Lucas (49 page)

“Kurt,” he said in obvious surprise.
“What’s up, dude?
It’s late.”

“Yeah, it is,” Kurt agreed pleasantly, “but I saw your truck and wanted to be sure everything was cool with you. You need a ride somewhere?”

“Oh, no, man. I’m just catching up on some stuff. You know the government, nothing but paperwork.”

Kurt laughed. “Someone needs to welcome them to the computer age. Mind if I come in?”

“What?
Um.
I’m not supposed to really—”

Kurt didn’t wait for an invitation. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, forcing
Pilarski
to move or be knocked back.

“Well, okay, I guess for a minute,
it’s
okay,”
Pilarski
hedged. “You want some tea
or .
 . . Oh, fuck. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“
Yo
, Cody,” Kurt said easily. “Is that meat I smell? You been holding out on us all this time? Sneaking a burger late at night?”

“No!” he protested as they walked deeper into the building, their voices falling away. “I don’t—”

Kathryn missed whatever it was
Pilarski
didn’t do, because Lucas was on the move, leaping up onto the step in a single graceful bound and pulling her effortlessly behind him. He went through the door first, completely silent, no more than a shadow among shadows. Kathryn pulled her weapon and followed, keenly aware of the noise she was making in contrast. Her footsteps were like an elephant over gravel, and her careful breathing sounded like puffing bellows. She glanced around and saw that Lucas was already down the hall, gliding toward a lit doorway where Kurt and
Pilarski
seemed to have turned off. She heard the slide of a tea kettle on the stove and figured it must be a kitchen or break room.

“I didn’t know vampires drank tea,”
Pilarski
was saying to Kurt.

Kurt was standing in the doorway, leaning to one side. As they approached, he pointed to a doorway farther down the unlit hallway. “Sure, we do,” he said casually, and straightened to stand in the center of the doorway, effectively blocking
Pilarski’s
view as Lucas and Kathryn slipped past.

The door Kurt directed them to
was
at the very end of the hall. Lucas was already testing the knob when Kathryn came up next to him, but it was locked with a keyed deadbolt, and there was no key in sight. Lucas glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where the tea kettle was now beginning to whistle fitfully,
then
he shrugged and kicked the door open.

The smell hit her first. She nearly fell to her knees in grief before she recognized it for what it was. Not death, not a decaying body, but human waste, dirt and rotting food. That bastard!

“Daniel!” she called. It was too dark. She holstered the Glock and pulled her flashlight instead, shining it around the room until she found a bundle of clothes on a cot in the corner.

“Lucas, I can’t see a damn thing,” she called as she rushed forward, her light leading the way. A greasy, yellow fixture came on overhead just as she reached the cot, and she saw her brother pressed against the corner, his face pale beneath the filth, his blue eyes, so much like her own, staring back at her in disbelief.

“Kat?” he half-whispered.

She reached out for him, but he pushed back against the wall, holding out a hand to stop her. “Don’t,” he said urgently. “I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not,” she said through her tears. She flicked off her light and crouched in front of her brother. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

There was a brief flash of his trademark smile as he said, “I’m not. But I will be. Just get me the fuck out of here, Kat.”

Lucas was standing in the wrecked doorway, muttering into his cell phone. Probably calling back Nick and the guys, since the enemy in this case consisted of a lone park ranger. An obviously unbalanced park ranger, but no one they couldn’t handle. The vampire lord stepped back, and Kurt appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said, his eyes meeting Dan’s. “You need a shower, man.”

Dan laughed, his eyes filling with tears. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”

Kurt crossed the room in three long strides and did what her brother hadn’t permitted her to do. He wrapped his arms around Daniel, filth and all, and Dan clung to the big vampire, his shoulders shaking as he cried silent tears of relief. Kurt pulled the blanket away with one hand, saw the metal cuff around Dan’s ankle and snapped the chain with an angry growl. Then he looked up and met Kathryn’s gaze.

“I’d like to get him cleaned up, if that’s okay with you.”

Kathryn nodded silently, and Kurt started to help her brother to stand, but at the last minute Dan scrabbled for something under the blankets and came up with a camera.

Kathryn stared, recognizing it for one of those she’d left with the sheriff. “How—” she started to ask, suspicion blooming. “I stored your gear at the Sheriff’s Office.”

Dan shook his head, as if reading her mind. “The nut brought it to me, bragged how clever he’d been, stealing it from under the Sheriff’s nose.” He tightened his hold on the camera, lifting it to eye level. “This is gonna win me a Pulitzer, Kat.”

“Dan,” she scolded.

Kurt urged him toward the hallway, but Dan stopped in front of her and took her hand. “I knew you’d come.”

Kathryn tightened her hand on his. “It was Kurt who found you,” she said, giving the bartending vampire a grateful look. “I was sure Alex Carmichael had you.”

“Alex?” Dan repeated in confusion.

“Later,” Kurt said. “Shower first.”

Dan laughed a little, gave Kathryn’s fingers a final squeeze and repeated, “I knew you’d come.” Then, as if the exchange had taken what little energy he had left, he leaned heavily against Kurt, who all but carried him out of the filthy room.

When they were gone, she gave Lucas a hard look. “
Pilarski
,” she said tightly.

“All tied up with a pretty bow, just as you ordered, Agent Hunter,” he replied mockingly.

“I know you think I’m foolish—”

“Not at all,” he said, then grimaced and covered his nose and mouth with one hand. “But could we finish this somewhere else? Even a human nose must be offended by the smell in here.”

