a Touch of TNT (An Everly Gray Adventure) (10 page)

Mitch quirked an eyebrow at me. “How’d you pick up those images? It’s been a while since either of them were in college.”

“Pictures. North had been looking at photographs from the yearly TNT meetings. He stashed them in his top drawer just before Marcy brought us to his office.”

“You’re talkin’ about that TNT club Annie found in her research?”

“Yeah. I didn’t pick up any information on what it stands for. I think the usual explosive connotation fits, but I’m sure that isn’t the official meaning. Annie’s still working on it. I’m guessing we should have something definitive soon.”

“Got it. What else did you pick up?”

“There was an overwhelming sense of desperation in North. Images of him sobbing at the loss of Jacobson, frantically going through papers looking for something he’d lost. I’m not sure what that was all about, but it had to be really emotional or his thoughts wouldn’t have been clear to me. You know, I almost never pick up on what people are thinking.”

He grinned. “Yeah, and I’m all kinds of grateful about that.”

“What? You don’t want me invading your mind? Messing around in your personal stuff?” I shuddered. “That’d be worse for me than you. Way too much information.”

Mitch gave me a lazy wink. “Might cut down on our foreplay if you were privy to my fantasies.”

Heat spread to my girl parts. “Um. I like foreplay.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

The heat spread to my cheeks. “About North. I’m going to suggest Adam put a tail on him. If he’s that desperate to find whatever he lost, maybe he’ll lead Adam to the killer.”

“It’d help if you could tell Adam what North was looking for. You sure there wasn’t any clue?”

“Not sure. I’ll play it back a few more times after I meditate and clear my head. North isn’t a nice man. That came through the touch, but there weren’t any images to back it up, just sensations about his superiority. He believes he’s above the law, heck, above everything. Made me queasy.”

“Is that why you were fading in North’s office?”

“Yeah. It’s always a little uncomfortable to have another person’s images flow through my mind, and someone like North is downright icky. Tends to whack me out.”

Mitch’s fingers did a sharp tattoo against the steering wheel. “Don’t much like this part of your gift. Watching you turn gray and unresponsive, knowing there’s nothing I can do to make it better. Don’t. Like. It.”

Chill bumps shot down my neck. Mitch in protective mode made me crazy. I understood it, but it still made me twitch. “Look, I know the whacked out parts of me can be unnerving, but they aren’t as bad for me as for you ’cause I have some control. I know the visions will end and can’t hurt me.”

“You sure about that? Looked like you were one of the waking unconscious in North’s office. Scary.”

I patted his thigh. “Yeah. Like I said, worse for you. I knew I wasn’t gonna pass out. The thing is, I can’t change who I am. Don’t want to, especially now that all these interesting things are happening in my life.”

“Yeah. Dangerous.” He cupped my cheek for a second, then gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather cover groaned against the plastic. “Drives me crazy.”

I tried for an innocent expression. It came out a grin. “I’m going to call Adam and fill him in on our meeting with North, see if he wants to follow up.”

Adam didn’t thank me for the info. In fact, I had to hold the phone a foot away from my ear since the decibel level was pretty much off the chart. He had assigned someone to tail North though, so I knew he’d get over being angry with us, even if Mitch and I hadn’t exactly followed the rules.

I cut a sidewise look at Mitch. “Do you think Adam is really mad or just acting like a big brother?”

Blank look. Then Mitch’s eyebrows hiked up. “Adam is pissed. He cares about you and you stepped all over his rules. Oh, yeah. He’s pissed.”

Mitch did a sudden brake for traffic, and I grabbed the dash. “
I
stepped all over his toes? Actually, you were right there with me. That’s why it was
sensible,
not dangerous. Granted, it was my idea and you wouldn’t have been anywhere near North’s office if I hadn’t suggested it, but we’re both guilty here. If anyone had told me not to go—”

I stopped talking because I was about to tell a huge lie. Truth: I would have gone no matter what.

