Shadow Game (34 page)

"I can get by your day staff with no problem, Lily, that's not the reason you're so reluctant to let me go with you. You don't want me to see those tapes of your childhood."

His voice was so exquisitely gentle, so tender, Lily's heart turned over and she had to blink back tears. "I feel betrayed when I'm watching them, and if you're watching, I feel as if I'm betraying him. What he did was wrong, Ryland. It was bad enough that he did it to me, but there are other girls, women now, who didn't have the luxury of this house and the people in it. They had to have struggled, maybe even were institutionalized. That's not right. It will never be right and nothing I do will ever change it."

Ryland took her hand, pressed a small kiss to her open palm. "He learned to love through you, Lily. He learned right from wrong and morals through knowing and loving you. Don't feel guilty because you loved him. He tried to do right by you. He knew he was inadequate by himself so he surrounded you with others who would fill in the gaps. And he gave them a home, a sense of purpose, a family. Few people are all bad or all good, Lily. There are shades of both in most people."

She nodded. "I know that, Ryland, but this hurts. Going into that horrible room and having memories return… Watching those tapes and hearing his voice. I didn't mean anything at all to him back then. You can hear the impatience when I don't perform to his satisfaction. Rosa—who was the nurse then—is a much younger woman, and looks very different, she tries to comfort me and he yells at her all the time." She pressed a hand to her head, still refusing to look at him.

"Lily, why should you put yourself through that?"

"I need the information for all of us. For your men, for those girls. When this is over, if it takes a lifetime, I'm going to find every one of those women, and I'm going to make certain each of them is all right."

"You don't need to be alone when you're watching the tapes." He tightened his fingers around hers. "We're partners in every sense of the word. I know you loved your father, and you don't need forgiveness for loving him, Lily. The man loved you and did his best to provide you with a home, a family, and the best education he could. There's no shame in that."

"The shame is in you seeing," Lily insisted. "He looks at me as if I'm a specimen. I don't want you to see that. I can't let you see me that way." She couldn't find the words to tell him it diminished her. It reduced her to that frightened, unloved child in a house of strangers. Ryland would see her like that. She couldn't bear that.

"I love you, Lily." He caught her chin, tipped her face up to his. "I'm going to love that little girl because she's in you."

Lily pulled her head away. "Ryland, don't. You don't know that. You don't know how you're going to feel about me when you view those tapes."

He started to protest, stopped abruptly when he noticed her hand trembling. He ached for her, felt her inner turmoil, pain swamping him, swamping her. "If I'm so shallow, Lily, that I'm not going to feel the same about you because you were mistreated as a child, then you should find out now. Do you really think that of me?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. "No, Ryland. It's just hard for me to sit there and watch it. To know it's really the truth. He never prepared me, I had no idea of any of it."

"Just keep in mind your father grew to love you. You gave him something all the money in the world couldn't buy."

"Isn't that the point, Ryland?" For the first time, her voice was bitter. "He did buy us and when everything went wrong he used his money to get himself out of trouble."

"At that time, Lily, he knew no other way." He slipped his arm around her, drew her beneath the protection of his shoulder. "Let's face it together. It won't be so difficult if we're together."

She remained stiff, holding herself away from him.

"I'm part of you. Whether you like it or not, I'm part of you. I feel what you feel. It's there, Lily, and it's always going to be there, whether we're separated or not. Take me with you."

Lily did look at him then. Her blue gaze moved over his face, studying him feature by feature. Looking for something. He sent up a silent prayer hoping she would find it. "You trusted me completely last night, Lily, this isn't different. You have to believe in me."

"This isn't just about me." She whispered it to him, wanting him to understand, wanting him to realize what he was asking of her. There were all those other little girls. She owed them something. Privacy. Respect. Protection.

His fingers massaged the nape of her neck, even as his body urged hers down the long hallway toward the winding stairs. "I know what it feels like to want to look after others. To
have
to look after others. It's born and bred in us, we can't help it. Share this with me and allow me to make it easier for you."

