The blood pounded harder inside him.
Harder. Harder. Harder.
He wanted her. Wanted her so he could feel that bolt of power that shot through him like it had before when he’d helped his brother, watched his brother.
But should he?
No.
No.
Yes.
He glanced again at the door and knew that the police were still out there, searching, hoping to find her.
But they wouldn’t find her until he was ready.
Until Yancey was ready. But that shouldn’t be too much longer.
Where was his brother?
Yancey needed to hurry, needed to come so that Jay would know what to do. So that he’d know if he was supposed to fix this or not.
What if the police happened to find them? What was he supposed to do?
He touched her again, lower than he had before, just below the buttons on her low slung jeans.
“So pretty,” he whispered leaning over her and pressing his lips to hers.
She shifted, moaned.
Jay stilled.
Where was Yancey?
The scent of her filled his nostrils and he had to taste her again. This time, he left his lips on hers, soft, firm, cool against his.
He closed his eyes and wondered if he could take her power for his brother? Then he could give it to Yancey.
He closed his mouth more firmly over hers and sighed. “Pretty Alyssa. I like you.”
***
Lake answered more questions and more questions. She really wanted those pain meds now. Apparently she’d grappled with a deranged man.
Hell, she already knew that. She hardly needed the cops telling her this.
Where was Max? She had no clue, but she’d like to know. How was he? Probably not too good. He loved his daughter, he worried about her. He worried about her a lot. He’d be going out of his loving mind.
Lake should be there for him. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt.
“Did he say anything else, Ms. Johnson?” the policeman asked.
She took a deep breath and smelled the stringent scent of cleaning supplies overlaying the pungent scent of stale urine. Perfume de hospital.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the pillow and said again, “No. All he said was that he wanted my power and that I would help him or something. And he said, ‘Alyssa might not be enough’.”
“Enough what?”
How many times were they going to ask her the same questions over and over and over?
“Power, I think,” she told him honestly this time.
“But what type of power?”
Sighing, she finally looked at him. “I know you ran me. I know what you think of me.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges. “Oh, I doubt that, Ms. Johnson.”
She only stared at him.
“Well, it’s not every day we come across a…”
“Aura reader.”
“Right.”
“See?”
He shook his head and ran a hand over his face.
“Look, Detective.”
“It’s actually agent.”
She didn’t care. “Whatever. I see auras. I have for years and years and yours is…” She dropped her shields and focused. Pain shot through her head and she hissed.
He didn’t say anything until she met his gaze again, this time her vision was slightly blurred.
“You were saying?” His salt and peppered brow arched.
“Damaged. Your aura is damaged. Slashed.”
He jerked ever so slightly. Those eyes met hers square on. She held the stare and waited. Finally, he cleared his throat. “About Mr. Narton.”
“I’ve told you all I know.”
“What was his aura like?”
She thought back to those moments that she’d tried to read him. No aura…
“He didn’t have one,” she whispered.
“What?”
“He didn’t have one. Blank, black. He had a black aura. Pure evil.” She held his gaze again, expecting some sort of smart-ass reply or derogatory remark.
Instead, he only narrowed his gaze at her. “There is such a thing as real evil in this world.”
She snorted. “Really? I had no idea. What with last year and the psycho who almost killed my best friend? The Angel Eye killer?”
His lips compressed.
“Yes. I know. Evil is real. Some people use the term loosely, but it’s there. Been there for eons. And it will always be.” Why she said that, she didn’t know, but there it was.
This time he flipped his little book shut. He’d stopped taking notes half an hour ago. At her bedside, he patted her hand. “Most never see it, never sense it, Ms. Johnson. You’re very gifted.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll let you get some sleep.”
Like that was going to happen. “Agent?”
He turned at the door and she saw and felt his weariness shimmering brown at the edge of his aura.
“Where is Max? Mr. Gray?”
He took a deep breath. “He’s still at the station.”
