Drake Sisters 03 - Oceans of Fire

The story in the newspaper about a sanitarium out in the bayou burning to the ground had drawn her. It was exactly the type of situation she knew better than to pursue. If they were looking for her, they would know she wouldn’t be able to resist hunting information. The moment she realized the trail led back to the Whitney Foundation, she should have gotten out. She’d gotten involved with some of the locals, the way she always did, and she’d stayed much too long.
    Had they sent an assassin? The fire in the sanitarium had been a hit, plain and simple. The Whitney Foundation had wanted to cover up the fact that genetic and psychic experiments had been done on babies. Damn Whitney and his government contacts. It wasn’t all that hard to create accidents and make people disappear, especially girls who were considered unbalanced or different.
    Anger smoldered and that was bad. The ground shifted slightly, a minor seismic anomaly. Flame took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself. That wouldn’t help matters. The dog whined off to her left, sensing the small shift beneath the ground. She quieted the animal with a touch of her mind as she weighed her chances. They would send someone well trained after her, someone with at least equal the skills they would assume she possessed. Chances were better than good that they would underestimate her. And chances were better than good Whitney would want her alive.
    She’d hacked into Whitney’s secret files and destroyed what she found on her training and had even managed to destroy some of the files on the other girls after first copying them. Whitney had an impressive empire and his contacts within the government ran deep. There was no doubt in her mind he would eventually send an assassination squad to get rid of the evidence if he couldn’t bring her in—and she wasn’t going back alive. The fire in the sanitarium was proof she was right. She’d read about Whitney’s death, a murder with no body, and she doubted the truth of it. He was a monster, pure and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    simple, and he would do anything to cover up his crimes.
    Flame tapped her finger against her thigh while she worked out her next move. She could play cat and mouse with the hunter, but she couldn’t afford one screwup. Using every sense she had, she once again attempted to locate the shadow. Absolute stillness came back to her. Not even a scent. She wanted to doubt the shrieking alarm bells in her head, but she knew— knew —someone was on to her. Then it hit her—the dog. She reached for the animal, trying to connect enough to get the impression of where the other intruder was. The dog would know and if she could get it out of the animal’s mind, she’d be in a much better position.
    The moment she touched the dog she knew it was completely under the control of the other intruder.
    Her heart accelerated abruptly and she had to breathe deeply to counteract the sudden flood of adrenaline. “Rat bastard,” she whispered to herself. “You only think you have the edge.”
    She slid further into the darkness behind the hedges and vines crawling up the side of the massive house.
    She knew exactly where the safe was and how to get to it. She was fast and strong and could be in and out in minutes. Whitney’s hunter had no idea what she was doing or where she would go in. She went up the side of the house, clinging like a spider, moving with stealth and speed to gain the second-story balcony. She went up and over the wrought-iron railing, dropping into a crouch and remaining still while she listened.
    Flame glanced at her watch. The guard would be patrolling on this side of the house. She’d timed his movements several times and the idiot always took the same route. He was as reliable as a Swiss clock.
    She stayed very still, waiting until he had gone around the corner before unzipping her pack and pulling out her crossbow and hook. This balcony was the only real access to the tower roof and the skylight above the office where Saunders kept his safe. Smug jerk that he was, he thought he had it covered with his narrow staircase, the only entranceway being in the house at the bottom of the stairs, with two guards situated there. The tower had no balcony and no other access, with sheer walls and wrought-iron stakes below should one fall in an attempt at climbing.
    “Amateur,” she sniffed. Saunders was as dirty and as