“Shit.”
“You said that once already.”
He drove faster.
“Zack?”
“Yeah?”
“You think we have a new problem, don’t you?”
“That’s pretty much what I’m thinking, yes.”
He prowled the living room, phone nailed to his ear, and talked to an eternally irritated Fallon.
“I need someone here in Oriana as soon as possible,” he said. “Preferably a hunter.”
He was intensely aware of Raine watching him. She was ensconced on the sofa, her injured, freshly re-iced foot propped on the cushions. Batman and Robin were curled on her lap. The box that he had carried out of Gordon and Andrew’s house sat unopened on the coffee table.
“Why the hell do you need a bodyguard for Raine?” Fallon demanded. “They arrested that Bonfire Killer freak. I even had one of the analysts check it out. Ninety-six point three percent probability they got the right guy. That’s as good as it gets. You know that. No such thing as a hundred percent with that kind of thing.”
“If I’m right, this has nothing to do with the freak. Doubt if a guy like that would have known how to use a drug to screw up Raine’s parasenses, anyway. This was someone connected to Nightshade.”
“Huh.”
He knew he now had Fallon’s full attention.
“There’s no way to be absolutely certain,” he added. “I’m going with gut-level intuition here.”
“There’s no logical reason for Nightshade to risk kidnapping Raine Tallentyre.” Fallon sounded very thoughtful now. “You told me she doesn’t know anything about her father’s work.”
“Until tonight we didn’t have any logical reason to think that someone murdered her aunt.”
“I’ll be damned. You’re sleeping with Raine, aren’t you?”
That was Fallon for you. Always connecting dots.
Zack looked at Raine. “Beside the point.”
“Not if your personal relationship with her is warping your judgment.”
“Get someone here tomorrow, Fallon. There are things I need to do and I can’t leave Raine alone while I do them.”
“You really think she’s in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
“Stop right there, Fallon. I’m warning you right now, we’re not going down that road.”
“What road?” Fallon asked, doing a very poor imitation of an innocent man.
“You’re thinking that if someone from Nightshade is after Raine you can use her as bait. Not going to happen.”
“If I throw another J&J agent into the situation, there’s a risk the Nightshade operative will decide the game isn’t worth the candle and pull the plug on the whole operation. I may never get the answers I need.”
“I want a hunter standing here on Raine’s doorstep by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, Fallon.”
He ended the call before Fallon could come up with another argument.
Raine’s hand stilled on Robin’s furry head. “Do you really think someone tried to kidnap me tonight?”
“Yes.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. But we’ve played the waiting game long enough. As soon as your bodyguard gets here, I’m going to start looking for answers.”
“Where?” she asked, bewildered.
He walked across the room and stopped in front of the coffee table. “In my experience, they are usually found very close to home.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He circled the table and sat down beside her, his leg not quite touching hers. “And you won’t like it if I explain.”
“No secrets, Zack.”
“Right. No secrets.” He leaned back into the sofa cushions and thrust his legs out under the coffee table. He laced his hands behind his head. “I need to take a closer look at the people who are close to you.”
She stiffened, as he had known she would. “Not Gordon and Andrew. Surely you can’t believe that either of them would want to hurt me.”
He looked at her, saying nothing.
“Damn it, Zack, you can’t possibly suspect either of them. There’s just no way.”
“I doubt if Gordon or Andrew is involved in this,” he agreed neutrally.
“But you aren’t writing them off as possible Nightshade agents, are you?”
“The fact that both of them are supposedly at a conference in San Diego is definitely a vote in favor of their innocence.”
“Supposedly?”
“It will be easy enough to check to be certain they’re both in their hotel tonight.”
“This is ridiculous.” She started to pet Batman, somewhat forcefully. The cat twitched his tail. “I can’t believe you actually think they might be Nightshade operatives.”
He said nothing, waiting. He had known this was going to be bad.
“Who else are you going to check out?” she asked grimly.
“Bradley Mitchell and Pandora.”
She sighed. “You’re going to be busy.”
“Which is why I ordered up the bodyguard for you,” he said.
“Do you think Fallon will send one?”
“He knows that if I say I need a bodyguard, I have a good reason.”
He looked at the box on the coffee table.
She followed his gaze. “Guess it’s time to open it.”
He stomped hard on the guilt that was unfurling inside him. He did not want to put her through this but it had to be done.
“I think so,” he said.
Forty-five
She unsealed the box and looked at the meager contents. There were three volumes of poetry, paints, brushes, a framed photograph, toiletries and a few other small, personal items.
“So much for a secret message,” Raine said. “There’s no envelope. No piece of paper. Not even the hospital room notepad.”
She lifted the photograph out of the box and looked at it for a moment, tears burning her eyes. The picture showed the four of them—Gordon, Andrew, Vella and herself. They were gathered in Vella’s room at St. Damian’s. There was a brightly illuminated birthday cake in the background.
