Walker studied Ashley’s face, which even now was shut down with a contemplative expression. He knew that she wouldn’t share her thoughts with him right now, yet he wondered about somebody who had abilities to the extent that the government could possibly be trying to recruit her. How she felt about working for them again was a whole other story.

  She looked over at him and frowned. “Your thoughts are very heavy and hard and also very loud, so could you turn it down at least?”

  Startled, he winced. “Does that mean you can read my thoughts?”

  “It’s not so much reading, but you’re transmitting, and it would take far more inducement to get me to go back to that line of work.”

  “That doesn’t mean that somebody isn’t out there looking at raising the inducement to get you back.”

  “That possibility has been pointed out to me,” she noted. “In which case I would be very sorry for this young man, but that won’t happen.”

  “You also need to close the healing pipeline, so nobody else can come toward you, because, if Frank is a victim, every other potential person out there is one as well.”

  She got up, walked into the kitchen, and came back with two cups of coffee.

  Walker took his and looked outside for Calum, who was still busy on the phone, pacing back and forth, animatedly talking to someone. Presumably Terkel, but, since they had a whole team, and Calum himself had family, it was hard to say who it was.

  Walker watched Ashley sit back down again. “Look. I know you’re keeping secrets, and I know those secrets are important to you,” he began, his tone low, “but, if they’ll possibly hurt people, you may want to find a way to share them.”

  “Sharing them doesn’t help,” she stated starkly. “There is nothing of interest to you. Not that they’re secrets really, just nightmares.”

  “We all have nightmares,” he said, his tone simple and nonthreatening. “Sometimes it helps to share them, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “It doesn’t help me. I’ve tried. I keep hoping for peace and quiet, plus a way to walk away from all this. That’s why I don’t care about the healing aspect of others in lieu of sacrificing my own health and well-being, although I know …” Then she shrugged and stopped.

  “You know that your soul needs you to express your gifts in order to survive,” Walker stated. “Are you willing to let your soul fade away into nothing by not utilizing these skills?”

  She shot him a look, and he gave her a small smile. “It’s the same for me. It’s the same for Terkel. It’s the same for Calum. Everybody has abilities, but, if we don’t use them in some way or another to the benefit of humanity, we’ll shrivel up inside, and our life will become a shell of an existence—and potentially far shorter.”

  “Of course,” she murmured. “In many ways it’s a death knell to all of us, and, yes, I’m perfectly prepared to have it all dry up and go away. Honestly, for many years, I wished that such a thing would happen.”

  “Yet it didn’t, did it?”

  Slowly she shook her head. “No, it didn’t. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still hope that it will.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. It was obvious that whatever had been in her history was pretty rough, traumatic even. As she wasn’t into sharing, he didn’t want to push it, but the curiosity was deadly. He just had to tamp that down and remember it was her business, not his, and, if she wanted to share, she would, but only if and when she felt comfortable enough to open up. He knew they were a long way from that.

  “Yes, we absolutely are,” she declared, glaring at him out of context.

  He sighed realizing what she’d done. “Can you at least not read my thoughts or at least read the other ones?”

  “No, those ones I definitely don’t want to read,” she snapped, a flush rising up her cheeks. “The fact that you’re attracted to me does not mean that I’m attracted to you.”

  He burst out laughing. “It doesn’t have to mean that, but you’ll be lying to yourself if you don’t read your own body’s energy coming in my direction.”

  “Don’t worry. I keep pulling it back,” she noted. “It doesn’t matter whether it wants to go in that direction or not. It won’t go there unless I give it permission.”

  He smiled. “And I would never want such a thing without permission on both sides,” he replied. “You are a beautiful woman, and you’ve obviously been broken in many ways. You’ve been damaged and hurt, but you don’t have to stay that way. To be well enough to heal others means you’ve healed yourself, and any healing you do and give is to the benefit of your own soul.”

  “Which is why I try to heal them when they come,” she stated. “I’ve just been doing it slowly and in my own time.”

  “Good. That’s all that anybody can expect. Life is for living and sometimes, when the songbird is caged, they don’t want to continue living. That’s probably what happened to you, but there is a better life out there, and, believe it or not, you’ve come a long way since you arrived in Finland.”

  Her gaze was sharp, as she stared at him. “You don’t know that. You know nothing about what I was like when I got here.”

  “Broken,” he repeated. “That is something we can all see.” She flushed at that. “No, we’re not trying to look, but you have clearly come a long way because you’re nowhere near as broken as you were when you got here.”

  “No, I’m not, and I have come a long way. And I definitely won’t slide backward.”

  “Do you think getting involved in this will set you back?”

  “No, but only because I won’t let it,” she said crisply. “If there is one thing that I will do, it’s protect my space, myself. For me to have any kind of a future, it’s important that I find a way to live within the reality of what my current situation is.”

