The Hot Zone (A Rainshadow Novel Book 3) (10 page)

Sedona awakened to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sound of loud pounding on her front door.

Coffee. That could only mean that Cyrus was still in the cottage. And now someone was at her front door. Whoever it was would see Cyrus and draw all the wrong conclusions.

Her eyes snapped open. She bolted out of bed, grabbed her robe, belted it, and stepped into her slippers. She headed for the hall.

The knocking sounded again. Booted footsteps echoed in the front room. Lyle zipped down the hallway toward the bedroom, chortling his customary morning greeting. Sedona bent down, scooped him up, plopped him down on her shoulder, and kept going. She arrived in the front room just as Cyrus reached for the doorknob.

“No,” she said in a loud whisper.

But it was too late. The door was open. Brock Prescott stood on the porch. He took in the little domestic scene with an expression of stunned disbelief.

“Sedona?” he said. He looked at Cyrus. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my wife’s house?”

Cyrus raised his brows and looked at Sedona for guidance. And all of a sudden she was not the least bit sorry he had opened the door.
Call me petty,
she thought. As revenge went, it wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

“Ex-wife,” she corrected in her sweetest tones. “Meet Brock Prescott. And I repeat for the record, we are no longer married. He filed for divorce after he concluded that I wasn’t coming back from the last job.”

Outrage tightened Brock’s nicely chiseled features. “We—everyone—thought you had been killed.”

“You only waited four days,” she said. “The least you could have done was give me a full week. But that’s neither here nor there. We have both moved on, haven’t we? Actually, you moved on first with Diana Easton.”

“I can explain Diana,” Brock said coldly.

“No need. Allow me to introduce Cyrus Jones. He’s the new boss of the Rainshadow Guild. No explanations necessary.”

Both men exchanged mutually assessing looks in that mysterious way that men did when they were sizing up each other. Lyle growled. Sedona reached up to hold him still.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You mustn’t bite Brock. He might sue and he’s got a team of lawyers.”

“Prescott,” Cyrus said.

Brock nodded once. “Jones.”

There was a stark silence. For his part Lyle appeared to lose interest in the proceedings. Maybe he figured Cyrus could handle things, Sedona thought. Aware that it was time for breakfast, he bounced down to the floor and fluttered toward the kitchen counter.

“When did you arrive on the island, Prescott?” Cyrus asked.

The question was deceptively civil and amazingly casual given the rather awkward circumstances.

“Late last night,” Brock said. His eyes narrowed. “Came in on a private charter float plane. We were delayed in Thursday Harbor by weather. When we finally got to Rainshadow we had trouble finding a place to stay. The pilot and I managed to get the last two rooms at some low-rent motel called the Bay View Inn.”

“Oh, right,” Sedona said. She beamed at Cyrus. “That would be the suite that I told my friend at the inn to save for you.”

“Looks like she managed to rent out those rooms, after all,” Cyrus said. He did not take his attention off Brock. “How did you find Sedona’s place so early this morning?”

It finally occurred to Sedona that Cyrus was not going out of his way to make casual conversation. He was interrogating Brock. With a shock she realized there could be only one reason. He was trying to decide if Brock had arrived on the island in time to set the psi-trap last night.

She thought about assuring Cyrus that Brock didn’t possess the kind of talent required to work that sort of Alien psi and then she decided she could do that later.

She was almost certain that what Brock possessed was a talent for charisma. Generally speaking, people
liked
Brock Prescott. They were drawn to him. He would have made it big in politics.

He had a lot of other things going for him, as well. He was a good conversationalist. He was well-mannered. And he was rich. There was nothing at all wrong with Brock Prescott, except that he would never be the faithful type. This morning, for the first time, he also appeared rather boring. Really, what had she seen in him?

News flash, woman: Having met Cyrus Jones, you are doomed to view every other man in a new light
.

She gripped the lapels of the collar of her robe and frowned at Brock. “Good question. How
did
you find me? What are you doing on my doorstep at this hour of the morning, and why in the world would you come all the way to Rainshadow to see me?”

