The buzzing of my cellwoke me. I glanced around sleepily, but saw no sign of Rome. Damn it. I rubbed at my face, hoping to kick-start my brain into action. I hadn't meant to fall asleep, had actually stayed up and helped him review most of the video he'd shot.
After some heavy-duty fast-forwarding, I'd watched Cody and Desert Gal - a woman younger and prettier and blonder than I'd assumed - enter the hotel and ride up the elevator. The pair had remained silent, not acknowledging each other in any way. Clearly they had an objective, knew exactly where they needed to go, and nothing would deter them from it.
Again I wondered how they had known where to find us. Had we been watched from the moment we'd stepped off the plane? Or, as I'd suspected the day before, did we have a leak at PSI?
The phone's buzzing stopped, the sudden quiet jarring me. Squinting against the light seeping in through the curtains, I patted the nightstand until I found my purse. A quick dig inside, and I had my cell.
Unfortunately, the ID showed "Unavailable" rather than a name or a number.
My stomach tightened, and I fell back against the mattress. What if that had been Rome? Sherridan or Lexis? Cody? Tanner's doctor?
When a red light began flashing in the right-hand corner, I actually smiled. A message! But my smile faded as I pressed the series of buttons and the message played for me. "Belle, I need you. Please call me back." Reese the vampire. Again. What the hell was wrong with him?
I was just about to jab my finger into the call-back button when my phone began another round of buzzing. I pressed Talk, moving faster than I'd ever moved before. "This is Belle." My voice shook, still scratchy from sleep.
"Hello, Belle. How are you?"
I jolted upright. "Memory Man?"
"The one and only. And actually, the name's Jean-Luc. I know, cheesy name. But both of the guys who raised me wanted me to carry a piece of them. Wait, that sounds bad. I didn't mean anything dirty, you understand. I just...Damn it! I'm babbling. Sorry. I'm just nervous. I didn't make the greatest first impression, so I'm determined to make a better second, third and so on. Is it working?"
"I don't know." Actually, the babbling was kind of cute, and it dimmed some of the anger I still harbored toward him. If I harbored any at all, that is. I just didn't know what I felt anymore. How could this charming man have meant Rome harm? "So you had two dads, huh?"
"Yeah."
I had never met anyone who'd been raised by two people of the same sex and was intrigued by the prospect. "Well, they seem to have raised you right. For the most part. You did save me the other day, after all. And I want to tell you thanks for that. You didn't have to, but you did. So thanks."
"Believe me, it was my pleasure."
"I really owe you. But I want you to know I'm really, really determined to get you to - "
"How about dinner?" he interjected before I could state my demand.
"Maybe one day." With Rome joining us, his memories our only topic of discussion. "I'm kinda in the middle of something right now. But listen. You should not have taken - "
"I know, baby. I know. That doesn't mean I'm sorry."
Baby. Rome used to call me that - and had a few times since - and the reminder had me clenching the phone so tightly the plastic creaked. "You will be. Sorry, that is." Okay, yes. I still harbored anger.
He chuckled. "There you go, being all stubborn and adorable again. So where are you? I want to see you again."
I scoured a hand down my face. Where was I? Hell, I thought, glancing around the room. All was as it had been. Cheap floral wall hangings, two twin beds with squeaky springs, each covered with floral-printed comforters. The carpet was dark brown and probably hid a multitude of stains.
"I'm surprised you didn't follow me," I said.
"After you left, I did a little cleanup. Made sure you wouldn't be bothered by the local police."
"Thank you." Sweet, stubborn man.
"You're welcome."
"Damn it. How can you be so nice? I mean, you worked for Pretty Boy - Vincent. Right? Right? "
"Not by choice," was the tight reply.
We'd suspected that. "How did he force you? Give me that much, at least."
"My dads. He abducted them, hid them and played a video of them begging for their freedom. A video of them being tortured. All he had to do was threaten to torture them again, and I would agree to his demands. I would have tried to find them, but he made sure there was no one around me who knew where they were. I would have killed him myself, but he stayed hidden until I returned and willingly put myself back in one of his cages. It wasn't until Rome freed me that I found out my dads had been dead for over a year."
How that must have hurt. How that must have torn him up.
"You were the only thing that kept me going," he said softly. "So...please. Tell me where you are." Just then I wanted to. Anything to relieve some of his inner torment. "I...I can't."
"Like I said, stubborn."
Once again, he sounded amused.
Better.
Rome's bag rested on the room's only chair, a ripped pleather recliner. Had he gone on a mission, he would have taken his stuff. Maybe he'd gone out for food. Mmm, food. My stomach rumbled.
"Belle?" Jean-Luc's voice cut through my musings.
"What? Sorry! My mind wandered."
"You do that a lot," he said with another warm chuckle. "I like that about you."
