CHAPTER 7
“You didn’t tell Lily you found Flame,” Ian said.
Gator looked up, one eyebrow raised in inquiry from the papers strewn around him in a semicircle.
“At the briefing. You didn’t tell Lily you found Flame.”
“I guess I didn’t. I must have overlooked that bit of information.” Gator tapped the pictures of the evidence of both girls’ disappearances. “I don’t see anything here that can help us, do you?”
“No. And we aren’t finished talking about Flame. She might have tried to kill you last night. She was there-I’m sure of it.”
“What did you see that I didn’t see, Ian?” Gator asked, tossing the pictures into a heap. “I searched, the same as you. I didn’t find a single print that might have been hers. I did find several men’s prints. And the same brand of cigarette Vicq Comeaux smokes.”
“She was there and you know she was there. She’s like a GhostWalker. She moves through the shadows and she leaves nothing behind, but we both felt her.”
Gator met Ian’s gaze squarely. “She
“She still may have tried to kill you. I think maybe you’re thinking with the wrong part of your anatomy.”
“She wouldn’t have made noise, Ian. She wouldn’t have snapped twigs and made the branches sway. There was no wind. Someone human did that. And whoever slipped in the mud was large.”
“I’m just saying to watch yourself. She’s beautiful, but she’s not coming in. You won’t be able to bring her in.”
“Don’t sell me short, my friend. I can be persuasive when the situation calls for it.” Gator reached for his coffee cup. “There’s nothing quite like Cajun coffee. I miss it when I’m away from home.”
Ian snorted. “You could take the skin off a skull with that stuff. And she was on that island. I’m not saying she tried to take your head off, but she was there last night.”
Gator swallowed coffee. Yeah. She’d been there. He’d felt Flame’s presence, just the same as Ian. She’d been watching him, but he had no idea why. He’d lain awake most of the night thinking about her-the way her skin felt, the way her mouth was hot with the same carnal lust that he felt raging in his own body. Had it been her mesmerizing voice that had ensnared him? And whoever took Joy Chiasson, had they obsessed about her in the same way he obsessed about Flame-the crawling need under his skin, his body hard and aching no matter how many times he tried to rid himself of her scent and touch? Had they obsessed day and night until looking and fantasizing wasn’t enough and they helped themselves?
“Gator!” Ian raised his voice. “I’m just saying you’ve got to get a handle on this thing. I’m covering you with the captain, but if they call us back about the problem in the Congo…”
Gator shook his head. “I can’t leave right now. Some one else will have to handle this. Our teams have gone to the Congo, Iraq, and Afghanistan eight times in the last ten months for extractions. We’ve completed every mission, but someone else will have to take this one.”
“Ken Norton and his team were sent in to pull out some hotshot scientist and his people. Ken covered them as they ran to the helicopter, but he was wounded and they had no choice but to leave him and get the civilians to safety. GhostWalkers don’t leave their own behind, and not with that particular band of rebels. They’ve tortured and killed every prisoner they’ve ever held. We’re not leaving him there and you know it, Gator.”
“His team got the prisoners out so the rebels are going to be more than pissed,” Gator agreed. “But we’re halfway around the world. They’ll need someone at the ready. Get ahold of Rye and see who they’re sending. Tell him we’ve got trouble here and that I’d rather stay on this if we have a choice.” He glanced at his friend. “And don’t think you have to cover for me.”
“They’ve got a team lined up, but he’s still going to ask what the trouble is.”
“Tell him my gut is saying there’s trouble.” A small grin escaped. “We’re supposed to be psychic aren’t we?”
“Oh, he’ll get a huge kick out of that. And he’ll know we’re not being straight. We’ve never once backed away from a mission.”
“It wasn’t offered to us.”
“No, Jack Norton, Ken’s brother, is leading a rescue team. Nico and Sam and a couple of Jack’s guys are going in,” Ian agreed. “But we were standby.”
“Just give him the message. He’ll handle it for me. If you feel you need to go, believe me, I’ll understand.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
“And I’m not leaving her. Whether you like it, whether she likes it, she’s one of us and I’m not willing to let her go.”
“Is that the GhostWalker in you talking, or the hormones?”
“How the hell would I know?” Gator shoved the pictures away and stood up, pacing across the room to stare out the window. “I don’t know, Ian.”
“Well you’d better figure it out fast, Gator,” Ian advised. “I’ll call Ryland and let him know we’re needed here for a while longer.”
“Are you going to tell him Flame is here?” Gator didn’t turn around, but kept his gaze fixed sightlessly on one of the huge trees out in his grandmother’s yard.
“Not unless he asks me.”
Gator didn’t reply. He didn’t know why he was so reluctant to let the others know Flame was in New Orleans. Had Lily known for certain or had it really been a computer guess? He didn’t know. In the beginning it didn’t matter all that much to him. Like being physically enhanced. It had been cool to run faster and leap over a fence. The feeling was one of power, of exhilaration, but all of a sudden, his future mattered to him.
He wanted to live in the bayou close to his brothers and their families. He wanted his children to play with their children. He wanted his grandmother’s face to light up when he put his son or daughter in her lap. Had he traded his future away and been careless about it? As careless as Flame thought him to be?
And what of Flame? He seemed to know her far better than he should with only a couple of brief meetings between them. They thought alike. It was eerie to
It was scary to think that she might be right, that Whitney had developed her as a weapon first and then somehow developed Gator to complement and amplify her powers. It would make sense, the entire point of psychic engineering and genetic enhancement was amplification of power, but what about the physical-no, it was far more than physical-attraction between them? Had that been deliberate or a by-product of the engineering?
He touched the glass on the window, feeling her close. Feeling her just the way he had in the early morning hours when he and Ian had slipped out of the house and had gone back to the island near the Huracan to examine the tracks left by whoever had stalked him the night before.
Flame had been there. He hadn’t found a single thread from her dress or a track from her high heels, but she’d been there. He and Ian both knew it instantly, in the way all GhostWalkers seemed suddenly aware of each other’s presence, almost as if power called to power. He didn’t want to believe that she had stalked him through the trees attempting to assassinate him-not that he doubted Flame was capable of killing, but it didn’t seem likely that she would attempt to kill him in that manner.
He rubbed his hand over his face trying to clear his thoughts. Ian was right, that was the worst of it. He couldn’t think clearly when it came to her. He was bringing a very dangerous woman into his grandmother’s home. It had been a small game to him, one he thoroughly enjoyed, but it wasn’t fair to put his family in danger.
“Rye didn’t ask and I didn’t volunteer,” Ian announced. “But I want you to promise me something. If I determine you’re in over your head, we pull back until we both feel comfortable with the situation.”
Gator shot him a brief, hard glance, but finally nodded his head in compliance. He had to trust someone’s judgment if he couldn’t trust his own. The first thing he was going to do was assure himself that Flame’s knife was still in her possession rather than beneath the murky water of the canal.
