Sizzle and Burn (37 page)

Raine looked at him. “Are you saying that you believe he fell in love with Aunt Vella?”

“I think Uncle Wilder found the love of his life but he screwed things up so badly he probably figured there was no hope. So he took that last suicide mission.”

Raine thought about that for a long time.

“He shouldn’t have lied to her,” she said at last.

“She lied to him about the formula,” Zack said.

“They lied to each other,” Gordon declared grimly. “In my experience, that approach to interpersonal communication never leads to good outcomes.”

Bradley Mitchell called later that night. Zack picked up the phone. Raine came out of the bathroom in her robe, just as he finished speaking. He ended the call and looked at her.

“Mitchell says that Cassidy Cutler managed to find an open window at the hospital. She jumped. Broke her neck.”

Raine sank down on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap. “Suicide.”

“Yes.”

“What about Niki Plumer?”

“Still alive but the doctor says she’s sliding deeper and deeper into a psychotic state. She no longer speaks or communicates in any way. No one expects her to snap out of it.” Zack sat down beside her and took her hand. “Same old pattern.”

“Did Bradley say anything more about Cassidy Cutler being a serial killer?”

“He said the case is looking very solid.”

Raine looked pleased. “This is going to make his career. And the best part is that he won’t have to share the credit with a psychic side-kick.”

Zack eased her back onto the bed, flattened his hands on the quilt on either side of her shoulders and loomed over her. “I sure as hell hope you’re not about to tell me that you’ll miss working with him. Because I’d have a real problem with that.”

She put her arms around his neck. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Look ominous and dangerous and incredibly sexy all at the same time.”

He appeared to give that a moment’s serious contemplation. “Damned if I know. Guess it’s a—”

“Gift.” She laughed and pulled him closer. “It’s not Bradley I’ll miss. It’s the work.”

He kissed her lightly and raised his head. “I know. I understand how it is with our kind of talent, remember? But don’t worry, as the wife of the Master of the Arcane Society and part-time consultant for J&J, you’ll get your psychic fix.”

She blinked. “I’m going to become a J&J agent?”

“Why not? You were born for the work.”

“Uh, have you discussed this plan with Fallon Jones?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m the boss.”

He silenced her laughter with a kiss that made the atmosphere around the bed crackle with invisible energy.

Fifty-nine

WASHINGTON: WINTER COVE PSYCHIATRIC
HOSPITAL, LATER THAT NIGHT…

T
he orderly paused outside room 705 and peered through the small glass window. The patient was still asleep. In the glow of the night-light he could see her on the bed. She was in the exact same position she had been in an hour before, lying on her side, her back to the door. The sheet was pulled up over her head. She had not moved.

Now that he thought about it, it seemed to him that there was something unnatural about her stillness. He’d been on the night shift on this ward ever since she arrived a few days before. She had never slept this soundly before.

An uneasy sensation drifted through him. She was on a suicide watch but he’d worked there long enough to know that when patients were determined to take their own lives, they usually succeeded.

He entered the code that unlocked the door, moved inside the small space and went toward the bed.

“Miss Plumer? Are you awake?” He reached down to shake her shoulder.

By the time he realized that the shape on the bed had been created by pillows and folded blankets, it was too late.

He heard the faint slide of a slippered foot on the tile floor behind him. The next instant pain exploded in his head.

The world went dark.

She had chosen one of the smaller orderlies but his clothes were still much too big on her. The shirt reeked of masculine sweat and cigarette smoke. But she had learned the night routine well. All she had to do was cross the hall to the stairwell without being seen. If she made it that far, she stood an excellent chance of getting out of the building. With a little luck, no one would miss the orderly for a while.

She made it down the stairs to the employees’ locker room, found the orderly’s locker and removed a cap and a jacket. She shoved her hair under the cap and turned up the collar of the jacket.

A small hypnotic suggestion removed any doubts the guard at the employees’ entrance had concerning the identity of the departing staff member.

A few minutes later, she was in the orderly’s battered compact, driving away from the hospital. She would have to ditch the car and get another one before dawn, she decided.

She drove hard and fast, putting as much distance between herself and the hospital as possible. And while she drove she made her plans.

For all intents and purposes, the organization considered her as good as dead. That situation would change, however, as soon as someone found the unconscious orderly.

The Inner Circle would order an immediate search when word got out that she had escaped. The cops and J&J would also look for her. Niki Plumer would have to disappear in a very convincing manner, at least until she could demonstrate to the Inner Circle that John Stilwell Nash was a traitor to the organization.

When she proved that she was the only one who had recognized how truly dangerous Nash was, the director would thank her. And then he would give her Nash’s position in the organization. From there it was only a few short steps to the Inner Circle and, ultimately, the director’s chair.

They would wonder why she had survived being deprived of the formula, of course. Perhaps she would let them think she had some natural immunity to the side effects. Or maybe she would pretend that Nash never gave her the real drug because he feared she would become more powerful than him. Yes, that would work nicely, she thought. Nash gave her a fake version of the drug. Perfect. Another nail in his coffin.

The Inner Circle believed that she was a mid-range strategy talent who had been bumped up to a level nine by the drug. The truth was, she was a natural level-nine parahypnotist who had only pretended to be a mid-range strategist. With her abilities, it had been easy enough to swap out the little vials when she was given the first three injections of the formula, the ones designed to get her hooked. Later, when she was on her own, she had simply dumped her regular supply down the nearest drain.

She had sensed from the outset that if the organization was handing out a para-enhancement drug freely to its operatives, there had to be a serious downside. The Inner Circle would want to make sure it had a way to control the dangerously powerful talents it created.

