Running Hot (22 page)

“This is getting complicated.”

“Calm down. I’ll know if J&J identifies the people on Maui as Nightshade. If that occurs, there are procedures in place designed to handle the problem. Meanwhile, let’s hope your sister can finish the job.”

“Vivien wants you to identify the woman who rescued the housekeeper.”

“Don’t worry, I intend to do just that.”

“Then what?”

“Then I will take care of the problem,” Daddy said.

TWENTY-SIX

Eubanks heard the singing when he emerged from the men’s room. It emanated from somewhere in the hotel’s extensive gardens and floated upward to the long veranda. The notes were so pure and high and sweet that at first he thought someone was playing a flute.

Some aria from an opera, he thought. He had never been a fan, but then, he’d never heard anything this thrilling. The music aroused all his senses.

The sound was so alluring, so enthralling, that he momentarily forgot that Clayton should have been waiting for him at the entrance to the men’s room. Belatedly it dawned on him that his bodyguard was nowhere around. A short time ago Clayton had made certain that the restroom was empty and then, per standard procedure, he had gone back outside to make sure no one entered.

Clayton was nowhere around and that was wrong. But the music could not be ignored. It called to him, seductive and inviting.

He forgot about Clayton again and crossed to the railing to look down. The massed foliage of the gardens was so thick it was like looking at the top of a jungle canopy. The moon gleamed on the long fronds of some of the taller palms. Here and there he could see a few of the low lights that picked out the narrow, meandering path that led to the picturesque wedding chapel.

The song tugged at him. He had never experienced anything like this. The flute-like notes were physically arousing. There was no other way to describe the effect. He was getting hard.

The singer was female and he was consumed with desire for her. She was down there in the gardens calling to him. He had no choice but to go to her.

A moment ago he had been focused entirely on his plans to move up into the highest circle of the Nightshade organization. He was being considered for the recently vacated opening on the board of directors. No one deserved it more. Soon he would be leaving the ranks of upper management and going straight to the top of the organization.

He knew that his superiors were extremely impressed with the recent refinement of the formula that had come out of the lab he supervised. There had been some unfortunate incidents in the early human trials but the organization was not the stodgy, timid FDA. The only thing that mattered to the people at the top was success. And he had delivered, big-time.

He had been told that the reason he was on the short list for promotion to the ultimate level of power was because his lab people had come up with a small but highly significant alteration that made it possible to store and transport the drug without the necessity of refrigeration. What’s more, it could now be put into capsule form and taken orally rather than injected. Until now, anyone using the genetically tailored formula had been forced to make certain that the vials were kept on ice or in a refrigeration unit of some kind.

There was no doubt but that he had earned the right to occupy a place on the board. Thanks to the drug, he was becoming a powerful strat talent. It was no secret that most of the people at the highest levels were strats. The ability to outthink, outplan and outmaneuver others was, after all, the master talent. It was what took you to the top.

The other talents had their uses to be sure. But what good did it do to possess a psychic power for charisma or for illusion or for viewing auras if you didn’t know how to use it to achieve your objectives? High-level strat talents used other talents as pawns.

Oh, yeah, he was destined for the board.

But first he needed to find the singer. Nothing was more important tonight. He listened closely with all his senses trying to pinpoint her location. Somewhere in the very heart of the darkened gardens, he decided.

He went down the flight of stone steps. At the foot of the staircase, he started along a narrow path following the lure of the music. When he rounded a corner he stumbled against an object. He tripped and almost fell but managed to catch his balance. When he looked down he saw a man’s leg sticking out from under the fronds of a mass of ferns. The sight briefly shattered the trance induced by the music.

Shocked, he took a quick step back. Then he realized there was something familiar about the dark trousers and the running shoe. Fear sparked through him.

“Clayton?” he said.

The figure did not move.

He crouched to make sure. There was just enough light from the footpath lamp to reveal Clayton’s face. The bodyguard’s eyes were closed. He was not moving but he was breathing. Blood that looked black in the poor light partially bathed his face.

