Night Shadow (9 page)

“At least a hundred, hundred and twenty-five kilowatts. That’s a
lot
of

power. Could be a mainframe. You mentioned in your report that you

believed they were orchestrating the bombings from here. This amount of

juice seems like overkil , don’t you think? They could’ve done that with a

laptop.”

“And the bombings and dispersal of the viral agent haven’t stopped,

despite you closing them down. In fact, it’s increased one hundred and

sixteen point seven percent. So it’s unlikely it was done from here,” Lexi

said, agreeing with Alex. Whatever they’d run out of here wasn’t the

simple computer they would have needed to do countdowns on the

bombings.

“Walk us through the power grid that knocked you on your ass,” Alex said,

inspecting some of the cabling hanging from the ceiling. He had a very

nice nose, Lexi thought, admiring the straight line of it.

Hey, Ms. T-FLAC operative! Focus!

Lexi shook her head and narrowed her eyes. Fox gave them the details of

the effect of the do-not-disturb he’d encountered. Twice.

“Interesting,” Alex said as the other man finished. Absently he reached

out and grabbed Lexi’s arm to prevent her from walking into a snake’s

nest of black cables on the floor. His touch literally felt like an electrical

current shooting up her bare arm. His fingers were surprisingly cool

against her warm skin. Instead of releasing her, he held her lightly

tethered to him as he and Fox continued talking.

His thumb did an almost absent stroke up, down—pause—up and the little

hairs all over her body stood at attention. It would’ve been less

electrifying to walk into the wiring.

Lexi lost her ability to hear as she stood close enough to Alex to smel the

saltwater on his skin. There was a distinct smell to him. A smel that made

her feel dizzy and—God—
female.
Whatever it was, not soap or cologne or

anything artificial, was something by which she’d recognize him in the

dark.

I’m not a
female,
she reprimanded herself. I’m an
operative.

She strol ed away from him, breaking the hold and crossing her arms as

she studied the floor again. “There were originally
nine
tanks.” Lexi

walked the perimeter of the bigger area. “You can see here where an

attempt was made to clean the floor—”

“I don’t see anything,” Fox said easily, coming to stand beside her.

“It’s very faint.” She crouched down on her haunches to point, then

glanced over at Alex, who’d come to stand next to Fox. “You said they

were Type 304, stainless steel construction? Right?” Lexi shifted a bit and

drew a circle in the air over the floor with her finger, tracing the outline of

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Night Shadow

the mark. “Look. There was a flat-pitched bottom head tank right here,

with an easy access drain . . .”

She indicated the faint square protruding from the wide circle where the

tank had left a faint—okay,
very
faint—stain.

She glanced up at the two men when they didn’t say anything. “I don’t

have superpowers, guys. This is as plain as the nose on my face. See the

outline of the lifting and anchoring lugs here and here?”

“I see something,” Alex said dubiously. “How do you know what kind of

tanks they were?”

She glared at him.
Unlike you, I read the damn report. That’s how.
Fox

had intimated as much in his brief. The rest was logical deduction. “Fox

wrote a description in his brief and looking at the size and depths of these

stains . . .” She spread her hands and shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious that

these were repurposed wine storage vats.”

Lexi jumped to her feet and dusted off her hands. “Highly polished

stainless?”

Fox nodded.

“Insulated and fully welded stainless steel outer jacket?
Definitely
wine

storage tanks. Damn, I wish I had a swab to test this area for any liquid

residue the techs might have missed.”

Fox shoved his hands into the pockets of his beautiful y cut black slacks.

“Forensics tested every inch of this place, Stone—Christ, that name thing

is confusing.”

“How many do you need?” Alex interrupted.

Fox shot him a glance and plowed on. “If there’d been seven more tanks

I’m sure that would be in their report.”

“Two—Thank you.” She took the swabs Alex handed her, removing one

from the protective cover. There’d been nine tanks. She didn’t need to

swab to know that the human soup concoction had been in more than two

freaking tanks. The question was, why was Fox saying there’d only been

two? Just because he’d . . . Settle down, she told herself. She’d do her

own test.

“We know that’ll show human remains. It was in my report,” Fox pointed

out as he hunkered down beside her.

“Yes. I know. I read it while Stone went swimming.” She’d insisted on Alex

conjuring the report so she could work while he improved his freaking
tan.

It was the least he could do to use his powers productively. She’d tried

giving him the stats on skin cancer, but he’d merely put up his hand and

walked out.

God. She’d been just about to mock his colorful choice of swimsuit when

she’d gotten a look at his bare back—“I read the entire report . . .” Lexi

had to force herself to continue the conversation, because thinking about

those awful scars on Alex’s back made her want to throw her arms around

him. And she’d already made a total fool out of herself doing
that.

She knew he’d been
shot
several times in the course of duty, but it was

the scars from his imprisonment in Italy that told their own tale of torture

and unbearable pain. He’d been whipped. Repeatedly. Over weeks and

weeks. How had he stood it?

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Night Shadow

“Fascinating reading.” Lexi pulled her thoughts back to her job. “The

question remains—Ah, just as I thought, tests positive for blood. No prize

when it tests human blood. Nine tanks here for sure. The question

remains,” she continued her thought, “why would they kil the donors and

make human soup out of them? To what purpose?”

“There
was
no purpose,” Alex pointed out. “Other than an efficient means

to get rid of the bodies of the donors.”

She tilted her head so she could give him a skeptical look. At least she

hoped it read skeptical instead of empathetic. “Efficient?” she scoffed.

