“What is this?” Kyle asked.
“Surveillance on Marsters. His little trip to his cabin gave us the opportunity we needed to install listening devices around his estate.”
“On what grounds?”
“Associating with a known terrorist.”
“You think Marsters is working with Emerich?”
“The man has been less than forthright. You said yourself Marsters knew all along it wasn’t Becca in the warehouse explosion. He also knew the body left there was supposed to be a decoy for Genie. Couple that with the info you gave us on the disappearance not too far from here of Tom Garrison—who was Emerich’s father, by the way—and we have plenty of cause.”
“Then you’ve been able to discover more about the Amelia Project?” Kyle prodded.
“Not much. Except it had something to do with psychic research, if you can believe that.” When Kyle didn’t act surprised, Cameron looked at him for a long minute.
So Genie’s mom had been psychic? Until he met Genie, Kyle hadn’t really believed in psychics or ESP. Figured it was all a bunch of hooey. But the better they’d gotten to know each other, and the stronger their connection had become, he’d started believing there might be something to it. There were times she’d sensed his thoughts down to the exact words in his head. He hadn’t been quite that good at it, but he’d often also had flashes of intuition about her. They always seemed to know what the other was thinking, or what the other would do, before it happened.
Had it been psychic ability all along, ESP, or just love? Who knew? Who cared?
Apparently the CTA. Go figure.
“How about you fill us in on what the hell happened out there?” Cameron said.
Kyle took a seat at the salon table and told Cameron and Johnny everything that had happened on Emerich’s yacht. As he heard himself speak, he couldn’t believe he just let Genie walk away like that. At least now he knew what was in that envelope and what those papers meant. Marsters had let his wife become some kind of science experiment. The bastard.
“You’re saying Genie got away?” Johnny asked, his face lighting up, his hand slapping his thigh. “I knew it. I just knew it.”
“I’m still not sure why Becca saved me,” Kyle admitted. “I’m embarrassed to admit that I wouldn’t be here right now if she hadn’t. Their disappearance would have worked better for them if I’d gone down with the ship.”
“I’ve had my suspicions that Becca’s been the one feeding us information about Emerich’s plans for a while now,” Cameron admitted. “But I must admit, I doubted myself after her supposed death.”
Kyle leaned back in his chair more stupefied than ever. “So you never found proof?”
“No.”
He digested that. “If you suspect her of being a snitch, what are the odds that Emerich does, too?”
“Honestly?” Cameron said. “Pretty damned good.”
Kyle agreed. “So what’s the plan?”
“We need to find the girls,” Johnny said, stating the obvious.
“You’re telling me even with all this—” Kyle gestured around them incredulously. “—you still don’t know where they’ve gone?”
“We thought we had Emerich nailed down on that yacht.”
“He was never there. It was a decoy,” Kyle said.
“No shit.” Cameron shook his head in annoyance. “One thing about this entire situation has stayed consistent.”
“What’s that?”
“Emerich always seems to be one step ahead of us.”
…
“All this was for revenge?” Genie said, shaking her head. “It’s Medieval.”
“Sean claims Dad killed his father. He wants justice; it’s that simple.”
“So he decided to destroy all of our lives? What happened to evidence and trial by jury? How about innocent until proven guilty?”
Becca shrugged. “I told you the man was an animal.”
“Actually, no you didn’t. And I thought you’ve loved him for years?”
“I guess I’m even more sucky at love than you.”
“Oh, gee, thanks,” Genie murmured. “Now what are we going to do?” Her head hurt. She just wanted it all to go away.
“We’re going to go to see Sean.”
She didn’t think so. “I have a better idea. Let’s find Cameron and Kyle and let them go see Sean.”
“They’d never get that far. And you think Emerich couldn’t find us in a hot minute? We’d spend forever looking over our shoulders. We need to get rid of him once and for all. You and I. He still believes that after I show you the proof that Daddy was involved in Mother’s experiments, you’ll be upset enough to listen to him. And now that you’re ‘dead’ no one will be looking for you, and he’ll have time to work on you. Not just mentally but with the drugs, too. He’s going to try and manipulate you over to his side. We can use that to get to him.”
Genie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “How could you drag me into this, Becca?”
“Don’t worry, he’s not going to hurt you. Or me. That’s not how he operates. He likes the game, the lies, seeing if he can totally screw with your mind until you’d follow him to hell. Besides, he needs us too much. He has great plans to use us to expand his empire.”
Genie looked at her, worrying her lower lip. “I don’t like this. You’re taking too much for granted.”
“I know him. I know how his mind works.”
“You love him. That’s different. The filters you see him through are skewed.”
“You’re right, I do love him. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see him for exactly the sociopath he is.” Her expression was regretful, even sad.
Genie felt an unwilling twinge of sympathy. Loving the right man was definitely key. “I’d tell you I’m sorry, but honestly, I’m still too angry at you.”
Becca gave a weak smile. “Thanks anyway.”
They both gazed out at the sea for a while, then Becca broke the silence. “That Kyle seems like a good guy.”
“He is. You’re just damned lucky he survived that explosion. Both explosions.”
