Fired Up

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Believe it or not, I’ve actually got better things to do with my time these days than assign a team to keep tabs on you. I haven’t got that kind of manpower to spare, even if I wanted to waste it on you. Those two guys you just described weren’t my people.”

  Some of the adrenaline was fading. Jack discovered that he was able to apply his strat-talent to something other than getting Chloe out of the motel. The first jolting thought that hit him was that Fallon sounded worried and not because his agents had screwed up.

  “Okay, Fallon, for the sake of argument, say I believe you. What’s the bad news?”

  “I don’t know who just tried to take you out, but I can think of one group that might have an interest in the lamp and also the resources to find you: Nightshade.”

  “I’ve heard about your latest conspiracy theory. But according to the scuttlebutt this Nightshade operation already has a version of the founder’s formula. Why would they come after the lamp? And why now, after all this time? How could they even know about it? The Winterses have kept that secret a lot better than the Joneses have kept the secret of the formula.”

  “I don’t have the answers to your questions,” Fallon admitted.

  “Now you’ve got my full and undivided attention. You’re the man who always has the answers.”

  “I sure as hell don’t have any right now.” There was an uncharacteristic weariness in Fallon’s voice. “You said the guy waiting in your room was a hunter?”

  “We didn’t have much of a conversation, but I can tell you he moved like a hunter. He was also bulked up on steroids.”

  “Don’t take this wrong,” Fallon said. “I’m glad you and Chloe are okay. But how did you do it? Hunters are fast.”

  “I’m a strat, remember? I’ve got a few tricks of my own.”

  “Huh.”

  Fallon wasn’t buying the explanation.

  “I got lucky,” Jack said. Lying came easily when you were a strat. Just part of the talent. “There was a struggle. The guy panicked and ran off, probably afraid of drawing attention. The second man was waiting in the alley out back with a Harley. No license.”

  “Nightshade,” Fallon said. “Got to be. Listen up, Jack. You and Chloe need to ditch your phones, computers, credit cards and anything else of an electronic nature. Nightshade may be using one or all of them to track you. You both need some new ID. And I’m not talking about the papers you’ve been carrying around for the past year. Burn ’em.”

  “You knew I had some fake ID? Then you have been watching me.”

  “No, but I know you, Jack. We think alike in some ways. If I’d been in your shoes all these years I’d sure as hell have had some emergency ID stashed for just this kind of situation.”

  The black-tinted glass doors of the casino slid open with a soft hiss. Cold, stale air rushed out. Jack followed Chloe into the neon-sparked darkness.

  “We’re in the middle of a desert, Fallon, and you’re telling me I can’t use computers or phones,” he said. “Just how do you expect me to come up with two new sets of ID?”

  “You’re in Vegas. You can buy anything in that town. But if you want top-of-the-line work I suggest you ask Chloe to introduce you to her Uncle Edward and her Cousin Dex.”

  Jack came to a halt near a row of gleaming, flashing, blinking slots. He took off his sunglasses and looked at Chloe. “You know that Chloe’s uncle here in Vegas does fake IDs?”

  Chloe’s eyes widened.

  “Harper work is the best,” Fallon said simply. “Always has been. Family’s got a talent for that kind of thing. Who do you think I use?”

  He cut the connection.

  31

  “UNCLE EDWARD, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’VE BEEN WORKING for Jones & Jones since Fallon Jones took over the agency,” Chloe said. She was still reeling from the news. “I don’t know what to say. I’m aghast. Stunned. Shocked. Is anyone else in the family aware of this? Do Mom and Dad have any idea?”

  They were sitting in Edward Harper’s paneled office on the second floor above the showroom and warehouse. The address was just off Dean Martin Drive near Tropicana Avenue, a gritty, industrial neighborhood. There was a truck-stop casino next door that catered to truckers looking for a break from the long haul to California or the East Coast. Across the street was a building with blacked-out windows and a neon sign that read Gentlemen’s Club. But here on the premises of Harper Fine Furnishings the atmosphere was classic Old World elegance.

