Stone Angel (12 page)

Amanda even caught McKenna suppressing a
grin.

Amanda helped Liam into the wheelchair,
arranging his feet on the pedals and wrapping a rough woolen
blanket around his legs. Slowly, painfully, he reached out to grab
her hand. “Are you sure you’re ready?” His dark eyes were kind, and
it was hard to remember that she spoke to Liam, not Irving.

“Yes, I have to be ready. It has to be now.”
Amanda grabbed her nursing bag from the floor, checked its zipper
to make sure it was secured, and flung it over her shoulder.

She moved over to Irving’s chair by the fire
and leaned down. Brushing a soft kiss across his cheek, she said,
“Thank you, Irving. I will never forget your help. No matter what
happens.”

Irving’s eyes were moist. Before he could
answer and break her resolve with his kind words, Amanda turned on
her heel, grasped the handles of Liam’s wheelchair, and pushed him
from the room.

IN THE entryway, McKenna hurried into the
coatroom and emerged with Amanda’s peacoat and fleece hat. She
pulled her coat on, covered her shaking hands with her Fair Isle
gloves. Too hot from all the adrenaline running through her veins,
she stuffed the indigo hat into her pocket.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Liam
asked as McKenna helped him into one of Irving’s Polartec jackets
and covered his wiry white hair with a plaid pageboy cap.

Amanda nodded. “There’s no time to waste. The
Sculptor is not a patient man.”

Liam snorted. “The Others isn’t exactly an
organization that prizes patience.”

McKenna opened the front door.

Amanda wheeled Liam onto the front steps.
Irving had refused the wheelchair ramp the Chosen had wanted to
install when he first came home from the hospital, so McKenna and
Amanda picked up the wheelchair by its handles and axle and carried
it carefully and slowly down the front steps.

Liam whispered, “They’ll have already seen
us. We need to get away from the house for them to pick us up.”

By the time they placed the wheelchair on the
sidewalk, McKenna was red-faced from the effort of hefting the
wheelchair, but he said, “Good luck to you both. I look forward to
seeing you this evening for dinner.”

He looked so earnest, so grim, that Amanda
could feel tears threatening behind her eyes.

So McKenna turned smoothly and said more
loudly, “Have a good walk through the park, sir. I trust you’ll
call if you need another blanket.”

Unable to answer in a voice that wouldn’t
give him away, Liam nodded and hunched down in his coat like a
cold, old man being forced to take a walk by his strict private
nurse. With that, McKenna bowed slightly and headed back up the
stairs, to a long day of worry and watching the Chosen Ones stare
out the windows.

Amanda squared her shoulders and pushed Liam
toward a small park three blocks from the mansion. Few people
walked the streets this early, and the few that did faced another
day of work, and seemed to be drowning themselves in coffee.

The winter day was cold and a little windy,
but the sunshine peeked out from the clouds, warming Amanda’s face.
She almost had a moment of enjoyment, a moment of relaxation,
pulling the fresh air in through her nose and sighing grandly out
through her mouth, as she had learned in yoga.

But then, as she and Liam had expected, a
long black sedan with dark-tinted windows glided up to the curb
beside them and Robbie and another man, even bigger than Robbie,
stepped from the backseat of the car.

Amanda came to a halt, and Liam did his best
impression of surprise.

His alarmed expression seemed to amuse
Robbie’s friend.

Robbie looked at Amanda and frowned, and
scratched his head as if something was puzzling him.

Sidling up to Amanda, Robbie’s friend said in
an exaggerated whisper, “You need to come with us. And don’t even
think about screaming. You’re too far from your precious Chosen
Ones for them to hear you.”

“Why would I scream?” she said coolly. “Isn’t
this what you wanted? Irving Shea delivered to you on a
platter?”

Liam dug his cell phone from his pocket,
frantically pushing at the screen.

Robbie’s friend grabbed it from his arthritic
fingers and pulled the back off, throwing the battery on the ground
and smashing it beneath his dark leather boot. “I wouldn’t bother
with that, old man. No one can save you in time. Besides, your
pretty little private nurse is on our side. Did you know that?”

Liam made a show of sputtering and gruffly
saying, “I … I don’t believe it.”

