a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure)

by Charles, L. j.

  Pierce flipped his cell to Annie. "Make the call."

  I watched. And listened. Annie punched in a series of numbers, identified herself, and spit out a description of the guy with the gun.

  "I got a picture of him," Pierce said. "Send it along."

  And then there was dead silence. The only sounds in the Jeep were the hum of the engine, and tires sweeping over pavement. I couldn’t tell if anyone was talking to Annie, or if the buzz of an open phone line held her captive.

  "Got it." She flicked the phone off and tucked it into Pierce’s shirt pocket. "He’s under surveillance. They picked him up right after we left the Hilton. So…how much backup do you have on this, Pierce?"

  "Enough. Whatever formula Loyria Gray discovered is deadly."

  "Hold it." I spit the words out, blunt with shock. "You know more than you’ve told me. What’s going on?" My mind had begun to twiddle some facts about a near-death incident Mitch’s brother-in-law, Parker Steele, had recently experienced.

  Annie rested her hand on my arm. "They believe your parents were killed by mistake, before they could force your mother to tell them what she knew."

  Pierce sighed, deep. "It’s believed that Loyria Gray discovered an ancient form of chemical warfare. A mixture of plant and animal toxins that if pulverized and rubbed on human skin, kills within minutes."

  "No real surprise there, since Mom was an archaeologist and they discover stuff like that all the time. There are a lot of sera that can be toxic to humans. I'm not sure why this is different. Except—"

  "Except, what?" Pierce’s words sliced the air.

  "You weren’t around last month when Parker Steele and Mitch’s sister talked me into doing a fundraiser séance for them."

  Annie wrinkled her nose. "Adam said something about it, but I’ve been preoccupied."

  "Right. I get that Sean is worthy of a few minutes preoccupation. The deal is that there was a toxin involved in the death of an Emir that attended the séance." I shuddered. It hadn’t been a fun time.

  Pierce glared at me with a tight corner-of-the-eye glance. "How does this relate to Loyria Gray?"

  "She gave a container with a toxic substance to Parker Steele’s mother for safekeeping. I was five, and don’t remember much about it, but apparently Parker’s cousin got his hands on it and decided to eliminate all human obstacles that stood between him and his megalomaniac goals. Luckily, the hospital and police labs worked together to design an antidote that cured Parker. It was a close call, and he’s fine now. Married Jayne shortly after he got out of the hospital."

  "That can’t be the same stuff," Annie said. "There’s no antidote for the substance we’re tracking." She paused for a swallow of water. "And no one but your mom knew the combination of ingredients, much less the formula to produce it. What she handed over to Steele’s mother couldn’t be the same thing. It would have sent up red flags all over our confidential databases. Plus our scientists believe that whatever chemical interaction happens with this stuff doesn’t kill right away. It was designed to be latent for a certain amount of time before it triggers to kill."

  Pierce mumbled a series of harsh sounds. "Adam work on this?"

  "No," I explained. "It happened when Adam and Annie were at their family reunion. Reese Bryant, a detective with the Apex PD, worked the case."

  Pierce tossed his cell to Annie. "We need those files yesterday."

  I shrugged. "It might be related, but like Annie said, it’s probably not the same stuff. Maybe it was an earlier version of what you’re looking for, because Parker got sick within hours. Could be my mom wanted it protected so no one would have the base ingredients to create a formula with a timed release."

  They both ignored me. Pierce wore his inscrutable face, and Annie was busy talking to Detective Bryant. When she got off the phone, I summed up my take. "So, I get that it’s a problem if some third world country is shooting for world dominance and gets the formula. They could program this stuff, set it loose, then sit back and wait to rule the world without having to so much as fire a single weapon. A silent, unsuspected killer that could wipe out huge segments of the population. World dominance without suspicion or reprisal. Right?"

  Annie’s eyebrows hiked in a you-got-it arch.

  "Well, hell. My mom was on a mission to save the world." My stomach tumbled into the shallow end of shock. "This is a really big deal. Isolating that formula and destroying it."

  "A.J." Pierce allowed Annie’s initials to hang in the air, a barely contained threat.

