She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Not my parents. They would never betray me. Never. I don't care what you think, they wouldn't do that."
"Why would they choose a damaged child, Tansy, when they were wealthy enough to buy perfection? Any adoption agency would have given them whatever they wanted right down to the color of hair and eyes. Why you? When they got you, you probably couldn't stand their touch, or even using their utensils to eat with. Come on. You have a brain. Use it here. Figure out what the hell was going on back then. They took you to a doctor you clearly didn't want to see, and in spite of your tears and pleas, they left you alone with him."
Tansy closed her eyes briefly, trying not to remember the way her mother pleaded with her father, clinging to her before he took her firmly from her mother's arms and shoved her into the room with Whitney. Kadan couldn't be right. She wouldn't let him be right. Even thinking that way was a betrayal of her parents' love for her. "Shut up. I mean it, Kadan, I don't want you talking about my parents anymore."
"Then you promise me you're not going to call them."
"I have to call them. We have an arrangement. If I don't, they'll come looking for me." Tansy glared right back at him. "They love me, Kadan. They won't betray me."
"Then ask them what they're relationship with Whitney is and ask them why they didn't tell you he was still alive. Do that much. Don't make me have to track them down and find out myself, Tansy. You don't want me confronting your parents."
He looked so grim, so frightening, as if he was capable of walking in and putting a gun to their heads. Her parents. Two people she loved.
"Two people who are in this up to their necks," Kadan interrupted, clearly reading her mind. "Whitney experimented on children. On you. And they had to have known, but they said nothing. They did nothing to stop it. At least admit they had to have known."
She pushed at the wall of his chest. "Damn you, you just can't leave this alone. You're leaving me with nothing. They're my sanity. They're everything in my world and you're not going to take them away from me. This is a mistake. A big mistake. I was crazy coming here with you."
His fingers dug deeper, not allowing her to escape. "You're damn right. You don't seem to have the first idea of security, even when you've had plenty of reasons to be afraid. But I'm not your problem, Tansy, and you wouldn't be so upset if you didn't already know that. Don't blame me because there's something very smelly about the way your parents acquired you."
"You're such a bastard. Take your hands off of me. I'm calling my dad."
"Put him on speaker phone. This number is blocked and will be difficult to trace, but even so, you only have a few minutes to talk. I'll be timing you. If you start to say anything that compromises our mission or your safety, I disconnect. Do you understand?"
He held her in place, his eyes blazing down into her with that relentless, implacable, very annoying expression. She had a wild urge to kick him hard. Finally she nodded. He dropped his hands immediately. She muttered a repeat of the not so nice name she'd called him earlier, only this time she added not so nice adjectives to go along with it for good measure. He simply ignored her.
Tansy swung away, stalking across the room to the phone. She stabbed out her parents' number, refusing to look at Kadan as he came up behind her and pushed the speaker phone button. Her mother answered.
"Hey, Mom," Tansy said in greeting, her fingers twisting together. "Is Dad right there with you?"
"You're on the phone, not the radio," her mother observed. "Where are you?"
"Is Dad there?" she repeated.
"He's right here. I'm going to put you on speaker phone so we can both hear," Sharon added. "When did you get off the mountain?"
"Hi, Dad. I need you to answer a question for me," Tansy said, gripping her wrist hard, digging in her nails. "Why didn't you tell me Dr. Whitney was still alive?"
There was a silence. She closed her eyes picturing the shock on her parents' faces.
"Did that son of a bitch bother you, Tansy?" Don Meadows demanded. "What has he done? Tell me, honey, and I'll take care of it."
She looked around for a chair to sink into. Kadan shoved one under her and Tansy collapsed into it. "Why didn't you tell me about him, Dad? I've gone through enough that I deserve to know. Why do you have anything at all to do with a man like that? You've got to tell me the truth."
"What has he done? Tell me where you are and I'll send Fredrickson to pick you up. Don't trust anyone else," her father insisted.
Kadan dropped his hands on Tansy's slumped shoulders in an effort to show camaraderie.
"What does he have on you?" Tansy asked quietly.
There was silence again. Her mother choked back a sob.
"Come home now, Tansy. I'll tell you everything, but come home."
Kadan gripped her harder and shook his head when she tilted back to look at him. They need to get out of there, somewhere safe. He's probably monitoring this conversation. Tell them that. Tell them to get out.
"I have to go now. He's probably monitoring the conversation, Dad, and it isn't safe for you. Take Mom and go into hiding. Do it now and don't trust anyone."
Her mother screamed.
"You don't have to do that," Don Meadows bellowed. "She'll come back."
Tansy jumped to her feet. "Mom?"
"Tansy?" There was another male voice on the phone. "I'm afraid Mommy can't talk right now. Neither can Daddy. You have twenty-four hours to get back here or they're both dead. Say you understand."
Fredrickson, Dad's bodyguard, she identified to Kadan.
"What are you doing, Fredrickson?" she asked.
Her mother screamed again; this time the sound was filled with pain, not shock.
"I understand," Tansy said and hung up the phone. She didn't want to give Fredrickson, or anyone else, a chance to cause her parents further pain. "Get me a plane."
"Take a breath. Let's get a plan first."
Tansy knocked his hand away. "The plan is, I do whatever Fredrickson wants me to do. I'm not letting him kill my parents."
"He's not going to kill them," Kadan said. "As long as they don't have you, no one is going to kill them. When they acquire you, your parents' usefulness will be gone. That's when they'll be in real danger."
"You heard my mother scream."
"That was deliberate to frighten you into immediate compliance."
She glared at him. "Well, it worked. Get me a plane."
Kadan regarded with that cool, impassive gaze she was coming to dislike. "Sit down, Tansy. We need to think, not run off half cocked."
"Screw you, Kadan." She turned away and headed for the door.
His fingers settled around her wrist like a steel handcuff. "You're too emotional for this kind of work. Settle down."
She swung back, using her momentum to put power behind the punch she threw at him. Her fist went straight and true for his jaw, but he caught it, the sound loud as her knuckles slammed into his palm. He simply turned her, locking her tight against him.
"Don't be stupid, Tansy. I'm not the enemy. If you want your parents to survive, sit the hell down and let's figure out how to get them out alive. We need to know what's going on here. Is it connected to the murders? Is this about Whitney and you finding out about him? Fredrickson was obviously a plant in your house, but who put him there? Who does he work for?" He whispered the words, low and cool, in her ear. His breath was warm, his body hot, his grip too strong to break. "Use your brain."
Tansy hated that he was right. Hated it. She wanted to take another punch at him just for being right. "Let go. Just let go. I'm sitting down."