Brock relaxed visibly. He gave her his mega-rez smile, the one that made you want to agree with everything he said.

“Lots of questions, honey, and I’ve got all the answers,” he said.

She knew what was going through his head. Cyrus Jones might be a problem but Brock did not anticipate any difficulty dealing with her. Geez. What made him think that she would be so easy to manipulate? Then she remembered that in the two months they had been together they had never argued over anything. Of course, the demands of her career had meant that she was gone a lot. As for Brock, his position as the head of Prescott Industries meant that he also maintained a busy schedule.

When you got right down to it, Sedona thought, their relationship had been superficial, at best. They had never really gotten to know each other. She could not blame Brock, not entirely. She had played it safe for years, never allowing any man to get too close.

“Yes, I’ll bet you do have the answers.” She returned his brilliant smile with interest. “You always do. But let’s start with the one that matters to me at this particular moment. How did you find me?”

Brock shrugged. “That wasn’t a problem. I called your friend Brenda. She knew that you had moved to Rainshadow. She said you were working at some cheap, run-down resort.”

“Knox’s Resort and Tavern is not a cheap, run-down resort,” she said. “It is a quaint bed-and-breakfast with tons of atmosphere and excellent cuisine.”

Cyrus looked amused. “Haven’t tasted the food yet, but I can vouch for the atmosphere.”

Brock threw him an annoyed look and then switched back to Sedona. “Honey, we need to talk.”

“Do. Not. Call. Me. Honey.”

“I have some explaining to do,” Brock continued as if he had not heard the warning note in her voice. “I understand that. But there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“And a lot that I am no longer interested in knowing,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse us now. We’re going to eat breakfast. Cyrus and I have to work today.”

She caught hold of the door and closed it very deliberately. Brock stepped back automatically to avoid getting slammed in the face.

Sedona quickly locked the door and transferred her bright smile to Cyrus.

“Is that freshly brewed coffee I smell?” she asked.

“I believe it is.”

“We’d better get some before Lyle figures out how to pour a cup for himself.”

She heard Brock’s footsteps on the porch. He must have concluded he wasn’t going to get over the threshold. She peeked out the window and saw him go down the steps and walk down the tree-studded drive to the road that led to Main Street.

She was suddenly feeling remarkably invigorated. It had felt very good to shut the door in Brock’s face. She crossed the room to the kitchenette and went behind the counter.

“Thanks,” she said. “I mean it. I know that you are not involved in this and I know it was a fluke that you happened to be here this morning, but thanks. That little scene couldn’t have gone better if I had planned it.”

Cyrus watched her pick up the glass carafe.

“Aren’t you curious to know why Prescott followed you all the way to Rainshadow?” he asked.

She gave that some thought as she poured two mugs of coffee. “Well, yes, now that I think about it, I guess I am curious.” She put the pot back on the hot plate. “You were the one who started interrogating him. You’re wondering if he set the trap here last night, aren’t you?”

“Finding him on the doorstep first thing this morning does seem a bit of a coincidence.”

She handed him one of the mugs and then lounged against the counter to drink her own coffee.

“The thing is, although Brock does have some talent, it’s not the kind required to work Alien psi. What he’s good at is charming people. I believe that he’s got some true charisma talent.”

“The experts claim there is no such thing.”

“Oh, sure, and the experts are always right, right? People didn’t invent the word
charisma
for nothing. We all know folks who have it—the best actors, the most successful politicians, cult leaders, the local neighborhood sociopath.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Cyrus said. “Probably some as-yet-unidentified form of hypnosis talent.”

“Maybe.” She drank some of her coffee. “The thing is, it doesn’t always work—not once you know the truth. It sure won’t work on me again. Not ever.”

“Did it work on you previously?”

She gave that some thought. “Maybe. For a while. No woman likes to feel that she was deceived by a man. In my own defense, I can say that even though I was under the impression that Brock and I had a pretty good relationship, I always knew there was never going to be anything permanent between us. Certainly not a Covenant Marriage. When I showed up on his doorstep the night I escaped from Blankenship’s lab, I wasn’t all that surprised when his new lover opened the door.”

