Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (23 page)

Genie picked them up to read, but the words wavered across the page. She focused, and what she saw chilled her through and through. They were lab reports for The Amelia Project.
Subject: Amelia Marsters
. It was a daily log of the drugs she’d been given and the effect they were having on her
—
the psychic advancements.

Her mother had been a psychic lab rat in the CTA research labs!

Genie’s hands began to tremble. Was Becca right? Had her father simply been hiding them from CTA all these years? Until they were grown? Until he made sure there was no one left there to remember? Was that what had happened to Tom Garrison?

“Go ahead. Search the papers for the names of doctors, technicians, agents, anyone you would recognize. There is no one left. What do you suppose that means? Who was the only one who knew everyone involved? Who would make sure that no one was left to tell our dirty little secret—that the Marsters girls aren’t quite normal. We’re freaks, Genie, created by the CTA. Created by Daddy.”

Chapter Twelve

Tension constricted Genie’s chest and she was having a hard time drawing in a full breath. Dizziness swept through her as the pages shook in her hands. “Where did you get these?” She let them go and they scattered around the small room.

Becca bent to pick them up. “Sean gave them to me.”

“Emerich?” Instantly Genie felt better. For a minute she’d actually believed the lies. She snorted. “Like Sean Emerich can be trusted.”

“He doesn’t treat me like I’m a freak. He’s shown me how I can use my unique abilities for the greater good.”

“Yeah.
His
greater good.”

Okay, maybe she
didn’t
feel better. Genie collapsed into one of the chairs as nausea rolled through her. She’d never been seasick before, but it was hitting her like a ton of bricks. She forced her mind back to the conversation.

“You don’t understand.”

“So enlighten me.”

“I don’t just feel things, now. I can
see
things, Genie. I can project my sight out of my own body. It’s how I knew where you were, where Cat was. I just had to connect with your mind and I could see through your eyes, see what you see. Like a mini-cam on your shoulder.”

Genie was certain she must be missing something. It was just as her dad had told her. But…it was still nuts. Impossible.

“I know you felt me when I connected with you,” Becca continued. “If you’d just opened yourself up to me, you’d have known the truth a long time ago. But you kept shielding yourself, trying to block me.

Her head spun. “That’s called grief, Becca. I was stupidly grieving for your death.”

Becca smiled like the Cheshire cat at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. “Well, that is sweet, but really, there was no need. As you can see I’m alive and very well. I found you in that sweet little house of yours in the middle of a vast desert wasteland.
Me
. Not Sean.”

Genie put her hand to her forehead, definitely feeling like Alice. “But…how?”

“Sean’s scientists helped me. They’ll help you reach your full potential, too. And by using both our powers together, we’ll be unstoppable. No one will ever be able to control our lives again. And I mean no one.”

Genie blinked at her sister and, for the first time since she was twelve years old, she understood. Somehow Genie had always believed it had been the three sisters together against the world. That they were unique and special. That they had to look out for one another beyond all else. That after their mother’s death and the resulting separation, their bond was so deep, no one or nothing could destroy it.

But she’d been so very wrong. Delusional.

There
was
no bond. No family first. No connections. They were just three different people living three very different lives. They might share the same blood, but that was all they shared. Genie had no idea who this woman standing before her really was. She didn’t know what she believed in, or how she felt about herself—other than that she thought they were all freaks. They didn’t even share that many memories. And the ones they did share were gone now, scattered and stolen by time. The only things linking them were their secrets and lies.

“Sean says he is going to help us get back what was lost, Genie. We will no longer have to hide who and what we are. We can be free. Don’t you want that?”

“What I’ve lost no one can get back for me,” she said desolately. “And how will we be free if everyone thinks we’re dead? That is why you did it, isn’t it? Why you lured me to that warehouse? Why you planned the explosion?” Suddenly it all seemed so clear.

“Why
Sean
planned the explosion,” Becca emphasized. “Right down to the decoy everyone was supposed to think was you. Don’t you see? Our deaths will be our biggest freedom of all. We will be able to start over in a new place, with new identities. No more hiding from Daddy’s enemies. No more CTA spies keeping tabs. No more worrying that if they found out the truth about us, they’d turn us into lab rats like our mother. That’s what this has always been about. CTA secrets and lies.”

Genie wanted to laugh. But she was too disheartened.
This
was what her life had come down to? This was what she’d sacrificed
everything
for? An existence of smoke and mirrors, with nothing real? No family. No roots.
No love
.

“And what about Kyle?” Genie whispered as she saw him through the galley windows, walking toward them.

“He’s CTA, Genie. He must never know the truth.”

And who did
that
remind her of?

Genie stared down at the papers still strewn around the room, spread out on the table, the floor, and the few still clutched in her hand. Lab reports that listed in detail the drugs used on their mother and the fact that she’d been pregnant with triplets.

“Mom had come to the program looking to learn more about her empathic abilities. She thought CTA would help her. As the program leader, Dad spent a lot of time with her. Within six months they were married. Within a year, she was pregnant. They gave her fertility drugs, Genie. They wanted us to experiment on. Daddy knew what they were doing to her—what
he
was doing to her. He should have protected her, but she was just a damn experiment to him. As were we. He never loved her. He never loved us.”

