Special Gifts

by Anne Stuart

  “I couldn’t find out a damn thing,” he said, slamming his plate down on the counter. “They’ve closed ranks, come up with their neat, nice story, and there’s not even a hint of dissension in the whole lot of them.”

  “Except for you.” She hoisted her body up onto the counter and continued eating.

  “Are you crazy? I know how to play the game, follow the company line. I acted like I believed the whole rotten cover-up as much as the next guy. That’s the only way I’m going to find out what really happened. On top of everything, some asshole from the Bureau is breathing down our necks, my neck in particular.”

  “The Bureau?”

  “FBI. They don’t get along too well with Army Intelligence at the best of times, and this isn’t the best of times. The particular agent they’ve sent over has always been a particular nemesis of mine, and he’s using this chance to climb all over me.”

  “Why?”

  “They know I was in Colorado. They knew enough to cover up Phil’s death, just like they’re pulling a fast one on the Derringer case. They want to know what I know.”

  “Why don’t they just ask?”

  “Because they know I won’t just answer,” he replied, setting down his plate and taking another long pull on his Scotch. “Not until I get an idea of what’s going on. Not until I have some assurance that we’re not expendable, you and I, for the greater good.”

  “Sam, the U.S. government doesn’t sanction killing innocent citizens just for the sake of some bizarre scheme.” He didn’t say a word, didn’t argue with her, and somehow his silence was even more chilling than any words could have been. “I don’t care, I don’t believe you,” she said stubbornly. “If we’re in danger it has to be from some foreign agent infiltrating our government.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded, pouring out the rest of his drink and rinsing the glass. “Frankly, I think that scenario is even more farfetched, but the only way we can survive is to consider every possibility.”

  “Maybe your FBI nemesis is a foreign agent,” she suggested, trying to lighten the situation.

  He managed a brief smile. “I should be so lucky. Life doesn’t tend to be that convenient. The bad guys too often turn out to be your best friends. And the so-called good guys are the creeps.” He moved across the kitchen, and before she realized what he intended he’d taken her half-empty plate of lo mein from her hands and set it out of reach. She considered fighting him off with the chopsticks, but set them down docilely enough, waiting expectantly.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, standing in front of her. “Touch me.”

  She scuttled back on the counter nervously. “What?”

  “Put your hands on me, Elizabeth,” he said. “And close your eyes. Think about Shari Derringer.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know if that really is her body that everyone’s identified beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

  “What makes you think I can just summon up an answer?” she hedged.

  He took her hands and placed them on his strong, tight shoulders. “You know the answer to that as well as I do. Your visions increase when you touch me. Let’s see if we can make them work for you, instead of against you. Think about Shari Derringer.”

  She wanted to pull away, but she did no such thing. She could feel his hips against her knees, and she obligingly spread her legs around him to allow him closer. She’d tried to summon up answers before and never had any success. But she’d never had someone to help her, someone beside her, someone to take the frightening energy that flowed between them and put it to use.

  She closed her eyes, letting her hands rest on his shoulders, emptying her mind of everything but Shari Derringer. She’d seen pictures of her, in gossip magazines when she’d been to the dentist, occasionally on the news when she’d been waiting for a weather report. She tried to summon up that blond, perfect face, but all that came was Mary Nelson.

  And then the cold came, sliding into her bones like tiny icicles, turning her blood to slush. She began to tremble as the smell of fear and death surrounded her. She tightened her hands instinctively, holding on to Sam as if he were the only solid, safe thing in a world that was adrift with madness, and she let the layer of ice come, coating her body, glazing her eyes, encasing her in a cold sheet of frozen rime. She was shaking so hard she couldn’t understand why the ice didn’t shatter and break, but it was too thick, too encasing. She couldn’t look at Sam, couldn’t open her eyes, but she found herself wondering if the ice had spread to him, covering and immobilizing him. Whether they’d be found, blue and frozen, years from now, locked together in an icy embrace.

