a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) (23 page)

Oh, he knew about probable locations of the toxic ingredients—none of them hidden, all of them growing in either public or private gardens. The stuff was right here on Oahu. In plain sight. But he wouldn’t tell us what gardens, where they were located, or what the plants looked like. His way of guaranteeing no one found them. I couldn’t blame him for that, and, oddly enough, Pierce didn’t push for information. Now
that
gave me a severe case of the twitchies.

"Indestructible. How are we supposed to work with that?" The sound of defeat rested heavy in my words.
 

Pierce yanked his cell from his pocket. "Kahuna Aukele is right. We excavate a bunch of plants, and every sociopath bastard out there will be tearing up gardens." He punched a button on the phone. "Yeah."

The naturally warm shade of his complexion paled to pasty white. "Send me the report ASAP."

I reached to touch his arm, thought better of it and jerked my hand back. "What?"

"My team didn’t make it. No survivors."

"They were protecting me." The words were wrenched from somewhere deep in psyche, leaving a dull ache behind.

His gaze landed on me, held. "Their job. One they chose. Eyes open."

But it was there. Doubt. Guilt. A breach of confidence. Something I hadn’t seen before was buried under the harsh delivery of Pierce’s words. I could almost see his shift of attitude from warrior to killer. And he wasn’t sharing the details behind the shift.
 

I ignored the unease creeping along my spine. The roulette wheel in my mind did a convoluted spin, and stopped dead on a single fact. "It isn’t the ingredients we need to destroy, it’s the formula. By themselves, the individual plants might be poison, but not world-threatening."

Mitch wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "From what your grandfather said, it didn’t sound like there is a formula. Or if there is, only your mother knew the specifics."

"Someone knows. The cop who poisoned Parker Steele knows something, I’m sure of it." I slapped the back of my hand against Pierce’s arm, careful to keep my fingertips to myself. I didn’t want to know what images were lurking inside his head. "Can you get to him? Question him?"

"Yeah." Pierce's gaze sharpened. "About the garden at your parent’s house."

We’d started walking again, shook me. "My garden? You think my Mom would have grown toxic plants? And then let me dig in the dirt, pick flowers, play with whatever was available? No way. If anything my parents were overprotective of me."
 

Mitch’s hand tightened around my shoulder, and he glared at Pierce. "You’ve been to Everly’s childhood home?"

It was
so
not the time for macho posturing, and my man was practically quivering with the need to punch Pierce. I could feel it in his muscles where our bodies touched.
 

I reached my hand up and twined my fingers with Mitch’s, then sent as much love energy as I could toward him.

Pierce cocked his head to the side, cool control back in place. "She picked up images about one of my assignments. I had to run immediate damage control."

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. It wasn’t much as far as explanations went, but that Pierce offered
any
information about his work meant he cared enough about me, and my future with Mitch, to squelch Mitch’s jealousy. I gave him my most genuine, from-the-heart smile.

He nodded. Once. "Any place you weren’t allowed to play?"

My thoughts drifted back to the garden, and I shook my head. "No. But even if Mom wasn’t growing anything in the garden, and she
wasn’t
, Harlan might have been aware of what she was researching. If Millie was my grandmother’s friend, then Harlan probably was, too. And it’s kind of odd that my grandfather only mentioned Millie."

Pierce didn’t reach for his cell.
 

Since we’d been in Hawaii, he’d made a call every time I said something profound about my family, and this deviation from what had become standard protocol sent shivers up my spine. "Why aren’t you calling anyone? Sending someone to talk to Harlan?"

Pierce held the Jeep door open for me. "Doesn’t feel right."
 

"What does that mean? Exactly?" True, he’d been withdrawing since Mitch arrived, but this new attitude was way off. And it shot tiny bursts of adrenaline into my blood. Enough to make my skin crawl, but not enough to flip me into panic mode. Yet. I waited for him to answer. One beat. Two.
 

O-kaaay then. No point listening to the silence when I had something to say. "Can we stop by my grandmother’s house on the way to Haleiwa Joe’s? Maybe Annie and Sean are still there, and I’d like to wander around, see if there’s anything my fingers can pick up."

Pierce gave me a half-nod, rammed the key into the ignition, and took off, bits of gravel flying. Maybe he wasn’t as calm as I’d thought. Damn, but I needed to find a way to separate these men.
 

"I forgot to ask Kahuna Aukele why Grandma had a house separate from his…theirs together. I know they lived in his house because I spotted feminine touches that
felt
like her, and I picked up some faint images of her from the floor pillows. And did you see the rocking chair on the side porch? It was identical to the one at her homestead."

Pierce rolled his shoulders back with a typical these-kinks-are-killing-me move. "It’s not uncommon for land to stay in families. Your background file had the details."
 

 
"Background file?" The words sounded like Mitch had squeezed them through sharp bits of glass.
 

I mouthed
later
at him, because I really did not want to get into a discussion about the detailed information Pierce had accumulated about me, and, thank you Pele, we arrived at the remains of my grandmother’s house, just in time to create the perfect distraction.
 

Sean was on the phone, and Annie was carefully placing bits of something into a plastic bag. "Looks like Annie and Sean have found something," I said, bouncing out of the Jeep.

We strolled toward Sean and Annie like the Three Musketeers—me in the middle, flanked by Mitch and Pierce. I’d never spent so much together time with them, and it was beginning to annoy my inner bitch. Really. No woman should have to deal with more than one testosterone-laden man at a time.
 

 
"Whatcha got?" I asked, moving behind Annie.
 

