Hunted by the Past, page 6
“I can’t.” Two words. One lie.
I searched Tag’s face. Under his compassion lay a wary watchfulness, a clear sign he expected me to break, as if it was a forgone conclusion. His look morphed my helplessness to fury, and it seared through my veins chasing out the numbness. My fingers curled around my gun and I yanked my hands out from under his. “Can’t or won’t?”
He didn’t answer, instead he recaptured my hands. His touch sent a small jolt of static electricity zinging along my skin. It almost made me miss his flash of quickly squashed guilt.
Almost.
“You bastard,” I hissed, a sickening sense of certainty crashing through me. He knew something, something he didn’t want to share. He was going to screw me again. I scrambled to my feet, knocking him away. “My sister is dead! You don’t get to shut me out!”
“It’s not my decision, you know that.” He remained crouched in front of me. Somewhere behind me Kayden must have made a move, because Tag signaled him to hold.
“No, I don’t.” I stood there, shaking with the force of my raging emotions as the past and the present collided, boiling into an incandescent storm.
At one time, he was the big brother I needed, pushy and protective. I believed him without question, trusted him to cover my back for years in some of the biggest hellholes on earth. Until the day I sat in a cold courtroom, alone, answering the unanswerable in a flurry of accusations. Now, when I needed his honesty the most, he wouldn’t talk. “What the hell is really going on here, Thomas?” I bit out the question.
Tag slowly straightened to his full six foot four, his face blanking into a familiar stonewall. “It’s classified.”
“No.” I shook my head slowly, never breaking eye contact. “No, you don’t get to pull this shit on me again. The two of you are going to level with me.”
“Or what?” Kayden’s question jerked my head around. He pocketed his cell phone and came closer.
I raised my hand to hold him off. “Or I walk away.”
He stopped a few feet from me.
“Ellery is hunting me.” Just saying it out loud choked me with fear. “You don’t have a goddamn clue where to find him, or you wouldn’t have tracked me down.”
With one man on the porch and one on the steps, I shifted my position so I could watch them both. If they were trying to pin me in, it wouldn’t work. I tucked my gun into the back of my waistband to combat the temptation it presented. My control wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped. “You’re here because you have no other choice, and you need me as bait. As of right now, I can’t think of one damn reason I need you.”
Kayden’s expression turned stony. “I can think of three, Elizabeth Gaskey, Michael Layton and Nathan Visic.”
Each name of my former teammates hit like bullets, tearing through half-healed wounds. The impacts left me speechless and leaning against the low porch railing.
“What the hell, Shaw?” Tag growled behind me.
“As of five minutes ago, the orders have changed. Now that we know for sure it’s Ellery on her ass, she needs to know what we’re dealing with before she does something stupid.”
Kayden’s comment burned, but it restored my voice. “What happened to Liza, Mike, and Nate?”
“They’re dead.” Too much emotion existed in Tag’s answer. Way too much. It scared me.
“Dead?” The question escaped on a harsh whisper. “How?”
Instead of answering me, Kayden snapped, “Give her the file. Let her see what Ellery’s become.”
Grabbing his wrist as he went to step around me, I asked, “File?”
He stopped and looked down at me, “You want to help hunt Kelsey’s killer, you need to understand who you’re going up against.” Something uneasy hovered behind his words. “Maybe it’ll make you rethink playing bait.”
“I’ve seen his handiwork, Kayden.” The words slipped out as brutal memories hovered close. “Just because no one wanted to listen the first time, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I haven’t forgotten what he’s capable of.”
“He’s changed,” Tag added. “Killers escalate.”
“Read the file, Cyn,” Kayden’s voice stayed gruff. “Then maybe you’ll understand.”
Goosebumps pebbled my skin at his ominous tone. “Fine.”
