The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1) (29 page)

“Clinton and I will come with
you.” Herman started to rise.

Crap, not Herman!

“To the women’s bathroom?” Clint
asked. “I’ll pass. Samantha, I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not leaving the picnic
early, are you?” I asked him, a little desperate now. I actually stepped into
Clint’s way to prevent him from walking off. “Seriously, I love baseball. And
hot dogs and America and stuff. Could I interview you? I’m working on a company
newsletter.”

“We could work something out.”
For the first time I received the full force of Clint’s attention. During
previous encounters, including the dunking booth incident, he’d only half
noticed I was there.

We locked gazes. The man had
crazy eyes. Swirly. Wild. They were fringed by eyelashes so blond I could hardly
see the hairs. Pinprick pupils meant his grey irises appeared bigger than
normal.

I forced a smile and tugged my
shirt over my hips, which tightened it over my breasts and deepened the vee
neckline. If he was hung up on Sam, it was possible he was a breast man. “That
would be great.”

“Are we going to the house?”
Herman asked. “Quit standing around jawing. I’m not as steady on my feet as I
used to be.”

“You don’t want to interview
Clint.” Samantha did some mugging of her own, and she was no more successful
than I’d been in getting her message across. She probably thought I wanted a
piece of Clint’s rugged stubble since she’d convinced herself I was a femme
fatale. “You shouldn’t be doing interviews with other guys when you’re dating
John.”

“Good God, Samantha, if you’re
jealous, interview me yourself,” Clint said.

“It’s not jealousy on my part.”
Samantha’s face, already pinkened by the sun, reddened a little. But she was
telling the truth. “John gets really jealous of Cleo and other guys.”

“Then I’ll definitely give you an
interview, Cleo.” He reached out a hand for me to shake, and reluctantly I took
it. I didn’t feel anything obvious in his touch, but I didn’t like the gleam in
his eyes or the fib that had flickered across his face when he agreed to the
meeting. “I need to let some people know my schedule has changed. When you’re
done eating, find me and we’ll talk.”

He held my hand longer than
necessary, and Samantha’s lips tightened.

The deal was cinched. I resolved
to find him sooner rather than later. Whatever he had up his nonexistent sleeve—I’d
find that, too. I hoped his lie wasn’t that he had no intention of meeting me
but was trying to rattle Samantha.

When he stalked off, my instincts
told me to follow. Now. I took several paces before I remembered I had to wait
for Samantha and Herman.

“Punk,” Herman said to his
retreating back.

We waited for Herman to clump
down the stairs and shuffle across the grass, up the slight incline that led
from the yard. Herman had graduated from a walker to a cane after his hip
replacement. He complained about the cane and the heat and the distance between
the gazebo and the outbuildings, and Samantha motioned me to her side behind
Herman’s back.

“What is up with the Clint
thing?” she hissed

“I need to ask him some
questions.” I widened my eyes and tilted my head at Uncle Herman, stumping his
way up the grassy slope. “For the
newsletter
.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Waste of your time.”

“Did you know he was dating a
salesperson from the downtown office?” I said. “Rachel, Jolene’s daughter.
Small world, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s a good reason
to interview him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You shouldn’t have let him
touch you. You’d better let me fix anything he did.”

I’d never heard one pusher could
adjust what another pusher pushed. Say that five times fast. “I don’t feel any
different.”

“Do you feel different after I do
it?” We fell behind Herman so he couldn’t hear us. He certainly never heard me when
I banged on the wall or his door to ask him to turn down his television.

“Usually I can tell,” I told her.
“I’m fine.”

“Let’s not take the chance. He’s
not me.”

She reached for my arm, and I
shied away. “I need to interview him. I can’t miss my window.”

“I’ll go with you.” We reached an
area where picnickers milled and kept our voices whispery, heads together like
two women discussing a man. Which we were.

“Bad idea,” I told her. “He’s
obsessed with you, and that could distract from the information I want for the
newsletter.” I needed Clint where no guilty supras could overhear my questions
and put two and two together, but that didn’t mean I planned to hop in the car
with him and head off for a deserted, back country road.

The fact Clint might put two and
two together himself crossed my mind, but I had to find out what Yuri needed to
know. Carefully. If Clint was the saboteur, I was risking a burnout, or worse.

