Illicit Intuitions: Sensory Ops, Book 3 (23 page)

Ava’s brows pinched and her lips thinned. She looked at Madelynn. Watching. “Your fiancé has been darkening our halls daily. He’ll be happy to hear we’ve found you.”

A burst of relief lunged up in Madelynn before her current fears shut it down. Ava’s words might have helped, but only Madelynn could know how much. She may not, though, for quite some time.

“Ava! Update.” Agent Burgess’s voice boomed in the hallway, bearing down on them.
 

“All clear!” She leaned back and shouted down the hall. Burgess’s steps retreated.

“Which is what we are, and what Madelynn needs to recover. No interference.” H moved around Ava and headed for the hallway. “Thank you for the assist.
Agent Malia.
”

“Wait.” She followed. “Don’t be mad at me.”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I saved you. I trusted you. I helped you. You lied to me.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand.” He turned to face her. “I asked you directly if you were involved with these assholes. You denied it.”

“I didn’t lie. I’m not with Whitestone. I had nothing to do with Madelynn’s disappearance or yours.” Ava arched her back and shook her head. “Hell, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”

“You’re not with them, and yet one of their operatives identified you by a different name. A name you have yet to deny as yours.”

“Sebastian was Constantine’s name. Used for a cover.” Her face blanched. She stepped forward with a hand out. “Let me explain.”

“Explain how you’re a Fed assigned to protect me when I turned Burgess and Lawson down?” Pain pumped through his heart. He wouldn’t allow himself to be swayed by her pleading tone. “Explanations aren’t necessary.”

As treacherous as things had gotten over the last week, he’d only lied once. To Janus when he was only putting himself at risk. He’d considered them before, but each time he’d gone with the truth. Even when the truth had been more dangerous than his one lie. He expected no less from the people in his life.

Knowing he didn’t fault Ava for her secrets sat uncomfortably with him. Why shouldn’t she be held to the same standard he expected of others?
 

“H, please. There were reasons—”

“And maybe some are good, but it doesn’t matter.” He carried Madelynn down the hall and above deck.
 

Ava had aroused physical desires and awakened emotional longings. She’d had him believing she was someone else and earned his trust. The last person who’d manipulated him so skillfully had been General Scott. Ava’s deceptions, though different, had been worse.

Worse because he’d fallen for her.

Chapter Sixteen

Ava squinted against the blaring sun and reached for her sunglasses. The dark tint did little to minimize the agony lasering through her skull. She hated rainy, gloomy days, but today she would willingly embrace a dreary gray sky.

Low-level seismic quakes rattled the beginning shields H helped Ava build a week earlier. Emotions, raw and painful, lingered and clung after the foamy waves sacrificing her protection retreated. Any chance for peace rested with H, but his continued refusal to speak with her battered her hopes.
 

She glanced across the parking lot to her car.
 

A hundred feet.
 

She crossed the distance almost daily with no trouble. Or she had, until returning from the rescue mission on the boat.
 

H would have had trouble overpowering the team of men who’d taken him, but he’d been more ready to save himself than she’d anticipated. She’d admired him on one level while he crushed her on another. His disgust had been evident on his face and reinforced when he turned away without looking at her.
 

Breck had taken his statement. Their sessions of working on her shields had ended.
 

A hundred feet. With nowhere promising beyond.

Leaning against the glass-fronted building with her eyes closed tight against the cheerful rays of sunshine, she accepted the brutality of her success. Her chin dropped to her chest.
 

Each day the distance became more insurmountable. Each day she tried to time her exits so no one was nearby. Each day she failed and her head hurt a little worse. Her energy drained a little faster. Her soul wept a little louder.
 

Her first assignment with the FBI had put General Scott out of commission. With Ava’s history and H’s suspicions they’d teamed up with the CIA to tie Janus to a long string of crimes, stretching back twenty plus years. Associates continued to grow and be rounded up. The media was making everything they could private, with Lana Quinn, Kieralyn’s friend and a trusted journalist, at the forefront.

As far as Ava’s team and the case files were concerned, she hadn’t located the contacts. But they had taken down anyone involved in the murderous conspiracies, and Ian had finished listening to the recordings from Breck’s party weeks earlier. No one else was mentioned on a hit list.
 

Channing’s death, according to Kami, finally had meaning. It had taken profound loss and suffering to unearth the snake and remove his head so to speak, but the empathic studies at Eston White had been closed. General Scott and all known operatives below his command were being rounded up. The dangling strings of deception within Whitestone were being severed.

They’d won.

She’d lost. Lost the first man she’d respected or connected to beyond sex. Lost love.
 

From what Breck had said after checking on Madelynn, she’d experienced such severe mental and emotional trauma she seemed to have blocked a lot. At least she had a chance with her fiancé. A chance to heal. A chance to rediscover happiness.
 

Ava wasn’t sure she could say the same for herself.
 

“Ava.”

Kieralyn’s questioning concern, even softly spoken, prodded her sensitive head. Ava slatted an eye open but quickly closed it again. “Hmm?”

“Aidan said you were heading home.”

“Am.” She raised her head. It lolled drunkenly on her unsupportive neck.
 

“No.” Kieralyn took her arm and turned her toward the side of the building and a secluded courtyard. “You’re suffering. We’re finding you a quiet spot away from people and emotions.”

“I’m okay.” She pulled away, but stumbled and nearly crashed sideways into the glass windows.
 

“Right.” Kieralyn laughed smugly and took a firmer grip on her. “Like Dr. H.”

