by TL Schaefer
“Christie never knew what was in those needles, only that they hurt like hell. Eventually, though, it was the cell that got to her, enough for her to tell them what they wanted to hear. The other ‘inmates’ were no better than the captors. They went out of their way to make life a living hell for her at night, when the doctors were off duty.”
“Jesus, Sara,” Roney ground out between obviously clenched teeth. “You’re talking about you.”
I dared a quick glance at him and saw that his jaw had gone stone hard. I gulped and continued the story no one else had ever heard. Reliving this was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, and that was saying something.
“They made her hone her talents using what she thought of as a fourth dimension, until she could read auras as easily as most can read a stoplight. Could look into someone’s eyes and know what they were feeling and combine that with their aura to get an almost-indisputable idea of what was going on in their heads. They had her work with inmates who had committed the most unspeakable acts, and observe interviews with suspected killers and rapists. They made her into a tool before she even turned sixteen. And on that birthday, when they tried to kill her, she escaped in the middle of a blizzard.”
I looked up at Brian, to see how he was taking all of this. His jaw was still set, and anger glinted in his eyes. Exactly what I’d expected...and feared.
“Christie lived under overpasses and in alleys, scrounging for what food she could find. They hunted for her. Oh, how they hunted, in food shelters and anyplace she might go, until she stowed away on a semi, and it eventually dumped her in Phoenix. She found a shelter there, and met someone who showed her how to get a new identity. Sara Covington might have died in Phoenix twenty-five years ago, but she rose again that day.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Brian’s voice had gone suspiciously low. I didn’t know if it was because I was telling him I’d committed a humongous crime or because of what I’d gone through. I didn’t think I wanted to know right now... I needed to conclude the tale before my vocal cords froze.
I sighed. “Let me finish, and I think you’ll understand...maybe. I’m telling you because someone from CASI found me. He’s your baddie. He made Amy say it, wanted me to understand and play his game. Alone. But I can’t do it anymore.”
He ignored my earlier request not to break in—again—but now he was righteously pissed. “You let him keep her for even a few hours longer, knowing that this CASI was a lead?”
I finally turned to face him, but locked my eyes on the kitchen clock. Cowardly? You bet.
“I had to digest it. He doesn’t want her dead...yet. He wants me to figure out his game. He said to look at the ‘board’. Before you ask, I have no idea what he means.”
Roney was dead quiet for so long, I finally steeled myself to look at him.
His face was completely unreadable, but was it because of the revelation of my past, or the information about our lunatic?
“Look.” I squirmed beneath his gaze. “I spent a decade burying Christie Jenkins. Resurrecting her for you isn’t exactly the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do.” My words were, as always, sharp. I told myself as I said them that I didn’t need or want his approval.
“And yet you have. Why?” His voice was bland, his eyes blank and hard as slate.
“Because there’s too much at stake now. I couldn’t do anything about the others, but I can with this girl. It’s personal now.” I kept my tone even, though my gut was churning. Was I doing the right thing? Morally, sure, but God, what if I was wrong about how he’d deal with this?
There were several avenues Roney could take right now. Jail, for lifting an identity, acceptance of everything I’d said, or half and half... No jail, but he’d keep me close. I was hoping for the second, banking on the third. I seriously doubted anyone with half a brain would prosecute me for assuming Sara Covington’s identity—they had much bigger fish to fry—but the possibility was there...if someone wanted to make an issue of it.
I made myself meet Brian’s eyes. Anger was there, banked as if he was waiting for me to finish damning myself.
“I know I screwed up,” I said, willing him to respond. When he continued to simply stare at me, I dropped my eyes and continued. “I’ll be up front with you about everything from now on. I buried Christie a long, long time ago, and bringing her back to life is a bitch.” I drew in a deep breath and looked up.
Brian stared at me with an expression I’d never seen before. On anyone. I realized it was compassion and marveled at it. I wondered how he’d pushed his anger aside and recognized he probably thought of it as counterproductive. As a cop, as a veteran, he’d seen worse than this and was used to tempering his responses. But there was more than that in his expression. There was a weariness I couldn’t comprehend, but understood nonetheless.
His expression melted my heart, so much so that I tried and failed to bolster myself against it. Now that he’d heard the worst, there was no reason to think we’d ever do the horizontal mambo. Sympathy notwithstanding, guys like Brian didn’t usually make it a habit to get involved with women who lied through their teeth. Or had committed a felony. Yeah, assuming Sara’s name hadn’t been up there with murder, but it was still fraud and open for prosecution.
Over the last few days I’d been busy denying what I really wanted—to get into Brian’s pants—but now I’d spilled the beans... The chances of getting any with a man I was now starting to seriously admire, in addition to being hot for, were approximate with a snowball’s in hell. So it was back to Jon for me. Yippee.
But even with that, there was a freedom in the telling I hadn’t anticipated, a feeling of self I hadn’t experienced in years, if ever. If nothing else, I could take comfort in the fact my conscience was now clear. And not surprisingly, I felt stronger for it.
