The Athena Factor

  He caught it by instinct and grunted as the weight rocked him back in his chair. “We can have it in a couple of hours if it’s a rush.”

  “It’s a rush,” Lymon said, leaning over the table to stare into Randisi’s eyes.

  Hank stared down at Christal’s bound body and wondered how it had all gone so wrong. The van slowly worked its way through the desultory late-night traffic. He rode in the back, seated on one of the benches while April held his hand. Her fingers were drawing designs on his palm. Something about her excited him in a way that no other woman ever had. She was mixture of dare, challenge, and sensuality. Hell, she was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Hank had never understood that character until he looked into April’s saucy gaze and saw her soul sway with his.

  He needed only to close his eyes and his dick began to tingle. Images of their afternoon lovemaking replayed in his head. He could see her golden body, so perfect, rising and falling sinuously as she held his wrists down. When she’d come, her breasts had tightened, straining at the air. In that instant his body had exploded with a pulsing orgasm that left him bucking under her weight with every nerve on fire.

  So, does it matter? We’ve got Christal. She’ll talk. That’s all we want. Just a little talk.

  He turned to smile at April, his guilt assuaged, and then he looked down at Christal, remembering another night, another van. That time, he’d lain atop her. He remembered moaning when he came. Remembered her tightening around him to make it better. How were they supposed to know they were being recorded? That a few days later, surrounded by his colleagues, he would watch his bare buttocks rising and falling in a black-and-white nightmare. The camera angle had recorded Christal’s face when she finally came, had caught her open mouth, her eyes closed in delight and her throat working as pleasure pulsed through her.

  As he stared down in the dimly lit van, her slack expression reminded him of that night.

  We just want to talk. He swallowed. Yeah, sure.

  Shit, what had he done? He glanced at April, words of protest rising, only to be blunted and fall away in confusion as she leaned over to kiss him on the lips.

  The plan had worked like proverbial clockwork at the Residence Inn. He had watched Christal climb the steps a little before eleven that night. Three plastic bags of groceries hung from her hands. Slipping them onto her left arm, she had fished her key out of her purse, slid it into the lock, and walked into her apartment.

  Hank had stepped out the door of the opposing unit and had been right behind her, his presence as a blocker unnecessary. Christal had flipped on the lights and walked into her room. It was only when she turned to close the door that he had seen the surprise in her eyes.

  “Hank?”

  “We’ve got to talk,” he told her, stepping in and shutting the door behind him. He watched the sudden anger in her face and raised his hands, distracting her as Neal walked up from behind on crepe-soled shoes.

  “We’ve got nothing to talk about.” Christal’s hands knotted on her grocery bags. Some thought flashed in her eyes, an understanding that something was dreadfully wrong. She started to turn when Neal reached out and pulled her back. As she started to scream, he had neatly inserted a syringe into her neck and depressed the plunger.

  “What is that stuff?” Hank asked, worried for the first time.

  “Just a little oil for the system.” Neal back-heeled Christal to the couch, keeping one hand pressed over her mouth as she bucked in his strong arms. The grocery bags tumbled to the floor. The turkey made a hollow thump. Cans and bottles rolled across the white vinyl. Her purse bounced off the corner of the couch and spilled open.

  April and Gretchen stepped out into the main room, each smiling down at Christal. “Got you at last, bitch,” Gretchen snarled. She drew back a foot for a kick.

  April stopped her, saying, “Not now.” She glanced at Hank, praise in her gray eyes. “Nice work, Hank. She never suspected a thing. You’re good.”

  He glowed at the compliment. “Glad to be of service.”

  Christal’s struggles had gone weak, rage draining from her dark eyes to be replaced by a dreamy look. Neal took his hand from her mouth and looked down at the blood welling on his palm. “She bit me.”

  “Hope you’ve had your shots,” April chided.

  Hank stared. Christal’s face had gone slack, blood on her lips. “Must have hurt like hell.”

  “Not the worst I’ve ever gotten.” Neal walked over to the sink, found the paper towels, and began dabbing at his hand.