  “Shari Derringer.” His voice came from a long distance, and she wanted to shake her head, shake away that nagging, insistent name. It would be wasting her time; she knew it. She was at the mercy of forces stronger than her cowardice—forces from within, her tormenting inner voices; forces from without, from the insistent man with his hands covering hers, holding them in place on his wiry shoulders. Having no other choice, she concentrated on seeing Shari Derringer’s dead face, and for a moment it came clearly into focus, those beautiful, flat-blue eyes laughing, that perfect pink mouth curved in a smile, that long, glorious blond hair rippling down her naked back as she grinned her smug pleasure at her unseen voyeur.

  And then her face began to alter, to pale, to melt. The blue eyes grew grayer in color, filling with fear. The nose changed slightly; the mouth opened in a silent scream of death. It was Mary Nelson, an innocent housewife from Golden, Colorado. Mary Nelson who lay dead, identified by a lying father and a lying group of authorities, by dental records belonging to another woman. Mary Nelson who wore Shari Derringer’s filthy white suit and one red shoe.

  She felt his hands release hers, dropping down to her arms to support her. She felt limp, weak, and she collapsed against him, too drained to hesitate. His arms came around her, and she was scooped up with surprising gentleness and carried through the darkened apartment.

  She didn’t want him to leave her, but she was too shaken to cling, as she wanted to, when he set her down on the middle of the huge bed. She lay very still, her arms at her sides, her eyes open, trying to focus on the white-painted ceiling, the shadows from the bathroom flitting back and forth. She tried to think of music and solitary dancing, but all she could see was Mary Nelson.

  She felt the bed sag, but she didn’t turn to look. A cool, damp cloth covered her eyes, but they couldn’t shut out Mary Nelson’s terror. She lay without moving, absorbing the cool dampness on her face, the weight of a body on the bed beside her. She lay waiting.

  She lost track of time. It could have been minutes later, or it could have been hours, when she sat up, letting the washcloth drop onto the unmade bed. Sam was sitting cross-legged among the tangled sheets, his dark blue eyes shadowed and intent and very patient. She wouldn’t have thought patience would be one of his qualities, but she found he could be limitlessly still.

  But even his patience had an end. “What?” he said, reaching for her hand.

  “No,” she said, scuttling out of his reach. “Don’t touch me. Not for a moment. Please.” Her skin felt hot and prickly; the thought of another human touching her, the thought of Sam touching her, was unbearable.

  He moved back, away from her, out of reach. Beyond temptation, she thought vaguely, wondering why he’d be tempted to touch her. She knew what she looked like. Visions that strong were few and far between, and when they finally left her she looked and felt like a drowned rat, a helpless piece of flotsam washed up on a polluted beach. She wanted to turn over, to burrow back into the covers and hide from the vision, from Sam, from her own damnable gifts.

  Slowly her breathing returned to normal. Slowly the prickling, icy terror left her skin; the leaden, heavy weight began to lift. She raised her eyes to look at Sam, and she was startled to see his concern, his own dark anger directed far from her.

  “It’s Mary Nelson, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice rough and low. “Not
Shari Derringer lying on a slab in the top-security morgue in Langley.”

  She nodded, the effort paining her. “Did you see it, too?”

  “Not really. Not clearly. Just glimpses. More than I usually see, however. Whatever happens between us increases my own . . . abilities. The question is, where’s Shari Derringer? What happened to her?”

  “She’s somewhere safe, laughing,” Elizabeth said, lying back again, the lukewarm washcloth clutched tightly in her hand. “Waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.”

  Sam slid across the bed, turning on the bedside light and flooding the room with a harsh glare that hurt her eyes. “You don’t have any choice in the matter,” he said. “Nor do I. Whether we like it or not we’re involved, and our only weapon is knowledge. We can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, Elizabeth. And the only scorecard we have is you.”

  “Isn’t there anyone we can trust?”

