Twenty-Seven
“Well, then, wake him up,” Ruben snapped into his cell phone, pacing back and forth behind the couch fast enough to make me dizzy. “I want everyone ready to go in half an hour.” I couldn’t make out the response over the line, but Ruben scowled and stopped pacing to listen. “Fine. Get Tatum ready just in case, but keep tracking Wilson and call me if you find him. Or if you hear anything.” He pressed a button to end the call, then slid his cell into his pocket and turned to face me, where I sat at the table.
His table. In his apartment. Deep in his syndicate’s territory, with two of his armed men keeping watch outside.
I’d never felt more caged in my entire life.
“Missing another man?” I asked, as he slid into the chair across from me at the table.
“My best Blinder dropped off the face of the planet two days ago.”
“Well, hell.” Any other day of the year, I would have been thrilled to hear about Cavazos’s staffing problems, but Hadley deserved the very best of his resources, and a world-class Blinder would have come in very handy. Blinders can suck all the light out of a room, effectively leaving everyone in that room blind. Thus the name.
Good Blinders can darken an entire house or small building. Great Blinders can darken an entire skyscraper, mall or office complex. I’d even heard once about a Blinder who could create his own patch of darkness outside, in broad daylight. But surely that was just an urban legend.
“Anyone else?” I asked, and at first, I didn’t think he’d answer. The inner workings of his criminal empire were none of my business.
But then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I may be missing a Jammer.”
“May? I guess he’s hard to keep tabs on, since he can’t be tracked?” Because something about a Jammer’s personal electromagnetic field scrambled his own energy signature, as well as those of anyone near him.
“She,” Ruben corrected. “And yes. Which is why she’s required to check in with her supervisor every night with a progress report on each project.”
Speaking of checking in… I set my phone on the table and stared at it, still waiting on word from Cam and Anne. “I take it she stopped checking in?”
“And stopped answering her phone. And if she’s been back to her apartment, we can’t tell it.”
“So why is she only maybe missing?”
“She requested some personal time off and isn’t due to check in for four more days. And since she can’t be tracked and has obviously managed to destroy her phone, there’s nothing we can do but wait for her to come back.”
“You know Tower has her, right? Along with your missing Blinder and probably the Binder who disappeared with the contracts he was working on.” And suddenly I realized we’d been alone together for at least twenty minutes without a single punch thrown. That had to be some kind of record.
He nodded. “That does seem to be the obvious conclusion. Tower’s gone entirely too far this time.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because you’ve never kidnapped anyone or bound someone against his or her will, or stolen blood for illicit purposes, or…”
He met my gaze unflinchingly. “Business decisions, all of them. But there are lines even I won’t cross, and selling Skills to the general populace is one of those.”
“Because it violates your personal moral code, or because you’re jealous that you didn’t think of it first?”
Ruben’s scowl deepened. “Passing out Skills to people who don’t know how to use them will lower the value of those with legitimate Skills to market, which—you may have noticed—is my bread and butter. And yours.”
Before I could figure out how to respond, his phone buzzed on the table. He picked it up, and in the second and a half that it took him to read the text message, his expression cycled through amusement and anger to…was that contemplation? He was considering something. Something I wasn’t going to like, based on the look of anticipation he turned my way when he slid his phone into his pocket and stood.
“We’ve got company.”
Before I could request details—before he could even get to the door—footsteps pounded up the stairs outside, light and fast, and the front door flew open. Michaela Cavazos stood in the doorway, knife in hand, beautiful mouth pressed into a thin, pale line, eyes blazing in fury.
Damn it. I did not have time for another catfight.
I stood and pulled my gun, but pointed it at the floor with the safety on—I could aim faster than she could cross the room, no contest.
“I told you to stay away from my husband.” She took two steps into the apartment and kicked the door closed.
“It’s kind of hard to stay away from him when he keeps following me.” I glanced at Cavazos to see him leaning against the kitchen peninsula, arms crossed over his chest, watching us with obvious amusement.
