Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(124)

Geoff kept backing away, looking frightened. She didn’t see the shift, it was so seamless, but suddenly he was younger, much younger, three maybe, the ragged pajamas hanging loosely. He held the dingy teddy bear again, thumb in mouth. Big, huge, scared eyes.

It pissed her off. “Oh, stop that shit! Don’t try to manipulate me. There’s no time for that! I need help, not more jerking around.”

Geoff’s face crumpled, as if he were about to cry.

“Grow up!” she yelled.

The angry look in his eyes said it all. He’d never had the chance.

Fair enough, true enough, but now was not the time to ask her for empathy and compassion. “What the hell do you think you’re doing in there?” she yelled. “In a dream, in your head? What the hell have you being doing for seventeen years? Sulking? What the f*ck, Geoff?”

Geoff jerked back, and he was abruptly twelve again, tall, and angry. She suddenly saw the resemblance to Greaves, in his regal posture, his jaw, the way his pale eyes flashed.

“I need you!” she yelled. “We both need you. You have to help us. Make a move, strike a f*cking blow! It’s not enough to waft around looking wounded and ethereal. You have to get off your ass!”

Geoff’s face twisted with anger. He lifted his arms and gestured sharply, as if he were flinging something invisible at her—

The blow knocked her right out of the vision, jolting her painfully back into the smothering darkness.

It occurred to her that with the light off, the fan had been turned off, too. No air was moving. The vault was airtight. She had clearly felt the change in humidity the moment she had stepped outside. Which meant she probably had fifteen feet squared of oxygen left to breathe.

She blew out a slow lungful of carbon dioxide, and curled into a ball again. All things considered, smothering to death in the vault was a better death than some of the others she could ponder.





The words rang between them.

“You can’t give me Lara,” Miles said. “She’s not yours to give.”

“She certainly was yours to take, wasn’t she?” Greaves said, his voice faintly taunting. “Did you give her a choice?”

Miles felt bile rise in his throat. “That’s between me and her.”

“Is it?” Greaves tutted gently, under his breath. “There’s no delicate way to say this—but that passionate love and devotion she feels for you? It was pharmacologically induced, Miles . . . by me. It will pass, as she detoxes. Six to eight weeks is standard, I think.”

His body was rigid. “I’m not interested in talking about Lara.”

“I’m not surprised, considering your past failures. We studied you, Miles. Your track record with the ladies hasn’t been a crashing success so far. Consider the seductive Cynthia.”

“Cindy’s out of the picture,” Miles said.

“Oh, don’t worry, she’s not interesting enough to warrant my attention. Not like Lara is. But it’s your failure to hold her interest that’s the issue here. I’ll tell you a secret. Don’t be jealous, but I was grooming Lara for myself. She’s so desirable. You can hardly blame me.”

“Actually, I do blame you,” Miles said. “You really ingratiated yourself. Dark, starvation, beating, drugs. Talk about courtship.”

Greaves ignored him. “She was medicated with a very specific psi-max formula. It primed her to bond, softened psychological boundaries, and stoked extreme sexual heat. Indulge my curiosity, Miles. Did you have sexual relations within six hours of leaving my complex?”

“None of your f*cking business,” Miles ground out, from behind clenched teeth.

“Just as I thought. By that point, she must have been in an agony to consummate. Poor thing. At the mercy of chemistry. You lucky dog.”

Every part of him was stone cold. “I don’t see the relevance of this,” he said.

“I’m trying to explain that the effects of the drug won’t last,” Greaves explained. “Not unless the doses are repeated regularly. Or alternatively, you could make certain subtle adjustments to her using telepathic coercion. Which you’re more than capable of learning with a little training from me. She would be yours forever. Picture it. It’s no different than what you’re doing now. You keep her in a cage, in there, right? Isn’t that control, too, of a different sort? And don’t you like it?”

The man’s bright eyes had a cruel, lascivious sparkle to them.

Miles considered his next words for a long moment, and decided there was nothing left to lose. “I can see that worked real well with your wife and son,” he said. “You’re all just one big, happy family.”

It was a shot in the dark, but his aim was dead on. He could tell by the temperature in the room, the mask of tension in the guy’s face.

“You know nothing about my family,” Greaves said, his voice dead.

“I know enough to decline couples’ counseling from you,” Miles said. “What was her name? Carol? Did you kill her? She died of a catastrophic stroke at the age of thirty-six, no previous symptoms. Wow, what are the odds? And then, right after, your son went into a—”

“Shut up!” Greaves shouted. “Shut your mouth!” He gestured angrily at the red-haired woman who waited nearby. “Miranda. Show him what we’ve organized for his family, his friends. Quickly.”