Lance left sometime early that morning. When, I wasn’t exactly sure, but his Jeep was gone when I staggered out of bed at around seven-thirty, feeling seriously hung over even though all I’d had to drink the night before was approximately a glass and a half of wine. Well, sometimes hangovers could be mental rather than physical.
I tried to put away the feel of his lips, the warmth of his flesh, as I took a shower and prepped myself for the meeting at Persephone and Paul’s house. The timing meant I’d be hanging another sign on the door at the UFO Depot, but I wasn’t about to skip out on something so important just because the store was open. Luckily, Thursdays tended to be slow as well — not quite as quiet as Wednesdays, true, but it wasn’t as if I was shutting the place down on another weekend day.
So I printed out yet another “Closed for family business” sign on my laser printer and laid it on the front seat of my Prius before heading out. I found myself glad to be leaving the house — even with Gort there, the place still felt empty with both Grayson and Lance gone. But as intense as that exchange with Lance had been the night before, I wasn’t quite sure where we were headed. Into bed, I had no doubt, but after that? Could Lance give up his freewheeling bachelor status to settle down with me?
I found I didn’t want to think about that right then, not with the memory of his kiss still tingling on my lips. Neither did I want to think about the upcoming interview with Grayson. How on earth could I make him understand that I had responded to Lance because I’d been in love with him for years, and not because I was rejecting who Grayson was and where he had come from?
Could I have come to overlook that part of Grayson’s background if Lance hadn’t been part of the equation? I wanted to say I could, but I had no way of knowing for sure. Sure, he was sweet and fun and considerate…and half-alien. And not even the good kind of alien, like Persephone’s spirit guide Otto, who had turned out not to be a spirit at all, but some sort of highly evolved humanoid being. No, the aliens currently re-infesting the base in Secret Canyon were much more the abduction/medical experiments/mind-fuck kind of aliens. Whatever their reason for creating human/alien hybrids, it definitely wasn’t for the betterment of mankind.
Mouth grim, I pulled into the parking lot of the UFO Depot at five ’til ten — the store’s usual opening time — and strode up to the door. I’d just ripped a piece of tape off the roll I’d tossed in my purse when a half-familiar voice said,
“Been having a lot of family emergencies lately, haven’t you?”
I turned and forced a noncommittal expression on my face as I saw one of the MIBs from the other day — the tall, friendly one, fortunately — standing a few feet off. Behind him was parked a black Ford that practically screamed “unmarked law enforcement vehicle.”
“If you knew my mother, you wouldn’t be surprised,” I remarked as I began taping the sign to the front door of the shop.
“I know of her,” he said. “So no, I’m not that surprised. What does surprise me is that her last known location was Taos, New Mexico. You planning a road trip, Ms. Swenson?”
Taos? I thought in some disbelief. The last time I’d talked to my mother, she’d been back in Phoenix. No big surprise, though. Marybeth Swenson always did have itchy feet…especially if a man was involved. And, to be fair, we hadn’t been in contact for years.
I shrugged and said, “Oh, right. I’m not supposed to leave town. Well, unless I’m under arrest, I’m going.”
“Why do you think I’d want to arrest you?”
He seemed genuinely interested in how I would answer that question. Despite the bright morning sunlight, he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and his eyes — a clear gray-blue — looked guileless enough. Actually, I realized right then that he was very good-looking, and just as quickly put that particular thought aside. I already had plenty of men on my plate, thank you very much.
“Where’s your partner?” I asked.
An incongruous grin. “He had an attack of some chile relleno that didn’t agree with him.”
“Oh. Too bad.”
The grin broadened a little, as if he knew all too well that I wasn’t a bit sad about his partner’s current condition. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said, since it seemed obvious he didn’t want to let it go. “I guess usually if you don’t want someone to skip town, you have a pretty good reason for it. And if you want someone to stay put, then generally you types can come up with a reason to arrest them. Or are the movies and TV shows getting it all wrong?”
“I’d say they’re exaggerating.”
“So I’m free to go?”
“Since it’s up to me….” He made a show of shrugging, then reached in his pocket and pulled out a card and handed it to me.
I took it, since I didn’t know what else to do. “Martin Jones, Special Agent, FBI,” I read. That was all, except for a phone number with a Phoenix area code.
“You find you need any help, Ms. Swenson, you give me a call.”