  April leaned down, staring into Christal’s eyes. “We’re from Genesis Athena.”

  Hank saw the change in Christal’s face.

  “Ah, you know,” April said in a friendly voice. “That’s why you went to Colorado, isn’t it?”

  Christal blinked and frowned, as if having trouble following the conversation.

  “Do you know what Genesis Athena is?”

  “Yes,” Christal murmured. “You’re … witches … .”

  April laughed at that. “Do you know what we’re doing?”

  Christal blinked hard, made a face, and said, “You’re stealing souls.”

  April patted her kindly on the shoulder. “Oh, we’re stealing more than that.” Then she straightened. “All right, let’s get her to the van.”

  “The van?” Hank asked, surprised. “You said you wanted to talk to her.”

  April walked up to him, her slender fingers arranging his collar. “We do, but not here. We need someplace a little more private.”

  “Jesus, do you know what you’re playing with? One wrong move and you’re involved in felony abduction!”

  She turned, asking, “Christal, if we give you some answers, will you come with us?”

  Christal blinked, seemed to be struggling with the question, and slowly nodded.

  April’s eyes illuminated as she turned back to Hank. “There, see? You can’t abduct a willing participant. It’s that easy.”

  And it had been, right up to the moment the lone motorcycle had pulled up. He’d looked, half expecting the silver bullet-looking thing that Bridges rode, but had seen instead some sort of sleek cruiser with two riders. Hank had never been big on motorcycles, and this one had picked a lousy time to rumble up.

  “Do you think the guy on the bike is going to be trouble?” Hank asked as he glanced back over his shoulder at the traffic.

  “Nah,” Neal called from the front seat. “It’ll be days before anyone comes looking for Anaya. It’s not like the guy got a good look at me. For the moment he thinks he pissed some guy off by sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “You know,” Hank reminded, “I made my living in the Bureau interviewing people like the guy on that bike. Between him and the woman, they could put together a pretty good picture of what happened.”

  “Hank,” April whispered, “trust us. We’re good at this. If a problem crops up, we’ll solve it. We’re not doing anything illegal.”

  He started to say something, aware of the weight of Christal’s body at his feet, but April had reached over, her hand slipping along his thigh to send tingles through his penis. “For later.” Her whisper deepened. “Trust me, you’ll never regret it.”

  Hank closed his eyes and nodded, trying to keep from moaning as her fingers found him through the soft fabric of his pants. In that state, he wasn’t looking out the window as they drove into the private airport.

  31

  In his dreams, Sid was sledding across sparkling blue Bahamian water. He rode some sort of engine-powered surfboard. Dreams were magical that way. His super surfboard didn’t even need a surf. It just jetted across the crystal waves, a foamy wake washing behind. He kept looking over to the white beach backed by lush green trees. A woman stood there, her gaze fastened on him. She was a beauty with long black hair, sparkling obsidian eyes—her perfectly tanned body covered only by a skimpy yellow bikini. Sid grinned, and waved, angling the surfboard toward her, knowing that paradise lay there, just a
cross that short stretch of water. As he neared, she reached up, slipping the straps of her bikini from her brown shoulders and—

  The phone rang loudly. The dream shredded and left Sid clawing for the nightstand. He jerked around in his bed. Bits of beach, sun, water, and girl drained away as he fumbled for the receiver and rasped, “Yeah?”

  “Sid? It’s Lymon.”

  “Fuck! It’s … uh, five in the morning!” He got one eye half focused on the digital alarm clock beside the bed.

  “It’s about Christal … . She’s been kidnapped.”

  “What?” Sid sat up, aware of Claire groaning as she rearranged her pillow and curled away from him. “Who’d kidnap Christal?”

  “There was a paparazzo there. He got pictures. A whole roll of them. It’s a bunch of people loading Christal into a van. She looks drugged, drunk, or otherwise not herself. Oh, and Sid?”

  Sid ran a hand over his face. “Yeah?” His mind was staggering, trying to comprehend through the cobwebs of sleep. He kept stumbling over how nonsensical it sounded.