"Hey, El. Not sure, but there are some bits of wood that didn’t burn normally. See—" she held up the plastic bag— "they stayed strong. Like they'd retained some of their natural moisture."

She was right. The bits of wood in the baggie hadn’t dried and burned during the fire, but appeared to be pale green shoots, more typical of saplings. I shivered, the heat of the day turning to chill bumps on my skin.
 

"Indestructible," I mumbled.

 
Annie tilted her head, and nodded. "It fits as far as words go. But we need to see what the analysis of this sample shows. Sean and I are going to deliver this sample to the labs right away."

I took the baggie from her hand and fingered the contents through the plastic. Waves of nausea rolled through my stomach, gagging me. I dropped the bag, clutching at my abdomen. "Bad," I panted. "That’s bad stuff."

It took a few breaths before the nausea passed. Mitch had wrapped his arms around me, and I pressed my forehead into his chest, inhaling slow, deep breaths until the spasm in my gut relaxed. I desperately needed to
smell
him—the soap from our shower, the spice from his shaving cream, the cool winter-snow scent that belonged to him alone. I breathed in, savoring the fragrance until it bathed every cell in my brain.
 

"You okay, Sunshine?" Mitch’s lips brushed the top of my head.
 

"Yeah. I am. It’s…" I stepped back, looked at him, this man I loved. Drank in the concern that had darkened his eyes.
 

Annie, Pierce, and Sean gathered around us.
 

"What did you see?" Pierce’s tone held the crisp demand of guy-in-charge, but underneath I sensed how much he cared about me. Annie touched my shoulder, the bag of wood bits in her other hand. "Looks like your fingers found something interesting, but please don’t ever touch this stuff again."

I shuddered. "No worries there."

Sean handed me a bottle of water, yanked it back to remove the lid, then pushed it into my hand. "Drink, then describe, hmmm?"
 

I chugged the whole bottle, tossed him the empty.
 

Impatience was rapidly chasing away Pierce’s concerned expression. Time to get on with it.

"Weird." I eyed the baggie in Annie’s hand, and backed away a couple of steps. "I don’t think you should be holding that. It’s poison. Possibly lethal."
 

Sean took it from her and put it in the trunk of the Mazda.
 

Pierce shot me a look. "Now, Belisama."

"It was like my body had passed out, but my brain cells kept working. I couldn’t feel Mitch, but I knew he was holding me—except the knowledge wasn’t front and center in my head. It was more like, I don’t know, tucked into a hidden corner of my mind."
 

I shook my head, trying to clear the last of the sticky cobwebs that had attached to my brain. "And the smell thing. I needed to inhale great gasps of Mitch's scent. My olfactory senses…I don’t have a word, so I’ll just say…exploded…with the need to drink in a familiar scent."

The four of them shared do-we-need-to-get-her-to-the-hospital glances.
 

I pointed at the Mazda. "That stuff needs to get to your labs yesterday. And just FYI, smell is the first sense a newborn develops. I’m thinking whatever kind of poison that is, it freezes brain cells in their original state. Or something."
 

Pierce eyed me. "You figure it’s a component of what that bastard used to infect my team?"

"Could be, but I didn’t touch it with that intention. Sometimes, if I have a specific question, the images I get will be related. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about the attack on Sand Island before I touched the baggie." My voice trailed off as I considered the small, plastic bag in the Mazda’s trunk.

"And you’re not touching it again." Mitch—in protective mode.

"No. I’m…that wouldn’t be a good idea."

My skin prickled with ugly premonition.

We stood there, the five us, a contemplative group lost in smothering thoughts.
 

Time slowed, stuttered to a stop.
 

I watched Pierce’s usually acute observation skills dim, and without touching him, guessed his thoughts had drifted to the loss of his team.
 

Annie’s sharp intuition was focused on Pierce.
 

Mitch held his gaze on me, the warm brown of his eyes clouded with worry.

A ripple of fear slithered down my spine.
 

Sean reacted first. "Down!" he yelled, lunging for Annie.

She sidestepped him, jumping in front of me. I grabbed for both her and Mitch, trying to pull them away from the danger.
 

Pierce snapped into fighting stance, firing the weapon in his hand toward our attacker.

The arrow flew in a precise arc toward us.
 

And burrowed deeply into the tender flesh under Annie’s collarbone.

Twenty-one

My scream
cut through the soft Hawaiian breeze, then broke off with a sharp gasp as I slammed against the ground. No air. Couldn’t breathe. Panic threatened, but I focused on the arrow protruding from Annie’s upper chest, knowing my lungs would suck in oxygen as soon as they remembered how to work.
 

The wooden shaft stood deceptively tall against the hazy blue background of the summer sky, and at the notched end black and red feathers ruffled softly in the breeze.
 

Somewhere in the background of reality Pierce yelled. Mitch tugged me away from Annie’s body, and Sean murmured to her in low, soothing tones as he yanked the arrow out.

Air finally blossomed in my lungs. Sucking in a breath, I reveled in the pain that shot through me. I was alive.
 

"Annie," I whispered.

Mitch brushed the hair off my face. "She’s breathing, but unconscious. Sean called an ambulance."
 

"Who shot her?" I had to think about the words because they weren’t flowing from my brain quite right.

"Don’t know. Pierce fired on him, and then chased after him. I didn’t see much because you pulled me out of the way." His fingers trembled against my cheek. "He was aiming for you."

I rolled to face Annie and touched her shoulder. No images. Just like when I’d touched the guy who’d died at Jayne and Parker Steele’s séance. Even though it had been a few months back, I’d never forget that horrible sensation of
no images
.
 

The soft spot between my shoulder blades knotted, and my heart raced.