Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(99)

Catie focused her attention on the narrow trail. Thirst stung her throat, but she tried not to think about it. She tried to clear her mind. She rounded a bend, noted the half-mile marker. She was making good time. Another curve in the path and she came upon a couple jogging in easy lockstep. Twentysomethings. At the end of the trail and still they had a bounce in their stride. The woman smiled as they passed, and Catie felt a sharp pang of jealousy that drew her up short.

She caught herself against a tree and bent over, gasping. Shame and regret formed a lump in her throat. She dug her nails into the bark and closed her eyes against the clammy onset of panic.

Don’t think, Catie, Liam’s voice echoed in her head. Be in the moment.

God, she missed him. Liam was way too smart and way too intense, and he didn’t know how to turn it off. And she liked that about him. So different from Mark.

Liam never belittled her.

He knew evil lurked in the world and he faced it head-on, refusing to look away, even relishing the fight.

Snick.

Catie’s head jerked up. She swung her gaze toward the darkening woods as awareness prickled to life inside her.

The forest had gone quiet.

No people, no dogs. Even the bird chatter had ceased. She glanced behind her and a chill swept over her skin.

Look, Catie. Feel what’s around you.

She did feel it. Cold and predatory and watching her.

Mark would tell her she was paranoid. Delusional, even. But her senses were screaming.

She glanced around, trying to orient herself on the trail. She wasn’t that far in yet. She could still go back. She turned around and walked briskly, keeping her chin high and her gaze alert. Strong. Confident. She tried to look powerful and think powerful thoughts, but fear squished around inside her stomach and she could feel it—something sinister moving with her through the forest, watching her from deep within the woods. She’d felt it before, and now it was back again, and her pulse quickened along with her strides.

I am not crazy. I am not crazy. I am not crazy.

But . . . what if Mark was right? And if he was right about this, could he be right about everything else, too?

A sound—directly left. Catie halted. Her heart hammered. She peered into the gloom and sensed more than saw the shifting shadow.

Recognition flickered as the shape materialized. With a rush of relief, she stepped forward. “Hey, you—”

She noticed his hand.

Her stomach plummeted. Her mind emptied. All her self-doubt vanished, replaced by a single electrifying impulse.

Catie ran.





* * *





Special Agent Tara Rushing drove with the windows down, hoping the cold night air would snap her out of her funk. She felt wrung out. Like a dishrag that had been used to sop up filth, then squeezed and tossed aside.

Usually she loved the adrenaline rush. Kicking in a door, storming a room, taking down a bad guy—anyone who’d done it for real knew nothing compared to it. The high could last for hours, even through the paperwork, which was inevitably a lot.

Typically after a successful raid everyone was wired. The single agents would head out for a beer or three, sometimes going home together to burn off some of the energy. But tonight wasn’t typical.

After so many weeks of work and planning, she’d expected to feel euphoric. Or at the very least satisfied. Instead she felt . . . nothing, really. Her dominant thought as she sped toward home was that she needed a shower. Not just hot, volcanic. She’d stand under the spray and scrub her skin raw, and maybe get rid of some of the sickness clinging to her.

Tara slowed her Explorer as the redbrick apartment building came into view. Her second-floor unit looked dark and lonely beside her neighbor’s, where a TV glowed in the window and swags of Christmas lights still decorated the balcony.

She rolled to a stop at the entrance and tapped the access code. As the gate slid open, her phone buzzed in the cup holder. Tara eyed the screen: US GOV. She’d forgotten to fill out some paperwork, or turn in a piece of gear, or maybe they needed her to view another video.

She felt the urge to throw her phone out the window. Instead she answered it.

“Rushing.”

If she put enough hostility in her voice, maybe they wouldn’t have the balls to call her back in.

“It’s Dean Jacobs.”

She didn’t respond. Because of shock and because she couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say.

“You make it home yet?” he asked.

“Almost. Sir.”

Jacobs was her SAC. She’d had maybe four conversations with him in the three years since she’d joined the Houston field office.

“They were just filling me in on the raid,” he said. “Good work tonight.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The gate slid shut again as she stared through the windshield.

“I understand you live north,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“There’s a matter I could use your help on.”

Something stirred inside her. Curiosity. Or maybe ambition. Whatever it was, she’d take it. Anything was better than feeling numb.

“I need you to drive up to Cypress County. They’ve got a ten-fifty off of Fifty-nine.”

His words surprised her even more than the midnight phone call. Tara knew all the ten-codes from her cop days, but dispatch had switched to plain language and nobody used them anymore. A 10-50 was a deceased person.