by TL Schaefer
As we drove, I began to pick out familiar sights. A barn that hadn’t changed in the decade or so I’d been gone. A house that had added a second story, but still managed to look almost unchanged. As each of those pieces of my history rolled past, my heartbeat ramped up a notch.
This was lunacy. They’d recognize me the moment I walked in there, drag me into a room, drug me and convince Brian and Foudy it was a matter of national security.
“Deep breaths, Sara,” Brian said. I met his eyes again in the rearview. He knew I was scared. While I had no problem admitting I was a freak when it came to us, for this little escapade, I’d wanted them to see me as in control.
I followed his advice anyway and took a deep breath. It made it better. Sorta.
“What are we gonna do if Foudy is right? If they’re in on it, and realize who and what I am? They can claim it’s a matter of national security or something equally outlandish. What then?”
“Follow our lead, Covington. They’re not going to recognize you, and even if they do, we’ll work it on our feet.” Monica swiveled in the passenger seat to face me, her voice as confident as her demeanor. “No matter what you and I think about each other, Brian and I have your back. We’ll talk about what you see when we get back in the car.” As always, Foudy’s attitude allowed no room for foolishness. Right now I was happy she could be a bitch—and so confident in the concept of teamwork. I needed it. I also needed her reassurances more than I wanted to admit.
Then we were turning off the interstate. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. I couldn’t take anymore, not until we were actually there. Yeah, it was escapism, but screw it, I knew when my senses—and everything else—were being overloaded. It wasn’t like the drive up there was the danger. No, CASI itself was what worried me beyond comprehension.
Behind my closed lids, I concentrated on something pleasant...like my attraction to Brian. Who would have ever guessed I could so totally connect with someone, and in a few days, no less? Certainly not me.
I’d never responded to someone so readily on a physical basis...or a mental one. So was my spinning of hearts and flowers really that off, at least in my fantasy world? I let myself imagine a life with Brian, of being a cop’s wife. Of never being alone again. And as I imagined it, I smiled.
“Wake up, Sara. We’re almost here.” It wasn’t Brian’s voice, but Foudy’s hand shaking me that jerked me up with a start. In my dream, Brian had been doing a whole host of more pleasant things. Really, really hot things. Apparently my brain had needed the diversion.
I looked through the windshield and winced. The Gates of Hell—mean CASI—were wide open and welcoming. That hadn’t changed, and neither had the tall, looming fence or the snow on the ground, even this late in the year. It was like I’d left yesterday.
The building swung into view, and I allowed my fingers to curl into the upholstery. Just as it looked on the website...as I remembered. Except the last time I’d seen it in person, I’d been running like hell the other way. And now we were going in exactly the wrong direction. How stupid was I, really? I gulped and forced myself to breathe deep.
“Foudy,” I said, probably more sharply than I intended.
She swung in the seat to face me. “Yeah?”
“Do I look okay, or as terrified as I am?”
She scrutinized me, tilting her head. “As much as it pains me to say it, you look fine. Personally, I’d have sooner left you back in Denver, or better yet, Dallas.”
“Thanks,” I replied, my sarcasm totally intentional.
The car rolled to a stop in front of the double doors like it had on that fateful day thirteen years ago, and we got out, our shoes crunching through the leftover snow on the sidewalk.
I wasn’t a scared teenager anymore. I was an adult, and had better act like one. I straightened my back, tucked my glasses into the pocket of my one-and-only suit and stepped forward, fortifying myself against the overwhelming auras I was sure I’d see the second I hit the door.
Roney and Foudy jolted into action next to me, Foudy taking long steps to put her at the front of our little cavalcade. As we mounted the steps, I realized she’d poked at me back in the car to get my ire up. She’d been protecting me, in a manner, and was doing it now by placing me between her and Brian. Maybe she liked me more than she let on. It was a faint hope, but since she was Brian’s friend, one I’d hold on to.
