Memory Zero (22 page)

And yet, as youngsters, they’d often teased Mary that her footsteps were heavy enough to register on the Richter scale. The change must have been recent; surely either he or Stephan would have noticed it otherwise. So who had she shared blood with? Who had performed the ceremony and supervised her first steps into the world of the night? If it had been a vampire aligned with the Federation, they would have heard about it.

And why would she want to kill Stephan? Had that been the price of becoming immortal?

It didn’t make sense. But none of this was making sense—not the attempt on Stephan’s life, nor the attempts on Sam’s.

He stared at the smoking ruins for several seconds, and then ran a hand through his hair, prying free several twigs. “Stephan is the shifter you sensed.”

Confusion flitted across her face. “I thought he was the human.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Lyssa’s the shifter I sensed, not Stephan.”

His frown deepened, even as a feeling of dread began to build in his gut. “Lyssa’s a changer. Her other form is a cat.”

“Then why—” She hesitated. “I’m getting the same sort of feeling from her that I got from that shifter who took Finley’s form in the lab.”

No
, he thought.
No!
“You’re wrong.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged and shifted her gaze away from his. “After all, this talent, or whatever it is, is fairly new. Maybe I’m just reading it wrong.”

But she’d been right about the kites, about Kazdan’s clone, and about the shifter in the lab. Odds were she was right about this, too. He closed his eyes again. Lyssa
wasn’t
Lyssa—what other explanation could there be for Sam sensing a wrongness about her? God, this could shatter his brother’s spirit. Completely. “Are you
sure
it’s saying Lyssa is a shifter rather than a changer?”

“As sure as I was about the others.” She hesitated again, concern flaring deeper in her eyes. “Why, is something wrong?”

Everything
, he thought bleakly, then shook his head. “No, nothing.” Nothing beyond the fact that the woman his brother loved, the woman who was now carrying his brother’s child, was
not
the woman he’d married.

Somehow, he had to separate them, had to find out what had happened to the real Lyssa. There was always the chance, however slight, that she was still alive.

“You two okay?”

Like a soothing breeze in the heat of the night, Stephan’s voice rose out of the darkness. Gabriel glanced up. His brother had stopped a pace away and was wraithlike in the darkness.

“Someone wants to make very sure you’re dead, Stephan.” He let his gaze rest on Lyssa for a moment. She’d stopped just behind his brother, face pale and eyes haunted. Either she was a very good actress or she hadn’t known about the bomb.

Maybe both.

“Why would someone do this?” Lyssa whispered, the shake in her voice matching the shock in her eyes.

“That’s what we’ve got to find out.” He returned his gaze to the house. With so little left to burn, the flames were beginning to die down. “I think it might be wise for you to go on a business trip.”

“Might be.” Stephan’s voice was dry. “At least we won’t have to worry about packing.”

Despite his brief attempt at humor, relief and anger mingled freely in the vivid green depths of his brother’s eyes. “Alone, I mean.”

Stephan’s gaze narrowed, but after a moment, he nodded. “What about Lyssa and Mary?”

“I’ll arrange a twenty-four-hour guard,” Martyn said, and then he hesitated and shrugged. “Accommodation might be a problem. If this is Sethanon’s doing, he might know all our safe houses.”

Mary was standing just behind Martyn, staring at the crater, a glazed look of horror on her face. Maybe she hadn’t known the power of the bomb.

Damn it, it made
no
sense that she would even set it. If she was behind the poisoning, why make such a
public attempt of murder when the poisoning appeared to be working?

“Take Mary and set her up in apartment 317.” Stephan’s voice was even, despite the anger in his eyes. “We only acquired it three days ago, so it should be safe. Lyssa can stay with relatives.”

He meant
their
relatives, not
her
relatives. And she would be safe in the Stern compound. The question was, were
they
safe from
her
? How safe was it even showing her the location? But he couldn’t dispute Stephan’s decision, not without telling him why. And there was no point in doing that until he knew for sure that Sam was right. He’d just have to call his old man and have him keep an eye on Lyssa.