I needed ammunition. Samantha
might know if Clint’s particular skill lent itself to burning. Could he explode
somebody’s emotional stress levels? I’d been told there were no supra talents
that could, but my instructors weren’t infallible. Which is why the hunt for
the saboteur was so challenging.

That and the fact he or she
appeared to be smarter than the rest of us.

“You two quit whispering. It’s
rude,” Herman said.

Our whispers had been so tiny, I
could barely hear them myself. Was Herman an ear?

“We have to go to the ladies room
so I can get dressed,” Samantha said in a loud voice.

Herman paused, his gnarled hands
on the hook of his cane. “Go by yourself, missy. Cleo promised to get my pie.”

I hadn’t promised. I hadn’t even
agreed. Nor had I agreed to man the dunking booth or the corn maze and I’d
already found myself doing one of those two things. Herman was definitely a
Lampey.

“You can’t get your own pie?”
Samantha asked.

“Do I look like I can carry a pie
plate and tea at the same time with this stupid cane?” A sour expression
twisted features that were habitually sour anyway. “You young people, thinking
it’s all about you. Nobody respects their elders anymore.”

I felt like a jerk, and he wasn’t
even my uncle. “If you find a place to sit, I’ll come help you in a bit, I
promise, Herman.”

“You can do it now,” he argued.

Samantha patted him on the arm.
“She has other responsibilities.”

Herman blinked at us, his mouth
pinching and relaxing. He heaved a giant, disgusted sigh. “Fine,” he muttered
before he stomped off.

I raised a brow at Sam. “Did you—”

“Totally. Let’s run before it
wears off.”

I needed a blanket to ask
Samantha about Clint. A sonic wristwatch would be incredibly useful. Too bad
our tech guys were far from Q-like. Besides, I was out of the espionage
business come Monday—one way or the other.

We headed toward the outbuilding
that had the most people, assuming correctly it was the one with the restrooms.
However, it was so crowded I couldn’t talk to Samantha privately, blanket or no
blanket.

We stood in the line a couple
minutes before impatience got the better of me.

“I’ll go take care of Herman
before he blows a gasket. Then I’m going to find Clint. Can you tell Al I’m
getting a baseball interview for the company newsletter?”

“Wait for me,” Samantha insisted.

“I’ll be fine,” I repeated. “But
you could tell me a few things about Clint since you dated him. What are his
likes and dislikes? Does he have any hobbies or
special skills
besides
deadly aim with a baseball? Any, uh,
burning
desires?”

“Not that I know of.” The line
moved slowly. Female supras didn’t pee and primp any faster than norms, that
was for sure. “Do you really want to waste your time with him? There are better
people you could interview. Roxanne, for example. Is she really that bad of a
shot?”

“Yuri and Al would love an
article about minor league baseball. Clint has some good stories about it. I
caught some hints of them earlier.”

“You’re positive?”

I wasn’t, but it was the best
lead, outside of John, I’d had since I’d started this job. “There’s something
there.”

“I doubt it’s as interesting as
you think,” she said seriously. “When I broke up with him a year ago, he—”

“There you are.” Clint
interrupted whatever Samantha had been about to tell me. “I’ve got to scoot, so
if you want that interview, let’s go.”

Clint placed a hand on my upper
arm as if to escort me away from Samantha, but she grabbed my wrist, quick as a
snake.

Two pushers, one Cleo. If they
tried to vibe me at the same time, what would happen?

Would it make my moods rock like
a see saw?

Or burn me out?

Light bulb. Light bulb light bulb
light bulb! A pusher alone might not burn somebody out but if two joined
forces… Definitely a question for Yuri and Al, provided the supra tug of war
being enacted upon my person didn’t melt my brain.

“Let go,” I said.

“Where are you going?” Samantha
asked.

“Somewhere else,” Clint said.
“Somewhere with a table.” His mask suggested that was definitely not the whole
story. “I assume Cleo’s going to want her little notebook.”

“I do need to take notes.” I
thought I’d been discreet about my notebook, but I guess PIs like Clint were
trained to notice details. “How about you both take your hands off me and—”

I tugged, but neither released
me. I couldn’t exactly pitch a fit. The women waiting for the bathroom hadn’t
noticed our confrontation, and it would be best if we kept it that way.

“We’re holding up the line,” I
said. “Samantha, can you get Herman’s pie and tell Al I’m interviewing Clint?”

