Then he'd lost her, of course, in the chaos of people trying to assist the Judge. He shook his head at the stubborn independence that made her toss the tracking device into the lake.
But he had another one. When he found her, they'd talk about why she would wear it. But she wasn't in the suite. Or Micky's office. According to security, she hadn't been in the building since leaving with him this morning.
This morning! It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Brian found Lorine in the impromptu research center she'd carved into a corner of the library Micky provided his mules–girls, he corrected. The thought the smuggler put into their comfort continued to surprise him.
"How's it going?" he asked, keeping his voice low as Zach slept in her arms.
"Good enough, I suppose," she muttered.
"Trouble?"
"Confusion. The data's encoded."
"But I retrieved it all from public record."
"Yes," she agreed impatiently. "And the layman doesn't know how to interpret a urinalysis, much less a statement of hormonal impact."
"Does that mean you've found a negative indicator from juicing?"
Her mouth twisted with the irony. "We could use my life as exhibit A to prove that." She kissed Zach's hair, then looked up at him and gasped. "What ran over you?"
He touched the tender fullness under his eye. "Colorful?"
"To put it mildly." She shooed him away. "Go put something on that. I'll get a hold of you when I have what you need."
Brian nodded. What he needed was to know if Jaden was okay. He'd settle for enough to nail Kristoff until then. "Oh. Almost forgot." He removed his jacket and separated the lining from the shell. With a last once-over he handed the copied letter to Lorine.
She scanned it and blanched. "Oh, my God." Her eyes met Brian's. "Is this for real?"
"Yes." His reaction had been similar. The infinity letterhead was one more tie to the Judge, but the brief content was the most damning. Albertson's words praised Kristoff's discovery of an intriguing mental side effect of juicing and how to use it to accomplish their individual goals. "Will it help break the code?"
Lorine mumbled, stood and handed Zach to Brian. "Take him to the day care. I've got to figure this out."
He didn't question her further, timing was everything and they were quickly running out of it. He delivered the sleeping boy and returned to the still-empty suite.
Scooping ice into two packs, he eased his tired body onto the couch to wait for Jaden. With one pack on his face, one on his ribs, he considered just how many more lies it would take to find the truth in this bizarre case.
Albertson said the right things to effectively separate himself from the grotesque chamber in the Gary mill. But Brian found Jaden's claims ringing truer than his mentor's. Especially after his covert review of the Judge's calendar. He knew he'd lost a degree of objectivity to the pull of Jaden's sexuality, but he didn't think another detective would come to a different conclusion: the Judge was up to his eyeballs in some very nasty stuff.
Fraud at the least. Abuse of power. The illegal litany continued as his body gave in to the hellish day.
The nightmare came fast and hard making his heart pound in his chest. Beneath him, horse hooves pounded the earth. He struggled to see into the trees, searching for a sign. At last, he saw broken twigs. Marred with blood.
Agony speared him, stealing his breath, but he slid from the horse and pressed into the thicket on foot. The sight made him quake.
A woman hovered over the prone body at her feet. A body dressed in the colors of his lord. Blood seeped into the ground. "No!" he cried, rushing forward.
She turned and soul-shattering pain tore through him. He closed his eyes and cursed the gods. It could not be her. Anyone but her.
"I would not have done so only for me."
Her voice. May he never hear again.
Around them, his men approached. Nowhere for her to run or to hide. He struggled to free his sword. The murderous act must be dealt with, and swiftly.
"Mercy? A final word, Captain?" Her hand reached out.
He ran the blade through her heart.
Brian came awake with a jolt, sending ice packs flying.
This wasn't the first dream of its kind. And he'd accepted that the face of the woman in his dreams matched Jaden's. Exactly. But this was the first time he'd dreamed through to her death. This was the first time he truly understood it probably wasn't a dream at all.
Jaden rested in the quiet sanctuary of Micky's security office. She would've preferred an hour with her antique punching bag, but it was vaporized and this was a close second. Around her, monitors offered silent testimony of everything in Micky's domain, but her mind played other images for her torture.
Impossible images of husband, children, family. A sledding hill in winter. She shivered.
What had Albertson done to her? How had he crawled into her mind and tapped the dreams she kept buried. Dreams she enjoyed vicariously through others.
Again she reviewed and compared the cycle of her lives. Albertson abuses her and she learns the greater danger. She survives the incident and strives to spare others similar pain. She hunts him and, eventually exhausting all other options, she kills him.
Vigilante, Brian called her. Brian, the final link, the man who'd snuffed out her every life.
But this life had taken a detour from the pattern. Previously, she could only speculate about his attacks on new victims. Now, each new molestation played out with full sensory experience in her brain. Was this anomaly what enabled Albertson to wield his manipulations right inside her head?
"Hell yes I'm bitter," she confessed to the panel of monitors. "How many lives were lost because of my failures?"
"How many saved because of your actions?"
Brian's voice washed over her, but she didn't turn around. He was just another illusion and she wasn't going to get into it with another illusion tonight.
"Nearly forty on that train today. Forty lives saved because of you."
Maybe she would argue with her imagination. "And dozens more lost before they started because he's too clever."
She flinched at the sound of crying in her head. Turning, she dared to hope Brian might be real. Had the monster become so good as to layer the illusions?