She came closer, and I raised the gun, aiming for her leg. “Don’t make me shoot you, Meika.”
“He won’t let you kill me.” She laughed, and the sound held an edge of madness. He’d pushed her a little too far, a little too often—and he probably didn’t even know it.
I shrugged. “Murder’s a lot easier than divorce. And he can’t divorce you, can he?”
Ruben laughed out loud, and I couldn’t quite make myself regret the warm note of satisfaction winding up my spine.
“Whore!” She came three steps closer, and I disengaged the safety. I didn’t want to kill her, but I wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her thigh. Would he let this go that far?
“Ruben, tell her we aren’t sleeping together.”
He lifted one brow at me. “What you and I do together is none of Michaela’s business.”
I gaped at him. “She’s your wife.”
He nodded calmly. “And the details of my marital contract are none of your business.”
“Fine,” I said, relieved to see that Meika was as frustrated with his lack of cooperation as I was. “If you like the spheres of your life kept separate, tell her to go home. She’s the last thing we need to deal with right now.”
“Actually, she’s exactly what we need right now. Michaela, tell her what your Skill is.”
Meika scowled, but had no choice but to comply. “I’m a Traveler.”
“Congratulations. Go home and get a cookie.” I turned back to Ruben. “We don’t need her, and she doesn’t want to help anyway.”
“We do need her, and she will help whether she wants to or not.”
“Help with what?” Meika asked, obviously thrown off by the fact that neither of us had stripped naked to flaunt our nonexistent sexual relationship in front of her. When no one answered, she took a closer look at her husband and I could almost see the lightbulb blink to life over her head. “You found him.” She stomped toward him, brandishing the knife. “You will not bring that little bastard into my house.”
Cavazos grabbed her wrist and squeezed. Meika gasped, and the knife fell to the floor. She glared up at him, and he stared back without releasing her or easing his grip. “Do not ever speak like that about my child again.” He let her go, and she rubbed her wrist, but resisted the obvious urge to back away from him. “The child, as it turns out, is a girl. And Jake Tower has taken her. Olivia is going to help me get her back.”
“Tower? Why?” Meika glanced at me, and I nodded to confirm what he’d said, though my version might have gone a little differently.
“That’s what this is about, Michaela. There’s no affair.” I’d been trying to tell her that, but she’d always refused to listen, and I wasn’t allowed to give specifics about my work for Ruben. But since he’d disclosed our business, I could finally speak about it in front of her. “There’s just a scared, probably traumatized little girl, only a couple of years older than Isabel.”
Her eyes flashed angrily. “Do not say my daughter’s name. You don’t get to talk about her.”
“Fine.” I could understand that. Names are power and family is sacred, and I wasn’t a part of her family. I didn’t want to be. “But Ruben’s right. We probably will need a Traveler.”
“Go to hell,” she snapped. “I won’t help you bring back the product of his infidelity.”
Ruben rolled his eyes, finally tiring of the theatrics. “Michaela, sit on the couch and shut up.”
She went—she had no other choice—and I was impressed that she managed to slink across the room instead of stomping like a pissed-off toddler. Meika dropped onto the couch sideways, so she could still see us both, and I would have bet a year’s rent that she was really regretting the oboedientia part of her marriage oath.
“She’s just going to get us all killed,” I said, meeting Michaela’s hateful gaze boldly, though I spoke to her husband. Including Hadley.
“She will do as she’s told,” he insisted. “And make my life miserable in return, no doubt.” Cavazos glanced at his watch. “My men should be ready to go in a few minutes. All we need is a location. Call Caballero and find out what’s taking so long.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket, irritated by the order, yet unable to resist it, but before I could even flip it open, it buzzed in my hand and a message appeared on-screen. From Cam’s phone.
“Shit…” I mumbled, and scanned the text again, to make sure I’d read it right. “Tell your men to go home,” I said, and Cavazos lifted both brows in question. “A sledgehammer won’t work for this one. We’re gonna have to use a scalpel.”
