“So Evan may not be the crafty mind bender he appears to be.”
“Not in the slightest. He clearly has some ability but I think Bella has more.” Kayci read a few more pages. “It says that after complications Project Scion was scrapped four years ago and all the assets were set to be distributed.”
“Distributed?”
Kayci shrugged. “Yeah I don’t know what that means exactly.”
“So what happened? Why does Bella still exist? Why wasn’t she distributed?”
Kayci sighed. “Maybe she was. But maybe father probably saw to it that she was distributed in the way he wanted. I need to speak with Colleen right away. She probably knows more than she’s told me.
* * *
Kayci asked Colleen to meet her outside of the office. At first, Colleen was against the idea, assuring Kayci her office could not possibly be compromised, but Kayci wasn’t taking any chances on this one.
“Should I wait outside the car or something?” Jordan asked from the driver seat.
“No, it’s fine. She’s going to have to get used to the idea of trusting you. You’re my asset, you have a DRC card and now that Rose is dead you’re the only other one who knows this case.”
Colleen’s red Mitsubishi sedan pulled into the parking spot across from them. She got out and climbed into the back seat of the Ford SUV.
“Thanks,” Kayci said, “for meeting with me on my terms.”
Colleen smoothed her brown hair and crossed her legs. “Can’t say it’s my favorite way to do things, Kayci, but for you I’ll bend.” She nodded to Jordan. “I assume he’s staying?”
Kayci nodded. “There’s nothing you can tell me that I won’t tell him.”
“Very well, it’s time we get to know each other anyway. What’s this all about?”
“It’s about my father, and Rose. Did you know Bella Hill is my sister?”
Colleen looked at her, and then to Jordan who smiled and nodded, then she looked back to Kayci. “That’s not possible, Kayci. Who told you that?”
“Rose.”
“She’s mistaken.”
“It was her dying confession, Colleen. And you know as well as I do that those cannot be untruthful for a psychic.”
Colleen’s eyes grew wide. “I don’t know what to say. This is a bit of a shocker. I didn’t expect that.”
“What do you know about Project Scion?”
Colleen shrugged. “There’s not much to know, it was a failed program by the NSA’s Division Twenty about ten years ago. The idea was to create some—well this is crude—but super babies with extraordinary talents simply by natural selection. But it really didn’t work the way they envisioned. All the babies were unremarkable in the extraordinary sense. They were healthy and whatnot but not worthy of being assets. They were placed with the parents that wanted them or put into the adoption stream and the project was terminated.”
“They were all unremarkable, except one.”
Colleen took out her phone and started navigating through files. She shook her head slowly. “According to my Scion files Rose’s baby died during a difficult birth, we never placed it. If we had she would’ve been asked first.”
“No, she didn’t die. I believe my father gave the baby to the Evan, and then later gave him the nugget. After all he trusted him with Bella, he would trust him with the nugget. I think Cayden stole Rose’s baby.”
Colleen thought for several long seconds. “But your father wasn’t involved in Scion. He was long rogue by then. Rose’s conception partner was chosen carefully, it ironically came down to Nathan Pratt, Avery Von Strieder, and a man named Andrew McGrath. In the end Andrew won out for several reasons and he was picked to donate his sample.”
“I’ve never heard of Andrew McGrath.”
Colleen frowned and then looked to the roof. “Oh, my. How could I have been so blind? Andrew was killed in the line of duty a few days afterwards. It was supposedly an accident, now I want to question that. He was working for the unit that would eventually be renamed the DHS.”
Kayci said, “You’re talking about their non-existent psychic terrorist branch.”
“Yes. They tried to compete with SORC but it never got funding to get off the ground and Avery refused to give them the list.”
Kayci nodded. “Nathan was in that unit for a while. They recruited him to help form their operations but he left after about a month.”
“Andrew was very gifted and anxious to participate. Now I have to wonder exactly when and how he died.”
“Rose must have decided to go another direction, or she was forced there, now we’ll never know. But I know that Cayden is Bella’s father.”
Colleen leaned back into the seat. “My God, this explains so much. It explains why the numbers never matched. Rose’s baby was born late while the others were all early. Why would Cayden do this? Why would Rose do this?”
“I suppose you’re looking for another explanation other than power and greed, both of which drove my father to the grave.”
Colleen blew a long audible breath. “I did not expect this. I swear Kayci. I knew nothing about this. Project Scion was a pet project, and Division Twenty works pretty much on experimental crap-shoot projects. It was one of those long shot deals. You know how they work. They come up and go away and that’s the end of them, no one ever thinks or speaks about them again.”
“It explains why my father was so quick to toss away his other two kids. He had my brother killed and he was going to kill me, because he didn’t care about us. He had his prized possession tucked away with his newest little protégé.”
“Unreal,” Colleen said. “This really explains a few things that never quite added up.”
Kayci said, “The only line I haven’t drawn is the one between Evan and my father.”
Colleen nodded. “Evan tried desperately to get into SORC, your father must have sought him out, knowing he could control and manipulate him.”
