a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures (22 page)

“Inside.”

My brain jolted into a full-blown stall, and by the time I was able to create words Pierce had disappeared. Of course he had. Now, when I
wanted
to see what was going on his mind, my ESP was silent, my internal screen completely blank.
The car, Everly, check out the car.

I crept toward it, staying behind the foliage and shrubbery. No point exposing myself. There was heavy growth opposite the car, but being an excellent spy-in-training, I sucked it up and elbowed my way through with only a few scratches to show for it. It was a large vehicle, especially for Europe, and the dark blue practically faded into the night. I peeked in the windows, deciding on the most effective place to start my investigation.

There would be no point in rushing through a disorganized search, especially if Connor irritated Grady and he chucked her out on her behind. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy watching, should that scene play out. There was a large box in the back seat, so I figured it was the best place for me to start my search. I ramped up my fingertips, and checked for any witchy energy fields Connor might have used to ward the car. I didn’t sense anything, so reached for the door handle.

An image, cloudy, of the driver helping Connor into the car filled my internal monitor. There was something odd about it, besides the cloudy part. No time to spend on it now, I needed to get inside and search that box. I opened the car door cautiously, just in case the interior light flicked on. Pierce was right about there not being a splash of light when Connor and her driver got out of the car, but one of them might have done something to stop it from flicking on.

I let out a huge sigh of relief when the night stayed dark. I wasn’t reluctant to face Grady and Connor, the opposite, in fact. But I wanted it to be on my terms, when I wouldn’t be caught unawares with one, or both, of them bursting out of the house and catching me without a weapon. Not that either of them was in any shape to be attacking anyone.

One calming breath later, I set my right hand on the box, and was rewarded with a picture of Connor loading it into the car. Odd. How had she done that with her injuries? I reached deeper into the image, could barely find the injuries. The muscle in her leg was sore and stiff and her shoulder ached, but there were no actual wounds. N-O-N-E. I spelled it out in my mind, thinking it might make it more believable. It didn’t.

I shuddered. She’d been working with my mother’s formula. Could she have…? No, surely she hadn’t
swallowed
any of it. That would be stupid in the extreme. Fion Connor was crazy, but not stupid. Or maybe in her case they sort of overlapped.

The formula had healing properties. I’d proven that on several occasions, but Connor didn’t have a kahuna grandfather or training on ancient healing arts. Another shudder wracked my body. Could my mother have consumed some of the formula? No, surely not.

I shelved my unruly thoughts and concentrated on the contents of the box. File folders, papers. Old, but not like the ones I’d found in Connor’s desk. The paper looked different. Thinner. I braced myself, then ran my fingers over the files.

A lab, my mother, microscopes, test tubes, pages of notes, and oh, hell, Eamon Grady snarling at Connor. That image faded so fast I wasn’t positive I’d actually seen it. I thumbed through the files, but it was impossible to see what they were without any light. Dared I switch the dome light on? Nope. Better to simply steal the box. Now, that was a win-win idea. I backed out of the car, dragging the box after me, then hefted it in my arms. Heavy. Lots of paper.

I braced the box against the trunk, and closed the car door with barely a sound, then made my way to the front walkway, toward the thicket at the rear of the house. No point trying to cram the box through a hedge. Still, it wasn’t a good idea to be so flagrant about the theft. I glanced at Grady’s front door, and the porch light flashed on, spotlighting me in a blaze of thieving glory.

Adrenaline slammed into gear and my flight reflexes shot to attention. Yep, those were my feet doing a damn fine imitation of a cartoon character attempting to avoid being flattened by a steamroller. The bad news: cartoon characters always lost. The good news: I had Pierce for backup.

The walkway abruptly ended, turning into an uneven trail. I tipped, landing on all fours, and the box catapulted from my arms, spewing papers all over the ground.

“Damn it.”

“What the fuck?” Pierce stood in front of me.

“Papers. Lab. Important,” I muttered, frantically shoving files into the box.

Grady’s front door opened.

“Hey! What’s going on out there?’ It was Cockington guy.

