Running Hot

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Crocker World.”

  “Right. A lot of my time was spent doing Internet searches that were commissioned by various executives, including Mr. Crocker. On a few occasions I was called into the executive suite to deliver the results of my research.”

  “Martin Crocker summoned a librarian into his office?”

  There was irritation and impatience in Luther’s voice. He didn’t believe her.

  “Mr. Crocker was a strat talent. People like that love background and research. The more facts and details they can gather before they make a decision, the better. I did a lot of work for him.”

  She was pleased with the way that came out. Let him look. Every word was true.

  “Go on,” Luther said.

  “During the years that I worked at headquarters in Miami, I saw Mr. Crocker many times.” More truth.

  “On your trips upstairs to the executive suite,” Luther said without inflection.

  Damn. Was he buying this or not?

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that I had several opportunities to examine his aura,” she said. True.

  “What made you do that?”

  The question threw her for a couple of seconds. Why would the company librarian care about the boss’s aura?

  “I suppose,” she said simply, “because he was Martin Crocker. In the world in which he moved, he was a rock star. And he was my boss.”

  “I assume you profiled him?”

  She nodded and concentrated on the horizon. “He was a complicated man. Driven.”

  “Were you attracted to him?”

  “Not in the way you mean.” More truth. “But I suppose you could say I admired him. Everyone in the company respected his business abilities. He was Martin Crocker, after all. He built an empire.”

  “Go on.”

  “During the last few months of his life, Crocker was working on a major project. He requested a number of detailed searches.”

  “All of which were hand delivered by you?”

  “Yes. I made a number of trips to the executive suite and on several of those trips I saw Crocker. Something changed in his aura during that time. I noticed the dark energy waves. They were small, almost undetectable at first. But they grew stronger as the weeks went by.”

  “What did you think was happening?”

  She folded her arms very tightly. “It occurred to me that he might be developing some sort of mental illness that was psychic in origin. Something about his dark energy scared the living daylights out of me.”

  He considered that a moment. “Okay, it’s spooky stuff, I’ll give you that.”

  “One day when I was summoned to the executive suite, I noticed two men going into Crocker’s office. Both gave off bad vibes. You couldn’t miss them, not if you were an aura talent.”

  “You checked out their patterns.”

  “Sure.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “And I saw the same dark energy patterns in their fields.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Started working on my résumé. What else? I’ve been around enough freaks in my life to know when it’s time to bail. But before I could land another job, the news broke that Crocker had disappeared while on a trip to his private island. There was a lot of speculation. If you followed the story, you know that everyone had a theory. There were rumors. Some of them hit the papers.”

  “What rumors?” he asked.

  “That Crocker was involved with some drug lords and there was a falling-out. That was when I assumed that Crocker himself was doing drugs.” Okay, that was a minor tweaking of the truth.

  “The theory was that the drug lords got rid of him?”

  “It wasn’t exactly an off-the-wall conclusion,” she said. “Crocker World was headquartered in Miami, after all.”

  Luther was silent for a long time, his expression cop-hard. Quickly she reviewed her story. It sounded tight. She was satisfied with it, especially given the fact that she’d had only a few minutes to put it together. It helped, of course, that most of the facts were true, including the rumors about Martin’s involvement in drug trafficking.

  She risked a peek at Luther’s aura. Her heart sank. He believed parts of her story but not all of it. Maybe it was time to pull out one of the handful of identities she had constructed from the Society’s genealogy files and disappear. Good thing she hadn’t gotten a dog. She was surprised by how much the thought depressed her, though. One night with Luther and she had begun building a fantasy of happily ever after. She, of all people, should have known better.

  “I’m going to call Fallon,” Luther said.

  He took out his phone.

  FIFTEEN

  “You’ve got three Nightshade operatives under surveillance?” Fallon demanded. The fierce excitement in his voice vibrated through the phone. “Eubanks is one of them?”

  “Three possible Nightshade operatives,” Luther said, clamping a lid down on his own adrenaline rush. “Plus their bodyguards. There is also that unidentified hunter in the vicinity, the one we ran into last night. Don’t forget him. Looks like we have a regular little convention of psychics here.”

  “You say that you and Grace can both identify the Nightshade people by the patterns in their auras?”

  “Slow down, Fallon. I’m telling you that we can see some very unusual energy in their fields, and Grace says that the psychic aspects of all of the profiles are abnormal. We think the effect is caused by some kind of drug. That’s all we know for certain at this point.”

  “Any drug that has such a consistent effect on psychic talent in several different people has got to be based on the founder’s formula.”

  “Okay, I agree that sounds like a reasonable assumption. But what if there’s another drug out there that produces similar effects?”

  “That would be one hell of a coincidence,” Fallon said. “No, this is Nightshade. Don’t forget, Eubanks is a respected member of the Society. All the evidence indicates that the Nightshade organization has some high-ranking, well-connected talents planted within the Arcane community. That’s probably how they got their hands on the formula in the first place, and that’s how they’ve managed to stay one step ahead of us.”

