Page 13 of Hunter

“Where should we put him—in a cell?” the man asked. He was the one who had rabbit-punched Hunter as the others had held him.

“In his bedroom,” Kathryn jumped.

Emerson turned in her direction, his expression indicating he’d forgotten she was on the scene.

“Are you afraid of an unconscious man?” she asked in as detached a voice as she could manage.

“He’ll come around in a couple of hours,” Reid said. “Then we’ll have a bleeping mess on our hands.”

“If you’re afraid to deal with the consequences, I can be there to manage him,” she answered, deliberately trying to use a word they would respect. “In fact, I was managing him very well until you came bursting into the room.”

The men ignored her, waiting for orders from Emerson. “Take him to his quarters,” he said.

“And don’t hit him again,” Kathryn added. “That’s counterproductive.”

“He needs to be knocked upside the head,” Reid growled.

“You’ve already done enough of that.”

“We weren’t having any trouble with him until you showed up,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

She turned and saw Chip McCourt watching her with interest.

“No trouble?” she asked, her voice edged with sarcasm. “Then why did you say—how did you delicately put it—that he’d beat the crap out of me if I got close to him?”

The man’s face darkened, and she realized her jangled nerves had resulted in another tactical error.

“We haven’t had an incident for a while,” he mumbled. “But you obviously triggered regressive behavior.”

“Maybe it was more mature behavior—in some private context of his own,” she countered.

“Oh, come on!”

“I’ll be better equipped to make judgments when I’m up to speed on his previous history,” she said, retreating into her role as newly hired psychologist. “Perhaps we should have a strategy session before he wakes up. Those who are working with him can fill me in on what I need to know, so I won’t make any mistakes.”

McCourt’s expression told her he thought she’d already made plenty of mistakes.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Emerson agreed. He turned to McCourt. “Be in my office in half an hour. You and the rest of the senior staff. Winslow, Kolb, Swinton.” He paused for a moment. “And Anderson.”

“Yes, sir.” McCourt wheeled and left the room.

Emerson strode back into the gym.

Kathryn followed him to the car, still haunted by the mixture of anger and anguish in Hunter’s eyes—and by the cryptic statement he’d made just before the security men had grabbed him.

He’d told her the two of them were tied together. But he was too striking, too remarkable for her to have met him before and forgotten him. It made more sense to assume that he had dredged up a half-buried memory and inserted her into it as part of a defense mechanism to cope with a situation any sane person would find untenable. Yet even as she struggled for an explanation, she felt the truth of his words deep inside herself, as sure as the pounding of her heart and the blood rushing through her veins. Perhaps they hadn’t laid eyes on each other before today, but something remarkable had happened between them.

She sensed he’d told her things—private things—he had never shared with anyone else. He would have told her more, except that the cavalry had charged into the room, and he’d thought she’d abused his trust. Unfortunately, there was a grain of truth to his assumption. The Chief of Operations had been using her to make Hunter relax his defenses—so he could bring in the riot troops.

The car started, and she swung her head toward the window, feigning a deep interest in the red-brick buildings when what she really wanted to do was round on Emerson and shout out her outrage and frustration. Instead, she kept her lips pressed together. No more avoidable errors, she warned herself. No emotional outbursts. She had to stay cool and figure out how to work within the system that had been established here if she was going to help Hunter. And she was going to help him, she silently promised herself, because in her professional career, she’d never seen anything that disturbed her as much as what they’d just done to him.

Was he really being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment as part of an official U.S. Government project? It was hard to believe, yet she had to assume from her own observations that it was true. The man was being abused physically and mentally. What if she could gather enough information to write up a report that would close down Stratford Creek? Though the plan had appeal, it would be risky—both to herself and Hunter—she suspected.

She worried her lower lip between her teeth, acknowledging the all too familiar symptoms in herself. She was getting involved again—opening herself to the depths of someone else’s pain. But this time was different, she realized. It was stronger, sharper, suffused with a sense of urgency she’d never felt before. She had never met a man quite like Hunter and never been affected on quite such a personal level.

Bill Emerson’s voice pierced her thoughts.

“You’ve been through quite an ordeal,” he said, and she knew that while he’d been driving, he’d been covertly observing the play of emotions on her face.

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