True Shot

by Joyce Lamb

  “More excellent news. Give him a call and have him pick me up at my hotel in an hour.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “This is all going to be over very soon, Nat. Do I have to tell you how relieved I am?”

  “I can tell by the tone of your voice. Good luck, sir.”

  “No wishes of luck needed. That’s how confident I am.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Sam and Charlie refreshed their coffee and took their bagels back into the sitting area. For several moments, neither spoke as they ate, the silence companionable now that the ice between them had thawed. Eventually, though, Sam couldn’t stand it anymore and tried again to get Charlie to tell her about their sister.

  “So . . . Alex?”

  Charlie finished chewing and swallowed, her eyes darkening with anxiety. “It’s bad for her, Sam. Really bad.” Her hand shook as she paused to sip coffee, as though she needed the extra time to gird herself. When she spoke again, her voice was low. “After she got shot, she coded in the ER, and they had to zap her a couple of times. We think the electric shock supercharged her empathy. So when she touches someone, not only does she relive something traumatic that happened to that person in the past, but she sometimes gets stuck in the moment.”

  “She gets stuck?”

  Charlie nodded. “The flash lasts until the event ends naturally or something happens to knock her out of it.”

  Sam didn’t know of any of her fellow operatives who experienced that particular problem. She herself never had.

  “A few months ago,” Charlie went on, “a serial killer focused on her. Psycho bastard put her through absolute hell. Every time he touched her, she flashed on some of the sick shit he’d done and some that had been done to him. We almost lost her all over again. She hasn’t been the same since.”

  Sam pressed her lips together to suppress nausea and grief. Poor Alex. The last time she’d seen her kid sister, she hadn’t even been aware of boys yet, completely focused on anything warm and furry and in need of love. The thought of all that sweet innocence corrupted by a psychopath . . . it was unfathomable. And heartbreaking.

  “Flash fatigue for her is a bitch,” Charlie said.

  “Flash fatigue?”

  “Don’t know about you, but both our brains seem to have a limit on how often we can flash during a particular window of time. Too many flashes, and everything goes haywire. Beta blockers and tranquilizers help line things out when they get intense. That doesn’t happen with you?”

  “It has a more scientific name in my world. Synaptic deficit syndrome. SDS. Which is really just a fancy way of explaining why I get a nasty headache after too many empathic hits.”

  “SDS sounds way more intimidating than flash fatigue. And kind of like a sexually transmitted disease.”

  Sam laughed. “Yeah, it does.” The humor didn’t last long, though, as she thought about Alex. She couldn’t imagine getting stuck in another person’s horrific flashback. Just the few moments she’d spent in Jake Baldwin’s head had been enough to make her violently ill. He’d been the sickest bastard she’d encountered in her spy life, and she’d landed in his head only once. To do that repeatedly and not be able to escape at will . . . God. She shut her eyes and lowered her head. She needed to get a grip, damn it. She couldn’t lose it now, when every choice she made in the next few hours would mean the difference between life and death for the people she loved.

  Sam raised her head, determined to be strong. She had no choice. “I assume Alex has tried to find a way to control her empathy.”

  “We’ve tried everything,” Charlie said. “Meditating calms her down but doesn’t prevent flashes from hitting her. She’s had some success with drugs, but she hates those because they make her fuzzy. She still takes them for work, because being a photographer and all, she has to shake hands a lot. But the drugs don’t completely stop the flashes. They just mute them. And as long as she keeps the drugs in her system, she doesn’t get stuck, which is the main thing, I guess.” She paused, and her eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes I fear that one of these flashes is going to kill her. When she encounters someone who’s been injured, it’s like she experiences a kind of empathic stigmata. Whatever injury the other person sustained happens to Alex. She’s gotten black eyes, burns, stab wounds. It’s—” She stopped. “This doesn’t surprise you.”

  Sam chose her words carefully. “My . . . boss has done extensive research on empathy.”

