Raven's Cove - Jenna Ryan (2 page)

Ballard had spearheaded the case from start to finish. He’d arranged the safe houses, seen to her protection and kept Daniel alive through the trial and beyond. Sadly, eighteen months after the nightmare had more or less played out, he’d died of a pulmonary embolism.

“I know you were at the service.” Her ex-husband’s regret penetrated the phone line’s static. “Ballard was a good man.”

“Yes, he was.” She struggled for patience. “Daniel, what do you want?”

“I told you, something’s happening. Here and in other places.”

Thunder rumbled again. Though he made no sound, Boris’s ears flattened. She gave his side a reassuring rub. “Well, nothing’s happened here. I’d know if it had.” Wouldn’t she? “In any case, you must have seen the headlines. The escape Wainwright and two other inmates engineered three months ago resulted in a smashed helicopter and the remains of three dead bodies. And don’t tell me Wainwright couldn’t be positively identified, because both the police and the FBI were satisfied he was among the fatalities. Story’s dead, and so is he.”

“Dentures aren’t proof positive in my opinion, and no Wainwright-related story is ever dead. If it were, would I still be living in exile under a new name?”

Swallowing a snarl, Jasmine started for the kitchen. “Daniel, if you called to give me heebie-jeebies because you’re bored with your new life, I’m hanging up. I watched people die protecting me from the hornet’s nest you agitated just as the cops were about to close in.”

“Hey, all I did was nudge the investigation along.”

“Hanging up,” she warned.

“No, don’t. Listen, Jas, I do know that a handful of people who should be alive today have died during the six weeks since Ballard’s funeral. Wainwright’s chopper went down three months ago, right?”

Pausing, she rested her back on the kitchen door frame as another bolt of lightning shot through the sky. Wisdom told her she should disconnect. But Daniel had never been an alarmist. He wouldn’t have contacted her without a very good reason.

“Okay, I give up,” she relented. “Who besides the captain—and his death was absolutely of natural causes—has died?” Her eyes went up as thunder rolled like a slow-motion wave from ceiling to floor. “Better make it fast. The storm here’s getting worse.”

“Here, too,” he returned above the static. “The answer is two of Wainwright’s top executives, as well as the assistant D.A. of San Diego.”

Boris wandered through the kitchen, sniffed the air. Watching him, Jasmine offered a cautious “Go on.”

“The trial judge’s sister-in-law.”

“Don’t you think in-laws are a bit of a stretch?”

“Not done yet. One of the investigating officers under Captain Ballard, a man who was an integral part of the security team, got word that his uncle was knifed in a New Orleans alley a few days ago. And here’s the kicker. I can’t get hold of my contact.”

“Maybe he’s on vacation.”

Daniel’s protracted silence elicited a sigh.

“Fine, things have happened. And you know about them because…?”

“Sources, Jas, plus a little hacking prowess I’ve acquired.”

Boris gave a short bark as lightning speared down once more. Pushing off, Jasmine crossed to the back door and checked the dead bolt.

“I assume you think one of Wainwright’s people is out for blood.”

“One of his people, one of his South American counterpart’s people or, hell, even Wainwright himself.”

“Stretching, Daniel.” She observed the light show through the door’s half window. “People like Wainwright never do their own dirty work. Especially if they’re dead.” Boris had gone rigid beside her. “What is it?” she asked with a frown.

He gave two quick barks. Not a warning, but—something.

“Jasmine?” She could barely hear Daniel now. “Whatever’s unfolding here, I’m worried. About you more than me—even though I’m the one who got the raven’s feathers.”

“What raven’s feathers?” she demanded. “Daniel, are you drunk?”

“I wish. You need to call someone you can trust. And no, I’m not going to name names, because even if we have been divorced for three years, I still care about you. Hell, I love you. So don’t expect me to suggest you put your life, or any other part of you, in someone else’s hands.”

Now a very different set of memories popped into her head, though truthfully, they’d been swimming on the fringe since the thunder had started.

“Will it make you feel better if I contact Ballard’s replacement?”

“Sorry…can’t hear you.” Daniel’s voice faded in and out on elastic bands of static. “For the record, and just in case the feathers are for real, I’m…”

Interference took over.

