"He has a daughter."
She nodded, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully, frowning while she did so. "Lily. He spoke of her sometimes, and when he did, I could feel a rush of emotion in him, but it wasn't like my parents when they touched me. It wasn't the same as anything I've ever identified with as a parent's love. He views her as an extension of himself. He's a megalomaniac, has an absolute belief that he's superior to everyone else and that no one will ever measure up to his capabilities except perhaps Lily--or her children."
Kadan nodded. "That's a fair assessment of Dr. Whitney."
"You're certain he's still alive? My parents--well, my father--always insisted we use him as a doctor, but I haven't seen him since he was supposedly murdered."
"What kinds of things did he do to you?"
"He told Mom and Dad he was helping me with the headaches, but they never went away or even got better. Mostly he gave me physicals, asked a lot of questions, was very interested in whether I had sex or not, and took a lot of blood and tissue samples. He also spent a lot of time on my eyes. He was very interested in the fact that I almost always have to wear dark glasses and that I see differently than other people."
Kadan was very interested in whether or not she had sex as well, but figured this wasn't the best time to ask her. "What's different about the way you see?"
Tansy shrugged, but didn't comment.
Kadan let it go. "Did he give you injections?"
She nodded. "They hurt like hell." She frowned. "You know, I didn't always get a lot off of him, the way I do most people. Not him, exactly, his things. At the time, when I touched objects, I could read a lot about a person, but it was more difficult with him. Of course, by that time, I tried to wear gloves everywhere I went."
"You haven't felt anything even when you touch an object I've touched, have you?" Kadan asked. "I'm an anchor, which means that I can draw psychic energy away from you. I can also shield both of us from any energy and keep others from feeling ours."
He deftly added the vegetables to the rice and took the plates she handed him to serve the meal on. "My talents come in handy on missions when we need to hide from the enemy."
"But not so handy tracking serial killers," Tansy observed.
He nodded. "I'm good at working puzzles out, and once I'm pointed in the right direction, I'll find him, but I need a little help."
Tansy's heart jumped. She could never allow him to lull her into a false sense of security. "I'm sorry that help can't be me, Kadan, but it can't be. I know you've got all the ugly little details of my hospitalization. They couldn't take away all those voices, the victims--or the killers. Do you have any idea what it's like to hear screams and feel someone's desperate last thoughts all the time, and I mean all the time? To know the mind of a killer intimately? The delicious perverted pleasure he gets out of carving someone up, or burying them alive?" The door in her mind creaked ominously and whispers grew. She took a deep breath, controlled herself, and slammed it shut. "You're already bringing those days back and I haven't even tried to help you."
"I can keep most of the psychic spill from targeting you."
She turned her head and removed her glasses, looking him straight in the eye. "No, you can't, not and have me track him. I'd need to feel him, get inside his mind, to do what you're asking. You and I both know you can't take it out of my head once it's there."
Kadan hated that she was right. And he hated it more that she drew on gloves. She had touched him and hadn't felt anything, he'd protected her, but she didn't trust him and for a good reason--truthfully, she couldn't. He had to bring her back with him. There were days when his job sucked, and this was one of them.
"Sit down and let's eat. You can tell me about that cat. She's out there watching us now. I can feel her staring at us."
Tansy took the plate he handed her, careful, even with the gloves she'd put on, to keep from touching him. "She's curious about you. She probably hasn't seen anyone else in months. And her den is close. She's due to give birth anytime." Excitement flashed in her voice. "I'm hoping to get some great shots. If I'm lucky, she might change her mind and use the cave I've set up in to film the event, although so far she's been ignoring it."
"Why don't you persuade her?"
"I can't do that."
"You stopped her from attacking. If she'd wanted to do it, she could have done some major damage to you, but she didn't," he pointed out. "You have to have some control over her."
Tansy sank down onto a log and indicated that he could have the one chair she'd brought. "Maybe, but it's not really like that. I have an affinity with animals, I've always had it. But I don't really talk to them, not telepathically."
"Are you certain?"
She chewed on her lower lip. He liked that lower lip and found himself staring as her small teeth tugged at it.
"I 'push' a little to get them to do what I want, but it's not a conscious thing." She took a bite of the stir-fry. The man could cook. "Not bad."
"Self-preservation."
His eyes crinkled around the edges, tiny lines showing that he squinted a lot. His long lashes were thick and dark, and helped to cover the expression in his dark blue eyes.
"I've never been afraid of animals," Tansy said. "I've always liked being around them. I can touch them and not find myself somewhere else."
"What does that mean?" Kadan's low voice slid into her mind like soft butter. "Finding yourself somewhere else? What does that mean?"
Her expression closed down immediately and she shrugged. "When I touch objects, the world narrows and I'm in a tunnel, like an alternate world. Everything bends and curves and the energy is there, preserved for me like a recording, only I'm in it, feeling everything that is happening, no matter what it is." She looked him in the eye again. "All of it. Everything. If you are cheating on your wife and feel guilty, I'm there with you. If you're worried about a sick child, or paying your house payment, I'm feeling that fear right along with you."
