Chapter Seven
Ethan went back to his own office. He needed to think, dig a little. An unsettling thought was niggling at the back of his mind, and he wanted no distractions while he tried to tease it out.
Fergus was at his seat in the outer office when he went through.
“How is she?” Ethan asked.
“Your little hooker? Better than she should be. Wide awake and tucking into a full breakfast when I left. Either she’s tough as nails or too stupid to know what’s about to happen.”
“Send her cell feed through to my monitor.”
“No problem. You got the hots, boss?”
“Mind your own goddamn business.”
Fergus’s chuckle followed him into his office. He shut the door and crossed to his desk. After switching on the monitor, he swiped the screen until he hit the CCTV from her cell. She lay stretched out full length on the narrow cot, arms behind her head. Her eyes were closed, though, as he watched, she opened them.
She looked up at the camera almost as if she could sense him and blew a kiss. Was it for him or anyone who might be watching?
Fergus was right, though; she showed no fear. She was beautiful, her face showing a perfection rarely seen. High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, full mouth. She’d tasted so damn sweet, and heat sizzled along his veins.
Women had never played a big part in his life. He took one when he needed one, usually never the same one twice. He’d had a couple of mistresses, but he found keeping so much of himself a secret too hard, and in the end, he’d always paid them off, sent them away.
Now he had a longing for some sort of normality. The thought almost made him laugh. Here he was, secretly watching and lusting over a hooker who he was probably going to have tortured this afternoon. Hardly normal.
But to have a woman, someone to talk to, share his life with, hold. Fuck. Christ, he was just horny, it had been too long.
He switched off the monitor and sat back in his seat, thinking about what he’d learned.
Telepaths.
The potential was huge. What would it be like to have a world where lies were impossible?
Strangely, he liked the idea, though, he could understand why most people—especially those in power—would run from the notion. Lies were a way of life; he knew that better than most. But that didn’t mean he liked it that way.
The Tribe.
He searched through the Conclave files, but found nothing. Then he sat back to think it through. Forrester had been killed because of his connection to General Webber. He’d been about to run, so presumably, he suspected someone was on to him and was probably already spooked by Webber’s assassination.
Someone was coming after the Conclave. They knew Webber and presumably they also knew how the organization was structured. They had nothing else to go on and so they had to be searching for the only thing they did know, the person who’d recruited Webber. Only another asset would know that. He ran through the list in his mind and came up with an answer almost immediately. Colonel Harry Winters.
The guy was an anomaly. Ethan had always considered the colonel to be a little…low level to be of much use, but another member had pushed through the nomination. And he was guessing who that was. He tapped a few keys, and yes, Travis had wanted the man in.
General Webber worked with the government as did the colonel, so there was a government tie-in. Except the colonel had disappeared and hadn’t been seen in…what a surprise… six months. Around the time of Webber’s death.
He tapped into the military files, cross-referenced both Webber and Winters with the Tribe. And came up with nothing. But he didn’t believe it. Someone had done a very good job of erasing the files, but he could still recognize that there were holes in the data. Someone didn’t want the information out there. Travis or someone else? Who was Travis hiding from?
He’d clearly thought that there was a way to eventually get back on track, otherwise he would have come to them for a clean-up job—deleting all the evidence of a particular project so it would appear as though it had never existed. That wasn’t unheard of to protect the integrity of the Conclave. Instead, Travis had made himself scarce.
Next, he tried a general search on the Web for the Tribe, got millions of hits. Tried with the Tribe plus Scotland. He almost missed it and wasn’t even sure he had found anything at all. Except the name of the man Colonel Winters had recruited was Martin Rayleigh. And he didn’t believe in coincidences. He read the article through a few times.
The Tribe
In 1878, Malcolm Rayleigh, philanthropist and explorer, made an expedition to the Mountains of the Moon in what was then the Congo Free State of Africa. There he located an isolated tribe. What interested Rayleigh was that the tribe appeared to be of Caucasian origin. Small in number, only twenty-two in total, they were the obvious product of inbreeding. All were taller than average, with black hair, pale skin, deep blue eyes, and four toes on each foot. They were also believed to be mute and of limited intelligence.
Rayleigh took the tribe back to Scotland, where he gave them a home.
And nothing was heard of them again…
He switched again to the screen showing Suzi in her cell. She was still in the same position, but her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and even. She was blond and brown eyed. How did she tie in with this group of people found over a hundred years ago? And she had to tie in somehow. No way could a hooker have found access to his private numbers on her own. Which meant she was being used. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone had fed her the information she needed to blackmail him.
