"Shut up for now. Act dazed."

It wasn't an act. He sank down to a sitting position on the gravel, cradling his aching head. His nose was b.l.o.o.d.y again, and he sniffed and wiped at it ineffectually. Other cars were stopping, including some big-rig trucks, and a crowd was gathering. Someone-a pretty little redhead in shorts and a baby-doll T-shirt-handed him a wet washcloth wrapped around ice cubes, which he pressed to his flooding nose. She asked him if he had any broken bones, and he told her he didn't know, which was perfectly true. Nothing hurt. Everything hurt. He was too confused to begin to diagnose how he felt.

And then he looked at Katie, standing nearby talking to two ma.s.sive tattooed truckers, and how he felt came into sharp, merciless focus.

They tried to kill us. He knew that was true. Someone had run their car off the road, and when that didn't finish them off, the driver had gotten out to put bullets in their heads.

He was getting kind of used to the idea that someone wanted him dead, but the idea that they had hurt Katie, would kill Katie, made something catch fire inside him, something slow burning and dark, thick with rage.

The two truckers finished their discussion with Katie and went around the car, picked up the unconscious trigger man as if he were a plastic bag and carried him off. Stefan didn't wonder where because he was watching as Katie limped toward him. Not much of a limp, just a slight hesitation in her step, a little favoring of her left leg. She had cuts on the left side of her face, probably from broken gla.s.s, and a new set of bruises darkening all along the lovely skin of her left arm.

That b.a.s.t.a.r.d could have killed her. No, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d almost certainly intended to kill her, and whether it happened before or after Stefan was dead probably was just tactics.

"Hey," she said, and reached out to move the ice pack to inspect the state of his face. "Not so bad."

He grabbed the second washcloth the redheaded good Samaritan was offering and pulled Katie down beside him, then began gently sponging the blood away from her face. The cuts weren't as bad as they'd looked-mostly shallow. One came dangerously near her eye.

"Stefan." She grabbed his wrist and took the washcloth from him gently. "I'm okay. We're both okay. Look, the guy had a shot at us, but he didn't get us, all right? We're fine."

He wanted to take her in his arms and protect her from all this, and he knew that was stupid; Katie was the protector, the one trained and ready to take on the bad guys. She'd probably call it male ego, but the impulse was so strong it made him ache.

"You were right," she said suddenly, and looked him straight in the eyes. "I saw it coming. Sometimes, I can see it coming. I think you need to teach me about how to handle that better."

He captured her hand back and kissed the soft skin of her palm, slightly damp from the washcloth. "I will," he promised. "Katie, I have something new on Teal. We need to get moving."

Katie, for answer, pointed to the car. The once-pristine sedan was a wreck, ready for the junkyard, still hissing steam and dripping fluids. "We're not going anywhere without wheels."

"Katie." He held on to her hand and regained her full attention. "We need to get moving. They're in Los Angeles. You said it yourself, by the time we get other people convinced that we know what we're talking about, it'll be too late. I think-I think they're handing them off to someone else. Soon."

"We need to wait for the police."

"And if we do, we end up stuck here for another two hours, and they'll be gone. Gone."

She went very still, searching his eyes, communicating things that neither one of them needed words to understand. She nodded. "I'll get us transportation."

"Wait," he said and reached out to pull the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin's gun from her waistband. She blinked, but didn't try to stop him. Stefan checked the clip, made sure the safety was engaged, and said, "You're an FBI agent. Whatever you've done so far, you can probably talk your way out of it, but fleeing the scene of an accident and stealing a car might be a career setback." He stuck it in the waistband of his own pants, at the back.

"I wasn't going to steal a car!"

"Commandeering? Same thing, only with a badge. Let me handle it. That way, you don't need to explain it later." He stood up, staggered, and braced himself on the redhead's shoulder. She was looking as if she regretted the whole idea, and her big blue eyes were darting around, looking for a quick exit. He gave her an edgy smile. "So. Are you heading to Los Angeles?"

"Yeah..." She drew it out, frowning.

"How does an extra thousand dollars sound to take on two pa.s.sengers?"

"Stefan!" Katie snapped. "She's not involved in this!"

"Would you like to be?" he asked the redhead and opened his wallet. "I've got about five hundred cash with me, but if you take me to an ATM I'll get the other five when we get to L.A."

The redhead's eyes had lit up like bonfires, but she was still frowning. "You're not, like, killers or anything, are you?"

Would someone actually answer yes to that? "No," he said. "FBI." And he flashed Katie's credentials, which he'd picked from her pocket during the showy removal of the gun.

The redhead looked awestruck. "Cool! I mean, yes, Officer, sure!"

