Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3 (20 page)

Common interests. Respect. Passion. Teamwork.

You’ve already had each of those things with Dr. H.
She shook her head, dislodging the seductive suggestion.
 

“Ava.” Breck jerked his head up in an authoritative nod, even as he pulled Kami to his side and kissed her temple. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.”
Excited.
She was anxious, but the excitement humming over her wasn’t hers. She visualized the rocks of her wall moving closer together with waves carrying grains of sand in to fill the gaps.
 

“Excellent.” He headed into the building, tugging Kami along with him.
 

Ava slipped gratefully into the silence and used the time it took to get upstairs to solidify the sand-type mortar in her defenses. Oddly enough they encountered few people on the way to their floor, and even their floor was suspiciously sparse of people. And the team, sitting around the conference table in the far corner, looked a bit…mellow.
 

Rather than launch into questions, they sat. Stony. Silent.

None of them were naturally overt in their typical behaviors and reactions. But they were pretty easy to read, and even Tyler, who was always fidgeting with some technical device or another, sat unmoving.
 

She glanced at Breck, who had slapped a blank façade over himself, and then to Kami who had a puzzled look on her face as she scanned the team. So Ava wasn’t the only one finding their behavior odd.
 

“Guys?”

“Ava.” They spoke in monotone unison, as if they were programmed robots. She moved the rock shields she’d been erecting and looked at each one of them. Nothing. No one projected any emotion, aside from confusion from Kami.

Whatever Ava had expected from them it hadn’t been an arctic freeze. She reengaged her mind protection and sat in the nearest chair beside Tyler. Her heart kicked up a pace. She met each of their gazes.
 

“Stop it!” Everyone lurched in their chair. “I’m not a fragile antiquity apt to shatter. And if you’re trying to protect me from something, you’re only serving to piss me off.”

Breck leaned forward and stared. Now accustomed to the intensity of H’s powerful gaze—an intensity not unlike a jungle cat lying in the grass daring you to tread on his space—Breck struck her more like an aggressive hunter. Neither should be underestimated, but she’d lay odds on the sleeping power.

“You didn’t see you the last time we did. You didn’t spend the last several days wondering what the hell was happening to you.”

“You’re right. I just spent those days in seclusion trying to get my head straightened out.” H had warned her that this venture was too soon, but she couldn’t have put her team off any longer. “I’m not Tyler, but damn I missed email and Internet.”

I missed you guys.

Boom.
 

Suddenly, it occurred to her they were
her
team. She’d wanted to stay sequestered and safe with H.
 

Had she still been with Whitestone, operating alone, she would have. At some point in the last couple of weeks she’d accepted her place on a team. She’d allowed herself a new family—albeit extended.
 

Tyler rolled his chair over, closing the distance between them. She turned and met his stare, not as surprised to see the wicked glint lingering there as she’d been the first few times. The quiet tech geek had a quick wit and often bawdy sense of humor.
 

“Yes, Tyler?”

“Is the crazy contagious? Or did the doctor give you a shot and make it all better?”

“You shouldn’t worry.” She patted his hand. “I’m pretty sure I caught it from you.”

Everyone laughed, the tension eased and the team returned to normal. “All right. What do you have?”

Breck nodded to Tyler, who picked up the electronic tablet before him and started tapping away. His sigh of relief shook the air around him. “I’ve been tracking the parents of Dr. H and Dana. For awhile I’d thought they were dead.”

“But?” H had made it sound as if they were dead. Did he believe that to be the truth, or had he turned away from them? Maybe he was protecting himself.

“I dug deeper into their estate. Their home was sold, and after all the fees were paid, the money went through several accounts before I lost its trail. It disappeared almost as cleanly as the parents.”

“You mean disappeared like a witness protection sort of thing?”

“Sort of. Whoever erased them was good. It’ll take me some time, but I’m better.”
 

“So you think you can find them?”

“Yeah.”

Liam drummed his fingers on the table. “We’re sorting through the records of people matching the criteria who moved into and out of the area of the last bank, but it’s a slow process.”

“And they could well have stayed in a hotel long enough for the money to come in before they split.” She knew the tricks people used to disappear. She’d employed many of them in her time with Whitestone.
 

“Why would they leave?” Kieralyn shook her head and scrunched her brows together. “These people had their children taken? They wouldn’t give up the search. Ever.”

“Unless they believed them to be dead.” Aidan’s logic settled like lead in Ava’s gut.

Whitestone.
They left for their own safety.

Sadness and sympathy rolled off Kieralyn in tidal waves and battered Ava’s barriers. She held strong against the pressure, but if she had to confront much more from anyone else she would start to hurt.

“No.” Kieralyn shook her head more emphatically. “Ian spent two years searching for answers about his dad. He wouldn’t have stopped without seeing a body. Parents who lose their children… They don’t stop looking. Ever.”

“You’re right, Kieralyn.” Breck’s even tone soothed Kieralyn fractionally. “They would want to know, but parents of kidnap victims also reach a point where they have to move on with life. They have to accept that finding their children isn’t going to happen.”

“We’re talking over twenty years here.” Liam pushed away from the table and paced the floor. “That’s a long time to hold out hope, but I’m with Kieralyn on this. These people fought vocally and publicly after their kids were taken. They wouldn’t have surrendered hope.”
 

“So keep looking.” If H’s and Dana’s parents were alive and they didn’t know it, they deserved to. “The parents aren’t the only ones who deserve answers.”

She pushed the chair back and started to stand. Pure, raw rage drove into her like a two by four shooting through a wall in a hurricane. An instant later a searing pain erupted along the side of her head as if she’d just bashed her bruised temple.
 