  “One of the guys manhandling her into the van is Hank Abrams.”

  Lymon rode his big Indian into the circular drive fronting Sheela’s house and pulled to a stop behind Tony’s Z8 BMW. Rex’s red Ferrari squatted like a menacing wedge at the edge of the steps.

  “Well,” Lymon quipped as he kicked the sidestand out and turned off the ignition, “the Bobbsey Twins are here.”

  “Right! Just what I need after the last twenty hours.” Sheela straightened a leg and stepped off before she began fiddling with the D rings on her helmet. “Maybe they’re busy at the pool and we can sneak in without them knowing. We’ll tiptoe up to my room and crash.”

  “After what we’ve been through, do you think you could sleep?”

  “Sleep? In the classical sense? No. But I’m going to fall face-first onto the floor if I don’t lie down.” She lifted her helmet off and shook her head to free her braid. Her face looked lined and gray, making her appear ten years older than she was. “God, I’m worried sick, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt his exhausted and wrung out.”

  At that moment, Rex Gerber opened the front door.

  “Trick or treat,” Lymon said softly as he stepped off the bike and undid his own helmet. He could feel the heat in Rex’s gaze as he followed Sheela up the steps. Something in the man’s look reminded him of the time he’d got an under-aged date back to her father’s house two hours after midnight On irate impulse, Lymon said, “Hi, Dad,” as he passed Rex.

  “Yuck it up, asshole,” Rex muttered. Then he turned to Sheela, who stepped into the coatroom and hung up her helmet and leather jacket. “Sheela, can I have a word with you.”

  It surprised Lymon when she whirled, a finger spearing toward Rex’s face. “I’m not up for your bullshit right now, Rex. Someone kidnapped Christal last night.”

  Rex backed away from the finger, frowned, and then blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me. Lymon and I saw it.” She reached back and began pulling her hair out of the French braid. “We’ve got pictures.”

  “Kidnapped?” Rex repeated.

  “Someone got into her apartment last night and carried her away. We’ve spent the whole night alternately talking to the police and the FBI. Like I said, we’ve got it on film. And Rex, you’re going to love this. The woman that Christal calls Copperhead, the one that sliced a chunk out of Manny’s dick and copped my tampon? She’s there. So is the mousy one, the one Christal said was called Gretchen. The paparazzo that snapped the pictures was using a really good infrared film.”

  “You’re not kidding?”

  “Sorry, Rex.” Lymon set his helmet on the foyer’s marble table. “It’s as real as it gets.”

  Rex seemed to mull over the words, then nodded to himself. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I liked her. Lymon, I hope you get her back.”

  “That’s it?” Lymon asked, propping his hands on his hips.

  “Well, she’s your employee. I don’t see where this should involve Sheela.”

  “But it does,” Sheela shot back. “I hired her. I made that decision that day in the meeting room. We sent her after the people who tried to mug me in the hotel in New York. Then she stumbled over them at the Wilshire, and again at Manny’s. Now, it appears, she made them a little too nervous. She’s in this mess because of me!”

  Rex put out placating hands. “Yes, yes, all right. We’ll put the best people we can on it. But Sheela, let’s talk to Dot first, see what kind of spin we can put on this. There ought to be a way to make a win-win situation out of it.”

  Sheela blinked, wavered on her feet, and would have flown at Rex but for Lymon’s restraining hand. He calmed her, saying, “Easy, Sheela.”

  Rex backpedaled, smiling. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was so rough. All night with the police? The FBI? Damn, Sheela, I wish you would have called. I could have come down, lent my weight to—”

  “Shut up, Rex. I’m tired. It’s been a long two weeks, okay? When a guy named Delangelo shows up please have a check for seventy-five thousand for him. I bought his camera.”

  “Seventy-five thousand? For a camera?”

  She waved him off, starting for the stairs, only to have Tony walk out of the main room, a script in his hand.

  “Hey, cool! Sheela, babe, we gotta talk! I’ve been on the phone with Jerry. He really wants to spot you for Giant. You read the script, right? I mean, it cooks! I think you ought to jump on this, babe. It’s got your fingerprints all over it.”