Part of Eubanks continued to focus on the lilting music while another part tried to concentrate on the fact that someone had lured his bodyguard into the gardens and knocked him unconscious with a seriously blunt object. There wasn’t much that could catch a high-level hunter off guard, even one who was only partially enhanced.

Run. Get the hell out of here.

He leaped to his feet, turning quickly to scan his surroundings. It was impossible to make out anything in the shadows. He started back the way he had come.

But the music came to him out of the night, stronger and more powerful now. The singer was close. He could not resist, even though his mind was screaming at him to get to safety.

Against his will, he reversed course and went deeper into the gardens. Slowly, fighting each step, he crossed a small footbridge over an ink-colored koi pond. Something splashed in the dark waters. Now he could see the graceful silhouette of the moonlit wedding chapel. The singing came from within.

He went up the steps and through the open door. The structure was not illuminated but there was enough silvery light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows to allow him to see the figure standing at the front of the room. The singer was dressed in a long white spa robe, her features shadowed by the hood drawn up over her head. She looked like some ethereal being from another dimension.

Fascinated, he moved down the aisle, unable to resist the compulsion of the music. The singer opened her arms to him. Her voice rose higher, becoming a splashing crystal fountain of perfect and somehow terrifying notes.

The pain began then, alternately searing and then freezing his senses. It spread swiftly. The sudden headache was excruciating.

He finally understood that the singer was killing him. Someone had arranged his murder.

This could not be happening, not to him. He was destined for power and greatness. He had killed three women to get this far.

He fell, drowning in darkness. A horrifying thought came to him. Was the woman who was killing him with her music the ghost of one of the three he had murdered?

The crystalline notes followed him into the depths.

And then there was nothing.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Luther opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through palm fronds, the incredibly satisfying sensation of Grace curled around him, and the annoying trill of his phone. The sunshine and the phone were standard issue when it came to mornings. The feeling of Grace cuddled next to him was anything but. Only one night of having her here in his bed and he was already addicted.

Reluctantly he eased away from Grace’s soft warmth, sat up on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. He got a little jolt of adrenaline when he saw the familiar code.

“What have you got, Fallon?”

“Eubanks is dead,” Fallon said. The anticipation of the hunter rumbled through his bearlike voice. “His body was discovered in the wedding chapel by a member of the hotel janitorial staff a few hours ago. Looks like he died around midnight last night. The authorities are calling it a stroke. No signs of violence.”

“The Siren made her kill.”

“That she did. Now we get to sit back and watch. Can’t wait to see who takes Eubanks’s place. When we find out, we may know who commissioned the murder.”

“What about the Siren?”

“She fulfilled her contract. If she’s a real pro, as I suspect, she’ll probably just disappear.”

“But you’re looking for her, right?”

“Sure.” Fallon paused. “Well, Sweetwater’s looking for her, which is even better.”

“This isn’t Sweetwater’s responsibility. She’s a sensitive. That makes her a J&J job,
your
job.”

“Malone, I gotta tell you that at the moment she is not high on my to-do list.” Fallon’s voice was shaded with an uncharacteristic anger. He frequently got impatient and was often annoyed but he rarely succumbed to strong emotion like this. “I’ve got too many other things going on. As long as she sticks to killing Nightshade people, I’ve got no beef with her.”

“She tried to murder Grace and an innocent bystander.”

“From the way Grace described things, the incident sounds like it may have been an accident.”

“How the hell can you call attempted murder an accident?”

“Okay, okay, not exactly an accident,” Fallon muttered. “More along the lines of a wrong-place, wrong-time thing. What I’m trying to say is that there’s no sign that she was after Grace or the housekeeper. They interrupted her.”

“So now it’s Grace’s and the housekeeper’s fault that they almost got killed?”

