The Doubted

by Shiloh Walker

  Nyrene slid a look over to the girl in question. “I don’t want to say I’m doubting you but…”

  “You are doubting me,” Taige said.

  “She’s a kid,” Nyrene responded. She grimaced and looked at Jillian. “No offense.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes. “Anytime somebody says no offense, there’s usually offense.”

  “Jillian, I’ve told you about rolling your eyes,” Taige said.

  “I’m not even looking at you.” Jillian made a face.

  “I can hear it in your voice,” the woman said, glancing at the girl from the corner of her eye. “And you heard me.” Her gaze shifted back to Nyrene. “I know it’s hard to get, but Jillian is…well… If you haven’t seen her in action, you won’t get it. But her gift came on her when she was a small child. Half the cases in recent years that are attributed to me were actually solved because she gave me the lead.”

  She laughed at the expression on Nyrene’s face. “And those are just the ones that leaked out into the public eye. There are more that will never see the light of day. She looks, and is currently acting like a normal teenage girl, but she’s seen and dealt with things no seventeen-year-old—hell, no twenty-year— No fifty-seven-year-old should ever have to see.”

  Nyrene swallowed, because the expression on Taige’s face had taken on a dark cast. Jillian slid her hand into her mother’s and the two of them shared a private moment.

  It was shattered by Dev as he said, “Look, I don’t want to discount you, Jillian…or you, Ms. Morgan, but these characters are showing up out of nowhere. Nyrene’s barely had a chance to give us warning most of the time and we’ve had to haul ass so often, I would have sworn that she had some sort of GPS on her.”

  Nyrene couldn’t stop herself from sending him a disgruntled look.

  He caught sight of it, too. She could tell by the dull flush that showed up along his cheekbones. He had acted in a way that was almost absurdly gentle ever since he had come to the conclusion that she was telling the truth. Well, save for that one time…

  There had been nothing gentle about the way his hands had flown over her body. Nothing gentle in the way his mouth took hers.

  She fought the urge to shiver.

  “Ah…Nyrene?” Taige said. She coughed, covering her mouth with her fist and slid a look at her daughter. The teenager was standing there with wide eyes and a pink flush to her pretty face.

  Nyrene realized she had dropped the shield she had somehow managed to erect and she slammed in back into place.

  Jillian shook her head, looking a bit dazed. “I don’t know how you do that. That wall you have is a tight piece of work,” the girl commented, sounding old beyond her years.

  “Can you really pick up on everybody?” But she wasn’t looking at Jillian.

  Rather, she looked at Taige, and although she had her shield up tight, Taige must have picked up on what she was thinking. Her smile was understanding. “People might not be able to block Jillian, but she can block people. And after a while, once she gets used to somebody, they become background noise to her, even if they are…unusually strong.”

  Nyrene shook her head. “Still…all the time?” She tried to imagine being assailed by the images that came at her all the time and she thought she’d go crazy if she had to deal with that.

  Something of what she felt must have shown on her face, because Jillian crooked a grin at her. “When you live with it all the time, you learn to cope a lot faster. Really, it’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t remember a time when my mind was completely my own. There’s always been…voices or scenes. Something up here.” She wiggled her fingers near her temple.

  Nyrene felt an insane urge to hug the girl.

  Unaware of what Nyrene was thinking, she said, “It’s different with you, from what I saw before you shut me out. You’re still hit-or-miss and it seems more…” Jillian paused, clearly searching for the right way to phrase it. “Situational with you. You react to people you know are in danger, and for things that affect you directly.”

  “Not always,” Nyrene said, thinking of the reporter. She explained.

  “But that did, or would have, affected you. Dev was important to your safety.” Taige glanced at him. “If he had been...arrested, that would have affected you.”

  “Arrested, Mom?” Jillian said, her tone sardonic.