“Daniel?” She quieted Boris. “Where are you?”

“Raven’s Cove… Maine.”

So close? She’d expected him to be in some innocuous Midwestern town.

“Ballard’s replacement’s in San Diego,” he continued. “That’s a country’s width away from Massachusetts. I’m not sure who’s in your area, but, well, do what you have to do to stay safe.”

His frustration came through loud and clear.

“Whatever you decide, just keep away…too dangerous…don’t believe in gobbledygook as such, but I did get those feathers, and there’s a raven…local legend says…certain death…”

The rest of his sentence was swallowed up in a sizzle of sound that had Jasmine jerking the handset from her ear a second time.

“Daniel?” she tried from a distance.

But there was only fuzzy noise. And a moment later not even that as both the lights and her phone went dead.

* * *

H
E LINGERED FOR AN
exhilarating moment in the rain and gusting wind. Lingered and savored and visualized the prize.

There’d been no hitches so far, no obstacles thrown down that he couldn’t handle. They would come, though, and from more than one direction, because it was the woman’s turn now. Her long-overdue, highly anticipated turn.

Anger bubbled like hot acid. But he needed to maintain control, fight for balance. He couldn’t allow a single wrong emotion to slip in or out.

Lightning directly above fractured the night. Watching it fade, he ramped up his resolve, shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and prepared to set the wheels of Jasmine Ellis’s death in motion.

* * *

J
ASMINE WONDERED DISTANTLY
how her mother, her only family, would react to Daniel’s call.

Colleen Ellis had been forty-four years old when she’d marched into a sperm bank and been impregnated. Time was right, she’d decided. Her tenure at Harvard was secure, and her internal clock was winding down.

She’d taught art history for twenty-five years after Jasmine’s birth, then she’d packed up her hiking boots and cameras and headed for Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster.

Confirming the existence of at least one legendary beast was the lone item on Colleen Ellis’s bucket list. When Nessie had failed to materialize, she’d shifted her attention to the fabled giant octopus off the coast of Bermuda. Currently, she was hunting for Bigfoot in the Olympic Mountains.

Colleen could surely decipher the raven’s-feather references, Jasmine suspected, if not the implications of what they portended.

Holding tight to Boris’s collar, Jasmine waited until her emergency lights kicked in.

Rain pounded the roof and windows like ferocious fists. As if galvanized by them, her thoughts took off in two directions.

The first led her back more than a year and a half to a night much like this one. On that night, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man had appeared at her safe house, a stranger who had simultaneously terrified and fascinated her.

The second took her back six weeks, to Captain Ballard’s funeral. Once again, the man had appeared in the night. Maybe he’d appeared out of it. Either way, she’d turned and there he’d been, standing behind her, more familiar this time, but no less dangerous and certainly no less fascinating.

His name was Rogan. Just that, no more. Ballard had assured her he was a cop. Not the sort you could pin down to any one division or captain—or any one city or state, for that matter. Rogan went where required as required and stayed until the job he’d been sent to do was done. Then, poof, back into the night.

Not that Jasmine didn’t appreciate his mysterious qualities. She was, after all, the head of acquisitions at Salem’s Museum of Early American Artifacts and Antiquities, or Witch House, as it was more commonly known, since almost every piece there had a witch-related story attached to it.

More than once she’d considered working a figure of Rogan into an exhibit. Hypnotic, haunting man, dressed in black, surrounded by swirling shadows. She’d highlight his incredible eyes, give him a murky past and a vaguely occult ancestor. Any female viewing him was bound to be as mesmerized as she’d been when she’d met him.

Intriguing though it was, the idea shattered with the next blast of wind.

Good, because she really didn’t want to think about Rogan or the circumstances of their first meeting. That would lead her back to the conversation she’d just had with her ex, which would lead her to Rogan, and on and on.

Determined to break the cycle, she went to the fridge for a soft drink. She was debating her choices when Boris growled.

Bumping the door closed with her hip, Jasmine surveyed the darker shadows. “Please tell me that wasn’t a threatening sound.”

The dog gave a sharp bark.

