How Spy I Am (30 page)

I jerked back as the
avatar’s arms flailed wildly, her piercing cries jabbing icy
needles of horror into my brain. The hoarse screams underscoring
hers made me turn reluctantly to face my familiar nightmare. Kane’s
arm closed tightly around my shoulders, and together we regarded
the broken leather-clad body impaled on the fencepost.

The memory hadn’t
improved with age. The face contorted with agony and terror. The
legs dangling uselessly from the shattered pelvis. The sight and
smell of the mangled, protruding viscera. The hands that clawed
desperately for aid, or at least merciful oblivion. The unending
raw-throated screams…

I sat up in my
real-world chair in time to see Sam vomit into the garbage can. The
smell of fresh puke did nothing to soothe my clenched gut. Kane’s
face was set in grim lines, and Dr. Cartwright’s eyes were wide and
dark above cheeks as white as his hair.

I unclenched my aching
fists and rubbed sweaty, shaking palms against my jeans.

“Well, that was fun,”
I croaked. I cleared my throat and tried again while Sam subsided
into dry heaves. “How many times will we have to do this?”

“I… don’t know…” Dr.
Cartwright’s voice was a dry whisper. “How much more… is
there?”

“Shit.” I sank my head
into my hands to rub my throbbing temples.

“Oh. Oh dear.” When I
looked up, the doctor was rising unsteadily. “I’ll be back
momentarily.” He left the room, grasping at the desk, doorknob, and
door frame as if for support.

Sam unfolded to totter
after him, still clutching the wastebasket, leaving Kane and Betty
and me together in the silence.

I got up to stroke the
too-bright coppery hair off the pale forehead. “Poor Betty,” I
murmured. “I’m so sorry.” Her impassive stare made me wrap my arms
around the aching knot in my chest.

When Kane’s arms
closed around me from behind, I leaned into him, taking comfort
from his big, hard-muscled warmth. We stood together for a while,
wordlessly regarding the latest innocent person I’d harmed.

When Sam and the
doctor returned, they still looked pale.

“Do we really have to
keep doing this?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we give her a break?”

“One more session,”
Dr. Cartwright said without conviction. “I’ve discussed the case
with one of my colleagues in psychology, and we agree that Betty’s
current state is likely a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome,
caused by sudden exposure to a deluge of your,” he swallowed.
“…extremely stressful experiences. We should be able to treat her
with benzodiazepines and therapy, but it would be helpful to
understand exactly what experiences she’s dealing with.”

“But wouldn’t it be
better for me to just tell you instead of putting her through it
again? And why is she having such an extreme reaction? I mean,
yeah, those memories are…” I searched for the right word for a
moment before giving up and taking a deep breath instead. “…but
I’ve dealt with them. If she absorbed all my experiences, she
should be dealing with them the same way, shouldn’t she?”

“No,” Dr. Cartwright
said reluctantly. “Only the data of the memory would be
transferred, not the emotions attached to it. Emotions are a
complex psychophysiological reaction generated within the brain. So
depending on your past experiences and your own… wiring, if you
will… you may experience an intense emotional reaction to an event
that wouldn’t affect Betty in the least, and vice versa. And the
memories with the most emotional weight are the ones that tend to
persist.”

“So she’s just
reliving my worst memories over and over.” I thought about that for
a second. “I guess that makes sense. I didn’t react to Betty’s
memories because nothing bad has ever happened to her, I mean,
other than her husband dying in that construction accident, but
nothing outside my range of experience…”

I trailed off and sat
up straighter as another thought occurred to me. “Oh, that makes
sense then.” At Sam’s questioning look, I explained, “That’s why I
was so upset about Betty’s granddaughter right after we
collided.”

Sam gave me an
understanding look. “You don’t have children of your own. So the
fulfillment of your yearning for that experience had a tremendous
impact on you.”

“Um.” I squirmed a
little at the sight of his compassionate expression. “Not exactly.
Actually, I kind of freaked out. The thought of any kind of
dependent relationship makes me want to run for the hills. It’s
like claustrophobia or something.”

