by Jen Talty
“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.”
“You don’t know that.”
She flung the bag over her shoulder. “Sure I do, because if you really wanted to know who I was, you could have used that little talent of yours and found me since we both know our skills are hypersensitive to those we’ve been intimate with.”
“Back then, I didn’t even know I had the skill.”
She breezed past him, heading back down the stairs, trying to ignore him, but failing miserably.
“I thought anytime I saw something it was either because I’d been drinking or I just had a wild imagination. It wasn’t until my first deployment that I realized I had a psychic ability, but even then, I didn’t accept it,” he said.
“Even so, we were kids and both had other things on our minds.”
“That’s true, but still. You didn’t have to sneak out on me.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.” Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, she turned to face him. “I hadn’t planned on sneaking out, but when I found out you’d enlisted, I just didn’t want to be that girl who gave you my picture, we’d write, and then months later one of use got the Dear John letter. Besides, I was headed to college in the fall.”
“Fair enough, but I obviously left some kind of impression for your sisters to say the things they did. I’m curious, what did you tell them?”
“You don’t want to know.” Spinning on her heels, she made a beeline for the front door. “I’ll call you two when I land.” She waved a hand flippantly at her sisters. Once outside, she sucked in a deep breath of the hot, humid Baltimore air.
There are no coincidences. Her mother’s voice boomed between her ears.
Hazel had been raised with the understanding that the universe often dictated the direction of a person’s life. That even a chance meeting with a stranger in passing on the street could be an event that would change your life forever.
Fate brought people together.
However, people often thumbed their nose at fate.
This was neither of those things.
She climbed into his SUV, tossing her bag into the backseat, and stared out the window. Thankfully, Brett didn’t say a single word as he navigated the streets of Baltimore heading to wherever the Phoenix Agency kept their plane. It took about twenty minutes to get to the hanger and another fifteen to board the plane, which was quite impressive with its leather seats and private crew.
Sitting across from Brett while he went through her files, she allowed herself to admire the man he’d become, at least physically anyway. He looked thicker and filled out in all the right places. A scar curved the side of his face from the corner of his eye, down across his cheek, ending near his ear. She wondered what other battle scars his body may have endured.
The plane jetted off down the runway, and minutes later they were thirty-thousand feet in the air, heading to a small private runway just south of Lake George.
“The Gyeon’s came to you because they said their son went missing?”
Well no shit, Sherlock. “He was a grad student at Hopkins, living in an apartment not far from my house with four other students, only none of them knew each other.”
“Which is odd.”
“Not really. Not in this city. Students rent these rooms and avoid the common areas in the house and focus on getting through school. Their friends are those in their program or people they work with. Makes it easy to get good grades that way.”
“So, we have no idea how long he’s actually been missing other than his attendance record, which is iffy, and when his parents contacted you.”
“Are you going somewhere with this? Because we’ve been over it and you've read all the files.” Every PI, cop, special operator, whoever, has their own way of examining a case and going over evidence, or lack thereof, but Brett’s approach was not only repetitive, it was annoying.
“According to your report, Savanah was to meet the father’s siblings, but she hadn’t given you or your sisters a location. During takeoff, I remote viewed the son’s room and it’s empty. No bed. No dresser. Nothing.”
“What? We were just there the other day. How can that be? Are you sure?” She bit down on her lower lip, remembering how much Savanah hated her viewing to be challenged. Granted, any view could be off, depending on various factors, but generally speaking, it was much more precise than premonitions.
He nodded. “I also decided to try to view the parents' place, but when I got to the building, they were nowhere to be found and the apartment looked as though no one was living there.”
“Well fuck,” she muttered. Nothing worse than being psychic and being snowed. “So, what are you thinking?”
“When I was viewing the SEAL team in South Korea, Gyeon’s name was brought up more than once, but I got the impression that the team expected to meet Gyeon in North Korea as one of their contacts.”
The plane bounced and rattled as it flew through some unexpected turbulence. Hazel gripped the seats. Flying had never been her favorite thing to do, only a necessary evil to get from point A to point B.
“What if they needed a viewer to get him there? Be his translator?”
“Great minds think alike.”
“Wonder why on earth they chose Lake George to do that?” she asked.
“Could be the location is somewhat remote in some areas. Or maybe family ties. But we should have your sisters look into it.”
Before she could respond, the windows of the airplane fogged over, then melted into a puddle of gleaming crystal. Lightning bolts flashed in her mind, illuminating moving pictures. Gun fire. Her own image ducking behind an old orange pickup truck. The faint whisper of voices muffled by an explosion. The walls of the plane turned a fiery orange as Brett appeared, the scar on his face ripped open and blood oozed out.
She clutched the arm rests as the vision slowly evaporated. Blinking, Brett’s real face came into focus. He knelt in front of her and she realized she’d been holding his wrists and not the seat.
“What’d you see?” he asked with a soft tone, his thumbs rubbing the tops of her hands, reminding her of every caress he’d given her that one night long ago.