Brian saw her expression and felt the grief like a weight on his chest. He crossed to her in a single stride. She'd suffered more than enough for her and the others.
He sank his hands into her hair. "This will help," he said, running his hands down and across her shoulders.
He pulled her to her feet and pressed her to the full length of his body. He brushed his cheek over her head, then tipped her chin up to seal the contact with his lips on hers. But her mouth remained immobile.
"I thought touching me helped."
"It makes me want..." She tried to pull back.
He held her in place. "What?" He could pray they wanted the same things.
"Things..." her voice cracked. "Things that can't be."
"Try me, Jaden. We're more than unlikely partners. We're connected. Trust me. What disables you like this?"
"Your Judge."
He cringed at the phrase.
"I hear the victims he attacks. I feel what they feel."
His heart broke for her. But he'd matched the Judge's unaccounted time pretty evenly with her 'headaches'. "Unless you're touching someone?"
"No. Not someone." Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips, whetting his appetite. "Just you."
He'd never let her go. Never let that infinite bastard win. "Let me in, Jaden. Let me help."
She slumped down into the chair, but didn't shrug off his hands on her shoulders. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell card. "The contact number is listed under 'floral delivery'. All the evidence you need to convict the Judge of a variety of crimes against women."
"That won't be enough for you." It wasn't enough for him anymore.
"It has to be." She bit her lip. "Vengeance isn't so good for my health."
A residual chill from the recent nightmare trickled down his spine. "Because of me."
He was finally starting to get the whole picture. Letting the Judge survive, even behind bars would eat at her. Sure, she'd live through the confrontation and conviction, but what kind of life would it be? And he wouldn't be party to anything that ended her life or made her miserable.
"And if there's another way?"
"That is the other way."
"What about together?"
"No." Her head fell into her hands and she began to shake. "They're here. In Chicago. And I can't find them."
"Who?"
"The girls he's been 'training'."
The shaking turned to more violent quaking. Shock? Fear? His or hers? Uncertain, he warmed her icy hands between his. "Is this from a current victim?"
Her teeth chattered so hard she couldn't form words to answer. He'd had enough. Hauling her into his arms, he headed for the privacy of the suite.
Maintaining the physical contact, he wrapped her in blankets and snugged her into the bed, tucking himself behind her for support.
"What is this?" he asked, when her teeth slowed down.
"Overload." Her eyes fluttered closed. "Happened to my sister once."
"You have a sister?"
"Once." Tears slipped through the lashes resting on her cheeks. "Only one in all this time. His abuse killed her. She just gave up. Died in 1952."
"Jaden that's–"
"Impossible. I know."
"No. Horrible." He took a deep breath. He'd sworn to tell her everything. "Can you hear me?"
She nodded, eyes still closed.
"I believe you. Not just here and now. About then, too. All the other times." He sounded like an idiot. How to get it out?
"Why now?"
"I found records in the Gary office. He's been supplying Kristoff with test subjects and eliminating Kristoff's critics. I saw him attack you in the museum."
She shook her head. "Not enough."
"I know that now. We have to kill him Jaden. There's no other way."
"No. Death doesn't stop him and I'm too tired to meet him again."
"Then rest. I'll kill him this time."
"No. That's my job." She struggled to sit up. "The key is living through it. Check the diary. The opal."
"Later."
"Now."
Brian decided if she was bossy enough to give orders and try to elbow him, he could leave her for a moment.
"Here." He pressed book and opal into her hands when he returned. "You've got more color."
"Cleveland says I'm bitter."
"Nice. Stronger voice, more attitude." He nestled into the bed once more to stroke her hair. "You're making fast progress."
"Cleveland mentioned taking a partner." She leafed through the fragile diary pages like a speed-reader.
"You've got one."
"Inner fire. Conviction."
"You've got plenty of both," he observed easily.
"Not me. You." Her gaze lifted and struck him with the intensity. "I missed my own clues. Too bitter. Stress and time turn coal to diamonds."
"What makes an opal?" He leaned in to read the diary.
She frowned and snapped it closed. "My fire. In here." She held the opal pendant over her heart. "Your conviction. Belief. If we're united, he will fall."
"He deserves more than a fall."
"I've been so blind! He knows. You. Me. That's why he tried to kill you."
"He just spent half the day with me. Why aren't I dead?"
"What does he believe?"
The question startled him, but he followed her thought process. "He believes I'm undercover. That I'll bring you to him."
"What do you believe?"
"That I'll do anything to spare you this crushing pain."
She smiled, weakly, but it lit up her face. He kissed her mouth and now she kissed him back. The fire sparked.
He took them deeper, blending tongues, tastes, breath. He felt her hand in his hair, felt her need and revealed his own.
"You're too weak for this." He thought he might be too weak for this too.
"No. I need this. Need you. We may never get this chance again."
"In your next life."
Her eyes fell. She pushed him away. "I only ever wanted one life. One with you. He robbed me of my innocence, my family and you." She curled, burying her head in the nearest pillow.
He rubbed her back, toyed with her hair. "I've hurt you in the past. I'm so sorry, love."
She rolled back, her eyes bright when they met his. She was stronger than a moment before. It was a heady sensation to witness the depth of his effect on her.
"No if."
"Huh?"
She sat up, tucking her feet under her, dragging him along. "No if. You really believe me. Since when?"