“We tried to get her to leave St. Damian’s for the day.” She set the photograph on the table. “But she refused. She felt safe there.”
Zack unlaced his hands from behind his head and sat forward to study the photograph. “She looks peaceful in that picture.”
“Thanks to Dr. Ogilvey and the fact that the voices had finally stopped.”
He removed the photograph from the frame, working carefully. When he had it out, he turned the picture over to examine the back. She looked at it, too. It was blank.
“If Aunt Vella wanted me to find a message,” she said, “I doubt she would have hidden it someplace I might never look.”
“It was just a thought.” He tucked the picture back into the frame.
She picked up one of the volumes of poetry and flipped through the pages. No notes fell out.
“This isn’t going to get us anywhere,” she said. “If there was a message, it must have been tossed out as trash.”
She put the book down on the table and reached back into the box for one of the other volumes.
The instant her fingers touched the second book psychic electricity crackled across her senses. Instinctively she sucked in her breath and released the small volume, letting it drop back into the box. But she wasn’t fast enough. The voice in her head was a spectral echo of Vella’s, low and throaty and desperate.
…Keep you safe. You’re the innocent one…
She clamped down on the eerie echoes from beyond the grave and twisted her hands together in her lap. She stared at the book as though it were a cobra. Tiny claws sank through the fabric of her pants, into her thighs. Robin and Batman were restless, reacting to the tension that gripped her.
“You okay?” Zack asked.
?
??Yes.” She could not take her eyes off the volume of poetry. “The book. She was frantic when she touched it. Terrified.”
“For herself?”
“No. For me.”
Batman butted his head against her arm, demanding her attention. She hesitated, then, relaxing slightly, she started to pet him again. Satisfied, he settled back down in her lap.
Zack picked up the book, glancing at the title. Winter Journey.
“It was her favorite book of poetry. Personally, I find the poems extremely depressing but they seemed to comfort her.”
The corners of his mouth and eyes tightened. She knew he was registering the same energy she had picked up.
“She was frightened, all right,” he said. “For you.”
He opened the book. Vella had made no attempt to conceal her message. It was written on the flyleaf. A yellowed business card was also tucked into the book.
“She was panicked but she knew what she was doing,” he said. “She wrote a message to you in this book because she knew it would end up in your hands. A message on a hospital notepad might have been tossed away but not the personal effects of the patient.”
He put the book, open to the flyleaf, on the coffee table. Picking up the business card, he turned it over. The simple black print had faded but the name of the firm was still legible. There was a phone number scrawled across the bottom edge of the card.
“It’s a Jones & Jones business card,” Raine said. “Wilder Jones must have given it to her. I can’t believe she kept it all these years.”
She leaned forward, not touching the book, and read the message aloud.
My Dear Raine,
I am dying and I believe you may be in terrible danger. A man calling himself Parker came to see me today. He told me that he had found Judson’s notes and studied his work. He said that he could cure me. But now I know that he lied. Soon he will realize that I lied to him, as well. As if I would ever trust my secrets to a stranger.
Oddly enough, the drug he gave me has provided me with the first clearheaded moments I have known in years. But I can feel my heart pounding. There is something wrong. I must get this down quickly.
My fear is that when he learns I deceived him, Parker will go after you. You cannot give him the answers he seeks because I never told you the whole truth. But he may not believe that.
There is no help for it now. You must contact Jones & Jones. The Agency will protect you. There will be a price. There is always a price when one deals with J&J. They will demand the same thing Parker wanted. Give it to them, Raine. It is not worth your life. What they want is hidden behind Wilder Jones’s mask. Just remember your birthday.
The blame for everything that happened all those years ago falls entirely on your father and me. You are innocent, Raine. J&J will understand that.
I love you. Please tell Gordon and Andrew I love them, too. I owe you all more than I can ever repay.
Vella’s signature was barely legible.
Raine could not hold back the tears any longer. She eased Batman and Robin off her lap, jumped up from the sofa and hobbled to her room. Once inside, she closed the door, sank down on the side of the bed and gave herself up to the storm of grief and guilt.
She did not hear the door open, but a moment later Zack was beside her, pulling her into his arms. It was too much. Unable to resist the comfort he offered, she pressed her face against his shirt and sobbed. He did not try to console her. He just held her close until the tempest had passed.
When it was over she felt utterly drained. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“I was in Vegas,” she whispered. “Lawrence Quinn was murdering her here in Oriana and I was playing blackjack in Vegas.”
“Is that what this is all about?” Zack said into her hair. “You’re feeling guilty because you were in a casino when she was killed?”
“Maybe if I was here—”
“No.” The single word rang with finality. He held her gently away from him. “You weren’t partying in Vegas. You were doing what you had to do in order to keep her in St. Damian’s.”
“Yes, but—”
“Even if you were here, it would have made no difference. There was nothing you could have done. She let Quinn give her the drug. She was aware that she was taking a chance. Hell, she knew she couldn’t trust him. That’s why she lied to him.”