“What the hell is she doing here?” Cam asked with one glance at Michaela, before he’d even closed the front door.
“Spewing venom with every word.” I thoroughly enjoyed the angry look she shot at me. Its effectiveness had worn off about fifty heated glances ago.
“I came to kill my husband’s whore,” she snapped.
Cam laughed, which pissed her off even more. “How’d that work out for you?”
I stifled a smile and wrapped one arm around his waist. “You know, I thought she’d be happy to find out I’m not sleeping with her husband, but instead, she seems to have…I don’t know…lost her purpose. It’s like neutering a cat—now she just sits there and licks herself.”
“She killed Elle?” Anne asked, and I sobered instantly at the reminder. Michaela might have been neutered for the moment, but she knew how to work the loopholes every bit as well as I did, and she was the reason we were all here. Killing Elle had set this whole catastrophe in motion.
“Elle?” Meika frowned, obviously trying to place the name.
“Tamara Parker was really Noelle Maddox,” I explained, my voice so cold I could practically see my own breath. “One of our best friends.”
Meika shrugged. “Your friend was fucking my husband.”
“Then why didn’t you kill him?” Anne shouted, and Cam led her past the couch, drawing her away from the temporarily caged psychopath.
“If I could kill him, the little brat would be an orphan, rather than a bastard,” Meika mumbled. I wasn’t sure anyone else heard her, but I did, and I’d had enough.
“All right, bitch, listen up…” I dropped onto the couch next to Michaela and felt carefully between the cushions for the knife I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about. Even empty-handed, she was fierce, and when she got in my face, ready to shout, like I’d known she would, I pressed the tip of my reclaimed knife into her stomach, just hard enough that she could feel the point.
Meika froze, and I followed her frightened-deer glance to find Ruben watching us in interest. But making no move to intervene.
Michaela blinked, and her breathing quickened, but she closed her mouth and stared into my eyes from about four inches away.
“I’m not sleeping with your husband,” I whispered, where only she could hear. “But someone is. Several someones, at my last count. If you have a problem with that, maybe you should have tattooed fidelitas on his arm.” For emphasis, I flicked the loose short sleeve covering her own marriage vows. “But since it’s a little late for that, you’re going to have to learn to live with his games. Or better yet, beat him at them. But leave me and my friends out of it. Or else I’ll make sure you have plenty of time to think about your mistakes, while you’re recovering from whatever damage I manage to inflict before Ruben decides to pull me off of you. Got it?”
With that, I marched into the kitchen and returned the steak knife to the block while everyone else gathered around the table. Without Michaela, who wasn’t allowed to join the group until she learned to play nice—an ironic declaration, coming from her husband.
“Why the hell would he take her to his own home?” Cavazos demanded, jumping right to the point. Which I appreciated.
Cam shrugged. “To keep her close? Maybe even to keep her happy. She’s not old enough to use as a donor yet—I don’t think he can, until her Skill manifests—so maybe he’s planning to keep her there until it does.”
“In his house? Like a part of his family?” Cavazos scowled, and I realized that for him, the fight had just gotten a little more personal. It pissed him off that his mortal enemy had spent more time with Hadley than he had.
Cam stared at the table, obviously trying to figure out how to answer without breaching his service oath. “I can’t say much about Tower’s home or his family, but I can say that he doesn’t run things quite the same way you do.”
“And how do I run things?” Ruben was accustomed to dealing with people who couldn’t freely give information and he knew how to ask the right questions.
“From the outside looking in, you seem to keep your family separate from your business. Tonight being the unfortunate exception,” Cam said, with a backward glance at Michaela. “Some people don’t mind mixing the two. Some homes don’t house only family.”
“His employees live with him?” I asked. Like most people, I’d heard a lot of rumors about Jake Tower, but that wasn’t one of them.
“Some people have some employees they trust as much or more than they trust their own family, and it’s helpful to have them close at all hours,” Cam said, hiding behind a thin but effective shield of vagueness.
