by TL Schaefer
A strange kind of relief cascaded through me. Brian Roney and I had served together in the sandboxes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Sara Covington had become a friend of sorts almost a year ago, and we'd reconnected again in Denver.
Her ability to see auras and potentially predict the future had made her a target when we’d first met, but she'd escaped unscathed, helped catch a murderer and, in the end, captured Brian Roney's heart.
Having both of them at my back was a comfort.
"I also called Arin," he said, referring to Arin Thomas, the FBI agent who'd become part of my crew in Denver.
It felt strange to refer to these people as my crew, but it was true. You didn’t do the things we’d done without bonding, even if it was reluctantly. Almost like my Air Force Security Forces family.
The things I’d experienced had bound me to them like so much glue. And once you’d seen the things we had, you couldn’t unsee them.
Watching someone predict the future—correctly. Witnessing someone rendered frozen by mere touch. Feeling things I still avoided thinking about because it felt like each memory was chipping away a piece of what made me Monica.
A year ago it was beyond my comprehension. Now?
The day I stepped through the gates of the Colorado Academy for Superior Intellect marked the beginning of my own personal spiral. Was it any wonder I wanted nothing to do with it? That I’d thrown up every barrier I could find to acknowledging it even existed?
And now here it was, smacking me in the face again.
"Do you think it's connected to CASI, or are we using Sara's abilities and Arin's connections?" Even if I didn’t want the answer, I had to ask the question.
"Oh, I think it's connected," he answered grimly. "I have no earthly idea how you and your family are playing into it, but what happened today is part of it. Arin and Jonah put CASI on lockdown. No one is getting in or out of the school right now, or for the foreseeable future."
Lawrence interrupted. "My son is dead. My granddaughter is missing. You two are talking in riddles. We can’t help Joe now,” his voice broke, “but we should be talking to the police or the FBI about Tori. We should be working on getting the ransom together for when the kidnappers call. Something other than this CASI you’re yapping about!”
Elizabeth dissolved into tears again, and her husband drew her up against his chest. I felt a pang. While Farrell and I knew what was happening, sort of, the Foudys were more in the dark than we were.
I left it to Farrell to explain, even as I turned the thought of ransom over in my head. It should have sounded right, but it didn’t. In my gut I knew CASI was at the bottom of this. But my daughter’s life was at stake, and I’d leave no stone unturned.
The Foudys were the logical contacts for a ransom and it would give them something to do.
"A year ago, my children were almost abducted. We think it's a power play of some kind which is why I’ll ask you to leave the FBI out of this. For now. I have no idea how Joe, Monica and Tori play into this, but you can bet your ass I'm going to find out." His words were laced with stark promise.
Lawrence stood up to his full height, which was actually kind of impressive. "Make sure you do, Farrell. If you brought me and mine to harm, we're going to have a reckoning."
Heath looked him in the eye. "I know, and even if I had no part in Joe's death, I'll do anything and everything I can to avenge him. He was my friend," he added quietly.
Lawrence deflated a bit at his words.
It was as if the Foudys had forgotten that. Joe and Heath had been friends since their freshman year in college, and stayed close throughout the years, despite their different career tracks. I'd envied them that, envied them their time in college, to be honest.
"Now we wait?" I knew the answer, and the thought of waiting almost killed me. I needed to be doing something, anything, to start the search for my daughter. And for my ex-husband’s murderer.
I’d worked my way into accepting that this was about CASI, mostly because I couldn’t fathom another logical reason for everything that’d happened today. To take these bastards on, and then end this, we’d need Brian and Sara, Arin and Jonah.
Heath nodded, "Now we wait." His face was almost expressionless. Almost. Beneath it I could see and feel a simmering anger. When Heath blew, it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“Not here,” Lawrence said, and his voice had gone glacial. “You just said this was about you, Farrell, about your family. I’m not risking my wife as well. I want you out of this house.”
