by Jen Talty
She’d seen a similar mix of colors the day her parents died.
Chapter 2
THE GOOD THING ABOUT remote viewing was that you could turn it on and off when you needed to. It didn’t encroach on your life like other abilities. Brett’s one buddy was telepathic and it ruined his last relationship. Nothing worse than being inside your girlfriend’s head and listening to her mind whisper, hurry up, I’ve got things to do…I’m sooooo bored.
He sat in his jeep, which he’d parallel parked in front of a coffee shop near Johns Hopkins University waiting for his first assignment, a chick named Hazel. From what he’d gathered, her sisters knew of the agency through some guy in special forces. Phoenix took on a variety of jobs, both military and civilian. However, the bigger reason he was assigned to this case, besides the sisters wanting his specific skill set, was because the sisters had been working on a case involving Kae Gyeon, which coincidently had been a name that had been brought up by the members of the SEAL team he’d viewed.
Three times in the last hour, he’d tried to find the team, but nothing.
They’d gotten the go order and disappeared.
But Brett knew the team was being blocked by a strong psychic, or maybe many. The only question that remained was: by who and were they friend or foe.
He eyed a young blonde, approximately five-feet-four-inches-tall, and if he had to guess, she weighed one-hundred and forty pounds, giving her short frame some sexy curves. His stomach growled. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was hungry, or sexually deprived and the pretty little blonde attacked his manhood like butter melting over a hot ear of corn. He counted the months it had been since he’d even laid a finger on a woman.
Thirteen months.
Longest time since before his first time having sex.
He smiled at the memory. He’d been all of seventeen and he’d met this cute, little blonde at a buddy’s party and one thing led to another. Thanks to a few shots of fireball and half a stale joint, he’d gotten laid for the first time.
The only sucky part was he didn’t know her name. If he ever got her name. He also wondered if she’d ever thought of him as fondly as he did of her.
He sighed, watching the cute blonde’s hips sway back and forth as she entered the coffee shop. He hoped this was his contact and that her face was as adorable as the rest of her.
Time to get to work.
Young people lined the streets, most scurrying off to campus with their heads down, earbuds in, and phones in hand. He hated technology. Avoided it whenever possible.
The lingering smell of coffee and cinnamon lulled him into the quaint shop.
The moment he spotted the blonde standing off to the side, eyeing her phone, occasionally looking up and scanning the area, his jaw fell open and his heartbeat went from a steady, rhythmic beat to an out of control jackhammer.
Little Miss first time.
No fucking way.
He snapped his jaw shut just as she made eye contact. The glimmer of recognition etched in her dark eyes as her lids narrowed to tiny little slits.
He’d seen that look before on a woman’s face, and it generally meant he was a fucking moron who didn’t understand women and should be shot.
Guess she didn’t remember him too fondly.
He picked up his bruised ego and made his way across the room. “Hazel?” he asked, stretching out his arm. “I’m Brett Radcliff from the Phoenix Agency.”
Her handshake was firm and way too short, considering the second they made physical contact he remembered exactly how her fingers felt all over his body. The first time having sex wasn’t supposed to be mind-blowing.
“That’s how you’re going to play this?” She continued to stare at him with her dark, intense eyes. “Like you don’t have any idea—”
“I know who you are.” He rubbed the back of his neck, knowing the next statement was going to make him look like the biggest asshole on the planet. “But that night, I never got your name, much less your number so I could call you again and none of my friends knew who you were.”
“I came with a girl from your high school. Basically, I crashed the party.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She shook her head. “I never thought in a million years I’d ever see you again.”
“I went to boot camp two weeks after that party. I spent those two weeks trying to figure out who the hell you were.”
She patted his chest. “I’m the chick who popped your cherry. Now, can I buy you a cup of coffee so we can discuss my missing sister?”
“Sure.” He waved his hand out in front of him and they got in line. It had been thirteen years since he’d lost his virginity to the adorable woman standing in front of him, the top of her head coming to maybe an inch below his chin. Thirteen years, and yet she still had a physical effect on him that made it difficult to keep from pitching a tent in his pants.
The irony, it had been thirteen months since he’d had sex.
“Let’s go outside.” He reached out to put his hand on the small of her back, but thought better of it. “So, tell me about your premonition,” he said, taking a seat at a table as far away from the door as possible.
“Why don’t we start with you telling me what you know about Kae Gyeon and what you saw when you viewed the team in South Korea.”
He arched a brow as he lowered his chin. “How do you know about that?”
“I know a few people at the Phoenix Agency, which is why I called them and specifically asked for a viewer. When I told them what happened, they told me about your visit to South Korea and hooked us up.”
“At least I know your name this time,” he said with a smile, which quickly turned to a frown when she glared at him with daggers shooting from her deadly gaze.
“All right. What do you want to know?” he asked.
“How is Gyeon related to the SEAL team in South Korea?”
