Mitch refocused. Seth had diverted his search for information on the electronic chips used in the testing of both Cash’s son, Mateo, and Quaid to gather information from the employees of the Castle who hadn’t died in the explosion. “Where are you now?”
“Bishop, California,” he said. “A few of the people on my list have homes here. Neighbors tell me they commuted into Nevada to work, stayed there for weeks at a time before coming back again. But that’s not the weird part.”
“Can’t wait to hear this.” Mitch crossed one arm over his chest in preparation for more bizarre news. He could tell by the tone of Seth’s voice the guy was unnerved.
“The people,” Seth said. “They’re all gone. Not just the ones who worked at the Castle, but their families too. Spouses, kids, they’re all gone. Their homes are abandoned. The neighbors said they were there one day and gone the next.”
Mitch’s hand closed around his bicep, his mind going dark with the implications.
“Most of the houses are locked up, blinds drawn,” Seth continued. “But I found one with . . . a door ajar.”
“Right.” Mitch scoffed. “Dude, don’t go getting yourself in any more trouble than we’ve already made.”
“The houses are still mostly intact,” Seth went on with an uneasy urgency in his voice. “Like the people living there made a grab for essentials and bolted. It’s fucking eerie, man. And what’s even freakier—”
“Seth”—foreboding weighted Mitch’s gut—“you said one door was ajar—”
“Most of the houses have some kind of bloodstains.” Seth’s voice dropped, filled with fear and insinuation. “And I’m talking streaks, pools, dude, not a few drops. I’ve been to my share of accident scenes and suicides, have hauled dozens of gunshot and knifing victims to the hospital, and the amount of blood in these places . . . People don’t survive that kind of blood loss, man.”
Nothing but Seth’s breathing filled the line for a moment. Mitch’s shoulders were cold. He rubbed the back of his neck and found all the hair prickled on end.
“Any similarities between the employees missing? Did they all work in the same department? Did they all perform a certain job?”
“I’ve been focused on the lab employees. I figured the guards and those with military background would be less willing to talk.”
“Fuck.” Mitch closed his eyes. “Get the hell out of there, Seth. Go back to Alyssa and Teague’s. Whoever’s doing this will be watching for us. If they suspect you’ve figured out that much, you could be in a really nasty spot.”
“I’ve already checked out everyone who lived in Bishop. I’m on my way out of town. There’s one more guy I need to check out. A Chuck Torrent. His home here was one of the few undisturbed and without blood. But he’s got two other homes.”
“Seth,” Mitch argued. “You’re obviously not the only guy who’s going to be looking for him. I don’t need anything happening to you—”
“This Torrent guy was Abrute’s lab assistant. They own homes in the same place. Their wives are friends. If I find Torrent, I might find Abrute.”
Mitch hissed out a breath. If Seth could find Abrute, the man could be an absolute gold mine of information. “Promise me, Seth, you’ll get out at the first hint of trouble.”
“You don’t realize how much fun I’m having, do you?”
“You don’t realize how hellish the rest of my life would be if something happened to you, do you?”
Seth laughed, but the sound didn’t hold any of his natural, deep good humor. The others would tear him to pieces if something happened to Seth because Mitch sent him on a mission. “True. I wouldn’t wish their wrath on even you, buddy.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Las Vegas,” Seth said, “then Palm Springs.”
“Joe’s flying you?” Joe Marquez, a former Air Force pilot and client, had become a trusted friend.
“Marquez is the bomb, man. Can I keep him?”
“No, he’s mine.”
Seth laughed again. Lighter. “He’ll get a big head if he knew we were fighting over him.”
“He’s good, Seth, with things other than planes. Like weapons. And tactical shit. Smart, savvy. Make sure he backs you up.”
“Oh, man,” Seth whined like a kid who’d been called away from his friends for dinner. “He’s not the backup kind of guy. He’s going to take all my fun.”
“Not as fast as Ryder would,” Mitch said. “I mean it, Seth. I don’t like you being alone out there.”
“Heh,” he huffed a laugh. “I’ll take Marquez over Ryder any day.”
Mitch got a couple of promises out of Seth before they disconnected, but his mind remained steeped in trouble.
And he still had to face some very dark corners with Halina.
Mitch stood, stretched, and returned to his seat. Halina’s eyes were closed, but her hand moved on Dex’s head where the dog still had it settled on her thigh.
He sat, twisted the top off a beer, and drank half the bottle before he took a breath. Hopefully that would kick in soon. He’d wait until the alcohol took his edge off before he tackled Schaeffer’s tie with Classified in more depth.
“Tell me how your ability works.” This would be far easier to start with. “It would be nice to be able to use it to get ahead of Abernathy instead of reacting to him. And if you can see the future, why didn’t you know I was coming to Washington?”
Her eyes opened, and she looked as exhausted as he felt. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said with irritation tightening her voice. “I can’t just see the future. I get flashes of the futures of others, but only people I’m close to and never my own.
“Everyone thinks it would be great to be able to see the future, but it’s not. I’m tortured with things I don’t want to see, things I don’t want to know. Like a girl at work who’s got a cheating boyfriend, or the child of a neighbor having a terrible accident, or a lover contracting cancer—” She stopped and her eyes widened at the same time the words sank into Mitch’s brain. Fear sizzled along his spine as she clarified, “Not you.”
Relief trickled in. “Good to know.”
“I don’t know how or why they come and I don’t have any control over them. If I did, I’d make them stop.”
“Why did you separate friends from lovers? Do you see their futures differently?”
She leaned her elbow against the arm of the chair and rested her temple against her fingers. “I don’t like talking about this with you, and I don’t see how that matters.”
“It’s not a freaking day in the park for me, either, Hali, but we won’t know if or how it matters until we put it with all the other pieces of the puzzle.”
She hesitated. “With friends, the visions come after spending a great day together, or after bonding over something, like a shared experience. With lovers, they come after sex.”
Mitch’s gut clenched, like he’d been hit. Stupid. He knew she’d had sex. With other guys. Probably great guys. Probably guys who treated her a hell of a lot better than he had over the last fifteen hours. Probably guys who didn’t slam her up against the wall and fuck her until she begged them to make her come.
His body ignited. Mitch poured the rest of the beer down his throat to keep himself from catching fire. But that didn’t help a million questions from bombarding him.
“And I have two different kinds of visions,” she said. “I have the kind I had in the car last night—quick flashes of danger involving someone”—she looked away—“someone I care about, and longer complex visions I have with lovers after sex.”
“How did you handle the boyfriend with cancer?” he asked. “Did you tell him about your ability?”