Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) (5 page)

“He’s very bossy,” Taylor noted, having heard every word. “What do you want to do?”

“We’re going to FBI headquarters,” I said, sliding my phone back in my pocket. “I’m not his village idiot to order around.”

“See what I mean? Makes you want to stab someone.”

I held in my exasperation. Taylor had a right to her irritation. “I get it. Really.”

She flashed me a wicked grin, the kind we’d shared as kids right before we broke all the rules. “Good. Then I’ll stop beating the horse. But don’t think I won’t call you on it when you start in again.”

“Better than the silent treatment.”

“So you say now.”

We didn’t talk much more after that. Taylor concentrated on weaving in and out of traffic. She ran a few lights that took too long to change, passed in the center lane, and generally drove like a bat out of hell. She was absolutely brilliant.

We pulled into a parking garage down the street from FBI headquarters. Taylor found a spot near the exit. I had to admire that. She was thinking about how to get away. I wished that hadn’t surprised me. She was right. I needed to adjust my thinking when it came to her.

We got out and met at the rear of the vehicle. I looked down at my boots. Spike heels on ice and snow.

“The clothes make the woman,” Taylor said. “Use the way you’re dressed to your advantage. Go in like you own the place. It works.”

I gave her a doubtful look. “If you say so. I feel like a fraud.”

“Just follow my lead. You can do this. And you might give some thought to the fact I may have a few skill sets you don’t have and you need.”

She strode away, head held high, her entire body regal. I followed, feeling like I was going to twist an ankle with every step. All the same, I kept my back straight and my chin lifted. Right up to the point where someone locked an arm around my neck and jammed a gun into the small of my back.

Chapter 3

“EASY NOW.”

I recognized the woman’s voice and went rigid with fury. Special Agent Sandra Arnow. I had to fight the urge to struggle. She’d shoot me. I had absolutely no doubt of it. Unfortunately, we’d outrun our bodyguards on the way here. More evidence of my sister’s prowess. They’d catch up with us soon, I had no doubt, but that could be too late.

“Over there, into that door,” Arnow said. “You, too, Miss Hollis,” she said to Taylor, raising her voice only slightly.

Taylor’s eyes widened, and she got a look of helpless fear on her face. For a second I believed it. Then I remembered our conversation in the car. If our family didn’t even take her seriously, Arnow probably wouldn’t. She’d been the agent tracking Josh after he was kidnapped, and had seen Taylor at her emotional worst. Taylor was banking on the fact that Arnow would assume she wasn’t a threat. I hoped so, anyhow. And I hoped really hard that Taylor was about to show me how wrong I’d been about her.

Arnow pushed me toward a dinged-up orange door in the shadows beneath a small portico. It had no sign to say where it led. Taylor stumbled ahead and opened the door. We followed her through.

Light bloomed in the narrow stairwell. It smelled of cement, urine, and greasy French fries. I wrinkled my nose. To my surprise, Arnow released me, pushing me away. I twisted to face her. Taylor stood close behind me.

“What the hell do you want?” I demanded, then looked her over from head to toe. “What happened to you? Did you go to Kmart for a makeover?”

My experience with Sandra Arnow was that she was a fashion model in FBI clothing. Last time I’d met her, her ash-blond hair had been pulled up in a sleek chignon, and she’d worn a tailored designer suit. The stiletto pumps she’d been wearing might have been pulled right out of my sister’s closet. Now, she looked more like me after I’d been crawling through the back alleys, under fences, and through bushes. Her hair hung behind her head in a ragged ponytail, with loose tendrils hanging in draggles around her face. She wore jeans holed at the knees to reveal a flannel lining, a green army pea coat, and battered boots too wet for me to judge what color they might have been. Without her usual heels, she was a couple inches shorter than me. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and grease smudged her cheek and chin.

“Keep it down,” she ordered in her crisp, low voice. “This meeting is off the books.”

“You think I’m not going to tell the world you shoved a gun in my back? Think again, sister. And I’ve got a witness.”

Arnow grimaced and slid her gun into the holster beneath her coat. “There’s no surveillance in the garage right now, and as far as anybody else is concerned, I’m miles away in Denver. So you can try to make accusations, but you won’t get far. Especially as the girlfriend of a Tyet soldier.”

“What do you want?” Taylor asked, still in that wide-eyed, breathless fashion. She set her hand on my lower back and tapped twice. Yep, it was totally an act.

“I need your help,” Arnow said to me, totally ignoring Taylor. Did the rest of us do that to her all the time, too? No wonder she was pissed.

