Brodie thought about that, trying at the same time to keep his mind quiet and calm, a placid ocean that wouldn’t distract Tasha. Or himself. “How do you know it surprised Duran?”
Tasha considered the question, trying to recall the specific feelings. “Astrid was surprised. She knew Duran would be surprised. I knew it too, somehow. That he’d be surprised. That he wouldn’t like it.”
“Wouldn’t like what?”
“Wouldn’t like it that I got out of the maze. That I had help, that I connected with you, that Astrid couldn’t control me the way they both expected she could. And . . .”
“And?”
Slowly, she said, “And he wouldn’t like that I escaped the maze without first being drawn to the center.”
“I have no idea. But being drawn to the center, finding whatever was there, I think that was part of the test.”
“A part you didn’t complete.” Brodie’s frown deepened. “I wonder if he’ll repeat the test.”
“No idea.” She didn’t like the thought that followed. “Unless . . . maybe they decide to try when I’m asleep. I get the feeling they do that sometimes. Test psychics who don’t know they’re being tested.”
“So the psychic thinks it was only a dream,” he said slowly.
“More like a nightmare, but, yeah, why not? That’s how it looked and felt, really, and being lost, even in a maze, is a fairly common dream. I was awake and very aware of having gone into your mind, but if Astrid and others like her are strong enough, they could be testing other psychics by getting past the minimal shielding most of us have when we sleep.”
His lean face took on an even grimmer expression. “We’ve always known psychics are more vulnerable when they sleep, just as nonpsychics are. We’ve even had at least one deadly situation when a psychic’s companion was more or less hypnotized in his sleep. That was another time Duran surprised us because he didn’t go directly after the psychic.”
“But the psychic was his goal?”
“Definitely. He made her come to him. Or, at least, that’s the way we read it. He surprised us again that time. He surprises us too much, catches us off guard too often. We need a way to . . . nullify that somehow.”
“But you said psychics can’t read Duran.”
“So far, we’ve never found one who could. And there have been hints from the other side that even their own psychics can’t read him.”
“Would they admit it if they could?”
“The hints came from psychics newly captured. While they could still communicate with us.”
Tasha hated to say it, but she had to. “How sure are you that they’re ever able to freely communicate with you, even at the very beginning, after they’re first abducted? Maybe whatever information you believe has come from them came from Duran instead. Misinformation.”
Frankly, Brodie answered, “About as sure as we are of everything else. Which is to say, not very. It isn’t something we’d count on when forming any kind of plan but, at the same time, our psychics are convinced Duran has an impenetrable shield so complete it’s able even to hide his personality, the unique electromagnetic signature we all possess.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have one of those,” Tasha suggested, not really joking.
“Well, he’s real enough,” Brodie said. “I’ve met him face to face enough times to be certain of it. He doesn’t come across as a thug or even as a soldier or any kind of crook. He comes across as educated, wealthy, sophisticated. Very smooth, very polished . . . and deadly as a poisonous snake.”
“You respect him,” Tasha noted.
“I do. He’s smart, he’s ruthless, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, he’s completely unflappable. I doubt we’ll find a weakness in him by catching him off guard.”
After a moment, Tasha said, “Then maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe the weakness isn’t in Duran. Maybe the weakness we can use against him is in his plans.”
—
Murphy moved through the neighborhood surrounding Tasha Solomon’s condo, keeping to shadows and managing to avoid alerting watchdogs or tripping any motion-sensor security lights.
She had a second sense about the latter, and always had. Or maybe that would be a seventh or eighth sense . . .
Hey, Murphy.
The inner voice was one she recognized. Murphy quickly rounded a corner and pressed herself back against a building where neither the lights of the occasional passing car nor a pedestrian out for a casual walk on these safe streets would find her.
She shifted her inner focus, making it as narrow as possible.
Hey. What’s up?
You knew Duran tested Tasha Solomon?
Yeah. The maze. That was you helping Brodie help her?
He didn’t need much help.
Murphy considered that for a moment. He isn’t psychic.
Not so sure about that. He connected. Reached out instinctively before I could guide him.
Huh. Okay, so what does that mean?
For one thing, Duran got it—and is worried about it.
