Temptation in Shadows (11 page)

Oh, shut up,
she told herself.

“Nothing like that. They just want me with them. Always. And sometimes I want to be with them. The only problem is, shadows are naturally hungry. Because they are cold, they crave people, body heat. They want to wrap around those near them so inexorably,
light can never enter, and that tends to drive people insane.”

He’d said the last with a quick peek in her direction. To judge her reaction? Did he hope to frighten her? “I’ve lived my entire life in the dark. That doesn’t scare me.” And, too, being lost in the dark with Sean didn’t seem like such a bad thing. The things they could do to each other . . .

Stupid,
she thought. Yet again.

He grinned. “Good to know.”

“That doesn’t mean I like you,” she rushed out.

His grin didn’t waver as the garage door to the house next to Bill’s suddenly opened. Out came a black Lexus. The driver, a man who looked to be in his late forties, with round cheeks and a shadow of beard stubble, was at the wheel. He held a cell phone in one hand and worked the steering wheel with the other.

Silence reigned until the car disappeared down the street. Gabby realized her heart had sped up and was slamming against her ribs, about to crack them. He’d been there all along. What if she and Sean hadn’t waited? What if they’d been spotted?

“So we know no one was inside his house, holding a gun to his head and peeking out the windows,” Sean said. Then, without giving her time to reply, he resumed their previous conversation. “So what did little Gabby want to be when she grew up?”

Not what she’d become, that was for sure. “A stripper. Aren’t you concerned about the guy?”

“No. And the truth, please. I’ve realized I like it.”

And what Sean liked . . . “Fine. I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I’d taken lessons and everything.” Those lessons had stopped after her parents died, of
course. Her uncle had deemed the expense frivolous.

“That explains the way you move,” Sean said huskily. “Graceful, as if you’re walking on clouds.”

“Thank you.” Her skin heated with pleasure, and she frowned. The man was good, seducing her without touching her. “Now shut up. I need some me time.”

He laughed. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. God, she loved that. They sat in silence for an eternity, both of them watching the neighborhood for any sign of activity. Nothing changed. Everything remained calm. Finally, Sean was satisfied that they were safe and happy with the dimming light.

“Let’s do this,” he said, and exited the car.

Now trembling, she followed suit. Part of her expected to be shot without the car to shield her. As if someone had been lying in wait for this very moment. She stood very still, limbs heavy, nibbling on her bottom lip. Soon a throb began in her temples, and she grimaced.

“None of that,” Sean said, and shadows danced their way toward her. Enveloped her, cool and welcome, but cutting her off from the rest of the world. “I don’t want you scared.”

Because of the others, she recalled. The ones like her—the ones who had self-destructed and died. Again, that only increased her fear.

“I’ll take care of you, Midnight Lynn. That’s your new stripper name, by the way.” He stepped into the darkness, becoming her everything. “Come on. We’re safe. No one can see us.” Down the sidewalk and around cars they maneuvered.

Gabby relaxed a bit and maintained a firm grip on the waist of his jeans, careful not to touch the gun he had stored there. “Do people not notice the big black blob floating along the street?”

“To them, it’s like a cloud. A gloomy mist or fog. The human eye is funny that way. It sees what it wants, what it understands.”

They must have reached Bill’s house, because Sean stopped. He withdrew a black velvet pouch from his back pocket, unrolled it, and pinched a silver pin. He worked the knob for several minutes.

“Might be easier to unlatch the back door,” she said. “Those locks are never as good.”

He chuckled. “Done this before, I take it?”

Because there was no judgment in his voice, she answered honestly. “A few times.”

“An agent’s home is a little different from the average American’s. Guess we’re just more paranoid. Every door and window is hooked to an alarm. The one on the front door is less sensitive because it’s used the most and even agents like to have people over. Guaranteed there’s a trap set at the back door and all the windows.”

“Oh.” Thank God she’d never tried to break into an agent’s home, then. She would have been toast.

“We’ll only have a few minutes once I open the door, so be ready to download.”

