“You ought to know. You’ve been hiding out there since you escaped from Serenity Gardens.”
It wasn’t just unnerving to realize that he knew so much about her—it was annoying. A short time ago she had been on the verge of panic. Now she was having to work to control her temper. Such emotional volatility was unusual for her. It just went to show how high her stress levels were.
“You can drop me off at any of the big casinos,” she said, trying for a cool, casual edge. “I’ll take a cab from there.”
“If you’re thinking of going back to that rental at 121 Fireview Lane in the Dark Zone, forget it. That would be a really dumb thing to do.”
She went cold. “You know where I live.”
“Yes, and now, thanks to me, so do Dunstan Kelbrook and his fixer.”
“You’re working for Kelbrook?” she whispered, stunned.
“Not any longer. I got played. Although, in my own defense, there’s a high probability that you would have been found in the next couple of months, even without my assistance. The people looking for you have a lot of serious resources.”
He was treating her like an impulsive runaway who didn’t know how to survive on the streets. She had escaped a locked ward and lived under a new identity for seven months, damn it. She had friends and grateful clients who had connections. She was not an amateur.
“I left Serenity Gardens months ago. Why are people suddenly looking for me now?”
“The situation has changed. Until recently, the head of Serenity Gardens failed to inform Dunstan Kelbrook that you had escaped three months after you were committed.”
“I knew it.” She tightened her grip on the strap of the pack. “That creep Webber sat back and collected the money Kelbrook paid him to keep medrugged and conveniently out of sight.” She paused before adding, “No one ever came to visit me, so no one except the staff knew I was missing.”
Owen gave her a quick, sharp glance. She realized she might have sounded a bit wistful. She really had to get control of her emotions.
“No one came to visit you,” he said, “because Webber wouldn’t allow it. The official line was that visitors would upset your therapy.”
“Oh.” That made her feel better, she realized. “How did you find me?”
“I specialize in the genetic inheritance patterns of paranormal talents. I followed the bloodline.”
“What bloodline? You couldn’t possibly have found me in an ancestry database. I’m not registered with any. There’s no record of my birth or my biological parents. I was handed over to a privately run orphanage immediately after I was born.”
“I know,” he said. “And when you began to come into your talent at the age of twelve, the director of the orphanage arranged for you to attend the Ballantine Academy as a year-round boarding student.”
“She felt I was a potential danger to the other girls in the orphanage because of the nature of my talent,” Alice said. “She did what she thought was best for everyone involved, including me.”
She worked hard to keep her tone as calm and positive as possible. She thought she did a middling job of it, but there may have been a slight wobble. Memories of that fateful day in the director’s office flickered in the dark. As it turned out, the move to the Ballantine campus was the best thing that could have happened to her, but there had been no way to know that at the time. The only thing that had been starkly clear as she stood in front of the director’s desk was that she was being given away for the second time in her life.
“The director was right,” she added quickly. “It just took me a while to realize it. I was only twelve, you see. I had not yet begun to learn how to achieve control and harmonic balance.”
“In other words, you cried a lot.”
“Only at the beginning.” She blinked away the memories and smiled. “Cadence Ballantine and her Academy gave me a home.”
Under the benevolent guidance of Cadence Ballantine and the dedicated staff, she had not only received an excellent education, she had found a community. She had learned to master her powerful but sometimes disturbing psychic senses and use them in a positive way. Well, mostly positive. Exceptions to every rule and all that. The Core Principles were not opposed to the concept of self-defense.
After graduation she had become an instructor on the staff. She had loved the school, the students, and her colleagues. Most of all, she had adored Cadence Ballantine. She had envisioned living on the campus for the rest of her life, filling her days with her studies and teaching, gardening, art, and, most importantly, applying her talent in a positive way. She had even been contemplating marriage and a family.
But the elegantly balanced, harmonic vision of her future had been shattered eighteen months earlier when the beloved founder of the Ballantine Academy died. It wasn’t long before it came to light that, while she was a noble, brilliant, compassionate teacher and para-psychiatrist, Cadence Ballantine had not been skilled when it came to managing the school’s finances.
The creditors had swept in immediately after the funeral and proceeded to sell off everything from the desks to the light fixtures, and then they had sold the entire campus—lush walled gardens, graceful cloisters, serene fountains—to a tech company. The firm had vowed to maintain the original buildings and landscaping, declaring the campus an important architectural landmark. That promise had lasted approximately twenty-four hours after the papers were signed. The campus was now a collection of glossy mag-steel-and-glass buildings and parking lots.
“You were fortunate,” Owen said. “A lot of kids in your situation would have ended up in an institution because they couldn’t handle a high-rez talent.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciateyour sense of responsibility. Very impressive. And I’m grateful for the rescue tonight. But I think it would be best if, once we’re away from the coast, you dropped me off at the nearest town. I can take care of myself from now on.”
“Yeah? How do you intend to do that?”