Duran worried? That’s something I’d like to see.
I don’t think any of us wants to see that. Or, at least, see what he might do because of it.
Solomon’s in even more danger than we thought?
Duran wants her more than we thought. And unless I miss my guess, he wants Brodie out of the way, and as soon as possible.
As usual.
No. Permanently.
Murphy straightened unconsciously. Sarah, you know that for sure?
I’m as sure as any of us can be when it comes to Duran. He has some plan for Tasha, an important one, and knowing she connected with Brodie is a threat to that plan.
You still think that’s the major reason he didn’t go after you, don’t you? Because you and Tucker formed a connection.
That plus going public. But I think the connections are the important thing. Maybe what we’ve been missing all along. Two of us connecting that way somehow puts Duran at a disadvantage, or puts us beyond his reach. Think about it. No psychic with that kind of connection, that kind of bond with another person, has ever been taken, right?
Not as far as we know, though like everything else, we can’t be sure. But . . . Okay. How do we use that against them, assuming it is a defense for the psychic? We can’t just start linking up psychics, you and I both know it doesn’t work that way. It’s an organic thing, something that happens naturally, not something we can force. Right?
True enough. The right two people have to click, and it’s always male and female—usually one psychic and one latent.
I never knew Brodie was a latent.
I’m not so sure he was. Is. I think Tasha forged that connection, and not because I had already made contact through you.
Have I mentioned, by the way, how lovely it is to channel you? No matter how much you tone down the wattage, that’s a lot of energy you funnel through me. Being Murphy, she had to bitch about that.
Headache bad? Sorry. There was nevertheless a tinge of amusement in Sarah’s mind. Your cross to bear that you can channel other psychics. Comes in awfully handy when we want to keep another psychic or the second circle of protection a secret.
Why are we doing that, by the way?
This time, because Duran’s too close for comfort. Because he wants Tasha in the worst way. He sent Astrid out tonight. You knew that, right?
Yeah. Suspicious bastard, isn’t he?
Well, he knows at least some of our tricks. And since he always has a backup plan or three, he’d assume we would as well.
So how did you hide yourself from Astrid? I let her sense me, naturally, but what about you?
She didn’t even get close, but even so I . . . made her headache quite a bit worse. For which she’ll undoubtedly blame contact with you since I timed it that way.
Thanks a lot. You know, for someone I thought of as a pretty frail flower when we first met, you’ve turned out to be fairly tough and ruthless.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
I meant it that way. Murphy was honestly surprised it could have been taken any other way.
Sarah’s mental laugh was like quicksilver. Never mind. Just know you won’t have to worry about Astrid for the rest of the night. Duran won’t be happy, but even he knows better than to push a psychic too far, especially one already in pain.
I think you’re giving him too much credit.
Not this time. He needs Astrid. She’s been in Brodie’s mind, established that pathway, and whether or not Duran knows something has changed with Brodie, he’ll still expect that by now Brodie has put up whatever walls he can—and he’s been around psychics for years, long enough to learn some pretty good defenses. One thing I’m certain of is that only a psychic with an established pathway might possibly get through when Brodie puts up his guard, and even that isn’t certain. Duran can’t afford to push Astrid too far.
Why does he need her? I mean, I get that she touched Brodie’s mind and that’ll make it easier for her next time, but what’s the point of getting inside his mind at all? Intel?
Not exactly. I think Duran learned something from Tucker and me. I think he learned that if he wants to get rid of Brodie, just killing him—assuming he could—would damage, even destroy, Tasha. Because they’re connected now. So he’ll need to try something else first. He’ll need to try to sever the psychic connection between them, soon, before it has a chance to grow strong enough to protect them both. And for that, he’ll need another psychic. He’ll need Astrid. She’s strong enough. And ruthless enough.
Murphy felt decidedly grim. Any way you can incapacitate her for a few more days? Long enough for us to get the both of them out of here and somewhere not under Duran’s eye?
No, she’d catch on, and I figure the less she knows we know, the better. I’m pretty sure she’s out of commission for the rest of tonight and probably most of tomorrow.
So that’s all the time we have to come up with a plan?
Well, I think maybe it gets worse.
