Mortal Ties (33 page)

“He expected Rule to bring Cullen?”

Jasper nodded. “And you. And he wanted Rule to bring the Finder, but I couldn’t talk
him into that.” Bitterly he added, “
I
wanted him to bring the Finder, too. If he had, I would have taken a chance. I could
have passed one of you a note. Friar has my house most thoroughly bugged, so I had
to follow his script when you were there, but I could have passed a note. If your
Finder could have found Adam…but you didn’t bring her.”

“If your house is bugged, he must know you left it tonight.”

The twist of his mouth was meant to be a smile. “Now you’re impugning my professional
abilities. I left recordings, of course. Several of them, because there are bugs in
almost every room. No visual, but audio is damn near as tricky if it’s done well,
and his people did a good job. But I’m better.”

“How long before your recordings end?”

He glanced at his watch. “I can stay another three hours, tops. The recordings will
run out in four hours and seven minutes. Right about now,” he added, “I’m in the kitchen
getting some nibbles from the refrigerator.”

“If he has someone watching—”

“The lights are on timers.”

A high-end thief would need to be good at fooling surveillance, she supposed.

“I don’t think there are watchers 24/7,” Rule said. “Chris and Allan haven’t spotted
any. How did you leave your house without my men seeing you?”

“There’s a way to go from my basement to my neighbor’s. I go to the third floor in
his house, out a window, and into that huge oak in his backyard. From that tree I
connect with another one in the yard behind him, then down, out the gate, and away.”

“Your neighbor doesn’t mind you wandering through his house to get to his tree?”

“My goal is for him to remain unaware of it. Mr. Peterson is eighty-two, deaf, and
goes to bed at nine every night, so this isn’t challenging. His dog has excellent
hearing, but we’re buds, so he doesn’t object to me visiting.”

Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “Surely this is not the Mr. Peterson with the Great Dane.”

Jasper smiled faintly. “In fact, it is. Mr. Peterson is a remarkably fit eighty-two,
and while Ajax has a bad habit of hopping over the fence when he’s bored, he behaves
well on their daily walks.”

Drummond spoke from his spot near the wall. “Machek doesn’t sound all that retired
to me.”

He didn’t to Lily, either. Jasper still had all the gadgets he needed to fool surveillance.
He’d worked out a route to leave his house unseen and had apparently used it before
tonight. “How long did it take you to make the recordings you’re using tonight?”

Jasper’s lips thinned. “I’ve had plenty of time. Nine days. When he first took Adam
I suspected he’d bugged the house. Never mind why for now—I suppose you’ll want to
hear all about that, but later. I didn’t know about him being a listener, not then,
so I looked for less arcane ways of eavesdropping. Once I was sure I’d found all the
bugs, I started making the recordings. It seemed likely I’d want to leave without
him knowing at some point.”

“Okay. How do you know the prototype is missing?”

“Because it isn’t where I left it.”

“But you weren’t going to make the exchange for the next few days. Why would you check
on or move it? Isn’t there a chance you’d lead Friar to it?”

“Oh. Right. I see why you wondered.” He grimaced. “It’s hard to overcome the habit
of secrecy. I’d followed my usual procedure, you see, so I needed to move it to a
better hiding place.”

“Your usual procedure being—?”

“FedEx, in this case.”

“If you FedEx’ed it to yourself last night, it wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow.”

“No, I use their delivery trucks, but not that way. UPS vehicles work, too, but FedEx
was closer.”

The front door opened. “—said I’d take it. Isn’t there someone else with vital and
sensitive work you need to interrupt? No? Then you can guard my ass while I…oh. Hello.”

Cullen had entered pushing a room service cart, trailing his two guards. He stopped
short when he saw Jasper. “Now that’s interesting. Not interesting enough to justify
interrupting me, but I suppose you have questions you want to ask.”

“Something like that,” Rule said dryly. “I’m guessing the Find spell still isn’t working.”

“Not worth a damn. Weirdest thing I ever saw.” Cullen lifted the lid of one of the
dishes. “That looks good. Did I eat supper?”