When pigs fly, I thought, and then chided myself. He seemed friendly enough. Maybe I was flattering myself by even entertaining for a second or two the notion that his interest in me might not be entirely professional. Briskly, I added, “You think I’m going to need help in the near future?”
Another shrug. “You never know.” He fished his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and planted them on his nose. “Time to go see if Agent DeSalvo has pulled his head out of a toilet yet. You have a good day, Ms. Swenson.”
“You, too.”
And I watched in bemusement as he got into his unmarked car and drove off, heading west on 89A, which meant the two agents were probably staying in one of the cheaper motels out toward the edge of town. At least he hadn’t hung around to watch which direction I would go when I left the parking lot. Paul and Persephone’s house was on the southern border of Sedona proper, down toward the Village of Oak Creek, and the opposite direction from the one I would have had to take if I really was heading up to I-40 so I could go rescue my mother in Taos.
Well, I couldn’t hang around here all day and wonder what exactly the MIBs were up to, if anything beyond some pretty basic surveillance. Although the “council of war” was scheduled for eleven, I had already checked with Persephone to see if it was okay for me to come over a little early. Not that I was all that eager to have a confrontation with Grayson, but I figured it would be better if I spoke to him first, before everyone got there.
The Olivers’ house was in a newer subdivision, halfway up a hill off Chapel Road. I had wondered how they’d managed to swing the purchase of the house, considering the neighborhood where it was located and its relative size, but Persephone had just laughed when the question came up and said, “Paul and I both had some money saved up. Besides, our mortgage here is less than what I was paying for a two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood. Rents in L.A. are insane.”
Maybe that was true. I’d never had the slightest desire to find out how much it cost to live in Los Angeles — I was a northern Arizona girl and always would be.
I pulled into the driveway and got out. Once again, clouds were beginning to move up from the southeast, bringing with them fluttering shade and shadow. The day still promised to be mind-achingly hot, though; even at this hour, I could hear the faint whir of an air conditioning unit off somewhere along the side of the house.
Maybe it was Persephone being psychic — or maybe she heard my footsteps along the stamped-concrete walkway that led to the front door. Whatever the case, the door opened before I even had a chance to knock. Persephone stepped out of the way with a smile. One would never know to look at her that she’d had a half-alien houseguest the night before.
She led me into the living room, where Paul and Grayson were waiting, both looking distinctly uncomfortable. Unfortunate, since it was the sort of room that invited you to be comfortable. The style of the furnishings and flooring was more Tuscan villa than desert Southwest, but everywhere were warm tones, plumply upholstered furniture, and mismatched antiques that still coordinated beautifully.
You couldn’t say the same for the two men sitting on the couch and in one of the armchairs. Paul shot a grateful look in my direction, obviously only too glad to have me take over babysitting duties. And Grayson…well, Grayson looked as if he hadn’t slept all night, which might just be the simple truth. His green eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, and he stared up at me with a sort of desperate hope.
I swallowed. Grayson was obviously expecting some sort of lifeline, and I’d come bearing an anchor instead.
“Hi, Grayson,” I said, relieved that at least I sounded mostly normal. “I thought maybe we could talk before everyone gets here.”
He only nodded, eyes still fixed on me as if trying to read his fate in my face.
“We can go into the family room — ” Persephone began, but I shook my head.
“I thought Grayson and I could talk out in the yard. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not,” Persephone replied. Paul just looked grateful that whatever we were going to hash out, at least it wouldn’t be in the house where he’d have to pretend not to overhear.
The yard was as lovely as the house. It had been pretty much laid out and landscaped when the Olivers bought the place, although they’d added a water feature to the area next to the house where a pergola covered in grapevines provided some much-needed shade. A redwood bench, aged silver by the elements, waited there, and that was where I led Grayson, who still hadn’t spoken.
I sat down, and after a second or two, he took a seat next to me, body tense, jaw set. Whatever he’d seen in my expression, apparently he could tell it didn’t bode well for our future.
“Grayson, I — ” I began, and he shook his head.
“Just tell me the truth. I may not be a man, but I deserve that much.”
Had he spent all night harrowing himself with that thought, that he wasn’t human, but something devised by the aliens for some unknown purpose? More gently than I had intended, I reached out and took his hand. It felt very real and very human, from the warmth of his flesh to the calluses on his fingertips. There was even still a spot of grease under one of his fingernails, left over from working on the Indian.
