“How sweet,” she said. “It’s a little girl’s bedroom.”
“Vantara had a daughter,” Julian said. “She inherited this place. Couldn’t afford to maintain it so she sold it to the historical foundation that runs the tours.”
The bedroom was a frilly fairyland of pink and white. The small bed was adorned with ruffles and flounces and covered with a herd of stuffed animals. Lacy curtains bracketed the windows. A child-sized dressing table and stool stood in one corner. Dolls, rocking horses and stuffed pandas littered the floor.
“I don’t see anything that even remotely resembles a weapon,” Julian said.
“No,” Fallon agreed. “But there’s something of a paranormal nature in here. I can feel the energy.”
Isabella tapped the shoulders of both men. “Excuse me. Mind if I take a look?”
Fallon stepped back. So did Julian.
She ducked under the velvet rope and stepped into the bedroom, concentrating on the trail of fog.
The mists led straight to the top of a pink-and-gilt chest of drawers. For the first time, Isabella took out her own flashlight and switched it on. She started opening and closing the drawers. Most were crammed with dainty petticoats, nightgowns and other items that had been made for a little girl.
The bottom drawer was filled with small pink and white socks and a cauldron of boiling fog.
“Got it,” Isabella said.
“What is it?” Julian asked urgently.
“Hang on.” Isabella dug beneath the neatly arranged socks and saw an elaborately wrought hand mirror. She aimed the beam of the flashlight at the object and caught her breath. The mirror was spectacular. The gold-and-silver frame was intricately worked in an elaborate Baroque design that subtly incorporated ancient alchemical symbols. Strange crystals glittered in the light. Although the object looked as if it had been crafted during the seventeenth century, the glass was not dark with age.
Captivated, she reached down to grasp the curved handle.
Electricity sparked through her. She flinched but she did not let go.
“This thing is definitely hot,” she said softly.
“Are you okay?” Fallon asked.
“I think so.”
She looked into the mirror, aware that Fallon and Julian had come up behind her and were doing the same thing. They were all fascinated, she realized.
It was like looking into a pool of liquid mercury. She could almost see her image but not quite. The seemingly solid glass of the mirror appeared molten. Silver energy swirled just beneath the surface, compelling her to look deeper.
“It’s incredible,” she whispered.
“Lower your senses,” Fallon ordered.
The razor-sharp words snapped her out of the mini-trance. Startled, she hastily cut her talent. The surface of the mirror took on a more normal appearance. She could still sense the power in the artifact, but it no longer exerted the strong pull that it had a few seconds earlier.
Julian plucked the mirror from her hand. Energy whipped the air around him. His triumphant excitement was palpable.
“Damn, you did it, Isabella,” he breathed. “This has to be the para-weapon that the broker left here.”
“But what does it do?” Isabella asked.
She half expected Fallon to respond. He was always the one with the answers. But for once he had nothing to offer.
“I told you, I don’t know exactly how it works.” Julian examined the back of the mirror. “All I can tell you is that the black-ops folks who hired Lucan to make the buy are willing to pay a hell of a lot to get it off the market.”
“Time to go,” Fallon said. “We got what we came for. Let’s move.”
The chillingly neutral quality of his voice sent a shiver of awareness through Isabella. Something was wrong. In that moment she knew that he had recognized the mirror and had some knowledge of its power.
She looked at him, but in the deep shadows it was impossible to read his face. She heightened her talent a little and saw the heat in Fallon’s eyes. It was not the kind she associated with their lovemaking. Fallon was jacked and dangerous.
“Jones is right,” Julian said. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”
He went swiftly toward the doorway. Fallon grabbed Isabella’s arm, his grip uncharacteristically rough. She turned to look at him in surprise. But he was already shoving her across the room toward the bed.
She landed with a jolt and a shocked gasp. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Julian had spun around in the doorway. The mirror in his hand flashed white-hot.
The room was suddenly ablaze with a blinding paranormal fire. Isabella realized that although she could still see and hear and feel, she felt terrifyingly numb. It took her a heartbeat to understand that was because her para-senses were frozen.
She was vaguely aware that Fallon was in motion, launching himself through the raging storm of psi. He slammed into Julian. His momentum took both of them to the floor in the hallway. They landed with a sickening thud.
The energy storm cut off abruptly when Julian lost his grip on the mirror. But when Isabella tried to raise her talent, she discovered that her senses were still numb.
The sickening sounds of hand-to-hand combat brought her up off the bed. She found the flashlight she had dropped and staggered across the room to the doorway. She had to grip the frame to stay on her feet.
Fallon and Julian were locked in a cage fight because of the narrow confines of the hallway. The primal nature of the battle sent a nauseating wave of panic through Isabella. Fists rose and fell, smashing again and again into muscular flesh. Boots and shoulders struck the wall. She caught glimpses of blood as the two men heaved and rolled and collided again and again.
A lethally thin blade flashed evilly in the shadows. She could not tell which man gripped the knife. But in the next moment she heard a terrible crack. Fallon had slammed Julian’s hand against the floor.