“I wake up at night sometimes, wondering if I could have done something.”
He slid his hands up her arms to her throat and cradled her head between his palms. “You were so accustomed to your role as her primary caregiver that you can’t allow yourself to deal with the facts. And the facts in this case are very clear. You could not have saved her.”
“Just as you couldn’t save Jenna?”
His jaw tightened. For a few seconds she thought he was going to contradict her. Then he pulled her back into his arms.
“Yes,” he said. “Just as I couldn’t save Jenna.”
They wrapped each other close. Neither spoke for a time.
“You think this is nature’s way of teaching us that neither one of us can save everyone?” she said eventually.
“Looks like it.”
“Hard lesson,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
Forty-six
Raine pushed aside the remains of her peanut-butter-on-toast breakfast and studied the message on the flyleaf of Winter Journey. “I hate to tell you this, but it turns out I may not be an ace psychic detective after all. I still haven’t got a clue what Aunt Vella meant by the references to Wilder Jones’s mask and my birthday.”
Zack was at the counter, pouring coffee into a mug. “Did Wilder leave any of his things with Vella?”
“Not that I know of.” She tapped the end of the pen against the tabletop, thinking. “But then, I hadn’t even realized she had an affair with him until Andrew told me. If Vella kept any souvenirs of her time with Wilder Jones, they would be at the Shelbyville house.”
“You said the basement was filled with boxes and cartons.”
“Yes. Most of them contain her paintings. I suppose we’ll have to go through them. It’s going to be a job. There must be two or three hundred pictures in that basement. As far as I know they’re all masks.”
The doorbell chimed, startling Raine into dropping the pen. “It’s six-thirty in the morning. Who in the world?”
“Got a hunch that’s your babysitter.”
Zack put down his coffee mug and went into the living room. Robin and Batman trotted along at his heels, ears perked and tails high. They had adopted him, Raine realized. As far as they were concerned, Zack was now part of the gang. She tried to recall the name for a group of cats. Clowder. That was it. Unfortunately it didn’t sound very exciting, let alone cool. No wonder people didn’t use it to describe those of the feline persuasion.
She heard the front door open and the rumble of a deep bass voice that sounded like it came from the heart of a mountain. She got to her feet, exercising some caution because her ankle was still tender, and went to stand in the doorway.
A big, dark-skinned man a few years younger than Zack occupied a considerable amount of space in her small living room. His head was completely shaved and gleamed as though it had been waxed. Dark glasses veiled his eyes. A gold ring flashed from one ear. He was dressed in khakis, a dark blue pullover shirt and a battered suede bomber jacket. She caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster beneath the jacket.
He gave her a smile that could have lit up the stage of a large theater.
“You must be the client,” he said.
She didn’t even try to resist the smile. “You must be the bodyguard.”
“This is Raine Tallentyre,” Zack said. “Raine, meet Calvin Harp.”
Raine extended her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Harp.”
“Call me Calvin.” He shook her hand and then looked down at the cats, who were sitting directly in front of him, gazing upward with unblinking stares. “Who are thes
e guys?”
“Batman and Robin,” Zack said.
Calvin beamed. “What do you know? Couple of my favorite masked avengers.”
He went down on his haunches and held out his hand. The cats sniffed his fingers in an assessing manner and appeared to be satisfied. Calvin rubbed their ears gently with one huge hand and straightened.
“Looks like you’re in the club,” Zack said. “How about some coffee?”
Calvin’s smile got even bigger. “Excellent idea. Any chance of some food? I’ve been a little busy since I got Fallon’s call a few hours ago. Wasn’t anything to eat on board the company plane except a couple of boxes of doughnuts. Had to share ’em with the pilots.”
“How do you feel about peanut butter?” Zack asked.
“Works for me.” Calvin looked toward the kitchen with great interest. “Hell, I’m hungry enough to eat the cats’ food.”
Zack looked at Raine. “The only downside of working with Calvin is that you have to feed him. A lot.”
Forty-seven
Zack used a gadget from his J&J tool kit to let himself into the small studio apartment. He did not expect to find anything that pointed to Pandora as a member of Nightshade but he had learned the hard way not to let the personal get in the way of the logical.
The tiny space was decorated in what could only be described as High Goth. The ceiling was an elaborately detailed night sky, complete with crescent moon and stars. The walls were painted midnight blue, the window and door trims picked out in a paler shade. The furnishings were eclectic and mostly black punctuated with the occasional bloodred pillow.
He checked the refrigerator first. One of the things they had learned in the Stone Canyon affair was that Nightshade’s version of the formula had to be refrigerated. With luck, that was still true.
He opened the door with gloved hands. There was an assortment of leftover takeout, several bottles of water and a couple cases of soda. He took the small metal stick Fallon had given him out of its leather case and inserted it into the milk carton, just to be sure. It did not change color. He rinsed it off at the sink and tried the bottle of vinegar. No change.