The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1) (6 page)

I hadn’t seen those written on
the windows. “I like spring rolls.”

“I know. I told him.” Samantha
yanked a napkin out of the dispenser and wiped the tabletop, her motions abrupt
and angry.

“My blog again,” I guessed.

John slipped a red vinyl menu
from behind a tin bucket of peanuts and handed it to me. “Everything’s good
except the chili.”

“Don’t get the chili,” Samantha
agreed.

Perversely, I wanted the chili.
Instead I ordered the closest thing on the menu to chili—black beans and
Mexican corn bread. The selections were eclectic, a combination of Thai,
Tex-Mex and American. John had beef satay and Samantha fried rice and a beer.

“So,” John said, once we’d placed
our order, “how do you like Nashville so far?”

“I haven’t seen enough to say.” I
cracked a peanut so I’d have something to do with my hands. Particles of shell
sprayed out and speckled the table.

“This area is Nolensville,” John
said. “It’s south of the city. I can take you on a tour tomorrow if you want.”

“She’ll be tired.” Samantha
swiped the table with her napkin, pushing the detritus of my peanut into the
floor.

I was tired now, and that hadn’t
stopped Samantha from dragging me to dinner. “I’d like that. Thanks.”

“No problem,” John said.

I still wasn’t sure about the
relationship between them. While I felt no loyalty to Samantha since we
weren’t, and likely would never be, friends, I had no interest in John if he
was a cheater.

In my experience, cheaters came
in all shapes and sizes. John had light brown eyes, long lashes and, stretched
out on his side of the booth, seemed a good deal more comfortable than he had
on the job and in his suit. I took a moment to inspect him—his blue sport shirt
did his broad shoulders justice. His biceps revealed plenty of definition
without coming off steroidal. His hair was mussed. When he sipped his beer,
licking foam from his upper lip, I wondered what it tasted like to him.

Tomorrow could be good. Me and
John, alone together, doing the tourist thing. Plus, the more time I spent with
him, the more opportunity I’d have to catch him in a lie about YuriCorp.

Harsh, but I had a future to
plan. The truths I learned clandestinely rang so much truer than the truths
people told me on purpose.

After our waiter served our food,
we settled down to the very important business of eating. I tried a spring roll
first, pleased to find it excellent. Delicate wrapper, lots of cabbage, spicy
meat, and crunchy sprouts. Dip was a ginger carrot mix.

Also excellent, the black beans,
which I could understand. It didn’t take a lot of skill to cook beans. But
spring rolls? In a beer joint?

“These are really good.” I tried
not to sound surprised.

“We know the chef. He gave us
some tips for pizza when we started that business,” Samantha said.

“So he’s a suprasensor?” I asked.
“What’s he do?”

“It’s not for me to say.”
Samantha sipped her beer. “One thing you have to understand. If someone works
for a known supra company, you can assume he’s powered. If someone works in a
specific department in a company, you can assume he has that particular power.
If someone reveals herself, that’s another safe bet. But otherwise, people’s
powers are none of your business, and it’s rude to ask.”

My face heated. “Sorry. I thought
after Lou asked, it was standard.”

“Lou cut her teeth in a supra PI
agency run by her family. Curiosity is in her blood. Either way, you have to
keep your information to yourself. It’s part of the deal. It should be easy
since you’re a chameleon.”

I had to take their word about me
being a lizard. “Did you taste that in my DNA?” I asked John.

“Not enough to be certain,” he
hedged. “The tests will let us know.”

“Or you could kiss her,” Samantha
suggested with a dry laugh. “Skip a week’s testing right there.”

John stiffened and frowned, as if
the suggestion were offensive. “The lab would still need to run it.”

“Kiss me?” I asked. Was the idea
of kissing me unpleasant?

“You know how they get DNA
samples inside the cheek?” Samantha asked. “If John goes mouth to mouth on
someone, he can get a pretty accurate reading. He can tell when people are
related, sometimes if they have genetic disorders. He can sense hormonal
shifts, moods, and other things your personal chemistry can’t hide.”

The hard glitter in her eyes told
a different story. Did she not like it when John went mouth to mouth on other
people?

