Color rose, staining her cheeks. "It's no different. Don't make it be different."
Ryland touched her shoulder. "We appreciate it, Tansy. You should have told us, Kadan. We could have helped."
"I'm under orders. The general called me back, explained the situation and told me to clear it up fast. So I found Tansy."
"Well, now you've got some help. We're going with you."
There was a stubborn streak a mile wide in Ryland-in all of them. Kadan knew they'd just follow him, now that they knew what he was doing. They were tenacious like that. "Find the reporter. Tansy has to handle a couple more objects. I think we can find at least the East Coast team."
"Team?"
Kadan explained the theory of a murder game. "Tansy's hoping to profile each of the players and maybe get a handle on how the game is played and who is running it."
"Do you think this coalition, the ones who want us dead, is behind the murders?" Ryland asked.
Kadan shook his head. "My gut feeling is that they're simply taking advantage of it. The coalition Meadows mentioned has a major hard-on for the GhostWalkers," Kadan said. "They had to have given some of the details to the reporter, knowing he'd run with it. He found out Tansy was working in the mountains and led them right to her. And they sent a couple of assassins after her. I thought, at the time, that they were after me, but they didn't know I was there until they started tracking her. Bad luck for them."
"We'll track down your reporter and find out who put him on the trail," Ryland said. "And then we'll meet you at the other house. And Kadan?" He waited until Kadan met his steely gaze. "You'd better be there."
Kadan sent him a faint grin and saluted. "I understand. And I'm grateful for the company."
Gator dug into his pocket as Nico opened the door. "Want an Altoid, Kadan? They're cinnamon." He tossed a tin of the mints onto the front seat.
Kadan choked. If it was possible for him to blush, he might have done it. He didn't dare look at Tansy as his friends got out of the car. He just started the engine, put the vehicle in gear, and drove away, flipping them off through the open window as he pulled onto the street.
Tansy laid her head back against the seat as she picked up the little tin and turned it over and over before dropping it back on the seat. "I take it they have an enhanced sense of smell. Have they been giving you a bad time?"
He could have sworn there was amusement in her voice, but when he glanced down at her sharply, she looked sober and innocent, which raised his suspicion more. He put the tin in his pocket, not wanting it out in the open as a reminder of his friends and their highly developed sense of smell, or their bad taste in humor.
"I'll get them back. Why don't you go back to sleep? I'll put some music on."
He turned on the CD player. Tucker and Ian's voice came over the speakers, singing off key. "I wanna live with a cinnamon girl…"
"Bastards." He turned the player off immediately.
Tansy burst out laughing. "I don't think they're going to win any contests."
"I'm sorry if they embarrassed you."
She leaned over and nuzzled his arm with her chin. "Why would I be embarrassed? Are you?"
"Hell no. I wouldn't give a damn if they walked in on us, but I don't want you uncomfortable." He was adamant.
She shrugged. "I'm not going to be embarrassed because I have sex with you, Kadan. I like having sex with you. I like how you make me feel and I especially like how I make you feel. So let them say anything they want. It doesn't bother me."
She meant it. He felt a surge of pride, of awe, that she could belong to him. He wasn't even certain how it had happened, but damn, he was grateful.
"You left the room tonight."
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew. I like having you curled around me, and the moment you left, I felt alone. You went to see my father, didn't you?"
"How did you know?"
"You weren't satisfied with his answers. He knew about Whitney's experiments, didn't he? You would have told me right away if he hadn't."
"I'm sorry, baby." He laced his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his heart. "I really am. I wanted it to be different for you."
She was silent, staring out the window for a few minutes before she took a deep breath and looked at him. "My mother?"
"She has no idea. She despised Whitney. I could read her mind, but I can't read his. I made certain she slept through our talk. I didn't want to cause her any more distress than she already has been through."
"What was his explanation?"
"If I tell you. Tansy, I'm going to tell you the entire story. Be very, very certain you want to know," he warned.
"That bad?"
"Yes." He kept possession of her hand when she tugged at it to pull away from him. He wasn't going to let that happen. Her father had hurt her, not him.
"Was he going to give me to Whitney?"
"Damn it, that's not fair."
"They hit my mother. He would do anything for my mother. If he thought they'd hurt her, he'd give me up and never look back." She turned toward Kadan. Lights from oncoming cars played over her face and then left her in shadow. "I know he loves me, Kadan, but it's always been about my mother."
"And that's all right with you?"
"I grew up knowing that. It was normal. I don't know what it's like for a child that isn't adopted, but…" She trailed off. He was so still. His mind was still, even when she touched it. She turned the pieces of the puzzle over and over in her brain. She was good at solving puzzles. Things clicked into place for her. And the click wasn't what she'd expected. She shook her head in denial. "I remember being in Whitney's laboratory. It was horrible. There was so much pain. There were other girls there and nurses. He had this little soundproof room he'd take us into. Some of the girls would have seizures and we'd all get nosebleeds. He'd just record everything, with this strange little remote smile on his face. If he frowned, you were in trouble. I even remember the day he brought me to see my parents for the first time."
"Both of them together?" Kadan asked.
"No. Just my father. I remember the way he stared at me. He reached out to touch me and I flinched away. I was wearing gloves, but it was so hard to control impressions and they hurt my head, so I didn't want him touching me."
"How was he looking at you."
There it was again, that note. A piece of the puzzle. He wanted her to see for herself, but she kept turning away from the truth. She tightened her fingers in his, wanting strength. She was asking for the truth. She was causing him distress by insisting he tell her, yet she didn't want to see. She pulled up the memory.
She'd been so frightened. All the girls were frightened. A couple of the nurses tried to comfort them, but never around Whitney. He looked at them as if they were insects, and he didn't want the nurses "coddling" them. A couple of the girls were outwardly defiant, and that made him harsh and cruel. Even as a child she recognized the taint of madness, even though she couldn't really read him.
And then the girls began disappearing. Whitney would never respond when they dared ask where one of the girls had gone. When he'd taken her out of the laboratory, she'd been terrified, her imagination running wild. She didn't know what the outside world was like and it was so huge. Enormous. The sky was frightening, the cars were, the noises overwhelmed her. He'd dragged her into a room and shoved her toward a man who had been sitting quietly in an office chair.
She stumbled and looked up at the man. He was tall and fit, with white gold hair, and he turned his eyes on her and she had been afraid to move. Shock. Absolute shock registered on his face. For a moment something fluttered in her mind. Recognition? But she'd never seen him before. She thought… I belong. She hadn't known what a father was before then. Now she did. She moistened her lips and glanced up at Kadan's stone-set features. "He's my birth father." She continued to look up at him. "Tell me how."