Out of Sight Out of Mind by Evonne Wareham

wasn’t so comfortable.
    Now the euphoria was evaporating – she shrugged off the hormonal haze that seemed to want to take its place – her own ability to question was kicking in. Jay didn’t want people to know about him. Was that an understandable sense of uncertainty, given the vulnerability of his situation? Or was it something else entirely?
    Had it been too easy, the way Jay had accepted that she could read minds? The way he already seemed to have slid into her world? Was she letting her eagerness to work with the best subject she’d ever encountered override all her protective mechanisms? For a second she felt nauseous. She wanted to work with Jay.
Needed
to. She dug her fingers into the palms of her hands. Something had created that barrier in Jay’s mind. Whatever or whoever it was, it was unlikely to be good. His easy acceptance of her and the unknown source of his own power – the answers to both
had
to be lurking behind that barrier. Did she really want to go there? To an uncertain, dangerous place?
Of course you do. You just have to be very, very careful.
    She straightened up. Getting a private investigator was a start. She needed some answers, too. She’d choose carefully and pay what was asked. If Jay was a con man, or some kind of spy, if he’d been sent to test her – she was going to know about it. If he was something worse …
    What?
    You just have to be very, very careful.
    Jay lay in the dark, as expected, looking at the ceiling, willing his mind to behave. For over an hour he’d been trying to nail that persistent sense of menace, checking out whether it was real. The only result was the return of the nagging pain behind the eyes. He was stuck here, in the middle of the craziest of the crazy. Mind reading, for fuck’s sake! Mind reading! A long shiver ran over his skin. His whole life, his whole
being
was so screwed up,
that
felt like normal. And when he tried to sort out stuff, to make some sense of it – zap – knives behind the eyes.
    With a curse he levered himself off the bed, crossing to the sink for water and one of the painkillers he’d bought at the chemist. He looked down at the small white pill. He might have bought them, but it was Madison’s money. Everything he had he owed to the angel.
    The thought stung.
    The only repayment he had right now was blood, sweat and tears, and she could have those, any way she wanted. Have him – he shunted quickly past
that
image. Circumstances had thrown them into a weird intimacy. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. There was too much riding on it. She could use him for any number of research studies, if she could get his memory back – and if he could be sure that what they were doing was safe. Until he could, the fewer people who knew about him the better.
    He wandered back to the bed, feeling his eyelids getting heavy as the meds kicked in.
    He arranged himself on the mattress, his shoulder supported by a pillow, with the duvet drawn back over his good arm. The studio was well appointed and comfortable. He had everything he could possibly need, but the neutral décor of his surroundings had all the impersonality of a hotel room. Blank, just like he was. He tried, fruitlessly, to call up some familiar picture. Did he have a home, somewhere?
    Madison’s apartment was full of surprising pieces of her personality, books and CDs, candles, paintings on the walls from places she’d visited; not great art, but pictures that meant something to her. Like the Italian one at the lab. There’d been something there. Something connected to the missing lover? That was one private area he hadn’t trampled into. Madison had let him into her personal space, but she still had things that were hidden.
    Madison Albi was one hell of a woman. She had his life, literally, in her hands. But he had confidence in her. The thought came with a tiny shock.
Someone to trust.
Could he? His angel had secrets. And he was stuck here in the dark, inside