Finding Grace Read online

  The sound of slow bumps coming up the back stairs broke into his thoughts. He found Thorne moving a table by herself, pulling it up the stairs one step at a time.

  “Where’s Dagger? He’s supposed to be helping you.” Damn it. He’d really hoped Katherine was right.

  “Hell if I know, but I don’t need him anyway. I’ve got it under control. This is the last one.”

  “Here, let me help you.” Paul walked down the stairs past her and the table, picking it up from the bottom. “You’re, ah, used to taking care of things on your own, aren’t you, Thorne?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It could be. We operate as a team here.”

  “This team stuff is new to me, Paul. I’ve always been on my own, more or less. Even before. The academic community is pretty competitive, you know. Besides, your team doesn’t want me.”

  “Look, I know things didn’t get off to a great start yesterday. I warned you it wouldn’t be easy. If you’d at least let me tell Dagger something, he could—”

  “No. You gave me your word, Paul. Besides, if he was interested in smoothing things over, he’d be helping me here like you asked him to, right?”

  Was that disappointment he’d heard in her voice?

  “Oh, who cares?” She shrugged, table and all. “I don’t need them to do my job. But if I do things right, they’ll see just how much they need me.”

  He wasn’t so sure. “That might be part of the problem. They feel that they’ve been effective without you and I have to say, our track record is good.”

  Damn good. But he could hardly tell her that she was here because he wanted to help her and not the other way around. He knew her pride would never tolerate that.

  “The first guy to dig a trench for a latrine probably thought he was pretty cool, too, but that doesn’t mean indoor plumbing isn’t a significant advancement.”

  Oh yeah, she had plenty of pride.

  “Is there a deeper meaning to this analogy, Thorne?”

  “If you smell one, Buzz.” She grinned before turning serious. “That brings me to something I found yesterday when I was researching your clients. What can you tell me about FedCo that’s not in the file?”

  “FedCo? I know the owner. What’s the problem?” He frowned. It was bad enough she was making trouble with the team. Now she wanted to make trouble with their clients? He’d only given her the client list to keep her busy.

  “Did you know about the silent partner who put up fifty-one percent of the start-up capital?”

  “No, he never mentioned it. I wish he had, but it doesn’t really concern me.”

  “Not even if Mr. Silent is a pro?”

  “What do you mean?”

  They turned the corner into Thorne’s office.

  “Somebody who knows what they’re doing set up his numbers. It’d take a very good forensic accountant months to untangle the web and identify him, and that’s a maybe. Blackridge has a couple of guys babysitting a FedCo engineer on that construction project in Afghanistan: Hawks and Markham, according to the file. This should do it.” Thorne nodded her head to the corner and they put the table down. “What if the engineer is a phony sent in by Mr. Silent?”

  Even if she was right about a shady partner…“That’s, ah, quite a stretch, Thorne. Do you have any kind of proof?”

  “Just the bad feeling and what I told you. I’ve got to get better situated before I can research any further than I have. I wouldn’t want to alert anyone to my efforts even if they couldn’t trace it back to Blackridge. That’s no part of the world to make anyone jumpy.”

  “I’m glad you understand that. Let me know when you’ve got something more. There’s nothing I can do with what you’ve given me so far.” He’d never considered that adding Thorne to the team could endanger his men. He wanted her to drop it, but on the off-chance that she was even partly right…

  “Oh, Dagger, I didn’t see you. Catch any of that?” Paul didn’t jump like Thorne did when Dagger appeared. He was used to his men moving quietly.

  “Yup. FedCo’s one of our oldest clients. CEO’s a good man, clean as a whistle. He probably just forgot to mention his partner.”

  “Thanks for helping me with the table, Paul.” Thorne’s voice reeked of sarcasm.

  He was sure Dagger had caught the dig, but his fearless partner seemed reluctant to meet either of their eyes. What the hell had happened last night? Thorne picked up a remote, sending the stereo volume up just enough to let him know she was ending the conversation. He didn’t like being dismissed. Apparently neither did Dagger, who wasn’t moving either.