She had been right.

She wanted to use the drug as badly as any of the others but she wasn’t going to take it until she knew for certain that it was safe or that there was an antidote. She had seen for herself what the stuff was doing to John Stilwell Nash.

They said that family feuds were the nastiest quarrels. She didn’t doubt that for a moment. It would be interesting to see the expression on Nash’s face when he discovered that he wasn’t the only modern-day result of John Stilwell’s very personal reproductive experiments back in the late 1800s.

It wasn’t the strong who survived, she thought. It was the very, very smart.

Fallon Jones read the news when it came across his computer screen the following day. It was a small, insignificant item that anyone who did not have an unhealthy obsession with dots would likely have missed.

…Niki Plumer, a suspect in a recent conspiracy to kidnap the mayor of Oriana, Washington, escaped from Winter Cove Psychiatric Hospital and is believed to have drowned.

A woman matching Plumer’s description was last seen boarding a late-night Washington State Ferry in Seattle. A car that was stolen from the hospital parking lot last night was found on board.

Plumer had been on a suicide watch while undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Authorities believe she may have jumped overboard midway between Seattle and Bremerton. Her body has not been recovered.

Fallon got to his feet and went to stand at the window looking out over the fog-drenched town of Scargill Cove. He stood there for a long time, thinking about dots.

Sixty

LOS ANGELES, ONE WEEK LATER…

T
he official headquarters of the Arcane Society, USA, was located in a generic steel-and-glass office tower in Los Angeles. It was a surprisingly small suite of offices because the Society had never been big on centralization. By definition, most of its members tended to be strong individualists who did not take well to regimentation and organization. The Council met formally in LA only a few times a year. The rest of the time they convened online or on the phone.

The decision to house the headquarters in LA was made back in the 1930s, when it had become obvious that California was the ideal place to conceal a group devoted to the weird and the bizarre. Weird and bizarre passed for normal in LA.

The good thing, Zack thought, was that after he assumed the Master’s Chair, he and Raine would not have to live in this vast, sprawling city of glitz and freeways and sun. Oriana would make a fine hometown. It looked like a great place to raise kids. He and Raine were already shopping for a house.

But first he had to deal with his future Council.

At the opposite end of the table his grandfather was concluding his announcement. Tall and distinguished, Bancroft Jones radiated power, not just the paranormal stuff, but the charismatic kind that seemed to infuse those who were born to lead. He was also a whip-fast and very shrewd hunter talent, even at the age of seventy-eight.

“…And so I am pleased to announce that my grandson, Zackary Gabriel Jones, has accepted the appointment to the Master’s Chair,” Bancroft said.

There was an enthusiastic round of applause. The ten men and women seated at the table turned to Zack. They were all powerful sensitives of one sort or another. He also knew that each was endowed with a very broad streak of personal ambition and a remarkable non-paranormal talent for the sort of political maneuvering that had gotten them onto the Council in the first place. Dealing with them in the years ahead would be a challenge.

The middle-aged man across from Zack rose and cleared his throat.

“I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are delighted you have decided to accept the appointment,” Hector Guerrero said. “We feel it is important that you know that you were not asked to take this position merely because of your family’s long and respected association with the Society.”

At the far end of the table Marilyn Houston chuckled. “If all we cared about was having a Jones at the head of the Society, we had a great many of your relatives to choose from. You come from a very prolific family, sir.”

There was a round of laughter. Zack acknowledged the humor with a smile.

Guerrero cleared his throat a second time and continued. “We all sense that in the next few decades the Society will face a variety of serious challenges. There are difficult, possibly even dangerous, times ahead. In addition to trying to move into the mainstream, the threat presented by Nightshade appears to be growing stronger. The organization must be defeated. If it flourishes it has the potential to not just destroy the Society but to infiltrate and manipulate our nation’s leading corporations and our government.”

It had been Bancroft’s idea to let Guerrero, one of the most powerful and influential members of the Council, act as the closer.

“The thought of psychically enhanced Nightshade operatives becoming powerful figures in the highest circles of our land is intolerable,” Guerrero warned. “The damage that could be done is inestimable. We must fight this grave threat and, for the foreseeable future at least, we must fight it largely alone.”

There were a series of unhappy murmurs of agreement around the table.

“We all know that we can expect little overt assistance from the government, the establishment media or the mainstream law enforcement community,” Guerrero added. “Officially, at least, most people in this country still hold the view that the paranormal is the province of science fiction, fantasy, quacks, gurus, talk-show guests and frauds. Convincing them that a secret, dangerous conspiracy comprised of psychically enhanced individuals exists and must be taken seriously is probably beyond our ability, at least for now.”

Without exception, those around the oval table sat tight-lipped and grim-faced.

“And so we welcome to this Council chamber a new Master who is uniquely qualified to lead us through these perilous times.” Guerrero fixed Zack with piercing eyes. “We ask you to take the oath of office and assume the Master’s Chair, Zackary Gabriel Jones.”

Zack rose but made no move to go to the head of the table. Instead, he looked at each of the ten members in turn. Then, very deliberately, he set a folder down on the polished stone table.

“Before I take the oath,” he said, “I am going to introduce you to my fiancée, Miss Raine Tallentyre, daughter of Judson and Miranda Tallentyre.”

The name hit the room with the impact of a meteor. Jaws dropped and eyes widened. Zack knew that some of those present had served on the Council when Tallentyre was kicked out of the Society. The rest were well aware of the name.