Valentine Shepherd: Retribution Part 9

"Wait-you just took some random party pills? With no idea what they were?"

He looked at her and frowned. "Yeah."

"You could have died."

"So?"

Val knew he'd been heavy into drugs at one point in his life, but popping mystery pills at a party thrown by a cult seemed reckless, even for him. Maybe his new life wasn't as fabulous as it seemed.

He sighed and relaxed a bit, then fingered the rim of his gla.s.s. "The blue one was great. I thought I was swimming in a grotto, and I could breathe underwater. Then you were there, and Abby, and Kitty. All of it felt so real; I have to tell myself it wasn't real, that's how convincing the hallucination was. The red one didn't work right with me. At least, I don't see how Lucien could sustain a customer base if his clients normally had hallucinations of fire and destruction. It was almost like I was seeing the aftermath of the nuclear explosion you described when...when you were with me."

His gaze flicked to hers for half a second before he looked away again, awkward silence falling between them. He was likely recalling memories of their intimate time together-as she was. His touch, his kiss, his laugh, his sarcasm, his nerdy references, his whispers in her ear...She wanted it all back. Val traced the contours of his sharp cheekbones with her eyes, almost crying with the bone-deep need to use her fingers instead and feel his warm skin-to feel all of him again.

Max took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he looked at her with a cool, controlled gaze and continued. "I also started seeing things before they happened, like people walking by and saying things to me in exactly the same way twice, and you were pr-" He cut himself off, swallowing words he didn't want to get out for whatever reason. Maybe he'd seen a future version of her, but why wouldn't he give her details? "The point is, I think it triggered whatever gives us our visions. Some of it was a hallucination caused by the blue pill, but the red pill brought on what looked like flashes of future events, all in a random jumble. Like before I learned to see numbers instead. It was...disturbing. The best and worst trip I've ever had. It's also possible the drugs interfered with the-um, a different medication I take."

What other medication? she almost asked, but it wasn't any of her business. When she'd first met him, he'd been on all sorts of pills for depression, anxiety, migraines, and insomnia, thanks to his nightmare childhood. It'd been nave of her to a.s.sume all it took was the love of a good, stable woman like Abigail to make those things go away.

"Are you okay?" She balled her hand in a fist to keep it from reaching out for his.

"I feel normal now-as normal as it gets for us." He gave her a tiny smile that quickly faded.

"Was Lucien there?"

Max nodded. "Also a bunch of escorts dressed as mermaids. That might've been how he got access to the missing woman you're looking for, if escorts are a regular fixture of the parties."

"You didn't see a laboratory anywhere, did you?"

"No, but I was out of it most of the time. He wanted to take me somewhere, but I was...uh...distracted. The house was a rental anyway. I doubt he'd keep kidnap victims there."

"He's going to do awful experiments on Margaret. We need to get to her before it happens."

He eyed her with a roil of emotions-anger, uncertainty, frustration...hope? She'd said we. Oops. "You saw that in a new vision?" he asked.

She nodded, but didn't offer any more details. He didn't need to know where the visions came from. Hopefully, he never would.

Max looked away and frowned, but said nothing. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That's all I know about Blue Serpent. You got what you wanted. Can you take me home now?"

No, she still didn't have what she really wanted-to be free of Northwalk and Delilah, and wrapped in his arms again. The best she could do was get through the day.

Val threw on some regular clothes and drove Max to the luxury condo he shared with Abby, in the Lower Queen Anne district of Seattle. He told her to stop at a curb in front of a wrought iron gate, an intercom and keypad affixed to a pedestrian entrance. They sat in silence for a moment, neither meeting the other's gaze.

Val spoke first. "Thank you for helping me. You didn't have to, but you did. After what I did to you...I owe you one." She smiled. "I'm one of those people who owes you a favor. Good to have, right?"

He met her gaze and smiled back, a real smile, his warm hazel eyes with their emerald starbursts looking into her, in the old way. "You don't owe me anything."

She wanted to kiss him so badly her lips burned.

He cleared his throat. "Well, uh, Abby's probably wondering where the h.e.l.l I am, and if Ginger made it back in one piece-"

"Did you say Ginger?" Val sat up in her seat. "A redheaded man named Ginger?"

"He's Abby's brother. That's his nickname. He was with me last night, but I have no idea where he went after I lost touch with reality."

"He's working with Lucien! He's also the last person that people saw Margaret with before she disappeared."

Max let out a long, exasperated sigh. "s.h.i.+t."