  “Kind of loud, isn’t it?” Dagger shouted.

  “Does it bother you when you’re not in here, Paul?”

  “No, the walls are solid enough. But how do you concentrate?” Maybe this was how she came up with her bizarre ideas.

  “I do some of my best work when I can’t hear myself think.” Thorne grinned and turned her back on them and grabbed a coil of cables.

  Yup, dismissed. But he didn’t want to get into it with her just now. She had to be wrong about FedCo. He had enough on his plate as it was.

  * * * *

  It was already dark when Thorne turned up at his office door wearing a look of resignation along with her wool beanie, ripped jeans and that ragged old jacket. “I couldn’t get to the bottom of the FedCo thing, Paul. I might as well go, I’m fried. I’ll get back on it tomorrow.”

  He was relieved she hadn’t come up with anything, even if he didn’t like seeing her so discouraged.

  “Wait. I’ll get Dagger to give you a ride.”

  “Soooo not necessary. Besides, his car…” Her eyes were fixed on her shoes as she shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Yes, necessary, and I’m getting tired of repeating that. Anything happen last night I should know about, Thorne?”

  “No, sir.”

  He didn’t buy it. “Wait here, please.”

  Paul found Dagger alone in the big office. “Run Thorne home, will you?”

  “Can’t. I was going to ask you for a ride to pick up the caddy from the detailer. That’s why I was late coming in.” He sounded relieved and something else, too.

  “The detailer? Since when do you send it out?”

  “Well, um, it needed special cleaning. Didn’t Thorne tell you?” Dagger looked guilty. That was the something else.

  “Nope.” He couldn’t help the sigh that escaped. It had been another long day. “What happened?”

  When Dagger got to the part about lighting the cigarette, Paul cursed. Of course they made her sick; he could still see the photos that accompanied the doctor’s report in his mind’s eye and it was making him sick.

  When Dagger had finished he said, “Karma’s a bitch, huh, Dagger?”

  “Yeah, and then you die.”

  “Don’t think you’re getting off that easy. Just take one of the fleet. And get Thorne home, to the door tonight. I’m sick of this shit, Dagger. I’m not a goddamn den mother.”

  His partner looked at him sharply and opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut and turned away.

  Damn it. He was really pissed at Dagger and yet he couldn’t really blame the man. He supposed he couldn’t really blame Thorne, either. If those two didn’t work things out soon, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  * * * *

  They’d driven in darkness and a silence punctuated by Dagger’s attempts to find some music he liked on the radio. He didn’t want to think. He hadn’t expected Paul’s reaction. His friend was protective of Thorne, for some mysterious reason. He’d expected Paul to be bummed about Thorne getting sick. But he’d never expected his friend to look at him like he’d tortured the kid.

  And then there was Thorne, who hadn’t said a word to him all day. He should be glad. So why wasn’t he? It was fucking weird.

  Dagger almost jumped when Thorne said, “Would it be terribly inconvenient for you to stop at the next corne
r? I see someone I know. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  He had to check the seat next to him. The voice was Thorne’s, but he had no idea who the words belonged to. Definitely weird.

  He shrugged and nodded. “Sure.” It was later than yesterday and the traffic was lighter. It wouldn’t be a problem at all and it wasn’t a bad peace offering, either. Not that he needed one, right?

  He pulled over and watched as Thorne hopped down and greeted an old homeless-looking man sitting under an awning. Dagger powered the window down to overhear the conversation. Why the hell not? There sure as shit wasn’t anything on the radio worth listening to. Besides, Thorne was acting strange. He’d better make sure the guy wasn’t a drug dealer or something. A drug habit would explain a lot about Thorne.

  “Hey Jefferson, what’re ya doin’ out here? It’s too cold to be sitting on the ground. You should be in the shelter.”

  “Aw Thorne, you know I hate that place. Too much preachin’.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. But at least you wouldn’t get sick.” Dagger saw Thorne shake his head like he’d had this conversation fifty times.