A man I’d never seen before greeted us at the door. It made me wonder, way too late, if Green was still around, and if I’d be seeing him. It’s not often I wish for superpowers, but right now I wanted the power to zap people on the spot. If I could do that, I could rescue these poor kids and finish CASI in one fell swoop.
“Good morning, Detectives. I’m Jonah Summers, CASI’s Headmaster. Won’t you step this way?”
He was tall, patrician, and had an undercurrent of underutilized power that ran through him like a virgin gold vein. His aura was a clear, unfettered ray of sunlight. It was the very last thing I expected to find in this place. And he had absolutely no idea of who and what I was.
“Thank you, sir. I’m Detective Foudy, and this is Covington and Roney.” We submitted our shields for his appraisal and got a nod. “We appreciate your seeing us like this on such short notice.”
We approached an office I remembered all too well. It had been Green’s, and as my personal “counselor”, he’d conducted all of my training in there. The mere thought of entering sent a wave of chills up my body. But as we stepped in, I saw Summers had changed it to his own décor, simple, unadorned, with only a few decorations and a set of diplomas on the wall. From Harvard, no less.
“So what can I do for you today?” Summers asked with a polite, somewhat distanced smile.
“We’ve a need of your specialty,” Foudy said, taking the lead with unmistakable authority. “We have a...difficult...situation, and a friend in the Denver PD said you’d assisted them on some of their more peculiar cases.”
I stiffened. What the hell? Was this some kind of double cross by Foudy? I shot a glance at Roney; he didn’t look particularly perturbed. I did an internal shake. They’d probably hashed this out while I was asleep, but it still nettled that I was supposed to docilely follow their lead when they were talking about my life. My past...and my present.
“Your friend must have been mistaken, Detective Foudy.” A frown creased Summers’s forehead.
Foudy sighed, and I had to give her points for drama. “Very well. It wasn’t a friend at Denver PD. It was someone both Detective Roney and I served with in Afghanistan. He’d used one of your students very effectively, and the...ummm...profile he formulated resulted in the capture of a very nasty insurgent.”
I held my breath and prayed like hell that Wes had indeed been assisting the armed forces.
“Really?” Now Summers’s eyes were lit with cautious enthusiasm, and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on, even when he met my eyes. “And who would this profiler have been?”
“Wes Burke. We’ve tried contacting him via his cell phone, but been unsuccessful.”
“Ah yes, Wes. If you’ve a need of him, you should contact the FBI.”
As he spoke, I studied him obliquely. He was lying about something, but I wasn’t sure of what, and I certainly wasn’t in the position to nail him to the wall. Not if I wanted to get out of here with my skin intact.
Foudy continued, obviously unaware of my revelation, and fearless, as always. “Well, therein lies the delicacy of this matter. We don’t want to alert any of his coworkers to his special talents, and our calls to him haven’t been returned. We’re hunting a serial killer, and knowing his next move would be most beneficial.”
Summers leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers in front of his mouth, obviously perturbed. Damn, we’d been right. Wes had been working for the Pentagon, at least indirectly. This wasn’t looking good, in any way, shape or form.
“Your friend in the military certainly didn’t leave out any det
ails. It’s very unusual for anyone outside of CASI and a select few to know of our students’ special abilities. To be honest, it makes me quite uncomfortable that you’re even aware CASI exists.” His eyes lingered on Brian before dismissing him (something I realized Brian and Foudy had done on purpose by letting her take the lead), then skimmed over me without so much as a flare in interest.
I breathed a silent “thank you” to the big guy upstairs. Green would have recognized the absolute defiance in my eyes. Summers pawned it off as a cop’s arrogance. But there was still something “off” in his aura, something that made me think he was stringing us along.
He sat up, decision made. “Very well, the damage is already done. But I’d appreciate your complete discretion on this. Last I heard, Agent Burke was on assignment, which is probably why your calls went unreturned. Perhaps you’d like to speak to one of our other students? I assume you brought your materials with you?”
