Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1)

by Laura Welling

  “What about the girl?” Jamie asked.

  “Red hair, a little firecracker. He loves her. They spend all their time in bed.”

  Justine, I supposed, blushing. I didn’t need to hear about my brother’s sex life from this old man.

  “I’ll see if I can tell you something you’ll like better.” Herb breathed in deeply. “When he got the medal, he was working in a gray place that made him unhappy. He knew it would end badly. They wanted him to do things he didn’t want to do, bad things, terrible things. They wanted him to kill people.”

  The thread of strange dark words spun out of the old man’s mouth, hard to believe on a sunny day, in a beautiful garden, in a privileged place like this. I shivered.

  “He has killed some people.” I clenched my hands together; fingers crossed tightly, turning my knuckles white with pain.

  “He ran from them so he wouldn’t have to kill anyone.”

  “We don’t think he meant to. That’s why we want to find him,” Jamie said.

  “I think,” Herb said, “that if you can find the girl, you’ll find your man. He wants to be with her, all the time.”

  Jamie met my gaze. “And she’s somewhere here in town… Eric must be nearby.”

  It didn’t make sense to me. “If he ran from the Institute, I’d be surprised if he came back here.”

  “But Justine came back.”

  “Justine,” Herb said. “That’s the girl?”

  I nodded.

  “If she is here, then he is here or somewhere near here, or he will be soon.”

  “Thank you, Herb,” I said. I put down my coffee on one of the little patio tables and reached out to touch him on the back of his hand, where it rested on the handle of his cane.

  Jamie twitched, and Herb’s eyes widened.

  “Oh my dear. That’s interesting.” Like lightning, his other hand leapt forward to hold mine in place.

  Herb’s eyes began to flicker from side to side, up and down, as though he dreamed while awake, or read a book at high speed. His lips moved, murmuring, and the whole time his hand held mine in place, his fingers almost painful. I tried to pull my hand back but the old man’s grip was amazingly strong.

  “You are wrong about many things, my dear. You don’t know what you want. You have a huge Talent, hidden, growing inside you like a child, waiting to burst forth. You need to let it out. What a strong hold you have on it, keeping it locked down in there along with everything else you feel. Do you ever cry? Let it go, Catrina, let it go. Then, and only then, will you find what you seek.”

  I wrenched my hand free and stood up.

  Herb closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I usually stick to reading objects. It’s easier for everyone.”

  All the blood seemed to have drained out of my head. I swayed slightly, and thought I might be sick. Jamie looked concerned.

  “I’m sorry too,” I said.

  “Herb tries not to touch people,” Jamie said.

  “It’s true,” the old man said. “Usually people learn things about themselves they didn’t want to know, or wanted to pretend they didn’t know.”

  “Thank you for helping,” I said. “I think I need to go now.”

  “You should. Think about what I said.”

  “I will.” I knew I would think of little else.

  Jamie stood and walked over to me, taking my elbow. “Thanks, Herb,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll play cards later—I’ll be home for a few days at least, maybe longer.”

  Herb looked at me. “I don’t think you will be here long.” He paused. “There is one other thing.”

  I wanted to run from the garden, away, and put my fingers in my ears.

  “Catrina, be careful with this boy. You will destroy him before all this is done. I hope you’ll stay around to pick up the pieces.”

  Horrified, I tore away from Jamie’s hand and ran into the house, dimly aware of the two men watching me go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I needed to get away, but I didn’t have anywhere to run to. After I got inside, I slowed to a fast walk, head down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. I hurried through the house, turning corners at random, until I found myself in a corridor that ended at an open door.

  The room within had books from floor to ceiling. A library or someone’s study, I wasn’t sure. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. A wide old leather sofa beckoned. I lay down on it, facing into the back, and tucked my knees up, wishing I could sink into a hole in the ground.

  I had so much to think about my head hurt. Herb had to be crazy. No way did I have a huge, hidden Talent waiting to burst out, and I had no intention of getting involved enough with Jamie to hurt him.

  Our relationship was founded purely on spending lots of time together and old-fashioned lust. Seriously, any woman would have trouble spending a few nights in a hotel room with a guy that looked and moved and smelled like him, and not wind up sleeping with him. Which I hadn’t, of course. But if I did, I didn’t see how that would destroy him. We had no emotional investment in each other. None.

  I needed to think about what Herb had said about Eric. There he was clearly at least partly correct. He knew about Justine, for instance. How accurate were his visions? If he was correct, then what had the Institute been trying to get Eric to do?

  When I was a kid, we had been hammered with research studies: hours of sitting in windowless rooms with electrodes hooked up to our heads while we were exhorted to look at cards, tell the researchers what somebody else was thinking, move a ball on the table, bend the goddamn spoon. We were psychoanalyzed, prodded, poked and occasionally shocked—I shuddered thinking about that—but acts of violence against others were not suggested. Something had changed at the Institute. I hated it there but that had been mostly because of my continual failure and loneliness.