Christ, how could it get worse? Even as the thought flew from her mind, Murphy reminded herself that things could always get worse. Always.
Maybe not worse. Maybe just more complicated.
More complicated is always worse.
Well, that really depends on who knows what. And considering that Duran sent Astrid out looking for the second psychic despite the fact that she was pretty much walking wounded, I’d say he’s a hell of a lot more than suspicious. I think he needed confirmation of a worrying suspicion.
That we had a second circle of protection and it’s you?
No. You know about our new ally?
Murphy could feel herself stiffen, but years of practice enabled her to keep her thoughts calm. You think Duran knows about him?
Just after I put Astrid out of commission, I caught something. Murphy, it was the mental scream of a psychic. A psychic being . . . turned inside out. Something beyond torture. Changed in some fundamental way she’ll never recover from.
Murphy could feel herself frowning, even though she struggled to keep her mind calm. Taken? Who? Someone we were protecting?
Sarah was grim now herself, and her mental voice reflected that. No, a psychic we weren’t even aware of. But someone else was aware of her, because in that mental scream, she was trying her best to contact him.
You think he’s nearby? In Charleston?
Somewhere close. And I think that’s who Duran more than half expected Astrid to find.
But if you caught it after Astrid was out of commission—Wait. There was another?
At least two others, earlier. Psychics who went missing, psychics he was keeping track of, for whatever reason. The one who cried out is clairvoyant, and she knows there were two others very recently. Two she expected our new ally—oh, hell. Two she expected Bishop to know. He must have made contact with all three of them at some point. And I’m betting one or both of the first two taken also tried to call out to him when they realized they were in trouble. I think they tried to reach Bishop because they knew he could help them. That he was the only one who could.
I think that is what has Duran worried. There are people fighting against you, that’s bad enough. And then there are people you really, really don’t want in that fight. People who could seriously hurt your operation. People like Bishop.
—
“No,” Brodie said with a tone of finality.
Tasha wasn’t a woman to accept that sort of thing, even from him and even about this. “Look, I’m not going to hide in this condo for the duration,” she told him.
“Nobody has said that’s the plan,” he reminded her. “Just for now. While we try to figure out a plan.”
“We can’t figure out a plan if we don’t completely understand what’s going on around us. Would it be better to stay here? Go somewhere else? What does Duran expect us to do?”
“And how do you propose we figure out that last one?”
“Test the boundaries,” Tasha said.
“By dangling you out on a hook like bait? I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t suggest I go alone. In fact, he’d be suspicious if I did. But we’ve been inside all day and well into the evening; nobody would be surprised if we took a stroll along a very well-lit sidewalk a couple of blocks to a pleasant restaurant.”
“We ordered takeout.”
“They have bands every night, sometimes really good ones. And they have desserts people come from miles around to try out. We walk down there for dessert and music. Makes perfect sense.”
“I don’t like it, Tasha.”
“I didn’t expect you would. It’s easier to guard something you can keep inside and . . . unexposed.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he’d been about to say never got said when a buzzing sound from his jacket drew his quick attention. His jacket had been hanging over the back of the bar stool where he’d sat earlier.
Brodie rose from the coffee table and went to his jacket, then came about halfway back to Tasha and remained on his feet as he opened the cell phone.
Not, Tasha noted, an expensive phone, but a very simple, almost stripped-down version. Was it what she’d heard characters on TV call a “burner” phone? One meant to be used once and then tossed?
“Yeah?” Brodie answered. He listened for several moments, frowning, his gaze on Tasha.
“That’s a dangerous way to test a theory,” he said finally. “Yeah, I know, but— Okay, if you’re that convinced. But it has to be her choice.” His frown deepened as he stared at Tasha. “Yeah, reasonably sure. There’s a restaurant a couple blocks down she wants to walk to. No, I couldn’t bring a gun into this building, the security’s too good. Okay. Yeah, I know where that is.” He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. Tell her not to be late.”
He closed the phone, and then immediately popped the battery out, then turned and went down the hall to the condo’s powder room. Tasha heard the toilet flush. When Brodie came back, he dropped the now-useless phone into her kitchen trash can.
“You flushed the battery? Why?”
