Triggered Response

by Patricia Rosemoor

  The only way out of this was to determine who was after them and to get the bastard before he got them.

  Knowledge that might be locked in the recesses of Bray’s mind.

  Her thoughts went back to Gage’s notes. He said he’d used his mind to open doors to escape, and wondered if Vanderhoven could do the same.

  What could Bray do?

  The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could think about them.

  “Can you do things with your mind that you couldn’t do before the lab accident?”

  Though he didn’t say anything, Bray’s body language gave him away. He drew tight into himself and she knew she’d hit on something. Finally. This was her chance to get him to talk.

  “What Gage mentioned in his notes…” Claire said. “Did the accident affect you in the same way?”

  “No…I don’t think so.”

  What he didn’t say was that it hadn’t affected him at all. Which in her mind meant it had.

  Pushing, she asked, “What did it do to you, then?” She felt his silent gaze on her. “Bray, please. We want the same thing—to figure out what happened.”

  He breathed out audibly and nodded. “I get memories…when I touch things.”

  “Objects help you get your memory back?”

  “Not always mine.”

  Claire started. “I don’t understand.”

  “Join the club.”

  She waited for Bray to explain, certain that if she pushed too hard, she would hit a wall.

  He finally said, “I would touch things…people…and see…visions, I guess you’d call them. A guy wandering drunk along the waterfront, a woman on a playground with kids, an old man getting mugged. At first it was terrifying, like walking through a world of ghosts…none of it real. I thought I was losing my mind. Eventually, I put it together and figured out that what I was doing was picking up memories of other people like some kind of human antenna. That’s how I got into Cranesbrook yesterday.”

  “Let me get this straight. You say you can call up other people’s memories at will.”

  “No, not at will. I just figured out how to use what came to me.”

  “But you can’t call up your own.”

  Claire hoped Bray might elaborate on that point, but he didn’t. He’d admitted his memory was returning in bits, but could he really force it through touching objects? Through touching her?

  Should she believe him about any of this? He’d been through a lot. He wasn’t himself. War did terrible things to a soldier. As would some chemical cocktail unleashed on an unsuspecting subject.

  So did she believe Bray or not? That was the tough question. Not the most pragmatic person, even she had grave doubts about so-called woo-woo stuff. And this “power” he claimed was Woo-Woo with two capital Ws.

  “So it sounds crazy, huh?” he finally asked. “I sound crazy.”

  Claire couldn’t help herself from testing him. “Get any memories off that blanket?”

  He touched the material covering his legs. His forehead pulled into a frown. It took him a minute but then he said, “A picnic. Food spread around you. You’re lying on the blanket near the water.”

  Could be a good guess.

  “What about this?” she asked, handing him the battery-run lantern.

  This time, his response came slower.

  “Flat tire… It’s dark and you’re on a deserted road…. It flashes a red warning light…. You change the tire yourself.”

  Claire started but was too surprised at the accuracy of the memory to say anything.

  Bray groaned. “Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I’m guilty of whatever they think I did, too.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  How could he have known about her roadside emergency? The lab accident had done something to his brain, had given him a power that a normal person didn’t have. Going with her instincts, Claire found herself moving closer to Bray and was glad to feel his arm wrap around her.

  “And you’re not a criminal,” she assured him.

  “Then what am I?”

  “A victim. Of the war. Of Project Cypress.”

  “So you think the lab accident somehow changed my brain chemistry?”

  “Maybe. Gage, too. Vanderhoven, for all we know. And it seems to me that someone at Cranesbrook knows it. Several someones.” Since she’d decided Bray wasn’t one of the bad guys, Claire needed to share everything she knew for sure. “Maybe that’s why Sid Edmonston ran down Evan Buckley. He was one of the security guards working for you and Gage. Evan must have known what was going on.”

  “And now Edmonston is dead.”

  “Right,” Claire agreed. “Rand McClellan shot him in the line of duty. He’s a detective who got involved with the case. Actually, he was helping your sister find Zoe. Sid killed Rand’s partner. And then a local cop was killed right in the Cranesbrook offices.”

  “A lot of deaths connected with that lab accident.”

  Wishing some of this would jog Bray’s memory, Claire nodded. “Your partner was lucky to get out of Beech Grove Clinic alive. A lot of money changed hands there—Cranesbrook straight to Dr. Morton.”

  “Cover-up money.”

  “That’s not all. The Project Cypress deadline was moved up. Millions ride on Cranesbrook Associates meeting that new completion date. The researchers, Kelso, Ulrich, Riddell—they’re all guilty of trying to cover up the accident of the decade so they can turn over their product and collect their rewards. As far as I can see, you stand between them and that big bonus. Some kind of mistake was made in Lab 7 and you’re the living proof.”

  He looked down into her face. “Me and Gage.”

  “Yeah, but it seems your partner had the good sense to go underground until this mess is resolved. Unless you can ‘remember’ where he is, we’re on our own.”

  Bray didn’t respond to that, but he shifted against her as he asked, “Any ideas about what we do next?”