“Of course he survived. I plan my operations down to every minute detail. I told you, I knew the second he saw that bomb, and made sure he had a way out.”
Genie shook her head. “You should have come to work for CTA.”
“Ha! As if,” Becca muttered. “So you gonna marry him when all this is over?”
Genie sighed. “After all this is over, that man is not going to want to have anything to do with me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” She grinned, that annoying I-know-everything grin that always drove Genie nuts. Mostly because she was always right. “Come on, sis, let’s get this show on the road and get our lives back once and for all.”
Genie stopped her with a hand to her arm. “One thing.” Becca raised her brows. “Will you be able to kill Emerich, if it comes down to it? If you had to?”
Becca’s face was unreadable. Her lips parted but she didn’t answer.
“Because if you can’t push aside your feelings and take him out,” Genie said seriously, “we really need to bring Cameron in on this. This is too dangerous to take chances.”
“I would call Cameron right now, honestly, but he’d have no hard evidence to convict with, nothing that would stand up against Emerich’s lawyers.”
“Even with your testimony?”
“What Emerich could give them on me would be way worse than anything they could get on him. He made it look like I blew up that warehouse. I didn’t text you to meet me there, but he made it look like I did. Once I found out what he was up to, I did text Kyle to come help you. Unfortunately, it looks like I lured you both to a fiery death. I bought the explosives that were used, because Emerich always has others do his dirty work and I was too naive to realize what was happening. I walked right into his set-up.”
“Oh, Becca.”
She held up a hand. “I should have known better, I get t
hat. The truth is, I did know better. But I loved him so much. I never imagined he didn’t feel the same way about me. That he was just setting me up to take the fall.”
“How’d you find out?”
“All the drugs and experiments he did on me backfired. Usually his defenses are solid. He’d trained himself how to block me, how to maintain the perfect happily-ever-after shield, which was what I saw whenever I tuned into him. Except it’s hard to keep up a shield of pretense that strong when you’re in the middle of make-up sex. With the help of the enhancement drugs, I saw it all so clearly. How he really felt. About me, about Dad, about all of us. Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.”
“What about Kyle? He knows we’re alive. He could give us away without meaning to.”
“Kyle could be a problem. But I couldn’t kill him, not knowing how you— Anyway, I just hope he’s suspicious enough of Daddy after seeing those papers that he’ll keep his mouth shut. At least for a little while.”
“We need to find out about Dad’s involvement,” Genie said. “I don’t want to believe he murdered Emerich’s father.”
“My guess is that would depend on what really happened to Mom.”
Genie frowned. “You don’t think her death was an accident?”
“Do you?”
Genie thought of Dad’s reaction when she’d asked him that same question. “I don’t think Dad does. But that doesn’t make it true. Or mean he would actually kill someone.”
“Even to protect his dirty little secret?”
“I don’t know. I hope you’re wrong.”
“I just hope by rubbing Dad and Sean together the truth will finally come out, and we’ll have enough evidence to put them both away for good.”
Genie was furious at her father, but didn’t really want him to land in prison for murder. “That’s a lot of hoping and not a very strong plan. More likely Dad will end up dead. And probably us, too. Dad is secretive and manipulative, but…” She thought of her father and the way he’d been way back before everything fell apart, when he was her daddy and held up her world. “God, I hate this.”
“I know,” Becca muttered. “Me, too.” She turned the key and started the boat. “You ready to go face the devil?”
“Yes.” Her heart sank. “But Becca, your plan isn’t going to work. I can tell you that right now.”
“You got a better idea?”
Unfortunately, Genie didn’t.
…
“Good job, baby,” Emerich said to Becca as soon as they walked through the door of her father’s barn.
Genie forced all expression from her face and made herself look and feel numb. It was easy to do; she just went back to that moment she saw the ship explode. That insane moment when she’d thought Kyle was dead and her world had fallen apart.
“Hello, Genie. Welcome,” Emerich said.
Genie glared at him. “Why are we here?”
“You mean in your father’s barn? Because I figured it was the perfect place to wait for him to come back home. He’ll come because he’s not sure if both of his daughters are alive or dead. “I’d rather wait for him in the house, but it’s been bugged. Although—” he looked around “—the barn does have its advantages.”
“Why do you want my father?” Genie asked.
“Because he is going to pay for what he did to my family, and for what he did to yours.” He wrapped his arm around Becca’s shoulders.
Becca gave Genie a look of warning but Genie didn’t care. She was tired of people lying to her. Tired of people trying to manipulate her. Actually, she was just damned tired.
“Obviously you could have gotten to him any time you wanted, why the pretense? Why destroy my life in the process?”
“Because I want him to see how badly he’s lost. I want him to see that you are all going to be working with me—Becca, you, your sister, Cat. And that all his efforts to hide you, to hide the crimes he committed, were for nothing.”
“That’s quite an assumption,” Genie said. “Why would I want to work with you? And Cat is long gone.”
“Yes, she was able to make her escape after my Becca here—” he squeezed her tight. Too tight. “—sent the intel to Josh Cameron about where she was and what we were planning together.”
Becca stilled, her face losing some of its color.