  Edward was seated behind a graceful Louis XV ormolu- mounted, veneered desk. She and Jack occupied a pair of George III mahogany chairs. The paintings on the walls were mid-eighteenth century. An expensively suited, elegantly groomed assistant had been sent for coffee. They were sipping the beverage from nineteenth-century porcelain cups. At least, Chloe thought, they looked exactly like nineteenth-century china.

  Edward was a polished, patrician-faced man with silver-white hair, manicured hands and a well-cared-for body. From his tasseled loafers to his Italian jacket, trousers, tailored shirt and silk tie he was a model of the bespoke lifestyle.

  “So few people appreciate quality workmanship these days,” he said. He had the grace to appear mildly apologetic. “There was a time when forgery was considered an art form. But, alas, those days are long gone. Done in by desktop publishing and high-tech copiers. The business went into a general decline a few years ago—we were forced to expand our client base.”

  “Don’t you mean you lowered your standards for clients?” Chloe said sternly. “Really, Uncle Edward. Jones & Jones?”

  Edward widened his hands in a what-can-one-do gesture. “Fallon Jones pays well, and he is a connoisseur. In this day and age it is a rare pleasure to work with a client who has a truly discerning eye. And I will let you in on a little secret—this isn’t the first generation of our family to make our art available to J&J.”

  “Oh, geez,” Chloe said. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention my little arrangement with J&J to anyone else in the family, however,” Edward said.

  “Don’t worry. Harper Investigations is big on confidentiality. It’s just the shock, you know?”

  “Of course. Thank you, my dear.” Edward looked at Jack. “Now, then, I believe we are talking about two new complete packages. Not just the usual driver’s licenses and the like but credit cards and clean phones, as well?”

  “I’ll also need a clean computer,” Jack said.

  Edward nodded. “Passports?”

  Jack glanced at Chloe. “Sure, why not? We’ll take the works.”

  “Certainly.”

  Edward reached under his desk and pushed a concealed button. A section of office paneling slid silently aside revealing a windowless room filled with stainless-steel workbenches and an array of gleaming, high-tech equipment. Chloe saw a familiar figure bending over a light box, a jeweler’s loupe in one eye.

  “Dex,” she said.

  She jumped out of her chair and hurried toward him through the maze of UV light viewers, cameras, laptops, printers, copiers, laminating machines and exotic lighting devices.

  Dex straightened and turned. When he saw her, he grinned widely. “Hey, there, Chloe. I didn’t know you were in Vegas.”

  Dex was about her age, tall and gangly. He had been endowed with Edward’s noble features, but he lacked his parent’s patina of elegance and sophistication. With his overlong, tousled hair, dark-framed glasses, rumpled shirt and jeans he looked like the brilliant artist that he was.

  “It’s good to see you.” She hugged him warmly and stepped back. “How are Beth and little Andy?”

  “Doing great.” Dex glanced past her. “Who’s this?”

  “Jack Winters,” Jack said, extending a hand.

  “Mr. Winters.” Dex shook briskly.

  “Call me Jack.”

  “Sure.” Dex turned back to Chloe. “What brings you here?”

  Edward moved forward. “This is a J&J commission. Ch
loe and Jack need full packages, and they are in something of a hurry.”

  Dex frowned at Chloe, concern tightening his features. “You’re in trouble?”

  “Not me, my client.” She inclined her head toward Jack. “We need to disappear for a while.”

  “No problem,” Dex said. He still looked worried. “Are you sure you’re not in danger? I know the family has had issues with J&J over the years, but Fallon Jones has been a good client. I’m sure we can convince him to supply protection if you and Jack need it. Jones owes us a few favors.”

  “Here’s the problem,” she said. “Fallon Jones has an agenda of his own in this situation, one which may or may not mesh well with my client’s objective.”

  Edward gave Jack a cool, assessing look. “And just what is that objective, if I may ask?”

  “Staying alive,” Jack said.

