More Than a Man Page 17
Gently he tried to rouse her. When that didn’t work, he grasped her arm and shook her.
“Olivia, we’re still in danger. We have to get out of here. Sweetheart, I love you. If something happens to you because of me, I’ll never forgive myself. Never. Please, wake up.”
Centuries passed in those moments. When her eyes opened, he breathed out a grateful sigh.
She looked around, dazed.
“Sweetheart. Thank God.”
She focused on him. “Where are we?”
“Outside.”
A grin flickered on her lips. “We made it.”
“Sort of. We can’t stay here,” he said, even when he didn’t know where they were going.
When she pushed herself up and fell back, he grabbed her under the arms and steadied her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, but her voice was weak.
He helped her to her feet, even when he knew that she was in no shape to walk.
From her standing position, she scanned the barren landscape, that ended in a drop-off in every direction. “Where are we going?”
“The Light Street Detective Agency is coming for us.” I hope, he silently added.
Before the lab fire, he’d been in communication with Max Dakota. At this moment, there was no indication that anyone from the agency was still in the area. If they ever had been.
But he knew he and Olivia couldn’t stay where they were. The dry brush around the elevator building had started burning, sending a cloud of smoke into the air. Before they had a repeat of the scene with Olivia tied to the stake, he urged her away.
“NOAH Fielding? Can you hear me, Noah Fielding?”
There was no answer, and Jed Prentiss cursed under his breath.
“I still can’t reestablish contact with him,” Jed Prentiss said into his com unit. He was piloting a helicopter circling in the air near the mountain where Noah and his wife were being held.
“They’re still jamming?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah.”
Moments ago, an underground explosion had sent shock waves through the air around them. Now smoke from a brushfire on the mountaintop was pouring into the air, blocking their view.
“Noah Fielding,” Jed tried again.
Once more he was met with silence.
“You think they’re dead?” Max asked, voicing Jed’s worst fear.
“Maybe they made it to that access shaft and got out,” Hunter Kelley said.
“Even if they’re out there, we could miss them in all that smoke if they can’t tell us where they are.”
While Jed circled into the haze, he and the other men in the chopper scanned the mountaintop, looking for the two escapees, but they spotted no one.
As he watched the fire and smoke, Jed knew the whole mountain could blow and blast the chopper out of the sky. But if they didn’t get closer, they weren’t going to spot the Fieldings—if they’d managed to get to the surface.
WHEN Noah and Olivia reached the edge of the plateau, he stopped. They were hundreds of feet in the air—like in one of those TV commercials with a vehicle on top of a giant rock, and you had to wonder how it got there. Only in this case, the rock was big enough for a short landing strip. And the strip was on fire.
Noah stared at the ground so far below, wondering whether they really could climb down. But it seemed to be the only escape route. Damn, he wished he had a rope. He had some experience rock climbing, but Olivia probably didn’t.
She swayed on the edge of the cliff. “That access shaft was bad enough. This is too wide open. I can’t go down there.”
“You have to.”
When he walked to the very edge, she winced. Leaning over, he could see a ledge about six feet below them. He could get to it and help her down.
But then what? Would the wall of the cliff shield them from an explosion?
He had just swung his leg over the edge when a voice near his ear stopped him cold.
“Noah Fielding. Can you hear me, Noah Fielding?”
“Yes!” he shouted, although he knew the communication was only one way.
“If you can hear me, give me a sign. We’re having trouble seeing you through the smoke.”
Noah yanked off his shirt and swung it back and forth in the air. When he heard a noise in the distance, he pivoted in that direction and saw a helicopter.
Answering his unspoken question, the pilot said, “They jammed us when they went into emergency mode. They must have had an automatic interference system that kicked in.”
Noah exhaled a breath and pointed to the rapidly approaching chopper. “That’s the Light Street Detective Agency.”
“But how?” Olivia breathed.
“After you were kidnapped, they set up a transmission link to me.”
The helicopter swooped low, and Noah moved Olivia back from the cliff edge to make sure she wouldn’t be blown off in the wash from the rotors.
The chopper didn’t attempt to land. Instead, while it hovered in the air, Dakota came down on a ladder that swung back and forth in the wind.
Olivia bit her lip as he reached for her.
“Go!” Noah ordered.
When she was safely in the copter, he pulled on his shirt, then scrambled up the ladder and slid in beside her.
As soon as he was in his seat, they took off.
Just in time.
As they zoomed away, a tremendous explosion rocked the mountain behind them. When Noah twisted around in his seat, he saw the whole top of the plateau fly apart, spewing chunks of rock into the air.
The helicopter shook as shards of rock hurtled past the windows. Noah held his breath, praying that they wouldn’t be knocked out of the sky, but the pilot kept the chopper on a steady course.
“So much for Bainbridge,” Noah muttered, then glanced at Olivia. She was staring white-faced at the place where they’d been only a few minutes earlier, probably thinking that getting onto the ledge below the plateau wouldn’t have done them a damn bit of good.
