Collector's Item (6 page)

KT struggled to get her hormones under control and focused on his eyes. “Oh?”

“Make like a sack of potatoes.”

She did not have a chance to react before he grabbed her around her waist and slung her up over his shoulder. She muffled a grunt of pain when his shoulder slammed into her gut. Upside down, she had a very close view of his butt, and a tiny part of her mind could not help thinking it was a rather nice one at that.

He straightened, one arm around the back of her knees, and slammed the door shut with his other hand. Her nose bumped against his back with every step, and with her wrists tied behind her back, her shoulders objected to the angle. All the blood in her body began a bum’s rush into her head, making her pulse throb in time with his every step.

Eyes closed, she strained to hear anything that would give her a clue about where Massey and Peyton had brought her. Kennedy or LaGuardia? She rolled her eyes against her eyelids. Just how did she expect to be able to tell the difference by sound?

The roaring engines faded and the voices rose as Peyton entered the hangar. From beneath her eyelashes, she glimpsed the edge of metal doors as they passed inside. Voices echoed around her, but the sound of Massey’s voice focused her on a conversation somewhere off to her left. She strained to hear over metallic clanking, hurried footsteps, and other sounds she could not begin to identify. The scent of jet fuel, oil, and rubber filled her nose and, to head off a sneeze, she brushed the tip of her nose against Peyton’s shirt.
I hope he didn’t feel that.

An unknown male voice interrupted her thoughts. “Trouble?”

Massey’s voice responded. “Nothing we couldn’t handle. Peyton’ll get her locked up and then she’s all yours.”

“Excellent.” A voice like silk-covered steel flowed over the background noise without strain. KT knew that voice—Douglas Torne. “I still can’t believe Anton let her out of the compound without protection.”

“Well, his mistake is your gain,” Massey said. “Now, about the finder’s fee?”

Peyton stopped and dumped her onto the ground. She bit back a cry of pain and surprise, grateful that his hand cupped her head to keep it from banging on the concrete floor. He moved away, and she heard metallic clicks behind her.

The first voice said, “Here. Everything we agreed on.”

Peyton hauled her up, hands under her armpits, and dragged her a short distance. She tried to stay loose in his hands, her head lolling on her shoulders. Her heels bumped over a raised edge before he dumped her on the floor and moved away. She heard a metallic clink followed by a rattle. She chanced a peek through her eyelashes, and even though she expected it, her pulse sped up another dozen notches.

She was inside a metal cage!

Andi leaped into panic mode. KT scrambled for control. The effort not to shift drove a stifled groan through her clenched teeth and strained tears from beneath her eyelids. She teetered on the brink, fought Andi back, and collapsed against the floor, panting softly.

“Sssh!” Peyton hissed beneath his breath.

She peered through her lashes. His brown eyes narrowed with strain as he watched her through the bars. With his back to the others, he adjusted the padlock, banged it against the frame and then left it hanging. From her position, KT could not be certain, but she told herself it was not fully locked, just positioned to look that way. That was the plan.

He looked at her again, the question clear in his eyes. Could she keep it together? She gave him a short nod and closed her eyes. He waited a moment and then his footsteps moved away.

Lying on her side, she chanced another look around. Massey stood off to one side with two men while jump-suited mechanics bustled in and out of her view. Most wore grey jumpsuits with some kind of logo, but several wore different uniforms of dark blue. Private crew, she guessed. Wooden crates, tall metal toolboxes, and portions of parked jets filled the rest of her view.

The man closest to her had his back to her.
A
ll she could see of him was sandy blonde hair, cut short, above a nicely tailored grey suit. She guessed he was Massey’s contact; she didn’t have to guess about the second man.

Darkly tanned, with thick black hair, Douglas Torne stood in profile to her, but she’d know him anywhere. She’d met him several times while accompanying her father to political gatherings. Her skin crawled, remembering his cold stare above his magazine-cover smile.

She barely heard Massey over the pounding of her pulse. “…enough, Parker.”

“Not enough?” the blond man, Parker, said.

