Deceitful_C. Reilly Read online

  Copyright ©2022 C. Reilly

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, events and places are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Opulent Designs

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  When a serial killer rocks a small town in Oregon, a young woman with special powers might be the only person able to stop him. As part of a secret branch of the FBI, Tessa is sent on a mission to impersonate Madison, a local teen and the last victim of the brutal attacker, to find the killer before he strikes again.

  As if absorbing the DNA of someone else and pretending to be them wasn’t hard enough, Alec, the guy she’s been in love with for years, is joining her on the dangerous mission. Tessa knows she can’t let her feelings for him get in the way, especially as her crush seems hopeless. Not only is Alec her self-defence teacher but he’s also taken. If only the attraction between them would stop complicating everything!

  Will Tessa find the killer before another person falls victim to him? Or will she lose herself in a life she’s always longed for but never had?

  The straightjacket corseted my body so tightly my arms tingled and my fingers turned numb. I sank beneath the water’s surface, the weights on the jacket dragging me down. I gasped, and a spurt of liquid spilled into my mouth. Chlorine burned my eyes as I watched the distance between me and the surface growing. Blurry shapes moved above, becoming smaller, blurrier. They were watching me. Waiting. Watching. Waiting.

  Panic clutched at my chest when my feet hit the ground. Ten feet separated me from desperately needed oxygen. If I didn’t move quickly, I was going to drown. Bubbles burst from my mouth, dancing before my eyes almost mockingly. I tore at the fabric, pressing my arms against my sides, thrashing and kicking, letting my instinct take over.

  It’s just a test, I reminded myself. Summers would never have let me do this if it was too dangerous. She’d been a Variation trainer for years—she knew what we were capable of. She might risk me losing consciousness, but she wouldn’t let me die.

  And Alec wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

  I stopped struggling and settled at the bottom of the pool, resting my knees on the blue concrete floor. Closing my eyes, I tried my best to ignore the steady pressure building in my chest. I needed air. I’d already wasted too much time panicking.

  Focus.

  I coaxed the memory of a little girl I’d bumped in the mall. I pictured her delicate features, her narrow shoulders, her slender limbs. I imagined looking through her eyes, inhabiting her body. Immediately, the familiar ripping sensation started in my toes and crept up my calves. Once it reached my chest, the pressure of the jacket loosened. It was several sizes too big now. I wiggled out of my restraints, opened my eyes, and pushed off the ground. With a gasp, I burst through the water’s surface, gulping down air. I felt my limbs lengthening, my body returning to its own form. As soon as my vision was clear, I noticed Alec perched on the edge of the pool, ready to jump in. His dark brows were still knitted, his gray eyes full of worry. He always looked pissed-off when he worried, and it was a look that really, really suited him. It made his sharp cheekbones and strong chin stand out even more, and revealed hints of the temper he usually controlled so well.

  Summers, Tanner, and Holly had gathered around to watch. Tanner winked at me and gestured at the pile of towels in the corner; one of them lifted off and floated toward his outstretched hand.

  “Show-off,” I mouthed with a smile and swam toward the ladder.

  I took Alec’s outstretched hand and let him pull me out of the pool. He wrapped a towel around my shoulders and I snuggled into the fluffy material, wishing it were Alec’s chest instead, but his bicep touched my skin for less than a second. Still the brief contact sent a tingle through me as it always did. I sank down on the bench, my back against the wall. My teeth chattered as I released a shaky breath. I could feel the panic slowly ebbing away, but my heart kept up its erratic rhythm.

  Holly wrapped an arm around me. “Shit. I can’t believe how long it took you to resurface. Are you okay?”

  I shrugged and leaned my head against her shoulder. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

  “Morphing into a little girl—that’s quite a party trick, Tessa. But there’s nothing like a near-death experience to get your blood pumping, right?” Tanner said with a grin. His teeth flashed white in his dark face. His red mohawk defied gravity the way it always did—one of the perks of having a telekinetic Variation.

  “It’s not funny. Tessa could’ve gotten hurt,” Alec growled. He pressed his balled fists against the wall; the muscles in his back quivered as if he was trying to stop himself from driving his hands through the wall—which he could have easily done with his own Variation. He was stronger and faster than normal human beings—and other Variants, for that matter.

  “Everyone needs to learn how to use their Variations in extreme situations. We can’t coddle students and then expect them to survive a mission. Tessa isn’t a child anymore,” Summers said, running an impatient hand over her messy ponytail. Summers had been an agent for the FEA—Forces with Extraordinary Abilities—since before we were born and had complete authority during our Variation training. But that didn’t stop Alec from challenging her on a regular basis. He could be impossibly stubborn. And the news that I was no longer the kid he picked up at home several years ago hadn’t registered to him yet.

  “Don’t turn this into a bigger deal than it is, Alec,” she warned, pivoting on one heel and exiting the pool area.

