Chapter 15
Kaitlin sat squashed between Janelle and Josie in the back of the car. Rose was driving and Dave sat in the front beside her. It was a bit of a tight squeeze but cozy.
She wasn’t quite sure why Josie was returning to London with them. She’d been quiet in the meeting, and since then, she’d hardly said a word. Whatever she had read, or seen, in the files Ethan had shown her had clearly had a profound effect.
Presumably they had disclosed that her husband had been a ruthless bastard, directly responsible for the experiments that had taken her telepathy and her memories.
It was obvious that Josie had never really, deep down, accepted the truth about her husband.
But then, she had no memories of life before he’d entered it.
She had awoken with no knowledge of who or what she was.
And her husband had callously exploited that to get his own little Stepford wife.
He’d died at the Conclave party, shot by the visitors from the future.
Josie should have been going to Australia with her sister, where she’d be relatively safe.
But at the last minute, she’d asked if she could come with them.
Kaitlin suspected it had something to do with a certain Detective Steve.
Maybe finally admitting to herself that her dead husband was a complete piece of shit had freed Josie to move forward.
Well, she’d better move quick. Because the end of the world was coming. It could be just around the corner.
It occurred to Kaitlin that if she did go through with her idea to go back in time and rescue Sam—and obviously, right now, it was just a totally nebulous, dream plan—then she might very well need some help.
She didn’t want to involve the others, though she didn’t want to look too closely at her reasoning behind that.
Maybe they’d try and dissuade her. Maybe they’d look into her head and see how conflicted she really was.
Guilt over Sam, conflicting with guilt over her plan to betray everything they were trying to do.
She was just one big messy mass of guilt.
But Josie couldn’t see inside her head, and—an added bonus—no one could see into Josie’s. It was something to consider.
Luckily, the roads had been cleared of snow, and Rose drove fast. They didn’t talk about anything important; they’d gone over the plan in the meeting and then again with Jake and Kane before they left.
Kaitlin leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. Her mind instantly flooded with the memory of that kiss, and a wave of heat washed through her.
She’d been trying not to think about it, because it had shaken her far more than she would ever willingly admit. She’d kissed more than a few men and a woman or two. She’d felt it was her duty to get a little experience under her belt.
She’d had such a repressed childhood. While other teenagers had been out dating and snogging and shagging, she’d been poking into the minds of serial killers and terrorists. And fantasizing about the totally unobtainable Jake.
Anyway, she’d made up for that, though in truth she wasn’t quite as experienced as she tried to pretend.
The problem was, up to now, sex had been a huge disappointment.
She’d felt none of the thrill and the magic she’d dreamed about, and after the first couple of attempts, she’d limited herself to kisses, on the assumption that she would know at that stage if the sex was going to be any better and whether she should continue. But that had only happened once.
With Kane. This morning.
God, the man could kiss.
She’d tingled from her head to her toes.
Melted.
If she’d stayed out of his mind—God, he was such a controlling dickhead—she would have ended up on her back with—
She broke off the thought.
Then sighed.
Time to get her mind off that kiss and onto more important matters.
They weren’t returning to the apartment in case the bad guys knew where she lived.
Instead, Ethan had booked them into a swanky hotel, owned by the Conclave—only the best for the Conclave—in the center of the city.
She and Rose and Janelle were wearing the reflector devices—they’d been adapted from the original utilitarian design to something that was almost impossible to detect unless you knew what you were looking for.
But they would stop anything getting out of, or into, their heads.
Kaitlin would continue to wear hers at the hotel, but tomorrow she would venture out without it, while Rose and Janelle would keep theirs on.
They didn’t want the bad guys to be aware of anyone but Kaitlin.
She would wander around her usual haunts, looking temptingly alone and vulnerable, and hopefully someone would come along and try to grab her.
There was a good chance whoever that was would know no more than the hired thugs she had encountered on New Year’s Eve, who knew nothing of any use. But if that was the case, they would somehow convince them into contacting whoever they worked for and set up the meet to hand Kaitlin over.
They’d go to the meeting and discover the real people behind the kidnapping.
Rose and Janelle would be wearing the reflector devices; they would have the element of surprise on their side, and they’d pick up whoever it was before the handover.
Kaitlin would be wearing a tracker at all times.
Her backup would never be far away. There was a very small risk everything might go to crap, but it was worth it for the information they might find.
She’d be careful and wouldn’t take any undue risks.
She had no wish to put the others in unnecessary danger.
On the other hand—they were trying to save the Earth here, so a little risk was justifiable.
The trip took just over six hours, and it grew dark as they drove.
The Christmas lights were still on in the city, and the place was lit up like a fairytale.
As a child, she’d missed out on the whole Christmas thing.
The colonel hadn’t been the sentimental type, and she’d pretended not to care.
Once the others had moved in, Jake had always tried to make Christmas special.
Maybe that was part of why she’d developed such a huge crush on him.
Apart from Sam, no one had ever cared before.
Anyway, while she liked to pretend she was a total hard ass, the lights and the trees and the decorations made her feel a little warm and fuzzy. Sam would have loved them.
Maybe next year she’d bring him to see them.
If there was a next year.
At the hotel, they parked in the underground garage.
They were all on the same floor but had rooms to themselves, except for Rose and Dave for obvious reasons. Rose never admitted it, but Kaitlin knew she loved Dave.
Everyone was finding someone.
Kaitlin paused outside her door and turned to Josie, who was in the room next to hers. “Can I come and talk to you? Say in five minutes.”