"How do you know I..." My voice tapered to a quiet, my lips stretching into a thin line. He knew because of Rome. Which I still hadn't yelled at him about, damn it.
I think he realized the direction of my thoughts, because he said, "You know how. Now where are you?"
"I'm not telling." Seriously, where was Rome? He'd want to be here, talk to M-Squared himself.
Jean-Luc gave yet another of those chuckles. "If you'd give me a chance, I bet I could convince you to tell me."
Once again I found myself wishing for a tracker on my phone. I'd just have to keep him talking, I guessed, until Rome got here. "Yeah? And just what would you do?"
"I'd tell you, but last time you told me not to talk about your passionate nature," he said huskily.
Okay. I'd walked right into that one. Was doing that a lot lately. "You're right. Don't tell me. Look, Jean-Luc, with everything you know about me, you have to realize that I value honesty and could never be with a man I couldn't trust. Right now, I don't trust you. You saved my life, yes, but you also ruined it."
There was a long pause before he vowed earnestly, "Somehow, someway, I'll earn your trust."
"There's only one way to do that, and we both know what that is."
"I've told you. I'll do anything for you - anything but that." His tone had dropped, becoming just-roused-frombed sexy. "Those memories are the only bright spot in my life. When you ran to your dad after escaping Pretty Boy, throwing yourself in the line of fire to save him...I nearly cried. The love you feel for him is a beautiful thing. Pure. Do you know how rare that is?" I glanced up at the ceiling - ew, what was that brown stain? - praying for divine guidance, softening even more when I should have stayed strong, hard. "Will you at least think about giving them back?
Please?"
A sigh crackled over the line. "Maybe. Eventually. After you've dated me a while. That's all I'm asking.
A few dates. You and me. After that, you may not want me to give them back." I shook my head. "I can't date you. I'm engaged to Rome." My eyes locked on the room's only door; the handle remained unmoving. Damn it, where was he?
"Does he still want to marry you?"
My teeth gnashed together so forcefully my jaw ached. There was no denying Rome still wanted me sexually. But did he want something more from me? No. And you know, that was a little disconcerting. If we were meant to be together, shouldn't he have already fallen in love with me again?
More and more doubts about us were piling inside me, and I hated that. "Look, that's not important," I said. A lie. "He would want me if he remembered me."
"I'll treat you better than he could even dream of doing. I'll treasure you. In fact, I've already shown you more romance than Rome ever did."
My stinging pride - pride Rome's disregard had trampled - smoothed at the edges against the force of such heartfelt dedication. "But what kind of woman would I be if I switched my affections so easily? Not the kind you could love, that's for sure."
He sighed. "Look, I didn't call to argue with you. I called to get you to tell me where you were, even though I already knew, well, for the most part, so you wouldn't freak out when I arrived. I'm on my way to Denver, should be there within the hour."
I lost my smile. "How'd you learn my location?" Had he gotten his information the same place Desert Gall had?
"When you failed to return home, I walked through a few agents' heads until I located you." Well, that answered that. "You can't just go around invading people's heads, stealing their memories."
"You'll be glad I did. I've got some information for you."
My own agent's mind perked up. "I'm listening."
"There's a vampire at PSI. Reese."
"Yes. We're well acquainted. So?"
"He's feeding Desert Gall information."
I shook my head in disbelief. "He wouldn't. He couldn't. He - "
"Craves your blood all the time now. I spent some quality time inside his head. He's the reason you've had so many blood tests lately. He told John you need them, that your blood chemistry is changing. It isn't. The formula makes yours sweeter than anyone else's, gives him a high, and he's addicted to that high. It's an addiction he's fought since the beginning. And at first he succeeded. But like any addict who's lost the war, he needs more. Desert Gall has eyes and ears everywhere and got wind of his little problem. She promised to give you to him when she finished with you. All he had to do was help her capture you."
"But he wants to date Sherridan," I said stupidly.
"No. Another lie. He was going to use her to stay close to you because he knew you'd never accept him, knew that your heart belonged to...Rome." The last was said on a hate-filled snarl.
I - I - couldn't believe it. Oh, I knew Jean-Luc was telling the truth. He'd fought to save me. He wanted to date me. What he was saying made sense. It was just, I'd trusted Reese. I'd willingly given him my arm, my blood. Yet he'd merely been using me for food. A drug. Was planning to turn me over to PSI's greatest enemy to get what he wanted. I shuddered.
Did Cody know? Either way, I'd have to call John. Would have to admit I'd played a role in turning his once-faithful lab tech into a spy. "Thank you," I croaked out. "I needed to know. And now I have to let you go. There are a few things I have to do."
"Wait," Jean-Luc rushed out. "Don't go. I've got a few more pieces of information for you." God, would any of them be as devastating as what I'd just been told? Or worse?
"Don't worry," he said as if reading my mind. "This is good news. I know you had to hate leaving your friend Tanner behind. So I did some checking for you and thought you'd want to know. He woke up.
