Chasing Shadows (12 page)

He looked away in embarrassment.  KC stood on tiptoe, the kid was almost as tall as his brother, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.  

"Go home, get some rest, forget about your brother and start planning for your future," she told him.  "Goodbye, Jay."

Chase returned to the ice machine, filled his bucket with ice cubes he would never use and headed back to his room, his steps mechanical as he pictured a thousand unpleasant fates for Lucky.  None of which he could do anything about except carry on and get the job done.

Only thing he could do was find a way to notify Rose Prospero of Lucky's disappearance and get Jay to safety.  Just in case Deacon suspected Chase as well. 

He thought over his options.  He needed a cover story, something that would ensure him freedom from Deacon's constant surveillance.  Chase headed back to the bar, found Redman washing down Buffalo wings with Rolling Rock.  Deacon was nowhere to be seen.

"Thought you turned in," Redman said from his perch at the bar.

Chase just shrugged and handed the bartender a twenty.  "Bottle of Jack, unopened."

"You sharing?" Redman asked.

"No, it's for my kid brother.  We kind of had a fight earlier and I don't have a Christmas present for him, so—"

"You had a fight on fricking Christmas Eve?  Jeez, I thought my family was messed up."

"My fault.  I screwed up, well," Chase forced a half smile to bolster the lie, "actually I screwed his girlfriend."

"You made it with your lil bro's girlfriend?"  He slapped Chase on the arm.  "You dog.  She must have been a fine young thing, how old?"

"I dunno.  Nineteen, twenty-something."

Redman closed his eyes, his tongue darting out to lick his upper lip.  "That's a good age on a woman, not too young, not too old, still firm and always wanting to please, know what I mean?"

"Yeah, figured I'd go over, try to make the peace."

"Better not let Deacon see you go.  You know how he gets before a deal."

Chase nodded.  "It won't take long.  Cover for me?"

"Sure thing, man.  If you see your teenybopper friend, tell her to stop by here.  I'll give her a ride she won't ever forget."

Chase gave the fellow biker a mock salute and took off for Coalton.  The wind in his face helped to cool the jealous fury Redman's words about KC had sparked.  

He tried to force the fantasy of KC's strong arms wrapping around him out of his mind, but she'd broken past all his barriers, and he was powerless to stop thinking about her.  That crazy purple hair, those riveting eyes, her mouth against his, her arousal as his hands explored her body. 

Even her lizard tattoo intrigued him.  It wasn't an iguana.  Some kind of salamander or chameleon maybe?  A lizard juggling fate, there had to be a message there somewhere.  

He leaned into the bike, squinting into the darkness, but his mind's eye was desperate to see the rest of the hidden image, to have all of KC's body before him to feast upon.  

As he thought of her, it wasn't their brief moment of passion he remembered most fondly, stimulating as that had been.  The image imprinted on his mind was of KC standing over him, gripping the poker as her only weapon against a man twice her size, her face fierce as she protected Jay.

Damn, a teenaged vixen with ulterior motives was doing a better job of taking care of Jay than Chase was.  He remembered the look of disappointment and disgust Jay had turned on him earlier.

The frigid wind beat into his face, forcing tears from his eyes.  Deacon knew where Chase's only family lived.

Chase decided to tell Jay everything.  He would get him out of Coalton, send him to Rose Prospero, have her start searching for Lucky.  Chase could handle Deacon alone.  There was no way he was going to leave now, not when he was so close to nailing both Bruno and Deacon.  

No matter the danger to himself, he couldn't allow The Crusade to get hold of Bruno's weapons.

The mission came first, always.  He had a job to do here, couldn't be distracted, had to focus.  People's lives depended on him finding out what Deacon wanted those explosives for and stopping him before anyone could get hurt.  

But now, because of Chase's mission, it was Jay in the line of fire.

Midnight services were just ending.  Crowds of smiling people poured onto Main Street, arms entwined, cheeks flushed, as they walked to their homes or cars.  

Chase saw Bruno shaking hands with the mayor and averted his eyes from the happy faces filled with Christmas cheer.  If these people knew what kind of serpent they'd sheltered in their town all these years what would they say?

