Splinter (The Machinists Book 2) (5 page)

A leak
. Someone under his responsibility was releasing evidence.

“Let me call you back, sir.” Nolan hung up before the receiver rang with more shouts.

Maddox turned and looked at the young agent, amused. “Did you just hang up on the special agent in charge?”

“Shut it,” Nolan said. “We’re in deep shit.”

Chapter 6

T
he cabin’s isolated location was both its greatest asset and its greatest liability. Just under one hundred miles east of Portland, it took them two hours to venture from it to the outskirts of the city. A thick blanket of dark clouds hung over downtown, casting the buildings and citizens under a perpetual gloom and a steady drizzle. The city had entered the dark winter, and Allyn wondered what they were walking into.

Jaxon drove, silent and focused, his eyes glued to the road. If he was nervous or had any reservations about their plan, he hid it well. Leira was at his side, watching their surroundings like someone who didn’t get out much—wide-eyed and lips parted. She occasionally shot Jaxon concerned glances from the corner of her eye. She’d advocated waiting, not wanting to rush into a trap, but when it became apparent that Jaxon was set on investigating, she’d changed tactics and pleaded with him to take a larger squad. But Jaxon said that he preferred the stealth and quickness of a small force to the strength of a large one.

Nyla, who sat in the backseat with Allyn, was the only other occupant in the car. Her silver hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and tucked into the neck of her compression armor. She smiled at him before returning her gaze to the world outside. The small gesture stirred something inside him. Nyla was beautiful, and she was growing more playful every day as the wound left from Baylis’s death slowly healed. It was a slow process as she wasn’t simply mourning the loss of a loved one; a piece of her had died with him. Allyn wondered if she would ever fully get over him.

Allyn’s phone vibrated against his leg. He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it to find a text from Liam.
Are you there yet?
Liam had taken Jaxon’s decision to leave him behind as a slight against his ability. Even with his increasing talents and influence, Liam still hadn’t outgrown his insecurities. Jaxon had tried to explain that the Family needed him to stay behind because a McCollum should always be with McCollum Family in case tragedy struck, but Liam had grown irritated and refused to listen. Allyn wished he could explain that this was another step in Jaxon’s plan to groom him to lead and that the Family needed to grow accustomed to seeing Liam in a leadership role, but Jaxon had advised against telling him. He wanted Liam to grow comfortable with his increasing influence organically. Telling him of Jaxon’s plan might stunt his growth.

Besides, one of the benefits to Liam’s abilities was that he could use them anywhere. As long as Liam had access to the Internet and a computer, he could do whatever they needed him to, and probably quicker without the inherent distractions of being in the field.

Almost
, Allyn wrote.
Just got to Portland
.

Keep me posted
.

Will do
. Allyn grinned as he slid the phone back into his pocket.

“What?” Nyla asked.

“Liam,” Allyn said. “He wants to be kept in the loop.”

Jaxon watched him from the rear-view mirror for a moment, then returned his attention to the road. They followed I-84 West, past the Lloyd Center Mall, then merged with I-5 North and rounded past the Moda Center. Across the river, the tops of the downtown skyscrapers were hidden in the low-hanging clouds, and the windows of the upper floors shone through like dim stars. It was only late afternoon, but it felt like twilight, and even the streetlamps and headlights had trouble piercing the gloom.

Traffic slowed to a crawl through the city, painting the interstate red with brake lights, and crossing the Freemont Bridge into downtown took another twenty minutes. From there, Allyn guided Jaxon through side streets, bypassing the deadlocked traffic into northwest Portland, where his condo was located.

He’d been too preoccupied with trying to figure out how the video had originated from his condo to give much thought to returning home. So when Jaxon turned into the complex, a sudden wave of melancholy washed over Allyn. This was his home. His
first
home. He’d found it. Bought it. Furnished it. Much like his first car had represented his transition from childhood into adolescence, buying his first home had been his transition into adulthood. It meant he’d established himself. Achieved a level of success. Grown up. And he’d done it at twenty-six.

The complex looked much like it had before. Conjoined complexes painted muted reds, blues, or greens lined both sides of the private street. Construction still continued, but in the weeks since Allyn had left, more homes had been built and sold. The community was filled with other young, successful businessmen—the kind of people Allyn had worked to associate himself with.

Jaxon drove slowly, his eyes darting from one side of the road to the other, searching for anything out of the ordinary. The community was quiet, and the driveways were empty—long hours were the mark of young businessmen. Jaxon pulled into the vacant visitors lot, parking so that the car faced Allyn’s unit across the street. His condo, like the others, was quiet, its windows dark. The clear tarp draped over the broken sliding-glass door swayed in the breeze, and the bottom billowed inward, allowing the rain to blow inside.

