Street Game (18 page)

He’d chosen this life for them all, and he’d embraced it. There was a part of him that still did, maybe the biggest part of him. He loved what he did. He had even grown to love the psychic and genetic enhancements. But Jaimie was everything to him. He needed her. He just didn’t know how to reconcile the two. He had told her so many things that night. He’d like to forget he’d said them, but two years had gone by and he had plenty of time to remember word for word how he’d told her she’d come crawling back, begging him to take her back, that she couldn’t make it without him. He’d been so angry at her—at least he thought he’d been. Over those long two years he realized he’d been angry at himself for ever putting her—any of them—in the dangerous position they were all in. It was his responsibility and he couldn’t walk away, not even when he couldn’t seem to breathe without Jaimie.

There was knowledge in her eyes and he knew she accepted Kane’s betrayal better than he did. Maybe she even understood it. Jaimie seemed able to see things he didn’t. She put her hand up and tried to push Joe away.

“Let me, sweetheart,” Joe said. “I can explain.”

“We both can,” Kane added, more, Mack suspected, for his benefit than Jaimie’s. “Just let him work on you. You know how dangerous brain bleeds are.”

Jaimie tangled her fingers with Mack’s and clung, but she forced herself to stop fighting.

“Her name is Jaimie,” Mack said. “Not ‘sweetheart.’ ”

Joe glanced at him. “You’re looking for a fight, but you’re not going to get one from me. I was just—”

“Doing your job,” Jaimie cut him off, closing her eyes, not wanting to look at his face. “I hear that a lot. It’s such a great excuse, isn’t it? Following orders.”

She hadn’t known Joe was a GhostWalker or that he’d been sent to watch her. At first she’d suspected. He’d been her second choice, but her first choice had taken another job. She’d thoroughly investigated Joe and everything checked out. Even that, she knew, could be manipulated so she’d interviewed him several times, trying to trip him up with questions. If a story was rehearsed, it was often retold nearly word for word. Joe had been an easy talker.

And she should have recognized another GhostWalker. Or at least someone with psychic abilities. Judging by the heat in her head, he definitely had psychic abilities.

“It’s not like that, Jaimie,” Joe protested.

“Really? You didn’t answer my ad and apply for the job? You didn’t have a cover in place—a very good one, I might add. I’m pretty certain you never mentioned you were keeping an eye on me.”

“That your place across the street my men uncovered?” Mack asked.

“I couldn’t believe your man spotted me. He’s one of a very few who ever have.”

“He ID’d you walking up to the front door as well.” Mack didn’t identify Gideon. He didn’t know what was going on and protecting his men was instinctual.

Jaimie tried to think through the pain. It mattered little if they gave her explanations. Betrayal had a certain smell to it and that scent had been all over Kane. Why not Joe? That bothered her. She’d become fond of him. They’d spent many hours isolated together, working to turn the warehouse into a home and office. In all that time, how could she not have known what he was?

She felt him lift his fingertips away and the burning sensation eased. She could taste blood in her mouth. The overloads were getting worse, not better. She hadn’t said anything to anyone because who could she tell? Who could she trust? She didn’t dare go into a hospital. And what could a doctor do for her? Only Whitney might have a chance of helping her, and he was a monster without scruples. She’d probably come out from under the anesthesia and discover he’d given her wings.

“She should be better if I can get this medicine into her IV,” Joe said, sitting back. For the first time he looked strained, his handsome face lined with fatigue.

Mack held out his hand. “What is it?”

Kane put the medication in Mack’s hand. Mack closed his eyes, blocking out all sights, concentrating on the vial held between his palms. He inhaled deeply, scenting the liquid, looking for trace amounts of poison, sensing whether or not it could bring Jaimie harm. It bothered him that she couldn’t read Joe, and that Gideon, who had the eyes of an eagle, hadn’t spotted him easily. He wouldn’t have known Joe was a GhostWalker if he’d passed by him. If Whitney ever realized that both Joe and Gideon weren’t recognizable as GhostWalkers to the others, both men would be in danger. Whitney would move heaven and earth to find out why. Mack handed him the vial and watched him put it into Jaimie’s IV.

“I’m giving her a painkiller as well,” Joe said. “It will make her sleepy. I’d like to stay for a few hours and check on her. She’s not entirely out of danger.”

