Page 5 of Morrison (Terk’s Guardians #13)

T he busy nature of Sadie’s workday required her to focus, so, throughout the course of her day, at some point she had calmed down enough to put behind her the thoughts stirred up by the meeting that had started her morning.

Punching out, she headed to her car. Reaching for the handle, she heard a man speak close by.

She froze, then turned to see Morrison walking toward her.

She hated that all the fear came flooding back up to the surface, though it wasn’t all fear.

She smiled at him. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.

” She studied him cautiously. All she knew was that a part of the team working for Terkel was on the case, but this one wasn’t with Terkel.

Although she felt the power behind him, she didn’t know if he knew very much about it. If he’d been part of Terkel’s team, that would have been a different story. Naturally she was left jumping to conclusions and trying to make an assessment that she couldn’t really do without more information.

“I’ll follow you home.”

She stopped, puzzled, still assessing him. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

He nodded. “I do. I’m not sure what’s going on or who might be involved, but it does feel as if it’s an issue.

” He didn’t add that he felt he had been followed recently too.

That wouldn’t help her calm down any. Still, she hesitated, her jaw opening, only to slam closed again.

He smiled. “I get it. You’re not at all sure, not at all convinced.

And I could be wrong. Still, I would rather be safe than sorry. ”

She nodded slowly. “Okay.” Without another word she got into her vehicle, knowing she was leading him right to her home.

She couldn’t find any reason not to though, and she’d already given him the address.

So, if he was any good at his job, he’d probably already cased it out and had checked for problems in the neighborhood.

It still felt weird, and she wasn’t at all sure that she was doing the right thing. So she watched as he parked outside, while she pulled into her underground parking, turned off the engine, and got out. He strode toward her. She smiled. “See? Home, safe and sound.”

“Good,” he replied. “That’s the way we intend to keep it.”

She wasn’t sure what to say about that. “Why is it I don’t think I’ll like something about your plans?”

“I don’t know,” he said, motioning her ahead of him.

Sadie frowned. It felt as if he stood on guard, almost as if he expected something to happen. That made her race to the elevator.

Then he stopped her and said, “We’ll walk up the stairs.”

She winced. “Fine, but I would just as soon not do that in these heels.”

He studied them and smiled. “I never did understand why you gals wear heels.”

“They look great getting to work and leaving,” she replied. “However, at work, I wear comfortable shoes that I can stand in all day. The truth is, I really like to wear heels,” she confessed.

“That’s great,” he noted. “They just don’t make it easy to move quickly though.”

“That hasn’t been a priority in my life,” she noted.

He didn’t say anything but led the way to the stairs, and she realized there wouldn’t be any getting out of it. At least she was only on the third floor. By the time she made it up to her apartment, she was surprised that her heels weren’t bothering her as badly as she would have expected.

She unlocked her apartment and stepped inside, not sure what to do now. When he immediately came in behind her, she studied him closer. “Are you really thinking there’s a problem?”

“Yes. I’m really thinking there’s a problem,” he declared, with a nod.

That just set her off. “If that’s the case, I’ll be very sorry I ever came to you.”

“And yet, when another person is killed during a robbery, you’ll feel even worse,” he pointed out.

She sighed. “So, you’re saying that it’s my doing, yet I should be happy that I did it? This is getting convoluted.”

“Something like that,” he muttered. He quickly walked through her apartment, as if searching for somebody lying in wait. She hadn’t even considered such a thing, until he came back out and announced, “It’s all clear.”

She sagged onto the couch and stared at him. “I wasn’t even thinking that I was in danger, just being followed.”

“Yet you don’t know what’s going on with your twin brother, and, if he has any idea who you are, it might very well change a lot of things in his life.

Some of it may not necessarily be for the better.

The other consideration is that, if you’re using energy to sense him, maybe he is using energy to sense you too. ”

She winced. “That is something I’ve considered to some degree, as I mentioned back at the coffee shop.

However, I don’t have any answers for you because he’s never made contact, and neither have I,” she stated bluntly.

“I don’t expect a pleasant kind of contact, not when my brother is out there… for criminal reasons.”