“Okay.”

A moment later, hinges squeaked as the door swung open. Sean already had his gun palmed and pointed ahead. “Damn,” he said. “The alarm should have gone off. They’ve already been here, then.”

“The bad guys?”

“Rose Briar.” He moved inside, dragging her with
him, and shut the door behind her. Only then did the shadows around her dissipate.

The home was empty, not a single piece of furniture remaining.

“Wow. They work fast.” The man had only died last night.

“They have to,” Sean said darkly. “I was just hoping we’d beat them to it.”

“Maybe Rowan can get—”

Sean was shaking his head. “Nope. He isn’t high enough up to confiscate Bill’s computers.”

“Let’s at least look around.” Wasted trips, how she hated them.

Sighing, she strolled through the house. The ceilings were vaulted, the floor comprised of polished wood. The walls were differing shades of beige, a few places scuffed where movers had hastily carted everything away.

There was a fireplace in the living room, the kind she’d always wanted for herself. So many times she’d imagined owning a place like this, curling in front of the crackling hearth with a blanket and a book, nothing to worry about as she sipped hot cocoa.

“So what do you want—” Gabby pressed her lips together as a low-watt vibe drifted through her mind, waking up nerve endings she usually hated. “There’s a computer somewhere in the house.”

“They wouldn’t have left something like that behind.”

Not purposefully, but there
was
a computer here. Determined, Gabby marched forward. The farther away she was from the living room, the less she felt the vibe. So she turned and marched the other way,
out of the living room and down another hall. The vibe grew stronger.

Sean stayed close to her heels. When she attempted to enter a bedroom, he grabbed her by the waist and stopped her, then swept ahead of her to look things over.

“Clear,” he said, and she entered.

It was as empty as the rest of the house, but she closed her eyes, stream after stream of information pouring through her head. “It’s here,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m linked.”

At first, absorbing files like this had hurt. Maybe because she’d resisted. Now it merely tickled. She knew to open her mind, to allow the documents, or whatever they were, to fill the chip (or whatever) that was inside her brain.

How much time passed as the information flowed inside her head she didn’t know. She only knew that when one hard drive emptied itself another demanded her attention. Then another. And when she finally opened her eyes, the sync complete, the bedroom was no longer as bright and the moon was high, muted golden rays seeping past the burgundy curtains over the windows.

She was panting, sweating, her limbs weak. Downloading hadn’t had this intense of an effect on her in a long time, but then these were the biggest files she’d ever downloaded.

Sean, she saw, was crouched at the far wall, facing the door and Gabby, his gun pointed straight ahead in case anyone tried to enter. He was covered by thick, white film. Clearly he’d beat at the plaster until he’d found a doorway.

“Thank God,” Sean muttered as he stood. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Sorry.”

“Bill had a secret office down there. Computers, notebooks, but nothing I found pertained to you or those like you. You?”

“I don’t know. I have to open the files and sort through them. Which I shouldn’t do until we have a few uninterrupted hours of safety.”

“How does that work? Never mind. Tell me, but not here.” He strode to her and wrapped his strong arm around her waist. Just then, he was her anchor and she couldn’t have turned away from him even upon threat of death. “I have a lot of questions for you, but first I want to get to a safe place.”

Sean stole yet another car, a minivan this time, and drove into the pulsing heart of the city. There he bought another prepaid phone, then placed a call to Rowan and set up a time to meet him. In case anyone had been listening, they’d used code.

“I have two ideas about what’s going on” meant they’d meet at two.

“Come into headquarters; we’ll share a cup of the world’s greatest coffee” meant they’d meet at a local coffee shop they’d gone to once, hated, but joked sarcastically about ever since.

Having a history together helped in situations like this.

He picked a random motel and had to carry Gabby to their room. As he eased her onto the lumpy mattress, she moaned. And not the good kind of moaning. She’d begun opening Bill’s files and clearly they were paining her.

Sean settled beside her and placed a wet rag over her forehead.

She didn’t open her eyes, and her lips pulled into a tight grimace.

