Blind Instinct. Fiona Brand

gaze was remote. “It’s all right, I won’t touch you.”

      That’s right, don’t touch me. Don’t come within a mile of me.

      It had taken her years to recover from the dreams, the horror that had pushed through into her life. She still had trouble with the night, and sleeping.

      She wanted Bayard, but she couldn’t allow him near her again. She couldn’t afford him.

      The trip home was awkward. The evening was mild, but she couldn’t get warm despite the jacket and the heater switched on. Half an hour later, Bayard dropped her back at her house. He waited until she made it to the porch and stepped inside the front hall before reversing and heading down the drive.

      Cavanaugh.

      The stark moment of recognition shivered through her again.

      She had remembered Bayard. That fact alone was stunning. If someone from that previous life was going to be in her life now, why wasn’t it someone like her parents or Steve?

      She watched until the sweep of Bayard’s headlights disappeared. She didn’t know anyone by the name of Cavanaugh, although she was sure that if she checked the phone book, she would find a long list. Not that she was going to do that. As far as she was concerned the past was the past and it could stay there; she didn’t want it in either her present or her future.

      She was Sara Fischer in this life, but in the Second World War she knew with flat certainty that she had been someone else—an English spy called Sara Weiss. Beyond that basic recall, and the blurred memories of dreams, she didn’t have many concrete details. By the age of eight, annoyed by the disruptive effect of Dr. Dolinsky’s tactics, her father had taught her what he had termed “applied amnesia.” In effect, how to dismiss and forget the dreams. For several weeks every time she woke from a dream, her father had instantly distracted her by reading her chapters of a novel until she fell asleep. By the time they had worked their way through the full set of a popular series of children’s mysteries, she had learned the knack of not thinking about the dreams. Without the strong link created by repeatedly recalling the dreams, or talking about them, they had literally dissolved so that, if she thought of them at all, all she remembered was that she had dreamed, not the content.

      Her father didn’t know it, and he wouldn’t be happy if she told him, but she had made some enquiries about Sara Weiss, and found that she had existed, the daughter of a German businessman and a Frenchwoman, who had been resident in England. She had died in 1943, although she hadn’t ever been able to find any details about her death.

      Finding out that Sara Weiss had existed had been a jolt. Up until that point, the idea that she was remembering actual events had been a purely cerebral reality, with no grounding in fact.

      She had conducted a search on the Internet. Seeing the name listed in black and white, the details of a life that uncannily mirrored her own in terms of interests and education, then discovering that Sara Weiss had died while in her early thirties, had shaken her.

      Somewhere there would be a grave. Proof of a life lived and lost. A life that still lingered on in her mind.

      Accepting that reality was difficult enough. Being confronted with a physical link to that past in the form of Bayard was a complication she didn’t need.

      Three

      Washington, D.C., Present Day

      Two dead, and counting.

      Marc Bayard, Assistant Director of Special Projects at National Intelligence, studied the loading zone outside the entrance to the D.C. Morgue as he stepped out of an unmarked departmental car. Agent Matt Bridges flanked him as they walked inside, automatically drifting to Marc’s left and staying a half step behind, covering the firing arcs and Marc’s back while staying out of the way of his right hand.

      Bridges wasn’t assigned bodyguard duty, and Marc didn’t normally need the protection. He worked out regularly and he carried weapons. The Glock 19 was nothing exotic, just down-home firepower that was proven and reliable. These days he wasn’t often in the front line. If anyone wanted to take him out, the maneuver was generally an interdepartmental or a political one, but risk was inherent in the job, so he kept his hand in. His choice of backup weapon was a six-inch blade strapped to his ankle. Not many people knew he had the knife or that he was proficient with it, which suited Marc. Living in D.C. amongst the suits and the political-speak, people saw what he projected, not the lean, fit Louisiana boy who knew his way around the woods. To coin a pun, the knife was his edge.

      The dry chill of air-conditioning matched the blank neutrality of the decor as they stopped at the reception desk. A short conversation later and an orderly appeared with a clipboard. Marc checked his watch as they were directed down a corridor and into a room. He’d cut one meeting, and put a second on hold. If it was Jim Corcoran who had been brought in, he would clear his schedule for the afternoon.

      Corcoran had been with Marc in the FBI. Marc had headhunted him when he’d made the move to National Intelligence to head the task force that had been assigned to take down two key criminal organizations: the Chavez cartel, headed by Alex Lopez, and a secretive political cabal formed decades ago by ex-SS officers.

      Apart from the fact that Corcoran was a damned good agent and a friend, he was a crucial link in Marc’s team. He had been personally responsible for tracking down and indicting over two hundred members of Lopez’s network and shutting the cartel down along most of the Eastern Seaboard. Among the arrests had been officials in a raft of government departments, but he had bagged a couple of bigger fish—notably, two federal agents.

      The door to the morgue swung closed behind him. The cold pungent smell, laced with chemical, made his jaw clench. He had known Corcoran for more than ten years. He had been invited to dinner at Jim’s house and had attended his wedding and his daughter’s christening. Losing Jim wouldn’t just be a blow to his team; it would hurt.

      The room was congested with morgue personnel and D.C.’s finest: two uniforms and a detective, who introduced himself as Dan Herschel.

      Marc moved smoothly through the formalities. The two uniforms had gotten to the scene first, then Herschel had taken the case. But Marc’s attention was on the two bodies residing on narrow metal tables, both encased in body bags.

      The medical examiner, a slim fiftysomething woman with taut features and tired eyes , unzipped the PVC far enough that Marc could view the first face.

      Shit. Fuck.

      Corcoran.

      The second body was that of a woman who had gotten caught in the crossfire. PVC peeled open over pale skin, dark hair and delicate cheekbones.

      Sara.

      Time seemed to slow, stop. Blood pounded through his veins in quick, hard strokes.

      The panic was irrational. It wasn’t Sara Fischer. She was safely locked into her life in Shreveport, Louisiana. He had seen her just weeks ago at her father’s funeral. This woman was younger, in her early twenties, and her hair was black, not dark brown, but for long seconds those facts failed to make any difference.

      A phone beeped, the sound harsh and discordant. The M.E. backed off a few steps to take the call, and Marc focused on Detective Herschel reciting facts with flat precision as he read from notes.

      Corcoran had walked to a café to get lunch. The woman had been entering as Corcoran was leaving and had simply gotten in the way. The gunman had shot her first, then hit Corcoran, one to the chest, a second shot to the head. The hit had been very fast, very precise. Hampered by a paper bag and a foam cup, Corcoran hadn’t had time to reach for his gun.

      Marc dragged his gaze from the dead woman’s face. With every second that passed she looked less and less like Sara. “Witnesses?”

      “The café owner saw what happened, but only from inside the building. We’re working on tracing some of the regular customers who were eating at the tables outside.”

      “Any description of the