Olivia stayed pressed to Travis, her eyes closed, unable to face him and yet unable to move away. He must have sensed that, too. Without speaking, he helped her get under the covers and stayed beside her.
Her face heated when she thought of what she had let him do—what she had begged him to do. She had given herself completely to him in a way she had never even been able to imagine before.
She had read in books and seen TV shows where the characters had an awkward “morning after.” This must be the one that took the prize. Even though it was still dark, it was technically morning.
She knew he caught her thought when he answered, “I wanted that as much as you did. And like you, I didn’t understand how much I was asking for.”
“But I was the only one who…” She let the rest of the sentence trail off.
“Giving you so much pleasure was…mind-blowing.”
“But…”
“When you came, I felt what you did. It was as good for me as it was for you.” He reached for her hand and knitted his fingers with hers.
She heard a teasing smile in his voice. “Now I know what an orgasm is like for a woman. You feel it all over your body…not just there.”
Even after the earthquake of a climax he had given her, or maybe because of it, the conversation was becoming much too intimate. He must have picked that up from her mind because he changed the subject. “It wasn’t just great sex. You gave me a gift. I know who I am now.”
She heard the wonder in his voice. “Being with you has changed me.”
“Changed both of us.” She felt her excitement growing. “Remember, I now know you have a boat, The Far Horizon. I even know where it is. I can go there and find…”
He didn’t let her finish the sentence.
“No.”
“Why not? Do you have something there that you don’t want me to see?”
“Of course not. But getting anywhere near my boat could be dangerous. Stay away from it.”
She was wondering how he could keep her from going there, and she knew he caught that thought as well.
“I can’t stop you. I’m pleading with you to stay away. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
His obvious panic tugged at her. Like the same thing that happened to you?
The questions hung in the air. In the darkness, she turned to him. She knew she could go prowling through his thoughts, but she didn’t want to do it.
Calmer than she had been in days, she kept her silence and snuggled against him. She had gone through some kind of strange adjustment. When she’d first sensed him hovering around her, she’d been afraid of him. Tonight he had taken an important place in her life, and she accepted that new reality.
She would have sworn she heard him drag in a breath and let it out. Could he really do that?
“Well, I’m not exactly breathing, but I can…make it seem like I am.”
“Okay.”
She knew they were both avoiding a painful revelation.
Finally he said, “I remember more than my name. I know what happened to me.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s…brutal,” he warned.
“I need to know if we’re going to make whoever did this…pay.”
“Maybe we can’t.”
“We’re not just going to accept it.”
This time he was the one who answered, “Okay.”
She felt her heart start to pound as she waited.
“It started off like an ordinary overnight charter. Three men arranged for a fishing trip. I took them out past the bay to the ocean. When we were out there, they jumped me.”
“Who were they?”
The guy who seemed to be in charge said he was Andrew. Another was Pete. The third was Lambert.”
“What were their last names?”
“It probably doesn’t matter. I can’t believe they would turn out to be their real names. Maybe the first names they were using were even false.”
She wanted to ask more questions, but instead, a vivid picture leaped into her mind. She saw the trio coming down the dock, dressed in jeans and polo shirts, each carrying a gym bag, as though they were ready for an overnight fishing trip out on the ocean. Andrew and Pete were normal-sized men. Lambert looked like he could have been a linebacker for the NFL. They seemed to be in high spirits, but he had thought there was something “off” about them. Only when it was too late did he realize that the vibe came from nerves. They were tasked with pulling off a big charade, and they were worried about somehow screwing it up. It would have been easier if they could have just killed the target. But they’d been ordered to bring him in alive.
From Travis’s memory, she saw the scene play out in her mind. They’d all been trailing their fishing lines in the water. When Travis had started for the companionway to bring up some beers, they’d all dropped the fishing pretense. Lambert had snuck up behind him and grabbed his arms. Pete and Andrew approached from the front. Even taken by surprise, Travis put up a pretty good fight. His first response was to shake off Lambert, who had clamped on to his arms. Travis was strong, and he bent from the waist, ducking down so that he could raise the guy in the air and throw him over his head, slamming him onto the deck. He landed with a nasty thump, howling in pain. But the other two men moved in to intercept their target.
