Page 29

CHAPTER 29

“They’re hired mercenaries,” Caine said.

He, Costa, and Diana were sitting on the porch of the ranch house with cups of coffee as night began to fade, the sky lightening to gray above them and details beginning to emerge from the darkness.

The ranch was a whirlwind of activity as SCB agents cleaned up the scene and ushered handcuffed suspects to two vans. The aunts and Uncle Rodrigo had gone to bed after being debriefed—very eagerly debriefed, as they were happy to talk about their part in all the excitement. Uncle Roddy had been especially delighted and vindicated by the success of his traps.

Costa was starting to experience the adrenaline crash that usually came in the wake of frantic activity, and could feel weariness creeping up on him, a reaction to the last few days as well as the previous night.

“Mercenaries hired by whom?” he asked, realizing that his attention was drifting. Diana’s hand rested on his arm; she had moved her chair close to his. That was distracting, as well.

“Still working on that,” Caine said. “But it’s definitely related to the underground shifter fights.” His gaze, behind the sunglasses he was wearing in spite of the fact it was barely dawn, dropped to Diana’s hand resting on Costa’s arm and then flicked away. “Oh, and with everything else going on, I haven’t had a chance to tell you this yet. You will be interested to know there’s been some headway on getting information out of the scientists and other personnel arrested at the lab in Alamagordo. Specifically, they know what the substance is that Diana was injected with. Maybe not its exact composition, but what it’s meant for.”

There was a small gasp from Diana, and her hand tightened on Costa’s arm. “What is it?”

“It’s unlikely to hurt you, for one thing,” Caine said. “It affects shifters in their shift form, and produces unpredictable and temporary effects.”

“Unpredictable?” Costa said, and “Temporary?” Diana said at the same moment. She sounded disappointed.

The corners of Caine’s mouth twitched. “Yes. It’s meant to be used in the shifter fighting rings, as a sort of—well, I guess you’d call it a kind of doping. Shifter steroid use.”

“We were speculating it might be something like that,” Costa mused. “Vic thought so. According to him, shifters on the fighting circuit have their shift forms and capabilities tracked, so anything that throws a monkey wrench into that could make some serious money for someone who knew it was going to happen.”

Caine nodded. “From what we’ve managed to get out of the scientists, that’s exactly it. They’re still working on the formula, and as you found out, Diana, the side effects can be unpleasant.”

“No kidding,” Diana said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to fight in the state I was in at first. Kinda getting on board with it now, though. How long exactly is temporary ?”

“That’s another thing that’s still in flux as they work on the formula. Maybe a few days to a few weeks.”

“Farley’s going to be disappointed to hear that he’s losing his wings,” Costa said. He grinned, but the grin slowly faded as he thought about the other set of maybe-temporary wings on the ranch. “What about Emmeline—that is, the little girl? She’s another test subject, isn’t she?”

“Ah, that’s where things get interesting.” The speaker was Mavis, coming up the steps with her medical bag in one hand. “Yes, I’m still making house calls,” she added to Costa. “Nice place out here. Pretty country. One of these days, I’d love to see it in daylight.”

“It’s starting to look like I’m going to host the next SCB company picnic out here,” Costa said. He realized that his hand had moved over to cover Diana’s while they were talking, as he noticed Mavis looking at it. He defiantly curled his fingers around Diana’s. “Now what’s interesting, exactly?”

“Emmeline,” Mavis said. “That’s what you’re calling the little girl?”

“Yeah.” Costa found himself suddenly defensive. “Does it matter?”

“It matters in the sense that we know who she is now.” Mavis pulled a chair over. “And her real name is Madison Tyler.”

“Madison,” Diana breathed. “Well, it starts with an M.”

Costa couldn’t sort out what he was feeling. Madison. It was nice to know after so long, but it was strange to think of her as anything other than Emmeline.

But she had a family somewhere. Loved ones who missed her, who she deserved to go back to.

“Her family must be frantic,” he said. “Was she abducted?”

“She turned up in the search for missing children that the interns have been running,” Mavis explained. As she spoke, she took out a blood pressure cuff and gestured for Diana to provide an arm. Diana rolled her eyes but did so. “She went missing from a foster home in a Phoenix suburb a couple of months ago.”

“Foster care?” Diana asked, as Mavis firmly repositioned her arm and checked the reading on the cuff. “What about her parents?”

“Not in the picture. Teen mom who gave her up and severed parental rights shortly after birth, father’s unknown, and probably the one who was the shifter. She was slated to be adopted by a couple in Phoenix, but that fell through when she vanished, and they’re currently adopting another child. We think,” Mavis added, briskly removing the cuff after making a note of the reading, “that someone in the foster system was paid off to find and supply a shifter child to the lab.”

Costa felt a hot surge of fury. “Do we know who?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.” Mavis also looked angry.

“That’s horrible,” Diana said, her voice a near-snarl. “Has it happened to any other kids?”

“Not that we know about at the present time. Now that we’re watching out for it, we can be on guard against it. Nicole Yates was saying that she and the Seattle SCB are working on a system for better tracking of shifter children in foster care, since they have special needs that most children don’t. So this will provide a good incentive to get her project moving, as well as giving us a way to help prevent such things happening in the future.”