“Gun fire, an explosion, and this…” she traced a finger across his raised scare. “…was split open and bleeding.” Normally she didn’t like to be so blunt about her visions since they could mean so many different things, but in this case, she figured it best he knew everything since they could be walking into some kind of trap and his background in combat could come in handy.
“That would suck since the plastic surgeon did such a bang-up job of fixing it.”
She laughed, her fingers still flowing over the jagged edges of tortured skin, her eyes locked in his seductive gaze. Seconds ticked by and all she could see were rich blue pools of heaven reminding her of his arms wrapped around her like warm cocoon.
“For the record, I tried to find out who you were until the day I left for boot-camp.”
She shouldn’t care, just because he was her first, it didn’t mean anything. People put too much stock in sex, as if the act itself tied two people together forever. He might have been her first, and her first one night stand, but she’d had a few of those since then and they certainly had no lasting effect on her.
Frankly, they were forgettable.
Right now, she wanted her first to be forgettable.
“Let’s focus on my vision, because I’m hoping if we break it down, we can prevent it from happening.”
Chapter 4
BRETT SPREAD THE MAP of the south-east side of Lake George over the hood of a non-descript, four-door sedan. The layout from his remote view had been identical to the map. Not that he doubted it wouldn’t be, but occasionally his view could be tainted by outside forces.
He glanced up, eyeing Hazel with her long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, flowing just over her shoulder. She wore a white tank top and jean shorts, which showed off her hour glass figure. He found himself wondering how much trouble he’d get into at Phoenix if he slept with the client. He figured he should get a pass since he’d already slept with her once.
She sauntered across the parking lot of the convenient store with a couple of plastic bags in her hands. Her hips swayed with each stride. When he’d first met her at his buddy’s party, he’d seen a strong, confident, young woman who seemed to have her entire life wrapped in a perfect bubble and all he wanted to do was find a way to burst into it.
The grown-up version of Hazel wasn’t much different, only sexier.
And smarter.
However, there was one thing that disturbed him: he’d been able to access her vision. The second he touched her skin, his mind snapped inside hers like two magnets smacking together. What he saw had been a little different from what she’d described on the plane, but he figured that was because he’d entered the vision from a different angle, so his point-of-view had been from the other side of the bay.
“Did you get me some beef jerky?” he asked as he folded up the map. Most people plugged in an address into their phone and followed the little purple line, or some computerized female voice that, oddly, some men found sexy, but not him, on both accounts. Well, he did use the GPS, but he still preferred to look at a physical map before heading anywhere.
“No idea how you eat Jerky, it’s disgusting.” She opened the passenger side and slid onto the cloth seat, tossing the bags in the back. “Its shriveled meat dipped in sodium.”
“Don’t ever call a man’s choice of meat shriveled. Besides, it’s protein.” He maneuvered the vehicle out onto a windy road heading toward the east side of the lake. “Any idea how to get access to a youth camp without looking like perverts?”
“Actually,” she said waving her phone. “I called Camp Keokuk’s director. His name is Morty.”
“Morty? What kind of a name is that?”
“A camp director's name.”
He laughed. “And what’s our cover?” He pressed the gas, taking the corners tight. The car didn’t handle near as nice as his Camaro, but the roads were still fun to navigate.
However, it was more fun to let Hazel take point on the op. He’d spent an entire career being in charge. It was nice to take direction from someone else, especially when that someone else had a voice like honey and a body like the curves of back road.
“I’m a reporter for an on-line parents’ magazine doing an article on camps in New York.”
“And who am I?”
“My photographer.”
“Why can’t you be a model and we’re there to do a bathing suit shoot? I remember what’s under your clothes and—”
A quick jab of her fist landed on his biceps. “Ouch.”
“Going back to the task at hand. We’re there to capture the essence of camp life.”
He’d like to capture something else, but decided to keep those thoughts to himself. “I don’t have a camera.”
The tires squealed as he took the left turn down Pilot Knob Road. The map indicated this would be the most challenging road yet. But it also showed that in one particular section, you could avoid the twists and turns if you drove in a perfectly straight line.
But that would-be dangerous if there were oncoming cars, still the idea intrigued him.
“Lucky for you I always travel with one.”
“I hope it’s like pointing and shooting a gun.”
“It’s similar, and my camera is really easy to use.” She gripped the handle on the roof, giving him the evil-stink eye. “Do you always drive like a maniac?”
“I’m actually being cautious because there’s a lady in my car.” He turned, flashing his best cheeky smile.
“Real cute.” She grinned back, but hers dripped with sarcasm. “Slow down.” She pointed to a large rock and a sign with the words: Welcome to Camp Keokuk. “Turn here. There’s a cabin on the left after the fork where we can find the camp director.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you ever call me ma’am again, I’ll kick you while wearing a pair of heels, somewhere you never want a sharp object.”