Her knees buckled. She bumped the chair on the way down, but Tyler caught her before she slammed into anything. She covered her head with her hand. Fear and concern from her team crashed over her, robbing her lungs of air.

“Ava. Breathe.” Kami sank to her knees before her. “What’s going on?”

Breathe.
That was H’s first directive each time they started working.
Remember to breathe. Holding back makes it impossible to expel the emotions you don’t need.

She stared, unblinkingly, at her lap and held her palm up and open toward her team in a silent plea for them to wait. Running through all of H’s instructions, she rebuilt her crumbing shield one element at a time. Each one filtered out the emotions bouncing around the room. With everything finally compartmentalized, she analyzed the impressions that had taken her down. Their source had not come from within the room.
 

She raised her head and looked into Kami’s gaze. “We need to get back to Dr. H. He’s in trouble.”

Chapter Fourteen

Ava marched through H’s lab with Breck and Aidan on her heels as if she owned the place. She checked his office, the dressing room, the kitchen, the classroom where they’d done the surveys and the padded room. Where they’d…

Nothing. All empty. She headed down another corridor, pushed into a room and froze.
 

Dana spun around. The adult study group sat behind her. “This is a private session. What do you think…?”

Ava moved into the room. “Where’s H?”
 

“E-excuse me?” Dana’s animosity had backed off over the last few days but its ugly head was protruding.
 

Ava took Dana’s elbow and pulled her away from the group. Aidan and Breck stepped in behind her. Dana’s cheeks reddened. “What the hell is going on?”

Ava didn’t have time to waste. She hadn’t interpreted those feelings wrong, or mis-identified their owner. “Something happened to H. Where is he?”

“He went to the beach.” Dana’s mutinous glare hardened. Anger and fear lashed out at Ava. She stumbled back before managing to reinforce her barrier.

Breck snapped orders into his com device. The team outside moved toward the beach. Ava looked around the room and ran the faces she’d seen during the interview process.
 

“Is everyone here today?” She kept her voice low while scanning the onlookers. “For the study?”

“I’m not answering your questions until you tell me what is going on.”
 

“I’m with the FBI.” Her cover was blown, but she wouldn’t blow H’s in front of his study participants. “You’ll get longer explanations later, but right now tell me who isn’t here. A woman, right?”

“Yes. Elise.” Dana hesitated, fear creeping into her voice and eyes.

“Blonde hair. Brown eyes. My height. Good looking?”

“Yes.” Dana stepped closer and lowered her voice. “What is going on?”

Dana’s dread battered Ava’s defensive wall like acidic waves rapidly eroding her protection. Concern and curiosity from the others in the room were quickly following. She was uncertain how much she could withstand.
 

Aidan stepped up and placed a hand on her back. His strength and certainty seeped into her. She jerked her head backward toward the door. Aidan and Breck backed out. Ava took Dana’s elbow and maneuvered her into the hall. With the door firmly closed between them she spoke freely.

“Long story very short. We had a tip H was a target on a hit list. I tracked him down and posed as part of the study to be close enough to protect him. Someone took shots at us that day you found us in the dressing room.” Liam reported through their ear coms the beach was clear. Ava’s heart shuddered. “Now he’s missing.”

“You’re wrong.” Dana headed toward the door leading toward the beach. “He’s fine.”

Ava caught up and blocked the path to the door. “I’ve spent three days with your brother learning to shield myself. He’s connected to my mind several times during our exercises.”
And when he healed my injuries.

“And?”

“We formed some kind of connection. I don’t know what happened to him, but I got a massive blast of rage from him an instant before I think he was knocked out.” Something H had said in one of their sessions niggled at the back of her mind. Her brain tingled and her shields wavered.
 

“Breck, I need those people to stay put.” Ava pointed at the room they’d exited, grabbed Dana’s hand and headed toward the door. “And keep everyone off the beach.”

“What are you doing?”
 

“We’re going to find him.” She met her boss’s gaze. He couldn’t possibly understand what she was planning, but she pled silently for him to give her leniency. “Trust me, Breck. I know what I’m doing.”

He nodded once. “Make it fast. You know how these cases go.”

Deadly. Quickly.

She spun on the ball of her foot and dragged Dana out the door and down the path she and H had taken.

“Ava, what are you doing? How do you think we’re going to find him if you know he’s gone?”

“He told me once some empaths can pick up information from places. I’ve been on this beach with him. I’ve seen him connect to it.”

“Okay?”

“He said you swim here too. Do you connect with it?”

“Not as deeply as he can, but yes.”

“And you’re his twin. You’re deeply connected to him.”

“Not enough to feel him over a distance. Though apparently you could.” Bitterness deepened her voice an octave.
 

“I can’t know for certain until we find him, but I think I got that impression from him because he was angry with me. I’m guessing he thinks I set him up.” And why wouldn’t he? She’d admitted to an involvement with Whitestone. They were responsible for his troubles.
 

She stopped when they reached the edge of the water, so the waves sliding in just brushed their feet. “He’s connected with me closely enough to take my injuries into him. He left bits of his memories in my head and I think took some of mine into his. We’re connected.”

“And I’m connected to him and this place.”

“So if you and I open up to each other, if we share our connection to him and this beach, I think we can find out what happened to him.” Her heart kicked with desperation to save him even if it meant losing him forever. “If we’re very lucky we’ll be able to sense him and determine where he is.” Ava gazed out over the expansive water and considered the layout of the lab and beach path. “Whoever took him had to take him away on the water. It’s the only way they could guarantee they wouldn’t be seen by you or a study participant.”