Even while he was fighting off the assault, Travis was still battling confusion. These guys had chartered his boat for a routine fishing trip, and now they were attacking him for no discernible reason. He didn’t know any of them. Had somebody with a beef against him sent them?
“What the hell’s going on?” he shouted.
The trio ignored his question as they went on the defensive.
“Watch out,” one of them warned. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
“Too bad we can’t just shoot him.”
“The boss wants him alive—with no sign of foul play.”
As they closed in, he grabbed Pete and managed to toss him over the side. Now it was only two against one.
Taking a fighting stance, he readied himself for another assault. Unfortunately, it came from behind.
From where he lay on the deck, Andrew kicked out a foot, tangling with one of Travis’s legs and yanking backwards. By that time, Pete had climbed back into the boat and joined the attack again. As Travis fought to keep his balance, the other two closed in. A sap materialized in Pete’s hand. He brought it down on Travis’s head, and that was the last he knew until he came to, tied up in the back of what looked like a delivery van.
His head hurt like a son of a bitch, but he started trying to loosen the bonds that held him. He had the advantage of having worked with knots all his life, and he had made good progress on his hands when the van came to an abrupt stop. Unfortunately, there simply wasn’t enough time for him to effect an escape.
When Pete and Andrew hauled him out and saw that he was well on the way to freeing his hands, the big man gave him a slap across the face that knocked him silly. Once again, he blacked out.
He looked at Olivia, and she could sense the question forming in his mind. “It gets worse from here. Are you sure you want me to go on?”
Worse? That had been pretty bad, but she answered “Yes,” struggling to hold the word steady. To reassure herself, she burrowed closer to him and closed her eyes. His arms came up to clasp her, and he felt as solid as if…
She didn’t let herself finish the thought.
He continued the way he had begun, letting her see what had happened to him next.
He’d awakened, still dressed in his boat clothes. He was strapped tightly into a sturdy chair with a padded back and seat and tubular arms and legs. When he tested his bonds, he discovered that there was no hope of getting free.
A man who had been sitting in an easy chair got up and strode over to him. “You’re awake.”
Travis blinked and sat up straighter, trying to bring the situation into sharper focus. It seemed the men who had chartered the boat had been planning to bring him here all along.
He took in his surroundings. Except for the easy chair, the rest of the room was pretty sterile. There were several cabinets along one wall, containing medicine bottles. This could have been in a doctor’s exam room—with a standard table over to one side. He didn’t much like the setup.
“Who are you? Why the hell am I here?” he asked, struggling to keep any quiver out of his voice. His heart was starting to pound, and he was pretty sure he was in deep trouble. Wracking his brain, he tried to figure out why. He’d never seen this man before. Didn’t know him. But the guy must have some reason for having him brought here. Was it something specific about him? Or would any victim have done? The latter seemed unlikely since the guy had gone to a lot of trouble to capture him.
Instead of answering, the inquisitor said, “Sorry my men roughed you up.”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“You can call me Smith, if you need a name.”
“But it’s not your real name,” Travis shot back.
His captor shrugged, and Travis didn’t like the feel of the casual gesture. He studied the man. He appeared to be in his sixties or possibly older, with salt-and-pepper hair, a lined face, and a malevolent gleam in his pale eyes. He knew he was totally in charge of this situation.
Travis might have screamed for help, but he was sure that wasn’t going to do him any good. Was there any reasoning with this guy? Had he been captured by a lunatic? Or was there some rational thinking behind this elaborate scheme?
“Why am I here?” he tried again.
“To provide me with the information I’ve been seeking.”
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll see.”
Travis didn’t like the sound of that, either, but he was completely at this guy’s mercy.
“Your mother went down to Louisiana for fertility treatments,” Smith suddenly said.
“How do you know?”
“I have the records from the Solomon Clinic. That’s where she went.”
Olivia intruded into the scene with a gasp. “Fertility clinic,” she choked out.
Travis looked at her. “What?”
“I was born as a result of fertility treatments. Do you think? I mean…” Her voice trailed off before she said, “I’d better shut up and listen.”
“We could stop,” Travis offered, and she knew that was what he wanted to do.
She shook her head. “I have to know.”
He made a rough sound before bringing her back into the scene with Smith. His captor was saying, “You aren’t on the list of children whose mothers kept the agreement they signed before the treatments. They were supposed to bring the children back for testing, but yours never did.”