  “A few people. People I’ve worked with for years, people like Phil. I’ll have to be careful in my questions, though. I don’t know why they’re lying, or what they hope to gain, but two people aren’t going to be much good going up against the concerted efforts of the FBI, Army Intelligence and the State Department. We’re going to have to be very, very careful.”

  “Why would he lie?” she murmured, half to herself.

  “Who?”

  “Her father. MacDonald Derringer. Why would he lie about his own daughter’s death? And what about her mother? What has he told her?”

  “They’re divorced. A rather messy case, as I remember. He’s probably enjoying making her miserable.”

  “But what about when she shows up? What are they going to say then?”

  “Beats me,” Sam said, lying back against the pillows. “I imagine that little Miss Derringer is involved in something so nasty that Daddy Dearest will do anything to keep it under cover.”

  “Why would you think that? I know with your rampant cynicism you’d be bound to believe the worst, but who’s to say that she isn’t a hostage? Terrified for her life, kept in a closet like Patty Hearst . . . ?”

  “It’s not my rampant cynicism. It’s just a sense I have, that other people have had for the past few years, that Shari Derringer has made some interesting friends and acquired some bad habits. Besides, you saw her laughing.”

  Elizabeth shivered for a moment, the memory of Shari Derringer’s girlish glee unnerving. “I may have been seeing her from another time,” she said, trying to be fair. “She may not even know about Mary Nelson. She may just have disappeared with a not-too-savory lover, and everyone’s jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Not for a moment,” she admitted. “I just hope I’m wrong.”

  “Hope away. In the meantime, we need to lie low. I’m not going in tomorrow. I’m going to check in with a few old friends who know who to lie to. Besides, I want to keep away from the chief spook.”

  “Spook?” Elizabeth echoed, yawning.

  “Slang for agent,” he clarified. “My nemesis. A harmless idiot named Kempton. If I can just keep out of his way, I’ll be a lot happier.”

  “At least he’s harmless,” Elizabeth murmured, wondering if she dared close her eyes. “It’s the nonharmless variety we have to worry about.”

  “I’m counting on you to warn me.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Don’t count on me for anything. I’ve told you, I can’t program what I see. I had no idea anything was going to happen to Phil until I . . .”

  “Until you what?”

  “Until I put on your gloves,” she admitted reluctantly. She couldn’t read the expression on his face. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  “You see,” he said, his voice neutral. “Something happens between us.”

  “I don’t want it to.”

  “Tough. We’re not in a position to worry about niceties,” he growled. “Close your eyes and go to sleep. You look like death warmed over.”

  “What a horrible thing to say!” She shivered at the thought.

  “I’m a horrible guy sometimes, haven’t I warned you? I’ve got a few phone calls to make.” He slid off the bed, not touching her.

  “I can’t sleep here,” she said, not sure she even had the energy to stand. She not only looked like hell, she felt like it, too,

  “Sure you can. My couch is a hell of a lot more comfortable than yours.”

  “It couldn’t be,” she said flatly.

  “Bad night?” His voice held no sympathy. “You could have spent it in here.”

  She ignored the suggestion. “Wake me up when you’re ready to go to bed and I’ll move to the couch,” she said, closing her eyes against the bright glare of what was actually a low-wattage light bulb. She could barely manage to say another word.

  “Sure thing,” he said, but she knew he wouldn’t.

  “You don’t call me swami anymore,” she said sleepily, snuggling her face into the pillow.

  “Sorry. You’re having a mellowing effect on me. Good night, Elizabeth.”

  There was no answer. She was already sound asleep.

  Chapter 12

  WHEN ELIZABETH woke up she had no idea what time it was. Despite Sam’s arrogant assertion, she really did need her glasses, at least occasionally, and the dull red glow from the digital clock beside her refused to coalesce into numbers. She could always move closer and peer at it, but she wasn’t ready to do that. She wasn’t ready to move at all.