“What?” Ava’s head snapped up. Vertigo smacked her back a step. “You’ve seen him?” She latched on to Kieralyn’s arm and lilted sideways from the force of the sudden move. “When? What did he say?”

Hard violence and aggression washed over Ava. She glanced around, rubbing her temples. Her gaze zeroed in on an approaching group of agents, hauling a giant, struggling perp between them. She worked on her barrier and shifted away.

“He said he was fine. He’s getting people from the studies at Eston White and is interviewing to increase staff.” Kieralyn led her away from the agents and around the corner. “You should go home.”

“You sound like Breck.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Because the quiet and inactivity are worse than crowds of emotions. Because being at home hurt.
Residual impressions of H lingered, floated in the air like unseen dust particles. They brushed her skin as she walked through a room, as seductive as his touch.
 

Her lungs constricted. Her throat dried. “I feel him, Kieralyn.”

“Dr. H?”

“He’s in my head. The way he looked at me…” The buzz of emotions swarming around her were squashed beneath internal pain and regret. She’d known his stance on lies.
 

“Go see him, Ava.”

“He doesn’t want to see me.” She’d known his story and had still lied. Maybe only by omission, but she had lied. She’d become his betrayer.

“Have you tried?”

“I called him. Called Dana.” Locating and assisting in H’s safe rescue hadn’t won her any favors.

Kieralyn led her to a bench in a secluded courtyard nearby. The sympathy softening her face couldn’t break through Ava’s melancholy.

“You’re allowing your past to brutalize your present.”

“I’m…” She froze.

Peripheral awareness of her surroundings halted. Churning of internalized emotions and guilt halted. Years of lies halted.

Her faltering barriers sighed with the release of stress. Strengthened.

She’d have phrased it differently but it was exactly accurate. She’d harbored hope for a relationship with H, but had allowed half a life of pent-up regrets to interfere. She was willing to fight injustice for others, but accepted it in her own life.
 

No longer.

He wouldn’t take her calls.
 

She would not be ignored. Her desires would not go unspoken.

The turmoil darkening her mind cleared. Doubts vanished. Certainty settled. Peace reined. She narrowed her eyes and grinned, knowing just the thing to guarantee results.

“That battle-worthy glint can’t be trusted.”

Ava rubbed her index finger along her chin and met Kieralyn’s humored gaze. “You know what they say about love and war.”

“That no man stands a chance against the goddess of vengeance?”

“Just call me Nemesis.” Suddenly feeling as light as she had that morning with him on the beach, she stood and stretched her neck. “I know just the approach.”

And it involved a morning swim and a red bikini.

Ava straightened her jacket as Kieralyn joined her. They rounded a wall of greenery in the side courtyard. The buzz-cut guy from H’s study froze mid-stride, but recovered quickly.
 

“Agent Malia.” He shifted course and moved toward them. “My name is Simon Mulwray. I have some information for you.”

On guard, suspicious of his timing and whatever intel he claimed to have, Ava shifted her barriers to read him. Intense darkness—not quite evil, but questionable—clashed with sincerity. Caring.

Kieralyn moved in behind her. Anticipation buzzed.

“About?”

“I understand your team has been looking for Dana’s and Dr. H’s parents.” He spoke directly and stood stiffly. In the lab he’d projected a relaxed, carefree impression. The contradictions glared like neon. “Is there someplace we could speak in private? Anonymously.”

“What about them? They’re dead.”

“No.” Simon shook his head. “Dr. H and Dana have been misled.”

Ava’s heart slammed her ribs with bruising force. Their parents’ deaths had been a defining moment for H. How would he handle this new development?
 

She considered demanding answers where they stood, but instead calmly led Simon to a first-floor conference room. Kieralyn took the flank, shooting a text message to Breck on the way. As much as H hated her secret, he would filet Simon if he realized his study had been infiltrated on another level.

Ava closed the conference room door behind Simon and Kieralyn with a definitive click. Simon remained silent and stiff. Militant.

“You need to tell me who you work for.” She leaned against the table with her hands linked gently before her. She wanted to fist them. “What information you have.”

“I’m independent.” His gaze shifted to Kieralyn settling herself into a chair taking notes on her Blackberry. “They can’t know who I am.”

“Don’t worry about her.” Ava nudged a chair out for Simon, but maintained her position. “Who can’t know? Dana and Dr. H?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” The rest of the team entered the conference room and filled the empty seats. Rather than interrupt, they sat back and gave Ava the lead. Tyler pulled out his handheld computer and did whatever he thought needed to be done at that moment—likely a background check on Simon.
 

“It’s just best that way. If you guarantee my anonymity, I will give you my information.”

“Anonymity isn’t mine to guarantee.” His eyes widened like a hawk zeroing in on prey. He said nothing. He would give her the information, regardless. “Without justification.”

He glanced around her team displaying no tells of nerves or worry. “This isn’t my only case. I can’t have people knowing I’ve spoken with you.”

“Which is why you came around the side? How were you hoping to gain access?”

“I saw you head that way. It worked to my benefit. Do I have your guarantee?”

Ava shifted her gaze to Breck. He looked to Tyler, who nodded once with his lips drawn into a tight line. They may keep an eye on Simon, but finding out what he possibly knew was priority.
 

As a double precaution, before agreeing to his terms, Ava moved her barriers and read him. She hadn’t asked for her abilities, but having them could only make her better at her job. And this was one time she needed to know what they were walking into.