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

It seems to me you didn’t take that line of questioning as far as you could have. I wonder why.

Ms. Sebastian’s taunt from earlier came back to him. Max had let the conversation drop and, like on the questionnaire, H hadn’t pushed that extra step. Had his decision kept him from learning as much as he could have?

Shedding the doubts and suppositions lingering from the call, H settled in to work through some of the questionnaires before the youth control group arrived. His mind wouldn’t release thoughts of Ava Sebastian.

Her insights about him had been dead center. A laser, accurate bulls-eye into his psyche.

Did she have empathic abilities, or was it more? The longer he was free of Eston White the stronger his mental shields of protection grew. He was well blocked, but he wasn’t the only powerful empath Eston White had trained. There was the possibility she was powerful enough to shield herself and read him.

He couldn’t get a clear read off her, aside from what he’d been taught to notice, but something was off. Something that had nothing to do with the outrageous red—and surprisingly conservative—dress hugging her slight curves, or the tattoo he’d glimpsed a hint of when the slit in the dress had raised high enough to tease. The woman knew how to use her sexuality to her advantage.

Damn if he didn’t want to see more. To risk the danger.

Every time he’d lowered one of his guards and reached across the room for an impression of her, he’d been met with a yawning span of nothing. No light. No dark. No good. No evil. A gray slate.

Intelligence shone in her eyes, a brown so pale it was more like camel tan with shoots of army green radiating off the darker outer ring. She utilized every weapon. From long, slender legs—a particular appreciation he never indulged in—to a flash of her flirty smile and a flick of her long hair.

She’d worn no jewelry and her bag had been a functional messenger-type bag rather than the high-dollar purses or knock-offs most women carried and coveted. If the woman he’d met was the real Ava, she didn’t play the game of competing with the female Joneses of the world. She lacked a well-developed brain-mouth filter, but seemed comfortable in her own skin.

On the surface, she appeared to be what she claimed.

“H.” Dana, the only other person who worked in the lab, stuck her head into his office. “The kids are arriving, and there are some men from the FBI here to see you.”

Again?
“You verify them?”

Dana’s brown eyes darkened with her readiness to believe in conspiracies. “The one from before. The local Bureau office confirmed the other one.”

Which didn’t mean the men were honest or trustworthy. He and Dana had seen their share of abused badges. More accurately, they’d seen government officials abusing their positions for personal or nefarious gain.

Still, what could the FBI want with him now? He employed every precaution to avoid their triggers and it wasn’t working. He’d already told them he knew nothing about the case they were working. Clearly they thought he was hiding something.

“Send them in.” He checked his watch and smiled at Dana. “Tell the children I’ll be there shortly.”

They were his favorite group to work with. Their innocence reaffirmed his motivations to keep any of them from suffering abuse—either from other kids or adults mistreating them. Especially kids with real abilities.

“You got it.”

She disappeared only to return less than a minute later with two men. The new one presented his badge as Dana headed back out to be with the children. Agent Burgess stood back with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

“I’m Dr. H.” H nodded to the serious, suit-clad man. “You look like a Fed.” And then to Burgess dressed in jeans. “You wouldn’t if you lost the coat and gun.”

“Part of the job.” The man in the suit offered his hand. “Agent Breck Lawson. You’ve met Agent Burgess. We’re with the Specialized Crimes Unit.”

“I know.” Aware of the hazards, he withheld the desire to read them. Readings were exhausting. Connecting to someone without consent or proper preparation often led to uncomfortable repercussions.

Instead he gestured them toward the couch and chairs in the far corner of his office and relied on appearances and reactions for revelations.

Few people knew what he was. None knew of his most recent abilities. Abilities that made reading the Feds too risky. Abilities that made him a bit of an outcast in a modern world he was still growing accustomed to. A world TV hadn’t fully explained.

Shit, the new abilities made impromptu and public readings downright dangerous. Deadly.

“I only have a few minutes. What can I do for you?”

Agent Lawson raised a brow, either surprised they’d been invited to sit or that he hadn’t chosen the position of power behind his desk while leaving them the slightly uncomfortable chairs before him. It didn’t matter. H didn’t need posturing games. They’d only gotten this far to settle his curiosity.

Once they’d settled on the sofa, Lawson dove right in. “We have reason to believe you’re in danger.”

“What kind of danger?” After feeling the blast from Janus, he couldn’t claim surprise that a threat was coming. He was surprised the FBI knew or came to warn him.

Lawson braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. Aware. Ready.

Burgess took the more relaxed stance of leaning back into the cushions, but he was no less prepared to act like a lion ready to pounce on his prey.

“We know only that it’s tied to the case Agent Burgess spoke with you about previously,” Agent Lawson, clearly the lead, responded.

He met and held Lawson’s bold gaze. He didn’t need abilities to know they withheld information. Hell, the government excelled at secrets. “You mean that’s all you’ll share. You wouldn’t have come here, said anything, without having more.”

“Do you know Channing Harris or Trevor Masters?”

All right. That made twice in one day Channing’s name had been tossed out at him. Neither were coincidences.

Calculating the time elapsed between his call with Max and now, he figured it was possible they’d been led to him. They could have bugged Max’s phone. Max could be an informant. There could be another spy within Sirrahmax—a replacement for Janus’s pet student, Jefferson. He wouldn’t put it past the government to claim he was in danger for the sake of planting someone to protect him only to get close enough to become the threat.

H could find out if their intentions were dangerous. He could read the men. Even in the security of his office he was vulnerable, but he had to know more, and this was one of those times he was grateful for his gift.