Genie’s hands shook even harder as she gathered up the papers on the table and shoved them back into the envelope. She was wrong. Genie had felt the love her dad held for her mom, even now, so long after her death. As for her and her sisters, he’d said over and over how much he loved them all. She believed him, “I don’t know what to think,” she said, to stall until Kyle got there. She didn’t want to be alone in this. Not anymore. Only she couldn’t tell him about her abilities now, not with Becca standing there smirking at her. She needed time to explain, to make him understand…if he could ever understand.

“Emerich’s not here,” Kyle said, walking into the room but stopping short by the door as Becca stooped to retrieve the last of the papers off the floor.

“That’s what I said, sugar,” Becca responded with a smile, not missing a beat.

“Where is he?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” He picked up an errant paper and glanced down at the page, his brow furrowing in confusion.

As Genie watched the interplay between Becca and him, a flash of insight went through her like a bolt of lightning.

Becca was going to kill him.

Genie jumped to her feet. The quick movement sent dizziness swimming through her head again. She grasped the table, steadying herself. Something was wrong with her. This was beyond seasickness. It was like—

Oh, God.

“What did you do to me?” she demanded, glaring at her sister.

Suddenly Kyle was by her side, holding her steady. She leaned into him.

“I’m really very sorry about this, Kyle,” Becca started, taking the paper from his grasp. “But you weren’t supposed to be here. Genie was supposed to come with Daddy. I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to fake my death; I really don’t want to have to do it again.”

Genie swayed. “I love him, Becca. I won’t let you hurt him.”

Kyle looked at her, stunned, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the declaration of love or from the warning that he might be in danger.

“Why Genie, you don’t love anyone,” Becca mocked. “You can’t. You refuse to let anyone get that close. Because if you did, then you’d have to lie for the rest of your life to keep our precious family secrets. Like our dear Cat.”

“But I do love him,” she protested, her focus fading in and out. “I won’t let you take him from me.”

“What is going on here?” Kyle asked, instantly alarmed and suspicious.

Becca turned to him. “I guess that decision will have to be up to him.”

But even as she said the words, Genie could feel she was lying.

Was it just last night Genie had thought she and Kyle could start over, work together, find a way to try and make it work?

But she hadn’t believed it. Not really. Otherwise she would have told him the truth about her and her sisters’ abilities right then and there. But she hadn’t. She’d been so stupid. The answer to all her problems, to her loneliness, to that overwhelming feeling that she didn’t belong anywhere, had always been standing right in front of her. Because with Kyle, she
did
belong, no matter where they were. As long as they were together.

“I’ll go anywhere you want, do whatever you ask,” Genie said, “as long as you don’t hurt him.”

“Whoa, wait a minute! I can take care of myself,” Kyle insisted, and pulled his gun out of his waistband.

“Kyle, put the gun away. We’re friends here. Family,” Becca said the words casually, but there was nothing casual about the way she was looking at him.

Genie felt a wave of strange energy push against her. Kyle placed the gun back in his holster.

Wide-eyed, she turned to Becca. “What are you doing to him?” This couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be possible. But it was. “Stop it!”

“You would give it all up, Genie? Everything? Just for him?” Becca asked, clearly astonished.

Genie looked into Kyle’s vacant blue eyes and knew she couldn’t take the chance. Not with him. She turned back to her sister. “Yes.”

Kyle shook his head, snapping out of whatever influence Becca had wielded over him. “What?”

“Genie and I are going to take a quick boat ride. No one must find out you saw me. Can you do that for me, Kyle? Will you wait for us here?”

Genie felt another wave of energy pushing against him, watched his head slowly nod, his lips move to form a “Yes,” and realized if she didn’t discover what her sister was doing and how she was doing it, he’d be lost.

And if she lost Kyle, she’d be lost, too. Utterly and completely lost.

…

Kyle didn’t quite understand what was happening, but he knew it was bad. Why had he just agreed to let Genie go? Or to put away his gun? He hadn’t wanted to do either. But even as he was thinking there was no way in hell he’d lower his weapon or let Genie leave the yacht, he’d just agreed to both, words and actions coming out of nowhere, as if by a different person.

He reached for Genie. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”

But he could tell by the stark fear in her eyes that it wasn’t going to be okay. Genie was never afraid of anything or anyone, but she was afraid of this woman she called her sister. He could practically smell it on her.

“Stay with me,” he said.

“I can’t.” Her voice trembled and her lips quivered, plucking something desperate inside him.

He pulled her close, suddenly knowing that he couldn’t let her walk off this boat. That if he did, he’d never see her again. “I’ve had to live the last eight months without you. Now that I have you back, I don’t plan to ever go through that again.”

Her lips lifted in a bleak smile that disappeared as quickly as it came.

“That’s very sweet, Kyle.” Becca was staring at him again, her eyes piercing and intense. “But we need to go. Now.” Once more, a slight pressure squeezed against his temples. A metallic smell filled his nose, and suddenly it felt like a cog was slipping in his mind, that his thoughts were no longer his.

Genie stepped away from him and whirled toward her sister. “I said stop it, Becca.”

Becca just smiled.

The pressure released. He took a quick step backward, but bumped into the wall. In the small galley there was nowhere to go. She was doing something to him, something Genie was aware of. Most likely that was the reason she was so afraid. Another Marsters secret he wasn’t privy to. He guessed had something to do with the paper he’d found on the floor. A paper with CTA letterhead: The Amelia Project.