Savior Frequency (Frequency Series Book 1)

by Shane Scollins

  “So you say.”

  “She’s barely above average with the amount of anger she carries around.”

  Avery let out a sigh of relief. “Very well.”

  Avery could see trusting Kara Bush. She was a pit-bull. Agent Hamilton, on the other hand, would need to be dealt with in a rather merciless fashion. Kayci could take the blame for that too. Once he took care of Hamilton, it should be smooth sailing.

  Chapter Twenty

  The engine of the black Explorer roared as Jordan sped up the ramp onto the highway. As they rounded the last turn out of Syracuse, he eased off the gas.

  “How did you know to come inside?” Kayci asked as Jordan craned his neck to change lanes, fighting the headlights in his mirror.

  He thought about the question. “I had a feeling something was wrong.”

  “A feeling? What kind of feeling?”

  “Not sure exactly how to explain it, but the weird thing is I’ve had it before, when, you know, when people died. It’s like a tickle in my head, but then something like, in my gut.” Jordan was saying the words, but he was exploring the feelings still.

  “Do you…feel like your head was swelling, like there was a pressure on it from the inside out?”

  Jordan looked at her, did a double take toward the passenger seat. He focused his eyes back on the road. “Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like. How did you know that?”

  “I have some experience with those feelings.” Kayci untwisted her hair from the ponytail and let it down. “I never really told you exactly what we did at SORC.”

  “Not exactly”

  “In time,” she said.

  “How about now?”

  “When we get back to the safe house?”

  “How about we stop off and get my cat?”

  “They could be watching the house.”

  “They’re not.” Something inside him just felt different. He could not place a finger on it. But there was sure as hell something different going on in his head. The despair of seeing death was always a seed that ached in his core. And while it was still there, something inside him was not the same.

  ***

  Jordan parked the SUV on the side of the road. As he glanced to the passenger seat, Kayci was already climbing out. He exited the vehicle and walked around to the back.

  “What makes you think they’re not watching? You sounded so sure.” Kayci walked up next to him.

  “I don’t know. It was just a feeling.”

  “You’ve been having a lot of those lately.”

  His mind was literally tickling. He needed to scratch it. It was simultaneously annoying and invigorating. Now as he stood here looking down the street toward his rental house, he was not so sure they weren’t watching. In fact, he was thinking the exact opposite.

  “Are you sure about this?” Kayci pulled her gun.

  “I’m getting my cat.”

  “What is with you and this cat?”

  “He’s my best friend. He’s been my only friend over the past few years. I know it’s pathetic. But it is what it is.” Jordan took a few steps to get a better angle toward the front of the house. Oddly, his orange Suzuki was in the driveway. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “My truck should be at the police impound. Why is it here?”

  “I thought you said no one would be watching.”

  “Yeah, about that, I’m not so sure.”

  “Give it time.”

  Jordan looked at her as if she were supposed to expand on that statement. She didn’t and moved toward the house.

  “C’mon,” Kayci said as she moved into the shadows on the shoulder of the road.

  Across the street from the rental, they crouched in the tall summer weeds. There was someone inside the house.

  “Who’s in there?” Jordan asked. “One of your friends?”

  “No, that’s one of your friends, Detective Holly Prince.”

  “She’s alone?”

  “Looks that way”

  Kayci moved from her crouch and started across the street. Jordan was going to stop her, but it was too late. She was heading into the house.

  Gun drawn, Kayci walked in a low crouch. Jordan tried to emulate her step-for-step, but she moved quickly in this position, and he struggled to stay as low. Nevertheless, he was at her side when she twisted the knob of the door and sliced into the living room like a gust of wind.

  Kayci leveled her gun on the detective. “Hands up, away from the weapon” She was calm and cool.

  Detective Prince complied, a wave of fear splashing across her face as she looked to Jordan for some explanation. He closed the front door quietly.

  Kayci bent and snatched the detective’s gun from her hip and pushed it into the back of her jeans.

  “Have a seat,” Kayci commanded, keeping the gun trained on the cop.

  Jordan looked around for Stormy. The noise had probably spooked him, but the fresh food and water answered one of the questions as to why Holly Prince was here. A bump of relief hit him because he knew Stormy was okay.

  Jordan looked back and forth between the two women locked in a death stare. He cleared his throat. “Can I get you ladies a drink?”

  Holly Prince broke the stare and met his gaze.

  “Do we need to have the gun out?” Jordan asked.

  Kayci lowered her pistol but not her guard.

  “Do you know who I am?” Kayci asked the cop.

  Holly just twisted her head slowly as there seemed to be no immediate recognition.

  “Why are you here?” Kayci questioned.

  “To feed the cat”

  “Wrong answer,” Kayci shot back. “Why are you here?”

  “To feed the cat.” Holly shrugged and then sighed. “And as a last ditch effort, to look for evidence.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Kayci looked to Jordan.

  “Yeah,” he said, “let’s talk about that! Detective Prince, meet murder victim Kayci Dewitt.”

  The detective looked at Kayci again, nodded knowingly, and rolled her lips inward. “Let me guess,” Holly said, “problems with your former employer.”

