Part 23 (2/2)

”Ryder?”

”I'll be fine. Let's get going.”

”Are you sure?” Sara asked again. ”I can drive.”

Sebastian rea.s.sured her. ”He'll be fine once he gets some fresh air.”

Although she appeared unconvinced, Sara nodded and closed the door. Sebastian examined Ryder more carefully, worried about his condition despite his a.s.surances to Sara. ”Will feeding help?”

Ryder leaned against his headrest. ”Probably, but I didn't get a chance to get-”

”I did.” Sebastian reached into the knapsack Sara had given him and pulled out the two blood bags. ”Can you drive and feed?”

As Ryder saw the blood, he transformed instantaneously and hastily grabbed one of the bags from Sebastian's hand.

Sebastian was grateful for the heavy tint on the windows, which would keep pa.s.sersby from seeing the spectacle. Ryder sank his long fangs into the bag and greedily sucked down the blood. In less than a minute, the bag was empty. Ryder held his hand out for the second bag. After Sebastian provided it, Ryder drained the bag just as quickly.

Tossing the empty bags onto the floor of the backseat, Ryder leaned against the headrest and took deep bracing breaths. Blood stained the edges of his lips and his fangs were tinged with it, but as Ryder's breathing grew longer and steadier, the fangs slowly receded. When they were totally gone, Ryder licked his lips and turned to look at Sebastian.

Ryder's eyes still gleamed with an unnatural light and his look was a little too intense, making Sebastian worry that Ryder was sizing him up as a snack. ”Thanks and sorry. It's been harder and harder to control myself lately,” Ryder said.

”Well, try. I'm not dessert.”

”I know,” he answered, but there was an animal-like rumble to his voice that unnerved Sebastian.

Luckily, Sebastian's cell phone rang, breaking the tension of the moment.

”Sebastian? Where are you?” Diana asked. There was roadway noise in the background, making it difficult for him to hear.

”We're getting ready to head to Westchester,” he answered, trying to hide his unease at everything that was happening.

It didn't fool his sister, who asked, ”Are you okay?”

Taking a look at Ryder, who had yet to return completely to his human form, made him hesitate. At his prolonged silence, Diana questioned again, ”Sebastian, are you okay?”

”Ryder went out into the sun.” This time there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Sebastian heard her worried sigh before she asked, ”Is he all right?”

”He had to feed. I-”

”He didn't feed off you, did he? You're all right, aren't you?” Her earlier concern for Ryder quickly changed to anger on Sebastian's behalf.

”He didn't, and as for me, I've got a whopper of a headache.”

This time when she spoke, there was relief in her voice. ”I was so worried about you.”

”My concern right now is Melissa. Do you have anything yet?” he asked while checking out the roadways in the webcams he had accessed in the hope they'd spot a Jeep matching the description of Sloan's vehicle.

”Nada. Peter and I are still going through Sloan's papers to see if we can locate another address before we give up and drive to Westchester to scope things out. So far, we've got nothing and my contact came up dry.”

”I've got my laptop with me.”

Diana clearly knew where he was going with his statement. She also knew they didn't have time to delay if they had any hope of reaching Melissa before Sloan harmed her. Sebastian could almost hear her gritting her teeth and quite frankly, he had a sick feeling in his own gut about what he had just proposed. This laptop wasn't really prepared for serious hacking.

A moment later, she said, ”Call me when you've got something.”

He checked the modem on his laptop, trying to configure it for optimum performance. Not the best of transmission speeds, but he couldn't hope for better in a moving vehicle. They had no choice but to continue to move if they were going to make up the time Sloan had on them.

Concentrating on the screen was tough between the motion and the occasional bouts of double vision that a.s.sailed him. The double vision in turn triggered nausea so strong that Ryder had to pull over to the side of the road so Sebastian could vomit.

He was in rough shape, but couldn't let that stop him. He a.s.signed a spoofed IP address to his laptop and connected through a remote server, hoping it would be enough of a distraction, knowing it might not be if he took too long on the NSA network.

Racking his brains, he finally remembered the one user name and pa.s.sword, said a little prayer that it hadn't changed and was on the system within minutes.

Bringing up the database program, he cursed beneath his breath at how long it was taking to load thanks to the lower transmission speeds over the cell modem. If he lost the service...

He was sweating, counting the minutes until the log-in screen came on. Quickly he typed in the pa.s.sword and accessed Sloan's file. His memory was hazy as to where he had seen the addresses. He linked through all the different screens in Sloan's file until something at the bottom of one screen triggered a memory.

Sebastian couldn't wait to confirm if his recollection was right. He'd already been on way longer than he had been the last time.

Highlighting the text on the screen, he copied it onto his drive and, with a few keystrokes, saved the text.

Then he broke the connection with the NSA server and quickly disconnected from the modem access. His hands were shaking badly as it occurred to him what he'd just done and how insecure it had been. He'd had few of the protections Len had provided.

None of the ones he himself could have set up from home, given the time.

Time being something he didn't have. That Melissa didn't have. ”Well,” Ryder said, apparently realizing that Sebastian was no longer typing.

”Give me a second.” He was suffering through another round of double vision and closed his eyes to avoid the nausea that was sure to follow. It took several minutes, but he was finally able to retrieve the text he had saved and scroll through it.

Sure enough, at the bottom of the entry was a list of multiple locations, two of which were in Westchester. ”Bingo. Now to see where these puppies are,” he said out loud.

Before reconnecting with the cell modem, he changed his IP address yet again. If the NSA was tracking him at that moment, he didn't want to use the same one as before. Once he had the new IP address in place, he got back online and plotted the locations on a map.

Holding the laptop up so that Ryder could see it as he drove, he asked, ”Which one is closer to the crash site?”

”Son of a b.i.t.c.h.” Ryder quickly motioned to one spot on the screen. ”It's barely a mile away.”

Nodding, which he instantly regretted from the pain it created in his head, Sebastian unjacked the cell modem from his phone and called Diana.

”We think we've got him.”

Chapter 31.

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