The Order Boxed Set (85 page)

Wasn’t this the time she was supposed to take herself straight to hospital? She stared at the cell door.

Oh well, there wasn’t a lot they could do anyway apart from monitoring her and keeping down the pain. Though that sounded good right now.

The lock clicked, and she braced herself for company. She wasn’t sure she could face more of Ash right now. But when the door opened it was Ryan, and she almost started bawling again, it was so good to see him.

“Hey, how are you doing?” he asked.

“I’ve been better.”

Ryan stepped into the room. He held a small silver key in his hand and she stretched out her wrists in relief.

She was rubbing her arms when a second figure appeared in the doorway accompanied by the waft of freshly brewed coffee. She recognized the young, red-haired man she’d seen at the reception desk that first day.

He searched around for somewhere to put the tray, failed to find anywhere, and placed it on the floor by the cot. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a small glass bottle.

“Ash said you could use some painkillers. They’re the strongest I could find.”

Faith stared at the bottle, then up at the small camera in the corner. “Is he watching?”

Ryan nodded. “Him and a few others.”

“Oh.” She supposed it was unavoidable. And he’d noticed she had a headache and done something about it. He couldn’t hate her that much. “Thank you.”

She took the bottle into the bathroom, took two of the tablets, and washed them down with water from the tap. When she went back, Ryan was alone and he was holding out a mug of steaming coffee. She took it, cradled it in her hands, and went and sat on the cot.

Ryan was silent while she sipped the drink. The painkillers acted almost immediately, the headache waning, but also the throb of her shoulder and various other parts of her body faded. She sighed in relief. Finally, when she could put it off no longer, she put the empty mug down and faced Ryan. “So?” she said.

“Did you arrange to meet Tara that night for the express purpose of abducting her?”

Just like Ryan to get straight to the point. “No.”

“You had no idea that was going down.”

“No. They must have had my phone monitored. They picked up the call from Tara and decided to act on it. I’m guessing it was spur of the moment.” She thought back. “I think my boss was being hassled by his superiors about getting results and decided to act.”

“So when did you know about Tara?”

She bit her lip, glanced at the camera, and shrugged. “From the moment I was shot. Though it didn’t come back to me until I was in the hospital. I recognized the shooter. He’s one of the guards at MI13.”

Ryan frowned. At a guess, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. She didn’t care; she was past lying. If they didn’t like it they could…well they could do what they liked. It hardly mattered now.

“And you didn’t think to mention that little fact when you spoke to us that night.”

Some of her self-pity dissolved to be replaced by a spark of anger. It felt good. She jumped to her feet and jabbed her finger in Ryan’s chest.

“Fuck off, Ryan, you sanctimonious prick,” she snarled. “I’m not the one who left the force to work for God knows who. I don’t know what Christian Roth is, but I’m guessing it’s something dodgy.”

He grinned. Then the smile faded. “You still don’t know what he is? Or are you so stubborn that you won’t admit it? Can’t you accept that you were wrong? That the monsters do exist?”

At his words, panic clawed at her mind, held her in a viselike grip. The wall rose up inside her head, dark, tall, and forbidding, and behind it were all manner of horrors. She shook her head trying to dislodge the sensation, then realized she didn’t want the wall gone. The wall kept her safe. If she ever saw behind it…

She repeated the mantra from her childhood.

The monsters don’t exist. The monsters don’t exist
.

“Faith?”

She clamped her eyes closed and saw fangs and blood. So much blood. Her mind skittered away from the thought as it always did. “I can’t. It’s like there’s a wall in my head. The monsters don’t exist.”

Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay, we’ll leave it for now. Tell me what happened next.”

“When I went into work the next day, I admitted I knew it was them and told the colonel I had no problems with it. That I’d do what was needed to get the job done.”

“And would you?”

She thought of Tara strapped to that table. “No. There are lines you don’t cross. Not ever.”

“Only for some people.”

