Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) (14 page)

“Cat,” he said, “I’d like nothing more than to…I can think of a few things. But one of the downsides of living in a house full of other Talents like this is a complete lack of privacy, especially in the middle of the day. I don’t want fifteen telepaths listening in when I’m with you.”

His words brought me awake. The inside of my head felt itchy all of a sudden. I didn’t like that at all.

He reached across me and flicked on a soft light. His eyes above mine were dark and intense.

“I promise you though…soon, there will be the right time and place.” He lowered his face to mine, kissing me gently, like a benediction. “I want to take my time, and not be interrupted again.”

My skin tingled with warmth, and I sensed every inch of him against me, especially the heat of his groin against my hip. Not being able to have him now made it even hotter.

He slid one lazy hand down my bare arm and linked his fingers through mine.

“Jamie,” I said, nestling in. “Dorian Alexander—Dorian—said you would explain why we came here.”

His hand tensed a little, he drew back from me. Not much, a quarter of an inch, but it could have been a mile. He sighed.

“You remember the phone call I got?”

“Sure.” Hard to forget it, given the timing.

“When we bumped into Detective Jackson as we were leaving Justine’s apartment, he took it upon himself to call Dorian.”

I struggled to keep up. “How do they know each other?”

“It’s how I ended up here. I told you they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Jackson’s known me for a long time. He had a pretty good idea of what I am, and what I can do, and he decided that instead of putting me in jail, he’d send me to a diversion program. You know, like sending bad kids to wilderness camp. You might not think it to look at him, but Jackson’s a true believer in all kinds of Talent. It runs in his family.”

“Is that how he knows Dorian?”

Jamie nodded. “He doesn’t have a Talent of his own, but members of his family have worked with us.”

I paused, choosing my words. “Were you happy, being sent here?”

Jamie stretched, putting the arm that wasn’t around me behind his head. “Then, not really. I’m happy now.”

Unconvinced, I saw no reason to argue the point right now, so I moved on. “I still don’t understand why we had to come here.”

“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Jackson told Dorian he was pretty damn sure I’d been breaking the law, and although he couldn’t prove it this time, he still has a couple boxes of evidence from old cases against me. He could send me to jail if I don’t keep my nose clean.”

Oh. Not breaking laws. I could have said a few things about that, but I had another question, so I didn’t snark. “Why are we here?”

“She wants me where she can keep an eye on me. To put it bluntly, if I can’t behave myself I’m out, and on my way to a Vegas jail.”

The snark escaped. “How hard can it be to do that?”

“That’s what she said.” Jamie stared at the ceiling. “This is a good place. I need to remember that.”

A muscle in his neck twitched. This was really hard for him. Hard for me to imagine, but he was so different from me. He was a wild dark thing, in a gilded cage of his own making.

I put my hand on his chest. “I’ll help you,” I said.

He laughed, a curiously unhappy sound echoing in the room. “Darlin’, trying to help you is how I got myself into trouble.”

“That was you helping me. Now I’m going to help you.”

He turned his face to me, and those eyes, normally alive with charm, stared out at me, dark and hollow. “Don’t try to save me. There’s enough of that going on here already.” The usual easy smile plastered itself over his features. “Let’s go get some food, and then we’ll sort out this medal. Do you have it handy?”

We dressed and set out on our mission. In the kitchen, Jamie made me an enormous roast beef sandwich, dodging out of the way of the white-clad kitchen staff that clearly knew him well. I stood in the corner, munching on my sandwich while he made coffee like an impresario, lots of hand waving and fiddling about with a huge brass espresso machine.

He was right, of course. The only person I had any chance of saving was myself. I hoped there was a way to find Eric and navigate the politics of Ryder and the Grey Institute such that I could walk away and get on with my life. The pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit together for me yet, but if I knew one thing it was that the future I hoped for didn’t include a man like Jamie in it.

He was the antithesis of what I wanted: a peaceful life, a white fence, an office job and a couple of cats. Maybe a man, one day, but not Jamie. A man with no tattoos and no arrest record. A safe man. A boring man.

The deliciously unsafe man in whose arms I’d slept last night handed me a tall glass on a saucer filled with milky coffee. “Your café latte,” he said with a flourish. “Madame.”

“Aren’t you eating?”

He shrugged and picked up a tiny cup, full of hot dark coffee. “Not really hungry.” He tossed back the espresso and set the cup down as if it were a shot of tequila. “Ready? You can bring your coffee with you.”

I followed him through the maze of corridors—would I ever get to know my way around this place?—into a floral sitting room, where a group of older people, their auras richly decorated with the patina of age, played a game of cards.

“Hey, Herb,” Jamie said. “How are you doing?”

One of the senior citizens, an old man in a flat tweed cap and white shoes, pushed back from the table, and got slowly to his feet with the aid of a cane. “Jamie, my boy. Haven’t seen you for a while.” He came over and, leaning on the cane, inspected me from head to toe. “Who’s your friend?”

Jamie stepped to one side. “Herb, this is Catrina.”

Herb may have been ancient, but behind the thick dark rims of his glasses his eyes were pale blue and sharp. His aura was old and rich and distilled like a glass of port. He raised one wrinkled, saddle-brown hand to the peak of his cap.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Jamie’s is a friend of mine.”

“Herb, when your game’s over we’d like to chat with you about something.”

“Oh, it’s over all right. They’re all out of money.” Herb turned and waved goodbye to his friends, then turned back to us. “Why don’t we go out on the patio? I could do with some sun.”

We followed him out. Despite the cane and the limp, he moved surprisingly fast. Outside, he settled himself on a wrought iron chair by a little table, and gestured at us. “Sit, sit.”

