Her hesitation was briefer this time. “Yes.” She held out her hand.
Her fingers were long and slender and seemed to get lost within his. “Then you meet my friends tonight.”
“And afterward you’ll help me find out what Jack’s up to?”
“And stop him.”
Her gaze dropped to the table. “And stop him,” she agreed softly.
Why was she so loyal to the bastard? And why did she cling to the notion that talking to Kazdan would solve anything? There was only one person in the world that Kazdan looked out for—himself. If she held any notion that the two of them were really friends, she was deluding herself.
“Let’s go,” he said, rising.
She nodded, gathering the disks and shoving them back in her pocket. He followed her out the door, wondering what she’d do when the time came to kill Kazdan.
THE FEELING HIT THE MINUTE Sam left the elevator and walked into the lobby—a wash of heat, followed by the certainty that there was a shifter nearby, which was a given, considering these were the halls of the SIU. Except for one thing. This shifter felt bad. The way Suzy had felt bad. The way the thing that had attacked her on the rooftop had felt bad. She stopped and stared down the hallway to her right. It was in the labs.
“You okay?”
Gabriel’s soft question made her jump. She stared up at him for a moment, then swallowed and nodded. “This is going to sound odd, but there’s a shifter down in the labs.”
“It could be anyone. There are over twenty shifters currently working for the SIU, you know.” Even so, he stared down the hall, hazel eyes filled with concern.
“I know, but this feels … wrong.” So wrong it was beginning to leave a very bad taste in the back of her mouth.
His frown deepened. “Let’s go take a look.”
She nodded. The sensation grew stronger as they approached the labs, until it felt like every inch of her skin was itching. The door swished open as they approached. There was no one inside.
“Odd,” he murmured, moving across to the com-unit. He ran a finger along one edge of the screen, and then held it up to her. “Blood.”
She hoped it wasn’t Finley’s. Hoped it didn’t mean he was dead. As much as she loathed the tests, Finley himself had been okay. She reached back for the laser and saw that Gabriel had already drawn his gun. “The shifter is in the next room,” she said quietly. He nodded and walked to the next door. She followed, keeping to the opposite side of him.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard. Even the hum of the test units seemed silenced. Soft light washed through the room, giving the walls a waxy appearance. She glanced up at him. He motioned to the left, and then held up three fingers. She nodded and began to silently count. At three, she moved in, laser raised.
Two people looked up from the com-screen. One was Finley, the other a woman with bright blue hair and a body any wrestler would be proud of.
Finley raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You have a problem, Assistant Director?”
“I think we might.” Gabriel’s voice was cold, his weapon centered on the young doctor. “Don’t move.” Heat washed a warning across her skin. This was the shifter, and he was not the real Finley. Then the woman moved. Almost as if it were in slow motion, she saw the gun in the woman’s hand, saw her finger curl round the trigger. Sam raised the laser and dove to her right, firing as she fell. The blue bolt missed by a hairsbreadth, zinging past the woman’s ear and searing into the cabinets behind her. Almost simultaneously, she heard Gabriel’s gun bark—a sound that was echoed by the shifter’s weapon. A bullet hit the floor near her toes, tearing away a huge chunk of carpet and concrete.
She scrambled to her feet and saw the shifter lunge at her. She dodged and fired the laser. Again she missed, the blue bolt bouncing off the wall near his head and sizzling back along the desk. Then he was on her, his weight hitting with the force of a tree. She struck the floor with a grunt, the air forced from her lungs as she took the brunt of his weight. Then his hands were grabbing her, trying to pin her arms. She swore, avoiding his hands even as she punched him with her free hand. Though her blows landed with enough force to jar her arm, he didn’t react, simply shifted his weight so that suddenly it was hard to breathe. She bucked, trying to move him, but he was as unmovable as a brick wall. Her lungs began to burn with the need for air. He caught the hand that held the weapon, his grip bruising her flesh as he forced her arm back over her head. Cursing him, and wasting precious air in the process, she drove her free hand between them and grabbed his testicles, squeezing hard. He yelped in surprise, simultaneously jerking back and releasing her arm. She bucked him off, and then fired the laser at his face. He fell back, howling in pain as his skin blackened and began to peel away.
She scrambled to her feet, then sent him spiraling into unconsciousness with a kick to the head. Gabriel swung round, weapon raised. The blue-haired woman lay at his feet, pinned by the foot he’d ground into her throat. Yet another sign how little the SIU cared about prisoner rights.
He seemed to relax slightly as their gazes met. “You okay?”
She nodded, then bent and lightly touched the shifter’s neck. He had a pulse, which was good, but his face was never going to be the same, even though the laser had been set on low. She walked over to Gabriel.
“You know either of these two?” he asked.
The woman shifted her arm slightly. Gabriel pressed a little harder on her throat, and all movement stopped. Sam stared at their blue-haired prisoner. The woman had a hole blown clear through her thigh, and blood poured down the side of her face from another wound near the hairline. Yet, despite this, it was anger and hate, not pain, that filled her dark eyes as she glared at up them.
