"He has a daughter."
She nodded, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully, frowning while she did so. "Lily. He spoke of her sometimes, and when he did, I could feel a rush of emotion in him, but it wasn't like my parents when they touched me. It wasn't the same as anything I've ever identified with as a parent's love. He views her as an extension of himself. He's a megalomaniac, has an absolute belief that he's superior to everyone else and that no one will ever measure up to his capabilities except perhaps Lily--or her children."
Kadan nodded. "That's a fair assessment of Dr. Whitney."
"You're certain he's still alive? My parents--well, my father--always insisted we use him as a doctor, but I haven't seen him since he was supposedly murdered."
"What kinds of things did he do to you?"
"He told Mom and Dad he was helping me with the headaches, but they never went away or even got better. Mostly he gave me physicals, asked a lot of questions, was very interested in whether I had sex or not, and took a lot of blood and tissue samples. He also spent a lot of time on my eyes. He was very interested in the fact that I almost always have to wear dark glasses and that I see differently than other people."
Kadan was very interested in whether or not she had sex as well, but figured this wasn't the best time to ask her. "What's different about the way you see?"
Tansy shrugged, but didn't comment.
Kadan let it go. "Did he give you injections?"
She nodded. "They hurt like hell." She frowned. "You know, I didn't always get a lot off of him, the way I do most people. Not him, exactly, his things. At the time, when I touched objects, I could read a lot about a person, but it was more difficult with him. Of course, by that time, I tried to wear gloves everywhere I went."
"You haven't felt anything even when you touch an object I've touched, have you?" Kadan asked. "I'm an anchor, which means that I can draw psychic energy away from you. I can also shield both of us from any energy and keep others from feeling ours."
He deftly added the vegetables to the rice and took the plates she handed him to serve the meal on. "My talents come in handy on missions when we need to hide from the enemy."
"But not so handy tracking serial killers," Tansy observed.
He nodded. "I'm good at working puzzles out, and once I'm pointed in the right direction, I'll find him, but I need a little help."
Tansy's heart jumped. She could never allow him to lull her into a false sense of security. "I'm sorry that help can't be me, Kadan, but it can't be. I know you've got all the ugly little details of my hospitalization. They couldn't take away all those voices, the victims--or the killers. Do you have any idea what it's like to hear screams and feel someone's desperate last thoughts all the time, and I mean all the time? To know the mind of a killer intimately? The delicious perverted pleasure he gets out of carving someone up, or burying them alive?" The door in her mind creaked ominously and whispers grew. She took a deep breath, controlled herself, and slammed it shut. "You're already bringing those days back and I haven't even tried to help you."
"I can keep most of the psychic spill from targeting you."
She turned her head and removed her glasses, looking him straight in the eye. "No, you can't, not and have me track him. I'd need to feel him, get inside his mind, to do what you're asking. You and I both know you can't take it out of my head once it's there."
Kadan hated that she was right. And he hated it more that she drew on gloves. She had touched him and hadn't felt anything, he'd protected her, but she didn't trust him and for a good reason--truthfully, she couldn't. He had to bring her back with him. There were days when his job sucked, and this was one of them.
"Sit down and let's eat. You can tell me about that cat. She's out there watching us now. I can feel her staring at us."
Tansy took the plate he handed her, careful, even with the gloves she'd put on, to keep from touching him. "She's curious about you. She probably hasn't seen anyone else in months. And her den is close. She's due to give birth anytime." Excitement flashed in her voice. "I'm hoping to get some great shots. If I'm lucky, she might change her mind and use the cave I've set up in to film the event, although so far she's been ignoring it."
"Why don't you persuade her?"
"I can't do that."
"You stopped her from attacking. If she'd wanted to do it, she could have done some major damage to you, but she didn't," he pointed out. "You have to have some control over her."
Tansy sank down onto a log and indicated that he could have the one chair she'd brought. "Maybe, but it's not really like that. I have an affinity with animals, I've always had it. But I don't really talk to them, not telepathically."
"Are you certain?"
She chewed on her lower lip. He liked that lower lip and found himself staring as her small teeth tugged at it.
"I 'push' a little to get them to do what I want, but it's not a conscious thing." She took a bite of the stir-fry. The man could cook. "Not bad."
"Self-preservation."
His eyes crinkled around the edges, tiny lines showing that he squinted a lot. His long lashes were thick and dark, and helped to cover the expression in his dark blue eyes.
"I've never been afraid of animals," Tansy said. "I've always liked being around them. I can touch them and not find myself somewhere else."
"What does that mean?" Kadan's low voice slid into her mind like soft butter. "Finding yourself somewhere else? What does that mean?"
Her expression closed down immediately and she shrugged. "When I touch objects, the world narrows and I'm in a tunnel, like an alternate world. Everything bends and curves and the energy is there, preserved for me like a recording, only I'm in it, feeling everything that is happening, no matter what it is." She looked him in the eye again. "All of it. Everything. If you are cheating on your wife and feel guilty, I'm there with you. If you're worried about a sick child, or paying your house payment, I'm feeling that fear right along with you."
"If that person is in love . . ."
"Then I am too."
Kadan forced his gaze away from the unconscious plea in her unusually colored eyes. Knots gathered in his gut, hard and tight, giving him hell for doing his job. He believed in what he was doing or he wouldn't have come looking for her. The vicious murders had to be stopped. And if they weren't--if the faceless names above them continued to believe that the GhostWalkers were responsible for the murders, they would never risk the controversial program ever seeing the light of day. Kadan had no illusions about their lives. The GhostWalkers--he and his friends--were expendable. Worse, they were something the government would want to sweep under the carpet like dirty laundry. They'd be sent out on a suicide mission, or quietly eliminated.
He swore under his breath and kept his gaze fixed on the surrounding forest, studying the trees and brush as if each piece of foliage intrigued him. Truthfully, all he saw was that look in her eyes.
"Why the bullshit about not having your talent anymore?"
Tansy sighed. "It's complicated. I can't actually do that work anymore. I can't separate the emotions and voices, so I'm not lying when I say I don't have the talent. Once the word went out that I had a climbing accident, I was left alone for the most part. My father handles all the calls coming in, and I think now enough time has passed that most people have forgotten me." She waited until he looked at her. "I wish you would."