He's doing very well. He's expected to make a full recovery." I pushed out a relieved breath, collapsing back onto the mattress. Thank God. I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost Tanner. He was a part of me. One of the best parts, really. "Thank you.
Thank you so much. Is there anything else I need to know?"
"I...know some things about Desert Gal. Spent some time with her."
"Go on."
"Her civilian name is Candace Bright. She worked for Vincent and was my warden after he died. I'm ashamed to say I took several of her memories to give to Vincent in exchange for food. He liked to keep tabs on his employees and he liked using me because they never knew he'd checked on them. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I spent a little time in her head." He stopped, silence slithering between us.
I tried to process it all. One, Jean-Luc could take memories from one person and simply give them to someone else. Without touching them, since he'd never been allowed near Vincent. Wow. Two, he knew Desert Gall intimately. "Tell me everything. Please." I couldn't keep the urgency from my voice.
"She likes to blend into both societies, civilian and paranormal, and does her best to keep her respective identities completely separate. The former she uses for monetary gain and to secretly stalk her prey. The latter she uses to commit her crimes. To steal what she covets, to kill those who are in her way, to capture people like us. Her thirst for power is unsurpassed.
"But most of all," he continued, "she hates you. Thinks you took her father from her."
"What? How?" To my knowledge, I had never encountered her or her dad.
"He liked you better than her, that's all I know. Well, that, and pride is everything to her. She has to be the best at everything, own the finest things, and, like I said, be the most powerful."
"But...but who the hell is her dad?" Could he have been one of the scrims I'd helped PSI put away over the past months?
"In the memories I viewed, she only thought of him as Dad or Daddy, so I don't have a clear sense of his identity. And at the time, I had no idea who you were. Where are you, Belle?" he asked gently. "Give me your exact location. Please. It'll save time."
To tell or not to tell? Rome would freak if I did. But Jean-Luc was the best lead we had. "Why do you want to know?"
"I want to keep you safe."
"Does that mean you want to help me fight bad guys?"
"No, but I will if I must. Anything to keep you safe," he said fiercely. "You're my everything." Knowing someone cared about me that much, even though that affection stemmed from something false and wrong and couldn't possibly be real, was a dangerous temptation wrapped in a pretty pink box.
Once, Rome would have said that to me. Once, Rome would have cared that intensely.
I sighed, then told him where I was. Maybe a mistake, maybe not. But Rome wasn't here to talk to about it. I'd had to make a decision, good or bad, and my gut told me this was the right thing to do. I needed all the help I could get, and right now Jean-Luc was more of an asset than an enemy.
"Don't go anywhere until I get there. All right? I told one of my friends to follow you, but I haven't heard from him. That's not like him."
"No one followed me last night." Rome would have sensed it.
"The Multiplier can be in eleven different places at once. That's why he's the best tracker in the business. You wouldn't have known he was behind you. Or in front of you, beside you. I promise." The Multiplier? One through Eleven, I realized with shock. Now I knew why they'd been so curious about Rome. "I met him. Them. Whatever. Tall, puppy-dog eyes. Eleven guys living in one body."
"That's him. I met him on a job. He can irritate the hell out of you, but he's harmless. But wait. You met with him?"
"Yeah, and I'm supposed to meet him, them, whatever, at nine tonight. He told me he'd tell me about Desert Gal."
There was a beat of silence. "Meet with him? Again?"
"Yeah."
"He was never supposed to make contact with you," Jean-Luc said tightly. "This doesn't make sense, but I'll find out what's going on. I'll be there in an hour. Less than an hour." Determination radiated from his voice. Click.
I stared at the phone. God, what a mess. And where the hell was Rome? I wondered for the millionth time. Don't worry about that now. You've got things to do. I dialed John's number. He didn't answer, so I left him a message telling him to put a tail on Reese. Then I searched the bed for a note from Rome, but didn't find anything. I quickly phoned my voice mail to check for messages that had been left while I'd been talking to Jean-Luc. There were two. My entire body tensed as the first one played.
"Miss Jamison, this is Dr. Becket. I just wanted you to know Tanner woke up. He's doing famously.
Better than we'd expected. In fact, he's trying to leave." A loud beep suddenly rang in the background.
Muttering followed. "You can't do that, Mr. Bradshaw. You have to - " Click.
Tanner was up and around. I'd known that through Jean-Luc, but hearing it live and practically in person solidified the knowledge and deepened my relief, my joy.
I was smiling as the second message began to play. "Belle. Oh, God." It was Sherridan. Again, my body tensed. Hearing her worried voice caused tears to fill my eyes. "Cody's taken us. Bastard grabbed us when we tried to run. He's working with Desert Witch now and I - "
"That's enough, Curls," a harsh, unfamiliar female voice said. "Come and get her, Wonder Girl. If you're strong enough." There was a crackle of static. The line went dead.