Hours passed with no change. He hated seeing
her like this and worried about what she was doing to herself. If she pushed herself too hard . . . Damn it! He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

“Gabby,” he said. “Break time, sweetheart.”

“I can’t do it. Hurts so bad every time I try,” she gritted out. “They’re encrypted or something. More so than anything I’ve ever seen.”

His concern intensified. “Stop trying for a minute and look at me.”

Slowly her eyelids cracked. Beautiful brown irises, glazed and slightly unfocused, soon met his stare.

“Have you ever opened encrypted files before?”

“Yes. Once. But it took a while. I was curious, you know, so I kept poking at it until something clicked in my brain and the gibberish made sense. There’s just so much here, and more than gibberish, it’s protected by a firewall.”

“Firewall?”

“It may not be actual fire in a computer, but it feels that way inside my head. Like flames are licking at my brain.”

Shit. He removed the cloth and traced his fingertips over her now-damp hairline, her temples and cheekbones. If he’d known this would happen, he never would have taken her to Bill’s.
Distract her.
“How do you get the files out of your head? Or do they stay there forever?” As he spoke, he stretched out beside her. To his surprise, she didn’t protest when he drew her into the line of his body but snuggled closer, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her back, wrist resting on her ribs.

The scent of soap drifted from her, filling his nose, reminding him of the shower they’d shared,
and he breathed deeply, savoring. His cock hardened, straining against the fly of his jeans.
Bad timing, buddy.

Controlling his physical needs had never been a problem for him before. Especially in dangerous situations. But then, he’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted Gabby.

“Took me forever to learn how to get rid of them,” she said. “By the time I did, my brain was so full I couldn’t process
anything.
I didn’t want to leave bed, just wanted to sleep all the time. And it made me sick, some of the stuff in there. Pictures I had no right seeing, plans I hope no one meant to actually see through.”

Poor thing,
he thought. Young as she was, she’d been through so much. His hand glided up and down her spine, offering comfort. He wished to God he could do more for her. “So what do you have to do to get rid of them?”

“I put them in the trash.”

Literally?
“I don’t understand.”

“Every computer has a trash receptacle. I had to learn to drag the files to
my
trash.”

The scientist who’d messed with her belonged underground, worms eating at his flesh. Not because he’d given her a way to free her brain of the shit it sucked inside—that had been a kindness—but because he’d done this to her at all.

Then you wouldn’t have met her. She wouldn’t be with you right now.
Sean cupped the side of her head, angling her, and kissed the corner of her lip. “I’m sorry you’re forced to go through this.”

“Why would someone do this to another human being?” she whispered brokenly.

Sean’s hold tightened. “He’s sadistic, sweetheart. He wanted to see how much he could change you, what abilities he could give you. He probably thought to use you for his own gain.”

“Why not watch me, then? Why let me go about my life?”

Had he?
Sean suddenly wondered. Maybe the scientist had let her and the others go but had somehow watched them, all these years. Because really, that’s what scientists did. Watched and observed. Tested.

How would he have watched Gabby, though?

With . . . a tracker, of course. Inside her brain. Sean’s eyes widened. That made sense. And also scared the shit out of him. It meant the crazy bastard would be able to find Gabby anywhere, anytime.

Sean could imagine the sick fuck sitting in a room, making notes, detached, clinical, sweet Gabby nothing more than a mouse in a wheel to him. But why come after her now? To keep her away from Rose Briar? He’d wondered before, but there were still holes in the theory.

The shithead hadn’t sent anyone after the other three Bill had found. The three who had died. Did Dr. Fasset think
Sean
planned to hurt Gabby and was therefore desperate to get her away from him? Did the doctor mean to save her, and thereby his experiment? But by saving her wouldn’t he be
interfering
with his experiment?

Too many questions. Sean hoped there was some type of answer in the files Gabby now had in her brain. He hoped Bill had known more about the doctor and situation than he’d shared. To be honest, though, Sean would rather wallow in confusion than watch Gabby hurt herself again.