Predatory Game (42 page)

He shrugged. “We can go up into the mountains near Jack and Ken. They have a fortress up there. It’s all good, Saber, as long as we’re together.”

She moved from his lap. “Come on, dragon king, let’s go eat. I haven’t had food yet and I’ve got to go to work.” She needed something after expending all that energy.

He slid his body from the futon to his chair. His right calf jerked. He caught his leg and positioned it. “I’ll cook tonight. You can explain why you don’t think moving to the mountains would be a good idea.”

“Your parents, for one thing, Jesse. And Patsy. After you moved here, Patsy followed you and then your parents bought a house as well. You told me that yourself. You just can’t leave them.”

He laughed at her. “You’re really grasping at straws, aren’t you?”

“Why marriage?”

“Because I believe in it. My parents have been married for over thirty-four years. They’re still very much in love. I don’t think the real thing comes along all that often, so I’m grabbing it and hanging on.”

“How can you be so sure that it’s not pheromones?”

He caught her hand again, tugging until she was beside him. “Sex with you is fantastic, no doubt about it, better than anything I ever imagined.” His grin turned wicked. “And I can imagine a lot. But the truth is…” His smile faded and he brought her onto his lap, his arms enfolding her close, sheltering her against his heart. “I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight. One has little to do with the other. I wouldn’t feel like this if it was all pheromones.”

She bit her lip. “You thought you loved Chaleen enough to ask her to marry you.”

“She was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. I thought she liked all the same things I did, and I didn’t know what real love was. I mistook a sexual attraction for the real thing. I think I knew all along, but I didn’t want to know because a home and family meant so much to me. You’re the real thing.”

“What if you’re wrong?” she persisted, turning her face up to his. “You could be wrong.”

He slid his hand around the nape of her neck, the pad of his thumb caressing her face. “I’m not, Saber.”

She shook her head. She was tired already and she had a show to do. “I’ve got work tonight. Do you think we could talk about this later? I’m starving.”

“Fortunately for you, I called and had dinner delivered earlier. I just have to heat it up.”

“You cheat,” she accused, sinking into a chair. Her hand was shaky as she pushed it through her hair. “That was more difficult than I imagined.” She had to hide the effects of the psychic drain from him or he’d insist she stay home, and she needed a little time to put everything in perspective. But she was exhausted.

“It makes sense, you’re using energy to direct an electrical current. And you worked for over an hour and a half.”

“I didn’t notice the time passing,” she admitted. “Whitney’s file was actually more helpful than I would like to admit. Everything he speculated and how to do it was dead on.” She hadn’t deviated at all from the instructions, too afraid of doing harm.

He put a plate in front of her and turned back to get his own. “You said you read the second file, on your target. Senator Ed Freeman was your target, right?” He looked back at her when she didn’t answer.

Saber’s gaze slid away from his. “I don’t like talking about what went on before I came here. I’m trying to be someone else and forget all of that happened. Maybe, just maybe if I could help you, I wouldn’t feel like the villainess of the world all the time. And maybe your friends wouldn’t look at me like they expected me to fry them with my gaze.”

Jess put his plate on the table and rolled his chair beneath it. His legs were twitching, both of them, tiny sparks of pain zapping him. He didn’t dare mention it, not when she was so certain she could harm him. “You’re too sensitive. No one looks at you like that except you. What happened to you made you who you are, the woman I’m in love with, Saber. And we need to figure out who is trying to kill the GhostWalkers.”

“Whitney is a good start.”

“Maybe. Possibly. But then maybe it’s someone else and Senator Freeman was involved in espionage.” The pins and needles were painful and his muscles cramped and spasmed.

She shrugged. “Whitney thought so. Freeman’s father was friends with Whitney but apparently they had a falling out over Whitney documenting the senator’s involvement with a General McEntire, who was part of an espionage ring. I saw the evidence and it was pretty damning. The senator looked a legitimate target to me, but then evidence can be falsified fairly easily.”

“I don’t think Whitney made anything up, Saber. Freeman set up two GhostWalkers for capture and torture in the Congo. He’s part of a ring trying to destroy us, although it doesn’t make sense because he’s married to one of us.”