“That makes sense.” I couldn’t
imagine how this particular skill could be exploited on a consulting gig, but I
could conceive of other applications. No doubt he was excellent with his
tongue. “I’ll, uh, wait for the tests.”

“Cleo, ignore her. She gets
cranky when she hasn’t had enough sleep.”

More and more, their bickering
sounded like a long-term couple. Dating, not married. A married couple would be
less jealous of attention paid to the other.

I gave him a tight smile. “I’m
sure we’re all tired.”

A loud ruckus interrupted our
conversation. A man in an expensive suit hauled Clint out of his booth and
punched him in the face. Clint stumbled against his table with a bellow,
rebounded, and the two men began to grapple like rutting stags.

“God, not again,” Samantha
muttered.

Most of the men in the place, and
several women, encircled the pair, though none had leapt to defend Samantha
when Clint pawed her. She’d had to fend for herself.

Perhaps Clint was a local
celebrity. This was Nashville—maybe he was a country music singer. He
was
named Clint.

“Beer joint!” I yelled to
Samantha over the din. If Clint was a suprasinger, did he use his powers to
hypnotize people into buying his records?

“I’m going to kill them both.”
Samantha jumped up and shouldered her way through the crowd. She was shorter
than everyone, but when she laid her hands on people, they flinched and got the
hell out of her way.

“What did she mean, not again?” I
asked John. Samantha didn’t seem the brawling type, but here she was, involved
in brawl number two. At a beer joint.

John shook his head. “The ex and
the current.”

“You’re not the current?”

 “Oh, no.” John held up a hand to
deflect the very idea. “Sam and I just work together.”

“I assumed you were dating.”

“I am not romantically involved
with Sam. I’m single.” He had no mask.

“I am, too.” I smiled, and John
smiled back, the meaningful kind of smile where you don’t need suprasenses to
know what the other person is thinking.

A guy who knew I could see lies,
who wouldn’t lie to me outright—would that be better or worse than the
relationship experience I was accustomed to?

He was single, and I was
intrigued. Highly intrigued.

The crowd dispersed. Interrupting
my intrigue, Samantha returned, the man in the suit at her heels. “I don’t like
him being here, and I don’t like him touching you,” the man was saying. He
worked his jaw with his hand, then straightened his tie. “He’s a useless drunk who
needs to be taught a lesson.”

“He can’t hurt me. Leave him
alone, Alex. He’s got his own problems.”

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for
the loser? It’s been a year. Arlin.” The man nodded at John.

John returned the nod, noticeably
stiff. “Berkley.”

Samantha sat beside me, but the
man remained standing, hovering over our table like a beer lamp. His attention
was on John, not Samantha and not me.

I was thankful for that. I didn’t
like the look of him, Hollywood gloss and money with petulant wrinkles beside
his lips. I hoped he continued to ignore me.

“How’s business at YuriCorp?” he
asked John. “Good, I hope?”

Shadows fluttered around the
man’s face like a feathered Mardi-Gras mask. Sarcasm and double-speak. Seems
Alex didn’t wish his girlfriend’s company well.

“Fine,” John said.

“How’s your recent acquisition?”

John glanced at me, blinked a few
times, and said, “Fine,” again.

“You really don’t know, do you?
She’s right here, Alex.” Samantha leaned back in the booth and bobbed her head
at me. “Be nice. No prying.”

The man focused on me intently.
“I almost didn’t see you sitting there. Wow.”

I was not looking my best and was
hardly the type to elicit a wow from a guy like Alex. Compared to his squeeze,
I didn’t fare well. Both of us were short and female, true, but I had futzy
brown hair, a moon face, and the kind of body nice people refer to as curvy.
Samantha had sleek black hair, a striking countenance, and a slender figure
with sizeable breasts.

Note to self—ask her if they were
real. Hee!

The man stuck his hand across the
table, his pale eyes daring me to shake. “Alex Berkley. I’m with Psytech. I’ve
been anxious to meet you.”

I didn’t take his hand. “Hello.”

He raised his eyebrows in mock
surprise. “Have they been telling you tales about us, Miss Giancarlo?”

