Vengeance (33 page)

I looked back at Cerberus. He grinned at me. Lucinda also grinned. "Flatterer."

"I'm just telling the truth." As I fastened my seatbelt, I caught a glimpse of Kathryn Delacroix, standing next to the sedan and talking urgently on a mobile phone. John Fairchild was approaching her, his face set and angry. We didn't have much time.

"Take Lincoln Avenue to 94th," I said, my mind racing. "Then go north on--"

"I know, I know." Lucinda piloted us out of the parking lot and onto the street, driving with a confident carelessness that left me breathless. She didn't seem aware that the vehicle she was driving was at least twice as large as her usual mode of transportation. We had several narrow misses with smaller cars before she adjusted.

We were silent until she got to the boulevard that would take us to my house. "Are you going to explain it, Nico? The virus? The government conspiracy?"

I watched her hands clench and unclench on the steering wheel, remembering what Cerberus had said. 'Reincarnation is a bit hard to grasp unless you're intimately involved in it. Try a good lie.' Maybe the truth would do.

Give it a try. It can't hurt
.

I glanced back at him then took the plunge. "I love you. Do you love me?"

"It's not about that."

"Do you love me?" I touched her hand, which gripped the wheel so tightly I was afraid it would break.

Her voice was a low whisper. "Yes."

"Leave it at that for now. When there's time, I'll explain everything. But I need to think." I squeezed her hand. "I need to plan."

She started to speak then closed her jaw with a snap. "Okay. But I want a complete explanation later."

I nodded, relieved. "You'll have it." I prayed I'd be able to keep that promise.

Lucinda pulled into my driveway ten minutes later. Good Friday was an important religious day, so I wasn't surprised by the quiet neighborhood. I opened the garage door and pressed the remote for the house door. Cerberus bounded out, sniffing anxiously at the ground.
David Delacroix is here
, he panted.

"Daddy's here? Where?" Lucinda looked around, confused.

Cerberus dashed to her then stopped, peering beyond me to the street.
She heard me. She's close to remembering it all. Come on!
He raced out to the street.

"Haidess."

Lucinda and I both turned. David Delacroix was striding across the street from Mrs. Taylor's house. I saw my neighbors in their doorway, waving. He probably waited with them until he saw our car in the drive. I once again thanked God or whatever entity protected elderly fools.

"Daddy?" Lucinda raced past me before I could stop her.

I pulled my Colt from under the SUV seat, hiding it under the jacket Lucinda let slip from her shoulders. Lucinda was in her father's arms, his face pressed to her hair and tears rolling down his sunken cheeks. Cerberus milling around their legs with excited little yips and much licking of any exposed flesh he could find.

"Inside." I grabbed Delacroix by the arm. "Now."

"What? What's wrong?" Lucinda looked up at me. "Oh. You're right."

I hustled them into the house, grabbing my security headset on the way as Cerberus raced ahead of us. I touched the keypad near the door to activate the perimeter alarms. "You're not dead," I said, tossing my jacket on the counter. "Why not? The police told me you'd died."

"That was Kat's doing. She did it to try to smoke you out into the open." Delacroix paused in the entryway door then came inside as the door automatically shut and locked behind him. "She lied to you."

I'm going to check
, Cerberus called out as he raced through the hall and toward the steps leading upstairs.

I ran a hand over my hair, hoping to rub intelligence into my brain. "What the hell is it with your family?" I came further into the room to lean against the counter. "Are you all congenital liars?"

Delacroix pulled Lucinda to him, keeping her close with an arm around her shoulders. His gaze flickered to
The Velveteen Rabbit
book, which I'd left on the counter. "Kat read Meyer's journals and told me the virus wasn't real. She didn't tell me it had been tested at a government lab." He squeezed Lucinda's shoulder. "She used us all to get close to Meyer and the virus."

I shook my head in denial as he was speaking. "If they tested it then they had the formula. It had to be something else."

He smiled briefly. "But I lied to her. I didn't give her the real journals. It was incomplete. There was no way I was going to let the government get their hands on that virus. The journals are safe."

"So it's true? There really was a virus? You were--" Lucinda's gaze swung to me, her eyes incredulous. "It's true?"

I turned around as Cerberus ran into the room.
There's someone outside
, he said, racing past me into the living room.

I pressed my headpiece tighter into my ear. "Two adult males approaching," the voice was saying.

"You knew?" I asked Delacroix, pulling out my Colt and slipping off the safety.

"I read the journals. I synthesized the virus and tested it." His eyes met mine and I saw his knowledge. "I knew--about it and you. Robert told me all about it. He told me about your past association with him."

I wondered briefly if Meyer had told Delacroix about time travel and reincarnation. I didn't have time to pursue the thought. I heard the noise at the door just as Cerberus spoke.

They're here
. Cerberus sped past me, sliding to a stop before the kitchen door. He growled low in his throat.
Meyer
. He stared at the door leading to the garage.
He's out there.

"Shit." I activated the security controls when I came into the room. Why didn't the alarms go off?

"We have company." I raised my gun warily. Delacroix strode across the room, pushing Lucinda behind him as he turned with me to face the door. She struggled to get around him. "Stay there, both of you." I gestured with my head to Cerberus. We approached the thick wooden door warily.

Someone else is there, with Meyer
, he said, walking stiff-legged ahead of me.
I recognize him. It's--

The shotgun blast was deafening. Fragments of the door blew inward, peppering my face and chest. I hadn't reinforced it to sustain a direct hit. I didn't plan on anyone getting this close, inside my defensive perimeter.

Cerberus scrambled back. I saw blood on his right foreleg and right ear.

