THE RISK OF LOVE AND MAGIC (3 page)

“Morongo Valley,” Magnus said, ignoring her orders, “just you and Dorrie, if she’s bored. Butterfly nets might be good. Give me coordinates when you have them.” He punched off the phone.

“You can’t drag anyone else into this! The more people who know, the easier it will be for the general to find me,” his partner in crime insisted frantically.

Her big green eyes were even wider without the black-framed glasses, Magnus decided when she turned her pleading look in his direction. Pointed chin, high cheekbones, and radiating intensity like a neutron bomb.

“If you don’t want the general to know where you’re going, then this is the way to do it. Take my word.” Magnus kept his internal compass on east and followed the narrow, nearly-dirt path past the timber line and down towards the rocky desert.

“If you won’t take my word that the general will find us, why should I take yours?” she cried in frustration. “I have to find my sister, and I can’t afford to waste hours while you do things your way. Just let me out at the next intersection.”

She looked ready to jump. The aluminum foil hat and screwdriver weren’t helping her case any.

“When was the last time you hitchhiked?” he demanded. “Do you have any idea what kind of yahoos hide up in these hills?”

“People hitchhike all the time,” she insisted. “I just have to avoid any rangers in case Nurse Wretched has called the law. But I’m betting she calls the general first, and it takes time to get through his shields.” She tugged down the car’s visor and made a face at the cracked, dull mirror on the other side.

“Only crazy people hitchhike,” he retorted. “If you’re that crazy, I’ll take you back to Nurse Wretched where you’ll be safer.”

“I’m not crazy. I’m just dangerous because I know too much. And see too much. And I quit drinking the Kool-Aid.” She flung the tinfoil hat into the back seat and started jimmying at her temple with the screwdriver.

Appalled as she stabbed herself in the head, Magnus screeched the car to a halt. He reached over and jerked the tool out of her hand. In those few seconds, she’d managed to break through her luminous skin. Blood streamed down her fair cheek. “That’s it. You’re going back now. I didn’t break you out of there to watch you kill yourself.”

He didn’t think he’d calm his pulse anytime soon. One suicide was one too many. A second would kill him. He flung the screwdriver out the window.

Big green eyes framed in ridiculously long brown lashes glared at him from behind the sunburst of curls. “Microchip. I’m not the crazy. I’m starting to suspect the general is.” She turned back to the mirror and began prying at the nick with her fingernails.

Microchip?
Feeling sick to his stomach, Magnus caught her chin and turned her to look at him. His big hand practically encompassed the entire side of her face. In the sunlight, he could see a dark patch right beneath the hairline.

“Tracking device,” she said defiantly. “Want me to put the foil back on?”

Fighting back nausea, he produced a penknife, sterilized it with flame from his lighter, and with a quick slash, pried back the skin. Blood gushed. He grabbed tissues from the backseat. She pried the chip loose and flung it out the window.

“Go,” she ordered. “I won’t bleed to death. I’ve done this before.”

Magnus rubbed at the frown lines on his brow but kicked the engine in again. She’d shaken him to his not-easily shaken core. He needed explanations to ground him back in reality. “I haven’t slept all night, and I’m starving and apparently unable to translate Librarian-ese. What Kool-Aid and does it have anything to do with microchips?”

“Yes, and I’m not explaining until I have my baby sister safe.” She held the tissues to her head to stanch the blood and refused to look at him.

After what he’d just seen, he didn’t have the heart to argue. A madman had implanted a microchip in her head? Like one would a dog? Then leashed her to a mental institution. He’d seen some horrific sights in the service, but this took the crazy to new levels.

“Does your time table allow for food?” he asked, almost politely. “It will take Conan time to travel over here.”

She shrank further into the seat. “I’ve eaten. Please, just let me out somewhere. The general is my stepfather, and I know whereof I speak. He’ll seriously hunt us down. I can’t afford to lose any time.”

Magnus processed that nugget of information. The general had planted a microchip in his own kid’s head? “Do you know where he is?” he asked, trying not to sound as if he’d like to grind the man’s bones.

