Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(72)

Dylan watched. He’d seen it happen many times before. The boss’d be quiet for a while, and then, all of a sudden, he’d come up with a plan. Generally it was a good plan. Lately it was more violent.

Dylan waited quietly, the others coming in behind him. He put his arm up to stop them from bursting into the room and held his finger to his lips. He kept trying to teach the new guys, but they were too slow getting a message. But then they didn’t have twenty-plus years of loyalty behind them. And the new guys were getting stupider by the day. He couldn’t believe one had been attacked by the birds. He’d told the boss what had happened to the kid but not the other men, in case they spooked.

He needed them to the ugly finish line. And couldn’t afford to lose any more men.

Finally the boss turned and said, “Get ahold of Ronnie and Gorham. Have them track the two men from the airport. See where they’re headed. And tell the network they’re coming. The only reason for these two men to go there is if she said something. We need to know what it is they are going after.”

“Or who.” Dylan nodded.

The boss frowned and continued snapping his fingers harder. Again and again and again. He stopped, turned, and stared at Dylan. “I’m not comfortable if one of us isn’t there.”

Dylan inclined his head. And waited.

The boss resumed his snapping, then stopped abruptly. “Is there anyone else we could call on over there?” He turned and glared at Dylan. “I mean, someone we can trust.”

That’s where the clincher was. Loyalty was down. People they could trust were thin on the ground. Dylan considered everybody they’d sent in the past. “I’m not sure. It’s a risk.”

The boss’s frown deepened. “The owner and the girl—are they are still at the house?”

“Yes.” Dylan nodded.

The boss turned.

That same creepy smile washed over his face, and Dylan knew things were about to get violent.

“Then find a way to force those two to go to Ireland as well.” The boss frowned, resumed his snapping but at a much slower pace. “Why wouldn’t they have gone in the first place? They should’ve been the ones who left. How is it that these men are so trustworthy they would send them on something like this?”

“We don’t know exactly what they know.”

The boss nodded. He stared off in the distance. “It has to be connected. There is no such thing as coincidence.” He started snapping again. Faster. “No, we have to make sure they go. Nothing else will work. She might try to get out of it. That’s not going to happen.”

Dylan took a deep breath. “She might not be well enough to travel.”

The boss stopped, turned, and glared at him. Dylan refused to back down. They’d shot her, cut her, burned her, and beaten the shit out of her. Even Wonder Woman would need a week or two to recover. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of getting on a plane. He knew that the man, Eagle, would make sure she was safe. So whatever they did to force the two to make the trip would have to be enough to shake him.

So it would have to be big—and nasty.





Chapter 22





The next several days went by quietly. Knowing some kind of time crunch raced toward them, Issa did everything she could to heal. She minimized all activity. She slept. She took long hot soaks, and, with the passage of time, she grew stronger and stronger. She knew she was healing faster than most people. Necessity was part of it, then so was her relationship to the birds around her. She’d always reached out for her birds when ill and gained strength from them. She’d done it subconsciously in the beginning, but now it was conscious. She knew the birds had willingly allowed her to use their life force, as she called it, but she had to do it carefully. Roash had been shot as well by the kidnappers, thankfully they had been lousy marksmen. But, by taking small amounts each time from him and Humbug, and any others she could mentally call out to, she’d lived long enough to escape her kidnappers.

And it was due to her birds. Only she had thought of it as a natural balance.

Until she’d spoken to Stefan. And connected the dots. Other people didn’t do what she did. She didn’t know if that made her a psychic or a sensitive, but it made her different from the rest of the world. Again. Yet she couldn’t be upset about it. That relationship with her feathered friends had saved her life.

As she gained strength, as she could do more, Eagle let her. He worked with the birds outside, something she’d still avoided doing. She was afraid they were still being watched. She no longer had that same sensation but couldn’t forget the possibility.

On the third day after Tiger and Panther left, Eagle walked inside carrying a small box. She glanced at him and said, “Did that just arrive?”

“Special delivery.”

“All the way out here?”

He glanced at her and nodded. “The driver had been paid extra.”

If that hadn’t given her enough of an inkling, the hard tone in his voice would have. She got up very slowly, staring at the box, fear rippling through her. “That’s not good then, is it?”

“I’m thinking it’s not good at all.” Eagle walked to the kitchen table, put the box down, grabbed a knife, and slowly opened the packaging. It was smaller than the size of a book and a little bit thicker. When it was open, he pulled out a some of the packing paper and found a note. “No substitutions,” he said. He turned the letter so she could see it.