  She knew, Nyrene realized abruptly. This seventeen-year-old girl knew all the dark, ugly truths that Nyrene had been dealing with. But she was already struggling to deal with what she was learning, what she had already learned, so she pushed that realization to the side. “How could that have affected me?” she asked. She shot Dev a look, then, deciding to say the hell with subtly, she pointed out, “I’m in trouble because of him.”

  Dev’s face tightened, but he said nothing.

  “There’s a connection, still. Either between you and him,” Taige said, her eyes moving between the two of them tellingly. “Or between you and those who set this reporter up to be killed. I don’t know. You may not ever know. But that connection is there.”

  The memory of his hands on her, his skin sliding back and forth over hers, his body so hard, hungry and taut as he rode her, flashed through her mind. But Nyrene quelled the thought before it could lead to another.

  “What are we to do?” she asked, voice husky. “I can’t even begin to go back to a normal life right now. I don’t know if I ever can. There are cops looking for me now. And you say that as long as I can stay shielded, these freaks from The Psychic Portal—”

  “You’re one of the freaks now, too,” Jillian pointed out.

  “I’m not trying to stalk and kidnap myself,” Nyrene replied with a quick glance at the girl. Redirecting her attention back to the other woman, she said, “But I don’t know if I can keep this shield up—I have to concentrate to do it and it’s…” She rubbed her temples. “It’s exhausting.”

  She already felt as if she had sand rubbing on the inside of her brain. She’d adjusted to the pressure and fatigue that came with maintaining that window, but she didn’t know how long it would take to adjust to holding this wall that Joss had built inside her mind. She’d done full-body workouts that didn’t wear her out as much as it did to hold up this mental…wall.

  “It’s because it’s new.” Taige came closer and held up her hands, palms facing each other. “May I?”

  Nyrene eyed her warily. “Any time somebody touches me, weird shit goes off in my head.”

  “Did you get weird shit when Joss touched you?” she asked. “Well, other than how he helped you build that wall.”

  Nyrene’s lids flickered as she thought back. “Well, no.”

  “You won’t with me, neither,” she said. “Promise.”

  Cool fingertips touched Nyrene’s temples and Taige gently said, “This ability you have, it requires control—a lot of it. It takes practice, like an athlete learning a new skill or a dancer learning a new routine.”

  Taige’s eyes went smoky and opaque. “You are…strong, Nyrene. I can’t believe you’ve been quiet this long.”

  “Quiet?”

  Taige blinked and her eyes cleared. “That your gift hasn’t emerged until now. That wreck…” She laughed. “Trauma will do it but whether it was the emotional trauma of finding out about your boyfriend, the emotional trauma from the wreck, the physical trauma from said wreck, or all of the three, something knocked down whatever it was that kept your gift quiet and now it’s like it’s screaming.” Taige lowered her hands and stepped back. “I can help you. And you, in turn, can help me.”

  “How can I help you?” Nyrene asked, dismayed.

  Taige’s lips curved. “They are hunting you because you sent an email. I’d like you to send another…unshielded. I’ll be there with you, and so will Jillian and Joss.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’ve been hunting these sons of bitches for several years now and you’re the one person we’ve come across who has had contact who hasn’t been g
rabbed by them.”

  “You want to set a trap for them,” Nyrene said, her voice raw. “And I’m the bait.”

  “In a sense,” Taige agreed. “But you will only be bait in the simplest of terms. Once that email is sent, you will not be anywhere near where they can find you. You’ll be at my facility, protected. I’ll have my people protecting you.”

  “Your people,” Dev said slowly. “Does that mean the FBI?”

  “No.” Taige slanted a look at him. “I’m not with the FBI anymore. I run a private security group. However, the FBI and I are both interested in apprehending somebody from this group who is attempting to capture you, Nyrene. They are dangerous. They need to be stopped, and you’re quite right. You won’t be safe until that happens.”

  “This sounds a lot like blackmail,” Dev said, disgusted. “You’ll offer protection as long as she helps you out.”

