“Do you know who it was?” I jammed my key into the ignition, cranked the engine.
“I wasn’t there to see,” he said. “I’m heading that way momentarily.”
“Any sense that Rhyzkahl or one of the other assholes was there?”
“No. They definitely didn’t have a qaztahl with them.”
I exhaled in relief. “All right. I’m heading home now too.”
“I’ll see you there,” he said and disconnected.
As I drove home my thoughts churned back and forth between Tessa’s manipulation and the attempted intrusion. It was only when Eilahn reached and touched her cool hand to my shoulder that I realized I’d been muttering under my breath.
“All will be well,” she said with such solid conviction that I found my anxiety slipping away.
“Thanks,” I said and gave her a grateful smile. The syraza was a kickass bodyguard, but she also did a damn good job protecting my mental health.
I made the turn onto Serenity Road, a narrow two-laned affair with deep ditches on either side. My dad had died on this road—killed by a drunk driver when I was eleven—and I’d avoided it for close to a decade afterward even though the road offered a significant shortcut into town, shaving the travel time from forty minutes to the thirty it now took. When I became a cop I began to use it again, and the first time I drove it I couldn’t even find the place my dad was killed. The tree he’d been crushed against had long since been cut down, and even the tight curve had been straightened and graded in the intervening years. I probably could have located the exact spot from the accident report, but what would have been the point? Sometimes the past was best left in the past.
“Kara!” Eilahn shouted, but I’d already seen the dark blue Lexus sedan swerve into our lane and had my foot jammed hard on the brakes. For an instant I weighed whether going into the ditch would be worse than hitting the car head on.
Then both options disappeared as the sedan screeched to a stop sideways, blocking the road.
“Shit!” I skidded to a rubber-burning stop, all the while aware that the other vehicle’s move was intentional. Too precise to be anything else. And the location had obviously been carefully chosen. A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed another car coming to a stop behind us.
“It’s a trap,” I snarled as I threw the car into park. “Bail out!” I hit my seat belt release and shoved the door open all in one motion, yanked my gun from its holster and prepared to dash to the trees beyond the ditch.
I made it two steps before I stuttered to an awkward stop, freezing at the sight of the MAC-10 submachine gun leveled at me. Heart thundering, I extended my hands out to the sides in as non-threatening a manner as possible and kept my gun lowered as I took in the details beyond the muzzle of the submachine gun. A red-and-grey-haired powerhouse of a man in a well-tailored black suit held the MAC-10 as he stood beside the open front passenger door of the Lexus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eilahn motionless on the other side of our car, though her stance told me she was poised to move. Ever since she’d been shot she habitually wove protective arcane shielding, but it wasn’t infallible.
I heard car doors open behind me, but I didn’t waste my focus looking. Eilahn could assess with far more ease and accuracy. Besides, MAC-10 guy hadn’t shot us dead yet, which meant the trap had a different goal in mind.
The back door of the Lexus opened, and James Macklin Farouche stepped smoothly out. I’d never met the man in person, but the pictures I’d seen of him did nothing to convey the confidence with which he carried himself. Immaculately dressed in a perfectly-tailored dark suit, white shirt, and a blue and gold-patterned tie, his steely gaze penetrated, though his expression remained one of utter ease.
Slowly, I crouched and placed my gun on the ground, then straightened and gave a nod. “Mr. Farouche.”
Farouche flicked a glance to my gun then to me as he began a slow approach. “Smart girl,” he said with a confident smile, and I had to fight to control a scowl at the condescension. Not such a saint after all. “No one’s going to get hurt as long as you remain smart,” he continued. “I simply want to talk.”
I lifted my shoulders in a casual shrug. “Then talk.”
“You are holding my people, and I want them back.” His voice reminded me oddly of Mzatal—not in tone, but in expectation of compliance. “Where are they?”
Paul and Thatcher. Now I understood. Farouche was behind the failed raid on my house. “You’re mistaken,” I told him. “I’m not holding your people.”
He was only a few yards away now. “Where are they?” he asked again, voice cool and insistent in a way that wormed itself right into my core.
Tension knotted my back, and I pygahed. “Not on any property of mine,” I answered.
“Indeed true,” he said as though somehow discerning the veracity beyond the words. “Where then? Where are they?”
I sucked in a sharp breath as a sudden and pervasive fear engulfed me like a shroud of frost wrapping around my essence. Part of my mind wondered why I was so weirded out, while the rest of me freaked like a rabbit beneath the eagle’s talons. “Not where you or I can go,” I choked out.
Farouche lowered his head, gaze heavy upon me. “They are returning to you,” he said, and I had the unnerving feeling he’d read it from me. “When?”
The sick fear increased as he took a step closer. I licked dry lips, but somehow managed to stand my ground. How the hell can he read me? “I’m not certain.” It was almost true.
His smile turned predatory as though he knew he closed in on his goal. “They will return in three days?”
Cold sweat pricked my back and underarms, and my pulse slammed an unsteady tempo. “P-possibly.”
Satisfaction lit his eyes. “Sooner, then. Excellent.”
No, he wasn’t reading me. Somehow he could interpret beyond my words, sift truth from lies with glimpses of more. Not that it fucking mattered at this point.
Eilahn let out a hiss, clearly disliking the turn of this conversation. An arcane tingle crackled over my skin as she extended her shielding to me, likely in preparation to make a move. A new rush of fear rolled through me at the thought. “Eilahn! No. It’s . . . it’s okay.”
Farouche flicked a glance at Eilahn, then returned his sharper gaze to me. “You will call me when you have my people on your property again, yes?”
Protest rose within me, followed instantly by a paralyzing sliver of primal terror. I gave a shaky nod. “Yes.”. Immediately the terror faded. Something is seriously wrong, the thought whispered.
“Then we understand one another completely, do we not?” he asked, still holding the predatory smile.
Sweat rolled down my sides. “Yes,” I said. And I meant it.
“Of course we do. I look forward to working with you in the future,” he said with polished confidence. “Have a nice day, Ms. Gillian.” He turned and strode back to his car, slid in and closed the door.
MAC-10 guy kept his eyes and weapon on me for another few seconds, then climbed into the front passenger seat. The car backed, turned and headed away, the crazy fear retreating with it. Sight, sound, and full awareness returned, though I hadn’t realized they’d been diminished.
I glanced to Eilahn, noted her facing the car behind us. I turned, saw the two men with guns still pointed in our direction. One stocky and Caucasian, with an angled face and an expression as hard as the steel of his gun, the other Hispanic, of average height and build with a soft gaze and determined manner. At some unspoken signal they retreated into their car, then drove right past us in the wake of Farouche’s vehicle. I didn’t bother getting their plate number. There was no point. I knew who they were.