Chills & Thrills: Three Novel Box Set (4 page)

The elevator door opened onto a bright hallway with polished floors and gleaming ceiling lights.

We passed through a checkpoint at the far end, underwent fingerprint scans, retina scans, and telepath scans. Strange to be sure, but there were those in the department who specialized in telepathy, including our boss. No one but an expert could pass the telepaths.

I waited for the young man to scan my thoughts, then he nodded and I passed through the final checkpoint and stepped deeper into the PSI Los Angeles office.

A receptionist looked up from her desk. She could have been Moneypenny from James Bond. I always suspected that the man I sometimes thought of as my stepdad, likened himself to James Bond.

A psychic James Bond, that is.

“Mr. Simms is waiting for you,” said the receptionist.

I nodded and we all stepped into Grant Simms’ spacious office.

The office had a majestic view of downtown Los Angeles, high enough that helicopters swept before the massive windows, which Grant Simms was currently peering through, his hands clasped behind his back. Grant was a tall man with wide shoulders. He’d been a hell of a field agent, I had heard. Now he ran a secret government agency that few in congress had even heard about. I was still certain the president himself had no knowledge of this division of the agency.

“I’m sorry to bring you back here so soon,” said Grant, finally turning around. He would have been a handsome man, with his full head of gray hair and strong jaw and deep-set eyes. Handsome, except for the half dozen fine scars that ran along his cheeks. They looked like knife wounds, except Grant Simms never talked about them, and pretended as if they weren’t there. I pretended too.

Grant Simms had always been there for me, especially when my father was killed. Grant had overseen my early training and education, and had even recruited me for this very program. He’d always been there, through thick and thin.

And so when he asked about my injuries, he was sincere, his concern for me obvious. But he never gave me special treatment in the program, and for that I was glad. I didn’t need special treatment.

Ayden sat in one of the four client chairs before Grant’s leather tooled desk. “What gives, boss? Can’t a guy spend a little time on a sandy beach with a beautiful woman?”

Ayden looked at me. I was used to his flirting. Noah looked away.

“The beaches can wait,” said Grant. He leveled his considerable stare onto me. “I have an assignment for your team.”

I nodded, waiting.

“We’re looking for a girl who’s been kidnapped.”

“A rescue?” said Noah, sitting up.

Grant Simms nodded. “She’s not just any girl, either.”

Noah rubbed the back of his neck. I knew he was getting a psychic hit. “She’s one of us,” he said suddenly.

Grant Simms nodded. “Very good.”

“There’s more,” said Noah, rubbing his neck again and looking at me. “She’s an audial. Like you.”

Chapter Five

I looked from Noah to Simms.

“Is this true?” I asked, my eyes trained on Simms now.

He nodded.

My mouth might have dropped open a little. “How do you know this?”

“The mother,” Simms said.

“The mother?” I glanced at Noah. He gave a quick nod, barely noticeable to anyone else in the room. I knew what it meant—he had not gotten that read exactly. I also knew that although Simms was a telepath that when it came to audials like myself, he was somewhat limited in getting an accurate mind read. I am not certain anyone else on the team was aware of Simms limitations. I think I was the only one because it was after a few scotches one night and a stressful week of taking down a terrorist cell outside of Portland Oregon that he let it slip that reading the thoughts of an audial was not easy for him. I have to admit that made me breathe a little bit easier around him.

“She came to us when the child went missing.” Simms folded his fingers together, placing his elbows on top of his desk.

“Why? Why not go to the police? Why would she come to us?” I asked.

“Because she claims someone from the CIA reached out to her about a year ago, stating that they were aware of her daughter’s gifts. Apparently, the child was seeing a psychiatrist who was involved with an agent, and this doctor told him about the girl.”

“Is that true? First off, the psychiatrist would be breaking some serious code of ethics. She’s someone I’d like to speak with,” I said.

“You would be able to, if she existed. It was all a guise. So is the agent ploy. There is no one within the agency who reached out to this mother. Her story is that the agent claimed to be aware of the girl’s gift, and for a nice sum of money, the CIA apparently wanted to conduct some tests on the child and the mother agreed. When the girl went missing, her mother came to the CIA, thinking that we had something to do with it, which we obviously do not. My connection there then turned her over to me. I think we can begin making some assumptions about who might have an interest in this child, and for what reasons. Her mother claims that her daughter Hope knows things.”

“What kind of things?” Noah asked.

“Terrorist activities, possibly new strains of viruses to be concerned about, political conspiracies...and more.” Simms shrugged. “On top of that, she’s already fluent in four other languages; including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.”

I didn’t like the sound of this. There was something here that Simms wasn’t saying and it was gnawing on my gut. I shifted uneasily in the leather chair.

Simms placed his hand on a thick folder on top of his desk, and slid it to me. “Here’s your intel on Hope Mitchell. We need to find her. In the wrong hands...well, we know what can happen when secrets wind up in the wrong hands.”

“I’d like to speak to the mother,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can arrange,” Simms replied. “She’s been placed in a safe house.”

I stood. Noah and Ayden followed suit. “Arrange it, Grant. We need to see this little girl’s mother.”

We left Simms’ office.

Ayden smiled and said cheerfully, “Just another day at the office.”

“I don’t like this,” I replied. “Something is off here. Let’s start combing through this file see what we get. Did either of you get any kind of read, besides confirmation that Hope is an audial?”

Noah shook his head. “I did get that Simms has talked to the mother, but there is something else there and I don’t what that is yet. I’ll work on it.”

“You?” I looked at Ayden.

