Black Jack (31 page)

suggested for a second that Lilly be committed for opposing him, or for seeing Travis. He

would have raged, given her the cold shoulder, perhaps disowned her. But something so cruel

as to have her placed in an asylum? He would never have done such a thing.

“So what’s the wicked witch of the Thames up to?” Raisa continued good-naturedly. “I

imagine she’s screaming bloody raging murder over your association with Travis.”

Lilly shook her head as she swallowed against the pain building in her head. “She’s not

raging. She’s trying to have me committed instead.”

Silence filled the car. Several more turns were made before Raisa blew out a hard breath.

“Do you remember your cousin Elizabeth? She was committed just after your death.”

Lilly lifted her head and stared back at the other girl, horrified. “Elizabeth was a child.”

“Fourteen when your aunt and Angelica went against her father to have her committed for

claiming her brother’s wife had tried to touch her. She was in Ridgemore’s establishment for

over a month before you managed to find a way to get in to check on her but you couldn’t get

her out. They had her for two years before she was released. She hasn’t been the same since,

you told me once. You secretly checked on her often.”

Her cousin Beth? Little Elizabeth, who had been such a gentle, sweet child. A vague

disassociated memory eased through her mind then. Little Beth, medicated, staring at Lilly

vacantly. How she had wished she could have helped her.

Lilly swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. She shouldn’t be so shocked, she thought.

Perhaps a part of her had always known how her mother was. That was why she had been so

close to her father. He had protected her against her mother’s rages when she was much

younger.

Lilly wanted to wipe the image of Beth out of her mind, but it refused to leave. She had

slipped into the clinic and tried to speak to her cousin. She remembered that. She had sat with

the girl, whispered her name, and Beth had stared unseeingly at the wall.

When Lilly had turned her face to stare into her pretty brown eyes, a single tear had run

down Beth’s cheek.

She had been placed in the clinic because the bitch her brother had married had tried to

molest her, and Lilly remembered that she hadn’t doubted it was the truth.

Lilly had known the woman Beth’s brother had married. She had been a perverted little

tramp who hid behind polite smiles and innocent protests. She had done as her parents wished

to their faces, and behind their backs had lived a life that would have given her father a stroke

and her mother a nervous breakdown.

Lilly reached up and rubbed at her head. The headache was growing progressively worse,

each new memory, no matter how slight, sending shards of pain ripping through her head.

“Where’s Travis?” she finally forced herself to ask. “I’ve been calling his cell for days.”

“Travis is OTC,” Raisa stated as they pulled into a winding gravel road. “He was called out

the other day. He contacted us when he left and we’ve been on watch since. We didn’t expect

you to call, though.”

“On watch?” Lilly asked, shaking her head. “Why you? What about the team he’s with?”

And she knew there was a team.

Raisa frowned at her. “Do you remember anything?”

She shook her head. “Bits and pieces.”

“Damn. That sucks,” Raisa murmured sympathetically. “That’s okay, darling. You’re back

with your sisters now. We’re here to help. And ‘on watch’ means we were watching the house

at night, keeping our eyes open for any bad guys that might be coming your way and

following up leads on who blew up those lovely cycles Shea souped up for you. She’s rather

upset over that. Said she was castrating the bastard who did it the moment she knew who it

was. Travis’s team has been watching out for you as well, but Travis knew we wanted to be a

part of this.”

A face flashed in her mind. Long blond hair, dark blue eyes, a sad face, a melancholy air.

Someone who had been horribly hurt. She had cried once in the dark. She had whispered

someone’s name over and over again. Shea. Shea Tamallen.

Lilly shook her head, grimacing at the increased ache in her head. It was becoming

agonizing. The pain in her temples was beginning to radiate through the rest of her head.

“Here we are. Home sweet home.” The Taurus pulled up in front of a charming two-story

farmhouse. Rosebushes grew along the side of the wraparound porch while tall oaks and pines

sheltered the house on three sides.

“Nice,” she whispered, forcing the words past her numb lips.

“Let’s get inside, see what’s up with your mother.” Raisa opened the door and jumped out.

“Come on, we have something for that headache too. I know it has to be a bitch—your face is

nearly white.”

Lilly stepped slowly from the car.

She knew where she was. She remembered the house. She had been here before. She had

hidden here before. It was a safe house, but for what?

“Come on, Night Hawk, let’s get you all better.” Raisa steadied her by gripping her elbow

and leading her to the house.

God, she needed Travis. She needed to know what the hell was going on and she needed a

sense of balance. She could trust him. She might want to trust the overly cheerful, willful

woman leading her to the steps, but she had no idea if she could.

She knew Travis would protect her. Right now, she didn’t have a chance in hell of

protecting herself.

The front door opened and two other women stepped out. They all ranged between the ages

of twenty-six to perhaps twenty-eight. They stared at her with eyes that were too knowing, too

filled with secrets and shadows.

They were her sisters. Not by blood, but by war. And they had a pact.

Travis stepped off the plane to see the black SUV that pulled up on the darkened tarmac. As

the vehicle came to a stop, Jordan stepped out of the driver’s side and watched silently as he

moved across the distance to the vehicle.

“We have a problem.” Travis threw his pack into the back of the vehicle and turned to face

Jordan.

“What kind of a problem?” His stomach was clenched, a sense of foreboding raging

through him as he stared back at his commander.

“Lilly’s disappeared. She left the estate twelve hours ago and hasn’t been seen since. Her

family is searching for her, but no authorities have been called in as of yet. Santos and

Rhiannon are screaming at Command to pull in unit four to find her, and Command is

refusing to answer the summons.”