“Because she died when I was born. And I’m sure as hell my dad wasn’t gonna honor any agreement she signed.”
“So we’ve cleared that up.”
“Did you know that’s how you were born?”
Travis wondered why he should answer this guy’s questions. He could think of several good reasons—the first being that he was tied to a chair, and he was probably going to get the crap beaten out of him if he didn’t cooperate.”
“And you don’t know that Dr. Solomon was doing brain experiments on the unborn children.”
If Travis could have jumped up in surprise, he would have. “No.”
“I believe his goal was to create super smart individuals, but that experiment turned out to be a dud. When the children were tested, they had the standard IQ spread.”
Travis shook his head, trying to work his way through the strange revelations that were hitting him like bowling balls.
“But the doctor’s experiments did have an unexpected effect. They created children with special powers. Do you have any?”
“What? No.”
“You can’t move objects with your mind?”
“Huh?”
“Or call up any lightning bolts to zap people?”
“Are you crazy?”
Ignoring the question, Smith went on. “You never read anybody’s thoughts? Or made anybody bend to your will? Or slowed down time?”
Travis tried to wrap his mind around the crazy questions. “None of that’s possible.”
The man continued with rapid-fire questions. “Do you have intuitions? Do you make special connections with people? Can you talk to them without speaking? Do you think of things that are going to happen and find out they come true?’
“Jesus,” Travis exclaimed. “Nothing like that.”
Smith was still talking—babbling on with more outlandish suggestions. Then he switched gears and confided, “You know, all the children turned out to be loners. Mostly kept to themselves until they met one of the other subjects. Then—boom. And away they go. That’s made it really hard to catch any of them. Safer this way.”
The words hardly registered. Travis was thinking about special powers and coming up blank. But it seemed that Smith was talking to himself now.
“I’m not sure every one of the couples has all of those skills. I think some of them can do some things, and some others. But let’s try to find what you’ve got.”
While Travis was wondering what was coming next, Smith was saying, “From what I’ve observed, I believe there is a sexual component. I mean, the abilities might be triggered by sexual contact. I don’t have another subject here, but maybe I can use hypnosis to create the right circumstance for you to manifest.”
Olivia watched the scene unfold with growing horror.
“You still want to watch?” Travis asked, and she could tell from the uneven note in his voice that he was hoping she’d call an end to the revelation.
He shuddered. “It gets kind of nasty from here on out.”
Gabe Bowman pulled to a stop in front of a red brick two-story in Berlin, Maryland, and checked the house number. Yes, this was the right place. Decorah Security had sent him to the Eastern Shore to check out a missing person’s report that had been ignored by the police.
It was a routine assignment. Nothing paranormal. The werewolves who worked for the agency were most likely to get those, although Gabe had been on some pretty unusual cases—stuff that the general public would consign to the realm of fantasy or science fiction. But from his work with the Decorah, Gabe knew that you could never discount the weird. As far as he was concerned, that was one of the perks of working for Frank Decorah, like the time Gabe had been in on the takedown of a clandestine military base where the commanding officer was into some highly illegal stuff. Specifically, the growing of clones to send off on suicide missions. I mean, why sacrifice a real human being when you could make an expendable copy?
They had rescued one of the poor bastards. He’d been a mess when they recovered him, but he’d joined the agency and turned out to be one of their prime operatives.
Gabe knew Frank Decorah was very particular about which of his people he sent where. This seemed like a routine assignment, but maybe there was something special about it that Gabe would figure out along the way. He hoped so. He wasn’t keen on trying to track down a guy who had probably figured he had good reason to take off and cut his losses. On the other hand, perhaps Travis Carson had met with foul play. But no use jumping to conclusions until he had some solid facts.
He studied the house. It looked old, probably dating back to the early 20th century, but it was well-maintained. The wide wood trim had a new coat of paint, and the grounds were neatly manicured with flower beds running in straight lines along the front of the porch and along the brick walk in what he thought of as the German style, orderly and standing to attention.
After ringing the bell, he waited for several minutes before he heard footsteps shuffling toward the door. First, he saw a gnarled hand pull aside the curtain at the sidelight so a shadowy figure could peer out. Apparently he passed inspection, because the door was opened cautiously by a woman who looked to be in her late sixties or early seventies with a lined face and white hair pinned neatly up in a bun.