"If that person is in love . . ."
"Then I am too."
Kadan forced his gaze away from the unconscious plea in her unusually colored eyes. Knots gathered in his gut, hard and tight, giving him hell for doing his job. He believed in what he was doing or he wouldn't have come looking for her. The vicious murders had to be stopped. And if they weren't--if the faceless names above them continued to believe that the GhostWalkers were responsible for the murders, they would never risk the controversial program ever seeing the light of day. Kadan had no illusions about their lives. The GhostWalkers--he and his friends--were expendable. Worse, they were something the government would want to sweep under the carpet like dirty laundry. They'd be sent out on a suicide mission, or quietly eliminated.
He swore under his breath and kept his gaze fixed on the surrounding forest, studying the trees and brush as if each piece of foliage intrigued him. Truthfully, all he saw was that look in her eyes.
"Why the bullshit about not having your talent anymore?"
Tansy sighed. "It's complicated. I can't actually do that work anymore. I can't separate the emotions and voices, so I'm not lying when I say I don't have the talent. Once the word went out that I had a climbing accident, I was left alone for the most part. My father handles all the calls coming in, and I think now enough time has passed that most people have forgotten me." She waited until he looked at her. "I wish you would."
"Forget you?"
She nodded, willing him to just walk away and pretend he'd never seen her.
A prickle of awareness slid down his spine, and he reacted instantly, an automatic reflex, diving for her, driving her off of the log, backward, his hands pulling her smaller body into his to protect her as he took them over the small ledge to roll down the slope. He registered the crack of the bullet shattering the tree behind his head where he'd been sitting, followed by the boom of the rifle. She went with him, keeping her body tight against his so they rolled smoothly. The rocks and brush had to hurt as she went over t
hem, but she kept silent.
Coming to a halt, he signaled her to stay low and to scoot back into the heavier timber and brush behind them. She didn't ask questions, but stayed on her belly, easing her body backward, searching with her toes for a purchase in the dirt to help drag her into concealment. Kadan backed up with her, sliding into the brush as if he were born there, drawing a gun from his boot and slipping it into her hand in one smooth motion.
Do you know how to use this?
She blinked at him, but she shouldn't have been shocked. The moment he felt the danger, he had connected with her, so that she felt it too. His entry into her mind had been as smooth as him drawing the gun and putting it into her hand. She nodded her reassurance. They were both telepathic, and somehow that made her feel less alone--less apart from everyone. She'd never actually met another human being with psychic powers.
Stay to cover. I'm going hunting.
She didn't want Kadan to leave her. He seemed solid and safe, and exuded absolute confidence. I'm guessing that's not some random hunter poaching.
Not with that rifle. You stay to cover.
He was already moving away from her, and it took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from reaching out and holding on to him.
You'll be safe, Kadan reassured her with implacable confidence. He had no other choice but to succeed. That was a sniper, and he'd tracked Kadan to this place, which meant someone very high up didn't want Kadan to succeed in solving the murders. Not that he was all that surprised; someone had wanted the GhostWalkers program gone and everyone involved dead from the beginning--and that someone worked at the White House. The GhostWalkers had been unable to pin down just whom the threat was coming from, so there was no chance to eliminate him, but if Kadan got out of this alive, they'd be one step closer to solving the puzzle. Not too many people knew he'd been sent out.
He circled around Tansy's camp, keeping his distance, and keeping his head down. Movement attracted the eye, and he wanted no part of his body showing to a sniper, or even to give away his position. Whoever they'd sent after him would be good.
He allowed himself grim amusement. But they wouldn't be good enough, because in a world of kill or be killed, there were few men like him. He was wearing clothing that reflected the images around him, making him nearly invisible. He cloaked himself, changing his skin color like a chameleon to blend in with his surroundings. And then he began to move with the stealth of a wolf.
He went up, going to high ground, continuing to circle so he could come up behind his stalker. There'd been only one bullet, and the sniper would have moved immediately, but once Kadan found the trail, he would be able to follow it.
He was taking a chance leaving Tansy. Not that the sniper could get to her; Tansy was too clever to give herself away. But she'd be making up her mind to run, and she knew the mountain. She'd been living up in the Sierras for months. She'd have confidence in herself and she was too smart to go back to camp. He sighed. He'd have to track her down again after disposing of their enemy.
He stayed low to the ground, making his way through the forest until it eventually gave way to the great granite boulders and jutting cliffs. There wasn't as much foliage, but he blended in with the rock and moved at a steady pace, not too fast to draw the eye, but fast enough to get around behind the sniper. The man would be moving toward Tansy's camp, taking the shortest route, with as much cover as possible. He would want to get the job done as quickly as he could, and that meant he had to be on the move.
Kadan skirted several jagged boulders, looking for a way up so he would have a better view of the area surrounding Tansy's camp. A giant boulder rose over the top of several granite slabs, one sitting precariously on top of the other, some leaning and a few shooting through the middle like great towers. He reached up with his fingertips and found an indentation. That was all he needed for the climb. He went up slowly, like a spider, clinging to the rock face, careful not to disturb the loose dirt and rock on his way to the top.