The knife dropped on the carpet. Julian howled, rolled onto his side and clutched his broken wrist.
“Bastard,” he snarled. “You son of a bitch. You should be dead.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.” Fallon got to his feet. There was blood on his face. He took his gun out from under his black leather jacket. “The Quicksilver Mirror can kill,” Fallon said. “But only in the hands of a talent who is powerful enough to control the maximum amount of energy latent in it. You just weren’t strong enough, Garrett.”
“Shit.” Julian groaned. He sat up, cradling his injured wrist. “The last thing I need is a lecture on para-physics from Fallon Jones. Just shoot me now.”
“Good idea,” Isabella said.
Fallon looked at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes—no.” Another flicker of panic shivered through her. “Fallon, my senses are frozen.”
“So are mine.” Keeping the gun trained on Julian, he picked up the mirror. “But they’ll recover in time. If the mirror doesn’t kill you, the effects are temporary.”
“Oh, good. For a moment there I was a little worried.”
Fallon prodded the groaning Julian. “On your feet. We’re leaving before the maintenance people show up and start asking a lot of questions about the damage to the hallway.”
Julian got to his knees. “How the hell do you plan to get me out of here? That’s my hunter who’s standing guard down there.”
“Not anymore,” Fallon said. “After he got us inside, he was replaced by a J&J agent. I called in some talent from L.A.”
Julian’s face twisted in disgust. “How did you figure it out?”
“I didn’t know you were after the Quicksilver Mirror until I saw the damn thing,” Fallon said. “But there were a few details that didn’t sit right. You gave off the vibes of a guy who was working his own agenda. What pissed me off and made me decide that you were one of the bad guys was how you used Isabella and then sent that hunter team to grab her in Phoenix when you discovered that you needed her after all. That’s no w
ay to treat a lady, Garrett.”
Julian shot Isabella a fulminating look. She gave him her most dazzling smile.
“I was following Lucan’s orders,” Julian said, turning sullen.
“I called Lucan again after you left the trailer today. Gave him a different theory of the crime. He agreed to play it out and see what happened.”
“Whose theory of the crime?” Julian demanded.
“Isabella’s. I’ve learned the hard way not to ignore the gut reaction of a trained investigator. She was sure you were behind the arms dealing in Department A.”
“She’s not an investigator—she’s just a finder-talent,” Julian muttered. “A technician.”
“Who is now a full-fledged investigator at J&J,” Fallon concluded.
Isabella picked up a flashlight and aimed the beam at Julian’s battered face. “What’s this all about Julian? What kind of operation were you running? And what really happened to Caitlin Phillips?”
Julian said nothing.
Fallon turned thoughtful. “I think you were right, Isabella. There was something going on inside Department A. Garrett and Caitlin Phillips were running a small, private arms-dealing operation. They had a buyer for the mirror, but I doubt that it was one of Lucan’s black-ops clients. They set up the deal with the broker, Sloan, who chose the mansion as the drop point. But things fell apart when Sloan got shot before he could tell Garrett and Phillips where he had hidden the mirror. So they went looking for you.”
“At that point you knew that you would need the resources of Lucan’s company to find me, didn’t you, Julian? And once you did grab me, you knew you would need my full cooperation. That wasn’t likely as long as Lucan and everyone else thought I was guilty of arms dealing. So you changed your story to point the finger of blame at poor Caitlin Phillips. You killed her, didn’t you? You planted evidence in her house to make Lucan believe that she was the guilty party.”
“Have fun weaving your little conspiracy fantasy,” Julian said. “You can’t prove a damn thing. The worst you can do is get me fired.”
“No,” Fallon said. “That’s not actually the worst thing I can do.”
“We both know you’re not going to murder me in cold blood and dump my body.” Julian managed a hoarse chuckle. “Give me a break—J&J doesn’t work that way.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Isabella warned.
Fallon raised his brows. “We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?”
“Well, yes,” she grumbled. “But we decided that there are exceptions to every rule, remember? And Julian constitutes a really big exception if you ask me.”
“He is, but as it happens, Garrett isn’t our problem. Max Lucan hired him. He can terminate his own employees. No reason we should do his job for him.”
Julian went very still. “It will be your word against mine.”
Fallon’s smile widened. “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? Go on, get out of here.”
Julian looked flummoxed. “What the hell are you trying to pull, Jones?”
“You’re right. I can’t prove a thing, so get lost while I’m still in a good mood.”
Julian scrambled to his feet. “What happens to the mirror?”
“It goes back to its rightful owner.”
Julian grimaced. “Guess I should have seen that coming.”
He half loped, half limped down the hall and disappeared around a corner. Isabella drummed her fingers on the side of the door frame.
“I really hate to see him go free like that,” she said. “It’s not right.”
“Maybe not,” Fallon said. With one hand he pulled a pristine handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his cheek. He used his other hand to take out his phone. “But letting him run might give us the answer to one lingering question.”
Isabella speared the flashlight at Fallon. Blood glistened on his jaw and dripped down the front of his jacket.
“You’re bleeding,” she wailed.