For the first time I wondered what I was getting myself into. Fading sunlight glinted off Kelsey’s car. Did I really care? Ellery needed to pay for what he’d taken from me. Tearing my gaze away from the trunk with its heartbreaking baggage, I could only manage one word. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, it wasn’t my decision.” Kayden studied me, then shook his head. “We need to get moving.”
“What about Kelsey?” I was proud how steady my voice was.
The stern lines of his face softened for a brief moment. “She’ll be taken care of, I promise.” He covered my hand with his and squeezed.
His show of compassion snuck under my guard and pierced deep, but I shored up my defenses. I gave him a jerky nod and pulled away.
Kelsey deserved answers, even if the end result left me buried in truths better left alone.
A short time later, I found myself tucked into the passenger seat of my Jeep and an inch-thick file resting like an anchor on my lap while Kayden drove. No one wanted me staying at the cabin. Hell, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay. Not now. Plus, they needed me out of the way while whoever they worked for came in and took care of Kelsey.
Walking away and leaving her there hurt. My chest ached. Tears were a hot pressure behind my eyes, leaking in a slow fall over my cheeks. It felt like I was abandoning her, leaving her with strangers. Not even Tag’s reassurance he would stay to watch over her helped. Yet, instead of pushing on the who and why of things, I let him take over.
I leaned my forehead against the warm glass of the window, blind to the passing scenery. As Kayden put distance between us and the cabin, I considered the brown file in my lap.
Watermarks dotted the cover, smearing over a couple of brown rings similar to coffee stains, and one corner was missing. Its rough condition proof it had been around awhile, and wasn’t that daunting?
All I had to do was open it and some of my answers would be there for the taking. Unfortunately, I was in no shape to handle them. Not yet. Not when the past crowded so close and bled into the present.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I wiped away my tears, and tucked my grief in a small, hidden corner. Later, after I got justice for Kelsey, my kind of justice, I’d let it free. Until then, I needed to get my head in the game. Time to embrace the suck and deal with the shitstorm barreling toward me.
Step one, discovering who called the shots on this operation. Sitting back, I cleared my throat and turned to Kayden. “Let’s get the most obvious question out of the way. Who are you working for?”
His lips thinned, but his hands remained steady on the wheel. “Why don’t you read the file first?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because I don’t want you to see me fall apart. Instead of admitting that, I said, “Tell me who you’re working for.”
“PSY-IV.”
Cipher? “Never heard of it.” Which said something, considering how much the military loved their acronyms. No need for a secret code, since everything had some catchy phrase attached.
“Wouldn’t have expected you to,” Kayden drawled. “It’s one of multiple teams under the Specialized Criminal Investigations Division.”
At twenty-four, a year into my second enlistment, I had joined MCIA, Marine Criminal Investigations Agency. They were the ones who arranged my last joint assignment. This unit sounded suspiciously similar.
“Specialized, uh?” I tapped my fingers against the file. “So, you’re still in. I didn’t think the military had relaxed its personal appearance requirements.”
“What? You don’t like the ’do?” He deftly sidestepped my question as he ran a hand through his shaggy hair.
Actually, the longer look suited him. The wholly inappropriate thought had heat climbing my face. In the marines, whenever a capital crime occurred, MCIA would run the resulting investigations and prosecutions. As long as it involved a marine, they were there to uncover, or in my personal experience, cover up, the truth. Whichever worked best. Considering the file in my lap, it would follow that Kayden’s team functioned in the same fashion. That thought made me pause. “So PSY-IV is, what? A joint task force for the MCIA?”
Kayden’s brief humor faded. “First, none of the teams officially exist. Second, we investigate paranormal crimes.”
It took my brain a few seconds to process his matter of fact answer. “Wait. Are you telling me you’re a covert paranormal cop? For the military?”
His jaw tightened at my question.
Okay, even I could hear the disbelief in my voice. But, seriously?
Six months ago, my initial account of what happened to my team would have had my superiors bouncing my ass into a psych ward so fast no one could’ve stopped them. Hence the amnesia alibi. Now Kayden was sitting here telling me he worked for them?