  "Yeah. I hacked into a few places I wasn’t supposed to go, got the info before I left home, and read it on the flight."

  My body went rigid. "You what?"

  "What the fuck, A.J?"

  Annie’s shoulder moved against mine in a careless shrug. "They’ll never know I was there. It’s what they pay me for, you know."

  "You hacked into a government computer?" My voice rose with each word, ending the sentence in an embarrassing screech.

  Pierce went back to violent mumbles.

  "The government doesn’t actually keep me on the payroll because I’m nice, El. Just because I’m no longer a sniper, I’m still somewhat of a—"

  "She’s a damn stupid genius with computers." Pierce glared at Annie. His line of sight cut straight behind me to Annie, but I could have sworn it sheared loose strands of hair off my braid.

  "I’m getting married, Pierce, and won’t be on any government payroll after the file on Loyria Gray is closed."

  I bit down on my tongue. There wasn’t a bloody thing I could say. Annie must have broken every spy rule in the book to tell me what she’d been doing. My mind flittered through a bunch of "huh?" moments I’d had around her, moments that I’d assigned to her being a former sniper-slash-spy. I’d have to re-catalogue those into infamous computer genius. "Where…"

  "Hmmm?" she asked.

  "Ah, nothing." It clogged my throat not to spew dozens of questions, the most pressing being where did she hide her computers? I’d never seen a bunch of monitors anywhere in Annie’s house, not like the set-ups in the movies. But no way was I going to ask, not when I could feel Pierce’s muscles vibrating against my left side. It was a seriously bad time to indulge my curiosity. Then again… "Do you seriously think the government is going to let you disappear into marriage? With your abilities? Surely you’ve read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that isn’t gonna happen."

  A noncommittal sound tumbled around in Annie’s throat.

  Pierce’s jaw visibly clenched.

  I shut up.

  It wasn’t but a minute later that my cell chirped, signaling an incoming text. I’d tossed my handbag on the floor in the front seat, so Annie rummaged around and dug out the phone.

  A shriek came from someplace in the dark corners of her psyche, and filled the Jeep with palpable violence.

  "What the fuck, Annie?" Pierce had hit the brake hard enough to jerk me against the front seats. He glanced at Annie, swore again, then kept driving.

  I gathered my spilled wits. "Annie? Is there something wrong with my phone?"

  She eased back onto the seat. "Ah, no. Phone’s fine. Just pinched my skin on something under the dash."

  It was a blatant lie.

  "Did you read the display on my phone?" Annie never, ever did things like that. We were careful to respect each other’s privacy because we both worked with confidential information.

  A sick gurgle nudged my stomach as I caught a glimpse of the name shining on the face of my phone.

  Annie didn’t answer my question, but Pierce didn’t hesitate. "She’s working. Needs to know everything about what you’re doing."

  My temper flashed. I inhaled a long, cooling breath because Pierce had a point—one I didn’t like at all. "How do you know Brody Williams, Annie?"

  Her hand was clenched around my phone so tightly I couldn’t pry her fingers loose.

  Pierce sucked in a barely audible breath.

  I stared at Annie—the
panic brewing behind her eyes, the pinched skin around her lips, and the pallor of her skin—and then I broke client confidentiality for the first time in my ten-plus years of personal coaching. "Brody is the client with the wife who left to protect him. He’s not a threat to me. Plus he’s an ocean away, so absolutely not dangerous."

  She dropped the phone in my lap. "You ever meet him?" Her voice didn’t exactly shake, but it wasn’t normal either.

  No one understood confidentiality issues better than Annie, and she'd never asked questions about my clients. My neck was doing an amazing imitation of the spines on a Prickly Pear cactus.

  "Never. He’s a new client and he lives in Virginia." I glanced at the text from him. "He’s just confirming an appointment time. So, do you know Brody?"

  "Oh, no. Don’t think so. Look," she said pointing out the window. "We’re coming to one of my favorite views of the North Shore."

