Hunted by the Past, page 3
“Should I pose for a picture?” His voice held a knowing edge that left me grinding my teeth in a mix of embarrassment and frustration.
Unwilling to reveal how deep he was wedged under my skin, I forced my lips into a mockingly sweet smile. “Lieutenant Kayden Shaw.” Yeah, there was enough scorn in that one name to get me in serious trouble. If I gave a damn or still wore a uniform. Since I no longer did either, it didn’t matter. “Ever hear of knocking?”
His broad shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug. “Since your last visitor left a footprint by the doorknob, I thought knocking would be overrated.”
His unexpected quip snuck under my guard and made my lips twitch. I covered my reaction with a delicate snort. “Why are you here?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “Spoken to Tag lately?”
“No.” A stone settled in my stomach, and I blinked at the unexpected sting of my former teammate’s name. Answering a question with a question. Nice diversionary tactic. What did good ol’ Tag have to do with anything? “Been a little busy.”
Kayden’s curse was too soft to catch. “He was going to call you.”
“Well if he did, I didn’t get a message.” I squashed the twinge of guilt at the lie, recalling the second number on my cell that I had deliberately ignored for months. Using the staff I still held, I pushed to my feet and avoided his gaze. “Besides, I just got back into town.”
He watched me stand. “Where were you?”
Resentment rose at the implied order underlying his question. Keeping my face pleasantly blank, I met his gaze. “In case it slipped your mind, Shaw, I no longer answer to the Corps.” Some of my fury slipped through. “Since I’m a private citizen, why don’t you get the hell out of my house.” I stepped over his legs and headed back to the front of the house.
“Cyn.”
The seriousness in his tone and the strong fingers wrapped around my calf stopped me, but I didn’t look down.
“You need to listen.”
Couldn’t miss the order in that one. Alpha males might be fun on the pages of a book, but in real life they were a pain in my ass. Based on his current fashion choices, Kayden couldn’t possibly still be in active service, so there was no reason to follow his orders ever again. What was the worst he could do? Haul me back before a kangaroo court? Been there, done that, didn’t even get to keep the T-shirt.
Yanking my leg free, I headed toward the kitchen. If I was lucky, he’d leave.
I set the walking stick against the counter and grabbed a glass. Sticking it under the tap, I let it fill, using the familiar motions to still the small tremors wracking my body. Unfortunately, the sound of the front door closing never came. I got a few small sips in before my attempt to calm was interrupted.
“If you won’t talk to me, then call Tag.” For such a big man, Kayden moved like a damn cat.
Persistent little bugger. My fingers tightened on the glass that was halfway to my lips, then I took one last, deliberate sip before setting my glass on the counter with studied care. I turned to the man who once fascinated me beyond reason, and found him leaning against the entryway, his arms crossed, and blocking any chance of escape. Obviously, I wasn’t leaving until he got what he wanted.
Mimicking his pose, I drawled, “My cell doesn’t get reception out here.” Not entirely true, but his attitude left me obstinate.
“You have a land line.” He nodded to the blinking answering machine sitting on the counter.
My priority was Kelsey, not whatever crap was dodging Kayden and Tag, but my fickle curiosity perked up. “Why would you think I’d want to talk to Tag any more than I want to talk to you?”
His wince was hastily veiled, but not before I caught it. That tiny tell ignited a spurt of dark satisfaction from the less charitable part of me that was buried deep. He didn’t answer.
Not a shocker. Did he really think the silent male thing worked? Studying his rigid position, icy fingers of suspicion slid along my spine. Why was he here now? Just when Kelsey had felt someone watching her, asking questions about me?
Pushing away from the counter’s edge, I closed the distance between us. With each step I took, his jaw tightened. When only a few inches remained, I stopped.
It took concentrated effort to set said my resentment and mistrust, but when I succeeded, I compared the staticky image from my trip into the past against the very real, flesh and blood male in front of me. Kayden stood a couple of inches taller than whoever attacked Kelsey, which put him a good six inches above me. But more telling, his shoulders were broader. It took a great deal of fortitude to study his chiseled face and not be intimidated. He watched me, his gaze carrying the weight of other, shared memories, untouched by hurt and pain. It didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. Holding out my hands palms up, I waited.