The military never admitted to things they couldn’t prove. I was proof of that. Granted, you couldn’t escape the rumors of crackpot conspiracy theorists on how the military housed deeply buried specialized divisions running from unchecked, black ops groups to genetically mutated soldiers. Yet, everyone knew it was just bullshit. Yes, the military ran numerous, undisclosed operations and highly secretive divisions, but not the woo-woo type that would give X-Files a run for its money.
“You really find it that hard to believe?” he asked. “I told you earlier, you aren’t the only psychic out there. Extraordinary abilities tend to result in extraordinary crimes.”
While I considered my ability more a curse than extraordinary, I could admit to wondering if there were others out there like me. It was just I never thought to find anyone willing to admit it. Still, I had to ask, “You belong to a unit of psychics?”
Not taking his gaze off the road, he nodded.
Stunned, I let his latest bombshell tumble in my mind. When it settled, I muttered, “Wow, that’s not encouraging.”
Puzzled, Kayden frowned. “What?”
“If an entire police force is needed to keep all us psychics in line, what does that say about our mental states?”
He stroked his goatee, to hide a smile or out of habit, I couldn’t tell. “Some abilities lend themselves to serious repercussions. Say a pyrokinetic gets into a heated argument with a friend over a bad hand of cards and sets the room on fire. Everyone gets out alive, but the building is torched. Investigators get involved, claim it’s arson and attempted murder. The fire-starter gets sentenced to twenty-five years for basically losing his temper, because for all intents and purposes there’s no way the fire wasn’t intentional. Is that fair?”
“No.” Reluctantly intrigued, I asked, “Did that happen?”
He nodded. “Yeah. We were able to overturn the sentence because of lack of evidence on how the blaze started, but he still spent three years behind bars.”
“For losing his temper.” I couldn’t imagine living under the constant worry of harming those around you simply because you got mad. “That sucks.”
He slid me a look. “Justice may be blind as a bat, but it isn’t always fair, especially when it can’t understand what’s really happening.” He turned his attention back to the road. “What do you know about CIA’s psychic experiments from the fifties and sixties?”
“Back after World War II the CIA got their panties in a bunch when they thought Russia had developed a psychic warfare program. Not wanting to get left in the dust, they started their own programs. Most of which, if I remember correctly, were defunct by the seventies.”
He nodded and took over. “The CIA wanted to find ways to create the perfect sleeper soldier, someone they could plant behind enemy lines, then use when the time was right. They collaborated with leading psychologists and scientists, all under the cover of research. They tried it all; drugs, electroshock therapy, hypnosis. You name it they did it.”
“At the time there wasn’t as much oversight from the government, so boundaries were nonexistent. Because their subjects were either convicted criminals, mental patients, or enemies of the state, no one cared about human rights. When they created MKULTRA, only then, did they turn their attention to U.S. soldiers, turning them into unwitting subjects.”
His history lesson rang a few bells. “Didn’t a guy named John Marks do an exposé on this?”
“Yeah, wrote a whole book about it. He culled information from unnamed sources and redacted documents. He focused on the CIA drug experiments and how the government tried to cover its ass. What he missed, and what the government kept deep under wraps, was that they had found some individuals who were the real deal.”
I grimaced. “And the government, being who they are, aren’t going to sit by and let an advantage slip through their fingers.”
“Nope,” he agreed. “Since you can’t force the general public to disclose private information without just cause, the powers-that-be focused on military recruits. One of the personality exams administered to prospective recruits tested for actual psychic ability. From there, it became a matter of tracking those individuals and combining them into cohesive groups. Over time, they managed to create specialized units in each branch.”
Something began to scratch at the back of my brain, but, caught up in the conversation, I ignored it. “If you have a unit comprised of untried psychics, something is bound to happen,” I said, starting to see where he was headed. “So there were accidents?”
