Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
A CURSE SLIPPED out of Luke’s mouth, and Mackenzie turned to stare at him.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve been here before. This is Nick’s house, right?”
She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Nick’s house? Do you mean Nick Goldman?”
“I guess so.”
“No, it’s not his house. He just stays here sometimes. You know him?”
“Not exactly. I met him a month and a half ago. With Ash. I mean Emerson. She brought me here when my sister was kidnapped.”
Mackenzie went whiter than the sofa in the hallway as she sank onto the soft leather.
“Oh my gosh. You’re that Luke? Emmy’s Luke?” Mackenzie stared at him, her green eyes wide. “I didn’t ever see a picture of you. I never knew what you looked like. Nate dealt with most of the kidnapping thing while I was in California. Then when I got back, everyone was walking on eggshells around Emmy, avoiding the subject.”
He crouched in front of Mackenzie.“Yes, I’m that Luke. But I’m not Emmy’s Luke. We broke up.”
“I’m not sure you should be here,” she said, but she made no move to show him to the door.
He had to admit it was a little awkward, being in Emmy’s territory, but at the same time, he wanted to give her a piece of his mind about what happened with Tia. She’d sped off the other night without so much as a word, and she needed to understand it wasn’t acceptable to take Tia out to nightclubs.
“Where is Emmy? Did you know she tried to corrupt my little sister? She called her up and encouraged to go out clubbing of all things. Tia’s only seventeen, for crying out loud.”
“Emmy hardly called her up. It was the other way around.”
“She told me she called Tia.” Luke may have been hopping mad that evening, but he certainly remembered the conversation.
“That’s not how it happened at all. Tia called her. In the middle of the night. Tia had a problem, and she rang Emmy for help. Ems got me up at three in the morning to track Tia’s cell phone so she could find her.”
“Tia did that?”
“You have any other sisters?” Mackenzie’s voice held a hint of sarcasm, but that was better than tears.
“Well, no.”
“And neither of them told you?”
“No. Emmy told me she phoned Tia on the Friday and asked her to go to a club with her. Why would she say that if it wasn’t true?”
“I imagine she knew you’d be angry, and she was protecting Tia. She’s like that. She looks out for people she cares about, which includes your sister.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Tia was here since the previous Sunday.”
“What?”
Did nobody tell Luke anything?
“Tia was in a fight, I think. She had bruises on her face and a split lip. Emmy arranged for her to go to self-defence classes. I even took her to a couple myself. Tia’s a sweet girl.” Mack smiled, and Luke’s breath hitched. “You must be proud to have her as a sister.”
Luke pushed aside the feelings he didn’t understand. “You met Tia?” He thought back to the note she’d left. “She won’t even speak to me now.”
“Sure did. I helped her with her science homework. Physics and chemistry. She had an art assignment as well, but Bradley worked with her on that. Did you meet Bradley? Anyhow, Emmy only let her go out that Friday once she’d finished all of her projects. For a treat.”
Luke felt like his brain was working at half-speed. Perhaps he’d be at home on that government project after all. “Can we back up a bit? Bruises? Who gave Tia bruises?”
“Could you forget I mentioned that?” Mackenzie took half a step back. “You’ll have to ask Tia if you want to know anything else.”
“Look, if someone hurt my little sister, I want to know who. As her brother, I should do something about it.”
“If something needed doing, then Emmy did it. Trust me on that. And if Emmy took care of it, she’d have made sure the person who hurt Tia got the message loud and clear.”
Luke heard the pride in Mackenzie’s voice when she talked about her friend, although he wasn’t sure he shared her opinion.
“Then maybe I should ask Emmy exactly what she did. Is she here?”
Luke watched in horror as Mackenzie’s face crumpled, then she turned her back on him and began sobbing again.
“What did I say? Whatever it was, I’m sorry.” Luke sat on the couch beside her and pulled Mackenzie into his arms, trying to work out what he’d done to upset her. Why did he keep messing things up with women lately? He never used to have this problem.
Then it came to him. “It’s Emmy who’s missing, isn’t it?”
“Y-y-yes,” Mackenzie choked out between sniffles.
“Well, hey, she’ll probably come back. Last time she left, she was with me, wasn’t she? And nothing really bad happened to her that time.”
Except for when his sister got Emmy fired from her job. But Emmy had seen the good in Tia and got past that. Then Tia got kidnapped and Emmy brought in a team to hunt down the kidnapper, then she personally rescued his sister from wherever she was being held before single-handedly capturing her abductor.
Okay, so there was some good in Emmy, but she’d still cheated on him with Nick. The knife twisted in Luke’s chest every time he thought about it.
“You don’t understand,” Mackenzie said. “It was different that time. This time she disappeared during a job. Right in the middle.”
“What do you mean ‘a job?’”
“I can’t tell you. You probably know more about Emmy than most people, especially now, but I can’t discuss work.” Mackenzie looked at her watch. “I’d better make you that coffee then I can get back to the search.”