  Kayci smiled and glanced at Jordan. She holstered her weapon and took the detective’s pistol from the back of her pants.

  She looked over the gun. “Sig Sauer P229, custom slide and grips, tac rail, very nice,” Kayci said. “Not standard issue for NYSP, I imagine.”

  “No, that’s mine.” Holly held her chin up proudly. “It was a birthday gift from my father.”

  “You had relatives in the business.” She handed the gun back to Holly.

  Holly took hold of the weapon and hesitated. She looked to Jordan. Then she holstered the weapon and stood.

  “My Grandfather Prince worked for the CIA. My uncle works for the FBI. I had a feeling you might not be dead when the FBI sent us a profile on your boy here with ninety percent of it blacked out. I had a hunch Jordan might be a patsy after all, but I had to do my job. I didn’t want to alert my partner. He’s a good cop, but he would never bend a rule. When some unknown lawyer showed up to bail Jordan out I called my uncle and asked him what he knew about you.”

  “I’d appreciate if you’d leave me dead for now until I finish figuring all this out. Maybe a little rope of professional courtesy. I promise it won’t come back to bite you.”

  Holly nodded. “Consider it done. I guess I don’t have any work left on this case. Do you want to fill in the blanks?”

  Kayci shrugged while looking to Jordan. He shrugged too.

  “A guy you work with has been missing since yesterday. You know about that, don’t you?” Holly nodded to Jordan.

  “Yeah, I know, and you probably won’t find him.”

  “So he’s dead, not missing,” Holly replied. “Okay, I know how you government types clean up your messes. I’m sure that’s a dead end.”

  “Thanks for feeding my cat,” Jordan said. “And sorry I was such a wiseass. I was just annoyed, you know, being framed for
murder and all.” He looked to Kayci with a scowl. He was not going to forget that.

  “Don’t sweat it. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I thought you were a murderer. I was just doing my job.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go. I can keep this under wraps for as long as you need.” Holly walked toward the door. “I assume you’re here to get your stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Jordan replied.

  “Okay. Well, if you guys are in a pinch and we can help, give me a call.” She reached into her pants’ pocket and slid out a business card.

  “Don’t you need a ride?” Jordan asked as she walked out the door.

  “No, my car is down the street. The CSU team brought your truck back yesterday.” She was about to leave and then stopped. “One of you, call when this is done, so I can close my case one way or the other.”

  With that, she was gone.

  “Well…” Kayci said with a shrug.

  “You buy that she won’t say anything?”

  “I did some background on her before I bailed you out. Her uncle is a good man. I was sure she’d look away.”

  “She didn’t even blink about anything.” Jordan walked around, looking through his house for anything he might have forgotten to pack in his haste.

  “Stormy Storm, where are you?” he called.

  In another two seconds, the ink-black animal skulked around the corner and ran quickly to Jordan’s feet. “Hey, buddy.” He scooped the cat up in his arms. “You ready to get out of here? We’re going to a temporary home. You’ll love it, has a lot of wood you can scratch.”

  “C’mon.” Kayci picked up the two backpacks by the front door. “I’ll toss these in the back of your truck and head down to the Explorer. Get behind me and we’ll go to the safe house.”

  ***

  After he had Stormy settled into his new temporary room, Jordan went out to the ugly brown paneled room and joined Kayci on the couch.

  “So, you going to tell me now?” he asked.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What you really did for the NSA.”

  She met his eyes, then slumped away from the laptop and fell into the couch with a sigh. “Okay, but first I need some alcohol.”

  She stood and walked to the kitchen where she started going through the cabinets one-by-one until she came up with an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “This’ll work just fine.” She twisted the cap off and walked back to the couch. She sat down and let a shot’s worth of the amber liquid fall into her mouth.

  She handed the bottle to Jordan, who reached out, took hold of the Jack, and threw back at least a double shot, maybe more.

  Kayci snatched the bottle back. “Easy there, lush-O.”

  Jordan shook his head as the warm surge pumped through his body. It was too much. It took more than an edge off and went right into slight buzz. He didn’t mean to, but he’d probably just downed four shots.

  “I shouldn’t have done that.” He punctuated his words with a shudder.

  “Well, it might make it easier.” Kayci threw back another sip.

  “Make what easier?”

  “Everything I’m going to tell you.”

  “Hit me with your best shot, spy girl.” Jordan turned on the couch sideways to face her, anxious for the truth.

  “I didn’t find you by accident.”

  That was not what he was expecting to hear. He couldn’t even formulate a response. “I’m sorry, come again?”

  “We are not your average spies at SORC. The unit employed a lot of controversial methods. Some of which might be considered paranormal in true scientific circles, and--.”

  “Psychic spies,” Jordan interrupted. She shot him a suspicious look. “I’ve seen movies.”

  “Basically, yes. The government has been using some type of psychic spying since the fifties. We’ve come a long way.”

  Jordan held out his hand, and she passed the bottle to him. He gripped the neck of the amber glass and threw back another double shot. “What did you do exactly?”