Sherridan was alive and well. That, like Tanner's recovery, was news for celebration. Desert Hag expected me to come after her. That was a challenge I would not refuse. Cody, I was unsure about. Was he really working for the enemy or still helping us and staying true to his undercover character?
I lumbered to shaky legs and padded into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth - and discovered a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt in a bag on the counter, and boots on the floor. In my size. So Rome had done some shopping. What he hadn't bought me, however, was underwear.
Was that code for go without it? Probably.
I took a quick shower, a bit of my hair dye washing out, dressed (minus underwear) and picked through the weapons left over in Rome's arsenal. I tried to strap several small blades to my wrists and ankles but couldn't cinch them tight enough and ended up dropping them so many times I finally gave up and lifted the bigger knives. They were heavier and easier to hold. Those I fit through my belt loops. I even sheathed the mini-Taser in my back pocket. I knew the damage the thing could do. After all, I'd once stopped Rome in his tracks with it.
I didn't want to risk carrying the revolver. One, I didn't know where to store it. Two, I wasn't that great a shot. Most of my training had hinged on my powers. Powers, it turned out, I didn't really know how to wield on my own.
I'd worked with Tanner and I'd worked with Rome, but never really worked with myself, alone. What would happen if I had to go into battle without either man? It was time I learned to take care of myself.
Until then...I looked at the gun, chewed on my bottom lip. Carefully I placed it in my purse. Just in case.
Then I waited. Paced. And waited. Paced. Rome never showed up, never called. I phoned him three times. Left messages twice.
Jean-Luc didn't show up within the hour as promised, either.
Finally, I decided not to wait any longer for either of them. I was an agent, I could damn well make a few decisions and kick some ass on my own. So just before heading out, I phoned John a second time, and this time he answered.
"Got your message," he said, deadly calm. "I'll take care of it." Reese would be in lockup within the hour, I suspected. "That's not why I'm calling this time. When was the last time you heard from Rome?"
"Last night. He told me about Lexis and Sherridan."
"He didn't call this morning?"
"No. Why? Did something happen?"
I was beginning to think that it had. This wasn't like Rome. Whatever he thought of me, he would not have wanted me, a fellow agent, to worry. He would not have wanted to risk my going out on my own.
He would not have wanted to risk someone getting to me while he was away. "I - " A hard knock sounded at the door. Rome? "I've got to go," I told John and hung up, stuffing the cell in my pocket. I rushed to the door and looked through the peephole.
A man with sandy hair and dark eyes that were somehow familiar looked back at me. Because you saw them, kind of, two days ago. Wow. Just two days? Seemed like forever had already passed.
Jean-Luc was here. My hand shook as I opened the door. Is this smart? What are you doing?
But nothing bad happened when the door was completely open, only air between me and the man who had stolen my lover's memories. Jean-Luc was a little over six feet tall and smelled of pine. He wore all black and held a bag. Probably filled with weapons. That was so...Rome.
My chest constricted.
"Belle." His expression was grim, his cheeks cut and bruised, but his eyes were burning, filled with longing and passion and even dread. "You look as beautiful as always." As always. Eerie words from him, a man I'd seen only once before, and that for the barest of seconds.
"Thank you."
"May I?" he asked politely, motioning inside the room with a tilt of his chin.
I stepped out of the way. He was a stranger to me, but he knew what it was like to make love to me. I knew nothing about him. Well, not true. I now knew he used the same soap as Rome. Wild and primal and enough to make me close my eyes and savor the familiar scent.
He sailed past me. "Sorry it took me so long. I invaded a few heads, trying to find out what was going on with The Multiplier."
"And?" I shut the door, sealing us inside. Alone, together. My trembling hadn't stopped but had only increased. A glaze of ice formed over my chest, my arms.
"I can't believe the bastard betrayed me. And I never saw it coming. We've been friends for years, stayed in touch whenever possible...we'd shared stories about our pasts...Damn it! I trusted him." I tensed, the ice spreading to my legs. I drew my arms around my middle.
Concern darkened Jean-Luc's handsome face, and he stepped toward me, arms reaching. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for my anger to scare you."
I stepped back. "Don't come near me," I said. "I don't want to ice you. You'll be immobilized for hours. And it wasn't your anger that did me in. I'm afraid of what you're going to tell me next." He stopped, dropping his hands to his sides. "Rome can temper your emotions, can't he? But I can't." Sadness fell like a curtain over his handsome features. "Should I wait to tell you what I found out, then?" I shook my head, hair slapping at my cheeks. "I have to know, so I can calm myself." I'd wanted to practice doing so, and now it looked like I'd have my chance.
He gave a stiff nod. "All right, then. The Multiplier has Rome and wants you, and when he gets you, he plans to sell you both to Desert Gal."
