by Gayle Wilson
“Thank you. Think we’ll manage not to embarrass Mr. Cabot?”
Griff had acquired the tickets to tonight’s dinner, the only fund-raising event openly sponsored by The Covenant, several weeks ago. The Phoenix had already planned to have a presence there tonight, even if they were still working in the dark. The event had been part of the reason they’d decided to contact Montgomery Gardner to see if he could possibly add anything to what little they knew about the clandestine organization.
Now that Raine was working with them, the dinner was the perfect opportunity for her to make some initial assessments. Most of the people who had ended up on Ethan’s list of possible members of The Covenant would also be in attendance. As would almost everyone else who had enough money to make them interesting to charities, he conceded.
Now that he’d read the file the Phoenix agents had put together on the woman standing before him, Ethan was less skeptical than he had been about how valuable her intuition might prove to be. Comments from law enforcement officers all over the country, men who were no more given to buying into sideshow scams than he was, had made an impression. He wasn’t yet ready to embrace the old CIA premise of using psychics in intel, but what Raine had been able to accomplish in some of the criminal cases he’d read about had been powerfully convincing.
Griff had dismissed his comment about those with the reminder that cops searching for clues in a case that has stymied them want to believe someone can help—especially if those cases involve the life of a child. And wanting to believe that much went more than halfway to meeting the burden of proof.
Griff had no faith in Raine’s ability to separate the good guys from the bad. His motives in sending them to this dinner tonight had more to do with the hope, or maybe with the expectation, that she would provoke the same kind of response her presence at the hospital had.
Ethan was bothered by the thought that Griff was using Raine as bait, but he was also determined not to let anything happen to her. With the very real threat of an epidemic of homegrown terrorism hanging over their heads, perhaps this was one case where the end would justify the means. Even these.
“Will he be there?” she asked.
Lost in those thoughts, it took him a second to realize who she meant. “Griff?”
“And Claire.”
“I don’t know,” Ethan confessed.
If Griff planned to attend the dinner, he hadn’t let Ethan in on his intentions. Even if he did, Ethan doubted that his wife would accompany him. Not with her grandfather still in such serious condition.
Claire’s globe-trotting parents had just returned this af ternoon from Russia, where they’d been vacationing when they’d received the news. Of course, he didn’t feel that he was at liberty to share that information with someone outside the family.
And that, too, he remembered, was still open to question. Griff had uncovered nothing that indicated Montgomery Gardner had ever acknowledged Raine as his daughter. And despite Griff’s contacts within the agency, he’d been unable to secure any records pertaining to Raine. Even after enlisting assistant deputy director Carl Steiner’s help, they’d been unable to get any information on the Cassandra Project, the experiment she claimed to have worked on.
“Then I suppose we’re on our own,” Raine said.
Ethan thought he detected a trace of relief in that pronouncement. Since he’d felt a growing anxiety during most of the afternoon, he was surprised she seemed so calm about the evening that lay ahead. Maybe that was a good sign.
If you believe in signs…
“Shall we?” he said, opening the outer door.
She walked across the room, meeting his eyes before she stepped through it and into the hall. The upward glance through her lashes had been brief, but the impact was enough to leave his mouth dry.
Hand trembling slightly, he pulled the door to the suite closed behind them, following her to the elevator. The height of the heels she wore caused a slight sway to her hips as she walked, which produced the same aching hardness as his first sight of her in that dress had.
Griff was hoping to provoke a reaction from the leaders of The Covenant to Raine’s appearance at their dinner tonight. Whatever that reaction was, Ethan acknowledged, it probably wasn’t going to be the same one she would have on the majority of the men she encountered.
Chapter Eight
It had been so long since Raine had deliberately tried to open her consciousness to the emotions that surrounded her that it was as if she had forgotten how. At first there had been almost nothing. And then, despite her own skepticism, she had begun to sense the feelings of the people around her.
Perhaps her deep resentment of Cabot’s mockery played a role in her success. Or the desire to prove to Ethan that he was wrong to doubt her. Or her growing self-confidence that the gift she had denied so long wasn’t entirely lost.
Gradually a cacophony of impressions assaulted her, few of which were clear or meaningful. And none of which seemed threatening.
She wasn’t sure how much Ethan was aware of what she was experiencing, but as they had made their way across the lobby to the crowded elevator bank and then up to the hotel’s famous rooftop ballroom, she could feel his support surrounding her like an aura. After being alone as long as she had, there was something incredibly appealing about someone being concerned for what she was feeling.
The predinner cocktail hour had been relatively uneventful, at least from the perspective of what she’d been asked to do. No one she’d been introduced to had set off alarm bells. Of course if, as Cabot believed, someone really were afraid of her abilities, they would probably take pains to avoid just this kind of situation.