Even though Allyn had chosen family over his old life and had willingly left the condo and all his possessions behind, he was still angry to see it neglected. He imagined pools of standing water warping his hardwood floors and saturating his carpet, filling the condo with the musky smell of mold and decay. He imagined the hollow sounds of wind blowing through the halls and the soft rustle of the tarp shifting against the broken door. He imagined the cold suffocating what had once been his warm, inviting home. But above all, he imagined how much it would cost to repair.

You left that life behind
, Allyn reminded himself. But being back stirred something inside him. It was one thing to step away when he didn’t have to face what he was stepping away from. It was quite another when he had to see it, remember the sacrifices, hard work, and long hours that had gone into it. It had only been a few weeks, but he felt the pangs of nostalgia. This wasn’t just a collection of belongings. This was the fruit of thousands of early mornings and late nights. This was his life. This was his
home
.

Or it had been.

Jaxon shut off the car. “Wait here,” he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Watch for anything unusual. Leira and I will walk the perimeter and see if we can get an idea of what waits for us inside.”

Allyn nodded, and Jaxon stepped out of the car. He pulled his fashionable, gray coat tight—it was the first time Allyn had seen Jaxon wear a coat—and hunched his shoulders as if he were trying to hide from the rain. It was an act, of course. Jaxon never let the elements get to him, but Allyn was surprised how authentic it looked. Jaxon looked… normal. He circled the back of the car, to where Leira was waiting, her heart-shaped face and chin-length black hair hidden under a black hood. He took her hand, and together, they walked along the sidewalk toward the main office as if they were a young couple looking to view a home.

Nyla undid her seatbelt and turned sideways, leaning against the door and pulling her legs onto the bench seat. Her feet touched Allyn’s thigh. “So this is where you lived?” A hint of amusement lurked in her voice.

“You say that like you didn’t already know,” Allyn said. “You were here the night Lukas came for me.”
The night it all began
.

Nyla shrugged. “It looks different than I remember it.”

“How so?”

Jaxon and Leira disappeared from view.

“It’s so…” Nyla trailed off, searching for the words. “Uninspiring.” She pushed him playfully with the bottom of her foot.

“It may not be a century-old manor,” Allyn said with a sarcastic smirk, “but it was mine.”

“You miss it.”

Allyn nodded.

“Would you go back if you could?”

Allyn turned to her. Intensity hid behind those blue eyes of hers, and it gave him pause. He didn’t have an answer. He’d left that life behind for answers. For help. He had gotten those answers, and he’d gotten Kendyl back. So what was keeping him from returning? Kendyl? She’d been the one who wanted to stay with the McCollum Family; it had been new and exciting, a fresh start where she was something special. But her feelings had soured, and she’d already voiced her displeasure. If he returned to his old life, he thought she might follow.
Then why do I stay?

The police.

Even if he wanted to, he had no way to clear his name—he didn’t have the evidence. And if he did come forward, his defense would rely on a Family of people who worked to remain hidden.

But that wasn’t the question. She’d asked: what if he could?
I don’t know. What does that mean?

“I can’t,” Allyn said. “So it doesn’t matter.”

Nyla blinked, and her playful expression slipped from her face.

The conversation died there, and an uncomfortable silence replaced their lighthearted banter. Nyla swung her legs back onto the floor so that she was facing forward again. She refused to look at him. Allyn wanted to tell her that it wasn’t personal. The fact that the decision was so difficult meant that he’d built strong relationships with her, Liam, and the other members of the McCollum Family. He couldn’t easily walk away from that. But he didn’t know how to tell her.

The minutes ticked by painfully slowly as the twilight became darkness, until eventually, Jaxon and Leira reappeared. Leira strode in front of Allyn’s condo, alone, casually glancing at the dark windows as if she were trying to peer inside. Jaxon appeared a moment later, walking toward Leira from the back of the unit. He said something to her. Then they stepped up to the front door and knocked.

“Here we go,” Allyn said. The knock was their signal that Jaxon and Leira hadn’t found any reason to call off the mission.

Without a word, Nyla opened her door and stepped out. She was halfway across the street by the time Allyn emerged from the car. Lacking the cold bite of the mountain air, the temperature was warmer than he expected, and a thin layer of fog clung to the pavement, giving the scene an eerie, dreamlike quality. Allyn walked casually, his hands in his pockets. Jaxon and Leira may not have found anything amiss, but that didn’t mean they were free from prying eyes. He wore, as he always seemed to these days, a black compression armor top and a pair of jeans over a matching pair of compression armor bottoms.

