Night Game (GhostWalkers, #3)(56)

“I think you’re in over your head,” Ian tossed back over his shoulder, striding away, his long legs covering't fast.

“That’s an understatement,” Gator admitted aloud.

He lifted the motorcycle out of the muck, for the first time really paying attention to the superhuman strength of muscle in his body. He could run twice as fast and twice as long as he could before the experiments. He could jump and clear unbelievable heights, but it was really his tremendous strength that astonished him. He knelt beside the motorcycle and looked as if he were examining the bent frame and wheel.

“Nice mess,” Kadan greeted as he stepped around the Jeep. “What the hell happened here, Gator? It looks like you went hunting.” His sharp gaze was already touching on the water-filled tracks in the mud.

Kadan had trained in Special Forces, served a couple of years, joined the FBI, and had a reputation for solving very difficult murder cases. He’d volunteered to join the psychic team and retrain with the rest of them when he was approached. It was common knowledge Kadan had been far more psychically gifted prior to the enhancement than any of the rest of the GhostWalkers.

“Four men killed a local retired riverboat captain. He was a good friend of mine. Knew him since I was a kid. They hunted him on his island, murdered him, and threw his body in with one of the big alligators, weighted it down so no one would find him. Then they burned his boat. Burrell wasn’t a troublemaker, just a nice man who deserved a hell of a lot better than that.”

Kadan’s steel blue eyes never shifted from Gator’s face. “And you happened on them afterward?”

Gator nodded. “I was actually going to the houseboat, had parked the motorcycle I was using when I heard the shots coming from the island.”

Kadan glanced at the Jeep wrapped around a tree, at the body of a man with a knife buried to the hilt in his throat and the driver garroted, his weapon lying beside him. “You lost your temper, Gator.”

Behind him, Tucker Addison snorted. “I’d say that as a hell of an understatement. This is a war zone. And didn’t do much for your motorcycle either.”

Gator didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t feel like smiling. He had lost his temper and that was a dangerous thing. And he hadn’t been the only one. Flame had shown restraint. It didn’t much look like it with four men lying dead in the swamp, but she could have flattened everything within a five-mile radius had she not been disciplined enough to focus on only the four assassins.

He ducked his head, the memory of his own loss of temper, his own lack of discipline a lifetime ago washing over him before he could stop it. The blow felt like a punch in the gut and he choked on shame and guilt. He had to turn away from Kadan and his all-seeing eyes. He could never look at any of the GhostWalkers, not straight the eye, when he recalled the early events of his training. He slammed the door closed on ugly memories the way he always did, but he wondered how many ugly memories Flame had. It was another thread tying them together.

Without conscious thought, his hand stroked the seat I the motorcycle. He only became aware of it when he felt Kadan’s gaze following the movement. Abruptly he pulled his hand away. “I couldn’t let them get away with it, Kadan. They were whooping it up and I followed them. We fought and they died.”

“Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it, Tucker?” Kadan asked.

Gator glared at him. “They had their chance at me. The big guy over there,” he gestured with his thumb to ward the sniper, “nearly killed me.”

“Did you try to take them in?” Kadan stared at the Jeep and the dead man with the knife shaft sticking out of his throat.

“There were four of them and they didn’t exactly say they were giving up.”

Kadan’s sharp eves slid over him. “Not with a knife sticking out of their throat, I’ll just bet they didn’t. Why aren’t you telling me the truth? What happened here?”

“Why were you in New Orleans?” Gator countered. “The last I heard you were recovering from a mission and holing up for a while.”

The tension shot up. The rain poured down. Kadan’s blue eyes grew colder, turned more gray than blue. “What the hell’s going on here, Gator?”

Tucker moved up beside Kadan, his features hard and still. Ian shifted position until he was shoulder to shoulder with Gator, facing the other two GhostWalkers.

Kadan’s cell phone jangled. He let it ring twice before he pulled it out and snapped it open. “Make it fast. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Tell me what’s going on out there, Kadan.” Lily’s voice could clearly be heard. “Does this have anything to do with Flame? With Iris Johnson?”

“As far as I know Gator came out here to find Joy Chiasson. I don’t know anything about the Johnson woman. I don’t know if this is related to Joy’s disappearance or not, but four men, one highly skilled and definitely trained in the military, probably special ops, from the evidence I see, murdered an old man, a friend of Gator’s. That’s what this is about. You know of anyone running a field op down here, Lily?”

“I’ll find out. Is everyone okay?”

“All the good guys. The bad guys are in a hell of a mess.” Kadan hung up, pocketed the phone, and looked directly at Gator. “This is about Flame, isn’t it? You found her.”