a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) (25 page)

Pierce had edged forward in his chair, the angle of his jaw rigid.
 

Brody tossed his head, swinging his hair in a narcissistic flip that would have taken the average teenage girl hours to perfect. His lips curled into a nasty sneer. "The Army took care of making me a sharpshooter and an expert in hand-to-hand, but I honed my tracking abilities. I served with the bitch, even married her. Thought she was my equal."

Shock numbed my brain, and I nudged Pierce’s chair with my foot. "How did she marry some
thing
like that? The Annie I know wouldn’t have taken time to flip him the finger, much less marry him."

Pierce spared me a glance, and then shifted his focus back to the interrogation. "Beautiful woman. Men learning combat skills, thinking with their dicks. Williams ran interference."

Metal clanged against metal, jolting my attention back to the one-way mirror. Brody was tapping his handcuffs against the table. "Anne Jamison Stone. Snooty name. She never did use my name. Idealist broad thought she was too good for me. Went off to sniper school. Bad move on her part ‘cause I don’t lose what’s mine."

 
My mouth dropped open. I was grateful for the dusky dark room that hid my shock and the tremor in my hand when I gestured toward the glass. "It’s not like this on television. Psychopaths don’t chatter. And he calls her Anne. No one calls her Anne. He’s insane."

Mitch grabbed my hand, brought it to rest on his thigh. Pierce shot me a sharp sideways glance. I shut up and listened.

"Anne and I, we’re both computer geniuses, only I’m better than she ever was. Can work my way around any security device known to the geek world. Bitch thought she was free of me. Gave me a load of shit about why she was walking out on our marriage. Stupid. Said she was protecting me since she was gonna do the sniper thing. Pure bullshit."

Pierce leaned back in his chair and grinned. "’Nothing like watching a crazy bastard prove his stupidity."

Williams kept chattering. "So I followed her. Waited for the right moment to explain how she’d always belong to me. I even let her date a bunch of losers. And damn if the slut didn’t go through them like the slippery bastards they were. Until she met the firefighter. I had to step in then."

He preened. Then snarled when he tried to fling his hands up, only to be stopped by the cuffs.
 

I shifted to face Pierce. "Don’t you usually take handcuffs off when someone is in custody?"

"Not in this case. Man has lethal hands."

I didn’t bother to ask how he knew that. They’d obviously had similar training, and my brain had enough disjointed factoids to sift through. Too many, because I drifted for a minute, fatigue taking over—until I heard my name.

"…use Everly Gray to make my point. Stupid ass psychologist-slash-personal coach. So easy to manipulate."

My scalp prickled. Premonition or irritation? Maybe both.

"Psychobabble bitch’s parents were tight with the government. Do-gooders. Probably tree-hugging idealists like Anne. They did a good job of passing it on to Gray. Made her easy pickings."

Pierce cut me another corner-of-the-eye glance. He must have decided I was doing all right, because he immediately turned his attention back to Williams.

So did I.

"The mother, Loyria Gray, discovered the fountain of death. So much more interesting than anything the eternal life type morons are always after. Never know when you might need to kill someone. I’m good with knives, guns, and my hands, but a lethal poison no one knows about—now that’s worth killing for, and a hell of a trigger to manipulate Anne. Made it worth going toe-to-toe with the incompetency of the alphabet soup dudes."
 

Pierce shot to standing, a single smooth move that left his muscles tense, ready to spring. It was like watching a thoroughbred just before the starting gun went off.

I didn’t think, just reached out and laid my hand over his fist. "You can kill him later." And I meant it. And that scared me right down to my toes. I’d never been into vengeance. Or vigilantism. Maybe my brain had short-circuited. My parents murdered, my grandfather keeping my mother’s secrets hidden, Williams killing Pierce’s team, and trying to kill me. And the clincher—Annie lying in intensive care, possibly dying. Yeah. My brain was on overload.

