Irate, Bill jogged to the street, Ron tight behind him.

If Michael got ahold of her, he’d kill her. Bill’s thick hand smacked into his hip holster, and he pulled his weapon. “Peri Reed! Stand down!”

Peri spun. Behind her, the man she just kicked fell into the snowbank, clutching his ribs. She poised, her thoughts almost visibly tumbling through her: recognition, hatred.

“It’s time to come home,” he said softly, and then guilt joined her expression.

The hesitation was her undoing. With an audible thump, the second, half-dose antidrafting/sedative dart thunked into her arm, right through her coat.

Peri frantically pulled it out, but the damage had been done. “No,” she groaned, no longer able to draft her way out of the mistake. Ron stupidly rushed her.

“Wait!” Bill called, one hand outstretched, the other raising his Glock. It felt small in his hands, and he hoped the sight of it might slow her down enough to listen. He’d bought a half hour of police ignorance, but a gunshot would negate that.

Slow from the drugs, Peri spun, slamming her foot into Ron’s face. A dull crack of his neck breaking made Bill wince, and then Ron fell, dead before he hit the ground. “I don’t want to come back,” Peri rasped as she staggered. “That’s your warning, Bill. Understand?”

But she’d seen his Glock and the drug had done its job, and he shook his head. “Don’t make me shoot you, kiddo. You can’t draft your way out of this. Not for another hour at least. Besides, I have something you want.”

“You son of a bitch,” Michael slurred as he tried to claw his way upright using the lamppost. “You promised it to me!” he exclaimed, slipping back down to the slush and filth.

“You want to remember, yes?” Bill said, motioning for the tightening circle of agents to back off before they spooked her. She was like a wild horse, untamed and ready to run. “Be your own anchor? No one telling you what’s real and not?” he added, hiding a zing of excitement when her gaze slid to Michael, still rambling in a dangerous, drug-induced tirade as he lashed out at anyone coming near. “I can give you that now,” he said gesturing at the van. “Let’s talk.”

Peri’s eyes shifted from him to Michael, weighing the man’s drugged rage against Bill’s confident, welcoming smile. Slowly she rose to her full height, trying to hide the sedation, such as it was. “No cuffs.”

“No cuffs,” he agreed, knowing her quick agreement was only half due to wanting the increased privacy and time to metabolize the drug to make escape easier. He was her handler; she was fighting ten years of conditioning. She might not trust him, but she’d listen if she thought she had a way out. She didn’t. Her need to remember had chained her. All that was left was her realizing he was making her a god.

“Good girl.” Bill’s grip tightened on the Glock. “After you.” He lifted his head. “Back off!” he shouted. “I want everyone to stand down! And clean up this site. We are to be gone in forty seconds!”

“I’m not your girl, Bill,” she whispered breathily. Her pace to the van was slow to hide the effects of the sedative. The six men bracketing her followed at a respectful distance. She was free to kill and maim, and they had to hold without damaging her. Such was the rarity of her skill. Such was the pearl of his Peri.

“I’m going to make you perfect, whether you want it or not,” he whispered as he holstered his Glock, anticipation pooling in him.

One of his cars was pulling up, a second one behind it. Sirens sounded, faint in the distance. Even without gunplay, his window had been compromised. “Get him out of here,” he said, gesturing at Michael. Only now did two men approach, efficiently bundling him into the first car. There was a bellow of anger, and Bill smiled, thinking Peri’s knife had just come out.

Her rifle uncocked and hanging over an arm, Latisha ambled forward. Peri’s wet scarf was in her grip, and a smile quirked her lips as she watched Peri be escorted to the van. “Did that go well or not? I can’t tell.”

“One dead? Yes. It went well,” he said as Ron was zipped into a bag.

“Mr. Heddles? What do you want to do with the cat?”

“Cat?” Bill turned to the agent holding Peri’s zipped purse. There was a wildly moving shape inside. Carnac, he thought, eyebrows rising. “Let it out of the bag,” he said, taking the tattered, slush-soaked journal the man had tucked under his arm. It was one of Peri’s. She’d want it back, and having it on his person might keep her from running a few precious seconds more.

Bill strode to the van, leaving others to collect Peri’s Glock and broken dishes. He was heady with the anticipation of working with her again. Even better, Helen would be pleased, and with that, she’d get off his back and let him work.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Peri stiffened at the collective soft intake of breath of the agents surrounding her as she walked right past the van. Safeties clicked off, and her eyes narrowed. Hands moving slightly away from her sides, she turned. Bill was waiting by the van’s open door, his expectant expression wary. The woman Peri had spilled coffee on this morning was inside, and Peri’s lip twitched. How long have you been watching me, and who gave me away?

“I’m not getting in that van,” she said, and Bill took a slow breath. She hated vans. Nothing good ever happened in a van. Well, almost nothing. “You want to start this all over again?” she asked as the men surrounding them became more severe.

Bill put his hands in his pockets in a show of impatient annoyance. “You have to agree we need to vacate,” he said, voice rumbling, and she glanced past them to the approaching lights.

“You wanted to talk, we can talk,” she said. “There’s a dance club on the corner. You. Me. That’s it.”

The woman in the van drew back, clearly nervous, but Bill rocked back and forth on his heels, considering it. “Give me the Evocane and accelerator,” he said to the woman in the van, and her blue eyes widened.

“Bill,” she protested, and he grimaced.

“Do it,” he said tersely. “I want everyone out of here. I’ll find my own way home.” His smile returned as he looked at Peri, but his assurance fell flat on her. “We both will.”