One Wrong Move

by Shannon McKenna

  “He’s dead,” Anabel broke in.

  Rudd’s manicured fingernails dug into his palm. “He is what? ”

  “Um, they didn’t actually mean to kill him,” she explained.

  “They did some cutting, see. And he went into shock. His heart stopped.”

  “So we’ll never know,” he said grimly.

  “Boss, you remember what Kirk was like,” Anabel coaxed. “I think it’s true. I think he really didn’t know. Kirk wasn’t the heroic type. He wouldn’t hold back. Not if they were cutting him.”

  “And now we’ll never know for sure,” he repeated coldly.

  He could not be bothered with Anabel any longer. He hung up, looked back at the announcement. A note was scribbled on it.

  You’re maid of honor, you know, so wrap your

  mind around it and don’t even try to fight. I

  promise, the dress won’t gag you. I ask only

  one wedding present of you. Get contacts before you come, and let me do your makeup. XXOO

  love you, girl. Lily.

  Aw. Lily. Hence, the lily-speckled notecards. Sweet little detail, that. Rudd appreciated those subtle feminine touches.

  Fault lines. Rudd took the invitation and tucked it into his pocket. He walked out, ducking back under the yellow tape over the door. Glanced at the man sprawled on the porch.

  Rudd made contact, though there was very little to make contact with. The man’s mind was barely there, fading fast. He hung on by the thinnest of threads. Rudd inhaled, concentrated . . .

  pushed.

  The thread snapped, like a cobweb. The man drifted away.

  Rudd sauntered back to his car, his good mood restored.

  The goddamned bus went so slow. Aaro needed an accelerator to press, but he was stuck in the back of a lumbering bus, going fifty an hour, with only the .45, the snubby, and the Micro Glock still on his body, plus his knives. The rest of the hardware, plus his laptop, had been left behind in the fracas. He missed it all.

  Sharply.

  If he were behind the wheel, it would be impossible to keep from speeding, though. And the last thing he needed was to get pulled over. Depending on how the shitstorm back in Brooklyn was interpreted by the cops, who knew? He was probaby a wanted man at this point.

  It made him want to laugh. After investing all this energy in being unwanted. Now three entirely different entities were out for his ass: his own family, Nina’s psycho freak team, and the law.

  Wow. Like there was even enough room around his throat for all those squeezing hands.

  How the hell had that douche-bag Dmitri gotten mixed up in this mess? His long-lost, un-missed cousin. He’d almost shot the guy, until their eyes met . . . and Aaro’s flash of hesitation had killed Wilder.

  Wilder’s death was on him.

  “Would you stop that?” Nina murmured, from beside him.

  He glared at her. “Stop what?”

  “Flogging yourself like that. You didn’t kill Wilder. So don’t take the blame onto yourself. You have a very bad habit of doing that.”

  “Get the fuck out of my head, Nina,” he warned.

  She turned innocent eyes up in his direction. “I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “I was just trying to concentrate on all the details of Helga’s transcript. But your mental histrionics were making it really hard.”

  “Histrionics? Look, if you’re going to start policing the random shit that runs through my head—”

  “I won’t. Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve got my own thoughts to think, and my own guilt. That guy saved my life. But I just don’t feel like witnessing the self-flagellation right now. It’s distracting, and it’s too damn loud. We’re getting our asses kicked hard enough. No need to kick your own ass, too.”

  “Let’s make a rule,” he said grimly. “Don’t scold me for my thoughts. It’s bad enough getting scolded for the things I actually say.”

  “Let’s not set rules. I’m doing the best I can, so deal with it.”

  Nina still had the harsh black glasses on, having managed to hang on to the purse slung across her shoulder, even through the attack. But with the bouncy hair, the glasses looked different.

  Funky and daring, rather than harsh and dowdy. Her lips were still stained hot pink from lipstick that had worn off long ago, and her mascara had run into smudgy pools of shadow. She still glim-mered with the glitter spray. So pretty, he just wanted to drag her onto his lap and feel her up.

