Afterburn Read online

  Chapter 2—A Liquid Silence and Black

 

  Blue Calvin Klein socks on another dead agent.

  When Vallon closed her eyes she kept seeing the plaid blue-and-black design that had wrapped Simon’s ankles. Even as the blue and red strobes flashed from the street down below. Police. Paramedics. The scent of diesel so heavy in the air she could taste it, though it was better than the ozone stench of change. Or afterburn.

  The concrete chill ran up her back as she sat cross-legged next to the metal railing that edged this level of the garage. The wispy rain caught her whenever the wind gusted.

  The aches of power use and loss throbbed deep and low down in her body and coupled with the grief. The cuffs’ dull pain ran up her arms and the damp air and emotion had her shivering, like a transit in a high wind.

  Simon gone and she could do nothing. That broad, teasing smile lost and the feel of his body. All the EMTs in the world couldn’t bring him back after the flame was gone. She’d tried to tell them that—not that anyone was listening to her at the moment and that was just, well, typical.

  She turned back to the blue-red night, which was better than when she closed her eyes and saw only blue-black plaid. The entire parking lot was surrounded by cop cars, rescue vehicles, and yellow crime scene tape. All for naught.

  “So. You feel like being cooperative now?”

  The tall detective with the smooth, café au lait skin and the appraising gaze came up beside her. She’d seen him arrive in his long grey trench and the way the uniformed police relinquished control of the scene to him.

  “I was cooperative before, if anyone had listened.”

  Only a tilted brow above espresso eyes in response. He grabbed her arm and half-lifted her to her feet when the cold had almost immobilized her legs. In what must have been a show to gain her confidence, he released her from the cuffs.

  The painful surge of blood in her hands made her wince.

  “You okay? You found him, right?” Just the right tone to take with a witness or victim. Sympathetic. Friendly. And totally unlikely, given what the uniformed cops had said.

  “I’d be a hell of a lot better if I hadn’t been manhandled and made to feel like a criminal.” She rubbed her raw wrists and glared at him.

  “The way I hear it, you threw the first punch.” Again, that appraising espresso look had her in its cross hairs and the afterburn throbbed and made the empty place inside her warm again. And seriously interested. A good-looking man, broad shouldered and hard bodied—she closed her eyes to block the thought, because it was entirely inappropriate — and this guy was only looking for a way to pin Simon’s death on her. She nodded and fought the trembling in her bones.

  “I did. But your guys tore me away from Simon when I was trying to do CPR.”

  “So you knew the guy?”

  “Yeah. I knew him. We worked together.”

  Another of those long looks and her heart beat faster. She crossed her arms over her chest to contain the unnatural desire to throw herself at him and kiss him right then and there. It was the afterburn talking. Not her. Definitely not her.

  A slight smile on his lips and the way his pupils dilated said he knew far too well the attraction she was feeling—which meant, thankfully, nothing more than that he had very good radar for women.

  And was probably prepared to use it.

  “I’m Detective Jason Bryson. I’d like you to tell me what happened this evening. From the beginning.”

  She raised a brow at the first name. He was definitely interested. The afterburn flamed a little hotter, a little lower down in her body, and she fought back the need for release.

  “I tried to tell those officers.” She hauled her wallet from inside her jacket and flipped it open to expose the oval AGS badge with its outline of the continental US and a sextant, and the accompanying officious looking picture ID the AGS’s parent agency issued. “I’d like my equipment back, please.”

  Because she wasn’t supposed to have the contraband pen and paper to begin with.

  That brought a wall down over his open interest. “Not possible. Evidence stays in our care. Anyone from Homeland Security should know that.” He looked more closely. “I didn’t realize the American Geological Survey was associated.”

  “No one does.” Just as no one knew of the need to guard the country against change from within. No one beyond the Gifted even noticed a change.

