Kate Allenton (2 page)

     
“I’m not sure how I can help.”

     
Cathy laced her fingers together and leaned forward. She was going to end this once and for all.
She’d find the bastard, give him a piece of her mind and, hopefully, be able to move on from the
hurt.

     
“I want you to use the tracking device in Ethan’s watch and tell me where he went.”

     
“I can’t do that. I’ll get in trouble.”

     
Omissions of facts weren’t lies, but withheld
truths.
Had she had that extra kick to her power,
maybe she’d have been able to detect Tara was hiding something and push for answers.

     
“Hello….” She waved her hand through the
air.
“Human lie detector here. I can tell when
you’re fibbing. I need to find him, and I need your
help
to accomplish that.”

Jonah crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “That would be suicide. I’d lose my
job.”

     
Cathy chewed her bottom lip while debating
her
next words. There would be no turning back
from her new determination. Crossing the line could
have
a deadly consequence, but finding the
answers was ultimately worth the risk. She’d deal
with the
aftermath once the dust had a chance to
settle.

     
“You have no choice.”

     
He raised a brow.

     
She rose and braced her hands on the table. “I know what you are and what you’re capable of;
and, if you want me to keep your secret, then you’ll help me.”

     
He shoved from the table, toppling the chair to the floor. “You don’t know anything.”

Cathy straightened. “I know everything there is to know about your ability.” She braced her
fists on her hips. Her gaze held steady. “Thanks to my gift, I’ve known from the moment we met.”

     
“Impossible! If you’re all-knowing, how come your gift didn’t pick up on Ethan’s?” Jonah re-
crossed his arms. His lips pursed into a hard line.

     
She hadn’t really thought about it until now. It didn’t make sense that she couldn’t read Ethan
as well as she could all of the others. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter why I couldn’t read him.
Ethan Jacobs and I have unfinished business, and I need his last known coordinates. After that, I’ll
walk away, and you won’t ever have to see me again.”

     
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. Her new determination cut like a double-edged
sword in her gut. She’d stepped over the line, but all bets were off now. “You’re either with me or
you’re against me…and trust me….you don’t want to be against me. Seven o’clock, my townhouse,
or the people who matter most will know your secret before nighttime. ”

    
“You wouldn’t.”

    
“I would.” Cathy strolled past him and patted his arm as she walked out of the conference
room. She didn’t even wait around to hear if Jonah acquiesced. In a million years, she’d never

thought she would resort to blackmail. She would
have
never even considered it. Well, today was the
dawn of a new day, and it was time she reclaimed
the power
over her life. Ethan Jacobs was going to
regret the day he’d ever met her. The sweet, caring woman he’d left no longer existed. A shiver of
anger travelled down her spine, anger at him for
making
her turn into this bitch she’d never wanted
to be.

    
The world better look out ’cause not only was
Cathy
back to her old self, she was on a mission.

                                                     
****

    
Cathy’s doorbell rang as she shoved the last
pair of
folded jeans into her suitcase. She glanced at
her watch and grinned. All apprehension she’d felt swished out of her body like her breath. Jonah
had taken the bait.

    
Cathy pulled the door open and froze. She
hadn’t
been expecting this visitor. She snapped her
mouth shut, biting back the silent curse that formed
on
her lips. It wasn’t Jonah on her porch like
she’d thought; no, it was far worse. It was Lydia,
the
resident seer, fortune teller, or whatever the hell
it was they were calling her
these days. Cathy’s fingers twitched, tightening
around the doorknob.
Her immediate reaction was to slam the door closed, but she refrained. Cathy should have expected
this; she should have known that Lydia would have had some type of vision warning her of Cathy’s
plans. The woman always did and she hadn’t been wrong yet. Thoughts again entered her mind to
flick the door closed.

    
“This will only take a minute.” Lydia’s voice came out sweet as sugar as she tightened the hold
on her purse strap. “I promise.”

    
Cathy stepped back and gestured Lydia inside. The pure determination on Lydia’s face rivaled
Cathy’s determination to find Ethan. Her smile fell into a newly formed frown and, if her facial
expression was any way to measure her mood, her guest wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

    
“I should have known it would be you.” Cathy closed the door and met Lydia in the living
room. “You can save your breath. Whatever you came to say isn’t going to change my mind.”

Lydia slowly turned around. Her gaze paused on the already packed duffel bag, sitting by the
coffee table, before she glanced up. “I’m not here to stop you.”

    
The tension in Cathy’s shoulders eased only slightly. An ulterior motive came to mind, maybe
something Lydia wasn’t telling her. Had Tara sent Lydia, maybe Brody? “You’re not?”

    
Lydia shook her head and hesitated for only a second, but it was long enough for Cathy to
notice. Lydia cleared her throat. The lines around her eyes softened and her shoulders relaxed.

“Nope, I know how it all plays out. I’ve seen it; so unless things alter, Ethan needs you to be with
him.”