“Yes, but don’t let that stop you. Perhaps you’d get something for my guest as well.”

“If you mean me, I don’t want anything,” Jasper said.

“I’ll take a cup of coffee,” Lily said. “Jasper—”

“Oh, good, interrupt my spellcasting so I can play waiter.” Cullen did sarcasm so
well. But he did pour a cup for her and drift in her direction while biting into the
half sandwich he’d picked up.

“Are you going to keep interrupting me as some sort of payback?” she asked as she
took the cup.

“Maybe. What am I interrupting?”

“Your prototype wasn’t really missing before. It is now. Jasper dropped by to tell
us about it. He went to get it today, and it was gone. He was about to explain what
that has to do with FedEx.”

“Um. Yes.” Jasper cast a wary glance at Cullen. “I prefer to avoid confrontation with
those whose property I’ve appropriated. Some of them have nasty tempers and even nastier
spells. My first goal is always to put as much distance as possible between me and
the object’s previous
owner. If I can hand it off to the person who ordered the job right away, fine. If
not, I affix the item to a delivery truck. FedEx is my first choice. The trucks stay
in motion and they—”

Cullen broke in. “Tell me you didn’t just duct tape the skull to the axle.”

“I did use duct tape. That takes a few minutes to cut through at retrieval, but it’s
worth it to make the object secure. But don’t worry. The skull is in a bowling ball
bag with plenty of padding. That did limit my options for where to tape it. I prefer
to put objects near the engine, but a dry run showed that wouldn’t work this time.”

Cullen nodded. “Makes sense.”

Lily rolled her eyes. First Cullen bitches about having his spellcasting interrupted,
then he compliments the thief who made it necessary. “Explain.”

“If you’re using a spell, it’s harder to find something that’s moving, and some Find
spells—not mine, but some—are dispersed by large chunks of metal, like an engine.
Doesn’t work against a good Finder, though.”

“True,” Jasper said, “but last night I needed to hide it from people other than your
Finder. I was out of her range—or so I’d been told. Her limit is a hundred miles,
right?”

Cullen scowled. “Told by who?”

“Robert Friar.”

“And you believe a
vesceris corpi
whose word is as rotten and rancid as that which he consumes?”

Jasper spoke admiringly. “That was a master-level insult. I agree about Friar, but
in this case I think he spoke accurately. He wanted me to succeed.”

Lily yanked them back on track. “Tell me when you went to get the prototype, why you
went at that time, and how you found the right truck.”

“To answer your last question first—GPS. I went to get it tonight at eight forty because
it had been stationary for thirty minutes, suggesting the driver was done for the
day.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, it was at a garage, up on a rack.
The GPS tracker was still in place, but the prototype was gone.”

“You didn’t just look at the truck. You searched elsewhere.”

“In the trash, the Dumpster—everywhere I could think of.” He leaned forward intently.
“That’s why I’m here. I don’t think Friar has it. Either one of the other people looking
for it—”

“There’s more than Friar after it?” Cullen asked sharply.

“Yes, yes—I’ll get to that in a minute. Either one of the others somehow tracked it
down, or one of the mechanics took it home with him. Either way…” He looked directly
at Rule. “Seabourne can’t find it. He’s tried. We
need
your Finder now. You have to send for her.”

Rule’s face was tight. “Two things you need to know. First, she isn’t under my authority.
Second, she’s a young mother with a new baby, and Friar wants to kill her.”

Hope drained from Jasper’s face as visibly as water swirling down the drain. “Then
you won’t—you can’t—”

“I can’t send for her. I can ask her to come.” Rule looked at Lily for a long moment
and sighed. “I will call her.”

“Like hell you will!” And Cullen sprang at him.

L
ILY
transferred quickly to the couch to get out of the way. Rule parried Cullen’s charge
with a variation on a hip lift—and sure enough, Cullen crashed into the chair she’d
just vacated. It toppled. Lily sighed. “So much for the undamaged furniture.”

“What—” Jasper turned wide eyes on her. “Aren’t they going to stop it? I thought those
men were Rule’s guards, and he’s the big leader. The Rho. Why are they just standing
around?”

