Blamed (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Vick swore he didn’t want to know how Faraday Industries came to have a subterranean prisoner-detainment facility and fully functioning technical headquarters located in the heart of London, but it was difficult to resist asking. “Remind me again why you own a secret, abandoned section of the Underground?”

“Because Tobias has the world’s best poker face,” Casey explained. “And he counts cards.” They stood side-by-side gazing through the floor-to-ceiling wall made of one-way glass, watching the card counter in question take a seat across the table from Chandler McCallister. “He promises it’s just basic math, not cheating.”

“Hmm.” For the first time in four days, Casey’s animosity toward Vick appeared to be waning. Vick didn’t intend to squander it. “Casey...”

“Don’t say it, man. Don’t act like this is your only shot at forgiveness because we don’t know what we’ll find when we find her.”

Vick envied the Faradays their unwavering confidence.
When
they found Beth—because not finding her was simply unacceptable. To them, the fact that her implanted GPS tracker had been scrambled, pinging off fifteen different cell towers before going completely dark meant someone tampered with it, not that she was dead; evidently, the tracker continued to function even after the host’s heart stopped.

But after four days of barely sleeping, hardly eating, and studying enough CCTV footage and tracking data to blind him, Vick’s restlessness had morphed into full-blown frustration, and confidence was a difficult entity to keep hold of, under the best of circumstances. These were not the best of circumstances. “I’ll apologize if I want to, damn it. I’d be apologizing even if she were here.”

“Apologizing to
her
,” and it was then that Vick noted the careful avoidance of Beth’s name, as if saying it aloud would jinx their search. Staring straight ahead at the scene unfolding in the interrogation room with its curved brick walls, the sheer history of the place contrasting abruptly with the Faraday digital footprint—recording equipment, recessed lighting and a wall-mounted flat-screen monitor—Casey shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “How long have you been chasing my baby sister across the globe, Vick?”

He froze. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Casey snorted derisively. “It’s your own fault for giving us your real name. Adam was able to construct a map of your movements over the past twenty years, and, funny thing, there was a hell of a lot of overlap with my sister’s. Care to try a different answer?”

He shifted uncomfortably, but refused to back down. “Eleven years.”

“And how long have you been in love with her?”

“Nearly that.” Blinking rapidly—because no doubt the stinging in his eyes was due to fatigue, not the unrelenting fear of the grief nipping at his heels—Vick cleared his throat, put on his man pants, and bit the bullet. “She’s the only future I’ve ever allowed myself to imagine.”

“I see.”

“You know how it is. When you’re in the thick of it, wondering whether today’s the day you die because you let your guard down for one second, you either think about what was or about what might have been. Beth—” he said her name gently, purposefully, and grimaced in sympathy when Casey flinched, “—is both to me. I remember every moment of every interaction, and then I kick myself for not have the balls to leave MI6 when I first had the chance, before any of this nightmare occurred. I ought to have done that for her.” Ought to have trusted her.

Casey harrumphed. “Who says she’d have wanted you if you weren’t some mysterious spy? Girl’s got danger in her blood. She likes a little risk with her Wheaties in the morning.”

But Vick shook his head. “You didn’t see her in Chicago. The work she does with the Art Institute—managing exhibits, courting patrons, meeting artists and curators from around the world—it lights her up. And she’s bloody brilliant at it too. Makes everyone smile, though I swear, half of the new membership subscribers are men looking to ask her out.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, felt the soft scruff under his palm and knew he was in desperate need of a shave. But his appearance didn’t matter now, and wouldn’t again. He looked how he looked, and if Beth chose to look at him again, she’d see only a familiar face, changing with age and nothing else. “She wasn’t made to be a Faraday, Casey.” Not in the sense that the rest of her siblings were. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But she
is
a Faraday, and in the end, being a Faraday is what might save her.” Casey pressed a button on the small digital panel embedded in the window, and McCallister’s voice filled the air, tinny and echoing as a result of the microphones recording her every word.

“...what’d I do to deserve your magnificently natty presence, Toby?” Her hair was a mess, her eyes sunken. For the past twenty-four hours, she had been subjected to extreme sensory-deprivation treatment. No sound, no light, not even the boon of air moving across her skin.

