‘On the contrary, I’m not angry; she’s playing into our hands.’ Kel y checked his flashy Cartier watch.
‘When we release her to the authorities covered in blood, they’l believe her more readily. Now sit her down. I’l start on her now.’ He was so cold, acting as if I were just another boring item on the meeting agenda to be got through.
I tried to scratch my way free. ‘No, leave me alone!’
Gator dumped me in a chair and tied me to it with some flexi-cuffs. I couldn’t even wipe the blood off my cheek and had to let it trickle down and drip on to my chest. I was shaking.
‘She’s in shock,’ Maria said in disgust. ‘You’l not get much into her brain when she’s blank like this.’
Sean slithered up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, inhaling deeply. ‘She’s not blank.
Lovely—fear, outrage, and horrible anticipation—a wonderful combination.’
Maria knocked his hands away. ‘Don’t. You’re magnifying her emotions. We don’t want her going catatonic on us.’
‘Oh no, there’s too much fight in her to take that route so soon.’
Gator shifted awkwardly. ‘Are you going to do that mind stuff on her, Mr Kel y?’
The businessman glanced up. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘Just don’t seem right,’ Gator muttered.
Maria pushed him away. ‘Oh, you’re pathetic! We know you hate our powers but remember who pays your wage, Gator.’
‘You should’ve let me just shoot a couple of them Benedicts,’ grumbled Gator.
‘But you missed,’ Maria said tartly. ‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this. Daddy, can we get on? I’ve the linen inventory to oversee.’
Daniel Kel y seized my head and held it tightly. I could feel his presence pushing at me, trying to take control. Merger and acquisition. I threw up my wal s, imagining piling the dressing table, bed and anything I could get my hands on to stop him getting past my shield. I couldn’t help but catch glimpses of what he was trying to plant in my brain. He was seeding pictures of Zed and Xav luring me off the street and imprisoning me in the boot of a battered old car.
They’d kept me there while pretending to join the search for me, then driven off with me under the nose of the local police force. They’d held me in an abandoned warehouse, laughed at me for believing Zed loved me, tormented me …
No! I slammed the door on his suggestions. The Benedicts did not do that—would never do that to anyone. Remember the truth. Gator and O’Hal oran.
The plane. The hotel. Think where you are.
The Benedicts hate you. Zed’s too everything foryou—too cool, too good looking—of course it hadto be a set up. You suspected that. He’s been usingyou. He and Xav do this to girls all the time. Theyhad to be stopped, officer. I had to shoot them. Itwas their gun I used.
No, no, no. I could feel my brain buckling under his assault. I’ve never shot anyone.
The image of the gun in my own hand was so strong, right down to the bitten nails.
That’s not me. Zed and Xav are stil alive. I haven’t shot them. My eyes flew open. ‘You’re going to shoot Zed and his brother?’
Daniel Kel y couldn’t hide his flare of shock that I had slipped out of his control. His clunky signet ring dug into my cheek, making my eyes water. ‘You may not pul the trigger but you wil think that you did.’
The images flooded back into my brain, bright reds, ink blacks, primary colours whirling. The heavy weight of a handgun in my palm. Zed dead by my hand. Xav too. I was a murderer, even though it had been in self-defence.
No.
Yes. That was how it happened. I was wrong about them. The Benedicts were a sick family.
They just want to torment those who fall into their hands. All of them sick, sick, sick.
This was wrong. Wrong.
I blacked out.
Over the next few hours, whenever I regained consciousness, I felt as if I had glass splinters burrowing into my brain. I couldn’t think straight. I had the impression of several sessions with Daniel Kel y’s dark eyes burning into my mind, my head held rigid in his grip. Sometimes Sean was there too, drinking in the backwash of my distress, making everything much worse. Kel y seemed angry that I was stil resisting but eventual y I was so confused my mind was crying out for me to take the easy way out and agree with what he was insisting was the truth.
‘Tel me again what happened, Sky,’ he ordered me for what seemed like the hundredth time.
‘You … you saved me.’ Images of him sweeping into hospital to offer comfort after the bloodbath in the warehouse flickered before my eyes. He’d come to my parents’ rescue, found us a private room, paid for their accommodation. Been so generous to the poor English family he’d heard about on the news.
‘That’s right. And who took you from the street?’
‘The Benedicts. They’re sick and evil.’ No—yes. I didn’t know. ‘I want to go home.’
‘ No, you don’t. You want to stay here in Vegas where you feel safe.’ An image forced its way into my head: a room with strong doors and barred windows where no one could reach me.
‘I feel safe.’
‘With the people who helped you. Sean has been so kind.’
‘Kind. Gator’s been kind. He brought me breakfast. Asked that I not be hurt.’
‘Not Gator. My son, Sean. He’s going to help you heal.’
‘He is?’
‘Yes, take all that nasty emotion away from you.’
I nodded. That sounded good. I didn’t want to feel.
Maria came into the room with O’Hal oran and Gator behind her. ‘Is she ready? It’s taking too long.
The Benedicts are already in town and that slimebal Victor Benedict has applied for a warrant to search our properties.’
Daniel Kel y pinched my chin. ‘Yes, I think she is. A little confusion wil make it more convincing. Get her in position then send the message to the Benedicts that they can find her in the warehouse on the old airfield. The two boys have to come alone or the deal’s off.’
‘They won’t come alone—the rest won’t let them.’
‘They wil try to make it look like they are alone and that wil be enough. The others wil be too far away to stop what’s going to happen. We’l alert the police ourselves. A dash of interagency confusion into the mix always helps.’
I held my head. This didn’t make sense. It had already taken place, hadn’t it? I’d been in the warehouse—knew who got shot. There was blood on my hands.
Maria smiled. ‘Our little savant is having a hard time getting her facts straight.’
‘She’l be al right. Al she need do is sit there with the gun in her hand while the FBI and the police argue why it al went down so badly. O’Hal oran, you’ve got a damper on telepathy?’ He nodded. ‘It’l hold until she gets close to one of them.’
‘Make sure you take them out swiftly. Dump the gun in her hands and get away before the FBI and police arrive. I want them wondering what the hel happened.’
‘Sure, boss.’
Kel y cracked his knuckles. ‘After today, the Savant Net wil know that no one who interferes with my people gets away unscathed. They’l leave us alone in future. Now, Sky, this is goodbye until we meet again for the first time in hospital. When I say the word, you forget everything that happened since yesterday and remember only what I told you.’
Gator was apologetic as he tied my legs and left me sitting in the middle of the empty warehouse.