  It was probably sometime after midnight but well before dawn. She had the washed-out, weary feeling she always had after one of her sessions, yet this time she felt oddly different. Probably because her visions had been different, she thought, staring up at the ceiling, moving nothing but her eyelids. Usually these things moved slowly, building in intensity. That brief, horrible glimpse into another world had been the psychic equivalent of a quickie. Fast and hard and emotionally devastating, all in an abnormally short period of time.

  She shouldn’t have woken up at all. She should have slept for hours, days even, recouping her strength. And yet her strength already seemed to be flowing back, her strength and her interest in life. A few hours ago she’d looked and felt like a corpse. Now life and blood were stirring in her, coursing through her, and she found herself wondering if Sam had left any Chinese food behind. If he’d drunk all the dark beer. If the red dress was still draped across the chair at the foot of the bed, and if it would fit her as well as the lace underwear Sam had bought her.

  It took her sleep-muddled brain a moment to realize she was still wearing that underwear. The pale peach bikini panties and lace-trimmed bra that subtly enhanced her meager curves. She was wearing the fancy underwear and nothing else.

  And she wasn’t alone. That deep, steady humming noise in the back of her brain wasn’t a furnace, wasn’t the cosmos humming along. It was the steady, quiet breathing of the man who was asleep beside her. The man who’d managed to strip off most of her clothes without waking her up and then covered her with her grandmother’s quilt.

  She turned her head slowly to look at him. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even. At least he wasn’t naked. He was wearing a white T-shirt and navy-blue jockey boxer briefs, and she’d managed to hog all the covers, leaving him exposed in the warm apartment air. She lay there staring at him, curiosity and a certain lassitude keeping her from moving.

  She’d known his legs were long, but she hadn’t realized how long. They were covered with a light dusting of dark hair, and his bare feet were long and narrow. She let her eyes skim past the briefs, determined to be matter-of-fact in her perusal. She’d never had the chance to simply observe a man’s body before, and in her current state she found it fascinating. The baggy white T-shirt had ridden up, exposing his flat stomach, and she realized he had hair there, too, riding down his abdomen and disappearing in the low-slung briefs. He didn’t have much hair on his chest—she
already knew that—and while she told herself she hadn’t really noticed, she decided she was glad about it. She liked the smooth, muscled skin of his chest. But she also liked the hair on his stomach and legs. She even liked his feet.

  Never in her life had she slept with a man, not even platonically. Alan had understood her fears, her misgivings, and he’d been gentle, deferential, counting on her to let him know what she could or couldn’t take.

  There wasn’t a deferential bone in her current companion’s beautiful body. He wasn’t going to be gentle, wasn’t going to wait until she was ready and able to withstand the psychic assaults physical intimacy forced on her. When he decided it was time he was going to move. And she, poor, lovesick fool that she was, would go willingly.

  God, she was spacey, she thought. To have even entertained the notion that she was lovesick was a clear sign that she was bordering on lunacy. That session in the kitchen must have affected her more strongly than she’d thought. Love had no place in their relationship. Love had no place in her life at all. And it didn’t look as if it belonged in his, either.

  She wondered if the hair on his stomach would be soft or scratchy. A stupid question, but she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She wondered whether, if she touched him, the visions would come flooding back. Would Mary Nelson’s face float before her, reproachful and lost? Or, even worse, would Shari Derringer laugh at her?

  She rolled onto her side, but he didn’t stir. His eyelids didn’t quiver; his breathing didn’t alter. She should climb out of bed, go find that hard couch. Instead she let her hand slither across the mattress toward him, and before she could chicken out, she touched his flat stomach, gently.

  The hair was downy soft. The skin beneath it was hard and warm. No bloody visions swept through her head; no erotic visions teased her. It was just skin, and muscle, and hair, and . . .

  And a hand clasped tight around her wrist with the speed of a striking snake. She looked up guiltily into his dark eyes. “You’re awake, then,” she said, feeling like a fool. Her sensitive fingers were still pressed against his stomach, and the grip around her wrist was neither punishing nor painful. It was, however, inescapable.