  “Really? This research obviously isn’t readily available to the public. I’ve done searches online, talked to experts, tried to get my hands on everything I can find. All I come up with is a bunch of different names and vague descriptions that sort of sound like what’s happening to her but not quite. Clairsen-tience. Postcognition. Retrocognition. None of the terms seem to cover all aspects of Alex’s ability. I don’t know why it’s so important to put a label on it, but maybe I think that would help us understand it.”

  “There is no label. It’s just what it is.” Sam thought of all the training Flinn had put her through, teaching her how to guide and control and maximize her empathy. When things had gone wrong, he had a team of experts, including Toby Ames, to figure it all out. Flinn had chemists to create fancy drug cocktails that enhanced her ability without robbing her of fast reflexes and a clear mind. Alex, however, had no training, no team of experts and no access to drugs or the chemists who created them.

  What Sam knew from her years of N3 training could give Alex her life back.

  “Who do you work for?” Charlie asked.

  Sam blinked up at her, startled out of her thoughts. The moment of truth had arrived. “I can’t tell you that.”

  Charlie’s direct gaze didn’t flicker. “Try this then: Who are you running from?”

  “Charlie—”

  “I know you’re in trouble. Mac’s not a dramatic guy, yet the way he got us here was extremely dramatic. Not to mention the fed who tried to follow us. Noah’s got some mad driving skills, by the way.” She flashed a grin before she sobered. “I know you’re on the run, Sam. It’s pretty obvious.”

  Sam caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I have unfinished business.”

  “Is that code for someone’s trying to kill you?”

  “It’s code for there are a lot of people counting on me to do the right thing.”

  “And what’s the right thing? According to Samantha Trudeau.”

  Sam ignored the edge in Charlie’s tone. “The right thing is writing a newspaper story about a crooked advertiser because the public has a right to know, even though you know your defiance is going to piss off a lot of people, including Dad.”

  “That’s hardly on the same scale as the mess you’re in.”

  Sam leaned forward to set her bagel plate on the coffee table. “I have . . . I had a friend. Zoe. A really good friend, and colleague. She found out our boss isn’t a good guy, and he had her killed.”

  Charlie sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh my God, Sam.”

  “I’m certain that her sister has no idea she’s dead. And when, or if, she finds out, she’ll never know the truth about what happened.”

  “So it’s up to you to tell her.”

  Sam nodded. “It’s possible that I have other colleagues who are in the same situation Zoe was in before she was killed. I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  “You can go to the police. The FBI. The federal government—”

  “My boss is connected. I don’t know how far up the chain of command his corruption goes.”

  “But risking your life—”

  “It could have been me. I could have been Zoe. Wouldn’t you have wanted to know what happened to me?”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t want someone else to die—”

  “Charlie.”

  Her sister clamped her lips together in a tight line. “I know that look on your face, Sam. I remember it from the day you packed up your stuff and left home. I don’t like it.”

  Sam allowed
herself a gentle smile. “Then you know that I’m determined.”

  “And what about Alex? She needs you. She needs both of us right now to help her get through all this—”

  “She has you. She has Mac. And, from what Mac told me, she has a good man in Logan.”

  “None of us is a substitute for you. And what about Mac? You’re just going to leave him? I can tell by the way he looks at you that—”

  Sam got to her feet so abruptly that Charlie broke off. Time to go, before her resolve wavered. “I’m counting on you to thank him for me. He saved my life more than once.”

  Charlie started shaking her head as she pushed herself off the sofa. “No, no, no. Sam, come on. You’re not going right now. There’s too much to—”

  “Someone’s waiting for me. Someone who’s going to help me work it all out.” Sam drew her sister into her arms and hugged her stiff body, her heart breaking at Charlie’s refusal to return the embrace. “I’ll make sure Alex gets the help she needs. I promise.”

  Charlie’s arms suddenly clamped tight around her. “Sam, God, Sam, don’t you think I’ve noticed you’re not promising to come back?”

