Memory Zero (Spook Squad 1)

She grimaced and sat down on a packing crate, the laser gripped steadily and still aimed between his eyes. “Why become a vampire, or why betray the cause?”

“Both.”

Her face became bitter. “Look at me, Gabriel. I’m old. You and Stephan remain eternally young while I just fade away.”

“Shifters and changers have longer life spans than humans. We do age, Mary. Just at a slower rate.” All of which she knew and obviously didn’t like.

“Yeah, but once I’d held such dreams …”

For an instant he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes and realized, with a sense of shock, that those dreams had involved either Stephan or himself. Or even both.

“We never knew,” he said softly. And even in her most insane moments, she surely couldn’t have thought that both of them would ever love her.

Her soft snort was caustic. “No. You never did. I was the trusted babysitter, the trusted friend. Never in line to be the trusted lover.”

What could he say? She spoke a truth he could not deny. She was a friend they’d shared their life with, but never their hearts.

“Your silence says it all.” Her tone was bitter, her eyes hard.

He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right.” She shifted the cannon slightly. The laser hummed briefly to life, then faded again as the pressure on the trigger eased. “The worst of it was watching Stephan fall for Lyssa, knowing all the while that my chances with you were also slipping away. Then, finally, you met her.”

Her? Her who? “There’s no woman in my life.”

“So I can just jump right in and fill the void, huh?” She laughed bitterly. “I saw you with her. You don’t fool me.”

The only woman she’d seen him with was Sam. Why in hell would Mary presume they were lovers? Unless she was so consumed by jealousy that any female in his life—colleague or friend—would fuel her insane anger. Maybe that was the reason behind her attempt to kill them all at the mansion.

“So when did you decide to betray all that we believe in?”

She shrugged. “Three years ago.”

Which would have been about six months after Stephan married Lyssa. And about the time Mary had gone on an extended cruise—a ruse, obviously, as it was undoubtedly the time she’d been turned. “Why join Sethanon?”

“I didn’t join Sethanon; I joined Kazdan. I realized that if love was out, I wanted power. Kazdan offered it to me.”

She was a fool if she believed Kazdan would share. “You were one of our inner circle, Mary. One of the two we trusted.”

“And yet, how much did I ever really know? You and Stephan play your cards very close to your chests. I was your runner, not your lieutenant.” She paused, anger touching her expression. “You never even told me that Stephan was Hanrahan. Odd, considering how much you supposedly trusted me.”

/> Yet, knowing them as she did, she should surely realize that that was the exact type of information they would keep close. “So who did tell you?”

She grimaced. “Who do you think?”

“Kazdan.” And if Kazdan knew, did Sethanon? Or was that the sort of information a man intent on claiming a throne might keep to himself? He had to hope so, because otherwise, the Stephan who ran the Federation was going to have to go the way of Hanrahan. “Not even Martyn knew about Hanrahan, Mary. You’re not alone there.”

“Martyn didn’t grow up with you. I did. You never told me all I needed to know. That hurts, Gabriel.” She knew enough to get Lyssa kidnapped and to train the replacement so impeccably that no one had picked it up until Sam came along. No wonder so many of their missions had gone sour—Mary, who’d been in on most planning sessions, had obviously passed the information on to Kazdan, who’d promptly arranged a neat little ambush.

“Is that why you decided to blow us all up at the mansion?”

She grimaced. “You made me angry, defending that woman, touching her and looking at her all the time. Someone like her had no right to what you’d refused me.”

And that made about as much sense as nearly everything else she’d said so far. “So you decided to set off the bomb that had been placed there to take out Stephan later in the month.” It was a guess, but it was a pretty safe one, since Kazdan had said both he and Stephan were due for termination. It would have been very easy for Mary to time the explosion with his and Stephan’s biweekly meetings.

She nodded. “As I said, I was angry.”

What she was was insane. “How did you ever hope to live through the force of that blast?”