I started to object, but Heath beat me to the punch. “You’re right, Lawrence. And even if you choose not to believe it, I’m truly sorry about Joe.”
I stood between them, waffling. I wanted to stay and offer some kind of comfort to Lawrence and Elizabeth but needed to be with Farrell. We needed to strategize, to figure out a way ahead, then when Brian and Sara showed up we could move.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Can you call me, if you hear from them, from Tori’s kidnappers?”
Lawrence gave short nod before Elizabeth made a sound of distress as I turned away, followed Farrell, but I steeled my spine, squared my shoulders against the urge to comfort them. This wasn’t a time for hugs and kisses and platitudes. Those were the things that happened in the world of the Foudys.
Now was the time for Farrell and me to embrace the world we understood. It wasn’t pretty... it held terrors and wonders that could make your heart stop. But it was ours.
Chapter Four
WHAT CAME BEFORE...
We’d driven to Dallas today, all the way to the big city. Mama, Papa and I sat in a very nice room with toys in the corner and the television on cartoons. I had no idea what we were doing here.
A man entered the side door, and Papa seemed to know him, so I smiled as he approached me.
"Hello Monica," he held out his hand. It looked huge. "I'm Dr. Gavin. Do you mind if I watch cartoons with you?"
Mama and Papa were sitting on the couch, pretending to read magazines, but I could tell they were watching us instead.
I shook his hand, bracing myself for what he felt, but there was nothing there, just a calm, soothing feeling kind of like the sound of the ocean I'd seen on TV. I smiled. I was never around people who didn't overwhelm me. It was nice. "Sure," I said, "but they're silly, for kids." I studied his response out of the corner of my eye.
"Well, maybe they're silly, but even grownups like to laugh every once in a while." He settled in next to me, not saying a word, and we watched Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner for a while. When the shows ended, he turned to me again. "Your Mama says you want to be a veterinarian."
I glanced back at Mama, and she nodded, a little smile on her face that didn't look happy, but was still a smile, so I answered.
"Yeah, I like being around animals," I looked down at my hands. "They don't think mean thoughts, they just want to eat and play and poop." I looked up quickly and saw a real smile on my new friend's face.
"I'm pretty sure you're right, Monica. But I'll have to take your word for it. I can't hear the animals like you can."
I stiffened and looked back at Mama. Both she and Papa were pretending not to watch again, which made me feel weird. They'd always said I wasn't to talk about the things I felt from animals and people. Why had they brought me here? Then Papa spoke.
"It's all right, Moni-bear. Gavin is a friend, he may be able to help you with how you feel at school and around other people." Papa looked like he wanted to cry, so I got up and crawled into his lap.
"It's okay Papa, I'll talk to your friend," I huddled against his chest for a moment, hearing his steady heartbeat. It made me feel stronger, like I could do anything. Then I crawled down and sat next to Mr. Gavin again. If he could help me, and make Mama and Papa feel better again, then I'd do whatever he said.
Now... Dallas
I drove through the early spring shower, wishing it could wash away my percolating panic. I thought I’d felt it sweep through me inside the
Foudy’s kitchen, but now, by myself, with only the swish of the windshield wipers to keep me company, I felt it begin to close in on me, narrowing my vision, constricting my breath.
I pulled into my driveway, laid my head on the steering wheel and took a deep shuddering breath. Then another. It wasn’t helping.
The car door opened and Heath’s warm hand settled against the back of my neck, soothing, comforting, strong. “It’s okay, Monica. We’ll find her. I promise.”
I turned my head, faced him. His expression was earnest, his eyes serious.
I may not know much about the enigma that was Heath Farrell, but I’d never heard of him breaking his word. Ever.
“I promise,” he repeated, and his words eased something in me, something that had been close to breaking.
“Grab your go bag,” he urged.