“Yes?”
“I’m Gabe Bowman from Decorah Security. Are you Lydia Wilder?”
“Yes.” She gave him a dubious inspection, taking in his dark hair, dark eyes, and face he had contrived to age a bit with a neatly trimmed beard.
“Aren’t you too young to be a detective?”
“I’m a graduate of the University of Maryland law enforcement program and worked for the Montgomery County police for four years before joining Decorah Security.”
“Why aren’t you still with the police? Did you get fired or something?”
Thinking this was a bad way to start an interview, he sighed. “I was in a department where a lot of guys were in front of me for promotion. Then Frank Decorah, the head of the agency, offered me a job and I took it.”
“All right. You might as well come in.” The woman stepped aside so he could enter.
After locking the door behind them, she led him through an entry hall with a dining room on one side and a sitting room on the other. The sofa and chairs sported cream-colored doilies on the arms. When she lowered herself into a straight-back rocker, he took a wing-back opposite.
“Ms. Wilder…”
“That’s Miss Wilder. I never met a man I thought was worth giving up my independence for. I made a good living for myself as an executive assistant at White and Pendelton,” she said, naming a well-known manufacturer of power tools that had its home office on the Eastern Shore.
He might have apologized for the mistake if he hadn’t been afraid she’d take it the wrong way.
Instead, he simply said, “I’m going to take some notes.”
“Go ahead.”
“You say your nephew disappeared about two weeks ago?” he began.
“Yes.”
“How did you realize he was missing?”
“Usually, he calls me every other week. We don’t have a set day because he takes people out on fishing expeditions. When he didn’t call, I got concerned. I left messages, then drove over to St. Stephens where he keeps his boat. It’s in its usual slip. He’s not there.”
“What about his home?”
“He’s got a small house that he inherited from his father. He wasn’t there either.”
“His car?”
“It’s a Toyota Camry. I didn’t see it in either place.”
“So he could have driven away somewhere.”
“That’s what the police think. They say they put out an all-points bulletin.”
“But nobody’s seen the car.”
“Correct.”
“You don’t think he could have just taken off for somewhere?”
“No. He would have told me.” She sighed. “That boy had a tough life. His mother died when he was born, and his father always blamed him. I guess I was the only person who cared about him, and his father never let me get really close.”
Gabe nodded. “Does he have a girlfriend? Did you try to contact his friends?”
“Travis has always been a loner. It’s his father’s fault as much as anyone’s. I told Marian not to marry that man, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She was all excited about Rob Carson.” Travis’s aunt stopped and sighed. “He did have some good qualities. When she had trouble getting pregnant, he let her go to some big-deal fertility clinic in Louisiana, of all places. Of course, it all went to hell when she died. Rob was bitter, you know.”
“I can imagine.” Gabe had his own family issues, like his parents, who thought law enforcement wasn’t prestigious enough for their son. And a private detective was another notch down. They didn’t subscribe to the concept that work you loved was worth more than your job title.
“Where’s the father now?”
“Drank himself into an early grave—good riddance. The astonishing thing is that he had a fair amount of cash stashed away. Travis was able to trade up for a bigger boat than the one Rob left him.”
Gabe nodded, taking it in. “Could someone have killed Travis for his money and hidden the body?”
“That’s what I think. That boy kept his private business close to his chest, but someone could have known that he was a lot better off than met the eye.”
Gabe wondered if the money was still in his bank account. The aunt wouldn’t have been able to get that kind of information, but he could.
“Anything else you think is important to know about him?” he asked. “Was he in any kind of trouble, that you know of?”
“No, He was strictly on the up-and-up.”
Gabe figured that might be true, or it might not. Carson could be using his boat for smuggling, for all the aunt knew.
“Did he go off on long trips?”
“No. He stayed close to home base.”
Gabe asked more questions and got directions to the house as well as specific directions for locating the boat. Both were in St. Stephens.
In the early years, its economy had relied on crabbing and clamming. Now the residents made most of their money from tourists who crossed the Bay Bridge to take in the small town’s seaside atmosphere.
“I’m counting on you to find out what happened to him.”
Gabe might have said, “Let’s hope it’s not bad news.”
As he left Miss Wilder, he was thinking about which he should try first—the boat or the house.
