What You Can't See (23 page)

Her features darkened, and she yanked her hand away. He could have kept her captive, but he didn’t.

“You are the sorriest excuse for a man and a cop I’ve had the misfortune to meet. What do you want?”

Zach struggled with his emotions. Danica Keller was the only person on the earth who could make him forget words. She was in so many ways his Achilles’ heel. He cursed Michael for using that fact against him.

Michael.

And what the hell was he supposed to tell her? The truth? He cringed. Damn it!

“S
PIT IT OUT,
Z
ACH
. I have a shipment I need to oversee.”

“The one from Caladia?”

Startled, she looked up at him. “How do you know about Caladia?”

“It’s why I’m here.”

Danica’s heart constricted for one millisecond. She’d hoped for some unknown reason that maybe he was there for her. It was futile—Zach didn’t have it in him to love. And her? After all this time seeing him again? He still screwed with her heart.

Her resolve galvanized. “Of course it is.” Sarcasm dripped off her words. She whirled around to the door and jerked it open. “Get out, Zach, and don’t come back.”

He stepped past her and put his hand over hers on the knob. He squeezed and pushed forward, closing the door. His large body pressed against her back, his heat encompassing her like a warm blanket. She closed her eyes briefly, gritting her teeth and forcing the heat in her body to cool.

She stood flush against the closed door. His left hand touched her elbow, his fingertips brushing the fabric of her suit. He barely applied pressure, yet it felt as if they were skin on skin. Dormant passion flared in her brain like a red-hot sun whose rays sliced into her nerves, lighting her up.

Zach Garrett was a hard man, but his passion ran deep. How could she resist this dark moody man? The way his lips flickered when she walked into the room or the way he made her laugh with his dry humor? How could she resist a man who took foster kids by the dozens to As games?

She turned, wresting her hand from under his grip, her breath high in her throat. How could she not despise the man who lied to keep his job knowing she would lose hers? How could she allow a stone-cold murderer into her heart? Anger, frustration, and shame mixed into a toxic cocktail.

Danica slapped him with all the fury of a woman scorned. She watched the blanching of her fingerprints on his dark cheek rise. He didn’t flinch. Instead he moved closer, his long hard body now pressed fully against hers. She felt the hot heat of his passion against her belly. A low growl rumbled in his throat. His hands dove into her hair, pulling the long tresses free from the bun at the nape of her neck. His lips slanted across hers. The contact sent her reeling backward against the door. The sound of her head thumping and her gasp of surprise did nothing to quell Zach’s passionate attack. He pressed his body harder against hers, his groin digging into her.

She gasped for air and his tongue slid into her mouth, thick and hot. She arched in an attempt to push him away but it only served to fuel his fire. And hers. Passion flared between them, a real live wire. Her nipples tingled. Heat swept to the juncture between her thighs. Her fists relaxed. She pushed harder against him now, her lips opening for more, wanting, needing, demanding.

Zach gasped for breath, the rawness in his throat throbbing in tempo to the throb in his dick. God, she tasted sweet. His body ached for more, his heart for all. But he had nothing to give in return. He was a cold-blooded killer, and every time she looked at him he could see the horror of his deeds reflected in her eyes.

He shoved her away from him and stepped back to a safe distance.

Danica’s full swollen lips, long hair in sexy disarray around her shoulders, and that wild hot look in her eyes he used to live for nearly did him in. He would gladly lie down and die for that look, but he couldn’t. Not now, maybe never. They had the fucking world to save. He knew he’d lost his mind.

“I’m sorry, Danica, I—”

Her hysterical laughter stopped him. She pushed off the door then in a short jerky movement, worked her hair back into a respectable bun. Shaking her head, her laughter quieting, she moved past him to her desk where she sat down. “Fuck you, Zach Garett, and the horse you came in on. Get out of here before I shoot your ass.”

“Hear me out first.”

Sitting back in her chair, she put her feet up on her desk and clasped her hands behind her head. “What?”

“The shipment from Caladia, it has artifacts in it.”

“No shit, Sherlock. In case you haven’t noticed you’re in a museum.”

“There is a scabbard, with a jeweled star imbedded in it.”

“So what if there is?”

“You can’t give it to Zao.”

“I have no intention of giving it to Zao.” She swept her feet off the desk, sat up and frowned. “How do you know about Zao?”