Lily already knew he would be going with her. She needed him there, because this time she had to look at all of it. She had an obligation to Ryland and to his men. The information on those tapes was invaluable to them. And perhaps to the girls on those tapes. She had to view all the records this time, she couldn't afford the luxury of spreading out that task over time.

Ryland was true to his word, slipping past the workers easily, waiting patiently while she unlocked the door to her father's office. He slipped inside, then stepped back to watch her lock it to prevent anyone disturbing them.

"Did you let Arly know where you were going to be?"

Lily made a face. "I'm staying away from Arly. He's going to smuggle more groceries past Rosa for your men. Fortunately he's always had a completely private suite in the house so he grocery shops all the time. I don't want Rosa to know about anything until this is over."

"In order to clear the men, I've got to find someone to help us. If not Ranier, then we'll find someone above him, Lily." He followed her down the stairs, noting she was limping more than usual. "Does your leg hurt?"

She glanced back at him, and his stomach clenched hard as he caught another glimpse of the swollen blue-black cheek and temple. The surge of rage, of the need for violent action, swirled to the surface. He had a sudden desire to wrap her up and lock her somewhere safe. "I didn't realize I was limping again. Sometimes the muscles knot up and it's painful. I don't pay much attention."

"How did it happen?"

Lily shrugged her shoulders as she entered the laboratory. "No one ever really talks about it. If I bring it up Rosa gets upset and crosses herself. She says not to speak of evil things."

"Your leg is an evil thing?" Ryland didn't know whether to be angry or to laugh.

"Not my leg, silly." Lilly burst out laughing, the dark shadows in the depths of her eyes instantly banished. "With Rosa anything has the potential of being evil. Falling on the floor could be evil if you land wrong. Who knows? I don't inquire too closely into Rosa's strange ideas." She waved her hand toward the far wall, where books and tapes and disks lined the walls. "They're in order. I think the earlier tapes have more of the exercises we're looking for."

It was easier facing that cold room with Ryland with her. Lily smiled at him, unable to put into words how she felt. How much it meant that he cared enough to insist on being with her.

Ryland watched her slide her hand over the library of videos. So many of them. He could feel her relaxing with him, but there was a definite apprehension in her as she pulled several videos from the shelf.

"Most of the tapes are narrated by my father, but he also has several notebooks that seem to go with each video where he's added more data and his thoughts on what he's found." Lily tried to keep her voice strictly neutral.

Ryland settled onto the long couch. Peter Whitney had obviously spent many hours in these rooms and must have used the sofa for sleeping. Lilly turned on the video.

Several little girls were sitting at desks. Each child wore her hair in braids and all wore a gray tee shirt over jeans. Ryland felt his heart twist as he realized the little girl to the left of the screen was Lily. He glanced at Lily; her expression was carefully blank and she was staring straight ahead at the screen.

Over the next three hours, Ryland watched the little girls carefully performing mental tasks. Peter Whitney seemed to forget the girls were children, berating them for slacking off, yelling at them in disgust if they cried. When one little girl complained of a headache, he told her it was her own fault for not working hard enough.

Lily remained silent through the first two tapes, carefully observing each exercise that Whitney gave the children and his comments on which ones appeared to work to strengthen shields and allow them some respite from the outside assault of sound and emotion on them.

Whitney had made the observation early that certain girls seemed to be anchors for the others, allowing them to function better. He removed the anchors and played various sounds and even had two nurses yell angrily at one another. The little girls collapsed, holding their heads, rocking back and forth, and eventually had to be sedated.

The third tape showed Lily as a child sitting on the floor in one of the small soundproof rooms. She sat for a long time, unmoving, no expression on her face. Suddenly the toys scattered around her began to come alive.