  And he was a dirty dog for even thinking about it right now.

  She gazed at him, expressionless. Probably seeing every erotic image in his head, in detail. Damn, it was hard to get used to, this telepathy thing. It changed the rules of the game completely.

  “You’re awfully calm,” he said, disgruntled.

  Her lips twitched. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Just jealous,” he said. No point in being anything else but honest with a chick who could read his mind. “Because I’m so not.”

  “I see that,” she said. “I don’t know how deep this calm goes.

  Probably just shock. I’m too hammered to react appropriately.”

  “Why is it you can read my mind now when you couldn’t before?”

  “You dropped your shield,” she said simply.

  “I what? ” That didn’t sound like something he’d do. Ever.

  “It’s true. Yesterday you were like the door of a bank vault,”

  she said. “And today, it’s open.”

  “I don’t feel like I’m doing anything different,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Maybe you trust me more.”

  Well, hell. Since she had given him the mental construct, he used it. Pictured those big vault doors swinging shut, with a huge clang.

  Nina winced. “Ouch. That was so not necessary, Aaro!”

  “Just experimenting. Got to get the hang of it, right?”

  “I’ve figured out how to shield, too,” she said. “It’s sort of like my invisibility trick, but reversed. Shiny side out. Like a trick with mirrors.”

  He shook his head. “The technical subtleties of your psychic abilities are too much for me to process right now.”

  “Then I won’t burden you with them,” she said crisply.

  To his relief, the phone buzzed. Miles. Good. He clicked it.

  “Hey.”

  “Where are you?” Miles asked.

  He peered out at the freeway signs. “Almost to Cooper’s Landing.”

  “Good. Stay on the bus all the way to Lannis Lake. When you get there, a taxi will be waiting. He’ll take you to a house on the lake. It’s eighty-five Lakeside Road. About three miles from the town. Right on the water.”

  “Is anyone there?”

  “No, empty. The house key is in a cinderblock near the wood-pile.”

  “Is the owner going to come in on us unexpectedly?”

  “They’re friends of my dad,” Miles said. “It’s their vacation home. They retired and went to do a couple of years in the Peace Corps. They’re in Central America somewhere, vaccinating or-phans. They’re never going to know, and if they do, I’ll take the responsibility.”

  “OK. Does this guy have firearms? A hunting rifle, or something?”

  “Don’t push your luck. He’s a retired math teacher. Likes or-ganic gardening. His wife does cross-stitch. They go to Quaker meeting.”

  “OK, whatever,” he muttered.

  “You’ll be safe,” Miles went on. “It’s almost a mile from the main road, and there’s no way the place can be connected to you.”

  “Anything new about the transcript?”

  “Nothing yet. I tried to find something on the Wycleff Library, but came up blank. I was hoping Kirk could help, but so much for that. He had a packed suitcase, and an e-ticket for Denver. That’s all I know.”

  “OK. Thanks, man.”

  After he hung up, he set to listening to Kasyanov’s monologue again, to keep his mind busy, since when he let his thoughts run wild
, they trampled right through Nina’s head. But the only thing he gleaned from the scrubbed version was that Kasyanov said something that sounded like “party for” before she said “graves.”

  Party for graves?

  Huh. Sounded like fun. The Wycleff Library reference seemed promising, but he’d had no luck digging on his smartphone, either.

  After the sixth time through, he switched it off and turned to her. “The simax those guys were talking about in your apartment,” he said. “It’s got to be p-s-i. Psi-max, as in, maximizing your psi.”

  Nina’s brows snapped together. “Makes sense,” she said. “I wish I knew what the hell she was talking about when she says

  ‘graves.’ ”

  “She says it in English,” he said. “Just that one word. In the scrubbed version, it sounds like ‘a party for graves.’ Which makes even less sense. Something hidden in a grave?”

  “Brrr,” she murmured. “I sure hope not.”

  “Bruno had to dig up a grave to find something,” he told her.

  She gave him a suspicious look. “Get out of here,” she said.