“Oh.” He looked taken
aback. “But… you were so concerned about Cassandra…”

“You don’t abandon a
child
. No matter what. You just don’t.” I eyed his
uncomprehending expression with frustration. “Forget it. My point
is, just let me tell you the rest of my shit, and then Betty
doesn’t have to go through it all again.”

Dr. Cartwright spoke
up. “It would be more useful for you to go into the sim. Dr. Kraus
and I believe we can manipulate the sim externally to mitigate its
effect on Betty.”

I blew out a sigh of
resignation. “Okay. Let’s do it then.”

In the void once more,
I approached Betty’s avatar cautiously. “Betty…”

Sudden stickiness
slowed my movements, and rage seared my veins.

“
NO FUCKING
WAY
!” My voice was a hellish shriek as I slammed all my fear
and anger and guilt and pain into a fireball of destruction.

Annihilate that
fucking ghost. Utterly and forever.

When I opened my eyes
in physical reality again, Sam was hunched trembling on his knees,
struggling for breath. Dr. Cartwright lay crumpled motionless on
the floor.

Kane bolted from his
chair, already beside Dr. Cartwright before I fully realized what
was happening. As Kane started chest compressions, I dove for the
door, yelling for Candy to call an ambulance.

In the subsequent
pandemonium, I stayed out of the way while paramedics strapped Dr.
Cartwright into a stretcher and whisked him away. Sam had regained
some colour, and I overheard him convincing another paramedic that
he didn’t require medical attention.

I started toward him,
but he gave me an unreadable look before his gaze slid away to the
corner of the room. He hurried away from the insistent paramedic,
vanishing down the hallway.

When the last
ambulance left, Kane assessed my shaking hands. “Let’s go and get
you something to eat,” he said.

“I can’t. Not right
away.” I shook myself, trying to relax my knotted muscles. “I need
to go for a run or something.”

Kane gave me a wry
smile. “Let’s make it a walk. I don’t want to have to pick you up
off the ground.”

“Good point.”

As we crossed the
lobby, Candy called out from behind us, hurrying breathlessly from
another corridor.

“Wait, Ms. Widdenback,
hold up. I have an urgent message for you, just came in a minute
ago.”

Shit, now what?

I turned to take the
slip of paper from her, tension winding up in my shoulders again. I
peered at the cryptic message for a few moments, frowning. I turned
the slip over, but there was nothing else.

“What is this?” I
asked. “Who is it from?”

Candy returned my
puzzled frown. “He said you’d know.”

My stomach squeezed
into a hard lump. Shit, shit, shit!

I forced a nonchalant
laugh. “I must be more tired than I thought. Thanks, Candy, you’re
right, I do know, of course.”

“Oh, goody, I’m glad I
didn’t mess up,” she said solemnly. “I’m just so discombobulated.
Isn’t that just terrible about Dr. Cartwright? He’s such a nice
man. I hope he’ll be all right.”

“Me, too.”

“I’ll keep him in my
prayers for sure. See y’all tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow?” I casually
stuffed the message into my pocket while I shot a glance up at
Kane’s frown. “Are we supposed to come back?”

“Yes, Dr. Kraus says
he’ll still need you tomorrow,” Candy confirmed.

“Okay. See you
then.”

I turned and made for
the door before anything else could go wrong.

On the sidewalk, Kane
eyed me expressionlessly. “Who is the message from, and how did he
know where to find you?”

I drew in a shallow
breath, trying to calm my pounding pulse. “I don’t know.”

Kane frowned down at
me. “You don’t know who it’s from?”

“I know who it’s from.
I don’t know how he knew I was here.”

Kane stepped
protectively between me and the street, and we simultaneously
checked out the quiet neighbourhood. The few pedestrians paid us no
attention, and I didn’t spot anybody sitting in the parked cars.
When I looked up at Kane, I could see his gaze picking out spaces
between the buildings and sweeping the rooftops.

“Let’s go,” he said
abruptly, and hustled me into the car.

He drove a circuitous
route for nearly half an hour without speaking, his gaze flicking
between the surrounding traffic, the rear-view mirror, and the sky.
I watched traffic, too, but didn’t spot any vehicle that seemed to
be keeping up with us.

At length, Kane blew
out a short breath and shot me a glance. “See anything?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Who was
the message from?”