"Take me to him. Now."

"No!"

"He knows where Margaret is."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure enough."

He scoffed. "You cannot rough up Abby's brother on a circ.u.mstantial connection. He's going to be my brother-in-law, for G.o.d's sake. Holidays will be awkward."

"He's about to become an accessory to murder, so what would you prefer?"

"Do you know what he's doing for Lucien?" Max asked.

"I didn't see that."

"So try the nonviolent approach first. Follow him, see where he goes and what he does when he's not bugging the s.h.i.+t out of Abby and me."

Val considered an old-fas.h.i.+oned stakeout. "You know him, you can tell me if he does something unusual. Come with me?" She bit her lip, then forced herself to stop before he could see her anxiety. She'd probably be fine without him, but...h.e.l.l, she just needed to be near him, to see him in the flesh, smell him, talk with him, listen to him, laugh with him. Maybe their hands could brush together sometimes. Nothing s.e.xual had to happen between them. But being with him recently, if only for a few short hours, made her realize if she couldn't be a part of his life in some way, she'd die. She almost felt dead already. Maybe he could bring her back to life.

After a long moment when he stared out the window, Max said, "Fine." He opened the car door and stepped out.

"When?" she called after him. "It has to be soon."

"I'll call you," he said, and shut the door.

Val watched him walk away and smiled. He'd thrown her a bone, thank G.o.d. She could go on living one more day.

Chapter Fourteen.

Which do you prefer for the fourth appetizer at our reception: sweet Maryland crab cakes, or crab and lobster Louise salad?" Abby called to Max from the kitchen.

In the living room, Max didn't look up from the tablet he'd propped on top of Toby, the dog planted in his lap. "Do I need to have an opinion? It's your big day."

"But it's our wedding." She sighed. "It'd be nice if you at least pretended to care."

"I do care. I want the second one, the crab cakes."

"That was the first one."

"Yeah, that one."

He heard her sigh again and say something about the importance of communication in a relations.h.i.+p, but he wasn't listening. He tried another search for Lucien Christophe, this time in his old Carressa Industries files. Max frowned when only two doc.u.ments popped up, both related to the old lab equipment company acquisition. Neither contained any mention of Lucien's residence or office address.

After calling in a favor from an old business a.s.sociate with real estate connections, Max had discovered Lucien not only patronized but owned the Pana Sea, though other people managed it for him. More publicly available information about Lucien proved difficult to find. For a rich jet-setter, he kept a suspiciously low profile. Other than the Pana Sea, his name wasn't connected to any property in the United States, either as a renter or an owner. He didn't want people to find him. Val probably knew all this already.

Abby's cell phone rang; she answered it. Max glanced up when he heard Ginger's name.

"Yeah, okay. Hope you're not stuck there too long. See you tomorrow. Love ya." She hung up.

"Who was that?" Max asked, knowing full well it had been her brother.

"Eugene," she said. "His flight out of L.A.'s been delayed. He won't be able to make dinner tonight."

"Oh." Max queued up an Internet search for every flight out of LAX to Sea-Tac that night. None were delayed. He turned off the tablet and chewed his thumb for a moment, deep in thought.

He should let it go. So Ginger had lied about his flight. Didn't mean he was up to something nefarious...though he probably was. Max could just give Val the information and let her follow him alone, but he promised he'd go with her. Worse, he wanted to go with her. Be alone with her. When he'd woken up in her bed, a part of him wanted to believe they'd made love. He would never cheat on Abby, but he couldn't deny a craving for Val that continued to grow in his heart, like a blooming crystal cutting up everything around it. But the feeling would pa.s.s if he kept his distance. It had to pa.s.s. He'd barely gotten over her the first time. He couldn't do it again.

Max pushed Toby out of his lap and stood. He strolled up the stairs to their bedroom, quietly shut the door behind him. Then he took out his cell phone and called Val.

She answered on the first ring. "Hi."

"Where are you?"

"Right outside your house, stalking you. I've been lax on my crazy ex-girlfriend duties. Making up for lost time."

He rolled his eyes. "You're staking out the Pana Sea, aren't you?" If she was low on leads, he guessed the best way to track Lucien down was to wait for him to return to a location she knew he frequented-like the Pana Sea.

"Margaret's been missing for twenty days," she said, a new edge to her voice. "Besides her mother, I'm the only person looking for her. When I find Lucien, I'm going to cut off all his fingers, one by one, until he tells me where she is."

