The body shrugged. “Whodoesn’twant to go to Orlando? Sunshine. Beaches. Disney.”
And lizards and hurricanes. But whatever. I knew I could count on Jacob to come through for me. “There’s plenty to clean up,” I told it. “In the bedroom.”
Sarah’s spirit might be eager to reunite with her body to tell off her ex, but judging by what happened back in the drugstore, the body would take some convincing. But when someone said,What areyoudoing here?it wasn’t the body who seemed surprised.
It was Jacob.
And he was looking at Evelyn like he’d seen a ghost.
His smooth, professional, friendly veneer slipped into place immediately. But I spoke Jacob fluently. And he wasnothappy to see Evelyn.
“I thought you’d be in the air by now,” he said conversationally.
“Agent Bayne asked for my assistance.” Her tone…. Was that…defensive?
I could only surmise that something had gone down between the two of them while I’d been off on my own. Exactly how obnoxious had he been about trying to get hold of the SPECs—and how hard had she needed to put him off? Looking back, Evelyn had been awfully eager to part ways with Jacob when they showed up together by the underpass. I’d just figured she didn’t want to ride with Sarah while the emotional fragment was missing. I hadn’t realized there was friction between her and Jacob.
If friction even had enough room to happen, what with the way he’d been stuck to her like glue. He’s relentless when he wants something. I felt bad for urging her to withhold the SPECs, but now that I thought about it, I was convinced about how right I’d been. Jacob can’t see his own blind spots. That’s what I’m here for.
“Jacob,” I said, “don’t worry. I can handle this. Just as soon as we get Sarah’s parts back where they belong, I’ll explain everything.”
“You know how slow my hair grows,” Sarah’s ghost was saying in Boswell’s voice, as the body sighed dramatically. Hopefully the body would want to get the last word with Zachary Sledge as much as her spirit did…otherwise this whole setup would be for nothing.
“Let’s do this,” I said, and held my hand out for the SPECs.
“You don’t need those things,” Jacob said. “We’ll just make the parts see reason.”
“Look, I’m not gonna pull rank on you.” Though obviously, I was the lead, and it was my call. “But you said you trusted me to make the right choice.”
“I do trust you.” The veneer was cracking. His voice shook around the edges. “But you don’t have all the facts.”
Evelyn looked from me to him and back again with the case half-out of her purse.
I sighed. “I know what I’m doing, Jacob.”
He lowered his voice and grit out, “You said it yourself. She isNational.”
Wait, was this what Jacob had been so weird about? I’d been so sure he was dogging Evelyn because wanted to get his hands on those SPECs. He’d been all over her—from yoga to lunch and everywhere in between, to the point of ditching his duties with me to follow her around.
But he hadn’t been interested in her invention.
He was interested inher.
And he was the perfect spy to set on an empath. Mind-readers got nothing from Jacob, and that was exactly why he’d been sent. His thoughts were his own…his emotions, too. If it drove Crash nuts back when they were dating, I could only imagine how a stronger empath would react….
Holy hell. No wonder Evelyn kept getting all nervous and bringing up psychopaths. He’d likely given her nothing buta brief flash of jealousy when he saw me checking out the mailman, so she thought I was married to one. When I looked back over the last few days, I had to wonder if she might be partially correct. Every time he’d left me to handle something myself, he was off stalking her. And that blowjob I’d come home to—was that a distraction BJ?
Clearly, he had no shame.
“Jacob.” I took him out into the hall so we could speak privately, then held his gaze and tried to convey that I knew Evelyn better than he did—and that, National or not, she was good people. In a low voice, I said, “Evelyn wants to see this situation resolved, too, and she’s got as much to lose as I do. And my abilities don’t have the range, or the scope, or whatever it is I need to wrangle an empathic fragment. Not without the SPECs.”
Jacob narrowed his eyes. “You know damn well what National is capable of.”
I did. I’d seen them beat up Con Dreyfuss—the freaking Director of the Midwest—and haul away his GhosTV. I’d seen them make people disappear…and I worried that someday they’d haul off Jacob if they ever figured out what he could really do.
But National wasn’t a single entity. It was made up of people, just like our branch. And just like us, there had to be at least a few folks there who’d joined up for all the right reasons. Like the yoga teacher eager to astral project, or the disguise expert who loved cats, or the assistant who took personal umbrage if you touched his paperclip dispenser.
Or like the neurology researcher who was partial to pizza, whose hair never stayed put, and who’d spent years on an app to try to get kids to calm down without medication.