The group of ten seated with them at the round table where they’d found their place cards had been friendly and readily engaged them in conversation. One couple seemed to know Ethan, at least socially. Raine was aware of an undercurrent of interest on their part about the woman he was escorting tonight. None of their questions—the standard ones about where she and Ethan had met and how long they’d been dating—had been particularly pointed, but couched within them was an obvious curiosity about their relationship.
Ethan had handled the inquiries smoothly by telling them that he’d gone to school with her brother. The explanation sounded perfectly credible and seemed to be accepted.
Actually, he was very good at lying, Raine decided, listening to his story. Most people who weren’t telling the truth went out of their way to convince their listeners they were. Ethan provided just enough information to satisfy the questions he’d been asked, but not enough to be suspicious.
Maybe the CIA trained their operatives in that skill. Or maybe Cabot had done that. He, too, knew the value of not saying too much.
As the celebrity spokesperson for the charity took his place at the podium, the lights in the ballroom dimmed. In conjunction with a PowerPoint presentation, the toastmaster began a prolonged recital of the year’s successes, allowing Raine to turn her undivided attention to the task she’d agreed to perform.
She focused first on the guests seated nearby, willing herself to relax and receive whatever impressions came to her. She had learned long ago that she couldn’t force any of this.
She soon realized it wouldn’t take a clairvoyant to know that most of the crowd was politely bored. As she considered faces in the dark anonymity of the ballroom, sometimes a flare of anger or anxiety emanating from someone would disrupt her concentration.
She had to fight a tendency to linger over any kind of negative emotion, even petty ones, trying to fit them into the scenario she thought Cabot was interested in. So far, however, she’d felt nothing that suggested the degree of hatred or fanaticism necessary for any act of terrorism.
She was focusing on the third table when a sensation like a cold finger ran down her spine. That precognition was followed by a searing flood of malevolence. The feeling was surprisingly powerful, enough so that she had automatically closed her mind against its force
before she realized this might be exactly what Cabot had sent her to uncover.
She hurriedly examined the faces of the people at her own table, searching for any indication that what she’d just felt had come from one of them. As intense as the sensation was, she believed it must have originated from someone in very close proximity.
Most of her tablemates, however, appeared to be focused on the speaker. She could pick up no residual hostility at all. And whatever she had sensed only seconds ago seemed to have disappeared.
“What’s wrong?”
Ethan had bent toward her to whisper the question against her ear. To anyone observing them, the posture he’d assumed would look like a lover taking the opportunity the darkness provided to whisper some endearment or to brush his lips against her temple. In their case, of course…
She leaned back, widening the distance between them so that she could look into his eyes. Their normal slate gray appeared almost black in the dimness.
Again an awareness of his solicitude washed over her in a wave, almost obliterating the memory of the animosity she’d just felt. She shook her head, trying to think how to describe what had occurred.
“I don’t know. Something… Something very strange just happened. An incredibly strong feeling of malice—”
She was aware that the feminine half of the couple who’d claimed a prior acquaintance with Ethan was watching them. Raine smiled at her, receiving a quick, commiserating grin in return.
When the woman had returned her attention to the speaker, Ethan whispered, “From her?”
Raine shook her head again. She was still unsure where that sense of enmity had originated, but she had already decided it hadn’t been with any of the people at their table.
Other than that, all she could be certain of was its power. And that it had been directed at her.
During her work with the law enforcement community, she had come in contact with genuine evil on several occasions. What she had sensed then had been a generalized hatred, directed at the world at large and all who walked upon it. This, in contrast, had been personal. And for some reason she felt that the hatred had been deliberately revealed.
An attempt to frighten her? If so, whoever had exposed so much of their intent would probably be pleased with the result.
Before she’d arrived in Washington, it had been more than three years since she had felt any sense of threat. She didn’t like it any better now than she had then.
Even as that thought formed, Ethan picked up her hand, which had been resting on the table beside her plate, and placed it between the two of his. When she felt the warm strength of his callused palm under hers, she realized how cold her fingers had grown. And, embarrassingly, how much they were trembling.
“Then who?” Ethan was near enough that she could feel his breath against her cheek. The question had been soft but demanding.
Again the woman across the table glanced in their direction. Noticing Raine’s eyes on her, she quickly looked back at the speaker.
“I don’t know,” Raine said. “I couldn’t tell. Somewhere close. From behind us, maybe?”
She wasn’t sure where that impression had come from. It hadn’t been in her head only seconds before, but it was now.
Ethan turned his head, his lips nuzzling her temple as he considered the tables she’d indicated. Searching for someone who had made his list of suspected Covenant members?
Whatever he was doing, he was so close she could smell the soap he’d used in his shower tonight. Or maybe it was his aftershave. Something entirely masculine, in either case. Sandalwood with a hint of musk.
At one time that fragrance had been considered an aphrodisiac. With Ethan’s chest brushing her shoulder as he studied the tables behind them, for the first time she understood why.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him to get her out of there. Not just physically out of the room, but out of a situation that could generate the kind of malice she had felt.