Mitch pulled into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant we’d been wanting to try, helped me out of the car, and then gave me a long, luscious, forget-about-lunch kiss that chased away any thoughts of North, weird college clubs, and dead bodies.

He ran his thumb over my sensitive bottom lip. “We good?”

I rested my forehead against his chest. “Yeah. You’ll always be overprotective, and I’ll always be impulsive. Have to accept those parts of each other even if they make us crazy.”

“Working on it, Sunshine. Let’s go eat.”

The atmosphere of the restaurant turned out to be on the romantic side with cozy booths and candlelight. We held hands, and fed each other bites of pasta, all the while weaving new threads into the tapestry of our relationship.

We’d just parked in my driveway
when Mitch’s phone rang. He checked caller ID and nuzzled my neck. “Go on up, Sunshine. I need to take this call.”

Mitch’s phone rarely rang, and the sound settled in my stomach with the hollow bite of loneliness. It meant he was probably going on assignment again. We’d gotten those new relationship threads stitched down just in time.

He strolled into the kitchen, his expression bland, almost nonexistent. My neck went prickly. “What’s wrong. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

He nodded once. Curt. “Orders for my next assignment came through. I have to leave. Now. And you can’t…touch me. You understand what I’m saying here?”

I interlaced my fingers and held on. Pain hollowed out my gut and knocked my heart into overtime. “I…yes.” Tears burned, but I didn’t let them escape. Not. One. “We knew this was going to happen, but I buried it, hoped it would be later rather than sooner.”

Mitch shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Me, too.”

I smiled at him. Shaky. “I do denial really well. Can I ask you to be careful?”

Mitch’s frozen features relaxed into a smile deep enough to bring out his dimple. “You mean like I always ask you to be careful?”

I shook my head, tossing red curls into a frenzy. “No! Not like me at all. I mean for real. When I get into trouble, it’s stupid stuff. Too much curiosity. If you…if all hell breaks loose in your world…it could be…”

“I’m planning on us having a life, Sunshine. No room in that plan for careless. This could be a long assignment, and I can’t call you. Try to stay out of trouble.”

He ran his finger along my cheek, and before I could suck in a breath he was gone.

The “empties” were gnawing a hole in my heart, and sitting around wasn’t gonna do a thing to make it better. I stripped out of my Southern Belle persona and tossed the clothes in the washer, added extra soap and doubled the rinse cycle. Really needed to wash the weird energy from North’s office out of my clothes. And my head. Too bad I couldn’t stuff my head in the washer.

It was fortunate that I didn’t have any clients scheduled for this afternoon, and nothing pressing to take care of around the house. A challenge. Yep, I needed a challenge. Much better therapy for my heart than a crying jag fueled by a pint of Ben and Jerry’s finest.

I pulled on my oldest, worn out jeans, the ones with holes in the knees, and a faded t-shirt. There were things to do. Important things. I ran down my mental list. A return trip to one of the construction sites? Nope. Didn’t feel right. Maybe a sneak visit to Jacobson’s office? Probably not a good idea until Adam took down the crime scene tape, especially since I’d already ticked him off enough for one day. There would be time and opportunity to practice my lock picking skills after the techs finished processing the murder site.

I ambled into the kitchen, popped open a can of Diet Coke, and glanced out the window. Annie was lying in the sun, probably asleep. I grabbed another can of soda and joined her, tiptoeing, the bad girl in me wanting to, um, surprise her.

When I got within six feet of the lounge chair, a muffled “hi” sounded from someplace in the depth of the cushion.

“Hi? Well that certainly wasn’t anywhere near as much fun as I’d hoped. How’d you know I was here? I was using my best stealthy approach technique, and I barely breathed.”

“If people could sneak up on me, I’d have been dead years ago. Besides, I was attuned to having some company. You know how boring it is to lie here and do nothing? I’m about ready to lose my mind.”

“Why exactly are you out here practicing doing nothing?”

