Korbin slipped up the wooden stairs and into the house with Carlos and Rae on his heels. The toasty smell of logs burning somewhere inside swept through the warm air. At around four thousand square feet, the building fell short of spectacular by wealthy standards, but the owner wasn’t slumming either.
When Carlos reached the first landing, he motioned with hand signals for Korbin and Rae to deal with the guards on the main floor, secure the building.
Taking down a guard should cheer up Rae.
As Korbin and Rae started to move, shouts in the house froze all three of them. One guard was yelling to the other in Spanish, “She’s bleeding…get me bandages-”
Carlos took the lead, waving to Korbin and Rae to follow him, until they reached a hallway where they were faced with the option of going up a wide staircase to the third floor or to the kitchen on the right.
Drawers were being opened and slammed shut in the kitchen, followed by cursing between two men.
Carlos sent Korbin and Rae to the right, then he raced softly up the stairs. At the next landing, he caught a deep voice muttering snarled curses down the hall to his left. Carlos followed the sound to a room where the sharp smell of fresh blood hit him as he quickly took in the scene.
A massive guard in a black turtleneck and matching cargo pants intent on his task was hunched next to a heavy mahogany bed. Chunks of broken glass from a shattered water goblet lay on the nightstand and the floor as if the drinking glass had been struck against the edge. A shock of blond hair spilled over the side of the bed alongside the man’s leg.
Carlos slipped his knife from its sheath and entered silently. He moved two whispered steps and reached for a fist of thick, black hair. As he whipped the man’s head back, exposing his throat to the razor-sharp blade, Carlos got a clear shot of a young woman lying still as death-Mandy-her wrists bleeding profusely. Merde.
The guard arched up, but Carlos finished the kill before the man’s next breath and shoved him out of his way, then checked for a pulse on Mandy. Weak, but she wasn’t dead. Yet. He yanked up the flannel bed linen covering her limp body and started hacking several long strips. The teenager’s camo T-shirt barely moved with each faint breath. Her gray bottoms looked like a child’s pj’s.
The white sheet had more color than her bloodless face.
Damn those bastards for whatever caused her to do this.
“All clear,” Korbin announced, entering the room with Rae.
Carlos nodded, too busy trying to keep Mandy alive to answer. At least radio silence was no longer an issue now with the resistance neutralized.
“Find a snowmobile suit,” Carlos ordered.
“I saw one downstairs.” Rae snapped out the statement on her way out the door.
Korbin lifted Mandy’s wrist, allowing Carlos to bandage her faster and finish by the time Rae raced back in with a snowsuit that would swallow the teen. Exactly what Carlos wanted. He crossed her arms over her chest to keep the injuries above her heart, then used more sheet sections to wrap her arms to her body so they wouldn’t flop around.
They used the suit like a cocoon, sliding Mandy inside and leaving nothing exposed. Carlos lifted her into his arms and followed Korbin out the door. Rae covered everyone’s back down the hallway to the stairs.
“All clear here, we’re heading out,” Carlos said into his commo transmitter for Gotthard’s benefit. “Package is damaged. Fire up the rides.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Carlos cursed. “Check for-”
“-marks on the bodies,” Rae finished. “The three I searched all had the tattoo on the left chest area.”
Carlos never slowed on his way to the garage, thrumming with the urge to see the bodies himself if not for one problem.
He couldn’t question another team member’s assessment.
And he sure as hell couldn’t explain why he had to see the tattoos for himself.
The informant had been dead-on. How? He’d kill for some time alone with Mirage, who’d been so accurate about the kidnappers, the teenager, and this location, about everything right down to the Anguis. Anyone who knew that much about the Anguis family probably had an ax to grind with them.
And anyone who knew that much about the Anguis was a threat to Carlos’s existence and the secret he shielded. Durand killed anyone in his path, especially a snitch, so how could the informant have known Anguis business well enough to rat him out and still live?
Carlos growled deep in his throat. If only the tips had come through early enough for his team to reach this child before she slit her wrists. He prayed she’d live.
In the garage, Gotthard had the overhead door open and the snowmobiles outside and running. “Sandman sent the signal for the helo to meet us at the extraction point in one hour,” he told Carlos, who nodded, hoping Mandy would survive that long.
The chopper would have a medic on board, but she might need more blood than they normally carried. He handed Mandy to Gotthard. “Strap her to my back.”
Carlos pulled his goggles back into place and settled on the lead snowmobile with his feet on the running boards.
Gotthard wrapped Mandy’s snowsuited body around him, fastening the long, empty sleeves in front of his chest with a wire tie. Carlos felt a belt looped around his chest, drawn just tight enough to snug her close to him.
Gotthard secured her legs and slapped Carlos’s arm. “Go.”
Carlos thumbed the accelerator sharply, grimacing over how lifeless her body lay against his back when the machine roared into action. He glanced behind him once more to see the other snowmobiles following, loaded with his team.
All alive and accounted for. Mission accomplished.
Except for the chance to inspect the bare chests of the guards. To see if they only had a snake-and-dagger tattoo over their heart marking them as Anguis soldiers or if a scar intersected the tattoo as well, indicating they were blood-related to Durand Anguis.
Just like the scar across the same tattoo on his chest.
INSIDE THE CHATEAU’S garage, the washtub moved up on one side then slid off the trapdoor to the basement. Pushing the trapdoor harder, the man lifted his head up and took in the silent room now empty except for the Land Rover. That had flat tires.
He sighed and withdrew a cell phone.
Report first. Find transportation next.
His boss was not going to be happy.
THREE
GABRIELLE’S NECK HURT. Her arms hurt. Everything hurt.
A dream shouldn’t hurt, should it?
She fought through layers of drowsiness, struggling to open her eyes. Sleep pulled at her, but some annoying sound kept poking at her to wake up.
…cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.
The clock. How many times had that bird chirped?
Her brain flickered to life. She lifted her head from the desk. She swallowed against the icky taste in her mouth and rubbed her sore eyes, blinking to focus. Fish swam across the monitor screen on her laptop. Life should be so happy and free.
The smile she started to indulge vanished.
Computer. Bulletin boards. Mandy!
She reached for the mouse, moved it, and tapped, bringing up the message board. She read quickly. Thank God.
They-whoever had received her first warning on Mandy-had asked for more help last night, specifics on the chateau and the Anguis. She couldn’t add anything new on the chateau, but after convincing herself Mandy’s life