“No,” she replied. “You?”
“This one,” he said, pushing his heel deeper into the woman’s throat, “goes by the name Ruby Lee. Works part-time down at the Body Beautiful Gym, and the rest of the time as a high-class thief.”
Ruby Lee obviously wasn’t human. Otherwise she’d be suffering a crushed larynx right about now. “What the hell is a thief doing sneaking into the SIU?”
“Good question.” He motioned to the machines lining one wall. “Why don’t you go see if the real Finley is alive so we can find out?”
She nodded and walked across to the machines. The young doctor was in the third unit, unconscious. Squeezing in beside him, she lightly touched his neck. His pulse was steady and strong, but he had a decent-sized egg on his skull. He’d probably have a hell of a headache for several days to come.
“Hey, Finley, you okay?” She pinched his cheek, trying to get some sort of response. A soft groan was her only reply. She climbed out of the machine and walked back to Gabriel. Three men and a woman, all clad in SIU gray, had joined him.
“Finley’s alive, but he’s out of it for the moment.”
He nodded and glanced at the woman in gray. “Take these two to security, Briggs, and get the medics in here for Finley. And watch the woman carefully—she’s something of an escape artist.”
Briggs nodded and motioned to one of the men to help her with the woman. The other moved across to the shifter.
She watched them leave, then looked at Gabriel. “I was under the impression shifters could take only one alternate human form, with the second identity being ordained when they were young. So how come this shifter was able to walk right in and take Finley’s form?”
“Because there’s a strain of shifter that can take alternate forms at will.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s something of a well-kept secret, isn’t it?”
He shrugged and crossed to the com-screen. “Why prejudice humans against shifters any more than necessary, especially when multi-shifters are considered relatively rare?”
“ ‘Relatively rare’ meaning what?”
“It means there are only a small percentage of shifters overall who are capable of taking multiple forms. I believe the figure is somewhere around ten to fifteen
percent.”
“Which isn’t exactly a small number, when you think about it.”
“That depends on your point of view.” His attention was on the screen, his reply almost absent.
She leaned forward, her face close to his. As she stared at the screen, her nostrils filled with his warm, spicy aroma. “That’s gibberish.”
“Indeed.” He glanced up as two medics entered. “Finley’s in unit three.”
She waited until the two medics, carrying Finley on a stretcher, had left. “Have you tried retrieving anything?”
“Computer, update on test results for Samantha Ryan.”
“Voice identification required.”
“Stern, Assistant Director. Badge number 5019.”
“Voice verified. Request processing.”
The com-unit hummed softly. “Results for test subject Samantha Ryan unavailable.”
“Why?”
The com-unit hummed for several more seconds. “Results for test subject Samantha Ryan unavailable.”
“Sounds like it’s been looped.”
He nodded. His gaze, when it met hers, was grim. “Someone doesn’t want us nosing around your genetic history.”
“Put like that, I’m not sure if I do, either.” She glanced back at the screen. “How could they simply walk in here and do that? I thought the SIU had a top security system.”
“We have retina and voice ID, but sometimes that doesn’t mean much.”
Not when shifters could take alternate forms at will. But even if shifters lacked that ability, no system was truly safe. Jack could have gotten in here. Had gotten in here, if the drunken boast she’d overheard one night was true. “But why would they bother stopping anyone getting access to my files? I’m not so special.”
“Aren’t you?” He leaned back in the chair and studied her for a moment. “You sensed the kites. You sensed that Jack had become a vampire. And despite the psychic deadeners we have in place, you knew the shifter was in here.”
The intensity of his gaze cut right through her, stirring something deep in her soul. Something she had no desire to feel when it came to this man. Suddenly uneasy, she cleared her throat and looked back at the screen. “I was tested for psychic ability when I entered the academy. I came up with a big fat zero.”
“Most talents come on with full maturity.”
She shot him a quick look. His gaze was calculating, thoughtful. He knows. That’s what the second set of biological tests had been about. They’d obviously discovered what she’d known since she was fifteen: that she’d never fully mature as a woman, because the parts necessary to carry a child had never fully developed. She’d never have children of her own. Not unless she had a complete uterus and ovary transplant. And even then, the children would never really be hers. She supposed she should be grateful that she’d at least developed breasts, and that she could have sex just fine, but she wasn’t. Having a family of her own had been the one dream she could remember through the fog that was her childhood.
“You obviously know that can’t be the case here. I’m twenty-nine. A little past puberty, I think.”
He shrugged. “Shapechangers tend to mature a lot later than humans. All six of my sisters were well into their thirties before they actually started menstruating.”
That was really a little more info than she needed about his sisters. “But I’m human, not a shapechanger!”
“Maybe that unknown chromosome we found has delayed your development in much the same manner.” She shook her head. “They ran all manner of tests on me when I was fifteen. They all came up with the same answer. This was it; this was all I was going to get.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You resent it, don’t you?”
