Phantom Game (GhostWalkers 18)

He gave her honesty because she deserved it. Too many important people in her life had betrayed her trust. He didn’t want to be one of them. She wasn’t a threat to his team—or Marigold’s team. At least not yet. He didn’t know what her intentions were. She hadn’t made up her mind about Mari, and he knew with certainty, unless she had proof that Mari had betrayed her, she would never condemn her.

Camellia sent him a little intriguing smile. “I doubt if I was the one that made you feel different, Jonas. This garden has a way of making you feel at peace.”

He heard regret in her voice, and immediately there were alarms going off throughout his body. “You’re making plans to leave, aren’t you?”

“Sooner or later, if I stay, even if you never said one word about me, someone would come this far up exploring. The Nortons have been here a few times, and I managed to turn them away. It wasn’t easy though, and I knew if more came, I would have to go. Once I went down there and realized the GhostWalkers actually had homes here, they weren’t just vacationing or training, I knew it wasn’t safe. I just kept procrastinating. I knew better, but I didn’t want to leave my garden.”

“I think you should reconsider. There’s the threat we both feel, Camellia. That’s real. Someone is out there, watching and waiting. I think they’re after Ryland and Lily’s son. I could be wrong. We have several other children to protect too—some Whitney would want even more than he wants young Daniel. These kids are special. Very talented. No one knows about them. Not Whitney, not other scientists. No one from the outside world. We protect them.”

“And yet you suspect that someone already does know about them. How? Do you think someone in one of the compounds would sell you out?”

Jonas’s first reaction was a solid no. The teams were tight. He would bet his life on his brothers and did quite often. They were the only people he fully trusted. Lily had a staff. They’d been with her since her childhood. She counted on them. Ryland and Kaden Montague, a GhostWalker nearly impossible to fool, believed the staff was loyal. There were others, nonteam members from both compounds, but they didn’t see the children.

“Is it possible a computer is compromised?”

He shook his head. “There is no documentation on any of them. That was agreed upon. We don’t put them in computers.”

Camellia’s eyebrow went up. She gave him a look of pure disbelief. “I can’t believe Lily wouldn’t document what her son is able to do. If you believe it, you’re living in a dream world.”

Jonas went very still the moment she said “dream world.” Jeff Hollister was the man on their team able to dreamwalk. He wasn’t the only one. Nico and Ryland could as well, but Jeff was very adept at it. Dreamwalking could be dangerous because one had to leave their body vulnerable when they left it. They could be killed in their dream or be so caught up in it they might not want to return to their body.

Jeff practiced dreamwalking often, with Lily overseeing him to watch out for any repercussions from his earlier strokes. Jonas’s mind immediately began to build images of file cabinets and offices and documents stored away in the dream office they used. Was that possible? Anything was possible in a dream. Lily could be documenting each child’s abilities and storing the information inside a dream office where no one would have access to it—unless they knew what she was doing and sent out a dreamwalker to discover it.

Was Jeff the target of the vague threat, not Daniel or one of the other children? Abruptly, Jonas stood, adrenaline pouring through him once again.

“Tell me.” Camellia rose as well, matching his movements as if they were choregraphed dancers. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

“I don’t know yet. Just an idea. Something you said.”

“That Lily would document her son’s abilities. She wouldn’t be able to help herself.”

He stepped off the porch and paced out into the garden with the swift, silent movements of the wolf in him. Already he was blending into the very warm light gray mist in the air that was weaving in and out of the trees. Camellia paced right along beside him, making no sound either.

“You’re right about Lily,” he said. “She wouldn’t be able to help herself. She’s a born scientist. But she would want a safe place where no one would be able to find the things she knows about her son—or any other child she studies. She would need to feel her hiding place was impenetrable.”

Jonas looked down at the woman pacing beside him. She tilted her head to look up at him. Her eyes had gone pure silvery blue now. Light. The mist had nearly swallowed her, making her difficult to see, reminding him of how easy it would be to lose her in the garden. Once he lost sight of her, she would be like he was—a phantom—impossible to track.