“What?” There was a husky note to his voice.
“Let me see your wrists.”
Never looking away, he unfolded his arms and held his hands above my palms, so close the heat from his skin curled against mine. Ignoring my clamoring emotions, I checked his wrists once more. Besides a very masculine, heavy watch and old scars, they remained unmarred. I dropped my hands and met his stare head on, refusing to blink first.
He made me nervous on a level it was unsafe to acknowledge. I needed to get some space between us, but that would require touching him. Again. Probably not a good idea.
Since I didn’t want to touch him—much—I poked a finger against his chest, ignoring the unexpected zap of awareness. “I don’t know how you found me or why, but right now I have other, more important things to do. So, why don’t—”
My tirade was interrupted by a phone ringing. Not my cell, but the land land. I shot a look at the phone sitting on the counter to our left, and then narrowed my gaze at Kayden.
He quirked an eyebrow. The phone rang again.
“You going to answer it?” he drawled.
Stepping back, I plucked the receiver off the cradle. “Hello?”
“Cyn?”
What do you know, it was Thomas Anderson Gunderson, AKA Tag. I stared at the man standing across from me. “Yeah.”
“Where have you been? And why the hell won’t you answer my calls?” Despite his questions, there was a thread of relief in my friend’s voice.
Ex-friend, remember? “Why would I?” I answered absently, watching Kayden move to the other side of the counter and take a seat on a bar stool.
In my ear, Tag cursed. “Dammit, Cyn. I don’t have time to explain shit now—”
“Why are you calling me?” I cut him off, ice coating every word.
“Why are you in Sedona?” he shot back, his voice hard.
“I’m more concerned with how you got this number, and why everyone seems determined to turn my cabin in to Grand Central Station.”
Momentary silence filled the line. “Shaw’s there?”
“Got it in one.”
“Thank God,” Tag muttered. “Be as bitchy as you want, Cyn, but tell me you’re okay. You ran away—”
“I didn’t run from shit, Tag,” I snapped. “I was kicked to the fucking curb as soon as you and everyone else got what you wanted.”
“That’s not what happened.”
My chin lifted, even though he couldn’t see it. “Really? Because from where I stood, it sure as hell looked like it.”
Silence answered.
Turning away from Kayden’s too-avid gaze, I tried to regain control so I could shove both men back out of my life. “I’m fine, but I’m little busy dealing with my own situation.”
“What kind of situation?” His voice sounded sincerely concerned.
Closing my eyes, I fought the urge to bang my head against a wall at the single-minded intensity of the male gender. “My sister is AWOL. Now, can we just focus on why you’re bothering me and Kayden has decided to pursue a career in B and E?”
Tag didn’t budge from his conversational target. “How long has Kelsey been missing?”
The urgent note underlying his question fanned the flame of my earlier unease. Was there was something bigger at play here? Worry for Kelsey trumped hurt feelings, so I answered. “Not sure, a couple of hours maybe. Her car is here.”
Over the line a string of oaths erupted and Tag proved no one could swear like a marine. “Son of mangy bitch,” he wound down before taking a deep breath. “The cabin’s an hour and half outside of Phoenix?” He didn’t wait for my confirmation. “I’ll meet you up there. Stay with Kayden.”
“Tag.” I put all signs of my waning patience into his name as my fingers tightened around the phone. It took an amazing amount of willpower not to share my own colorful vocabulary. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Right. Now.” The last two words squeezed around clenched teeth.
“It’s about Flash.” His unexpected answer stabbed deep, drawing blood under my skin. “His killer is out.” Brutal memories boiled forth, almost making me miss his, “Stay with Kayden, Cyn.”
My world spun as the drone of a dial tone filled my ear. I concentrated on replacing the phone in the cradle. My legs did a great impression of spaghetti noodles and folded under me, until I was sitting on the cool tile drowning in memories.
