I ran to meet them, my heart pounding with hope. Whitney yanked a padded envelope from the breast pocket of her cargo vest and handed it to me, her face creased with worry lines. “Got it. Am I in time?”
“Yeah, I think you are. Just.”
Annie stood, a bewildered, manic glitter in her eyes. I rushed to her, tearing open the envelope. The second I closed my hand around the vial, energy poured into me. I popped off the top. “Hold her mouth open, Annie. We have to help her with this.”
I wanted to pour it in, but Maddie couldn’t swallow in her suspended condition. I covered the end of the vial with my fingertip, shook it to get the formula on my finger, and then rubbed it on her tongue. By the third fingertip full, her body had started to warm. Halfway through the vial, her cheeks were pink and she wiggled her little toes against my arm. Her aura shimmered bright blue, and purple was beginning to seep into the edges.
Happy tears blinded me. I swiped them away so I could see, and then poured a thimble-size dollop of the thick liquid on her tongue. She swallowed. Another one. Her eyes fluttered open. Two more and the vial was empty.
Maddie smiled at her mommy.
I collapsed by the side of the pool and buried my face in my hands.
Two hours, a long shower, and deep meditation session later, I joined the group in Annie’s great room. Adam, Whitney, me, and even Pierce, took turns holding a sleeping Madigan. No one considered taking her upstairs to bed. We passed the bottle of Jameson’s around and started to talk through the events of the past few days, days that had changed my life irrevocably.
Adam kept shaking his head. “It scared the crap out of me when I couldn’t find the vial in Mitch’s truck. Took the cop in charge a good fifteen minutes to wander over and tell me Detective Boulay had stopped by almost an hour earlier. And then when I tried to call, no one answered their phones. Closest I’ve come to stroking out.”
Whitney glanced at Adam, her eyes twinkling. “Glad to be of help on this one. Although, if Pierce hadn’t called in a favor for the helicopter, I wouldn’t have made it in time.”
Annie brushed her fingers over Maddie’s cheek. “I owe you, Whitney Boulay. Anything you need, just ask. And Adam, I was hysterical. Didn’t even know my cell was ringing, and then when El and I jumped in the pool, my phone came with us. Pierce had El’s phone.”
Pierce grunted, tugged my phone out of his pocket, and tossed it to me. “Forgot about it after I got hold of you, Boulay. Glad you had hover training. Could have been tricky.”
“It was all of us,” I said, my heart thumping against my ribs. “It took a team to save Maddie, and I’m grateful, because I couldn’t bear to lose anyone else.” I trained my gaze on Adam, and focused on keeping my leaky tears from turning into uncontrollable sobbing. “I want to visit Mitch when the ME releases him. There might be something…”
Adam nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Jayne and Parker will be here soon to help you—”
My stomach pitched. I wasn’t ready to face Mitch’s sister, would rather have had the flight time to sit with Mitch, and talk to him.
Pierce bumped into my thoughts. “Got an ETA on that. Nine tomorrow morning.”
“I need to know about Xifeng. I stabbed her, and I think it would have been fatal, except—”
“She was pronounced at the scene.” Adam sighed. “I’m sorry we didn’t get there sooner. We were tracking you, but when they switched up the plans and all hell broke loose, we had to scramble.”
“And the Wah Ching? I shot one of them in the chest and wounded two others.” The pressure of holding back my tears pounded behind my eyes. How many people had I killed? Chad Burr. Xifeng. Even though she delivered her final assault, she would have died from the stomach wound, and probably within minutes.
“The HPD team that answered your nine-one-one picked up the three wounded Wah Ching. As far as I know, the chest wound didn’t die, but he’s in critical condition. When Pierce and I hit the restaurant, we took down the rest of them, and then turned them over to the HPD.”
“Xifeng only had the six in the US,” Pierce said, tapping his fingers against his thigh. “Don’t know what she had going on in Mainland China.”
“So, watch my very bruised back?”
Annie’s cheeks colored. “Sorry.”
I tipped my glass of whiskey in her direction. “You could have killed me, what with your training and all. And considering you thought I was hurting your daughter, I’m grateful it’s just a few bruises.”
My mind drifted. Did I care if they captured me? A resounding Yes! filled my mind. I’d decided to survive, to learn about my gifts and use them in the best way possible, and to hone my fighting skills.
I’d rationalized it. Thought it was my way of respecting my parents and Mitch. Honoring their lives was a core reason for me to survive, but now I realized I wanted to live for myself, too.
It would be a long time before I healed. In some ways my mind had started to shift through the stages of loss, even though I’d only had a few hours to wallow in denial, and I would be dealing with anger, bargaining, and depression as they crept into my daily life. The promise of acceptance floated somewhere on a distant horizon, but right now I needed to focus on helping everyone, myself included, to move past the last twenty-four hours.
“I promise to watch my back, Pierce. I don’t believe anyone could have saved Mitch. Maybe he didn’t die in a car explosion like my ESP images predicted, but there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent…what happened.” My breath hitched, and I rubbed at the pang in my chest.