Nothing.  They would say and do nothing.  Best just to keep their silence, who were they to judge anyway?  Especially when Bruno Gianotti had single-handedly kept this town afloat the past nine years after the mines closed.

Chase looked around, spying familiar faces in the crowd.  How many of them could he count on if he got into trouble?  His gaze scoured the freshly scrubbed families wearing their Christmas finery.

Not a single one would stand up to Bruno, he decided.  Not to save Chase and not to save Jay.

Whole damn town was living a lie.  And Chase was just one more liar.  No wonder he fit right in, had found it so easy to betray Jay by almost succumbing to KC's advances.

He gunned the Harley, ignoring the shouts as he scattered churchgoers before him.  

Damnit all, once again KC was the only other person willing to fight for his brother.  He frowned.  If she cared so much for Jay, why had she practically shanghaied Chase into her bed?

Watching his mirrors, he turned onto his street, his house the single dark spot amidst a festival of lights.  No sign of any surveillance, good.  He pulled the Harley into the carport and went in through the kitchen door.  

No more lies, he vowed.  Not between Jay and him.  Chase would explain everything, even tonight's encounter with KC.

The house was silent, ominously so.  He went through it quickly, leaving the lights off.  It was empty.  

A cold finger of fear began to trace its way down Chase's spine.  Jay was gone.

CHAPTER 16

Chase, where was Chase?
  Lucky needed to warn him.  Lucky's muddled thoughts slowly coalesced as brain and body rejoined.  Pain stabbed through his arms and legs, he was shivering uncontrollably while a jackhammer pounded behind his eyes.  

It was freezing.  Then he realized he was naked except for his boxers.  They'd come for him while he slept.  He remembered fighting, struggling, the crash of breaking glass, a bright blue jolt of electricity shooting through him.  His legs crumbling, then everything had gone black.

Lucky cautiously opened one eye.  The pounding in his head increased momentarily, then resumed its previous medium-grade rumble, so he opened the other.  

A wave of nausea hit him, and he tried to lean forward but couldn't.  He lay on his back, hogtied, arms and legs pinned beneath the weight of his body, duct tape binding them together.  He blinked, swallowed back the nausea and sucked in a deep breath to clear his vision.

He was on the dirt floor of some kind of prefab hut.  A single dim light bulb hung overhead.  Lucky rolled on his side, strained to raise his head enough to look around, search for a weapon, anything that might get him out of here.  He had to warn Chase—they would go after him next.  And Chase's kid brother.

There was a dust-covered metal desk and chair shoved against one wall, stacks of rolled up blueprints or maps in a rack on the other.  Some kind of construction site?  Lucky listened for the sound of cars, of any indication of people close by, but there was only absolute silence.  He couldn't even hear the wind or any of those other country noises that had kept him awake the first night he'd arrived in Pennsylvania.  

His eyes lit on a calendar hanging over the untidy desk in the corner.  On it a bikini clad blonde smiled as she adjusted a hard hat with a headlamp on it.  The date on the calendar was over a decade old.  That fit with what Chase had told him about the mines closing down.

Lucky had the sudden image of dark shafts with deep, deep drops into the bowels of the earth.  Great place to dispose of a body.  

It wasn't going to get that far, he promised himself.  There was always a way out.  He just had to be resourceful enough to find it.  Only another puzzle to solve.

Voices echoed beyond the office.  Damn.  He returned to his previous position, feigning unconsciousness as footsteps approached.  There was the sound of a padlock being unsnapped from the door, then the door scraped open. 

 A steel-toed boot nudged his ribs.  "Wake up sleeping beauty," came a high-pitched voice that could have belonged to a man or woman.  The nudge turned into a bruising kick.  "Now!" the voice commanded.  "I didn't give you that big of jolt."

Lucky rolled away from the next kick, this one would have broken a few bones if he'd allowed it to connect, and opened his eyes.  Crouched over him was a flinty-eyed man with a large head, long, gangling arms and thick legs connected to a squat trunk.  He wasn't a dwarf, but was short and bow-legged, like the deputy in that old TV show,
Gunsmoke
.  Only a hell of a lot uglier.

