Dahlia nodded. “In the last three years, that’s just about all I’ve been doing.”
“Dahlia, don’t hedge. What the hell are you talking about?”
“There’s a reason for a high-security clearance, Nicolas. I don’t even know you.”
“You know me. And for the record, you don’t even exist, let alone have a high-security clearance. If you got caught, they would hang you out to dry.”
“Well, of course. That was understood. I’m the poor girl raised in the sanitarium, as batty as they come, seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. They’d put me back in the sanitarium.”
“Only if you were arrested. The kind of thing you’re talking about can get people killed.” Nicolas felt the first stirrings of a black, swirling anger in his gut. She was risking her life, and Jesse Calhoun and whatever agency he worked for knew it. As far as he could see, they did nothing to help her. They simply used her.
“Nicolas.” She swept her hand lightly down his face. A mere brush of her fingertips. Her touch jolted through his body, set his heart pounding, and heated the blood in his veins. “Don’t get upset over my life. I enjoy my work. It’s an outing and a chance for me to utilize the skills I’ve developed. I wanted to do it. The thing that’s important to understand about me is, I don’t do anything unless I want to do it. Not anything. Not even when I was a child. I may seem impulsive, but I’m actually not. I think things over and weigh the pros and cons and make a decision. Once I make it, I make the best of it, no matter how it turns out, because it was my choice and ultimately, I’m responsible. I like it that way. The rear admiral or whoever he was, couldn’t talk me into anything I didn’t want to do. Neither could Jesse or Milly or even Bernadette. I’m just not like that.”
“They used you, Dahlia.” There was ice-cold rage in his voice.
Dahlia was grateful for the bracelet of fingers around her ankle keeping the shimmering energy already radiating violence away from her. “Is that how you see yourself, Nicolas? A victim? They send you out into a jungle or a desert and you have no backup, no one to help you if you did something so simple as to break a leg. If you were captured or shot, how much help would you have?”
“It isn’t the same thing, Dahlia.”
She tilted her chin at him. A small thing, but the gesture told him a great deal without words. He was tramping on some idiotic feminine code she had, and if he didn’t back down, he was in serious trouble. He held up his free hand. “Don’t attack me—I can’t change who I am any more than you can. Regardless of whether or not we agree on this, it was dangerous. If Calhoun suspected there was something going on that was a threat to national security, he should have pulled the plug.”
“With no proof?”
“So what do you think was going on? You must have looked at the data.”
“I think Jesse was right. I think the three professors given a grant by the defense department came up with an idea for a stealth torpedo that would really work, and someone stole it from them. An investigation was launched, by Jesse’s people, and when they thought they knew who stole the research, they sent me in to recover it.” She watched his face closely as she deliberately mentioned the stealth torpedo.
Nicolas was silent, fear and anger washing through him. The anger deepened into full-blown rage. “They had no right involving you in something like this.”
Dahlia tried to repress the relief flooding through her. If Nicolas was a plant looking for information, she doubted he was a good enough actor to conjure up the violent energy his anger was generating. “Are you going to listen or not?”
“I’m listening, and then I’m going to hunt down the bastards who sent you into a minefield while they sat back risk-free in their comfortable offices.”
She blinked, her gaze riveted to his face. He was made of stone, perfectly expressionless. She couldn’t read him at all, but the energy rolling off of him was not as low level as it usually was. It was furious and purposeful. In spite of his fingers shackling her ankle, the violence struck her hard, taking her breath, pounding at her head, building until she was afraid she would explode.
Dahlia threw herself sideways, away from him, rolling off the bed, breaking the light grip Nicolas had on her ankle. He made a grab for her, but she caught him off guard.
