Sizzle and Burn

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “There you are.” Pandora shouted over the roar of the pounding music. “What’s wrong? Did you hurt your foot?”

  “Fell coming out of the restroom.” She slid into the booth, relieved to get off her feet. “Broke a heel. Twisted my ankle.”

  “Bad?”

  She wiggled her foot cautiously. “No. I’ll put some ice on it when I get home.”

  She realized that the reason the decibel level had climbed to the point of pain was because she had lost her earplugs. She was reaching into her purse to find another set when she sensed the wave of paranormal energy. It stirred everything within her. Zack. She realized that she would know his invisible psychic aura anywhere. She could also tell that he was running very hot. Something was wrong.

  She turned to search for him. He wasn’t hard to spot. For an instant he was silhouetted against a flash of strobe light. She caught a glimpse of his hard face and the black leather jacket he wore over his black T-shirt. He looked a thousand times more dangerous than anyone else in the vicinity.

  He cut purposefully through the crowd with the ease of a wolf carving a path through a flock of sheep, clearly intent on reaching the booth where she sat with Pandora. The club’s patrons got out of his way without seeming to be aware of why they were moving. She realized they were acting on instinct, responding on a primitive level to the strong vibes that formed an invisible aura of power around Zack. The Arcane Society experts were right, she decided. Most people did have some degree of psychic talent. They just preferred to call it intuition or, maybe, plain old common sense.

  Zack reached the table and stopped, looking down at her. In the next flash of a strobe she saw that his face was a grim, intimidating mask.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” she said automatically, startled by the savage intensity of the question.

  “She twisted her ankle,” Pandora explained.

  “Bad?” he asked.

  “No, really, I don’t think so,” Raine said hastily. His edgy mood was making her very uneasy. Her feminine instinct was to calm him down, the way one would soothe a guard dog poised to attack.

  He relaxed a little and nodded at Pandora. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her.”

  “Sure,” Pandora said. “Anytime. How’d the investigating go?”

  “It was interesting,” Zack said. “Raine and I are leaving now. Can we give you a ride home?”

  “No thanks.” Pandora waved him off. “Music’s great tonight. I’ve got plenty of friends here. I’ll go home with one of them. Don’t worry about me.”

  Raine grabbed her purse and worked her way out of the booth. Without a word, Zack took her arm and started to steer her through the crowd.

  Pain shot through her ankle. She gasped and staggered a little, clutching at Zack for support.

  “You are hurt,” he said. “Damn it, I knew something had happened.”

  “Broke a heel, that’s all.”

  “Damn high heels.”

  “You know you love ’em.”

  “I’d love you in flat, sensible shoes just as well.”

  She wondered if he realized what he’d just said.

  “I don’t believe that for a moment,” she managed airily. “Men are fools for high heels.”

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  Okay, neither one of them was going to refer back to the I’d love you remark. Just a slip of the tongue, no doubt.

  Before she realized what he intended, he scooped her up in his arms. The sea of tattooed-and-pierced club patrons parted as if by magic, creating a path to the lobby entrance.

  “So, you come here often?” Zack asked, amused.

  “Just on the really bad nights after a case. The nights when my herbal tisane and solitaire aren’t enough.”

  “I can see how this place would work for you. A little hard on the hearing, though.”

  “You’re showing your age.”

  They paused long enough to collect her raincoat, then Zack carried her out into the cold night.

  “Remind me to take you with me the next time I hit the January sales at the mall,” she said. “You’re really nice to have in a crowd.”

  “You know what they say, everyone’s got a talent.”

  He carried her to the car, setting her carefully on her feet before opening the door. She scooted into the passenger seat and waited until he went around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

  She realized that, although she was still very much aware of him with all her senses, she was no longer picking up the hot, flaring energy that had raised the hair on the nape of her neck a few minutes before.

  “What did you mean back there in the club when you said you knew something had happened to me?” she asked, deeply curious.

  “Just a feeling.” He put the car in gear, rested one arm on the back of the seat and turned his head to check the rearview.

  “Like the feeling I had the other night when you were attacked?”

  “Maybe.” He reversed out of the parking slot with smooth competence and aimed the car toward the exit. “I should probably tell you that the experts claim there’s no such thing as telepathy, though.”

  “These experts of yours. Do they know everything?”

  “Hell, no.” He drove out onto the street. “In fact, they’re the first to tell you that scientific investigation of the paranormal is still in its infancy. The Society has made a lot of progress in the past few decades but there are some major barriers.”

  “Such as?”

  “Technology, for one.” He slowed for a light. “It’s hard enough coming up with reasonable theories to explain psychic phenomena. Figuring out how to detect and measure it is even more difficult because modern technology isn’t designed to explore the paranormal.”

  “Hmm. Hadn’t thought about that problem.”

  “How’s the ankle?”

  “Hurts a little,” she admitted.

  He did not say anything, just concentrated on driving.

  “You discovered something at St. Damian’s, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Vella Tallentyre was murdered.”