Amanda didn’t like the way the big guy had
handled Liam, so she said, “I want my cooperation noted. I have
brought you Mr. Shea undrugged and unharmed. It’s up to the
Sculptor to harm him — so you two had better be careful with
him.”

Robbie shoved at the other guy. “Yeah,
Howard. Watch yourself.”

Howard scowled.

Liam cowered. “Where are we going?”

But the two thugs weren’t interested in his
acting skills. They had a schedule to follow.

Howard wheeled Liam to the car door. “We’re
taking you to see a friend of your nurse’s. The Sculptor wants to
meet you.”

Robbie grabbed Amanda by the arm and roughly
pulled her toward the waiting car.

“Knock it off.” She jerked herself free.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since you shoved your big
fat self into my apartment and stole my sister. I’m not going to
run away now.”

Robbie had the guts to look wounded.

Howard’s enormous arms bulged as he lifted
Liam into the car, as Liam made a show of struggling against him.
When Howard disentangled himself from Liam’s flailing arms, he
slammed the door, then tried to fold up the wheelchair.

If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Amanda
would have giggled at his sweaty-faced efforts. Instead she stepped
forward. “Move! You’re going to screw it up.”

Howard glared as she made quick work of
collapsing the chair so the burly, but mechanism-challenged goon
could shove it into the truck with a curse.

Robbie grasped Amanda’s arm again and led her
toward the other side of the car, opening the door and giving a
sweeping, faux-chivalrous gesture for her to get in.

Amanda slid into the leather interior of the
car.

Robbie and Howard climbed onto a bench seat
facing her and Liam.

How did bad guys get those cars with the
backward seats? She half-expected one of them to whip out a gun and
start into a mobster-type speech about sleeping with the
fishes.

But that was unnecessary.

Amanda had no doubt that if she and Liam
tried to escape, these two, along with the silent driver, could
easily tear her and Liam limb-from-limb.

Amanda glanced over at Liam, who was slumped
into his seat.

Liam tried to sit up straight, but Amanda
knew the lack of core muscle strength Irving had been dealing with
since the accident.

“Here, Irving, let me help you.” Leaning
over, she helped to prop him against the locked door and carefully
tuck him into his seatbelt, tightening it enough to not cut his
neck but to give him some support.

Liam momentarily forgot his role, and said
softly, “Thanks, darlin’.” He realized his mistake a second too
late.

Amanda tried to play it cool as she slid back
to her own seat and fastened her seatbelt.

They both waited for the backlash from their
bodyguards.

Howard didn’t move a muscle or appear to
notice that anything was amiss.

Robbie stared at her and scratched his head
in puzzlement, as if a thought struggled to escape his brain, and
he didn’t know how to deal with such a novel event.

As the car glided its way through traffic,
Amanda finally realized that these Others had never heard Irving
speak, so hiding Liam’s accent wasn’t a big concern.

Glancing
over at Liam, he mouthed,
Sorry
.

She nodded.

Once they were in the Sculptor’s mansion,
they had to keep their wits about them. One mistake and in an
instant, their entire plan could come crashing down — and they
would die, slowly and painfully.

So would Sophia.

Amanda and Liam had one chance. One chance
for freedom. One chance to ruin the Sculptor. One chance to save
her sister.

They could not fail.

AMANDA WHEELED Liam through the front hallway
of the Sculptor’s mansion. His home was cold, covered in marble and
granite with no rugs or tapestries to muffle the sounds. Each creak
of Liam’s wheelchair sounded like anguish, low and sorrowful, and
Amanda worked to remain calm as she marched once more past the pale
frozen figures of people who had failed to please the Sculptor …
and Osgood.

Between two statues was an empty space marked
by a crumble of white plaster.

Amanda didn’t dare imagine what that meant …
and then she did imagine, and felt ill and faint.

Robbie and Howard had been replaced by Eric,
the bastard who had been so instrumental in bringing Sophia and
Amanda to the Sculptor’s home. If it were even possible, he looked
bigger than last time. Bulkier.

Amanda wondered if the Others took steroids
in their free time.

Yeah, probably.

Eric led her and Liam through the familiar
double doors of the Sculptor’s studio.