  “And yet it doesn’t have to be here,” Walker said, as he motioned around the room. “There are other spaces where you will be safe.”

  “Will I?” she asked, looking at him with an odd expression. “Can you guarantee that? Can you even guarantee that anyone who comes to my door is safe?” she asked, hysteria rising in her tone. “How can you guarantee my safety?”

  He gave her a ghost of a smile. “You and I both know that we can put energy protection rings around us.”

  She waved her hand. “I’ve used those, and you really can’t trust them.”

  “No, but, as early warning systems, they are a great avenue for staying safe. So, maybe you haven’t had the right place, the right location, the right security system yet, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t find one for you.”

  She obviously didn’t know what to say to that, and just then Calum walked back inside.

  “Three men,” he said, his tone harsh. “I had Terkel get on the phone and talk to the local mayor, with all kinds of threats about teams coming over to search, but, within the last six weeks, they’ve had three young men go missing here.”

  “What?” She gasped, jumping to her feet. “Seriously?”

  Calum nodded, his facial expression grim. “Yes, and whether you knew about them or not is a whole different story, but the mayor admitted that, with this latest one, it’s obvious that he’ll have to get some help.”

  “Three?” she repeated.

  “He didn’t seem to think very much of the idea, but he also didn’t like the idea of his budget being decimated trying to find these men.”

  “Yet they didn’t do anything to find them before?” Walker asked.

  “According to him, they have, and they run a proper sheriff’s office, even though a lot of the locals are a little bit on the ornery side. It’s part and parcel of not trusting strangers. Yet Terkel can be very persuasive when it comes to doing what’s right.”

  Calum continued. “In this case, the mayor didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, he just didn’t do what was right. However, it may have been out of ignorance. It seems he just hasn’t been in the know about what’s going on here. Anyway, an investigation is being opened into Frank’s disappearance, and it’s been added to the list of other potential missing persons. All three are young men, relatively unknown, and nobody here seemed to have any prior relationship with any of them. It’s possible they all came to see Ashley. At least that’s what the mayor is wondering, since we know for sure that Frank was.”

  “But I don’t know about the other two,” she interjected.

  “That’s possible,” Calum agreed, “but then again, you keep saying that if they come to your door, you’ll deal with them, but you won’t deal with them any other way.”

  “That’s true,” Ashley replied. “Yes, some people have just stepped off the beaten path to my house, without any prior warning,” she added, wondering out loud, “and I definitely helped them. But, in Frank’s case, he contacted me ahead of time.”

  “So, because you knew he was coming, you also knew he was missing, but, with the other two, it’s possible that you didn’t know, right?” Calum asked her.

  “Yes, absolutely.” She frowned at him. “And, if I’d known that many people were missing, I probably would have said something,” she murmured, getting up to head to her kitchen nook.

  Calum looked over at Walker. “Are you getting any reads on her?”

  “She’s incredibly upset right now,” he murmured. “I think, in her need to keep everybody at a distance, she quite possibly missed some early warning signs. She didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening, so now we have three missing men. Why men, I wonder?” Walker murmured, with a note of curiosity.

  “Most of the time women travel together,” Calum pointed out, “whereas men are often the ones who travel on their own. If we have a lone kidnapper, taking out a single male is easier than taking out a couple females.”

  Walker nodded. Nothing to argue with that logic because it was right on. Women generally didn’t travel the world alone, although certainly some trends were changing in that regard. “I wonder if somebody could be targeting Ashley, keeping an eye on her.” Walker shrugged. “Or it really could be all related to her past.”

  “If it is related to her past, we need to find out fast because somebody is setting up hostages, if that’s the case.” Calum winced. “Can you imagine?”

  “Why keep that many though, and not announce it?” Walker asked him.

  “Yeah, especially since they’re sick—if we’re going with the theory that all three were headed to Ashley for a healing.”

  “Maybe she’s not responding to some sort of telepathic ransom message. That’s another possibility that occurred to me,” Walker suggested.

  “What do you mean?” Calum asked, staring at him.

  “What if this kidnapper knows what Ashley does and is using these people to send out an alert or warning, even maybe she had … What if this is all related to her? What if she had an early warning system on before, but she shut it down when moving here five years ago? Yet somebody is still using it. Now these three people have been possibly kidnapped as leverage and are potentially hostages to try and get Ashley to come deal with the kidnapper. However, because her system is shut down, she’s not even hearing the messages.”

  She rejoined them, her face pale. “That,” she uttered in a broken whisper, “would be horrific.”

  Such bitterness filled her tone that both men stood up and walked closer.

  “I did have a system I used formerly,” she told them, “and, yes, I did shut it down, and believe me. I don’t want to open it back up again. The last person who sent a message was somebody who tried to kill me,” she murmured. “I really don’t want to open that door.”

