Authors: Beyond Control
When they left her alone, a shudder went through her. Leaning back against the door, she closed her eyes, struggling to get back her sense of balance.
Are you all right?
Yes, she answered, hugging Jordan's presence to herself as she wrapped her own arms around her shoulders and rubbed her icy skin.
Struggling for calm, she looked around the room. It was comfortable, with dark wood furniture, a double bed, brocade curtains, and a private bath.
Like an upscale hotel room.
Except that the door is locked.
She paced to the window, which was covered with decorative bars. When she looked beyond them, she saw that the building appeared to be on a high bluff above the Potomac River.
You can see the river? Jordan asked.
Yes.
You must rate. I can see a parking lot—and the Dumpster.
She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, because she was afraid that if she laughed, merriment would shade off into hysteria.
Steady, Jordan murmured in her head.
I'm okay.
You can't be. And neither am I. But we're going to focus on getting out of here. I assume we're at opposite ends of the house.
Yes. She heaved a sigh. He's keeping us away from each other.
Not for long.
* * *
The speaker clicked.
"Yes?" a man asked.
"This is Senator Daniel Bridgewater. I need to speak to Kurt MacArthur."
"Tonight?"
"Yes. I have urgent—private—business with him."
It's about Jordan Walker and Lindsay Fleming, Willow's voice murmured in his head, and he repeated the line, then repeated the rest of Willow's silent words.
"It's about Jordan Walker and Lindsay Fleming. I know you have them there. If you don't want me to call the police, you'd better let me in."
"Just a minute."
Daniel waited with his heart pounding. Finally the gate swung open.
"Proceed to the front of the house," the disembodied voice ordered.
He steered the car up the driveway.
Stop, Willow ordered.
"But we haven't reached the house."
That's all right. Sax and I are getting out here. When we 're out of the car, keep going. Speed up.
Head for the cliff. Drive the car over the side of the cliff. That will focus all their attention on you and the car. Repeat what I just told you.
"I'm supposed to drive over the side of the cliff."
That's right, Daniel. And we'll be together soon. I'll be waiting for you down in the river.
"How is that possible?"
You'll see. We'll be together the way you want. But you have to drive off the cliff to reach me. Now go on, before they wonder why you've stopped.
They closed the car and disappeared into the shadows at the side of the driveway.
* * *
So when we get away, we'll escape to your cabin in the woods? she asked, trying not to sound desperate.
Yeah. We'll be alone. Away from people. Just the two of us. But first things first. Like—you 'd better assume that there are microphones in our rooms. So no talking out loud to me. And there may be cameras, too.
Lindsay couldn't hold back a strangled sound.
Unable to stand the confines of the room, she cast her mind outward—and discovered something that made her gasp.
What? Jordan asked urgently.
There's a car coming up the drive. She answered. Senator Bridgewater is driving.
Bridgewater? What's he doing here?
I don't know.. ..
The thought trailed off as she saw something else. Before the gate closed, a man slipped inside. A man on foot, crouching low.
Someone came in after the car?
Yes.
Who the hell is it?
He stepped under an overhead light, and she blinked as she caught a good look at his face. It was grim and anguished—and determined. She thought she had seen him before, but she didn't know who he was.
Not one of Mac Arthur's men out for a stroll. Not the way he ran, then ducked for cover.
* * *
They would be together soon.
She had said to head for the edge of the cliff. She was down there at the bottom, waiting for him. In the river.
In the river? That didn't make perfect sense. Maybe he had remembered that part wrong. But she had promised. And she had never broken a promise to him. So he kept going.
The big car broke through a flimsy barrier. A chain-link fence. He roared toward open space. Across the river he could see traffic moving on Canal Road.
He plunged off into space, flying through the air for several seconds before the car nosed downward.
Terror gripped him by the throat. And in that frozen moment he knew that it had all been a lie.
The promises. The loving relationship. The feelings.
He fumbled for the door handle, then screamed as he hit the water.
* * *
And Jordan's voice echoed in Lindsay's head—sharp and frantic.
Can you open the lock on your door? If you can, get the hell out of your room. I'm coming.
Before she could think about the lock, her door burst open, and a man with an automatic pistol stood facing her. Not one of the men she'd seen earlier. It was Jim. The man who had killed Hamilton.
She gasped.
"You know me, don't you?"
"No," she lied.
"I knew you were dangerous. How did you get to Hamilton's house?"
Lindsay acted instinctively. In one furious flash of fear and aggression, she shot a bolt of energy toward the man who leveled the gun at her chest.
He screamed, pulled the trigger. But she had bought herself precious seconds. She lunged for the floor, then realized she'd increased her vulnerability.
She tried to roll, tried to aim another mental bolt at her captor. But then she found she had been through too much this evening to manage more than one attack.
As Jim adjusted his aim, she braced for the impact of bullets.
BEFORE JIM COULD fire, he screamed and dropped the weapon.
She didn't understand what had happened until Jordan stepped into her line of sight, and she knew he was the one who had lashed out with his mind this time. They might not be experts, but they had enough power to do damage.
As Jim lay crumpled on the floor, Jordan went from the psychic to the physical, aiming a hard kick at the man's head, battering him unconscious.
Jordan bent to pick up the weapon, keeping it in his right hand as he gripped her with his left. The contact was like a sweet reunion—and a jolt of power surged inside her. She felt as if someone had given her a blast of some powerful stimulant.
