I didn’t know whether to be impressed he’d remembered my name or worried that I’d made a little too indelible of an impression. “That’s right. Look, I — that is, I really need to talk to you.”
“Talk to me? About what?” He sounded more than a little impatient, and I guess I couldn’t blame him too much. After all, I’d interrupted what could have been an important conversation. And he had to be wondering just what the hell I was doing there.
“About — ” I hesitated, aware of the older woman’s slightly irritated gaze. “Um…could I talk to you in private?”
“Miss…” He trailed off; I hadn’t given him my last name.
“O’Brien,” I supplied. It couldn’t be a good sign if he were falling back on addressing me by my last name.
“Miss O’Brien, I’m here as a guest of the conference. I’m expected at a reception — ”
“Five minutes. Just give me five minutes, and if you don’t want to hear any more, I won’t ask anything else.”
For a few agonizing seconds he didn’t say anything, but only scanned me with a set of hazel eyes that were a little too penetrating. He certainly didn’t look like your standard-issue UFO crackpot. I found myself wondering what he was a doctor of.
Then, “All right. Five minutes.” He turned back to the woman with the platinum beehive and said, “Let everyone know I’ll be a little late.”
She nodded but apparently couldn’t resist sending me another annoyed glance. “Of course, Paul.”
So his name was Paul. I filed that away, and waited while she disappeared somewhere backstage and he came down the risers they were using as steps to the platform. As he approached, he seemed a lot taller than he had back at El Churro. Maybe it had something to do with the half-frown creasing his forehead.
“Where’s the bar?” I asked.
“Why on earth do you want to go to the bar?”
“Because I have a feeling you’re going to want a drink after you hear this.”
The hotel’s lobby lounge featured moody neon lighting and sleek black furniture. Appropriate — I almost felt as if I were aboard a UFO. Paul Oliver sat down across from me at a small two-seat table but waved off the waitress when she approached. Obviously he didn’t think he was going to be giving me anything more than the agreed-upon five minutes.
I resisted the urge to order a drink, but did ask for some Perrier just so we wouldn’t seem like complete freeloaders.
The waitress left, and he leveled a very direct gaze at me. “So precisely what is so important, Ms. O’Brien?”
There wasn’t any way to phrase it without sounding like a complete idiot. “Do you believe aliens can possess human beings, Dr. Oliver?”
That threw him a little. He sat back in his chair and tilted his head slightly, as if considering. “What makes you ask?”
“This morning I had a client come to me who was convinced that his girlfriend had been taken over by some sort of alien intelligence. He was quite adamant about it.”
“Client?”
I didn’t bother to lie. What would be the point? He’d only find out sooner or later. You didn’t get a lot of different hits when you Googled “Persephone O’Brien.”
“I’m a psychic.”
Almost at once a shuttered expression took over his face.
“Don’t you dare get all judgey,” I snapped. “Not when you’re the guy who just gave the keynote speech at a UFO convention.”
“Symposium,” he said absently, and then almost smiled. The softening of his expression did all sorts of wonderful things to his features…and a few interesting things to my stomach as well. This might have been easier if he weren’t so damn good-looking. “What kind of psychic?”
Somehow I managed to gather my wits. “Clairsentience and precognition mostly, although I’ve done some psychometry as well if the wind is coming from the right direction.” That comment prompted an actual smile, and I went on, hoping I wasn’t blushing and, if I was, that the lounge’s dim lighting hid most of it, “I get a good deal of input from Otto, my spirit guide. He said I had to come here tonight but wouldn’t tell me why. I’ve learned to follow Otto’s directions or risk the consequences. So I came here, and saw that the hotel was hosting a UFO con — symposium, and the pieces came together. He must have sent me here so I could get your advice.”
“Shouldn’t your spirit guide be the one providing you with advice?” Paul’s tone was amused, but not so much so that I could construe it as mocking me.
“Not always. Not if it’s something that affects me directly.”
“And how does it? I thought you said it was a client who had come to you with the problem.”
“Otto wouldn’t tell me. But he looked…worried. So tell me, Dr. Oliver, was my client crazy? Or is alien possession something that can actually occur?”
For a long moment he didn’t say anything. During that silence, the waitress arrived with my Perrier. She set it down in front of me, then asked, “Anything else?”
He spoke up then. “Vodka martini, two olives.”
I blinked at him. “Thought you weren’t ordering a drink.”
He smiled again, but it looked a little strained. “I have a feeling I’m going to need one.”
“What about the five minutes?”
“I’m considering an extension.” And he pulled out his own phone and began to enter a text — begging off from the cocktail reception, I guessed.
Well, in that case… “Bring me a glass of pinot noir,” I told her. “And an order of the Thai spring rolls.”
She nodded and wrote down our orders, then made herself scarce again.
“As to your question,” Paul said, “there are accounts where individuals state their bodies have been taken over by entities not of this world, or that they have felt the presence of some ‘other’ within their thoughts. It’s far less common than abduction, but it isn’t unknown.”