As we left the Foudy’s we’d discussed the best place to spend the night and decided on his house because of all the equipment and intel there. And I didn’t think I could stay in my place alone, knowing that Joe was gone and Tori was in harm’s way. I didn’t think I’d make it through the night, to be brutally honest.
I nodded, unclipped my seat belt and went into the house, grabbing an overnight bag already loaded with the things I’d need. As a PI, I never knew when I’d have to stay overnight on a case, so it was always packed. All I really needed to add was a few more clothes.
I also grabbed Tori’s spare backpack, the purple one with all of her buttons and patches and the likewise decorated ombre Hydro Flask and began to carefully fill it. Touched each item of her clothing, brought her t-shirts up to my nose. And even though I’d just done laundry, I’d swear they smelled just like her. Packed her favorite shampoo and conditioner, her toothbrush and toothpaste, her brush. And with every item, I struggled not to completely lose it.
Tori’s phone had been found in her locker after Heath pinged the locator, so we didn’t even have that as a lead.
I didn’t see this, whatever it was, ending in twenty-four hours. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be alive at the end of it, to be honest, and didn’t much care as long as Tori made it out breathing and whole. It was too much to hope she wouldn’t be traumatized. But I couldn’t go down that mental road. I’d freeze and be no good to anyone. Tori most of all.
I locked it all away, just like I had earlier in the Foudy’s kitchen, in a vault impossible to penetrate.
Locked all the frustration and a mother’s terror away and channeled anger and purpose to the forefront.
Whoever dared touch my daughter was going to fucking die.
I LEFT MY ESCALADE in the garage.
If they, whoever they were, were really looking to follow me, then I wasn’t going to help them one little bit. Plus, I didn’t really foresee Farrell and I being anything but joined at the hip for the long haul.
We were silent on the drive to his home.
I think both of us were trying to figure out the right way to avoid talking about Tori, while at the same time addressing Joe’s death and what he’d meant to both of us. In the car, that barrier was just too high, too thick, to crawl over or barrel through.
We sat in silence, the sound of the tires on wet pavement a droning background noise.
The rain had finally tapered off as we pulled into his gated home, then into the garage.
I grabbed my bag, automatically checking my surroundings as we walked into the house. Or better said, mansion. I’d known Farrell was loaded, but not to this extent. Not that it made much of a difference. If anything, it meant he had the cash and contacts to help us end this, once and for all.
Heath led me to a space that had been basically converted into a war room.
Everything we’d seen, everything we’d done over the last year was written out on whiteboards, a story told in words and pictures and butcher paper filled with notes and post-its taped to damask-covered walls.
“You want a drink?” he asked, heading for a rich maple sideboard. Funny, in all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen Farrell take a belt.
“I’m fine, never touch the stuff,” I replied. “Need to be on my toes in case they call in a ransom.”
Even as I said the words, I knew them to be false. But I had to get them out into the world, had to utter something that made Tori’s abduction about the Foudy’s money. About anything but CASI. Because I’d seen one too many people die when it came to the shadowy school and the special kids who attended.
Heath sent me a long look as he poured two fingers of bourbon into a crystal tumbler but didn’t contradict me.
I grabbed a chair from the long table and let my gaze flit over the evidence he’d assembled. I should settle down, should apply the time while we waited to figure out if Tori’s abduction was even related to all this CASI bullshit. Even though my gut told me it was. But no matter how hard I tried to focus, I couldn’t settle on any one thing to suss out.
Heath settled into the chair next to mine, his concentration centered on me.
"Never mind all of this for a second. How have you been, Monica?"
I couldn't tell if there as genuine concern in his tone, or if he was just trying to fill space. Since he'd never cared whether people were uncomfortable around him before, I opted for the first.
Which made me twitchy for reasons that had nothing to do with what had happened today.
As Joe's wife, Heath and I had known each other for over a decade. Being in each other’s orbit for that long should have made us comfortable around the other, but instead we'd always been on edge, as if something in the air between us just wasn't right.