“Evidently one of those employees is a Jammer,” Anne added, and Cam looked relieved to let her take over, saying what he clearly couldn’t. “The pull from Hadley’s name died before we even drove off.”
“Maybe he moved her,” Michaela said, obviously interested in spite of affectations to the contrary.
“No,” Anne insisted. “The pull died all at once. It was there one minute, then just gone. If they’d moved her, it would have faded or at least changed direction. She’s being Jammed.”
“That’s going to make her hard to find once we get in,” I said.
“The real problem is getting in,” Cavazos said, and I nodded. Cam looked as if he wanted to say something, but there wouldn’t be much he could contribute to a conversation about breaking into his boss’s home.
“Cam…” I began, and he stood. He already knew what I was getting at.
“I’ll be in the bedroom with my headphones on….”
“Why?” Anne asked, and I answered for him, as he trudged down the hall, disappointment clear in the slump of his shoulders.
“Because if he actually hears our plans to breach the Tower syndicate, he’ll have to report it.”
“He already knows we’re going after Hadley. Won’t he have to report that, too?” she asked.
“If he had to, he’d have already done it,” I assured her. “But I suspect he’s found a loophole for that one—he hasn’t officially been notified of Tower’s new business venture, so he’s not obligated to defend it.”
“Oh.” Anne smiled. “Ironic, isn’t it? Tower’s trying to keep things top secret, but by leaving Cam out of the loop, he’s letting us into his house.”
“I doubt it’ll be as easy as ‘letting us in,’” Cavazos said, and suddenly I regretted discussing contract loopholes in front of him—I didn’t want to give him any pointers on how to narrow the inevitable gaps in his own boilerplate. “If his home security is set up anything like mine, there will be armed guards at every entrance, and those guards may be Blinders, so if you try breaking in the old-fashioned way, you’ll find yourself shot and bleeding out in absolute darkness.”
For a moment, I was surprised that he’d reveal so much about his own security measures. But he wasn’t saying anything I didn’t already know, and unless he was willing to completely cut Anne out of Hadley’s life—and he wouldn’t be; it wouldn’t be in his daughter’s best interest—Anne would likely soon be spending some time at the Cavazos estate.
“Okay, but your wife’s a Traveler, right?” Anne said, and I was pleased that she’d been paying attention, even when she’d looked too distraught to focus. “Surely she can get us in. One at a time is risky, but it’s better than not at all.”
“It won’t be that simple,” Michaela said, twisting to fully face us from the couch, no longer even feigning disinterest. Either she’d decided she really would rather make Ruben’s life hell afterward, or she was actually anticipating the job we were about to pull—the boldest, most dangerous breach of a syndicate’s inner defenses I’d ever heard of. And for the first time, I wondered what she’d done before she married Cavazos. Before she became a wife and a mother, and let someone seal the oath oboedientia on her arm. Was she active in the syndicate—an employee of her future husband? Was it possible that she now missed the action, and that part of her obvious personality disorder was the result of being effectively shelved away from the action?
Or was I giving her too much credit?
“Why not?” Anne asked, and Cavazos deferred to his wife with one outstretched hand.
“Do I get to sit at the grown-up table now?” Michaela snapped. And when he nodded mutely, she stood and directed her explanation to Anne, though most of what she said was new to me, too.
“You can not just shadow-walk into any of Tower’s buildings, including his house. I’d bet my life on it. You certainly can’t get into any of ours that way. All the closets are kept lit. The beds have storage beneath them. Tables have glass tops. Showers and cabinets have glass doors.”
“What about at night?” Anne asked. “I tried to leave the lights on all night once and nearly lost my mind. I couldn’t sleep, even with my sleeping mask.”
Michaela actually laughed—she didn’t seem the least bit threatened by Anne, for which I was profoundly grateful. “An overhead infrared grid is the cornerstone of any good security setup.”