He had microscopic setae on the pads of his fingers and at the end of each individual seta were one thousand tinier spatulae, or tips, which were so thin as to render them under the wavelength of visible light. Not even his fellow GhostWalkers knew why he could cling to any surface, including the ceiling, but a single seta could lift nearly fifty pounds of weight. He could support his entire body weight with just one hand. It had taken him a great deal of time to learn to use his ability to "walk" over any surface, even hanging upside down, but the weeks of training had been well worth it. He could stick and unstick himself at least ten times a second as he ran up walls.
He moved slowly now, but ordinarily he could climb the face of rock in minutes. Sticking was easy enough. Unsticking was a bit more of a problem, but he'd learned the technique over time, until he could move with incredible speed when necessary. Unfortunately, he often wore a thin pair of gloves to cover the fact that the pads of his fingers were different. The microscopic hairs were bristles, unseen but felt. He knew what Tansy felt like always having to cover her differences. He'd learned to live with the strange pads and embrace the things he could do with them, after the first wave of anger at discovering he was genetically altered as well as psychically. If the GhostWalkers' enemy in the White House knew that all the men and women in the program had been genetically as well as psychically enhanced, Kadan was certain the order would have already gone out to destroy them all. Or maybe he knew and thought of them as abominations and that's why he was so determined to rid the government of their services. Kadan had heard the term applied to them before.
Once above the forest, he lay flat and took a cautious look around the area below him. He studied each section. Tansy would have slipped deeper into the woods below. It would take a few minutes for the shock to wear off, and then she'd seize the opportunity to make a run for it. He sighed, knowing he was going to have to track her again for sure.
Kadan picked out the route that would be the sniper's best choice and spent a patient ten minutes watching the brush for movement. The wind picked up in strength as the night wore on, and the needles in the trees and the leaves on the bushes began to gently sway. Everything in him tightened. The sniper would move with the wind.
Motion just south of Tansy's camp caught his eye and he focused there, catching sight of a blur of darkness moving behind the trees before disappearing. He let out his breath. He had the man now, and he quickly plotted a course to intercept. Just as he began to move, he caught a glimpse of something sticking out from behind a fairly large tree trunk. He studied the shape carefully, wishing he hadn't shrugged out of his pack. He could have used his field glasses, because he suspected that strange shape was something commonly known as "tree cancer," a body part protruding from behind the trunk that indicated that a sniper had set up shop there and was waiting for his spotter to mark a distance.
His heart contracted painfully. What the hell were they setting up? Or whom?
Tansy, where are you? No bullshit. There's two of them. I need to know your position to know that you're safe.
Telepathy over long distance was always shaky, especially connecting with the same wavelength of someone he wasn't very familiar with. Oftentimes there could be a few seconds--or even minutes--of delay. He counted every heartbeat, wondering if she was being stubborn or hiding from him. Wondering if she knew that the more they communicated, the easier the intimacy of mind contact would become. She wouldn't want that. She wouldn't want him running around in her head. She already had too many strangers there.
Then she was there, flooding his mind with her. His body reacted to her close proximity, the sweetness of her, the feminine rush of heat and silk. The taste of cinnamon bursting in his mouth. There was fear, determination, even courage, although she didn't recognize herself as courageous. Mostly she was filled with concern--not for him, certainly not for herself--but for the cougar.
He groaned aloud. That damned cat. She'd flung herself in front of a gun for the animal. He sh
ould have known she'd be unwavering in her resolution to keep the animal safe.
I'm making my way up to the cougar's den.
Are you heading south from your camp? He knew the answer before her words formed in his mind. The spotter was edging toward the southernmost point of Tansy's camp. Maybe he saw her earlier tracks, or maybe something she'd done had tipped the man off to her presence in the brush, but the spotter was tracking her.
Yes, I'm in the rougher terrain, and circling around to make my way up into the granite to get closer to her den. I have a blind up there, and I can urge her to go to safety if they come close. They won't see the blind.
Her voice still had the little lag time that often accompanied a new connection, but already he felt more familiar with her, his mind adjusting so they rode the same wave with precision. Few were as skilled as he was, and he'd never met anyone untrained who was able to use telepathy as smoothly as he could, but although she sent out her thoughts in a slightly different way from him, she was definitely adept.
I don't want you to move. Stay right where you are, even if they come close. I'm going to draw their attention away from you . . .
No!
She sent an instant and adamant rejection of his idea, and he immediately caught the image of a cop pushing her away and going down, blood on his chest. He'd read the reports, so many of them, dating back to her teenage years, and that particular case had been vicious and bloody and took its toll on everyone. They'd lost the cop and she had been so broken up over it, and that had been in the early years of her tracking career.
He took a breath, let it out, breathing for both of them. Listen to me, Tansy. I have skills no one else has. I'm a GhostWalker. The things I can do, psychically as well as physically, give me a huge edge. And I've had more training than most men know what to do with. He was already on the move, soothing her as he used the granite cliff to shortcut his way to the sniper.