Illicit Senses (Illicit Minds Book 1) Read online

  Addison wished she could close her eyes and disappear. An ache started in her chest. He sounded so removed, like the whole thing didn’t matter to him, but she could hear, could feel it. He was hurt. He’d let his guard down with her, something she’d all but forced him to do by reprimanding him in the hall, and Aunt Morgan had just slammed into him like a freight train.

  “It’s two doors down on the left.” He started to the door.

  “You can’t let it wander around the house by itself, Addison.”

  She had always loved her aunt. The woman was remote, spacey, and childlike. She had never married, never wanted children, but she’d doted on Addison and adored Addison’s parents. Jeremy was like her plaything; she treated him like you might treat a puppy. Right now, Addison wanted nothing more than to hit her in the face.

  Clearing her throat, she stared at her aunt as Spencer walked down the hall. “First of all, I think that starting immediately you will cease referring to Mr. Lewis as ‘it’ and begin calling him ‘he,’ which he obviously is.”

  “I can’t help it, Addy. He’s not human, not really. That’s why they’re locked away.”

  Addison wished she could die. If ever there was an answer to the question that plagued her about how her family would treat her if they knew about her own oddities, it was right there. No wonder her father had worked so hard to teach her control.

  “He is human, and he is here doing us a favor. I insist that you treat him with respect while he’s in this house or working for us. If you feel you cannot do that, I will book the plane to take you to Grand Cayman right now.”

  Her aunt huffed, her cheeks puffing quickly in and out. “Well, I…”

  “In fact, I think that’s an excellent idea. I’m going to call Kristof right now.” Addison walked into the hall and picked up her cell phone. She called her assistant and instructed him to make the arrangements to send Morgan away. Ten minutes later he’d called back to tell her it had been done. Her aunt would return to her island home in the Caribbean and remain there for the foreseeable future. That was exactly what she’d wanted.

  She’d never given very much thought to prejudice against the aberration; she’d been too busy trying to hide her own oddities. But now, with prejudice facing her in her own home, she was absolutely humiliated. Spencer must think…

  Oh, she couldn’t bear to think what Spencer must think. She closed her eyes and took a deep steadying breath. Opening them, she turned on her heel and headed down the hall to the guest room. She tapped lightly on the door, which flew open almost immediately. Startled, she jumped back a step.

  Spencer raised an eyebrow, his eyes still dead to emotion. He turned around and picked up a pair of sunglasses he’d pulled out of the small bag he’d brought with him. Gregory must have brought it inside. She never thought of small details like that, they were just done for her, and for some reason at that precise moment, it bothered her to think that.

  Without comment, he covered his eyes with the dark glasses and stepped out into the hall.

  “Would you like me to continue, Ms. Wade?”

  He wasn’t calling her Addison. The sound of the syllables “Ms. Wade” had never sounded so remote and unfeeling; it made her want to vomit. They’d been at each other’s throats the whole car ride home and had only been civil for minutes, but somehow he’d come to mean something to her. This stranger about whom she knew so little had plowed past her defenses. The fact that he’d pulled away so quickly had left a hole that she would have to find a way to fill again.

  “Spencer.” She just couldn’t bring herself to call him Mr. Lewis again. “I’m so sorry about my aunt. She’s always been sort of simple, and I’m afraid that the stress of all this, of Jeremy being taken, has pushed her over the proverbial edge of the cliff, as they say.”

  “Ms. Wade, you certainly don’t owe me an explanation. I’m not a citizen; I don’t have rights. I’m here to perform a function because my handler, William Rhodes, gave me this job. I will do it, and then you will return me to where I belong.”

  He moved past her and stopped abruptly. His back stiff, he didn’t continue forward. “Do I have your permission to reenter Jeremy’s room?”

  She nodded before she realized he couldn’t see it because his back was turned.

  “You can go anywhere in the house you’d like.”

  “Then I guess I won’t have to ask your permission to use the bathroom.” On that note, he turned the corner into Jeremy’s bedroom.

  After taking a moment to try to regain her equilibrium, she followed him in. He still wore the glasses as he stared down at the bed. She felt bereft at not being able to see his eyes.

  “Why are you wearing shades?”

  “To spare you the unseemly view of my non-human eyes while I go into dark space.”

  “You’ve used that phrase before—dark space. So did Rhodes. What does it mean?” Better to ask him that than tell him to take off the glasses so she could gaze into his baby-blues. Or to beg his forgiveness for the behavior of her family. Neither of those options would do her much good. Besides, it wasn’t in her nature to ask for forgiveness. She’d removed her aunt from the premises; it would have to be enough.

  “Where I go, when I go to the ‘other,’ the place only I can see that lets me read energies and see things that have happened, isn’t a real place. Well, it’s real to me. It’s like I’m here, but I’m not. I can see this room, I can see you, I can see this bed, but it’s permeated by darkness. Dark clouds, dark sounds, crystal stars bouncing off things. None of it is solid. The deeper I go into the darkness, the more accurate my predictions can be. Most people who can do what I do have to keep a little light around them. You can go mad without it. The sensation that you’ll never see the light of the sun again hits you very hard and very quickly.”