Mack knew Javier was on the second floor using Jaimie’s equipment to ferret out Joe Spagnola’s secrets. He nodded his head. “Thanks.”

He still hadn’t really looked at Kane. He wasn’t certain he could without punching him right in the face. Kane had asked for the sergeant major to put someone on Jaimie without even coming to him about it. To take manpower from one of the teams, and Joe Spagnola was definitely an elite GhostWalker, Griffen would have asked something in return. Mack knew that somehow Jaimie was going to be part of the price tag.

Joe stood up and stretched.

“I’d be careful moving around,” Mack said.

Joe’s eyebrow shot up. “I spent a good deal of time studying the safety areas of this room from the rooftops and windows. Your sniper doesn’t have a shot.”

“Not if he’s outside,” Mack agreed.

Joe hesitated and then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a Corona, shaking his head, clearly uncertain whether or not to believe Mack. “I see someone’s been enjoying my beer.”

“I thought it was Jaimie’s beer,” Kane said.

“She doesn’t drink,” Joe said and took a long, slow swallow.

Mack frowned. “You seem to know a lot about Jaimie.”

“I know she has nightmares. Bad ones.”

Mack couldn’t think for a moment; the roaring in his head was so loud it drowned out his ability to reason. He got up abruptly and paced across the floor to stare out the window.

“You going to tell your sniper to stand down anytime soon?” Joe asked.

“I was.” Mack whirled around to face him. “I changed my mind. How the hell would you know Jaimie has nightmares?”

Joe shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago, she found a murder victim just a few feet from her door. It was pretty messy. A woman knifed just outside her doorway. She’d been stabbed multiple times. Jaimie hadn’t been home and coming home to that really messed her up.”

Mack kept his back to Joe, his gaze meeting Kane’s. “How many times?”

“What do you mean?”

“How many times was the woman stabbed?”

“Sixteen.”

Mack drew his breath in through burning lungs. “How old was she?”

Joe lowered the beer, aware of the rising tension. “The vic was thirty-one. Lisa Carlston. She taught at . . .”

“An elementary school,” Mack finished. “Third grade.”

There was silence in the room. Mack sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. “Ethan, stand down,” he ordered.

“You really did have a gun on me the entire time,” Joe said. “I never spotted him.”

“Ethan’s like that,” Kane said.

Joe looked around the room, into the shadows, and he still didn’t see the hidden GhostWalker. “You knew I would come.”

“If you were sent to kill her, you would have killed her,” Mack said. “Anyone who can make the shot you did would have gotten her a long time ago.”

“So all this was . . .”

“I don’t take chances with Jaimie’s life,” Mack said.

Joe handed him an opened beer. “What’s going on? How did you know the victim was an elementary teacher?”

“With dark hair,” Mack said, his voice heavy with a sigh.

“Dark curly hair,” Kane added.

“Like Jaimie,” Joe said and put down the bottle of beer.

“Like Jaimie,” Mack agreed. “Like her mother.”

Joe swore. “Who was an elementary school teacher.”

Mack nodded. “Jaimie found her just outside the door of their home stabbed sixteen times. It was Jaimie’s sixteenth birthday. She came home late from work, and there was her mother lying dead on her doorstep.” His voice shook. The memory still had the ability to shake him.

“No wonder she had nightmares,” Joe said. “I had been following her, so I was with her when the cops came. She held it together, but when we came up here, she went to pieces. I got her to sleep and I stayed because I was worried. There didn’t seem to be a connection and she didn’t say anything, not to the cops and not to me. Of course at the time, we didn’t know who the dead woman was or anything about her.”

Mack exchanged a long look with Kane. “Jaimie would have known the significance of sixteen stab wounds. She’s brilliant. Things don’t get past her.” Yet she hadn’t called him. Hadn’t turned to him.

“I don’t understand,” Joe said. “What the hell are we dealing with? I was asked to keep foreign governments off of her. Someone made a try for her a week ago, but he was no foreign government; he was one of ours. At least he appeared to be.”

Mack nodded. “One of my boys took a couple of them down the other day. Former Marines. They were both reported dead over three years ago. Neither had been in the GhostWalker program but they’d both seen plenty of combat.”

