A soft laugh escaped him.
Turning around, she glared at him. He didn’t even notice. Eyes closed, head tipped back, he looked like he was laughing with a couple of friends over a dirty joke or something.
“This isn’t funny,” she said quietly.
He rolled his head over to look at her, lifting his lids just enough to study her through his lashes. “It’s just ironic. I fucked up, did the same thing I was always telling you not to do…and I learned a painful lesson. They thought grabbing me would be a distraction and they could get their operation moved before anything else happened, but they underestimated Jones.” Slowly, he sat up, his long, rangy body uncurling from the chair in a graceful motion.
As he came toward her, he said, “Most people do. He already had another team in place to deal with them. So they went down—that one little group. They’re like an earthworm, though. You cut of bits and pieces and it still moves, still lives.” He passed a hand over his scarred chest, hidden by his shirt. “And they got me out. It took them longer to get to me but they did get me out. Nobody died. For the most part, it was a clean op.”
Gaping at him, the scars she’d seen so vivid in her mind, she wondered if he’d lost his mind.
“How can you call that a clean op?”
“Because my screwup didn’t blow a sixteen-month op down the drain,” he said flatly. “And we were lucky. I figured out fast that I had to find a way to fix things before I hurt somebody other than myself.”
It was a slap in the face—unintentional, yes. Deserved…oh, yes. But she recoiled from it all the same.
“Hurt somebody…” she echoed, her voice thick. “You mean like I did.”
His lashes flickered. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Passing her hand over her mouth, she managed to take the three steps it took to reach the couch and then she sank down onto the cushions. Drawing her knees to her chest, she pressed her face against them and tried to breathe past the pain wracking her.
“Destin—”
“I would rather that bastard had killed me than her,” she said quietly.
Silence stretched out, heavy and oppressive. As seconds ticked away without him saying anything, she finally looked up and met his dark eyes. Resting her cheek on her knees, she swallowed and forced the words out. “It would have been worth it…to me. She didn’t deserve to die because I wasn’t good enough.”
“Then you understand why I figure it was a clean-enough op.” Closing the distance between them, he sank to the ground by the couch.
She tensed as he lifted a hand, but all he did was curl it around her ankle, his thumb absently stroking her skin. “But what happened wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“Yeah, it was.” He continued to stare at her, dark eyes hooded. “I couldn’t let go of that one connection. I lied to myself and said I didn’t know how, that it was just a part of me now. But it was all bullshit. Once I made myself do it, I was able to lock you out. I felt like I’d shattered a part of myself but I did it. It hurt, every day, but I was able to do my job, able to function…without hurting anybody, without risking them. I don’t know if I can explain—”
She covered his mouth with her hand. “You don’t have to. I felt it too. Told myself it was because you weren’t really gone, you know. Insisted you’d come back. And then one day, you were gone…and I lost it. That was when things got bad for me. It spiraled out of control until the day I fucked up…and a girl died.”
Because she was watching his face so very closely, she saw it, saw that very moment when he understood and she saw when that understanding bloomed into a raw, gut-wrenching sort of guilt.
He closed his hand around her wrist and pressed a kiss to her palm. Then he tugged it down and sighed, staring at nothing. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
Shifting around on the couch, she turned to face him, one leg on either side of his body. Caleb moved in closer, sliding his arms around her body, tugging her closer to the edge of the couch. “I had no choice but to leave when I did,” he said gruffly. “I was moving closer and closer to the edge—it was too hard to tell where you ended and I began for a while. And if we’re going to do the job we do, we need to know our limits, our strengths. The way we were going, we would have fucked things up bad, probably for ourselves and others. We did that, but it could have been worse.”
Something tripped inside her and the pain in her heart spread. There had been tiny, hairline cracks there already but now…now they were getting worse. So much worse.
“So does this mean we’re done, then?” she said, forcing herself to give him a weak smile. “It’s the whole, we’re bad for each other thing, in a way that will cost lives sort of way?”
“No.” He reached up and brushed her hair back. “We were like that. But we’re different people now. Stronger.”
The ache in her heart continued to spread, though. It almost sounded like he was saying they deserved another chance. Like she deserved another chance. Shaking her head, she caught his wrist and guided his hand down. “Maybe we’re different, maybe we’re stronger. But I’m still the reason a girl lost her life, Caleb.”
“You’re the woman who was trying to save her…the reason she died is because a sick monster killed her. He’s the one who grabbed her, he’s the one who killed her. Nobody made him do it, Destin.”
He hooked a hand over the back of her neck and tugged her closer. As he pressed his brow to hers, she stared into his eyes. She wanted to believe that. Wanted to let go of some of the pain she lived with, but she couldn’t. “We don’t live easy lives, Destin. We make choices, live with things, see things, feel things that nobody should have to live with. It fucks us up and we know this…we’re going to make mistakes. But if we let it trip us up, then even more people get hurt, because sooner or later, we’ll freeze and then we give up. What good are we then?”
Chapter Ten
It was the most he could offer her. As they left the hotel, he knew it hadn’t been enough, but what else was he supposed to do?