“Right. With the creation of the teams, the military found a way to explain away the unexplainable.”
I watched his profile. “You said they don’t officially exist.”
He slid a glance to me and dipped his chin. “The government needs distance if the public catches wind of its existence. It’s funded by a sub-committee of a sub-committee of a special interest group that works with the Department of Defense.”
“Buried under layers for deniability.” Years in the military and dusty hells of foreign battlefields rubbed all the shiny off a soldier and revealed the seamier side of politics. “So who’s currently in charge?”
“Charlene Delacourt.”
His answer set off my alarm bells. I swallowed hard. “Colonel Delacourt?”
“The one and only.”
During my years in service, Delacourt’s name had been uttered with terrifying respect. A powerful female in a male-dominated environment, she was the stuff of legends. Unfortunately, she also served on the inquiry board that raked me over the coals. Unease settled over me, making my voice tight. “Sounds like you’re still working for the marines.”
“Delacourt has been the official head of the teams for the last four years.”
I fell silent, processing the information Kayden had dumped in my lap.
Four years ago, I joined MCIA and was assigned to Captain Eric “Flash” Fowler’s team. At the time, I was ecstatic. Not only was Flash a close friend of my adoptive father, but he’d helped me through my first enlistment when I questioned signing the dotted line. He’d shared some of the stories surrounding Delacourt, providing examples of what a determined woman could do in the Corps.
During Ellery’s trial, I found out just how determined Delacourt was, and it made one hell of an impression. Sitting in the courtroom, confused by my teammates’ mysterious absences, fuzzy from the painkillers still winging their way through my system, I endured question after brutal question, most asked by Delacourt.
Maybe if I hadn’t been reeling from the shock of my discoveries, I would’ve handled it better. But fearing an actual court-martial, or worse, being labeled mentally unstable, I stuck to my amnesia excuse like super glue.
The inquiry board’s frustration with my lack of answers at what had happened to Flash was understandable. If I had been on the other side of the equation, I would have had a hard time believing me, too. So, when the case was closed without a deeper probe, I didn’t push it.
Flash and Ortega were dead and buried. The rest of my team was reassigned and scattered to the winds. No one was talking to me. A whitewashed report emerged, and I received a medical discharge, the Corp’s polite way of saying, “you screwed up, but we don’t want people to know”. As soon as the doctor cleared me, I ran as fast and as far as I could, knowing for all intents and purposes, my career with the Corps was done.
Hindsight is twenty/twenty. Looking back, it wasn’t hard to recognize the transparency of my alibi. Delacourt had to have guessed the truth, especially if she ran a group of covert psychic teams. Not only did I have psychic abilities, but that horrific night, I discovered so did Flash. Pieces clicked together. “Kayden?”
“Hmm?”
“Is Tag psychic?” My pulse raced as I waited for his answer.
He turned toward me. “You need to ask him.”
Not a denial. The sting of betrayal zipped through me. Why wouldn’t Tag have told me?
Like you told him? A nasty voice perked up.
My stomach dropped as my world shifted. If half of the eight-person joint team had been psychic, chances were damn good all of us were. Which meant our team had been one of the government’s little experimental units. My thoughts stumbled to a halt. Damn it. All that effort to hide something everyone seemed to know about? “The entire team was psychic.”
“Yes.”
“Were you working for PSY-IV at the time?”
He nodded.
“Just you?” I pushed.
He didn’t answer right away. “No.”
Kayden’s quiet answer left me grasping for mental footing. According to him, PSY-IV monitored psychics, watched them, and recruited them. That meant if they sent Kayden in to join my team, not only was he recruiting, but we were under investigation as well. And if that was the case, it was because Delacourt thought there was a link between Ellery and the team. Considering the horrific outcome of our assignment, she might be right. But Kayden would not have been sent in on his own, not to investigate, and not to recruit. Suspicion bloomed. “Who else?”