Mitch pointed at the glass. "You can settle the score later, Pierce." Was there an I’ll-be-right-there-helping-you behind his statement? Maybe we’d all flipped into another dimension.
 

Brody chatted away. "James Gray—total wimp. Law school. Brainy type. Not worth my time. The missus clearly had the balls in that family.

I jumped out of my chair, spun around searching for a way to get into the interrogation room. Nobody dissed my father.

Mitch grabbed me, pulling me tight against him. "Every word he says can be used against him, but only if you calm down, listen, and plan how to spring the trap he’s building for himself."

I dragged in a ragged breath, trying to still my shaking arms and legs. "My father—"

"This isn’t about the reality of your memories, Sunshine. It’s about Williams’s fucked-up mind and warped point of view."

My gut churned. It was more than that. I knew my parents had a strong relationship, knew my dad would have done anything to protect us, and so would my mom. But that’s what got all of us into this mess. If they hadn’t hidden so much from me…resentment flared.

"Need you back on track. Now." Pierce’s voice rang with the intensity of his inner drill sergeant. And it worked. I centered my attention on Brody’s rambling monologue.

"Mama Gray hides the formula, gets herself and the hubby whacked. Didn’t’ look like an alphabet job to me, so I hit the cyber trail and found a link to a private group who were working off radar."
 

Pierce’s chin came up and his nostrils flared, like he was scenting prey.

Williams’s laugh cackled through the audio feed. "Thought they could hide from me. Stupid ass country in the Middle East, no bigger than a good-sized garage. No one can hide from Brody Williams. He’s the best guru in cyberspace."

I’m not sure if it was how his cackle had degenerated into a twisted hissing noise, or if it was because he'd started referring to himself in the third person, but I gripped Mitch’s hand, needing a place to anchor myself. "He’s not just a little crazy, he’s..."
 

Williams’s maniacal laughter ran down my spine, and left a sick sour film in my mouth. Fear tasted like crap. He’d sort of been making sense, crazy sense, but he hadn’t sounded insane when the interrogation started.
 

I ran my hands through my hair, cradling my head, exhausted, trying to keep some of my deepest fears under control. Could I go crazy that fast? Did my ESP fingers already put me on the border of insanity? It had been there, hiding in the back of my mind since I had the visions, the ones of me as an old woman who'd done nothing with her life. The ones that pushed me out of my boring secure world into the intense domain of killers and secrets.

"Whatever you’re thinking, stop." Mitch leaned over and kissed my forehead.

I swallowed the fear. Right now I was sane. I clung to the moment because Brody Williams had definitely moved to a different dimension.
 

"No one can hide from The Brod. He closed in, started monitoring their communication. A shitload of luck dropped in the geek-master’s lap. The Brod is Mensa smart. He waited for the psychologist to make a move. Fit perfectly with his plan to teach his slut of a wife the error of her ways."

Pierce slammed his fist on his the table next to him. "Fucking bastard’s crazy."

An understatement. So, why…and then my brain processed the problem. Crazy. No death sentence. Maybe no trial. The powers-that-be did other things with crazy people. My hands tightened into fists. Oh, yeah. I definitely wanted to hit something.

But Williams still wasn’t done. "Little Miz Gray skipped town, fell into their trap, and led them straight to the only people who knew where the formula was hidden."
 

Another of his cackles rattled against my ears. It was all I could do not to cover them, and protect them from the sound of crazy.

His maniacal laughter had me craving the shower in my room at the Ma Kai. But I probably wouldn’t be able to wash Brody Williams out of my head. His sickness clung, sticky with deadly intent.
 

"The old folks. Ain’t nothin’ like hiding a secret formula with grandma and gramps. More easy pickings. Too old to defend themselves. So The Brod got himself on a plane. Had to beat out the greasy Middle Easterners. They wouldn’t use the killing power to its best advantage. Not like The Brod."
 