“I was going to ask why you colored your hair so dark, but now I guess I know the answer.” Roney’s voice was deceptively soft, warm. If this was how he interrogated suspects, I could see how the female population would fall over themselves to confess.
My eyebrows scrunched together at the flip-flop between pissed and cajoling. Even if I understood it as a technique of sorts, it threw me nonetheless. “How did you know that?”
“You keep bottles of Miss Clairol 52D Black Azure in your bathroom. It was in the notes from the search yesterday.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” I didn’t even bother to hide the incredulity in my voice.
“Hell no.” He laughed and reached forward to wind his fingers through mine. Sensation rocketed from his palm to mine, and heat spiraled through my entire body. “We’d be up all night with my questions. But I have an important one now. Can you read me?”
“No,” I breathed, flummoxed almost beyond words. “You’re a Null.”
“Meaning?” His fingers tightened against mine, almost short-circuiting my response.
“Meaning you have no aura. I can’t see your personality or your feelings. Foudy, on the other hand, is like a fire engine she’s so dominantly red.”
“I’m glad you can’t read me. A man likes to keep some mysteries.”
It was that easy? I didn’t think so. “Why in the hell haven’t you cuffed me or sent me to the nearest psychiatric ward?” Call me stupid...masochistic...stupid.
“Probably because I believe you, at least to a certain extent. You’ve shown your gift too clearly in the past. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have you downtown and with the shrinks so fast it’d make your head spin. But I believe in what I see, especially when you’ve got no reason to lie and every reason to keep it quiet. Now, do you have any of that Shiner left? I get the feeling I’m going to need it by the time we’re done.”
I nodded, plopped Xena on the floor and stood, feeling lighter than I had in years, even if there was a serial killer on the loose.
His next words froze me my tracks for a moment. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten about the rest of our talk, Sara.”
/>
I consciously made the effort to step to the refrigerator.
Maybe Jon wasn’t in my future, after all.
“The most ironic part of all of this is that I used what they taught me to work crime scenes. And now you understand why I couldn’t come on full-time as a technician or even as a photographer. I would have been fingerprinted, and it would have been all over. My prints are on file with CASI, or at least they were. As an indie who was grandfathered in, I squirreled away from getting printed over the last ten years, avoiding the possibility of being outed.” It was half an hour later, and I was spent, both physically and emotionally.
“Makes sense,” Roney replied, leaning back against the sofa cushion. I’d told him everything I could remember. I still had no earthly idea who was behind this, but the obvious place to look was at CASI. A full-body tremor rocketed through me at the mere thought.
“What?”
“CASI is the place to find out what’s going on. The thought of going back there scares me to death.”
Roney reached out and ran a comforting hand down my arm. Girly shivers all over again.
“We’ll try another few avenues first. I don’t like laying siege to a fortified encampment without all available intel. That’s why I haven’t called Monica yet, or told the task force.”
As comforting as his touch and demeanor were, his words were straight-up rational and commanding. Where had this Brian come from? I liked it—don’t get me wrong—but it was a little disconcerting.
Brian continued, unaware of my conflict. “If CASI, or someone connected to it, is behind this, I don’t want to risk Amy’s life by going in, guns blazing. This guy is obviously smart and is keeping Amy alive for a reason, maybe as a bargaining chip. What I want to work on tonight is the ‘game’ concept.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t bring Foudy in on this now?” I didn’t want her knowing my secret, but she was a prime mover in this case, and at this point I’d do whatever I had to do to help Amy. She’d gotten to me with that little-girl-lost voice. I recognized it all too well.
“Not yet. Monica’s not as open-minded as I am and would probably scoff more than she’d help, at least right now. We’ll bring her up to speed when it’s necessary.”
I looked him square in the eye. “You need to take precautions, Roney. Knowing what you know and not doing anything about it could get you fired or up on charges right along with me.”
“Don’t you think it’s about time you started calling me Brian? I think we’re past the last name stage now.”
I did too, but that wasn’t the point. “I’m serious. Don’t think I don’t recognize diversion when I see it, Null or not.”
He smiled and took my breath away. “Fine. Yes, I know this can get my ass in trouble, but if we save Amy and nail this asshole, I don’t think Davis or anyone else is going to look at it too closely. As long as we follow court-admissible protocols, which means making sure that everything we do, everything we think, is based on fact, not on your perception of this fourth dimension. Make sense?”
“Yeah,” I acquiesced. It was what I’d been doing for over ten years, after all. And I was freakin’ good at it. “What do you think he meant about looking at the board?”
“That one’s got me stumped. Did you ever play games at CASI? Something that would have significance?”
“Sometimes. I mean, you put a bunch of geeky kids together under strict observation... It’s not like Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle are the entertainment of choice. We did the usual. Checkers, Monopoly, that kind of thing.”
“Did you have an affinity for any specific game?”
I shook my head. “I was more of a watcher after isolation.” Yeah, I’d been a watcher all right, searching for any way out of that hellhole. “They couldn’t do much about it as long as I did what they wanted during ‘work’ hours.”
Brian shook his head. “I can’t even imagine...”