  Claire shook her head and nestled it against Bray’s chest where she could hear his heartbeat quicken. “I don’t know, Bray. I wasn’t ready for what happened tonight. At the moment, I’m all out of ideas.”

  But Bray had ideas.

  He pulled her closer to him, smoothed the hair from the side of her face and lifted her chin. His expression softened as he looked down at her, and Claire felt her heart beat in an odd rhythm. Something inside her twisted, gave way. Some guard that she’d put up years—no, decades—ago, when people she’d cared about had disappointed her over and over. She’d protected herself against that kind of pain for longer than she could remember.

  Until now.

  Suddenly she felt stripped of her emotional defenses, vulnerable. She didn’t know that she liked it. But she liked Bray.

  More than liked him.

  Unwilling to put words to what she was feeling, she allowed herself to be distracted by his mouth, which was leaving a soft, wet trail down her forehead and down her cheek, only to stop at her parted lips.

  She couldn’t help herself. Despite all her resolve to not let this happen again, Claire felt herself melt the moment they connected. She slipped her hands up around his neck and kissed Bray until she was breathless.

  Her heart fluttered in her chest, the response elemental and yet something beyond the physical. She wanted—no, needed—to connect with him to assuage the longings she never allowed herself. She wanted him to know that he was different, special, but she couldn’t tell him that, not with her lies standing between them. So she showed him, with her lips and her hands and her breasts that she pressed against his chest, how much she needed him.

  As though he were protesting, Bray moaned into her mouth and thrust her back until they were horizontal. The vehicle demanded intimacy, and with his hands stroking her into gooseflesh through her clothing, Claire felt closer to him than to any man in her past. Maybe it came from him being so open and honest with her.

  If only she could be equally open and honest with him.

  No
man really knew her. Mac knew her, but as a best friend. He’d been there to see her through some of her darkest moments, inspiring a loyalty that had become her justification for tricking a man already wounded by life.

  “Bray,” she murmured, wanting to tell him, wanting him to know who she really was before she hurt him, too. “I need you…want you more than anything.”

  He made a shushing sound and covered her protest with a deep, soul-searing kiss.

  Claire let go then and gave herself over. Bray quickly undressed them both with her fumbling assistance.

  She didn’t know how much longer she had with him, but she would take every moment she could get until he learned the truth and turned away from her for her lies.

  There was nothing for it. The damage was already done.

  Tucking away the hazy future, Claire allowed herself the present. She spread her thighs and took Bray in and wrapped her legs around his back.

  This was all that mattered, she told herself, rocking her hips under him. Someone to cling to for now. She would take what she could get and be satisfied.

  Only afterward, after they came together and he collapsed on her, did she realize she’d done the unforgivable.

  She’d lied to herself.

  The realization kept her from sleeping deeply. And so when Bray became restless and vocal, she was awake to hold him against the heartbreak of his nightmare.

  “Claire,” he murmured, possessively taking hold of her, trapping her against his body before falling back to sleep.

  Claire wondered what she’d been thinking, getting so emotionally wrapped up in a man she hardly knew. She wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready to be on the run with a fugitive who wasn’t really her husband. Not ready to be the focus of an attack. Of someone wanting her dead.

  She was caught.

  A liar.

  She’d fallen into her own trap.

  Chapter Eleven

  They sent the divers into the water just after dawn.

  On scene for the better part of an hour, Detective Rand McClellan leaned back against his car and watched the activity on the pier. Would they bring up a body? Or two?

  Pieces, he corrected himself. Pieces of a body or bodies. All depended on how close they had been to the explosion.

  Everyone had turned out to see what they would find. In addition to the state fire marshal handling the actual investigation of the explosion, the area was crawling with cops. The locals had come in first, and even though they’d had to hand over the case to the state, they’d stuck around, keeping to themselves. Locals in blue uniforms clustered on one side of the pier, state troopers in tan and brown on the other, a couple of Feds in dark suits in between.

  And then there was him, isolated from the actual investigation, an observer on what should still be his case. He was convinced the explosion was connected to Cranesbrook.

  “Hey, you got nothing better to do than hang out on the waterfront in the middle of the night?”

  Detective Dean Farrell appeared, looking slightly rumpled as usual. He’d barely run a comb through his salt-and-pepper hair and his tie wore remnants of food.

  “You know me,” Rand said. “I never could stay away from a party.”

  “Where’s the kegger?”

  “They won’t let me at it.”

  Farrell snorted. “Yeah, tough break. They’re not gonna let you at anything for a while, not until you get shrunk.”

  An automatic result of an offender getting killed rather than being brought in. Rand had no regrets for taking out Vanderhoven. He’d done what he’d needed to do. Despite Vanderhoven’s so-called power—amplifying other people’s emotions until they couldn’t think straight—Zoe was safe and back in Echo’s arms.

  Rand wondered if Bray had the same special power of Vanderhoven or Darnell. Or if his brain had developed in some other direction.

  Not that he could discuss this with Farrell. No one else in the department knew about the crazy side effects of the lab accident.

  “So you think this explosion has something to do with whatever’s going on at Cranesbrook?” Farrell asked.

  “Take a look around you. At the vehicles.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Notice anything?”