It was exactly as she remembered it. The
white walls. The steel worktable with his sculpting tools laid out
just so. The sterile emptiness, save for her sister’s statue-like
form, placed on a dark stone pedestal.

Looking at Sophia, so lifelike and yet so
still, Amanda realized that the Sculptor had never covered her over
with thick, white plaster. Perhaps he enjoyed gazing at Sophia’s
still out-stretched hand and the tears frozen in trails down her
cheeks.

Certainly he looked delighted at Amanda's
grief-stricken expression. For there he stood, next to his
worktable.

Amanda hurried to Sophia. She slid her
nursing bag off her shoulder, dropped it to the floor. She stripped
away her gloves, then with trembling fingers, she touched Sophia’s
cold cheek. “Oh, my darling baby sister,” she whispered.

Resolve hardened in her heart.

Turning, she stared at the Sculptor as he
glided forward.

He would pay.

Taking Amanda’s hand, he kissed it. “Welcome
back, Miss Reed. I trust you’ve been well.”

Inwardly shuddering, Amanda removed her
fingers from his grasp. “Fine, thank you.”

Moving to the side of Liam’s wheelchair, she
said, “As you can see, I’ve held up my end of the bargain.”

The Sculptor surveyed Liam. He circled him,
peered into his face, then circled him again.

Amanda broke out in a cold sweat. Was it
possible for the Sculptor to detect the switch?

Then he turned back toward his table of
tools. “It took you long enough.”

Amanda took a breath; she’d been holding it.
In an even voice, she said, “One doesn’t simply waltz into the
midst of the Chosen Ones and remove their revered leader. I had to
build up their trust. And Irving had to build up his strength.”

“He still looks awful to me,” the Sculptor
said.

Eric chuckled deep in his chest, sounding
like Jabba the Hut when Leia tried to free Han.

Liam grunted, his shoulders hunched, his head
down, plucking at the blanket over his knees as though his brain
wasn’t processing all that was happening in front of him.

“How did you manage to keep him alive?” the
Sculptor asked.

“I am a nurse, after all,” she said icily.
“Isn’t that why you sent me into Irving’s home?”

The Sculptor’s mouth curved. “No, my dear, I
sent you there because handing over both your sister and Irving
will be a feather in my cap. Osgood will reward me handsomely.”

A new horror washed over Amanda. “I’m here to
trade Irving for my sister. You said if I brought you Irving, you
would give me my sister.” She stepped forward, cold with fear, and
hot with indignation. “That was our deal.”

“That’s the funny thing about deals. They can
be easily changed. Especially when one of us is so expendable.” The
Sculptor turned to Eric, and with an indifferent flick of his
wrist, he said, “Kill the spare.”

THE
SPARE. That was
her
.

As Eric advanced toward Amanda, she had only
a moment to assess the situation. She had known the chances of the
original plan going off without a hitch were slim-to-none, but she
and Liam had only had time to go though a few “what if’s” at dinner
last night.

They had agreed that if the plan went awry,
Liam would begin to change into himself to help her in a fight.

As she backed across the room, stalked by a
menacing Eric, she saw Liam begin the transformation.

But would he be quick enough?

Eric closed in, and with one twist of his
hands, he could break her neck — and enjoy it, too. He herded her
toward a corner.

She was gasping in fear, keeping her gaze on
the hulking, grinning brute.

But out of the corner of her eye, she saw
Liam kick off the blanket covering his knees and toss his cap onto
the floor. His eyes had returned to their brilliant blue color.
Pushing himself up out of the wheelchair, he attempted to
straighten up enough to remove Irving's jacket.

The
Sculptor watched uncomprehendingly. As he realized he had been
duped, heat flushed his cold face. “Get him. Eric — get
him
!” He pointed
a shaking finger at Liam, then started toward him.

Steroids had not been kind to Eric. His brain
worked sluggishly. His head turned slowly. He fixed his reptilian
gaze on Liam.

And that delay gave Amanda time to run from
the corner she had been backed into and grab a bucket of loose, dry
plaster from the Sculptor’s worktable. Running into the Sculptor’s
path, she hurled the fine powder into his face.