Unmasking Kelsey (6 page)

“Not throttle. Tear apart.”

“Uh-huh. And because of these various and sundry things, your attention has shifted somewhat from Meditron. To be blunt, you don’t give a damn what they’re up to out there. Your priorities have changed. First, you intend to restore the missing sister to her family, thereby removing Mallory’s lever against Elizabeth. Second, if at all possible disarranging Mallory’s face somewhere along the way. And third, you want to find out what’s going on at Meditron, so that you can hopefully lock Mallory away for the duration of his natural life.”

“Anybody ever tell you that you talk real good?”

“Constantly. Is my summation fairly accurate?”

“On the nose.”

“Um. You going to tell the boss all this?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Kelsey demanded with polite incredulity.

“It was just a thought. He signs the checks, after all.”

Kelsey had a brief suggestion as to what Hagen could do with his paychecks which, after consideration, Derek observed to be anatomically impossible.

“So it is,” Kelsey agreed. He stared at Derek.

Derek stared back.

“Well?”

Derek shrugged. “It’s your show. Where do we start?”

“R
AVEN, MY FAVORITE
partner and dear old friend, how are you?”

After a moment, her voice reached him mildly through the long distance connection. “Why, I’m fine, Kelsey. And you?”

“Top of my form, love, top of my form. How’s Josh and that commando crew of his?”

“Flourishing.” There might have been a trace of amusement in her voice, but for the most part it remained placid. “Rafferty and Sarah have a little boy, did you hear? His name’s Patrick. Zach and
Teddy are well and obviously happy. Lucas and Kyle are fine. And Josh and I are just dandy. It’s spring in New York, and the Mets will do great this year if they can straighten out their pitching staff. Does that cover it?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Um, Raven—”

“Spit it out, Kelsey.” She was definitely amused now. “You never were much on small talk.”

He sighed. “Uh-huh. Look, friend, I need a favor.”

“You’ve got it.”

“I haven’t told you what it is yet!”

“Since when did that matter?”

Kelsey smiled a little. “All right. Thanks. What I really need at this point is information, and quickly. I need everything you can find on a town called Pinnacle, a company named Meditron, and a man named Blaine Mallory. All are connected.”

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Her voice was brisk and businesslike now.

“The usual stuff. Hints of shady dealings, more money than there should be, investigations on the state or federal level. You know the drill. I’ve done some basic research, but there are a few
cloudy areas I didn’t have time to probe; see what you can dig up. Oh, and I need the blueprints and a recent floor plan of Meditron, from the ground up.”

“Got it.” A bit dryly, she added, “Should I ask why you aren’t going through official channels for this?”

Kelsey hesitated, then cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. “Well, the boss won’t expect me to check in for a while yet, and I’d rather not do so until I have to. If I use my clearance to get the information, he’ll know about it. And anyway, I haven’t got anything solid to report, so—”

“Kelsey.”

“What?”

“What is it you don’t want Hagen to know?”

He sighed. “Hell. If you
must
know, old friend, I don’t want him to find out he’s done it again. He’s gotten so paranoid about losing agents that he might just pull me if he finds out too soon. I can’t risk that.”

“What’s her name?” The amusement had returned to Raven’s voice, but it was warm now.

“Elizabeth Conner. I think Hagen’s a warlock. I also think I’m not ready for this, not one bit.”

“None of us ever is,” she observed.

“No, I suppose not. Well …”

“I’ll get the information for you, Kelsey. Do you object to Josh and the others knowing?”

“Hell, no. Turn Zach loose with his computers and see what he can uncover. Rafferty and Lucas might hear something from their intelligence contacts. And Lord knows Josh can move a mountain of bureaucratic red tape when he wants. I don’t mind at all. But I’m on a tight schedule. There’s a girl missing, and I have a very bad feeling about Meditron.” He briskly rattled off a phone number and added, “You can reach me here; it’s the number of Derek’s hotel room.”

“Outlaw Derek?” she murmured.

“The very same.”

“Um. Tell him hello from me, and that I haven’t forgotten England.”

“What happened in England?”

“Ask Derek. I’ll be in touch as soon as we have something.”

“Right. And, Raven—thanks.”

She made a rude sound and hung up.

Kelsey cradled the receiver and sat staring at Derek. “I didn’t know you’d worked with Raven.”

“Yes.”

“She said hello, and to tell you that she hasn’t forgotten England.”

“She wouldn’t have.”

Kelsey frowned at the blond man still lying lazily on the bed blowing smoke rings. “Well?”

Derek made a “tisk” sound when a smoke ring emerged imperfectly, then looked at his partner. “It was one of those cases where our dear, benevolent boss kept too damn much to himself. Raven’s contact, unknown to us, was a double agent. I tumbled to that just in time to get her out before he defected; he’d planned to take her with him as a nice prize for the other side.”

“Ah.” Kelsey reflected. “We should have let Josh strangle Hagen. I knew it at the time.”

“You’ll have to tell me that story one day.”

“I will. In the meantime …”

“Yes. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

When Elizabeth rose from bed early the next morning, she felt better, stronger, and half-convinced that at least part of the preceding day had been a dream. She showered and dressed, and as she was standing before the mirror in her bathroom putting up her hair, she tried to fully convince herself it had indeed been a dream.

Because things like that didn’t
happen
to people like her. Ordinary, rational, responsible people like her. Besides, women just weren’t swept off their feet by large masculine strangers these days; it was an age of caution between the sexes for one thing, what with the confusion in roles and various other puzzlements. And for another thing, men with the ability to sweep a rational woman mindlessly off her sensible feet were hardly found on every street corner—in this or any age.