Zach rubbed his temples. A sudden migraine erupted behind his eyes. “I can’t explain.” If he did she
would
shoot him. “I—just know.” He stopped rubbing and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “What are your plans for it?”

Danica folded her hands on the desk and steepled her fingers. For a long moment she contemplated him. “The museum is going to loan it to Mr. Zao in exchange for a ten-million-dollar bequest.”

“You can’t, Danica. That scabbard
cannot
go to Zao from you.”

“Sorry to disappoint, big guy, but that was part of the deal. I hand it over to him in a big ol’ ceremony with the press and God to witness.”

“Why you?”

Her brows furrowed.

Zach explained. “Why does it have to be you, the security head, to hand it over? Why not the curator?”

“I was told that was how Mr. Zao wanted it handled.”

“What would you do if I told you Zao was going to use the scabbard for illegal purposes?”

Danica laughed. “What, is he going to go on a killing spree in Fremont with it?”

“Maybe.”

Danica eyed him cryptically and sat forward. “Zach, I think they let you out of the hospital too soon.”

He rubbed his throbbing temple and for a minute thought she might be right. He felt cold and clammy suddenly and the room teetered. Shaking the cobwebs from his head, he turned his gaze back to Danica, who sat calmly regarding him. The old Danica would have rushed to his side. This hard Danica, the one he’d created, sat stoic as an oak.

“Something happened to me, Dani. I can’t explain it, but I have this thing inside me, warning bells. You’re in danger, this museum is in danger, and it’s tied somehow to a three-thousand-year-old scabbard.”

“Four thousand years old. The only thing missing is the Sword of Caladia.” In answer, the sword at his back warmed. Son of a bitch! Zach reached behind him and slowly withdrew the sword.

Danica stood, her eyes wide in wonder. Maybe seeing the sword would convince her. He held it in front of him. “I think this may be what goes into the scabbard.”

Her eyes grew larger. She reached out to touch it. Heat flared in his hand. Zach pulled it away. Would it hurt her?

“Where did you get that?”

How did one tell a perfectly sane person you died, were on your way to burn in hell, then some guy named Michael plucked you from your fall, gave you a sword and told you to go save the world?

“The Immortals want the Star of Moria.”

“The who want the what?” Danica laughed. “C’mon, Zach. You can do better than this fairy tale.”

Zach’s skin shivered. “The Immortals. We have to stop them. They want the star, it’s the key to—a prison.” He stopped short. His temple seared in pain.

Danica moved closer to Zach, still skeptical and more than a little wary. She put her hand to his brow; it was cool and damp. “What kind of medication are you on?”

“None.”

“I don’t believe you. From what I heard you were dead on the scene. Your larynx was crushed. They gave you a trach tube. Your body took a beating rolling around in the crash. And you’re out three days later? No drugs? You couldn’t speak this morning.”

She shook her head. None of it added up. “Explain how you’re here.”

Zach’s free hand shook as he reached out to touch her. She withdrew but kept a steadying hand on his shoulder to guide him to the chair in front of her desk. “Sit down, Zach.”

He did and she unscrewed the cap off the bottle of water on her desk and handed it to him. He shook his head but she pressed it into his hand. He took a long drink. She watched as his Adam’s apple jumped up and down with each swallow, the Band-Aid on his neck moving with it. No way could he not be on painkillers. The trauma to his head must have shaken a few brain cells loose. He was speaking like a crazy person. He obviously was not emotionally stable.

She glanced down at the sword in his hand. But how did she explain that?

He drained the bottle and set it down on her desk. “What the hell is going on, Zach, and don’t feed me bullshit lines about Immortals.”

As the words left her mouth he felt the pressure of
them
all around him. They were near. He could feel it. Waiting, wanting the sword, the scabbard, the star, and Danica.

A vision of Danica hanging naked and ripe with child in iron manacles, the fires of hell flashing around her sweaty, writhing body, pierced his consciousness. She cried out to him, her voice raw with emotion, begging him to save her and their child.

An overwhelming sense of duty filled him. Sensation filled his body, supercharging his cells, and he suddenly knew what he had to do.

His eyes rose to hers, the blue nearly black in the bright light of her office. “Your mother had the same port-wine birthmark on her inner thigh as you do.”

Danica visibly whitened. “How do you know that?”

He just—knew. “And her mother and her mother before her.”