  He shrugged. “I have very little fear, and I’ve always been able to go deeper, push farther than anyone else. Priscilla could go into the same spots as me, but she couldn’t see anything. She could feel things, with instincts that told her if something was dangerous. She could also tell if I was going too far and guide me back to here, back to reality.”

  Addison swallowed. She knew what he meant about feeling that things were dangerous. That was what had made her check on Jeremy at one in the morning. All day she’d just had the feeling that something was wrong, that something was going to happen to the child. Compelled to investigate, she’d gotten up and checked on him every hour from nine o’clock on. After one, she’d convinced herself she was cracking up and had taken a pill to go to sleep. That had been her biggest mistake. If she’d trusted herself… Well, she couldn’t go there.

  “So you’re going to do that now. Go into dark space, but not as deep as you would have gone in if Priscilla were still alive.”

  Spencer ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “If you’ll be quiet, Ms. Wade, and let me work.”

  “By all means.”

  She walked to the window and pretended to look down at the street. The desire to stare at him while he went to that other place threatened to overwhelm her.

  The skin on her arms tingled as every hair on her body stood straight up.

  “This is Jeremy’s room?” Spencer’s voice behind her startled her, and she whirled around.

  “Yes, I’ve already told you that.”

  “Doesn’t feel like Jeremy’s room. The only energy I see here is yours.”

  What? “I’ve been sleeping here since he was taken.”

  “I can see that. You’re all over the bed.”

  “What do you mean, I’m all over the bed?”

  “Your particular energy is all over the bed.”

  “How can you tell?”

  He exhaled. “Look, it’s complicated. It’s like taste. You can taste a glass of wine and suddenly you can remember where you were the last time you drank it. You might even remember what you ate, where you sat, who you were there with, what the weather was like.”

  “It’s
sense memory. I get that. I took acting classes in college.” It had been a disaster, but she remembered the concept.

  “I know your particular energy. I’ve spent time with you. My senses have digested the essence that is you, and I can see you on the bed.” He turned and faced the left side of the room. He pointed at the door that joined her room and Jeremy’s. “And through there. Is that your bedroom?”

  “That’s right.”

  He nodded. “You permeate through the bottom of the door.”

  “Is it just that Jeremy has been gone a month, so his essence has vanished from here?”

  “No.” Spencer shook his head. “I’ve been places where people have been gone for years and their essence is still there. Damn it. It’s like someone has wiped him from the room.”

  “Psychically wiped his energy? That’s possible?”

  Spencer swore and ripped his sunglasses off his eyes. As Addison watched, his eyes turned from black to blue in a matter of seconds. This time she didn’t gasp but was transfixed by it. “I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve seen just about everything. Someone would have to have that particular talent—or sin, as your aunt would put it.”

  “Let’s stay focused.” Addison didn’t need any reminders of the damage Morgan had done earlier. “Someone with the talent to psychically remove Jeremy’s energy from the room kidnapped him.”

  “At least to the point where I can’t see him in such a shallow read.” He swore again.

  “If you could go deeper, could you tell?”

  “I have no way of knowing. I pushed a little farther than I should have just to see if it was there. It would take a real deep read to know for sure, and I can’t do that. That far in without an anchor, and I wouldn’t come back. I wouldn’t be able to communicate with you about what I found anyway.”

  “And without Jeremy’s essence, you can’t go any further.”

  He smiled and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “You catch on quickly, Ms. Wade. Most people aren’t at all interested in the logistics of what I do.”

  “What do we do now?” Her heart pounded hard. She placed her hand on her chest, hoping that she could will it to slow down. Truthfully, she’d counted on Spencer being able to help them. She’d risked everything on the idea that he could.

  Spencer took a step toward her and stopped. “There are two things we can do. The first I’ll do.” He shook his head. “With your permission, of course, I’ll call Rhodes and see if he’s ever heard of an aberrant with the power to erase people on the psychic plane.”

  Addison felt some of the tension in her shoulders leave. There was still a chance this might work. “Oh. Okay. Rhodes must have a database, right? Or the council does? Of all the various powers people have and how they manifest themselves.”

  “No, he’s always refused to complete a database. It’s one of the few things he’s denied the council over the years. It would give them too much information about us. He tries, when he can, to protect us. However, if there’s anyone who would know, it’s him. Then you’re going to take me to Jeremy’s school, the playground, wherever he goes, and I’ll see if I can find him there.”

  She looked at the clock. “It’s too late tonight to go to his school.”

  Spencer ran a hand through his blond hair and blew out a breath. “You’re right. I get a little carried away when I’m on a chase. Okay, tomorrow morning, first thing. I’ll call Rhodes now then go to bed.” He started to move in the direction of the door and stopped. “If I have your permission.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she felt her blood start to boil. “Stop doing that. Of course, you can use the phone. You don’t have to ask. Cut the crap with the permission bullshit. You’re not really asking. You’re just trying to piss me off by reminding me that you have to, as if I personally imposed these rules on you. Reminder, Spencer, I wasn’t born when these laws were enacted. I didn’t create these problems.”