It had been months after his fuckup before he had come to grips with things. And he’d only caused his own injury. There were times when he woke up in a cold sweat still, thinking he was back in that dark hole and it wouldn’t be long before they came back in, carrying a hot piece of iron they’d use to brand his flesh.
He suspected her nightmares were far worse.
As if they hadn’t been bad enough already…and shit, she hadn’t even come to grips with those yet.
He bit back a sigh as they climbed into the car. Destin slid him a look. “What are you so grim about?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Oh, come on…”
Skimming a hand back over his hair, he shrugged restlessly before fastening the seat belt. Destin started the car but instead of backing out, she just waited there and turned her gaze his way like she wasn’t going to do anything else until he talked.
“I was just thinking about the nightmares this must have given you,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “It’s not like you ever slept all that well anyway.”
Her lids flickered. “That’s not everything.”
“No. But we don’t have time to get into it, do we?”
The skin around her eyes went tight. “You’re still caught up on that, aren’t you?”
He didn’t have to explain it. She already knew what he was thinking, where his mind had gone. He’d only approached it a few times—those dark, tormented dreams of hers…sometimes an ability as strong as Destin’s had its roots in trauma. A deep, hidden trauma. She knew that, theoretically. Logically, though, when he’d tried to connect those dreams of hers to her ability…she never wanted to talk about it.
And now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t like she’d wanted to talk about this anyway. He stroked a hand down her face. “We’ve got a job to do, Destin. We’ve wasted enough time around here today.”
“Why are you s
o certain?” she demanded.
It caught him off-guard. Staring at her, he tried to figure out how to approach this. Brush it off, answer her? He shook his head. “This isn’t the time, Destin.”
“You brought it up.” She jutted her chin up and glared at him.
“Destin, I’ve seen it,” he said, wishing he’d never said a damn thing. She didn’t need this in her head right now. “You can’t remember…but some part of you does and every time you dreamed it, you pulled me in. I can’t block it out the way you can.”
At his words, what little color remained in her face drained away until she was chalk-white, her gaze too dark in her wan face. “No…” Then she clamped her mouth shut. “You know what? We don’t have time for this right now,” she said, her voice stark and cold.
He didn’t bother pointing out to her that he’d tried not to bring it up. There didn’t seem to be any point.
Destin’s shields were built on her ability to control herself. Her emotions. Right then, her shields were falling apart. She kept picking up random flickers, bits and pieces of everything around her. As they slowed to a stop at a light, she felt an overwhelming rush of rage, one that left her gasping for air. But it wasn’t hers. Breathing shallowly, she found herself following the source of that emotion and she saw the two passengers in the car next to her arguing. The windows were up and nobody could hear them, but the silence of their rage was no less powerful.
At least not to her.
Because it hit her so strongly, she knew she was in trouble.
Swallowing the strong, bitter taste of the fear creeping up her throat, she spotted the parking lot up ahead and turned into it. “I…”
The words locked in her throat.
“Destin?”
She shook her head and nosed into the parking lot. “Need a minute,” she said, her voice thick and hoarse. She tried to find that place in her head, the white noise she needed, the silence. It wasn’t coming.
Clambering out of the car, she leaned against it and wrapped her arms around her middle, staring up the hill toward the campus. She had to get a grip on this—
Her phone, the shrill sound shattering the silence.
Flinching, she reached into her pocket with awkward fingers, fumbling it out.
“Mortin here,” she said, her voice rasping a little. She cleared it.
“Destin. It’s Oz.”
“Oz.” She licked her lips. “Hello. I was going to call you and give you an update tonight.”
“And do you have much to tell me?”
“Some.” She glanced around and saw that Caleb had climbed out of the car and stood just a foot away, his sunglasses shielding his gaze. He had his arms crossed over his chest and in her mind’s eye, she saw those scars. Those awful, terrible scars. “It’s too complicated to go into in public, though.”
“Won’t be necessary. I’m in Charlottesville. Where are you?”
Destin blinked. “Ah…” Glancing around, she spotted the sign for the bank and named it. “It’s on the main drag through town in front of the campus. Oz, why are you here?”
“It’s complicated. Don’t worry about it, though.” There was a heavy, thick pause, weighted and long. “Why are you at the bank?”
“I needed to get off the road. Head is messed up.”
Another one of those heavy silences. “I’m actually not far away. I’m pretty familiar with the area. Why don’t you just wait there for me?”
Blood roared in Destin’s ears. Out of habit, she locked on Caleb’s face, wishing she could see his eyes. She reached out a hand and at the same time, she lowered her shields.
Something odd…something missing.
“Sure, Oz,” she said quietly. “Sure.”
As the blood roared in her ears, images started to flash in her mind, burning and imprinting themselves on her memory. Hands—familiar hands. A ring that Destin knew. Oz’s.
Flipping through sheets of paper—reports, pictures.
Stopping on one of them…
A face that Destin knew. She knew it very well, but that girl hadn’t been in the file.