  “Tony,” she muttered, “fuck off.” She started up the stairs, then hesitated, looked back, and said, “Lymon? You coming?”

  “Right behind you,” he added, shooting Rex a neutral glance.

  “What the hell’s that all about?” Tony asked.

  “Someone put the bag on Christal last night,” Rex said. He sounded confused.

  “Huh? What do you mean put the bag on?”

  “As in kidnapped. You got that? Someone abducted Christal.”

  “No way!” Then a short pause, and Tony said, “Abducted? Seriously? Weird shit, man.”

  Lymon shook his head, following on Sheela’s heels. At the top of the stairs, he glanced back. Tony had a deeply pensive expression, his brow furrowed as if processing unsettling information. The look in Rex’s eyes barely veiled the anger and frustration seething within him.

  Anger? Sure. Lymon seemed to have the inside track. But where had the frustration come from?

  When he closed the bedroom door behind him, he stopped short, suddenly terribly unsure of himself. Where the hell was this leading? Sheela seemed completely oblivious to the way this was going to look to the folks downstairs as she called, “Lock the door.”

  Lymon found the latch and watched her as she collapsed onto the chaise and bent to pull her heavy boots off. After the last one thumped onto the floor, she stared at him, face haggard, eyes listless, her hands hanging limply from her knees. “I’m worn through, Lymon. I have nothing left. If I have to deal with one more crisis, no matter how small, I’m going to break down and bawl like a baby.”

  He walked over and offered his hand. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  Instead she lifted one leg suggestively. “These leather pants are a bitch. Pull.”

  He did, helping her to slide them off. Then she stood and began unbuttoning her blouse as she walked toward the rear. “Come on, Lymon. It’s not the way I always dreamed of leading you to my bedroom. It was always supposed to be a romantic seduction with expensive cognac, candlelight, and soft music.”

  He followed her into her refuge, staring around at the beautiful furnishings. The room was soft, white, and large. Against one wall a fluffy canopy bed sported huge frilly pillows. The dressers held knickknacks and photos of her family and old friends. The only other star to be seen was Morgan Freeman. When Sheela saw him looking at it, she added, “He saved my life once. Talked me through a bad situation.”

  Sheela dropped her
shirt on the floor and walked over to the bed. Her nimble fingers unplugged the cord from the back of the phone. She tossed one of the big pillows to the side and threw back the covers. Unabashed, she undid her bra and let it slip away before pulling an oversized T-shirt from a top drawer. She glanced at him as she pulled it on. “Are you as tired as I am?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m too worried.”

  She crawled under the covers, patting the bed. “Come lie here beside me. Clothes on or off, I don’t care. I just need you close, Lymon. I have to know you’re here.”

  “Sheela, if I crawl in there …”

  “It’ll be like necrophilia,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I won’t feel a thing. I’ll be asleep before you can pry my legs apart.”

  He frowned, kicked off his boots, and slid under the covers, feeling awkward in his clothes. It seemed sacrilege to be wearing street clothes while encased in her spotless white linens—but a whole lot safer than the alternative. A curious giddy feeling tightened at the base of his throat. The sheets were smooth, scented, and his hard body sank in the bedding.

  She made a purring sound. “Promise me you’ll stay close?”

  “I promise.”

  She snuggled against him, her hand slipping across his chest. He was remembering her body as she changed into her sleep shirt. She’d looked like a goddess. But an image of Christal wedged into his weary brain. Here he was, safe and comfortable beside the woman he loved. And Christal? Where was she? Scared? Frightened? To torment him, his imagination pictured her bound, gagged, as one man after another crawled on top of her naked body.

  “She’s my friend, Lymon,” Sheela whispered, as if she shared his thoughts. “She never asked anything of me. She didn’t want anything from me. Just you, and her, in the whole world.”

  “We’ll find her,” he said softly. “She’s one of my people. I don’t leave my people behind.”

  “Just hold me.” Sheela pressed her body against him.

  “I might embarrass myself,” he said, kissing the side of her head.