  She swallowed hard. As often as she had let her imagination play with that disturbing possibility, it was, nevertheless, very hard to take in the reality of it.

  “How?” she whispered.

  “I think Quinn gave her a lethal injection.”

  A sick horror, followed by a tide of guilt, rose inside her, threatening to make her ill.

  “Nothing came up in the autopsy,” she reminded him, trying to quell another tsunami of guilt.

  “There are a lot of drugs that can trigger a heart attack and leave no trace. Remember, Lawrence Quinn was an expert on meds. He also knew how they affect people with strong parapsych profiles.”

  “You’re sure he gave her something?”

  “I saw his hand,” Zack said quietly. “Sensed the syringe in it. I could feel his anticipation of the kill. He was…excited.”

  Tears leaked out of her eyes. “Dear heaven. He enjoyed killing her?”

  “No. When I said excited, I meant jacked up. He was very, very nervous. Scared that someone would catch him, probably. But I could tell that he was also thrilled because he believed he had gotten whatever it was he wanted from Vella. The combination of emotions was so strong they left a lot of residue on the bed railing.”

  “But what could he possibly have wanted from her?”

  “I don’t know but I got the impression that he killed her to protect the secret, whatever it was. He didn’t want to risk that she might tell someone else what she told him.”

  She blinked back more tears.

  “Are you okay?” Zack asked.

  “Not really.” She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. “But whatever he gave her obviously didn’t work right away. The orderly said Aunt Vella was calm after Quinn left.”

  “I think that’s true. I got no sensation of resistance. Vella didn’t fight back. In
fact, she seemed to welcome the injection. Quinn must have tricked her, convinced her that whatever he was giving her would help her.”

  “She wouldn’t have been able to pick up any warning signals on the psychic plane because her clairaudient talents had all disappeared,” Raine said. Sadness mingled with the guilt, roiling her insides. “On top of that, even her normal senses were probably dulled because of her regular medications. She had no natural defenses left at all.”

  The night seemed to grow heavier and darker, closing around the moving car.

  “There’s something else,” Zack said. “Something that may be very, very important.”

  “What?”

  “I picked up a hospital pen. It was like touching a live electrical wire. Female energy.”

  “Aunt Vella’s?”

  “I think so. Whoever it was sensed that she was dying. She was desperately trying to leave a message for someone she loved.”

  Stunned, she twisted around in the seat. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be.” He flexed one hand on the wheel in a small gesture of irritation. “You know how it works.”

  “Not as well as you do,” she reminded him. “I haven’t had the advantage of all that fancy Arcane Society research, remember?”

  “I told you, our brand of psychic talent is hardwired to our sense of intuition. On some unconscious level we interpret the energy we pick up and translate it into the images that I see and the voices you hear. But as is the case with any interpretation or translation, there’s room for nuance and outright error.”

  “Nuance,” she repeated evenly.

  His fingers tightened on the wheel but when he accelerated through the intersection, the car moved smoothly, under full control. “Always plenty of room for nuance and misinterpretation.”

  She knew then that he was thinking about how he had allowed himself to be deceived by his fiancée.

  “Do you think it’s likely that you didn’t translate the nuances correctly in this case?” she asked.

  “No. I think your aunt aroused briefly from the effects of the drug that Quinn gave her. Dr. Ogilvey told us that she received her evening meds around ten o’clock and that she died less than two hours later. Her regular drugs may have temporarily counteracted the effects of the injection. Or maybe the sense of impending death produced a burst of adrenaline. It happens that way sometimes. Whatever the cause, she managed to get up and find a pen.”

  “Did she actually write a note to me?”

  “That’s the part I can’t be sure of because what I picked up was her absolute determination to write some kind of message.” He hesitated, thinking. “But there was also a trace of overwhelming relief in the mix. She believed that she had succeeded. I can tell you that much.”

  “But there was no message. Gordon and Andrew would have noticed it when they collected her things that night.”

  “Would have been easy to overlook a small piece of notepaper lying on the table,” he said.

  She clasped her hands together in her lap. “Or the message might have been meaningless gibberish that made sense to her disordered mind but not to anyone else.”

  “In which case it would have wound up in the trash.”

  “Yes.”

  They both fell silent for a while.

  “What happened to the things that Gordon and Andrew took away from her room?” Zack asked eventually.

  “They kept the items that they knew would have sentimental significance to me. Everything else was thrown away.”

  “Where did they put the stuff they saved?”

  She tensed a little, thinking about the task she had put off for the past few weeks. “They’re in a box at Gordon and Andrew’s house. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been able to gear myself up to go through her things. It’s been hard enough just dealing with the paperwork and the legal side of death.”

  “I understand.” He shifted gears. “I assume you have a key to Gordon and Andrew’s place?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Know where the box is stored?”

  She braced herself for what she knew was coming. “You want to pick it up tonight, don’t you?”

  “We’re fighting time here, Raine.”

  “I know.” She rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “I’ve got the key with me on my ring.”

