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“You’ve been monitoring Talia’s phone because you couldn’t get into mine. I knew you were watching so I had Talia send a few messages about my plans to leave town tonight.”
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
“I’ve been waiting for your review of the Unplugged Experience to appear online. But there never was a travel blog, was there? You had to come up with a cover story in a hurry and that was the best you could do. It’s that kind of sloppy thinking that made it easy to figure out you were Subject B.”
“That’s right.” Jasper showed a lot of teeth in a cold grin. “I’m the success. You’re the failure.”
“The weak cover story wasn’t the only thing that put you at the top of my list. If you had been a legitimate guest at the lodge there would have been a record of your reservation in Octavia’s files.There wasn’t, because you never made one and Nathan Gill didn’t bother to create a fake one. He was in a hurry, too, because he had just found out that Talia and I had booked the Unplugged Experience. He wanted you on the island because he figured it would be easier for you to take care of me there.”
Jasper relaxed a little. “Gill damned near pissed himself when you hit the online app and made a reservation. I’m impressed. Takes a lot to make him nervous. It wasn’t the first time you surprised him. He was in a panic when he found out that you had escaped the lab that night and stolen his boat. He was sure you were fucking insane, you see. There was no way to know if your talent had been enhanced. No way to know if the amnesia drug would suppress your memories. Just too many unknowns. But he was certain you wouldn’t survive long.”
“Because there was no way for me to get the boosters.”
“That’s right. He wanted to believe you had died in that boat fire you rigged up but he looked for you real hard for a month or so anyway, just in case. Then he decided you had to be dead. Imagine his surprise when you turned up as one of the people who wanted to buy the list from the Hatch woman.”
“Were you the one who kidnapped Phoebe Hatch, or was that Gill?”
“I grabbed her and handed her over to Gill. Then I went back to watch Hatch’s house. I knew there were two other buyers. I had seen a photo of you but I didn’t recognize you in the dark.”
“And besides, I was supposed to be dead. Were you planning to kill the other two buyers?”
“No. Gill just wanted to identify the competition. He’s not a fan of leaving dead bodies around unless he can dump them on Night Island. Says they draw too much attention.”
“You followed Talia and me when we left Hatch’s house, didn’t you?”
“I finally got good shots of you and Talia March when you went into that restaurant. I sent the one of you to Gill. He got it just before he left for the island with the Hatch woman. He freaked. He told me to take care of you.”
“But your drive-by didn’t go well.”
Jasper reddened with fury. His eyes got hot. “Couldn’t get a solid fix. You were too far away.”
“Whatever. You failed, so Gill went with plan B. He told you to finish the job on the island. You tried, didn’t you? I’ll give you credit for that. You attempted to set up an ambush at the cabin that had been assigned to me the first night, but you screwed that up, too.”
“I didn’t fuck up.”Jasper’s voice rose. “There was a witness. I couldn’t risk having him tell someone that he had seen one of the guests breaking into your cabin.”
“You panicked and took him out, but that just complicated things, didn’t it?”
“I didn’t panic.”
“Your problem is that you lack impulse control, Draper. Were you that way before they injected you with the formula or is that a side effect that developed after you were enhanced?”
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
A lightning strike of icy energy slammed into Luke. He had thought he was braced for it but the paranormal shock wave caused him to stagger back a few steps. He dropped the duffel. The pack slid off his shoulder and landed with a thud on the concrete floor. He managed, barely, to stay on his feet.
“You were the one who murdered those two researchers in the lab,” he rasped.
Jasper made a visible effort to pull himself together. This time his toothy grin was jittery. “I wanted to make sure they didn’t create any more enhanced operatives like me.”
“I thought that might be the reason. You don’t want any competition, do you? As long as you are the only psychic assassin around, you’re extremely valuable. You used the scalpel instead of your talent because you wanted to make Gill think that I was the one who had murdered his two, no doubt very expensive and hard to replace, lab people.”
“You were supposed to be a failure so I couldn’t use my talent to do the job. Had to make it look like the work of a non-enhanced killer.”
“The hits on the two researchers looked like the work of a pro.”
“It’s not like I haven’t had some experience,” Jasper said. “I was trained in the military. When I got out I went to work for a private security firm.”
“I don’t see you as a night guard trudging around a warehouse checking to make sure doors are locked, so I’m assuming that when you say you worked for a private security firm you mean you were a mercenary.”
