One Foot in the Grave

office.”

Don gave me a look of thinly veiled annoyance, but picked up his phone and placed the call.

“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

I slammed the door behind me.

If Tate expected me to be quivering on my couch when he opened my door, he was disappointed. Coolly I sat behind my desk and waved a hand at the door.

“Shut it.”

Tate closed it and then folded his arms across his chest.

“I came like you asked, but you can save your breath, Cat. Nothing you say will change anything. We caught him red-handed at your mother’s. She’s lucky to be alive, if you can see past your concern over your lover to be bothered with that.”

He looked mildly disgusted with me, yet his heartbeat still accelerated when I went to stand near him.

“Oh, I care more than you imagine, Tate. Not just about him, but about you as well. That’s why I’m going to ask you this first, and hope you do the right thing. Take Juan with you and let him out. Then we’re locking down the building in emergency mode and finding out who our mole is. We can do this two ways, but it will get done.”

His nostrils flared as he shook his head. “You’ve lost your mind, Cat. Just absolutely lost it! God, no fuck can be worth throwing your life away for-”

“I love him,” I interrupted.

He cursed viciously before finishing with “Now I know you’re crazy! You’ve only been seeing him a couple weeks and you think you’re in love? That’s fucking nuts!”

He grasped my shoulders and gave me a hard shake. I just closed my hands over his.

“Tate, once you accused me of not trusting anyone. You were right-I haven’t. I’m going to trust you now, though, and I hope you’ll trust me. When you saw him today, when you looked in his eyes and really saw him…didn’t he look familiar?”

“Of course he did. I’ve been over that goddamn video for hours! And I’m the one who spotted him outside your house the other night.”

I tightened my hands. “Not from last night or the video. Further back. To be fair, you only saw him for a second, but it was a memorable one. After all, you shot him. Right before the car plowed into him.”

“That’s-”

Tate stopped. A growing look of awareness dawned on his features. He stared at me with widening eyes, and then his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line.

“Well.” The word was soft. “Didn’t you play us all for fools, Catherine Crawfield?”

I took in a deep breath. “It’s Bones, the vampire I told you I’d loved and killed in Ohio, but I didn’t kill him. I left him and passed another body off as his. I hadn’t seen him until recently, when he was at Denise’s wedding. This was all a setup today to get Bones in here so he could find the turncoat. He knew if he went to my mother’s that she’d call in the troops, and I’d told him the only way in was that capsule or dead. Bones chose the capsule, despite the risk that he might be killed once he was strapped inside.”

Tate still looked shell-shocked. “I almost did kill him. I had him in those restraints, and I knew all I had to do was shake him and those spikes would shred his heart. Juan stopped me. He told me we were questioning him first before condemning him. It’s been over four years. You haven’t seen this vampire until recently, but you’ve been in love with him this whole time?”

“Yes.”

Tate laughed, a harsh little bark. “Of course you have. But that doesn’t mean I’m breaking every rule ever implemented about vampires to let him out.”

“He is getting out.” My fingers cut into his hands. “The only question is, will you be conscious when he does? You’re my friend, Tate. In many ways, my best friend, but I want to be very clear-I’ll get him out and destroy anyone in my way to do it. You. Juan. Don. Anyone. I want you with me, as my partner and my friend, but I will do it alone if I have no other choice.”

He looked like he wanted to slap me. “Goddamn you, Cat. Goddamn you! You’ve been with him a total of what? Six months? You’ve been by my side for over four fucking years! Is he worth that much to you? More than all you’ve fought for and all you’ve done? Think, for Christ’s sake!”

I stared straight into his eyes and didn’t hesitate. “Yes, he is. Maybe you don’t understand. Have you ever owed someone everything? All your strengths, all your victories, every last thing that’s meant anything in your life…and it can be traced back to one single person? That’s what Bones is to me.”

Tate suddenly yanked me closer. “You bitch, I do understand, because that’s what you are to me.”

I didn’t shove him back, but let him stand with only an inch between us. “If I passed on anything of value, it’s because I first learned it from him. So then you owe him, too.”

Something sparked in his midnight gaze even as his shoulders slumped. “I don’t owe him shit. But yeah…I owe you. Is this your price?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” Better to negotiate than beat him senseless.

“There’s more to it than opening that capsule, Cat. There are four levels of highly trained guards, and there will be an automatic lockdown as soon as someone spots a prisoner strolling the halls. He can’t green-eye all of them into submission; someone will trigger the alarm. You know this, you designed it!”

“That’s why you’re going down there nice and casual with Juan, and I’m going to stay up here and override the security.”

Tate moved away from me and started to pace. “Don changed your computer clearance as soon as he found out about you and the vampire. Your codes won’t work anymore. Even mine only go so far.”

Ignoring that, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed.

“Randy, we’re on schedule. In exactly ten minutes pull the plug. All levels except four and the connecting elevator back up to one. Full shutoff, prehistoric. Kiss Denise for me. I owe you.”

I hung up and gazed at Tate. “Go down now. In ten minutes, all the power will shut off and this place will be a tomb. Appropriate, don’t you think, since we are letting out a dead man. The only things that will work will be the ones I want to work. Did you really think after all these years I wouldn’t have left myself with some back-door passwords in case Don turned on me?”

He stood up with a look of disbelief.

“If you could do all of that, why did you bother to ask me for help?”

“You’re my friend,” I repeated, pulling open a desk drawer and then tucking the gun it held into my pants. “And I still want to lead this team, although none of you seem to believe that. Hurry, you only have nine minutes now…”

Denise had been correct about Randy. He was indeed a genius with computers. With the passwords I gave him, he’d hacked into the mainframe and dropped a virus that he remotely controlled. It froze out everything. Even the phones didn’t work. The neighboring cell phone tower, which intercepted our wireless signals, had also just experienced a power failure. My phone was satellite and still operated, and when the lights went out, I was the only one who didn’t gasp at the sudden dark. I just went to the elevator and waited.

When the doors slid open, Bones was right in front of me. I threw my arms around him even as I gave directions to Tate and Juan, who were backed warily into the far corner.

“Guard this door. No one gets close, not even Don.”

“What are you doing?” Tate asked as they stepped past us out of the elevator.

“Giving him blood. That box drained him. He needs a refill.”

“Cat, Jesus-”

I hit the manual button and the elevator doors closed, effectively cutting off Tate’s protests.

“I knew you’d come through, luv,” Bones said.

I hugged him hard. “God, I’ve been worried sick these past few hours!”

He kissed me, gently exploring every crevice of my mouth while running his hands over me. I clutched him, feeling sick over the multiple holes in his clothes where the silver prongs from the capsule had pierced him.