Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1)

by Laura Welling

  “When you find him—if you find him before we do, which is unlikely anyway—I want you to convince him to turn himself in. Or call me and I’ll do it.” He put one hand inside his jacket and pulled out a card. “Here.” He slid it across the table.

  I left it sitting there in front of me. The card was heavy and cream, and the text on it embossed. There was nothing on the card but his name—just the one—and a phone number. I didn’t even want to touch it.

  “What’s in it for me?” I couldn’t imagine why he would think I’d give Eric up to the Institute. He must have something in mind.

  Scorn flickered across his face, replaced quickly by that deliberate relaxation. “Other than preventing further injuries to innocent bystanders…I understand you’ve been living undocumented since you left us. Trying to hide from us. I don’t understand why, but we all know you don’t have a Talent. If you help us find Eric, I give you my word we’ll leave you alone. Forever.”

  “I wonder what your word is worth,” I said, quietly, hoping to provoke a reaction. I got precisely none.

  “That’s for you to decide. I note, however, that your judgment of character appears to be rather lacking.”

  I closed my hands into fists under the table. I would not let him get to me. “What do you mean?”

  “Jamie Murphy. Don’t believe a word he tells you. The man’s a common criminal.”

  I knew they weren’t friends, no surprises there. “He told me about his background.”

  “If he told you he’d reformed, it was a lie. Once a thief, always a thief. When it comes to choosing sides in this war, Catrina, I suggest you reconsider your allies. You can’t trust him. He uses people and throws them away.”

  I said nothing, staring down at the business card, balancing his words against the memory of my ruined apartment. Not many people you could trust in this business, apparently.

  “I must be going.” He slid out of the booth, drawing himself back up into that military bearing. “Goodbye, Catrina—for now.”

  He vanished behind a waitress arriving at my table. “What can I get you?” she said, and at that moment my phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “Nothing.” I stood up. The card sat on the table, embossed black numbers jumping out at me. “Damn it.” I picked it up and put it into my pocket. I could always throw it away later.

  I climbed into the rental car in front of the hotel. Jamie pulled out of the porte-cochere into the endless sunlight.

  “You were okay waiting in the café?” Jamie asked easily, as he glanced over his shoulder for a gap in traffic.

  I sighed and laid my head back against the headrest. “For some values of okay.” Before he asked, I said, “Ryder paid me a visit.”

  The car lurched and we nearly hit the curb.

  “Be careful!” I grabbed at the dashboard.

  “What did you say?” His voice clipped and urgent, he shot me a look before turning back to the road.

  “He just wanted to talk.”

  “Shit.” He drummed the steering wheel with his fingers. “I’m glad you got away. What did he say?”

  “That he only wanted to help Eric. That they want to stop him from hurting someone else. That if we found him first we should turn him in.” I didn’t mention his caution against Jamie.

  I turned my head against the headrest and found Jamie looking at me instead of the road. His gaze flicked back toward the windscreen.

  “And what do you think about what he said?”

  “I’d like to talk to Eric about what he wants to do. If we find him.”

  “When we find him.” He sounded confident. “I’m glad Ryder didn’t try to make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  Me too. “He was polite.”

  “He’s always polite. He’s still a bastard.”

  “What’s the plan this morning?” I asked, trying to ignore the business card I hadn’t mentioned burning a hole in my pocket.

  Jamie pulled out into the road. “What I really want to do is to swing by that tattoo place and see if anyone knows our mystery girl.”

  We parked near the tattoo parlor, which looked less skanky than I’d expected. We were in a hip part of town, surrounded by bars, cafés, and a few too many guys with goatees for my liking, although only a fraction of the numbers you saw in Seattle.

  Renee’s Tattoos had a double-width storefront, but one of the plate glass windows was painted black. The other side held the front desk and waiting area. They were open for business this morning. Jamie led the way up the three steps and headed off to the side, to a counter that held several photo albums.

  I looked around the walls. I’d never been in a tattoo parlor before, never having been attached enough to any particular image to want it on my skin forever. I wasn’t morally opposed to tattoos—they just weren’t my thing. Jamie had some but I still hadn’t gotten a good look at them. I always seemed to be distracted by other things when he had his shirt off.

  Hundreds of stock designs lined the walls. You could get any of the clichés—roses, skulls, butterflies, Celtic knot work, and many choices of each.

  “This is the good stuff,” Jamie said, and gestured me over. The photo album he had open contained pictures of actual tattoos with much more elaborate designs than the ones on the walls. I concurred that they were more artistic than the clip art ones. Flicking through another album beside him, I discovered they were sorted by theme. Jamie’s book seemed to have mostly Asian-inspired designs, while mine contained fantasy animals.

  “Look,” I said, finding a whole double page of different phoenixes. Or would that be phoenices, I wondered. We really only needed to find one in particular.

  “At least three of these fit the bill,” Jamie said, flicking his forefinger at the lower back versions. “It’s a pretty common idea.”

  I stepped back from the counter, frustrated. “I wish it were unique.”

  “We don’t even know if we’re in the right place.”

  “Sweetie,” the girl behind the front counter interjected, “y’all are definitely in the right place. What can I help you with?”