“Cullen is Rule’s friend. He’s got certain privileges.” She winced. The next exchange
of blows had been so quick she didn’t see who got hit where, but when they separated
Rule’s nose was bleeding. “Plus Cullen is Nokolai, not Leidolf, so Rule is his Lu
Nuncio, not his Rho. The rules are different for a Lu Nuncio, and Rule hasn’t ordered
Cullen to stop.”

“Being friends means it’s okay for Cullen to beat the hell out of Rule?”

“Not that different from human men, are they? Don’t worry. He can’t hurt Rule too
much. Cullen’s fast, but Rule’s a much better fighter. He—shit!”

Rule had gone sailing this time, skidding on his back into a table—which nearly went
over, but Scott darted forward and steadied it at the last minute. Lily sent him a
pleased smile. “Rule wants to let Cullen burn off some steam. The Finder you want
so badly is Cullen’s wife.”

“His…but lupi don’t marry.”

Lily looked down at her ring. “Cullen’s unusual in many ways. And your assumptions
are out of date.”

“I know. Sorry.” He waved a hand. “But I thought you and Rule were the first to decide
to tie the knot.”

“You can’t believe everything you read. Cullen and Cynna kept their wedding quieter
than we are keeping ours.”

“Cullen—” Rule ducked a roundhouse kick. “I’m trying not to break any of your body
parts,” he said, exasperated, “but you need to start calming down.”

Cullen crouched. “When you tell me you aren’t going to drag Cynna into this—”

Enough. “He won’t have to.” Lily stood. “I’d already decided to call her.”

Cullen spun to face her, anger and incredulity vying for control of his ridiculously
beautiful face, which was bleeding where one of Rule’s blows had connected with his
cheekbone. “You would do that?”

“Before we left, she asked me to promise I’d let her know if we needed her. I did.
She wants to be sure it’s her decision, not yours or mine or Rule’s.” She glanced
down at Jasper and added gently, “It doesn’t mean she’ll come. She may not be able
to. But I will ask.”

Cullen stared at her, turned, and stalked into the bedroom. He was limping slightly.
A few seconds later she heard the water come on. He must have noticed the blood and
decided to wash it off.

She went to Rule. In the few seconds since the fight stopped, both his eyes were turning
black and his nose had swollen. Lupi healed fast, but they went through all the stages
first. He was breathing through his mouth. “Ouch. Your poor nose.”

He touched it gingerly. “He’s a quick son of a bitch. It’s displaced. Mike, you put
Samuel’s nose back when it got knocked out of—”

“I’ll do it,” Cullen called from the bathroom.

He sounded peevish rather than furious, but Lily raised skeptical eyebrows at Rule.
Cullen had the training—if he’d bothered to finish, he could have gotten his medical
degree—but how careful would he be at the moment?

“He messed it up. He can put it back.” Rule looked around the room. “Not too bad,
considering.” He took a couple of steps and righted the chair. “The leg’s a bit loose,
but it isn’t broken.”

“Scott saved the table.” Lily retrieved her notebook and coffee cup from the rescued
table. In spite of Scott’s care, most of the coffee had slopped out, so she went to
refill it. Whether through chance or instinct, the combatants had avoided the room
service cart. Good. “You ready for a cup?” she asked Jasper.

“I guess I am.”

He looked a bit dazed. Well, it took awhile to get used to lupi ways. She poured hers
and Jasper’s cups and said, “Rule?”

“After my nose is back in place.”

Cullen emerged from the bedroom with a sopping hand towel. His limp was worse. “Here.”
He tossed the towel to Patrick. “Put that in the freezer. Rule will appreciate it
being nice and cold after I put his nose back where it belongs.”

“Couldn’t you just suck the heat away?” Lily asked as she carried Jasper’s coffee
to him.

“The towel won’t have to concentrate to stay cold the way I would. Okay.” Cullen stopped
in front of Rule and nodded once, pleased. “Got you pretty good, didn’t I? I’m going
to use the pain block spell just long enough to set it,” he said, raising both hands
to Rule’s face.