"What?" Wyatt asked with surprise. "Why?"
"You don't have any shoes," she pointed out apologetically.
"Damn," he muttered with disgust. "I didn't think of shoes, and I was looking forward to getting these bandages off. Besides, if I walk on them, they'll get dirty and Gran will know I've been on my feet."
"You're right. You'll have to take them off," Sam said from the driver's seat in front of him, and then added, "We have shoes in the stock room at the Enforcer House. I'll get you a pair when we get there."
"Oh good. Thanks," he muttered and went back to work on the wrapping.
"Speaking of the house," Sam muttered, passing her phone back to Elspeth. "Can you text Mortimer and let him know what we're doing and that we'll head to the house right after we get the phone number from Meredith's fridge?"
"Sure." Elspeth took the phone, noting as she did that Rachel was busy tapping away on her phone in the front passenger seat. Probably texting Etienne to let him know she'd left the house, Elspeth supposed as she quickly opened Sam's messages, found Mortimer's name, and opened that string of texts. But then she paused and asked, "Wouldn't it be easier to call him?"
"Yes, but then he'd insist we leave it to hunters to get the number and chase this guy. He'd send us back to the house where we'll all be safe," Sam said dryly. "I think after all we've been through, we deserve to be in on catching this creep."
"Text," Wyatt and G.G. said at the same time.
Chuckling, Elspeth quickly texted the message and hit Send. She then held the phone out next to Sam, but she shook her head. "Hold on to it for me until we stop. In fact, put it in your pocket so we can't hear if he texts back to tell us not to go to the house. This way I can say I didn't have the phone and not be lying."
Elspeth raised her eyebrows, and slid the phone into the back pocket of the jeans Sam had fetched for her from the Enforcer House. "I'm learning all sorts of little tricks from you, Sam. You lawyers are tricky."
"We have to be. We deal with criminals," she said dryly.
A startled laugh slipped from Elspeth, and then something made her glance to her right. She peered out the window past G.G. and her heart seemed to stutter to a halt. A semi was barreling down on them from a side street. They wouldn't get past the road in time to avoid the collision.
Elspeth didn't hesitate. Her only thought that G.G. was mortal and was seated on the side that would take the impact, she unsnapped her seat belt and threw herself on the man, doing her best to cover as much of him as she could in the split second she had to do it.
"El! What--?" Wyatt began in a shocked voice, and then the truck hit them.
The sound was like nothing Elspeth had ever experienced before. It was like an explosion went off beside her. There was a crash and the scream of metal tearing and she felt the door driven into her legs, side, and arm, thrusting her and G.G. toward Wyatt even as her head flew in the opposite direction, toward the shattering window as the glass flew into the car. Some of the shards of glass imbedded in her shoulder, neck, and head like multiple darts. Others merely sliced her skin in passing, sending blood spraying around them as the truck plowed forward. It forced the SUV sideways across the road, until the tires hit the sloping grass, and then they were rolling.
Elspeth heard Wyatt shout, and Sam and Rachel scream, but her attention was on the moan G.G. released when their heads slammed into the ceiling of the car as it came down hard on its roof. She realized then that she hadn't covered the top of his head, just the sides, but it was too late to do anything about it. The SUV had stopped moving finally, and she was lying in a crumpled heap on the ceiling of the car around G.G.'s dangling head and arms.
Dazed and in pain, Elspeth tried to catch her breath, but couldn't seem to. She wanted to ask if everyone was all right, but couldn't do that either. No one was moving or saying anything, though, she noted with concern, and G.G. at least was unconscious. She hoped he was just unconscious. He looked terribly pale and there was blood dripping from the top of his head and the corner of his mouth. There were also a couple of cuts on his face and arms from glass that she hadn't managed to block.
Tilting her head, Elspeth looked for Wyatt and found him dangling from his seat belt above and almost right next to her. He was much closer than he should have been, almost directly beside them. That told her just how far G.G.'s side of the car had been forced in. But other than being unconscious, with blood dripping from a wound to the side of his head where he'd apparently hit his window, Wyatt seemed okay.
