Andrew closed his eyes in pain. “That probably explains a few more things.”
“The drug worked,” she continued evenly. “It dramatically enhanced both my aunt’s and my father’s psychic abilities. But Dad soon realized that there were problems. He and Aunt Vella began to have difficulty controlling their parasenses. Their normal senses were affected, as well.”
“The old instability problem,” Zack said.
“My father immediately stopped all research on the enhancing formula and went to work on an antidote. He believed he was making progress. During the last year of his life he worked day and night in the lab. He was desperate to save himself and Aunt Vella.”
Andrew looked at her. “He found something?”
“Yes,” she said. “He began giving the antidote to Aunt Vella and himself, even though it was still highly experimental. It was a course of injections designed to be taken over a period of several weeks so that the results and side effects could be closely monitored. But Dad was killed in the car accident before either of them completed the series. They were each supposed to take one more dose.”
Zack went very still. “That’s why the two of you went to his lab the night of the funeral.”
She nodded. “Aunt Vella writes in the journal that she was desperate to take the last injection of the antidote. By then she had realized that she had been sleeping with the enemy. She knew that when Wilder found the lab, he would destroy everything in it.”
“Did she get the final dose?” Gordon asked, riveted.
“Yes.” Raine took another sip of wine and lowered the glass. “I remember her driving us to the lab that night. She knew the code that unlocked the door. Once we were inside, she sat me down in a chair and gave me one of my favorite books to read. It was about horses. I loved that book, but that night I couldn’t concentrate.”
“No mystery there,” Andrew said. “You were traumatized because you had been to your father’s funeral that day.”
“At the lab she went into the small room where my father had installed a special refrigerator.” Raine watched the flames dance in the hearth. “Wilder Jones and his men stormed through the door a short time later and started taking the place apart. Aunt Vella rushed out of the refrigerator room and scooped me up in her arms. She was crying and screaming at Wilder. The next thing I knew we were sitting in the back of the car, being driven home by one of Wilder’s men.”
“She took the last dose of the antidote that night,” Zack said, looking very thoughtful. He switched his attention to Andrew and Gordon. “How long was it before you started seeing signs that she was in trouble?”
Andrew and Gordon exchanged looks.
“Three, maybe four months later,” Gordon said. “The first episode only lasted a few days. She seemed to return to normal after that, at least for a while.”
“We thought the worst had passed,” Andrew explained. “But the episodes came and went with increasing frequency over the years. Each was more severe and lasted longer, leaving her a little more fragile.”
“But she lived until last month.” Zack leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs and put his fingertips together. “She’d still be alive if she wasn’t murdered.”
“She had to be institutionalized at the end,” Gordon reminded him.
“Yes, but you described her as being relatively calm and reasonably lucid during the last year of her life, thanks to Ogilvey’s meds and therapy. And we know for a fact that she was able to think clearly enough on the night of her death to leave a message for Raine.”
“Where are you going with this?” Raine asked.
Zack tapped his fingers together once. “I’m thinking that, although your father’s version of the antidote was obviously flawed, he must have leaped a few major technical hurdles.”
She frowned, baffled. “What do you mean?”
“As far as I know,” Zack said, “your aunt lived longer than anyone else who was given several doses of the drug and then deprived of it. In every other instance that I am aware of, the individuals all died within days, usually by suicide. But Vella Tallentyre, for all her odd behavior, did not go insane and she did not take her own life. According to the historical records, that makes her unique.”
They all absorbed that for a few minutes.
After a while, Raine stirred in her chair. “In that case, you might be interested to know that taking the last dose of the drug wasn’t the only thing that Vella did that night when we went to the lab.”
Zack watched her steadily. “What else did she do?”
“My father kept three sets of lab notes—one on a computer, another on a hard-copy printout and a third in his private journal. Wilder Jones knew about all three and destroyed them. But before he arrived at the lab, my aunt photocopied the pages of my father’s journal that contain his antidote. She took the copies with her that night.”
Zack’s eyes narrowed. “According to his report, Wilder searched your aunt before he put the two of you into the car.”
“I don’t know if he concluded that I had been traumatized enough for one day or if he was just distracted by Vella in a hysterical rage. Whatever the case, he didn’t search me. Aunt Vella hid the pages in my horse book. I’m the one who carried the formula for my father’s antidote out of the lab.”
They all switched their attention to the leather-bound volume lying on the coffee table.
“She took the pages from me as soon as we got home,” Raine said. “I never saw them again until I opened that journal. They were tucked into the back.”
Zack contemplated the flames with an enigmatic expression. “Well, one Jones family mystery has been solved.”
“What’s that?” Raine asked.
“It’s now obvious why Uncle Wilder went over the edge during the last three months of his life. Everyone said it seemed as though he had developed a death wish. But Dad was right. There was a woman involved.”
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 m
oment’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…
The 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…
The 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 appoin
tment 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.”