As intimate as she had been with Zach, she had never revealed the fact she and her mother shared the same birthmark in such a private part of their anatomy. She’d always felt that was her mother’s information to share.

“How do you know that?”

Zach shook his head again. “I just do.” He stood, his body swaying. Danica reached out this time and steadied him.

“I need to see the scabbard.”

Danica rubbed her suddenly pounding temples. She made the decision to indulge him for several reasons, one being that Zach stood before her a healthy man even though just hours before he could not speak, and another, she was damn curious. Much more so than she should be. And knowing how involvement with Zach tended to go, she would live to regret the decision. “Fine, Zach, but understand the scabbard stays here.”

As Danica opened the door to her office a sensation of doom struck Zach so hard his body took the hit, the percussion of it vibrating through him. “Danica!” he called.

She turned. Mark materialized almost as if from thin air and yanked her to his chest. Zach’s adrenaline spiked and, with it, his muscles filled with blood, every sense sharpened on high alert. He growled low, regretting he hadn’t killed Santos when he’d had the chance. The sword warmed at his back in agreement.

Zach locked his stare on Santos. The prick’s eyes had morphed to hard onyx and he grinned at Zach. For the first time in the nearly three years he’d been partnered with him, Zach noticed the sharpness of Santos’s incisors. Like a canine’s. Fear for Danica filled his cells. He would die to protect her.

Danica yelped in surprise until she realized it was Mark. “You startled me.” He continued to hold her, despite her efforts to pull away from him. “Let go of me, Mark.” She yanked out of his grasp but he grabbed her back, pulling her farther from her office.

“I didn’t want to tell you this, Dani, not this way,” Mark said.

She twisted to see him but he kept her facing Zach even as the space grew between them.

“Tell me what? What the hell is going on?” She glanced back at Zach who looked winded, his color lighter. He looked to be in pain. His eyes, though, burned bright.

Mark raised his Sig and pointed it at Zach’s heart. Danica had had enough of this pissing contest. “Put the damn gun down, Mark!”

He shook his head. His hand tightened on her arm. His gun hand steady. “I just got a call from Captain Leonard. Your ex is wanted for murdering a CI of mine.”

Danica gasped and stopped struggling. Her gaze shot to Zach. He scowled. Her eyes narrowed. It wouldn’t be the first time this man had killed.

“I’m taking you in, Garett,” Mark said. He pushed Danica aside and waved his gun toward the doorway. “Come out, real slow. Hands up.”

Zach straightened to his full height. He raised his hands and put them behind his head. Danica stood rooted to the floor, unable to grasp the depths of this man’s dishonor. “You—bastard!” she hissed.

Her words had no impact on Zach; he didn’t flinch. He stood rigid, his eyes riveted on Mark. She turned to look at Mark and what she saw chilled her to the bone. His features had paled, his dark eyes hardened to stone. And the subtle odor of…something unpleasant swirled around him. What the hell was going on?

She turned back to confront Zach. He moved lightning quick, dropping to his left knee and pulling that golden sword from behind his back where it was sheathed. It whizzed past her cheek. Mark screamed. The blade severed his thumb from his hand, the gun clattered to the marble. The appendage plunked next to it on the floor, leaving a bloody spray in its wake. Zach shot past her before she realized he had moved. He dove for the sword sticking straight into the wall behind them at the same time Mark did.

Zach grabbed the sword. Mark slammed him into the wall, and grabbed Zach’s hand holding the sword. In a hard sweep he smashed Zach’s hand against the plastered corner of the wall. Zach grunted, his fingers loosened, and the sword skittered across the floor toward Danica. She hurried toward it and picked it up. It felt warm in her hand. Alive.

“Stop!” she shouted.

Zach twisted out of Mark’s grasp and elbowed him hard in the nose. Blood spattered in a high arch, staining the white wall and Zach’s arms. Zach kicked Mark in the gut, the velocity of Mark’s body cracking the plaster when he hit the wall. Zach turned toward Danica. Mark lunged off the wall and went for the gun at her feet. She kicked it away, then hurried after it. He skidded to a stop going the opposite direction.

Danica turned on both men, sword in one hand and pistol in the other. Calmly she took several steps backward, putting more distance between her and the two crazy-ass fiends. Cool as the evening fog, she leveled each weapon. One trained on each man.

“I want you both out of here. This minute. And I don’t want to see either one of you ever again.”