  “An assortment of brown-and-white cop mobiles.”

  “And one black Corvette,” Rand said. “You want to guess who owns it?”

  “Someone at Cranesbrook?”

  “Formerly.”

  “Not Sloane?”

  “Yes, Sloane.” Rand shook his head. “The moment I saw it, I knew—”

  “What? You think he’s in the drink?”

  “I think he had the knowledge and probably the means to set that explosion.”

  He should have stayed in bed with Echo. But the moment the call had come in from a local to inform him that Claire Fanshaw’s residence had just gone boom, he’d had to see what was what for himself. He’d left an exhausted Echo and baby Zoe snuggled together fast asleep and had come running.

  The black Corvette had been waiting there, mocking him. He’d seen it at Sloane’s place and now here it was at the scene of the crime.

  Now it looked as though he was going to have to tell the woman he loved that her brother was every bit as guilty as he’d feared. The state cops had put out an APB on Sloane, but Rand wasn’t so sure the bastard would be found alive.

  “If Sloane blew up the boat, why’d he leave his wheels?” Farrell mused.

  “Could’ve been caught in his own explosion.”

  But a couple of hours later, when the divers came out of the water, they seemed disappointed they hadn’t found any spare parts.

  No human remains.

  No Sloane.

  Had he developed gills or something? Or had he been too close, turned into a human pink mist that floated away on the wind?

  What they had found was a twisted piece of black metal—something that might have been in the shape of a box with a metal bowl built in the top.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked the fire marshal.

  “Looks something like a flashpot to me. You know, for creating special effects on a stage or in the movies. But this one probably held plastic explosives— Semtex or C-4.”

  “On a stage or in the movies,” Rand repeated. “Any other place you’d find a flashpot? What about a science lab like the ones at Cranesbrook Associates?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. The woman living on the boat works there, right?”

  “She does, but not in a lab. She’s a computer specialist.”

  “Looks like she made some serious enemy.”

  Rand wondered what exactly Claire Fanshaw knew that Brayden Sloane wanted her silenced for good.

  HIS BRAIN IS on fire. Burning. Melting.

  The sun bakes him and dries his mouth. He keeps an eye out for the enemy as he signals the others to head for the Humvee.

  The kid explodes in his face.

  Another explosion…another victim…guy in a white lab coat sprawls across the floor.

  “I can’t get enough of you.” A hoarse whisper from the blonde under him. “Ride me hard. You’re it, exactly what I need.”

  Liar. She needs her husband.

  “I’ll be back, son. Two days, three max.”

  Day after day, he watches out the window in vain.

  Then the redhead smiles that smile. “I’m your wife. I want you more than anything.”

  Her lips move but he can’t hear her over the lie.

  She tugs at him, traps him, then plunges her fist into his chest and pulls out part of him, bloody and still beating. He reaches for her, but she fades like the vision she is.

  His brain is on fire. Burning. Melting. The flames threatening to devour him until he is no more.

  He fights it. He has to be all right. Has to be.

  For the people who died. For the future victims if Project Cypress isn’t stopped.

  For Echo and Zoe…and for Claire…

  BRAY’S EYES FLASHED op
en, his gaze lighting on Claire’s face. She looked relaxed, innocent in sleep. He touched her lips and willed her to be honest with him. Willed her to tell him why she’d concocted this man-and-wife charade. Willed her to want him for real.

  Only then would he be all right.

  “I NEED TO SEE my sister.”

  Bray had been waiting to talk this over with Claire since dawn. The hour had dragged by, feeling like several, but he hadn’t wanted to wake her.

  Claire pushed herself into a sitting position, wedged her back against the driver’s seat and stretched. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  Mesmerized for a moment by her beautiful dishevelment—a look that bade him to take her back to bed— Bray got himself in control. He couldn’t be distracted. He needed to be on his game.

  “I don’t care if it’s wise or not,” he said. “Someone is out to kill us. Next time I might not get away with my skin. I need to see Echo and tell her face-to-face that I don’t know what’s happening or why her baby was taken. I can’t let her think I had anything to do with Zoe’s kidnapping.”

  Claire frowned. “Vanderhoven was the kidnapper. She knows that.”

  “But I was the ransom. She might think I was involved with…with I don’t even know what. If I tell her I didn’t have anything to do with what happened, she’ll believe me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She knows how I feel about lies.”

  Claire’s eyes widened slightly, but she covered quickly. Her voice was a little thick when she asked, “Sounds like you don’t like them.”

  “I hate them,” he said honestly, and watched the pulse in her throat suddenly tick. “I’ve hated them since Echo and I were kids and our dad told us he was going away for a few days and never came back.” He silently bade her to be honest with him, to end his uncertainty with her. “I used to stand at the window watching for him every day after school until it got dark.”

  “I’m sure he meant to come back.”

  “No, he never did. He abandoned us and made a little sucker of me. It took me nearly a year to come to terms with that, but finally I had to. I swore I would never have feelings for anyone else who lied to me, but I made the mistake a second time.” The memory was as sharp as if it had happened days ago rather than years ago. “I thought she was a gift, someone sent to save me.”