  “I see. A reasonable goal.” Edward glanced at the leather duffel on the floor near Jack’s right foot. “I assume your endeavor involves the Burning Lamp and my niece?”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “You need my niece because you think she can work the lamp. I understand that. But if things go wrong she may be in grave danger.” Edward’s eyes narrowed slightly. “From you.”

  “No, Uncle Edward,” Chloe said firmly. “That’s not true. “I can handle the lamp and Jack’s dream energy field. Trust me.”

  “How do you know that if you’ve never worked the lamp?” Dex demanded.

  “We ran an experiment of sorts last night,” she said quickly. “Everything went swell. Piece of cake. No problem at all.”

  “An experiment?” Edward did not look convinced.

  Jack looked at her, brows slightly raised, but he had the good sense to keep quiet.

  “I can handle this, Uncle Edward,” she said, mustering what she hoped was a professional air of confidence. “Mom always told me that every Harper has a talent. Well, working this lamp turns out to be mine. But I need some time to finish the job. It’s hard to concentrate with J&J and this Nightshade crowd sneaking around behind us. Forty-eight hours, okay? That’s all we’ll need. Please, just promise me you’ll give us two days of peace and quiet.”

  Edward hesitated and then nodded once, decisively. “If you’re quite certain that you’re safe with Mr. Winters we can give you both forty-eight hours.” He looked at Jack. “Our family owes your family that much.”

  Chloe blinked, startled. “What’s this about a favor?”

  Dex snapped his fingers. “Right. Winters. Old favor. I remember Mom mentioning it a couple of times. Something to do with saving Norwood Harper’s life back in the Victorian era.”

  “Norwood Harper,” Chloe repeated. “Our Norwood Harper? The Norwood Harper who created so many brilliant, uh, reproductions of Egyptian antiquities?”

  “The one and only,” Edward said reverently. “A true master. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that Norwood Harper got into a bit of a bind. Some very bad people were after him. Griffin Winters took care of the problem.”

  “This family always pays its debts,” Chloe said proudly.

  Edward inclined his head. “Indeed. Well, I suppose this means you aren’t free to have dinner with us tonight.”

  “Another time, I promise,” Chloe said. “As you can see I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

  Jack looked at Dex. “I don’t want to be rude, but this is what you might call a rush job.”

  “Right.” Dex crossed the crowded space to open a steel cabinet.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “L.A.” Jack said. “Or, at least, that’s what I want J&J and Nightshade to think for the next forty-eight hours.”

  32

  CHLOE WENT TO STAND AT THE TINTED WINDOWS AND STUDIED the neon-lit night world twenty floors below. “Okay, we are definitely moving up. From a no-tell motel downtown to a one-bedroom, two-bath suite overlooking the Strip. I’m good with that. But why aren’t we headed toward L.A.? It would be easy to get lost there.”

  She heard a heavy clunk behind her. Jack had just hoisted the duffel bag onto the table.

  “Because my gut tells me that’s exactly what they’ll expect us to do,” he said.

  The heavy, compelling energy of the lamp was thick in the atmosphere, calling to her senses. She turned around.

  “You mean Nightshade?”

  “And Fallon Jones. Both sides will assume that we’re hightailing it out of town now that we know we’re being hunted. It’s human nature to run in situations like this.”

  “So we do the opposite.”

  “Right.”

  She heightened her senses a little more and studied his prints on the leather bag. Strong, healthy dream psi, the positive results of a good night’s rest, showed clearly. But she could still see faint traces of the medication he had been taking.

  “Why are we worried about Fallon Jones?” she asked. “I got the impression you believed him when he claimed he wasn’t gunning for you.”

  “I think he was telling the truth when he said that he hadn’t been tracking me. But now that he knows for sure that I’ve got the lamp and that Nightshade is on our trail, he won’t be able to resist trying to keep us under surveillance.”

  “For our own good, of course,” she said drily.

  “Probably had someone watching your uncle’s store even before we got there this afternoon. The question is whether the decoy car worked.”