He liked the idea, but there was that niggle again. He pulled up the photo he’d taken the night of Forrester’s death. The two women. Ignoring Suzi, he zoomed in on the second woman. She was tall, slender, with midnight-black hair cut off blunt at her shoulders. She was gazing up at the streetlight, and he could clearly make out the deep, dark blue of her eyes.
Shit.
Was he imagining connections where they didn’t exist?
There was only one way to find out.
He punched the intercom. “Get the car ready, and let them know to get her prepped.”
He needed answers, but would he let them hurt her?
He still had no clue, but he’d soon find out.
…
They came for her around one in the afternoon. The same guard plus another. She had a quick peek into their heads and wished she hadn’t. She was to be taken to interrogation room one. Where she would no doubt be interrogated. Her breakfast churned in her stomach. She’d never considered herself a coward, but the thought of being tied up, at someone’s mercy…
Well, it just wasn’t her thing.
“Get up.”
She swung her legs off the bed. They were trembling and she hated that. Hated that these people might see her fear. Should she try and take them? She wasn’t hopeful about her chances. She’d been lying here, picking up the thoughts of the people in the place, and there were a lot. No way would she make it out. Right now, they believed she was just some hooker. They might shoot her rather than let her escape, and however scared she was, she didn’t want to die.
She took a couple of short breaths and pushed herself to her feet. They didn’t restrain her in any way—they obviously weren’t expecting any trouble—just gestured to the door.
Outside she found herself in a broad corridor, painted white with bright strip lighting. They walked on either side of her for about twenty feet and stopped, way too soon, at a white door. She really didn’t want to go in there. Her pulse was hammering and her legs wobbled. It was weird, but in all that had happened, she’d never felt truly afraid before.
One of the guards pushed open the door, and she swallowed. The room looked like a doctor’s examining room, except the chair and the examination table both had restraints, and for a moment, she couldn’t force herself to move. The guard nudged her from behind, then pushed harder when she remained rooted to the spot.
She shook her head and took a step inside. The place smelled of antiseptic and something else. She’d always been perceptive to places. They had their own emotions, and this one reeked of pain and fear, however clinically clean it might be.
The door shut behind her. The doctor from that morning was doing something at a sink in the corner, but he didn’t even look up as she entered. The guard crossed the room, picked up something from a tray, and tossed it to her. A white gown, like they would give you to wear in a hospital.
“Put it on,” he said.
She didn’t want to. Her clothes were like her armor. Without them, what was left of her tough attitude might melt away, leaving her a jabbering heap. The guard drew his pistol and gave her a cold smile. “Put it on.”
She looked around for somewhere to change, but there was no cover. She could feel the hot gaze of the second guard on her, and she zoned him out. This was happening whether she liked it or not. The sense of powerlessness made her want to weep, and she never cried.
She certainly wouldn’t start now. Fuckers.
She pulled her black T-shirt over her head—she didn’t wear a bra so that was all there was—and wrapped the cotton robe around herself. She kicked off her boots and wriggled out of the black leather pants.
“The rest,” the guard said.
Taking a deep breath, she stripped off her panties, tossed them on the pile of her clothes. The room was cool and she shivered, doing her best to ignore the gaze of the second guard and keeping firmly out of his head. No way did she want to know what was going through his cesspit of a mind.
“Sit.”
She crossed to the chair and perched on the edge, dreading the moment they would restrain her
The door opened and a man entered. Tall with a long pale face and a dark suit, he carried a suitcase in his hand, which he placed on the table next to her chair without even looking at her. This was the one who would do the interrogation. His mind was like a dark, empty place, no feelings, no emotions.
Kaitlin had told her that most interrogators were like that, they were psychologically profiled for the job—no normal person could do it and stay sane. Kaitlin had been present at a lot of interrogations. That was one of the reasons she had gone back to work with the government. Because she’d wanted to show there was no need for torture, there were other ways. She’d died for that belief.
“Can we get started?” he asked in a toneless voice.
“We’re to wait for Mr. Weiland. He wished to be present,” the doctor replied.
That was bad news. She hated the thought of him seeing her like this. And for the first time, she seriously considered fighting. Making a run for it and to hell with dying.
“Well, at least get the restraints on.”
Should she? Try for it?
But she’d left it too late. She was pushed back in the seat, her hands placed on the arms. In seconds, leather straps had been fastened to keep them in place. Then her ankles were yanked apart and strapped to opposite legs.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, trying to clear her mind, but she couldn’t, and she had no control over her thoughts. They kept dipping into the minds of the men around her, and she didn’t want to be there.
The interrogator was considering which drug to try first. He wanted this over fast; he had a game to go to. One of the guards’ minds was filled with lust—he thought she was beautiful. The other agreed, he thought it was a pity to hurt a pretty woman, but a job was a job, and no doubt she deserved it.