Anne frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like.” Meika leaned against the back of the couch, and her accent lent an exotic flavor to what was already an interesting explanation. “Every room in the house has lighting recessed into the ceiling. A grid of them, placed at precise intervals. They look like normal accent lights, but the bulbs are all infrared, and there are no switches. They’re on all the time, though they can be turned off at the master control in the security room. Even though you can’t see the light they shed, it covers nearly every square inch of the house, leaving no shadow big enough to walk through—unless you are a toddler.”
“But how does that help?” Anne asked, and I listened as closely for the answer as she did—we were way beyond my understanding of shadow-walking. “Infrared light isn’t visible to the naked eye. So there would still be shadows where the visible light doesn’t fall.”
“Yes, but shadows that don’t penetrate the infrared spectrum are very…shallow, for lack of a better term. They’re not deep enough to walk through for something like ninety-nine percent of shadow-walkers. With the infrared grid, the room is actually completely lit and impenetrable for virtually all Travelers, even if you see shadows in the visible spectrum.”
“Wow, that sounds complicated. And expensive,” Anne said, and I could see the wheels in her head turning. If comprehensive infrared lighting was the only way to protect her daughter, she wouldn’t be able to afford to house Hadley.
“They can afford it,” I assured her.
“We can’t afford not to have it,” Cavazos said. “My enemies are…numerous, and we’ve foiled two abduction attempts on Isabel this year alone.”
Anne paled and suddenly looked as if she might vomit. “They want money?”
“For Isa,” Michaela said. “Most of them just want Ruben dead.”
I laughed out loud, and for once, Meika didn’t look as if she’d like to rip my head off.
“So you’re saying there’s no way to shadow-walk into Tower’s house? What about emergencies? What if someone does get in and Tower needs help? He’s not going to call the police….” A safe assumption, considering how much of his business was illegal. “So how would he get his men there in a hurry?”
Michaela shrugged. “I’m sure he has at least one darkroom. We have three of them, in different parts of the house.”
“Darkroom? Like photographers use?” This part of Cavazos’s life was all new to me—I’d never been allowed to roam free in their house.
“No, more like a closet. Darkrooms are special entrances and exits for Travelers to use. There is no infrared light. Just one standard overhead light, which is kept off unless you need to lock the house down for some reason. I use ours all the time, and if you have staff, or close friends or family who are Travelers, they can use it, too.” Like we were using the bathroom, keeping it dark for Kori, just in case. “Some of the wealthier families even keep full-time Travelers as chauffeurs.”
Figures. I could barely afford my own car, and Tower was probably paying someone to take his wife shopping without ever stepping outside.
“Great.” I shrugged. “If you’re pretty sure Tower has one or two of these darkrooms, you can just bring us in one at a time, right?”
“Assuming I had any desire to touch you without a blade in my other hand…yeah.” She shrugged, but the reminder that we’d never be friends came through loud and clear. “I could get you into his darkroom, unless it’s locked down. But you’d have nowhere to go from there. The typical darkroom has a steel door with concealed hinges and a dead bolt thicker than my wrist. If you try to cut through it, you’ll trigger the alarm, which will then trigger a lockdown. The light will come on and you’ll be trapped in that fucking closet until his men come in and get you. Or just gas you through the vents.”
I turned to Cavazos, trying not to sound any more dazed than I hopefully looked. “Is she serious?”
He lifted one dark brow. “Our darkrooms are currently equipped for both tear gas and carbon monoxide.”
“Daaamn.” Maybe I didn’t want to wander around in his house after all…. “So, how do the locks work? Fingerprint? Retinal scan? Voice recognition?”
“Voice recognition is an inferior technology,” Cavazos said. “We tried it for a while, but I got locked out of the house every time I got a cold. And most syndicate members aren’t willing to have their fingerprints on file anywhere.” For obvious reasons. “Retinal scanners are still prohibitively expensive for most people, even considering the benefits.” He shrugged. “We had three of them installed last month. However, I have it on good authority that Tower has yet to make the switch.”
I frowned. “How the hell do you know that?”
