Perfect Strangers Read online

  A rotted door hung off rusted hinges on the front of the silo, but to the side a small entrance shielded by scrub bushes was obvious to someone with inside information.

  Solstice Meadows had given them perfect directions.

  He had also told them how to approach the building without getting shot.

  Silk held her hands open and to the side, as did Davis, to show they presented no threat to the man they had come to see. They waited like this for several long moments by the entrance.

  “It’s easier to get in the Pentagon,” Davis grumbled.

  The door slid open with a quiet hiss. Silk went first, scrapping one shoulder. Davis came after, manipulating his large frame with care. The door closed behind him with a snap.

  As their eyes adjusted, Silk noted that the interior was surprising. Sunlight filtered through the windows they had seen outside. Small beams of light illuminated a shadowy, lofted world that opened into an expanse all the way to the roof of the silo.

  A twisted, framework of woven metal wound around and around the outer edges of the room. It reached up and up to two other levels made with the same woven steel. When their host rolled to meet them, Silk realized these ramps and levels expanded his use of space while the weaving allowed him to see his entire domain.

  “Who sent you?” the man in the wheeled chair asked. His legs were withered and small. His arms were huge, even bigger than Rule’s. He could have wrestled an Enforcer and won. His face was shadowed. His voice was strong.

  And he had a Mahberg Laser on his lap.

  “Meadows. Solstice Meadows. And you won’t need that,” Davis answered, nodding to the weapon.

  “No? I haven’t heard from Sol and he e-mails me every couple of days. Maybe he could have used one.”

  Silk was sorry. Sorry that Solstice might have died. Sorry that she might bring danger to this man as well. Still, the laser made her heart sing. It was much like the one she had left behind. The one she had carried for nine years with Miilos by her side. The laser represented home and this man was like the key.

  “Believe him. You may be in danger because of us, but we are no threat to you ourselves.” She tried to be patient and allow this man the time he needed to evaluate them, but it was hard. The laser caused her hopes to rise. He wasn’t another Earth person treating extraterrestrial life as a hobby. He was serious and he knew things. She could hear it in his voice.

  “And Sol?” the man asked softly.

  “He may be dead,” Silk replied.

  The chair was nudged by one hand into a beam of light. The man’s face was scarred. Badly so. Silk ached, reminded of Miilos’ death. This man had suffered burns on his face as well, minor compared to those of a close-range laser blast, but still bad. One whole side of his face was pitted and pink while the other side gave a glimpse of the handsome man he must once have been.

  Silk noted the strong, set jaw, the wide cheekbones, the creamy dark skin and the startling green of his glittering eyes.

  “Who killed him?” The hand he hadn’t used to move his chair was clenched around the butt of the laser.

  “IL-Bah. There was nothing I could do.”

  “Rogue agents. I didn’t know.”

  Silk and Davis answered at the same time. Their words came together in an odd joint explanation.

  “And what do you need from me?” the man asked. He looked from Silk to Davis in confusion.

  “Your name, for starters,” Davis answered, stretching forth his hand.

  Harold Striker was nobody’s fool. He could smell FBI on the big man at thirty paces. The hard-ass Barbie doll was a little harder to figure out. It took him fifteen minutes to know, know, that she was the genuine article. He was struck. Not because he was surprised, he had monitored the portals too long for that. He was struck because he hadn’t seen her come in.

  “Look, this is professional curiosity, and I don’t mean to be rude, but how the hell did you get here?”

  She smiled and the expression lit her whole face in such a way that he had to swallow and look away. He was out of practice with women. And he’d never been in practice with a woman who looked like Silk.

  “I would have been listed as cargo.”

  “Listed?” The FBI agent took up way too much room at Harry’s workstation, but he didn’t mind. The agent’s bulk forced Silk close to Harry’s chair. Hell, one bump from him, one nudge of his right wheel, and she’d wind up on his lap. Harry considered it. Then he figured he better just answer Rule’s question.