Caine had listened to all of this quietly with his fingers laced together between his knees. Abruptly he spoke up. “Why a child, instead of an adult test subject?”

“Ah, yes, that’s where it gets truly interesting, in an awful way. For adults who have come into their full shifting capabilities, it’s temporary. But the head researcher from the lab—I refuse to dignify her with the term ‘scientist’—told me that children, and especially young children who haven’t come into their shifting yet, might be permanently changed. They were only starting to explore that option, and Emmeline, or Madison, seems to be the only test subject they have so far.”

“And the only one they’ll ever have,” Costa said with conviction.

“Indeed.”

“Do we know how she got on the plane?” Diana asked.

Caine spoke up. “It’s pure speculation so far, but it’s safe to assume she was picked up from the lab in Alamagordo to be transported somewhere else. The flight safety agencies have closed the case on the crash as an accident, but the SCB is running a set of toxicology reports on the deceased pilot. We may never know exactly what happened on that plane, but there’s a good chance the pilot had a fatal attack of conscience when he found out the cargo was a kid, and they decided to get rid of him, one way or another.”

Mavis nodded, scowling. “And then cover up their mess later with you, Diana.”

“Lucky me,” Diana said. But right now, leaning on Costa’s shoulder with his hand over hers, she did feel lucky.

“I’m going to guess that somewhere among the lab security guards, we’ll find a doped shifter or two, as well as someone who matches the description of whoever was asking your paramedic friend about you, Diana.” Caine stretched and stood up. “On that note, I’m going home before the sun comes up.”

“Night,” Costa said cheerfully. “Say hi to Gilly for us.”

Caine wandered into the house, presumably to find a dark place. Mavis consulted her notes.

“To answer a question you’ve probably forgotten you asked,” she said to Diana, “yes, it’s possible Emmeline, or Madison, might keep the wings. Or perhaps they will fade over time. She may even develop other abilities we don’t know about yet.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” Diana asked.

Mavis looked at Costa, who shrugged and said, “I think that’s up to us. She could go back into the foster system, but I don’t recommend it unless we can find a shifter household as a placement for her.”

“Or,” Diana said quietly, “someone could adopt her.”

“Yes,” Mavis said. She smiled. “Someone could adopt her.”

* * *

After the agents had left and the ranch was once more calm, Diana and Costa went up to the saguaro cabin, where they made slow, lingering love in the rumpled bed. As if their entire lives had been foreplay, it was long and gentle, with care and attention to every part of each other’s bodies.

Afterwards, they slept curled up against each other, and woke in the drowsing heat of afternoon. Outside, life on the ranch seemed to be going on as usual. There were voices calling to each other, the snorts of the horses, the bleating cry of a goat, the sound of an engine running somewhere.

“So, just to make sure we’re on the same page,” Diana said as they dressed after a lazy, shared shower that they stepped out of only when the cabin’s small hot water tank ran empty and the rust-smelling water turned lukewarm. “We are together now, right? I mean, officially together.”

Costa laughed. “We were always officially together.” He hesitated. “You do—want it, don’t you?”

Diana rolled her eyes in tolerant annoyance. “Quinn, I just had you in every possible way. Of course I want it.”

“Oh, good.” He breathed out on a sigh of relief, and then swept her into his arms, making her squeal and laugh. He loved that laugh. He could listen to it forever. “Kiss me, woman.”

“We’re an actual couple for five minutes and you’re already referring to me as ‘woman’? This bodes ill.” But she kissed him with enthusiastic willingness. Pulling away, she started to laugh.

“If you’re talking ill omens, I think the fact that you’re laughing at my kissing technique is another one.”

“No, no.” Diana shoved him playfully, still laughing so hard she could barely speak. When she sobered enough to be more coherent, she explained, “I was just wondering if we’re going to tell everyone—you know? How on earth are we going to explain the anniversaries?”

“They already thought it was the world’s longest courtship. I mean, in some sense it was.”

“True.” Diana’s urge to laugh seemed to die as she considered this. Reaching out, she squeezed his hand. “Thank you for waiting for me to come to my senses.”

“Really? I should be thanking you. World’s most patient woman, right here.”

They walked out into the late afternoon heat, hand in hand. It was clear from the rising temperatures that the end of spring was near, and summer’s oven would soon be upon them, stealing the flowers and the mild weather for another year. But you appreciated things more, sometimes, when you didn’t have them every day, Costa felt. If the desert bloomed year round, the flowers wouldn’t be so special.

“What do you think about Em?” Diana asked quietly.

“Adopting her, you mean?” He paused, thinking around the reality of it before giving an answer. “You know, I think for a long time I’ve been afraid something would happen to me like happened to Marco—I mean, I’m not afraid for me, but for anyone I might leave behind.”

“Is that why you never got married? Had kids?”

“I was also waiting for the right woman to come along.” He squeezed her hand. “Not quite realizing that she already had. But yeah, I think I was, and now—I keep waiting for that fear to materialize, and it doesn’t. Does that make sense?”

“It does, yeah. I feel like there’s something about the way Em just fell into our lives that made it feel as if it’s meant to be. Do you feel that way?”

“I don’t know about meant to be. I do know that I think I’m ready to open a new chapter in my life.”

“Me too,” Diana said, and she was gazing off the porch, across the arroyo at the sun-bleached sprawl of her old family ranch. “Me too.”