Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3

by Nikki Duncan

“See you.”

  “Be safe.” She hung up before he could respond.

  He’d expected something flippant like later. Instead, she’d sounded suddenly worried, as if she had insights he didn’t. Hell. The woman had him all kinds of messed up.

  He rubbed his hands over his hair, scratching the back of his head. An explosion of iced hatred erupted behind him.

  “I’ll have those contacts, Hermes.”

  H spun around, coming up to his knees.

  Janus stood less than a foot away dressed in camouflage that blended seamlessly with the dense foliage.

  H coiled his muscles, preparing to rise up and strike.

  Janus swung out his right arm with a black pipe firm in his grip.

  Rage that Ava had set him up—betrayed him—ripped through his heart the moment before the pipe rammed his head.

  “Ava.” Kami turned off the engine and shifted to face her from the driver’s seat. “Are you sure you’re up for this? The last time you were here…”

  “I can’t be afraid of the place I work.” Ava rested her hand on Kami’s arm and squeezed lightly, offering her friend more reassurance than she suddenly felt herself. Her barriers were holding up well against Kami, and she’d done okay in her neighborhood when she’d gone to change clothes, but she was one woman. Though she’d already faced her biggest terrors, hundreds of people milling around inside with a range of emotions as vast as the Grand Canyon terrified her.

  She’d worked with H steadily for the last few days. He’d dropped his shields and somehow magnified and altered his emotions to help her begin identifying the differences between her feelings and his. He’d sent her an array of feelings from light and sweet to dark and violent. They’d worked on sending out feelers without becoming invasive.

  She’d identified her shield as a brick wall with a mural of the rocky, Greek shoreline. All she had to do to allow H in was picture the rocks on the shore farther apart or gone. With them in place, his testing pushes had no more power than soft waves brushing the rock.

  He was one man though. She was about to face a room full.

  No. She couldn’t be afraid of the office. Of the public. She just hoped she hadn’t left H too soon. More time would make her stronger, but she had to trust in the training she’d received. She had to get on with this case, learn what she’d missed, if there were new developments.

  “We could go someplace else. They could come to you, Ava.”

  “No.” Ava grabbed her purse from the floor. “I made you a promise, Kami. I’m going to see this through.”

  Kami’s life had been rough in the dark sludge lingering beneath the glitz of her rich family. Channing had been one of two people to always stand beside her. He’d helped her escape and he’d been murdered. That Kami had survived it all without a fear of getting close to people astounded Ava.

  Even with the closeness of her own family, their undying loyalty and support, she’d never allowed a relationship to go beyond one or two dates. Until H, though they hadn’t really dated, and nothing said they’d have a permanent relationship. Especially once he discovered her lie.

  With images in her head of the discovery and his expected withdrawal she was reminded of how her future would be. Lonely.

  The idea of a family appealed, but she’d accepted the likelihood of never seeing the dream into fruition. She wouldn’t risk another Constantine.

  “You caught his killers.”

  “Not all of them.” Madame V and her crew had gone down for Channing’s murder and the attempted murder of Trevor Masters, but Ava regretted she hadn’t been the one to take down the cretin she’d escorted to Breck’s fundraiser. More, she regretted they hadn’t ended the Whitestone connections.

  Loathing broiled in her blood, obliterating delusions. Eston White, or Whitestone, would not pull their assets out of Sirrahmax or off Dr. H’s trail until they were certain the lenses didn’t exist. She would do her part to persuade them to see things differently. “We’ll bring down anyone connected to Channing’s death and eliminate any remaining threats facing Dr. H, Max or any other innocents connected to them.”

  “You seem more certain than before Dr. H is a target rather than the contacts.” Kami leaned back a bit and tilted her head. “What happened in his lab?”

  Images of the last few days with H flickered in and out of her head. Flirtations. Brief kisses before he pulled away. Illicit moments of sexual discovery.