Vick felt nothing for his countryman and former colleague when he looked at her through the glass. She had to know more than she’d given them concerning Nash’s location, and where he might have taken Beth, but McCallister hadn’t said a word. Then, this morning, when they’d removed her from the black-out cell, she had promised to talk—
after
a shower and some food.

The Faradays weren’t especially good at “prisoners.” Aside from the sensory deprivation, the brothers—along with cousin Freya Quinn and her older brother Keir, who hailed from Northern Ireland and had taken a leave of absence from his usual work to help rescue Beth—had kept her hydrated, fed and relatively clean, all while never permitting her within spitting distance of any item that could be fashioned into a weapon. And even that was only because Vick had revealed her to be the MacGyver of the spy world, able to spin something out of nothing like a macabre Rumpelstiltskin.

No, the Faraday brothers had nothing on the interrogations Vick had seen, though he suspected Casey held back, permitting Tobias to steer the show. The attorney had essentially run point on the entire operation from the very first day in Chicago, and Casey appeared to respect the unspoken hierarchy that had formed as a result. But Casey possessed both the military and covert experience to extract answers, as did Vick, and if Tobias didn’t get what they needed from McCallister now, Vick was going to start making demands. The kind of demands that broke fragile bones and shocked nervous systems.

On the other side of the glass, Tobias’s jaw clenched. “Don’t call me Toby.”

Jesus, the sensitivity the Faradays had when it came to their bloody names. Vick barely kept from rolling his eyes, a pang in his heart when he realized it was the exact reaction Beth would have had, were she witnessing this scene.

McCallister’s lip curled. “Not interested in being friends? Friendly? I’d have thought you’d be eager to build bridges after your appalling fucking behavior yesterday.”

Folding his hands carefully atop the table, Tobias watched her coolly. “Sensory deprivation is the most humane technique in our arsenal. And, obviously, the technique proved successful.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“No, but you will.”

“Ways of making me talk, right?” She sneered. “Go ahead, rough me up. It’s not the first time, won’t be the last.”

If Vick hadn’t been watching carefully, he might have missed the surprise parting Tobias’s lips before he recovered and arched a brow. Damn, but the man had the move down pat. “There’s no point in harming you physically, Ms. McCallister.”

Confusion drew her tawny eyebrows together. “But you said—”

“You think because I said ‘humane,’ cruelty then becomes the pounding of fists, or the leaving of bruises on your person.” Without moving a muscle, Tobias proved just how devious an opponent he could be. “I hear Pip is getting married in April.”

Vick whistled in admiration as McCallister jerked in her chair, nearly toppling it, the reaction immediate and unconscious. “The sister?” He muttered softly, shaking his head. “Low blow.”

“You knew?” When Vick nodded, Casey shrugged. “Adam only found the right intel on the sister an hour ago, otherwise Tobias would have done this sooner, instead of the deprivation. It’s not like he enjoys being a bastard.” Casey crossed his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels and never taking his eyes off the room. “Tobias finds pressure points. God only knows how many of our boardroom opponents and industry competitors have been brought to heel by his method of applying pressure.”

“What, so he threatens the loved ones of others?” That didn’t jibe with what Vick knew of Tobias Faraday.

“It’s more subtle than that, and less heinous. He’ll mention a weakness, like he did with McCallister’s sister, and then...”

“And then he watches them come apart at the seams, all on their own,” Vick murmured in awe as McCallister fell to pieces, so quickly and efficiently he doubted she was fully cognizant of exactly how handily the Faradays had bested her, and without spilling a single drop of blood.

In an eerie parroting of Tobias’s earlier words, McCallister whispered, “Don’t call her that. No one calls her that but me.”

“Her fiancé is a future viscount, if I’m not mistaken.” Tobias unlaced his fingers, settling his hands palm-down on the table. “A townhouse in Mayfair and an estate in the Midlands is quite a step up from the flat in Hounslow where you two were raised. Pip’s done well for herself.”