“Not on a bet.” Helping Arnow was nothing I planned on doing, now or ever. She’d pulled Josh into the trouble that got him kidnapped and tortured, and her raid on Touray’s warehouse nearly got me killed. Plus, I was fairly sure she’d set up the ambush with the other Tyet members once we’d escaped. I didn’t have any evidence, but how else had they known to where to set their trap? The only way was if Arnow had tipped them off.

I couldn’t interpret the flicker of emotion that swept her narrow face at my refusal to help. It came and went too fast.

Her expression flattened. “Maybe I should rephrase. You’re going to help me. I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

“Just how are you going to make me?”

She smiled. “Whatever it takes.”

“So you’ll what? Put Price in jail? Done. His lawyers will have him out by dawn. Threaten to kill me? Fine. Do it. I’d rather die than give you the time of day.”

Taylor curled her fingers tightly into my coat, but didn’t say a word, even though she knew me enough to know I’d probably follow through. Sometimes winning mattered more than living. At least, that’s what my inner nine-year-old was saying. Fortunately for me, I didn’t usually let the inner nine-year-old win.

“Maybe it’s not you I’ll kill,” Arnow suggested.

My insides went cold even as the rest of me flared into a ball of flame. I lunged forward, grabbing her collar. “Listen, bitch. Even think about going after my friends or family, and I will make your life a living hell.”

I don’t generally hold grudges, and I’m not really that into revenge. But for Arnow, I could definitely make an exception. I had friends in very low places who’d relish the chance to have at her. I wasn’t planning physical harm, either. I’d make sure to pull the rug out from under her so she lost everything—identity, security, job, money, sanity. Then I’d make sure she could enjoy her losses for a good long time.

Maybe I had more Tyet in me than I’d thought. I pushed her away from me, my heart pounding, lungs pumping like I’d been running uphill.

Arnow’s face twisted. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve got people who are in trouble and you’re my only hope of getting them back alive.”

“And I should care about them because . . . ?”

“Because they have families,” she said flatly. “Because they need help and that’s what you do.”

The worse part was that I
did
care. I didn’t want to, but I’m a sucker for people in trouble, even obnoxious FBI agents. Not that I was going to tell her that.

“Gee, since you asked for the meeting so nicely, what with the gun in my kidneys, how could I possibly say no?”

“Get over it,” she said. “I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

“Of course you weren’t. I mean, that was so obvious.”

“We don’t have time for this. What will it take for you to help me?”

I folded my arms. “I don’t know.” My inner nine-year-old was feeling smug.

“What do you want?”

I was surprised when Taylor answered, her voice low and tight. “I want Josh back. The Josh he was before you came into his life.”

Arnow ignored her. “The clock is ticking.”

“Getting Price out of jail would be a start.”

Before she could answer, a noise sounded outside in the garage. The door behind us started to pull open.

“I’ll be in touch.”

With that, she vaulted over the railing to the landing below and disappeared. I exchanged a look with Taylor, but didn’t have time to say anything before our bodyguards showed up.

“Are you all right?” Mason asked. He was one of the guards assigned to me and Price. He was dressed in military pants and a black winter coat that covered a bulletproof vest and assorted weapons. He carried a Beretta combat rifle. The only reason I knew it was a Beretta as opposed to, say, Nerf, was because he talked about it more than any girlfriend he might have. I was about to ask how he’d found us, when I realized he had Taylor’s scarf in his hand. She must have dropped it near the door, hoping they’d follow and find us. I took the scarf from him and handed it to Taylor, mouthing a silent “good job” at her. She smiled smugly.

My mouth lifted in a quick smile, and then I turned back to Mason. “We’re fine. Let’s get inside.”

I hurried back into the garage, walking swiftly out onto the sidewalk. Taylor strode beside me, with Mason and three of his people bringing up the rear.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Hell if I know. I doubt they’ll let us see Price. We’ll probably have to wait until Gregg’s cavalry of lawyers gets here.” I glanced at her. “What do you think?”

“I was talking about Special Agent Arnow.”

I grimaced. “I know.” I’d been dodging the question. I didn’t know what the hell to do about her.

“I think you’re going to help her.”

“I can’t trust her. She’s a snake in the grass and she’s bitten me before.”

“I know. But it isn’t exactly your style not to help people in trouble. Even the ones you don’t like.”

I couldn’t argue. “But you think I shouldn’t?”

“I think you should be careful. And I want in.”

“Want in? What do you mean?”

