Edge of Betrayal (6 page)

A
dam was still in Mira’s house when she woke up the next morning.

She ignored him as she made coffee. Ignored him as she read e-mail. Ignored him as he moved around her kitchen like he owned the place, making a breakfast that put her usual bowl of cereal to shame.

He slid a plate in front of her, and her ability to ignore him couldn’t stand the strain of crispy bacon and fluffy eggs. “Thank you.”

He sat down across the tiny table from her. His legs were so long that his knee brushed hers. She shifted in her seat, but there was no escaping him. The only thing between them was her collection of antique doorknobs and a thick slab of awkward silence.

“Did you finally get some sleep?” he finally asked.

“I slept all night.”

His fork stabbed a bite of eggs. “You were awake well past two.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked on you every hour, just like Dr. Vaughn said.”

She remembered. He hadn’t even knocked, though she had to admit that doing so would have meant he was
willing to wake her when she really needed her rest. It was one of those situations in which he could not win—a fact she grudgingly accepted before judging him too harshly.

Still, every time he’d come in, her eyes had been closed and she’d been pretending to sleep so that he wouldn’t talk to her. “How do you know I wasn’t sleeping?”

“I know the way your breathing changes when you’re asleep.”

She tore off a piece of bacon and revved up the sarcasm engines. “Oh, that’s right. You drugged me unconscious. How could I forget?”

“You didn’t forget. Nor are you likely to do so in this lifetime.” There was something else he’d been about to say but didn’t. She could tell it by the way he paused before resuming his breakfast.

The idea that she would know him that well was both irritating and intriguing.

She lowered her gaze so she wouldn’t have to look at him and be distracted by the way his long fingers made the fork look tiny in his grip. “I need to go check on Corey Lambert today. Do you think they kept him in the hospital overnight?”

“It’s likely,” he said. “But you can’t go.”

“I have to. He’s our assignment.”

“I shot our assignment. I don’t think either of us needs the legal problems that kind of thing will bring.” He sipped his coffee, the move so casual he could have been talking about the weather. “The police will be looking for us.”

“It was self-defense. We did nothing wrong.”

“I doubt Mr. Lambert would agree with that assessment.”

Adam was right. She hated it that he was, but that didn’t change reality. “So what do we do now?”

“I’ll arrange a meeting with him. If it goes well, I’ll escort him to the facility where he’ll get the help he needs.”

“And if it doesn’t go well?”

His pale gray eyes lifted and caught her gaze. There was no emotion in his face, only acceptance. “Then I’ll drag him there.”

“Where do I fit in this plan of yours?”

“Behind your desk, in that refrigerator you call a computer room.”

“That wasn’t the deal. Bella said we were supposed to work together.”

He lifted an inky black brow. “Oh, you remember that now, do you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I haven’t forgotten that you went out on your own, without backup. It’s going to reflect poorly on both of us.”

“Worried about your performance review?” she asked sweetly.

“Yes. I am. And if you ever want to be let out of your cage again, so should you be.”

He had a point. Again. What was it with him and being right? “Geez. Fine. I’ll play nice. No more meeting people alone. But you have to do the same.”

Instead of giving her an answer, he checked his watch. “Are you ready to go?”

She looked down. Her plate was clean; her coffee cup was empty. A pile of e-mail requests from the team awaited her attention. “Sure.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll ride with you until I can get a new car.”

“And if I do mind?”

“Then I’ll walk.”

“It’s sixteen miles.”

“And?”

She let out a frustrated breath. “Just get in the car.”

He followed her out, waiting as she locked the door behind her.

Mira had to move the seat up about a mile before she
could once again reach the pedals. He sat beside her, silently patient. In fact, he didn’t say a word the whole drive in to work. By the time she pulled into the garage, she was ready to beg him to say something—anything—if it meant she didn’t have to sit in silence, wondering what was going through his head.

She put her car in park. Turned off the engine. Adam didn’t make a move to get out.