“I took a Reader with me when we went to price the units we just had installed, to make sure we were getting the best possible deal on the best possible equipment. At that time, Tower hadn’t placed an order from any of the top three manufacturers. And even if he’s placed an order since then, he hasn’t had time to get them delivered and installed.”
“So how do you unlock his darkrooms?” Anne asked, clearly fascinated.
Another shrug. “He’s probably still using key cards, like the system we just replaced. The digital code is changed every morning, and there’s a card coder right outside each darkroom. You just run a fresh card through the coder before you leave, and it’s good for that day.”
“What about an employee coming in for the first time that day?”
“He would have to use the intercom,” Michaela said. “There’s a button by the door, and when you press it, the lockdown light comes on so the security camera can see who’s there. Say your name into the speaker, and if you are approved, the guard will unlock the door, and you can grab a key card in the hall. If you’re not approved…” She shrugged. “Start holding your breath.”
The possibilities tumbled around in my head. “So…we need a key card. Preferably one less than a day old…”
Anne sighed and ran one hand through her hair. “We have to get into his house to get a key card. But if we could get into his house, we wouldn’t need the damn card in the first place. What’s that called? A paradox?”
“It is called good security,” Michaela said.
“Wait a minute…” My pulse jumped a little in reaction to my new idea—not a certainty, but certainly a possibility. “Why don’t we just have the key delivered, by someone who would definitely have one, if there’s actually a key to be had?”
“Kori?” Anne’s brows rose over the possibility, and I nodded slowly. “She’s not just going to hand her key over. Assuming she has one.”
“No, and if we take it from her, we can’t let her go back and report to Tower.”
“Who the hell is Kori?” Meika asked, and I could swear I saw the fingers of her right hand clench around air, as if she were wishing for the blade Ruben had confiscated.
“Another friend of…” At the last moment, I decided not to mention Elle. Surely that would have been the fastest way to bring Meika’s inner bitch roaring back to the surface. “Ours,” I finished lamely. “She’s one of Tower’s Travelers.”
Michaela’s expression darkened like a cloud had just rolled across the sky. “How many friends do you have on the west side of town?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know I had any, until today. But the point is that I think I can get her here. I might need some help subduing her—” which I hated to do at all, considering she probably wanted to help us “—but after that, keeping her here should be as easy as tying her to a chair and leaving the lights on.” I met Cavazos’s gaze steadily, hoping he wouldn’t decide this was one of those times I was fun to mess with. “But you have to swear you won’t let anyone hurt her.”
“Why would I want her hurt?” he asked, not even trying to look innocent.
“Because she works for Tower? Because she took your daughter to him? Because she’s a beautiful woman who does really interesting things when she’s mad? Take your pick. Just swear you won’t let anyone hurt her.”
“What will I get in return?” he asked, his voice low and intimate enough to make his wife scowl.
“Your daughter,” I snapped.
Finally he nodded. “I swear I won’t let anyone hurt her if she plays nice.” Unfortunately, nice wasn’t a descriptor I’d ever heard used in reference to Kori. But that was the best I was going to get. “Fine.” I sighed, then gulped the last of the water from my bottle. “She’ll be traveling into the bathroom, so I’ll text her there.” Because otherwise, she could show up before we got into place. Or…she could make us wait in the dark for an hour. “I’ll need some help.”
Michaela shrugged and stood, but I shook my head. No way was I going to stand alone in the dark with her. Not after she’d nearly nicked my femoral artery the last time. She couldn’t have changed that much in the past hour.
I glanced at Anne and sighed again. She couldn’t do it. She may be able to shoot a stranger in immediate defense of her daughter’s life, but she couldn’t hit a friend when no one was in right-this-minute mortal peril. And, honestly, I kind of liked that about her. It was nice to finally have someone in my life who balked at the idea of killing someone.
Cam was out of the question, of course, so that only left…Cavazos, who stood waiting for me to come to that realization. “After you.” He gestured toward the hall, and I sucked in a deep breath, then reluctantly led the way into the shadows.