Throat a little tight, I said, “You’re Grayson. That’s all that matters. I’ll admit that last night I was shocked by what Persephone said, and maybe I didn’t handle things as well as I should have. I’m sorry for that. But I wanted to tell you that what’s happening with me doesn’t have anything to do with who you are or where you came from.”
“‘What’s happening’?” he repeated, looking confused.
Oh, this was awful. It wasn’t fair that he was watching me with that half-worried, half-hopeful expression, like a puppy unsure whether it was going to get a treat or smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. How on earth could I explain to him what had happened between Lance and me…not when I wasn’t sure if I could even explain it to myself?
I let go of his fingers and rubbed my damp palms over the knees of my jeans. Damn, it was hot out here, even in the shade. The jeans suddenly felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds.
“I just want you to know that we’re going to watch out for you, keep you safe, no matter what happens. We won’t let them get you.”
One eyebrow went up, as if he guessed there was some subtext to my words beyond the offer of protection. “Well…thanks, I guess. Don’t be offended when I say I’m not sure what you can really do to defend me from them if they get wind of where I am.”
He had a point there. I wasn’t sure, either, but since Persephone, Lance, and Michael had somehow come out victorious in the last go-’round, there had to be some hope that they’d prevail again. “That’s more Persephone’s deal, I guess…and Lance’s, and Michael’s.”
Another guarded look, as if Grayson had heard some alteration in my tone when I said Lance’s name. “Ms. Oliver mentioned them. They’re part of your UFO group?”
“I guess that’s as good a way of describing it as any. Look, Grayson, I’ve always been the one to wait it out on the sidelines. I’m not a psychic or a shaman or a soldier. So I don’t know what they have planned. But I suppose we’ll discuss that when everybody gets here.”
“Probably the smartest thing you could do is just hand me over, you know. They might take it as a gesture of good faith.”
I stared at him, not sure whether I should be more horrified by the suggestion itself or by the way in which Grayson had said it — voice flat, detached, as if he was discussing someone else entirely. “We would never do that.”
“No?”
“No.” Restless, I got to my feet and stared off past the cottonwoods that ringed the yard. The red-hued top of Courthouse Butte was just faintly visible through the lacy green foliage. Absently, I thought that view had probably added at least another twenty or thirty grand to the price of the house. “For one thing, even if we were that cold-hearted — which we’re not — we know it’s pointless to try negotiating with them. They don’t see us as much more than insects, right? So how could we trust them to ever keep their word about anything?”
An unwilling smile touched his mouth. “You know more about it than you let on.”
“I listen to what people have to say.”
He nodded but didn’t speak at first, instead gazing past me into the garden with its carefully groomed gravel walks and the assortment of drought-tolerant plants and grasses that grew in the spaces between the walkways. At length, he said, tone too casual, “This Lance person. Your voice changes when you mention him. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
There’s a whole lot of something I’m not telling you…. Somehow, I forced myself to nod. “I’ve known him for almost six years.”
“You were…involved?”
“No.”
Grayson’s expression brightened a little, and I spoke quickly, not wanting to feed him any false hope. “That is, we weren’t. I — wanted to. But — ”
“But?”
“But I didn’t think there would ever be anything between us. So I tried really hard not to think about him that way.”
“And I was…what? The consolation prize?”
I wondered how he, a hybrid grown by aliens in a lab, could even know what a consolation prize was. Then again, how had he known how to repair the Indian, or to kiss me, or….
That line of thought was dangerous. I pushed it away. “No, of course not. I was attracted to you. We had a wonderful time together. I thought things could be really good between us. But….” And I let the words trail off, because I didn’t know how to say it without it sounding dreadful, without intimating that yes, he was my second choice, since the wish of my heart had been denied me.
“But you loved him first.” To my surprise, there was no condemnation in those words. Grayson had spoken them slowly, thoughtfully, as if turning over the concept in his mind, trying to familiarize himself with it.
No point in trying to deny it. “Yes. I’ve loved him for a very long time. I just didn’t think he felt the same way.”
“So what changed?”
“He stopped trying to run away from it, I guess,” I said. “I don’t know why. We haven’t had much of a chance to discuss the situation. But I wanted you to know that what’s changed between you and me isn’t because of what — of who — you are. It’s because of what’s between Lance and me.”
Silence again, as Grayson appeared to absorb this statement. Then he said, “Thank you, Kara.”