  “Too late for that, Thorne. I been sick a long time.”

  Thorne reached into his backpack and pulled out something that looked like a candy bar. Dagger squinted. The streetlight revealed that it was square—a granola bar? He grimaced in disgust.

  “Eat this at least.”

  Jefferson looked more appreciative than Dagger thought was warranted. That poor bastard must really be hungry.

  “And hey, I brought you something else.”

  Thorne reached in again and produced a pair of thick socks. “Just finished ’em. A wool-alpaca blend this time. Try ’em on, I bet the old ones already have holes.”

  The old man pulled off oversized shoes and pulled the new socks over the old ones. He wiggled his toes and gave Thorne a big toothless grin. “Say, these are nice. Real soft. Thanks, Thorne.”

  “Warm too, you’ll see. Glad you like them. I gotta go. See ya, Jefferson.”

  No kind of weird could have prepared Dagger for that exchange. He barely managed to get the window closed in time.

  Thorne climbed back into the Escalade. “Thanks, Jack. He moves around; sometimes it’s hard to find him.”

  He was too surprised to talk, and Thorne didn’t say anything more until they pulled up to the Laundromat and Dagger parked. The kid’s eyebrows almost cleared the frames of those big glasses.

  “Paul asked me to take you to the door tonight.”

  Thorne shrugged. “Kind of a den-mother type, isn’t he, our Buzz?”

  Dagger couldn’t have wiped the grin off his face for love or money. “Don’t ever let him hear you say that.”

  Maybe the kid really was psychic.

  Chapter Six

  Even though she hadn’t found anything conclusive on FedCo’s silent partner yet, Thorne felt better on her third day at Blackridge. Dagger had actually joined Farley in full-out laughter when she’d come in, out of breath and wondering aloud whether the driving skills of the general population would improve if cell phones were required to be worn anally while behind the wheel.

  Now she shifted in her chair and nudged the table back with her feet. The glimpse of midday sun, rare as it was, had created a glare on her screen. But instead of the code she expected to see, there was a telltale flash before the darkness brought the vision and soft whispers of discarnate spirits.

  She didn’t remember turning the stereo off or running into the big office. It was the sight of Jack doing paperwork that shocked her back into herself. She wasted a precious moment contemplating that strange and incongruous sight before the words spilled out just as they’d come to her.

  “Black as pitch and blowing sand, flash like fire in an angry god’s hand. Darkness crashes, leaving bones and ashes.”

  He looked up at her as though she’d been speaking Latin, which was merely a dead language, not the language of the dead.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Now that was the Jack she knew.

  “The explosion. Hawks and Markham are sitting ducks in the tent, playing cards. Collateral damage. They’ll never know what hit them.” She reached out to steady herself on the desk Dagger was sitting behind.

  He just sat there, staring at her, along with Farley.

  She inhaled harshly and gathered the strength to scream, “Why are you still sitting here? You have to call them! Now, Jack! Hurry!”

  “Are you crazy? If I call them, it could alert the damn insurgents of their presence and their location.”

  At the very moment Thorne realized how much she needed Jack’s trust, she understood what Paul had been trying to tell her yesterday. It was all about the team. And the team was going to have two fewer members unless she could convince Jack of the danger they were in.

  He hadn’t believed she’d had a vision of what had turned out to be a kidnapping, but he’d acted on her warning anyway. If she could just give him something to make what he saw as a risk worthwhile…

  “I’ll hijack a satellite. There’s got to be something with infrared capability in the neighborhood.” She didn’t know if she’d said it or just thought it. He was still sitting there.

  “Please, Jack, please. If I’m wrong, I promise I’ll be out of your hair forever.”

  Farley hooted. “But Dagger doesn’t have any—”

  Thorne didn’t hear the rest. She was already back at her desk, pounding on the keyboard, searching the three displays and wishing they were bigger and that she had another. Interminable seconds went by until she found something.

  Then, there it was. And it was beautiful. Too bad it was—she really shouldn’t. If they traced it…Well, this was life or death. She’d just have to be real quick about it. She punched the necessary keys.

