The Operator
Page 66

“See? I didn’t touch your mind,” he said, and a flash of memory came and went, too fast to be identified outside of a sensation of having done something extraordinary and daring. Her pulse slowed. He hadn’t touched her mind.
Her shoulders eased, and with a sudden realization, everything up to the gate came back with a painful clarity. Steiner knew she was hooked on Evocane. Michael had to kill Bill for her or she’d never be free of him. How she ended up with Jack was lost, but Michael would believe Jack before trusting her. “I need your help,” she whispered, hating herself as much as it was true.
“Damn right you do. Let’s go.”
She was still herself, and the relief of that made her pliant as she fell into old patterns and let him angle them to the bright lights of the nearby manufacturing plant. The sound of a chopper warming up drowned out the calls of men. She had done it. She’d gotten free. With Jack?
She looked behind them. Both vans were before the open gate, one smashed into a tree. “Did you kill everyone in the van?”
“Yep.”
She hated his matter-of-fact attitude. Something told her it was a long-held complaint, even if it had probably saved her life—again. “What about Allen?”
Jack turned to her. “If you wanted Allen dead, you should have shot him yourself.”
“Did you kill him?” she exclaimed, and Jack’s expression soured as he understood her thinking. “Is he alive?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out.”
Her pulse slowed. They hadn’t escaped together, then, and she found strength in that. Damn it, I can’t go on not knowing like this. “I want you to make a call.” Her knee was starting to throb, the dissipating adrenaline leaving behind an ache that was growing harder to ignore.
Jack slowed as she fell behind. “You said you weren’t shot.”
“How would I know if I was shot or not, Jack,” she said bitterly, stopping to pull her pant leg up. Together they looked at it in the dim light, a frown growing at the swollen mess that was slowly but surely leaking. Another scar I won’t remember getting.
Motions fast, Jack ripped a strip of cloth from his already tattered shirt. The sound of a chopper warming up was growing. It wouldn’t be long before they started walking the area with dart guns and flashlights.
“What. Now?” she said as he crouched down and jerked her pant leg up higher.
“You want to bleed all the way to the parking lot?” he said tightly. “We can be out of here in five minutes, across the border in a few hours, and from there, wherever you want.”
It was tempting, more than he knew, but even if Jack was telling the truth, Bill would never let her go. “I want you to call Michael,” she said, thinking his fingers felt familiar as he probed her skin to see whether there was a bullet in there. “You’re going to tell him that after Bill got me hooked on Evocane, I accelerated myself. I want you to tell him Silas can’t duplicate the Evocane, and I’ll be defecting to Bill when it runs out. And I want you to tell Michael that Bill used him and that he never had any intention of moving him forward in the program.”
Jack looked up, his confusion obvious in the faint light. “Why would I do that?”
“You owe me.” Her knee hurt as he tied the strip of cloth around it, but it was swelling too much to have a bullet in it.
“I owe you?” he said, but then he squinted up at her, his lips parting. “Shit, you’re serious. Babe, what’s the goal here? To piss Michael off?” His expression cleared. “To turn him against Bill?” He stood, the motion achingly familiar as he tucked his torn shirt in. Even disheveled and in need of a shower, he was gorgeous, beautiful, capable . . . and angry. “Why am I making a rift between Michael and Bill?” he asked. “You think he’s going to kill Bill for you? Bill’s the only reason Michael hasn’t offed you already. The man is nuts.”
Disturbed, Peri checked her Glock. “Let’s go. You can call him in the car,” she said, beginning to limp forward.
“Or are you trying to kill Michael?” Jack guessed, tight beside her. “You think Michael is Bill’s new boy and you need to reclaim your spot? You don’t have to go through all this bullshit. If this is what you want, I can have a chopper pick us up in two hours, though to be honest, I’d rather run and keep running.”
Liar. There was no running. The only way out was through it. “I am not going back,” she said, but her face was cold and she couldn’t look at him. It would be so easy. He is not my partner, and this is not what I want, she told herself. “I’m not job hunting. I’m just hunting. Michael wants me dead. You know it. I know it. But if he kills Bill first, then all the better.”
“Oh my God,” Jack whispered. “Once Michael is done with Bill, he’s going to come after you. Babe, this is a stupid plan.”
“Stop calling me that,” she threatened as she stumbled. Jack caught her arm, and she jerked away. The nearest building was just ahead, a few late-model cars parked outside.
“Sorry.” He hesitated. “It’s just that we’re good together. You deserve more than some pathetic government task force that doesn’t even know what to do with you.”
“No, you were good,” she whispered, thinking she could hear voices behind them. “I was your doll. Yours and Bill’s.” She stopped at the edge of the parking lot, frowning at him in the new light. “I’m smelling what you’re stepping in, so shut up.”
He made a huff of exasperation. “You don’t remember it, but I wanted you to run. Almost a year ago,” he added bitterly. “Away from Opti with me. I wanted to go, but you wanted to prove there was corruption.”
Her eyes squinted; she didn’t remember it. They probably hadn’t run because the same things that made her good at her job made her easy to find. But that wasn’t so anymore. Shelve it, Peri. Deal with it later.
But he was right. They had been good—had to have been with the amount of confidence that was sifting through her along with her anger. She might not remember it, but it was there, undeniable and heady. He knew her. She knew him—trusted his limitations or lack thereof, maybe. And as she looked back at the distant WEFT gate, she realized the danger of this wasn’t getting caught by WEFT, but rather not getting caught. Jack was bringing everything back that she was trying to forget, and it was . . . uplifting.