“Is there something about Psytech
I should know?” I watched him like a cat watches another cat that may or may
not pounce. Had he been to, say, Chicago in the past two days? Had he practiced
sincerity like John, Al, Samantha and Yuri? He seemed to know what I could do,
or some version of it.

“There’s a lot about Psytech you
should know. It’s best to consider all your options before you make a decision
that will impact your future.”

“I agree.” I rested my chin on a
hand. “Isn’t it convenient you came here tonight? So, please. Tell me. What are
my options with Psytech?” I noticed John, across the table, watching me instead
of Alex, but he didn’t look worried. Slightly amused, in fact, amusement being
an alien expression on John’s face based on my twenty-four hours of
acquaintance with him.

“First, you should know how much
more we’d pay you,” Alex said.

Not a lie.

“You should know how much bigger
our benefits package is.”

Also not a lie.

“You should also know you’ll
never get anywhere working at YuriCorp. Their business is soft, Miss Giancarlo.
They struggle to make ends meet. They don’t leverage their profits in a way
that benefits their employees. No doubt they’ll try to hide this from you.” He
smiled, not showing his teeth, and—yes—around his too-handsome face glistened
dishonesty. “If they can.”

“The people at YuriCorp were
nice.” I widened my eyes and forced myself to hold his creepy gaze. “Would you
say most Psytech employees have a great deal of job satisfaction? I’m very
concerned about job satisfaction.”

“I have a great deal of job
satisfaction,” he stated.

“What about the rest of the
employees?”

“We have the highest salaries in
our niche market.”

“Money isn’t everything.” I
rattled my drink, down to ice cubes. “Does management maintain good relations
with employees?”

“Psytech is an excellent
employer. Our attrition rate is minimal.”

Bingo. Not true.

When I hid a smirk by pretending
to sip my soda, he tried to dig his way out. “Every group has at least one
disgruntled bastard. We may have two or three. Most of our employees love
Psytech.”

Not true.

I grinned outright. So did John.
Samantha grabbed a napkin and started wiping the table between the plates.

“Either way, Miss Giancarlo—Cleopatra—we’re
prepared to offer you a generous sign-on bonus and you can name your salary.
Give it some thought. We’ve got offices in Los Angeles, New York, London,
Nashville. You can live wherever you want. Even Chicago.”

Some part of that was a lie, but
he was good. Not as good as John and Samantha, but subtle. Clever. I couldn’t
see any lip movement in his translucent mask. I wondered which part of his
spiel was untrue.

“Come in and talk to us tomorrow.
Next week. Anytime. Our door is always open to a woman of your talents,
Cleopatra.”

“I might decide to tell all of
you pushy freaks to go fuck yourselves,” I told him in my sweetest voice.

Alex straightened, and a layer of
his oily charm dissolved. “That’s always an option,” he said. “Not one I’d
advise.”

“It’s a free country,” I pointed
out.

“Nobody at Psytech would force
you to do anything you didn’t want.”

Lie. Scary, scary lie. I huddled
against Samantha, caught myself doing it, and put my elbows on the table to
cover my gaffe.

“I’m sure you’d make your
stepfather proud with a career at Psytech.”

Before I worked up the nerve to
ask if Psytech planned to blackmail me with Dan’s safety, he flicked a business
card onto the table. “Let us know when you get tired of living paycheck to
paycheck. Sam, I’ll call you. Thanks for the head’s up.”

When Alex left, I asked Samantha,
“What did he mean about a heads up?”

“I let him know I was back in
town.”

Partial dishonesty strobed around
her, but I didn’t so much as narrow my eyes. I had a feeling her heads-up to
Alex had something to do with me. Considering what Yuri had cautioned about the
mole, I filed my suspicion away for later, even though she was Yuri’s
granddaughter.

Being a blood relative didn’t
ensure loyalty or kindness. Look at my mother versus Dan. Mom, my blood
relation, had been a horror while alive, and Dan was awesome.

There was no telling what my
biological father was like, though I could admit to a tiny, private
disappointment I couldn’t crack flying saucer jokes to myself anymore.

