Yates’s gravelly voice sounded in her head: Corbett would love to believe that.
His thin mouth became even thinner, and he continued aloud: “And falsified the evidence to do it.”
Teddy looked down at Clint’s faded image, his wide shoulders and easy grin forever captured in time.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Clint wouldn’t . . . He’d never . . .” Though she wanted to believe that he was the last person on earth who would do anything so compromising, she had firsthand knowledge that he was capable of withholding information. Teddy reexamined the photograph, now realizing that if it was real and not a dream, Clint had kept an even bigger secret.
He didn’t just know that her parents were psychic; he’d been their friend, and he’d kept that from her. She felt anger build inside her. Teddy glanced up at Yates, who sat back in his chair, looking patient, as if he had all the time in the world for this conversation.
“What do you know about Clint and my parents?” she asked.
“Quite a bit,” he said. “Unlike Clint, I’ll tell you. But first I need you to help me in return.”
Teddy didn’t yet know if she could or would help this man, but he had something she needed, and so she went along, at least for now. “Start at the beginning.”
“I was ordered to kill an army general by the name of Keith Sheffield.”
“Why?”
“His political and military views were in direct opposition to my organization’s. He had to be eliminated.”
“Assassinated.”
“Use whatever term you like. The point is, I refused the order. No one expected that. I had been a good soldier until then, like the rest of them.”
“The rest of who?” Teddy said. “Psychic assassins?”
He smiled. “You could call them that. I went from being an asset to an inconvenience. So I became the scapegoat. Someone else was brought in to do the job, and they framed me. Then Clint made it his personal mission to see that I was put away for the rest of my life.”
Yates went on to explain that there was an FBI videotape exonerating him and proving that someone else had committed the murder. Clint had seen it and knew the truth but had deliberately hidden the tape.
“Why would Clint falsify evidence?” Teddy asked.
“Because he believes I’m dangerous.”
“And why would he believe that?”
“Because I am.” He said it plainly, like a fact. Like you’d say “It is sixty degrees outside” or “The sky is blue.” Teddy didn’t doubt the statement for a minute. Yates put his finger on the photograph again, tapping her father’s face. “They thought your father was dangerous, too. That’s why they killed him.”
Teddy went cold. “I was told my parents died on the highway, in a multicar collision.”
“Your father died at Sector Three.”
Her father had been murdered. Teddy didn’t think she could feel something for someone she had never met, but now she ached for all the memories she’d never have. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “They killed him? Who are they?”
“The people who ran Sector Three. Government people. Military people.” Yates reached forward as if he wanted to hold Teddy’s hand, but his chains caught him before he could touch her. He pulled his hand back, frustrated. “To them, we’re weapons, to be used and discarded at will.”
“I don’t understand,” Teddy said.
“You mean why would the government want to train psychics?” Yates let the question hang unanswered. It didn’t need a response.
“So Sector Three also trained psychics for government positions?” Teddy asked.
Yates smiled. “At first that’s what we were led to believe. It was a research facility, designed to help us control our gifts. But it was more like a laboratory, and we were the experiment.”
“Are you saying that Whitfield—”
“I’m saying that things aren’t always as they seem. It’s easy to think that the people in charge have your best interests at heart. But whether it’s Sector Three or Whitfield, there’s always a bottom line. And trust me, your interests are not the bottom line.”
Teddy ran through the list of things Clint refused to talk about: the theft of the blood samples; the missing students; her genetic history. And there was more: the insistence on student anonymity; the deliberately vague school website; the over-the-top security. All supposedly for their own protection.
“I know why your blood sample went missing.”
“How do you know about that?”
His dark eyes glittered. “You are the child of two powerful psychics who once trained at Sector Three. You are of utmost importance to our organization.”
Was he saying that his organization had stolen her blood?
“There were three couples who had children while we lived there. They’d all be around your age now.”
That was the link that connected her, Brett, and Christine. They were all children of psychics, experimented on at Sector Three. “Why tell me all of this? What’s the catch?”
“Help me get out of here. Once I’m free, I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“I can help you find her.”
Teddy blinked. “Find who?” she asked.
Yates slid his hands off the table, and the sound of the scraping chains gave her goose bumps. “Your mother.”
Teddy stared at him. She was tempted to tell him she knew exactly where her mother was—at home in Las Vegas. Then she realized he wasn’t talking about the mother who had raised her. “My mother is dead.”
“I can assure you that Marysue Delaney is very much alive.” Yates cocked his head. “And I’m willing to wager my freedom that somewhere deep down, you know that, too.”
Teddy thought of the yellow house, the woman at the stove and her lullaby. She narrowed her eyes. “If she’s alive, why didn’t she come back for me?”
“And put you at risk? She was protecting you. The only way to do that was to give you a new name, a new family, a new home.”
Before Teddy could ask another question, Yates lifted his finger to his lips. He