  Emotions floated around her, instructions sounding more like directives were either snapped at her or tempered with tenderness. He’d unwittingly busted through her protective wall when he’d healed her and taken advantage of her downed defenses when they’d made love. He regretted trespassing into her mind the first time, but had no issue with how things had ended in her home or his lab.

  She’d enjoyed every touch, every look, every kiss.

  Regardless of his few missteps, he was a good man with a solid moral core, which amazed her considering his upbringing had been overseen by the sadistic General Scott. He called to her heart. To her inner woman. He seduced her to trust him with her secrets, her abilities and her body.

  While in some ways that trust was profoundly intimate, and she hadn’t had the power to stop herself from falling for him, only a little, she held a part of herself back. As much as she’d trusted him with, she hadn’t trusted him with the deepest of her emotions. She’d withheld her heart, unwilling to calculate the risk of another heartbreak.

  The man was a conundrum, consistent only in the depth of passion.

  Passion for helping her handle her ability.

  Passion for the protection of the children he worked with.

  Passion for identifying true empaths and then working to see them accepted by the world and kept safe from people who would abuse and misuse their gifts.

  Passion that sparked the air between them and ignited a blaze in her belly when they connected mind-to-mind.

  “Ava? What happened?” Kami asked again.

  She blinked, clearing the blurry haze obscuring her vision.

  “Too much to retell.” Or even fully grasp within the small amount of headspace not being used for the case and maintaining her shields. “He helped make me stronger.”

  Breck exited the front doors of the building. After a few steps, he stopped and watched Kami’s car with shadows of worry crossing his face. The shield around Ava’s mind shimmered like a USS Titan force field taking fire during a Romulan attack.

  “So, you’re really an empath?”

  “Seems so.” Maybe she wasn’t ready for this. Breck and the team had accepted her professional past, but would they so easily accept her now? Could they trust her to stay out of their heads?

  “Stop worrying.” Kami broke into her thoughts as if she could read minds. “I told him what Dr. H said. He accepts the possibility, but isn’t going to ask you for proof. Neither is he worried you’ll shoplift his feelings.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Yes.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Now, get yourself braced.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ava opened the door and climbed out of the car. Her shields took a hit, but she held firm. H’s reminder to stay conscious of her barriers slipped to the forefront.

  Kami got out of the car and pushed the alarm button on the key fob as she rounded the hood. Her mouth hardened fiercely in contrast to the fear quivering in her gaze. “If you even start to look like you did, I’ll knock your ass out and carry you back to Dr. H.”

  “First, him telling me not to leave. Now, you threatening to take me back. I’m surrounded by nags.” She slipped her hand through Kami’s bent arm and headed toward the building. “Thank you.”

  “Just remember to thank me if I have to do it.”

  “You got it.”

  Ava focused on her shielding and loosened up as they grew nearer to Breck. With each step closer, his shadowy intensity lightened as he watched Kami.

  Love, respect and desire swarmed Ava.
The air sparked with electricity, sending shivers across Ava’s arms. Kami and Breck hadn’t been together more than a few weeks, but like Ian and Kieralyn they so clearly belonged.

  The purity of their connection spanned the distance between them and seeped beneath unseen cracks in her shields. She envied them for finding what she’d seen in her parents. What she’d hoped to one day have for herself.

  Common interests. Respect. Passion. Teamwork.

  You’ve already had each of those things with Dr. H. She shook her head, dislodging the seductive suggestion.

  “Ava.” Breck jerked his head up in an authoritative nod, even as he pulled Kami to his side and kissed her temple. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” Excited. She was anxious, but the excitement humming over her wasn’t hers. She visualized the rocks of her wall moving closer together with waves carrying grains of sand in to fill the gaps.

  “Excellent.” He headed into the building, tugging Kami along with him.

  Ava slipped gratefully into the silence and used the time it took to get upstairs to solidify the sand-type mortar in her defenses. Oddly enough they encountered few people on the way to their floor, and even their floor was suspiciously sparse of people. And the team, sitting around the conference table in the far corner, looked a bit…mellow.