“They told me that they were using Tara to get to Christian. I didn’t know where she was then, and it never occurred to me that they would hurt her.” She saw Ryan’s disbelief and scowled. “I thought they were the good guys. Good guys don’t torture people. The following morning I got my security clearance and the colonel obviously decided I could be trusted at the interrogations. After that, it wouldn’t have mattered whether she was guilty or not. Nobody has the right to treat another human being like that. As soon as I could get away, I called you.”

He reached out and patted her hand. “I’m glad. It couldn’t have been easy going back in there and pretending.”

“It wasn’t too hard. The colonel tried to tell me that Christian had murdered my mother. I concentrated on that—”

“What?” Ryan’s voice held shock. She’d never told Ryan about her mother, never told anyone until Ash, last night. It was another of those things her mind skittered away from thinking about.

The cot was behind her, and she sank down onto it and hugged her knees to her chest. Even now, something inside her niggled that she shouldn’t talk about this. She blocked the nagging little voice out and forced herself to speak.

“My mother was murdered when I was twelve. I found her body. She’d been drained of blood.”

Ryan came and sat down beside her. “I didn’t know. You never spoke of it. Even when we found the murdered girl. Why didn’t you say something then?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been able to talk about it.” She shook her head. “I don’t even think about it that often. It’s as though it’s a nightmare that slipped away. No, more than that. It’s like there’s something inside me that blocks the memory out. I don’t know…”

“But the colonel told you there was a link to Christian?”

She nodded. “He said he was a”—she could hardly speak the word—“a vampire and my mother had been drained of blood.”

“And you believed him?”

“No. I don’t remember much, but if I concentrate hard, I can see him, from the back and he was blond and not much taller than my mother.”

“Wait, you mean you were there in the house when she was murdered?”

“Yes. I told you, I found her. I went along with the colonel, because he was more likely to believe I was on their side.”

She thought about the file she had read on her mother’s murder, the pictures. Her hand went to her throat as she remembered the last photograph.

“What is it?” Ryan asked.

“On the file there was a photo. Of me. I had marks on my neck as though something had bitten me.” Panic rose up inside her. “But I don’t remember. How could I not remember?”

“Did you have any counseling afterward?”

“Only a little, because I remembered virtually nothing.”

“Could the counselor have done something—some type of hypnosis?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Could that be the answer? Had someone taken her memories, helped her build the wall? For the first time, she closed her eyes and tried to peer beyond the barrier. Her headache had faded, but she pressed her fingers to her forehead as though she could force herself to remember.

Ryan’s phone rang breaking her concentration. He listened for a minute his brows drawing together. “Christian wants to talk to me and you,” he said after the call ended.

Fear rippled through her. She didn’t want to die. Not yet. “What about?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? But I won’t let anything bad happen to you Faith.” He seemed unsure for a moment. “Ash made a point of telling everyone not to touch you.”

“Probably wants to kill me himself,” she muttered. But his words calmed her a little.

“No one is killing anyone.”

“Anyone else, you mean.” A whole load of people had already died that night. “Is Christian coming here?”

“No, we’ll go to them. At least it will get you out of here.”

She forced a smile. “It’s not so bad.” But it was definitely a relief to be out of the small space. She followed Ryan down a corridor. “What is this place?” she asked. On the drive over here, she hadn’t paid attentions to where they were going. She’d presumed that they were heading to the CR building, but she hadn’t recognized the underground parking area.

“We’re in the city in the SA International building.”

“I know it.” An office block in the center of the business district, but obviously, it extended farther underground that any normal building. They took the elevator one floor up, and Ryan led the way along another corridor and entered the room at the end.

It seemed crowded, but maybe that was because the two occupants were so big. Ash sat behind the desk. Christian stood behind him. They both glanced away from the monitor as she entered the room with Ryan.