Elizabeth glared at her reflection, only then realizing that she was wearing a pretty green silk blouse and white shorts that were short indeed. “Dammit,” she muttered.

She didn’t need his help, of course. She didn’t
want
his help. Even if he could help, which he couldn’t. Trusty sword notwithstanding. Heaven knew the man looked capable of slaying dragons or anything else that came along, but some dragons were just too damned dangerous to mess with, especially when a dear hostage was hidden in his cave.

Elizabeth shook away a tremor of fear and went downstairs, reminding herself that she was taking the only course of action available to her. She was waiting, as patiently as she knew how, for this whole thing to be
over
. Blaine had so much power locally that if he couldn’t resolve this quickly, no one else would be able to. And even if she
could
get an outsider in to help there was no way to move fast enough. With the guards and electronic security at Meditron, they would always have warning and time enough to … bury the evidence.

Oh, God, no, she prayed fervently.

She fixed a light breakfast for herself automatically, taking note of the signs that both her sisters had been before her. Ami would be at Susan’s
now, since they were practicing for an upcoming horse show, and Meg—as usual—would be with her friends in town.

Cleaning up after herself, Elizabeth found her thoughts turning again to Kelsey, and swore softly. It was all just so complicated! Who was he?
What
was he? Riding into her life in his beat-up car and making noises like her knight in shining armor. Dammit. That was garbage, that’s what it was. Just garbage. Knights had died with Camelot.

The silence of the big house and her own muddled thoughts finally drove Elizabeth outside for fresh air and something to occupy her. She made her way to the barn and whistled for her horse, a big chestnut gelding the color of a vibrant sunset. Buddy willingly stuck his head into the light nylon bridle and stood patiently while she strapped a bareback pad on his broad back. She hardly needed the pad’s strap for balance, but used it mostly for the sake of her white shorts. She swung aboard the horse, then bent and removed her sandals, setting them on a handy fence post near the road as they passed.

Elizabeth had wondered from time to time what kind of woman she would have become without the responsibilities of raising her sisters and keeping the peach orchard in business. She was not, she knew only too well, a sedate person at heart. Her control had become ingrained over the years, but sometimes her emotions went winging away from her, wild and uncontrollable, as if some deeply buried part of her knew they had to fly occasionally or else forget how to do it.

It happened no more than once or twice a year, a brief period when she felt the abandoned singing of her emotions, her senses. She had to fly,
had to
, and the next best thing to wings of her own was a fleet horse with racing Arab blood in his veins and the willingness to fly for her.

They went over the wooden pasture gate in an easy leap, crossing the driveway in one stride as Buddy settled down happily to run. Barely guiding him with her knees, Elizabeth leaned forward to silently urge him on as they raced along one of the wide lanes between the blooming peach trees. She felt her hair snatched by the wind of their
speed, aware that pins had scattered and that it flew out behind her like a banner.

She didn’t care. Faster and faster, pausing only momentarily to turn a corner from one lane to the next, they flew. Her heart was thundering, the wind whistling in her ears, and she laughed aloud with the glorious sense of freedom. Nothing troubled her for these brief, precious moments, no problems, no dangers to heart or family. She was not a woman who had been alone too long with her responsibilities, but a soaring spirit refusing to be caged long enough to forget how to fly.

Kelsey heard the hoofbeats before he saw her, and he stood by his car in the driveway scanning the orchard keenly. She was at first only a distant flash of fiery red and green and white, the horse’s big body moving so swiftly the colors were only a blur. But they were working their way back toward the drive, and Kelsey felt his heart stop when he could see her clearly.

Her spun-silver hair flowed out behind her, long
and shining in the morning sunlight. Her lovely face was flushed from the wind, her long golden legs seemingly a part of the horse’s gleaming sides. Horse and woman emerged from the surrounding peach blossoms, the vital aliveness of summer after the hazy dream of spring.

Kelsey had moved into the lane as they approached, and stood his ground while the horse stopped with a head-swinging, sliding motion that was curiously graceful. The big animal stood still, snorting softly, flanks moving quickly, and Elizabeth looked down at Kelsey with something wild in her eyes.

“One brief shining moment,” she murmured huskily.

Kelsey stepped closer, resting a hand on the horse’s shoulder as he looked up at her. “What?”

The wildness in her eyes refused to settle, like a falcon ignoring its handler’s commands. “There was a place called Camelot,” she said. “But it didn’t live long. Like all dreams, it died too soon.”

Kelsey reached up, his big hands encircling her waist easily as he drew her slowly from the horse.
He kept his hands at her waist when she stood before him, and looked into the vivid, unhooded eyes of a soaring falcon. “The world remembers,” he told her quietly, almost hypnotized by those eyes, very conscious that he was looking into the iridescent depths of an unguarded soul. And aware that she would not have chosen to let him see, not a stranger, not a man she didn’t fully trust. But he saw, and was deeply grateful that he saw.

“Who are you?” she asked then.

“I’m the man who wants to help you,” he told her.

She tilted her head a bit, vivid eyes questioning. “Why?”

“Because … it’s important to me. Because I don’t ever want you hurt again.” He wondered, vaguely, what had happened to the bull about his job. Who cared? And he fiercely ignored another shudder from something inside him that was like an earthquake ripping through solid rock.

Her eyes were settling a bit now, finally but slowly. “But
who
are you?” she asked intensely. “What are you? I know your name, but I don’t
know who you are. And I have to know who you are, because—”

“Because?”

She shook her head a little, and the last of the wildness vanished into guarded depths. She looked at him then, really looked at him, and anger stirred. She removed her hands from his forearms and stiffened. “I don’t know why you came back here. I can’t help you.”