In one smooth move, Pierce scraped the papers into the box, hoisted it on his shoulder, grabbed my upper arm in vise-like grip, and took off.

My toes spun over the ground. He was dragging me so fast I couldn’t get any traction, and kept stumbling, slowing us down.

Footsteps pounded behind us. “Hold it!” Cockington guy yelled, and then something whizzed by my ear, bounced into a tree with a loud thwack. A rock. “Was that a—?”

We’d made it to the slope before Pierce let go of me. “Slingshot. Turn right.”

I followed his order, automatically veering into the thicket. Then I slowed for a second, just long enough to get my feet under me, and took off after him. There wasn’t a path, and we dodged through trees in a zigzag pattern that I hoped would throw off the guy with the weapon.

Pierce’s parents’ guest cottage loomed ahead.

I didn’t hear any pursuit, Grady couldn’t chase us in his wheelchair, and Connor, as miraculous as her healing had been, still wasn’t in prime condition. Plus, she was old. And a witch. Which might totally negate the advantage of her advanced age. I really had to read up on witches.

Pierce was inside, and yanked me after him before I could get a full breath. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I nodded at the box. “Notes from their work on the formula. Most, if not all of them, were made during their time with my mother. In the Amazon.”

Pierce didn’t so much as grunt, and the break in his normal behavior pattern set a whole new kind of fear loose in me.

He jogged into the bedroom, kicked the throw rug out of the way, and set the box down. “No time to go through it now.”

“Is there a trap door? Someplace to hide the box?” I couldn’t see an outline or any change in the pattern of the wood floor.

Pierce didn’t bother to answer, just moved something that was invisible to normal human beings, lifted a large segment of the floor, and shoved the box into a hidey-hole. “We need to get back.” His voice was more strained than I’d ever heard it, except for the time his whole team had been murdered during a horrible mission in Hawaii.

“Someone’s life is in danger.” It wasn’t a question. I already knew the answer.

“Cait.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“CAIT’S IN DANGER? AND YOU
left
her? Let’s go.” I grabbed his arm and yanked. And then my fingers showed me what he’d seen. Fion and Eamon were holed up in the kitchen, Cait was being held at the far end of the house in what appeared to be her bedroom, and it was where Pierce had entered to spy on them. He’d barely gotten out before they shoved Cait into the room. My stomach hit my toes when I saw how close he’d come to being caught, but I slogged through the emotion with a couple deep breaths, then finished scanning the images.

It was by Fion Connor’s order that Cait was being held captive, and how sick was it that she’d put her lover in place as guard? The woman had a sickening doting-hate-filled relationship with Cait, and to my way of thinking, she should have been assassinated years ago. “Okay. I see she’s in trouble, but it doesn’t look life-threatening. At least not yet. I’m still not sure what I can do. You’re the one who’s experienced in extraction techniques. What have I missed?”

Pierce broke from my grasp, closed the trap door, arranged the rug where it belonged, and then he stared at me, eyes dark with some emotion I didn’t recognize. “I want backup, Everly. Connor’s energy field knocked me on my ass, and if it happens again, someone needs to get Cait out.” He worked a kink out of his neck. “Connor doesn’t want her daughter to inherit.”

Two more bombshells. This trip had been full of them. “Why didn’t you warn me that revenge is so complex?”

“Living is complex. There’s always an uncertain balance between life and death.” It was the first time I’d ever heard Pierce sound old.

I rested my palm against his cheek, keeping my fingertips to myself. “Then we need to be sure we hang out on the side of a solid, happy life. I’ll dismantle any wards Fion Connor creates, and you can get Cait out. That’s how partners work, right? How you and Annie used to work?”

He cradled my hand, lifted it away from his face, but held on. “Yeah. You hang out in happiness better than anyone I know.”

My breath caught. Pierce’s words were sincere, almost reverent, and I didn’t know what to do with them. “I’m—”

He grinned, “Speechless?”

The intense connection between us shifted into a more relaxed, familiar place, and I tugged my hand free. “No. Maybe. Yeah.” I was desperate to change the subject. “So you must have heard Fion talking about who she wants to inherit the estate when she dies. Whoa. Is she sick? Is there a time limit on Cait’s life? Because that changes things.”