“That I don’t know. His name was brought up in conversation as a contact, but I don’t know whether it was as a friendly, or a hostile.”
“I was told you felt other viewers there. Any idea who?”
“You want to know if I think one was your sister,” he said as a statement of fact. “I really don’t know, but considering all that has happened, I’d say it’s a good guess. I can tell you, however, without a doubt, that someone was doing their best to block me and divert my attention.”
She let out a long breath. “So, my sister is missing and now maybe a SEAL team? All over a missing boy.”
“A missing man,” Brett corrected her, pulling out his cell and bringing up a document. “I just found this while I was waiting for you. Our missing young man has three cousins who live in North Korea and are heavy supporters of the current regime. The SEAL team’s mission is classified and no one is going to give us that intel, but what I have been given, and what I’ve dug up on my own, is that the Gyeon family is torn like the great civil war.”
“So, the kid could be an agent for the North Koreans.”
“He very well could be.” Brett took a slow sip of his coffee, letting the hot liquid burn his tongue. The woman sitting before him wasn’t much different from the girl he remembered; only the woman had a much bigger impact on both his mind, and his body. No greater turn on than a sexy woman who could carry her end of an assignment. “I need to see all your files on the case.”
“They’re back at the office. But before we do that, I want you to try to view my sister.” Hazel pulled out a hoop earring, a folded-up piece of paper, and a bandana. “I don’t know what you need to get the party started, but these are the kind of items Savanah uses.” Her voice hitched when she spoke her sister’s name.
Normally, he didn’t like going into view mode in public, but this case was special, and not just because Hazel had given him the one sexual experience that all others would be measured against, but because something with the team and their mission didn’t sit right in his gut. He rubbed his thigh, fingering the three bullet
holes that had torn through his muscles. His back twitched where another few rounds had sliced through his body, destroying one of his kidneys.
He lost half his team and nearly died himself because of bad intel. Even his ability to view couldn’t have told him what lay ahead that fateful day, because the ambush hadn’t come from the known enemy.
The target.
No. The attack came from behind them and from a band of rogue foreign soldiers with their own agenda.
“Have you had a vision about where she might be?”
Hazel nodded. “I’ve seen a large body of water, but not an ocean. It looks like a lake surrounded by mountains and I heard children laughing in the background.”
“Anything else you can tell me, like is the area humid or cooler air?”
“It smelled like my great aunt’s cabin in upstate New York.”
“We’ll go with that,” he said. “I’ll need you to be quiet, unless I ask you a question, okay?”
Hazel nodded.
He rolled his neck and then closed his eyes, fingering each of the objects. The biggest thing he’d learned from his training at the Phoenix Agency had been that he had other psyche talents. They weren’t prominent, and never would be, but they could enhance his viewing capabilities.
The ability to feel other people’s emotions was one of his strongest subsets. Many called it being an empath, though others considered it to be clairsentience. He didn’t care what you called it, he hated it. Just like he hated feeling the concern rippling from Hazel's body.
He focused on the connection between Hazel and her sister. A tunnel appeared, like in most viewing sessions. He used that tunnel to transport himself to wherever he needed to be. He saw a beam of light at the other end and the tunnel walls went from grey, to brown, to a lush green.
He slowed his pace and soon he found himself standing on the ridge of a mountain overlooking a lake. He scanned the area, but didn’t see anything other than pretty greenery and a path.
He grabbed a long stick and headed down the trail. He heard the laughter of children running and playing. The faint sound of a tennis ball hitting the strings on a racket echoed between his ears. The roaring of an outboard engine tickled his senses. A rush of happiness edged its way into his body like a kid on a perpetual sugar high.
As he neared the bottom of the mountain, he saw wooden cabins nestled in the trees. A couple of young boys sat on a tree stump while others raced around, hurling insults at each other.
This wasn’t the right place.
“Did your sister ever attend summer camp?” He hated pulling himself even slightly from his view, but he had to understand why he’d been brought to this area.
“No. None of us did.”
He meandered his way through cabins and found himself on what appeared to be a fire-access dirt road. Girls ran by, laughing. A young boy, maybe fourteen, smashed a tether ball with his fist. The girl standing on the other side jumped, nailing it with the palm of her hand, sending it back around the pole in the other direction.
Over here. A faint voice echoed from far away.
Over where? He wondered as he continued through an open field, surrounded by cabins. Some older, some newer. His own memories of his days at Camp Quest filled his brain. He walked for what seemed like forever until he came to a small beach. Across from the beach was a house. In the house, he saw Savanah.
You need to come in person, the voice rattled inside his mind. Get out of my view and just view the area. Tell Hazel, because I know she’s with you, that I’m fine, but that nothing is as it appears to be. Before he could channel the connection, it broke.
Or maybe it was blocked.