“It’s ten at night. What are you going to find at this time?”
She shrugged. “The internet never sleeps.”
“You’re going to look online?”
“It’s what I do.”
The woman was gorgeous and she loved computers? Luke was intrigued. “That’s what I do for a living too.”
“I know. We had an exchange about it back when we were looking for Tia.”
“We did?”
“Yeah, you found out I’d been in your company system and thought I had something to do with Tia’s kidnapping.”
“Wait a minute, you’re Diablo? The hacker? Of course, Emmy said your name was Mack. I just assumed I was talking to a guy.” Worse than that, Luke had pictured Mack as a two-hundred-pound dude with too much body hair who hung out in a basement and lived on pizza and energy drinks.
“People do tend to make that mistake.”
“So not only are you beautiful, you’re also ridiculously smart.”
“I don’t really know how to answer that.” Mack blushed and looked at her feet.
“You don’t have to. I was just stating a fact.” The number of women he’d met who claimed to be techno-whizzes but didn’t have a clue what to do with a command prompt was into double figures, yet here was Diablo, who he suspected knew even more about the inner workings of the world’s networks than he did. He wanted to find out what went on in her mind. Perhaps he could learn something? “Why don’t I stay and help you? Two heads are better than one, and all that.”
“It’s not so straightforward. The work Blackwood does is confidential. I can’t give a stranger access to that information.”
“I’m not a total stranger—I know Emmy.”
“But you’ve never worked with her.”
“Couldn’t you deputise me or something? Or make me sign a non-disclosure agreement? I’m not about to start blabbing your secrets.”
“We don’t deputise people. Blackwood’s a private company.” Mack leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes.“But truthfully, I could do with some intelligent help. There’s so much I need to look through, and I’ve already spent three hours today trying to break through a single firewall.”
“Which one?”
She paused for a few seconds before whispering, “The Jordanian defence department.”
“I did that one last year. They might have changed it since then, but I doubt it. Too expensive.”
She stared at the wall beyond him as she came to a decision. “I’d have to ask Nate and Nick. They’re in charge in Emmy’s absence.”
Nick? Fantastic, just who he wanted to see. He was tempted to make an excuse and leave, but his intrigue over Mack won out. Luke rarely worked with a partner, but a collaboration with Diablo promised to be a fascinating experience. “Well, call them up, and we can get started.”
Mack led the way into a ground-floor control room that was part-NASA, part-Fortune 500. One entire wall was covered in video screens.
“This is a mini replica of our operations centre at Blackwood House. If there’s an issue there, we can switch everything over here and carry on functioning without missing a beat.”
It made Luke’s home setup look like a teenager’s bedroom. “Very impressive.”
“Wake up,” she commanded. Monitors and consoles whirred into life as she turned to Luke. “Many of the systems are voice controlled, and we also use biometric security to prevent unauthorised access.” She took a seat at the centre desk. “Call Nate.”
Seconds later, a tanned face popped up on the screen, its features arranged in a scowl. The caption at the bottom of the picture told Luke it was 5:00 p.m. in Richmond. This had to be Nate.
“Anything?” he asked.
Mack’s shoulders dropped. “No, you?”
“Nothing. She’s gone without a trace. What did the French say?”
“They’re looking, but none of their people on the ground have heard anything about a woman being killed or held hostage. Just a lot of rumours about the explosion.”
“Who’s that behind you?” Nate caught sight of Luke lurking on the edge of the picture.
“Uh, it’s Luke. You know, Luke Halston-Cain? I ran into him at Sector 8. Public transport was in chaos, and he gave me a lift back here. I, uh, mentioned Emmy’s missing, and he’s offered to help with the search. I could really do with an extra pair of hands.”
“He’s a civilian.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
“We’ve got no time, Nate.”
“He the genius hacker Emmy seems to think he is?”
“From what I know, yes.”
On the monitor, Nate rubbed his temples. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”
“We need all the help we can get, and he says he’ll sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
“That’s just paper. Luke, do you give me your word you’ll keep your mouth shut if we let you in?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you understand that if you don’t, I’ll hunt you down myself and the outcome of that wouldn’t be something you’d enjoy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then welcome to the team. Mack’ll fill you in. She’s right—we need whatever assistance you can offer.”
Nate signed off, and Luke took a seat next to Mack. “Go on then, what happened?”
“Okay, so Emmy took a job in Syria for the CIA. A dangerous job, too dangerous, and she shouldn’t have done it. She knew she shouldn’t, even admitted it, but she went anyway.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because part of the task involved searching for two men who’d disappeared attempting the same mission, and one of them was an old friend of hers. She said she couldn’t just leave them there.”
“And what happened?”