  “We hunted and monitored dangerous people and potentially dangerous people. They were people trying to do great harm to the Unites States and its allies.” She reached out, and he met her hand with the bottle.

  “What did you mean when you said you didn’t find me by accident?”

  “Well, in addition to dangerous people, we hunt and monitor psychic oddities.” She met his gaze directly. “People like you.”

  He narrowed his eyes and flexed his jaw. “People like me…but I’m not psychic.”

  “Yes, you are, Jordan. You just don’t know it yet. Those feelings you had tonight, you’re what we call in game, at the awaken stage. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it’s going to happen fast now that I’m around you.”

  He shook his head. The booze was making his mind spin a little, but the information Kayci was spilling was causing it to just about rocket off his shoulders. He raised his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes.

  “The reason you’ve been seeing those people die is because you’ve been pulled to those locations by psychic gravitation. It’s the same phenomenon that causes people to migrate to certain areas more than others. We’re all drawn like magnets to different locations at different times for different reasons. Those of us with extra sensory perceptions are generally pulled to places for reason on a more frequent basis than our ungifted peers.”

  “This is unbelievable.” Jordan reached for the bottle but at the last second pulled his hand away. He was just sober enough to realize he was not sober. “So all along you’ve been using me. Am I some kind of pawn here?”

  “No, Jordan, you’re not. We watch people like you to see if your powers develop. And what they develop into. Fortunately for us, most people like you never develop fully. And those that do don’t usually choose to do evil or aide the enemy. You might never have started to develop if I hadn’t found you. Right now what you’re feeling is a type of transference linked to my abilities.”

  Jordan looked at her, and for the first time, he didn’t want to slap her. “You were drawn to me, or you came to me knowing what I was?”

  “Both. But not consciously. You were on a watch list, but you weren’t actively being monitored. I just thought it was an amazing coincidence. But, then I realized your powers must be more ripe than we thought. I realized you called me. We seek out our own even if we don’t mean to.”

  “This is all too much.” He felt sick. “And just so I understand this… I’m not psychic unless I’m around you, but somehow I called you and threw my own life into chaos. Is that what you’re telling me? I asked for all this?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. You wanted to understand. You couldn’t have known what you were asking for, that all this would come with it. But you were asking loudly.”

  “So you and I are like, psychically linked.”

  “Not linked so much, more like synched up. We share a common frequency bond.”

  “So you can read my mind?”

  “No, it’s not like that. The ability works on frequency planes, and your mind can reach different operating frequencies at different times. Tonight at the building, you knew I was in trouble because I was telling you so. I was sending out information on a frequency you could easily read. We were both pumping full of adrenaline, so it was easier to tune the frequencies. As you get better, your mind will learn to tune in to any frequency, anytime, at any level.”

  “So my head is an FM radio?”

  “More accurately shortwave, since the distances are much greater. Technically, you should be able to learn every available frequency on the plane.”

  “So can you link up with anyone? Can I?”

  “Yes and no on both. Some people share a permanent open link, a link that’s always there. It can be open or closed, but it always remains. Some links can be acquired but then will be forgotten once the link is closed. It’s very complicated, but you will learn over time.”

  “Damn, thi
s is a lot to take in.” He finally gave in and reached for the bottle. He wanted another good pull, then he’d be done.

  “I hope I didn’t overload you.” Kayci took the bottle back, eyed the level, and took another sip.

  “Is that it? I mean is there anything else I should know about all this?”

  “Well, you should know my former colleagues are going to hunt us down until they find us and kill us.”

  “Yeah, what the hell is on these hard drives they are looking for?”

  “Money.”

  “Oh, yeah, you told me about the piggybank.”

  “My brother was the only person in the world who knew about SORC’s piggy bank outside of the group. He encrypted that data on one of his hard drives and hid it for me in case anything ever happened. A good spy always has an exit strategy. But they found my brother.”

  Jordan saw in her a profound sadness. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “He knew the risks.” She took another very long sip of booze.

  “So how much does the NSA or FBI know about me?”

  “I accessed your profile. They know you’ve been seeing people die for a few years. You are on a preliminary list of about five thousand people with budding psychic ability. You were on the short-list of about twenty that was about to be fed to SORC for full investigative monitoring.”

  “It’s been more than a few years,” Jordan said. “I was thirteen the day Christie died. That’s eighteen years.”

  Kayci sat up from her slouch. “Yeah, you said that. Our files said five years. That’s an uncommonly long gestation period.” Her face crunched in thought. “Was she the only victim you loved?”

  “Well, love is a strong word. We were only thirteen. We had one of those experimental kisses, you know, closed lips, very innocent.”

  “You saw the lights go out, you told me earlier.”

  Jordan nodded slowly.

  “There’s a reason for that,” she said. “The eyes really are the window to the soul, in every sense of the word. They are the only conduit. Each time you saw the light, you learned something that will help you put the pieces together. There was a burst of energy sent into the frequency plane, with data, that you read as input. Each life was a gift, each gift was there for you. You’ll eventually understand what each one meant. They were lessons to make sure it never happens again.”