Chapter Twenty
Ten people in a house the size of the one in Winter Park wasn’t such a bad deal. There were enough beds to go around—if you counted Adrian’s sofa—and plenty of room to scatter. But anytime people are confined to the indoors, cabin fever will set in sooner or later. When you’re rubbing elbows with more than half a dozen other folks, some of whom you don’t even know, and you’re just sitting around twiddling your thumbs and waiting for the other shoe to drop...well cabin fever sets in right away. We all struggled to find ways to fill the empty hours, with varying levels of success.
I emailed my teachers, and to my surprise they all responded with variations on the theme of “you can get caught up after you’re done dealing with your family emergency.” My favorite professor even asked if there was anything she could do to help. Hers was the one class I really enjoyed and missed. I was also in charge of the kitchen, more or less, and spent a lot of time on culinary experiments, a few of which were truly disastrous. The rest of my time was spent with books, on my computer, or curled up with London to sleep or watch TV.
Dylan made obligatory phone calls to her sister, her parents, and her employer. When she’d called in sick on Monday, her boss had been out. She’d explained to the office manager that she was stuck in Florida for the foreseeable future as part of an ongoing investigation. The manager had been shocked and awed, and she had promised to deal with Dylan’s boss.
True to form, Dylan spent a lot of time with her nose glued to one book or another. She also spent a lot of time locked in the master bedroom with Brian, a fact that seemed to set every other male in the house on edge. Apparently, if they couldn’t get laid, they felt Brian shouldn’t either. Men can be so weird sometimes.
Adrian spent a lot of time on the phone, too, with his wife and with Kent. Kenny and the rest of the DPS entourage—except Jimmy, who really had left the country—had made it home safe and sound. All of them, along with anyone else Ashe and Quinn considered high-risk, were under surveillance by agents that Quinn trusted, and there had been no sign of trouble.
Adrian and Brian also spent a lot of time playing and writing music, sometimes with London but more often without. London was busy working with Ashe and the other agents, learning more about his abilities and how to control them. The guys also watched a lot of sports and action movies, but, well, they’re guys. Dylan, Martine, and I learned to either block out the worst of what was on the TV or make ourselves scarce for the duration.
Quinn and his team hadn’t made any headway in their search for Julia, but the planning resulted in an epic battle between him and Ashe that shook up the quiet calm of the safe house for a few minutes. Quinn pointed out that, since he was retired, Ashe couldn’t be part of the official investigation into, search for, or apprehension of a rogue agent, and Ashe did not take the news well. The shouting match that followed was a little terrifying and came to an abrupt end when Ashe slammed out of the house. Carmichael followed him, and sometime later the two of them returned. Ashe had calmed down, but Quinn had wisely gotten the hell out of dodge just in case, saying he was going to meet with the field agents who were looking for Julia.
Other than that brief shouting match, all was serene. We were safe, our lives were as secure as they could get under the circumstances, we had a nice, comfy house to stay in—and we were all going stir crazy. The agents dealt better with the cabin fever and the close quarters, but even they were showing the strain after two whole days of doing nothing. Peterson, especially, seemed to be spoiling for a fight.
Sunday night bled into Monday and then into Tuesday. I made lunch, and the men—minus Carmichael who was on duty and Brian who was locked in his room with Dylan—took theirs to the living room where they argued about some sporting event or other in that good-natured way that men seem to live for. I decided to join Carmichael and Martine for lunch in the library because it beat hell out of listening to some game I couldn’t care less about.
After lunch, Martine surprised me by breaking out a giant cosmetic case that looked like a tackle box and setting to work on her nails. I’d never seen so many cosmetics in such a tiny space, at least not outside of a store. There were implements in there whose purpose I could only guess at. I found myself watching in bemusement as Martine, who always managed to look both elegant and austere, stripped off her fashionable, sensible shoes and socks and began to paint her toenails with a metallic ice blue polish.
“Holy crap,” Carmichael said. “You really are a girl.”
Martine glared at him, but he just smiled back, his eyes fixed on the monitors before him. She looked away from him to find me watching her and raised her brows.
“Nice color,” I said.
