One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress 2)

Good thing Tate still hadn't recognized Bones from Ohio, even though he'd studied the film footage from last night. Maybe it was like the old prejudiced saying went, except for Tate, it was all vampires who looked the same. Still, that was an issue for another time. Let them keep thinking Bones was just some new vamp I'd met. Later they'd learn the truth, but for now, it fit the plan to keep them ignorant of who he was.

"I'm not an idiot, Tate. I realized the same thing after he was finished with the hit man, but as I said, he obviously doesn't want me dead. He thinks someone close to me does, though, just from a different angle. He thinks it's someone here, and that Don is the key."

"What? Huh? Que?"

They spoke at once, and I waved a hand.

"He wouldn't tell me much, but said he had to confirm it. I have his cell-he'll call when he's finished. But he did mention a name, and said this person was connected. Maybe you'll recognize it, Don, because it doesn't ring a bell with me."

This part Bones had been very specific about. I didn't blink as my eyes met the older man's. "Maximillian. Ever heard of him?"

Something happened to Don's face I'd never seen. He blanched and almost looked like he'd faint. Motherfucker. For Don to look that sick, he recognized the name, all right.

"Why, boss, you look like someone just walked over your grave," I said softly.

Tate and Juan cast interested glances in his direction as well, but their faces were blank. Maybe Don was the only one in on the secret.

Don opened his mouth to speak, but was saved when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the number, answered it, and then shot me a guarded look and covered the phone.

"I, ah, have to go in the hall where there's better reception."

"Is something wrong?" I asked at once.

"No, no," he assured me while backing away. "Give me a moment."

Don left the office, and from the sounds of it, the entire sublevel as well, since I couldn't hear anything from him anymore.

Tate used the interruption to start on me. "Cat, you need to tell us who this vampire is that you're consorting with, and anything else you know about him, because he knows far more than he's letting on."

I bristled at being spoken to like a junior officer. "His name is Crispin, he's lived in and around Virginia for the last ten years, and he can go all night in bed." There. Take that and shove it.

Tate shot me an angry look. "That's nice for him, but it still doesn't tell us anything useful."

I shrugged. "Isn't the bigger problem who this Maximillian is, or how he's connected here? Don't you know the name?"

"No." His denial was immediate. From his expression, I didn't think he was lying, but I wouldn't have sworn to it.

Then Tate's cell rang. He glanced at it and frowned.

"Yeah...what? Okay, on my way." Tate hung up and then rose. "I have to go, Don needs me for something. Juan, he wants you to wait in here with Cat-and he says neither of you are to leave this room until he gets back."

Tate left. It was just Juan and I.

"Between Tate's jealousy and Don's paranoia, they're probably on a three-way call with my mother to discuss my lack of brains," I said bitterly. "After over four years and all the times I've risked my life, this is the payback I get. Cooling my heels with you babysitting me. What a joke."

Juan didn't reply, but his silence said it all.

"Juan." I swiveled to face him. "You're the only one who isn't operating with clouded judgment. There's more to a person than their temperature. You've seen enough to know that. Don't let them f**k everything up because of prejudice. Just look at all the facts before rushing to condemn anyone, that's all I ask."

"I owe you, querida. You've saved my life many times." Juan's normal playfulness was gone, and he was equally somber. "I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your lover...I owe him nothing."

I took his hand and squeezed it. "Then do it for me. Please. For me."

The door swung open as Don and Tate returned. Don was the first to speak.

"Cat, I'm sending some men to escort your mother here, where she'll be safe until we've determined who's behind the threat on your life. It's just precautionary. I have some calls to make and a few other employees to round up, so you can wait in your office. The compound will be locked down when they leave, as you requested. We'll speak when they return."

My stomach twisted with anxiety but I squelched it. Bones had told me to trust him. This time, I'd do just that.

"Fine. Go ahead. Get my mom."

Tate grabbed Juan's arm and almost yanked him out the door. "We're on our way."

Chapter Twenty-Three

TIME LIMPED ALONG. IT WAS WELL OVER three hours before I heard activity at the far end of the compound. Several of my team were there, talking in loud, excited voices. That was the only way in from the exterior to the fourth sub-level, where we housed the vampires. I strained my ears, then heard the unmistakable alarm bells for the reinforced elevator that was only used for transporting the capsule inside.

I barged straight into Don's office. He'd been on the phone, and with a supremely confident air, he set it down.

"They're back, and they've got the capsule with them. What the f**k is going on, Don?"

"Sit down." He inclined his head toward the chair, and with a huff I sat. "I'm afraid I have some disturbing news, Cat. I didn't tell you before because I couldn't risk you endangering yourself by leaving. Your mother called me earlier because she was afraid. Apparently your new vampire boyfriend phoned her to say he was coming over. Once he got there, he attacked her. She's okay, just cuts and bruises. After we arrived, he, ah, surrendered and was brought here. Already he's implied that he knows who's after you and that he's in on it. The men are securing him now, and then they will question him in detail."

"I want to see him," I said at once.

Don shook his head. "Not a chance. You're too emotionally involved, and it's clouded your objectivity. As of an hour ago, your access to the lower levels is restricted. You are to have no contact with any of the vampires. I'm sorry, but your actions have determined my response. Don't be too harsh on yourself. Many others have also fallen prey to their influence. Let this be a lesson to you, and I'll keep you informed."

He was dismissing me. I jumped to my feet, pissed.

"Fine, if you want to be all brass balls about it, then let me talk to Tate before he questions him. You can at least do that. Bring Tate up here if you're so goddamn worried I'll cause a scene downstairs. He can meet me in my office."

Don gave me a look of thinly veiled annoyance, but picked up his phone and placed the call.