The image of Alex Hathaway’s haunted eyes rose in my mind, and I shivered. Not that I believed in possession — as I’d told Alex, ghosts couldn’t possess people, and in all my time working with troubled people I’d never seen any evidence to suggest that demons or devils even existed. But Paul Oliver seemed to believe, or at least be open to the idea.
“So you believe in alien abduction?”
He crossed his arms and watched me over the flickering little tea light in its blue glass holder at the center of our table. “Of course I do. Wouldn’t make much sense to have me as the keynote speaker here if I didn’t, would it?”
I had to admit to myself that he had a point. “Have you ever been abducted?”
“No.”
“But you believe it happens?”
“Absolutely.”
It was my turn to settle back in my seat and give him a narrow glance. “Exactly what are you a doctor of, Dr. Oliver?”
“I have Ph.Ds in astronomy and astrophysics,” he replied imperturbably. There might have been the slightest glint in his eyes as he watched me…or maybe it was just a reflection from the candle flame. “From Stanford.”
Oh. While I knew it was entirely possible for a university as prestigious as Stanford to churn out its share of crackpots, I was becoming less and less convinced that Paul Oliver was one. After all, there were plenty of people in the world who didn’t believe in psychics, and yet here I was.
“So, my client,” I went on doggedly. “He was absolutely convinced that his girlfriend had been taken over by some alien intelligence. He noted changes in her behavior and personality…none of which seemed all that strange to me, but of course I didn’t have a chance to meet her.”
At that moment the waitress showed up with our drinks and the appetizer. I made myself take several bites of a spring roll before I had any of the pinot. Best to lay down a base. At least it seemed as if the ghosts of mojitos past had pretty much disappeared by that time.
Paul didn’t bother with the appetizers, and lifted his martini right away. He had long, strong fing
ers, but not pale and smooth the way I might imagine a scientist’s would be. No, they were tanned and even callused, as if he did some kind of physical labor as well. Maybe setting up telescopes took more work than I had thought.
“What were these personality changes?” he inquired.
“Well, primarily reading Variety, from what I can recall.”
He choked, then helped himself to a medicinal application of martini before replying, “Reading what?”
“Variety. And the Hollywood Reporter, apparently. And they hadn’t — ” I felt myself flush but persevered. “That is, Alex claimed they hadn’t been intimate for some time.”
“That actually follows with a good deal of what I’ve read on the topic. But the reading material…”
“I know.” It hadn’t made any sense to me, either. “What use would aliens have for Hollywood trade rags?”
“I’m not sure.” He rubbed his chin absently, as if considering. Then he seemed to notice the spring rolls, and bent down and picked one up. “What’s the young woman’s profession?”
“Out-of-work actress, from what I gathered. Not exactly someone in a position to assist much in world domination, as far as I can tell.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so. Anything else?”
“My client believed the change had come over her after a visit to a tanning salon.”
“A tanning salon.”
All along I’d been hoping maybe the story wouldn’t sound so crazy on repetition, but I reflected that it actually sounded worse. Paul’s expression didn’t change, but it didn’t need to. He gave the distinct impression of someone who was struggling to be polite.
“The sort of place where they spray it on,” I said, my voice sounding strained even to myself. “Look, don’t you think I know how ridiculous all this sounds? Normally I would have brushed it all off as just one of the left-field things that happens to me from time to time, but this can’t all be a coincidence, can it? You coming into El Churro for directions, Otto telling me I had to come to this one hotel out of all the hundreds in L.A.?”
“How do I know this Otto even exists?”
“You tell him I most certainly do exist,” came Otto’s voice at my ear.
I started, spilling some of my pinot. Luckily, I had just picked it up, so most of the wine splashed on my hand and on the little cocktail napkin, and not on my clothes.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered fiercely.
“Checking in.”
“Well, don’t. This is hard enough as — ”
“Is he here now?” Paul leaned forward over the table that separated us, his eyes eagerly scanning the space above my head.
“Yes,” I said. “But he’s actually behind me, on the left side.”
“Fascinating.”
“You see?” Otto demanded. “At least someone appreciates me.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know you the way I do. Anyway, don’t you have better things you could be doing?”
“Yes, but I thought I should warn you that you were followed here.”
“Followed?” I squeaked.
“Do keep your voice down. Yes, followed. If you look out toward the main lobby area, you’ll see a suspicious individual loitering near the elevators.”
I did as Otto suggested and stared over Paul’s shoulder and in the direction of the bank of elevators that led to the tower rooms. People milled about, going this way and that, but I saw at once that one man wearing a dark suit and an entirely unnecessary black overcoat never moved, but only stood in one spot, apparently engrossed in some sort of brochure. I say “apparently” because his gaze kept flickering in the direction of the lobby lounge…straight at me.
Immediately I looked down.
“What’s he saying?” Paul asked. “Did I hear you say you were followed? By whom?”
“How the hell would I know? I’ve never seen the guy before.”
“What does he look like?”
I sneaked a quick peek and then lifted my glass of pinot and took a sip with what I hoped was an air of complete unconcern. “I can’t really see his face too clearly. Tallish. Dark suit and a black overcoat.”