“So your boyfriend works for Psytech?”
I smiled at Sam with fake sympathy. “That’s gotta be hard.”

Samantha and John exchanged a
glance, and Samantha turned to me with the weirdest smile on her face. “It’s
not as bad as you think. Welcome to YuriCorp, Cleo.”

Chapter 5

The Dixie Mafia
Early Bird Buffet Eating Team

A giant Batman head was
silhouetted against the grey skyline as John drove me back to my humble abode
after a tour of Nashville’s urban sprawl. It hardly compared to Chicago as far
as urban or sprawl was concerned, but John assured me Music City wasn’t as
congested and crime-riddled as the Windy City. Or as cold.

“What’s that building?” I pointed
at the skyscraper topped by the notable earpieces. It and several blockier
buildings made up the otherwise undistinguished cityscape.

“The AT&T Tower.” John
navigated the interstate and the conversation with business-like aplomb. It
wasn’t what I’d expected after our flirting last night. I didn’t know whether
to be disappointed or relieved, since it was often a bad idea to get involved
with coworkers.

Especially when you hadn’t had a
chance to pick favorites.

Lights blinked at the tips of the
‘ears’ as we passed the building. “It looks like Batman.” It had to mean
something that, in this hub of supra activity, a major communications company
had constructed an ode to Bruce Wayne’s alter ego in lieu of an office
building.

“We get that a lot.”

Ok, it meant I was unoriginal.
“That’s not where your real secret hide-out is, huh?”

John sort of smiled. “It’s not
behind a clock tower, either. There’s the site in Nolensville and the site
downtown. That’s it. A number of us telecommute, and our more sensitive
employees maintain home offices.”

In some ways, sensitive could
describe me—it was an effort to swallow so many lies every day. “Could I get a
home office?”

“We need you in house.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “I have a
villain to unearth. I could grow to hate that part of being me.” Like I didn’t
already.

“Cleo,” John said, concern
coloring his tones, “it’s who you are. Don’t hate yourself. As soon as you find
our problem, you can just be a consultant. You’ll be great at that.”

“I’ll try.” It wasn’t me who
hated me, it was usually everyone else. If it came to light I’d been
investigating my peers for however long it took me, how would they feel?

I know how I’d feel. Pretty damn
deceived, which was ironic because I deceived everyone on a daily basis.

Luckily I’d have a few
acquaintances who knew what I could do, which was more than I’d had three days
ago. Perhaps it would be enough. John and I had spoken easily about YuriCorp,
the supra community, and where the best shopping in Nashville was, which I
pretended only a moderate interest in. Nothing drives a potential boyfriend
away faster than revealing your adoration of the mall too soon.

“Let’s take the alternate route.”
John downshifted off the interstate, cutting through a residential area. “You
could go this way if there was construction or a wreck.”

A little glimmer of dishonesty,
noteworthy in its rarity, hovered around him. If this wasn’t an alternate
route, what was he doing?

Hiding the fact I’d seen him lie,
I asked, “Will I work downtown?”

“It’s not likely they’re our
problem. They don’t have access to the data getting out of YuriCorp.” He seemed
confident, but a person could be convinced of something that turned out to be
untrue.

The landscape shifted from urban
to suburban. “All of this used to be farmland,” he said. The developments on
either side of us boasted large, stately homes. Interspersed between the
neighborhoods were tracts of land for sale. We reached an intersection, and
John chose the new highway. It gave way to more farmland with larger homes in
the distance.

Not that I objected to extended
time with him, but this couldn’t be mistaken for a logical re-routing of
interstate traffic. “This doesn’t look like Nolensville.”

“It will.” John cleared his
throat. “Nolensville is where we do the majority of our testing, experiments
and supra training. It’s also where we track new supras. That information is
tightly safeguarded, and that’s part of what’s leaking out.”

I studied the white picket fence
on the side of the highway until it blurred into a white smear. “You don’t
share what you learn with other supras?”

“It’s difficult to explain.
Sometimes a company develops a technique it teaches only to employees. I’m a
good example. Most supras in my area can’t taste supra abilities. YuriCorp
patented that process, inasmuch as a supra company can patent something without
going through official channels. If anyone needs the technique, they have to
hire us.”