  Tanner clapped Alec’s shoulder. “She’s right. You’ve got to chill.” He sat down on the bench beside Holly and me and leaned back against the wall. “Have you guys heard the news?”

  “What news?” Holly asked.

  “Kate and Major left headquarters before sunrise. They’re on their way to Livingston, some hick town out in Oregon.”

  So that was why I hadn’t seen Kate all day. Usually she never left Alec’s side. She was his constant shadow. “Isn’t that the place where that awful murder happened?” I asked.

  Tanner nodded. “Yep. And I heard there was another incident.”

  Water trickled over my face but I didn’t bother wiping it off. “Why are they even interested, though? It’s just a small town. And it’s not like every killer is FEA business.”

  The FEA was officially a section of the FBI, and the majority of our cases came assigned by them—though we were also involved in larger counterterrorism and espionage efforts. But apart from having the FBI motto fidelity, bravery and integrity engraved above the entrance to FEA headquarters, our organization was pretty much autonomous. Whenever a crime reeked of Variant involvement, FEA agents were sent to investigate.
Otherwise the FBI left us to our own devices as long as we didn’t draw any attention to our existence. Major wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Tanner shrugged. “Who knows what’s going on in Major’s head. Maybe there’s more to the case that we’re not aware of.”

  “Maybe the FBI suspects a Variant,” Holly added.

  “If the FEA does get involved, I wonder who they’ll pick for the mission,” I said. We would find out soon enough.

  xxx

  The intercom hissed.

  Holly groaned, bleach-blonde hair falling over her face as she sat up. “Fuck. What do they want now?”

  I didn’t move. I was beat from my morning in the pool, followed closely by our afternoon run, and wanted to catch a few blissful minutes of rest before Holly and I had ballistics training.

  “Tessa. Meeting in my office ASAP,” Major Sanchez bellowed, his voice warped by the old speakers. I rolled my eyes. One would think the FEA could afford up-to-date hardware.

  In Major’s world, ASAP meant “right this second or you’ll run three laps.” With my legs still burning from my daily run, I wasn’t keen on being late.

  Holly grinned. “Good luck.”

  I jumped out of bed and hurried out of the room. When had Kate and Major returned from Livingston, anyway?

  Major Sanchez’s closed door greeted me, the do not interrupt sign taunting me with its fat black letters. I knocked and without waiting for an invitation—which would never come—I gingerly opened the door. Major stood behind his desk, his thick arms crossed. His black hair was slicked back with enough pomade to grease the hinges in the entire complex. His dark eyes glared at me, but I’d been on the receiving end of that look so often that I barely flinched.

  “Get your butt into the chair, Tessa.”

  I stumbled toward the free chair and sank down onto it. They were the kind of chairs that made you want to get the hell out of them as soon as possible: high-gloss, black hardwood—unyielding and impeccable, like the man who’d chosen them. Not that such chairs were even necessary, as a few minutes in Major’s company had the same effect on most people.

  Alec and Kate were already seated, holding hands. Or rather: Kate was clutching Alec’s hand like she was afraid he’d run away. He wore one of the white button-down shirts Kate had bought for him, his hair still wet from his post-run shower. Kate’s narrowed eyes came into my focus: amber with a weird coppery hint—if my turquoise eyes were uncommon, hers were outright unsettling.

  I whipped my head around and turned my attention back to Major. If Kate got a direct look into my eyes, she’d use her Variation to read exactly what was on my mind, and that could get awkward because usually it involved fantasies of Alec in some degree of undress.

  Major didn’t sit down; instead he stood behind his desk chair, hands gripping the backrest so tightly his knuckles were turning white. Not an easy feat with skin as tanned as his.

  I shifted in the chair. My eyes were drawn to the pinboard behind Major’s desk. It had been a while since I was in his office and the board had changed since then. Back then, the disturbing photos hadn’t been there.

  The first showed a woman splayed on her stomach, a wire coiled tightly around her throat. My own breath hitched at the thought of being strangled, of looking into the eyes of my murderer as I struggled for breath, of dying with a killer’s cruel face as my last glimpse of the world. My eyes drifted over to the second photo, of another female—it was hard to tell her age, as her body had grown bloated and taken on a greenish hue. Floaters were the most horrid corpses of all. I’d never seen one in real life—or any other dead body, for that matter. But I’d seen plenty of pictures during Basic Forensic Pathology, and that was disturbing enough.

  “There’s been a new development in the serial killer case in Livingston.”

  I sat up, startled by the topic. Major had never spoken directly to me about that case—or any case. I hadn’t been in the FEA for long enough, wasn’t experienced or trustworthy enough. Kate and Alec nodded in unison.

  “His fourth victim.” Major continued.

  “Fourth? Who was the third victim?” I’d only heard of two. Apparently, the gossip channels in the FEA didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.

  “A Mr. Chen. He was a janitor in Livingston’s high school,” Major said.

