Janie Crouch - Primal Instinct

Conner shook his head. That could not be right. “Are you sure?” he demanded more gruffly than he intended. He heard Seth sigh again.

“Am I sure?” All the hostility was back. “Am I sure how old I am? Wait, let me get out all my fingers and toes so I’m sure I haven’t miscounted.”

“I didn’t mean that. I just mean, now is not the time to lie about your age for vanity’s sake or some such nonsense.”

“I am quite sure of how old I am and have no need to lie about it. Twenty-eight.”

Seth jumped in, obviously trying to instill some reason into the situation. “I think what my partner means, Ms. Jeffries, is that, if you are twenty-eight years old and worked for the FBI ten years ago, that would’ve made you pretty young.”

Adrienne looked away but not before Conner saw shadows looming in her eyes. “Let’s just say the FBI made a special exception in my case.” She walked over and got her wallet from a purse hanging on a wall hook. She took out her driver’s license and threw it down on top of the table.

“Twenty-eight.” Seth glanced at it then slid the license over to Conner.

She wasn’t lying. He supposed the ID could be forged, but it didn’t seem like there was much purpose to it.

That meant she had been eighteen years old when she’d been the Bloodhound for the FBI. No wonder all the information was blacked out in that damn file.

“Still rude to ask,” Adrienne muttered under her breath from back at her perch at the sink.

Conner knew he should apologize but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Twenty-eight or not, this woman was getting under his skin.

Seth attempted to start again. “Obviously there’s a lot we don’t know, Ms. Jeffries. If you would be willing to help us fill in the holes, this would probably be a lot easier on all of us.”

“Please, call me Adrienne, Agent Harrington.” The invitation was very obviously not extended to Conner.

“Thanks, Adrienne. And you’re welcome to call me Seth.” She smiled sweetly at Seth, and Conner thought he might have to jump out of his chair and stand between the two of them. Neither of them seemed to notice his strange behavior, thank God. He needed to calm the hell down.

“Could you tell us what you did for the FBI?” Seth asked her with a smile that had Conner ready to jump up again.

Calm. Down. What in the world was the matter with him?

“I’m sure you’ve heard rumors. I have a special talent. I can profile evil very well.”

Seth nodded. “Exactly how did you use your talent to help the Bureau?”

“The closer I am to a person with malicious intent, the more clearly I can sense what the person is thinking. And I don’t have to be near the actual person. I can be around something he or she has touched or been near and be able to ‘read’ the evil.”

“Bloodhound,” Conner muttered under his breath, shaking his head. He still didn’t believe any of it.

“Yes, it’s an accurate description, I suppose.” Adrienne’s smile was rueful. “Although I was glad nobody ever called me that to my face. Teenage girls don’t respond well to being told they’re like a dog.”

Conner still did not like this teenager talk. He planned to have a discussion about Adrienne with Chief Kelly as soon as possible.

“So you’re a psychic? Or an empath or something like that?” Harrington asked gently, although his doubts crept into his tone.

“No, not really. I don’t have superpowers. I can’t read people’s minds or anything. I don’t feel what other people are feeling. Like, if you were sad right now, I wouldn’t feel your sadness. Really it’s just evil I feel, malicious intent. It’s kind of like they draw me into their thoughts.”

“Why? How?” Conner didn’t attempt to hide his incredulity at all.

“I don’t know. Some people are terribly sensitive to heat or light. My brain is just sensitive to negative energy.”

“Do you feel it about everybody?”

“No. Most people aren’t menacing. They can be catty and rude, but usually it’s due to their own insecurity rather than actual malevolence.”

“So how do you ‘sense’ it? Do you see images? Have visions?” Seth asked.

“Hear little voices in your head?” Conner tagged on.

Adrienne ignored Conner. “The closer I am to the person—in terms of physical proximity—the clearer I can sense everything. From far away it’s like seeing and hearing through multiple panes of glass—difficult to make out the details. If I am close, it’s like being inside someone’s head. I can see and hear everything.”

Conner didn’t believe any of this. “So what if I want you to demonstrate your ‘powers’? Can you do that?”

Adrienne’s irritated gaze swung around to Conner again. “Not really.”

“Well, that’s pretty convenient, isn’t it?” Conner snapped.

More glaring was shared between Adrienne and Conner. “It’s not a dog and pony show, Special Agent Jackass.”

That got a snicker from Seth.

“And no offense, but I don’t owe you anything.”

Conner stood up before he was even aware of what he was doing and took a step toward Adrienne. What was it about this one tiny woman that made him feel like he was about to jump out of his own skin?

Fortunately Seth waylaid him before he had a chance to... Conner had no idea what he would’ve done when he reached Adrienne.

“Adrienne, can you excuse us for a moment? I need to discuss a text I just received with Agent Perigo out on the porch.”

Seth grabbed Conner’s arm—hard—and began pushing him through the small living room and out the front door.

“What?” Conner barked at him the moment the door was closed.

“You’re asking me what?” There was obviously no text Seth wanted to show him. “I was just wondering if you wanted to arrest her. Maybe you’ve got her fingered as our killer.”

“What?” Conner felt like a parrot.

“Well, the way you’ve been treating her, Agent Jackass, is like she’s a perp, or at the very least some sort of hostile witness.”

Conner rubbed his hand over his face wearily. Everything Harrington was saying was true.

“I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me, Seth.”

“I don’t know either, but you’ve got to get yourself under control. She’s not the bad guy here.”

“I know.”

“You think this is a waste of time, Con, I get that. And to be honest, I don’t know what to believe, either. But if what she’s saying—what Chief Kelly said—is true...”

“Then it could really be the break in the case we’ve been hoping for,” Conner finished for him.

“You don’t like her, for whatever reason. Fine. But let’s see what she can do.”

Conner almost corrected Seth but stopped. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Adrienne Jeffries—he hadn’t made up his mind whether he liked the little spitfire or not. But liking or disliking didn’t really seem to matter. He was affected by her. And it made him damn uncomfortable.

“All right, I’ll behave.”

Seth looked relieved. “Good.”

They walked back through the door and into the kitchen.

“Saving the world one text at a time?” Adrienne asked with one brow cocked. She had taken a seat at the table in the chair farthest away from where Conner had been sitting.

“Something like that.” Seth smiled.

Conner didn’t say anything. He figured opening his mouth would just get him in trouble.

“You two must be on some pretty big case for the FBI to put you at my doorstep after all these years.”

“We are. It’s gruesome,” Seth informed her.

“And you were told I could help.”

Both men nodded.

Adrienne continued. “And when they sent you out here to bring me back, did they warn you I would tell you to go screw yourselves?”