Travis froze. “What do you mean, missing?”

“She walked out of the house and disappeared. The last time she was seen she was arguing

with her mother over you. Wild Card was in house at the time and reports Angelica has made

arrangements to have Lilly committed to an asylum in the south of France because of her

refusal to stop seeing you.”

“Fucking bloody bitch!” Travis quickly circled the vehicle and jumped in on the passenger

side as Jordan put it into gear. “Any leads?”

“All we know is that her family hasn’t found her,” Jordan reported. “Things went from bad

to worse real fucking fast, Travis. We’ve contacted Senator Stanton but he’s refusing to give

us any information on any damned thing. Command is silent. The only response Santos and

Rhiannon have had is to take care of their own house-cleaning. And I’ll be damned if I like

the sound of that.”

“Have you heard from Elite Two?”

Travis needed his cell phone. The sat phone had been damaged just after arriving in

England. Lilly would have called.

“MIA,” Jordan responded. “They can’t be found.”

“That’s not unusual.” Travis stared straight ahead, forcing himself to be patient until he

could retrieve the cell phone. Lilly would have left a message. He knew she would.

“Give me a break here, Travis,” Jordan grunted. “I’m not Santos. I know how close this

unit is to those girls. You know where they are, and I bet you anything they know where Lilly

is. Thing is, if she doesn’t contact myself or her commanders soon, if she doesn’t make the

right moves, then her mother will have the power to get her committed, just as she wants to

do. She’s already making arrangements to have the case heard in England. And we both know

how that goes.”

“She’ll make contact,” Travis informed him. “I need a cycle and a communications helmet

as well as my cell phone. Keep Santos and Rhiannon in the dark until I find out what the hell

happened. I don’t want to spook Lilly or the girls.”

Travis shook his head. “The girls are watching her, Jordan. If they had her they would have

contacted.”

Jordan shot him a surprised look. “You’re certain?”

“I’m positive.”

There was a chance she had made it to the safe house she owned. He would look there after

contacting the girls and learning what they might know. He was praying they were with her.

“Wild Card didn’t follow her when she left?” he asked.

“No one knew she was gone until it was too late.” Jordan shook his head. “We have a

serious situation here, Travis. An Elite Op on the run, her memories compromised, her ability

to protect herself hindered.” His voice became angrier. “And didn’t I warn those fucking fools

this would happen? The minute Lilly stepped out of line, her mother was ready to ship her ass

to Ridgemore. Exactly where we can’t risk her being.”

The drugs and advanced shock therapy Ridgemore would use could possibly destroy Lilly.

The psychiatric drugs Ridgemore was known for could be disastrous.

It was a problem Jordan had indeed warned Elite Command of. Angelica Harrington’s

circle of friends knew only one way to deal with children determined to lead their own lives.

That was by enforcing their wishes through restraint and drugs.

It was no damned wonder those same kids were becoming drug addicts, and many of them

were eventually taking their own lives.

“I’ll find her.” He would find her, or there would be hell to pay.

“travis gathered
most of the information over the past few

months.” Raisa spread the hard-copy files and maps out on the long kitchen table two days

after Lilly had arrived.

Lilly had spent most of her time at the farmhouse sleeping. The headaches were bad; the

shots Shea had given her had barely touched them. It had taken the medic more than twenty-

four hours to find a combination of medications that would help and to acquire them.

She was finally headache-free, though, and able to figure out exactly what was happening

to her, and to her life.

“Here’s what he’s been working on.” Raisa drew her attention back to the table. “This is the

warehouse where you were shot six months ago.” She pointed to the top of a warehouse

across from another unmarked warehouse. “You were parked here.” She pointed to the Land

Rover parked between the two warehouses. “The shot was fired perfectly, but you turned at

the last second. That’s all on video but we can’t access the video file from here yet.”

“We’re still uncertain why you were targeted or by who.” Nissa Farren, the

communications whiz kid of the group, turned from her equipment to look at the rest of them.

“Travis has been running down leads the past few days—that’s why he’s not here. We didn’t

expect your mother to try to have you committed. But never fear, Black Jack will take care of

everything.”

Black Jack. His code name. She was Night Hawk. She was part of a group of women

trained to provide backup and distraction on missions conducted by the male counterparts of

an elite covert operations group. The name of which the other women still refused to give her.

“It seems Black Jack can take care of everything,” she murmured.

“Travis and the others are our big brothers,” Shea Tamallan said, her smile somber as she

looked at Lilly. “They’ve always watched over us, along with Santos.”

“And Rhiannon?” she asked. “What about her?”

Nissa shrugged. “Rhiannon is harder to figure out. I’ve been working with her for a few

months longer than you were with us. None of us have ever figured her out. She’s very

compassionate, but she’s also very by-the-book. It makes it harder to work with her.”

“She would have never approved our deployment,” Shea stated. “She and Santos argue

often over us, and the missions we’re given. They didn’t want you returned to your family, but

Elite Command needed you for this mission.”

“How nice,” she murmured. “But Santos has always watched over us, right?”

“It’s hard to explain without telling you more than we should,” Raisa stated soberly. “We

have to be careful, Lilly. And you especially have to be careful. If there’s the least suspicion

that you know as much as you do, then Elite Command will have no choice but to order your

death. They can’t afford the risk to the other agents.”

There was a lot of information she still didn’t have, but she had acquired much information

in recent days. She knew she had been specifically trained to work with a certain group of

agents. A group Travis was a part of. The call-girl cover had been created to keep them above

suspicion as agents, and the troublemaking personas were intended to allow them to move