“Same with the one I took out. I did it quietly and Jaimie never knew,” Joe said. He sighed. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Black Ops,” Mack said. “This is no foreign government after her. It’s our own.”

Kane leaned forward to look into Joe’s face. “Our two were set up for torture and interrogation, not kidnapping. They were going to kill her.”

“She’s too valuable to kill,” Joe said. “She’s got too much training. Why would they put out a hit on her, and yet send me to guard her?”

“Because two factions are at work here, that’s why,” Mack said and stood up, pacing across the room, unable to contain the energy spilling out. Ordinarily he’d be talking it over with Kane. Jaimie had hit on something big and someone wanted her silenced, but now he didn’t know who he could trust.

Kane shot him a look as if catching his thoughts, but remained silent. Mack was grateful. He didn’t want to brawl in front of Joe, but the moment Kane said the wrong thing, there were going to be a few punches thrown.

Jaimie moaned softly and Mack immediately crossed to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s all right, honey. I’m here with you.”

He knew Ethan wouldn’t take his eyes from Joe and he could fully concentrate his attention on Jaimie. She was asleep. And she was weeping. He’d seen it before. Sometimes she even walked in her sleep, going from room to room, trying to find her mother. He’d had years of those nightmares, heartbreaking and far too frequent. The year they’d spent together, the nightmares had lessened.

Mack bent over her, his fingertips gentle as they brushed at her tears. “I’m here, baby, you’re not alone.”

She opened her eyes then, but there was only anxiety and blankness. He knew she wasn’t aware. “I have to find her. She isn’t here. I can’t find her.”

His heart clenched so hard it felt like a heart attack, the pain gripping him until he could barely breathe. “She’s safe now, Jaimie. She’s where no one can hurt her.”

How many times had he murmured those words, trying to soothe her, quiet her mind when she was caught in the throes of a nightmare? It had always been Jaimie and her mother. Stacy had been fifteen when she’d given birth to her daughter. Her parents had thrown her out and she’d lived on the streets with the incredibly intelligent infant. Stacy had done her best for her daughter, working as a waitress and taking classes at night. It couldn’t have been easy and Jaimie had adored her mother.

He stretched out beside her, laying his claim in front of Joe. Jaimie was his. She would always be his, no matter how bad he screwed up, no matter how many mistakes he made. He’d find his way back to her, because in the end, Jaimie was his world.

He locked his fingers with hers, feeling a little helpless, as he always did when she was caught in the middle of a nightmare, restless and lost in another world he couldn’t travel into. He wasn’t a dreamwalker like Lucas or Ethan and he didn’t know what would happen if one of them entered her nightmare with her. All of them lived with enhanced psychic abilities, but they were all learning to cope with the skills, even after all this time. For him, he knew his abilities were growing. He could move from one place to another in seconds. At first it had been short distances, but now those distances were growing. It seemed that way with all of them, the psychic talents developing stronger over time and with use. Why, then, hadn’t Jaimie known Joe was a GhostWalker? Why hadn’t she sensed Gideon on the roof? And why was her reaction getting worse when she used her psychic abilities?

Because they were getting stronger.
He closed his eyes as he brought her hand to his chest, just over his heart. That was the only explanation. Jaimie’s abilities were growing and the price was higher. Her talent was highly unusual. She could feel intent and, if expanded, she could take in an entire structure. Thinking about it, he realized she’d read the energy around her entire building and down the streets. What had she been reading on the street today? How large of an area?

She would be able to find positions on battlefields, know where snipers had positioned themselves, know if an assassin was in the crowd. She was too valuable to want dead, yet someone very high up had ordered her death. Was she close to finding Whitney’s supporters? She must have triggered a red flag in her search. That would be like Jaimie. She would go in where others would be terrified. She might not pull a trigger to kill someone, but she wouldn’t flinch when uncovering corruption and seeking justice.

“Stop crying, baby,” he whispered. “You’re killing me.

I hate to feel helpless. You know that.” He wasn’t good at some things. Kane often had been the one wiping Jaimie’s tears away when she was a child and other kids tried bullying her. Mack was usually the one that beat the crap out of them. “Wake up, Jaimie. You’re here with me.” He pressed kisses along her temple.
Come on, honey, you’re safe. I’ve got you.