Startled, I stared down at him. “For what?”
“For being honest. For treating me like a person.”
“You are a person,” I said softly. “You’re a wonderful person.”
His mouth tightened. Abruptly, he stood. “They’re here. Guess we’d better go in.”
And he moved to the French doors that separated the little arbor from the living room and went inside.
I hesitated, then squared my shoulders and followed him into the house.
Lance
He tried to ignore the pang of jealousy that went through him as he saw Grayson come in from the patio, followed immediately by Kara. Did the guy have to look quite so much like an underwear model?
But her gaze caught his, and she smiled slightly and nodded, as if to tell him it was all right. Obviously, whatever she’d told Grayson hadn’t been good news for the hybrid; he looked as if someone had just stolen his dog.
But Lance didn’t have much time to think about the hybrid’s feelings, because Persephone and Paul were urging everyone to come into the dining room. Michael, who as usual had hitched a ride with Lance, looked from Kara to him and back again, then nodded, as if confirming something he’d already suspected.
They arranged themselves around the dining room table, Paul at the head and Persephone at his right, with Michael taking the seat at the foot. Somehow, Kara ended up across from Lance, with Grayson next to her. Lance wasn’t too thrilled with that arrangement, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. There were two seats remaining, one on his left and the other on Kara’s right, presumably for whenever Jeff and Kiki showed up.
Persephone, playing hostess, had a grouping of pitchers on the sideboard for everyone. “There’s iced tea and water and lemonade,” she said. “I suggested a pitcher of margaritas, but Paul voted me down.” She shot a mock-angry glare in her husband’s direction, and he just grinned.
“I figured this was going to be tough enough without getting sauced into the bargain.”
“True. So let me get your drink orders before we get started.”
That took up a few minutes, with Paul and Michael opting for lemonade, and Lance and Kara taking iced tea, and Grayson murmuring that he just wanted water. Then everyone settled back in with their respective drinks, and an uneasy silence fell.
Lance was willing to wait it out. This had been Paul and Persephone’s idea, so let them take the lead. And it seemed they’d come to the same conclusion, because once they’d exchanged a glance, Persephone nodded, as if giving Paul the go-ahead to get things started.
“Okay, then,” he said, after taking a drink of his iced tea and looked briefly regretful that he’d denied Persephone her margaritas, “we figured the best thing to do would be for all of us to sit down and try to hash out exactly what’s been going on, try to get everyone more or less up to date. Maybe then we can begin to decide on our next course of action. Kara, why don’t you go first?”
She started, and for a second, her deep blue eyes met Lance’s, wide and more than a little worried. Obviously, she hadn’t expected to be called on the carpet first. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring nod. What he really wanted was to be the one sitting next to her, so he could take her hand in his and lend her some of his strength, but that wasn’t going to happen. Besides, the group already had enough to talk about as it was; he really didn’t feel like discussing the change in his and Kara’s relationship. That would be out in the open soon enough, if he knew anything about how this group operated, but that didn’t mean he had to push it.
After fortifying herself with a sip of iced tea, Kara said, “Well, I was out walking Gort last Wednesday….” From there, she explained how she’d come home and found Grayson lying in her living room, how she’d revived him and given him a place to stay, tried to help him recover some of his memories. She didn’t go into a huge amount of detail — obviously, she didn’t want give too many particulars as to how her relationship with Grayson had progressed — but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.
As Kara finished her little speech, Persephone stepped in right away, as if she could feel all of her friend’s embarrassment, her continuing worry that she’d been a fool to take in Grayson the way she had. “Something’s been bothering me — ”
“Just something?” Lance drawled, and Persephone shot him an irritated look even as Paul appeared to smother a grin.
“One thing in particular.” She turned toward Grayson. “Your eyes.”
“My what?” he replied, obviously startled. That was probably one of the last things he must have thought she would mention.
“It’s been nagging at me, but it hit me this morning when I could see you in clearer light. Your eyes are green.”
He hitched his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable being the center of attention. “So?”
“All the hybrids’ eyes were dark. I remember that very clearly. So if Grayson is supposedly genetically identical to all those other hybrids, how can his eyes be a different color?”
Good question. Kara frowned as she appeared to mull over the puzzle, while Paul leaned back in his seat a little, tapping his chin. All he needed was his beloved tweed sport coat, and he could have been back in a university office somewhere, pondering a particularly thorny question some grad student had just posed him. But, for better or worse, Paul’s days as a professor were long gone.