  I let her change the subject and focused on the road in front of us. Not because I didn’t have questions. Any sane person would have been crazy not to question this peculiar behavior in someone who was normally as stable as Annie. But I didn’t ask. Because her fingers were trembling. And Pierce hadn’t said a word. The two of them were screaming secrets louder than a dozen people blasting paper targets at a firing range. "Feeling like a paper target here."

  They gave me identical raised eyebrows.

  Brody would be getting all kinds of special attention from his new coach.

  As the Jeep crested the top of a hill, a view of the ocean peeked through the hills in front of us, and my questions evaporated. The breathtaking beauty of the sea on the North Shore rippled with amazing shades of blue that undulated from azure to the lightest aqua. Colors that matched my grandmother’s dress—the one that told me her house was not as old as someone wanted us to believe.

  A chill ran down my spine, strong enough to shove my attention out of spy-life and straight into the reality of what I was about to face—Grandma’s death—for the second time in as many days. "Have they…when are they scheduled to…?" My breath hitched, a painful stab in my chest.

  Pierce reached back and touched my knee. "Should be complete by now."

  His words helped. I wouldn’t have to watch them pull her casket from the ground, but I could still picture an empty hole at her gravesite, and shuddered.

  "Pierce and I processed all the paperwork last night, and I scheduled it for first thing this morning so you wouldn’t have to watch the disinterring process."

  Friends. I had to remember these people weren’t just doing a job, they were my friends.

  Traffic slowed to a crawl as we inched through Haleiwa and wound around some of the best surfing beaches in the world. Not that I was about to grab a board and search for a maverick, but the waves called to me with the language of freedom. "Look," I yelled, pointing to a huge ripple in the water. The seatbelt snapped tight, and I reached to unhook it, scooting forward. "That was a whale. I could see the fluke. Did you see it?" I asked, snapping my head back and forth between Annie and Pierce.

  He pulled off the road into a parking spot and leaned back resting his head as he looked out over the water, then pointed to me. "Seatbelt."

  I refastened it. In our current circumstances there was no telling if and when the bad guys would show up, and I hadn’t recuperated from the last chase yet.

  Another whale popped up, creating a whitecap in the water. "Humpbacks, you think?" I asked.

  Pierce nodded. "They winter here. Always worth the show." We watched the antics for about fifteen minutes before he backed out and headed toward my grandmother’s house. The softer side of Pierce—just show him a whale.

  "You know," Annie said, "I’ve never gone whale watching, and the Carolina coast has been right there, waiting. Seems wrong somehow."

  "Are you and Sean staying here for your honeymoon?" There was so much we hadn’t talked about yet, but at least the wedding should be a safe topic.

  "Yep. Don’t know how long though. Depends on Sean’s job situation."

  Pierce made the turn off the main highway—if you can call two lanes a main highway—reached under the seat, and handed Annie a gun and a box of ammo. "Oh, good. They had the Kimber," she said, manipulating the weapon with all those fancy moves that are so natural to people who are well acquainted with firearms.

  "This is some neighborhood," Annie said, scanning the area. "Wouldn’t want to get caught here without a guide."

  She was right. The layout of the roads and houses was like a maze with no beginning and no end.

  "Her driveway is right up there," I pointed in the general direction of the dirt road.

  Pierce turned left, leaving the pavement behind, and we bounced along for several minutes before I spotted the backhoe….and nothing else. "Can’t be the right place, can it?" I leaned forward to peer around Annie.

  Pierce sucked in a breath so fast it whistled. "Yeah, it can."

  The backhoe reached into the earth and clawed a shovel full of dirt from my grandmother’s grave.

  Twelve

  I scrambled out of the Jeep and ran toward the backhoe. Annie grabbed my t-shirt, lost her grip and I sprawled in the grass, breathing in the rich scent of tropical dirt. The same dirt that had covered Grandma’s coffin.

  My hands clenched fistfuls of grass, and despair pummeled what was left of my heart. For the first time, I noticed the men in military uniforms who were lifting the coffin from the ground, red dirt clinging to the bare wooden box that held my grandmother’s remains. Tears blurred the scene. I didn’t want to see this. Didn’t want to watch them drive away with Grandma.