Christian didn’t exactly appear friendly but at least he didn’t seem quite so scarily
un
friendly. Ash rose to his feet his gaze running over her. He was so gorgeous. Black leather pants molded his long legs and lean hips. A short-sleeved T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders and showed of the intricate tattoo around his arm.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

She nodded. At least it didn’t sound like they were going to kill her straightaway. “Thanks for the painkillers.”

He shrugged.

“So what is it?” Ryan said. He nodded toward the computer monitor on the desk. “You were watching?”

“Yes.”

“You have more questions?”

“No. Not right now anyway.” Christian said glancing to her back to Ryan. “We’re happy she had nothing to do with the kidnapping. Don’t look so worried—I won’t touch her.”

“Good. So what do you want to talk about?”

Christian stepped around the desk and stalked toward her. She had to force herself to stand her ground and not back away. He was as beautiful as Ash in his own way, but he scared her, as Ash never did, despite what she’d seen. He came to a halt in front of her, and she almost squirmed under the intense scrutiny.

“Tell me, Faith,” he murmured. “Do you believe in vampires?”

Faith’s mind went blank for a moment, then filled with an image of the wall; it gave her the strength to answer. “Of course not.”

Christian smiled, showing the tips of sharp white fangs. “Really?”

She glanced away. They weren’t real. But her heart was slamming and inside her head the wall trembled.

Vampires don’t exist.

The words screamed through her mind.

“What would it take to make you believe?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing would make me believe. Vampires don’t exist.” She looked around her almost wildly. “You don’t understand—they can’t exist. They
can’t
.”

“What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

Christian turned away from her, and she breathed again.

“Her memories have been altered. Someone has already messed with her mind.”

“What are you talking about?”

Who’d messed with her mind? She knew there were cases where traumatized victims were helped by a form of hypnosis. Had that happened to her? Was that why the memories were so hazy?

Ryan ran a hand through his hair. He scrutinized her closely, as though he was trying to see into her head. “You think a vampire did something to her mind?”

What the hell was Ryan talking about? Why was he going along with this madness? She looked to Ash hoping for some help some sign that she wasn’t the only sane one here.

Vampires do not exist.

Ash nodded and cracks rippled through the wall. “We think the vamp who killed her mother. Maybe she interrupted. For some reason he left her alive but forced her to forget and added a compulsion that refused to let her believe that vampires existed.”

They were all crazy. That was it. They were all on some drug or something. She needed to get out of there. She whirled around meaning to make for the door, but Ryan blocked her with a hand on her arm.

“Let me go,” she snarled.

Instead, he held her for a moment. He whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry, but you need to face this, Faith.”

“Face what? What are you talking about?”

She raised her head and stared into his eyes. They were full of pity. “They think something was done to you. All those years ago, after your mother’s death. To make you forget.”

“Do you believe them?”

“Yes.” He turned to Christian. “Can you reverse it?”

“Probably. If the one who did it is weaker, then I can override the compulsion.”

Ryan gripped both her shoulders and stared down into her eyes. “Faith, do you want to remember? It might be better left alone.”

“Of course she wants to remember,” Ash said. “The truth is always better than lies.”

“Is it?” Ryan asked. “Or do you just want her to finally believe in the monsters? This has to be what’s right for Faith, not for you.”

She had no clue what was going on, but some unknown terror hovered on the edge of her mind.

“You said you wanted her to work with us. She can hardly do that as she is now.” Ash sounded quite reasonable…for a crazy person. He came toward her and Ryan dropped his hold on her arms. “You want to know, don’t you, Faith? You’re a detective, and that’s why you became a detective isn’t it—to discover the truth?”

Every cell in her body was screaming at her to run, instead, she found herself nodding slowly. She didn’t know why, she seemed to have lost control of her reactions.

A smile flashed across Ash’s face. “Good, girl.”

He touched Ryan lightly on the arm and the two men backed away. Ryan still seemed worried, but resigned and…curious.

“Faith, sit down.” The softly spoken words came from behind her, and she pivoted slowly to find Christian Roth standing close beside her.