Book One

by K. C. Archer

  And then he’d used his boat to sneak away after Molly had—

  Molly. An icy chill rushed down Teddy’s spine. He’d tried to kill Molly, but he hadn’t finished the job.

  Kate turned as Ava called to her, gesturing her to the dance floor. “I’m sorry about what happened this year. To your friends.”

  Teddy was already out of her seat, halfway to the door. “Thanks,” she called over her shoulder. “I have to go.”

  She had to get to Molly.

  Jillian, Dara, and Pyro were standing by the water, laughing and playing ring toss. “We need to check on Molly,” Teddy said urgently. “Kate just told me that Jeremy was the one who sabotaged her line.”

  Their laughter died. The gulf that had grown between them over the last few weeks collapsed; it was as if they were once again back in the alley, united by their grief. “Wait,” Pyro said. “Kate said what? How would she—”

  Ignoring him, Teddy turned to Dara. “Do you remember anything strange about that afternoon? Did you see Jeremy with a knife?”

  “A knife?” Dara shook her head. “No. I mean, he hooked us into our gear. Told me to go down the line on the right and Molly on the left—Oh my God. You think he really did that? Why would he want to hurt Molly? I thought he loved her.”

  Teddy’s mind raced. She didn’t know, but she was going to find out. “When was the last time anyone heard from Molly?”

  “Dunn visited her yesterday,” Jillian said.

  “We need to go to the hospital, we need to warn—”

  “Calm down,” Pyro said, rubbing his hands down her arms. “Let’s think logically. You’re accusing Jeremy of something awful. I didn’t like the kid, and he was weird as hell, but that doesn’t mean he tried to kill someone.”

  Teddy shook him off. She didn’t want to be calm. She wanted to do something. “If what Kate told me is true, Molly is in danger.”

  “We can use the phone behind the bar,” Jillian suggested. “Call the hospital. See if they can put a security detail on her room until we get there.”

  Perfect. Action. Teddy went to the bar and asked to borrow the phone. She dialed the number for the UCSF Hospital, a number she’d called so often to check on Molly’s condition that she had it memorized. “Seventh floor. Neurology Unit,” she said when a hospital receptionist answered.

  “Thank you, I’ll transfer your call.”

  A click and a dull hum echoed through the line as the call was connected. Ringing. Teddy waited what felt like forever until a duty nurse picked up. “Neurology Unit. Nurse Williams speaking.”

  “Hello. I’m calling to check on a patient. Molly Quinn. Is there someone—”

  “Did you say Molly Quinn?”

  “Yes. Is she okay?” Teddy blurted, then quickly checked herself. This wasn’t a call to check on her condition; she’d find how Molly was faring once she got there. In the meantime: “I’m afraid she might be in trouble. Is there any way to post security near her room, just to make sure nothing happens to her until we get there?”

  “Security? For Miss Quinn?” The woman sounded taken aback.

  “Yes. Just for a few—”

  “I don’t know what this is about, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Then connect me to someone who can.”

  “Miss— Who am I speaking with?”

  “I need to be connected with hospital security. Now.”

  “Miss, you don’t understand. Molly Quinn checked herself out about ten minutes ago.”

  Teddy paused, stunned. “She left?” she finally managed. “Did she say where she was going?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not our policy to ask. Someone came to collect her, and that was it. She left pretty quickly.”

  Teddy’s stomach clenched. “Who was it?” she said. “A man? Thin, midtwenties, dark hair and glasses—”

  “No. Not a man. A woman.”

  “A woman?” Teddy’s head spun. She didn’t remember Molly mentioning family, but she must have had someone who looked after her. “A relative?”

  “A relative? Possibly, but they certainly didn’t look alike. This woman was very tall, with white-blond hair.”

  Teddy thanked the woman and hung up. Too late. If she’d just reached out to Molly sooner . . . And said what? She didn’t have any answers. Just a growing sense of unease. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that something wasn’t right. Another Misfit gone.

  *  *  *

  She had to tell Clint. They hadn’t had a conversation, just the two of them, since that awful night in his office, but a student’s safety was at stake.