  The question in his eyes said he wanted her to explain further, but she’d be damned if she were going to tell him anything, because just about anything she told him was going to be a lie. Instead she fished her phone out. “I need to call in, if you don’t mind. They’ll have already sent out search parties.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, simply punched in the numbers that would send the code for assistance and her GPS coordinates. They’d have someone here quickly, she was sure. Until then she could fend off the worst of the questions that still hung in his gaze. She had to say something.

  “So I was working the desk tonight. Something—I can’t say what—was going down, and so I sent Simon—Agent Lamrey—out to investigate. When he didn’t check in as he was supposed to, I came to back him up. I found him as you saw him and was trying to administer CPR when your men arrived and pulled me off.”

  “That right?”

  Doubts placed dark strata in his eyes and she didn’t like it, given she’d stuck as close to the truth as possible. But then that was how it always was, wasn’t it. Doubts and disbelief when she spoke. But this guy—he almost looked like he wanted to believe. Now she just needed to convince him.

  “Damn straight, that’s how it went down. There’s no reason to hold on to my things. That pen of mine is a keepsake. My father’s.” As if he’d have purposely left her anything.

  Bryson only shook his head. “Not going to happen. Officers Santos and Smythe say you weren’t exactly doing any kind of CPR they’d ever seen when they arrived. Care to explain?”

  She thought back, and the ache inside began the transition into great hammer-pounding in her head. If they’d seen her try the power surge, what would it have looked like? What would they have thought? Whatever it was, she had to nip this in the bud because Chief Gleason wasn’t going to like this death, let alone if the cops pin-pointed on her. Exposing the true nature of the AGS wasn’t an option.

  “I was doing CPR, like I said. Chest compressions. Artificial respiration. I’m sure you’ve had some training.”

  “I might have.” The dry comeback at her jab only showed his doubt, but his words came out casual-friendly. “So tell me about this unit of yours. What’s your area of work?”

  “I’m afraid that’s classified information, Detective,” interrupted a gruff male voice.

  Vallon heaved a sigh of relief as AGS Chief Gregor Gleason’s gravelly baritone cut through the night. As usual, he’d moved far more silently than a man his size should. He stepped up beside her in an unusual move of solidarity, his cadaverous, six-foot-four frame swathed in an overlarge tan trench coat that almost reached his ankles, his bald head gleaming in the pearlized mist. His presence immediately released some of the pressure she felt from Bryson’s regard, and she knew that was Gleason’s doing.

  “Agent Drake, I’ll expect a full report.” He nodded down at her over his large roman nose as he produced his badge, and Detective Bryson flashed his own in a clear case of ‘mine’s bigger than yours’. It looked like Gleason won, but barely. He looked around.

  “That my agent?” He nodded at the bagged body as the Coroner’s people lifted Simon onto their stretcher.

  “I’m afraid so, Sir. I tried….” She left it there, another image of blue-black plaid making her shiver; and suddenly all the emotions and the power loss conspired against her. Tears filled her eyes and she hated the weakness. Hated more that she’d actually grown attached enough to Simon to feel such grief. Simon was only supposed to be convenient, like all the rest. She was getting weak a
t the ripe old age of 26. “I was too late, Sir. I’m sorry.”

  Gleason thankfully ignored her weakness. He turned back to the detective, easing himself between Bryson and Vallon.

  “I’ll expect to be kept abreast of the police investigation, Detective Bryson. As for Agent Drake, I’ll forward her statement to you.”

  “Unacceptable. I need Ms. Drake to come into the office to give her statement.”

  “And I said I’d forward her statement to you. Agent Drake works in a classified area and I won’t have her exposing government secrets.”

  “And I’d say the secret’s already out, Agent Gleason. You’ve got a dead agent in a parking garage. Don’t you want to know what happened to him?”

  The two of them stood toe to toe, their breath hot clouds in the chill air. Bryson had to tilt his chin up to meet Gleason’s gaze, but both men were clearly accustomed to giving orders and clearly not used to having them set aside.

  “Sir, I can give a statement—it just won’t be very helpful to the detective. I already told him pretty much everything. I came to back up Lamrey and found him like this. The police arrived as I was trying to revive him.”