  I’d never understood Dad’s extreme paranoia about them finding us and taking me back, which was why I’d moved on. Or tried to, although it was harder to shed the habits of a lifetime than I’d expected. I’d never managed to stop looking over my shoulder. And now I had to wonder whether he knew something he hadn’t told me.

  I rolled over onto my back and stared at the elaborate cornices. When the door creaked open, I didn’t look over. I knew it was Jamie. Trying to hide from a Finder was little more than a joke.

  He closed the door, padded over and stopped next to the couch. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, sitting up. I sighed. “How good is Herb?”

  “Usually? Oh, he’s probably right sixty, seventy percent of the time. He did great in Vegas and Atlantic City because his bluff is one hundred percent.” Jamie lowered himself down next to me, his expression drawn and serious. “I should have warned you about touching him.”

  “I should have worked it out for myself.”

  He nodded. “Let’s come up with a plan about what to do next. I think there are two things we should work on.”

  “Finding Justine is one,” I said.

  “Yes. But I also think we need to work on your Talent.”

  I flung one hand up. “No. That’s not an option.”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked genuinely surprised. “Why not? What are you afraid of?”

  “I’ve been tested forwards, backwards, and sideways, and I don’t want to go through that again.”

  “This isn’t the Institute. We do things differently here.”

  “I don’t want a Talent.” I hoped I wasn’t going to have to play this broken record for the rest of my days.

  Jamie shook his head. “Now that, I kind of understand, given Eric’s story. But if you have one, you have one, and you ought to learn how to use it. You can’t have it both ways. Are you afraid we’ll find you don’t have a Talent, or afraid we’ll find that you do?”

  I flushed. “You make it sound like I’m afraid of my own shadow.”

  He picked up my hand, squeezed it. “Sometimes it seems like you are. I know you
like to hide it under a layer of bravado, but you need to face these fears of yours, so you can move on in either direction. You can’t run away forever.”

  His words sounded like a bell in my head. I knew he was right.

  He laced his fingers through mine, and tightened his grip. “If you keep running, Catrina, I’ll keep Finding you until you stop.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.” His face was white, almost gray in the dimly lit library, and his eyes pitch dark in the shadows. His intent was deadly clear. I didn’t understand what drove his determination, but I believed him utterly.

  “Fine.” I could see I had no chance of winning here. He’d keep at me and at me until I gave in. If I was going to work on my Talent, I wanted something in return, and I had an idea. I folded my arms. “We’ll work on my Talent. While we look for Justine.”

  “Agreed.”

  “On one condition.”

  He didn’t look happy. “What’s that?”

  “You do what Dorian wants and play by the rules.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  I stood up. “You made it about you when you said you’d find me wherever I went. You want me to move on? Then you need to move on too. Act like a grown-up.”

  I’d rarely seen him flush, but he did now. Looked more like anger than embarrassment. “Or what? What are you going to do?”

  “Make it as hard as I can for you to find me. I’ll be in every dangerous place I can find, doing everything I can think of to avoid finding any Talent I might have, with whatever no-account guy I can find to hang out with.” There.

  He clumped his feet up onto a small coffee table that looked as though it might splinter under the weight of those boots, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Fine. I’ll play by the rules.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. I had to fill it, never could keep my mouth shut in an uncomfortable silence.

  “How exactly do you propose we ‘work on my Talent’?”

  His left leg began to jiggle. “I have some ideas.”

  “Like what?”

  The hands came out of the pockets and he sat forward. “Herb thinks you’re too tightly controlled. From what I’ve seen, every time the thought of Talent comes up you tense up like a horse on a racetrack, going down to the starting gates. From what you’ve said about your dreams, it seems like your Talent only gets a chance to break out when you’re dreaming and can’t keep it under wraps.” He paused. “I think we need to work on relaxing you a bit.”

  “Work on relaxing? Is that some kind of joke?”

  “Tell me,” he said, “what do you do when you’re not working?”

  “Run to stay fit. Cook. Clean. And sleep. That’s about it.”

  “You don’t do anything for fun, at all?”

  “I knit sometimes,” I admitted. “And sew a little.”

  “Jaysus.” He looked horrified.

  “What?” I folded my arms again, feeling defensive. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “What do you do for fun?”

  “I told you.”

  “Do you never let your hair down? Hang out with friends? Go dancing? Get a massage? Eat something bad for you?” As he ranted, he waved his hands around, miming these activities as if I didn’t know what they were.

  That ticked me off. “I went dancing with you,” I snapped, “and look how that turned out.”

  A broad masculine grin spread over his features. “Pretty darn well, if you ask me!”

  I knew what he was remembering, and it wasn’t what I’d intended. Damn him! “I haven’t stayed in one place long enough to make many friends, and I’ve never had enough money for massages and such.”

  Jamie groaned and sat back against the couch. “All right. Unbelievable. Herb’s right, you need to learn to relax.”

  I rolled my head back to stare at the ceiling. “God. What have I gotten myself into?”

