by Nalini Singh
The temptation to curl up around her and just forget the world was almost overwhelming, but the cop in him wouldn’t settle. He’d taken an oath, made a promise. “I should let you rest,” he said to the woman who was trying so hard to make sure he had a family, “but . . . want to come on a stakeout?” His anger at being helpless in the face of her failing shields threatened to make him bitter, but he fought the ugliness, refusing to taint the beauty of this strange, beautiful joy between a cop and his J.
Sophia’s face lit up with an almost childish pleasure. “Really? Yes!”
And he knew he’d do anything in his power to keep that light in her eyes.
“Okay,” he said once he’d checked in with the manhunt team—no sightings, no information to help him narrow the search grid, his frustration as acute as theirs—and they were on their way through the darkening city, “word is, some Psy are having secretive meetings around town. No one knows why.”
“We’re going to observe one of these covert meetings?”
“Yes. Clay’s informants say it’s pretty certain the place we’re heading to will be the gathering point tonight.” The leopard changeling had sent through the message earlier. “For now—we’re just going to watch, see if we can get an idea of what’s going on, gauge if it might be connected to the Nikita situation.”
Not that long afterward, Max brought the car to a stop in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood, parking between two other similar black sedans. This particular street was a historical landmark, maintained much as it had been in the early twentieth century, the trims on the graceful Queen Anne-style homes decorative, the colors distinctive even in the muted light.
“This is exciting,” Sophia said, wide-eyed, just as the streetlights sensed the approaching night and switched themselves on.
Max bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, and don’t think I take all my dates on stakeouts. You’re special.” Such an impossibly simple statement to describe the depth of what he felt for her.
“I’m flattered.” A husky chuckle. “Oh—I may have discovered what was bothering you about Quentin Gareth’s file—I meant to tell you after you got off the comm, but we got . . . distracted.”
Max’s body purred at the thought of that distraction. “Still feeling tender?”
“Max.”
Reaching out, he closed his hand over her thigh, gave a little squeeze. “So?”
“Yes.” He could hear the blush. Then she said, “Are you erect?”
Hell. “I should know better than to tease you.” Grinning, even as he shifted to ease the pounding erection she’d brought to life, he said, “So, Quentin Gareth?”
“Has a well-hidden discrepancy in his early records. It says he went to an Ivy League college from age eighteen to twenty-three, and he did. However, he wasn’t actually at college for six months of his final year—he enrolled in no classes, took no exams.
“When I dug deeper, I discovered he’d won a place in some kind of work experience program.” She touched her fingers to the hand he had on her thigh, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “There’s nothing inherently suspicious in that, but the fact that he hid it instead of putting it on his CV tells me he either did so badly during the program that he wants it gone from his work history—”
“—or,” Max completed, “he’s got a secret he doesn’t want us to uncover. Where was he posted?”
“That’s the thing. There’s no record whatsoever of where he spent those six months.”
Max caught something with his peripheral vision. “Stay relaxed,” he said to Sophia. “It’s dark enough that they won’t be able to see us.” Though the streetlight in front of the target home made their quarry very visible.
Two men and one woman walked up from the other side of the street, entering the house after a quick knock. Two more women, middle-aged this time, followed. The sixth attendee was a much older man, his hair in tight gray curls.
Sophia jerked forward without warning. “Is that who I think it is?”
The individual who’d caught her attention paused on the steps of the house, glancing around as if conscious of being watched.
“Son of a bitch,” Max murmured as Ryan Asquith shifted on his heel and walked inside.
CHAPTER 39
Councilor Kaleb Krychek was just getting into his car for the drive to his office in Moscow when he felt it. A telepathic ricochet. Catching the returning tracker with a psychic hand, he leaned against the vehicle. He had thousands of these invisible psychic constructs scattered throughout the Net, all of them primed to scan through billions upon billions of bytes for data for one name.
This was the first one that had returned since he began his search six years, five months, and three weeks ago.
He was careful with the old and fragile construct, not wanting to lose what it had brought back to him. It took him almost ten minutes to penetrate the layers of his own security—and then, there it was. That name, linked to information that had passed through a distant part of the Net two weeks ago. The information was fragmented, the trail would be difficult if not impossible to pick up, but that mattered little at this point.
Because at last, he had confirmation that his quarry was alive.
CHAPTER 40
I’m writing this as you sleep beside me, your breathing easy, the lines of stress smoothed away—and I don’t know how to describe what I feel for you. I don’t have those words. It hurts, this emotion in my heart, this inexorable ache.
—Sophia Russo in an encrypted and time-coded letter to be sent to Max Shannon after her death
Sophia lay in bed the next morning, her limbs loose and her body utterly sated. So, this was what pleasure felt like, she thought in wonder. This was what poets wrote about and artists painted. This was why humans gave each other secret smiles and changelings murmured in their mates’ ears.
The bathroom door opened to reveal a tiled enclosure full of steam just as Morpheus jumped onto the bed and padded around to sit right up against her abdomen. She took the hint, stroking his solid form. “You shower in water far too hot for you,” she said to the beautifully muscled male who walked out from the heat and headed to where he’d thrown a change of clothes last night.