“I want to come along and help.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“So we can see each other in action. It’s time, don’t you think? Plus you need someone you can trust at your back.”

“What about your flying business?”

That was met with silence. I sort of wanted to kick myself for bringing it up, but then again, Taylor wanted to keep it real between us from now on. Less than a week ago, eight of her employees had been killed, most of them pilots. Until she hired new ones, she was going to have to be taking most of the flights. I pointed that out in case she missed my point.

“Brent is handling the business up on the rim for me. I’ve got feelers out for pilots and should be hiring soon enough. In the meantime, I can lighten my schedule.”

I considered, then shook my head. “Still doesn’t make sense. You scratched and clawed to get the business going and make it a success. Stepping back now in the middle of a crisis doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. What’s really going on?”

Flanked now by a half dozen bodyguards, we crossed the street. They’d tucked their weapons out of sight beneath their jackets. I picked my way across the hard crumbles of ice that had made little ridges and divots where snow had collected, melted, and refrozen. Halfway across, the light changed and traffic trapped us on the wide island in the middle.

“I don’t know that flying is enough,” she said finally. “I love it. Loved it a lot in the wars. The rush was incredible. But here? It’s—” She broke off. “It’s tame. Anyhow, I started flying to give me something of my own I could feel proud of, but it never made the other shit go away. It only pushed me farther to the outside of the family. I know I’m not a soldier or a spy or a cop, and I can’t wrap people in metal cages at the blink of an eye, but I
can
be useful. I want to be. I want
in
for once.”

“You know that means wading into the stink and rot of the Tyet swamp, right?”

She snorted. “With your boyfriend’s brother breathing down my neck on my security, I’m already in the swamp.”

“Maybe you’ve got a toe dipped in,” I acknowledged. “This would be cannonballing into the deep end. Be sure you want to, because it doesn’t wash off.”

“I’m sure.”

“Tell you what. I’ll ask again after we get Price free. If you still want to, then the answer is yes.”

We entered the foyer and passed through the first security scan. After that, chained aisles funneled us to the information counter. Our bodyguards remained outside, too loaded with firepower to pass through security.

The clerk behind the desk took our names, typed into his computer, then eventually gave us visitor badges and directed us up to the fourth-floor check-in. We passed through another set of metal detectors before entering the vast lobby. Apparently, they worried that in the fifty feet we’d covered between the last security check and the second, we might have acquired a bazooka in the gift shop.

By the time we got to the second-story landing, Mason had rejoined us, along with Taylor’s security lead, Pia Cruz. Each dressed in black fatigue pants and black turtlenecks. The uniform of burglars everywhere. They’d apparently divested themselves of any weapons that might trigger alarms, and they quickly passed through security and overtook us on the stairs. I have issues with small spaces. I don’t do elevators unless I’m bleeding. Literally. Even then I’d rather crawl down a dozen flights of stairs on my belly than get inside that little death box.

“Ladies,” Pia said, her dark eyes scanning past us as she searched for escape routes and threats. She looked a lot like Cher in her pre-collagen, pre-plastic surgery years. Her straight black hair was woven in a fishtail braid down her back. Her bangs hung thick around her shoe-polish eyes. Her skin was a smooth, rich brown, and her entire presence was exotic, lush, and graceful. I envied her down to my toenails.

“Fourth floor,” I told Mason.

He nodded and motioned for Pia to lead off. Taylor and I fell in behind while Mason brought up the rear. I wished their caution was overkill, but I knew better. Bad guys could be anywhere, even in the FBI. Or maybe especially here. Corruption was rampant in Diamond City law enforcement, and this was a nexus of criminals and corruption.

The center stairs spiraled up through the middle of the glassed-in lobby. Artistic chandeliers hung at varying levels, each lit with brilliant magic. None were the same. I’d have thought there’d have been echoes, with all the traffic below mixing with the reception areas on each floor, but the sound had been dampened so that it felt more like a library than an office building.

A massive U-shaped desk blocked the landing to the fourth floor. We stopped in front.

The receptionist finished typing something into her computer and glanced up at me. “May I help you?” Her pinched lips said she suspected I was a criminal.

“We’re here for Clayton Price. He was arrested.”

“Oh.” There was a wealth of judgment in that sound. “And you are?”

“Friends,” I said.

“I’ll see who the case agent is.” She tapped something on her computer and scanned down the screen. She gave a smile that probably was supposed to look friendly, but instead looked more like a crocodile about to have a snack. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll get you settled and let him know you’re here.”