"He'll be here in fifteen minutes."

I slammed the door behind me.

If Tate expected me to be quivering on my couch when he opened my door, he was disappointed. Coolly I sat behind my desk and waved a hand at the door.

"Shut it."

Tate closed it and then folded his arms across his chest.

"I came like you asked, but you can save your breath, Cat. Nothing you say will change anything. We caught him red-handed at your mother's. She's lucky to be alive, if you can see past your concern over your lover to be bothered with that."

He looked mildly disgusted with me, yet his heartbeat still accelerated when I went to stand near him.

"Oh, I care more than you imagine, Tate. Not just about him, but about you as well. That's why I'm going to ask you this first, and hope you do the right thing. Take Juan with you and let him out. Then we're locking down the building in emergency mode and finding out who our mole is. We can do this two ways, but it will get done."

His nostrils flared as he shook his head. "You've lost your mind, Cat. Just absolutely lost it! God, no f**k can be worth throwing your life away for-"

"I love him," I interrupted.

He cursed viciously before finishing with "Now I know you're crazy! You've only been seeing him a couple weeks and you think you're in love? That's f**king nuts!"

He grasped my shoulders and gave me a hard shake. I just closed my hands over his.

"Tate, once you accused me of not trusting anyone. You were right-I haven't. I'm going to trust you now, though, and I hope you'll trust me. When you saw him today, when you looked in his eyes and really saw him...didn't he look familiar?"

"Of course he did. I've been over that goddamn video for hours! And I'm the one who spotted him outside your house the other night."

I tightened my hands. "Not from last night or the video. Further back. To be fair, you only saw him for a second, but it was a memorable one. After all, you shot him. Right before the car plowed into him."

"That's-"

Tate stopped. A growing look of awareness dawned on his features. He stared at me with widening eyes, and then his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line.

"Well." The word was soft. "Didn't you play us all for fools, Catherine Crawfield?"

I took in a deep breath. "It's Bones, the vampire I told you I'd loved and killed in Ohio, but I didn't kill him. I left him and passed another body off as his. I hadn't seen him until recently, when he was at Denise's wedding. This was all a setup today to get Bones in here so he could find the turncoat. He knew if he went to my mother's that she'd call in the troops, and I'd told him the only way in was that capsule or dead. Bones chose the capsule, despite the risk that he might be killed once he was strapped inside."

Tate still looked shell-shocked. "I almost did kill him. I had him in those restraints, and I knew all I had to do was shake him and those spikes would shred his heart. Juan stopped me. He told me we were questioning him first before condemning him. It's been over four years. You haven't seen this vampire until recently, but you've been in love with him this whole time?"

"Yes."

Tate laughed, a harsh little bark. "Of course you have. But that doesn't mean I'm breaking every rule ever implemented about vampires to let him out."

"He is getting out." My fingers cut into his hands. "The only question is, will you be conscious when he does? You're my friend, Tate. In many ways, my best friend, but I want to be very clear-I'll get him out and destroy anyone in my way to do it. You. Juan. Don. Anyone. I want you with me, as my partner and my friend, but I will do it alone if I have no other choice."

He looked like he wanted to slap me. "Goddamn you, Cat. Goddamn you! You've been with him a total of what? Six months? You've been by my side for over four f**king years! Is he worth that much to you? More than all you've fought for and all you've done? Think, for Christ's sake!"

I stared straight into his eyes and didn't hesitate. "Yes, he is. Maybe you don't understand. Have you ever owed someone everything? All your strengths, all your victories, every last thing that's meant anything in your life...and it can be traced back to one single person? That's what Bones is to me."

Tate suddenly yanked me closer. "You bitch, I do understand, because that's what you are to me."

I didn't shove him back, but let him stand with only an inch between us. "If I passed on anything of value, it's because I first learned it from him. So then you owe him, too."

Something sparked in his midnight gaze even as his shoulders slumped. "I don't owe him shit. But yeah...I owe you. Is this your price?"

"If that's what you want to call it." Better to negotiate than beat him senseless.

"There's more to it than opening that capsule, Cat. There are four levels of highly trained guards, and there will be an automatic lockdown as soon as someone spots a prisoner strolling the halls. He can't green-eye all of them into submission; someone will trigger the alarm. You know this, you designed it!"

"That's why you're going down there nice and casual with Juan, and I'm going to stay up here and override the security."

Tate moved away from me and started to pace. "Don changed your computer clearance as soon as he found out about you and the vampire. Your codes won't work anymore. Even mine only go so far."

Ignoring that, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.

"Randy, we're on schedule. In exactly ten minutes pull the plug. All levels except four and the connecting elevator back up to one. Full shutoff, prehistoric. Kiss Denise for me. I owe you."

I hung up and gazed at Tate. "Go down now. In ten minutes, all the power will shut off and this place will be a tomb. Appropriate, don't you think, since we are letting out a dead man. The only things that will work will be the ones I want to work. Did you really think after all these years I wouldn't have left myself with some back-door passwords in case Don turned on me?"

He stood up with a look of disbelief.

"If you could do all of that, why did you bother to ask me for help?"

"You're my friend," I repeated, pulling open a desk drawer and then tucking the gun it held into my pants. "And I still want to lead this team, although none of you seem to believe that. Hurry, you only have nine minutes now..."

Denise had been correct about Randy. He was indeed a genius with computers. With the passwords I gave him, he'd hacked into the mainframe and dropped a virus that he remotely controlled. It froze out everything. Even the phones didn't work. The neighboring cell phone tower, which intercepted our wireless signals, had also just experienced a power failure. My phone was satellite and still operated, and when the lights went out, I was the only one who didn't gasp at the sudden dark. I just went to the elevator and waited.