Murder Game

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Damn it! I'm a victim here too," Don insisted. "You have no idea what it was like."

"You didn't want to face up to the music. Whether or not Whitney drugged you, and it is probable he did, you still participated in the rape of thirteen-year-old girl and you got her pregnant."

"She had no one. Whitney told me she was a street girl there that night to try to steal from us."

"I believe she probably didn't have anyone to protect her. Whitney wanted her genes. The rest of her was an inconvenience. He must have found her on another trip, recognized that she had psychic ability and 'bought' her, just like he did the others. He probably offered her money to stay in a nice warm room and she waited there, thinking she had a good gig, a place to stay and food to eat. Hell. For the first time in her life, she wasn't on the street. And then Whitney brought you to her."

"I don't remember."

"You didn't want to remember. And you may have put out a few feelers to try to satisfy your guilt about what happened to her, but you have enough money and enough contacts to find anyone in the world. You didn't want anyone to ask questions about why that girl was important to you."

"She's dead. Whitney told me she was dead."

"And you wanted to believe that."

Don glared at him. "I don't think someone like you has a right to judge me. Do you think I can't take one look at you and know you're a killer?"

If he meant to make Kadan wince, he was mistaken. Kadan knew exactly what he was; cold as ice and willing to get the job done. "Then we understand each other," he said, his voice pitched low. "There is a difference though. I know I'm a bastard and I don't deserve Tansy. I fully admit it to myself and to her. I'm taking her anyway because I'm selfish and I'll work every day of my life to make her happy, and at the end of our days, I hope she'll have no cause for regret. You pretend you're a good guy. You deceive yourself and your family. And you left those little girls with a madman so you could continue your life just the way you wanted."

"I'm telling you, he was putting them up for adoption. The damage to them had already been done."

"He didn't put most of them up for adoption. He's using them in his breeding program."

There was another shocked silence. Kadan could tell by the man's expression that the shock wasn't feigned.

"Are you certain of your information?"

"Yes. And there were other girls as well."

Ryland stirred for the first time. "What about Lily? You had to have known he kept Lily." His voice was very low, almost a whisper, but his tone was pure menace.

Don started, his gaze jumping to the man he couldn't quite make out in the shadows. "He was good to Lily."

"He experimented on Lily. What do you think it did to her when she found out about him? When he let her believe someone murdered him? You knew, didn't you, that he was alive?"

Don nodded. "Someone high up, someone really connected wanted him dead. They knew he was enhancing Special Forces soldiers and they thought it was an abomination. Peter wanted super weapons for his country. He didn't know who it was, but they'd made several attempts to kill him and they'd hit at his soldiers. He told me they'd murdered at least one of them and he was afraid for the others. He had to disappear until he knew who his friends were."

Ryland shifted again, as if he might pursue the subject of his wife, but he let it go. He'd been the man targeted for murder by the faction who thought Whitney's experiments were abominations. He'd seen several of his men die and he'd barely escaped with his own life.

He knows more than he's telling us, he sent silently to Kadan.

"We were locked in cages," Kadan said, "in Whitney's research center. We were the men Lily helped escape."

"Her father wanted her to help them escape. He told me he maneuvered her into the position with the hope that she could do what he couldn't," Don said hastily. "For all of his sins, he wanted all of the soldiers he'd worked on to survive and serve their country."

"Did he know who wanted him dead?" Kadan asked.

"Someone very high up in the food chain. Whoever it is works in the White House and Whitney couldn't touch him. Fortunately, Peter has a lot of friends who covered for him and helped him carry on his work…"

"His breeding program," Kadan said. "The one he wants Tansy to participate in."

Don shook his head. "He doesn't want any harm to come to her. I know that. When he got word that his enemy was forming a coalition to wipe out his soldiers, he insisted I hire Fredrickson to guard Tansy. Someone got to Fredrickson."

"Fredrickson worked for Whitney," Kadan pointed out. "No matter how you spin this, you aren't going to make Whitney into a saint just so you can condone the fact that you let him get away with experimenting on children. He experimented on your own child, and kept it up as she grew. You allowed it. And you hired Fredrickson at his command. His orders were to take Tansy if she ever discovered what was going on. She asked you the wrong question and Fredrickson did his job. He was going to take her to Whitney."

"I know he's a bastard, but he would have kept her safe."

"He would have forced her to have sex with a man she didn't want to have sex with, just like he forced that little teenage girl to have sex with you." Kadan remained absolutely still, a statue carved in stone. Even his stillness seemed a threat.