“Are you coming in?” she asked.

He turned in his seat so he faced her more fully. “Do you ever wonder how things might have been between us if I hadn’t decided to use you as leverage?”

Mira blinked in stunned silence. “What?”

He tilted his head to the side, as if truly pondering the question. “I’ve never second-guessed myself like this before. I mean, I know what I did to you was wrong and that it hurt you—I knew at the time that all of that was true.”

“You’re really not scoring any points here, Adam.”

He frowned and shook his head slightly. “What I’m trying to say is that most of the decisions I’ve made in my life were necessary. Just as I felt it was necessary to do what I did to you. But it’s different this time.”

“How?”

“I wouldn’t do the same thing again, given the choice. I would have found another way.”

He still hadn’t told her what was in that envelope he’d earned for abducting her, and she was dying to know what had been so important to him that he’d willingly betrayed her. “Another way to do what?”

“Find the information I needed. Looking back, I think that torturing your father would have been a smarter move.”

“Wow. Okay. Nothing sociopathic about that or anything.”

He took a deep breath that made his shoulders expand to fill the small space. “I’m saying this all wrong. I
only meant for you to know that I’m sorry about what I did to you. If I’d known the kind of person you were—if I’d known what your father intended to do to you—I would have found another way.”

“So I guess the envelope wasn’t that important after all, huh?”

“It was the single most important piece of information I’ve ever wanted to know. I’m only sorry it came at such a high cost to you. You deserved better.”

As apologies went, that was the most awkward one she’d ever received. Still, Adam was clearly trying to make an effort. A frightening, clumsy effort, but it had to count for something.

“What’s in the past is in the past,” she said. “I’ll be happier if we don’t dwell on that horrible time more than absolutely necessary. It gives me nightmares.”

“Like last night?” he asked.

“I didn’t have any nightmares last night.” At least not that she remembered.

He gave her a look that told her he didn’t believe a word, but he kept his opinion to himself. “I’ll come see you when I find out Mr. Lambert’s status. We’ll plan our next move then. Together.”

His switch from personal to business took her off guard. She took a couple of seconds to catch up. “Oh. Right. Sure. I’ll take care of some work and see you then.”

By the time Mira unlocked the computer room and settled in her chair, she still wasn’t sure what had just happened.

Adam made no sense to her at all. First he terrified her; then he apologized; then he said he wished he’d tortured her father. Before she’d had time to process that, he was back on the topic of work, leaving her feeling like a kid in an overcrowded bouncy castle.

She’d made it through only half of her e-mail from overnight, including an odd request from Riley about
information on a woman named Sophie Devane, when Payton Bainbridge settled in the spare chair near her desk.

She jumped, stifled a yelp, and put her hand over her heart to keep it from lurching from her chest.

“You scared me, Payton. Don’t any of you guys ever knock?”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize it bothered you.” He smoothed the lapels of his perfectly tailored suit. Each strand of gray hair on his head was trimmed and in place. Even though he was well into his fifties, he was still a handsome enough man that women flocked to him. Of course, it could have been his vast wealth they found so attractive.

“Probably because everyone walks in. I really should start locking the door when I’m in here.”

He grabbed her chin so fast, she didn’t even see his hand move. With gentle care, he tilted her head to the side and scowled. “Care to tell me about the origin of this bruise?”

“It stems from a single bad decision.”

“As most tragedies do. Was it Adam? If so, I will kill him.” Not a threat. A calm statement of fact.

Strangely, the urge to protect Adam rose, giving her denial a crispness. “No. I went to see one of the victims last night. Things . . . got out of hand.”

“How far?” His tone was as cold and smooth as polished steel.

“Far enough. The man is in the hospital with a gunshot wound.”

“I’m not sure if I should be more impressed or dismayed. Bella said you were field material, but I honestly wasn’t sure I agreed.”

“It wasn’t me who shot him. Adam did.”