She listened, but heard nothing above the storm. Until…

On the heels of the thunder, and courtesy of a lull in the wind, she caught a faint sound, like a swish of leather.

Now,
that
wasn’t part of the storm. There was someone behind her.

Fighting a spurt of panic, she ducked sideways. But the intruder was faster and apparently more intuitive. Before she could evade him, a hand came down on her mouth, and she was hauled back against a man’s strong, hard body.

Chapter Two

Jasmine knew who it was before he lowered his mouth to the side of her head. Using both hands, she reached up and snatched Rogan’s palm away.

“Quiet,” he warned in a deceptively soft voice.

She used temper to beat down fear. “What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”

She kept the question to a hiss, but even that must have been too loud, because he covered her mouth again. “Look out the window, Jasmine.”

Her gaze shot to the rain-washed glass. Lightning forked down somewhere in the vicinity of Witch House. The trees were listing, and… Her eyes widened. The neighbors’ lights were on!

A shiver skated along her spine. Her blood ran cold, but she didn’t move, wouldn’t let herself react.

“No sound.” Rogan’s breath was warm and undeniably sensual in her ear.

Eyes fixed on the lights, Jasmine nodded.

He removed his hand, but kept her close. Beside them, Boris stood absolutely still.

Jasmine waited, breath held. Until her vision began to blur, then she let it out. Slowly, deliberately and with Daniel’s words repeating in her head.

Something bad’s going on…

Did Rogan agree? Stupid question. He was here. And Rogan never did anything without a very good reason.

Of course knowing that wasn’t exactly reassuring. Neither was the silence that vibrated beneath the storm.

Thunder rolled again. Rogan motioned for Boris to move. Since he’d trained the dog, Boris responded instantly. Although, Jasmine noted, he never actually left her side.

“Worked your magic on him, too, huh?” In the barely there light, she caught the gleam of amusement in Rogan’s eyes—a split second before they shifted to a distant window.

He nudged her toward the kitchen island, handed her a gun. “I’m going to trust you haven’t forgotten how to use it.”

She would have responded if there’d been any point. Or time. Because he was gone with the last word.

Alert and ready to protect, Boris assumed a ferocious stance between his mistress and the tall pane of glass.

Her heart was hammering, Jasmine realized, almost louder than the thunder. But she had to think past her fear, reason it out.

Daniel said people were dying. People connected to Malcolm Wainwright’s trial.

Was it possible Wainwright had survived that helicopter crash three months ago? Or was someone within his tattered organization championing his cause? Whatever the case, Daniel had been unnerved enough to break the rules and contact her, Rogan was hunting a shadow on her side porch—and all hell was going to break loose again, she just knew it.

Braced for the worst, she adjusted her grip on the gun. A moment later, she heard a commotion outside. It ended with a thump on the back wall. There was a yelp—not Rogan—followed by a second thump.

Lightning illuminated two men through the window. One of them booted the door with his foot.

“Open up, Jasmine,” Rogan told her.

She hesitated, couldn’t help it.

“Jasmine.”

Lowering the gun, she stood, crossed the floor and twisted the lock.

A square-built man in a soggy raincoat stumbled in, with Rogan close behind.

Bending slightly, she peered up into a familiar face. “Gunther?”

“Ya, it’s me.”

She recognized his German accent at once.

“You’re the shadow?” Her gaze moved to Rogan. “He’s the shadow?”

“So it would seem.”

“Uh…hmm.”

“My sentiments exactly.” He pushed the man ahead so he could clear and close the door. “I found him prowling around your cut power line.”

A baffled Gunther appealed to Jasmine. “My mother sent me over to check on you. All your lights went out at the same time, and then she saw someone near your side wall. I went where she said and found your line had been cut.”

“You wouldn’t think I’d be surprised at this point.” Giving her neighbor’s shoulder an encouraging pat, Jasmine straightened. “Rogan, Gunther planted my front garden for me. He shovels my sidewalk and driveway every time it snows, and he took care of Boris while I was in San Diego six weeks ago. He didn’t cut the power.”

Rogan studied the man by emergency light. “Can you describe the person your mother saw?”