Don's face crumbled. "Damn you, you're leaving me with nothing."

"You would have given her up." Kadan's voice was as cold as ice.

Kadan, Ryland warned softly, clearly fearing what his friend might do.

Kadan didn't know himself. The thought of Don Meadows even contemplating turning his daughter over to a man like Whitney after he'd seen the experiments, the rape of a teenage girl, his wife hit by Fredrickson…

"All for what?" Kadan asked softly. "To keep your image and your money, your cushy little life. You would have traded Tansy into a lifetime of slavery."

"No! Damn you, no!" Don denied the accusation. "I wanted her safe from the coalition. They're much stronger. They've established themselves and are trying to kill every soldier and woman known to have been enhanced."

"And you know this how?" Kadan's voice was still cold, still remote, as if the jury was still out on whether or not he was going to reach across the bed and rip out Don's throat.

"Whitney has friends who tip him off, and he told me Tansy needed to be in a safe house. We had a terrible fight about it. I told him I could protect my daughter."

"That's when you hired the mercs."

Don scowled. "Fredrickson found Watson for me, and they hired men who could keep her safe."

"They were Whitney's men. When Tansy asked the wrong question, they did as Whitney ordered them. They were to secure her immediately and bring her to them. They were willing to torture your wife to get her there."

"Fredrickson told us there was a hit out on her." Don looked Kadan straight in the eye. "He said an assassin was sent to kill her."

"Two men showed up in the mountains. I thought they were after me. How would anyone know Tansy was enhanced?"

"She worked with the police and the FBI solving serial murders. There's been a series of murders that a reporter speculated were all connected, and her name was brought up. We didn't tell her because we didn't want to upset her, but the reporter knew she was a photographer and suggested she was in the Sierras. He implied she was helping the FBI with the murders. The article even gave a report about her being hospitalized and that she might taint the evidence."

A chill went through Kadan's body. If someone had dug up information on Tansy and reported it, the elite tracker she had accidently run across would have her identity. He took a deep breath. "Give me a name and a newspaper."

"What? Are you going to kill him too?" Don asked, a hint of bitterness, mixed with sarcasm, creeping into his voice.

Kadan's hand snaked out so fast it was a blur. He grasped Don by the throat, cutting off oxygen and nearly lifting the man off his feet. Don choked, gasped, turned red and then purple, desperately prying at Kadan's fingers to release him. He stared into impassive eyes.

"Kadan." Ryland said his name. Low. Firm. No inflection. Lily will get all the information we need on the reporter. Let it go.

Kadan dropped Don in disgust and turned away from him, pacing across the room, while the man coughed and dragged air into his lungs.

"I'm glad you find this amusing," Kadan accused through clenched teeth. "I find it distasteful."

Don used his heels to push himself back against the bed to prop himself up. "Damn you," he choked. "You don't know what you would have done in my shoes."

Kadan crouched down beside the man, looking him straight in the eye. "I would have killed Whitney the moment he showed me that tape. He had you rape a child. He stole your child. He tortured her, experimented on her, and continued to do so to other children. He had a man strike your wife, and believe me, Fredrickson would have gone to any lengths, including killing Sharon. Watson certainly tried to put a bullet in her head…"

Don covered his face with his hands. "I don't kill people."

"Maybe not, Meadows, but you're willing to leave a monster loose in the world so you can keep your precious world intact." Kadan was nearly choking on his disgust. "And you hired killers and let them stay in your home."

He's weak, Kadan, not malicious.

Fuck that. He would have turned Tansy over to Whitney to protect his world. Kadan abruptly stood again and put distance between himself and Don. He didn't trust himself anymore. He wanted to break the man's neck. "Where's Whitney? And don't tell me you don't know every one of his hidey-holes, because you've had twenty years to gather intel on him. A man like you has files on people."

"Whitney has places all over the world. He has more money and more connections than you can imagine. You can't beat him. And at least he isn't trying to kill you. Your enemy is his enemy. And he's the only man capable of protecting Tansy. I couldn't do it, and I don't think you can either."

"We'll see. I want your file on Whitney."

Don shrugged. "It won't do you any good."

"I want it."

"It's in my house. I have a safe in my office under the floorboards where I keep it. The one on the wall is for thieves to think they're getting useful information."

Kadan was done. He couldn't bear to be in the man's presence for even another minute. Rye, take over. I can't look at him anymore. Send someone for the file. "I'm taking Tansy with me. You stay here with my men and don't be stupid enough to give them any trouble."

