“Did ye go talk to the manager yerselves?” Scotty asked at once.
“We are waiting for him now,” Magnus said. “He—Just a minute. Here he comes.”
Scotty frowned impatiently, but concentrated on not sideswiping one of the trees on either side of them. He now understood why they usually used the golf cart to drive people and luggage back and forth. The lane was crazy narrow.
They were just breaking out of the trees onto the airstrip and Scotty was scanning the empty tarmac when Magnus came back online. “The cameras are real and the manager says no one approached him about them.”
Stiffening, Scotty glanced to Mortimer. “Who was supposed to check the cameras?”
“Odilia,” Mortimer said quietly.
“Scotty,” Magnus said, his voice full of concern.
“I know,” he growled and, taking his foot off the gas, jerked the steering wheel of the van, sending the vehicle into a spin that ended with them facing the way they’d come. He hit the gas again at once, and they surged forward, rocketing back into the trees.
“Why would Odilia lie about that?” Mortimer asked quietly as he ended the call.
Scotty shook his head. He had an idea, but it wasn’t a good one and he didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to get back to the outbuilding. Beth had to be in the kennels. It was the only place he hadn’t actually looked for himself. He’d just trusted Odilia when she’d said Beth wasn’t there. Although she hadn’t really said she wasn’t there, he realized now. She’d just deflected the question with some comment about Beth still recovering.
This was all his fault, of course. He’d brought her here to Canada.
“But Odilia could not have caused the accident on the highway,” Mortimer said suddenly. “She was not here before you flew to Vancouver.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Scotty said, his mouth tight.
“You think she was here even then?” Mortimer asked.
“She was supposed to be in Kirkwall, in Northern Scotland,” he said grimly. “But she was on her own. She could have been here and said she was there. I know she insisted on flying straight to Vancouver from Scotland rather than fly back to London and travel from there with the men.”
Mortimer merely grunted. They’d left the trees, and he and Scotty were both looking toward the outbuilding and Odilia’s car. Scotty had started to steer toward it when Mortimer suddenly barked, “The van!”
Scotty followed his pointing finger toward the van presently pulling through the first gate. Even as he looked, Russell was closing the first gate and Francis was opening the second one.
“It has to be Odilia in the van. There’s no one else here but Donny and Beth and they’re both missing,” Mortimer pointed out as Scotty took his foot off the gas, but hesitated to change direction.
Cursing, Scotty jerked the steering wheel again, this time steering straight up the driveway toward the gates. As he slammed his foot back on the gas pedal, he warned, “Ye’d best call and make sure the gates’re open when we get there. I’m no’ stopping. I’ll drive right through the damned things.”
“Lay on the horn,” Mortimer said and quickly began tapping away on his phone. When a ding sounded, Scotty realized the man had texted rather than calling. Smart. Probably faster. Hopefully, Scotty thought, hesitating to hit the horn and give Odilia warning that they were giving chase.
Much to his relief, the first gate started opening almost at once and the second gate didn’t close. Scotty shot through both and turned right, which was the direction Odilia had taken. Either she’d seen them careening down the driveway behind her, or she was just in a hurry, because she was already a good distance up the road. Scotty ground his teeth together and put his foot all the way down, but didn’t expect the response he got. The van jumped and shot forward at a startling speed.
“Rogues do not usually come quietly, so I had my van hopped up just for chases like this,” Mortimer explained, apparently noting his surprise. “One of the boys is a car enthusiast and switched out the engine for a Porsche turbo something or other. Fortunately, I only had my van and the SUVs tricked out like this and not the cleanup vans like the one Odilia is driving.”
Scotty merely nodded, and concentrated on what he was doing as he steered their van up beside the one Odilia was driving. He slowed once he was beside her, and gestured for her to pull over, but she refused to even look in their direction.
“What now?” Mortimer asked.
Scotty was silent for a moment, considering all the alternatives.
“Odilia must know we’ve figured out she’s behind everything now,” Mortimer pointed out.
Scotty nodded. That meant she knew her fate if she stopped. Odilia was rogue. She’d killed one of Kira’s bodyguards, injured and nearly killed Magnus and Rickart, and repeatedly tried to kill Beth. She’d be sentenced to beheading by the Council.
“She will not stop willingly,” Mortimer pointed out. “She has nothing to lose.”
“And she won’t hesitate to take Beth with her rather than allow herself to be caught,” Scotty growled. “And Donny too, if he’s in the van.”
Mortimer reached for his seat belt, and calmly did it up. Scotty didn’t. He needed to be able to get out quickly once he got the vehicles stopped.
“Sorry about yer van,” Scotty said with regret.
“The Council will replace it,” Mortimer said with a shrug.
Nodding, Scotty dropped back a bit and steered into the van, bumping it gently at first, but continuing to steer to the right and forcing the van Odilia was driving toward the ditch on the side of the road. She caught him by surprise when she suddenly swerved to the left, steering into him now. Scotty held steady, but quickly realized she’d just been trying to distract him when he saw the tree ahead on the side of the road. He swallowed a sudden ball in his throat, fearing he knew exactly what she would do, and knowing for certain it was too late to prevent it from happening. Even now Odilia was turning sharply toward that large old oak tree.
Scotty slammed on the brakes at once, practically standing on them in his determination to stop the damned van as Odilia sent hers crashing into the tree. Even so, he overshot the accident, rushing past as the van crumpled against the tree, the engine in the front exploding on impact.
Cursing, Scotty jerked the steering wheel to spin the van again, just as he’d done on the tarmac of the airstrip, and drove back to pause behind the now burning van. Praying under his breath, he threw open his door and ran to the back of the other vehicle, nearly ripping the doors off in his desperation. Smoke immediately billowed out, but he spotted a pair of chain-wrapped feet, and grabbed one foot to drag the unmoving body toward him.
“It’s Donny!” Mortimer said. “I have him. Get Beth.”
Leaving the young immortal to Mortimer, Scotty crawled into the van and felt around until his hand found hair. Crawling further forward, he followed the hair to a head, and then a neck and finally a shoulder and arm as the smoke thickened and the heat increased, suggesting the flames were getting closer. Catching the body by one wrist, Scotty crawled quickly backward, pulling whoever it was along with him. It wasn’t until he had climbed out of the back and pulled the upper body clear of the smoke that he was able to see and knew for certain it was Beth.
“Thank God,” he breathed, scooping her up and turning to carry her quickly to the back of Mortimer’s van. He gently laid her down next to Donny in the back, and then turned toward the burning vehicle, but Mortimer caught his arm.
“There’s nothing you can do for her,” he said quietly.
Scotty stared at the burning vehicle. The front was completely engulfed in flames that were slowly moving their way backward, eating up the interior of the van. There was no way Odilia could still be alive.
Swallowing, he turned back to Beth to look her over. From what he could see she had multiple bruises, gashes, and a couple of broken bones. But they would heal quickly enough. She was alive, and that was what mattered.
“I will drive,” Mortimer offered.
Nodding, Scotty climbed into the back of the van and lifted Beth into his lap to cradle her on the ride back.