  Anger burned, acid sharp, in my gut.

  How. Dare. They.

  I stuffed my shriek of rage into the deepest, darkest corner of my psyche, and encased it in grief. These people might work for Pierce, but that didn’t make it right. Far from it. For the first time since I’d met him, hatred warred with the respect I had for his morals and abilities.

  I shut my eyes, buried my head in the grass, and pounded the earth with my fists. It helped until pollen clogged my nose, tickled my throat, and sent me into a sneezing fit. Messy. Tears and a stupid runny nose. I wiped the bottom of my t-shirt over my face, trying to clean up the worst of it.

  Pierce pulled me to my feet, and tucked me hard against him. "Sorry. Didn’t know they were going to dismantle the house first."

  What? I plowed my fist into his chest, and was rewarded with a satisfying grunt. He tightened his grip on me, hands biting into my arms. A new wave of panic sliced through me, and I darted a quick look at the house. More uniformed men. This group was wielding tools, stacking the boards that used to be Grandma’s house into the back of an olive green truck. I wouldn’t be able to touch the wood again, to refresh the images of her standing on the porch and rocking in her…my heart ached as I watched them load the rocking chair onto the truck.

  I jerked free from Pierce’s hold, twisting away. Too fast. I Stumbled. Pierce caught me, and tried to keep me from turning toward the grave, but I wrenched free. Bad timing. Grandma’s coffin was being loaded into a van. "They’re t-taking g-grandma. W-where?" Swallowed sobs made my breath choppy, my words rough.

  Annie offered me a handful of tissues. "Our crime scene techs are planning to go over every fiber of the house, and they’re moving everything to a secure location, so they’ll have more control over the testing. I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d do this until tomorrow, after the disinterment."

  I blew my nose, then stuffed the wad of damp tissue into my pocket. Our? Annie had said our crime scene techs. She knew, maybe even helped plan the desecration of Grandma’s life. Dry heaves caught in my throat, burning away the horrible words I wanted to throw at her. Had Annie betrayed our friendship? My legs collapsed and I dropped to my knees, clutching at the tall grass.

  Get a grip, Everly. You knew this was going to happen. They warned you, tried to protect you from it.

  Pierce stood twenty feet away, talking t
o one of the soldiers, handing them something. Probably showing ID. Doing his job. A red haze crept in around the edges of my vision. So, "seeing red" really happened. Agonizingly painful. I sucked in air, pulling on what little calm I could collect from the rational part of my mind. "There’s a guard." I scanned the area. "More than one."

  Annie herded me toward the Jeep. "Yeah, apparently the schedule was altered without keeping Pierce in the loop. Big mistake."

  "Why? I mean, according to Pierce, the military doesn’t like him, so why would he trust them to move Grandma? If this is his case, surely he had to make the arrangements."

  Annie wrapped me in a hug. "We work together when we have to. The medical examination will be done by the people Pierce and I work with. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, and I am so, so sorry. Come on, I need to get you away from here." She tugged on my sleeve.

  I inhaled, consciously stiffening my spine. This situation was bigger than my grief. Definitely bigger than my anger. Anger was born from fear. I knew that, and often taught my clients how to use the knowledge behind their anger to heal. I was afraid for so many reasons. Not knowing what my mother had done, responsibility for any potential wars that could erupt from her actions, not being able to protect my grandmother, and not being able to find my grandfather.

  My fears commanded a long list, and heading it was doubt that I had the skill to make it right. Knowing all that calmed my anger some, but it didn’t stop my tears. I mopped my face with the sleeve of my t-shirt, soaking it. The fabric clung to my arm, cold in the late morning sunlight. It matched the chill invading my heart.

  Flames leapt from the ground where my grandmother’s house used to stand, the scent of burning wood and flashes of heat swirled around me. "Damn it all!" My anger erupted. "They’re burning the foundation."

  Pierce bumped against my side, effectively sandwiching me between him and Annie. The skin around his mouth was white-tight, and his eyes flashed blue fire. "Need to get El away from here."

  "Why did they burn Grandma’s house? Dismantling I can understand…actually, no, I can’t but—"