Kathryn belatedly remembered the stench, and her stomach roiled. She’d been so preoccupied with
Dan .
 . . Fighting a sudden urge to vomit, she hurried from the filthy room, pushing Lucas ahead of her.
“Move, vampire, unless you want me to add to the aroma.”

Lucas grabbed her and raced them both down the hall and outside into the parking lot, where Kathryn leaned over, hands on her knees as she sucked in deep breaths of the brisk night air.

“God, that was awful,” she gasped. “I can’t
imagine .
 . . Hell,
I
need a shower.”

“Here
comes
your sheriff,” Lucas commented from where he stood several feet away, probably just in case she lost the battle against her stomach.

Kathryn looked up as Sheriff Sutcliffe pulled into the lot, followed by a second patrol unit, both with their light bars flashing.

“But I didn’t call him yet.”

“I had Nick call before we went in,” Lucas said mildly. He shrugged when she gave him a questioning look. “I didn’t feel like waiting around for the local
Garda
to get here. It can take a while for someone to show up in these small towns, especially at night.”

Kathryn straightened, then patted Lucas’s arm in appreciation as she went to meet the sheriff.

“Sheriff Sutcliffe,” she greeted him.

“Agent Hunter,” he responded. “How’s your brother?”

“Exhausted and hungry, but nothing a few days rest won’t take care of.”

“You didn’t call for a rescue unit?”

“A friend took him in,” she said, letting him assume she meant
in to the hospital
. “We thought it would be faster.”

“So, he’s been right here the whole time,” Sutcliffe said, shaking his head. “How’d you find him?”

She nodded.
“Anonymous tip on my cell phone about ninety minutes ago.
The voice was a man’s, but muffled. He said my brother was being held here, and since we were already en route from the airport, we came directly to the park to check it out.”

“You waited to call me,” he said in obvious disapproval.

“That’s correct, sir. I saw no reason to make a scene if it turned out to be a prank. After all, you and I both checked things out here at the visitor center, and nothing tweaked our radar.” She phrased it deliberately, making herself just as responsible as the sheriff—maybe more—for overlooking anything that might have indicated her brother was being held right under their noses.

“I see.” His gaze traveled over the vampires ranged behind her. There were only three—Lucas, Mason and Nicholas—since Lucas had already sent the others away. He would have sent even those two, but he hadn’t been willing to leave Kathryn alone with the prisoner, and Nicholas had refused to leave Lucas alone with the human authorities.
Trust-Issues-R-Us, apparently.

“Mister
Donlon
and his associates
were
with me when I received the tip,” she explained, feeling only a slight twinge at manipulating the truth.

“Do you know where it came from? The tip, I mean.”

“I’ve already had it checked. The call came from a throwaway cell.
Impossible to trace.”

“Damn things. Well—” He looked beyond her to Cody
Pilarski
, who was hanging miserably between two husky vampires. “What have you got to say for yourself, Cody?”

Pilarski
lifted his head and addressed the sheriff. “I want to deal,” he said sullenly. “This was Belinda’s idea, not mine.
Hunter’d
be dead if I hadn’t protected him.”

Sheriff Sutcliffe shrugged. “Not my call,” he said,
then
turned to Kathryn, who was still absorbing
Pilarski’s
claim.
Belinda
had been the one who instigated the kidnapping? She was the park ranger Kathryn had interviewed on her first day in town.
The one who’d gotten all flustered when talking about Dan.
Kathryn had assumed she was smitten, but maybe she’d simply been guilty.

“I’ll hold
Pilarski
overnight,” the sheriff was saying, “have the County pick him up in the morning. And don’t you worry about him getting bail, no matter what deal he gets. We don’t take to kidnappers in
South Dakota
.”

“I appreciate that. And now, the scene is yours, Sheriff. I know I should stay, but my brother needs me. So, if it’s all right with you—”

“Don’t you worry,” Sutcliffe assured her. “I understand, and I know where you work,” he added, with a wink.

Kathryn laughed, relieved. She’d known she was pushing it by not hanging around. It was bad enough that her brother, the most important witness, was already gone. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You have my numbers, and I’ll make sure we’re available to give our statements.”

“You’ll be in town?” Sutcliffe verified, proving he wasn’t totally gullible.

Kathryn nodded. “A while,” she said vaguely, very aware of Lucas’s keen hearing picking up every word she said. “You can reach me on my cell.”

“Good enough, then.
I’m glad everything worked out for you and your brother, Agent Hunter. This is a good day.”

“Yes, it is, Sheriff.”

Lucas came up behind her, not touching, but
close
enough that she could feel the heat of his presence. They stood silently until the sheriff ambled over to confer with his deputies, and then Lucas dipped his head to her ear and said, “A while, Kathryn?”

She shivered at the low rumble of his voice and the slight menace in the question. She’d known this was coming. She had to go back to
Virginia
, her job was there. And her home, such as it was. In a perfect world, she might have stayed in this little town, bought a quaint little cottage and settled down to raise goats, or maybe paint masterpieces. It always happened that way in stories. Unfortunately, this was the real world.

“Kathryn?” Lucas demanded.

She turned to face him, her hand automatically lifting to caress his beard-roughened jaw, her eyes meeting his golden gaze. And her heart twisted. She didn’t know how it could have happened. Didn’t know why it had happened now, and with a vampire of all people. But she loved him. It was going to tear her apart when she had to leave.