Illicit Senses (Illicit Minds Book 1) Read online

  “Oh.” Why had she gotten so defensive without cause? The last time she’d cared what people thought about how she lived, she’d been a teenager.

  “We have to turn off our electrical equipment because there are lots of juveniles running around the institutions with their powers not under control. One of them could accidentally blow up an active coffee maker and then we have a fire on our hands. I don’t know how people behave out here. So I’m asking you—should she have turned it off?”

  “I really have no idea. I think most people try to turn things off, unplug them. It saves money on the electric bill and saves energy, which is good for the environment.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “So Loretta is Jeremy’s nanny. She lives in a building owned by your grandfather. She’s on leave, waiting for Jeremy to be returned home and has told no one what has happened, or else by now it would have leaked to the media. Her bed is unmade—I just checked—the fridge is stocked, and the coffee maker is on.”

  Addison’s heart pounded hard. “You think she ran out of here fast.”

  “I do. I think when we go back downstairs, we’re going to discover from the guard that she ran out of here a few moments before we arrived.”

  “How could she know we were coming? We parked eight blocks away.”

  “Addison.” Whenever he said her name it sounded so much nicer than the way anyone else said it. “I just don’t know how insidious this whole conspiracy is. The light is out over the neighbor’s doorway next door. Extreme uses of power by Conditioned people or sudden bursts have been known to shatter light bulbs. I need to do a reading in here and see if I can find Loretta, or even Jeremy, since you said at one point he was here.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t like this one bit. Loretta had been Jeremy’s nanny. She had trusted the woman to be with him when she couldn’t. They had done extensive background checks. Hell, once a week they had gotten coffee together and talked about reality TV dancing competitions.

  “I’m going to be very exposed while I’m in dark space, even though I’m only doing a shallow reading. I won’t hear anyone coming or going. If anyone approaches, like say Loretta returning home, shake me very hard or shout. I’m not concerned so much about me, as I am about leaving you unguarded.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Even though the thought that Spencer wanted to protect her made her warm somewhere deep in her soul—somewhere that she’d thought would be cold forever—she didn’t want him to think she was incompetent.

  “I know you can, but I’m not going to get into the habit of having women injured on my watch.”

  Priscilla. He was talking about her. The part that had started to warm cooled off again. It wouldn’t do for Spencer to be around another woman who got hurt. Why had she thought it had anything to do with her? He didn’t care about her or any of this. It was all a job to him. If she was honest, he’d probably been instructed to flirt with her to gain favor with Wade Corporation. It burned her insides to realize she was so easily manipulated.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “Nothing. Do your thing. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Addison.” The way he said her name made her heart flutter. He stepped forward and grabbed the back of her head in his large hand. With surprising gentleness, he squeezed. “We’ll find him.”

  He thought she was upset because of Jeremy. She closed her eyes in shame. That was what she should have been focused on. Why couldn’t she keep her mind on the end game? Forcing her lids open, she stared into his blue, swirling depths.

  “There they go again. Your pupils are floating in seas of blue, gray, and green.”

  “That’s impossible. I’m not picking up any psychic senses right now. Are you sure you’re not just imagining it?”

  That was the second time he’d accused her of having an overactive imagination. “Trust me. They swirl.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” He took a step backward and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were pitch-black.

  “If you’re so out of it that you won’t hear anyone coming, how come you can talk to me?”

  “Right now I can. The longer I stay in here, the harder that gets.”

  If it was anything like dreaming, she could understand that. It was always easier to be woken earlier in the night. “What’s it like?”

  Spencer moved slowly around the room. His expression blank and removed, his eyes pitch black, he looked like a reflection of himself. The body was there but the soul had gone somewhere else. Addison shivered at the thought.

  “It’s impossible for me to describe it to you as anything other than dark space. Everything exists here, but life becomes a shadowed version of itself. It is, but it isn’t, and I know that doesn’t make much sense. The only things that are real are the essences we leave behind. Our permanent signatures.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going now. I will be farther inside, and it will be harder for me to speak. No Jeremy yet.”

  “Spencer.” Her voice cracked when she said his name. She hadn’t even known she was holding back so much emotion.

  “Yes, Addy?”

  At the use of her childhood nickname, she nearly stopped breathing. No one had called her that in years, yet the sound of it didn’t come off as foreign on his tongue. She shook her head to bring back her attention, as she was rapidly losing time before he wouldn’t be able to talk.

  “Don’t get lost in there. Don’t go too deep. Come back.”

  The blank expression left his mouth and was replaced for the briefest of seconds with a half-smile. “No worries. I’m good at this.”

  He stood still, seemingly staring out into nothingness. She pushed away her fear as she walked farther into the kitchen and leaned against the bluish-gray countertop. It was pathetic that she felt uncomfortably alone even though Spencer was in the room with her.

  There was so much to consider, so many ideas taking shape in her head. First Jeremy had gone missing. Now she knew that he had been erased on the psychic plane that only a few people could see. Her nephew had never shown even the smallest sign of the Condition, as far as she could tell. But then her own weirdness, which she tried so hard to hide, was so unpredictable. It had been four years since she’d had any issue with it, but since Jeremy had gone missing, it had been a problem nearly every day to control it.