Massey began to tick off his reasons on his fingers. “She’s Alpha Female of the Marant Line. She’s in perfect physical condition. And she’s a fighter. She’s probably trained in more forms of martial arts and self-defense than I can name.”

“Yeah, she put up quite a fight,” Peyton added as he joined the group. He stopped just behind Massey and crossed his arms; hired muscle, expression stoic, gaze distant but alert.

“I wondered.” Parker’s voice carried a note of amusement. “Got the drop on you, eh?”

Massey bristled. “Lucky hit. Bitch.”

“Do you know they call her ‘Little Anton’? A chip off the sire’s block,” Douglas Torne said. He turned and KT closed her eyes. “Poor Anton’s having a bad month. First, his sister-in-law disappears and now his daughter. And to think, they’ve both found their way to me.”

KT’s stomach churned at the satisfied tone in his voice. So, he
did
have Patricia! For years, the paranormal community had heard rumors that Torne trafficked in abducted paranormals, but no one had found any proof.

Until now.

“Freeze! Hands up!”

The words shot into the air and KT’s eyes flew open. Everyone froze for a precious second before scattering, the airport employees scrambling in confusion for any shelter, the hired guns seeking cover and better lines of fire. Two of the dark blue jump-suited mechanics yanked guns out of their suits and fired a shot or two while they sought cover.

Men in buff-colored uniforms poured in through the doors of the hangar, guns up, eyes raking the interior of the hangar. Their bullet-proof vests read, “Alliance.” KT slumped against the metal floor of her cage with a surge of relief. Alliance Rangers.
The cavalry’s here.

Torne popped up from behind a man-high tool chest and fired three shots. One Alliance man went down. Another dragged him behind a stack of tires while the rest of the team took cover and returned fire.

Time to get out of this thing
. KT sat up and snapped the ties at her wrists and ankles. Andi tried to claw herself free of KT’s control. KT nixed that idea.
I need hands, not claws.

Through the bars of the cage, KT glimpsed Peyton grappling with Massey before the two men disappeared behind stacks of tires and boxes.

She lunged for the door of the cage. Her fingers scrambled to turn the lock. Andi crouched just under her skin, becoming more and more agitated by the action outside the cage. Scents, colors, and sound intensified as Andi fought to break free of KT’s control.

A frantic twist opened the lock. KT shoved it out of the clamp and thrust the door open. She dove to her right and rolled behind a wooden crate. The whine of a bullet preceded a shower of splinters above her head. She scrambled to the other side to peer around the edge. Another shower of splinters from a nearby crate made her duck back out of sight.

Gunshots echoed off the walls of the hangar. She pressed as close to the crate as possible and vainly attempted to see both sides at once.

A sudden barrage of shots nearly deafened her while movement to her left caught her attention. Under the storm of gunfire, Torne sprinted into view, headed for a closed door KT hadn’t noticed before about halfway down the side of the hangar. Massey and Peyton followed, hard on his heels.

Torne slammed into the crash bar, and out the door, to disappear in the darkness beyond. Just ahead of Peyton, Massey slipped through the opening and the door swung shut behind them.

KT crouched behind the crate. Andi snarled for her to follow Peyton.
Hunt!

Logic, and Peyton’s instructions, told KT to stay put until the shooting stopped. But the muffled sound of shots outside the hangar made her decision for her.

Peyton!

Staying low, KT sprinted toward the door. Shots continued to echo through the air. She gasped a quick prayer that none made it her way. She burst through the door and dove to the right as it swung shut again. Scooting along the space between the parked cars and the side of the hangar, she distanced herself from the door as quickly as she could.

A lone light shone above an open gate in a high chain-link fence at the far end of the hangar. Andi growled, uneasy. The shadows between the cars could hide an army. As if to compensate for the ringing in her ears from the gun battle inside coupled with the roar of jet engines, KT’s eyes and nose kicked into overdrive.

Blood! KT eased up enough to peer through the windshield of a large sedan. But whose?