  Gleason’s gaze slipped from her face to the ill-made wall beyond the body that showed all the signs of recent, inept change—but what more had she had time for? His face darkened a little with disapproval that twisted her gut, and then he met her gaze. Nodded and turned to Detective Bryson.

  “I’m sure you understand that we cannot afford to discuss our work in any detail. If you wish Agent Drake to provide a written statement of what she’s told you, then yes, she would be happy to attend your office; but for now I think I must get Agent Drake back to our office while the events of the evening are still fresh.”

  He caught Vallon’s elbow, something she’d normally resist because, in her condition, the close physical contact flared the afterburn like a bolt of need that made her knees go weak, but tonight she knew she didn’t dare resist.

  “If there is nothing else, detective?” He didn’t wait for Bryson’s response and started Vallon towards the exit stairs like a gardener with a wheelbarrow.

  “A moment, Agent Gleason.” Vallon and her boss turned back to Bryson. His café au lait features had gone dark and the muscles along his jaw were bunched tight with anger. “How do I get in touch with you—to keep you informed, of course.”

  “Aah.” Gleason gave his best vulture smile. “Of course.”

  He fished in his breast pocket and hauled out a crisp white card that Vallon knew held only the Homeland Security seal and an untraceable number that would come through to Gleason’s EA. The fact Gleason didn’t even ask for the detective’s card was the last, decisive blow in the battle of the men’s wills.

  “I look forward to your report, Detective.” Then his fingers dug into her arm and he hurried her down the parking lot to the stairs.

  “What the hell are you doing out here, Drake?” His grip only tightened as he dragged her down the last flight of stairs and onto the street. “You were on desk duty for a reason. I had everyone out looking for you.”

  Vallon shivered at the ‘everyone’, not liking the thought that he’d have turned Homeland Security loose on her. She pulled loose to face him, keeping her voice as low as his. “I haven’t gone rogue. But when Simon didn’t check in, I thought he was just playing silly bugger. I didn’t want to call out another agent on what could have been a wild goose chase.”

  “So you disobeyed a direct order that pulls you off field work, and endangered everyone by leaving no one on the desk. I know you don’t like inside duty, Drake. No one does, but you’ve damn well got to learn discipline or I’ll have your ass out of the AGS. Hear?”

  Vallon tried to face him down, would have faced him down as she had before, because pulling her off field work was just idiotic, but a movement at the parking garage stairs caught her eye. Detective Bryson stepped past the cedar hedging at the bottom of the stairs. She pointedly looked away.

  “I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”

  Gleason followed her meaning. “Your report. On my desk. Within the hour. Now get back to the office.”

  He left her then, marching in his lurching skeleton gait to the police line and folding under the tape to his black Grand Marquis. She watched his car pull away before heading for her Subaru, and was too aware of Bryson’s gaze on her back and the way her body seemed to sway to lure him on. Dammit, this was the worst case of afterburn she’d had in years. She had to do something to deal with it soon, because this lustiness was just going to cause trouble.

  She -reached- into the earth to steady herself in the huge pulsing presence that was the power vortex near Mount Rainier, but flame flashed nearby.

  Gifted, by the intensity of light, but not someone she recognized, and after a year in Seattle she pretty much knew the scent and feel of all of the trained Gifted. This presence pulsed so bright, bold and glittering with heat, it was clear whoever it was had to be trained—and powerful.

  Definitely powerful enough to turn a house into a parking garage—and to block her rescue attempt.

  She yanked back from the earth and found herself facing the shadowed pavement down Denny Street. Outside of the pillars of streetlight, everything was a darkness of trees and lawns and night-bound houses and the liquid silence of Lincoln Reservoir, but the flame was there, like a pulse. Was that a shadowed figure?

  She hesitated.

  Follow her instincts and see who it was? Or follow orders and head back to the office?

  She knew what Gleason would say, but there really wasn’t any choice at all. Simon was dead and there was a good chance the darkness had caused it.

  She had to know why.