For six months, I ran as hard, as fast, and as far as I could, but in a matter of minutes I was right back where I started, trapped in a never-ending nightmare. It was enough to make me wonder which fickle fate decided to dump everything on me at once. If I ever got my hands on her, I’d happily beat her to a pulp. Damn, damn, and triple damn!
The past surged and broke through my flimsy barriers. Ghostly screams and the stench of burned flesh rose on a choking wave of horror. I dug my fingers deep into my thigh muscles in a desperate attempt to stave it off. It didn’t work. Greedy memories sucked me under.
My kitchen disappeared, replaced by a fetid alley behind a dive in Where-the-fuckistan. Sprawled on the ground, my head spun with dizzying sickness and my leg screamed with agony, yet all I could do was watch and listen. Watch the spreading pool of blood and brains seep from Ortega, his sightless eyes staring past me. Listen to the snap and crackle of a raging fire hissing through the night, while the foul smell of burnt flesh wrapped around me. Behind me, someone screamed, his wail high-pitched and full of hopeless agony.
I knew that broken voice.
Even as excruciating pain beat inside my skull, I turned my head. A figure took shape in the midst of the hellish scene and recognition hit. Searing loss, rage, and fear clawed for a way out. My mouth opened and the stench coiled down my throat, blocking the air in my chest. No, no, no!
Hands cradled my face, the touch shocking enough to snap through my paralysis, and bring the present into the past. Desperate to escape, I struck out, my hand connecting with flesh. “Don’t touch me!”
Pain radiated down my leg and in my head. Harsh breathing filled the air. It took a few seconds to realize the sound was coming from me, and even a few more before the low soothing voice penetrated the layers of the past.
“Come on back, Cyn. You’re safe.”
I concentrated on the voice, drawing in sharp drafts of air until I relearned to breathe. The strangely hypnotic voice thinned the nightmare, allowing the present seep in. My kitchen re-formed. The press of wooden cabinets against my spine, the cool tile under my ass, the sound of Kayden’s soft reassurances that I was safe. I wanted to laugh. I hadn’t been safe in a very long time.
Feeling shaky and aching in unseen parts, I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. I dropped my forehead to my knees, holding tight to the comfort of Kayden’s voice, but refusing the shelter of his touch. When I could stop imitating a fish on land, I managed one word. “Sorry.”
Kayden was silent for a moment, then, “No apology needed.”
I wish I felt the same. I kept my eyes closed and my head down as shame and humiliation flooded me. Logically, I knew there was no reason for it, but logic didn’t exist in my nightmares. Tag’s comment about Flash had flipped a trigger I thought was disabled.
Apparently not.
The air next to me shifted as Kayden settled at my side. “We need to talk about it.”
His statement earned a bitter, choked laugh from me. “No, we really don’t.”
“Time to come back in, Cyn.” His voice was unusually gentle. “You can’t hide anymore.”
Opening my eyes, I turned my head, and kept my cheek on my knees. “Why?” Bitterness left a sour taste behind, but it didn’t stop my sarcastic, “Do you need another sacrificial goat?”
Years of hard-won control kept me from shaking apart. I worked hard to hide the damage of what happened in that alley, despite its repercussions. When those I thought had my back, walked away and left me hanging, I did the best I could. Even under relentless questioning I could see how the incident was being shaped, so I stuck with selective dissociative amnesia. It was the only protection available at the time. If I revealed what really happened, I would have been bounced out of the service for mental instability. Instead, the screen of trauma induced, sporadic memory loss resulted in a Section Eight medical discharge.
Kayden’s expression remained impassive. “I read the report you gave to the inquiry board.” He watched me carefully. “You want to stick to that story?”
“I don’t owe you shit, Shaw,” I spat. Did he really expect me to share anything with him after he, Tag, and the others left me twisting in the wind? Choking back the accusations, I sneered, “White jackets with buckles and padded rooms are bad for my digestion. Besides, drool is so not my style.”
Instead of the expected anger, his lips quirked. I looked away and muttered, “So glad I could amuse.”