He was going to kill me. Because he saw me at Hamilton's house. Somehow he saw me.
Yeah. Come on, let's get out of here.
She realized the alarm bell had stopped ringing. Not because the emergency was over, she assumed.
"Wait," she cautioned. She wasn't sure why she had issued the terse order. She only knew that it felt like the right thing to do when she turned back to the room—then narrowed her new surge of energy to the window curtains.
When they began to smolder, then burst into flames, she gave Jordan a satisfied grin.
A diversion ?
Yeah.
Then maybe we'd better turn off the sprinkler system.
Oh, right. Sorry.
Their brains in sync, they mentally followed the pipes back to a valve in the basement, which they closed.
"Good work," Jordan said, giving her a quick, passionate kiss, then leading her toward the stairs. Before they'd gotten ten feet, another man came around the corner of the hall. As she saw him, Lindsay gasped.
The man's image had burned itself into her brain. He was the bastard who had slapped her, then put his hands on her breasts in the torture chamber. And somehow she knew his name—Frank Wainright.
Wainright stared at them. "What the hell?" Even as he spoke, he reached for a gun.
Before he could pull the weapon from a shoulder holster, she and Jordan acted together again—sending a bolt of pain into his head, bringing him to his knees. Anger fueled Jordan's attack, and she knew they had burst blood vessels. She wasn't sorry.
Jordan's grip tightened on her hand. These guys are going to kill us on sight—unless we get them first.
Yes.
They made it down to the next floor.
The office level, Jordan informed her. He pulled away from her, toward a closed door.
Come back. We have to get away. Now.
* * *
He wanted proof of what had happened to them here. And proof of what the Crandall Consortium had done in the past.
He had the man's computer password, Jehovah 101.
So he could get into the computer fast—then out again.
The train of thought was logical, given the circumstances. But as he walked toward the office door, he realized that the idea wasn't his. Someone else had planted it in his mind.
Someone who wanted him and Lindsay to stay inside the building.
In some small corner of his mind, he understood that he must ignore the outside interference if he wanted to get out of this horror house alive.
Instead, he walked through the reception area, then into the office—even as he heard Lindsay's frantic voice.
"Jordan? Please, come on."
He wanted—needed—to turn back toward her. Instead, he kept walking.
"Jordan, why are you blocking me?"
When he tried to speak, he felt his throat tighten. He hurried into the darkened room and stopped short.
A man and a woman stood beside the computer. Two strikingly beautiful blondes. Brother and sister.
Saxon and Willow Trinity.
Good of you to join us, Saxon murmured in his mind. We need your help. You've got the password—and the skill to get the Remington records off the computer, don't you ?
* * *
Jordan! Come back.
He didn't answer. Why was he shielding his mind? There must be something he didn't want her to know.
Fear clawed at her insides. Because she sensed on some deep, gut level that he was in trouble.
Someone's footsteps pounded up the stairs.
God, another one.
She leaped toward the door where Jordan had disappeared. But before she reached it, Kurt MacArthur himself came charging around the corner.
When he saw her, he stopped short—his face contorting with anger. Like everyone else she'd encountered in the past few minutes, he was armed.
"Well well, a telepath on the loose. Did you kill Bridgewater?"
She gasped. "No. What do you mean?" s
"The senator called from the gate and asked to be admitted."
She knew that much.
"Then he roared up the driveway and drove his car off the cliff."
She couldn't hold back a strangled exclamation.
"Did you call him here?" MacArthur pressed. "Is that why he showed up unannounced?"
"No!"
"Swift and Wainright went upstairs when the others went out to the accident site. What happened to them?"
Swift? That must be the guy named Jim.
"I don't know," she lied.
"How did you get out of your room?"
"The door was unlocked."
"I don't think so."
As she spoke, she silently screamed for Jordan. But he didn't respond, and she wondered how she was going to get away from the Crandall director.
The smell of smoke was stronger now, coming down from the floor above.
MacArthur coughed. His expression was savage as he flicked his gaze toward the stairs—then back to her. "The place is on fire. What the hell is going on?"
She licked her dry lips and fell back on her innocent refrain. "I don't know."
"You're lying."
Her body tensed as she struggled to gather her power. Somehow, she managed to continue the conversation. "What do you want me to tell you? That I torched my curtains?"
"Did you?" he growled.
"With what? I hope you didn't leave a box of matches in my room."
His expression hardened, and she knew she had stalled as long as she dared.
MacArthur gave her an assessing look. "I don't know what happened upstairs, but if you're out of your room, then I guess Jim was right. You're too dangerous to live."
He brought his gun up, aiming for her heart. Her vision contracted to a narrow tunnel. All her attention was focused on him.
Desperately she summoned what power she was able to muster. She didn't have much hope, but she had to try. Because the alternative was her own death.
Before she could attack, a shot rang out from behind MacArthur, a shot that whizzed past her head—too close for comfort.
Responding to the new threat the Crandall director whirled. Two more rounds split the air—and MacArthur fell to the ground.
The man who had gunned him down was still standing, his shaved head glistening with sweat and his face contorted into a grimace of satisfaction as he walked toward the body on the floor and knelt.
Struggling to catch her breath, she gaped at him. What in the name of God had happened?
Could this be one of the security men here? Someone with a grudge against the boss—taking advantage of the chaos caused by the senator's car going over the cliff?
No. Someone had rushed through the gate—using the car for cover. And she was pretty sure it was this guy.