After they’d seen Ryan enter that stately Queen Anne, she and Max had decided she should return home, tear apart Ryan’s file. Her cop had called up a white-blond changeling male named Dorian to drop her home, while he’d stayed on Ryan until close to three a.m., leaving only when his friend Clay had arrived to take the watch for a few hours. She’d heard him return home, heard him confer with the manhunt team for over half an hour.
“Looks like Bonner’s parents provided him with access to a private jet,” he’d said to her when he stumbled into bed. “Bastard could be anywhere. I’ve alerted the local airports, let the cats know.” He’d gone straight to sleep after that . . . but woken an hour ago with more than enough energy to make her gasp.
“You’ll boil,” she said, as another wave of steam escaped the bathroom.
An unrepentant wink. “Heat is good for you.” Towel hitched around his lean waist and hair damp, he looked young, incredibly approachable.
A rumble against her palm as Morpheus began to purr. “I was thinking about calling Quentin Gareth’s college.” Having discovered nothing incriminating in Asquith’s files, she was staying behind today to sort through the PsyNet data she’d cached—in the hopes of unearthing something that might tie Pure Psy directly to the attacks on Nikita’s people. “But if he has alerts set in place, it could tip him off.”
“Hold off on that,” Max said, throwing the towel on the bed. “I might be able to get the information another way.”
The intimacy of watching him dress was a tightness in her chest. “Come back to me, Max,” she said quietly.
“How could I resist?” A solemn look, a kiss that held emotion that made her soul ache. “You’re holding my heart hostage.”
Ten minutes later and far too soon, Max walked
to the door, with her behind him. “I’ll be on the phone to the manhunt team throughout the day, too, so leave a message if you can’t get through and I’ll call back.” Reaching out, he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Building security has Bonner’s image—they know not to let him up to you under any circumstances.
“Enforcement’s on alert, and Clay’s also put the word out among DarkRiver’s network of informants.” A squeeze of her hip. “If you go out—and I’d rather you didn’t—don’t forget to take one of the security guys with you. Or better yet, call me, and if I can’t get away, I’ll call DarkRiver, organize a leopard escort for you.”
Remembering the warped arousal she’d read in Bonner during the Gwyn Hayley scan, Sophia hugged her arms around herself, the tiny hairs on her body rising in primitive warning. “I plan to stay in.” Being outside in the general population was becoming more and more unbearable. “And I won’t be entering the PsyNet, so don’t worry about that either.”
He touched his lips to her temple. “How are you?” A rough question that held a thousand unsaid things.
She placed her hand over his heart, soaked in the incredible gift of his presence. “Still here.” But her telepathic shields were so thin that any touch by an unstable personality could perforate them.
A hard kiss. “I’ll check up on you every hour. Don’t even try to stop me.”
He was gone an instant later.
Knowing she should have protested, but reassured by his protectiveness, she fed Morpheus—who graciously permitted her to stroke him once—then took a quick shower. Afterward, refreshed, she changed into a pair of soft velour pants—they were like nothing she’d ever before worn. She’d bought them on impulse several months ago, in a decision so non-Psy she hadn’t required a medic to tell her she needed to go in for reconditioning. But she hadn’t worn them until now.
The dark blue material was velvety soft, delicate, and beautiful against her skin. Enjoying the tactile pleasure, she put on a stretchy T-shirt, zipping herself into a hooded gray sweatshirt several sizes too large for her to complete the outfit. It wasn’t cold in her apartment, but the sweatshirt was Max’s, carried his scent.
Her cop, she thought, would never understand the depth of what he meant to her, what he’d given her. It was at once a wild, earthy thing and an incandescent joy. The only shadow came from the knowledge that their time had almost run out, that one day soon, her mind would fill with noise and she’d lose Max, lose the tearing power of the emotion that had made her whole, every broken part of her accepted and cherished.
Her fingers clenched.
She forced them to open. It was no use being angry, no use railing at fate. Fact was fact—she’d gone through every manual, spoken to every one of her colleagues, all to no avail. Telepathic shields could not be rebuilt once they began to degrade from the core out.
“They use then discard us like garbage,” a fellow J had said to her.
“Why did you accept the position?” As an eight-year-old girl strapped to a hospital bed, Sophia had had no choice, but other Js did.
“It was the only available job.”
Sophia had understood. “Is it always the only available job when a J attempts to find work?”
“Yes.”
Fury had made her gut twist. “In the past, before Silence,” she’d dared ask, knowing the J opposite her would’ve been a historian if given the choice, “was it like this?”
“No. Js were only ever used in capital cases. Or if there was a hung jury where the crime fit certain parameters.”
The load, Sophia had realized, would’ve been spread, placing far less pressure on each individual.
“Js still went mad, still broke,” her colleague had continued, “but no more than the rest of our race.”
But now the Council used them up in order to consolidate its power. In light of that brutal truth, Sophia wasn’t sure she wanted to save Nikita, but Max was a good cop. He believed in justice, made her want to believe in it, too.