Michael had been quiet this whole time, absorbing everything everyone had said, but he sat up a little straighter and remarked, “I think it’s something you did to him, Persephone.”
“I — what?” She glanced from Grayson to Michael, and then over at Paul, as if seeking some reassurance from her husband that Michael didn’t know what he was talking about. “How could I change the color of someone’s eyes? Well, without handing him a pair of colored contacts or something, that is.”
Not even a blink. “How could you wipe out an entire base full of hybrids and infected humans?” Michael asked. “If someone had asked you before it happened whether you were capable of something like that, you would have said no. And you would have been wrong.”
Another one of those uncomfortable silences fell. Grayson was frowning, as if trying to process what Michael had just said. Now he looked like a perturbed underwear model, and once again, Lance found himself wishing that he’d figured out a way to sit next to Kara, instead of her being in the chair beside that — well, whatever he was.
In the middle of this, the doorbell rang, and everyone started. Well, the Olivers and Kara and Grayson jumped a little. It would take a lot more than that to unsettle Lance, and Michael remained stoic as always, as if he had been expecting the doorbell to ring all along.
Who knows — maybe he had.
Persephone glanced at her watch. “I’ll bet that’s Kiki and Jeff. Let me go let them in.”
She got up and hurried away from the table, leaving the rest of them to wait. A little smile touched Kara’s lips as she apparently heard Kiki’s breathless voice from the hallway: “Hope we haven’t missed too much. Jeff dragged me into the van at, like, five-thirty or something, and I hope you have something with caffeine in it — ”
Persephone assured her that she did as the trio entered the dining room, Jeff lagging a little bit behind. Something about the hacker looked different to Lance, and he scowled a little, trying to figure out what it was. Different haircut? He appeared as if he’d actually shaved, but it was something more than that. Oh, well. Jeff Makowski’s personal grooming habits really weren’t the issue of the day.
Kiki helped herself to some tea, and Jeff got water, before they took their respective seats. The hacker plunked himself down on Lance’s left, while Kiki pulled out the chair next to her sister. “Okay,” she announced, “we’re here. So what did we miss?”
Lance replied, “You mean besides your sister’s houseguest turning out to be a hybrid soldier from the base in Secret Canyon?”
Even as Kiki’s cornflower-blue eyes — a few shades lighter than Kara’s — opened wide, Persephone said hastily, “That’s the main gist of it. But until a short time ago, he didn’t remember anything of who he was or where he came from, so we’re trying to figure out how that could have happened.”
Michael folded his hands on the tabletop. Even a quarter-century after losing his wife, he still wore a plain silver band on his left ring finger. “It was Persephone.”
Everyone’s head swiveled toward the psychic, and Lance, who had sparred with her on more than one occasion, couldn’t help feeling a slight stab of pity for the woman. She looked both perplexed and embarrassed, as if caught in some transgression she really couldn’t explain.
“Care to elaborate?” Paul leaned forward, eyes keen. In that moment, he looked far more like a scientist on the trail of some tantalizing piece of evidence than a man trying to defend his wife.
Michael appeared serene and untroubled, as if he was conducting one of his medicine wheel ceremonies instead of explaining how one slight woman could single-handedly knock out a whole base full of hybrid soldiers and alien-possessed humans. “Well, not Persephone completely, but the force of Gaia working through her.”
Trust Michael to come up with some mumbo-jumbo, New Age–sounding explanation. Lance tried not to snort and was only partway successful, instead producing a sickly sounding cough, which he tried to hide by drinking some more iced tea. Kara lifted an eyebrow at him but said nothing, while Kiki’s mouth dropped open a little. Next to him, Jeff breathed something that sounded suspiciously like “bullshit,” but the word didn’t come out loud enough for anyone to call him on it.
“Gaia working through me,” Persephone said, her tone flat.
“It may sound crazy,” Michael replied, “but I think that’s exactly what happened. You felt it when you came here, down by the creek. Our world senses these intruders, doesn’t want them here any more than we do. So she used Persephone as a conduit.”
From across the table, Kara shot Lance a quick “do you really believe this stuff?” sort of look. He felt his mouth twitch slightly in reply, but he tried to keep his expression impassive. Michael had some kooky ideas, true. That didn’t mean his instincts weren’t scarily accurate most of the time.