How bad are you hit?
I pulled out my gun, aiming for the gaping hole.

His mind voice was weak.
Shrapnel. I think it's in my chest
. He abruptly sat down in a widening pool of blood, legs splaying out.

"Damn." I longed to touch him but didn't dare.

Lucinda didn't give me that option. She was on her knees by Cerberus' side in an instant, throwing her body over his. "I've got him, Nico."

"Lucinda, get back, now!" I aimed toward the door as another blast echoed in the room, the smoke from the shotgun temporarily blinding me. Why were there no alarms? The security system should have kicked in the minute Meyer entered the garage.

Parker
, Cerberus said, his voice muffled.
He's out there
.

Damn. Parker was on my guest list with the security system. He could get Meyer in past the system. It was all lies within lies within lies. I remembered Parker's words: "Somebody high up is in on this."

That someone was him. Cerberus coughed, a wracking sound that made my own chest ache. I glanced at him. He lay on his side, his head resting in Lucinda's arms.

The stench of gun smoke resonated in the air. "Take him," I said softly. Delacroix nodded, knelt next to Cerberus and began pulling the injured dog across the ceramic tile floor. Lucinda helped after casting one despairing glance at me.

Take care of him
, I told her.

Lucinda's face was pale but she nodded. "I will."

"Why, Parker?" I called out, my aim steady on the door.

I heard footsteps outside, probably to one side of the doorway. "I was dying."

"We're all dying, Parker. We all die every day."

"Not you, Nico." There was exasperated humor in Parker's honeyed voice. "I had cancer. Meyer came to me and offered me his drug in exchange for assigning you to the Delacroix family. His drug cured it. It cures any disease."

Good God. I looked at Delacroix, who nodded in affirmation before he pulled Cerberus into the living room. A drug like that would shift the balance of world power. No wonder Kat was willing to sacrifice her family.

"We're coming in, Nico."

"Why? Why bother with us?" I knew the answer, though. Parker and Meyer needed to eliminate any witnesses. That meant Lucinda, her father and me.

Parker had set me up to attack Lucinda, hoping I'd kill her. He didn't count on me falling in love with her. He certainly didn't count on David Delacroix calling in Kathryn and the Homeland Security troops. And Robert Meyer--he was the puppet master behind it all.

I heard the click of a round sliding into place and jumped out the way. The door blew. I scrambled back, keeping the kitchen island between the two men who filled the smoking doorway and myself. I caught a glimpse of Parker, his aristocratic face, white hair and business suit making him look like a banker--a banker who carried a gun. Meyer was right behind him, his handsome face harsh in the hazy light, a shotgun bulky in his hands.

I got a shot off and hit Meyer in the upper arm. The impact spun him backwards, but Parker dodged aside and fired. He hit me in the side, almost exactly where Meyer got me days before. I absorbed the blow, but it slowed me down, enabling Parker to get past.

He's here
, Cerberus gasped from the living room.

I stood up, abandoning any hope of avoiding further injury. I started after Parker, but the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered made me pause. I looked over my shoulder as Meyer raised the gun. "I told you one of us would die," he said.

We stared into each other's eyes for a long moment. Decades of history reverberated in my head. My convoluted, fractured life had all come down to this moment as I stared into Robert Meyer's hazel eyes. I heard the gunshot from the living room and I flinched.

Nico!

It was Lucinda. I closed my eyes as her voice echoed in my mind. I sensed her presence fading. She was slipping away from me again. When the second shot rang out, I didn't have to hear the snarl and yelp that signaled Cerberus was hit. I felt it, slamming into me. I opened my eyes.

"Kill me," I whispered.

"Why do you love each other so much? It makes no sense." Meyer raised the shotgun. The insanity of anger faded from his face and in its place was only coldness. "No. I think I'll let you live without her." He fired.

The pellets peppered my legs, sending waves of agony along shattered nerve endings. I fired aimlessly and stumbled into the living room where Lucinda lay on the floor in a pool of blood, Cerberus nearby, his eyes glazing with death. Parker turned at the sound of my entry and fired. His bullet tore into my shoulder, crushing the collarbone and sending bone shards into my throat. I dropped, landing next to Lucinda then I flung an arm over her waist and dragged myself nearer to stare down into her gray eyes.

The life was fading away as I watched. "I love you," I gasped as blood bubbled out of the wound under my jaw.

Her eyelids fluttered and for an instant, her vision was clear.
I love you, for all time
. She touched me and our shared memories flooded through me. Persa, Lucinda, 1790, 2190, the future, the past, the present--everything coalesced into the love that flowed out to me when her hand clutched at mine. It was vanishing, spiraling away as I held her, evaporating like smoke on the breeze.

"You son of a bitch."

The sound of a struggle broke through the miasma of pain choking me. I moved my head and saw David Delacroix, his arm upraised. He struck down at Parker Madison and at first I thought he held a knife. Then I realized it was a syringe.

Parker reeled, grabbing at his neck, but Delacroix held on, dodging the gun that swung wildly. He depressed the plunger and Parker screamed. Meyer entered the room, gun raised. I twisted and fired, diverting his aim enough to allow Delacroix to push Parker away. He dropped the syringe, fumbled in his pocket and advanced on Meyer, who had staggered backward to lean against the wall, clutching his stomach where my bullet had struck.

Meyer raised his head, peering groggily at Delacroix. "David. Why are you here?"

"Did you think I'd let you kill my child?" Delacroix stood in front of Meyer. The older man looked like a stern, avenging God with his curling gray and white hair, cold gray eyes and hard, inflexible face. He raised his hand and showed Meyer what he held.