Payton eased back in his chair. “I see.”

“You say that like you’re not surprised.”

“I’m not. Adam is as he was created to be.”

“A sociopath?”

“Hardly. I assure you his emotions are completely normal. He feels; he simply doesn’t allow those feelings to sway his actions.”

“Like when he abducted me.”

“I don’t condone what he did, but I understand it. You were a means to an end.”

“One that almost got you, me, and a whole bunch of other people killed. One that did kill my father.”

Payton flinched. The move was slight, but she still saw it. “You still grieve for him, don’t you?”

“No. I grieved for him years before he died—as soon as I found out the kind of man he really was, rather than the man I needed him to be. He was cold. Evil. Just like Adam.”

“Adam isn’t evil any more than a knife is. He’s a tool. A weapon. I would have thought you of all people would have understood that.”

“Me? I was the one he abducted. Why the hell would I understand him?”

“Because of Clay.”

“He almost got Clay killed, too.”

“That’s not what I mean. You saw what was done to Clay—your best friend. You saw him hurt people without remorse. You saw him lift that gun to kill.”

“That wasn’t Clay. They fucked with his head—made him do things. They used him.”

“Exactly. You forgave Clay because you knew he wasn’t in control, that he had no choice in his actions.”

“So?”

“So maybe Adam and Clay have more in common than you care to admit.”

“Bullshit. You’re just messing with my head so I won’t cause trouble. I know you were one of the people who wanted Adam working with us. Weren’t you?”

“What I want is unimportant. All that matters is helping those who need us—helping the people your father damaged.”

That was all Mira wanted, too—to make up for some
small amount of pain her father had caused. Maybe if she’d been smarter and less trusting of him, she could have stopped him years ago. Sure, she’d been just a kid, but she was a smart kid.

Her father had seen to that.

“What do you want me to do, Payton? Forgive Adam?”

“I don’t care whether or not you forgive him. All that concerns me is how well the two of you work together. That means there has to be some level of trust.”

“I won’t trust him. Ever.”

Payton picked up her notepad and wrote something down before tossing it onto her desk.

She picked it up and looked at the note. The letters
AE
were written, followed by a string of numbers. “What’s that?”

“Knowledge. Yours to seek or ignore as you please. Just know that once you see it, it can’t be unseen.”

“If this is more of my father’s depraved human experiments, I think I’ll pass. I already know enough about what he did to fuel my nightmares for eternity.”

“This has nothing to do with your father. It’s all about Adam.”

She didn’t want to be curious, but she was. She didn’t want to ask, but she did. “What about him?”

Payton shrugged. “That’s up to you to find out or not. Look at the files or don’t. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“Why do I feel like this is some kind of trap?”

He glided to his feet, smiling in a way that was both devastatingly handsome and chilling, all at the same time. “Because, my dear Mira, knowledge like this always is.”

R
iley pounced on Mira’s e-mail the second it hit his in-box.

Sure enough, Sophie’s name was on the List—one of the victims of the Threshold Project who’d been experimented on when she was a kid. Mira’s father had been the one to alter her.

That’s why those goons had been after her. The vicious Dr. Norma Stynger was more than willing to pay to recover any of the children who’d been touched by Dr. Sage’s research. Despite the best efforts of the government and everyone at the Edge, no one had been able to locate Stynger and shut her down.

She was a ghost—one smart enough not to show her face when so many people wanted her dead.

Riley scanned the file, then read it again.

Sophie had been volunteered to enter the project when she was four. The name of the person who signed the release was hard to read, but Riley made out enough to see that the person shared her last name. A parent? Probably. If her father had gambling debts, who knew how far he’d go to pay them, up to and including selling his own daughter.

Dr. Sage had paid good money to those willing to
loan him their children. From the inheritance Sophie’s dad had left her—armed men hunting her down—Riley doubted that the man would have lost a lot of sleep over the idea of letting some bastard hurt his baby girl.