  “I was an undercover cop for ten years. I pissed off the wrong man. He had me shot and left for dead, and they torched the warehouse where I lay. Lucky for me, one of his goons had bad aim. I managed to crawl out half-alive.”

  Harry kept it simple. He didn’t need to go into detail about what it felt like to crawl inch by inch through flames that were eating your flesh. He could see by their eyes as he told the story that their imaginations could fill in the rest.

  “So my days as a cop were over. Only thing is, a guy has to fill his days. So I got interested in computers. Real interested. I started dabbling in secrets. Pretty soon I was all out diggin’. Soon after that I got some new friends to help me with this set up here. I watch. I catalog. I hack. By ‘lists’ the woman means that even aliens keep records.”

  Davis Rule looked mad. For a second, Harry wondered if it was because he’d been caught making eyes at Silk, but then the other man turned away from them both.

  “Look, I’m going to let the two of you play while I keep an eye on the road.” His voice sounded tired, disgusted and a little lost as if he was a kid whose playmates had just started playing a game where he didn’t understand the rules.

  Rule walked out. His retreat opened up more room on the catwalk. That allowed Silk to move a few inches away from Harry’s chair which seriously ruined his day.

  “He does not believe.”

  “No kidding. What is he, an idiot?”

  “I would say stubborn, far from stupid and used to relying on evidence to form his opinions.”

  Harry watched the lady beside him. She didn’t glance at Rule’s retreating back. She didn’t seem to miss him. Still, something in her manner made Harry disagree with her assessment. Rule was definitely stupid if he was giving this babe a hard time.

  “So, what do you need to know?” he asked.

  Silk looked grim as she began to fill him in.

  Silk told Harry everything she knew about Ronin. As she spoke, his hands flew across the keys of a computer. There was little evidence of scarring on his agile digits.

  “How did your hands survive the fire?” she asked. The blur of moment from his fingers didn’t slow as he answered.

  “Reconstructive surgery….a fortune’s worth. Still saving for the face.”

  He did not glance her way, but Silk detected a flush along his perfect cheek. She realized it was hard for anyone to start over in a new life. The scars she had were not as obvious as Harry’s, but they were there in her heart, on her soul. She felt a kinship to this man in the rolling chair.

  “The IL-Bah. I think I’ve got them. They came in legal, as pretty as you please. I’ve even got a video stream.”

  Silk watched as fuzzy black and white images of the men who had repeatedly tried to kill her flashed across his screen.

  “They came through with a dozen refugees from T-Bek’s moon. Drought there. Real bad. Anyway, no sign of a man fitting Ronin’s description with them.”

  “He might have traveled alone.”

  “It’s doubtful. A single passage stands out like a sore thumb, especially if it’s not official. And you would have to have access to official channels to come in like you did. Listed as cargo. Shit, I never thought of that one.”

  “Ronin’s not here,” Silk concluded.

  She sagged against a nearby table, propping her bottom against its side. Suddenly, Ronin seemed almost out of reach.

  “Harry, how do I get back home?”

  “You k
now it’s a one way ticket, Silk. They allow drops. They don’t allow returns.”

  “There has to be a way I can get to Ronin.”

  “Why?” Harry rolled close to her perch. “Are you doing all this for revenge? It won’t bring your partner back. Just like huntin’ down the man who wasted my face isn’t gonna make me look like Denzel Washington again.”

  “Some part of me wants revenge and some part of me wants justice. A big part of me wants to keep Ronin from hurting anyone ever again. But mostly, I have to take care of him before I can start over. He will never let me rest. Never let me live a normal life.”