  Sam swallowed hard. “Give me fifteen minutes before you tell Mac I’m gone. If he tries to follow me, he could get hurt.”

  Charlie buried her face in Sam’s neck, a little girl all over again, losing her big sister to something she couldn’t understand. “Don’t. Please don’t do this.”

  Sam rubbed her sister’s back, closing her eyes to savor their hug. She’d feared she would never experience this again.

  “I love you, Charlie. I promise.”

  Mac glanced up from his spiraling dread when the glass door slid open and Charlie, eyes red and puffy, stepped out onto the balcony. Noah rose to meet her. “You okay?”

  Charlie gave him a forced smile and a nod. Then she looked at Mac, her eyes flooding with fresh tears. “She’s gone.”

  Mac leapt to his feet and lunged for the door, but Charlie stepped in front of him, hands on his arms. “She left fifteen minutes ago. I’m sorry.”

  “Fifteen minutes? Are you serious? She could be on the other side of town by now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You couldn’t have stopped her. She wanted to protect you.”

  “Who’s going to protect her?” He jerked away from Charlie and turned away, raking his hands through his hair. “Shit. Shit.”

  “I’m sorry, Mac.”

  Curling the fingers of both hands around the balcony’s metal railing, he closed his eyes and shook his head. He fought the burn of anger. And hurt. And betrayal. And grief.

  He felt Charlie’s hand on his back and would have traded the world for it to be Sam’s. “Mac?”

  Opening his eyes, he turned to look at her. “She’s going to get herself killed.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Sam huddled in the back corner of the Starbucks and nursed a chai tea. She couldn’t stop shivering and knew it had nothing to do with the temperature. Outside, it was seventy degrees and so bright that it appeared the Earth would collide with the sun any second now. If only.

  No, this cold came from the inside.

  She’d hurt Charlie and Alex all over again. The last thing she’d ever wanted to do.

  And Mac. God, Mac.

  As much as she was glad she didn’t have to see his face when he realized she’d left him again, she wished she could see him just one more time, wished she could trail a fingertip one more time over his adorable dimples, kiss his warm, loving lips.

  She closed her eyes and willed away the ache. She wasn’t that woman. She never could be. And she certainly couldn’t ask him to stick with her while she carried the experimental child of a traitor government agent and mad scientist.

  A softly cleared throat snapped her eyes open. Sloan Decker stood before her table, brooding brow cinched in suspicion, dark eyes considering. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt that had no choice but to conform to sharply honed muscles. His military-cut hair hugged the perfect contours of his skull, thick and dark—and she suspected curly if he were to let it grow.

  He didn’t wait for an invitation, just slid into the chair across from her and folded his large, calloused hands on the table. “What’s up?”

  She couldn’t help the laugh, edged with hysteria, that escaped her lips. “Not much. You?”

  “Heard you’re having some trouble.”

  Sam sipped her chai. “Want some coffee or anything?”

  “Enough of the small talk, Sam. What the hell is going on with you? Are you sick?”

  “Is that what Flinn told you?”

  “Does it matter? I can see plain as day that you look like you’ve been dragged backward through a hedge.”

  She cracked a smile. “Is that another of Grandma Decker’s sayings?”

  “I’m not kidding around. Have you gone rogue?”

  “Is that what Flinn’s saying?”

  He shrugged one noncommittal shoulder. “Maybe.”

  “That’s what he said about Zoe, too.”

  Sloan shook his head and glanced away. “That was a shitty thing that happened. Some people just can’t handle what we do. Zoe wasn’t strong enough. I wish I’d seen that before it was too late. I would have tried to help her.”

  “Flinn’s a liar.”

  “Sam, come on.” He reached for her hand on the table, but she pulled back before he could make contact.

  “Don’t.”

  He sat back and raised his hands. “Sorry. Just trying to help.”

  “Reading me won’t tell you anything that I’m not already telling you.”