In the distance, sirens howled, drawing closer. People in dressing gowns hovered near the front gates or peered out windows from the surrounding houses. Stephan glanced over his shoulder, studying them. “State’s on the way. We tell them nothing.”

“They’ll want to know how we escaped.” Sam’s soft voice held a hint of annoyance.

“We know nothing, and we tell them nothing. This is our business, not State’s.” Stephan glanced at Gabriel. “Not even SIU.”

Sam looked ready to argue. He brushed his hand against hers and shook his head when she looked at him. Her gaze was mutinous, but after a moment, she nodded. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and handed it to Stephan. “Let me handle State. Why don’t you ring the old man and make arrangements for Lyssa to go home?”

Stephan nodded and moved away a few steps, drawing Lyssa with him. Gabriel watched him for a minute longer, and then rose stiffly to his feet. Three black
squad cars swept up the driveway, headlights spearing the darkness, targeting them in brightness.

“Now the fun begins,” Sam murmured.

He glanced at her. Her face was still pale, and her eyes were ringed by shadows of gray. She looked exhausted, beaten, yet her gaze held an edge of steel that told him she would battle on until she got the answers she needed. Kazdan certainly didn’t deserve the loyalty she gave him.

He held out a hand to help her up, and after a moment, she accepted it. Her fingers were like ice against his own. He shrugged out of his dinner jacket and placed it around her shoulders.

“Thanks.”

He nodded. “Let’s go face your fellow officers.”

She drew the coat tight across her chest, a gesture that was defensive more than an attempt to keep out the chill wind. “Only if we must.”

He could understand her reluctance—especially with the specter of Jack’s death still hanging over her head. But regardless of what happened, regardless of whether he eventually cleared her of blame, the fact was that she’d shot the man she thought was her partner. And they would always judge her by that one action. She could either live with it or quit.

He hoped it was the former. A recent survey by State showed that many disgraced officers spiraled down a self-destructive path. Sam, like those others, appeared to have nothing but her job in her life. He’d hate to see her step onto that same path.

“We must,” he replied softly.

She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Then she nodded and walked forward, her body a slender shadow against the brightness of the lights.

Martyn cleared his throat. Gabriel looked back at him.

“Don’t trust her,” Martyn warned in a low voice. “Just … watch it. She’s been Kazdan’s partner for five years. She might be a whole lot more.”

This coming from someone who’d long been infatuated with the woman who may have just tried to blow them all to bits. Gabriel studied Mary for a moment, and then nodded. Because in truth, he
was
worried about the depth of Sam’s determination to find out what her partner was up to. She might not love Kazdan, and she might well have shot him to save herself, but she certainly still cared about him. Who knew what would happen if Kazdan ever tried to subvert those feelings?

“Just get Mary to that safe house and keep a watch on her. Then you’d better send out a warning to our other operatives.” And he’d do the same with the SIU. This might be the first of another round of retaliations against both organizations.

Martyn nodded. “I’ll be in contact once we’ve settled.”

He nodded, and then he turned and followed Sam to the squad cars.

S
AM LEANED A SHOULDER AGAINST
the roughened trunk of an old silky oak and watched Gabriel walk toward her. His pace was loose-limbed and graceful. Powerful, and yet oddly sexy. She frowned at the thought, wondering where her mind was at, and thrust it away.

He’d spent the last hour or so speaking to various levels of officialdom and, for the most part, had managed
to keep her out of it. Which she sure as hell didn’t mind. The lieutenant who’d briefly interviewed her had made his opinion of her quite clear. She’d shot her partner. She deserved to be lying in bits, not sitting in a squad car sipping lukewarm coffee. Not long after
that
pleasant experience, she’d abandoned the car, and her coffee, and retreated to the shelter of the silky oak. At least trees didn’t judge.

“You okay?” Gabriel stopped, and held out a steaming mug of coffee.

Sam accepted it gratefully. “Once I warm up a little, I will be.” She wrapped her fingers round the plastic mug and studied the black-clad figures swarming the crater. “Are they going to let us go anytime soon?”

“We can go whenever we please. I’m just waiting for SIU to deliver another car. Not much left of the old one, I’m afraid.”