“Still, that had to hurt.”

“Oh, yeah.” She smiled. “But this morning really took care of that particular pain. Nothing like a little well-timed revenge. I suppose if I were a better person, I would be above that sort of thing but evidently I’m not. So, thanks, again.”

Cyrus lowered himself onto one of the bar stools. “Glad I could be of service.”

She opened the refrigerator door. “You definitely earned breakfast.”

He watched her crack four eggs and whisk them in a bowl. “You’re sure that Prescott could not have set the trap last night.”

“As certain as I can be.” She added a splash of cream and some fresh herbs to the eggs. Then she set a skillet on the stove, put in a pat of butter, and rezzed the heat. “But I suppose anything’s possible. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have a clue what’s going on here.”

She busied herself with the toast and juice, taking secret pleasure in the homey little scene. She hadn’t had breakfast with anyone, male or female, since she had been kidnapped. People always said that nights were the hardest for singles but she had always found that breakfast and dinner could be the loneliest times of the day.

Holidays were the worst, of course. Luckily, they only came around a few times a year. She had learned to spend those days alone because, although friends usually invited her for a traditional feast, she always felt odd surrounded by the members of someone else’s family.

Halloween was the exception. It was a holiday for people like her, she thought, people who had learned to wear masks to conceal their real identities. It was the only holiday she bothered to celebrate with decorations and goodies.

“By the way, you had a phone call last night,” Cyrus said.

She had just plunked her plate down on the counter beside his. She came out of the kitchen and glanced uneasily at her phone.

“I did?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t answer it,” Cyrus said. He picked up his fork. “But I think the caller left a message.”

She picked up the phone and glanced at the screen. A cold sensation drifted through her. She did not recognize the number but she knew the area code. She set the phone down with great care and went to sit on the stool next to Cyrus.

“Something very weird is going on in my life,” she said. “The Snows’ law firm has been hounding me for a couple of weeks. Now, out of the blue, it looks like someone from my mother’s family is trying to get hold of me.”

“You’re not close to either side, I take it?”

“Nope.” She forked up a bite of eggs. “I’m an embarrassment to both the Callahans and the Snows.”

“Aren’t you even a little curious to find out why they’re trying to get in touch with you?”

“It makes me nervous. They must want something from me. The question is, what?”

Cyrus ate some toast. “Ever considered the possibility that they might want to reestablish family bonds?”

“Not for more than three seconds.” She took a sip of coffee. “And even if I do allow for that unlikely possibility, it seems way too much of a coincidence that both clans would suddenly decide to rebuild family ties simultaneously.”

Cyrus pondered that briefly. “Good point.” He looked thoughtful. “Both the Snows and the Callahans started looking for you this past month?”

“Uh-huh.”

“
After
you emerged from the Underworld?”

“Uh-huh.” She ate some more toast.

“And now your ex is on the island, wanting to have a cozy chat. You know, you’re right, that is an interesting coincidence.”

“Suddenly I seem to be very popular. Like I said, it makes me nervous.”

“I don’t blame you.” Cyrus finished the last of his coffee and got to his feet. “There’s one way to get some answers.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Take some of those phone calls?”

“That would be the most efficient approach.” Cyrus glanced at the amber face of his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. I need to go back to my cottage to shower and shave before I meet with Harry Sebastian, the head of the Foundation’s security division and the police chief, Slade Attridge. You should be safe enough during the day. There are lots of people around. But try to stay in plain sight. Don’t go wandering off.”

“I won’t. I’ll be at the front desk most of the day. Thanks again for hanging around last night.”

He watched her with a steady gaze. “About last night—”

She winced and held up one hand, palm out. “Sorry about jumping you the way I did. All I can say is that I was in a serious after-burn and you know what that’s like.”

He wrapped one hand around the doorknob. “In other words, any man who happened to be handy would have worked for you last night?”