Glass fragmented in the windows, the sound loud in the night. Spiderweb cracks raced across the windows and mirror. The lightbulbs shattered, the pieces exploding like a bomb and raining down in slivers onto the floor. The room itself seemed to shift, the walls flexing, bubbling outward as if something pressed against them, then receding abruptly as if the invisible force could not find an escape. The temperature soared in the room. Nicolas peered over the edge of the bed. He couldn’t see Dahlia’s body, but a red glow burst from the floor, casting her small shadow on the wall briefly before the flickering color died down and winked out.
“Dahlia? Are you hurt?”
She coughed. “No. Are you?”
She sounded hurt, her voice shaky. Nicolas reached down and picked her up, dragging her against him. “Nothing touched me. Are you certain?” Her skin was hot to the touch, searing his fingers and palm.
“I’m going to be sick.” Dahlia pushed away from him and staggered on bare feet toward the bathroom.
Nicolas caught her up and carried her, unwilling to take the chance that she might cut herself on the shattered glass. He held back her hair while she was violently sick, over and over. “This is my fault, isn’t it?” Grimly he handed her a towel.
Dahlia rinsed her mouth repeatedly. “It’s Whitney’s fault, if we’re going to blame anyone.” She shrugged and looked at him. “It’s my life.”
“I’m sorry, honey, I should have been more careful.”
She flashed a wan smile. “You can’t stop feeling, it doesn’t work that way. And who would really want it to? I’ll be fine. Let me brush my teeth. It’s gone now, a flash fire so to speak.”
Nicolas turned away from her to pace restlessly across the floor. “Where’s the broom? I’ll clean this up.” He couldn’t think about what her life must be like. How difficult being around people would actually be.
“I’ll get it. I don’t bother with brooms. It’s easier to just use whatever energy happens to be handy to collect it. And right now, there’s plenty of energy in the room.”
Nicolas turned back to look at her. She made the announcement so casually, as if what she said and did wasn’t truly exceptional. She was busy brushing her teeth. He took a moment to really study her. She was all flowing grace and soft movement. Very feminine. Why hadn’t he noticed it when he had watched the training tapes? He had viewed her as a potential enemy and looked for strengths and weaknesses. Everything was so different. Just looking at her warmed him.
“Dahlia, what did you mean by a stealth torpedo?”
“A silent torpedo. One that can’t be detected before, during, or after being fired from a submarine.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and moved to stand beside him. She bent low, her palm just above the glass, and began to move her fingers in the same rhythm she often used with the spheres.
“That’s impossible. You can hear the outer doors open. You can hear the burst into the water, and you can hear the motor of a torpedo.” He couldn’t take his eyes off of the glass shards as they began to spin in a circle, pulling together and rising beneath her palm. She amazed him with her control. “They’ve tried and failed over and over.”
“I don’t think they failed this time,” Dahlia said and walked very carefully to the wastebasket. When her hand was over the top of it, she stopped all movement and watched the glass drop into the basket. Only then did she turn and look at him. “I think someone figured it out, or at least was close to figuring it out.”
“And you know this how?”
“I don’t know it, I just think there’s enough data to be suspicious. Prior to being asked to go in for a recovery, I was asked to duplicate the information at the university where the profess
ors were working together with their teams. I looked at the information I was bringing out over the last few months. The original research read nothing at all like the findings sent to the government.”
“So it didn’t work, and they’ve dropped it and gone to something else.”
“They’re dead. All of them. The first professor to die was a woman. She was in a car accident about four months ago. She had one assistant. He died while hiking in the national forest. That happened about three weeks after the first death. The second professor died when he fell from a balcony in what the police said was a ‘freak’ accident. The head of the team was walking along the street when he suddenly fell to the ground, clutching his chest in an apparent heart attack. That was a couple of weeks before I was sent out. Granted, they all died weeks apart from what could truly have been accidents, but if you put that with a couple of other deaths of minor assistants, all dying in similar ways, it means to me that they succeeded in their research and that someone wants to cover it up and sell it elsewhere.”
“So the government was officially notified that it couldn’t be done.”
Dahlia nodded. “The report came in just a few weeks before they all started dying.”
