“Probably growing up in the jungle,” she suggested. She’d picked up his thoughts again. “Interacting with the gorillas or whatever. But if you ever feel the need to beat your chest and roar or anything—go ahead. I loved Tarzan.”
He shook his head. “When are you going to let me back inside your head?” he asked. “It’s hardly fair that you know my every thought and I have no clue what you’re thinking.”
She studied him for a moment, head tilted to one side, a small smile on her face. “Not just yet.” She turned away, grabbed her coat from the chair and shrugged into it, then picked up her backpack. “Well, this is it. Good luck playing with your time machine. Do let us know what’s happening.”
“Kaitlin...” He didn’t want her to go and had no clue how to stop her.
“You can’t.” She grinned. “I’m fucking unstoppable.”
And she was gone.
Chapter 15
Kaitlin sat squashed between Janelle and Josie in the back of the car. Rose was driving and Dave sat in the front beside her. It was a bit of a tight squeeze but cozy.
She wasn’t quite sure why Josie was returning to London with them. She’d been quiet in the meeting, and since then, she’d hardly said a word. Whatever she had read, or seen, in the files Ethan had shown her had clearly had a profound effect.
Presumably they had disclosed that her husband had been a ruthless bastard, directly responsible for the experiments that had taken her telepathy and her memories.
It was obvious that Josie had never really, deep down, accepted the truth about her husband. But then, she had no memories of life before he’d entered it. She had awoken with no knowledge of who or what she was. And her husband had callously exploited that to get his own little Stepford wife. He’d died at the Conclave party, shot by the visitors from the future.
Josie should have been going to Australia with her sister, where she’d be relatively safe. But at the last minute, she’d asked if she could come with them. Kaitlin suspected it had something to do with a certain Detective Steve. Maybe finally admitting to herself that her dead husband was a complete piece of shit had freed Josie to move forward.
Well, she’d better move quick. Because the end of the world was coming. It could be just around the corner.
It occurred to Kaitlin that if she did go through with her idea to go back in time and rescue Sam—and obviously, right now, it was just a totally nebulous, dream plan—then she might very well need some help. She didn’t want to involve the others, though she didn’t want to look too closely at her reasoning behind that. Maybe they’d try and dissuade her. Maybe they’d look into her head and see how conflicted she really was. Guilt over Sam, conflicting with guilt over her plan to betray everything they were trying to do. She was just one big messy mass of guilt. But Josie couldn’t see inside her head, and—an added bonus—no one could see into Josie’s. It was something to consider.
Luckily, the roads had been cleared of snow, and Rose drove fast. They didn’t talk about anything important; they’d gone over the plan in the meeting and then again with Jake and Kane before they left.
Kaitlin leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. Her mind instantly flooded with the memory of that kiss, and a wave of heat washed through her.
She’d been trying not to think about it, because it had shaken her far more than she would ever willingly admit. She’d kissed more than a few men and a woman or two. She’d felt it was her duty to get a little experience under her belt.
She’d had such a repressed childhood. While other teenagers had been out dating and snogging and shagging, she’d been poking into the minds of serial killers and terrorists. And fantasizing about the totally unobtainable Jake.
Anyway, she’d made up for that, though in truth she wasn’t quite as experienced as she tried to pretend. The problem was, up to now, sex had been a huge disappointment. She’d felt none of the thrill and the magic she’d dreamed about, and after the first couple of attempts, she’d limited herself to kisses, on the assumption that she would know at that stage if the sex was going to be any better and whether she should continue. But that had only happened once.
With Kane. This morning.
God, the man could kiss.
She’d tingled from her head to her toes.
Melted.
If she’d stayed out of his mind—God, he was such a controlling dickhead—she would have ended up on her back with—
She broke off the thought.
Then sighed.
Time to get her mind off that kiss and onto more important matters.
They weren’t returning to the apartment in case the bad guys knew where she lived. Instead, Ethan had booked them into a swanky hotel, owned by the Conclave—only the best for the Conclave—in the center of the city. She and Rose and Janelle were wearing the reflector devices—they’d been adapted from the original utilitarian design to something that was almostimpossible to detect unless you knew what you were looking for. But they would stop anything getting out of, or into, their heads.
Kaitlin would continue to wear hers at the hotel, but tomorrow she would venture out without it, while Rose and Janelle would keep theirs on. They didn’t want the bad guys to be aware of anyone but Kaitlin. She would wander around her usual haunts, looking temptingly alone and vulnerable, and hopefully someone would come along and try to grab her.
There was a good chance whoever that was would know no more than the hired thugs she had encountered on New Year’s Eve, who knew nothing of any use. But if that was the case, they would somehow convince them into contacting whoever they worked for and set up the meet to hand Kaitlin over.