  “Hey,” Jamie said. “We saw a woman with a phoenix tattooed on her lower back. My girlfriend here liked it and we were trying to find some similar art.”

  Girlfriend. Hmmm.

  “Every one of ours is unique,” the girl said proudly, clicking her tongue ring against her teeth. She had a wide variety of odd facial piercings, and her halter neck top revealed a startling collection of bunny tattoos, perhaps selected to match her large front teeth.

  “Do you have information about the artists?”

  “Sure, hon,” she said, pulling out a brochure and handing it to Jamie. “Let me know if you want to talk to Elton or Bobby and I’ll see if they’re free.”

  Jamie settled himself on one of the couches and immersed himself in the brochure. I perched next to him on the black vinyl.

  “What are you doing?” I muttered.

  “I have a feeling we should hang out a little longer,” he said. He gave me his lopsided grin, dark eyes sparkling. “Want to get some ink?”

  My retort never got past my lips as the girl from the motel came in the front door. She didn’t react to us, and headed straight through to the back. I guessed she probably didn’t know who we were. She had a skimpy pink top on, and as she walked out through the back door, I saw the phoenix tattoo.

  Chapter Ten

  I got up and went to the desk. “Who’s that girl? That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Aw, honey, that’s not a good tattoo. She didn’t get it done here, besides. Justine rents the apartment upstairs. I can show you some much nicer designs.”

  I pushed my lips out into a pout. “I suppose. I might think about it for a while.”

  Jamie slung his arms around my shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Why don’t you get that big ole Celtic knot you were looking at?”

  I didn’t have to feign screwing up my face. “Thanks, but no.” I turned
and headed out of the store. Jamie smoothly followed me, his hand at my back. We went up the street a little, and I turned to him.

  “Now what?”

  “We watch her for a while, follow her. I bet she knows where Eric is. For all we know, he could be up there in her apartment.”

  “You think so?” I peered over his shoulder, looking at the upper story of the tattoo store. Curtains blocked the windows even though it was morning, and I couldn’t see a thing.

  “I don’t know, Cat. I don’t feel like we’re really close anymore.” Jamie rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “That Finding feeling isn’t coming to me.” He looked tired, his aura fading to a lighter shade of gray.

  “Come on,” I said. “We should follow her anyway. We might learn something. Let’s wait and see if she comes back out, see where she goes. Besides, we don’t have any better leads.” He’d been encouraging to me thus far—now it was my turn to cheer him along.

  We found a table in the window of the trendy café across the street. I was still completely unhungry after the giant Bavarian breakfast, but I ordered green tea and played with it while we waited. Jamie added four sugars to his coffee, and then another three. The waitress started to give us dirty looks after the third refill. I wished I had a laptop or a book to stare at, because patrons with those seemed to do better at tuning her out.

  After a couple of hours of staring into space, Jamie kicked me under the table. “There she goes.”

  Justine had reappeared outside the tattoo store. “She’s got a suitcase,” I said. “Where’s she going?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Jamie threw money on the table and we went out into the street in time to see Justine climbing into a generic black car.

  “Limo?” he said.

  “Could be. Can we follow her?”

  We scrambled into the rental car and followed along. Traffic was pretty good at this time of day and we stayed behind the car through the suburban streets, back toward the Strip, and then finally turned off in a direction that surprised me.

  “The airport?” I said.

  “You get out and follow her, see if you can find out where she’s going. I’ll park and catch up with you inside.”

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Aren’t you the one with all the criminal skills?”

  He laughed. “It’s not like the movies. All you have to do is follow her to the check-in counter.”

  “Okay.” I still wasn’t sure about this. “Give me your sunglasses for a disguise.”

  He handed them to me, although it was clear he was trying not to laugh.

  I said, “Do you think this means Eric flew somewhere?”

  “I don’t know what it means. If he’s a wanted man, that seems less likely, but maybe he drove and they’re meeting up somewhere. Or for all we know, she’s on her way to visit her grandparents.”

  “I wonder who that guy was at the motel with her.” I pictured him in my mind. “He looked pretty shady.”

  “Good question. I don’t know about shady—he looked like a nightclub bouncer, but everybody has to make a living.”

  We approached the terminal, and Justine’s car pulled over. Jamie pulled in a few spaces back. She climbed out, retrieved her bag from the trunk, and waved the driver off.

  “I’ll call you,” I said. I jumped out of the car, followed her into the terminal, and up to the check-in counters.

  I didn’t want to get too close, so I got in line two people behind Justine. She checked her bag and I craned my neck frantically to see the tag on it. When she turned to head for security, I developed a sudden fascination in the TSA sign behind me. When I was sure she’d gone, I went back outside.

  “That was easier than I expected,” I said into my phone.

  “It usually is. Did you find out where she’s going?”

  “The airport code was IAD.”

  The phone line went silent, dead air on the line. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I don’t know where that is though—Iowa?”

  “It’s Washington, DC.” Jamie sounded quiet.

  “Does that mean something?”

  “I’ll pick you up in five, same place I dropped you off.”

