nowhere dude ranch. They’re all run by trusted associates, and cost a mint to maintain. On the surface they are ultra-exclusive getaway spots for wealthy people who need some time alone, which has the advantage of being basically the truth. If ever investigated closely, however, they would appear to be mental health facilities for members of the moneyed set who may have had a small nervous breakdown.

Thomas thought of the camouflage—he said no one would be likely to let it slip that they’d spent time in a mental institution, no matter how exclusive. If someone
were
crazy enough to blab … well, if they tried to explain me, and what I do for them, they’d only confirm the necessity of their stay in such a place. Machiavelli was a piker compared to my big brother.

I heard Billy reenter the office. “What’s up with Ciel?” he asked in an exaggerated whisper.

“She’s thinking,” Thomas whispered back, equally audible.

“Good grief—stop her before she hurts herself.” Back to normal volume from Billy.

I slowly spun my chair around to face the three of them. Choosing to ignore Billy’s rudeness, I said, “I’ll call and check on Mina. If you’ll wait in the reception area?” I indicated the door with my hand.

“Not good enough” was Mark’s terse response.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing,” Billy said, with a significant look at Mark, “somebody in a rent-a-dent out front appeared to be awfully interested in this building. Or rather, he was until I started to approach him. He took off before I could discuss it with him. Disappeared before I could get back to your car, so there was no way I could follow.”

“Crap. Do you think it was whoever left the rock and went through my files?” I said.

“I supervised the security on this building myself—trust me, nobody got in without my knowledge,” Thomas said.

I pointed at the rune. “Yeah? How do you explain that, then?”

He shrugged. “I put it there. A messenger delivered it the other day—said it was a gift for one of your clients. Seemed harmless enough, so I brought it up.”

Mark pounced on the information. “What did he look like?”

“Scrawny little guy in bicycle shorts. He makes deliveries here all the time.”

“Not much help there. Did he say who it was from?” Billy said.

“Just a friend of Ciel’s client. Said Ciel would know who it was,” Thomas said.

“Well, obviously I don’t. But what about my files? If the messenger wasn’t in here, who messed with them?”

That made my brother shift uncomfortably. “I may have checked them myself after I heard about the explosion on the news—stop giving me the evil eye, Ciel. I had to see where you were, didn’t I? Believe me, I was not reassured when I found out, either.”

“Fine,” Mark said. “At least we know no one has been in Ciel’s office—”

“Other than every fricking one of you,” I said, putting my glare on wide-beam.

“Other than us,” he conceded. “Tom, I’d like the number to the messenger service.” Thomas left, with a nod. “Ciel, I need to know which location—a call won’t be enough. I want to get some people on site.”

“There’s a security guard at each—”

Mark snorted.

“They’re good at what they do,” I insisted.

“If they were good enough, they wouldn’t have to take pissant guard jobs at secluded resorts.”

Pissant? Ouch. “Yeah? Well,
you
ran their background checks. If they’re no good, you can blame yourself.”

“They’re good enough for general security, which is what you need. This situation has gone beyond that.”

Billy interrupted with an appealing show of dimples. “Come on, cuz, tell Mark what he wants to know so he can get on with his job. You know he’s not going to let up on you until you do, and that’s just annoying to all of us.”

Much as I wanted to keep on arguing, I knew Billy was right. “Fine. She’s at the lake house. Now, do you want me to call or what?”

“No need. I’m on it.” Mark pulled out his cell phone, dialing as he left the room, pausing only to take a slip of paper from Thomas, who rejoined us.

“And just what am I supposed to do now?” I hollered after Mark, not expecting a response.

Thomas filled the void. “Mom called. She said to remind you about the party. You, too, Billy.”

We groaned in unison. My mother, the inimitable Aurora “Ro” Halligan, along with Billy’s mom, Maureen “Mo” Doyle, threw a party every autumn. Everyone in New York’s adaptor community came. There are more of us than you might think—at least sixty or seventy in NYC alone. Most major cities have at least a few. There’s probably a common ancestor, way back down the line somewhere, who started the ball rolling with a mutated gene. That little gene has really branched out during the intervening generations.

The party was the one social event of the season where adaptors could let their hair down and just be themselves. Attendance by the hostesses’ family members, while not technically compulsory, was strongly encouraged, to the point where if you didn’t show up you’d best be dead. Or at least hospitalized.

“Come now. It’s not so bad.” My brother dismissed our misery with a wave of his hand.

“How can you say that after last year?” I said.

“The fire was put out quickly, and the catering staff didn’t press charges,” Thomas said, his voice projecting calm evaluation of the facts.

“Only because you bought them off,” I said.

Thomas shrugged. “Come on. Nero apologized, and Mo did get a new kitchen out of it.”

“Mommo gets a new kitchen every other year, regardless of smoke damage,” Billy pointed out. His mash-up of “Mom” and “Mo” had begun shortly after Auntie Mo had married his dad, and had stuck. “And as I recall, you weren’t even there last year, so you have no solid basis for underplaying the calamity.”

