Deadly Games - Cate Noble [76]
Erin knelt beside him, her warm fingers sliding to his wrist. For a moment he remembered another woman’s touch. Somewhere beneath the stars. Whom was he thinking of?
Taz struggled to maintain an awareness of Erin. If she tried to run right now, he could do little to stop her.
As she checked his pulse, he caught her thoughts. She was concerned by the way his heart thundered. He had an image of her helping Hades in a similar situation. Seizure.
“Relax, breathe. I’m here.” Sympathy laced her words.
The pain subsided so that he was able to stand.
Erin held his arm. “You need to see a doctor.”
No one can help me. “I’ve got you.”
Taz shrugged away her excuse that she wasn’t a medical doctor. Rufin wasn’t either, but he’d helped Taz before.
Or had he?
A vision of being shocked and put in a dark chamber flashed in Taz’s mind. “Don’t fight the pain!” Rufin had shouted. “Surrender to me or die.”
He cut off the thought as the pain threatened to rob his vision. Taz wanted to jam the ice pick into his knee, but he knew it would upset her. And for some reason that bothered him. Great! Her bloody compassion was contagious.
“Get me inside the car,” he croaked. “You drive.”
He leaned heavily on Erin as she helped him into the car. Then she hurried around and climbed behind the wheel.
He knew only a portion of her acquiescence was due to his influence right now. A larger part was her naïve belief that she would talk sense into him before they arrived in Washington, D.C. She hoped to convince him to surrender, because another part of her was certain that if Hades forcibly tried to rescue her, Taz might be injured.
Only in a female mind!
Erin started the car and swung onto the highway. “How long do I stay on this road?”
“Until I tell you to turn.” Taz didn’t want her to know too much about their route, just in case Hades did get glimpses of her thoughts.
“You remind me of someone else,” Erin said. “Too stubborn to ask for help.”Until it kills you.
It surprised Taz to realize her unspoken thought was about her father, not Hades.
“Tell me why you worry about your father’s connection to all this,” he said.
“How do you know about my father? By reading my thoughts?”
Taz nodded, wanting her to talk while they drove. For some reason, the sound of her voice helped. “I know your father is dead, but in your dreams, you weep that you didn’t do enough.”
Erin’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “My father died ten months ago. His official cause of death is listed as a suicide. I believe he was murdered, but I haven’t been able to find proof. I am a psychologist. If my father had been depressed to the point of contemplating taking his own life—” She paused, drawing on her inner calm. “I should have seen it.”
“Who would have benefited from your father’s death?”
Erin looked at him. “It appears his former research partner, my former boss, may have been involved with a corrupt drug company that was funding unethical research.”
“Your boss was the man I killed in San Diego. Dr. Winchette.” Taz could sense Erin’s grief over Winchette’s death. “Do not grieve for him. He was as corrupt as the people he dealt with. And the things he planned for me and Hades were atrocious.”
“More atrocious than what Dr. Rufin did to you?”
Taz’s head started to pound with a familiar precursory warning. If he pursued this subject, he’d be punished.
But Erin knew something about Rufin that Taz didn’t. Something that Taz needed to remember. “Tell me everything you know of Dr. Rufin.”
“Everything?” Erin cleared her throat, thinking she didn’t know enough. “Dr. Rufin originally worked with another scientist named Viktor Zadovsky.”
Taz jerked forward as the pain in his skull escalated. “I will kill Zadovsky for what he did!”
“Zadovsky is already dead,” she said. “He can’t harm you.”
Does not compute. Rechecking program. Taz rubbed his temples. “What type of work did Zadovsky and Rufin collaborate on? And how did it involve me?”
“Dr. Rufin was continuing Dr. Zadovsky’s experiments in mind control. You, Hades, and some others were