He hit the brakes, a little too harsh, and the seat belt caught her chest, jerking her head forward.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
“Hey, you’re the one who threatened my pride and joy, scaring me so damn much I had a knee jerk reaction.” Gently, he pushed the gear shift to park. “All because I was a gentleman.”
“Ma’am is something you call an old person, or a stranger. Not someone with who you’ve parked your car in her garage.”
He laughed as he stepped from the vehicle. “Not sure I’ve ever heard sex described that way.” The hot summer sun smacked his skin. He should have worn shorts, not jeans. He took the backpack she handed him and pulled out the camera. It had a decent size lens on it with a lot of little buttons and numbers, but otherwise, it looked easy enough to handle.
A voice came over the loud speakers calling someone to go to the mess hall. Memories of dehydrated food that tasted like cardboard topped with sawdust and a side of glue filled his brain. God, he hoped these poor kids had better food than Camp Quest had served him.
A small cabin with a nice size porch nestled between lush trees stood proudly across from a makeshift parking lot with a vintage orange truck. It looked similar to the one his grandfather owned, which he used for his first experience with a stick shift. He half expected Credence Clearwater Revival to suddenly play from a fuzzy speaker somewhere.
A man dressed in casual shorts, a T-shirt with the camp logo on the upper left corner, stepped from the front door. “You must be the folks from the magazine.”
Brett figured the man to be in his mid-thirties and already hated the pretty boy with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin that screamed, ‘I’m so sexy and I know it’. Hell, even a man would have to be dead not to notice Morty.
But really? Morty? That name alone had to be a buzz kill for women.
He smiled as he jogged down the steps, stretching out his hand. “Welcome to Camp Keokuk. I’m Morty, Camp Director at large.”
“Thanks for letting us come out today,” Hazel said. Her sweet smile sparkled in the sun.
“Glad to have you. Follow me and I’ll give you the five-cent tour.”
The last thing they needed to do was waste their time with an excursion coupled with a well-planned pitch on why every parent should send their kid here. Brett needed to get to the waterfront and case out the house where he believed her sister was being held. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen right this second, as Hazel looped her hand in the crook of Morty’s elbow, he smiled at her with lust in his eyes.
She had the audacity to laugh as she patted his impressive biceps.
Brett stayed two steps behind, ignoring Morty’s rhetoric about the history of Camp Keokuk. Normally, Brett would find the stories of the original Native American inhabitants fascinating, but not when it came at the expense of watching another man hit on Hazel.
Brett stuffed his right hand deep into his pocket, fingering his good luck charm, remembering where’d he got it and what she might think if she knew he had it.
The camp itself covered a large amount of ground, and when they finally made their way across the camp toward the waterfront, Brett focused on understanding how the camera worked. He’d taken a bunch of practice shots, using the zoom, trying to figure out how to focus. Thus far, he’d done a decent enough job.
Now standing in the middle of what Morty referred to as Greenhorn Bay, he adjusted the lens and drew the house in question as close as possible, doing his best to pretend to shoot pictures of the children pushing kayaks into the blue water.
He noted the shades on the second floor had been drawn shut. Silhouettes moved about in what appeared to be the family room, but he could
n’t see inside as well as he’d like. Glancing around, he decided it was time to use his skill. He signaled to Hazel what he planned on doing. She nodded, so hopefully she understood, because for the next ten minutes or so, his body would be in one place, while his psyche was somewhere else.
Bringing the camera to his face, he closed his eyes, taking in a few calming breaths as he projected his mind toward the house. Short distances views were always difficult, especially in a case like this where he had to be able to shift between the two planes.
The tunnel came in the form of an underwater path. His mind's-eye raced through it, holding his breath, feeling the water trickle against his body. Once on the other side, he glanced over his shoulder. It was always strange to see himself in one place when his mind was somewhere else.
The sound of an engine roared to life. Swiftly, he moved to the back of the house where he saw a dark SUV peel out of driveway, heading south on Pilot Knob Road.
Fuck.
He memorized the license plate number, then made his way to the back door, entering the house quietly, which made him laugh in his mind. No one should be able to see or hear him.
There was no one in the kitchen and he didn’t sense anyone in the house at all. He moved from the kitchen to the family room. Standing in the middle of the typical lake camp house with beachy-feel furniture, he saw something that caught his breath.
C4, tucked against the windows.
And a lot of it.
Fuck.
Looking across the bay, he calculated the distance from the house to the kids in the water, wondering if the bomb was set on a timer, or if whoever drove away had a detonator. The explosion in Hazel's vision didn’t include children.
He raced through every room of the house, making sure Savanah hadn’t been left behind. Satisfied the house was empty, he summoned his tunnel. As soon as he returned to his body, he’d have to report the bomb and…
The crackle of a fuse igniting forced him to snap his body and mind together in a way that would leave him weakened, disoriented, and it was always possible it could fracture his brain, but no way could he leave those kids in harm’s way.