Lily sat up straighter and leaned forward, her gaze glued to the screen. The objects in the room were moving, the dolls dancing, the balls juggling in the air. Peter Whitney's voice narrated his observations on the tape. "Subject Lily is growing stronger in her ability to control objects. An orphanage nurse observed this phenomenon and, as an infant, subject Lily was branded a child of the devil. I was excited when I heard the stories of her mobile spinning and dancing in her crib and knew I had to acquire her. She is a strong natural talent and with the enhancement may prove to be the one to use for future generations."

Ryland stiffened, not daring to look at her. Damn the man. Damn him to hell for that. Lily had to know the implications of what he meant. She already believed Peter Whitney may have manipulated the strong physical attraction between them. Whitney's comment could reinforce that idea in her mind.

"This is such a prime example of history repeating itself." Lily swept her hand over her face. "Isn't it terrible how families perpetuate cycles of violence or criminal activity? In this case, experiments? Dad should have known better, he hated his childhood, yet he turned right around and did the same thing."

"In the end he learned, Lily."

"Did he? If he learned, Ryland, why was he still experimenting on you?"

The voice continued in the background. "I have encouraged her to play with her toys in such a manner and have found the talent has grown stronger and in fact she is refining it. The only way to obtain her cooperation was to isolate her from the other children. She showed little interest in playing with objects when the other girls were around. It took sixteen hours of isolation before subject showed interest in the objects provided for her."

"He's right," Lily said softly, "in the earlier tapes I controlled one or two dolls and the movements were jerky. Now nearly every toy in the room is moving with perfect control."

Ryland might have thought her absolutely calm, but he was tuned in to her emotions, could observe her fingernails digging into her palms.

The child on the tape suddenly cried out and pressed her hands to her head. The toys fell to the floor and lay still. Whitney hissed in frustration and Rosa ran into the room to gather the crying child to her.

Ryland felt tears burning behind his eyes. He couldn't look at her as Lily changed tapes to view the next in the series. Peter Whitney had done nothing to comfort the child. He had only displayed his displeasure and frustration at the interruption of his experiment.

This time the child, Lily, was sitting alone in the same small observation room. Adult Lily fast-forwarded the tape until they could see action once again. The child shook her head stubbornly, her hands clenched in tight fists. Rosa stood in the background, her hand pressed to her mouth and tears running down her face.

"You're too little to do it, aren't you, Lily?" There was a sneer in Peter Whitney's voice, a taunting challenge.

Lily's chin went up and her eyes flashed. She leaned against the wall, her legs sprawled out in front of her, and she stared determinedly at the large box bolted into the corner of the room. One by one the bolts began to wriggle, spin, fly loose. The child pressed a hand to her temples but her gaze never wavered. Inch by slow inch, the box began to lift from the floor.

"Higher, Lily. Stay in control." There was a fierce eagerness in Whitney's voice, a wonderful triumph.

The box rose higher, dipping at one end, shaking unsteadily.

"Now move it across the room. You can do it, Lily, I know you can."

Ryland watched with his heart in his throat as the large box, obviously very heavy, rose even higher and began to float across the room. Telekinesis. He had no idea the weight of the box because they had fast-forwarded the tape but he had the feeling it was extraordinarily heavy. The child broke out in a sweat but her gaze remained resolutely on the box.

It was trembling visibly now, rocking in the air. It was high, nearly to the ceiling, but had only traveled a foot from its original position. Whitney made a sound of displeasure. The child winced. The box rocked more.

"Concentrate!" Whitney snapped the order.

Ryland was watching the child. Her face was white, her eyes enormous. Lines of strain appeared around her mouth. She was trembling with the effort to hold the box steady. Every muscle in Ryland's body was tense. He began to sweat as well. He remembered the tremendous concentration it took to hold an object and the pain suffered by all who were able to accomplish it. And they were grown men. Watching Lily's childhood unfold sickened him. He wanted to gather her to him and hold her protectively but Lily had moved a distance from him, her body posture screaming at him to leave her alone. Her arms were crossed protectively over her breasts and she'd drawn up her knees, hunching into herself.