“Besides, if you’d been on the spot, I wouldn’t have bragging rights about facing down a gang of Wah Ching.” It was a half-hearted attempt at humor, but we all needed to stretch into our personal healing, and if it helped my friends, my team, to stop worrying about me, it was worth the attempt.
“Do any of you know the connection between the rogue agent and Xifeng?” Whitney asked.
We all shook our heads. “It’s at the top of my to-find-out list, just as soon as I take care of Mitch and get moved.” My heart stuttered. Would it ever beat steady and strong again?
“There were others working with, ah, Chad the Demon, and they still want to tap your gifts, Belisama.”
“Do we know for sure if C the D killed my parents?” It was a change of topic, but I wanted the answer.
Pierce held my gaze. “When I have the intel on that, you’ll be the first to know.”
Annie patted my knee. “No chasing after rogue agents for a bit, hmm? You’re a hot commodity right now, which is why I think you should move in with us. I’ll teach you all I know about handling knives.” She nodded at Whitney. “I’m not in Boulay’s class, but I’m not bad. And even though Pierce and I can rig your new condo with the best security system out there, we’re both better in person than any alarm will ever be.”
“I know, and thanks for the offer. It’ll be at least a week before things are settled in North Carolina, so—”
“So you’re gonna have me for a shadow.” Pierce shot me a wicked grin.
I fought for a breath, panic stealing the oxygen from my lungs. “No. Oh, bloody hell, no. I can’t deal with being protected. When I get a new phone you can put trackers on it and monitor my location, but personally shadowing me. Nope. Not gonna happen.”
Pierce grunted—a new one that I hadn’t heard before. My right eye twitched.
No way would I survive losing Pierce like I’d lost Mitch. “The protective detail stops here. This instant. What we have to do is take care of Millie. She created the formula that saved Maddie, and to use Annie’s words, that makes her a hotter commodity than I am.”
“We’re on it,” Adam said, standing, “Unfortunately, Kahuna Aukele has a way of disappearing people that makes it difficult to protect them. I’m out of here. You want a ride, Boulay?”
“Yes. I’m rather caught without wheels at the moment,” she said, joining Adam.
Annie handed Maddie to me, stood
, and hugged Whitney. “Thank you. Just, thanks.”
Adam leaned down to hug his niece and me. “I’m a phone call away if you need me.”
“I know, Adam. Thanks. About Millie…Grandfather will check on me, and I’ll ask him to work with you. He’s in the middle of teaching me some things, and he always pops in when I have questions.” Like what he meant about only being a single thought away from me, and how to reconcile death as a path to healing.
Annie’s house settled into an easy silence after Adam and Whitney left. Pierce had sprawled in a chair, arms crossed behind his head, legs stretched out, feet resting on a hassock. Was that a snore?
I blinked at Annie. She nodded. “He sleeps every so often.”
Maddie yawned, kicking her blanket off, and I cuddled her tight to my chest. For the first time in hours, maybe days, my heart slipped into an even rhythm. Mitch had been right. Someday I would have a child, but until then Maddie was enough.
Her tiny fist closed around my finger, and held on tight.
Sometime later…
I finished my daily two-mile run, kicked off my sneakers, dropped my shorts and t-shirt on the bathroom floor, and stepped under the shower spray. Time for my daily meditation. I’d clung to the same routine since the day I moved into my condo, and for the past eight months had used my running and shower time to meditate and heal.
The first few months I couldn’t get beyond the guilt—for being so angry with Mitch, for pushing him out of my life, for not stopping him before he stepped in front of a crazy man with a gun. Nowadays, I worked through those emotions more quickly, and had moved on to not feeling guilty about killing two people. I was beginning to understand the relationship between death and healing. Well, sort of, on my good days. But I still wore my wedding ring. And I still touched the pillow next to me every evening when I whispered good night to Mitch. Had he found healing in death?
Time. It was a good thing to take it in manageable increments, days, hours, sometimes minutes. I’d started to really believe that time could heal. And my new skills provided a hefty dose of confidence. Annie had been training me in knife work three days a week, and since I’d purchased a legitimate Sig .380, I met Adam at the police firing range a few times every month.
When the water ran cold, I towel dried and slathered on some Pikake lotion. The scent permeated the moist air in the bathroom, and when I stretched my legs out, my muscles breathed contentment from the early morning beach run. Life was good in the islands, and today was a Maddie sleepover, so it was especially good.
I wound my hair into a loose knot, secured the towel under my arms, and checked my schedule for the day. Three clients. A full day. I’d started to build a local base for my coaching business a month after I moved, and still handled a dozen phone sessions a week with my North Carolina clients.
Intent on chugging a large bottle of water, I strolled into my great room and stopped cold.
Tynan Pierce stood in front of my sofa. “I know who killed your parents, Belisama.”
A note from L. j.
Thank you for reading A TOUCH OF BETRAYAL. I hope you enjoyed it. You can reach me…
Website: http://www.ljcharles.com/
Blog: http://ljcharles.blogspot.com/
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ljwrites
On Twitter: @luciejcharles
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
A note from L. j.
Touch of Betrayal, A Page 22