“She took one other person with her, a former special forces guy called Logan. They were looking for evidence of chemical weapons on a military base, and they found it. Then they found the hostages. They couldn’t save one of them, but the other made it back with Logan. Emmy didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“They got spotted as they left, and a whole company of Syrian army troops pinned them down. Jed had a broken leg, so Logan stayed with him while Emmy crawled through a pipe to escape. She called Logan to say she had a plan to distract the soldiers, and then somehow she blew up the whole place.”
Mack couldn’t be serious? Luke looked for a sign she was joking, but her expression didn’t change. One person couldn’t blow up a whole military base, surely? And not Ash. She’d struggled to bake a cake without it collapsing in the middle.
Mack saw his disbelief and answered his unspoken question. “No kidding, she levelled it. They saw the explosion from space. She spoke to Logan one more time and told him to get Jed out of there, but the line went dead in the middle of the conversation. According to Logan, the troops took off towards the other end of the base, and there was a whole lot of shooting. Nobody’s seen or heard a thing from Emmy since.”
“So you think she’s been captured?”
“Either that or killed. And after what they did to Jed and the other guy who didn’t make it, being held prisoner by the Syrians is not something that bears thinking about.”
“Could she have escaped?”
“Anything’s possible with Emmy, but this all happened six days ago and there’s been radio silence. We reckon she broke her phone, which isn’t a surprise because she destroys every phone she gets her hands on, but if she was free and able to, she’d have begged, borrowed, or stolen another to let us know she was safe.”
“What’s our plan? Look for anything in Syrian internet traffic that refers to a prisoner or a woman being killed?”
“Exactly. So far, we’ve found nothing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much because they kept quiet about Jed and Phil too. From what we’ve heard, they’re writing the explosion off as an accident with a munitions store.”
“And if we don’t find anything?”
“Nate and Nick are organising a team to go back to Syria, but if they do have Emmy, they’ll be expecting us, and it’s got the potential to turn into a bigger bloodbath than it already has.”
With that hanging over their heads, Luke pulled his laptop out of his briefcase and Mack flipped open the lid on hers. Side by side, they hacked, hunted, and translated until the early hours of the morning.
All to no avail.
Eventually, Mack slumped forward onto the desk and Luke yawned until his jaw ached.
“We need sleep,” he said.
“I know. But I feel awful going to my bed when some psycho could be torturing Emmy on the other side of the world.”
“You can’t help her if you’re snoring on your keyboard.”
“I know.” She gave a resigned sigh. “MI6 has agreed to help search, and I’ve got a meeting with them in the morning. I need to stay awake in that. And I don’t snore.”
Luke pushed his chair back and got up, stretching his arms out above his head. Mack looked as if she hardly had the strength to move. Unable to resist, he scooped her up and carried her over to the lift. She let out a little squeal then relaxed in his arms.
“Which floor?” he asked.
Mack reached out and pushed the button for the second.
Following her directions, Luke found himself in a room decorated in eggshell blue with a large, comfortable-looking bed against one wall. He walked over to it and lowered her gently onto an intricate quilt decorated with birds.
“Do you stay here a lot?” he asked.
The room looked lived-in, not something reserved for guests. The furniture matched perfectly, artfully made in distressed wood that didn’t go with the rest of the house. Tubes of make-up littered the dressing table and clothes were folded over the back of a chair. Luke took a closer look at the pile of magazines on a low table by the window— Wired, Cosmopolitan, The Linux Journal , and something on arts and crafts.
“I spend most of my time in the States, but I come to Europe once a month or so. Emmy and Black always wanted us to feel at home here, so I decorated my room how I like it. My grandmother made the quilt.” She smiled as she looked down at it. “It reminds me of my real home.”
“Where’s that? And who’s Black?”
“I’m Texan, born and bred. Black was Emmy’s husband.”
Ah yes, the dead one. Another reminder of Emmy’s darker side.
“I heard a rumour that Emmy did him in.”
Mack rounded on Luke, hands on hips. “Even the idea of that’s ridiculous,” she snapped.
He held his hands up in a gesture of conciliation. “That’s just what someone said.”
“Who?”
“A mate in the police.”
“Well, it’s not true.” Fire flashed in her eyes.
Great. So far in his company, Mack had gone from crying to cross, and Luke wasn’t sure which one scared him most. Time to go to bed before he put his foot in it again.
“Where should I sleep?” he asked, taking a step backwards.
She simmered down a little. “The room to the right of this one’s empty. Use anything you want from the wardrobe or bathroom.”
Luke found enough energy to clean his teeth with a spare toothbrush from the drawer under the sink, then he stripped off his clothes and climbed into bed. It was a king size, and the expanse of cool sheets stretched out on either side of him. He had to admit, he missed spending the night with a woman. In all his time with Ash, she’d insisted on sleeping in the spare room.
As he drifted off, he couldn’t help thinking of a very different woman sleeping alone. He imagined her red hair spread over that pale blue pillow, those long limbs splayed on the sheets. Cain, don’t think about Mack that way .
He’d never dated a redhead before, and with Ash in the picture, he didn’t dare consider it.