  Chapter 8

  As much as she hated it, Ashley knew that explanations were needed. With a sigh, she began.

  “Part and parcel to the government work that we did was, well, … not a Morse code setup but a system we worked out of sounds and beeps that we could easily send telepathically, energywise, so people would feel that nudge and would recognize either that things were going well or that there was a problem, depending on what the signal was. One of the first things I did was shut that down and hard,” she muttered.

  “Why?” Walker asked.

  “Because it was one of the aspects that kept me up at night, even after I left the government, because it seemed like all I heard was calls and beeps, particularly after I escaped, and then again not long ago.” She jumped to her feet and looked around the room almost frantically. “It was really starting to get to me. Not very long ago I reinforced that energy door, so that nobody could send or receive.”

  “Meaning you wouldn’t send or receive,” Walker clarified.

  She slowly nodded. “Dear God, are you thinking somebody is trying to get a hold of me? Trying to get me back into the business?”

  “We knew that was a possibility,” Calum pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t …” She took a deep breath, clenched her eyes shut for a moment, until she was a little calmer, then added, “I made it very clear when I left that I was gone for good and wasn’t coming back, no matter what.”

  “The no matter what is the problem with that,” Calum pointed out, “because, in most cases, people aren’t willing to believe what you say, so it doesn’t matter how you say it. If they have a need for your skills or want your skills back, some will do whatever they can to make it happen. In this instance, it’s quite possible that somebody is kidnapping people and expecting you to use your abilities to save them. And maybe the first one or two were even healthier, or maybe not even looking for you, but, if the kidnapper sent out an alert, and you didn’t respond, he may very well have just killed them and tried somebody else.”

  She sagged onto the nearest chair in despair.

  Walker asked, “How many people here know what you used to do?”

  “None,” she said, and then winced. “McClintock,” she murmured.

  At that, both men looked at her sharply.

  She shrugged. “We worked for the same outfit, and he’s been very helpful in keeping me under the radar.”

  Calum looked over at Walker, who was thinking the exact same thing.

  “How much do you trust him?” Walker asked.

  “I trust him implicitly,” she stated. “I saved his life, and he saved mine. We both retired and wanted to come here, or at least someplace where we would be safe and alone.”

  “Why here?”

  “This was an area he knew. He was raised not far from here,” she shared. “As damaged as I was at the time, I was looking for a bolt-hole. He offered me that lifeline, and I took it. If you are asking if I think he’s involved in this, that would be a hard no.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I don’t think he would do anything to put me in danger.”

  At that, Calum asked, “I know you don’t want to answer this, but is there anything between the two of you?”

  She gave a short laugh. “No, there isn’t,” she declared, her gaze going over to Walker. “However, it is something he wants.”

  “You haven’t though, so why is that?” Walker asked. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “Hey, we’re all adults here. I know there’s a bond between the two of us, and whether you choose to move forward with that is up to you, but, if something’s between you and McClintock, it would help us to know.”

  “There isn’t that bond between us,” she stated. “There isn’t that energy, but he doesn’t see energy. He doesn’t work it the same as I do, so, for him, that’s really not an issue. He wants a relationship, and he cares a lot about me, so, for him, those two aspects are enough.”

  “But not for you?” Walker asked.

  “Don’t go putting words in my mouth,” she snapped, her tone harsh, or trying to be anyway. “I can’t tell you how things have come about. All I know is that he’s been an incredibly good friend, and he was there when I needed him.”

  “And, for that, we owe him our thanks,” Calum said.

  She nodded. “I definitely owe him mine.”

  “Could he have had an ulterior plan down the road?”

  “I would hope not, but, people being people, I can’t say for certain that he would never do something. I don’t know,” she muttered, “but I would certainly hope he’s not involved.”

  “For the moment, we’ll keep our minds open to the options facing us,” Walker noted smoothly. “Now we need to just find out who else might know. Who else might have something to do with this?”

  She stared at him, bewildered. “That person I spoke of before, Najor, that we all hated.”

  “Right, and I need to get Terkel to check on that,” Calum muttered, “although he may have already.” Calum pulled out his phone and sent off a series of text messages.

  She sipped her coffee, feeling the heat working through her brain. The trouble was, what they said had some validity in her brain because she felt a weird sense of unease or even something being a little off. Worse than that, she wasn’t even listening, and yet she’d been so sure that everything was shut down and that she could keep it that way. Instead, was it possible that other people were suffering because of her being so adamant about not helping anyone? Almost immediately she looked up to see Walker standing there, glaring at her. She threw up her hands. “You don’t have to read my mind.”

  “I wouldn’t if you weren’t transmitting,” he stated succinctly.

  She glared at him, and he squatted in front of her. “You can’t take all the blame in something like this. You know perfectly well that crazy people are out there, who do these things without a bit of care for others. You’ve been a victim before. You don’t want to be a victim again.”