  “Yes…yes…yes…gotcha! Here, Jack, look!”

  “You can stop screaming, I’m right here.”

  And he was, standing next to her with his big arms crossed like some kind of genie out of the Arabian Nights. Thorne didn’t know she’d jumped until her ass thumped back down on the chair.

  She grabbed a knitting needle. “There’s Hawks and Markham in the tent.” She pointed to the two stationary figures. “And here come Mr. Silent’s mercs, probably in a jeep or something. The so-called engineer is on his way to meet them. He’s on foot.” She moved her needle and pointed out the lone figure moving more slowly, then the five together that moved faster.

  When she checked to see if Jack was following her, she noticed that Farley had joined them. How did men that big move so quietly? It was driving her nuts.

  Jack was studying the figures that moved quickly from her left screen to the center screen where the two team members were. His arms weren’t crossed any more.

  Thorne hurried now, afraid to lose him. “You’ll have to trust me on the rest, Jack. They’re dressed like Afghans, but they’re whiter than Mills. It’s supposed to look like a robbery, but these are Silent’s men, not insurgents. They’re going to steal the high-end materials, wait three months and then sell them on the black market. With insurance, they cash in double and then some.”

  She heard Jack say “shit” before she saw him pick up the satellite phone he must have brought with him. “Gemini? Bogeyman. Get the fuck out. Now. Trouble’s eight klicks north of you. They should be there in…” He turned to her.

  She looked at the screen and tilted her head. “Ten, maybe twelve minutes.”

  “Catch that…? He’s with the bastards. It’s a setup. Go! Call me on the comm when you’re secure.” He closed the link. “You’d better be right about this, Thorne.”

  They watched the five figures on the screen and the single one on an intercept course. Once the five had joined the lone figure, they moved quickly toward the pin she’d dropped to indicate the tent, while two other figures moved away from it.

  Thorne saw the matrix on the third screen roll.

  “Uh-oh.”

/>   She hit the keyboard fast, and all the screens went blank.

  “Hey!” Dagger and Farley yelled.

  “Sorry, boys, I had to. That was a very special baby I borrowed to get those images. His momma just figured it out. She’s a big bad momma—smart and fast. I just hope I broke the connection in time or Paul’s gonna be pissed at me, and that’ll be the least of my troubles.”

  * * * *

  Dagger didn’t know whether Thorne had broken the connection quick enough or how it could possibly be the least of her troubles, but Paul sure as hell was pissed. He’d come back from his client lunch a half hour after the screens had gone dark. Dagger’d filled him in with assistance from Farley. Thorne was still in his office. They hadn’t heard anything from Hawks and Markham yet.

  All Paul’d said was, “Get Thorne and meet me in the big office with Farley,” in a voice that reminded Dagger of a crypt outside of Prague he’d used as a meeting place once.

  It didn’t take a psychic to know Paul hadn’t bought Thorne’s vision. If anything happened to Hawks and Markham…

  Standing outside Thorne’s door, Dagger could just make out the song thumping out of the stereo. It was one he really liked. He wondered whether they’d be playing it at Thorne’s funeral, or his.

  He pounded.

  “They called!” The kid looked so hopeful, so sure.

  Dagger shook his head. “Paul wants to see you in the big office.” He felt like he was leading a lamb to slaughter. A little purple-headed lamb.

  He didn’t think he’d ever seen Paul look quite like he did right now. It was downright unnerving. Even Farley was quiet. Thorne took one look at Paul’s face before the little purple head tilted up to Dagger and the cracked voice whispered, “What, Judas, no kiss?”

  No grin this time, just the trace of a sad smile.

  He heard the panic in Thorne’s voice and moved to block the door. But he hadn’t considered the window. Not until the chair flew through it with Thorne right after.

  The comm phone’s beep made itself heard over the tinkling of the remaining glass shards that followed, but Dagger was already bent over the frame, watching Thorne struggle in the little tree that had broken his fall. He heard Paul pick up the phone.