by Linda Howard
Cael wouldn’t be able to conceive of being wrong. If the plan failed—which it had—Cael would see only two possibilities: either Ruben and Elyn hadn’t executed the plan correctly, or Raintree had revealed a cowardly streak. Ruben knew they hadn’t made any mistakes. Everything had gone like clock-work—except for the outcome. Raintree was supposed to be consumed by a fire he couldn’t control, a delicious irony, because fire-masters all had a strange love/hate relationship with the force that danced to their tune. Instead, he had emerged unscathed. Filthy, sooty, maybe singed a little, but essentially unhurt.
A bullet to the head would have been more efficient, but Cael didn’t want to do anything that would alert the Raintree clan, which an overt murder would certainly do. Everything had to be made to look accidental, which of course made guaranteeing the outcome more problematic. The royal family, the most powerful Raintrees, had to be taken out in such a way that no one suspected murder. A fire—they would think losing their Dranir in a fire was tragic and a bitter finale, but they would completely understand that he would fight to the end to save his casino and hotel, especially the hotel, with all the guests in residence there.
Cael, of course, wouldn’t allow for the fact that setting up incidents that didn’t point to the Ansara wasn’t an exact science. Things could go wrong. Tonight, something had definitely gone wrong.
Dante Raintree was still alive. That was about as wrong as things could get.
The big assault on the Raintree homeplace, Sanctuary, was planned for the summer solstice, which was a week away. He and Elyn had a week to kill Dante Raintree—or Cael would kill them.
SEVEN
Dante grimly walked back to where he’d left Lorna, reluctant to leave but knowing there was nothing else he could do here. Once the police were finished questioning him, his only thought had been to check on his employees to find out if there had been any fatalities. To his deep regret and fury, the answer to that last question was yes. One body had already been pulled from the smoldering ruins of the casino, and the cops were working with the crowd to establish if there were any missing friends or relatives, which would take time. There might not be a final count for a couple of days.
He’d found Al Rayburn, hoarse and coughing from smoke inhalation but refusing to go to a hospital, instead helping to keep order among the evacuated guests. The hotel staff was doing an admirable job. The hotel itself had suffered comparatively little damage, and most of that was to the lobby area that connected the hotel and casino, where Dante had made his stand. Everyone in the hotel, guests and staff, had safely evacuated. There were some minor injuries, sprained ankles and the like, but nothing major. There was smoke damage, of course, and the entire hotel would have to be cleaned to remove the stench. The good news, what there was of it, was that the parking deck hadn’t been damaged, and the hotel had no structural damage. He could probably re-open the hotel within two weeks. The question was: why would anyone want to stay there without the casino?
The casino was a complete loss. About twenty vehicles in the parking lot outside the casino entrance had been damaged, and the parking lot itself was a mess right now. Twenty or thirty people had burns of varying degrees, and as many again were suffering from smoke inhalation; all of them had been transported to local hospitals.
The media had descended en masse, of course, their constant shouts and interruptions and requests/demands for interviews interfering with his attempts to organize his employees, arrange other lodging for his hotel guests, and arrange with Al for the guests to retrieve their belongings and at the same time secure the hotel from thieves posing as guests. He had his insurance provider to deal with. He had to call Gideon and Mercy, to let them know about the fire and that he was all right, before they saw all this on the news. They were both in the Eastern Time Zone, meaning he’d better get in touch with them damn soon.
Finally he’d accepted that there was little more he could do tonight; his staff was excellent, and they had matters well in hand, plus he could always be reached by phone. He might as well go home and take a much-needed shower.
And that left the problem of Lorna.
Tonight was a night of firsts. Before tonight, he’d never used mind compulsion, never known he could. He had no idea what the parameters were. At first he’d thought his own sense of urgency had provided the impetus, but even after the evacuation was over, he’d been able to control Lorna just with the words and a nudge from his mind, so adrenaline wasn’t the catalyst. He had stepped into new territory, and he had to tread lightly because this particular power could be easily abused. Hell, he’d already abused it, hadn’t he? Lorna would definitely say yes to that—when he let her speak.
Tonight was also the first time he’d brutally overwhelmed someone else’s mind and literally stolen all their available power. In the aftermath, she’d been dazed, lethargic, unable to remember even her name, all symptoms attributable to emotional shock. How extensive the amnesia was, and how temporary, was something that remained to be seen. She’d begun recovering fairly soon, but she still didn’t remember vast portions of the experience—unless she’d recovered her memory in his absence, in which case he should probably find some body armor before he released her from the compulsion.
Was she Ansara? That was the burning question that had to be answered—and soon.
His thinking went both ways. Part of him said, no, she couldn’t possibly be, or he wouldn’t have been able to overpower her mind so easily, nor would she be so susceptible to mind compulsion. An Ansara, trained from birth to manage and control her unusual abilities, just as the Raintree were, would have automatically resisted mind compulsion. The power was rare, so rare that he’d never met anyone capable of exercising it, though the family history said that an aunt six generations back had been adept at it. Rare or not, because the power existed at all, he and every other Raintree had been taught how to construct mental shields. The Ansara basically mirrored the Raintree in their gifts, so undoubtedly they, too, taught their people how to shield, which meant that the completely unshielded Lorna could not be Ansara.