My discomfort came wholly from the pure sensations he’d always evoked in me. The betrayal those emotions roused. Especially today, when I shouldn’t be feeling anything but grief and panic.
When I didn't answer, he filled the silence between us. "It's worse, isn't it, since Denver?" He was referring to the emotional bombardment I’d experienced the last time we’d been together.
I waited a beat, then blew out a breath and acknowledged what I’d been denying since I’d filed for divorce. "Yeah. It’s bad. Joe and Tori moved to Lawrence and Elizabeth’s right before Denver, and the divorce was final a month after that." There, that was all I was admitting to Heath Farrell.
"I'm sorry, Monica," he said, and pushed a hand through his hair. "Somehow, some way, this is about me, about my family. If I could change it, I'd go back to the day Arin called you and tell her not to bring you in."
"While I appreciate the sentiment, this started long before she contacted me. What the Russian did to me in Denver just made it worse."
And now, because talking with the man I’d always referred to internally as the Iceman was easier than thinking of what could be happening to Tori right this minute, I kept yapping. There was something freeing about letting the words out, about acknowledging what had really been happening to me.
"When we were investigating Burke, it was as if I had a new sense, where I got a general vibe of what people were feeling. What happened in Denver made it exponentially worse, until the bullpen was too much to take, let alone the baddies rolling through. My shrink thinks it’s stress from my time in the desert, PTSD is her diagnosis, but she’s wrong. I’ve had night terrors since I was a kid. Just not this frequently."
"Jesus," Heath breathed, a hint of awe in his voice, and something else I couldn’t quite pin down, "you're Talented. An empath, if I were to guess. Like the kids at CASI. Like Sara and Jonah."
I wish his statement sounded untrue or that I hadn't already considered it. But as he spoke the words aloud, we both knew the truth.
It wasn't PTSD tearing me apart, it was untrained, unrestrained pure Talent ricocheting through me.
“You’re right,” I said, and the words seemed to settle onto me, like I’d shrugged into a comfortable jacket. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, and there was no way in hell I was mentioning it to Heath Farrell. Not with everything else going on.
“What do you w
ant to do, Monica?” His question was punctuated by the ringing of the grandfather clock down the hall.
Nine o’clock. My daughter had been missing for over eight hours. My ex-husband dead for just as long.
I looked at the walls again, and all the words and pictures blurred together into a meaningless jumble. I was a wreck, and no good to anyone tonight. The sleepless nights had finally taken their toll, and at the worst possible time. Or so it seemed.
“I need to sleep.” Right now I was useless to my child. I’d spent enough time downrange to know when my effectiveness was used up, and I was running on empty, no matter how much it seemed like a betrayal to my child. My ex.
But physiology was physiology and I was done. The weight of everything that had happened today, over the last year, closed in until I could barely stand, and when I did, it was hard not to stagger.
But I shored myself up. Because I wasn’t going to cave in front of Heath Farrell.
Not now, not ever.
Heath rose and led me upstairs to a well-appointed guest room.
“If you need anything, I’m right down the hall,” he said, gesturing vaguely down the hallway.
The guest room was more like a suite in a high-end hotel, but beyond acknowledging the finery, I was toast. I pulled on shorts and a tank top then slid beneath the zillion thread count sheets, wishing, hoping, praying that when I woke, my daughter would be back with me.
I WOKE WITH A SCREAM echoing in my ears. The sheets were tangled around my legs, as if binding me to the bed. Sweat drenched me, and my heart was racing as if I’d run a marathon. Tears streaked my cheeks, leaking back to wet the hair at my temples. My hands were held in front of me, as if warding off an attacker.
I took a breath that sounded more like a sob as the hallway door opened.
Hallway light framed the man in the doorway, silhouetting a powerful frame, but not showing his face. I clawed at an unfamiliar nightstand, searching for my gun, for a weapon of any kind.