It was noisy in the machine, and they didn’t have headsets like the rescue team, which meant he couldn’t say anything to her. When he reached out and squeezed her hand, she looked at him, then away, and he felt his stomach knot. Since he’d woken up after Bainbridge’s twisted experiment, he’d ached to talk to her in private. He wanted to know where he stood with her. Would she stay with him? Or would she flee this hasty marriage as soon as she could get away?
That discussion would have to wait, but there was something else he wouldn’t be able to put off. He needed to think about what he was going to tell the Light Street men who had come through for him and Olivia under heroic circumstances.
He’d made his decision by the time they landed in a clearing next to a lodge that he judged to be about fifty miles away. He thought they were somewhere in Arizona.
Olivia was still unsteady on her feet, and he helped her into the house.
“Thank you for getting us out of there,” Noah told the men as soon as they were inside and away from the noise of the chopper blades.
“A pleasure,” Max Dakota answered. “We researched Bainbridge. He was into some nasty stuff. He was born rich and made sure he got richer. His whole life seemed to have been lived for his own aggrandizement. He didn’t care who he hurt or stepped on, so long as he got what he thought he wanted or needed.”
“Nice guy.”
A group of Light Street agents was waiting for them in the lodge. Besides the men Noah had met in the teleconference, there were two more on the team. Jed Prentiss, who had piloted the helicopter, and a guy named Thorn Devereaux. After the introductions, everybody settled down in the rustic but comfortable living room.
Noah sat next to Olivia, aching to be alone with her, yet dreading it, too. When she clasped her hands in her lap, he kept himself from reaching for her.
“So what, specifically, did Bainbridge want with you?” Sam Lassiter asked.
Noah had been steeling himself for this
moment. For years, he’d kept himself safe by protecting his secret, but these men had pulled out all the stops for him and Olivia.
When he glanced at her, she was staring at him intently. Her expectant expression tipped him over the edge. When he spoke, it was as much for her sake as to enlighten the Light Street team.
“Bainbridge was dying of multiple myeloma and he was looking for a way to extend his life, so he was researching people who made miraculous escapes from death. I guess you know he found out that I’d survived a submarine accident off Grand Cayman,” he said, knowing that the long explanation was really a stall.
“Yeah,” Jed said. “That’s why Carlson came to us.”
Noah dragged in a breath and let it out. “Okay, here’s the crux of it. I was born in the early fourteenth century. I have no idea why I’ve lived this long. Bainbridge wanted to find out and use my secret to save his life.”
There were exclamations around the room.
Thorn Devereaux cut through the babble. “We knew there was something unusual about you. We didn’t figure out what it was.”
The matter-of-fact way he said it helped Noah relax a little. “I’ve made a habit of keeping it hidden.”
“I can imagine,” Jed answered.
“But I decided I owed your group the truth after what you did for me and Olivia.”
“You don’t have any clues to your longevity?” Sam Lassiter asked.
Noah shook his head. “And I have a state-of-the-art longevity research laboratory. I haven’t been able to find any reason for my long life. I just know that I recover from injuries that would kill an ordinary man.”
He lowered his gaze and spoke in a flat voice. “Once when I was chained in a prison, I cut off my left hand to get free.”
Olivia gasped.
He held up his hand. “It grew back. I wasn’t sure it would, but I took a chance and cut it off.”
There was a buzz of excited talk around the room, until Thorn Devereaux began to speak again.
“The Light Street Foundation does some basic medical research. It’s headed by Travis Stone. When he recovered from leukemia, he set up some endowments.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” Noah said.
“That can be arranged,” Jed answered.
Thorn cleared his throat. “We have a lot of unusual men in our organization.” He grinned at Noah. “I was part of an outer space exploration team that came to your world fifteen hundred years ago.”
Noah’s jaw dropped as he struggled to take that in. “You what?”
“You heard me right. But I haven’t exactly lived as long as you. I was in suspended animation for most of the intervening years, until my wife rescued me. And I know what it’s like to be hunted by a megalomaniac because he wants to use you.”
While Noah was grappling with that, Jed said, “I was turned into a zombie by a voodoo priest.” He laughed. “I don’t know how it’s affected my life span, though.” He continued. “We also have Nick Vickers working for us. He’s been around for over two hundred years. But then, he’s, uh, a vampire. And then there’s one of our technical guys, Luke McMillan, who’s sharing his body with the spirit of an ancient warrior.”
Noah tried to process all that. Apparently he’d gotten a lot more than he bargained for when he’d called up the Light Street group.
“I’d like to meet Vickers.”
“Yeah.” Max laughed. “You can talk about old times.”
Noah glanced at Olivia, who was looking stunned. As for himself, he’d lucked out. He’d thought he was the only guy in the world with his unusual problem.
When Olivia began to speak, everyone turned toward her. “My husband’s probably not going to tell you about it, but Bainbridge had an interesting way of testing Noah. He had me tied to a stake and set the room on fire. The only way to save me was for Noah to run through the flames and put out the fire.” She swallowed hard. “He was horribly burned, and I thought he was dead.”