  “You mean, moldering corpse and all?”

  “Three moldering corpses were involved, as I recall.”

  “Well, Helga said she’d been imprisoned for three years, and this drug formula is new. So it’s not languishing in a grave. Thank God.”

  They were quiet, each carefully sealed inside themselves as they got closer to Lannis Lake. When they got out of the bus, a cab driver came toward them. “Aaro and Nina?” he asked.

  “That’s us,” he said.

  The guy had been paid and briefed on address and directions, to Aaro’s relief. Nothing was required of him but sitting in the backseat, slack-jawed with exhaustion, his arm clamped around Nina.

  Lakeside Road was narrow and twisty. The driver slowed, and turned into an entrance so overgrown it was barely visible. They got out in front of a cabin by a lake that shimmered in the fading twilight, through trees and undergrowth. The cab bumped away over the rocky driveway. Aaro set out to find the key in the cinder block. There were several of them, all inhabited by spiders. When he finally found it, Nina was gone. He looked around cursing, his heart in his throat, until he saw her on the walkway leading to the floating dock.

  Her back was to him, gazing at the water. “We aren’t safe here.”

  He pondered that hard truth as he admired her ass from behind. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how they found us before, so I can’t guarantee they won’t find us again.”

  “I know how they did.” She turned around, and looked at him, her voice barely audible. “They’re on that drug. Like me.”

  He fought the idea. “But Helga said she didn’t give it to them.

  They injected it into her, instead. To test it, probably.”

  “Maybe not this formula,” Nina said. “But she’s been cooking it for them for three years. They’re all enhanced. In one way or another.”

  Feeling powerless always made him feel inexplicably furious.

  “And so?” he snarled. “Fuck it. So we run until they get us. So we fight until we die. End of story.”

  “Fight with what? We have to use every weapon we have.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing, Nina? Sitting around with my thumb up my ass? I’m being as pro-active as I know how to be!”

  “No. I mean . . .” Her voice trailed off, like she was afraid to say it.

  “What?” he demanded. “Spit it out!”

  “Your aunt said you have talent, too,” she stated. “She said, you never let it out of its cage.”

  “Yeah? My aunt said a lot of things. She also spent most of her adult life in a psych ward, stoned out of her mind on anti -

  psychotics.”

  She hugged herself, gazing at the glassy lake. “I can see how somebody with this ability could wind up in a psych ward. I also think that she knew exactly what she was talking about. About you.”

  “I don’t believe in fairy tales,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  She spun on him. “You call what’s happening a fairy tale?”

  “No, I call it a cautionary tale! Get the fuck indoors. My skin is crawling.”

  The place smelled of dust, mildew. A combined living room and kitchen. Bedrooms and a bath on the far side. The furniture was shrouded in sheets. Picture windows, covered with dark drapes, led out to a big deck that overlooked the lake.

  Nina flipped on a light, and Aaro practically jumped out of his skin. “Turn that off! We’ll look like a Christmas tree out here!”

  She flipped the light off, enveloping them in shadowy gloom.

  “I was just going to look for something to eat. Hard to cook in the dark.”

  Aaro’s stomach twitched. He opened the freezer, which was amazingly functional. Some grubbing around yielded a handful of Lean Cuisines. He pulled out five, threw them in the micro -

  wave to nuke. “There,” he said. “See? I cooked.”

  “Wow,” Nina murmured. “The confidence, the skill, the flair.

  That was sexy, Aaro. I love to see a guy strut his stuff in the kitchen.”

  It didn’t take much to make his body zing into alertness.

  “Yeah? You think that was good?” he asked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  She was silent for a long moment. “Would that be a good idea?”

  God, yes. The best idea. The only idea. “What was it you said yesterday, about seizing the day?”

  “Was that only yesterday? Seems like years,” she murmured.

  “So, you want to seize the day, Aaro?”

  He took a step toward her. “I want to seize everything.”

  Startled laughter choked in her throat, making her cough.

