“Fine. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to keep working. If you have to leave soon, let’s at least try to make sense of some of the impressions I got from the ivory stallion. There’ve been ten murders that you know of so far, right?”

“We don’t need to talk about it anymore. I don’t want you involved.”

“I heard you say that. Did you mean it?”

This time she was in his head. Waiting. Holding her breath. Watching him. Kadan slowly nodded. “I can find them. It’s not worth it to me to use you to save my friends.”

She let her breath out. “Are you doing this to save your friends or to stop murderers?”

“Both. Someone has to stop them, and there’s no way I’m letting the GhostWalkers take the fall. We have a powerful enemy in the White House and he wants all of us dead. These are good men, Tansy. I’m not going to let them down.”

“Have you considered asking the other Ghostwalkers for help? If you believe in them so much and they’re capable of doing the kind of thing I do . . .”

He shook his head. “No one is capable of doing what you do. And you have a mind for it. You fit puzzle pieces together at an astonishing rate.”

Tansy looked around for a water bottle. “I’m thirsty.” She needed time to think.

Kadan immediately got her a bottle out of the cooler. Tansy accepted it and gratefully took a long swallow.

“What are the other game pieces? Do you have them with you?”

He shook his head. “I only brought one. I thought I’d be bringing you back with me.”

She tapped her nail on the small table. “So let’s say we have two teams and each team member has his own game piece that he leaves behind when it’s his turn to play.”

He held up a hand. “Back up. What do you mean, ‘his turn to play’?”

“I’m telling you, this is a game. They’ve established rules and it stands to reason that each person takes a turn and commits a predetermined murder. Maybe they’re copying crimes from the past. Have you checked for similarities in the killings with historical killings?”

“No, but I can do that fast enough.”

“I would. They might be copying murders. They have cards of some kind.” She frowned, forcing her mind to open a little and let herself remember. “Not playing cards. A little larger, like tarot cards.”

“You got that from just holding that game piece?” Kadan wanted her for a partner. Her information was much more thorough and clearly presented than any report could ever be. And she had invaluable experience.

“I need to know what the other pieces are.”

“Are you sure?” He didn’t want to drag her in any deeper, not when he knew he had to leave her there. As it was, over a distance, he couldn’t protect her mind, and those voices were still wailing. Distant, but there. The best he could hope for was that the exercises he’d given her to do would help after he was gone.

“Just tell me.” She was impatient, her mind trying to solve a puzzle with too few pieces.

“Frog, there is a frog, carved out of ivory as well. If I had to guess, I’d bet the same man carved both figurines.”

“I’d be able to tell you if you’d brought both.” There was a slight edge, a reprimand, to her voice. “The frog and stallion, were they both left at different murder scenes on the East Coast?”

He nodded. “A frog, a stallion, a snake, and what appears to be the blade of a knife.”

Her head went up alertly. “All out of ivory. Even the blade?”

“Yes.” He could see her mind was working double time.

“That’s significant in some way. Three animal forms and the blade of a knife,” she repeated, more to herself than to him. “What were the pieces left on the West Coast?”

“A hawk, a scorpion, an anatomically correct and very well-endowed bull, and a perfect replica of a long-handled scythe.”

“So already there’s a pattern. We have two studs and two weapons. Let’s for argument’s sake say these are nicknames. Don’t most military men in Special Forces get bizarre nicknames?”

His mouth tightened. She was burying his friends with her quick deductions.

She flicked him a gaze under the fringe of long lashes. “I’m going the military route because you’re going in that direction. We have a stud on both teams. We can assume the weapon is the team leader. The two left are probably followers. So who is really running the game?”

“I don’t understand.”

She shrugged. “Someone is running the game. You have another player. Or referee. These men are highly competitive. They’re thrill seekers. They want action. I need to see the rest of the game pieces and I need to hear about the other murders.” She took a breath and let it out. “I’m going with you.”

Kadan shook his head, his gut tightening. There it was. Complete capitulation. She was hooked. She would come with him voluntarily. “No.” His voice was firm. “No way. I told you I’m going to tell them you can’t do this anymore.”

She waved her hand in the air. “I appreciate it, and I don’t want to do it all over again, but I’m not going to be able to let this go. This killer, the ‘stallion,’ he’s going to kill again. If not with his team, on his own. He may already be doing so. In fact, I’d bet that he is. He’ll start with prostitutes, women who are very vulnerable. He needs the power and control. He’s got to be stopped, Kadan, and if none of your friends can do what I do, how are you going to track him? The killings are too random.”

Kadan closed his eyes and looked away from her. “Damn it. Just damn it.” Because he should walk away, leave her in peace, but he wasn’t going to. And not because he needed to save the lives of his friends. Not because he needed to save lives of innocent people. He was going to put her through hell because he was a selfish bastard and he wasn’t willing to give her up. He didn’t like knowing that about himself, but there it was.

Chapter 6

They began fighting the moment they entered the house where Kadan had set up headquarters. Tansy was going to call her parents whether Kadan liked it or not. And he didn’t like it. She tossed her head, her eyes flashing defiance.

“You can bark out orders all you like, big man, but I’m not under your command. I’m not exactly an amateur at this business, and I don’t fall under the category of your underling, so get over that notion as well. Just who do you think you are, anyway?”

Kadan stepped close to her, purposely invading her personal space, inhaling her cinnamon scent, challenging her idea of what equality was. “I’m the only man who is ever going to lie with you at night and hold you close and keep you safe. I’m the only man who is going to make love to you anywhere, anytime, any way we both need or want it. More importantly, Tansy, I’m the man who is going to kill anyone who threatens you. So you can damn well listen to me.”

She blinked at him, opened her mouth and closed it again, looking confused and entirely too seductive and bewildered for him to resist. Kadan leaned his head down and took possession of that soft, trembling mouth. Kissing her felt so damned good. He wanted to get lost in her, to just have the world disappear so he could spend his life skin-to-skin, kissing her.

“You know how to take the wind out of a woman’s sails,” she said accusingly, when she could talk again. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Nothing. Just kiss me again.”

Tansy turned her mouth up to his. This time he pulled her close, his hand at the nape of her neck, holding her still while he took a long exploration, savoring her cinnamon flavor. “You are never supposed to argue with me.” He rested his forehead against hers, looking into her strangely colored eyes.

She laughed softly. “I hate to burst your bubble, here, buddy, but all the kisses in the world are not going to stop me from letting my parents know where I am, who I’m with, and what I’m going to do. I don’t hide things from them.”

Kadan jerked away from her, pacing across the room. “I can’t trust them. That’s the truth whether you want to believe it or not. Until I clear them, I have to treat them like the enemy.”

“My parents? Enemies? What do you think they’re going to do? Contact the killers and say we’re on to them?”

He spun around and gripped her shoulders hard. “I think they’ll call Dr. Peter Whitney and inform him what you’re doing.”

Tansy tried to pull away from him, horror blossoming on her face, but he held her with his enormous strength, refusing to allow her to move away from his solid warmth. He gave her a little shake. “Did you hear me, Tansy? Did you understand what I said? What I meant? I’m the man who kills anyone who threatens you.”

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 speakerphone. 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?”