From what Riley could tell, Sophie had been subjected to the same protocols that Mira had. It didn’t mean that Sophie wasn’t in trouble, but at least the doctor hadn’t done anything to her he hadn’t been willing to do to his own daughter.

Enhanced memory, improved intelligence, reduced need for sleep, ability to multitask well and recognize intricate patterns—they were all goals of the brain-altering protocols and chemicals that had been pumped into both Mira and Sophie.

Riley read all the notes, few of which made any sense to a man who was better with his hands than he was with his head. If he could have killed her ugly past with a well-placed bullet or the sharp edge of his favorite knife, he would have done so. But her problems were far beyond that. She’d been hurt. Altered. She needed the kind of professional help only the team Payton had set up could give.

Riley leaned back in his kitchen chair and stared at his bedroom door. Sophie hadn’t come out all night. He’d heard her get up once to use the bathroom, but that was all.

He was so worried that he’d wake up and find that she’d taken off again, he hadn’t dared to sleep.

As if his thoughts of her summoned her, she opened the bedroom door and shambled out. Her strawberry blond hair had dried overnight, leaving it a curly mess around her head. One side of her face was pinker than the other, showing which side she liked to lie on. She’d taken off the sweat pants—likely because he’d cranked up the heat in his house last night to a balmy eighty degrees to warm her up—and now wore only his sweatshirt. It fell above her freckled knees, skimming the pale skin along her thighs.

A brief flash of the night in the jungle in Colombia flooded his brain. Blood covered her thighs, trickling down her legs into the fallen leaves. He’d felt so helpless that night—unable to stop her miscarriage. He’d been forced to push her onward through her pain, all the time wondering if a woman could lose that much blood and still survive.

Only the sight of her standing in front of him now, whole and safe, made the muscles in the back of his neck loosen.

He cleared his throat so he could speak without squeaking like a teenage boy. “Coffee? Breakfast?”

“Just water. I’m dehydrated. Didn’t want to have to stop and use the bathroom when I was on the run, so I quit drinking much a couple of days ago.”

He filled a glass and set it in front of the seat across from him.

She took the hint that he wanted her company, and sat down. It took all his willpower not to glance down and see just how far up his sweatshirt had slid, and whether or not she wore anything underneath.

“I washed your clothes,” he told her. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Her slender fingers curled around the glass. “Not at all. Thanks. That’ll make it quicker for me to hit the road.”

“You’re not leaving.” It wasn’t a question. Riley wasn’t the kind of guy who generally bossed women around, but this was important. “You have no car, no money, no phone.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked your pockets so I wouldn’t wash anything. All that you had on you was lint and an elastic hair tie. That’s not exactly going to get you far, especially not with men on your trail.”

“I lost them. And money isn’t hard to come by.”

“What are you going to do? Steal someone’s wallet?”

She looked down at her lap. “If that’s what I have to do to survive.”

“You came here so I could help you. Let me.”

“I shouldn’t have come at all. If I hadn’t been so sleep deprived and scared, I wouldn’t have.”

That hurt. He didn’t know why it should, but the barb still stung. “I’ve seen you safely through worse situations than this. That has to count for something.”

She lifted her gaze to meet his, and it hit him so hard he forgot to breathe. “This is different. This is real danger.”

“And flying bullets and a miscarriage weren’t?”

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Riley. These men are bad news. They won’t just kill you. They’ll make you beg them to first.”

“How do you know that?”

She looked away again and stared out the kitchen window. “Just consider my leaving as payback for you saving my life in Colombia.”

“I’m not letting you go.”

She pushed to her feet. “You don’t have a say in the matter. The fact that you think you do proves just how stupid it was for me to come here.”

As she started to leave, Riley grabbed her wrist. He was careful with his hold, but he knew instantly that touching her had been the wrong thing to do.

He was overwhelmed by the feel of her skin under his palm. She was too soft and smooth for his peace of mind, her bones too delicate for him to even consider letting her face off against armed goons.

