Ghostwalker 03 - Night Game

kicking the hell out of the driver. I did kill the sniper and the others are guilty of killing Burrell. I just want your name kept out of it. It’s safer for you.”

    “Why are you doing this for me?”

    “Don’t ask me that. I don’t know the answer. Just get out of here and go with my brother.” He tipped her head back and brushed her lips with his. He didn’t care that they were both covered in grime. “Don’t make me come looking for you tonight, Flame.”

    “Come with me.” Wyatt jerked his thumb toward the swamp. “We don’t want to leave any tracks they can’t cover. You’ve got my Jeep stashed somewhere. We can take that.”

    “What about my bike?” She wasn’t certain her leg would stand up to a run through the swamp, but the SUV would be sighted from the air. Ian would say he had driven it to the scene when Gator called him. “If they check it…”

    “I stole it, remember?” Gator said. “Don’t worry, I noticed it isn’t registered to Iris Johnson. No one is going to make the connection, Flame.”

    “Lily will. Whitney will.”

    “Get out of here.” He wasn’t going to argue with her anymore. Hell, she was sounding more and more like she was making sense. He frowned as he watched Wyatt and Flame start into the swamp. She was running, but she seemed to be limping. He almost called her back but Ian cleared his throat.

    “This guy burned off his fingerprints. No ID on him at all, Gator. What the hell is going on here?”

    Gator let out his breath. What was going on? Was it possible Flame was right and Whitney was still alive? No one had seen the body. Only Lily claimed he was dead.
    Would she lie to protect her father?

    When he was certain Flame was out of earshot, Gator turned to Ian. “There may be something to Flame’s suspicions. I couldn’t even hear him breathe, Ian. You know I can hear just about anything.”

    “You think he was one of us? One of the other team?” Ian asked.

    Gator shrugged. “I have no idea. Is there the slightest chance Peter Whitney is still alive?”

    Ian swallowed his first instinctive answer and thought about it. “How the hell would I know? There was no body. He disappeared and Lily told Rye she connected with him as he was being murdered. I suppose it’s possible.”

    “Do you think Lily would help him disappear?”

    Ian scratched his head. “No. No way. She’s torn up over the things he did. If he’s alive, she doesn’t know it.”

    Gator frowned. “Lily’s psychic, Ian. How could he fool her? She ‘saw’ his death.”

    Ian shrugged his massive shoulders. “Whitney was on the cutting edge of experimentation. No one knew more about psychic enhancement than he did. He experimented on children, on us and on at least one other team we know of. What’s to say he didn’t do a few experiments on himself?”

    “Why? Why would he just disappear?”

    “Higgens wanted him dead. The service was bound to be closing in on him. Most of his experiments were illegal. Even his money wasn’t going to keep him out of harm’s way.
    What better way to get out of it than to ‘die’? He had more money than he knew what to do with. It wouldn’t have been that difficult to bleed off a few million to a secret account and establish another residence and lab outside the States.”

    “Flame thinks he’s alive. She even thinks this might have been some kind of field operation to see how we work together.”

    Ian’s eyebrow shot up.

    Gator nodded his head. “Flame, Iris, has this idea that Peter Whitney is alive and directing everything from be hind the scenes. I thought she was crazy at first, but now little things are bothering me. For one, I’m so damned attracted to her I can’t think straight. It isn’t just lust or emotional, it’s a powerful combination of both and it borders on obsession. When I’m with her, I would do almost anything to have her, and I feel like killing any man who comes near her. That isn’t me, Ian, and I don’t trust it. She doesn’t trust it. She feels the same way and she thinks Whitney managed to pair us somehow.”

    “That’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think? How could he do something like that?” Ian stepped away from Gator, putting a small distance between them in an unconscious effort to deny what he was saying.

    “Is it? I’m acting out of character. Even more, out of training. I knew she was dangerous, but led her straight back to my house. To my family. Wyatt and