"Whitney will release the video."

Kadan turned cold eyes on the man, looked him up and down, and then shook his head. "You still don't get it, do you? He won't release the video. He has as much to lose as you do. The government and the military still consider him a good guy. He isn't going to risk jeopardizing that for a little payback. He got what he wanted from you. Your genes. Now he'll come at Tansy and he'll have to go through me to get to her."

"What about my wife?"

Kadan dropped the temperature by several degrees just staring at the man. "I have no wish to cause your wife pain, Mr. Meadows. You're free to continue lying to her, but I will tell your daughter everything. I have no intention of deceiving my wife."

"Are you going to tell her you threatened my life?"

Kadan smiled, and there was no humor at all in it. "Tansy has access to my mind. I don't think she's going to be very surprised at anything I ever do."

"You self-righteous son of a bitch." Don scrambled to his feet, his face red and twisted with anger. "You tell my daughter she's the product of a brutal rape. You tell her that she's been deceived for years, destroy everything she loves and believes in, and then feel good about yourself because you're such a fine upstanding man."

Kadan flung the chair that had been placed under the doorknob against the wall with enough force to smash it into several pieces. Jerking open the door, he stalked out of the room, afraid of the cold in his veins, in his mind. He needed to see Tansy. To touch her. To make certain she was okay. He just wanted to hold her and keep her safe. Damn her father and his weakness. Telling her everything would destroy her world. Not telling her would leave a huge chasm between them.

Tucker and Ian came running down the hall toward him, guns drawn. The crash of the chair had been loud enough to alert them to potential trouble. Kadan just shook his head and kept moving toward the other end of the house, where Tansy slept. He picked up the pace without even realizing he was doing so, shoving open the door and standing there, framed in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her as she lay sleeping.

The room was dark, with only a small bit of light spilling through the curtains at the windows. The air still held a hint of cinnamon, and his stomach tightened as he drew a deep breath. Her hair fanned across the pillow, a cascading fall of white gold silk that tore at his heart. She looked so young when she slept, innocent and sweet, as if all the bad things in life hadn't touched her yet. She sighed softly and turned, reaching-for him? He hoped it was for him. He hoped he represented something good in her life in spite of all that had happened.

He crossed the room on silent feet and crouched down beside her. "Baby. You need to wake up for me." He bent his head and trailed kisses over her face. His hands slipped beneath the blanket to find the curves of her warm satin skin. "Open your eyes."

She blinked, the twin crescents of thick lashes batting at him while beneath the covers her body stirred, moving more fully into his hands. "Hey you." Her smile shook him, filled with welcome. With something soft and inviting. "Is it morning already?"

She sounded so drowsy-so sexy. His body tightened more. He couldn't help cupping the soft weight of her warm, soft breasts in his hands, or sliding his thumbs over her responsive nipples. "We have to go."

"I need a couple more hours of sleep."

He nuzzled her throat, kissing his way down the curve of her breast. "You can sleep in the car, honey. I need you to get up now."

She gave a soft little groan of protest. "It's dark."

"I know. Come on. Come with me." His fingers tugged the blankets down just a little more, exposing her breast to the cooler air. He licked her nipple, then drew her breast into his mouth and suckled, sliding his arm around her waist to pull her more fully to him. She felt soft and pliant in his arms, offering herself to him, the way she did.

Kadan closed his eyes, savoring the moment, the knowledge that she so completely gave herself to him. He kissed his way back up the throat to find her mouth, losing himself there for a few minutes. She gave him everything, with no hesitation, without reservation. There was no resisting her, not when she just opened herself up for him and took him in. He pressed his forehead to hers, sharing breath.

"I'm sorry to wake you, Tansy. I know you're tired, but we're running out of time on this thing. Your parents are safe here and we need to get back so we can get the job done."

"I thought I'd have time to visit with Mom and Dad. I haven't seen them for weeks," Tansy protested. "And after what happened…"

"I know. But I need you to come with me now."

She drew back and searched his face, looking for what, he didn't know. What could he say when he wanted to rip out her father's heart? Anything he said might shatter her.

Tansy studied Kadan's grim face. So tough. So rugged. So uncompromising. He looked dangerous, but when he touched her, his hands were gentle and his mouth loving her whether he knew it or not. Something was wrong. Not the murders. This wasn't about the murders. She took a deep breath and let it out, wrapping her arms around his neck so he could pull her into a sitting position.

"You're upset."