She smiled, then looked contemplative. She set aside the ice blue lacquer and turned to the kit, lifting each bottle of polish in turn and setting them on the desk. The array of colors was impressive. After a moment she chose a deep, true, glittering red and showed it to me.
“That one suits you best, I think,” she said.
After she’d painted my nails, I held my hands out to admire them. She was right; the color did suit me.
“There you are,” I heard London say from behind me, drawing me out of the contemplation of my brightly painted nails. “I wondered where you’d disappeared to.”
I turned halfway in my chair to look back at him as he neared the desk where Martine and I were playing beauty salon.
“Nice,” he said, taking my hand and turning it so the polish caught the light. He dragged up another chair and leaned in to kiss my temple.
“Game over?” I asked, hopeful.
“Not even close. But it’s kind of a crap game.” He launched into the reasons why the game wasn’t a good one, and I just gave him a bland smile. “Aaaaand you really don’t care, do you?”
“Nope,” I answered with a big smile. “Not even a little bit.”
He smiled back and laid his head on my shoulder. He couldn’t have been comfortable in a physical sense, but I knew that he drew emotional comfort from all sorts of physical affection. I nuzzled his hair a little and planted an awkward kiss on the top of his head.
Carmichael snorted and said, “Get a room.”
London sat up, the beginnings of a frown between his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. I put my arm around his shoulders, careful of my nails, and leaned my head against his shoulder. He sighed and returned my top-of-the-head kiss. He leaned forward in his chair, and I retreated to mine to see him reaching for the one of the polish bottles that hadn’t made it out of Martine’s kit.
“You mind?” he asked.
She waved a hand over the box in a “be my guest” gesture, and London and I looked through the rest of her arsenal of nail enamel. When we reached the end, London pulled one of the vials out and held it up to the light.
“It’s darker than it looks,” Martine said. “Almost, but not quite black. And the matte finish is an interesting effect.”
London looked at her for a moment, his back to me so that I couldn’t see his expression. Martine responded with another “be my guest” wave, and London uncapped the purple polish.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said.
London turned to look at me, and I could see him mentally gearing up to defend himself. I shook my head and took the bottle from him, again being careful of my nails. I dragged my chair around to face his, propped one foot up on his thigh, and guided his hand up to rest on my bent knee.
“You can’t paint your own nails when your girlfriend is around to do it for you. It’s like, a rule or something.”
I halfway expected London to argue with my use of the term “girlfriend,” but he just flashed a wide smile at me and watched me paint his nails. Martine was right; the matte finish was interesting. I thought the purple lacquer looked pretty good on London.
Beside us, Martine and Carmichael traded places. She took a turn at the monitors while he found something recreational to do. Recreation for him turned out to be clea
ning his gun. I paused in my artistic endeavor to watch him for a minute.
“What the heck is that?” I asked him. “It looks like something you’d see in sci-fi movie.”
“Yeah, it does,” London agreed.
Carmichael grinned a good-ol-boy grin that looked out of place with his club-kid image. “Optical illusion,” he said. “It’s a Glock 35, not much different from what a lot of cops and feds carry. The add-ons are what makes it look odd.”
I leaned in for a closer look and nodded. “I can see that, now. From a distance, all I could tell is it looked a lot more high-tech and a lot more menacing than my .38 Special.”
“You have a gun?” London asked.
“Of course she does,” Carmichael replied. “Southern girl and all that.” He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes.
“My Aunt Jean bought it for me as a housewarming present when I moved into my first apartment in Houston. Taught me to use it, too. She was kind of the father-figure for Alex and me, growing up.”
“Your daddy not around?” Carmichael asked.
“He died in the line of duty when Alex and I were really little.”
“The line of duty?” London asked.
“He a cop?” Carmichael wanted to know.
I shook my head. “He was a fireman. He died saving two little girls.”
“He died a hero then,” Carmichael said.
“That doesn’t mean much to an eight-year-old girl who misses her daddy or a six-year-old boy who doesn’t understand what ‘death’ is.” I shook my head. “Don’t get me wrong, I get it now, for sure. I’m damned proud of my dad. But it was hard as hell at the time.”