She nodded and studied the waffle weave of the thin white hospital blanket. He was there. She was here. And where the hell was Alyssa?
Commotion from outside her room drew her attention. A gurney was wheeled through another set of doors as medical personnel barked orders in acronyms and numbers that meant nothing to her.
To hell with this. It wasn’t like she was getting any sleep anyway. She shoved the blanket away, moving slowly as she swung her legs to the side of the bed. Carefully, she pulled the IV from the back of her hand and pressed down as blood welled. Needles were so not her favorite thing.
At least she still had her clothing on. She’d been told that she’d get a gown when she was admitted upstairs to the hospital. As yet that hadn’t happened. Thankfully. Okay, so her head hurt like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer, but it was like a migraine, right? A really bad, really painful, fucking migraine.
She could do this.
On the little table-rolling-cart thing beside her bed, she grabbed a band-aid and slapped it over the IV spot and huffed out a breath.
So she had a concussion, and her head hurt.
At the doorway, she noticed everyone seemed busy. Fine by her. She shuffled her way down the hallway to the exit.
“And where do you think you’re going?” a voice asked from beside her.
She didn’t have to turn to know it was the agent who had been asking her questions. Salt and peppered hair, trimmed ruthlessly short, and flat dark eyes that had undoubtedly seen too much. “Out of here.”
The edges of his eyes creased again as he narrowed his gaze. “Don’t like hospitals?”
“Not my favorite places. No.”
“You should probably be back in bed.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m going to the police station, where I assume Max is pacing back and forth snarling at everyone. If you don’t like that, too bad. And if you help me, we can get out of here without anyone from the hospital finding me and making me read pages after pages of release forms until my headache worsens to the point I’ll stay just so I won’t have to read another word.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up and she realized he was actually rather handsome when he smiled. Lines bracketed his mouth. He sighed, glanced back over his shoulder, gave a single nod to another plain-clothed man standing outside Mr. Narton’s door with the other policeman.
Agents, huh? She wondered if they were with the state or the Feds. Did New Mexico even have an investigation bureau? Or a variation thereof? Then again, he probably was FBI. He looked like what she imagined a federal agent to look like. All business, no humor.
Which meant he’d be here only because Mr. Narton had been wanted for other crimes in other states. She shivered, remembering the way his hot breath had skimmed her cheek, the way his soulless eyes had been filled with an unholy fire.
She shivered again.
“You’re not here with the state guys, are you?” She rubbed her arms as they stepped out into the night.
He didn’t say anything.
“Are you?”
“No,” he answered and led her to a Crown Vic.
She didn’t say anything else as she slid into the car and waited for him to get into the driver’s side.
When the heat blew from the heaters, she said, “There are more, aren’t there?”
For a moment he didn’t answer her. Then he took a deep breath. “We’re investigating.”
Which was an answer in and of itself without actually answering her.
“I bet you did good in Hedging Answers 101.”
She leaned her forehead against the cool window and tried to ignore the pain slamming against her skull until they pulled up in front of the police station. Not waiting for the silent agent, she hurried into the station. She pulled the doors open, wincing at the bright light as she stepped into the warmth.
A phone rang on the front desk, ricocheting knives in her head. A cuffed man in dirty clothes yelled obscenities at a cop standing next to him.
She looked past them, searching for…
“He’s in the conference room,” her hospital rescuer told her.
She followed him back behind the desk, along the wall and down a hallway. At the end was a large room and there sat Max.
He sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped. A Styrofoam cup sat in front of him.
Her heart squeezed. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room and pulled out the chair beside him. Max didn’t look up. She put her hand on his wrist and he lifted his head. Surprise, shock, relief. The skin on his lean face was stretched taut, his cheekbones standing out.
He frowned. “What are you doing here?”
She only arched a brow.
“You’re supposed to be in the hospital.” His frown deepened. “You should be in the hospital. Why aren’t you in the hospital? You have a damned concussion.”