Foudy nodded and stood, Brian and I following suit. Exhilaration, rather than terror, thumped through my veins now. I was going to see children who were like me, whose parents had either ditched them or been coerced into letting them go.
We headed to the library, and my feet fell into the familiar cadence, as if I’d never left. I’d walked this so many times over the two years of my imprisonment I knew it by rote.
Then Summers was opening the door, and I stepped into the only place I’d considered my own. My eyes went automatically to the loft, half-hidden in darkness, and I could see another pair of students had taken up residence in the spot Wes and I had made our own.
I dropped my gaze, scanning the main room. Heads that had been bent over books rose at our entry. I swept the room, looking specifically for the terror and discombobulation and abandonment I’d felt.
It wasn’t there. The sparks of talent I’d seen in my classmates those many years ago were there, yes, but it was tightly controlled, and the feeling I got from every kid in the room was one of purpose, of dedication.
Chapter Twelve
Before
Wes’s plan was frighteningly simple and hinged on only the two of us. We’d never found another student to trust—they had either been broken or sucked up to the docs so much it was nauseating.
Wes would use his “talent” to place suspicion on Dr. Green. Even as adolescents we realized anything sexual wouldn’t fly, not in an institution as cloaked in secrecy as CASI, and the cops in Denver were already leery of him and me. So instead we fabricated a story that Green and the other doctors were using us for purely financial means. With Wes’s ability for precognition and mine in auras, we finagled a few extra moments alone with our respective Denver PD lieutenants and spun a whopper.
They believed, hook, line and sinker, that the staff was taking us to Las Vegas against our will and forcing us to use our talents to rake in big wins.
Yeah, it wasn’t illegal, per se, but we hinted that what they were doing with the money was...namely stockpiles of untraceable drugs that they were using to experiment on the students. While the experimentation part was true (at least in my case, and Wes’s), all of those pharmaceuticals were carefully controlled and accounted for. None of them would have maintained their medical licenses if not, and with the story we told, they would probably be in serious jeopardy anyway...maybe even enough to shut the place down long enough for us to escape and never be found again.
I don’t know how in the heck we expected to pull it off. I mean, seriously, I was fifteen and he was thirteen. But pull it off we did. And we suffered the consequences.
Now—Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.
“I don’t know what I expected to do or see when I got there, but it’s different now,” I said quietly into the silence of the car. “Those kids want to be there, or have been brainwashed into thinking it. Summers, though he’s hiding something, isn’t dirty.” I sat for a moment, mulling over the words that would kill any chance I had of avenging the child I’d been...at least in Brian’s eyes. They came out anyway. “I can almost guarantee the things we went through don’t happen anymore. Children don’t hide the things like that, not in their auras. Those kids, and I use the term loosely, haven’t undergone any great traumas, not like I did.” I sighed. “CASI may very well be what it purports now...a school for extraordinary minds. For the talented.”
I sank back against the seat, drained, and put my glasses back on. Even though I was getting used to Foudy, I was too tired to deal with her aura right now. My mind kept spinning back to the thoughts I’d had back in the loft, before we left for Colorado. Hadn’t I been wishing for such an institution? And while the Feds and the military undoubtedly had their fingers in the CASI pie, I hadn’t felt anything that would indicate coercion, or even uneasiness among the students. They were there to learn, to figure out what made them different, to figure out a way to deal with it and move on with their lives.
Foudy had gotten her interview with a teenager named Gillian, who’d confirmed what we knew. That our perp was organized and knew exactly what he was doing. When she asked about detailed victimology (yes, using those exact words), Foudy hedged successfully.
We’d left shortly thereafter, and only an older student, one who undoubtedly shared the same talent I did, gave me a second look. He’d been one of the kids in the loft. Since his colors indicated he wasn’t an ass-biting narc, I made sure no one was looking and raised my finger to my lips. He’d smiled, winked in a totally audacious manner and went about his studies. He’d definitely be one to watch. Yeah, like I’d ever go back inside those doors again willingly. But even as I thought it, I wondered. If CASI was truly as it appeared, was I slinging arrows in the wrong direction? God, I was so tired.