  Zack cradled her in his arms while she used her key to open the front door to the house. Then he moved into the hall with her so she could punch in the code that deactivated the alarm system.

  “You don’t have to carry me around, you know,” she said, reaching out to switch on a light.

  “I like carrying you around.” He settled her into a chair. “Stay here while I get something to ice that ankle.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen and returned a short time later with a large packet of frozen spinach that he draped around her sore ankle. When he was satisfied with the makeshift ice pack he straightened and took his phone out of his pocket.

  “You’re going to call Fallon Jones right now?” she asked.

  “Couple of things I have to tell him.” He punched in a number.

  “It’s two-fifteen in the morning.”

  “So what?” He put the phone to his ear. “Figure if we’re awake, he might as well be awake, too. Besides, Fallon doesn’t sleep much when he’s working a case, especially one that involves Nightshade.”

  “He’s not the only one who isn’t getting much sleep lately.”

  Zack ignored her to speak into the phone. “And a cheery good morning to you, too, Fallon. Got a little news here but first I need to tell you about a seventeen-year-old high-level aura talent. At the moment he’s doing time in a psychiatric hospital.”

  He spoke quickly and succinctly, as usual showing little strong emotion but she sensed the urgency beneath the surface. She was aware of something else, too. There was quiet authority, a cool, but unmistakable edge of command, in his voice.

  “It’s going to be complicated by the fact that the new stepmother is afraid that the kid’s crazy and that he’ll be a bad influence on the other children,” he concluded. “But the director of the hospital is a good man. Probably a fairly high-grade intuitive. Just doesn’t know it or won’t acknowledge it. An extraction team should be able to work with him.”

  There was another pause as Fallon responded.

  “I know I sound like I’m giving orders again,” Zack said patiently. “That’s because I am. Now I’m going to update you on the Oriana situation. There have been some new developments.”

  When he was finished he ended the call and looked at Raine, politely inquiring.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Why is it,” she said, “that every time I listen to you talk to Fallon Jones it sounds like you’re giving him orders?”

  Zack smiled a cheerfully serene smile. “It works better that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Probably because I’m good at giving orders. Never did take them very well, myself.”

  Forty-four

  The box that contained the things that had surrounded Vella Tallentyre during the last year of her life at St. Damian’s was pitifully small. He found it in an upstairs closet, next to an easel. He picked it up, carried it downstairs and outside to the backseat of the car. He went back inside to retrieve Raine and a fresh packet of frozen vegetables. Peas this time.

  When she was belted into the passenger seat she turned her head to look at the small box.

  “There wasn’t a lot of storage space in her room at the hospital,” she said wistfully. “I only took the things I knew meant a lot to her. The rest of her stuff is still at the Shelbyville house.” She settled back into the seat with a tiny sigh.

  He took one hand off the wheel and briefly touched her knee. “How’s the ankle?”

  “Better, thanks. The cold packs are helping.”

  “You didn’t tell me how you twisted it.”

  “Just one of those t
hings. The hall outside the restroom was very dark. Someone was smoking something behind a curtain. The stuff affected my parasenses. I lost my balance and went down. Took the wall drapes with me. It was very embarrassing.”

  A small chill went through him, a faint but disturbing echo of the cold thrill that had iced him to the bone just as he parked the car in the lot outside Café Noir. He would never forget that sensation, he thought. He had never felt anything quite like it. Screw the experts. On some deep level he had known that Raine was in trouble.

  But she had just slipped and slightly sprained an ankle. It was not as though she had been in grave danger. Why had he reacted so intensely?

  “Tell me about the smoke,” he said.

  She shot him a startled look that said more clearly than words that his tone of voice must have been a little on the rough side.

  “Why?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Nothing, probably. I’m just curious about the smoke.”

  “I don’t know what it was.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “No, something else. More like incense. There was an herbal scent to it that I didn’t recognize. Not that I’m an expert.”

  “Recognize the person who was smoking the dope?”

  “Never saw him.” She stopped for a second. “Or her.”

  “You never saw the smoker?”

  “It was very dark in the hallway outside the restrooms. The person was hiding behind the wall drapery. Disappeared when I did my swan dive and pulled the curtains down on top of myself.”

  He felt ghostly fingers caress the nape of his neck.

  “The guy was hiding behind the drapery?” he said, fighting to keep his tone level.

  “Probably afraid of being caught with an illegal substance. Café Noir has what you might call a bit of a reputation in town. Pandora says the cops occasionally conduct sting operations there.”

  “Let me get this straight. You never saw the smoker because he was hiding behind the curtains and you only caught a few whiffs of the smoke but that was enough to affect your parasenses?”

  “Well, yes, I guess that pretty much sums it up.”

  “Shit.”

  “Which reminds me,” she said, very earnest now, “I want to thank you for telling me about how psychotropic drugs can have unpredictable effects on a person with a strong psychic profile. That little gem of wisdom kept me from freaking out entirely when I realized that the smoke was destroying my ability to control my clairaudient talents.”