He looked down at the handkerchief. “Yeah.”
She rushed to him, took the handkerchief from his hand and gently blotted up more of the blood.
“You need to sit down,” she ordered. “You could go into shock.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He started to bend down to pick up the mirror but stopped midway, groaning a little, and gingerly reached inside his jacket.
“I’ll get it,” Isabella said quickly.
“Thanks.” Fallon spoke into the phone. “He’s running. Don’t lose him. He’s injured and will probably seek medical help. Don’t interfere. Just keep an eye on him until one of Lucan’s people takes over.”
He ended the call and punched in another number. “Max? Jones here. Isabella was right about everything. Looks like Caitlin Phillips is most likely dead. She was Garrett’s partner, but he needed another fall guy after he realized he required Isabella’s help to locate the artifact. What is it? The Quicksilver Mirror. Yeah. Worth a fortune in some quarters. We’ve got it and Garrett is running. I’ve got a hunter following him until you can get someone on it. I’ll give you the whole story tomorrow. What? Of course we’ll send you our bill.”
He closed the phone.
Isabella picked up the mirror and took Fallon’s arm to steady him, although he did not seem to be wobbly. She drew him carefully down the staircase.
“What’s the one lingering question?” she asked.
“The name of the person who commissioned the Quicksilver Mirror.”
“You let Julian run because you want to know the identity of his buyer.”
“Well, that plus the fact that there wasn’t anything else I could do with him except try to convince the local cops that he’s guilty of breaking and entering and something tells me that wouldn’t fly.”
“But Garrett doesn’t have the mirror to sell now. Why would he contact the buyer?”
“He might not,” Fallon said. “But I’m thinking there’s a high probability that the buyer will contact him.”
“Why?”
“Because we are not going to let it be known that Arcane recovered the mirror,” Fallon said patiently. “That will be our little secret.”
A cold thrill of comprehension swept through Isabella. “You think that the buyer will believe he’s been double-crossed. That Julian has sold the mirror to someone else.”
“It’s been my experience that not only is there no honor among thieves, but there’s also not a hell of a lot of trust or mutual affection, either. What’s more, that type tends to be vindictive.”
“One more thing. You said the mirror is going back to the rightful owner.”
“Yes.”
“Who is that?”
“The Arcane Society. The Quicksilver Mirror was stolen from one of the museums.”
“Oh, geez. That raises some troubling questions doesn’t it?”
“Sure does,” Fallon said.
29
Caitlin Phillips’s body was found buried in her own backyard,” Max Lucan said. “Looks like she was drugged and then strangled. Garrett has gone to ground in a third-rate motel outside of Sacramento. I’ve got a team on him. I’ll let you know if he contacts anyone or if someone attempts to contact him.”
“Don’t let the disgruntled customer get to them first,” Fallon warned.
“In spite of recent evidence to the contrary,” Max said, “my people do know what they’re doing.”
“Too bad you didn’t know what they were doing,” Isabella said.
Fallon looked at her. “Play nice, Isabella. We need Max’s help at the moment.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, all right.”
Max raised his brows at Fallon. “Vindictive, isn’t she?”
“Not usually,” Fallon said. “But this particular situation is a little different.”
It was the day after the events at the mansion. The three of them were sitting in the executive suite of Lucan Protection Services. It
occurred to Isabella that although she had worked for Lucan for nearly six months, she had never been in Max Lucan’s office. Her career path was clearly trending upward. When you worked for J&J, you got some respect.
She had not been keen on the idea of coming face-to-face with her former boss on his own turf, but Fallon had said that it was important for her to be seen in the company of the president and CEO. It was, he claimed, the quickest and most efficient way of dispelling any lingering gossip about her. She knew he was right, but it made her uneasy. A lot of people were now aware of her real name, she thought. Her life was getting complicated. Then, again, maybe that was what happened when you finally got a life of your very own.
“Garrett and Phillips were running their little side business out of Department A,” Max said. “Looks like it was going on for damn near a year. They were obtaining weapons-grade paranormal artifacts and selling them to buyers on the black market. Orville Sloan was the broker who handled the arrangements.”
“They had to be very careful because they knew that your company has an agreement with Arcane,” Fallon said.
“Any devices or antiquities that appear to be potentially dangerous must first be evaluated by one of the Society’s labs,” Isabella stated. “If they are found to be weapons-grade, they must be dismantled or rendered inoperable. If that is not possible, the artifacts go into cold storage in a secure vault until such time as the techs can figure out how to de-energize them.”
Both men looked at her. She gave them her most charming smile.
“Sorry if I’m lecturing,” she said sweetly. “But you deserve it, Mr. Lucan. You actually thought I was the one behind the illegal arms sales. How could you believe such a thing?”
Max fixed her with a considering expression. “Maybe because you ran?”
“I ran because I found those files on my computer and I knew I’d been set up.”
“You should have come directly to me.”
“Oh, yeah, like you would have believed me instead of Julian.”
“And maybe I liked you for the dealer, because of all the people I’ve got working in Department A, you’re the one with the talent to pull it off,” Max said.
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