In Harm's Way (Heroes of Quantico Series, Book 3) (7 page)

"We had a few other less complimentary words for it last
summer, didn't we, Coop?" Mark smirked at his ex-partner.

"I'll take the Fifth"

"Still the reticent type, I see. Better have him reread that
communication book you wrote, Monica, Mark teased.

She snuggled closer to her husband. "He communicates just
fine, thank you very much"

Mark eyed the infant in the pumpkin seat and grinned. "Yeah.
I guess he does"

"Mark!" Emily gave him a playful jab. "We were talking about
the house. I think you've done a great job on it," she told Nick.

"Thanks. It's the most ambitious rehab I've ever taken on.
But it's really coming together. I'll give you a tour after brunch
on Sunday."

"About that" Coop squinted at Nick. "I have one question.
Are you serving tofu?"

Mark chuckled and glanced at Nick. "You're never going to live
down that health food phase you went through, you know"

"I still eat healthy. And there's nothing wrong with tofu. But
you'll be happy to know the menu for Sunday includes eggs
Benedict-with real ham."

"Now that's good news:" Coop grinned and confided to Monica. "Actually, Nick's not a bad cook, despite all the grief Mark
and I gave him last summer. Some woman will be lucky to get
him-if he ever decides to love one as much as he loves that
old house"

"Speaking of women ... I still want to hear about the one
who showed up at the office this afternoon;' Mark interjected.
"How come you're holding back?"

"I'm not holding back. I'm trying to leave my job at the office"

"Since when?"

"Since tonight"

The two dark-haired agents exchanged a speculative glance.

"I sense a story here, Coop remarked.

"I do too" Mark turned toward Nick. "You might as well spill
it. Or Coop and I will have to dust off some of those interrogation techniques we learned in the HRT:'

Nick stifled a sigh. He'd already made a tactical mistake,
raising suspicions by dancing around the subject. In any other
circumstance, he'd be the first one to talk about a walk-in with
an off-the-wall tip. They'd all share a laugh about the weirdo
and move on.

Except he didn't think Rachel was weird. Just her story. But
he could imagine what these guys would think of it. Of him too,
if he didn't dismiss it as summarily as they would. He'd prefer
to avoid the whole subject, but he didn't see any way out of the
corner he'd painted himself into.

Shifting in his seat, he took a long, slow sip of his iced tea.
And prayed for inspiration.

"Do you know what I think?" Emily interjected.

All heads swiveled in her direction. Her authoritative, notedpsychologist voice always commanded attention.

"What?" Monica asked.

"I think Nick had an unsettling encounter this afternoon"

The heads swiveled back to him.

"Is that right?" Mark asked.

"I don't know how Emily knew that. But ... yeah"

Mark shook his head. "That's amazing. Sometimes I think
my wife is psychic"

"That must make marriage interesting" One side of Coop's
mouth hitched up, and he popped a salsa-laden tortilla chip
into his mouth.

"This has nothing to do with mind reading." Emily aimed a
wry look at Coop. "You can get a lot of insight into a person by
observing their behavior. Nick isn't his usual laid-back, open self
tonight. He seems a bit distracted-and troubled"

If there was any way out of talking about his late-afternoon
encounter, Nick would take it. But he was stuck. At least Emily's
perceptive comment, along with Mark's mention of psychics,
gave him the perfect opening.

"Kudos to Emily." Nick raised his iced tea glass in salute. "You
nailed my mental state dead on"

"I have to say I'm intrigued" Monica leaned forward, her attention fixed on him. "What happened?"

"You know, these two would have come in handy during
interrogations in our HRT days," Mark commented to Coop.

"Yeah. A psychologist and a communications expert. What
a great tactical team."

"The real question is whether their sympathetic technique
will work" Mark regarded Nick. "So are you going to talk? Or
do we have to resort to less pleasant means of dragging the
information out of you?"