“Of course. Are you all right? Have you changed your mind?”
“No. It’s something else. Sort of.”
“Okay.”
Kaitlin dropped her bag on the floor by the bed, shrugged out of her coat and threw it on the chair. She stretched, stiff from the long drive. She’d talk to Josie, then she was going to have a long bath, a huge drink, and go to bed.
She tapped on the door to Josie’s room and pushed it open. Josie was sitting on the bed, staring at the phone.
“Are you going to call Steve?” Kaitlin asked.
She gave a small shrug. “I can’t decide.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Maybe.”
Kaitlin glanced around the room and then headed for the mini bar. She made them both a vodka and tonic and carried the drinks back to the bed. She handed one to Josie, toed off her boots and sat down, leaning against the wall behind her. Josie sipped her drink, still staring at the phone.
Kaitlin took a big gulp of hers. “Is this about the files Ethan found?”
Josie nodded. “I guess.” A sniff. “I’ve been such an idiot. All this time I’ve been holding onto the idea that somehow you were wrong about Travis. That he loved me. That he wasn’t a bad guy. I mean, Ethan is Conclave, and he’s not a bad person.”
There was a lot Kaitlin could say to that, but she decided to keep quiet and let Josie get it out of her system. She just gave a grunt of encouragement.
“Travis was always so sweet to me.”
Maybe that was because Josie had always toed the line, behaved perfectly.
She was getting better, but whatever they had done to her had not only wiped her memory and deleted her telepathic ability, but it had also left her without a will of her own.
She must have been like a walking, talking—and God knows what else—doll.
The last year had been as if she was waking from sleep.
“So what did Ethan show you?”
“My death warrant. Signed by Travis. I saw it in the file. He also okayed the experiment that did this”—she waved a hand toward her head—“to me. There was a seventy-five percent chance of failure, that the subject would die. And he agreed. There was a note in the file—the subject was expendable. That was me. I was expendable. My husband said I was fucking expendable.” Her voice was rising, and Kaitlin had never actually heard her swear before.
Clearly, there was a lot of pent-up rage behind that seemingly perfect facade.
“Well, in all fairness, he wasn’t your husband then.”
Josie glared at her. “Don’t try and defend the bastard.”
Kaitlin held up a hand in mock defense. But she could feel a smile tugging at her lips. Josie needed this. And she’d called Travis a bastard. That had to be a move in the right direction.
“And don’t smile.”
Kaitlin stopped smiling. “I wasn’t.”
Josie took a deep breath. “So guess what? Travis was not a good guy. He was a bad guy. Very bad. And I’m glad he’s dead.”
Hey. A result. “Good. So now you’re ready to move on. Maybe get kissy-kissy with Detective Steve.”
“I don’t know. I obviously have deplorable taste in men. What if he’s a bastard as well?”
“I like him.”
“You do?” Josie didn’t sound happy about that.
“Not like that.”
“No, because you only have eyes for Kane. Which means you have deplorable taste in men as well.”
“I don’t have eyes or anything else for Kane.”
Josie opened her mouth. Kaitlin glared, and she closed it again. Clever girl.
“There was other stuff in the files,” Josie said. “About the experiment. Details of what they did. Christa is going through the information. She thinks she might be able to reverse it.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I think so. I might have lost my memory, but right now I also feel like I’ve lost a part of myself. Who and what I am. And I’ll never be complete without getting it back. But even if she can’t reverse it, Christa reckons she can mend me.”
Christa had been working on the Kindred’s DNA for years.
She hadn’t known it, but she’d been inadvertently working for the Conclave who had been funding her research.
But strangely, not into the telepathy side of things but the other facet of their nature—that they were long-lived.
She’d already identified the unique coding that stopped the aging process.
She’d used up-to-date technology, cutting out the relevant piece of DNA code and adding it to her own—she hadn’t wanted to grow old and die while Jake stayed the same.
She believed it had worked and had no side effects. She’d offered to do the same for Ethan, and he’d accepted. And Kaitlin knew she had spoken to Rose and given the same offer to Dave. So far, he hadn’t taken her up on it, but Kaitlin believed he would. In time. Providing he had time.
Now Christa was working on identifying the DNA code that made them telepathic. So that would be an option too. Also, maybe she could do the opposite and take away the telepathy—switch off the gene code. But Kaitlin would never want that, and she didn’t think any of the others would either.
She patted Josie’s hand. “I’m glad. It will be good to have you completely back.”
“I know. Being with you all, up in Scotland, made me realize how cut off I am from the others. I only really felt connected to Sadie. And you, of course.”
“Of course. Hey, we’re friends.”
It was true. The feelings had crept up on her. At first Josie had just been someone in need of protection, but they’d gotten past that. She’d never really had a friend before.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Josie asked. “Is it about your brother?” Josie had no memory of Sam. “Did you find anything new in the files? Did it upset you seeing them? Finding out what happened? Do you want to talk about it?”
Not particularly, but she was going to. She just wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Josie would probably tell her she was totally insane. And maybe she was.
Fuck. She sort of wished she’d never had the idea, but now it wouldn’t leave her alone.
She jumped to her feet, needing to move.
Her glass was empty, and she crossed to the bar and made herself another.
Josie was only halfway through hers; she wasn’t much of a drinker. Unlike her—she was a complete lush.
Kaitlin took a gulp and turned back to find Josie watching her. Maybe she should just get it out fast.
“I want to steal Kane’s time machine and go back and save Sam. And I need you and Detective Steve to help me.”