She laced her fingers with his. “I walked out.”
He blinked, then blinked again. “You walked out, just like that?”
“Yep. Felt I was needed more here.”
His sigh huffed warmly on her face. “You need another head scan.”
She smiled. “Nah, hard as rocks, my head.”
He scoffed and stared at the cup of coffee. Finally, he picked it up and took a sip, wincing.
“Cop coffee is always terrible.”
“Spend a lot of time in police stations?”
She shrugged. “A bit. I just watch television and read. All cop coffee, even fictional, is bad. Really bad. Like mud.”
He propped his elbow on the table and rested his temple against his fisted hand. “They haven’t found her yet, Lake.” His eyes, those normally lively gray eyes, were filled with pain, turbulent with emotions she couldn’t imagine let alone name.
“We’ll find her.”
A muscle bunched in his cheek. “We have to. I can’t…” He bit down and shifted his gaze away from hers.
Lake squeezed his hand. “We will.”
His gray eyes met hers again.
“We will.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I knew, I knew something was wrong, but didn’t act quickly enough. I knew.”
“Your actions saved me, Max. If not for you, I’d be dead. And since I’m not, we have a clue where Alyssa might or might not be.”
He frowned.
She scooted her chair closer. “You followed your instincts and I thank you for that.”
“It’s going to be dawn soon,” he finally muttered, sliding the almost empty coffee cup back and forth on the table. “Where the hell is she? It’s snowing in the mountains. Is she cold, is she…” He swallowed again. “What if—”
“Don’t.” She cupped his face. “Do
not
play the what-if game, you’ll go freaking insane. We. Will. Find. Her.”
She hoped to hell she was right and it wasn’t too late. She didn’t think it was because Narton had said he didn’t know if Alyssa would be enough. Not that she
wasn’t
enough. So in Lake’s opinion, Alyssa was still alive. The question was where and why no one had heard from her since late the night before. Where had the man stashed her?
What-if’s were dangerous. They could play the what-if game until the end of time.
A movement in the doorway had her turning in her seat.
“Agent?”
“Morrow. Sorry, never introduced myself.” He stepped into the room. “Narton had a brother that we’ve heard about, known about, but we can’t find him either.”
Max tensed beside her. “You think he has her? Or that he’s involved?”
Morrow didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he took a deep breath. “Initially, no, we didn’t, but at present, we’re not ruling out the possibility that the brother could be or is involved.”
“And?”
Morrow opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it because he shut his mouth, thought for a moment before adding, “And, we’re working on all the leads we have.”
Which meant jack in her opinion.
“Have you searched the bookstore?” Max asked.
“Yes, Mr. Gray, the bookstore has been searched. We’re also looking at the buildings beside them.”
Max nodded once, then again. Standing, he pulled her to her feet. “I’m tired of sitting around here. We’re going home. Lake will be with me.”
The agent looked from one to the other. “You should stay at home in case someone calls.”
Max glanced at his watch. “For the last ten hours no one has been at my house to answer a phone, other than cops. I figure we’re good.”
He walked out of the room, and since he had hold of her hand, she followed him out. The cold morning air sucked her breath from her lungs.
When they were in his car, he sat staring out the windshield.
“You want me to drive?”
He shook his head and started the car. “I can’t just sit in there doing nothing any more, Lake. I have to get out and
do
something.”
“I know. I’ll help you. Where do you want to start?”
He drove, single mindedly. “The bookstore.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
***
Alyssa opened her eyes. Gritty as sandpaper. She reached up to rub them and realized she hurt. All over. Car accident? Another car accident. Mom?
No, Mom was dead.
God, her head. Someone with a gong and a ten-piece brass band was having a damned party in her skull.
She moaned and blinked. Where was she? White. All she saw was white. What the hell?
This time she blinked until everything focused. White walls, white counter, white floor. Glancing over, she saw there was even a white stereo. She was on white sheets.