  Rather than launch into questions, they sat. Stony. Silent.

  None of them were naturally overt in their typical behaviors and reactions. But they were pretty easy to read, and even Tyler, who was always fidgeting with some technical device or another, sat unmoving.

  She glanced at Breck, who had slapped a blank façade over himself, and then to Kami who had a puzzled look on her face as she scanned the team. So Ava wasn’t the only one finding their behavior odd.

  “Guys?”

  “Ava.” They spoke in monotone unison, as if they were programmed robots. She moved the rock shields she’d been erecting and looked at each one of them. Nothing. No one projected any emotion, aside from confusion from Kami.

  Whatever Ava had expected from them it hadn’t been an arctic freeze. She reengaged her mind protection and sat in the nearest chair beside Tyler. Her heart kicked up a pace. She met each of their gazes.

  “Stop it!” Everyone lurched in their chair. “I’m not a fragile antiquity apt to shatter. And if you’re trying to protect me from something, you’re only serving to piss me off.”

  Breck leaned forward and stared. Now accustomed to the intensity of H’s powerful gaze—an intensity not unlike a jungle cat lying in the grass daring you to tread on his space—Breck struck her more like an aggressive hunter. Neither should be underestimated, but she’d lay odds on the sleeping power.

  “You didn’t see you the last time we did. You didn’t spend the last several days wondering what the hell was happening to you.”

  “You’re right. I just spent those days in seclusion trying to get my head straightened out.” H had warned her that this venture was too soon, but she couldn’t have put her team off any longer. “I’m not Tyler, but damn I missed email and Internet.”

  I missed you guys.

  Boom.

  Suddenly, it occurred to her they were her team. She’d wanted to stay sequestered and safe with H.

  Had she still been with Whitestone, operating alone, she would have. At some point in the last couple of weeks she’d accepted her place on a team. She’d allowed herself a new family—albeit extended.

  Tyler rolled his chair over, closing the distance between them. She turned and met his stare, not as surprised to see the wicked glint lingering there as she’d been the first few times. The quiet tech geek had a quick wit and often bawdy sense of humor.

  “Yes, Tyler?”

  “Is the crazy contagious? Or did the doctor give you a shot and make it all better?”

  “You shouldn’t worry.” She patted his hand. “I’m pretty sure I caught it from you.”

  Everyone laughed, the tension eased and the team returned to normal. “All right. What do you have?”

  Breck nodded to Tyler, who picked up the electronic tablet before him and started tapping away. His sigh of relief shook the air around him. “I’ve been tracking the parents of Dr. H and Dana. For awhile I’d thought they were dead.”

  “But?” H had made it sound as if they were dead. Did he believe that to be the truth, or had he turned away from them? Maybe he was protecting himself.

  “I dug deeper into their estate. Their home was sold, and after all the fees were paid, the money went through several accounts before I lost its trail. It disappeared almost as cleanly as the parents.”

  “You mean disappeared like a witness protection sort of thing?”

  “Sort of. Whoever erased them was good. It’ll take me some time, but I’m better.”

  “So you think you can find them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Liam drummed his fingers on the table. “We’re sorting through the records of people matching the criteria who moved into and out of the area of the last bank, but it’s a slow process.”

  “And they could well have stayed in a hotel long enough for the money to come in before they split.” She knew the tricks people used to disappear. She’d employed many of them in her time with Whitestone.

  “Why would they leave?” Kieralyn shook her head and scrunched her brows together. “These people had their children taken? They wouldn’t give up the search. Ever.”

  “Unless they believed them to be dead.” Aidan’s logic settled like lead in Ava’s gut.

  Whitestone. They left for their own safety.

  Sadness and sympathy rolled off Kieralyn in tidal waves and battered Ava’s barriers. She held strong against the pressure, but if she had to confront much more from anyone else she would start to hurt.