  “Okay,” Harry said, placing one hand on her hip and giving it a pat. “Let’s see what I can do.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Davis knew he’d let things go too far. Something was seriously wrong with William Kale, and he was never going to figure out what it was if he continued on this nutty, no-good trip with Silk. There were too many loons in the world. His work before he’d met Silk had proven it. So many people were willing to believe anything just because they had nothing real to believe in anymore. Take Striker, for instance. The man had probably been a fine cop at one time, but the horrible torture he’d lived through had left him scarred, inside and out. He was creating a purpose for his life out of moonbeams and make-believe. Then there was Solstice. Another burnt-out survivor looking for a reason to keep getting out of bed each day. And Piper? Well, Piper was harder to figure out. She should be knitting or playing bingo, and most of the time she acted like she wished she was. Davis wasn’t sure why she had picked up a crayon and started her first “transcription”. The truth was it didn’t matter. Silk could tie him up for the rest of his life making stop after stop on the insanity trail because the world was full of Pipers.

  Late summer in Pennsylvania smelled good. It had been a moist season. Tall grass and wet earth blended into a natural bouquet that eased into his nose with a richness he enjoyed. Night was descending and somewhere at the edge of Striker’s field crickets, or frogs or both began to sing. This was real. Silk’s alien story was pure fantasy. Alternate dimensions. Infinite worlds. He’d never been a fan of The Twilight Zone.

  The question was why did William Kale want her?

  Because she’s an alien. That thought flashed through his mind to be dismissed with a determined shake of his head. His brain sought a more realistic answer. Because she’s a seriously deranged criminal. That thought held slightly longer.

  His instincts had never steered him wrong. They had started firing off warnings about Kale three months ago. And the man had just sent two of his coworkers after him with guns. Two men he’d never thought much of in the first place. Kale was dirty. He knew it. He was only up in the air about how to handle it. His instincts about Silk were not as clear. His gut told him to trust her. His head told him she was a nut spiraling out of control. His heart… Well, he wasn’t used to following that organ anyway.

  He’d been a dumb jock in high school. Dumb only in that his ability to make easy Cs hadn’t encouraged him to try harder. He had only cared about the game—whatever game was in season. Then a trip to Washington had shifted his focus. His class had joked about the FBI’s Most Wanted. Had joked about growing up to be a part of it. Davis had seen the faces on that wall for months afterward. For once, he began to think about what it would be like to use his strength for something more important than scoring points.

  His grades had gone up to As with little effort and he’d aimed for Quantico instead of a football scholarship. For awhile, it had been fine. Lately, because of Kale, he’d begun to have that itchy feeling again. The same itchy feeling he’d had during his last ballgame. Like he was meant for something more.

  Davis sat down on a rock that jutted up above the waving tips of grass. He looked up at the sky. He didn’t believe Silk, but the stars that had always twinkled up there, unnoticed and unremarkable, now held a certain fascination he couldn’t explain. Could there be different worlds with different skies only a portal away from this one?

  He knew two things. He couldn’t let William Kale get his hands on Silk, and he needed to find some way to snap Silk out of her delusion, some way to stop her without resorting to violence.

  Davis ignored the damp feeling of dew as it soaked through his trousers from the rock beneath him.

  His integrity was compromised. He had to admit it. He didn’t want to hurt Silk. He wouldn’t hurt her. He just had to figure out a way to stop her.

  There were two major portals in North America. The portals were naturally occurring ripples in reality that created passages to other places, other worlds. One was in Las Vegas, Nevada, and one was in New York City. Use of the portals was carefully controlled by the Confederation of Worlds to protect the less advanced. Travel was especially restricted on backwards planets like Earth. Silk remembered New York, vaguely. She had been groggy and it had been loud. Full of the new and the dangerous. Full of foreign objects and foreign languages and a foreign way of life. She had virtually limped her way to Virginia. Slowly regaining her equilibrium. Slowly rediscovering her purpose.

  Once she had gone through the motions of setting up her new life, she had used the peace and quiet of her rural surroundings to recover just enough to move on.

  “New York would be best. I do not think Davis would go easily across the country. And he would be in danger if I left him behind.”

  “That big guy?” Harry barked, doubtful.

