Shadow Game (GhostWalkers, #1)(101)

Ryland brought her hand to his mouth, nibbled on her fingers, resisting the urge to gather her close. She humbled him with her generosity. "Does your shoulder hurt?" He leaned forward to brush a kiss against the vicious bruise.

"I'm fine, Ryland. What about your ribs? Arly said he cleaned the scratch but you know knife wounds are notorious for infections." She sounded anxious, not at all his perfectly calm Lily.

He knelt beside the tub, reached beneath the bubbling water for her calf. He began a slow, deep massage, working her knotted muscles with infinite gentleness. "Don't worry, Arly scrubbed it with some kind of foul-smelling stuff he called bug juice. It burned like hell. Nothing could be alive, not even the tiniest germ."

"When I was a child, he swore by that stuff. I think he makes it up in the laboratory like the proverbial mad scientist. Every time I fell down, he swabbed it over my knees and turned my skin a very ugly shade of purple."

Ryland laughed. "That's the stuff, all right." He felt her wince beneath his massaging fingers and gentled his touch even more. "Tell me about Ranier. What do you think?"

"He was telling me the truth," Lily said. "I was so relieved. I've known him most of my life and I'm not certain I could have taken it if he had been involved in a plot against my father. Apparently, he received none of the messages my father sent him. Not his letters, or his emails, and not the phone calls. Interestingly enough, the general's aide is a brother to Hilton, the man Colonel Higgens sent to keep an eye on me." She reached under the water, gripped his wrist. "General Ranier was suddenly very worried, as if he were connecting dots to something. I think there's been a security leak for a while and he's suddenly putting two and two together."

"Maybe. If there's been a problem with a leak, they wouldn't advertise it. The investigation would be internal. No one would suspect Colonel Higgens. His record is impeccable.

I certainly preferred in the beginning to believe it was your father betraying us all. And General McEntire… it's still difficult to believe that he would be involved in selling out his country. It's a nightmare, Lily. This entire thing has been a nightmare."

"Do you think Cowlings was a plant? Someone Colonel Higgens placed in the program? I remember when I read his file, he scored low on most of the criteria for psychic ability. I thought he was allowed in because Dad wanted to see if the enhancement would work on someone with little or no natural talent. And it did."

Her voice had slipped back into her professional, completely interested tone. Ryland knew immediately the discussion had gone from personal to clinical. Instead of annoying him, it made him want to smile. "He might not have been telepathic, but he certainly was able to take command of an inanimate object. That was really great."

"Lily, you did destroy your father's original notes on the experiment, didn't you? He wouldn't want it repeated."

The cramps in her leg were slowly beginning to ease under his ministration and the hot water. Lily breathed a sigh of relief and sank deeper into the bubbles. "Dad thought the experiment failed," she pointed out.

"Only at first," he said calmly. His fingers itched to shake her. "He suspected someone had sabotaged it and he still felt strongly enough to tell you to get rid of his work. You have to honor that, Lily. You can keep the tapes of the exercises in case you need them for the other women when we track them down, but the rest of it, you have to destroy so this is never repeated."

"It was brilliant, Ryland." She sat forward, her blue gaze alive with interest. "What he did was totally brilliant from a purely scientific standpoint."

"I volunteered, Lily, the men and I, but you and the other little girls had no choice. What Peter Whitney did to you was totally wrong from a humanitarian standpoint." Ryland's strong fingers encircled her ankle, gave her a little shake. "Think how you felt, Lily, seeing those little girls. Seeing yourself. Think how those women feel now and what they must have gone through all these years. And my men, how they are going to have to guard themselves for the rest of their lives to keep from ending up in an institution. Yes, from the standpoint of a military operation, with the help you're giving us now, the experiment may have been a success. It was very cool, by the way, to be able to divide my energy and fight Russell Cowlings even while I was working with the other side of my brain. But the point is, we have to function as a group. Those without an anchor to draw the excess energy away from them are always going to have problems living a normal life."

"I know, I know. But Ryland…"

His grip tightened. "There are no buts, Lily. These men and the women deserved a normal life. They want families. They have to support those families. They don't have your money and this fancy house to help provide a sanctuary for them to live in. I can't believe you're even contemplating the idea to continue."

Lily gave a small sigh. "I'm not, Ryland. I'm really not. I can't help but find it interesting and rather brilliant." She ducked her head. "I can hardly bear the thought of giving up anything that was my father's. Especially his handwritten notes. They make me feel like he's still here with me."

His hand tangled in her hair. "I'm sorry, Lily. I know it hurts to lose a parent. You didn't have a mother and I didn't have a father. We're going to make interesting parents when we have children."