  She ran her hands through her hair and finally gave in and closed her eyes, momentarily stopping her fight against the migraine that wanted to form in the space between her eyes.

  “Not one trace of him, and I went as deep as I could go without a guide back.”

  Addison reluctantly opened her lids to stare at him. “I’m not surprised. Everything is so odd. First Jeremy, now Loretta.”

  “I think it’s worse than that.”

  She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. “What is?”

  “There’s no trace of Loretta here either.”

  “So whoever has them has erased her, too?”

  “No.” Spencer took a step forward and reached out to grasp her arm. He pulled her forward against his chest. She gasped as she smashed against his hard body. “Relax. You look like you’re going to fall over.”

  Like her skin might absorb sun tan lotion, her pores seemed to be sucking in the maleness that was Spencer. “I’m getting a migraine.”

  “I hear those are brutal. Let’s get you home.”

  “Tell me what you meant first. Whoever has them didn’t erase them?”

  “Loretta did the erasing.”

  She pulled her head back and stared up at his face, straining her neck as she did so. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “The psychic plane is buzzing in here, like someone just did some hardcore work on it.”

  “Someone could have come in here and grabbed her and done the erasing. It didn’t have to be her.” No. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t. There was no way her instincts and the background checks on Loretta could have been so wrong
. Damn it, she had chosen her to be Jeremy’s caregiver. No one else had had anything to do with that decision; it had been hers alone. That made her solely responsible for this. It wasn’t possible.

  “If your pulse picks up any more, your head is going to explode from the pressure.”

  Realizing she was still in his embrace—and why had he done that to begin with? Why had she let him?—she pulled away and started to pace. It was either that or let him see her lose it, which might make her Condition appear, and then she’d be done for. Spencer would probably love hauling her in to an institute. William Rhodes would hold a press conference informing everyone of her years of deception. Her grandfather would disown her.

  “Addison, calm down. You’re going to pass out. Let me explain.”

  “Please do. How can you possibly imagine Loretta is behind this?”

  “I’m not imagining anything. Look around. You’re extremely bright. Do you see any signs of a struggle in here? Anything that would indicate to you that someone was abducted?”

  Everything was in order. She sighed. “Let me see if I can follow your train of thought here. Loretta comes to work for us. She isn’t who she seems to be. In fact, she wants to kidnap Jeremy.”

  “Or she works for someone who wants to.”

  “Okay.” She tried to steady herself. Through willpower alone, she managed to stop pacing. “For some unknown reason either Loretta, or someone she works for, wanted to kidnap Jeremy, so she came to work for us. Loretta has this ability to erase herself on the psychic plane. Why not take him right away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she was waiting for official orders to do so. Maybe they were waiting to see if they needed to. Despite my feeble attempt at this, I’m really not a detective. I’m Conditioned, remember?”

  “How could I forget with you constantly reminding me?” She didn’t care if she sounded snippy. The fact that Spencer’s eyes showed amusement instead of anger did nothing to cool the inferno raging inside her. Her head pounded, she was starving from having eaten no dinner, she’d just been given a blow to the heart because it looked like Loretta had betrayed them, and he wanted to play the Conditioned card again?

  “Why take Jeremy? Why not go after Grandfather or me? They haven’t even asked us for any money.”

  “Then it’s not money they want.”

  “What could they possibly want from Jeremy?” She heard herself shout after she’d already done it. She wasn’t a child. Why was she losing it?

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  She stomped forward and pushed against his chest with both hands. It didn’t budge him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not an idiot, Addison. Whatever you’re hiding is completely related to this. That’s why you look like you want to die whenever I bring it up.”

  “No.” She hated even to admit she was hiding anything at all, but denial was getting pointless. “It’s my secret, and it has nothing to do with Jeremy at all.”

  He exhaled like he was searching for patience, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to deck him or kiss him. Wow, he was making her crazy.

  “If you say so.”

  Deck him. That was the decision. Only she’d never hit anyone in her life and Spencer Lewis would probably not be a good start.

  “Here’s what I think happened.” As he spoke, he moved to the center of the living room. “Loretta takes Jeremy. She’s then tipped off that we’re on our way over here. She cleans the room, using so much energy she blows out the light across the hall when she’s on her way out, and rushes downstairs, getting away before we can get to her.”

  It felt right. Even though everything she thought she knew about Loretta protested it, in her gut, it felt correct. Damn. “I should have just asked the guard if she’d left before we came upstairs.”

  Spencer shook his head. “I would have wanted to come up anyway and look around.” He paused. “You like her.” He didn’t phrase that as a question, and she appreciated that. “You trusted her, and this is hard for you.”

  “Liked. If she did this, we will put that word in the past tense. If she did this, I want her dead.”

  The depth of her feelings on the subject didn’t surprise her, but saying them out loud for the first time felt strange: freeing, but odd nonetheless.