  “Wait a second. Are you telling me that you think Nightshade still has people planted within the Society?”

  “Yes. What’s more, Zack Jones agrees with me. We’ve been talking about the problem damn near every day since he took over the Master’s Chair a few weeks ago.”

  Fallon had been known to leap off the deep end occasionally when it came to his beloved theories. But Zack Jones, the new Master of the Society, was, by all accounts, cool-headed, smart and highly intuitive. If he was on the same page with Fallon when it came to Nightshade, there was a good chance Fallon’s conclusion was right.

  “Okay,” he conceded. “Here’s something else to chew on. Grace has seen similar waves before.”

  “Shit. Where?”

  “In the aura of her old boss, Martin Crocker, and in the auras of two men with whom he had dealings.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Fallon said softly. “So Crocker was Nightshade.”

  “You’re leaping to conclusions again.”

  “It’s what I do. Damn. You know, I was getting suspicious of Crocker. He was high profile and he was Arcane so he popped up on my radar occasionally. I had started to wonder if he was into some dirty side business. Figured it was either arms dealing or drugs, though. Never made the Nightshade connection.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died before I decided whether or not to fire up an investigation. Do you realize what this means? If we’ve got a way of identifying Nightshade’s people on sight, we’ll have a huge advantage. There are a lot of aura talents registered with the Society. I need to start recruiting some and get them trained.”

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” Luther warned. “Grace thinks that only high-level auras will be strong enough to see the dark energy. Most people w
ith the talent can perceive only vague stuff like whether or not the person is ill or mentally disturbed.”

  “Which means I need you and Grace to keep up surveillance there on Maui until I can get people in place.”

  “You’ve got me,” Luther said. “But I want Grace off the island as fast as possible.”

  “Put her on the phone.”

  “No,” Luther said.

  “Figured you’d get stubborn.”

  Luther heard Grace’s phone burble. Startled, she opened her purse.

  “You’re a real SOB, Fallon,” Luther said.

  Grace had her phone open. “Hello?”

  “Hang on,” Fallon said in Luther’s ear. “I’ll be right back.”

  Luther cut the connection.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Jones,” Grace said. “I thought you were talking to Luther. Yes. Quite near the hotel. We just stepped out to discuss the situation. What? No, the hunter we ran into last night did not have those rogues in his pattern. Yes, I’m sure Mr. Crocker did. When did I last see him? Uh, well, let me think. It would have been shortly before he disappeared. His office requested some research. I delivered a report to him before he left for his private island.”

  Luther braced his back against the tree and watched Grace’s aura as she talked to Fallon.

  “The subject of the research?” She frowned in thought. “It’s been over a year, but as I recall it had something to do with some agricultural equipment requests from a charitable foundation that was doing work in developing countries. The two other men I saw who had similar wave patterns were supposedly representatives of the foundation.”

  There was a pause while she listened intently.

  “Yes, sir, of course,” she said. “Glad to help. Please feel free to call back if you have any more questions. Yes, sir, I’ll tell Luther.”

  She ended the connection, slipped the phone back into her purse and looked at Luther.

  “You’re not going back to Eclipse Bay today, are you?” he said.

  “Mr. Jones instructed me to stay here with you. We’re to return to the hotel immediately and see if we can spot any other Nightshade operatives.”

  “And you agreed.”

  She raised her chin. “Yes, I did.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I am aware of that but it’s my decision.”

  “What makes him think there will be more than just the three of them and their bodyguards?”

  “Mr. Jones said that where there are a few snakes, there may be a whole nest.”

  “What are the odds that there’s a whole bunch of Nightshade folks hanging out together at a resort on Maui?” he asked.

  “Very good, actually. Mr. Jones pointed out that Nightshade is an organization. That means it has a formal structure and a strict hierarchy. No organized group of any kind can survive without at least occasional face-to-face meetings. What’s so strange about holding a conference of senior management on Maui? Pharmaceutical companies and insurance firms do it all the time.”

  Excitement had replaced the tension in her voice. He knew when he was beaten.

  “You’re really enjoying the role of secret agent, aren’t you?” he said.

  “I didn’t get out much this past year in Eclipse Bay.”

  He used the cane to push himself away from the tree. “All right. We’ll watch the hotel guests for a day or two. See what turns up. But remember Rule Number One on this job.”

  “I’m afraid that in all the excitement, I forgot it.”

  “Rule Number One is that I give the orders in the field.”

  “I’m your partner and I’m also J&J’s special consultant on the scene, the only one the agency has available at the moment.”

  “You do what I say or you’ll find yourself on a plane before you can get packed, partner.”

  “But Mr. Jones said—”

  “Fallon Jones isn’t here. I am.”

  SIXTEEN

  Damaris Kemble’s hands curled into fists on the keyboard as she read the e-mail message from the mysterious contractor. She swallowed hard, fighting the rage and frustration that threatened to swamp her.