Elspeth wanted to check the others then, but she was woozy and felt like she was suffocating. She was on the verge of losing consciousness when she thought she heard a car door slam.
Help, Elspeth thought with relief, and held on desperately to consciousness. She heard footsteps and the crunch of glass, and then her foot was grabbed and yanked. Elspeth's body screamed in agony as she was dragged over the glass littering the roof, and then through the window hole on the crushed side of the car and out onto cool, soothing grass.
"Are you alive?"
Elspeth opened her eyes and turned her head toward her raised leg to find herself staring up at the man from the picture. Paul Albrecht, the man who had been trying to kill her.
"Yeah. You'll survive," he said, and started dragging her across the cold, damp ground by her foot, sending shafts of fiery pain through her body. That's when Elspeth finally lost consciousness.
Nineteen
"You're some kind of mutant. That's what you are."
Those were the first words Elspeth heard as she woke up. Or at least the first words she registered. For one moment, she stayed completely still, trying to sort out where she was. All she could tell was that she was sitting on a hard chair, her chin resting on her chest, and there was light beyond her closed eyes.
Gritting her teeth against the pain assaulting her body, she forced her head up on her stiff neck, and opened her eyes, wincing as shockingly bright light assailed her pupils. Dear God, it was like the sun was dangling directly in front of her, shining straight into her face, blinding her to anything else around her.
"Yeah, I knew you were awake," that same voice growled.
Elspeth closed her eyes for some relief from the light, and found herself staring at pink screens as the light poured through her eyelids. Ignoring it, she tried to figure out where she was and what had happened. It actually took her a moment, and then Elspeth remembered the crash, being dragged from the car, and the man standing over her.
"Paul Albrecht," she muttered as his name came to her.
"Yeah. So . . . what? Did you read my name from my mind?" he asked with disgust.
Elspeth started to shake her head, but stopped at once when pain crashed through her skull.
"I know you can do that shit," he told her, his voice half triumphant, and half hate-filled. "I know you can read people's thoughts and control their minds. You're some kind of freak of nature with weird-ass special skills like that scary-ass kid in Firestarter."
"Firestarter?" Elspeth murmured with bewilderment. She thought it was an old movie, but couldn't seem to recall what it was about. Well, a firestarter, she presumed, but didn't remember anything about the plot, or the scary-ass kid he referred to.
"Don't play dumb with me. I know. I know!"
"Know what?" she asked wearily, trying to move her arms to ease some of the ache in her shoulders, only to find she was unable to. Her hands were restrained somehow behind her back. Rope, she realized, feeling her bindings.
"Everything," he assured her. "I know the government keeps all kinds of little mutants like you around to do their dirty work. And I know where your secret ops building is. I followed you there one day. It's all gated, lots of dogs, and men with guns. I knew what it was right away."
Elspeth stilled. He was describing the Enforcer House. He'd followed her there?
"Yeah, that got your attention, huh?" he said snidely.
She instinctively opened her eyes, and then quickly closed t
hem again as the light sent pain shooting through her head once more. Elspeth waited a moment to allow the pain to recede, and then said, "That's not a government building. There is no--"
"Fine, don't admit it," he cut her off. "That's okay. I know what I know."
"Of course you do," Elspeth said wearily, wishing he'd just shut up and go away. Her head was killing her, along with the whole left side of her body . . . and her gut was starting to burn as if acid was eating away at her. She was obviously desperately in need of blood, and he was standing there, somewhere beyond the lights, smelling pretty juicy to her at the moment. She needed him to leave so she could have a minute to think and figure out what to do.
"For instance," he dribbled on, "I know that instead of minding your own business, you read Nina's mind."
"Your mother," she muttered, recalling that Madeleine's real name was Nina Albrecht. Apparently, he didn't call her Mom, or even Mother.