The doctor was all eager anticipation. If she ever got the chance, she would kill him.
Her panic was rising, and she tried to push it down.
Soon it would be over.
She would tell them the story she’d worked out. She didn’t have to hold out for long, they wouldn’t expect it.
Finally, the door opened again and Ethan stood there. And in that moment, she loathed him with every cell in her body.
Fucking bastard.
She hated him seeing her so vulnerable. But at least that gave her the strength to stiffen her spine, stare him in the eye.
Shock flashed across his face and his mind.
Then helpless fury, because this was his fault, and this was the way he lived. Followed by a self-hatred that almost matched what she felt for him at that moment.
“I told you to wait.”
“We haven’t started.”
He was controlling his temper by force of will. “Get out, all of you. You, too, Fergus.”
She hadn’t even noticed his assistant.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, she’s hardly a fucking threat like this, is she? What the fuck do you expect her to do? Look at me funny?”
He was super angry, but his rage was aimed at himself. Quite rightly.
She was coming out of her funk. She’d almost let the fear consume her and that was so not good. Within thirty seconds, they’d all left the room, and the door clicked shut behind them. She was alone with Ethan. He paced the room, trying to come to terms with how he’d felt when he opened the door and saw what they’d done to her. And they hadn’t even started yet.
He’d been present at interrogations before. Hell, he’d been tortured himself—that was something for her to investigate later, but when? Why? Now she felt too drained to concentrate. She was just picking up top-level stuff, though, there was plenty going on there. Including the fact that he now knew about the Tribe. Though no details and not who or what she was. She pulled out everything he’d found.
It was a pity she was strapped to a chair, about to be tortured, because if she could get this stuff to Jake, they could tear down the Conclave forever.
Finally, he came to stand in front of her, hands in his pockets. “Who was the woman you were with at Forrester’s that night?”
She pursed her lips. “Don’t you want to torture me first? Is that what you get off on?” She was quite aware it wasn’t, but she had the urge to wind him up. He should feel bad. “Fucking pervert,” she added for good measure.
His gaze wandered over her, lingering at various places. She glanced down, it was clear she was entirely naked beneath the thin gown, her dark nipples poking at the cotton, the material pooling between her parted thighs. She looked up and straight into his golden eyes.
“Actually,” he said, “I’ve never been particularly into bondage or sadism, but I do find myself amazingly turned on at this moment.”
She had no clue what to say to that. She knew he was turned on, it filled his mind. He wanted her, and he was growing hot and hard at the thought of her sitting all but naked before him. She lowered her gaze. He’d taken off his jacket and was in suit pants and a white shirt, and she could clearly see the bulge at his groin. And it was getting bigger.
“Ugh.” It was all she could think of to say, but she filled the word with all the disgust she didn’t feel.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not afraid of me?”
She curled her upper lip. “What’s there to be afraid of?”
“Yet you were afraid of the others. I could smell it in the room. Fear has a particular scent all of its own.”
“You’d know.”
“Actually, I would. I have the unique privilege of having been on both sides of this situation.”
She saw the flash of an image in his mind: he was hanging from the ceiling in a dark cell, slowly spinning, unable to touch the ground as they slashed at him with a whip, tearing his flesh until the air was filled with the stench of blood and fear. She came out quickly, blinking to disperse the image.
“The woman? Who was she?”
“Just a colleague.”
“Have you known her for long?”
“Not long.” She took a deep breath. It was time for a little acting. “Look, I know you’re furious about the blackmail—”
“I’m not furious. I just want to know who was behind it.”
She licked her lips. “You’re right. It was Ruby, and I’ll kill her for getting me into this. She gave me your name and a number to reach you at, then told me what to say.”
“Why?”
He believed her. She fought to keep her relief from showing. “How the hell should I know? I thought she wanted half the money, but she said I could keep it. Then…” She hesitated. She didn’t want to seem too eager.
“Then?” he urged.
She clamped her teeth on her lower lip, gazed up at him with what she hoped was anxiety. “Last night, when you took me, she was there. I saw her just before your friend shoved me into the van. She was on the back of a black motorcycle.”
“Why was she there?”
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t. I’d tell you if I did. You were right. Those men, I’ve never been so scared in my life. That one with the case, he was so cold and he was going to hurt me and I couldn’t stop him and…” By sheer force of will, she squeezed out a tear. “Then you showed up, and I knew you would save me.”
Had she gone too far?
But he liked the idea. He was her knight on a white horse, here to rescue her from the bad guys. It was a role he’d never seen himself in before, but surely, he was allowed the delusion for a little while.
She’d won. He believed her, and she held herself stiff, fought to keep her relief from showing.
She sniffed. “Please let me go. I hate being tied. I…”
But he was already kneeling at her feet.