Kayci nodded. “Knowing he could trust him not to turn on him because he was too weak and too much in awe of working with the great Cayden Taylor.”
“Your father was cunning. He was capable of anything.”
Kayci sighed. “He was very calculated, and there was probably a reason for everything he did. But none of it matters right now.”
“Great,” Jordan offered. “Now that we’ve figured it all out, what do we do about it?”
Kayci smiled. “We do what we were brought in to do here in the first place. We get that little girl away from a madman.”
Chapter 35
He watched Bella closely as he always did. She sat Indian-style in the corner of the motel room in the cheap plastic chair, playing with the laces on her pink and white sneakers. His dislike for her had reached an all time high. Killing her would probably ease the pain of looking at her and wondering what was going on in her mind. He hated her so much, but he needed her, he always needs her.
“Why do you hate me?” Bella asked looking down at her sneakers.
Evan smacked his hand on his thigh. “I told you to stop doing that.”
Her big hazel eyes met his. “Sorry.”
“You know what happens if you do that. What have I told you?”
She didn’t reply, he hated when she didn’t talk because that meant she was in her head. “Bella, answer me. What have I told you would happen?”
She stuck out her bottom lip. “That you’d kill the puppies.”
“That’s right, and I will, all of them.” He walked across the room, stepping over the pattern on the red and black carpet. He wouldn’t step on patterns if he could avoid them, it was probably bad luck.
Obviously, there was no way he could kill all the puppies, but he would kill any he saw just to prove to her that he would and could. It was hard to lie to Bella, in fact, it was impossible. Rachel, his wife, thought it was just so charming that Bella never believed in Santa Claus or The Easter Bunny. Evan hated it—it wasn’t natural.
If he could k
ill her he would, but the truth is he was afraid, and he needed her. Bella had been with him too long, she knew every inch of his frequency and he worried that if he killed her it would kill his power too. He’d learned as much as he could from the times he’d spent with Cayden, though they were few and far between. Cayden trusted him with both the nugget and the girl. But one of the first things he told him was that killing other psychics of high power can be very bad, especially ones that knew you well. It can have a negative impact on your own ability and destroy it completely unless you know how to protect yourself. That was one skill he didn’t have. Using puppets to kill them was less risky, but there was still some chance that it could hurt him. That was the main reason he didn’t kill Kayci or Jordan right away. He’d had a plan to just let them starve to death, that way it would not be his hand or mind that killed them. Forcing Bella to kill was impossible too. He’d tried many times to manipulate her in various ways and most were unsuccessful in that sense. But she was an amazing test subject for his latest work. The kidnapping, although cut short, still returned some amazing results that had pushed his research to the next level. His project was nearly complete.
It was surprisingly easy to kill Rachel. He didn’t struggle with it nearly as much as he suspected he would. He’d never killed anyone before like that. It wasn’t that hard. The fact that he didn’t really love her probably made it easier. She was pretty, that was really her only appealing feature. Her intelligence was average, she didn’t really further his personal development at all, and her inability to support his dreams forced him to slowly hate her. If she’d for one second understood what he wanted to do she might still be here.
Kayci was interesting, he wondered what might result if he could get together with her. But it would never happen now. She’d kill him as soon as she saw him. Things would have had to go completely different in life for that to happen. Maybe if he’d listened to Cayden about trying to meet her when he suggested it. But Evan was too caught up in his work at the FBI, closing cold cases and bringing in the worst criminals. He didn’t do those things to catch the criminals as much as he did it for the accolades and the money and fame that came with it. His two best selling books raked in a ton of money and law enforcement agencies all over the world were paying him huge bucks to come in and speak to them about his techniques. Of course, they didn’t know about his little secret.
Bella snuck up on him. “Bella! I don’t…dammit I told you not to do that to me.”
“Sorry, but I’m hungry, when’re we gonna eat?”
Evan stared at her for several long seconds, trying to see the brilliance behind those eyes. Sometimes it was annoying that she was still just a little girl. It was obvious she was Cayden’s daughter from the high cheekbones and the slope of her nose, but he could also see some of Rose’s big round eyes and puffy-lipped mouth. Now that they were both dead, the little brat was all his and no one would be under his skin about how to treat her. He should have known that Rose would get involved and help them to triangulate. With her out of the mix, he would be home free. And killing her didn’t have any impact on him, but that’s probably because that was an old fashioned contract hit. He didn’t use mind control for that attack, he used cold hard cash and professional mercenaries. Unfortunately, Kayci and Jordan managed to get away.
He stepped across the room to his jacket hanging on the back of the chair that sat in front of the long desk. From the pocket, he fished out a hard cinnamon candy. “Here, eat this.”
Bella made a face. “That’s not food, it’s candy.”
“Sometimes you have to eat candy as food.”
“But I don’t want it.”
“Eat it.”
She turned her face away. “I don’t want it. I want real food.”
“You’ll eat when I say.”