"Yeah, you found that out by reading her mind too, didn't you?" he suggested. "And that's how you figured out what she was doing. But that wasn't enough, was it? Then you just had to control her, make her return the old lady's money, and then make her confess. Confess!" he roared suddenly with rage, making her start. "She told me you did. She told me she felt like she'd been hijacked, that she didn't want to do any of it, give back the old bitch's money, or go confess to the police. She said it was like you were making her do that shit and say that stuff."
Elspeth was silent for a moment, but finally said, "Don't be ridiculous. She was pulling your leg. No one can read and control people's minds. She was probably just too embarrassed to admit that her conscience got the better of her and she turned herself in to feel better about herself."
"Nina doesn't have a conscience," Paul said on a laugh of disbelief that seemed to say that was the stupidest suggestion ever. "No. You made her do it. And now she's locked up, probably for the rest of her life, and it's your fault."
"Of course," Elspeth sighed, tired of his rambling. "Her being locked up has nothing to do with her criminal activities, does it?"
"She's done that shit for years and never got caught," he snapped. "At least she's always been able to weasel away and start again somewhere else until now. Until you came along and wrecked everything with your mutant ways!"
Something slammed into the side of the chair with a loud clang, and Elspeth jumped in surprise. She sat completely still for a moment, but when he didn't speak or do anything more, she began working at the rope around her wrists, and tried to distract him by saying, "So you're going to kill me because you think I made your mother turn herself in?"
"That was the plan, but you just wouldn't die," he said, his tone accusing. "You should have died. I saw you after they dragged you out from under that car."
"I wasn't really hurt badly," she lied, working at the rope, but wishing the light wasn't there and she could see and control him. "The blood was mostly show and made it look like I was hurt worse than I was."
He laughed at the lie. "You were hamburger! But there wasn't much blood. At least, not as much as there should have been."
Right, Elspeth thought on a sigh. The nanos would have held in as much as they could. There was probably a smear, or several smears, from where she'd been dragged over the pavement, but much less blood loss than there would have been were she mortal.
"And then the next time I saw you, you were perfectly fine. Not a mark, a scab, a scar, nothing. That's when I figured out you're a female Wolverine," he informed her.
Elspeth blinked her eyes open, and then quickly closed them again against the light. A female Wolverine? She didn't get out to the movies much, but did buy the occasional film on iTunes. She knew who Wolverine was.
"You don't seem to have the blades like him. At least, not that I've seen so far, but you heal real quick like him. And you read minds and control people or manipulate them like that guy in the wheelchair."
Charles Xavier or Professor X, Elspeth thought. First he was comparing her to some firestarter, and now he thought she was a mutant. Both of which were fictional references. But then, she supposed vampires were too, and a lot of people would call her kind by that name.
"The car didn't kill you, the fire didn't kill you . . ."
"The cyanide in the doughnuts didn't kill me," she added dryly, and then asked what she'd wanted to know since it had happened. "How did you get the doughnuts in the house after you injected them with cyanide?"
"The doggy door," he said at once.
"It's a locking doggy door," she said with a frown, recalling what Julius had said. "It only opens to their dog's collar."
"It a magnetic lock," he said dryly. "I recognized that while walking around the house when you went there after the fire . . . and I recognized it because I worked in a pet shop during my brief stint in university. We sold a lot of those. Of course, we didn't tell the customers that all you need is another collar with the magnetic collar key in it to open them." She could hear the smile in his voice as he added, "I hit the pet store the minute it opened. I had to buy a doggy door to get the collar, but it got me in."
She had to tell Marguerite and Julius that, Elspeth thought. They believed they were secure, but they weren't. Wanting to keep him talking until she could get her hands free, she said, "You studied to be a pharmacist. You made the poison yourself?"
"Yes, back in Alberta. I had it with me when I came. It was for Nina, but I can make more."
"Nina wanted poison?" Elspeth asked with dismay. Had she planned to murder Meredith and manufacture a fake will leaving everything to her or something like that? Elspeth wondered and wished again that she could see him to read him.
"No," Paul said. "She didn't want it. I planned to slip it into her coffee."
The words shocked her into blinking her eyes open again, but the light made her quickly close them once more. "You planned to kill your mother?"
"Yes," he said easily, completely unashamed.