“Monica, impressions?” Brian finally said, breaking the silence.
“They’re organized as hell, almost like the military, and Wonder Girl is right. Those kids aren’t being held hostage. Anything but.”
“That was my notion as well. We couldn’t very well grill Summers on Burke, so where do we go from here?”
“Back to Dallas, I guess, at least for the time being. If Burke is good to his word, we’ll have to put out feelers to other departments about any additional kills, but be careful not to alert the Feds. Not sure how we’re gonna go about that.”
“I think we’re okay on that, at least for a while,” I ventured. “Only one of the people at CASI even had a clue I was gifted, and he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Summers’s radar didn’t go up one little bit when we said we were looking for a serial and mentioned Wes’s name. They don’t have a clue what he’s doing, at least not yet.” With those words, I realized I’d shot my whole CASI conspiracy theory straight to hell. Whether the Meece Foundation was equally blameless was a whole ’nother thing.
The tension in the car grew so thick I imagined I could see it, even with my glasses.
Foudy, predictably, broke it. “Dammit.” She pounded her hand on the dashboard. “I hate this. He’s gonna kill someone else. We all know it. And he’s doing it because of what they—” she cast her hand backward, at the gates of CASI, “—are training those kids to do.”
Something had finally gotten through to her. Hallelujah.
“If it’s any consolation, Foudy, that’s all I can think about, okay? I knew Wes, probably better than anyone. What I learned today puts it all in perspective. He wants to destroy CASI. But like I said, it’s different now.” So different that I’d begun to seriously question my own vendetta. I didn’t like it one little bit.
“Well get on it quick, Wonder Girl, before we have another corpse on our hands,” she snapped.
She wasn’t angry with me, but the situation. It was an emotion I could totally sympathize with. Now I had to make good on my word.
We changed our tickets at the airport and were back in Dallas by evening.
Roney hadn’t had much to say on the ride back to the airport, or on the plane either. I appreciated the space he gave me, though he’d touch my leg or my arm, or push my h
air back from my face every once in a while, letting me know he was still there.
Foudy twitched in her seat so much I was able to begin to anticipate her every movement.
And still the solution to our dilemma eluded me. Wes would have moved on to another city by now. How in the hell could any of us guess which one? I didn’t think Summers knew where he was, and it wasn’t like we could browbeat what little he might know out of him, not with the probable cause we had right now...me. It wasn’t enough, and any judge in the nation would laugh us out of the courtroom if the prosecutor didn’t arrest me first. We were back to square one.
By the time we deplaned, my head pounded with a ferocious headache.
Roney ushered me into his Crown Vic, giving Foudy a little wave as we left, and headed for Deep Ellum.
It was too late to collect Xena, so we grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and recapped the whole horrible, fruitless day.
After we were done, we sat in comfortable silence. Comfortable because that’s the way we’d become around each other, sexual tension notwithstanding. There were so many questions Brian might have asked, but he didn’t and I was glad for it. Tomorrow would be soon enough, especially with Wes going underground.
With a weary sigh, Brian finally stood. “The uniform will stay right where he’s at until we know Burke has moved on to another city. It’s probably a waste of manpower, but we’ve got to be sure.”
I walked him to the door, admitting to myself he wasn’t going to make it over the threshold. My quotient for being scared was up, and I wanted Brian Roney...bad. Did I feel guilty about using him for my own satisfaction? Yeah, a bit, but I could guarantee he’d leave here smiling. So I took the step I’d been anticipating—and denying—since the day I met him.
He leaned in for a brief kiss, and I latched on with everything inside me. He let out a surprised grunt, then returned my passion, his tongue teasing mine as his hands grasped my hips and pulled me close.