    
Goosebumps immediately appeared on
Cathy’s arms. She
wasn’t doing this for Ethan, the
Phantoms, or anyone else. She was doing this for
herself.
The “he” the fortune teller had mentioned
didn’t matter. The “he” she mentioned could go
to hell.
“I’m not doing this for anyone but myself.”

    
Lydia’s lips twitched. “Ethan needs you….even
more
than you need him.”

    
“You can bet your ass on that.”

    
Lydia placed her palm on Cathy’s arm. The
gentle
contact was a move a friend might make, but
this woman wasn’t her friend; she’d fallen for that
once
before…none of them were. They’d all
figured out Ethan’s secret and left Cathy to worry
about
the jerk. Cathy could almost feel the

concern and pity rolling off the seer. “Forgiveness
is
hard, but not worse than a life of unadulterated
misery. Just promise me that you’ll trust your own instincts… even if you don’t trust his.”

Cathy held her hands up and shook her head.
She
didn’t need this crap. Not today, not now.
Lydia was acting concerned. Where the hell had
she been
over the last several months? “Stop talking
in riddles and tell me what
you saw.”

    
Lydia placed a small piece of folded paper in Cathy’s hand and squeezed it closed. “You’re
going to need this.”

    
Before Cathy could even open the paper, the doorbell rang again. Lydia’s smile didn’t reach her
eyes as she walked over to the door. “Just remember what I said.”

    
Lydia pulled the door open and gave a slight nod to a confused Jonah standing on Cathy’s
doorstep. “I believe you’re late. She’s waiting on you.”

Jonah’s eye’s widened as he turned and watched her leave. He hurried through the door and
pushed it shut. “You didn’t tell her about me, did you?”

Cathy shook her head. “Nope, but if I had to guess, I’d bet money that she already knows.”

    
Jonah moved into the living room and dropped a manila envelope on the coffee table. “It’s all
in here.”

    
He turned to leave, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. His body stiffened as he
turned his green gaze to hers. She could feel the hurt from her betrayal, even if he it didn’t show it
on his face. “Jonah…I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He brushed her hand off his arm and left her standing alone, in her living
room, with little more than her thoughts. Was she sorry? She sat on the sofa, picked up the envelope
and tightened her hold. Her answers were just a peek inside the envelope away. She closed her eyes,
unsure she wanted to know what lay inside. Was
she
sorry?

     
Nope, she wasn’t. She set the note aside,
tore open the
envelope, reached inside and pulled out
papers and a map. She unfolded the map and smoothed her hand across the surface. A small town
in Texas was circled on the map. The little town
of
Steigerville sat between two other towns,

Paradise Falls to the north and Simpleton to the
south.

     
She pulled off a hand-written sticky note attached
to
the map.

     
The GPS location of the watch has been in this town
for the
last two months. The General ordered me to initiate
the tracking system when Ethan left.

     
Cathy clenched her eyes closed. Her mind jumped, searching for answers to her questions.
Why?
Why on earth would the General have had Ethan tracked? None of this was making any sense. She
glanced down at the watch that Ethan had given
her. A
little token to remind her of the time they’d
spent together. He’d told her the watch she wore
could be
tracked. Would the General go to the
same lengths for her once he knew she’d left?

     
Cathy rubbed her temples.
Her head started to ache, and the tightness in
her chest constricted.
All he’d had to do was tell her the truth and she could have let him walk away. All she’d had to do
was realize he didn’t share the same feelings. He stepped over the line by the way he’d let things end.
He’d betrayed her worse than all the others. She’d worried about the bastard and, all of this time,
he’d been okay and probably living high on life in Texas…of all places. A knock on her door pulled
her back, out of the past and away from the unanswered questions. The knock grew louder and
more insistent.

     
“Cathy, open up and let me in.”

     
“Did you forget something, Jonah?” Cathy hollered back as she pulled the door open.

She’d expected to find Jonah. She found more than that. Three men surrounded Jonah. The
tallest of the men held a gun to Jonah’s head.

This wasn’t happening. Things like this didn’t happen to her. She was a nobody in the grand
scheme of things. A lie detector for all they probably knew.

     
“Seriously?” She glanced up at the ceiling before returning her gaze on the intruders. “What do
you want?” She asked with more attitude than she should have considering she wasn’t the one with
the gun.

The thug with the gun gestured her into the condo and she instinctively stepped back. She’d
been trained for situations like this, but it had been training for an all-out fight. She hadn’t been
instructed what to do when the bad guys had a gun pressed to a friend’s head and were invading
your living space. “Who sent you?”

Her gaze flew to Jonah’s. His eyes were
narrowed into
slits and his scowl deepened. Did he
think this was her fault? This was soo not her fault.
“Who
the hell are you?”

    
The man with the gun pressed to Jonah’s head stepped into the house, pulling Jonah with him.
“Ms. Fleming, we need you to come with us.”

One of the other men grabbed Jonah and yanked him back as the guy with the gun stepped
closer to her. She opened her senses; he was telling
the
truth. He needed her, but what exactly did
that mean? She felt the shift in the air of the powers around her. The underlying vibration was