Bella went back to the chair in the corner and sat. “It’s not fair.” Tears started to bubble up in her eyes.
“Life is not fair.”
“Why’re you so mean to me? I’ve never done anything to you. I help you and do all that stuff you make me do and I don’t like it!”
Evan looked at her and wanted to slap her little face. “Don’t you try those tears on me, they won’t work. I’m not your mother.”
“Rachel wasn’t my mother. And you’re not my father.”
He turned towards her. “You’re right. So don’t expect me to be nice to you. I’ll kill the puppies and then I’ll kill you.”
She slowly moved her eyes up to his, a slight smirk curled on one side of her lips. It was a creepy, mature look—a knowing smirk that sent a chill into his bones like nothing ever had before. He swallowed hard, trying not to show her how vulnerable he really was to her. “You think you’re so smart, little girl, but you’ve got a lot to learn. You might know a few little tricks but you don’t know anything.”
Bella looked down, holding his gaze for an extra second before her attention finally fell on her hands that twirled a small piece of marbled brown granite.
“Where’s you get that?”
“From my rock collection.”
Evan wanted to take it away from her just to show his control but he let it go. He took out his phone and dialed. When the connection went though, he said, “Are you alone?”
“I’m alone.” She replied.
“Did you contact Fritz?”
“Yes. He’s here with me.”
“Is everything in place?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say about, you know?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got it covered.”
“Margo, I can’t take chances, I want to know the details. This has to be perfect. I want to be off and gone before—”
“Relax,” She cut him off, “We took a queue from your pal Murt—”
“He’s no pal of mine.”
“Yeah, I know whatever. We got what you wanted. It’s big enough.”
“Point is, Margo, that I need to get it settled now. I may not be able to contact anyone for a while. There’s a chance I might not be able to ever come back stateside.”
She laughed. “Of course not you idiot, you killed your wife. They’re going to be looking for you, dumb ass!”
“Don’t mock me! I gave you a job to do—now you’ll do it and respect me.”
She laughed again. “Listen, asshole, we work for you, we don’t have to like you. You paid for a service and you’ll get that service. Don’t expect some cushy level of customer satisfaction. I don’t do nice. You’re just lucky I’m not demanding more cash for this latest addition. You’ve added an entire day’s work. In fact, now that I think about it, moving all this shit is going to cost you an extra dime.”
Evan was steaming up inside, but he didn’t want to piss her off. He needed Margo and Fritz for a couple more days. But once he got where he needed to be, he was going to kill them both anyway. Not only had they pissed him off but he could not afford to leave a single witness to where he was going to be. “Fine, Margo, just get it done. I’ll meet you at the docks at dark.” He hung up the phone.
Bella said, “I don’t want to live with you anymore. I definitely don’t want to live on an island. You know I can’t swim.”
He smiled. “That’s right, you can’t swim, which means there will be no escape. And there’re sharks in the water that will eat you if you learned how to swin. So you’d better just get used to it.”
“What’s the difference?” She sighed. “There’s been no escape since you stole me.”
“I didn’t steal you. I’ve protected you. I gave you a home. And this is how you repay me—by being a snotty little bitch.”
Bella frowned. “But you’ve never been nice to me. Mommy was nice to me.”
“She wasn’t your mommy.”
“She didn’t give birth to me, but she was my Mommy. She loved me and you killed her.”
Evan twisted to look at her. He didn’t think she knew that. “What makes you think I killed her? Did you read me?
”
Bella shrugged. “I just knew.”
“You’re lying to me. You read my frequency didn’t you. You’re not supposed to do that to me. Now I have to kill a puppy.”
She gasped. “No please! Please don’t kill any puppies, I won’t do it again I swear.”
Evan nodded. “Fine, but this is your last warning. Next time, I go to the store, buy a puppy and bring it back so you can watch me stab it and skin it.”
Judging by the look on her face, his bluff had worked. But maybe it worked because it wasn’t a bluff.
Chapter 36
Kayci knew there was no way to triangulate Evan’s location with just the two of them, and he probably wasn’t a powerful enough psychic to find him among the masses. If he was just smart enough to understand that he should stay in a big crowd, she might never find him. But she was trying a few tricks anyway.
“Any luck?” Jordan climbed into the driver seat and shut the door.
She shook her head. “Not so far.”
“I think you should try something else.”
Kayci leaned her head back. “What, you’re an expert now?”
Jordan gave her a twisted-lip—crunched-nose look.
“I’m sorry,” She replied in a breathy sigh. “I’m just frustrated. I’ve been at this for hours and I’m tired.”
“I know, Kayci. But I’ve learned a lot lately you should listen to me.” He smiled.
His smile was infectious. That playful look was one of the things she loved most about him. No matter how dire the circumstances, Jordan could make her feel okay with just a smile. After a deep breath she said, “Okay, superstar, what’chya got?”
“You’ve got a connection that no one else on the planet has. You have to use it.”
“Meaning?”
Soul Frequency (Frequency Series Book 2) Page 19