Katie rolled her eyes-even though, with that b.u.mp on her forehead, it had to hurt-as the redhead bounced away. "You and women," she said.

Stefan kissed her lightly on her bruised forehead. "One woman, from this day forward," he said. "Come on. Let's catch a ride."

Chapter 10.

K atie was acutely aware that she had just broken several laws, not the least of which was leaving the scene of an accident; she phoned Menchaca, whom she was surprised to find was still actually accepting her calls, and explained it as best she could without actually mentioning things like psychic visions.

"Agent." He sighed. "This is not good. I'll talk to the CHP and see what I can work out for you, but they're not going to be happy."

"I'm in hot pursuit of a kidnapper, Captain."

"So you say. I have to say, Katie, the only thing that I see is you cutting a trail of destruction across the desert. If you're planning on ever coming back this way, I'd suggest flying." He paused for a moment; she imagined he was drinking coffee, and wished for a cup herself. "So let me get the facts straight. You were in hot pursuit of the kidnappers along I-10, and you were run off the road by an accomplice, who then tried to shoot you."

"Yes."

"And this accomplice is..."

"Under restraint at the accident scene."

"And your car?"

"I had to leave it." And boy, the Phoenix field office was going to kill her for that. "Engine block was cracked."

She heard a pen tapping on the hard surface of a desk. "This is the last favor for you, amiga."

"Last one I'll need," she said. "I promise. Thank you. And if you ever need anything-"

"I'll hold you to that. Buena suerte."

She needed all the good luck she could find, and said so before she thanked him again and hung up. Her second call-and pretty nearly her last, she thought as she spotted the glowing red battery bar on her phone-was to the Phoenix field office. It was a twenty-four-hour operation, but the agent who answered directed her to a voice mail, which was fine with her. The less explaining she had to do, the better, at the moment. That done, she called her boss.

Craig Evangelista answered the phone. He sounded wide-awake. "Katie?"

"Sir," she responded. "I got your message."

"Sorry, but you're wanted in here for a full report as quickly as possible. Where are you?"

"On my way to Los Angeles," she said. "About an hour out. I'll catch an early flight from LAX." She hesitated a second, then continued, "Any word when the task force is going to be on the ground?"

"They're already in Los Angeles," he said. "Landed there twenty minutes ago, deplaned and went straight to the local field office. They're organizing a briefing now. You should probably go straight there and hand over whatever intel you have."

"Yes, sir." Another waste of time, unfortunately; they'd question where she got every piece of information, and they weren't very likely to believe Stefan. Not until it was too late to do any good. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, Katie, you've got a h.e.l.l of an unpleasant few days coming up. I can't imagine OPR is going to give either one of us much of a break on this."

The Office of Professional Responsibility never did, really. She said her goodbyes and hung up, turned off the phone and dropped it into her purse.

Effectively cutting herself off from help-not that, at this point, help would be forthcoming, except the kind that would put her on the sidelines and then on a plane going home.

They were speeding along I-10 in a blue Volkswagen Beetle, and Katie was in the back-an uncomfortable position for someone with long legs. She adjusted her knees, winced, and leaned against the window for a moment. She wanted to rewind the time, go back to that blissful hour-or two-in the motel, when it was just her and Stefan, lost in light. The world was gritty, hard and unforgiving, and she hated that he was chatting up the redhead in the front seat, although to be fair he wasn't being more than pleasant. Katie couldn't imagine being as cute or perky as the girl driving the car, whose name, she learned, was Marine. Not Marina...Marine, like the sea.

She was definitely in California now.

"So," Marine was saying, "you're both FBI? Are you working on something exciting? Like terrorists?"

"Terrorists?" Stefan shook his head. "No. But we are looking for a gang of kidnappers. They've got two girls, both a few years younger than you."

"Oh," she said. "That's horrible. So, you have a helicopter, right? Or satellite tracking them or something?"

"Chances of a helicopter picking out one white van in Los Angeles aren't very good," Katie said. "And satellite tracking for kidnappers isn't exactly normal procedure." Although she wondered, now, if it was something that Athena Force-in particular, Allison Gracelyn-couldn't help out with arranging. "Stefan?"

He turned toward her, and she couldn't resist returning his smile, albeit briefly. "You said you had more information about Teal."

His smile faded. "I couldn't figure out what she was doing at first, but I think she's been trying to directly communicate with me for the last couple of times I made contact."

"Still just vision and emotions, right?"

"Right. Sometimes a little sound, but it never makes sense, it's just noise." Stefan shook his head. "She's signing messages. I should have picked up on it, but I thought she was sending them to Lena, not to me. I can't read sign language, but she's trying to tell me something."