“No one ever knows where he is. I’ve always known he was paranoid. Now I’m convinced he’s delusional. He keeps track of everyone and lets no one know where to find him. He could be in Irvine right now, tying my sister up and hauling her off. I just can’t wait any longer.”

“Tell me where to find your sister, and I’ll send Conan’s team to protect her. What the hell do you think you can do to save her from a maniac?”

“I can read his mind,” she said simply.

Nadine waited for the explosion of disbelief. She hadn’t told very many people about the mind reading gig. She wasn’t good at it, and it wasn’t a credible topic except among the general’s inner circles. Mostly, it produced severe headaches and confusion—like she would admit
that
to a man who thought her insane.

She waited for her driver to turn around and take her back to the funny farm.

Instead, Marvelous Max silently digested her statement and followed the directional signs to Morongo.

She had expected this Oswin brother to be ruthlessly efficient, and he’d proved that. She really hadn’t expected him to be . . . so very large. This was one of those huge old muscle cars, but his broad shoulders still seemed to take up all the space. The hands deftly guiding the vehicle around curves and over potholes were large enough to throttle her, which he would probably like to do.

“You’re a mind reader?” he finally said as they joined the sparse flow of traffic on the state route.

He had a marvelous deep bass voice that ought to hide any inflection, but she read voices too. His disbelief came through loud and clear. “No, I said I could read my
stepfather’s
mind. I cannot read yours, most of the time, anyway. You advertised your presence pretty clearly when you reached the Villa, thank you. I did sort of read Bo’s, but he was projecting wildly, and I’d been keeping my mind open, just in case. It’s not as if I had a lot to fill it.”

Mad Max rubbed his hand over his crew cut dark hair. She hated short hair. It reminded her too much of the military, which reminded her too much of the general. Of course, her stepbrothers wore their hair long, so she ought to hate long hair too.

“Maybe I am insane,” she said with a sigh, littering the countryside by flinging the bloody tissue out the window. “But you must have picked up my code somehow. I haven’t been able to send it to my message center, so I’ve just been repeating it in my head, hoping someone would hear.”

“If you were hoping someone would hear your head, you could have been a little more clear and just used the address,” he said dryly.

“I tried that. It didn’t work. I think we have too many words in our brains which get mixed up with mental messages. Images and numbers are different, but not as easy to translate.” Surreptitiously, she studied his profile. Like all the Oswins she’d seen in photos, he had strong, square features and a cleft chin, not precisely handsome but rugged. His nose had a bump in it, as if it had been broken at some time. His eyebrows were thick and sat on a masculine ridge that kept his long lashes from being indecently feminine.

“You knew how to reach us,” he argued without giving her a second look. “Why didn’t you just text?”

“Since they caught me sending those texts to Oz, everything I type into the computer gets recorded. I had to use code to
physically
send anything. I cut and pasted the ‘help me’ message from another document and sent it from a cloud cache that the doofuses are too ignorant to know about, but I don’t luck out and come across useful phrases very often. My days of easy access to computers ended when your brother found his kid. The general really went off the radar then.”

Maximus didn’t look happy. He radiated disbelief. Nadine didn’t care. She had one purpose and one purpose only at this moment—save Vera.

Conan rang back. At the punch of a button, his voice emerged from the car’s speakers. “I’ve got a man who lives near Morongo. He can meet you at the schoolyard when you get there and provide you with a new vehicle.” He gave driving instructions to a street that should be easily visible. “Do we need to send a protection squad?” he asked.

The Maximator glanced in her direction. Nadine shook her head negatively. “I don’t want to meet
anyone
,” she said as insistently as she knew how.

“I can respect that,” he said gravely. “Negative, good buddy,” he told his brother. “We’re staying off the radar.”

“Conan is the one who’s trying to find my computer, isn’t he?” Nadine asked when Magnus turned off the phone. She hoped to prevent him asking the questions she could hear bouncing inside his skull. This Oswin had very noisy thought processes.

“That’s what Conan does. If you could give him clues that might lead to your stepfather, we’d be appreciative.”