“Anyone home?” Allyn asked as he approached.

Jaxon shook his head. “The door is locked, too.”

Allyn did a final check of his surroundings, and still not seeing anything concerning, he pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. It opened into darkness. Immediately in front of him was the stairwell that led up to the second level, where the living room, kitchen, and dining rooms were. Directly to his left was another door leading to the garage. Jaxon walked past him, ascending the stairs in a crouch. The air distorted around his hands. He had them wrapped in air, prepared for a fight. Leira and Nyla were inside a moment later, only a step behind Jaxon.

Allyn followed. Once inside, he wielded, and on command, red coils of electricity shot around his arms. They were in constant motion, writhing around each other, hissing, crackling, and sparking as they collided. They didn’t burn or harm him in any way, but they made his arms tingle as though they were in close proximity to a great power. The wave of nausea struck him like a blow to the stomach. He stumbled on the stairs, letting the coils singe the carpet.

“Are you all right?” Nyla had stopped a few steps above him and looked down at him, concerned.

“I’m fine.” Allyn stood, feigning strength. “I tripped.” He kicked the door closed behind him—the electric coils illuminated the narrow hall in a bloody light. “Let’s go.”

Jaxon ascended the last of the stairs and stopped on the landing. He gave Leira a curt nod, and she raised her hand, narrowing her eyes, searching the condo for other occupants. The strongest clerics had the ability to sense another person’s presence, though the ability was limited by proximity. The closer the cleric was to the person, the more likely they were to feel them. If they were too far away, the ability was less accurate. If someone was within the confines of the condo, Leira would know.

“We’re clear,” she said.

Jaxon stepped onto the second-level landing and disappeared around the corner into the main living space of the condo. The rest followed.

The condo was dark. The only light inside came from the streetlamp outside the kitchen window, and the half-drawn blinds obscured even that. Allyn’s breath caught in his throat, and the electric coils dissipated. He’d known what to expect, but he wasn’t prepared for the torrent of emotion that nearly overwhelmed him. Fear. Anxiety. Surprise. They swirled inside him, battling with relief and poise. Returning put into perspective how much had changed. He was no longer Allyn Kaplan, the first-year associate who had been mysteriously and brutally beaten inside his own home. He was Allyn Kaplan, the machinist who had led the McCollum Family in destroying their greatest adversary.

The condo looked much as it had the night of the attack. The dining room table lay crushed on the maple hardwood floor, covered in shattered glass from the sliding-glass door. The clear tarp rustled under the gentle breeze, billowing inside, and rainwater glistened in the orange light of the streetlamp. Allyn walked across the living room to grab a table leg that rested in front of the couch. In a final, desperate move, he’d hurled it at Lukas, only to see it veer unnaturally into the wall beside him. Lukas must have hit it with a small blast of air. Allyn traced the dent in the wall with his fingers. The table leg had struck soundly, and the white paint was cracked and flaking away.

“We need to find your computer,” Jaxon said from the kitchen. His face was half-hidden in shadow.

“It’s upstairs.” Allyn dropped the table leg and turned to lead them to the third level. The second stairwell was directly above the first, hidden behind the wall the television was mounted on. Allyn slowed to a halt as he approached. At eye level, against the wall at the base of the stairs was a red stain. Allyn thoughtfully rubbed the back of his head. His memories were so strong. Lukas, a human pit bull, stalking him. Blasting him into the wall. Terror. Darkness.

The same Lukas who had died by his hand. The same Lukas who—

Nyla gently laid a hand on his arm. “It’s over now.”

She was right. Lukas was dead. He couldn’t hurt Allyn, or anyone else, ever again. What Allyn had done to stop him was justified.
Then why does it make me sick?

The third level of the condo hadn’t been damaged during the battle, but there were signs other people had been inside. Dirty footsteps soiled the light carpet, tracking to and from his bedroom, where the police had likely searched for evidence.
Did they take anything?
Entering the spare room that he’d used as a home office, Allyn got his answer. He stopped in the center of the room, focused on the desk in front of the small window.

“What is it?” Jaxon asked.

“It’s gone.” Allyn walked around the desk. The monitor, the tower, even the paperwork he’d had on the desk—it was all missing. “The police took it.”

“Then how…?” Nyla’s question hung in the air ominously.

Allyn met Jaxon’s eye.
Liam is never wrong,
Jaxon seemed to say.

How could the video have originated here if the computer is gone?
The video couldn’t have been uploaded before the computer was taken.
It hadn’t been online for more than a few hours. Allyn pinched his forehead.
What the hell is going on?