  He had created a sort of chair for her with bright plastic cubes he called crates. Now they sat together, illuminated by the glow from his computer screen.

  “The IL-Bah are bigger and there are more of them.” Silk reached out to tap the key that caused the video stream of the IL-Bah to rewind and repeat.

  “I guess I better be thinkin’ about my own relocation plans,” Harry mused, shifting the focus of his eyes from her cleavage to the screen.

  “I think he will come with me to New York,” Silk thought out loud.

  “What about beyond that? If you’re plannin’ on skippin’ town in the biggest way possible, won’t that be leavin’ him behind?” Harry’s eyes were on the screen, but she felt the awareness he had for her. Perhaps he wondered if she considered Rule to be a permanent part of her life.

  Silk felt a tightness squeeze around the air in her chest. How could she leave Davis to face the FBI and possibly even the IL-Bah on his own?

  “You could always clonk him over the head and take him along. When he woke up, he’d realize you were tellin’ him the truth all along,” Harry suggested. He didn’t sound like he wanted her to accept that course of action.

  “I would not force him to leave his home behind,” Silk said softly.

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t. You know how hard that can be.” Harry’s hand closed over hers on the keyboard. She didn’t mind the moral support or the smooth, warm feel of his fingers.

  “Find me a passage, Harry.” Silk turned her hand up so that she could grasp his. “I will figure out what to do about Davis once I’m able to return home.”

  Piper Jo threw a borrowed satchel into the backseat of an old Volkswagen Jetta. The new slacks and blouses they had picked up at the local discount store had looked out of place when she’d zipped them into a bag decorated with half-naked heroines from some comic she didn’t recognize. Things sure have come a long way since Lois Lane.

  “Ready, ol’ girl?” Solstice asked with a wicked grin.

  “You better be talkin’ to this old rust bucket you call a car,” Piper replied. Ol’ girl, indeed.

  “If we put it to the floor, we just might get there before they hurt Harry,” Sol added, ignoring the insult to his car.

  “And then what?” Piper asked. “They hurt us too?”

  “Maybe, but I’m thinkin’ all of us together might just even the odds.”

  They needed sleep, and Harry insisted he needed time to pack.

  “I’m not going to sit here and wait for them to come crashin’ in o
n me. You guys don’t have the best track record, you know.”

  Silk agreed and even Davis didn’t protest. He had been scarce since they had shared a dinner of peanut butter and crackers. Peanut butter was now on Silk’s growing list of Earth foods she could stomach.

  When she had gotten as dizzy as she could get watching Harry wheel around and around his ramps with his arms full of equipment and supplies, she excused herself.

  “Sure, sure, go on out of here. I didn’t design this place for two and definitely not three.”

  Silk walked out of the silo and into the night. She found Davis easily. There was no place to hide in the open field. He sat on a rock, looking up at the sky. The sight gave her pause. He was a handsome man, but he’d become more to her than that. More than an almost perfect face and form. The sight of him was visually appealing, but it was the sight of him sitting alone and deep in thought that made her ache to go to him. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to make him smile.

  Of course, she did neither. The former was unthinkable. The later impossible. Instead, she approached with her hands under control and her wishes in check.

  “Is Harry still packing? He can’t fit the whole silo in the car,” Davis said. His joke was half-hearted at best.

  “I have disrupted everyone’s life. He loves this silo. It is his home. He shouldn’t have to leave it,” Silk replied as she sank down to sit beside him.

  “I think he loves the idea of traveling with someone he thinks is an alien even more. Throw in the part about the alien looking like you…it’s no contest.”

  “He does seem enthusiastic,” Silk admitted with a smile.

  “He certainly is an expert at copping a feel,” Davis commented. “You don’t seem to mind.”

  “I thought it was cultural. Everyone on this planet seems to want to touch me when they know who I am—Piper, Solstice, Harry.”

  “Me?” Davis added.