“I haven’t tuned in yet. I’ll make copies of that file and that way we can all go through it. I tend to get better reads in the present if I have an idea about who I’m connecting with. This might be a bit difficult. I haven’t worked much with child energy.”

“Well, if she’s one of us, she’s not exactly an ordinary child.” I opened up the file. The first item inside was a 5x7 photo of Hope. She was a pretty little girl with big blue eyes, dark hair, a pinch of freckles across her nose, a bright smile—there was an intelligence in those eyes. I could easily see she was a smart kid. There was also something else that I recognized behind the eyes—a sadness mixed with a little bit of fear. God, did I get that. A sudden, deep protectiveness came over me as I studied the photo. In that moment I vowed to find Hope Mitchell and bring her home safely.

Chapter Six

Hope opened her eyes slowly. She felt warm and tingly, and a little bit confused. Where was she?

A hand stroked her hair back off of her face, and she closed her eyes again—her mother was here, wherever here was.

“There you go. Sleep, dear girl.”

The warmth and comfort dissipated, and she opened her eyes again, focusing on the woman standing next to her bed—the woman who was not her mother. A woman who sounded strange to her. In her mixed up state, she tried to figure out the accent, but was so drowsy. “Who are you?” she muttered. “Where’s my mom? I want my mom.”

“I’m Orlenda. You’ve had a bit of a bad fall, and I’m helping take care of you.” She placed a spindly hand on Hope’s arm. “Your mother is just fine and she will be here soon.”

“When?” Hope asked. The woman was tall, very thin, reminding her of a ballerina but much older than most ballerinas. Her hair was almost white with silver streaks through it and pulled straight back off of her face. The eyes were a steely blue and although her voice sounded kind, it did not match the eyes, and Hope knew the woman was lying to her about her mother. However, she’d been trained, and she knew they had drugged her and as she was starting to become more alert, there was pain in her right leg. The woman standing over her was smart, and Hope knew she aimed to take advantage of her. She’d been told that at the compound. She would have to be just as smart as this lady—Orlenda.

Hope was aware that she would not be able to use her gift, or outsmart Orlenda until she was fully awake and aware. She closed her eyes again. “Will you wake me up when my mom gets here?” she asked, playing into the charade.

“Of course. You rest.” Orlenda patted her hand.

Hope heard her leave the room. As the door closed, tears burned her eyes, which she shut tighter, trying hard not to cry. She couldn’t help it. She had no idea where she was or who had her. But she knew what she had been told would happen to her if someone outside of the compound took her.

Chapter Seven

I was alone in my apartment.

Unlike other agents or investigators, those who work for the PSI sometimes need to do more than glance through a file. Sometimes we need to absorb, assimilate, feel our way through a file.

Especially when it came to missing persons. We needed to get a feel for the missing, we needed to connect on a psychic level to the missing, which is why the more information we’re given the better. Especially personal information. Which was one of the reasons why I wanted to speak to the mother. Give me a sweater or a necklace or even a pair of shoes, and the psychic hits come stronger and more detailed.

Now, all we had to work with was the thick dossier, which is what I was studying now on my balcony, overlooking the busy Los Feliz Boulevard, which someone had once said was the busiest street in Los Angeles. Looking at it now, at rush hour, and the endless sea of red brake lights, I believed it.

I also didn’t have to worry about it. Not up here, on my balcony with a glass of Cabernet. My feet were crossed up on the iron balcony railing. I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, my hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Not exactly the glamorous secret agent most people imagine, but my job was rarely glamorous. Sure, it had its moments, especially when I was under cover.

Even then, undercover assignments vary. Hell, I last posed as a high-class prostitute.

And I did it well,
I thought, grinning and drinking from the glass. Nice trick with the scalpel in the panties thing. That is one I will surely remember, just in case I’m ever needed to play that part again. I might pull the scalpel on whoever might consider asking me to play that part again. I took another long sip of the wine and wished I had a steak to grill. Sadly, my fridge had only the bare essentials, and so my choices for dinner consisted of either a grilled cheese, a Lean Cuisine, or I could get a can of soup from the cupboard. I was leaning toward the grilled cheese.

But the thought of making a sandwich was forgotten as I continued reading through the dossier. The file troubled me on a few levels. The first were the similarities between the girl and myself. Not only did she look astoundingly similar to me as a kid, her talents were nearly as powerful as mine, if not more so.

Her audial range was tremendous. Her accuracy nearly unheard of. She would be a tremendous value to PSI...and other agencies around the world. But, the PSI had rules on utilizing children with these gifts. They were rules that I agreed with. Plus, I had never come across a child who had honed the gift in this way. In fact, I had only met a few other audials. The skill/gift can be frightening for a child, which is completely understandable, and so many times it’s quelled—shoved down so deeply that it’s actually lost for a period of time, possibly even forever.

This young girl in the wrong hands could be of tremendous benefit to the enemy. I’m certain that other governments and agencies did not maintain the same ethics we prescribed to when it came to kids.

With that thought, I knocked back the rest of my wine.

There were, of course, still more similarities with the missing girl, Hope Mitchell. I had now read the file three times, committing most of it to memory. I swung my legs off the balcony and stood. I considered more wine, but decided against it. More wine inhibited my talents...or
gifts
, as my father called them. But boy, did I want a second glass.

I stepped through my balcony’s sliding glass door and into my tenth floor apartment. My furnishings were sparse, as any good agents were. Hidden throughout my apartment were no less than six pistols. Anyone who broke into my home would find very little of interest. Nothing of value, and nothing personal. I had four similar apartments scattered around the world, although I used this one the most, and associated this one as my home base.