The fury that had simmered in the back of my mind since Amy’s first call finally broke through. “Don’t you dare pity me. I’ve done something with my life, done something good. I help people, even if they are dead.”
He lunged forward, capturing my chin with his big, work-roughened palm and my eyes with his. They blazed with something molten that had nothing to do with feeling sorry for me.
“Don’t ever think that. What you went through would have broken ninety-nine percent of the population. I respect you. Admire you. Want you.” His voice dropped, went husky. “But we both know that.”
“This isn’t the time...” I began, but the tremble in my voice betrayed me. Hell, I was sure the expression on my face did as well. I wanted him right back, and now there was no reason not to explore and savor what I’d tasted last night. He already knew the worst, right?
“When is it more right, Sara? What about when he comes for you? And he will.”
I let out a harsh breath. Brian was right. He would be coming for me. Everything that had happened so far was a sick kind of foreplay. I’d already overloaded what few circuits I had left firing in telling Brian of my past, so why shouldn’t I enjoy the touch and joy of a man’s hand, rather than the molded rubber sterility of Jon?
It was because I respected both of us more than that that I shook my head. Yeah, I’m a dumb bunny sometimes. But I was a scared dumb bunny, to give myself some credit. Not about the killer, or CASI, but about Brian Roney. Because he was a guy who had “future” beaming off every square inch of him, even if he didn’t realize it. I didn’t need the Sight to figure that out. That kind of commitment wasn’t something I did.
“No matter how much I may want to, I can’t, at least not yet. You and I, it’s too new, and I haven’t been with someone in a while.” As much as I wanted to hang my head, instead I met his eyes with a wan smile.
He was frustrated—anyone with a pulse could see that—but he forced a mirroring grin, although it was strained. Something else warred in his eyes, and the expression reminded me of the day he’d let Monica take the lead. He was a cop, and I was still a suspect in Hiram’s murder, even if everything pointed to the serial. Until Davis officially declared me no longer of interest, there would always be that flicker of doubt in his mind, even if his hormones momentarily overrode it.
“I’ll be fine. Any man worth his cojones can step back when need be.” He moved his hand and feathered a tendril of my hair between his fingers. “So if we’re back to talking, what do you want to discuss?”
I laughed, but it was as edgy as his smile. “How about why you can accept who and what I am so easily? That you’re willing to pursue a personal relationship with me when I’m still a suspect.” Those were topics designed to kill any remaining pheromones in the air, though his fingers still toyed with my hair.
“Hell, we both know you didn’t kill Hiram. Even Davis and Monica know it—they can’t admit it until you’re completely cleared. As for the other, when I was in Iraq there was this kid, Airman Dobbs. He was freaky. Knew when something was going to go down. Most everyone else blew him off, at least until he started coming up right. All the time. He never said anything to the higher-ups, just us grunts. For a while everybody ostracized him...bad luck and all that...but eventually we came around and understood there was something special about him. If we’d been stateside, it would have been a different story, but when you’re getting shot at, you get a different perspective.” He bounced his leg absently.
“Our squad became known as the Lucky Seven, and eventually someone started asking questions. One day after mess, Dobbs disappeared and we never saw him again. Our lieutenant spouted some bull about him getting called home for a family emergency, but every trace of him was gone...like he’d vanished into thin air. I tried to look him up when I got back to the States, but he was gone...poof. Now, with everything you’ve told me, I think Dobbs’s precognition made it to the right—or wrong, depending on your perception—ears, and he disappeared into some maze at the National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence A
gency.”
His story of Airman Dobbs chilled me to the bone because he was probably right on the mark. I had first-hand experience on how those “in authority” wanted to use people like me. But Dobbs hadn’t been one of the CASI students, I was sure of that. The big players would have known who he was off the bat. No, that poor kid had lived his whole life figuring it out on his own. Which had to have sucked. Then again, would I wish CASI on anyone? Hell no.
“But that wasn’t all,” Brian continued. “I was stationed in several places after Iraq, and then they sent me to Afghanistan. I’ve seen things that’d make most men’s balls shrivel up, and I’m not talking about war. I’m talking about the ‘other’ out there. It may have taken being around Dobbs for me to see it, but it’s there, Sara. I’ve seen it, breathed it, lived it.” He lifted his head and met my eyes, and I could see he believed, unequivocally, in what he said.
I wasn’t used to that kind of acceptance. Well, at CASI, sure. But they’d been all about exploiting my talents. Brian wanted... What in the hell did he want, besides to get in my pants?
I shifted my gaze away from him, unsettled. I’d never really questioned his motives before, now had I? I understood the male primary targeting radar—to attain what no one else has had. But it had seemed like more than that... It still did. Why was I getting all twitchy now?
Maybe it was because he was a Null, and maybe because I was starting to acknowledge that I cared about him. The thought alone gave me the heebie-jeebies instead of the warm fuzzies it was supposed to, at least according to my romance novels.
Brian broke into my thoughts. “So, give me the dirt on CASI and this Meece Foundation. I know it’s hard, but I need at least the bare bones.” He gave me a patented “cop” look. “I’m going to tape this, Sara. Even if it’s for me, and Monica later down the road.”