A tractor pulled onto the road
ahead. John braked, put on his blinker, and eased around the slower vehicle.
There wasn’t much traffic, even though it was a nice Sunday afternoon. We’d
definitely picked the scenic route.

If he were trying to extend our
time together, you’d think he’d flirt a little or respond when I tried to
flirt. “What do you do when you’re not working, John?”

“Nashville has an NFL team I
follow in season. Otherwise, I work all the time.”

It was true. The poor, poor man.
All work and no play made John sadly lacking in non-business conversation.

“A lot of people in Nashville are
into country music. Do you know any country stars?”

“No.”

Yeah, he was really enjoying his extended
time with me. Every time I tried to broach personal topics, his ratio of words
to sentences decreased drastically. He hadn’t seemed socially inept yesterday,
but you never knew about people once you got them alone.

At least he was honest.

After a long, awkward silence, I
revisited the work discussion so he’d say more than five words at a time. “What
if somebody gets a job somewhere, learns everything, quits, and takes their
shiny new skills on the road?”

“That’s definitely an issue.” The
set of his shoulders relaxed. “The same thing happens at other companies, so
eventually knowledge is disseminated. For a while, though, discovering a new
tactic or a new supra can give us an edge.”

“Is there any way to stop a supra
from using his or her abilities? Burn them out on purpose?” The concept of a
supra nervous breakdown was foreign to me, but so was a management consulting
company filled with mutants.

John frowned, his face creasing
into its habitual, and cute, grooves. “There are unreliable methods. I’m sure
you’ve noticed your suprasenses are dulled by narcotics.”

“Sure.” Alcohol dulled all my
senses, including the lie sight, but not enough for booze to be worth it. “I
guess you can’t force a crook to stay hammered. Are there supra cops?”

“All efforts to form a police
force have dissolved.” He sounded like he was a news reporter reading cue
cards. “No one agrees on a central set of rules or guidelines, aside from the
laws and regulations of the countries in which we live, of course.”

“Who kicks your ass if you get
out of line, supra style?”

“The other companies,” John said.
“We also have a central organization called the Registry, but it’s a
laboratory, not a company.”

“That’s the thing Yuri mentioned about
being in the system.”

“It’s a library and an extensive
private laboratory,” he explained. “The companies who support it receive equal
access to the database and the services of the Registry lab. But it’s not a
regulatory agency, and they don’t control anything.”

“What other ways are there to
turn supra powers off?” Supras were as human as the next clod, so supra
criminals had to exist.

“Lobotomies,” John said.

“Are you kidding? You lobotomize
people?”

“Not in recent history. It proved
ineffective.” He gave a slight smile, and I realized it had been his version of
a joke. I hope. “A large electric shock can disrupt abilities.”

Being dead would disrupt anyone’s
abilities. “Tazers?”

“They don’t work for long.” He
cued the windshield wipers to vamoose a splattered bug. “Most supras who burn
out overdosed on amp. It’s a drug that stimulates new connections in the brain.
Small doses can heighten one’s suprasense, sometimes permanently, but there’s a
fine line between enhancement and overdose. A loss, like a gain, can become
permanent. Most supras don’t touch the stuff.”

This was getting more science
fiction by the minute. “That’s not good.”

“Burnout is rarely good, though
it can be relaxing if it’s brief.”

“You’ve been burned out?” He
didn’t seem like druggie to me. That would involve having a life outside of
work, unless he did his drugs in the YuriCorp broom closet. I obviously needed
to teach the man how to have a good time.

“Yes, of course.” John glanced at
me quickly, a surprised expression on his face. “You haven’t?”

“I, uh, don’t know. Maybe if you
describe it?”

He eyed me as if my ignorance had
to be fake—or made him suspicious. “Your suprasenses subside to normal levels.
There’s a numbness like mental exhaustion. Aside from amp or electric shock, a
minor burn can happen when you overuse your ability during emotional or
physical stress. As I’m sure you know, all supras lose their abilities
at...certain times.”

He was wrong—I didn’t know. I
couldn’t recall a time I’d been unable to see lies. When I was drunk or tired,
I couldn’t see the masks as well, but they were always there.