“Channing was a scientist. I’ve never heard of a Trevor Masters.” H shifted positions, casually angling his left side away from the agents to hide the coming color shift in that eye. He lowered the first of his guards. The peripheral view of his office changed, as if a pale blue sheer had dropped down. He reached out mentally to the men before him.

Their thoughts wouldn’t become his unless he made a complete link. He only needed impressions at the moment, because he wasn’t going to risk being a tool in anyone’s kit again—willing or not.

Neither of them radiated negativity or violence. Burgess’s emotions remained as steady as he did silent.

Lawson nodded. Excitement and a sense of dread hummed around him. “During the course of a recent investigation, an expert listener analyzed a recording which mentioned you in regards to some work Mr. Harris was doing before his death.”

“You could have led with that.” Not that he would tell them anything he hadn’t been willing to share with Max. “I’ve given you no reason to believe I would withhold information.”

“Everyone withholds information.”

“None more than the government.” His heart kicked with rage, but he suppressed the urge to show them the door. He would not move. He would not react. “Does this recording suggest what sort of danger I am in?”

“We only know Mr. Harris was killed.”

An unfortunately predictable confirmation.
The only thing he’d worked on with Channing was the contacts. No one else had been involved, so how did Trevor Masters figure in? “And the Trevor Masters you mentioned?”

Chills—relief—skated over him from Lawson.

Lawson shifted his feet with a slight shuffle. “An attempt was made. He survived.”

“Good. For him, as well as his family.”

Lawson’s emotions reverberated through the room, bounced off the solid surfaces of doors, walls and windows, and settled inside H’s mind like an echoing greeting shouted across the Grand Canyon. A wave of profound peace and elation at the mention of Masters’s survival and his family. Interesting.

He reengaged the barrier and moved to more fully face Lawson. Most government agents didn’t get so attached to their cases. “Now, if we could get back to your reason for coming… I’m late for an appointment.”

“We would like to place someone here, in your lab, until we wrap the case up.”

“For what purpose?”

“Protection. Harris and Masters were targeted by a woman wearing DNA-based perfume. It short-circuited the self-preservation center of their brain and opened them up to suggestion.”

“The perfume hypnotized them?” In some ways, science had made entirely too much advancement. But if they were right, Channing’s death finally made some sense. He wouldn’t have left Max or his love of research and development.

Still, H didn’t need anyone else in his lab. Dana had been with him since the beginning. She had been subjected to the same tests as him. She was as capable of protecting herself as he was. Neither of them was susceptible to mind-altering substances.

“Essentially. We have made arrests in the case, but we aren’t certain the threat has been eliminated.” Burgess leaned forward. “We have reason to believe you’ve been targeted. Allow us to assign you protection.”

“Are you going to tell me everything you know?”

“We can’t do that.”

H shook his head. “I appreciate your concern.”
But I can’t work with secrets and evasions filling the halls.
“I can look after myself.”

Lawson pulled a card from his jacket pocket and offered it. “Please call if you change your mind.”

“Sure.” H showed the men to the outer door, as he had earlier with Ms. Sebastian.

“By the way.” Lawson turned just before stepping outside. “Mr. Harris didn’t happen to give you some laser-powered contact lenses, did he?”

His vision flickered with a surprise hit to his shields. Did they know about the prototype? Or were they trying to trick him?

Channing had mentioned a government contract relating to the technology they’d worked on, but only he and Channing had known about the prototype. They’d been careful to create them and keep the notes away from Sirrahmax—especially after spotting Jefferson.

His gut knotted.

His heart hammered his ribs like a beater pounding a Chinese gong.

“I worked with Channing on the concept. The laser required to see his vision to fruition proved to be too costly.” Too glitchy and unpredictable, but not as unpredictable as the customized acrylic used for the lenses. “The diagnostic tool Channing hoped to offer will never be available. Is that what this is about?”

For a man who hated lies, he was treading awfully close to his own. But if Channing had been killed over the lenses, no way in hell was he admitting to having them. FBI or not, they had knowledge of things they shouldn’t. Even if he had sensed their honor and integrity, they wouldn’t be the first men power had corrupted.

He’d been misled by the government before. The results had been deadly.

“If you think of anything, please call.”

H nodded, unable to voice the lie of agreement. Janus was back. Channing had been murdered. He was being questioned about the lenses.

These were not coincidences, and he couldn’t share what he knew. Eston White was too securely connected to every government branch.

As he had with Ms. Sebastian, H watched Lawson and Burgess head to their car.

Unlike Ms. Sebastian, Lawson pulled a cell from his pocket to make a call. After a few minutes of head shaking and shielded looks back at the office, they got in and drove away.

Dr. H grabbed a pad from Dana’s desk and jotted down the license number and car model. He wasn’t likely to forget it, but he didn’t take chances.

As for the contacts, he was growing used to managing the risks. Still, he would learn from Channing’s murder and tighten security.

The FBI knew something. So did he.

Honor and integrity were not bulletproof.

Chapter Three

Snap.

Crack.

Ava’s jaw popped with the force of her it’s-too-damn-early-to-consider-being-up yawn as she fumbled with the adult-proof wrapper keeping her out of her energy shot. Tingles of lingering exhaustion vibrated along her skull and forehead. At least she hoped it was exhaustion. She hadn’t been able to dodge the headache since leaving Dr. H the day before.

An inescapable nightmare she couldn’t wake from, seven a.m. had loomed and grown more daunting with each passing hour as she’d sat in her car outside Dr. H’s second-floor condo. She had called in for a relief team, but she should’ve called them in earlier so she could get some sleep. She’d instead stayed until long after he’d gone to sleep, because studying his habits at night would help her know how to relate to him when they were together during the day. And, after identifying potential study applicants as Whitestone operatives, she’d wanted to keep an eye out for other operatives closely monitoring him.