“Keeping the liquid in sanitary, temperature-regulated, and meticulously

maintained tanks costing upward of a hundred grand a piece? In a

warehouse protected by a massive wizardly do-not-disturb? That’s just

like the wiring; it would be overkill.”

She shook her head as she walked around the marks again, visualizing the

room when it had been fil ed with equipment. “No, these people were

smart, resourceful. They wouldn’t keep thousands of gallons of liquid

remains here on the premises on the off chance that someone like Fox

would manage to get in and see what they had. There are cheaper and

easier ways to dispose of bodies.”

“Don’t ask her how,” Alex told Fox dryly. “She’ll tel you in excruciating

detail.”

Lexi replaced the swab in the tube, marked it with the pen she kept

hooked in one of the pockets of her cargo pants and handed it to Alex.

“Can you please send this to the lab?”

“I
can,
but is there some rule I don’t remember that says it’s verboten?”

He was hard to resist when his eyes twinkled like that. Really, the man

was incorrigible. “Would I ask you to if there were? And please use the

sealable biohazard bag to send it.” She walked away from them, indicating

vaguely that she was going to check the other side of the warehouse.

“Why have I never seen her before?” Fox asked as Lexi strode off with

purpose.

Alex grunted. “They moved her from research into the field. She’s a pain

in the ass.”

“Hmm. That why your eyes are glued to
her
ass when she isn’t looking?”

“If my eyes
were
glued to Lexi’s ass she wouldn’t be looking, would she?

Since she’d be walking away.”

Fox shook his head. “Damn. Watch your back, pal. That one doesn’t look

like she takes any crap.”

Alex knew Lucas Fox almost as wel as he knew himself. And he’d read

between the lines of Lucas’s field report. There’d been a lot of detail about

a Sydney McBride. Unless Lucas had switched teams, McBride was a

woman. The same woman he’d taken with him to Montana for his

debriefing a few days ago.

“Since when have I given
any
woman crap?” Alex asked easily. “While

you’re working? Never, since I’ve known you, which is forever. But geez,

man, what are you trying to do with that freakish outfit? Make her think I

didn’t teach you how to dress—” Lucas held up a finger in a stay

command. “Incoming wizard.”

37

Night Shadow

A ful . Alex felt it, too. In the split second that fol owed, both men had

their weapons drawn.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Lark Orela’s sexy voice and Scottish brogue

were completely out of place in an empty warehouse in Brazil. Her black

hair was a curling fall of gypsy silk down her back and she wore a black,

off-the-shoulder top, a brightly colored tiered lace skirt, giant hoop

earrings, and lots of bracelets. And high-heeled boots. She was the

hottest five-hundred-and-thirty-two-year-old Alex had ever seen. He

decided he preferred the long hair to the short spikes she’d favored for a

while.

“And don’t my two favorite operatives look handsome this fine day?”

“Hey, beautiful,” Alex said with a smile, tucking his weapon back into the

holster.

Lucas did the same.

Lark’s appearance here didn’t bode wel . Alex shot a glance at Lexi across

the warehouse.

“She can’t see me,” Lark told him.

Probably a good thing, Alex thought, amused. Lexi would have a freaking

heart attack if she saw a Control wearing a dozen silver eyebrow

piercings, brightly colored skirts, and black nail polish. Today Lark was a

little bit gypsy with a whole lotta Goth.

“Problem?” he asked. Because Lark being there meant
something.
And it

probably wasn’t something good.

“Is Sydney all right?” Lucas spoke over him. He looked worried. Alex

turned and faced him, lifting his eyebrows.

Wel , wel .

“She’s fine, as far as I know.” Lark conjured a red, Coca Cola imprinted

bar stool, and hopped up on the seat in a swirl of lace. She cocked her

head to look at Lucas through kohl-lined eyes. “Someone got her back to

Kansas since you left her standing there without a viable means of

transportation.”

“Miami,”
Lucas corrected. “And I was a little busy trying to keep all my

balls in the air.”

Lark grinned. “Never good for a man to have his bol ocks in the air, now is

it? I hear you found a long lost sister,” she murmured, untangling the

dozens of silver bracelets circling her arm with a musical jangling sound of

bel s.

“Remains to be seen if she’s my sister or not.”

“DNA panned out—”

“Excuse me,” Alex cut her off, not knowing about a sister, DNA, or

anything else they were being so freaking cryptic about. He gave Lucas a

hard
We’l talk later
look. “Do I need to stick around for this conversation?

I have places to go and things to do.”

Lark glanced over at Lexi, who was scribbling something in a small

notebook, oblivious to the exchange a hundred feet away. “Wel , so long

as you aren’t doing
her.
”

“Not my plan.” It was a flat-out lie. But since he was a trained,

accomplished liar, he made sure his blocks were ful y engaged and neither

38

Night Shadow

Lucas nor Lark was any the wiser. “Did you come here to show us a new

piercing, or do we have business?”

“You were a lot more charming the last time I saw you. I think the color of

that shirt is affecting your disposition.” Lark made a small moue with her

scarlet-painted mouth and changed the shirt to black. “Better. I’m here

merely as a courtesy,
boyo.
IA has someone watching your every move.

Keep an eye out.”

Alex barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Internal Affairs is keeping tabs on

me
? What the hell for?”

Lark shrugged, then sipped an umbrel a drink that she pul ed out of the

air. Red lipstick marked the pink-and-white-striped straw. “Just giving you

a heads-up, as they say. Watch your back.” She disappeared, taking her