The man grinned down at Lucky, his breath fetid enough to make Lucky gag.  "Hey," he shouted to an unseen accomplice beyond the door, making the crashing in Lucky's head crescendo, "secret agent man is awake!"  

He held a small device, dangling it in Lucky's face.  The man pressed a button and blue lightning arced between two terminals as he teased Lucky with the stun gun, feinting toward Lucky's naked skin and laughing as Lucky pulled back.

"So you remember my toy?" the man said.  "You're gonna see a lot more of it.  You must think we're stupid since it took us so long to tumble to you."  He shook his head.  "Took us a little longer than it used to, after you guys beefed up your security, but we've got friends in high places."

"Who are you?" Lucky asked, maintaining his cover.  "What do you want?"  

He tried to keep his voice from quivering, but it was hard to do when his body was shivering uncontrollably.  All he could think of was the FBI agent The Crusade tortured and murdered six months ago.

"Name's Fergus," the man told him with a laugh.  He grinned down at Lucky as Lucky realized the implications that revelation held.  "That's right, Agent Cavanaugh, you're not going to be alive long enough to tell anyone who I am.  You're only going to stay alive long enough to tell me who you're working with."

The hair on Lucky's head stood at attention as Fergus brought the stun gun closer.   

"I don't know what you're talking about."  Lucky squirmed back from the crackling electricity.

"Sure you do," Fergus said, planting the stun gun over Lucky's heart.  

A surge of pain shot through his chest and up into his left shoulder.  Lucky cried out as his muscles locked into spasm.  His heart stuttered for a moment, then began to race.  It must have been a lower jolt than they used back at the motel because he didn't black out, although he wished he had.  

Fergus took the gun away.  Lucky lay there, panting, cold sweat breaking out over his body as the pain slowly subsided.  A residual pins and needles sensation continued down his left arm and his hand flopped uselessly behind his back.

"That was only setting four," Fergus said.  "Now tell me about your partners.  We know there must be others in The Crusade.  Who are they?  How do you communicate with your superiors?"

They didn't know about Chase.  All Lucky had to do was hold out, keep quiet.  

"Go to hell," he told Fergus.

"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Fergus said as he lowered the stun gun once more.

Chase grabbed the phone but there was no dial tone.  Damn.  Jay's denim jacket hung from the coat hooks on the back of the door, a small, telltale bulge in the pocket.  Cell phone, hooyah.

Chase dialed the number he knew best, the green glow from the phone's face bathing his fingers in a ghostly shimmer.  He drew his Heckler Koch nine millimeter, trying to ignore the chill that had enveloped him, and squatted down on the floor, his back to the wall, senses alert for any disruption.

"Standard Communications, how may I direct your call?" came a chipper sounding woman's voice.  Theresa O'Reilley, head of The Team's communication complex.  Figured she'd be working the holiday.  Theresa probably gave the rest of her staff time off and stayed on to man the complex herself.

"It's Westin, I need Prospero or Price—code red."

"They're both here, Chase.  Hang on one sec." There was a beep followed by a click.  "Okay, the line's secure.  You're through to Rose."  Another click and Theresa was gone.

"What's your status?" Rose Prospero's clipped tone was a contrast to Theresa's warmth.

"Lucky's missing, looks like they grabbed him—don't know if he's dead or alive."  Chase quickly outlined the events of the day.  He marveled at how calm and steady his voice remained, despite the flutter of anxiety trilling through his veins.  "Now Jay's missing too."

"We're already working on Lucky.  I'll make some discrete inquires with the State Police about Jay.  Local authorities are compromised, they'll be no help."

"Excuse me," Theresa's voice broke in.  "Chase, whose phone are you using?"

Chase was startled by the interruption, but knew Theresa must have a good reason for it.  "My brother's cell, why?"

"There's a tracer on the band width, when I tracked it back, the signal's also being broadcast on a radio frequency—"

"You mean it's bugged?"  Chase looked at the phone as if it were a snake.  At least Theresa had already secured the line.  "How the hell did Deacon plant a bug in Jay's phone?"

"Not Deacon, unless he's using classified government technology. This is a configuration exactly like the ones we use.  If you give me the serial number, I can run it down."

"Why would a government agency be monitoring your teenage brother?" Rose asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.