“Oh, yes, sweetheart. I know about that. Very inventive of you. And it couldn’t have worked out better. Because of you, now our little Cat is exactly where I want her to be. Living in Senator Phillips’s home.”
“Leave her alone!” Becca warned, trying to pull away from him.
“Or what? What exactly are you going to do, sweetheart?”
He let her go and nodded to a large dark-haired man, with thick black brows and cheek bones sharp enough to slice paper, who was lurking in the shadows. “Put them in the cellar until their dear old dad arrives. I want them to ponder what will happen to their precious Cat if they don’t do exactly as I say.”
The dark-haired man grabbed them both by the arms.
“I will never work for you,” Genie ground out as she was dragged away, her scuffling feet scattering straw every which way.
“Oh, you’d be surprised what you will do when the safety of family members is involved,” Emerich said evenly.
“Let me go!” Becca cried as the dark-haired man pushed them to the far side of the barn. “Sean? What are you going to do? Help me!”
“You made a big miscalculation, Becca. You forgot that I have eyes and ears everywhere.” He stepped forward, bent down and yanked Genie’s gun out of the holster at her ankle. “Everywhere.”
The dark haired man pushed them toward a large trap door in the floor next to the far wall of the barn. He thrust a flashlight at them as they descended the rickety wooden stairs into the darkness, trying not to trip. The trap door above them slammed shut, and they heard the sound of the bolt sliding home. Hay and dirt sifted down through the cracks in and around the door. Genie felt Becca shiver in disgust. Her sister had always hated it down here.
Her heart thudding in her ears, Genie shone the light around the small storage space. It was just as she remembered. The cellar walls were lined with old wooden shelves filled with boxes and jars of jams and jellies and who knew what else. She’d come down here with Mary when she was a kid, so she knew there was a dirty old string hanging from a bare light bulb in the ceiling—assuming it hadn’t burned out. Becca found and pulled it, and filled the small room with dim light, and stood hugging herself in the middle of the floor.
“I hate this place,” Becca muttered, her gaze searching the dark corners of the floors and walls. “It’s a spider-haven and always has been.”
“Spiders are the least of our problems,” Genie muttered and stepped toward one of the shelves on the wall and peeked gingerly into the boxes looking for anything that might help them, while the smell of dank earth and rotting vegetables crinkled her nose. She picked up a wrench off a spiderweb-draped shelf, the only thing she could find that could be used as a weapon, and hit it against her palm. Maybe.
Becca took a step back, almost hit the wall and stepped forward again, holding herself even tighter.
“Becca, really? That man of yours is going to kill Daddy. You know that. Hell, he’ll probably kill us all.”
“Somehow I don’t think we’ll get that lucky,” Becca muttered. “If Sean has his way, neither one of us will ever see the light of day again. We’ll be buried somewhere in one of his overseas drug labs for the rest of our lives. You were right. My plan sucks.”
Genie shuddered, wishing she’d been wrong. “Kyle knows we didn’t die on that boat,” she reminded her. “He won’t stop looking for us.”
Becca shivered, though Genie couldn’t tell if it was from the idea of what Emerich had planned for them, or because of their surroundings. “I hope you’re right.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, thoughts churning through their heads.
“I wish there was
some way to contact Kyle,” Genie muttered.
Becca cocked her head, her teeth gnawing at her lower lip. “Maybe there’s a way.”
“How?” Genie guessed, and rolled her eyes. “Your mental mini-cam?”
“Don’t make fun. You experienced it yourself,” Becca said with a hitch of indignation.
“I hallucinated, you mean.”
“You have a better idea?”
Now, there was another thing she was tired of. That phrase. “Fine. But I didn’t even see Kyle in my vision. I saw Johnny and Dad. And Dad’s the last person we should bring into this.”
“Exactly, because you were seeing through Kyle’s eyes. Now, we have to contact Cat,” Becca said.
Genie sighed in resignation. She couldn’t believe she was even considering this. Then again, most people would have the same reaction to her own abilities and she knew they were real.
“Together we can do it,” Becca urged at her hesitation. “All we have to do is focus on her and concentrate.”
“Like a Ouija board?”
Becca’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You felt me, didn’t you?” she snapped. “Don’t even try to deny it.”
Genie held up a hand in surrender. ”Okay, okay. Kind of. But I was just thinking about you, that’s all.”
Becca flicked her hand impatiently. “You’ll see. Together the energy push will be stronger. I know we can reach her. The question is for how long?” She pointed. “Take off Mother’s crystal necklace.”
Genie reached up and felt the crystal, smooth and warm against her skin. “Why?”
“We’ve all worn it, all touched it. It’s a part of all of us. It’ll help.”
Genie took it off and extended it toward Becca in the palm of her hand.
Becca laid her palm over the crystal, grasped Genie’s hand, and squeezed tight, then grabbed her other hand, too. “Think of Cat. Ask her to help us. Picture where we are, every little detail, and project that picture toward her.”
“This is crazy,” Genie murmured.
“Do it,” Becca demanded. “We don’t have much time. We’ve both had the drugs. They’ve enhanced our power. It’ll work. It has to, or we’ll both wish we were dead.”
Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies Page 19
