Personal Demon
Page 92

Paige pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. “Over 50 percent means full brothers, right?” She opened my satchel and took out a file folder. “Then I’d say we somehow got the wrong samples, because genetics can do some wonky things, but there’s no way these two guys—” she put the kidnap photo on the table, “—are full brothers.”
 
Beside it, she set the close-ups of their faces that I’d requisitioned from the computer lab. Even if one looked past the obvious coloring and ethnicity differences, there was nothing in the two young men’s faces to suggest familial relationship.
“Hey, that’s Jason.” It was the younger of the researchers. She turned to the other woman and poked a finger at Jaz’s picture. “Doesn’t that look like Jason?”
The older woman glanced at me first. Only when I nodded did she walk over. She peered at the photo, then, after another glance at me and a reciprocal nod, she picked it up and studied it.
“It looks like him, but the eyes aren’t right. Or the mouth. And the hair’s curlier.”
The younger woman took the photo. “Yeah, I see it. This guy’s even hotter than Jason.” An embarrassed giggle as she handed the photo back to Paige. “Sorry.”
“Who’s Jason?” Paige asked.
The younger woman opened her mouth, but her colleague beat her to it. “He worked in the library. Grunt work mainly—running books and reports around, filing them back on the shelves. Then he was transferred to…”
“Security division,” the younger woman said with a sigh.
The other woman cast a knowing look at Paige. “Some of our younger staff were quite taken with him. Not that it did them any good. A sweet kid, but he kept to himself.”
“Do you remember Jason’s last name?” Paige asked as she swiveled her chair to the computer behind her.
“Dumas. But he isn’t here anymore. He left about six months ago.”
Paige paused, the human resources directory on the screen, and looked over at me. I was already on the phone. As I spoke to the HR department, I typed in the proper access codes.
A moment later, Paige was sending a page to the printer. She retrieved it and set it in front of the women.
“Is this the guy you knew as Jason Dumas?”
They nodded. The staff photograph showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a somber face, dark eyes and dark wavy hair, fashionably long.
This man was not Jaz. But there was little doubt he was a relative. A close one.
I moved the two head shots side by side. “Jasper and Jason.”
“Jaz and Sonny,” Paige murmured. She picked up the kidnap photo of Sonny. “But there’s no way, even with prosthetics, that this guy could be—” She pulled over her laptop. A minute of frenetic key tapping. “The answer isn’t in there—” She waved at the books littering the table. “It’s in here.”
I moved behind her. On the screen was the interracial council database.
“Armen Haig,” she said.
“Armen…?”
“I have to call Elena.”
 
HOPE: TRUTH
 
 
I stood as close to the railing as I could get without stepping from the shadows. I caught glimpses of Karl as he circumnavigated the park, approaching from the side opposite the playground. A couple of times he looked my way, even shading his eyes once, and I’d lifted my hand, but I could tell he hadn’t seen me. The next time I’d slip into the light just long enough to reassure him. That is, if the sun would cooperate. It had gone dark again and—
“Hello, Faith.”
My chest constricted at the voice, but I didn’t move. Another auditory hallucination. Being here, seeing Sonny, triggered the memory, the voice, the words.
“You don’t answer to that anymore? Hope, then. I think I like Hope better. Nuh-uh. Don’t reach into your pockets. Hands up where I can see them, as the cops say.”
As I pivoted toward the voice, I kept my eyes half closed. Bracing myself? Or denying the obvious as long as I could? Even through half-lidded eyes, though, there was no mistaking who stood before me, though his curls had been cut to just below his ears and his face was devoid of expression in a way I never imagined it could be.
I licked my lips and swallowed hard, trying to conjure up enough moisture to form words.
“Jaz.”
 
The mask shattered then. He smiled, and it was that same smile I knew, slow and sexy, his eyes lighting up.
Jaz.
My chest tightened again and my gaze slid down to his hands. To the gun pointed at me. He pulled it back, as if to hide it.
“Sorry, but I figured you might need a little incentive. And I might need a little protection. You may be tiny, but you’re fast.”
That jaunty tone was so familiar, so Jaz, that my fists clenched and I wanted to fly at him, to pummel him until I couldn’t recognize him. The thought, the hate in it, made my bile rise.
“You’re upset. I get that and I don’t blame you. So here’s what we’re going to do. First, hand me your purse.”
I did.
“Now, empty your pockets.”
As he stepped toward me, my fists flew up, but he caught my arm and yanked me into the shadows.
“Let’s back up,” he said. “You saw Sonny out there, right? He’s not sleeping. He knows exactly where your friend is, courtesy of my play-by-play into his earpiece. Last time I spoke to him, he set his watch for three minutes. If he doesn’t hear back from me by then, he’s putting a bullet through the werewolf. It’s not silver, but I’ve heard that doesn’t matter.”
There was no animosity in his voice. No threat. Just Jaz, chattering away as always. Bile filled my mouth. I forced myself to swallow it.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Let me empty your pockets. Don’t attack me or run. Then we’ll walk that way.” He jerked his chin toward the rear of the gardens.
“And then?”
“You’re coming with me.”
He sounded surprised that I’d needed to ask. As I lifted my hands, he stepped so close I could smell the citrus notes of his aftershave, and feel that low-level thrum of chaos, that aura that always surrounded him, that had drawn me in.
I took a deep breath and let him empty my pockets. When he finished, he paused a mere inch away, and I looked up to see his face over mine. His lips curved in that same almost shy smile that had set my pulse racing. I wanted to spit on him. But if I opened my mouth, I’d probably throw up instead.