“Of course it was,” Martine said. “I was far older than eight when I lost my father, and still it was hard.”
“Yeah. I think it was even harder on me when Mom died,” I added, tears pricking at my eyes. “We’d gotten to that point where we were friends instead of just mom and kid, you know? And then she was just...gone.”
London reached for me, but I waved him away and swiped at my tears. “I’m okay,” I said. I turned my attention back to painting London’s nails and tried to clear my mind. I felt the tiniest trickle of comfort spill into me, and I looked up to meet London’s eyes. He offered me a tentative smile, and I rolled my eyes at him. “I said I was okay. But thanks.”
After I’d finished up my paint job and the enamel had set, London and I went back to the living room. I felt wrung out after my unexpected trip down memory lane, and I would have liked to curl up in bed. However, I knew from an unpleasant experience the day before that without music or some other sound for buffer, I could hear Dylan and Brian through the wall. Not how I wanted to spend my afternoon, especially in my current state of mind. I opted instead for snuggling with London on the sofa while he joined in on the male sports ritual.
The game ended just a few minutes later, and I thought my luck might be changing for the better. The guys tussled over the remote, argued over what to watch next, and settled on a comedy farce that I actually liked. Peterson went to spell Martine so she could rest for a while, and I wondered if the security shifts made waiting around more or less tedious. I snuggled closer to London and wished for something to break up the monotony a bit.
They say be careful what you wish for, and they’re right. I got my wish, but not in anything like the way I was daydreaming about.
One second London was wrapped up with me on the sofa, his fingertips tracing an idle path up and down my arm. The next, he jerked away and slid to the floor to curl up in the fetal position with his arms over his head, hands tearing at his own hair.
Ashe and Adrian both leapt up from the sofa and hurried to London’s side. Quinn jumped up as well, vaulting over the back of the sofa to take off down the hallway at a dead run. I tried to fight my way through the onslaught of London’s terror but all I could do was sit like a statue, watching Ashe and Adrian trying to help him.
Adrian talked to London in a soothing voice, letting him know he wasn’t alone, and held his hands to keep him from hurting himself. Ashe laid a hand on London, and I guessed that he was projecting calm or maybe throwing up a shield. Unlike the other times, it didn’t seem to be doing a damn bit of good. Instead, London jerked, trying to pull away.
What seemed like an eternity later, Martine rushed into the room with Quinn right behind her. She slid to the floor like a skateboarder landing after a failed stunt; it had to have hurt, but rug burn seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind. She elbowed her way between Ashe and Adrian, cradling London’s head between her hands, her palms against his temples. He stilled, but the terror continued to roll off of him.
Another eternity passed before London’s fear eased enough for me to shake off the second-hand effects. I moved to kneel beside Adrian, who still held London’s hands. I leaned against Adrian and covered his and London’s joined hands with my own smaller ones. From there, I could see London’s face. His eyes were wide and wild like those of a cornered animal. I tried to hold back tears, but that’s something I’ve never been too good at. I lost that battle almost before it started.
Glancing up, I noticed first the strain in Ashe’s face—just a faint hint of stress around his tired eyes. Then I looked at Martine and saw that she, like me, was crying. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow, and the muscles in her arms trembled.
We all jumped when she suddenly snarled, “Fuck you, you two-bit whore!” I don’t know whether the unexpected shout echoing in the silence or the string of swear words from the normally refined Martine shocked us more.
Ashe let go of London and laid a hand on Martine’s arm, and she stopped trembling. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, though, as if she didn’t have the strength to do otherwise. No more than another minute passed before Martine’s body sagged and her hands slipped away from London’s face. Quinn was there to keep her from pitching forward, easing her down to lie on the floor with her head in his lap. London shook off mine and Adrian’s hands and heaved himself up into a sitting position. He swiped at his sweaty brow with the back of one arm, the other pulling me close to his side.
“What just happened?” Adrian asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.
“This wasn’t like the other attacks,” Ashe said.