Pierce nodded. “She’s appointed the guy, Murchadh is his name, as her heir. He’s been her lover for years. Sounded like they’re planning a wedding. Didn’t sound like she was fatally ill.”

“Too bad. It makes sense, though, since she trusted this Murchadh guy to drive her here, and it would definitely make the inheritance more feasible if they were married. I think it’s the same guy I saw at the Cockington Manor House—Nolla’s boss. But why is this happening now? From Cait’s standpoint, this runaway trip was no different from the other times she’s split Torquay to visit Grady. Except for us. We’re new players in the game.”

He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it mussed. “Yep, we are, and we need to get Cait out of Grady’s house.”

“You think they’re going to…hurt her tonight?” I couldn’t say kill, just couldn’t. “And I think we need to talk about the energy issue before we try and rescue Cait. Fion might have warded the entire house, and it’ll take me some time to fix it.”

He winked. “That part of the rescue is all yours, Hot Shot. I have faith you’ll keep me safe.”

My insides shriveled. “It’s a seat-of-the-pants thing, Pierce. You’re used to working on the fly, but I like to have a plan. No, that’s a lie. I’m not all that good at planning, especially lately, but I’d still like to map out an escape option, and backup plan if possible. We probably won’t be able to talk, so if I hold my hands up in front of me, palms facing out, stop whatever you’re doing right away. It’ll be the signal there’s an energy field I have to heal.”

His eyebrows hiked up. “Heal.”

“Dismantle. But I use the Huna techniques Aukele taught me, so in my mind I’m healing the evil Connor uses to create the wards. They’re designed to cause harm.” My stomach did a flip-flop. “Oh, hell. You don’t suppose she can kill like that? In the same way I can heal? We have to go.” I ran from the bedroom into the kitchen.

Pierce was tight on my heels. “Stop!”

I whirled, my back slamming against the kitchen door, my hand on the knob. “What?”

“Connor’s lover will be watching for us.”

“Damn it. I need a weapon. Unlike you, my hands aren’t skilled in the art of murder. Wait. How do you know he’s watching? He probably went back to Grady’s house thinking he’d chased us off. It was dark. Maybe they don’t even realize the box of files is missing.” It was a ridiculous thing to say. Embarrassingly Pollyanna.

Pierce hiked an eyebrow. “Invisibility is key here. Cling to shadows. Feel the ground with your senses before you step.”

“Do what? Are you trying to teach me how you become invisible and fade into oblivion?” My voice had risen an octave.

Pierce managed to slide around me, and held the door open. “Time is right, Belisama.”

Uh-huh. All I had to do was feel the ground before I took a step. Like that was second nature.

Pierce led me along the path we’d used for our first trip to Grady’s house, but just before we reached the ridge with the steep, slippery ground, he veered to the left. “Longer, less noisy,” his words caught on the light breeze, fading into silence.

We made it to within twenty-five feet of the house without incident. I leaned into Pierce on tiptoe, my lips brushing his earlobe. He sucked in a breath, and the scent of Siofra’s handmade vanilla soap tickled my nose. It startled me, that flash of vulnerability, intruding in the intense danger of our situation, and it took a second to get my brain back on track. “No sign of anyone yet, but I need to move closer to sense if there are wards.”

Pierce pointed to a thicket that looked to be about ten feet closer to the house, then signaled that he’d hold our current position while I scouted. I closed my eyes and tried to sense the ground. I couldn’t find so much as a remote connection, but then my mind was spinning with the task of checking for wards, and the time pressure of getting Cait out of the house before anything bad happened to her.

I tried to empty my mind and find my center like I did when I meditated. No go. But when I practiced yoga, I was more aware of my feet than at any other time, so maybe if moved through the memory of that sensation and tried to touch the ground with my spidey sense…I was making this way too complicated, and we didn’t have time for complicated. A sigh welled in my chest. Still nothing. I couldn’t do it, not without some practice, preferably in a stress-free situation. My nerves were on high alert, both for the whereabouts of Murchadh and any ripples in the energy field that indicated Fion had set wards around the property.