  She didn’t have to go far to find him. Clint stood on the quad, watching workers secure the lines to an enormous white tent that had been erected on the field. “I have to talk to you—” she started.

  “I wanted to talk to you, too,” he said. “Derek Yates escaped custody yesterday after his court hearing.”

  Teddy reeled. Of all the things Clint might have said, not even the most gifted psychic could have predicted that. “What? That doesn’t make sense,” she finally managed. “He was being granted a new trial. He’s innocent. Why would he run?”

  “Either he was convinced, based on his prior experience with the justice system, that he wouldn’t receive due process . . . or he was afraid that his former organization would come after him.”

  “So,” Teddy said. “This whole thing was about creating an opportunity for a prison break?”

  “More like a courtroom break.”

  For weeks, Teddy had struggled to decide if she’d done the right thing in releasing the videotapes. Yes, Yates might have been part of a group who committed heinous crimes. But he hadn’t been guilty of the crime he’d been convicted of. He was entitled to due process, just like anyone else. So her actions had been justified. But there was no denying that she’d set loose a dangerous man. That meant she was responsible for whatever Derek Yates might do next. She forced herself to ask, “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. Not at the courthouse, at least.”

  She let out a breath. “How did he escape?”

  “The same way Derek Yates does anything: mental influence.”

  “Where will he go?”

  Clint squinted at the tent. He was silent for so long that Teddy thought he wouldn’t answer. Finally, he replied, “The Derek Yates I knew didn’t like loose ends. Hard to imagine he would leave unfinished business behind, particularly if he had a score to settle.”

  Teddy’s heart began to gallop. In other words, settling the score with the once trusted friend whose deliberate mishandling of evidence had led to Yates’s incarceration. Now she wondered if she’d become a loose end, too. Or if she was just a piece in the game all along. If, from the beginning, Yates had used her as a conduit to Clint.

  “Yates might try to come to campus. Especially tomorrow, when there’ll be visitors. Crowds provide good cover. Commotion. Distraction,” Clint said. “And with Yates comes the possibility of his old friends. And Teddy—there’s a chance he’ll come looking for you now, too.”

  She nodded. “If he shows up on campus, we’ll be ready for him.”

  Clint shook his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. Now.”

  “But I—”

  “I mean it, Teddy. No more misguided heroics. You’re on probation. One more screwup and I’ll have to expel you.”

  He turned, walking over to kick the tent pegs before Teddy even had the chance to share her suspicions about Jeremy.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  SUNLIGHT STREAMED IN THROUGH THE dorm window, hammering at the back of Teddy’s eyes. She squinted to block it out, but the attempt was useless. Teddy preferred to creep slowly into daily consciousness, but now, even dragging a blanket over her head didn’t help. Jillian had flung wide the makeshift draperies to greet the new day. One of Teddy’s top roommate annoyances.

  “Teddy, I’d really thought you’d learn to sync your circadian rhythms by now,” Ji
llian said, letting out a long ohm. “Exam grades should be up. Want to go check after breakfast? Then we can get ready for the graduation ceremony.”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Jillian. If you are naked right now, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Teddy pulled a pillow over her head.

  “You’re going to miss me,” Jillian said. “You’re going to miss me a whole lot.”

  *  *  *

  As Teddy and Jillian walked downstairs for breakfast, they passed a bulletin board that hung in the lobby of Harris Hall, advertising various Reiki healing groups and tarot readings. Pinned in the center was the list of final exam results. Dara stood in front of it, her head low. Teddy immediately thought the worst: that Dara hadn’t passed. And if Dara hadn’t passed . . .

  “Hey,” Teddy said. “Everything okay?” She gestured to the bulletin board.

  “I passed,” Dara said. “Barely. The Casework final was killer.”

  True. Nick’s exam had indeed been torture. Page after page of questions on FBI procedure, interrogation techniques, methods of dealing with cybercrimes, and criminal justice ethics. A final exam so difficult that Teddy couldn’t help but believe it had been made especially difficult in retaliation to the Misfits’ antics at the FBI.