Samantha’s grip tightened, and we
locked gazes. “I’ll find you in twenty minutes, Cleo.”

“Sure.” I glanced at Clint, watching
Samantha instead of me. “See you soon.”

Finally Samantha let me go. Clint
didn’t. I leaned sideways, forcing him to release me. I didn’t like the undercurrents
here, and I didn’t like the lies flashing through Clint’s mask. I had to get
the rest of his story and I couldn’t do it here.

Samantha hadn’t seen the lies,
and without privacy, I couldn’t warn her. I could only hope she let Al know I
had a live one.

I didn’t need Sam to give me the
scoop on Clint anyway. It would disrupt my patented strategy—the Cleopatra
Giancarlo Total Wing-it Technique. No experience required.

Chapter 21

What You Can’t See
Can Hurt You

Clint tried to slip a hand onto
my shoulder when we left Samantha. I dodged. I was pretty slick at pusher
avoidance after months of Sam. I would say it was another of my patented moves,
but since a lot of supras did it, I doubted I could receive credit.

His grabbiness did, however,
rouse more suspicions. Unless all pushers were as overly familiar as Samantha,
he was definitely attempting to influence me. Why would he need to manipulate
me if all we were going to do was talk baseball? Unless, of course, he’d been a
minor league disaster and hoped I’d believe him when he puffed himself up.

However, I didn’t feel as nervous
as when I’d had reason to suspect Samantha, Al and John. Samantha had seemed
confident there was no need to test Clint, and she knew what I had to
accomplish today. Her antsy behavior about my being alone with him was related
to their dating history.

Outside the building, we
encountered the lunch rush. Down the hill, the dunking booth appeared to be
deserted—so much for Beau making dollars for dogs. People clustered around the
buffet and tables like ants on a banana. The hum of conversation was intense
enough that I saw several supras insert ear plugs. Sometimes that’s how
sensitives dealt with noise.

“No empty tables,” Clint
observed. “Any ideas?”

Not really, but when had that
ever stopped me? “It’s so loud here. We could—”

“Wait, I know a place.” He led me
behind the outbuildings and away from the picnic area.

By the looks of it, we were
headed toward the back forty, where the corn grew and the cows grazed. We
walked down an old road beside a barbed wire fence. Weeds had infiltrated the
road and swished my ankles and calves. Tire tracks marked the shallow, beaten
ruts. A light haze of dust clouded the ground, as if a vehicle had recently
passed. Probably the hayride.

I had no idea how much distance
one must travel to avoid being overheard by casual supra listeners. How far did
Al’s reach extend if I happened to get myself in a jam and happened to scream
bloody murder? He’d still have to truck his butt all the way down the road to
save me.

I stared behind us. “Where are we
going? I didn’t get to eat lunch, and if Lou catches me near the maze, I’ll be
stuck there all day.” The maze should mark another congregation of picnickers.
Between the maze and the main house would be best for privacy, worst for
safety.

I could see the top of the house
over the rise, through the large trees that surrounded it. There were no signs
of people except for tire tracks in the dust, one set of footprints, and a
discarded plastic cup.

On the other hand, the lovely
odor of cow patty emanated from the field in a cloud of moo, and it was hot
enough that I’d broken a sweat.

“We’re going to the other barn.”

“We hardly need to hike across Tennessee.
I wasn’t planning on that intense of an interview. We could go ahead and
start.” I swiped my forehead on the sleeve of my T-shirt and took out my
notebook. “Did you play for the Sounds?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Eight years.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah.”

He was giving me nothing. My
notebook would be more useful as a fan at this point. “Could you support
yourself doing that? I have no idea what minor league baseball players make.”

“I had a second job with the
Registry.”

So had Beau. The Registry must be
bigger than everyone made it out to be. “Two jobs, huh? I’m too lazy for that.
You just have one job now?”

He glanced at me sharply. “That
doesn’t have anything to do with baseball.”

“Samantha,” I said hastily,
distracting him, “told me you don’t like your current job.”

“She did, did she?”

“Uh-huh.” I’m sure she would have
if I’d asked her.

Clint halted, so I did, too. It
didn’t help the heat to be stationary. “What else did she say about me?”

“She said you didn’t appreciate
being forced to do things you disapprove of.” I shifted my grip on my pen.
“Sneaking. Prying. Stuff like that. I assume that’s why you don’t like working
for the agency?”