"Very funny" Nick took another swig of iced tea and set the
glass precisely back in the ring of water on the polished oak
surface of the table. "Okay, here's what happened. A woman
showed up near closing time. Asked to speak to an agent. Yours
truly got the nod. I met her in one of the interview rooms out
front. She was dressed nicely, and she had a shopping bag"

"Oh no" Mark rolled his eyes. "The old evidence- in- a- shopping bag routine"

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" An uncharacteristic
note of impatience sharpened Nick's words.

Surprise flickered across Mark's features, and he exchanged
another glance with Coop. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Okay. There was a very beat-up Raggedy Ann doll in the bag.
She said she found it in a Bread Company parking lot, sticking
out from a melting pile of snow. She decided to rescue it and
turn it in to the store's lost and found"

"She dug a shabby doll out of a frozen pile of filthy snow?"
Mark arched an eyebrow.

"She thought some little girl might be missing it, and that her
mother might be looking for it." Nick's defensive comeback only
seemed to increase his fellow agent's curiosity.

Emily, on the other hand, smiled. "She has a soft heart. I like
that"

"Me too;' Monica affirmed. "I had a Raggedy Ann doll as a
child. It traveled all over the world with me, from one diplomatic
post to the next. I'd have been devastated if it ever got lost:"

Sensing two allies in the wives of his friends, Nick focused
on them as he continued his story. "When I asked her why she
thought the FBI might be interested in the doll, she said. . "

He stopped. Abruptly.

All at once he knew exactly how Rachel Sutton had felt in the
seconds before she'd told him the reason for her visit. And his
admiration for her mushroomed. It was bad enough to share this
story with friends, with people who were predisposed to give you
the benefit of the doubt. He couldn't imagine how much more
difficult it had been to march into a law enforcement agency, a
place she knew would be inclined to treat her with cynicism-at
best-and talk about what had happened.

"What did she say, Nick?" Emily reached out to touch his
hand.

He stared at her fingers, drawing courage from the comforting, supportive gesture. "She said when she touched it, she had
a reaction:"

Silence greeted his statement. He kept his gaze fixed on Emily's fingers, expecting them to be withdrawn at any moment,
bracing for the rejection. But when the silence lengthened and
her fingers stayed in place, he ventured a scan of the table.

Mark and Coop shared identical expressions, eyes narrowed
by a combination of caution, doubt, and suspicion. And he wasn't
surprised to find an is-this-for-real-or-are-you-pulling-my-leg
quirk to their lips.

The two women, on the other hand, seemed far more receptive to his story. Emily's expression was thoughtful. Faint furrows
marred Monica's brow as she leaned closer.

"What did she mean by reaction, Nick?"

He wasn't surprised by her question. She was a word person.
Clear communication was her thing. He'd asked the same thing
of Rachel himself.

"She said when she held the doll, she felt terrified:"

"And you bought this?" Mark's question was laced with incredulity.

"Not at first:"

"What changed your mind?" Coop joined the conversation.

"I asked her to hold the doll. And I witnessed her reaction"

Silence again.

"Okay, let me get this straight" Mark folded his hands on the
table. "She picked up the doll, and she ... what? Freaked out?"

"She had all the symptoms of terror. Like a panic attack"

"Adrenaline rush, trembling, muscle tension, rapid and shallow breathing?" Emily clarified.

"Yes. And I don't think those kinds of physical symptoms
would be easy to fake"

"They wouldn't;' Emily concurred.

"Then how do you account for what happened?" Mark directed the question to Nick.

"You mean besides the explanation she offered?"

"Her explanation isn't logical."

141 saw it;' Nick countered.

"Okay." Coop stepped in. "Let's skip the discussion on plausibility for a second and ask the next question. What did she
want you to do about it?"

"Look into it. She sensed danger and felt compelled to pass
the ... for want of a better word, message ... on to someone in
a position to investigate."

"Where's the doll now?" Mark asked.

"Sitting on my desk"

"Pitch it"

Nick raked his fingers through his hair. "That was my first
inclination. But I couldn't do it. She seemed so ... sincere:"

"They all do."

"The thing is, why would she make this up?" Monica tapped
a finger on the table, her expression thoughtful.

"To get attention? Because she's delusional? Why do any
of these weirdos show up with bizarre stories?" Mark responded.