  Teddy shook her head. “You had me worried, Dara.”

  “What? Oh, sorry. It’s just . . . I can’t get this warning out of my head.”

  “Warning? What do you mean?”

  “It keeps shifting. I can’t make out what happens and to whom.”

  After Dara’s last vision, Teddy promised to take each and every one of her predictions seriously. Particularly in light of the disturbing news Clint had shared the day before. “Maybe I can help,” she said. “What do you see?”

  Dara frowned. Closed her eyes and concentrated. “I see the quad. And the white tent. Lots of people there. A crowd. Music playing.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a death vision,” Jillian cut in. “That sounds like graduation.”

  Teddy shot her roommate a look.

  “Then,” Dara continued, “something goes wrong. But I can’t see what it is. I don’t hear gunfire; there’s no bomb. One minute everything looks fine; the next, people start screaming, panicking, running in all directions. There’s someone there, some shifting figure.” She shook her head and chewed her bottom lip. “It doesn’t make sense. I think someone’s going to die, but I don’t know who. Or how. The more I try to pin down exactly what’s happening, the more the image fades.”

  Dara stopped speaking, and the three of them stood in silence.

  “We need to tell Clint,” Jillian said. “Get him to cancel.”

  “He won’t cancel,” Teddy said. “We’ve already got too many people on campus. How would it look if a school that trains students to work with police agencies, FBI, CIA, and every other top-notch security agency in the country can’t provide security for its own event?”

  “So,” Jillian said, “what do we do?”

  Teddy looked at Dara. “Do you see Yates at the ceremony?”

  Dara shook her head.

  “Wait a minute,” Jillian said. “Yates? Did you say Yates? Why would Yates be here?”

  “He escaped custody yesterday.” Jillian and Dara stared at Teddy in horror as she relayed the information Clint had shared the day before.

  “So Clint thinks he might come here?” Dara said, her voice climbing up two octaves.

  “I didn’t say that. Clint didn’t say that. But it is a possibility, so let’s not be caught with our guard down, all right?”

  Dara and Jillian exchanged an uneasy nod, then their gazes shifted to the thick yew bushes in the Zen garden, as though they expected Yates to jump out from behind them at any second.

  Teddy released an exasperated sigh and said, “We’ll let Clint know. Tell him what you saw, even if it’s not definitive. Forewarned is forearmed, right?”

  The stomp of boots interrupted their conversation. A stiff palm landed hard against Teddy’s back. “You passed, recruit. Don’t look so glum,” Boyd said. “We’re supposed to be celebrating today. And you more than most. You’re still here.”

  Teddy forced a smile. Still here. But for how much longer? Despite what Dara had seen in her vision, Teddy harbored a certain dread that Yates was on his way. To take care of loose ends or make good on his promise, Teddy couldn’t be sure which. Either way, she knew it wouldn’t be good.

  *  *  *

  The graduation ceremony began exactly as scheduled, at fourteen hundred hours, two o’clock civilian time. Teddy shuffled into a row of folding chairs next to Jillian, Dara, and Pyro. She craned her head around as she did so, trying to spot Clint. A little over three hours had passed since Dara had shared her death vision, and in that time Teddy had tried to track Clint down, to no avail. He’d been unavailable all morning, in a meeting with campus security. Afterward, it seemed that everywhere she went, she trailed one step behind him—his office, the groundskeepers’ building, the ferry building, even the catering tent. She kept missing him.

  A string quartet seated at the foot of the stage lifted their bows and began to softly play, clearly to draw the crowd’s attention to the ceremony. But Teddy took the opportunity to lean across Jillian’s lap and whisper to Pyro, “Dara had a death warning.”

  “When? Just now?”

  “No. Earlier this morning.”

  Dara briefly explained her shifting vision and her supreme frustration that she still couldn’t pin it down.

  “Just be sure you stay alert,” Teddy said to the others. “It could be Yates, anyone.”

  Pyro’s brows shot skyward at the mention of Yates’s name, but as the ceremony was now under way—Whitfield stood at the podium to make his opening remarks—he let it pass without further comment.

