Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)

The elevators dinged as she stepped out of the restroom. She froze, listening, but luckily, no one came her way. Still, it was warning enough that if she didn’t get out of here quickly, someone would spot her. Luck had never been her friend, and right now, it felt like she was pushing her limits. She walked on until the stair door came into view, and she swiped the ID card through the slot. The door beeped, then opened. The stairs were as silent and as empty as the corridor. She let the door close quietly, then began her sprint to freedom.

* * *

GABRIEL WOKE IN THE ARMS of a dead man. Not the walking dead, but the dead dead. The pungent aroma of decay told him it was the corpse he’d discovered in the apartment before someone had tried to cave in his skull.

He shifted slightly, trying to ease the persistent ache in his ribs. But the minute he moved, every other ache began screaming for attention. Mostly, though, it was his head that hurt. And the insistent, steady thump of music some fool insisted on playing so loudly wasn’t helping any. He stopped the thought and frowned. Music? There’d been no music anywhere near the abandoned building. He’d been moved, obviously.

He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. He reached out and felt the confines of his prison. His fingers brushed across warmed metal. He had maybe a foot of breathing room above his head and about the same on his left side. The dead man and a toolbox of some kind shared most of the room on the right-hand side. The space near his feet was so tight, he couldn’t straighten his legs to relieve the cramp beginning to settle in across his thighs.

He was, he realized suddenly, in the trunk of a car, heading God knew where. One thing was certain—he’d be as dead as the man beside him if the car reached its destination with him still locked inside. He’d seen four men, but there might have been more. Either way, it wasn’t good odds.

Shifting around a little, he felt for the trunk’s catch. The throaty roar of the engine—what he could hear of it over the music—told him the car was one of the older models that still ran on gas rather than hydrogen or electricity. With any luck, the owners wouldn’t have bothered updating to the newer thumbprint-coded locks.

Luck was with him. The trunk had a key lock on the inside, which in itself suggested the owner was a vampire and also explained why absolutely no light was getting into the trunk. Obviously, it had been fitted out for emergency escapes from sunlight.

He reached down to his boot, but the sudden movement had red fingers of fire lancing through his brain. He cursed silently and waited for his vision to clear. The fools must have done some serious damage when they’d tried to cave in his head. There was blood on his face—he could feel it crusting, tightening his skin. The right side of his head felt heavy, as if the hair there was weighted down. More blood, probably. Stephan was going to give him hell—especially given his warning that all missions were to be double-manned.

He carefully drew the knife from his boot, flicked it open and inserted it into the lock. Several twists, and there was a soft click. It was all too easy, really. But then, if he’d been a vampire, he would have made sure any lock imprisoning him was damn easy to open in the event of a lost key or sign of trouble.

He inched the trunk open. Bitumen met his gaze. The speed at which it zipped past told him they had to be doing at least a hundred, which meant they were beyond the city limits and out on some freeway.

He opened the trunk a little more. Sunlight danced through the leaves of the gum trees arching over the road. The rich hint of humus, of moisture and damp earth, told him they were up in the hills somewhere, while the tree ferns huddled beneath the gums suggested it was more likely the Dandenongs than Macedon.

Why head up this way with the stranger’s body? There were certainly better places to dispose of a corpse than the picturesque but heavily populated Dandenong Ranges, and … His thoughts came to a sudden halt as the car went into a slide. Tires squealed, and the smell of burning rubber briefly overrode the smell of death. The force of the stop smashed him into the side of the car, and for a moment, everything went red. The trunk tore from his grasp, swinging open, then crashed down again, barely missing his fingers as the car came to a shuddering stop.

He groaned and tried to roll over onto his back, but he couldn’t. The stranger’s body had been forced hard up against his own. He elbowed some room, then rolled over. Taking several deep breaths to calm the churning in his gut, he tried to concentrate on what was happening beyond the confines of his dark prison.

Footsteps. And voices talking softly. Savagely. Then the trunk swung open, and light poured in. He blinked, throwing up a hand to shade his eyes against the sudden glare of sunlight. But the shape silhouetted by the sunshine was one he knew well.

“Glad to see you’re alive and well,” Karl said, and held out a hand to help him up.

He accepted it gratefully. Right now, it felt as if he’d become a football for some fool wearing boots. He climbed out, but it was only with Karl’s help that he made it over to the side of the road.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Karl asked, as he squatted down in front of him.

“Three,” he guessed, looking at the middle of the road rather than at Karl. Four men were lying facedown in the dirt, guarded by Karl’s oldest son, Harvey. He returned his gaze to his friend. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but why the hell are you here?”

There was tension around Karl’s eyes, despite his smile. “The bond of the twin, my friend.”

He frowned. It was highly unusual for their bond to be so specific, especially when it came to a moving car. Usually, he and Stephan shared little more than a sensation that the other was in dire trouble … Then he realized exactly what Karl had said and glanced up in surprise. “He told you?”

Karl nodded and handed him a cell phone. “Call him.”

He did. Stephan answered almost immediately. “Are you okay?”

He scrubbed a hand across the raw edge of his face. Fresh blood mingled with old, and his hand came away smeared red. “Better than I look.”

“You going to make it tonight?” Concern mingled with relief through Stephan’s soft

voice.

“Yes.” He might feel half-dead, but come hell or high water, he’d drag himself to that meeting. He still had a poisoner to net and a brother to save.

“Good. You have a problem, though.”

Only one? That would be something of a miracle. “What?”

“Ryan’s skipped.”