“Oh, shit.” Realization crashed into her. Turning her head, she stared at the bank.
Pieces clicked into place.
“Do you have the file?” she asked, looking over at Caleb while wild terror started to beat inside her.
Oz knew how they worked. That was why she’d called Caleb in. He tended to keep the information at a minimum, trying to keep the stimuli from overwhelming her while Destin put the pieces together. If somebody was in immediate danger, the caution went out the window, but if somebody was in immediate danger, Destin was likely to have picked up on it.
Oz knew this. She knew it.
“Yes,” Caleb said slowly, glancing at the car. “Destin, what’s up?”
“I need the file, now.” She climbed into the car, delving into the back and hoping it would give her a few minutes of privacy. Oz would expect to find them standing outside the car, waiting for her, and when she didn’t, she’d glance in the front seat…at least Destin hoped how that was how it would play out.
“Get in and give me the file,” she snapped over her shoulder.
Caleb was already in action and thirty seconds later, the file was in her lap. She laid her hands on it and then looked at him. “I’m dropping my shields—all of them.”
He opened his mouth and she shook her head. “No time for it to happen any other way. You’ll have to get me steady as soon as you can if anything happens, because you were right—something is missing…and I think it’s one of the victims. Oz wasn’t telling us everything.”
The knowledge in his eyes flashed, burning through them both. Destin looked away and gripped the file, grounding herself.
Then she opened it and let every last protective instinct she had fall away.
Wisps…
Nothing but wisps.
She caught glimmers from the victims, but it was the same sort of thing she’d picked up when she’d walked the crime scene
She wanted to scream as she went through the damn files, the reports, the crime scene photographs, pitiful as they were. Each image of the victim made her heart wrench and her mind twisted as she took in too much. Memories. Sensation. Echoes. Pain. Laughter. All of it churned inside her, but she couldn’t lift much of anything useful out of the morass.
Nausea churned inside her and the breakfast she’d forced down her throat threatened to make a return appearance as she relived hours of confusion, memories of pain and fear and cold. Nothing concrete. Nothing certain.
And nothing from the bastards she needed to connect with…at least nothing solid. There were plenty of threads, but they were all disjointed and loose and when she tried to weave them into a fabric, nothing happened.
She should have enough to get a lock on the rapist, but…
Fifteen minutes later, she put the file down and shoved her damp, sweaty hair out of her face. “This is a waste of time. It’s a fucking mess, sheer chaos.”
She shot a look at Caleb and went to climb out of the car, only to pause, glancing back at him. His face could have been carved from rock, but his flesh was damp, as though he’d been sweating, and his eyes were glassy.
It was, she thought, almost exactly how she’d look, if she’d bothered to check. Not at all the way he usually looked when they’d come out of one of these connections before.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Unlike the way he looked, the answer was level and even. Completely poised.
He didn’t look fine. He looked on edge, his control more than a little shaky, but neither of them had time for this right now. Sighing, she climbed out of the car and met his gaze over the roof.
Unspoken words passed between them. A shared history and so many years of working together so well, it was like their minds were one. Even before he went to ask, she knew what he was going to say.
“Does she go here?”
Destin shook her head. “I d
on’t know. Oz doesn’t have a good relationship with her anymore. After the divorce…”
A car pulled into the parking lot and a rush of hot and cold chills broke out over Destin’s body while a knot of fear gripped her hard and tight. She’d lied to Caleb. No, she didn’t know for a fact, but her gut had already given her the answer.
Oz’s out-of-character actions, why she’d pulled strings and gotten Caleb out here.
Caleb’s odd feeling something just wasn’t right.
Destin’s inability to see the pieces she needed…it was because she didn’t have them all.
As the silver Lexus swung into a parking spot across the lot, Destin swallowed and then looked over at Caleb. “She knows how we work, you know,” she said quietly. “She knows you withhold the information until it’s something you know I’ll need. She knows I trust you to work it that way. And I bet she tried to get a glimmer off the information she had and didn’t succeed.”
A muscle ticked in Caleb’s jaw as Oz climbed out of her car. “So she sends somebody who feels a connection to this sort of crime.”
Destin nodded. She understood. She really did. She wasn’t concerned because her boss, her friend, had decided to keep her in the dark…what worried her was why.
What was Oz up to?
As the long, lean blonde started across the parking lot toward them, Destin stared at her, tried to pick up something, anything beneath Oz’s sturdy, solid shields.
But there was nothing.
“Mom?”
Oz’s mask…and her shields…cracked.
And Destin stumbled against the car under the avalanche of emotion that came pouring out.
Chapter Eleven
“I didn’t want to prejudice you with my personal connection to the case,” Oz said, a bland smile on her face.
Bullshit.
Destin and her boss followed along behind Caleb and Oz’s daughter, a petite brunette who shared Oz’s eyes but nothing else. Well, that wasn’t true. Oz was a strong woman and although it wasn’t the same sort of strength, the girl Destin had just met in the parking lot had strength in her. A lot of it.
The Unwanted (the fbi psychics ) Page 9
