Ghostwalker 08 - Street Game

a connection and she didn’t say anything, not to the cops and not to me. Of course at the time, we didn’t know who the dead woman was or anything about her.”
    Mack exchanged a long look with Kane. “Jaimie would have known the significance of sixteen stab wounds. She’s brilliant. Things don’t get past her.” Yet she hadn’t called him. Hadn’t turned to him.
    “I don’t understand,” Joe said. “What the hell are we dealing with? I was asked to keep foreign governments off of her. Someone made a try for her a week ago, but he was no foreign government; he was one of ours. At least he appeared to be.”
    Mack nodded. “One of my boys took a couple of them down the other day.
    Former Marines. They were both reported dead over three years ago. Neither had been in the GhostWalker program but they’d both seen plenty of combat.”
    “Same with the one I took out. I did it quietly and Jaimie never knew,” Joe said.
    He sighed. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
    “Black Ops,” Mack said. “This is no foreign government after her. It’s our own.”
    Kane leaned forward to look into Joe’s face. “Our two were set up for torture and interrogation, not kidnapping. They were going to kill her.”
    “She’s too valuable to kill,” Joe said. “She’s got too much training. Why would they put out a hit on her, and yet send me to guard her?”
    “Because two factions are at work here, that’s why,” Mack said and stood up, pacing across the room, unable to contain the energy spilling out. Ordinarily he’d be talking it over with Kane. Jaimie had hit on something big and someone wanted her silenced, but now he didn’t know who he could trust.

    105

    Kane shot him a look as if catching his thoughts, but remained silent. Mack was grateful. He didn’t want to brawl in front of Joe, but the moment Kane said the wrong thing, there were going to be a few punches thrown.
    Jaimie moaned softly and Mack immediately crossed to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s all right, honey. I’m here with you.”
    He knew Ethan wouldn’t take his eyes from Joe and he could fully concentrate his attention on Jaimie. She was asleep. And she was weeping. He’d seen it before.
    Sometimes she even walked in her sleep, going from room to room, trying to find her mother. He’d had years of those nightmares, heartbreaking and far too frequent.
    The year they’d spent together, the nightmares had lessened.
    Mack bent over her, his fingertips gentle as they brushed at her tears. “I’m here, baby, you’re not alone.”
    She opened her eyes then, but there was only anxiety and blankness. He knew she wasn’t aware. “I have to find her. She isn’t here. I can’t find her.”
    His heart clenched so hard it felt like a heart attack, the pain gripping him until he could barely breathe. “She’s safe now, Jaimie. She’s where no one can hurt her.”
    How many times had he murmured those words, trying to soothe her, quiet her mind when she was caught in the throes of a nightmare? It had always been Jaimie and her mother. Stacy had been fifteen when she’d given birth to her daughter. Her parents had thrown her out and she’d lived on the streets with the incredibly intelligent infant. Stacy had done her best for her daughter, working as a waitress and taking classes at night. It couldn’t have been easy and Jaimie had adored her mother.
    He stretched out beside her, laying his claim in front of Joe. Jaimie was his. She would always be his, no matter how bad he screwed up, no matter how many mistakes he made. He’d find his way back to her, because in the end, Jaimie was his world.
    He locked his fingers with hers, feeling a little helpless, as he always did when she was caught in the middle of a nightmare, restless and lost in another world he couldn’t travel into. He wasn’t a dreamwalker like Lucas or Ethan and he didn’t know what would happen if one of them entered her nightmare with her. All of them lived with enhanced psychic abilities, but they were all learning to cope with the skills, even after all this time. For him, he knew his abilities were growing. He could move from one place to another in seconds. At first it had been short distances, but now those distances were growing. It seemed that way with all of them, the psychic talents developing stronger over time and with use. Why, then, hadn’t Jaimie known Joe was a GhostWalker? Why hadn’t she sensed Gideon on the roof?