Nicolas studied her face before crossing the room to stand in front of the window where he examined the spiderweb fragmenting the glass. “You’re not an innocent woman working out of a sanitarium, are you?” He stared out the window into the darkness. “You know exactly who you work for.”
Dahlia crossed the room to stand beside him. Close, but not touching him. “I’m sorry, yes. I work for the NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. So does Jesse. I didn’t know who you were, Nicolas, or whom you worked for. You showed up the same time my home and my family was destroyed. I’m investigating something that has probably killed several people. Jesse Calhoun has been taken prisoner and is probably being tortured for information. If I were a member of the other side, I’d probably put someone like you in place. I had to be sure you were really who you said you were. It was such a coincidence for you to show up at exactly the right moment.”
“All the time we talked, out in the bayou, you never really answered a single question I asked. It didn’t add up at all. You aren’t the kind of woman not to know exactly who you work for.” He shook his head. “You’ve been feeding me just enough to test me, haven’t you? You really know how to make a fool out of a man, don’t you?”
There was no rancor in his voice, not even a note of bitterness. He just said it and turned and walked out. His bare feet made no noise on the floor as he left.
Dahlia stood quietly at the window for a long time, watching the night, watching the clouds spin across the dark sky. Feeling like the lowest creature on the face of the earth. She shouldn’t have felt low. She was doing her job, just as he did his job, but she still felt as if she had betrayed him in some way. He knew what a security clearance was, and a need to know basis.
Her heart hurt. Ached. It was silly. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man could ever take home to his mother. She could imagine sitting at a dinner table with one of his family members smoldering over the loss of their favorite football team and accidentally catching the dining room on fire. No matter how much she might want to get to know someone, or have a friend or be in a relationship, the bottom line was always the same—it was not possible. She would not feel sorry for herself.
She’d been careful, cautious, just as she’d been taught. Just as life had taught her to be. No one in her world was ever what they claimed to be. Nicolas Trevane was probably no different. He could still very well be an assassin sent to kill her the moment she turned over the documents she’d been sent to recover. She sighed and pushed her hair back away from her face. Deep down, where it counted the most, Dahlia knew he was exactly what he seemed to be. And it wasn’t as if she lied to him. She did live her entire life in the sanitarium, at least the part that mattered most. And she did work for the government recovering information. And she wasn’t altogether certain in the beginning that they hadn’t sent a hit squad after her. She didn’t trust the NCIS any more than she trusted anyone else. She honestly didn’t know the truth of it, and she still didn’t.
If one of the NCIS agents from Jesse’s office hadn’t betrayed them, how would anyone know about her? She was a ghost, slipping in and out, able to block the security systems. Dahlia never left a trace of her existence. She wasn’t caught on film accidentally; it wouldn’t happen. She disrupted the cameras all the while she was inside. So who knew about her, and how did they know?
Nicolas appeared in the doorway. “Come away from the window.” There was no urgency in his voice, but it was an order. He was in hunter mode, and she recognized it instantly. Dahlia didn’t ask questions, she simply took a rolling dive across the bed and hit the other side of the floor. Behind her, the glass shattered, spewing shards in all directions. A bullet whined over her head and buried itself in the wall. Dahlia kept rolling until she was at the door. She crawled out on her stomach. “How’d you know?”
“I just know.” He reached down and pulled her around the corner of the doorframe. “We’ve got to get out of here. You need clothes, shoes, whatever. You have thirty seconds.”
“Gee thanks. I appreciate it” She could see he was already in full gear, pack and everything. “Did you throw my things in your pack? My crystal spheres?” Sitting on the floor in the upstairs hall, she dragged on a pair of socks and hastily pulled on the boots he’d brought up from the kitchen.
“I’ve got them. Hurry up, we have to go to the roof.”
“Are you certain?” She didn’t bother to ask how he knew. He was a GhostWalker, and they each had their talents. Nicolas knew things. The right things.
