Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(44)

Fun at first, but not all that interesting in the long run. Money was useful, but over a certain sum, the number of zeros on the bank balance ceased to matter.

Carol and Geoff saw little of him, but they were well provided for. They wanted for nothing, lived in a beautiful Victorian house on the lake in Blaine. Geoff could have art and music lessons and go to an exclusive prep school. But on Greaves’ visits home, things were not as they should be. Carol could not hide her inner tension from a telepath.

She was afraid of the changes that she sensed in him.

He was not at liberty to explain the truth to her, or anyone. At that point, no one knew the true extent of what he could do. Colonel Holt had been poised to sound the alarm and close him down, but sadly, the good colonel’s heart had stopped unexpectedly, one night, at a hotel in Berlin.

Greaves had been in the next room. He had telekinetically constricted a vessel in the man’s heart. Useful trick. Subtle. Traceless.

Those of his superiors who knew of his telepathy treated him as if he had a deadly contagion. As if he cared about their secrets.

He cared about Carol’s secrets, though. Her fear had driven a wedge between them. Even when making love, using all his powers to please her, that dark spot remained. And grew.

Then he began to sense it in Geoff, too.

Geoff had been twelve when his father had realized that the boy had as much psi potential as he did himself. Flashes of strong natural telepathy, precognitive ability that showed in his remarkable artworks. By then, he’d given up hope of real intimacy with Carol, but Geoff was another matter. With the boy’s capabilities, Geoff could join him on a higher plane, guiding the world to a better future, as a loving parent guided an innocent child.

The thought was so seductive. His gift was a great burden, but Geoff could stand beside him. Help him to give it all back.

It became his obsession. Geoff was sensitive, compassionate. A healer, a mystic. He would provide the gentler traits his father lacked, and they would rule like two gods, complementing each other. As perfect as mortal flesh could be.

But Carol had objected when the training began. Her unreasonable panic had been disastrous. The training was as frightening to watch as it was stressful for Greaves to inflict, but Carol refused to understand the value of the pain he inflicted upon their son. It was Thad’s duty to help his son reach that potential—at all costs.

The necessity to silence Carol had broken his heart. Geoff’s newly forming psi ablities had made it impossible to hide. He had seen what his father had been forced to do before it even happened.

Geoff’s grief and anger at Carol’s death had caused the boy to retreat behind an impervious mind shield, from which he had never returned.

No brain activity showed on any monitoring device that was attached to Geoff. All doctors who examined him pronounced him brain dead, and yet, his mind continued to generate a shield the likes of which could only be the product of a highly functioning mind and will. A shield that only Greaves himself was capable of perceiving. And his growing army of pharmacologically enhanced psychics, of course. A lesser breed, true, but they had their uses.

Geoff’s shield was the psi equivalent of a light-sucking black hole. A loud, reverberating, constant f*ck-you. His son was still in there, alive, conscious. Constantly taunting his father with his stubborn silence. He was almost thirty years old now. Seventeen years of wasting muscles, wasting possibilities, wasted potential. So infuriating.

That damned shield. Just like the one Lara Kirk generated. It maddened him. It made him want to just break . . . them . . . apart.

He was clutching Geoff’s thin calf so tightly, his nails had broken the skin. He dropped Geoff’s leg, and watched the bluish, poorly oxygenated blood well up sluggishly into the small wounds. Geoff’s circulation was poor. His medication clearly needed adjustment.

He clenched his teeth, and forced himself to daub disinfectant over the small wounds. An infection would be devastating to Geoff’s weakened immune system. He flung the cotton swab to the ground.

His son’s insolent silence made his teeth grind.

“You were unfair to me,” he told Geoff again. “When you come out, you will understand. And you will see that I was right.”





11


Davy dragged out his cell after a few minutes and tapped into it. “Where are you?” he barked into it. “Yeah. Okay. My head hurts like hell, but I’m good now that we’re out of range. Miles extracted me. Kid is bad ass.” He listened. “Understood. Logging road .4 miles after the junction of Mary Creek Road and Muller’s Grade. Got it.”

He closed the call. “We’re switching drivers,” he said. “Connor wants to drive. Aaro will drive your rig.”

“That’s insane!” Miles protested. “Connor was practically unconscious fifteen minutes ago! What the f*ck is he thinking?”

Davy slanted him a glance. “He’s thinking you’re the lucky bastard gets to deal with the girl.”

“Deal with what? How? I already dealt with the girl! I got her out, right? Haven’t I dealt with enough?”

“Evidently not. Shut up. My head hurts.”

Miles bit his tongue. He’d become accustomed to being the poor chump with the soul-crushing head pain. He felt bad for Davy, but he felt no pain himself, and the absence of pain made him giddy.

That thought sparked the sudden awareness of Lara, still inside.