Max cringed. He knew she wasn't exaggerating. She must've seen some horrible things in her vision. He hoped someone had been there to comfort her, even if it couldn't be him.

He glanced at the door, huddled over his phone, and spoke in a hushed voice. "Ginger's supposed to be flying in from Los Angeles tonight. He was going to meet us for dinner at our place, but he just called to say his flight's delayed. I checked every flight he could possibly be on. They're all on time."

"So where is he really going?"

"Exactly. He gets in at six thirty tonight. I'm sure he'll take a taxi from the airport. You should follow it and see where he goes."

"Okay. Where should I pick you up?"

Max hesitated. Nothing good could come of this. He should really say no. Pacing in a circle, he ran a hand through his hair and pressed his lips together. Say no, Max.

"Outside Wicked Brew," he spat out. s.h.i.+t, he couldn't say no. He'd already promised he would help her. He couldn't back out now. He'd allow himself to see her one last time, get his fix of her, then go cold turkey and get her out of his system. After this, he was done. "But I need to be back by eight, at the latest. I mean it."

She laughed. "Don't worry, Cinderella. I'll get you back before the clock strikes eight."

"See you in twenty minutes." He hung up, sure he was making a mistake. At least if he was with Val, he could stop her from maiming Lucien or Ginger. Maybe.

Parked at the airport's departures curb in Val's car, they caught Ginger leaving the terminal of his on-time flight. With an unusually determined spring in his step, he hopped into a cab. Max and Val were quiet as she concentrated on following the taxi from a distance that wouldn't arouse suspicion, though Max doubted Ginger was aware of his surroundings enough to notice a tail in any circ.u.mstance.

When the cab pulled up to the Pana Sea, Val hissed, "Motherf.u.c.ker," with a malice that made him wince. He'd never seen her with so much barely contained rage before, not even toward Norman and Delilah Barrister. For Ginger's sake, Max hoped Abby's brother was a mere patsy in Margaret's kidnapping. G.o.d help him if he wasn't.

Only three minutes later Ginger emerged from the bar holding a plain cardboard box about six inches square. He jumped back into the cab, and it pulled away.

Val gave the cab a ten-second head start, then followed. "He usually do courier work?" she asked Max.

"I don't think so. I've never known him to do any work, honestly."

"He and Lucien spend time together?"

"Not that I know of. But I'm not his keeper. I don't know what he does all the time."

"How about...Michael Stevenson?"

"Nah, Stevenson's too much of a sn.o.b to be seen with Ginger. Why're you asking about Michael?"

Val shrugged. She was quiet after that. He didn't press. If it was important, she'd tell him. For close to an hour they followed the cab through rush-hour traffic to a seedier part of town, where it stopped in front of a rundown redneck bar called Billy's Roadhouse. Ginger got out, cardboard box in hand. He took a few steps toward the entrance, then stopped when someone called out to him from the adjacent parking lot. A thin, balding man wearing a pair of blue coveralls hustled over to Ginger. The two shared a quick fist-b.u.mp.

"Know that guy?" Val asked.

"No."

The thin man admired Ginger's box, then they disappeared into the bar together. Val opened her car door to follow them inside.

Max grabbed her arm, and something that felt like electricity pa.s.sed between them at the touch of her skin, just like when she'd touched him during their first meeting at Wicked Brew. She looked at him with her storm cloudcolored eyes, face framed by her gorgeous red hair cascading down the shoulders of the leather jacket she wore, and he forgot what he was going to say. Then it came back to him.

"Don't," he said as he forced himself to let go of her arm, to stop touching her. "Ginger will recognize me."

"He won't recognize me."

"No, but you can't go in there alone. Wait until he comes out. Then we'll follow him again. The cab's still waiting for him. He won't be in there long."

Val huffed in protest but shut the door. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the bar's entrance, while he tried to stop thinking of excuses to touch her again. After a couple of minutes of silence pa.s.sed between them, she asked, "Have you heard of a company called Asclepius Incorporated?"

"No. Why?"

Val grabbed her tote from the backseat, pulled a manila folder stuffed with papers out of it, then dropped the folder on his lap. "It's a company I think Lucien might have used to rent a house for a recent Blue Serpent party. I did some digging, and the only address listed for the company just happens to be where the Pana Sea is."

Max picked through Val's case file, filled with newspaper articles, website printouts, and handwritten notes. "Asclepius is the Greek G.o.d of medicine."

"Okay?"