  Jillian, however, wasn’t quite as content to stay silent. She leaned toward Teddy and whispered, “I’ve let the seagulls know.”

  Better than nothing, Teddy supposed. But she couldn’t help but feel like a sitting duck herself. The best she could do was continue to scan the audience for Yates or anyone who looked out of place.

  To her relief, the ceremony went on without incident. Whitfield Institute’s newest graduating class left the stage, diplomas in hand. Teddy stood on the western edge of the tent and watched as recruits, alumnae, government liaisons, and faculty milled about by the refreshment table. Caterers moved among the crowd, distributing bottled water and flutes of champagne.

  Finally, she spotted Clint and moved toward him. They had spent the year parrying information, both of them giving just enough so that one always felt like the other had the upper hand. But lives could be at stake now. She filled him in on Dara’s death warning, enjoying the subtle satisfaction of being open and honest. No more games to play. Nothing else to hide. Unfortunately, there was no action for Clint to take, either. The grounds were as secure as he could make them. But at least they were on the same page for once.

  Short of remaining alert, Teddy had done all she could reasonably be expected to do, and she discovered she was starving. Dara’s death warning had killed her appetite that morning, and she’d skipped lunch looking for Clint. Now she was more than ready to join her friends at the buffet.

  “I know this sounds crazy, but I think I saw Brett Evans by the bar a few minutes ago. But when I looked back, he was gone. I mean, I thought it was him. But I’m not sure,” Jillian said, her eyes widened. “Unless—you don’t think I can see ghosts now, do you?”

  “I saw him, too,” Pyro said, popping a mini-quiche into his mouth. “So, definitely not dead.”

  “He’s here?” Dara said. “Weird. Why’d he come back?”

  Pyro shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe he regrets dropping out the way he did. Or maybe he has a friend who’s graduating.”

  “Should we tell Clint?” Dara asked.

  Teddy nodded. “I’ll go. I just talked to him,” she said. She wove through the crowd, heading toward the stage. She spotted Clint’
s broad form not too far away, his back to her, deep in conversation with a woman Teddy didn’t recognize.

  She’d darted around a group of graduates who’d clearly enjoyed a bit more than their share of the champagne when she felt a hand clamp down on her forearm. Teddy jerked back, but she’d been caught off-balance. Whoever had grabbed her pulled her behind a flap in the tent wall.

  “Surprised to see me, darlin’?”

  Brett Evans. But he looked different. The laid-back Texas cowboy she’d met her first night at Whitfield was leaner, harder. His hair was cut in a military style. His easygoing smile veered more toward a leer than a grin. And then the smile faded altogether. He tightened his grip on her arm.

  “Brett, you’re hurting me.”

  “Take me to Yates and no one will get hurt.”

  Yates? Brett wanted Yates?

  Teddy shook her head, her thoughts spinning wildly. “He’s not here. I haven’t seen him.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “Where . . . I don’t know. How would I know?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Teddy.” He gave her forearm another vicious squeeze.

  “Brett, what’s this about? What are you doing?”

  “We’re supposed to track him through you. Those were our orders.” Brett used his free hand to pull a gun from his back pocket. “I’ll use force if I have to, Teddy. I don’t want to, but I will. When it comes to Yates, the end justifies the means.”

  Jeremy had said the same thing all those months ago. Memories suddenly flooded her: discordant moments that hadn’t seemed important at the time slammed together with a new and disturbing force. Jeremy talking to Brett before Halloween. Jeremy giving Brett a recruiting pitch for his organization just before he’d secured the blood samples. Because Brett, like Teddy and Christine, was a child of Sector Three psychics.

  So Brett and Jeremy were stepping in, ready to take Yates’s place in his former organization. What had Clint called them? Vigilantes? Psychic soldiers?

  Teddy shook the thought away. The terminology didn’t matter. She had to get help. One of the Misfits would certainly realize she was missing. “Let me go, Brett. Someone will notice I’m gone. And when they see you, they’ll—”