“Violet. I read about her,” Saber said. “Whitney wants her dead too.”

“He would if they were selling secrets to foreign countries, especially now with all the terrorist attacks. And I can’t blame him. Freeman was about to be named as a vice presidential candidate. Can you imagine what he’d have access to?”

Jess’s legs were jumping. Beneath the table he pressed his hands down hard on his knees in an attempt to control the involuntary spasms. Pins and needles were like hot pokers stabbing into his flesh. He broke out in a sweat. He had meant to have her stay home from work, but he didn’t want her to see him like this.

Deliberately he glanced at his watch. “Have I made you late?”

She grabbed his arm and turned his wrist over. “Oh no. I’ve got to go. Brian’s going to be pulling out his hair. I’m sorry about the dishes. You heated up the food, I should clean up. Just leave them for when I get home.”

She rushed around the table, dropped a quick kiss on his head, and catching up her purse, paused at the door. “If you need me tonight, you call me, Jess.”

“I’ll be all right.” She had to leave fast or she was going to notice he was in trouble.

“Your friends will be hanging out tonight, right? Watching over you?”

The anxiety in her voice turned his heart over. “Yes. Now go, Saber. I’ll be listening.”

She smiled at him and hurried out the kitchen door to the garage.

Jess put his head down on the table and prepared himself for a long night.

C
HAPTER
18

“H
ey!” Brian frowned as he strode across the floor, reached for Saber’s chin, and lifted it so he could inspect her face before she could jerk free. “What happened to your face? Who hit you?”

Saber touched her cheek. “I forgot about that. It looks worse than it is, Brian. Some…people attacked Patsy, and Jess and I happened along and there was a bit of a fight.”

Brian’s eyebrow shot up. “You got in a fight? And the boss? Is he all right? Who would fight someone in a wheelchair? And who would attack Patsy? She’s the sweetest woman in the world. Is she all right?”

Saber laughed and sank into a chair. “Do you have any more questions?”

“A dozen or so.” Brian gave her a reluctant answering smile. “But tell me if Patsy’s all right.”

“Yes. She’s in the hospital. She had a heart attack.”

Brian’s color paled. “A heart attack? But, she’s too young.”

“I think she had a heart problem and with the assault on her, her heart couldn’t take it and reacted. She’s in the hospital and she’s better.”

His boyish good looks suddenly hardened, and for one brief second he looked scary. “Who attacked her?”

Saber shrugged, trying to appear casual. “I have no idea who they were.” Usually she liked the radio station at night, sitting in the booth, talking to unseen listeners, but she was so tired and so many things had gone so wrong, that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come in to work. Now she was looking at Brian as if he were a suspect. “Do you know Patsy very well? I didn’t think she came to the station that much.”

“Actually Jess interviewed me for the job at his home, not here at the station, and Patsy was there. I was new in town and she had coffee with me a couple of times. Not like a date or anything, she was just being nice to me. But I like her.”

Saber grinned at him.

Brian raked a hand through his hair. “Not like that. Don’t start. And at least tell me if Calhoun is all right. He must have been really upset over his sister being attacked.”

Saber settled into her familiar chair. “Yeah, you could say he was upset. He’s pretty amazing for being in a wheelchair. I was impressed.” She tapped the mike, a habit she couldn’t break, her restless fingers moving everything around within reach. “It feels good to be back.”

“That nutcase that keeps calling you,” Brian said, “I’ve been listening to the tapes over and over and he’s distorting his voice, not a lot, but enough that I’m beginning to think that it’s someone you know. And some of the calls were prerecorded.”

Saber’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, prerecorded?”

“I don’t think he’s there. I think…” He broke off abruptly and shook his head.

“Oh no, you don’t. You can’t just stop there. This whack job records his distorted voice on tape and then calls the station and uses the recording?” That made no sense at all.

“I think he arranges for the phone to call in automatically, like the telemarketers, and when the phone on our end answers, the recording kicks on.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You tell me.”