  “You’re a cop. What protection do you offer material witnesses?” Taige cocked a brow at him. She looked back at Nyrene and said, “I will teach you how to better protect yourself, but I can’t have you at my facility unless you’re willing to help me stop the bloodhounds after you, Nyrene. I won’t endanger the people I have there. Some of them are…fragile. Fragile in ways you wouldn’t understand, and I have a responsibility to them.”

  “If you weren’t planning on helping her, why the fuck did you even set up a meeting?” Dev demanded.

  “Stop it,” Nyrene said, stepping between them, hands held up. “Just…stop, okay, Dev? She’s right. I hate it, but she’s right. I can’t even begin to think about going back to my life until I know these people aren’t going to be dogging me.” Taking a deep breath, she focused on Taige. “So…what do we do first?”

  Joss cleared his throat. “First, we make sure that BOLO is taken care of, then we deal with your little problem in Clary.”

  “But…” Nyrene looked from him to Taige, then over at Dev.

  Dev stared hard at Joss, though, for a long moment, before nodding. “You said the BOLO was expected to be called off by nightfall. But regardless, cops have ways. Connections.” He looked over at Nyrene. “We have to take care of the cops because, if we don’t, whoever is after you could very well use law enforcement to track you.”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Oman faced off with the captain.

  “I’m just trying to figure out why the BOLO was called off Deverall and this chick he’s been spotted with,” he said, spreading his hands out wide. “None of us think he’s dirty, but he’s running and that doesn’t look good. Plus, somebody set his house to blow, Captain! He’s in trouble!”

  He thought he’d put the right amount of frustration and worry into his voice. He hoped.

  He’d asked around, subtly, hoping to get answers as to why the BOLO had abruptly been canceled, but nobody he’d talked to knew anything.

  The captain was the next person on the ladder and if she didn’t have answers, he was going to have to talk to his boss. He was a little leery of doing that, because so far, he hadn’t heard from the boss, which meant he hadn’t had to give an update.

  That did not mean the boss didn’t know about the lack of progress.

  Sadly, the boss seemed to know everything before it even happened, although how that was possible, Oman didn’t know.

  “I can’t help you out here, Oman. I know you want to solve this case, but word came down from on high and that’s all I can say,” Captain Clair Amana said, not even looking up at him from the reports she was reading.

  It seemed as if the mountain of them had grown in the few days since he’d been in her office and he imagined her tripping, falling, being buried under an avalanche of paper, suffocating under them.

  If he didn’t have to deal with her straight-laced, stick-up-the-ass ways, his life would be a little easier. Maybe he never would have even had to have gone down the route he went down.

  A few too many excessive-force claims and he’d been looking at another unpleasant meeting with his superiors, maybe even a demotion or being removed from the force.

  But one meeting had changed everything, and overnight the latest claim of excessive force had disappeared.

  Maybe he should have just quit a few years back, gotten out while the getting was good.

  “And you’re okay with this? A BOLO we called for suddenly just getting brushed aside?” he demanded.

  The captain lifted her head. She was a few years younger than he was, although he looked as if he had her by a decade, easily. Yet, there was steel in her spine and in her eyes as she met his gaze. “I don’t think I’m okay with your tone, Lieutenant.”

  “I apologize,” he bit off. One of these days, he would be the one standing behind that fucking desk.

  Of course, by then, she’d get another promotion and he’d still have to kiss her fucking ass.

  Her phone rang and he lapsed into silence as she took the call, taking a few minutes to clear texts and emails from his phone while she made vague comments to whatever asshole cop she talking to, and there was no doubt she was talking to one of his fellow boys in blue. Why she was trying to be so discreet about it, he had no idea. She should have just told him to step outside. It would have been less obvious.

  Finally, she ended the call and he slid his phone back onto the clip at his belt.

  “Captain—”

  She held up a hand. “If this has to do with the BOLO or Deverall, unless it’s something new, you might as well save it, Oman. There’s nothing I can tell you.”