“We usually just toss them and keep walking,” he answered readily. “But this is where you live, and I don’t want to take the chance that Duran’s side hasn’t figured out a way to track a specific battery. Power sources emit signatures, so who knows?”
Tasha was curious about several things. “Can’t cell phone calls be picked up by someone with the right kind of equipment? I saw that on a TV show.”
“Not our cell phones. We’ve modified them extensively. No Internet access, no GPS, no emergency button, and they transmit and receive on rare, virtually unused frequencies. Otherwise, they’re just plain old cell phones intended to be used for one call and only one call.”
“They call that a burner, right? Without all the modifications, I mean.”
Brodie nodded, then said briskly, “Okay, you get your wish, if you still want to go out. I don’t know if you want to change or just put on shoes, but we’re about to leave here and head for that restaurant with the music and desserts.”
“I want to change,” Tasha said, getting up from the couch. Then she paused, looking at him. “What is it we’re really doing?”
Brodie’s face was even more impassive than usual, and in his mind that ocean she could see so quickly and easily was very calm and very deep. “If I told you, it could affect . . . the outcome. Just get changed, Tasha, okay?”
She still had questions but went into her bedroom to get changed into something less casual. It wasn’t a dressy kind of restaurant, so she settled on keeping the jeans but switching to a pretty, lightweight sweater—winter in Charleston really wasn’t cold, even the nights—and exchanging the dorm socks for warm socks and running shoes.
Because you never knew. Given what was going on in her life right now, and the fact that Brodie and whoever had called him obviously had something other than a casual stroll in mind, it wasn’t all that farfetched to consider the possibility of having to run for her life.
She brushed her hair quickly, then came back out in the living room to find Brodie shrugging into his jacket. “Directional microphones,” she said. “I saw that on TV too. Couldn’t someone be outside listening?”
“All your windows have blinds,” he said, almost as if he’d expected her to ask the question. “They help prevent the glass from vibrating. No vibration, no way to listen in from outside. Aside from that, it’s also security glass.”
She blinked. “It is?”
“Yeah. Not bulletproof, but thicker than normal. Helps with soundproofing with traffic so close outside. That’s probably why the condo designers chose it.”
“So even harder for anyone outside to hear us.”
Brodie nodded. “You really picked an excellent building. If Duran and his goons were garden-variety thugs, they’d never get in here. Unfortunately for us all, they’re considerably better than that, and so far we haven’t found a security system they haven’t been able to bypass.”
“A guard with an Uzi outside my door?” she suggested, not really serious.
“Remember what I said about the nonpsychic they were somehow able to hypnotize? We believe they’ve been experimenting with mind control, using the psychics working for them. And they’ve clearly had some success at it. So we’re fairly careful who we arm and when.”
Tasha suddenly wished she’d chosen a thicker sweater. “Great. That’s just great.”
“Your extra senses and your instincts are your best protections,” Brodie told her seriously. “Always listen to them. If your instincts are telling you to run, do it.” He glanced down at her shoes approvingly, then offered his arm. “Shall we?”
She took his arm a bit gingerly, muttering half under her breath, “I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy the music nearly as much as I thought I would.”
“Sorry about that. Don’t take your purse unless you want to, but you’ll need your keycard for the building.”
“Travel light?” she said, snagging the keycard from the table in the hallway where she always dropped it and her purse and sliding the card into her back pocket.
“Usually not a bad idea.” He paused at her door and looked down at her seriously. “There may come a moment when you’ll have to decide to leave everything behind except what you can easily carry. And it’s not a bad idea to have that figured out in advance. Just in case.”
“Right,” Tasha said somewhat hollowly. “Just in case.”
—
“Aren’t we taking a big chance, being here just now?” Miranda Bishop said to her husband. They were sitting in a cozy booth in a dim back corner of the restaurant, and since a new band was busy setting up, it was fairly quiet in the spacious room.
Well, except for bangs and thumps and the occasional discordant note of some instrument.
“A slight chance,” Bishop admitted. His veiled gaze was on a couple who had just come in and were being shown to an equally semisecluded booth in the corner opposite them. The man was tall and dark and powerfully built; he moved in a way Miranda had come to recognize in men of action, with every muscle fine-tuned and under his complete control, ready to react to any sort of threat instantly.