"She wasn't a weirdo" Nick gritted his teeth. Took a deep
breath. "She's a teacher. And she's very intelligent and articulate"

"A woman shows up at an FBI office claiming she's getting
bad vibes from a doll and wants us to investigate. You don't call
that weird?"

"In theory, yes. In this case ... it doesn't fit."

"Are you saying you believe her?" Mark pressed.

Nick shifted in his seat. "I don't want to. It's too bizarre:"

"But you do" Mark leaned back and regarded him through
narrowed eyes. "How old is this woman?"

"Early thirties, I'd guess"

"Attractive?"

Nick frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Pretty women are hard to dismiss as kooks"

"I didn't say she was pretty."

"I noticed that. You sidestepped the question:"

Cornered, Nick folded his arms across his chest. "Okay. Fine.
She was pretty. But her looks have nothing to do with this. I saw
her reaction. How do you explain that?"

"I can't. But maybe psychology can. And we happen to have
an eminent psychologist in our midst tonight. I think I can work
out a suitable consultation fee, since she's my wife:" He winked
at Emily and draped his arm around her shoulders. "Dr. Lawson,
what's your take on this?"

"I'm afraid this is really outside my realm of expertise. It dips
more into parapsychology than psychology. But I can tell you
these sorts of paranormal phenomena in general are not considered by most psychologists to have much credibility. There's been
research done in the field, but a lot of the work is unscientific
and much of the data is flawed. So despite decades of effort by
proponents to prove these kinds of phenomena are real, there've
been no conclusive positive results"

"What about people who claim they can sense emotions from
objects? Isn't there a name for that?" Monica asked.

"Psychometry," Emily supplied. "It's considered to be a form
of ESP. Practitioners say they can read the history of an object
and its owners by holding it. There's a lot of interesting anecdotal material about it, but again, virtually no reliable empirical
evidence to support its validity."

"In other words, the woman Nick talked to is a fake" Mark
settled back in his seat.

"I didn't say that," Emily clarified.

Frowning, Mark leaned forward again. "What do you
mean?"

"It sounds to me like her reaction was very real. We can't
discount that. I think there could be a legitimate explanation for it. A memory buried somewhere in her past, perhaps. The
doll may have been a trigger of some sort:'

"Meaning you don't think she's a kook." Relief coursed through
Nick. Emily had offered the first logical explanation for the phenomenon he'd witnessed. One that took the "loony" stigma off
Rachel Sutton. And for some reason, he was grateful. Which
was odd, since she was a stranger to him and he was unlikely
to see her again.

"Not necessarily. The sort of extreme reaction you described
is rare, but I've had patients who have strong reactions to objects
from their past. Sometimes we can track down the reason and
sometimes we can't. In my experience, if you're dealing with
someone who otherwise seems like a lucid, normal person,
there's almost always a logical explanation for a reaction like
that if you dig deep enough. From what you've said, I suspect
this woman would fall into that category."

"It only happens when she touches the doll, Nick noted.

"The tactile sensation could be tapping into a traumatic subconscious memory." Emily tilted her head and played with her
spoon. "It's an intriguing situation"

Their salads arrived, and much to Nick's relief, Mark and Coop
got off his case. The conversation moved on to other subjects,
and the rest of the evening was pleasant and relaxing.

After lingering over dessert and coffee, they parted for
the night in the parking lot. And as Nick watched the two
couples leave arm in arm, their heads close together as they
shared quiet, private conversations, he thought again of Rachel
Sutton.

Now that Emily had set his mind at ease about the woman's
sanity, he found himself wondering what it would be like to
share a quiet dinner with her. To tuck her arm in his as they
walked to his car afterward. To steal a kiss from those full, soft
lips beneath a silver moon.

That wayward notion took him off guard. And made about as
much sense as the story Rachel had told him this afternoon.

Turning his back on the two happy couples, he strode toward
his car. The best thing to do was forget his brief encounter with
the velvet-eyed visitor who wore a delicate gold cross around
her slender neck.

But as he drove home in the darkness, he couldn't shake the
feeling that had they met under less bizarre circumstances, he
would have been interested in getting to know her better.