I stared out the
windshield. Here we go again.

“I can’t tell
you.”

In my peripheral
vision, I saw his hand clench on the steering wheel.

When he spoke, it was
in his controlled cop voice. “Aydan, it’s my responsibility to keep
you safe. I need to know about
any
and
all
potential
threats. Someone who knows about your movements to and from a
classified facility definitely qualifies as a potential
threat.”

“I don’t think you
have to worry about this.”

Robert already knew
about Sirius as well as the Russian program. If he’d known about
them, it wasn’t surprising that he knew about this installation in
Macon, too.

Kane’s voice
interrupted my thoughts. The controlled cop voice had developed an
edge. “You don’t
think
I need to worry. Do you have any idea
how much that worries me?”

I went for firm and
decisive. “John, please don’t worry. I’ll deal with this.”

“What was in the
message?” He sounded much too calm.

“I can’t tell
you.”

The car jerked to a
halt in front of the B & B. “Dammit, Aydan!” he barked, but I
was already halfway out of the car.

I jogged up the walk
and slipped through the front door just as he caught up with me.
Shock immobilized me and Kane bumped into me with a muffled grunt,
his hand flying out to steady me as I stumbled forward into the
room.

“Hello, honey-lambs.”
Lurene greeted us with aplomb, tucking her enormous breasts back
into their snug orange prison as she slid off the desk where she
had perched in front of Winston. He offered another of his mute,
friendly nods and leaned around Lurene to see the computer
screen.

“S-sorry,” I
stammered, completely flustered. “Um, sorry, I’ll just…” I scurried
down the hallway and locked myself into my room.

I dove onto the bed
and clamped the pillow over my head with a groan. Didn’t need to
see that.

Ohmigod, Kane was so
pissed. And Betty was so traumatized and Dr. Cartwright hadn’t been
moving at all when they loaded him into the ambulance and Robert
had somehow managed to follow me into the States…

I let out a moan that
turned into a whimper while I pounded a fist into the mattress.
Goddammit, could this day get any worse?

I woke to long shadows
and a persistent tapping at my door.

“Arlene.” Kane’s voice
drifted in from the corridor. “Time to go for supper.”

I bolted upright,
staring at my watch. Six o’clock. Shit, I hadn’t meant to fall
asleep.

“Just a minute,” I
mumbled as Kane tapped again. I scrounged in my pocket and
extracted the scrap of paper with a shaking hand. An address,
‘21:00’, and a single word: ‘alone’.

How the hell was I
supposed to get the keys from Kane, slip away from him, and find
this address? I had no way of knowing where it was or how long it
would take me to get there.

I yawned hugely and
stumbled to the bathroom. Hairbrush in hand, I stood in front of
the mirror absently contemplating the pillow-crease in my cheek
while my mind wrestled with logistics.

Okay, one thing at a
time. If I had the car, I could use the GPS to find the address. So
all I had to do was steal the keys and escape from a highly-trained
and experienced secret agent.

Hell, no problem. I
could do that twice before dinner.

Not.

I groaned and turned
to thud my forehead against the door.

When it suddenly swung
open, I lurched forward off balance, snatching my gun out of its
holster in sheer panic. I stopped the motion at the same time
Kane’s hand shot out to clamp around my wrist.

“Jesus Christ!” I
gasped. “Don’t fucking do that! What the hell were you
thinking?”

“Sorry.” He released
my wrist slowly. “I’ve been knocking on your door and calling you,
but you didn’t answer. I was afraid you were vanishing out the
window. Again.” He glanced at the open bathroom window before
returning his hard gaze to me. “You wouldn’t do that, would
you?”

It sounded more like a
threat than a question, and residual adrenaline made me bristle
before I could stop myself.

“I
said
‘Just a
minute’. And opening a window wasn’t a crime last time I checked,”
I snarled. “And if you ever, and I mean
ever
break in on me
while I’m sitting on the can, I will not hesitate to shoot you. Got
it?”

I jammed my gun back
into its holster and pushed past him to retrieve my sweatshirt.
While I jerked it on over my head and yanked the brush through my
hair, he stood with his back to me, rigid as carved stone.