She had no warning that the trap she’d suspected was about to snap shut.
Not until a crippling pain exploded in the back of her head and the world went dark.
Waiting until Callie disappeared into the building, Duncan walked with a commanding purpose across the parking lot, his hand deliberately on his gun. If the lurker was a run-of-the-mill drug dealer he’d take off. They always did when confronted by an authority figure. Duncan could call it in and get back to Callie.
If it wasn’t... well, he’d dealt with scumbags before.
And the man hiding behind the Dumpster had all the earmarks of being a class A scumbag.
Halting with his back to a nearby car so no one could sneak up on him, he studied the blunt features that tugged at a distant memory.
This man had crossed his path before. Not uncommon. Duncan spent a lot of time on the streets, dealing with a lot of different people. It was rare that he didn’t see someone he’d encountered before. Either a criminal or a victim or just an eyewitness.
“What’s your name?” he demanded, not bothering to flash his badge. No need to make it official.
Yet.
“Tony,” the man muttered, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow.
Nerves? Guilt? Something worse? Only one way to find out.
“You have a reason for lurking in my parking lot, Tony?”
Tony licked thick lips, glancing toward the apartment building. “I wasn’t lurking. I was—”
“Yeah?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Me?” He frowned. “Why?”
“You’re a cop, right?”
“I am.”
“I have information for you.”
Duncan remained wary. In his experience confidential informants didn’t hide in parking lots waiting for a cop to appear.
And how the hell had he known where he lived?
Duncan covertly tightened his grip on his gun. “What kind of information?”
“I heard you’re looking for a necro.”
Duncan sucked in a sharp breath. “How did you know that?”
The man once again glanced toward the apartment building. As if looking for something.
Or someone.
“Word gets around.”
No. Word didn’t get around. Not to low-level criminals.
Cold spikes of suspicion pierced his heart.
This wasn’t right.
“Okay.” He angled his body so he could keep watch on the apartment building as he began to back away, his inner alarms screeching a belated warning. “Meet me at the police station in half an hour and we’ll talk.”
“No.” With an unexpected lunge, Tony grabbed Duncan’s arm. “Wait.”
Duncan pulled his gun, pointing it between the bastard’s eyes. “Let go of me.”
Tony’s dark eyes widened with fear, but he tenaciously held on. “I have to tell you now.”
There was a distracting flare of light as the sun reflected off the glass door of the apartment building. Turning his head, Duncan watched as it was shoved open and his heart came to a brutal halt.
Callie.
Stunned, his attention turned to the man who was carrying her limp body in the opposite direction.
Was that...
“Frank,” he muttered in confusion, the world moving in slow motion as he watched his longtime friend carrying Callie toward a car parked next to his own.
It didn’t make sense.
Okay, Frank might have said some stupid things in a misguided need to protect Duncan, but he was a man of honor. He would never hurt an unarmed female just because he didn’t like high-bloods.
Never.
So what the hell was going on?
His sluggish brain struggled for a reasonable explanation.
Had Frank found Callie collapsed and was hurrying her to the hospital?
Had he realized Callie was in danger and was trying to protect her?
Had he...
His eyes narrowed as Frank walked directly in front of a car entering the parking lot, his head never turning even when the driver gave a blast of his horn.
“What the hell—?” Duncan breathed, a savage fear ripping through his heart. In that minute he realized there was more wrong with his friend than just his weird behavior. His aura was distorted.
As if the spark of life that danced around him in swirls of color had been sucked dry to leave behind an empty soul.
He was... a walking cadaver. There was no other explanation. “Shit.” Yanking his arm free from Tony’s grasp, he charged across the parking lot, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Callie.”
Focused on reaching Frank before he could put Callie in the car and disappear, Duncan dismissed Tony from his thoughts. The thug had clearly been nothing more than a distraction. He would deal with him once Callie was safe.
But with a speed that was shocking for a man with his bulk, Tony bulldozed into Duncan from behind, knocking him to the ground.
“Goddammit,” Duncan growled, swinging his arm backward to hit Tony in the side of his head with the butt of his gun.
The man cursed, but grimly held on, his harsh grunts filling the air.