The woman was tall and lovely, with a figure most any other woman would envy and dark hair that showed a red glint here and there under the low lighting of the restaurant. She didn’t move with quite the ease of her companion, but neither did she appear to be jumpy or nervous.
“Is it my imagination,” Miranda murmured after sipping her drink, “or is she handling all this pretty well?”
“I’d say pretty well. But even having watched those goons break into her condo, so far the only real threat she’s faced has been in her mind. Or, rather, in his. I don’t think it’s quite real to her yet. And won’t be, until she faces real physical danger.”
“Is that why we’re here?”
Bishop looked at his wife and smiled. “No. In just a minute, you and I are going to slip out that side door over there and leave. Before Brodie has the chance to spot me. He would not be happy to see me.”
“Then why are we here at all?”
“We can’t use our extra senses or even amplify the normal five, but we can still use those senses. I wanted to see those two together. Try to . . . get the measure of them.”
“You’ve already met Brodie.”
“Yeah. But my bet is that something’s changed since he became Tasha Solomon’s Guardian.”
“And you want to know whether that’ll prove to be a strength or a weakness.”
“I can’t know for sure without using senses I can’t use, at least for the moment.”
“But there’s that profiler training and experience,” she said.
“Coming in handy,” Bishop admitted, still watching the couple intently and yet obliquely, making sure his gaze wasn’t fixed on them for too long.
Long enough for one or both of them to feel it.
“So what do you see?” Miranda was also a profiler, but Bishop had been at this game quite a bit longer than she had. Besides, she always found it fascinating to watch him work.
“A man born to be a guardian, a caretaker—and the armed watchman at the door. And a strong woman who has felt fear, but isn’t entirely convinced she can’t take care of herself no matter what comes at her.”
“I’d agree with that assessment. And so?”
“I’m wondering what kind of team they’ll make. Unfortunately, without seeing them work together and without use of our abilities for the time being, there’s really no way to be sure. I’d hoped I’d see something that might tell me how Brodie, at least, is going to react when he finds out we’re still in Charleston and a lot more involved in this than he planned for us to be at this early stage.”
“Something we’re not alerting him to just yet.”
“I think we need to bring along some hard information to that meeting.”
“Peace offering?”
“Well, something to convince him he can not only trust us, but that we can help a lot more by getting into the war now. I really don’t think this is the time to hold back any of the assets.”
“The endgame is a lot closer than they realize?”
“As if we didn’t have enough trouble with serial killers,” Miranda said, but she slid from the booth, her hand in her husband’s, and followed him out a side door, waving cheerily to the waiter they had already paid and tipped for their meal.
Just a couple of steps out the door, Bishop paused and looked at his wife. “Maybe it’s knowing damned well I’ve lost psychics who could have tried to reach out to me when they were being abducted. Maybe it’s being a profiler and knowing only too well that there are monsters in this, deadly ones, and they won’t stop until somebody stops them. Either way, we have to put the pieces together and figure out what’s going on. And fast.”
Realizing, Miranda said, “You believe there’s still a chance to save at least some of the abducted psychics, don’t you?”
“I have to believe that.”
She nodded back toward the table no longer in their line of sight. “Even though their experience, maybe decades of it, tells them lost psychics stay lost?”
“Even though.”
“So we check out the place Henry McCord was restoring. And we check out the house waiting patiently for Grace Seymore to return. And if we’re very lucky or very good, we’ll find something useful.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” Miranda said, “I’ve learned never to bet against you, especially when it comes to getting into the minds of the bad guys. But we have been up for nearly forty-eight hours. I think we need a good night’s sleep if we expect to be any good at all, to anyone.”
Bishop looked at her with a smile very few people ever saw. “One more stop to make. She’s going to be mad as hell about it—but she won’t betray us, to Brodie or anyone else.”
“Because?”
A low laugh escaped him. “Because she’s keeping secrets on top of secrets on top of secrets. And I’d back her against Duran any day. Probably the most valuable operative this side has. I only hope their leader realizes it.”
“Now this one I’ve got to meet,” Miranda said.