Clint and I stood in the deserted
lane for a long moment. He stared at me and I clenched my pen like a tiny dagger.
A breeze ruffled the blond tips of his hair and the tops of the weeds but did
nothing to cool me off.

“PIs pry. End of story.” He
turned away, not quickly enough. His mask said,
I never signed on to hurt
people.

Did he mean hurting physically
or...mentally? He did have a sort of Unibomber chic. Being a PI could hurt
cheating spouses or fraudulent debtors, but being the saboteur had killed at
least one man so far.

When he started walking again, I
jogged ahead, feeling ridiculous, but I had to be able to see his face.

“If you don’t like it, why don’t
you quit?”

“I signed a contract,” he said.

His mask corrected him.
If I
quit, they’ll burn me next. And then Sam.

Burn him next. He knew about the
burnouts. He knew who was doing it. He knew. And that meant...

My heart plummeted into my gut
and then pounded back up into my throat. My natural reaction, tinted cheery
shade of coward yellow, was to dash off as fast as my short legs would carry
me, screaming for Al.

I’d found one of the bad guys.
I’d done it, I’d done it!

Good lord, I’d actually done it.

Overwhelmed by my discovery, not
to mention dehydrated and scuttling backwards, I stumbled against Clint. He
righted me with a brief touch.

After several deep breaths, my
cowardice lost out to my sense of self preservation. These things might sound
identical, but they’re not. Coward said flee, big chicken. Self-preservation
reminded me there was no way I could outrun Clint, much less a bullet, and he
had excellent aim.

I didn’t feel good. Oh, I really
didn’t feel good. But before this went any further, I had to be sure.

In a fit of daring that nearly
made me vomit, I slipped my hand around his bicep much the same way he’d done
to me. His skin was as hot as the sun’s rays. “Do you have your gun with you?”

That’s me—gun bunny.

“At a picnic with kids?” He
raised an eyebrow. “No.”

I hoped my wide-eyed pretense
fooled him. “Do you ever have to shoot anybody?”

“Not so far.” He placed his palm
on my fingers.

Satisfied I wasn’t getting myself
into a situation involving bullets, my panic ebbed. If Clint feared burnout, he
himself wasn’t the arsonist. His cooperation with the mysterious blackmailers was
to protect himself and Samantha.

Who could the bad guys be? Were
they the ones blackmailing John? Was Rachel Lampey part of it or was she being
blackmailed? As soon as I could, I had to escape and find Al. There should be
people near the corn maze, and the hay truck could come along any moment. I’d
hitch a ride with them and Clint would be none the wiser.

Clint regarded me with something
akin to sympathy. “You look like you’re about to fall over, honey. There’s a
table and chairs in the milk house. Fridge, bathroom, AC. Cold drinks, too.”

I slipped away from his hand and
started toward the barn at a faster clip. He followed.

“Why are you so familiar with
Lou’s farm?” I asked.

“Rachel and I come out here
sometimes.”

I shouldn’t ask questions when I couldn’t
see my target’s face. When I tried to remedy that by walking sideways, a briar
whipped a line of red down my shin. “Ow!”

I bent to check the damage.

“Are you all right?”

He was too close for supra
comfort and he’d put his hand on my arm again, but I didn’t feel any vibes.
Maybe he wasn’t as pushy as Sam. Maybe he was just handsy. He didn’t seem to
know I was onto him.

“It’s only a scratch.” I plucked
a sticker out of my skin. The cut stung and beaded with tiny dots of red. “This
road needs to be resurfaced.”

“We can wash it at the barn.”
Clint slid an arm around my shoulders, as if I’d lost the use of my leg and
couldn’t walk without assistance.

“Okay.” I didn’t want his arm
around me. He was a sub-villain, and there were no signs of the hay tractor and
no signs of...wait, there was a peaked barn roof over the next hill.

I pointed. “Is that the cow
barn?”

“Think you can make it?”

“I’ll manage.”

His hand rested on the skin of my
shoulder like a lump of sweaty meat. Bees buzzed, birds sang, and cow poop
rankled in the heat. I sped up, hoping to loosen his grip, but he paced me
easily.

“No offense, but I prefer not to
be touched by people I don’t know,” I said.

He slid his hand around me until
he gripped my opposite arm, giving me a fatherly jostle. “I’m just making
things easier, Cleo.”