The love in her voice shook him. As if he mattered. As if it mattered that he might be upset. If he was, it was on her behalf, not his own. He lifted her into his arms. "I'm taking you out to the car. We're heading back to the other house."

"I'm naked. I can't ride naked in the car," she protested.

His blue eyes slid over her, dark as midnight. "Yes, you can. Cuddle up next to me, I'll keep you warm."

She wiggled and he put her down. "It will only take me a minute to dress and pack, but Kadan?" She waited until he looked at her. "When we're in the car, you're going to tell me everything."

"You won't like it, baby. Make certain it's what you really want."

She caught the nape of his neck, raised herself on her toes, and kissed him. "It's what I want." She turned away to pull on a shirt, not bothering with underwear.

Kadan watched her through half-closed eyes: the graceful, efficient movements, the lack of hesitation as she padded across the room in front of him to retrieve her jeans. He loved her. The words were in his mind, but they didn't manage to make it to his mouth. But his soul moved. He felt it.

Tansy smiled at him. "I'm ready."

He stalked across the room, long, purposeful strides that might have cowed someone else, but she stood her ground, just looking at him. He caught her face in his hands and kissed her again. Telling her. Saying it without words. Loving her.

He let his hand slide possessively down her shoulder, then her arm, until he could tangle his fingers with hers. "Let's do this." He pulled her beneath his shoulder and walked her through the house.

Tucker and Ian were waiting by the back door. Tucker leaned in close to brush a kiss over her forehead. "We'll take good care of the parents," he assured her. "No one knows they're here, so we won't have problems."

"You'll check in with us?" she asked anxiously.

"You got it," Ian told her.

"Thanks, both of you," Tansy said.

"I owe you," Kadan added, his voice gruff.

He opened the passenger-side door for Tansy and slid onto the seat. Tossing her bag in the back, Kadan slipped behind the wheel and reached for the key. Instantly the back doors opened and Ryland, Gator, and Nico piled into the backseat.

Kadan looked into the rearview mirror, at their set faces. "What do you think you're doing?"

Ryland shrugged. "Covering your ass, like always."

"I have to do this alone, but I appreciate the offer."

"No way are we bailing," Gator said. "You're up to your ears in a mess and we're goin' to back your play the way we always do, bro, whether you want it or not."

"This is one of those classified-"

"Bullshit," Ryland said. "You have the girl. You think I didn't click on it the minute her old man mentioned the murders? They suspect us, don't they? That's why you dragged her back here, to help clear our names. They're after us, aren't they?"

"Who the hell are they?" Gator asked.

"They are the ones who have been trying to kill us off from the beginning. Once it got out that Whitney made super-soldiers, the technology was worth billions to other countries," Ryland explained. "With us dead, no one can do a snatch-and-grab and try to dissect us and get the answers for free. No one can find Whitney and get the information, so they have to find a way to bring us out into the open, where they have a better chance of killing us. If GhostWalkers are accused of murder, there isn't going to be a trial, is there, Kadan?"

Tansy tangled her fingers with Kadan's. "We're not going to let that happen." She spoke with supreme confidence. "I'm an elite tracker. I'll find them and Kadan will take the proof back to Washington."

"I've never heard of an elite tracker," Gator said. "What is it that you do?"

Nico leaned forward over the seat and there was respect tinged with awe in his voice. "You're the serial killer girl. You track murderers using your mind."

She smiled at him. "That would be me."

"How the hell do you do something like that?" Ryland asked.

She shrugged. "All of you do unusual things. It's a gift."

"It isn't easy," Kadan snapped. "She ended up in the hospital the last time." He brought her hand up to his mouth. "Don't make it sound like it's a breeze."

"They helped my family."

"You were willing to do it before they helped your family."

Color rose, staining her cheeks. "It's no different. Don't make it be different."

Ryland touched her shoulder. "We appreciate it, Tansy. You should have told us, Kadan. We could have helped."

"I'm under orders. The general called me back, explained the situation and told me to clear it up fast. So I found Tansy."

"Well, now you've got some help. We're going with you."

There was a stubborn streak a mile wide in Ryland-in all of them. Kadan knew they'd just follow him, now that they knew what he was doing. They were tenacious like that. "Find the reporter. Tansy has to handle a couple more objects. I think we can find at least the East Coast team."

"Team?"

Kadan explained the theory of a murder game. "Tansy's hoping to profile each of the players and maybe get a handle on how the game is played and who is running it."

"Do you think this coalition, the ones who want us dead, is behind the murders?" Ryland asked.