  “I’m sure you can understand why I’m skeptical. You’re sitting there looking like a fucking ghost, Sam. Your hands are shaking. You look like you haven’t had a decent meal in months. You look . . .”

  “What? Paranoid? Crazy?”

  “Scared.”

  She winced. Damn. She’d called Sloan for a reason. She trusted him, believed that he was her friend regardless of their occupations. Believed that if she could convince anyone of Flinn’s duplicity, it’d be Sloan. She just hadn’t expected him to be so . . . perceptive. Which was ridiculous, considering it was their job to be observant.

  “Talk to me, Sam.”

  “Flinn had Zoe killed. She was pregnant.”

  His lips parted, but he didn’t say whatever he was about to.

  She plowed ahead. “She thought Flinn impregnated her to . . . to breed super spies. Super psychic spies.”

  “S am—”

  She slapped her hand onto the table, palm up. “Fine. Do it. Mine my memories.”

  He stared at her hand for a long moment, considering but obviously reluctant.

  “Come on. Shield yourself so you don’t feel it.”

  He made no move to touch her.

  “You were lucky,” she said, her voice shaking. “You were already a strong man with a strong sense of self when they got to you. Flinn got to me when I was a kid. He manipulated me, scared the crap out of me, and knew that whatever he threw at me, I’d take it because I thought I didn’t have anywhere to go, no one to help me.”

  “S am—”

  “Out of all of us, all of N3, I was the easiest to control. Gullible and pathetic and . . . weak.”

  “You were never weak,” he said harshly, then took a moment to regain control. “You’re a strong agent. One hell of an agent. I trust you to have my back in the field.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  He should have gaped at her, but he didn’t. He just watched her with a steady kind of scrutiny and said nothing. Trying to figure the angles, like any good N3 operative.

  “This isn’t burnout,” she said. “It’s not grief, either. Or post-traumatic stress disorder. Or paranoia. Or . . . or insanity.” But, damn it, she sounded crazy. She couldn’t help it. This wasn’t going the way she’d expected. She’d prepared for denials and disbelief, not this unflinching perusal. He thought she’d been compromised. He thought she
’d lost it. And who could blame him? She didn’t know what she was doing anymore. She’d lost focus, lost track of her purpose. She was an N3 operative. Sometimes, she helped save the world from bad people like Jake Baldwin and Vince Adler. A man like Mac Hunter had no place in her life, in her heart.

  She needed to get a grip. She needed a plan beyond Sloan.

  “I want to make a deal with Flinn.”

  Sloan’s dark eyes widened. “You what?”

  “That’s Plan B.”

  “Plan B?”

  “Plan A was trying to persuade you to help me. That apparently isn’t going to happen. So, Plan B.”

  He tapped a finger against the wooden surface of the table. “Plan A isn’t off the table just yet,” he said slowly.

  “You don’t believe me, Sloan. And that’s fine. I don’t blame you. So let’s just—”

  “I don’t—”

  “Let me finish.”

  He pressed his lips together. “Okay.”

  “Tell Flinn that I’ll come in voluntarily as long as he agrees to leave my family alone.” She scooted her chair back and rose. “Thanks for coming down to meet me. I appreciate it.”

  Before she could turn to leave, he reached out and grasped her elbow. She tensed but didn’t try to pull away.

  His fingers tightened on her skin, and she swept her gaze to his and watched his eyes lose focus. She knew he’d touched her unexpectedly for a reason. He’d wanted an unvarnished look into her head. That’s why he’d refused to take the offer earlier. Smart.

  She made no effort to return the favor by jumping into his memories. She just waited until he found what he was looking for.

  When his eyes refocused, he dropped his hand. “Please sit down, Sam.”

  “You saw what you needed to see. There’s nothing else to—”

  “Please.”

  She couldn’t deny the guttural request, so she sat.

  He leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands on the table. “I had to be sure.”

  “Sure what?”

  “Sure that Flinn isn’t trying to flush me out.”