He was telling the truth, but not
enough of the truth. “What things?”

“Our meeting.”

Still not enough of an answer.
Anxious to reach the safety of the barn, I goose-stepped down the hill,
dragging him along. The building was long and low, painted red with a weathered
tin roof. An extension with a couple cars out front must be the fabled milk house.
The road continued past the barn and I could see the corn maze but no hay truck
in front of it.

No picnickers and their kids
around it.

I didn’t even see any cows.

Were there people in the milk
house? I was going to assume so because otherwise I was a gullible idiot.

But I wasn’t. Really. I’d been
the one to beg for the interview. I’d been the one to suggest we find a quiet
location, for my own nefarious purposes, might I add. Clint had merely
complied. He didn’t know I knew, and he’d never tried to hurt me before. None
of the bad guys had...that I knew of.

We reached the trampled grass in
front of the cow barn. I listened, but I didn’t hear any mooing. Didn’t hear
voices, although I could detect the faint bleep of machinery. The
tick-tick-tick of a cooling car engine confirmed there must be somebody around.

A flash of pink caught my
attention. A person disappeared into the cow barn.

When Clint, instead of leading me
to the milk house, ushered me into the barn, I didn’t resist. That’s where the
pink person had gone. Empty stalls with milking equipment lined one side of the
interior, and silver garbage cans, milk crates, farm tools, and odds and ends
lined the other. The smell of poop and oats predominated.

“Hello?” I said.

No answer. Clint shot me a little
frown.

It was cool and relaxing inside,
the earthy odors almost pleasant and the roof shielding us from the sun. I
realized I was thirsty. “Aren’t there cold drinks in the milk house?”

“I have something else in mind.”
Clint directed me to a ladder that disappeared into the black hole of the loft.
The scent of fresh hay poured in hot waves from the darkness, and whatever
machine I’d been hearing was above us. Must be a dehumidifier for the hay or
something, because I hardly thought the Lampeys were running a clandestine
gambling den in their cow barn.

I sneezed. “That’s a hay loft.”

“Good call,” he said. “And I
heard you were a city girl.”

“Why have you heard anything
about me?”

“Lou talks about you all the
time,” he said with a completely clear countenance. “In fact, she suggested the
loft as a good place for us to go.”

And still, his countenance was
clear.

If Lou knew we were here, there
was no way Clint could attack me and get away with it. Lou was more severe
about punishing supra wrongdoers than anyone I’d ever met, and she’d make sure
he got his. She’d use the situation as the rallying cry for her police
petition.

“Up you go.”

“Up there?”

“Yep.” Clint patted my arm in a
gesture that felt familiar from the many times Samantha had done it.

I grabbed the ladder but removed
a hand to cover my nose and mouth when I sneezed again. “Excuse me. I think I’m
allergic to hay.”

“It won’t last long.”

I wanted to ask what he was
pushing on me and tell him to stop, but the third sneeze woke an uncomfortable
twinge in my sinuses that spread to the back of my skull. It was hard to
concentrate. Pushers weren’t harmless, but Clint’s touch was nonthreatening. He
was obeying General Lou’s orders to use the hay loft. As such I was perfectly
safe, unless she’d conned him into manipulating me to stay after the picnic and
clean up.

My best course of action would be
to fake the baseball interview, slip in a few innocuous sabotage questions, and
get the hay out of here. Now that we had Clint, Yuri and Al could take care of
the rest.

Clint helped me ascend the
ladder, practically scaling it with me. I had reason to be grateful for his
crowding, because the sixth and seventh sneezes nearly detached me from the
rungs. My eyes teared up from the force of them.

“Careful.” A pair of slender
hands that weren’t Clint’s guided me into the loft.

It was too dark to see, plus my
eyes were watering. “Who’s there?”

“Rachel Lampey,” said a friendly
female voice.

“It’s all right, Cleo.” Clint
pressed against me from behind in a way that didn’t feel sexual, so I didn’t
break out my self-defense skill of writhing like a wet cat. His hands clasped
my arms. I swiped my eyes, sneezed again, and squinted.

The drone of machinery in the
heated darkness was distinct now and it resembled the racket from Uncle
Herman’s apartment. A high-pitched whine that seemed very familiar deafened me
for a minute before it clicked off.

A light flicked on.

My vision cleared.