Kadan shook his head. "My gut feeling is that they're simply taking advantage of it. The coalition Meadows mentioned has a major hard-on for the GhostWalkers," Kadan said. "They had to have given some of the details to the reporter, knowing he'd run with it. He found out Tansy was working in the mountains and led them right to her. And they sent a couple of assassins after her. I thought, at the time, that they were after me, but they didn't know I was there until they started tracking her. Bad luck for them."

"We'll track down your reporter and find out who put him on the trail," Ryland said. "And then we'll meet you at the other house. And Kadan?" He waited until Kadan met his steely gaze. "You'd better be there."

Kadan sent him a faint grin and saluted. "I understand. And I'm grateful for the company."

Gator dug into his pocket as Nico opened the door. "Want an Altoid, Kadan? They're cinnamon." He tossed a tin of the mints onto the front seat.

Kadan choked. If it was possible for him to blush, he might have done it. He didn't dare look at Tansy as his friends got out of the car. He just started the engine, put the vehicle in gear, and drove away, flipping them off through the open window as he pulled onto the street.

Tansy laid her head back against the seat as she picked up the little tin and turned it over and over before dropping it back on the seat. "I take it they have an enhanced sense of smell. Have they been giving you a bad time?"

He could have sworn there was amusement in her voice, but when he glanced down at her sharply, she looked sober and innocent, which raised his suspicion more. He put the tin in his pocket, not wanting it out in the open as a reminder of his friends and their highly developed sense of smell, or their bad taste in humor.

"I'll get them back. Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll put some music on."

He turned on the CD player. Tucker and Ian's voice came over the speakers, singing off key. "I wanna live with a cinnamon girl…"

"Bastards." He turned the player off immediately.

Tansy burst out laughing. "I don't think they're going to win any contests."

"I'm sorry if they embarrassed you."

She leaned over and nuzzled his arm with her chin. "Why would I be embarrassed? Are you?"

"Hell no. I wouldn't give a damn if they walked in on us, but I don't want you uncomfortable." He was adamant.

She shrugged. "I'm not going to be embarrassed because I have sex with you, Kadan. I like having sex with you. I like how you make me feel and I especially like how I make you feel. So let them say anything they want. It doesn't bother me."

She meant it. He felt a surge of pride, of awe, that she could belong to him. He wasn't even certain how it had happened, but damn, he was grateful.

"You left the room tonight."

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew. I like having you curled around me, and the moment you left, I felt alone. You went to see my father, didn't you?"

"How did you know?"

"You weren't satisfied with his answers. He knew about Whitney's experiments, didn't he? You would have told me right away if he hadn't."

"I'm sorry, baby." He laced his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his heart. "I really am. I wanted it to be different for you."

She was silent, staring out the window for a few minutes before she took a deep breath and looked at him. "My mother?"

"She has no idea. She despised Whitney. I could read her mind, but I can't read his. I made certain she slept through our talk. I didn't want to cause her any more distress than she already has been through."

"What was his explanation?"

"If I tell you. Tansy, I'm going to tell you the entire story. Be very, very certain you want to know," he warned.

"That bad?"

"Yes." He kept possession of her hand when she tugged at it to pull away from him. He wasn't going to let that happen. Her father had hurt her, not him.

"Was he going to give me to Whitney?"

"Damn it, that's not fair."

"They hit my mother. He would do anything for my mother. If he thought they'd hurt her, he'd give me up and never look back." She turned toward Kadan. Lights from oncoming cars played over her face and then left her in shadow. "I know he loves me, Kadan, but it's always been about my mother."

"And that's all right with you?"

"I grew up knowing that. It was normal. I don't know what it's like for a child that isn't adopted, but…" She trailed off. He was so still. His mind was still, even when she touched it. She turned the pieces of the puzzle over and over in her brain. She was good at solving puzzles. Things clicked into place for her. And the click wasn't what she'd expected. She shook her head in denial. "I remember being in Whitney's laboratory. It was horrible. There was so much pain. There were other girls there and nurses. He had this little soundproof room he'd take us into. Some of the girls would have seizures and we'd all get nosebleeds. He'd just record everything, with this strange little remote smile on his face. If he frowned, you were in trouble. I even remember the day he brought me to see my parents for the first time."

"Both of them together?" Kadan asked.

"No. Just my father. I remember the way he stared at me. He reached out to touch me and I flinched away. I was wearing gloves, but it was so hard to control impressions and they hurt my head, so I didn't want him touching me."

"How was he looking at you."