“I forgot about that,” I lied,
unwilling to admit I wasn’t like the other kids. “When people don’t have
anything to say, it’s hard for me to gauge.”

He reddened, and I got the impression
it embarrassed him to discuss it. I, on the other hand, would love to be free
from lies, but I didn’t know how to ask about this universal incident I was
supposed to know already.

“I could use an extended burnout,”
I said, to keep the conversation flowing. “It would be a nice break from other
people’s crap. Are you sure I can’t schedule one?”

For an uncomfortable moment, I
thought he wasn’t going to answer. His flush deepened, and he avoided eye
contact. Not that he should have been gazing into my limpid pools while
driving. “As you know, I can’t lie to you,” he began, a lie fluttering around
his face. “Aside from unavoidable ones, you can’t risk a burnout.”

Either he thought he could lie to
me, or he thought I should risk a burnout. Well, in a way, we all were at risk.
YuriCorp’s consultants were on the hot seat and it was my job to help ice the
bad guy. So to speak.

“Are you going to require I take
Xanax to make sure I don’t get anxious?” I asked. Considering my history, I
didn’t think they had much to worry about with me losing my abilities
otherwise.

“We’ll know more after your
tests,” he hedged. “Most of your testing will involve your chameleon side since
we need to conceal your primary ability from our lab staff.”

 “I’ve never been good at tests.”
John had gotten part of his information about me from licking my hand. Samantha
had suggested he kiss me last night, and I thought of that now—as I had several
times today. What would kissing him be like, if he were tasting me so
intimately he could sample my DNA?

It didn’t look like I’d be
finding out from Mr. All Business. It was almost as if he’d been assigned to
tour me around the city.

“Tell me something,” I said. “Did
Yuri delegate you to show me the sights?”

“Er.” John stared fixedly at the
road ahead of us. “He mentioned you might feel more comfortable deciding about
your future employment if you were familiar with the area.”

“You’re working.” That answered a
lot. “This is part of your job.”

“No, I—”

Whatever he was going to say was
cut off when the car ahead of us on the quiet country lane screeched to a stop
and whirled sideways, tires smoking.

“Holy hell!” I clutched the
dashboard and braked with my feet, which, of course, did nothing to stop the
vehicle.

John swung the truck off the
road, rattling through a small drainage ditch and onto a grassy embankment.

I screamed. He jerked the wheel.
Our tail end spun and crumpled a section of the ubiquitous white fence before
we chunked back down the embankment.

My teeth chattered in my head
like a manual typewriter. I pointed at the other car, a large black sedan.
“What’s up with that asshole?”

John stopped the car half on,
half off the gravel shoulder. We were about twenty feet behind the sedan.

“Are you all right?” He whipped
off his seatbelt and leaned across the cab.

“I think so.” The rush of
adrenalin gave me swimmy-head. I took off my seatbelt, too. When he patted me
down, I let him.

His palm was warm. Not tingly,
like Roxanne Spivey, but nice. Normal. He gently probed my shoulder where the
seatbelt had lain across me. “Bruises? Sore neck?”

He lingered on the skin of my
neck, a fingertip rubbing my collarbone. He was close enough to kiss, to taste
that magical tongue, and I was already halfway in his arms.

God, he was appealing. There was
just something about him, something earnest and sexy at the same time.

Heat rose in my face when I
realized his touch was turning me on. “I’m just startled,” I claimed. If he
didn’t want to be mauled by a sex-starved woman who hadn’t gotten any skin in
months, he’d better keep his hands to himself.

“You’re sure?”

I brushed him away. “Let’s go
check on the asshole and see if he had a heart attack.” I’d feel bad for
calling him an asshole if that were the case.

“Stay here.” John popped on the
emergency brake and shut the motor off. He got out of the cab and walked around
to check his tailgate.

I’d have been more worried about
why somebody careened to a stop in the middle of a highway than the damage to
my vehicle. The other guy was blocking the road, which meant this could turn
into a bigger wreck. I peered into the distance. No cars ahead, one approaching
from behind but far off. The closest house was several cow fields away.