  “You just sounded like your grandfather.”

  “Have you spent a lot of time with him to know what he sounds like?”

  She needed to get out of this apartment. Out of the space where the woman who had most likely betrayed them had lived on the Wade’s dime. Storming toward the door, she didn’t spare a backward glance for Spencer.

  Her anger fueled her forward. Spencer could keep up or not—at that moment she really didn’t care. She pressed the elevator button as she heard him shut Loretta’s apartment door behind him. She felt the need to move more than ever before in her life, and she rocked back and forth from her heels to her toes while she waited for the elevator to travel to the top floor.

  “Someone tipped her off that we were coming.” The man had no sense of when he should just not speak.

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t say another word about it until we get downstairs and I can confirm this with the guard.”

  “How will you kill her? Will you do it yourself or pay someone else to do it?”

  She whirled around and shoved him with all her strength. He grabbed her arms and pushed her up against the hallway wall.

  Breathing heavily, he looked down at her. “Shove me again, and next time I’ll kiss you for it.”

  Her traitorous body came alive at the thought. Wetness pooled in her core.

  “Why, Spencer, do you like it that way? Hard and abusive?”

  “Trust me, Addison, with that look in your eye, I can tell you wouldn’t complain about anything we did together.”

  Damn him for knowing that.

  “Let go.” Even as she said it, she wasn’t sure she meant it.

  “Or what? You’ll get your grandfather to call the Fury?”

  “I still need you to find Jeremy. You let go or I’ll knee you in the groin.” Just to demonstrate how serious she was, she adjusted her leg just a smidgen closer to his private parts.

  Raising a blond eyebrow, he seemed to get the message, and he released her arms. “You fight dirty.”

  “I’m a Wade. You can make it sound like a bad word if you want to. It doesn’t change the fact that I was born to head one of the largest companies in the world. I’ve trained for it, planned for it, and dreamed of it for years. Now someone has come along and taken the one person on this planet who means more to me than all that time and training. If I want to indulge in a little death-wishing, that’s my business, and you don’t get to judge me for it.” Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.

  The elevator opened, and she stormed in. She jabbed the button for the lobby as Spencer stepped in beside her.

  “You’re getting into the habit of assuming that I’m judging you or thinking ill of you in some way. First the whole bit about the coffee pot and now the death threat. What makes you think I don’t want her dead? She took your nephew. He’s a child. The same age I was when I tried to run for my life to escape the Fury and failed. Your nephew has to be out-of-his mind afraid. Maybe it makes me a bad person—I’m already doomed for Hell—but I was more concerned with the method, not the motive.”

  In a million years, she wouldn’t have expected him to say that. Turning to stare at the hard lines of his profile, she smiled. “I wouldn’t have kneed you in the groin.”

  “Yes, you would have, and I have to say, I kind of like that about you.”

  Nine

  Spencer leaned against a pillar in the lobby and watched Addison’s face as she got the news he’d known she would. In this case, he was conflicted over how he felt about being right. On one hand, knowing now that Loretta was, at the very least, involved in Jeremy’s disappearance would be helpful. He
hoped she hadn’t had time to hide her energy everywhere she went, so if they could find it somewhere, they could trace her instead of Jeremy, and perhaps be led to the boy.

  However, it pained him more than he cared to admit to watch Addison suffer a betrayal. Who did she have in her life that she could count on? The question made him sad, and he looked down at the floor so as not to give away his mood. Even he, who spent a great deal of time unable to travel freely, had friends who amounted to family. Who did Addison Wade have to call in the middle of the night when life was too much to handle? Her grandfather? Where was the son of a bitch? He should have been helping her with this, not staying at the office to work late.

  Or maybe nine o’ clock wasn’t late for him. Maybe she never saw him at all.

  That was even more depressing.

  As she walked toward him, her spine stiff, her eyes hidden away in the mask she wore, he realized he wasn’t done hurting her yet. His insides went cold at the thought.

  He took her hand. She gave him a questioning look he couldn’t answer, because normally he wasn’t really a touchy-feely kind of guy. But he wanted to hold it, so he did. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, within the constraints of the system that had kept him jailed for the majority of his life.

  They walked out into the dark night, and she shivered from the onslaught of rain and cold air.

  “Here.” Pulling off his coat, he wrapped it around her.

  “No. You’ll be cold.”

  “I don’t really mind. I like the feel of it. Somehow, the sensation reminds me I’m alive.” He smiled at the skeptical look in her eyes. “Besides, I’ll have eternity in Hell to feel the heat.”

  “You say that like you’re joking, but I’m starting to suspect you believe it a little bit.”

  “Don’t you?” He was baiting her, and he knew it, but he wanted to hear her response.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a religious scholar. I have no idea who’s going to Heaven or Hell, but I can’t believe that someone who spends all his time helping other people is going to burn in Hell.”

  He’d never heard a non-Conditioned person speak like that before. They either avoided the subject or condemned him to Hell. Maybe there was hope for the universe if someone as well-known as Addison Wade thought he had a chance for salvation.