  “You’re not afraid I’ll make hundreds of dollars’ worth of long-distance phone calls on your dime?”

  That was so not the reaction she’d expected from him. His face was passive, no expression readable, not even a twinkle in his eye so she could see whether he was kidding.

  “I think we can afford it.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Spencer, wait.”

  Halting, he turned, his expression smoldering. Addison forgot to breathe. She had no idea why she’d stopped him. It had just felt like she couldn’t let him leave just yet.

  “What is it, Ms. Wade?”

  “Aren’t you hungry? We could have dinner.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You cook? Or you have someone here to do that for you?”

  “Neither, actually. Jeremy’s nanny cooks for him. Grandfather and I usually eat at our desks at the office. Um, we could go out.”

  Spencer stalked forward. “Nanny?”

  “Loretta Farris. She’s been so distraught since Jeremy went missing that she’s holed up in her house. She won’t see anyone.”

  “Take me there right now.”

  There went dinner. “Why do you want to see Loretta? She wasn’t here when he was taken. She only works days.”

  “Because I can’t find her energy in here either. Someone erased her as well. That means she’s either in big trouble, or she’s someone Jeremy’s kidnapper doesn’t want us to find.”

  Seven

  Spencer had never been to Brooklyn before. He looked out of the window of the Wade town car and watched the buildings, mostly smaller than their counterparts in Manhattan, pass by. They crossed over the Williamsburg Bridge into the new borough, and Spencer closed the window to keep the rain that had just started from getting into the car. As Addison explained about the gentrification of Williamsburg, Spencer tried to make sense of all the things that had happened in the previous twenty-four hours.

  Well, almost all the things that had happened. If he stewed over the events in Jeremy’s bedroom with Addison’s Aunt Morgan, he’d get pissed off again. Really, what the hell had he expected? That Addison would jump to his defense and tell the woman to go where the sun didn’t shine?

  In all honesty, that had been what he’d wanted. As a rule, he didn’t get involved with women outside the institutions. A certain kind of woman liked to have sex with men she considered “bad” or “naughty.” Men with the Condition automatically fell into those categories. Spencer had never found that particular type of woman attractive, and preferred to interact with women who didn’t see him as some sort of life experience they could later tell their friends about over drinks.

  Or write about on internet chat boards.

  For a moment, with Addison in the hallway, he’d decided to throw away that rule. Why not see if it was possible to meet a high-quality person outside the walls of Safe Dawn or one of the other institutions? There were always stories of such relationships working. Cinderella tales in which a Conditioned person met someone from the outside and ran away to happily ever after. Spencer had never bought that. The Fury would never let anyone have that fairytale ending. Not a freak from Satan, anyway.

  He grinned despite his bad mood. In that story, he would be the Cinderella character. Spencer found that vaguely amusing.

  “What are you thinking? It must be more pleasant than what I’m dwelling on.” Addison’s slightly husky voice caught his attention, and his mirth faded. There was no way in hell he was telling her.

  Although he’d just closed it earlier, he lowered it again to get a little fresh air, he hoped she’d let him change the subject as easily as she let him mess with the opening and closing of the car window. “What are you dwelling on?”

  “Jeremy, Loretta, that someone can wipe people’s energies from the psychic plane, and the fact that someone anticipated that I’d bring you in on this and went to the trouble of doing that to begin with.”

  “Loretta may be sitting in her living room calling in job prospects on the off-chance that she no longer has one.”

  H
er eyes flared with anger. He liked her that way, angry and full of spirit. Not beaten down and nearly defeated. Maybe that was why he kept baiting her.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe he was just a sick son of a bitch.

  “She doesn’t need another job; she will go back to taking care of Jeremy in no time. We have, of course, continued to pay her.”

  “Because if you stopped doing that, she might tell someone, and you’d have to address what happened to Jeremy. That would be bad for stock prices.”

  She looked away but recaptured his gaze seconds later. “The second you tell me you can’t find him, Spencer, I’m going to the press.”

  He liked hearing that. She’d defied her grandfather to bring him in, and she was willing to go even further. “Aren’t you worried about the devaluation of the company?”

  “I suppose I should be.” She rubbed the back of her neck like it ached, and he resisted the urge to give her an impromptu massage. “I worry about the people who work for us, about them losing their jobs if Wade went under. However, I find the possibility of that occurrence based on a scandal about the Wade family very remote. Worst-case scenario, my grandfather is removed as CEO and Chairman of the Board. I lose my job. We’re still obscenely wealthy. Jeremy comes home. It’s a positive outcome. Best option, we get media attention, Jeremy is found, there’s a blip in stock prices, which recover quickly, and we all continue forward.”

  Spencer doubted any of it would be that simple. Whoever had orchestrated this whole thing had at his or her disposal the ability to remove someone’s existence from the psychic plane. He hated to agree with Oliver Wade, but going to the media might just infuriate them more. Not that he was going to tell Addison Wade what she should do. It wasn’t his place to comment on the decisions she made about Jeremy.