“Right, but, for all you know, he’s grown up fully aware that you were out there in the background, having a nice life, while he didn’t. You don’t know anything about him.”

“And yet you’ve had all day to work your end of this,” she pointed out. “Have you found anything?”

“We’re working with MI5 to get the adoption records unsealed,” he replied. “There is the usual paperwork to go through.”

“Not for MI5,” she stated.

“I haven’t had an update,” he murmured. “Meanwhile, I’ve been scoping out the next jewelry stores that I think they might hit as well as keeping an eye on you.”

She frowned at that. “I would much rather you worked on the jewelry store angle. Wouldn’t that be time better spent?”

He nodded. “I get that, and it’s all fine and dandy, until something goes wrong in your life,” he shared. “Right now, you’re the only lead we have, and we need to keep you safe.”

At his phrasing, she winced. “Right, so it’s not about whether I’m in danger or not, but whether I’ll endanger your case.”

He frowned at her and then shrugged. “Not the way I would have put it, but, if you want to say it that way, it’s your prerogative.”

She glared at him. “I would like to be thought of as more than a lead in a case,” she muttered.

“Of course.”

Then a boyish grin broke across his face, making him look charming. She quickly dampened down her feelings as she stared at him. “What are you smiling about now?”

“If I’m not smiling, you get upset, and, if I am smiling, you get upset,” he said, chuckling. “Believe me that nobody thinks you’re anything other than an asset at this point.”

“Yet an asset feels very cold,” she murmured. “I don’t want to be an asset. I want to be treated as somebody who has made a very difficult decision and is committed to stand by it.”

“And you are, and we appreciate that,” he stated, studying her intently.

In that moment, it dawned on her that was at least part of the reason he was here. It wasn’t just to keep her safe. “You just wanted to ensure I’m for real, didn’t you?”

“I work with a lot of people,” he murmured, then walked over to the living room curtain, pulled it back, and looked outside. “A lot of people say they can do things, say they can feel things, but, when it comes down to it, they can’t.”

“Ah, so you are questioning my gifts,” she muttered. “I don’t really know what all I can do or all of what I should do, but I can tell you one thing for certain.… I can recognize my twin brother’s energy.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry that you’re caught up in this. You should be having a happy celebration, finding out that you have a brother, a twin brother, not feeling sadness that he’s involved in this.”

“I keep racking my brain,” she shared, as she walked into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. “Just trying to see if there’s any other explanation as to what he’s doing and as to why he would be involved in something criminal like this. I keep looking for—”

“An excuse?”

“Yes, an excuse, if you want to put it like that. Anything that won’t break my heart if he’s involved because, if he’s in the middle of it, then—” She just stopped, feeling the tears in the back of her throat.

He gently squeezed her shoulder sympathetically.

“It’s hard. I understand that. Whenever it’s family, it’s hard.

It’s even harder when it’s family you haven’t had a chance to connect with, and you’ve held off connecting with them for whatever reason.

Right now, our priority is making sure that nobody else dies from his actions or from his involvement in this jewelry heist crew. ”

“It’s hard to know if your brother has any abilities because, every place I’ve been, all the stores they’ve hit,” he added cautiously, “there’s been absolutely no sign of anything.

I mean, obviously there are security cameras, and we get an idea of how many people, but the images are always distorted, so we can’t even get any measurements of heights or descriptions or those usual things.

We’ve been wondering if somebody is utilizing energy to help them pull off these robberies.

So, when you came forward and thought this was potentially your brother, we’re wondering if he is using his energy skills to hide their tracks. ”

She may have already had a simmering anger underneath, but that statement got to her.

She sat down at the kitchen table. “I don’t even know what I can do,” she murmured, as she stared at him.

“I see energy. That’s all I know. I saw the energy as my adoptive mother passed away.

I saw her soul slip free of her body and leave, but it was just this energetic form,” she murmured.

When his eyebrows shot up, she shook her head.

“I don’t know what I actually see,” she admitted, her throat choked up again.

“It’s just been one of those things that happens in my life. ”

“Yet you know Terkel.”