“But we were kind of expecting it,” Quinn added, stroking Martine’s hair in a way that made me wonder if they were more than friends, or if maybe he wanted them to be. “It’s why I called Martine in on this job, actually.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“After what Julia did to Brian, we had an idea she might try a sending on London,” Ashe said. “The other attacks were emotional projections, but this time she made him see things.”
“That’s not exactly true,” London said, the words coming out stilted, hesitant. “Before, there were images. They just...they weren’t...” He broke off, trying to find the right words. Or maybe any words. He was still shaken.
“Take your time, Stretch,” Ashe said.
The barest hint of a smile touched the corners of London’s mouth and was gone again. “The images were vague, before. Like a dream. A nightmare. This time was different.”
“More vivid?” Ashe guessed.
London raised and lowered his head in a slow-motion nod. “Yeah. Not like a dream. More like...” He trailed off, looking for words again.
“Like a movie?” Adrian asked.
“No. Not really,” London replied, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “More like it was happening while I watched.” He raised his head to glance around the room. “But Martine, she stopped it.”
“That’s why I brought her in,” Quinn said. He looked down at Martine and said, “I didn’t know it would wipe you out like this.”
Martine made a sound of derision deep in her throat and struggled to sit up. “I am not wiped out,” she protested, her Haitian accent stronger than usual. “But I admit I was not prepared for the depth of this Julia’s depravity.”
Lo
ndon took a deep breath and let it out. His voice sounded almost normal again when he said, “I need to know what you saw.”
It was Quinn who protested. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re already in shock.”
“I need to know,” London said, cutting him off. “All of this—it’s about me. Julia wanted to send me a message, and I need to know what that message said.”
“She wasn’t sending you a message,” Martine said, leaning forward to look up into London’s eyes. “She was trying to break you. Had you seen what I saw...I don’t want to know what would have happened. Hearing it second hand will be bad enough, but I agree that you should know.” She pointed at me and then to Adrian. “You two don’t need to hear it.” I started to protest, but she cut me off. “Just go,” she urged, her voice soft and earnest.
“Please, Em,” London murmured in my ear.
Ashe nodded. “You two should go. We’ll tell you what we can, but right now you need to clear out.”
As much as I hated being sent out of the room so the Super Friends could have a pow-wow, I knew that arguing would only delay the inevitable. I hugged London as best I could while sitting next to him, turned his face toward me to press a quick kiss to his lips, and then followed Adrian out of the living room.
By some unspoken agreement, we wandered down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Dylan stepped out into the hall as we passed her door.
“We heard yelling,” she said.
I turned to face Dylan, and past her I could see Brian tugging a t-shirt over his sweaty, tangled hair. No need to ask why it had taken them so long to investigate the shouting.
“It was Martine,” Adrian told her. “There was another attack.”
“On Martine?”
“On London,” I said. “Martine kind of intercepted it.”
“They said it was a vision,” Adrian added, “like the one—”
“Like the one Julia threw at me,” Brian said, cutting off the explanation. “Shit.”
He pushed past all of us, headed for the living room. Adrian followed close on his heels. I could hear him telling Brian that we’d been kicked out of the room, but Brian wasn’t listening.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Dylan demanded.
I sighed and gestured for her to follow me. I led her to my room and crawled up onto the bed to sit with my back against the headboard. Dylan perched sidesaddle on the edge of the bed, facing me. Once we were settled, I told her what I knew about the attack.
“That fucking crazy bitch,” Dylan snarled.
“She’s a dead crazy bitch,” I said, startled by the strength and conviction in my own voice. “She just doesn’t know it yet. I hope I get the chance to do it myself.”
We were both quiet for a little while, stewing.
“Do you really think you could do it?” Dylan asked.
“Kill Julia?”
“Yeah.”
I thought about it for a minute. “If it were kill-or-be-killed, or kill-or-watch-someone-I-love-get-killed, then hell yeah. But just to put her out of our misery...” I sighed. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Me, either. Even after everything,” Dylan admitted. “So, how screwed up is it that I really hope she puts me in one of those kill-or-be-killed situations so I can pop a cap in her ass?”
I smirked and shook my head. “Pretty screwed up, Dylan. But I feel the same damned way.”