My ears perked. “What do you mean he wasn’t there? I saw him myself, chatting up Felicity Belgrave. Mom was thrilled—she has high hopes that Thomas will settle down and give her some grandchildren so she can lord it over Auntie Mo.” I smiled sweetly at my big brother, savoring the one topic that could rattle him. He was far from ready to give up his bachelor lifestyle.

He coughed, and didn’t meet my eyes.

“What?! Who’d you pay off to be you for the evening? Nobody’s good enough to fool Mom for long.”

Billy cleared his throat and nonchalantly buffed his nails on his shirt.

“It couldn’t have been you—you were chasing me around all evening as Attila the Hun.”

“Only most of the evening. Every now and then I would let Auntie Ro discern just a shade of Thomas beneath my barbaric exterior. A masterfully subtle performance, if I do say so myself.”

“But I saw Thomas after the unmasking was complete, and I saw you, too.”

“Yes, but did you ever see us at the same time?”

Thomas gave Billy a sour look. “I had assumed confidentiality was a part of our agreement. See if I ever hire you again.”

“And I had assumed ‘hired’ meant I would be paid for my work. Seems we were both mistaken.”

Thomas laughed. “Are you sure you won’t consider law school? You’d be a natural.”

“Sorry. You legal beagles lead too exacting a life for me. I prefer the freedom to follow my fancy.” He sauntered around the desk and pulled me up. “Lead on, Fancy.”

Chapter 9

Mark stood at the end of the otherwise empty corridor, speaking softly into his phone. When he saw the three of us he held up one finger, said a few more words, then ended his conversation. He slipped the phone into his front jeans pocket, where the ultra-slim gadget barely made a bulge, and gestured for the three of us to join him.

“What’s up?” Billy asked.

“Okay. The Swede works for some wacko neo-Viking splinter group bent on restoring masculinity to Scandinavia.” Derision seeped through his carefully neutral voice.

“Vikings? You have got to be kidding me,” I said, picturing a bunch of tall, blond barbarians running around in horned helmets.

Mark looked faintly embarrassed. “Yeah, I know. But I guess it’s no weirder than some of the other shit going on in the world.”

Billy grinned and held up fingers on either side of his head, simulating horns. Great minds think alike. “No, this is definitely weirder.”

I giggled.

Mark gave us both a quelling look. “It is what it is. This group wants to reclaim their heritage of strength and honor.”

Billy nodded. “The world can always use more strength and honor. And helmets. You can never have too many helmets.”

Thomas silenced Billy with a backhanded slap to his shoulder.

“Trey connected with the Vikings six months ago,” Mark continued, “and has been trying to figure out whether they’re a legitimate threat or just out to grab some headlines.”

“Why Trey?” Thomas asked. “Isn’t he a little green for anything other than courier work?”

“Normally, yes. But he had a legitimate business reason to be in Sweden, and, frankly, it didn’t seem like this neo-Viking thing would amount to much. I mean, this is a group that started out as a bunch of men who were tired of being told by society to ‘pee sitting down,’ as they so colorfully put it. Hard to take that seriously.”

“I’m going out on a limb here, and assuming they meant that metaphorically,” Billy said.

“One hopes,” Mark said, lips quirking. “Anyway, the group has grown recently. It’s showing signs of expanding to America, for fundraising mostly, at least so far. Sweden doesn’t want them taking a page from the IRA playbook, and has requested we take a closer look. There’ve been some rallies, a lot of blustering. No public violence, but picking up steam to the point where we couldn’t ignore them as a possible future threat, no matter how ridiculous they seem.”

“Ridiculous or not, they’re after Trey,” Thomas said. “Did your organization drop the ball somewhere, Mark?” The accusation was clear.

“Come on, Tom, be fair,” Billy said, all seriousness now. “Do you have any idea how many radical splinter groups there are to keep track of in the world?”

“Only one I care about right now—the one affecting my sister.” Thomas was usually a reasonable guy, only not so much where his family was concerned.

“You’re right,” Mark said. “No excuses. I should’ve looked into the Vikings more closely as soon as I knew about Ciel’s connection to Mina. You have my apology, Tom.”

Thomas nodded, somewhat mollified, and Mark picked up where he left off. “Trey was in the process of delivering some intel to his liaison with the Swedish security police when he was grabbed. We don’t know how he got away, and we don’t know where he is now. The Vikings are still looking hard for someone. We assume it’s Trey. He knows enough not to risk communication with us under the circumstances.”

“What do you need me to do?” Billy said.

“Gotland,” Mark said at once. “Island off the coast of Sweden. You know it?”

“Ah, yes. I visited once, with a friendly SAS flight attendant who hailed from Visby. Charming place.” The faraway look in Billy’s eyes gave me a good idea of just how friendly the flight attendant had been.

“Great. Visby is the last place Trey was known to be, and there’s a good chance he’s still on the island. Get there as quickly as you can. Travel commercial, don’t draw attention to yourself. Once you’re there, make a show of wandering around. Act touristy. Trey trusts you—our best hope is that he’ll make contact.”

“
You
know Trey?” I asked Billy, once more feeling out of the loop.

Billy shrugged at me, and spoke to Mark. “What do you want me to do if I find him?”