“It’s too late,” he panted. “It’s too late for all of us.”
Struggling to dislodge the man, Duncan managed to swivel around far enough to point the gun between his eyes.
“Let me go or I’ll blow your brains out.”
The man laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Go ahead. It will be a relief to the fate waiting for me.”
Fuck.
There was nothing worse than a perp with a death wish.
Especially when that perp had information he might need.
Hissing with frustration, he resisted the desire to squeeze the trigger and instead pulled back to whack him again with the butt of the gun.
There was a dull crack as Tony’s skull fractured and a gash appeared in the middle of his forehead, but insanely he continued to hold on.
Duncan growled in frustration. Enough. He was done screwing around.
Pressing his finger on the trigger, he was a breath from shooting Tony when his dark eyes crossed and the buffoon at last slumped to the side.
With a groan Duncan heaved the dead weight off him and surged to his feet.
His gaze desperately scanned the parking lot, terror gripping his heart as he caught sight of a silver car with Frank behind the wheel hurtling in his direction.
Callie...
She had to be in the car.
Raising his gun, he fired directly at the windshield, holding his ground even as the car picked up speed, clearly determined to run him over.
No. Christ, no.
This couldn’t be happening.
Emptying his gun, he cursed as he realized the bullets were worthless against Frank. It was as if his corpse simply absorbed the damage and reformed.
Tossing aside the weapon, Duncan braced himself. He would jump onto the hood of the car and crawl through the shattered windshield.
Almost as if sensing Duncan’s intention, Frank swerved at the last minute, taking the car out of reach.
“Shit.”
With a superhuman effort, Duncan lunged toward the car, his fingertips grasping the handle of the back door. Desperately he tried to keep pace as he wrenched on the handle, his shoulder twisting out of joint when Frank whipped the car sharply to the left.
The momentum of the car yanked him off his feet and he lost his grip on the handle as he went flying backward. Still airborne, he clipped his temple on the back bumper, gouging a deep wound before he was flung to the pavement.
Roaring in pained fury, he forced himself to his knees, not even noticing the body of Tony lying just feet away. Not until a sluggish stream of blood ran down the pavement to pool directly in front of him.
Oh... hell.
Frank hadn’t been swerving to avoid Duncan.
He’d been running over the unconscious Tony.
Leave no accomplice behind ... That was obviously the motto of the unknown necro.
At least not one who could talk.
And this one most certainly wouldn’t be talking.
With a shudder, Duncan studied the mutilated body. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that Tony was dead. Not only had the front tires crushed his chest, but the back tires had nearly decapitated him.
Any information they could have got about where Frank was taking Callie or even the plans of the necromancer was gone.
The inane thoughts whizzed through his head even as he stumbled to his feet, running toward the curb.
Too late, too late, too late ...
The damning words were playing through his mind as a heavy black truck screeched to a halt in front of him and Fane was shoving open the door.
“Where’s Callie?” he growled.
The world was spinning in a funny way, but Duncan grimly struggled to answer. “They have her,” he managed to rasp, wondering why the side of his face felt damp.
It hadn’t started to rain when he wasn’t paying attention, had it?
Lifting his hand, he touched the warm stickiness, pulling his fingers back to reveal them coated in red.
Not rain. Blood.
Then it came to him.
Oh yeah.
Head vs. Bumper.
Head loses.
That was his last semicoherent thought before collapsing in Fane’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Callie cautiously opened her eyes and glanced around.
She wasn’t sure what she expected.
A crypt? A dungeon? A spooky castle complete with Renfield?
Instead she discovered she was in a high-tech lab.
Somehow, the sight wasn’t remotely reassuring.
With all the gleaming metal and clinical white it made her think of a morgue for a creepy modern day Frankenstein.
Climbing off the stainless steel gurney she’d been lying on, Callie forced herself to take slow steady breaths as her gaze skimmed around the large room.
Steel cabinets. A long counter with a sink. White tiled floor and a high ceiling with fluorescent lights. Along the far wall were a line of walk-in coolers that she had no intention of investigating.
No windows.
One door that she swiftly discovered was locked.
Which severely limited her avenues of escape.
Accepting she was stuck for now, Callie turned her search to finding a weapon.