“A black overcoat,” Paul repeated in flat tones.
“Yes.” A sudden thought hit me, and I said, “You’re not telling me that this guy is a — a man in black, are you? Come on!”
“What else? Maybe there’s more to this client of yours and his possessed girlfriend than you realized. At any rate, I think it’s a good idea if we can find a discreet way to get out of here.”
Otto said, “Very sensible. I think you should listen to him.”
“What, and not your sterling advice?”
“Go!”
There were very few times in my life when Otto had outright commanded me — one being the time his shout of warning had kept me from getting hit by a car just as I stepped out into an intersection my senior year of high school.
I stood and wrestled a couple of twenties out of my wallet. “Otto thinks we’d better leave.”
Paul rose as well, and began reaching for his own wallet.
“Never mind that,” I said. “We can settle up later.”
“He’s moving!” Otto hissed.
Sure enough, when I looked over toward the elevators, I saw the black-coated individual coming in our direction, not running, not moving so quickly that he would attract any undue attention, but it was clear to me we were his intended destination.
Paul didn’t miss a beat. “Not that way. Let’s go out through the service entrance.”
And he began to move as well, striding purposely toward the bar. As I trotted along behind him, I realized he was actually headed toward a door to the right and a few yards behind the bar itself, which must lead to the kitchens. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a waiter emerge through the door carrying a plate of sliders and one of the biggest orders of nachos I’d ever seen.
I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. “He’s following us!”
Sure enough, the man in black had increased his stride and had now entered the lounge area.
“Excuse us,” said Paul, and pushed past the waiter and on through the swinging door.
“Hey!” the waiter shouted. “You’re not supposed to go in there!”
“So sorry,” I mumbled, as I slipped by. Then I had to pick up the pace, because Paul had begun to run as soon as we were out of the public eye.
The scent of hot grease and grilling meat hit my nostrils. It appeared that the lounge and the cafe shared the same kitchen space — at the end of a short hallway, we entered the kitchen proper.
Someone else shouted at us, but since they were yelling in Spanish I had no idea what they were saying. However, I guessed they weren’t exactly welcoming us to the hotel.
“You have a car?” Paul asked, after glancing backward to make sure I was still behind him.
“Yes. What about yours?”
“Valet parking. It’d take too long to get the keys.”
I nodded. “How do we get there?”
He pointed toward a glowing green “Exit” sign in the far wall of the kitchen. Just as well, because a group of kitchen workers was converging on us. None of them looked too thrilled to see us there. Well, I was less than thrilled to be there myself.
At least we had a lead on the mob, and so we hit the door running and came out in a dark alley that smelled as if they’d dumped about two months’ worth of rotten broccoli back there. I wrinkled my nose. “Now what?”
He looked around, then pointed off to the left. “There’s the parking structure. We’ll have to see if there’s a way in from this side.”
And he took off running. I cursed my impractical heels under my breath and pounded after him, thinking that if Otto had had the prescience to tell me I needed to come to the Sheraton Universal, he at least could have told me to switch into some athletic shoes. After that I didn’t have much time to think about anything at all, because I heard the door bang agains
t the wall behind us, followed by the sound of running feet.
“Stop!” an unknown voice bellowed at me. “Federal agent!”
Oh, shit. I didn’t want to think what the penalties were for resisting arrest or fleeing a government agent. Then again, it wasn’t as if I’d been charged with anything. Hell, I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong. Besides, Otto had told me to go. So I was going.
The parking structure loomed ahead of us, its interior dimly glowing with the strange pinkish light that sodium vapor bulbs gave off. I didn’t see any entrance, but the structure wasn’t really enclosed — it had concrete pillars separated by stretches with dual rows of metal railings. As I watched, Paul reached out and grasped the top railing and hauled himself up and over as gracefully as an Olympic gymnast propelling himself over a sawhorse. Easy for him — he had almost a foot on me and a much longer reach. Still, it’s amazing what you can do with fear motivating you.
I wrapped my hands around the cold metal and pulled myself upward. As I dangled there, Paul grabbed me by the biceps and yanked me the rest of the way. I stumbled against him but didn’t have much time to think about how nicely solid he felt.
“Which level?” he demanded.
“The bottom.”
“Figures.”
The stairs were a few yards away. We rushed to the door and began hustling down the steps, which clattered so loudly under our footfalls that I thought the occupants of the entire hotel would be able to know where we were. Sure enough, less than a minute later I heard the door above us clang open, and then footsteps began pounding down after us.
“Here,” I said, as we reached the door at the lowest level.
Paul yanked it open and then waited for me to move ahead of him — made sense, since obviously he had no idea what my car looked like.
Somehow it seemed much farther away than it had been when I parked it. But there it was, my shiny red Volvo. I pushed the button on the remote to unlock the car.
“Inconspicuous,” he commented.
“Well, I didn’t know I was going to be using it to evade federal agents.”
“Better give me the keys.”
“Like hell!”
sedona files - books one to three Page 4