“You’re being hunted.” I looked up. His brief show of humor was replaced by a strange seriousness. “I think he already has Kelsey.”
My heart stopped.
Chapter 3
“Start talking.”
It was a demand, ice cold and filled with protective rage. A rage that barely concealed a noxious mix of fear, worry, and sickening terror. Vicious, graphic images twisted through my mind. If Kelsey was in the hands of the psycho who stalked my nightmares, I knew too damn well what horrors she could be enduring. It was times like this when I abhorred how much shit lived in my head.
“Ellery escaped custody.” Kayden’s answer was brutally short.
“Escaped?”
“During transport to Pendleton, five months ago.”
“Five months?” I sounded like a damn parrot, but shock wiped out my higher brain functions. I pushed unsteadily to my feet. When Kayden rose to help me, I waved him off. Gripping the counter, I kept my back to him and did my best to untangle my gnarled thoughts.
Eleven months ago, I was assigned to a specialized, eight-person team to unravel the who and why behind the theft and possible sale of information on an experimental weaponized virus delivery system. It took us five months to uncover the who and close in. Unfortunately, the cost of bringing in Master Sergeant Reeve Ellery to stand trial for espionage had been high. Too high. Two of my team came home in flag-draped coffins. One of which belonged to my mentor and friend, Flash.
Ugly memories stirred, a bitter reminder of the price I was forced to pay. A price that looked as if I was still paying. The question was, why?
Granted, my testimony, as questionable as it was, helped cement Ellery’s conviction, but most of the evidence rested on previously gathered intel. My remaining four team members had been “unavailable”. Actual translation—hiding behind bigger uniforms or tucked away on classified missions. Which left me facing Ellery, the inquiry board, and their uncomfortable questions all alone. A situation that still chaffed my ass.
Old hurts didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. Finding Kelsey, getting her back, that was all that mattered now. “And you think he has Kelsey? Why?”
“He’s trying to draw you out. The best way to do that is through your family.” His calm demeanor rankled. “With the Ardens dead, Kelsey is the only family you have left.”
“Which is why I don’t broadcast our relationship. He couldn’t have found her easily.” With our foster parents gone, my connection to Kelsey wasn’t common knowledge. Our last names were different, we ran in completely different circles, and we kept separate residences that couldn’t be linked. Small things I exploited with ruthless efficiency, especially after I came home.
Paranoid and disillusioned, I didn’t want the trouble surrounding me to touch her. Unfortunately, there were two people who knew enough about us to change that. Flash and Tag. But Flash was dead. Warning bells clamored. I shook my head. No, Tag wouldn’t do that to me.
He had no problem walking away before, a nasty little voice reminded me.
Sure, to save his career, but this? Putting the last of my family in the line of fire? He wouldn’t. But others? Others, like the ones behind the highly sterilized report my lawyer handed me after the trial? The one that revealed how little my loyalty to the Corps really meant? Yeah, they would. In a goddamn heartbeat. I kept my back to the disturbingly silent male behind me. “Who are you working for, Kayden?”
“It’s classified.”
A bitter smile twisted my lips at his expected answer even as old fury reignited. Regardless of his non-regulation appearance, it seemed Kayden still worked for the military. Disappointment curled through me. I turned, leaned back, and let the edge of the sink press against my lower back. Then I folded my arms across my chest. “I was medically discharged, not demoted. Since it’s my family we’re discussing, don’t you think I deserve to know who I’m considering working with?”
“When they’re ready,” he shot back, artfully sidestepping my actual question as he mirrored me on the other side of my kitchen. “By the way, discharged is better than an honorable separation.”
The arrogant assurance behind his clarification pissed me off. “So, I should be grateful to be labeled physically unfit versus mentally unfit? According to who? You? Your superiors?” Roiling emotions morphed into a cold, cutting scorn and I didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Nice of you all to keep me in the loop. Oh wait, you didn’t, though did you? You all were on ‘assignment’ or ‘unavailable’.” I used my fingers to do air quotes, then glared at him. “Fuck you, Shaw.”