"Well then, why the heck have you been trying to kill me?" she asked with exasperation. "Dead or in jail, she's out of your life," she pointed out, and thought she'd done Nina a huge favor by getting her to confess. If she hadn't, the woman would be dead now.
"Because so long as she's in jail I can't kill her and get the insurance," he growled furiously. "With her record and all she's confessed to, she could be in there until she dies. She's only forty-seven. That could be another damned thirty years. Forty, even."
"Oh, for cripes sake," Elspeth said, dropping back in her chair with disgust, and realizing only then that she'd been sitting up tensely. Relaxing eased the rope somewhat, and she set back to work almost feverishly at it.
"Which made me think," he continued suddenly. "If I can't kill you, maybe I can use you."
Elspeth stiffened at the words. "Use me?"
"Well, you got her in there. Now you can just control the police, or the judge, or whoever you have to, to get her out," he said with cold satisfaction.
Elspeth raised her eyebrows, but remembered to keep her eyes closed this time. "So that you can kill her."
"Exactly," he said on a happy sigh.
"And you think I would do that because . . . ?" she asked dryly.
"Because if you don't, I'll kill the old lady, the twins, that fella who was going down on you in your bathroom before I threw the Molotov cocktails in, and everyone else in that house."
Elspeth's mouth tightened. He'd obviously stood out on the balcony watching them through the bathroom window that night. How long had he stood out there before finally throwing the firebombs in? Had he watched until they passed out? Beyond that even? Just standing there looking at them naked and vulnerable? Well, she'd been naked. Wyatt had still had his pants on.
"Chemistry isn't my only skill," he added, sounding much closer. "I took that to learn how to make drugs I could sell. But I also know how to make some pretty nifty bombs. In fact, I was making one when it suddenly occurred to me to use you instead of kill you."
Elspeth jerked as a finger ran down her cheek. His face was so close to hers, she could feel his breath on her nose and mouth. It smelled like blood to her.
His finger drifted down her neck, and to one breast. "I could just finish the bomb, though, and kill every last person you care about."
Furious, Elspeth stopped trying to untie the rope, grabbed one strand, and tugged viciously. Much to her surprise, it snapped like licorice. She really needed to take the time to find out just how strong she was once this was over, Elspeth thought grimly. As well as find out what she could and couldn't do as an immortal. She'd never thought it was necessary before this, but was learning differently, because if she'd known she could break the damned rope, she--
"So, what do you say?" Paul Albrecht asked, interrupting her thoughts and squeezing the breast he'd just been touching. "Death or friends?"
Elspeth didn't have to open her eyes. She could still feel his breath on her face and knew exactly where his head was. Whipping her hand around, she grabbed just below it, her fingers closing around his throat and lifting as she jerked to her feet, growling, "Death."
Elspeth never saw the gun. She hadn't realized he had one. But she certainly heard it go off . . . and felt the impact as it tore through her heart.
"Elspeth!"
Paul's voice sounded a lot like Wyatt's, she thought as she began to fall.
"Sometimes, Marguerite, I feel like you're older than me, rather than younger. You must have an old soul."
Merry, Elspeth thought as she swam toward consciousness. That was Merry talking. She also recognized her aunt's laugh as she responded, "A very old soul indeed, Merry."
Pushing her eyes open, Elspeth stared at the ceiling overhead, and then it was suddenly displaced by Wyatt's anxious face.
"You're awake."
Elspeth blinked, and smiled faintly. "Yes. Shouldn't I be?" she asked, and frowned as her voice came out a rough, dry whisper.
"Oh, Ellie, dear! You had us all so worried!"
When Wyatt turned his head to the right, she did the same and watched Meredith rush across the room with Aunt Marguerite on her heels.
"I can't believe the bad luck we've been having. First the fire, and then the doughnuts, and now a car accident!" Merry shook her head with dismay as she reached Elspeth and took her hand in both of hers. "I nearly fainted when G.G. carried you in all covered with blood. Thank goodness it was mostly show and you just suffered a knock on the head. But you did take your time waking up."