“Tonight is my first date with Sean, and I wanted my skin to glow.”

“Un-huh. Glow. I’m thinking it would be good to get out of the sun before you glow too much to be touched. Have you forgotten that you’re blond?”

“Of course not, but I haven’t been here long. There’s no way I could be burned.”

I reached down and pushed a finger into her upper arm to see if her skin would blanch. “Looks a little pink to me. How about we move into the shade?”

We dragged a couple chairs under an umbrella.

“So, tell me about your morning and take my mind off my date tonight.”

It sounded okay as requests go, except for the quiver in her voice. Annie didn’t quiver. This was definitely a first. I skipped right over my day and jumped into her love life.

“You’re an emotional mess. I can hear it. We’ve talked about this dress-up fear you have with Sean and I’m beginning to wonder if something else isn’t going on. Not that falling in love before you go on your first date isn’t…a different approach to the whole man-woman thing. But I think there might be something else here, something that doesn’t have anything to do with Sean.”

“Are you turning into Coach El?”

“Yep. And I won’t even charge you.”

“All right. I’m not sure what else is going on. Relationships are challenging for everyone, at least for everyone I know. Most of my colleagues are men. There aren’t many female snipers out there. There aren’t even that many female private investigators, although that’s changing.”

“And,” I prodded her along.

“And those guys respected me, valued my skills, wanted me on their team. I was one of them. And I didn’t wear dresses, not unless it was part of my cover. When I wear a dress, I play a role, innocent, feminine, without obvious lethal abilities. On the slow side.”

I snorted a mouthful of soda. “Right. Slow. Like you’re that good of an actress.”

Ice snapped into place behind her eyes. Danger crackled in the air between us, and a chill wrapped around my spine. Sometimes, most of the time, I forgot who Annie really was.

She shrugged and it was gone. Just. Like. That. Back to being a normal, peaceful, sunny day. “Yeah. I am. Be dead if I wasn’t. It’s not that I don’t like the feminine part of me, but I’m also proud of my success in the covert world.”

I gave her my best coachy “hmm,” and got a glare for my trouble. Okay, time to get serious.

“One of the things I admire most about you, am even jealous of, is your ability to waltz into my kitchen at an ungodly hour, on a knock-around Saturday morning, wearing a classy dress and high heels.” I pulled my legs up under me. “And, this is the good part, looking as normal and comfortable as if you were wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops. The dress-up thing is natural for you.”

Annie poked me. “How come you shoot daggers at me whenever that happens?’

“Because
I
couldn’t pull that off unless I spent several decades in finishing school.”

She grinned. “It’s one of my gifts.”

“Right. Back to topic. What isn’t natural is the association you’ve made with being feminine and the nature of your work. Annie, you haven’t worked as a sniper, other than on special occasions when my life is in danger, for years now. I’m guessing that since you retired from whatever agency you worked for, you haven’t given much thought to blending the time you spent as a sniper with the life you’re living as a PI. And you certainly haven’t given any thought to blending those two phases of your life with falling in love.”

“Blending? There is no—” she waved her hands around— “blending…”

“Exactly. The guys you’ve been dating have been fun, casual, and just guys. None of them hung around for more than a few dates because they didn’t hold your interest and you lumped them in with your colleagues, that all-inclusive ‘just guys’ category. You had no problem dressing up in sexy outfits for those dates because it was like going to work. Just another assignment. Sean pretty much knocked your socks off before you could put up enough barriers to keep him at a safe distance. How am I doing so far?”

Her butt shifted in the chair. “I get it. I was thoroughly de-briefed before they gave me the semi-retired status. They covered all that stuff. But you’re right that I haven’t loved anyone for a long time.”

Silence.

There was something wrong about her silence, but I didn’t get a chance to figure it out before she continued. “These…feelings…don’t blend naturally with my past. Since I have to face this in—” she glanced at her watch— “exactly three hours, what do you suggest, coach?”