"Can you remember the signs?" Katie asked. He concentrated briefly, then began slowly shaping the signs, moving his fingers into each position and holding it until she nodded for him to go on. "That's it?" she asked when he stopped.

"That's all I saw," he said. "Can you translate it?"

"SOS, and her name-Teal-and then call Athena Academy Glendale Arizona heading for Los Angeles. Unfortunately, nothing we didn't already know." He looked bitterly disappointed. "It's all right. She may give us more current information in the next contact. If you're willing-"

"Of course," he said quietly. "I can tell you that they're just outside of East Los Angeles, or they were before our crash. I recognized the area."

That was another benefit to having Stefan along, apart from his visions; he had native knowledge of the city, and he'd be quick to recognize landmarks and navigate them closer to the target.

"I have a suggestion," Stefan continued. "You're right about the danger of getting civilians involved in this, and Marine shouldn't be put in the middle."

She nodded for him to continue.

"A fast pit stop at my parents' house. It's on the way. I can pick us up a car, something fast."

"You can't drive and do-what it is you do," she pointed out.

"No, but you're a h.e.l.l of a driver, Katie." He gave her a sudden, startling flash of a smile. "I'll even trust you with the baby."

"The baby?"

Stefan turned to Marine without answering. "You know how to get to La Habra?"

"Sure," she said. "Is that where you live?" The girl was frankly checking him out. Katie suppressed a hot burst of irritation and gritted her teeth. Baby? What the h.e.l.l was he talking about?

"No," he said cheerfully. "My folks live there. Just get in the neighborhood, and I'll talk you in. There's an ATM on the way. I'll get the rest of your money, and you can drop us at the house."

Marine looked disappointed. Severely. Maybe she'd been hoping that his offer of payment would entail something else, maybe dinner and late-night entertainment. Which Katie wasn't at all sure it wouldn't have, had she not been along for the ride.

"Sure." Marine sighed and shook her long red hair back over her shoulders. "Man, just when my day was getting interesting. Say, you don't have any brothers at home, do you?"

"One," Stefan said. "But he's not at home. He's off saving the world."

Odd comment, Katie thought, but then Marine was asking about Stefan's family, and she was content to listen as he talked about his mother's psychic practice, his father's pet-whisperer talents, the cheerful chaos of his childhood. There was love in what he said, fondness that was impossible to fake. Stefan loved his family very much.

That, unexpectedly, made Katie's heart ache as she remembered the hole left in her by her absent mother. Stefan, d.a.m.n him, was bringing up all kinds of feelings in her-inconvenient feelings, at an extremely inappropriate time. And she couldn't seem to derail them, no matter what she tried. Something about him made her want to feel things, more than she had in many years. He seemed to feel so deeply, so easily, and even though it came with pain-she'd seen that-he accepted it as the price of something good.

She'd never had the courage to do that.

"Tell me about your brother," she said. Stefan, surprised, glanced back at her, then turned to face forward, to the road.

"Angelo. He's a doctor," he said. "The last I heard, he's in Darfur. He's the respectable one of the family. Well, not too respectable, or he'd be content with being a Beverly Hills doctor and raking in carloads of money. He gave that up two years ago, joined Doctors Without Borders, and we get postcards and e-mails from him when he remembers, usually one a month."

"You worry about him," Katie said.

"Of course I do. But he's happy now, and he didn't used to be, so..." Stefan shrugged. "A little pain for us, a good life for him. It's better."

Marine sighed happily. "I have got to meet your brother."

Stefan blandly provided Angelo's e-mail address, caught Katie's eye again, and she didn't have to be psychic to read his thoughts. Why not? Maybe she's perfect for him.

She approved.

After all, he wasn't handing over his own e-mail.

Stefan had another vision. She'd learned to spot it, although he concealed this one pretty well as a catnap with his head pillowed on the window gla.s.s. When he came back with a jerk, Katie reached over the seat to put a hand on the back of his neck in a caress, grounding him.

"I've got more," he said after a few moments. His voice sounded wrong-thin and clogged. Katie leaned over the seat. He'd tipped his head back, and he was holding his nose. Blood leaked in a stream into his cupped hand. Katie cursed, grabbed tissues from a box in the backseat and helped him mop up the mess. Stefan kept some pressed to his nose.

"G.o.d, Stefan," she murmured with her lips close to his ear. "You can't keep this up."

"I can, for another couple of hours," he said. "Call it a blood donation."

"That's not what I'm worried about. If you're busting up blood vessels in your nose from the pressure, you're bound to be risking some in your brain, too. You could stroke out."

"I won't."