She nodded. She’d noted one of the doors wrapped around the trunk of a sugar gum earlier. Who knew where the rest of the vehicle was? “What’s the plan when we get the car?”

His hazel eyes were suddenly enigmatic. “We visit Jack’s apartment.”

She frowned. “Is that wise? He might be home. And if he isn’t, he sure as hell will have the place alarmed.”

“He’s a vampire. He won’t be home at this hour of the night. Alarms I can get around.”

Maybe normal alarms he could. But he didn’t know Jack, didn’t know how devious he could be. “That end of the central business district tends to be high security. We may not even get in.”

His sudden smile held a cynical edge. “I’m SIU. I can get in anywhere.” His gaze ran past her. “Car’s here.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Two gray Fords were pulling to a halt near the black squad cars. “I really don’t think raiding Jack’s is a good idea.”

“Is that a professional or personal opinion?”

Annoyance ran through her. He obviously still believed she was somehow linked to Jack. That her actions, her reluctance, were an attempt to protect him. Maybe she’d have to shoot Jack again just to get Gabriel to believe anything else.

The thought shook her. Jack was her
friend
. She refused to believe anything else, even if the mounting evidence was to the contrary. At the very least, he deserved the chance to explain his motives—and to explain why his clone had tried to kill her. Gabriel was here only because he wanted to find out more about her ability to sense the kites. To do that, he had to keep her out of prison. Friendship certainly didn’t enter into the equation.

“Let’s get out of here,” was all she said, as she pushed past him and headed for the car.

Two gray-clad SIU officers greeted them with polite nods. One handed over a key-coder. That was it. No questions about what had happened to the previous car, and no forms to fill in. Jack was right. SIU was a law unto itself—and, through Gabriel, it was a world she was getting sucked into deeply. And something told her only death would now free her from its grip.

She climbed into the car and crossed her arms, trying to ignore a sense of trepidation. In one respect, Gabriel was right. They had to find out what was on those disks, and Jack’s computer might be the only one capable of reading them. But Jack would know by now that she’d taken them. He wouldn’t take a chance
on her not knowing about the apartment. He’d anticipate it and be ready.

Gabriel started the car and drove away smoothly, heading for the city. She watched the bright lights draw closer, and with every mile that passed, the sense of danger grew.

They arrived too soon for her liking. She climbed out of the car and looked up. The building was little more than a wall of black glass that acted like a mirror, reflecting the myriad lights of Federation Square. Black marble steps led up to the foyer doors, which were also black glass with gold fittings. The whole place reeked of money. How could Jack afford to own an apartment here? He earned the same salary she did, and she wouldn’t be able to rent a closet in a place like this. Hell, she could barely afford the council rates on her Brighton apartment, and that was only on the outskirts of Melbourne, so how could Jack afford this place, right in the city’s heart? Besides, he’d been having trouble keeping up with the payments on his Mulgrave home. If he owned this, why would he even bother?

Gabriel headed up the steps, and she reluctantly followed. A doorman, dressed in gray and gold, nodded politely and keyed open the huge glass doors.

She shook her head. How could anyone at State have missed this? If SIU had known about the apartment, surely State must have known—and that, in itself, suggested the apartment was legit. Anything shady would have been investigated.

Their footsteps echoed sharply in the cavernous foyer. The huge reception desk was actually manned, rather than having the usual hands-on computer help.
The tall blond woman smiled as they approached, and her smile didn’t falter when Gabriel flashed his badge.

“Could you tell me if the occupant of apartment eight-eleven is currently in?”

The woman looked at her monitors. “No, he’s not.”

“Good. We need you to open it up for us.”

“I can’t do that, sir.”

“Yes, you can. I have a warrant.”

He pulled out his cell phone and pressed a few buttons. The woman studied the screen for a few minutes, then nodded. “I can use the cleaning code to give you access, but the time will still be limited to half an hour. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that—I haven’t got the clearance to change the programming.”

“Half an hour will do.”

The woman pressed a white button near the monitor. “I’ve called the elevator. It will take you straight to the eighth floor. Mr. Kazdan’s apartment is on the right.”