Ghostwalker 07 - Murder Game

bring her back with him. There were days when his job sucked, and this was one of them.

    "Sit down and let's eat. You can tell me about that cat. She's out there watching us now, I can feel her staring at us."

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    Tansy took the plate he handed her, careful, even with the gloves, to keep from touching him. "She's curious about you. She probably hasn't seen anyone else in months. And her den is close. She's due to give birth anytime." Excitement flashed in her voice. "I'm hoping to get some great shots. If I'm lucky, she might change her mind and use the cave I've set up in to film the event, although so far she's been ignoring it."

    "Why don't you persuade her?"

    "I can't do that."

    "You stopped her from attacking. If she'd wanted to do it, she could have done some a
    m jor damage to you, but she didn't," he pointed out. "You have to have some control over her."

    Tansy sank down onto a log and indicated that he could have the one chair she'd brought.
    "Maybe, but it's not really like that. I have an affinity with animals, I've always had it.
    But I don't really talk to them, not telepathically."

    "Are you certain?"

    She chewed on her lower lip. He liked that lower lip and found himself staring as her small teeth tugged at it.

    "I 'push' a little to get them to do what I want, but it's not a conscious thing." She took a bite of the stir-fry. The man could cook. "Not bad."

    "Self-preservation."

    His eyes crinkled around the edges, tiny lines showing that he squinted a lot. His lon g
    lashes were thick and dark, and helped to cover the expression in his dark blue eyes.

    "I've never been afraid of animals," Tansy said. "I've always liked being around them. I can touch them and not find myself somewhere else."

    "What does that mean?" Kadan's low voice slid into her mind like soft butter. "Finding yourself somewhere else? What does that mean?"

    Her expression closed down immediately and she shrugged. "When I touch objects, the world narrows and I'm in a tunnel, like an alternate world. Everything bends and curves and the energy is there, preserved for me like a recording, only I'm in it, feeling everything that is happening, no matter what it is." She looked him in the eye again. "All of it. Everything. If you are cheating on your wife and feel guilty, I'm there with you. If you're worried about a sick child, or paying your house payment, I'm feeling that fear right along with you."

    "If that person is in love…"
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    "Then I am too."

    Kadan forced his gaze away from the unconscious plea in her unusually colored eyes.
    Knots gathered in his gut, hard and tight, giving him hell for doing his job. He believed in what he was doing or he wouldn't have come looking for her. The vicious murders had to be stopped. And if they weren't—if the faceless names above them continued to believe that the GhostWalkers were responsible for the murders, they would never risk the controversial program ever seeing the light of day. Kadan had no illusions about their lives. The GhostWalkers—he and his friends—were expendable. Worse, they were something the government would want to sweep under the carpet like dirty laundry.
    They'd be sent out on a suicide mission, or quietly eliminated.

    He swore under his breath and kept his gaze fixed on the surrounding forest, studying the trees and brush as if each piece of foliage intrigued him. Truthfully, all he saw was that look in her eyes.

    "Why the bullshit about not having your talent anymore?"

    Tansy sighed. "It's complicated. I can't actually do that work anymore. I can't separate the emotions and voices, so I'm not lying when I say I don't have the talent. Once the word went out that I had a climbing accident, I was left alone for the most part. My father handles all the calls coming in, and I think now enough time has passed that most people have forgotten me." She waited until he looked at her. "I wish you would."

    "Forget you?"

    She nodded, willing him to just walk away and pretend he'd never seen her.

    A prickle of awareness slid down his spine, and he reacted instantly, an automatic reflex, diving for her, driving her off of the log, backward, his hands pulling her smaller body into his to protect her as he took