The whine of jet engines faded away, and in the buzzing silence, a car engine snarled to life. Tires squealed somewhere to her left. She flinched back from the glare of headlights as a low-slung sports car spun out of a parking space.

“Stop!” Her attention snapped to her right at the sound of Peyton’s voice.

Over the hood of the sedan, she saw Peyton standing behind the front end of a pickup truck about midway down the opposite lane, a gun aimed at the car. The car accelerated, and he fired. A shot from inside the car made Peyton stagger. He held his position and fired a couple more times. The car zigzagged toward Peyton and two more shots spun Peyton around to disappear behind the truck.

“No!”

She sprinted toward the truck, keeping low, and with one eye on the sports car as it raced toward the open gate in the rear fence. In the glare of the overhead light, she glimpsed Torne hunched low over the wheel. He made a sharp right turn just outside the gate and, for a split second, KT saw a face through the passenger window, staring back.

KT stumbled to a stop.
Patricia?
Just a flash of an oval face surrounded by a cloud of dark hair. KT’s heartbeat sped up.
Patricia!

Two Alliance Rangers raced from the end of the hanger, tracking the vehicle with their guns, shots accompanied by flares of brilliant light. The car never paused. Gravel rattled against the chain link fence as the car fishtailed onto the access road and disappeared from sight, one taillight going out in a flash of light.

Shit!
What was Patricia doing in Torne’s car? Was it Patricia? It’d been so quick. Could she trust the fleeting glimpse? She couldn’t be sure what she’d seen. She took a quick breath, the scent of blood drawing her back to the scene. Peyton!

She ran around the front bumper of the truck. The glint of light on a gun barrel stopped her in her tracks. Then the gun dropped out of sight.

“Damn it! Just like a princess! Didn’t I tell you to stay inside?”

Peyton sat against the door of the truck, one hand holding his gun on his thigh, his other hand pressed against his chest. As she hurried forward, her foot kicked something that rolled away with a clinking sound—an empty salipen.

KT dropped to her knees beside him. “Peyton?” Her hands touched his pulse, his shoulder, his hand where blood seeped through his fingers, before returning to his pulse. She counted Peyton’s wounds—three. Two in his right shoulder, the third far too close to his heart for her comfort.

Andi raged beneath KT’s skin, frustrated and frightened.

“What in the hell are you doing out here?” Anger, hot and fierce, made Peyton’s words a growl and she matched his glare with one of her own.

“Following Torne out here without back-up was stupid.”

“And rushing out here unarmed wasn’t?” Peyton grunted.

A voice shouted. “Clear!”

KT stood up and looked around. Rangers with flashlights moved among the parked vehicles and she spied a ranger kneeling next to a figure lying on one side of the lane. She hadn’t even noticed Massey in her dash to get to Peyton. As she watched, the ranger’s hand passed over Massey’s face, and he stood up.

Her heart plummeted. Massey was dead?

“Over here!” She waved her hand, then brought the other up when the ranger spun, gun ready. “I’m KT Marant and there’s a man here who’s been shot.”

KT winced in the glare of the ranger’s flashlight. “Just keep your hands up where I can see them, miss,” he said, moving toward her. When he reached the truck, he looked from her to Peyton.

“Captain Peyton Allers, Alliance Protectors,” Peyton said, his voice unsteady to KT’s ear. He fumbled his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it, open, on the ground.

The ranger looked down at the ID then lowered his weapon and his flashlight. Blinking away the miniature supernovas in her vision, KT lowered her hands. He keyed his shoulder mike. “Need a ParaMed ambulance in the rear parking lot.”

“10-4.”

The ranger knelt beside Peyton and swung a small pack off his shoulder. “You couldn’t move any faster than that, Captain Allers?”

Peyton grunted as the ranger pushed Peyton’s hand away from his chest wound. “Torne’s reputation as a marksman appears well-earned.” He looked up at KT as she knelt on his other side. “Can’t you follow simple instructions? You were supposed to stay inside.”

A dozen unhelpful retorts snapped through KT’s mind, but she bit her tongue because he was right, and she knew it.