Unless…
Unless she was so gifted at shielding that he couldn’t detect it. Unless she was merely pretending to be controlled by mind compulsion. He’d spoken his will aloud, so she knew what he wanted. If she also had the gift of controlling fire, she could have been bolstering the blaze, resurrecting the flames every time he managed to beat them down. No. He rejected that idea. If she’d been the one feeding the fire, he would have been able to extinguish it completely after he’d commandeered her power. Someone else must have been feeding the fire, but she could have been distracting him, deflecting some of his power.
Was she or wasn’t she? He would know soon. If she wasn’t…then he’d played some real hardball with a woman who might not be an innocent but was still far from being an enemy. He didn’t know that he would have done anything differently, though. When he’d overwhelmed her mind, it had been an act of desperation, and he hadn’t had the luxury of time to explain things to her. He might have to make amends, but he wasn’t sorry he’d done it. He was just glad she’d been there, glad she was gifted and had a pool of mental energy for him to tap.
He rounded a fire engine, where the crew was laying out their hoses in preparation for recoiling them, and stepped up on a curb. Now he could see her. So far as he could tell, she was standing in the exact spot in which he’d left her, which at least was off to the side, so she wasn’t in the way of any of the firefighters. She was filthy, her hair matted from the unhappy combination of smoke, soot and water, her posture shouting exhaustion. She still clutched a blanket around her, and she was literally swaying where she stood. He felt a quick spurt of impatience, mingled with sympathy. Why hadn’t she sat down? He hadn’t prevented her from doing that.
Looking at her, he gave a mental wince on behalf of his car seats, then immediately shrugged, because he was just as filthy. What did it matter, anyway? The leather could be cleaned.
“Come with me,” he said, and, obediently, she followed.
There was nothing obedient about the way she grabbed his arm, though, pulling him around. She glared furiously up at him, indicating her mouth with a brief, impatient gesture. She wanted to talk; she probably had a lot of things memorized to say.
Dante started to release the compulsion, then stopped and grinned. “I think I’ll enjoy the quiet for a little longer,” he said, knowing that would really twist her drawers in a knot. “There’s nothing you need to say that can’t wait until we’re alone.”
Al had arranged for one of his security people to fetch Dante’s car from the parking deck, where he had a reserved slot next to a private elevator. He’d been discreet about it, because some of the guests, the ones without identification, weren’t being allowed to take their vehicles from the deck. They were already sorting out that security problem for those guests who felt they absolutely had to have a car tonight, even though Dante was providing shuttles to take everyone to the various hotels where his people had found them lodging. He was doing everything possible to take care of his guests, but he knew there could still be a lot of resentment that formed over details like him getting his car when they couldn’t.
The phantom-black Lotus Exige was idling, parking lights on, at the end of the huge casino parking lot, concealed from most of the crowd of onlookers by the huge knot of emergency vehicles with their flashing lights. Dante led Lorna along the edge of the lot; as they neared the car, the driver’s door opened and one of the security men got out. “Here you go, Mr. Raintree.”
“Thanks, Jose.” Dante opened the passenger door. Lorna directed a lethal glare at him as she climbed into the car and somehow managed to dig an elbow into his ribs. He concealed a wince, then closed the door with a firm click and went around to the driver’s side.
The Lotus was low-slung and not all that comfortable for his muscular six-two frame, but he loved driving it when he was in the mood for something with attitude. When he wanted more comfort, he drove his Jag. Tonight he would have liked to drive out into the desolate countryside and put the hammer down, to ease his anger and sharp edge of sorrow with sheer speed and aggression. The Lotus could go from zero to a hundred in eleven seconds, which was a rush. He needed to go a hundred miles an hour right now, needed to push the high-performance little machine to its limit.
Instead he drove calmly and deliberately, aware that he couldn’t let go of the tight leash he was holding on his temper. The fact that it was night helped, but the date was too close to the summer solstice for him to take any chances. Hell—could he have started the accursed fire? Was he responsible for the loss of at least one life?
The fire marshal said preliminary interviews indicated that it had started in the back, where the circuit breakers were, but the scene was still too hot for the investigators to get in there to check. If the fire had started from an electrical problem, then he had nothing to do with it, but he brooded over the possibility that the fire would turn out to have been started by something completely different. His control had wavered when he’d first seen Lorna, with the last rays of the setting sun turning her hair to rich fire. He’d lit the candles without even thinking about them; had he lit anything else?
No, he hadn’t done it. He was sure of that. If he’d been the cause, things would have been bursting into flame all over the hotel and casino, rather than in one distant spot. He’d contained his power, brought it under control. The casino fire had been caused by something else; the timing was just coincidence.