She nodded instead, trying to control both her fear and any outward sign of her reaction to his nearness. His thumb moved from side to side across the back of her hand, a gesture she knew was intended to be comforting.
It was also highly provocative. Especially as emotionally vulnerable as she was right now. She wondered if he understood what he was doing to her, and then answered her own question.
A man like this doesn’t reach maturity without being well aware of the effect he has on women.
Besides, as he held her hand, two of his fingers rested under the pulse in her wrist. He would be able to feel her increased heart rate. Whether he would attribute its rapidity to the sensation she’d described or to his nearness was another question.
“I’m all right. It was just…unnerving.”
True enough. And the admission would serve to mask the fact that his touch also unnerved her.
“Threatening?”
“I thought so.”
“And you’re sure you have no idea—”
Before he could repeat the question, she began to shake her head. Apparently Ethan moved at the same time. His cheek grazed hers, its slight masculine abrasiveness as sensual as the movement of his thumb across her knuckles had been.
The combination of threat and sexual awareness was something she’d never experienced before. She couldn’t deny that she found it exciting—the idea that this man, to whom she was already so strongly attracted, had been charged with protecting her from whoever had sent those negative thoughts.
“Anyone back there on your list?” she managed, despite the growing clamor in her lower body.
He straightened, increasing the distance between them. Raine realized only then that the speaker was finishing up.
She eased a breath, grateful she’d been given an opportunity to regain control before the lights came up. Ethan Snow was proving to be a far greater distraction than she had ever imagined any man could be for her.
“Several,” he whispered. “When the lights come up, look around and see if you can tell where that sensation originated.”
The fact that he had apparently accepted what she’d told him was a small victory, but it was one she savored. The lights brightened as the guests began to applaud the presentation. Raine shifted in her seat, pushing her evening bag off her lap as she did.
She intended to use the opportunity to pick it up as an excuse to look at the table behind her. Before she could reach for the purse, the man seated on her right had retrieved it, holding it out to her with a smile.
“Thank you,” she said, managing only a quick glance over her shoulder.
No one at the next table was paying the slightest attention to her. There was the normal whispering and gathering up of belongings as the master of ceremonies continued to thank those responsible for the success of the evening. His final announcement was that the pledge cards would be collected from each table.
The evening was over, except for the same kind of casual mingling that had preceded the meal. And she was no closer to identifying any of the people the Phoenix was interested in than she had been at its beginning.
“Have we met? Before tonight, I mean?”
The question posed by the man who’d retrieved her purse caused her to turn her attention from the table behind her and back to him. His sun-streaked hair was a little longer than would normally appeal to her. However, deeply tanned and possessing a pair of smiling blue eyes, he was handsome in a California beach boy kind of way.
She tried to think of the name by which he’d introduced himself as they’d been finding their places. Brian or Brett. Something with a B, but that was all she could remember.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“You could have softened that blow by saying you’d surely have remembered if we had,” he suggested, smiling at her.
He was flirting, she realized belatedly. And doing it rather openly, considering that Ethan was on her other side. Of cours
e, Ethan was occupied right now with the woman across the table, the one who’d been curious about their relationship and then so interested in their conversation.
“I’m sure I would have,” she said.
She was aware that Ethan was in the process of getting to his feet, although he was still talking to the other couple. She prepared for him to pull out her chair, but the stranger on her right stood instead and put his hand on the back of it.
“May I?”
Unable to refuse without seeming rude, Raine allowed him to help her up. “Thank you.”
“Brad Davis. Just in case you didn’t remember that, either.”
“Thank you, Mr. Davis.”
“Brad. I’m certain we’ve met before. The museum party perhaps?”
“I don’t think so,” Raine said, this time deliberately turning away from him.
She put her hand on Ethan’s arm, causing him to look down at her questioningly. She smiled at him and then, still smiling, pretended to listen as he disengaged himself from the couple who seemed determined to arrange a future meeting. He did it as skillfully as he had fielded their earlier questions about his relationship with Raine.
“Ready?” he asked finally.
“I thought there was someone you wanted me to meet,” she suggested.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t argue. He turned and started toward the table behind them. Raine maintained her hold on his arm, feeling her apprehension grow with each step, despite the fact that this had been her idea.
“Ethan.”
The man who spoke was in his early fifties, perhaps, and several inches shorter than Ethan’s six-two. He wore a badly fitting tux and seemed to be alone. His dark eyes darted to her face before they returned to Ethan’s.
“Carl,” he said with a quick nod to the man who’d approached them.
“And this must be Ms. McAllister.”
“Raine, this is Carl Steiner.”
“I’ve heard a great deal about you,” Steiner said, offering his hand. Whoever had taught him etiquette had obviously neglected the niceties.