  He snapped his mouth shut so hard, his teeth clicked together audibly.

  “Is there anything else, Lieutenant?” she asked softly.

  He gave a quick shake of his head, although he had easily another fifty questions he could have fired at her. The reason he didn’t? He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with her.

  He’d do anything to get her out of the way, but while he had some powerful friends, she was the fucking captain and more—she had connections to people that went straight to the capitol.

  That made her pretty much off limits.

  He’d just have a word with his boss.

  What that man didn’t already know, he could find out.

  It must be good to be the deputy fucking mayor.

  * * * * *

  “I don’t like this idea,” Dev said. The small town of Clary spread out in front of them in a sleepy sprawl. He shot Joss a look before turning his eyes to Nyrene. “It’s dangerous. It’s stupid.”

  It didn’t make him feel any better to see her smooth, golden skin go a little pale at his words.

  Joss scowled at him. “Way to breathe a lot of confidence into her, pal.” He turned to her, rubbing her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. I wouldn’t let you do this and neither would Taige if either of us had doubts that we could take care of you.”

  Dev wanted to knock the other man’s hand away from her. It didn’t matter that the guy was just being friendly and trying to make her feel better. It didn’t matter that the guy had a wedding ring on.

  Normally he wasn’t the type to be possessive. But he seemed to have lost his mind a little bit when it came to Nyrene.

  Okay. He had lost his mind a lot when it came to Nyrene. Vaguely, he was aware of Joss speaking to her and he tried to make himself concentrate on what was being said, but he couldn’t. He was too busy thinking about everything that could go wrong once they let Nyrene climb into the car that Joss had provided for her.

  It was a rental and she had gotten it under her name. Joss had provided nothing, not even the funds for her to get the car, although he had said he would reimburse her when she had mentioned that she was tight on money, thanks to losing her job.

  Dev didn’t know if he’d known that. Had he known she had lost her job? He didn’t think she had mentioned it, although it wasn’t like they’d had a lot of time for small talk. “I don’t like leaving her unprotected,” he said, turning back to face Joss.

&nb
sp; The big guy returned his gaze levelly. “She’s not going to be unprotected. I’m going to be right outside.”

  “Right. And exactly how are you going to get right outside and how are you going to keep anybody who might be watching the house from seeing you? These are cops we’re talking about. We might not be FBI,” Dev added, his voice sardonic “but we are cops. Small town hicks maybe, but cops nonetheless.”

  “Trust me, I’m well aware.” Joss’s smile was hard-edged. “That fact has not escaped me for even a minute. And for the record, if I didn’t think you were a good cop, and a capable one, this wouldn’t be happening.”

  That didn’t make him feel any better. Joss knew they were dealing with dirty cops.

  “Don’t worry about me being noticed.” Joss shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. My…abilities come in handy in a lot of ways. If anybody is watching that house, I’m going to know it.”

  “Almost seems like cheating,” Dev muttered. He looked at Nyrene and found a resolute expression on her face. Still, he had to try. “You don’t have to do this. We can figure out something else.”

  “Will they come after me?” she asked, a stubborn set to her chin.

  He didn’t even have to say anything. His expression said at all. He could tell by the way she closed her eyes that she was even now more determined than she had been. “I got pulled into this for a reason,” she said. “I’m going to see it through.”

  Dev wanted to rip out his hair. He wanted to ring Taige’s neck, Joss’s neck. The echo of her words seemed to coincide with things he’d heard those two say.

  Plus…

  I’m in trouble because of him, she had said. And those words had been nothing but the stone-cold truth. She was in trouble because of him. That’s all there was to it. But standing here and arguing wasn’t going to help anything, either. She had made up her mind.

  She felt as though she had a part to play and the longer he drew this out, the longer she would be out here exposed to whomever it was who was hunting her. The longer they were both exposed.