“Thanks,” Jamie said. We sat in comfortable silence for a while.

Herb closed his eyes and appeared to be enjoying the sun. After a moment, he said, “Now then. Are you going to bring out this medal you’ve brought for me to look at?”

I laughed.
Talents.
He cracked one eye to look at me disapprovingly. “Dorian told me to expect you.” He closed his eye again and extended a hand.

Jamie put his hand in his pocket and lifted his hips so he could access the medal where he’d stored it earlier, in the pocket of his tight, dark jeans. As he arced up toward me in the sun, my mouth went dry. The gold of the medal caught the light as he pulled it out and dropped it into Herb’s leathery palm.

“Very good, thank you.” Herb closed his fingers over the medal, and took a deep breath. “It’s only nine carat gold. Made in Romania, about a year ago. Then it was sold in a religious icon store in the District to a young man. He wore it in phases, sometimes against his skin for months at a time, sometimes in a drawer. He wore it to bed with a young woman, and the chain broke in all the festivities. You didn’t find the chain? It was a cheap one anyhow.”

Herb opened his eyes. “Does that help?”

“Where is he?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can only tell you about the thing I lay hands on. If I were to lay hands on that young man, I would know him immediately, but I don’t know where he is now.”

“What about the girl?” Jamie asked.

“Red hair, a little firecracker. He loves her. They spend all their time in bed.”

Justine,
I supposed, blushing. I didn’t need to hear about my brother’s sex life from this old man.

“I’ll see if I can tell you something you’ll like better.” Herb breathed in deeply. “When he got the medal, he was working in a gray place that made him unhappy. He knew it would end badly. They wanted him to do things he didn’t want to do, bad things, terrible things. They wanted him to kill people.”

The thread of strange dark words spun out of the old man’s mouth, hard to believe on a sunny day, in a beautiful garden, in a privileged place like this. I shivered.

“He
has
killed some people.” I clenched my hands together; fingers crossed tightly, turning my knuckles white with pain.

“He ran from them so he wouldn’t have to kill anyone.”

“We don’t think he meant to. That’s why we want to find him,” Jamie said.

“I think,” Herb said, “that if you can find the girl, you’ll find your man. He wants to be with her, all the time.”

Jamie met my gaze. “And she’s somewhere here in town… Eric must be nearby.”

It didn’t make sense to me. “If he ran from the Institute, I’d be surprised if he came back here.”

“But Justine came back.”

“Justine,” Herb said. “That’s the girl?”

I nodded.

“If she is here, then he is here or somewhere near here, or he will be soon.”

“Thank you, Herb,” I said. I put down my coffee on one of the little patio tables and reached out to touch him on the back of his hand, where it rested on the handle of his cane.

Jamie twitched, and Herb’s eyes widened.

“Oh my dear. That’s interesting.” Like lightning, his other hand leapt forward to hold mine in place.

Herb’s eyes began to flicker from side to side, up and down, as though he dreamed while awake, or read a book at high speed. His lips moved, murmuring, and the whole time his hand held mine in place, his fingers almost painful. I tried to pull my hand back but the old man’s grip was amazingly strong.

“You are wrong about many things, my dear. You don’t know what you want. You have a huge Talent, hidden, growing inside you like a child, waiting to burst forth. You need to let it out. What a strong hold you have on it, keeping it locked down in there along with everything else you feel. Do you ever cry? Let it go, Catrina, let it go. Then, and only then, will you find what you seek.”

I wrenched my hand free and stood up.

Herb closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I usually stick to reading objects. It’s easier for everyone.”

All the blood seemed to have drained out of my head. I swayed slightly, and thought I might be sick. Jamie looked concerned.

“I’m sorry too,” I said.

“Herb tries not to touch people,” Jamie said.

“It’s true,” the old man said. “Usually people learn things about themselves they didn’t want to know, or wanted to pretend they didn’t know.”

“Thank you for helping,” I said. “I think I need to go now.”

“You should. Think about what I said.”

“I will.” I knew I would think of little else.

Jamie stood and walked over to me, taking my elbow. “Thanks, Herb,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll play cards later—I’ll be home for a few days at least, maybe longer.”

Herb looked at me. “I don’t think you will be here long.” He paused. “There is one other thing.”

I wanted to run from the garden, away, and put my fingers in my ears.

“Catrina, be careful with this boy. You will destroy him before all this is done. I hope you’ll stay around to pick up the pieces.”

Horrified, I tore away from Jamie’s hand and ran into the house, dimly aware of the two men watching me go.

Chapter Fifteen

I needed to get away, but I didn’t have anywhere to run to. After I got inside, I slowed to a fast walk, head down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. I hurried through the house, turning corners at random, until I found myself in a corridor that ended at an open door.

The room within had books from floor to ceiling. A library or someone’s study, I wasn’t sure. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. A wide old leather sofa beckoned. I lay down on it, facing into the back, and tucked my knees up, wishing I could sink into a hole in the ground.

I had so much to think about my head hurt. Herb had to be crazy. No way did I have a huge, hidden Talent waiting to burst out, and I had no intention of getting involved enough with Jamie to hurt him.

Our relationship was founded purely on spending lots of time together and old-fashioned lust. Seriously, any woman would have trouble spending a few nights in a hotel room with a guy that looked and moved and smelled like him, and not wind up sleeping with him. Which I hadn’t, of course. But if I did, I didn’t see how that would destroy him. We had no emotional investment in each other. None.

I needed to think about what Herb had said about Eric. There he was clearly at least partly correct. He knew about Justine, for instance. How accurate were his visions? If he was correct, then what had the Institute been trying to get Eric to do?