“Nice guy,” Max muttered.
To fill out the picture, Noah added, “I’d been corresponding for years with Sidney Hemmings. He invited me to a conference in Las Vegas, where we finally met. He scraped my hand with his ring and apparently took a cell sample. I think Bainbridge contacted him, and they got excited about testing me.” He gave Olivia a pointed look. “He was at Bainbridge’s headquarters and he died in the fire.”
There was something else Noah needed to say. He kept his gaze on Olivia. “I didn’t want to put anything else on you while we were in captivity. So I didn’t tell you that Bainbridge killed your brother.”
She nodded numbly.
Jed cleared his throat and looked at Olivia. “In case you don’t know it, Ms. Stapler, your brother arranged to have you run over in Las Vegas so he could rope you into his…extortion scheme.”
Her jaw dropped. “My brother is responsible for my accident? How do you know?”
“As soon as your husband hired us, we started researching all aspects of the case.”
Olivia started to shake, and Noah put his arm around her and held her close. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
She gave him a shattered look. “He was always jealous of me, always looking for ways to get even. I guess he thought he’d found the perfect scheme,” she whispered. “He ruined my career. Then he thought he could control me.”
“Only you proved he couldn’t.”
She huffed out a breath. “I tried. It took you to get me out of there.”
Once again Noah wished they could be alone. He was wondering how to gracefully excuse themselves when a cell phone rang.
Max Dakota got up to answer it. He returned a few moments later, his expression serious.
“It’s for you,” he said, handing the phone to Noah.
“Hello?” he said.
“Noah, you’re all right!” It was Thomas.
“Yes.”
“The Light Street Detective Agency contacted me when you were kidnapped. But I hadn’t gotten a report in hours.”
“I guess they were a little busy getting us away from a fiend named Jarred Bainbridge.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “There’s a situation here. I need you to come home.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’d rather not say over the phone.” He paused for a moment, then added, “You have to come here.”
Noah knew Thomas well, and the tone of his friend’s voice told him that something was badly wrong at his estate.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
After signing off, Noah stood up. “There’s a crisis at home. Thomas needs me.” He looked at Max Dakota. “I’m hoping I can leave right away.”
“We have a plane standing by.”
“Thanks. And I’d like to have Olivia stay with you until I know it’s safe.”
When he started for the door, Olivia closed the space between them and put a hand on his arm. “You’re not leaving me behind.”
“I don’t know what’s going on at the ranch. I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said, his tone rougher than he intended.
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’d better get used to what being married means.”
He felt his stomach drop. She had a point, but she’d picked a bad time to insist. Was she saying she was planning to stay with him—or did her decision depend on his decision?
She had put him in an agonizing position.
Would she walk away if he gave her the wrong answer? Hoping he could negotiate, he said, “If you’re coming, we’d better do this smart.”
“I’m listening.”
He managed to laugh. “Unfortunately, in this situation, I don’t know what smart is.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair, wishing he’d had more sleep. And wishing he knew what they’d be facing back home.
Jed Prentiss jumped into the conversation. “Perhaps we can discuss it on the way. It’s an hour and a half flight to Santa Barbara.”
“You’re coming with us?”
They all headed out of the house and got into an SUV which took them to an airstrip where a Gulfstream G500 waited.
“Nice plane,” Noah said.
“We share it with Randolph Security. Our two companies are linked together,” Sam said. “Actually, Jed and Thorn work for Randolph.”
Jed headed for the copilot’s seat, and after quick introductions to their pilot, Steve Claiborne, they took off.
The seats in the plane were grouped around a low table. Hunter broke out some sandwiches and soft drinks, and both Noah and Olivia ate and drank hungrily. He longed to get some sleep, but he couldn’t afford that luxury.
Still, he leaned back and closed his eyes for a few moments. When he opened them again, Olivia was staring at him. “You look worn out,” she said.
“You don’t look so good yourself.”
She touched her hair. “Thanks.”
“We’ve got a fully equipped bathroom in the back,” Jed said. “It’s small, but it’s got a shower. And we have a change of clothes for both of you, in the back cabin. Why don’t both of you freshen up?”
“Good idea,” Noah answered. He looked at Olivia, “You want to go first?”
“It will be the fastest shower on record.” She got up and walked toward the back of the plane, then reappeared less than ten minutes later looking refreshed and wearing a very nicely cut pair of jeans and a knit shirt.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Energized.” She sat beside him. “I can’t stop thinking about it. What do you think is wrong at your house?”
Noah was facing another mess he didn’t want to talk about. This was family business, but in this case, he had to clue them in.
“Thomas, my chief of staff, has a son, Simon, a paranoid schizophrenic who’s been fixated on me for years. He shot me in the chest a few days before I came to Las Vegas.”
“You’ve had a pretty eventful couple of weeks,” Jed muttered.
“I could do without the excitement.” He sighed. “We sent Simon to a private mental hospital. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s escaped and is threatening the household.”