  “A man?”

  Major sighed. “That gave our profiling team quite a stir. Their analysis up until then had suggested a misogynist.”

  Four murders. That must have been a shock for a town as small as Livingston. “Why do we even think it’s a serial killer? What seems to be the connection?”

  Major released his grip on the chair. “Two victims were killed with a wire around their necks. Two were found in or near the lake—we can’t say for sure how they were killed. But they all had one thing in common: the killer had cut an A into the skin over their rib cage. We don’t yet know why.”

  “Did he do it post-mortem?” I asked as all kinds of horrible images flooded my head.

  “Yes. But that’s not why I ordered you into my office; you’ll become familiar with the cases soon enough.”

  The thought was enough to make my pulse speed up.

  “Yesterday the killer tried to strike again,” Major said.

  “Tried?”

  Major’s glower made me add a hasty “sir,” but it didn’t change his expression.

  “Yes, tried. He strangled a girl and threw her into the lake afterward, but she washed onto the shore, where a jogger found her. He called an ambulance. She sustained severe brain damage and was placed in an artificial coma. That’s where it gets interesting.”

  Interesting? I glanced at Alec and Kate, my stomach knotting into a tight ball, but they just listened, straight-faced. I needed to grow a thicker skin, become hardened, but maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this job.

  “The doctors give her a few days to live, at most. Once she’s dead, Tessa, you’ll take her place.”

  My fingers gripped the sleek, wooden armrest. I felt as if a hole had suddenly opened into the Earth and threatened to swallow me. “You can’t be serious.” He wanted me to pose as a dead girl to chase a serial killer?

  Major straightened, eyes narrowed.

  I took a deep breath. “I’ll take her place?” My voice shook, despite my best attempts to appear strong. I knew I should be grateful for the opportunity, but this was more than the usual entry-level missions, like reconnaissance or conducting background investigations. This was me at the front. While a small part of me was excited about the chance to prove myself, the bigger part considered all the ways I could fail.

  “Yes, that is what I said. Once she’s dead, you’ll pretend to be her.”

  He said it like it was nothing, like posing as a murder victim was a perfectly normal occurrence.

  “But everybody will already know she’s dead, won’t they? I can’t pretend to be a corpse.”

  “No, they won’t. Everyone will think there’s been a miracle and she recovered.”

  “But what about her parents?” I asked.

  Major traced a finger over the photos on the wall. “They won’t know, either. They’ll simply think that you’re her.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll get suspicious if I don’t act exactly like their daughter? They know her better than anyone. I’ll never be just like her, no matter how hard I try.”

  “Yes, but think, Tessa. Why would they suspect anything? For them there’ll be no other explanation for their daughter’s recovery than a miracle. And any small changes in her behavior will be attributed to the trauma. They could never imagine that people like us exist. An average human’s imagination doesn’t reach that far.”

  Average human—only Major was able to make it sound like an insult. He looked at me like I was precious, his most prized possession. His trophy Variant.

  Alec sprang out of his seat and began to pace the room, stalking past Major’s glass case of tin soldiers and awards, past the filing cabinet,
before he finally stopped in front of the picture window.

  “Don’t you think the mission is too dangerous? The murderer will obviously try to get rid of the only person who might be able to identify him. Tessa will be his prime target.”

  A tight knot of unease gathered in my stomach but I tried to ignore it. If I let it gain momentum, I’d dissolve into a puddle of anxiety.

  Major smirked, as though Alec’s words had been a joke. “Alec, Tessa will be facing much worse once her training is over. Like the rest of you do.”

  The training was ultimately geared toward one goal: to prepare us for more important future missions all over the world. Tanner’s brother Ty had recently completed training and was immediately sent on a covert assignment abroad. We didn’t know where he was, but rumors said Iran or China. Only ten percent of all agents were currently stationed at headquarters, the rest were out in the field.

  “This case will look like a piece of cake compared to what’s ahead. Do you think it’ll be safe to impersonate the leader of a terrorist group or the president of a country that’s spiraling out of control? That’s what awaits Tessa in the future, because she’s the only one who could do it. I don’t have to tell you that some people in the Department of Defense and the CIA are licking their fingers at the prospect of having Tessa’s talent at their disposal. She is the perfect spy—the ultimate weapon. So far I’ve been successful at keeping them at bay, but it’s time to prepare for the future. This mission is the perfect test run.”

  Ultimate weapon. The words echoed in my head. I pressed my arm against my stomach. Even with my Variation, I was still just an eighteen-year-old girl, not some extraordinary spy. Alec’s eyes met mine, his jaw locked tight.

  “Regarding this case, Tessa attracting the killer’s attention is exactly what we’re hoping for. He’s killed three people and the fourth is as good as dead. We must find him before he strikes again.”

  Alec’s dark eyebrows drew together in a V. “So Tessa will be bait?” His voice sounded calm as river water moments before a flash flood.