“Damn it, stop putting words in my mouth,” Fallon growled. “Grace said the Siren was in heavy disguise. That means that, as far as the singer knows, there’s no way Grace can identify her. Ergo, she has no reason to go after her. Get the picture?”

“You and I both know that Grace can identify her aura.”

“Only if the two of them come face-to-face again,” Fallon shot back. “And what are the odds of that?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Look, the Siren has no way of knowing Grace’s identity, let alone her whereabouts or that she’s an aura reader. Take it from me, Grace is not in danger. As for the Siren, Sweetwater can do a better job of finding her than I can. She operates in his world. He’s got the connections it’s going to take to track her down.”

“How high is she on Sweetwater’s to-do list?”

“Right at the top,” Fallon said, flat and brusque. “Seems Harry’s a tad irritated to find out that he’s got some upscale sensitive competition that he didn’t even know existed.”

“What if Grace is right about the Siren being an obsessive type? What if she becomes obsessed with Grace because of what happened on Maui?”

“Then we would have a problem,” Fallon agreed in the tone of voice one used to placate a kid who won’t stop asking questions. “But like I said, we’re talking about a pro. Trust me on this, she’s in the wind, long gone.”

Luther snapped the phone closed and tossed it onto the table. He turned his head and saw that Grace was watching him with her haunting green eyes.

“The Siren got Eubanks,” he said. “Fallon says Sweetwater will find her.”

“And until that happens?”

He closed his hand around her hip, savoring the firm, feminine shape of her as she lay curled beneath the sheet. “Until then you’re on vacation in Hawaii.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

The chef carried a large knife that looked like it had been designed to slice and dice something other than vegetables. The heavily tattooed waiter kept a gun strapped to his leg beneath his trousers. The auras of both showed above-average levels of psychic talent and unmistakable signs of permanent damage done by extreme violence. There was also evidence of an odd Zen-like acceptance of what they had done and what they knew themselves to be.

The Dark Rainbow appeared to cater to a weird crowd of misfit sensitives, most of whom looked like they had fallen off the edge of somewhere far, far away and washed up on the beaches of Hawaii. The majority of the customers had profiles typical of people whose auras had been scrambled, warped or badly dented. Most of them probably didn’t even know that they were psychic, let alone that their problem stemmed from that side of their nature.

So why do I feel right at home here?
Grace wondered.

She sat with Petra Groves in a booth at the back of the room, adjacent to the swinging door that opened onto the hot, steamy kitchen. It was late afternoon. Behind the bar Wayne polished glasses with scary precision, as if each was a cartridge he planned to load into a rifle and upon which his life might depend.

Petra had explained that they were in the lull between the lunch rush and the dinner service. There was only one customer in the place. He had parked his rusty shopping cart containing a stained bedroll and a number of empty soda cans and bottles outside in the courtyard. Referring to him as a customer was pushing it, Grace thought, since he was getting a free meal.

“That’s Jeff,” Petra explained in low tones. “Head trauma while he was doing his third tour.”

“I can see the damage,” Grace said softly. “He’s low level. Looks totally paranoid.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t trust the VA. Probably just as well. Doubt the doctors would know what to do with a sensitive. When he gets one of his spells, he shows up here. Luther tweaks his aura a little. Calms him right down. On his good days, like today, he stops in and orders the fish and chips.”

“Which you serve him without charge?”

Petra shrugged. “He always offers to pay but we don’t need any more empty cans and bottles.”

“Judging by the lunch crowd, a lot of your clientele look like they should have an appointment with one of the Society’s shrinks.”

Petra snorted. “Most of ’em don’t even know the Society exists. What’s more, if they did find out that there was such a thing, they’d probably run like hell in the opposite direction.”

Grace nodded solemnly. “They become so paranoid they would probably fear anyone who tried to coax them into a clinical setting.”

“A few of them have good reason to be paranoid,” Petra said grimly. “A lot of our regulars got into trouble somewhere along the line when their psychic natures brought them to the attention of folks in white coats.”