  When I got back in the car Jamie said nothing, squinting out through the windshield into the sun. We drove away from the airport, and turned in the opposite direction from the Strip. The air conditioning labored in the heat as we headed out into the desert.

  We traveled until we came to a rest stop, and Jamie pulled in. There was nobody here but us and the tumbleweeds, and the dirt road beneath the tires was riddled with potholes. The car trickled to a stop. Jamie got out and leaned against the wing of the car, arms folded, staring into space.

  I walked around the car to stand in front of him. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t figure that out.” He rubbed both temples with his fingers. “That’s what has me worried.”

  “What’s interesting about Washington, DC?”

  He lifted his dark gaze to mine. “A couple of things. First, as you know, the Grey Institute is headquartered in Virginia.”

  Now I understood why he’d turned pensive. Why would she go closer to the Institute? “I didn’t know that. When Eric and I were kids, we were in southern California, outside San Diego.”

  Jamie nodded. “Their HQ is relatively new. I think there’s still a training center in San Diego, but they moved the head office to be closer to the seat of power. Easier for lobbying, for fulfilling defense contracts, all that kind of stuff.”

  I thought of Ryder’s spiel about national security. It all made sense.

  “Okay. What’s the other thing?”

  “Second, Riverslea, the headquarters of the Order I work for, is in Potomac, Maryland, on the outskirts of DC. I live there, as do a bunch of other Talents.”

  “Why would Justine be going to either of those places?” I had ideas, but I wanted to know what Jamie thought. Maybe his ideas were less disturbing than mine.

  Jamie stared off into the distance, squinting at the desert sun. “I’m wondering if she’s meeting Eric there, or traveling on her own. Is he on his way back to the Institute, or does she think he might be? Unlikely that he’s on his way to Riverslea, but it’s possible. If I were Eric, the Institute is the last place I’d be headed.”

  “Her trip could be completely unrelated.”

  He nodded. “It could. But I have a bad feeling about this.”

  I hitched myself up on the car wing beside him. The hot metal seared through my jeans, scorching even by the standard of the air out here, in contrast with the cold feeling in my heart about Justine’s destination. “What do you want to do?”

  “Justine is the only lead we have on Eric at the moment. We don’t have any other ideas about where he might be, or who he might be with. I feel like there’s probably more here in Vegas we can work with, but I don’t know what it is. Hell, for all we know, he could still be here someplace.”

  “We’ve got the medal,” I reminded him. “That’s a lead.”

  “True.” Jamie leaned back next to me. “If we go to DC, there are people at the Order who could read it for us, which might help.”

  Shit. Both of our leads pulled us toward DC, closer to the Grey Institute. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to help Jamie on this mission while staying clear of the place.

  I tried to get my brain back on track, puzzling at trying to figure out our next steps. “I wonder if the cops know anything about Justine.”

  “They must—they talked to Eric’s buddy before we did.”

  “But they didn’t find the card. They don’t know where she lives, or what her name is, I’ll bet. We could tell them.”

  “Is this the same Cat that didn’t want to talk to the police—when was it—yesterday?” His mouth twitched up at one corner.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Maybe a little. But you’ve given me an idea. We can take a look in her apartment.”


  “Hey,” I said, jumping down from the car and stepping away. “Breaking into a burned-out building is one thing. Someone’s apartment? That’s different.” Running from the Greys, keeping a low profile with the cops, I was okay with that. Actively breaking laws—and the casualness with which Jamie treated them—took me way out of my comfort zone. If I did this, there’d be no going back to my dreams of a quiet, documented, normal life. I’d always be a criminal, even if we didn’t get caught.

  Jamie fixed me with a glare. “Come on. What if Eric’s there? Or what if he has been there?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel that comfortable with the idea. It crosses a pretty big line.” I felt stupid even saying it with him staring at me like that.

  “I thought you were this big outlaw, on the run for your whole life. You’re surprising me, Cat. I’m trying to get the job done here.”

  I curled up my fists by my sides. “Listen. I didn’t choose to go on the run, or to hide from the authorities. I’d like nothing more than to have a quiet, safe, law-abiding life in the suburbs. You’re a criminal. I am not that kind of person.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” he said abruptly, his face darkening. “Who you are, who you think you are, and who you want to be aren’t always the same thing.” He walked over and opened the passenger side door for me. “Are you coming on the lam? Or are you and your law-abiding alter ego going to wait for the bus?”

  “Would you really leave me out here in the desert?” I asked. How much of a bad boy was he? Had I, like an idiot, put my life in the wrong man’s hands?

  “Don’t be bloody stupid,” he said. “Of course not.” He walked away from the car, and came right up close to me, close enough I could feel his breath on my face. “Listen. You’ve said you want to help Eric. You’ve said you want to get the Greys off your back. You’ve come this far, broken into a crime scene, lied to the cops, run from Ryder. Why are you getting cold feet now?”

  He put one hand on my shoulder. “Are you serious about this? Because I am. This is my mission, and I’ll do what needs doing to save Eric’s life or the lives of those around him. Whether that’s legal or not, I have to trust my judgment, and you’re going to have to trust it too. Are you ready for this, Cat? What are you prepared to do?”