Page 61 of Baby Heal the Pain

CHAPTER 17

Samantha

Kessler and Bennethad arrived at the funeral home more than an hour ago, and they’d captured photos of everyone in attendance. We’d listened and watched as they’d walked up and down the church aisles, offering condolences to O’Dell’s family, then pretending they were looking for someone. Several people had squeezed Kessler’s hand or given her a hug as they’d told her how sorry they were for her loss. Once, when she and Bennet were far from everyone else, she’d whispered, “I hate this.” As TJ had said earlier, sometimes this job sucked, like today, when Kessler had to fake being the fiancée of a murdered young man.

Kessler and Bennet settled into a seat in the back pew. TJ announced to us that some of the borrowed logistics operatives had spotted latecomers approaching. As predicted, the ten—eight men and two women—entered the funeral home. Kessler and Bennet couldn’t snap photos of them without drawing undue attention to themselves. I didn’t like it. None of us liked it.

All the channels were quiet except for the occasional necessary comment, partly because of the ten potential Carbonados goons, but mostly because we were listening to Patrick O’Dell’s funeral and his mourners’ pain. I glanced at Evan. He squeezed my shoulder, then went back to focusing on one of several wall screens, the one showing the service. I’d learned something new about Evan in the past hour: he didn’t like to sit down while monitoring an operation. Then again, he was a field guy, so he probably rarely sat on this side of a mission.

“Hey man,” Jensen said to Evan, “you’re jacking up the tension, standing there.”

“Sorry,” Evan said, “but you’ll like it even less if I sit.” He moved to the far side of the room, though, to give Jensen space.

I enlarged the real-time readouts coming in from my team and keeping me up-to-date on the vitals. Probably totally unnecessary, given the low probability of danger today, but I wasn’t taking any chances with my team’s health. When I was sure the screen was large enough to see it from the back wall, a couple of yards away, I joined Evan and threaded my fingers through his.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said quietly to avoid breaking Jensen’s concentration.

Evan smiled and pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my fingertips. “You’d be fine without me, but I’m glad too.”

“You don’t have to whisper on my account,” Jensen said. “I’m used to listening to a dozen conversations at once.” He glanced back at us. “Do you think that’s why this feels so weird? It’s too quiet?”

The funeral home organ struck a powerful chord and we all jumped. When the chord developed into a hymn and the people at the funeral stood and moved toward the doors, we laughed nervously and sighed in relief.

Evan went still first, then took three long strides toward the screen. By that time, Jensen was tapping on his keyboard. “TJ, you seeing this?”

The source of their concern wasn’t apparent to me yet, but the combination of instinct and training drove me back to my medical monitoring screen. All the heart, respiration, and blood pressure rates were in the normal range except Li’s, which was preternaturally low but also the result of her sharpshooter training, and Bennet’s and Kessler’s. They were both elevated just beyond normal.

Voices began buzzing on our comms units. Kessler’s was one of them, but it was so muffled, I couldn’t make out her words. I glanced up at the screen Evan was watching so intently, and saw it. Kessler’s and Bennet’s cameras occasionally registered flashes of arms or torsos or areas of the room, but not faces. Between the flashes, the feeds were brownish black, like a blanket had been thrown over them. Or they’d been surrounded by people in dark suits.

“They’re surrounded,” TJ reported to the entire team. “Penn, get your people on the street snapping photos of each person as they leave the building.”

“Copy that,” Penn said.

“Alder,” TJ continued, “find the anomalies. No IDs for now, just confirm whether our ten ghosts have left.”

“Copy that,” Alder said.

“TJ,” I said, “their vitals are slightly elevated but stable. No sign of struggle or injury thus far.”

“Copy that, Bond. Sloane has reported the same thing.”

Sloane? I hadn’t heard him say a word. Did he not even deign to wear a comms unit in the field? That was one of X’s unbreakable rules. Then again, Sloane didn’t report up through X. His lords and masters were outside our agency. I checked the upper right corner of my screen, which told me how many people were accessing the team’s medical needs. One. And that was me. Sloane had no fucking idea how anyone’s vitals were.

My blood ran cold. I switched off my comms unit and grabbed Evan’s hand.

He knelt beside me. “Red, what is it?”

“Bond, you okay over there?” Jensen asked, knowing I was in distress without even looking my way while balancing the multiple communications now flying around.

“Are we on mute?” I whispered.

Jensen’s fingers continued to fly over the keyboard. Apparently one of them muted our mic in the room. “We are now. What’s up, Doc?”

While Jensen grinned at his own cleverness and continued focusing on a million things at once, Evan concentrated on me.

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” I said.

That got Jensen’s attention. He gave me a one-second glance. “Go on.”

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