  “No.” Kieralyn shook her head more emphatically. “Ian spent two years searching for answers about his dad. He wouldn’t have stopped without seeing a body. Parents who lose their children… They don’t stop looking. Ever.”

  “You’re right, Kieralyn.” Breck’s even tone soothed Kieralyn fractionally. “They would want to know, but parents of kidnap victims also reach a point where they have to move on with life. They have to accept that finding their children isn’t going to happen.”

  “We’re talking over twenty years here.” Liam pushed away from the table and paced the floor. “That’s a long time to hold out hope, but I’m with Kieralyn on this. These people fought vocally and publicly after their kids were taken. They wouldn’t have surrendered hope.”

  “So keep looking.” If H’s and Dana’s parents were alive and they didn’t know it, they deserved to. “The parents aren’t the only ones who deserve answers.”

  She pushed the chair back and started to stand. Pure, raw rage drove into her like a two by four shooting through a wall in a hurricane. An instant later a searing pain erupted along the side of her head as if she’d just bashed her bruised temple.

  Her knees buckled. She bumped the chair on the way down, but Tyler caught her before she slammed into anything. She covered her head with her hand. Fear and concern from her team crashed over her, robbing her lungs of air.

  “Ava. Breathe.” Kami sank to her knees before her. “What’s going on?”

  Breathe. That was H’s first directive each time they started working. Remember to breathe. Holding back makes it impossible to expel the emotions you don’t need.

  She stared, unblinkingly, at her lap and held her palm up and open toward her team in a silent plea for them to wait. Running through all of H’s instructions, she rebuilt her crumbing shield one element at a time. Each one filtered out the emotions bouncing around the room. With everything finally compartmentalized, she analyzed the impressions that had taken her down. Their source had not come from within the room.

  She raised her head and looked into Kami’s gaze. “We need to get back to Dr. H. He’s in trouble.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ava marched through H’s l
ab with Breck and Aidan on her heels as if she owned the place. She checked his office, the dressing room, the kitchen, the classroom where they’d done the surveys and the padded room. Where they’d…

  Nothing. All empty. She headed down another corridor, pushed into a room and froze.

  Dana spun around. The adult study group sat behind her. “This is a private session. What do you think…?”

  Ava moved into the room. “Where’s H?”

  “E-excuse me?” Dana’s animosity had backed off over the last few days but its ugly head was protruding.

  Ava took Dana’s elbow and pulled her away from the group. Aidan and Breck stepped in behind her. Dana’s cheeks reddened. “What the hell is going on?”

  Ava didn’t have time to waste. She hadn’t interpreted those feelings wrong, or mis-identified their owner. “Something happened to H. Where is he?”

  “He went to the beach.” Dana’s mutinous glare hardened. Anger and fear lashed out at Ava. She stumbled back before managing to reinforce her barrier.

  Breck snapped orders into his com device. The team outside moved toward the beach. Ava looked around the room and ran the faces she’d seen during the interview process.

  “Is everyone here today?” She kept her voice low while scanning the onlookers. “For the study?”

  “I’m not answering your questions until you tell me what is going on.”

  “I’m with the FBI.” Her cover was blown, but she wouldn’t blow H’s in front of his study participants. “You’ll get longer explanations later, but right now tell me who isn’t here. A woman, right?”

  “Yes. Elise.” Dana hesitated, fear creeping into her voice and eyes.

  “Blonde hair. Brown eyes. My height. Good looking?”

  “Yes.” Dana stepped closer and lowered her voice. “What is going on?”

  Dana’s dread battered Ava’s defensive wall like acidic waves rapidly eroding her protection. Concern and curiosity from the others in the room were quickly following. She was uncertain how much she could withstand.

  Aidan stepped up and placed a hand on her back. His strength and certainty seeped into her. She jerked her head backward toward the door. Aidan and Breck backed out. Ava took Dana’s elbow and maneuvered her into the hall. With the door firmly closed between them she spoke freely.