“I’m certain.” He gave her a hand up, and indicated the window overlooking the courtyard. “We go out that way.”
“I’m right behind you.”
* * *
CHAPTER EIGHT
Contents - Prev | Next
Dahlia pulled on the dark sweatshirt Nicolas tossed to her as she followed him to the window. He opened it silently and swung out, sliding his hands up the wall to find fingerholds. Dahlia couldn’t help but admire how smooth, efficient, and silent he was, like a spider going up the side of the building. She followed him, every bit as quiet. This was her specialty, adhering to the side of buildings and moving in secrecy. It was one of the things she felt most comfortable doing. Evidently, Nicolas did as well. His level of energy was so low, she would have sworn he had ice in his veins. They might have been going for a casual stroll. She was very grateful that she couldn’t detect any tension from the energy surrounding him.
Dahlia was very small and it enabled her to fit closely against the wall, to become part of the shadows she spent most of her time in. She was also able to blur her image enough to help blend into her surroundings. Nicolas was a big man and carried a heavy pack. He should have been more easily seen, but she could see why he’d earned the title of GhostWalker. Even knowing where he was right above her, she couldn’t hear him as he moved, not even the whisper of clothing. She closed her mind to thoughts of him and climbed as if she were alone.
Her fingertips found cracks and her toes found places to dig in as she moved up the building to the roof. She slipped over the side, taking great care to stay low, to keep from being seen. She crawled on her stomach, like a lizard, across the roof, pulling herself along with elbows and hands and knees. She gained the street side and stopped beside Nicolas, staying quiet, waiting for him to signal they could go over the side and head for the street.
He put his hand on her arm, a brief touch, raised his hand, and flattened his palm. She shook her head briefly. She was not willing to wait up on the roof while he took all the risks. If he were going into the streets, she would go with him.
Don’t argue with me. I’ve got rank on you. The words pushed into her mind. She was startled for a moment. She’d forgotten he was a strong telepath.
No one has
rank on me. We’ll go together.
We can’t afford you to be anywhere near violence. Even up here, you’ll catch the backwash of it. It makes sense for me to do what I do best.
Dahlia closed her eyes. Why had she ever named him killer? Nicolas. She didn’t mean for her heart to be in her voice. In his mind. An intimate connection between them. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have told you everything, after all, your life is just as much at risk as mine is.
He turned his head, his black eyes boring into hers. Arctic cold. And then, without any warning, his gaze smoldered. Went midnight black. Burned with such intensity she gasped. His mouth settled over hers. His lips were soft but firm, pressing into hers, so that her mouth opened for him. So that the taste and texture of him invaded her body and mind, poured into her with the force of concentrated silken heat and hot promises. His mouth moved over hers, his teeth nibbling at her bottom lip, at her chin before sliding away from her. They stared at one another for the beat of eternity while the clouds spun overhead and danger prowled in the street below them.
Stay here.
Dahlia took a deep breath and nodded. She made herself breathe again as he slipped over the edge of the roof. He left his pack and rifle and went in silence. She strained to keep him in sight, following his progress as he climbed down two stories, his darker shadow blending in with the night. He moved fast, a smooth descent that made her think of a night creature. She watched as he gained the small patch of shrubbery close to one of the three men stealthily waiting outside the windows and doors on the street side of the house. He was much taller than the bushes, yet he seemed to blend, his body nearly indistinguishable from the leafy branches.
She loved watching him move. He came up behind the man nearest him, standing directly behind him, close enough to breathe on him. She caught the glint of metal in his hand and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the violence of the act to swallow her. Her stomach lurched. She detested the act of taking life. She had developed her own philosophy based on the books that had appealed to her. She did believe everything in the universe was connected and that each life had a purpose. While she certainly believed in defending her own life, she had firsthand knowledge of the severe repercussions. Violence, once committed, lingered behind and subtly worked on those sensitive to its ugliness.
GhostWalkers 2 - Mind Game Page 14