  Job declined. There will be no refund, as it has come to our attention that you misrepresented your references.

  “Damn, damn, damn.”

  Somehow the contractor had discovered that she was not the real Winthrup. She had failed Daddy.

  The plan had been brilliant in concept, beautifully simple and daring. But it had not worked. Unfortunately, time was running out fast. Eubanks and the others would be together on Maui for only a few days. She shoved herself away from the computer and picked up the phone.

  Her call was answered on the first ring.

  “The contractor refuses to go through with the job,” she said.

  “What went wrong?”

  The voice on the other end was reassuringly calm, cool and controlled. Her father’s voice. She relaxed a little at the sound of it.

  “The contractor somehow discovered that my credentials were false.”

  “You used the correct security codes?”

  “Yes, of course. I just rechecked them. They were the codes you provided. But somehow the contractor discovered that I wasn’t the real Winthrup.”

  “Interesting. The codes must have been changed quite recently.” There was a pause. “The important thing is that there is no way this can be traced back to either of us. The contractor will assume that someone hacked into the government agency’s computers and stole the codes. He’ll probably notify the agency that they’ve got a security leak. But there’s no reason the contractor or the agency would look twice at J&J or suspect that someone within the Society was involved.”

  “You’re sure we’re safe, Daddy?”

  “Honey, I’ve been playing this game a long time. I know what I’m doing. What’s done is done. Now we have to concentrate on our next move. All we’ve got is a three-day window. There’s no time to line up another professional contractor. We have no choice but to go with our fallback scenario.”

  She slumped in her chair. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. I told you it would be risky.”

  “You’re in no danger. I’ll take care of you.”

  “You’re the one I’m worried about. If this goes wrong—”

  “It won’t.”

  His certainty had the effect of steadying her nerves somewhat. She had been so jumpy lately, easily startled and hyperalert. She hadn’t slept well since she had started taking the drug. When she did manage to get to sleep, she was frequently awakened by bizarre nightmares. Daddy had explained that the problems were merely short-term side effects of the drug. He said that once the formula had finished ramping up her crystal working talent, her nerves would calm down.

  “Call her,” Daddy said.

  “All right.” She paused and lowered her voice. “When can I see you again?”

  “We agreed it would be best if we did not have any further contact until after this is over.”

  “I know, but it’s been weeks. After all these years of not even knowing you existed, I want as much time together as possible.”

  “Soon, honey. For now, my main goal is to protect you. You’re my true heir but we need to allow time for the drug to take effect and bring you into your full powers. I also want to make sure that you’re fully trained before I let you take too many risks. You’re the future of the organization. I can’t put you in harm’s way.”

  There was a more formal title for the organization, but it had adopted the name that the Arcane Society had given it. Nightshade. And she was its future.

  “I understand, Daddy.” That’s what fathers did, she thought. They took care of their daughters.

  “Don’t worry. Once Eubanks is dead, things will fall into place very quickly. Within a few months we’ll be ready for phase two of the operation. Go make the call.”

  “All right. Daddy?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I love you.”
/>   “I love you, too.”

  She ended the connection, feeling markedly better. She always did after she talked to her father. But she was not looking forward to Plan B. It meant dealing with a killer who was not only a consummate professional but also mentally unbalanced. Her sister.

  SEVENTEEN

  She did not need to hear the key played in order to find the right note. She was La Sirène. Endowed with perfect pitch, she plucked the A out of thin air and launched straight into the Queen of the Night’s second aria.

  The elegant, acoustically precise practice room had been designed and built for her by her current lover. Newlin Guthrie, a billionaire who had made his fortune by inventing any number of boring computer gadgets and high-tech security software programs, had spared no expense in the construction. The room was on the second floor of the Mediterranean-style villa he had purchased for her shortly after she drew him to her with her Siren’s talent. The lovely mini palazzo was perched above the bay in Sausalito and offered stimulating views of San Francisco.

  She had chosen the florid “Der Hölle Rache” for the very private performance on Maui for two reasons: The first was that it was good practice for her role in the upcoming production of The Magic Flute. The second reason was that it was ideally suited to her unique talent. The challenging high F, the note that hardly any sopranos could sing full voice, was one of the few that allowed her to project and focus the specific wavelengths of psychic energy required to interfere with certain critical neurological functions of the human brain. Glass had been known to shatter when she sang that note; people had died.

  Besides, when you set out to kill a man, you could hardly go wrong with a song that had a title that translated as “The Revenge of Hell Cooks in My Heart.” She had learned long ago that the music chosen for a performance—especially one of her unique private engagements—had to be right. Art was all about the communication between artist and audience.

  She had not planned on going to Maui. In a week she was scheduled to sing the Queen of the Night at the opening of the new opera house in Acacia Bay. The engagement, arranged by dear Newlin, was critical to the rejuvenation of her career. Things had not been going well since that dreadful night at La Scala two years ago when the claque had dared to boo her.