  I came away from the conversation with instructions to turn up on the back lawn at five that evening, wearing something “comfortable”. I wasn’t sure I had anything fitting that description here with me, but I’d make do.

  In the meantime, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My hands itched with the need to do something productive. I tidied my room, although it didn’t need it, walked around the house for a while trying to get my bearings, and ended up in the garden about fifteen minutes early.

  I was not alone. An older woman with long, white hair sat lotus-style on a yoga mat on the grass.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Good afternoon,” she said in a crooning, soothing tone. “Are you going to join us today?”

  I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she added, “For Tai Chi.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet someone here, but he didn’t say anything about that.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes, continuing to meditate or whatever it was she was doing.

  Over the next few minutes, other people drifted out. Jamie was not among them. When the class started, I dutifully put myself at the back and went through the motions along with everybody else. I didn’t understand what we were trying to achieve, but the garden was nice on a sunny afternoon, and at least I was getting some exercise.

  As we finished, Jamie appeared, clearly not dressed for Tai Chi in his motorcycle leathers and dark glasses. He grinned as he came up to me.

  “How did you like it?”

  I shrugged, wanting to say something snarky but not knowing where to begin.

  “I don’t like this kind of stuff,” he said, “but a lot of people here think it’s relaxing. Are you relaxed?”

  Right then I wanted to punch him in the nose, but I shrugged again, perhaps a little harder this time.

  “You seem kind of tense,” he said.

  I began to walk toward the house and he fell into step beside me.

  “I don’t think this approach is going to work,” I said.

  “Maybe Tai Chi’s not your bag. How about aromatherapy?”

  I couldn’t hold it back any longer and gave him the deep dirty look I usually saved for married, middle-aged bar patrons who made passes at me.

  “Okay. I’ll think of something, don’t worry.”

  I must have been losing my touch. “Look,” I said tightly, “can we do something to look for Eric?”

  “I’d love to oblige you, sweetheart, but I’m temporarily grounded from the mission.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Wait for Dorian to let you out?”

  “However,” Jamie said, and he dropped his sunglasses down his nose to wink at me, “there’s nothing to say we can’t go for a ride in this fine, sunny weather. And I have a feeling it might be a good idea.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of a feeling, exactly?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, you know. Cheer you up. Nothing special.”

  Suspicious, I said nothing. “You have another bike here?”

  “A couple,” he said, waving his hand around. “Follow me.”

  We moved through the gardens and arrived at an old carriage house that appeared to have been converted to a garage. Many vehicles were parked inside, and at the back, a row of motorbikes stood under dustcovers.

  Jamie opened a closet and handed me a leather jacket and a helmet.

  “You must have a lot of spares,” I muttered.

  “Everything belongs to the Order,” he said.

  He unveiled a muscular black bike. I climbed on behind him and we rode out of the carriage house and down the long, winding drive. The leafy gardens around the house soon gave way to suburbia, and then we were back on the crazy freeway.

  Last time I’d been on the back of a bike with Jamie, I’d been a lot more self-conscious about touching him. Now, I enjoyed the feel of his taut belly under my hands, my front pressed against his back.

  Our destination was a bland commercial park in Northern Virginia. I recognized the names of a bunch of well-known defense
contractors as we rode the curving streets. Parking lots emptied onto the streets as we passed, in time for the start of rush hour.

  Jamie parked at a building site across the road from an anonymous block of an office building, and pulled off his helmet. The building sat well back from the road behind a high wire fence and an expanse of lawn. “Here we are,” he said.

  “Where is here?”

  “The Grey Institute.”

  Sure enough, a sign, with their logo of stars in a square, stood in front of the security checkpoint.

  Shit. My leg muscles tensed. I wanted to run as fast and far as I could. “Why are we here?”

  “Why not? It’s local sightseeing. And you never know who we might run into.” He peeled off his gloves, ruffled fingers through his hair.

  How could he be so damn casual? “If we’re trying to spy on them, maybe we should be a bit more subtle about it?”

  Jamie shrugged. “We’re not exactly spying. More to the point, what do you think we might see from out here?”

  If we couldn’t run, maybe we could hide. “Let’s…be less obvious.”

  “Sure,” he said, obviously humoring me, and restarted the bike. He taxied it over behind a pile of earth that had been cleared to flatten the site. “Happy?”

  I swung my leg off the back of the bike and peered around the earth pile. “Now we can spy on them.”

  Jamie climbed off and sat down on a stack of concrete blocks. “I’m not spying on anything, nor am I in any way looking for Eric.”

  “You’re saying you won’t help?”

  “I’m saying if anyone asks later, that wasn’t what I was doing.” He began to whistle, surprisingly tunefully.

  “Do you have to whistle?”

  He shrugged. “It’s one way to pass the time while we’re not spying on them.”

  Cars left the lot across the road, pausing at the checkpoint to sign out with the guard. That had to get tedious day after day.

  Jamie checked the time on his phone and put it back in his pocket.

  “Do you need to be somewhere?”

  “Nope,” he said, crossing his legs.