Page 73 of Red Boar's Baby

“Right. We’re a few miles outside Alamagordo in New Mexico with an SCB strike team. After you disappeared yesterday, it’s been an all-hands-on-deck situation. We requisitioned records from Desert Tours, and found out they’ve been making regular flights out here to a particular site that has its own airstrip. Figured that was our best shot at figuring out where you’d gone, and ...” Caine made a fluttery motion with his fingers. “Look at that, we were right.”

“Good work, although there’s been a lot more going on than just an uneventful flight across the state border. Come on, I need to figure out where Diana’s been taken.”

The halls were eerily empty, although now and then Costa saw bullet holes in the wall or heard the sounds of distant yelling. Every door was closed and locked. Caine swiped them through with a key card.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Where do you think? Its owner was very happy to donate it to the cause, especially when I explained the alternatives.” Caine glanced at Costa, who was carefully navigating barefoot through a scatter of broken glass where a window had been smashed. “Are you entirely sure you don’t want to stop and find something to wear?”

“Waste of time,” Costa said grimly. “If the sight of a naked man with a gun yelling and running full tilt at somebody isn’t enough to intimidate them, putting pants on me isn’t going to help.”

“It would help me.”

“Diana first, pants later.”

“I can see you’re clearly not into her at all.”

This brought a powerfully vivid memory of Diana’s lean, strong body writhing against his, the way she half closed her eyes and the noises she made when she came ...

“Shut it, Caine.”

Caine smirked but didn’t say anything else as he swiped open the next door.

This opened into yet another plain, unadorned hallway, but this time they could hear the muffled sound of someone banging on a door somewhere along the corridor. “Help! Let us out! Is anyone there?”

“Diana,” Costa breathed.

He pushed past Caine and hurried to the door, only to realize he couldn’t open it on his own. Caine arrived, gave him a look, pushed him out of the way and swiped the keycard.

Diana stumbled out, wearing nothing but a lab coat, her tanned legs long and beautiful. She was tousled and pale, but when she saw Costa, she fixed on him as if there was nothing and no one else in the hall.

“Quinn! You’re all right!”

She threw her arms around him, and Costa buried himself in her kiss. Even as he kissed her, he felt something was wrong. She was shaking in his arms, trembling as if she would fly apart, and she felt feverishly hot to the touch.

“What’s wrong?” He absently waved the gun butt-first at Caine, who took it, and then cupped Diana’s face in his hands. She had been fine when he last saw her. “Are you sick? Did they hurt you? What did they do?”

Caine cleared his throat. “At the risk of interrupting this touching reunion, why don’t we go inside this—lab? I guess? Rather than having an entire conversation out here in the hall, where security guards could happen upon us at any time.”

“Right. We have to go inside anyway.” Diana gripped Costa’s hand and led him in. She paused to say, “Do you want some pants?”

“Why do people keep asking me that? If you have any handy, give ‘em to me. Otherwise I’m fine.”

“You sure are,” Diana said with an appreciative look and something resembling her usual spark.

“Oh God, if I knew I was going to be subjected to naked flirting, I’d have called in sick.” Caine grabbed a lab coat off a hook and thrust it at Costa. “Wear this, for all our sakes.”

Costa absently donned it as he followed Diana around some chairs and lab tables. As he got closer, he realized there was a person lying on the floor, stretched out facedown in front of a wheeled office chair. In fact, it was?—

“Well, what do you know, it’s our old friend Farley,” Costa said grimly. “Good job, Diana. I knew you could take him.”

“No, it’s not what you think,” Diana protested. “He’s helping. Well, for now. But the point is ... they gave us both some kind of injection. He collapsed a few minutes ago, and I can’t wake him up. I’m afraid that’s going to happen to me next.”

A new surge of fury flooded Costa. “They gave youwhat?”

“I don’t know. I collected everything I could find for the SCB labs to look at. It’s on that table.” She pointed to a large bundle wrapped up in another lab coat. “From what they said, I think Farley and I are research subjects for some kind of experimental chemical. They didn’t give you anything, did they?”

“No, nothing but my brand new tramp stamp here.” Costa briefly pulled down the collar of the lab coat to show the red lion. “It’s just ink, associated with someone named Halsted, I guess. Otherwise they left me alone. But what—when—” He took a deep breath, twitching the collar back into place in spite of Caine’s attempts to get a closer look at the ink. “You said they injected you with whatever it was?”

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