Her mind took that thought, connected it to a rumor tangled up in the information cache she’d begun to process while she got out the ingredients to prepare a breakfast drink of the hot chocolate Max had bought for her. Interesting. Leaving the milk unopened on the counter, she found a piece of paper and, taking a seat on the sofa, began to note down the relevant facts as she smoothed out the “lumps” of raw data.
The click of her door being opened was quiet, but it shattered her concentration. “Ma—” But it wasn’t her cop.
Her eyes took in the security override key in the woman’s hand, the Center badge on her lapel. No. She went to lower her PsyNet shields, send out a psychic mayday, but the woman’s male companion was already gripping her arm, slapping a pressure injector against the vulnerable skin of her neck, his naked hand mere centimeters away. Her concentration fractured—and they shot something into her bloodstream that turned her mind dull, sluggish.
“Useful that Js have such solid PsyNet shields,” the woman said, supporting Sophia under one arm while her partner took the other.
“Why is she on the rehabilitation watchlist then?”
“Her telepathic shields are all but gone. If she isn’t rehabilitated now, there’s a chance she’ll break on her own.” They began to head down the corridor. “And the death throes of the fractured are always so disruptive to Silence.”
Sophia tried to resist their hands, the way they directed her like a rag doll, but her mind was mired in thick fog, her body refusing to follow her commands. They “walked” her down to the garage level, each holding up half her weight. And the only thing she could think was that Max would never know how much she loved the scent of him.
Max jogged through the doors of DarkRiver’s Chinatown HQ just as the skies opened up. “That’s some storm,” he said, shaking off the droplets that had managed to hit him.
“Forecast to clear sometime tonight,” Dorian said. “So, what’s up? Clay still shadowing that intern for you?”
“No, he had to switch with a guy named Emmett.” Who had texted Max a few minutes ago to say that Asquith had arrived at work.
“That’s right.” Dorian clicked his fingers. “Clay’s holding a training session for some of the soldiers today.”
Max nodded. “I hear you’re good with computers.” What he’d heard was that the blond sentinel was an expert hacker.
Bright blue eyes blazed with an intelligence many people missed, being taken in by looks reminiscent of some teenage surfer. “Yeah? Where did you hear that?”
Max tapped the side of his nose. “You have your sources. I have mine.”
“I don’t work for free.” Dorian folded his arms and stared meaningfully at the box Max had carried inside. There was a very feline look of anticipation on his face.
“Thanks for driving Sophie home last night.” Max handed over the doughnuts.
“I was working late anyway.” He opened the box, drew in a long breath. “What do you need on the computer front?”
“Anything you can dig up about a Psy named Quentin Gareth during a particular period almost twenty years ago.” Taking out a notepad, he jotted down the details of the six month gap.
Dorian took a bite out of a jelly doughnut. “Good call, coming to me,” he said after swallowing. “Psy often forget about the Internet. Lots of stuff cached all over the place.” Taking the torn off piece of notepaper, he slid it into a pocket. “I’ll do the search now—have a few minutes free before a meeting.”
“Call me on my cell if you have anything. I’m heading to Nikita’s.” But he’d only gotten to the door when he got a call from the head of the manhunt team. “Doctor’s been found.” Fury and pity intertwined. “We were right about the time and method of death. At least he didn’t torture her.”
It was, Max knew, a small mercy. “Was she found near the private airport where you think he boarded a jet?”
“Yeah. Parents are refusing to tell us where the jet might’ve gone. The filed fl
ight plan says it’s heading to Greece, but that’s a load of bullshit. Air Control hasn’t got it on its systems, which means the Bonners were fucking ready with a plane designed to evade radar.”
Anger burned through Max’s veins. “I’ve put a watch on some offshore accounts I know are his.” Without a warrant and with the help of friends in the computronic crimes branch of Enforcement, but if it would help catch the Butcher before he killed again, Max wasn’t going to sweat the ethics much. “He hasn’t accessed them yet—his mother’s probably supplying him.”
“Bart’s working on a warrant for her financials.”
“Sightings?”
“Through the roof.” A harsh sound. “People jumping at shadows—you know how it is.”
“We’ll get him,” Max said, able to hear the other cop’s frustration. “We did it once; we’ll do it again.” Hanging up after a few more words, he ran out to the car, the rain pelting against his body. Shrugging off his wet suit jacket, he was driving through Chinatown when he realized he’d forgotten his security keycard—which allowed him full access to the Duncan building—at Sophia’s apartment. Figuring it’d be quicker to pick it up than have it reissued, he thrust a hand through rain-damp hair and turned homeward.
“Sophia?” he called out as he wandered into her bedroom. The keycard was on the dresser where he’d put his wallet the night before, but the bedroom proved otherwise empty. “Sophie? You in the shower?” However, when he knocked, the door swung inward.
Worried she’d decided to head out in spite of Bonner’s possible presence, he pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to hers. It rang in the living area.
Ice crystals formed in his blood.