There it was again, that note. A piece of the puzzle. He wanted her to see for herself, but she kept turning away from the truth. She tightened her fingers in his, wanting strength. She was asking for the truth. She was causing him distress by insisting he tell her, yet she didn't want to see. She pulled up the memory.

She'd been so frightened. All the girls were frightened. A couple of the nurses tried to comfort them, but never around Whitney. He looked at them as if they were insects, and he didn't want the nurses "coddling" them. A couple of the girls were outwardly defiant, and that made him harsh and cruel. Even as a child she recognized the taint of madness, even though she couldn't really read him.

And then the girls began disappearing. Whitney would never respond when they dared ask where one of the girls had gone. When he'd taken her out of the laboratory, she'd been terrified, her imagination running wild. She didn't know what the outside world was like and it was so huge. Enormous. The sky was frightening, the cars were, the noises overwhelmed her. He'd dragged her into a room and shoved her toward a man who had been sitting quietly in an office chair.

She stumbled and looked up at the man. He was tall and fit, with white gold hair, and he turned his eyes on her and she had been afraid to move. Shock. Absolute shock registered on his face. For a moment something fluttered in her mind. Recognition? But she'd never seen him before. She thought… I belong. She hadn't known what a father was before then. Now she did. She moistened her lips and glanced up at Kadan's stone-set features. "He's my birth father." She continued to look up at him. "Tell me how."

He told her then, all of it, holding on to her hand, his voice a soft, compassionate caress, this thumb stroking back and forth across the back of her hand.

She kept her head down, long hair spilling around her face so he couldn't see her expression, but he was in her mind, trying to surround her with warmth, with love, with everything protective in him. She remained very still, even in her mind, as if she was afraid that if she moved, she'd shatter.

Baby. He breathed the endearment, tempted to pull the car over to the side of the road and hold her tight. She didn't want him to though, he read that much. She needed time to assimilate what he'd told her.

"You're absolutely certain?"

"He told me himself."

"Mom doesn't know any of this?"

"No." He brought her hand to his chin and rubbed his jaw back and forth in an effort to comfort her.

"Good. I don't want her to ever find out." She looked at him then and he saw raw pain in her eyes. "Can you find out if my birth mother really is dead?"

"Whitney keeps files, and Lily has access to them using some complicated back door to a computer I don't understand. I'll ask her to start looking. If he has records on you, and I'll bet any amount of money that he does, she'll find them."

She gripped his hand tighter. He felt her in his mind. "Did you kill him? Is that why we had to leave so fast?"

"I wanted to," he admitted quietly, wishing he could feel remorse or shame. The man was her father. "For a minute I thought I might. But I think he's punished himself more than I ever could. And he does love you, Tansy. He certainly loves his wife."

"Don't tell me he loves me. He didn't love me."

"It feels that way right now, baby, but when you look back over the years you had with him, you'll know he couldn't fake the way he treated you. He loved you."

"But he didn't want to risk what he had to save the rest of the girls, or to find out if my birth mother was alive or dead or even murdered by Whitney." Her fingers fisted in his shirt. "He would have had Fredrickson turn me over to Whitney if I'd gone back."

"He wouldn't have had a choice. Fredrickson would have been willing to kill everyone to take you back to Whitney."

"You wouldn't have wanted to kill him if he had been trying to save my mother. You would have understood. It was more than that."

He didn't know what to say to ease her pain, and he cursed his lack of words when she needed… something. "I'm sorry, Tansy."

He wished he could take her pain on himself. He would have done anything for her, but instead he could only feel helpless. "I put a pillow there between the seats so you could lie down if you wanted." He willed her to close her eyes and rest. They had a long day ahead of them and she was worn out.

Tansy didn't reply, but she did straighten the pillow and lie down, her head against his hip. He stroked little caresses over her hair while he drove through the night. She didn't sleep for a long time. He had been afraid she'd cry, but when she didn't, it felt worse to him.

In her mind, Tansy withdrew from him. Even connected as he was, he could feel her huddling in a corner as far from him as possible, too hurt to trust anything or anyone. And he couldn't blame her. Don Meadows had been her hero, the man who rescued her from Whitney, and all along he'd been keeping Whitney's dark secret.

Kadan drove through the night, keeping one hand on her, insisting on the one connection when she was so far away. It took her a couple of hours to drift into a fitful sleep. By the time he'd pulled up to the house, she was in a much deeper sleep, and he was able to carry her inside and put her on the bed. He stretched out beside her and finally closed his eyes, wrapping both arms around her to keep safe, even in her dreams.