Didn’t matter. He needed to find out exactly where he was and form a plan. He let the connection to Savanah fade into the background as he continued around the camp area. Cabins and kids everywhere. He noted a flag pole in the center of a field. He made his way there, passing small sailboats that looked more like bathtubs than something that could float effortlessly across the water. Two large, blue lifeguard towers stretched out into the crystal, blue waters.
Obviously, he was on a lake. But which one?
A sensation pulled him toward the road, where he walked for about three minutes until he came to a sign.
Lake George, New York.
Well, hell, he’d always wanted to go there.
He took off running, in search of the tunnel. Seconds later, he blinked his eyes open. Hazel had leaned across the table, her face dangerously close to his.
“Well?” she asked.
“I know where your sister is, but before we go, we need to study the files on Gyeon. Your sister mentioned that things aren’t as they appear.”
“You talked to her? How is that possible in a view?”
Good question, because it normally didn’t happen and this was less like talking, and more like feeling. “I didn’t talk to her, but she did communicate with me. I can’t explain because it’s not like it ever happened before.”
“I’ve heard that when two viewers end up in the same cosmic plane, they can communicate and see each other like avatars.”
“Never happened to me, but I was definitely in contact with someone on a cosmic level.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go back to my place, grab the files, and go get my sister.”
“I’ll get my team to gas up the plane.”
Chapter 3
SOME THINGS WERE better off left in the past.
Like the young man who’d seduced a seventeen-year-old girl into bed for the first time, though he didn’t have to do much to get her there since the second she laid eyes on him everything around him blurred, leaving only a delightful premonition of what was to come. When she’d found out after she’d slept with him, that he’d be leaving for the Marine Corps her heart ached. It wasn’t love, but she had wanted to explore what it could be.
Over the years, she’d had a few visions about him. A few times the visions were mirages of combat, which always disturbed her. She couldn’t control her premonitions but she’d learned to block him from her mind.
Or maybe over the years, the connection had disappeared.
Only, he still had the same effect on her as he had thirteen years ago.
And now, he was standing behind her, probably… hopefully… staring at her ass, as she pushed open the front door to her offices.
The front two rooms were originally the family room and a bedroom when the house had been divided into two apartments.
“Welcome to the Raven Agency.” Hazel had hoped neither of her sisters would be in the office this morning, but Willow sat at her desk on the far corner of the room as she peered over her computer screen. Alexis’ desk was pushed up against the wall in the front, under the window. She’d had her ear to the phone, but when she turned, her jaw dropped open.
“I’ll have to call you back,” Alexis said, then tapped her phone, her gaze shifting between Hazel and the man next to her.
She shouldn’t have ever shown her sisters the picture.
“Is that the Brett Radcliffe?” Willow bolted upright. “As in the guy who—”
“He’s from Phoenix and he’s here to help us find Savanah,” Hazel said, hoping to diffuse the situation before it got even weirder.
Brett cleared his throat. “I’ve got a possible location to check out. My agency is gassing up the plane as we speak.”
“Great. I’ll get my go bag,” Willow said.
“You’re not going.” Hazel curled her fingers around Brett’s hard biceps as she pulled him through the office. “I need you to stay here. We’ve got two open cases, so work them. If I need you, I know how to find you.”
“Finding our sister is more important than these other cases,” Willow said, leaning back, arms folded across her chest.
Hazel let out a long breath. “I know, but we hired Phoenix for a reason and last night we decided—”
“Last night we didn’t know that Phoenix was going to s
end the one who got away.” Willow and her sharp tongue.
Brett coughed.
“That doesn’t matter.” Alexis had glided across the room and now stood next to Willow.
Both of them sported the famous Raven smirk.
“Besides, Hazel is right,” Alexis said. “We should stay behind in case we get a different lead.”
Hazel slowly blinked her eyes a couple of times, trying not to stare at Brett with his arched brow and amused twitch of a half-smile inching up his cheeks.
“Do we all agree then?” Hazel asked.
“Fine, I’ll stay behind, but I won’t like it,” Willow said.
Hazel tugged Brett toward the door and the stairs to the second floor, painfully aware she’d never released his arm. She could have left him in the office, but then her sisters would have given him the third degree.
Why did sisters tell each other everything?”
“That was awkward,” he said leaning against the doorjamb of her bedroom as she pulled her go bag from the closet and added a few more articles of clothing.
“How did they know my name? I distinctly remember I never told you."
“Everyone at that party knew who you were.”
“It was one of my buddy's grad party, so I suppose that makes sense.”
She focused on the bag and not the sexy man in her bedroom. Parts of that night were fuzzy, but the few hours she’d spent in his arms had been ingrained in her mind for life.
“But what I don’t understand is what your sister said about me being the one—”
She held up her hand. “I was seventeen and you and I had this weird fantasy thing going on about not knowing each other’s name.”
“I had every intention of knowing your name, only you snuck out in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.”
“And you joined the marines. Nothing would have ever come of us anyway.”