She snorted softly. Of course she resented it. “You don’t know how lucky you are, having sisters, brothers, a family. I have nothing. Not even memories.”
He leaned forward, covering her hand with his. His touch was warm, comforting, and yet at the same time, electric. As if they were two opposing currents that had briefly merged and become one stronger identity. Her gaze jerked to his. If he felt the elemental surge of energy between them, there was no sign of it in his eyes. Only compassion.
And in many ways, that was the more frightening response. This man seemed to understand her entirely too well.
“Maybe the answers we seek lie in the past you can’t remember.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He squeezed her hand briefly, and then leaned back in the chair, his expression thoughtful. “Finley found a microchip in your armpit. Military in design, and probably inserted when you were about nine.”
She touched her armpit. He’d told her he was merely taking a skin sample for further tests. Odd she hadn’t picked up the doc’s lie. She’d always been able to pick up Jack’s slightest variation of the truth.
“Why would someone want to put a microchip in me, especially at that age?”
“I don’t know. All we know is that it was used to track your movements.”
“That makes no sense.” A cold sensation ran over her. It wasn’t caused so much by the fact that someone had wanted to trace her movements twenty-four hours a day, but that Jack might have been involved. He had always known where to find her. But if she believed he was involved, she’d also have to believe their friendship was nothing more than a lie, a setup from the beginning. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it.
Jack was her friend. Just about her only friend.
“Can you remember anything about your childhood? Your parents?”
She shook her head. “The only thing I had was a hand-drawn picture of my mother, but the bomb destroyed it. The doctors at the home said I must have undergone some severe trauma to forget my past so completely.”
“And you’ve never bothered trying to rediscover that past?”
“Of course I have. That’s why Jack set me up an unregistered link into State—” She broke off as he smiled grimly.
“So that’s why you went back to retrieve your com-unit. You sent yourself some of Jack’s files.”
He didn’t miss much. “Yes.” There wasn’t much point in denying it now. “But I haven’t had the chance to look at them yet.”
“Then we’ll make time later tonight.” He glanced at his watch, and then pushed upright. “We’re late for our dinner date with my friends.”
“What about my bag? And what about Jack’s clone?”
“We’ll collect your bag on the way out. As for the clone, he’ll still be here tomorrow. This is more important.”
More important to him, maybe. “And the disks?”
He glanced at the com-unit. “I don’t think we should risk it. Someone’s obviously got a line in here, someone who doesn’t want us to discover any more about you.”
Someone with enough clout to get two saboteurs into the heart of the SIU. But no matter where they went, they would still face that problem. She’d witnessed Jack hacking into enough systems to know how easy it was. “If someone’s trying to stop us, they’ll be watching the lines into your place and mine.”
“Maybe.”
A sudden hint of amusement played around his full lips. She frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Maybe Jack will help us.”
“Yeah, right. Hand over the disks so he can translate them for us?” She snorted. “That’s really going to happen.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He hesitated, considering her for a moment.
Something in his eyes made her remember that this was a man with an agenda of his own. He might have saved her life, but that didn’t mean she should completely trust him.
“I mean,” he said, “we should visit Kazdan’s apartment and try using his computers to read the disks.”
She stared at him, wondering what in hell he was talking about now. “I went to Jack’s place. I told you, it was stripped.”
His expression wasn’t altogether friendly. “I said apartment, not house. S
urely you remember his apartment? You must have visited it at least once or twice.”
His tone insinuated she’d been doing more than simply visiting. She clenched her fingers, but she somehow resisted the urge to hit him. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard these accusations, so she should be used to them by now. But for some reason, the fact that it was Gabriel hurt her more than it should have.
“Jack never had an apartment.” It was on the tip of her tongue to refute his insinuation, but she held back. No one else had ever believed her, so why should he?
“Really?” His raised eyebrow hinted at disbelief. “You were partners for five years, and you never knew he had an apartment near Federation Square?”
“I was his partner, not his keeper.” Then she frowned. “How in hell could Jack afford an apartment in a precinct like that?”
“Same way you can afford to own an apartment opposite the beach in Brighton?”
The blood drained from her face, only to be replaced by a rush of heated anger. He didn’t trust her. Not entirely, at least. Despite his earlier words, he still suspected she was involved in something with Jack.
“I inherited that apartment when I turned twenty-one. I have no idea who my benefactor was, and the attorney wouldn’t reveal his identity.” An edge of anger crept into her voice, despite her efforts to remain calm. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard these accusations, but, for some reason, this time it annoyed her more than usual. Or maybe it was just her own unease over owning the apartment bubbling back to the surface. “The only previous owner I could find said he sold it to the Panjet Corporation. They’ve refused to answer any of my queries over the years.” She hesitated and clenched her fists. “You can accuse me of Jack’s murder, you can accuse me of being his lover, but don’t you ever accuse me of being crooked!”
“And yet that’s how it looks.” His voice still held an edge, his eyes still intense. Yet something in his manner suggested he believed her. “And it is something they will bring up in court, if this ever gets that far.”
“Let them. I have nothing to hide.”