Frustrated, Saber glared at him. “You’re driving me crazy. Men are crazy. Whoever said they were the logical sex? You’ve obviously been thinking about this and you must have a theory.”

“I’m not stupid enough to tell it to you, because it’s so farfetched. Figure it out yourself and tell me what you come up with.” He glanced at the clock. “You’re on in five.”

Brian had jinxed her for the entire night. She just couldn’t get into her normal rhythm. It wasn’t a bad show, but she didn’t shine, that was for sure. Why would someone use a device to make a call demanding to talk to her? What if she’d agreed to talk to him? What if he’d gotten past Brian? So the object of the phone call hadn’t really been to talk to her at all.

Whoever had broken into her house likely would be the same nut. Surely, there couldn’t be two separate people fixating on her. So why would he call and not be on the other end of the phone to talk to her if she took his call?

Her gaze strayed to Brian several times over the course of the next few hours, her body slowly growing tense. She studied his face. He had a boyish face, laugh lines around his eyes, his mouth always ready to smile. But when she really examined him, it occurred to her that those boyish good looks could be hiding something much more sinister beneath. Goose bumps raised along her skin.

She did another short broadcast, talking about nothing she could remember, her mind suddenly consumed with the reality that Brian moved with grace and carried himself like a man who could handle himself. And what did she really know about him? He’d arrived in town right before she had.
And he saw Patsy occasionally.
Her pulse thundered in her ears and her mouth went dry.

Had he said that to subtly warn her that he could hurt Patsy anytime he wanted? When had she let her guard down enough to stop being suspicious of everyone around her? She snuck another look at him—the set of his shoulders, the smooth way he moved. He was good at his work, easy to work with, he fit in.

What was she thinking? Where was she going with this and why was she suddenly tense and apprehensive? She bit down hard on her lip, distracted enough that she nearly missed her cue. At Brian’s frantic signals, she sent her soft, whispery siren’s voice out over the airwaves, gave a little commentary, and introduced the next run of songs. All the while her mind was turning over the puzzle, trying to piece together an answer.

Feeling Brian’s gaze on her, she turned and glared at him through the glass. She signaled him to come into the booth. Brian sauntered in, looking cockier than ever.

“I want to hear your theory.”

“What’s yours?” he countered.

“If I know him, obviously he’d have to disguise his voice.”

Brian nodded. “My feelings exactly.” He leaned one hip lazily against the console and regarded her from his lofty height.

Saber leaned close to him, moving her hand until it rested close to his arm right above his wrist. She drummed her fingers beside his arm, using her nervous habit to cover her movement. “And if he used a recorder, is it possible that he wants to be in two places at the same time?”

She tuned her heartbeat to his, listening to the rhythm, allowing her body to sync with his. If he was nervous, it didn’t show in his body rhythm. His heartbeat and pulse were steady. Her fingertips very lightly slid against his skin. “Like if it was you, Brian, you could call and still be here to take the call.” She made certain as she made the suggestion that even as she sounded casual, she checked to see if there was even a slight abnormality in his pulse.

He grinned at her. “Me? I like you, honey, but not that much. It’s a lot of trouble to go to, and I’m kinda on the lazy side.”

Absolutely no change in his rhythm. If Brian was lying, he would be able to beat a lie detector with no trouble at all. She didn’t believe he was that good. She slipped her fingers back to the surface of the console and resumed the “nervous” drumming. “It was a wild idea, but actually not a bad one. If the person is someone I know, wouldn’t it be a great way to keep suspicion from them? They could be with me when a call came in.”

“If you’re thinking Jess, I just can’t go there. I’m sure the man’s a perv, but if he wanted to get all freaky with your things, he’d have done it long before now.”

Everything in her stilled, but she hung on to her smile and the cool mask that was her face. Young. Innocent. So sweet and vulnerable.
How had he known that the intruder had gotten into her things?
No matter what he said to cover his tracks, Brian knew about the intruder, and no one should have that information. It hadn’t gone outside the GhostWalker circle at all.

“Not Jess, you dope.” She injected the right touch of humor.