For some reason, this woman rocked him all the way down to his foundation, and he had no idea why. He’d barely had a conversation with her. He didn’t know how she thought or what she believed. He didn’t even know if she was straight. Even so, all he could think about was keeping her close, where he could make sure she was safe. She’d already been through too much.

And Riley desperately needed a distraction from the pain and monotony of his own life.

“I can help,” he said, doing everything he could to sound reasonable. Flexible. He wasn’t, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to make this easier on her.

She lifted her chin. Even without makeup, she was a natural beauty. Messy hair, freckles—it didn’t matter. Sunlight loved her and clung to her like a second skin.

“How?” she finally asked. “Exactly what do you think you can do that I can’t do for myself?”

“I know why Soma abducted you. I know who he was trying to sell you to. And I know why.”

Her skin paled beneath her freckles. “I don’t believe you.”

“We’ve learned a lot since the day you took off. I work for a company that’s helping people like you—people who were used when they were children. Hurt.”

She took a step back, but his grip on her wrist kept her from going far. “How do you know about that?”

“It’s in your file.”

Her green eyes flared, and there was no mistaking the fear he saw in her pinpoint pupils. “What file?”

“You were on something called the List. That’s why Soma took you, why he was selling you, why these men who are after you now will try to do the same thing.”

“What is this list?”

“It contains the names of all the kids who were part of a series of experiments. The doctors and scientists who did the research have all been found or killed. Except one woman. Dr. Norma Stynger.”

“I don’t know her.”

“You might never have met her, but she wants to meet you. She’s searching for all of those kids, now grown, so she can continue her work. She knows you exist now, and my guess is she won’t stop sending people to find you until they succeed—or you’re dead.”

She flinched, and he immediately wished he’d sugarcoated the truth a little.

“I’ll change my name. Hide. She’ll never find me.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You have no idea how good I am at hiding.”

“Actually, I do. I’ve looked for you almost every day since you ran off.”

“So you know I’m good,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. Being found isn’t the only thing you have to worry about.”

“If they don’t find me, what can they possibly do to me?”

“They may have already done it.”

“What?”

Riley paused, searching for the gentlest way to tell her what she needed to hear. “Most of the kids grew up fine. But some of them . . . didn’t.”

“Didn’t how?”

“Some of them cracked. Hallucinated. Became violent.”

She started to sag like she was going to faint. Riley grabbed her arms and eased her into the nearest chair.

“You’re saying I’m going to go homicidal?”

“No. I’m not saying that at all. You’re probably fine.”

“But if I’m not . . . ?”

“That’s why you need to let me help you. We are connected to people who can look at you. Fix you before anything happens.”

“Doctors?” she asked, shaking her head. “Hell no. No one is touching me ever again.”

“It’s the only way to keep you safe. We’ll set you up with a new identity, send you somewhere you’ve never been before, keep you healthy, make sure you’re cared for.”

“Like some kind of pet? No, thanks. I’ll take my chances on my own.”

He took her hands in his. Her skin was cold and clammy, but it still felt good against him. “Listen, Sophie.
Please. If you don’t let me help, then you’ll be out there all alone. Afraid.”

“I’ve been afraid before. It’s not fatal.”

“Yes, but my guess is you’ve always been afraid of what others might do to you. Now you also have to worry about what you might do to others. Someone you love could get hurt.”

She closed her eyes. He could see the sheen of tears wet her lashes, but not a single one fell.

When she looked at him again, he could see the steel running through her. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose had turned pink, but there was a fierce look in her that gave him the craziest urge to kiss her.

“No one I love is ever going to die again,” she said.

“Then you’ll come with me? Let me help you?”

“I’ll listen. That’s all I can promise right now.”

“But what about what you just said about no one you love dying?”

She shrugged, and her sad expression broke his heart. “That’s easy. All I have to do is never love again.”