  “I’m sure it worked,” she said, not without a touch of pride. “My family is very good at this kind of thing.”

  His mouth kicked up a little at the edges. “I noticed.”

  Edward Harper had arranged for an SUV with heavily tinted windows to pull away from Harper Fine Furnishings shortly before sunset that afternoon. Dex and Beth, bearing a remarkably close resemblance to Jack and herself, thanks to theatrical makeup and wigs, were inside. They had driven off quickly, headed west on I-15 toward L.A.

  She and Jack had departed sometime later in the back of one of the half dozen Harper Fine Furnishings delivery vans that came and went all day long from the secure warehouse at the rear of the store. In addition to their new credit cards, ID and phones, Jack had a sparkling clean laptop. The discreet departure had been accomplished with the customary Harper efficiency.

  She walked to the table and stopped, looking down at the lamp. “You sure you’re ready to do this?”

  He watched her from the opposite side of the table. “It’s not like I have a choice. What about you?”

  She knew she had to sound confident for his sake.

  “Ready,” she said. “First step here is to light the lamp. I think either one of us can do that, but once it’s burning, you’re the only one who can push up the power level.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I’m afraid it’s going to be an intuitive thing. The process should come naturally to you because the lamp is already tuned to your wavelengths. We’ll take it slow and easy, though. Whatever we do here, we definitely do not want to lose control of the power in this gadget.”

  “It’s that dangerous?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.” She paused. “But I can’t tell you how or in what way it’s dangerous. Power is power, though. You have to respect it.”

  She went around the suite, turning off the lights. The room was plunged into a darkness lit only by the cold light of neon and a desert moon. In the shadows she could see Jack silhouetted against the uncovered window.

  She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the night and then made her way back toward him. In the dim light she managed to collide with a chair.

  “Ooph.” She was going to be bruised in the morning.

  “You okay?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, sure. Fine.” So much for the air of confident professionalism, she thought. She rubbed her thigh and continued on to the table. “Okay, here we go.”

  She heightened her senses, probing gently for the latent currents in the lamp. Energy shifted ominously in the art
ifact. Slowly it began to glow, giving off a weak, pale light.

  “That’s as far as I can take it,” she said quietly. “Your turn.”

  Jack did not respond, but she felt the energy level rise in the room. Psi heat stirred her senses. The skin on her arms prickled. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted. Her pulse beat faster. Excitement and anticipation revved through her.

  The lamp got brighter. She went hotter and became uncomfortably aware of the residue of lust, some of it earthy and natural, some of it sick and disgusting, that stained the suite. Traces of gambling fever were everywhere in the room. The unwholesome light of other kinds of addictions glittered malevolently as well. Not even the strongest cleaning chemicals could touch dream energy. The lust on the bedding in the other room reeked.

  She tuned out the extraneous energy and focused on the lamp. Fingerprints of dark, hot ultralight fluoresced on the strange metal, seething and pulsing in the shadows. Acid greens mingled with impossible shades of paranormal blues, blacks and purples. Until now she had resisted looking at the artifact with all of her senses flung wide. Now that she had looked at it, she could not turn away.

  Some of the dreamlight residue on the lamp was old and glowed with a disturbing iridescence that she recognized as the hallmark of raw power. For the first time panic skittered on little rat feet across her senses. What had she gotten herself into?

  She took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do it. For Jack.

  “Your ancestors left their prints on the lamp,” she said. “The earliest could easily be a few hundred years old.”

  “Nicholas Winters.” Jack’s voice was low but it was freighted with the energy he was generating.

  “The hues and shades and the patterns of the wavelengths are similar in some ways to your own. Psychic genetics at work. There’s another set of particularly powerful prints. Newer but well over a century old.”

  “Griffin Winters.”

  She studied some of the other traces of dreamlight on the lamp. “I can also see the prints of the women who worked the lamp. The oldest still burns with rage and despair and an overpowering need for vengeance.”