“And so when I channeled this energy, it…what? Changed Grayson’s eye color, just for shits and grins?”
That was one thing about Persephone — she didn’t hold back. At the moment, she was staring at Michael with her arms crossed, eyebrows slightly raised.
“I doubt that was the real reason.” The shaman unclasped his hands and spread them wide, as if to indicate that he understood her disbelief. “There must have been something about Grayson, some small difference, that made him react to the energy differently.”
“A sport,” Paul murmured absently.
Kiki turned toward him. “A what?”
“An organism markedly different from its parents, or, in this case, the stock it came from.”
Persephone made a throat-clearing noise, and Paul added quickly, “I mean, the stock he came from.”
Grayson shrugged, looking as if he was past caring which words people used to describe him. For a second or two, Lance almost felt sorry for the guy. It wasn’t his fault he’d been grown in a lab.
“So because Grayson is different somehow from the other hybrids…” Persephone began.
“…the rush of power that came from you — or from Gaia — didn’t affect him the same way,” Paul finished for her. He glanced over at Michael, as if for confirmation.
Michael nodded. “I can’t speculate on exactly how it happened. But something allowed him to survive that blast of power, and at the same time wiped his memories clean.”
For the first time, Grayson spoke. His brow was knotted. He looked as if he was trying to digest what had just been said. “Maybe that’s true. I still don’t remember a lot. But when my memories were wiped — why didn’t I lose everything? Or, more specifically, why is it I know how to ride a motorcycle, or jet a carburetor — or hell, even talk and tie my shoes?”
That was a good one. Everyone looked over at Michael, who regarded them all with that same imperturbable expression. Talk about your great stone face….
“I can’t say for sure. Maybe something about that same blast of power opened your mind to the world around you, let you absorb knowledge that you’d never been exposed to during your time at the Secret Canyon base. You became a conduit as well, but for human experience instead of the earth mother’s power. I don’t know. Only the mother knows, and she’s not telling me.”
Next to Lance, Jeff moved abruptly in his chair, as if made uneasy by all this talk of earth mothers and powers and conduits. Lance couldn’t really blame him; even though he’d had his own experiences with what some people might call extra-sensory abilities, he’d never had much use for all the talk of earth spirits and vortexes and channels that drifted around Sedona like the cottonwood fluff blown on the town’s air currents. But something weird had happened, and since Michael was the only one who seemed able to put together any kind of a theory, Lance would go with it for now. It didn’t change the fact that aliens still occupied the base in Secret Canyon…and that they were probably still looking for their one lost soldier.
“Fine and good,” he said, and everyone looked in his direction. All the swiveling heads reminded Lance of spectators at a tennis match. “But unless the earth mother is going to butt in again and drop a tactical nuke on Secret Canyon or something, we’re the ones who have to figure out what to do next. Ideas?”
The silence that followed this pronouncement would have been absolute if it weren’t for the soft hum of the A/C in the background. Lance hadn’t expected much, but still it was a little disconcerting to have them all staring at him as if he was supposed to be the one to come up with the plan to save everyone’s asses.
“We should do some reconnoitering — “ Kiki began, and he sent her a quelling look.
“In what, the Scooby van? I don’t think so. They’re watching all of us.”
“Not just the aliens, either,” Kara put in. “Let’s not forget our friendly neighborhood men in black. I bumped into one of them again today on the way over here.”
“You what?” Lance demanded, his tone sharper than he had intended. “Were you going to mention this any time soon?”
“I am mentioning it. Besides, he didn’t have much to say. Still, it’s pretty clear they’re watching my comings and goings…and if they’re watching me, they’re most likely watching the rest of you, too.”
No one bothered to deny it. Kiki looked as if she wanted to, but after getting the stink-eye from Jeff, she shut her mouth without saying anything.
“But not me,” Grayson said.
Kara shifted in her seat, an expression of dawning consternation spreading across her features as she seemed to process what he’d meant by that statement. “Oh, no, you don’t — ”
He ignored her, saying, “They’re looking for me, true, but they don’t know where I am. If you can get me inside, what am I then? Just another one of a hundred men who look just like me.”
Everyone was silent, apparently processing Grayson’s offer. It did make sense, but Lance wasn’t about to voice his agreement, not when Kara might think he had a vested interest in making sure the hybrid was safely out of the way.
Finally, Paul spoke. “I guess Grayson is going to need some contact lenses after all….”