  “What?” he asked. “What’s so goddamn funny?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just not used to being treated like a sexual object. It still startles me.”

  “Get used to it,” he advised.

  They stared at each other, and he realized that he was actually enjoying the taut silence, the energy buzzing between them like a wire drawn tight. His body hummed with awareness, hunger.

  On impulse, he let out a slow breath, releasing the tension in his head, the locked jaw, the grinding teeth . . . and pictured the vault door, easing open. Heat and light rushed into cramped, tight places. His chest felt suddenly hot, like a furnace blasted out of his chest. It almost hurt.

  She took a startled step back. “My God, Aaro,” she whispered.

  “It’s what I thought you wanted,” he said. “Lose the clothes, Nina.”

  “Wow. My feminist sensibilities are outraged,” she murmured.

  “Yeah? I’ll outrage them like they’ve never been outraged before.”

  She glowed at him, luminous. Like a torch in the darkness, not to his eyes, but to all his other, secret senses.

  She licked her lips. “And I thought that beneath your mask was the heart of a gallant cavalier.”

  “No way. This is taking too long, Nina. Are you fucking with me?”

  Her smile made his balls tighten. “I’m working up to it,” she said.

  “Work faster,” he suggested.

  Chapter 20

  Miles stared morosely out the window of Lily’s hospital room. Wondering if sending them to the cabin was the right thing to do. Hey, what could possibly go wrong? He suppressed a bark of laughter.

  He glanced down at the smartphone, dangling from his fingers. Thinking of fingers was a mistake. The image of Kirk’s mangled hands and feet made his belly seize up. He’d been wishing for something to drive the image of Cindy banging the rocker out of his mind. But at this point, Cindy and her rocker would be a relief.

  Lily wandered over to look out the window with him. “I’m so sorry you had to see that this morning.”

  “I’m all right. You’re not supposed to be on your feet, are you?”

  “That’s right,” Bruno said, from the door. “Get back in b
ed, Lil.” A few strides brought him over to her. He swept her up into his arms.

  She swatted at him. “Stop that! I’m huge! You’ll hurt yourself!”

  “I can carry you both,” he said, hauling her to the bed. “I think you just get up because you get off on it when I sweep you off your feet.”

  “I’m just sick of lying down,” she complained.

  Bruno leaned down and kissed her, so thoroughly that Miles had to curl his lip and avert his eyes. Public displays of passion stuck in his craw these days. At great length, the kissy-face sounds eased off.

  “Do you think they’ll really be safe there?” Lily asked fretfully.

  Miles shrugged. “Not particularly.”

  Bruno gave him the hairy eyeball, and Miles glared back at him, defiant. “What do you want from me? You want me to lie to her?”

  “Yeah,” Bruno said truculently. “What the fuck is the matter with you, man? Why upset the pregnant lady?”

  Lily patted her guy’s shoulder. “Nothing would upset me as much as being lied to.”

  Miles shook his head. “I just feel like I’m missing something.”

  “That’s because you are,” Bruno said. “I’m sorry about that guy this morning, but you’re not the only one feeling bad. Remember that.”

  Fuck you, man. He walked out. Bruno called out after him, but he strode on without turning. He was in too foul a mood to make nice.

  He headed out to his truck. There might still be someone in the faculty office to talk to. He had to keep moving, keep active, or those images of Kirk would pile up on him and suffocate him.

  He tooled around on his smartphone for coordinates. Back to Wentworth. Same road he’d taken this morning, but that was a different Miles. A callow guy, obsessed with the cheating ex-girlfriend. Now all he saw in his mind’s eye was the professor, without his fingers and toes. And various other important bits of business.

  He parked outside the science faculty building, and hesitated before getting out, thinking of one of Sean McCloud’s many lectures about maximizing his assets. You got the looks, but you’ve gotta work it! The biceps alone would get you noticed! Back straight, hair slicked back. You’re a six-five beefcake! Chest out! You’ve got good teeth!

  Use them!”

  “And the nose?” he’d asked drily, fingering his schnoz.