Williams snapped his fingers. "Just like that, and the ol’ Brod was front and center with the action. Only Grandma kicked the bucket before he could get to her. Pissed. Brody. Off. ‘Cause, you know, Gramps was under wraps. No hidden computer links. No record of his birth. Left The Brod no choice but to track little Miz Gray on foot. Made an appointment with her. Used his real name to tweak Anne."
 

Williams doubled over cackling. Couldn’t seem to stop. I scrubbed at my arms, trying to rub his sickness off my skin. It clung.
 

One of the interrogators unscrewed the lid and slapped a bottle of water in front of Williams. "Drink?"

Williams chugged the bottle, then wiped his face with his sleeve. "Wouldn’t be any fun if the slut didn’t know The Brod laid a trap. The psychologist thought he was gonna work on the phone with her. Stupid bitch. He watched her instead. Always watching, the Brod."
 

And then Williams narrowed his eyes, focusing on the one-way glass. "Brody is watching her." His voice and gaze were clear and sharp as they pierced the glass and rammed into me. Cold seeped around my heart.

I hadn’t known before. The border between sanity and insanity is the width of a single breath.

Williams shifted his gaze back to the interrogators. "Tynan Pierce was hanging around. Brody’s been waitin’ a long time to take him out. Tried when Anne first split. Thought she’d been sniffing around the Irish bastard’s crotch."
 

Williams shrugged his shoulders, and then banged the handcuffs against the metal table. "Turned out she wasn’t, but The Brod still needs to kill him. Always in the way, hanging around the psychologist like she’s worth protecting.
 

"Brody can’t kill
her
quite yet—" Williams let out a high-pitched giggle— "but scaring her sure has been fun for The Brod. He doesn’t know how he’ll do the kill yet, needs to be spon-tan-e-ous, when Anne’s around and can watch."

Pierce eyed me. Mitch pulled me close and I snuggled in, reveling in the healing warmth that radiated from his strength. In the love we shared.

Williams clanked his handcuffs against the table again. "Brody’s good. Pulled a secret meet with psychologist babe. Pierce showed up. Not a real problem, ‘cause The Brod is better. Took out a couple of his team, didn’t off them, but they won’t be hanging around causing him any more grief. The Brod showed them all up. Stood right under a tree where Miz Hoity toity psychologist was hiding, flashed his blade. Stupid bitch fell out of the tree on top of The Brod, so he had to blend into the night. It’ll cost her."
 

Williams glanced at the wall clock.
 

His cackling filled the air.
 

"Now. Right now she’s gettin’ hers."
 

Twenty-three

Getting hers. It didn’t register
at first. Then I spun around, taking in the situation. I was surrounded by two highly trained macho men, so there was no danger of me being attacked or abducted. I zeroed in on Williams—still behind the one-way mirror. Still cuffed and his ankles shackled. What the heck was he cackling about?
 

"You’re both here. Who’s guarding Annie?"
 

By the time I got my question out, Pierce had punched a bunch of numbers on his cell. "Status?"
 

I’d never heard his Irish brogue erupt into a growl before. Scary.

And that’s when I started shaking.

Mitch reached for the wall phone and dialed, then turned to me. "Checking on Jayne, Parker, and Adam. I think they’re on the same flight, although I don’t know what Williams could possibly do to a plane in mid-transit when he’s locked in a jail cell."

I pressed my hand against the one-way mirror. "Blow it up."
 

Mitch shook his head. "He’s been here too long to pull that off. Even if he got through security, the planes would have been used for other flights, and they could easily switch them up and defeat his purpose. Also, this is more personal for Williams."

 
They were hauling Brody out of the interrogation room.
 

"Wait." I grabbed Pierce’s arm, pulling my fingers the last second before they made contact. Not a good time to pick up images from Tynan Pierce. He had way too much going on, and the images could mess with Brody’s stuff. "Make them stop," I said, my words pleading. "I need to touch him, see if I can find out—"