Almost half an hour had elapsed before he opened his gate with a remote control and guided the Lotus up a twisting, curving drive to his tri-level house tucked into an eastern-facing fold of the Sierra Nevadas. Another button on the remote raised his garage door, and he put the Lotus in its slot like an astronaut docking a shuttle with the Space Station, then closed the garage door behind him. The silver Jag gleamed in its place beside the Lotus.
“Come on,” he told Lorna, and she got out of the car. She stared straight ahead as he stepped aside to allow her to precede him into his gleaming kitchen. He punched his code into the security system to stop its warning beep, then paused. He briefly considered taking her back to town after he’d finished talking to her, then discarded that idea. He was tired. She could stay here, and if he had to—as he undoubtedly would—he would use a compulsion to keep her here and out of trouble. If she didn’t like it, tough; the last couple of hours had been a bitch, and he didn’t feel like making the drive.
With that in mind, he reset the alarm and turned to her. She was standing with her back to him, not four feet away, her shoulders stiff and, judging by the angle of her head, her chin up.
Regretting the imminent loss of silence, he said, “Okay, you can talk now.”
She whirled to face him, and he braced himself for a flood of invective as her fists clenched at her sides.
“Bathroom!” she bellowed at him.
EIGHT
The change in his expression would have been comical if Lorna had been in any mood to appreciate humor. His eyes rounded with comprehension, and he rapidly pointed to a short hallway. “First door on the right.”
She took one frantic step, and then froze. Damn it, he was still holding her! The searing look she gave him should have accomplished what the casino fire hadn’t, namely singe every hair from his head. “Don’t go far,” he snapped, realizing he hadn’t amended the compulsion.
Lorna ran. She slammed the bathroom door but didn’t take time to lock it. She barely made it in time, and the sense of relief was so acute she shook with involuntary shudders. A Tom Hanks scene from A League of Their Own ran through her mind, and she bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud.
Then she just sat there, eyes closed, trying to calm her jangled nerves. He’d brought her to his home! What did he intend to do? Whatever he was, however, he was controlling her, she was helpless to break free. The entire time he’d been gone, she had been willing herself over and over to take a single step, to speak a word—and she couldn’t. She was scared half out of her mind, traumatized out of the other half, and on top of it all, she was so angry she thought she might have a screaming, out-of-control, foot-stomping temper tantrum just to relieve the pressure.
Opening her eyes, she started to flush, but she heard his voice and went still, straining to hear what he was saying. Was someone else here? Just as she began to relax just a fraction, she realized he was on the phone.
“Sorry to wake you.” He paused briefly, then said, “There was a fire at the casino. Could be worse, but it’s bad enough. I didn’t want you to see it on the morning news and wonder. Call Mercy in a couple of hours and tell her I’m all right. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to have my hands full for the next few days.”
Another pause. “Thanks, but no. You’ve got no business getting on an airplane this week, and everything here is fine. I just wanted to call you before I got so tied up in red tape I couldn’t get to a phone.”
The conversation continued for a minute, and he kept reassuring whoever was on the other end that no, he didn’t need help; everything was fine—well, not fine, but under control. There had been at least one fatality. The casino was a total loss, but the hotel had suffered only minor damage.
He ended the call, and a moment later Lorna heard a savage, muttered curse, then a thud, as if he’d punched the wall.
He didn’t seem like the wall-punching type, she thought. Then again, she didn’t know him. He might be a serial wall-puncher. Or maybe he’d fainted or something, and the thud had been his body hitting the floor.
The only way to see if he was lying there unconscious was to leave the bathroom. Reluctantly, she flushed, then went to the vanity to wash her hands—a vanity with a dark, golden-brown granite top and gold fixtures. When she reached out to turn on the water, the contrast between the richness of the vanity and her absolutely filthy, black-sooted hand made her inwardly cringe as she lifted her head.
A grimy nightmare loomed in the mirror in front of her. Her hair was matted to her head with soot and water, and stank of smoke. Her face was so black only her eyes had any real definition, and they were bloodshot. With her red eyes, she looked like some demon from hell.
She shuddered, remembering how close the flames had gotten. Given that, she couldn’t imagine how she had any hair left on her head at all, so she shouldn’t complain about it being matted. Shampoo—a lot of it—would take care of that. The soot would scrub off. Her clothes were ruined, but she had others. She was alive and unharmed, and she didn’t know how.
As she soaped her grimy hands, rinsed, then soaped again, she tried to reconstruct an exact sequence of events. Her headache, which had subsided, roared back so fiercely she had to brace her soapy hands on the edge of the bowl.
Thoughts whirled, trying to connect in a coherent sequence, but then the segments would whirl out of touch again.
—she should have been burned—
—hair singed off—
—bubble—
—no smoke—
—agony—
Whimpering from the pain in her head, she sank to her knees.
Raintree cursing.
Something about that reminded her of something. Of being held in front of him, his arms locked around her, while his curses rang out over her head and his…his—