“Don’t fucking call her that!” McCallister slammed her bound wrists against the table, rattling it on its utilitarian legs. “How do you know my sister’s nickname? How do you know who she
is?
”

“Philippa Landry took your maternal aunt’s surname after your father died, but you stayed a McCallister. I suspect it’s because she wanted to escape the taint of the family name, after all he’d done, yet you embraced it. Interesting,” he mused, reaching out to tap a finger in front of her zip-tied hands, “there wasn’t a mention of twin daughters when news hit the papers. I can’t imagine it would be too difficult to run a DNA test now, though, given how much of the stuff Reggie McCallister...left behind.”

The Scottish Slasher was Chandler’s father?
Vick blinked in shock. Just when you thought you knew someone...

Visibly shaking with anger, McCallister flexed her fingers, as though tempted to reach for Tobias’s offending hand and smash it to pieces. “You can’t run a test on my sister. Her future mother-in-law’s got a PI sniffing after her, looking for any reason to call off the wedding. You link Philippa to...to Reggie, and it’s all over. Her life is over.”

A master at this game, Tobias let silence settle around them, forcing McCallister’s mind to churn and panic and, eventually, surrender. When her resignation became obvious, he spoke quietly. Gently. “Tell us where Nash has Beth.”

Her throat worked, swallowing hard as her shaking lessened. Vick could almost hear her thoughts, see her managing the protective panic that had leapt to her twin sister’s defense as unassailable logic invaded. She slumped in her seat, defeated and sullen and utterly outmatched. “He purchased an old underground bunker at auction a few years ago. World War Two era, in the wood north of Hadleigh Farm.”

She rattled off coordinates, but Vick and Casey were already in action, Casey shouting orders to Freya and Keir, Vick gathering weapons from the well-stocked cabinet in the central chamber of the underground HQ. When Tobias appeared short minutes later, having escorted McCallister to a secure cell, the team was assembled and armed to the teeth.

Tobias locked eyes with Vick as he shrugged out of his ever-present suit jacket and into a protective vest like the rest of them. “You ready?” He took the 9mm Casey handed him and checked the chamber with practiced ease.

A pistol strapped to each thigh and an assault rifle slung across his back, Vick couldn’t be more ready to watch the world burn. “Let’s bring Beth home.”

* * *

They arrived in Hadleigh by noon, the sun glaring off the quickly melting snow. Their breath fogged the air as they climbed from the SUV—Casey, Tobias, Vick and Keir, Freya having elected to go to MI6 and inform Colleen Yang of their movement.

Of course, Freya had orders to delay telling Yang until their team had Nash in custody. The last thing they needed was T-16 swooping in to claim some mutant form of extradition and steal the bastard into seclusion where Vick and the Faradays could never reach him.

Casey in the lead, they trekked into a forest of barren-branched trees known as the Great Wood, where the snowdrifts hadn’t yet been touched by the late February sunshine. Their boots sank into the cold, but they moved quickly through the wood to the coordinates McCallister had given them, following the guidance of a satellite app on Casey’s phone.

The door to the bunker was barely concealed, but set at an angle and sunk into the earth at the base of a small hillock to avoid detection. Two sets of footprints—one clear, one dragging—marked the soggy ground outside the pressure-locked door, the lack of a third set departing the bunker meaning no one had left since entering.

Nash was still inside, and God only knew what he was doing—had done—to Beth in the long days it had taken them to get here.

After testing the lock, Keir, his messy mop of hair covered by a knit cap, set explosives along the structurally weak lines of the door. Vick shook his head as he eased away. “That’s military-grade steel. You can’t possibly—”

A muffled boom, some smoke, and the once-impenetrable portal to the bunker warped grotesquely away from its riveted frame.

Keir shot him a smug grin as Casey clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s probably time you start assuming anything is possible when it comes to us. Keir, stand guard. The locals might get curious about the noise.” Then he disappeared through the gaping hole into the bunker’s beckoning darkness, Tobias on his heels.

Vick followed with as much stealth as he could manage, blinking quickly to adjust to the dim light from the low-wattage electric lantern set into the stone stairwell wall. Pistol in hand, he descended the concrete steps, halting with Casey and Tobias at the base.