“Negative, good buddy,” she parroted. “It will only get someone killed. Once I find my sister, I’ll find a computer and take down his network. We’ll be good then.” Sort of. Maybe. With a lot of luck—which she seldom had. She was speaking through her non-existent hat, but bravado was all she had.

He sent her a dubious look as if he could read
her
brain waves.

“Taking down the general’s network won’t stop a maniac,” he warned. “You planning on finding new identities for yourself and your sister?”

She shrugged. “Already have.” She tried not to admire the two-day-old scruff on his very large, very square jaw. She might be a geeky, inexperienced nerd, but she was still female and not immune to masculine pheromones. She needed to get away before she fell under his spell. She was apparently too receptive to suggestion.

He pulled off at a gas station with a mini-mart. “You need first aid, and the car needs gas. Do I need to tie you up to keep you from running?”

She stared at him. “Tie me up? Are you serious?”

“You’re a danger to yourself and your sister and probably a lot of other people. As far as the cops know, you’re an escaped lunatic. I don’t think anyone would stop me,” he said with a shrug.

“Where do you get off calling
me
a danger to anyone?” she cried in protest as he pulled up to the pump. “I’d need a semi-automatic and a machete before I could even
look
threatening.”

She thought the corner of his mouth quirked upward until he straightened it and glared down at her. If she’d known he was coming today, she’d have worn the Hulk shirt that said
Don’t Make Me Angry
instead of a stupid Tweety Bird.

“I don’t understand what you can do or how,” he told her as if she really were stupid, “but I’m well aware that you’re not harmless. I want the general. You’re my key to getting him. You want your sister. I’m your key to finding her. Truce?”

She kept her arms crossed and glared at him from beneath an orange curl she didn’t bother brushing out of her eyes. “Fine then. Have it your way.”

He climbed out to fill the tank. He took his electronic key with him. She hated electronic ignitions. Why on earth would a car this old have a fancy new . . . Duh. Maximus Magnifico was some kind of mechanical genius, which was why the general had wanted him.

She didn’t have time for playing games. She wanted to find Vera, and it would be far faster from here than heading into the desert. Besides, she didn’t need any more intimidating alpha males telling her what to do. She surveyed the lot, looking for a friendly trucker. They all looked surly. The price of gas must have gone up again.

She spotted a preppy-looking teen climbing out of a Kia with Orange County plates. It was Sunday. What were the chances that he was returning to school after a weekend at home?

She wished she really could read minds, but unless someone was screaming inside their head, the best she could do was read body language and physical clues. Even if someone sent thoughts in her direction, she generally picked up
vibrations
more than words—unless they were psychic. That seldom happened.

She’d actually
felt
Mad Max at the gate, probably because he’d been thinking about her messages and steaming with suppressed frustration. A mind as powerful as his could explode under pressure. Probably best to get out of his way.

“I’m getting ice cream,” she said, climbing out of the front seat.

“You don’t have money,” Maxico reminded her. “I’ll be there in a minute. Find some Band-aides and Neosporin.”

“I’ll use the restroom while I’m waiting.” She strode off before he could argue with that, too. She’d rather admired the determined way the Oswin brothers had tried to track her down and had followed the few clues she’d sent them. Now that she was out, she really didn’t need to risk all that potent focus on her. Vera came first, over anything and everyone, including herself.

When they were safely in Guatemala or somewhere, then she’d have time to regret not having a chance to know the family she’d never see again.

***

Magnus didn’t possess Conan’s nose for trouble, but gut instinct told him Nadine couldn’t be trusted. Once she disappeared inside the mini-mart, he kept a close eye on the vehicles in the lot, particularly the truckers. But he had to feed a card into the meter and remove the pump and screw up the gas tank, and he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.

By the time he walked inside the shop, she was gone.

Knowing his size intimidated, he tried not to scowl and curse aloud as he approached the young Latino boy at the register. Nadine was hard to miss, and the boy offered a brief description of the college kid she’d conned into giving her a ride. Magnus passed on a twenty and stalked outside, mentally castigating himself.

That’s what he got for dealing with lunatics. The damned woman’s head would probably rot off from that screwdriver trick.