“I told Pippa she can stand over you and make certain you don’t open any files, so let’s make this fast.” Oz carried the computer over and set it down. “You’re not planning on dismantling the whole thing, are you?”
“Wanted to check for bugs.” Conan glanced over his shoulder at Pippa. “What do you have in here, terrorist plots or something? I swear I won’t touch ’em.”
Pippa rubbed her forehead as if it ached. “Now that you mention it… If terrorists broadcast what I have in there, they might cause mass chaos and anarchy.”
Oz smirked as Conan sent him a questioning look. “Don’t ask, okay? Just leave the files alone. You’ve been officially warned of their destructive nature. If anything happens to them or you, it’s on your head. We are no longer responsible.”
Pippa sent him a disgruntled look at the cop-out, but Oz didn’t really want to stand in his brother’s hovel for the rest of the evening while Conan poked around inside the hard drive. He feared Pippa might just explode from nervous exertion or sensory overload.
“I’m more interested in the byte-size files hidden in temporary folders, so you have no need to worry. Did you stand over the guy who moved all your files from the old computer to the new?” Conan asked.
Good question. Oz looked at Pippa, who had dived into her cave again. She’d perfected the expressionless mask. No wonder she’d had to paint tears on her cheeks.
“I didn’t know anyone was interested in my old stuff at the time,” she murmured. “I just had Lizzy carry the old drive down and leave it at the computer store. She picked the new one up the next day.”
Conan didn’t bother hiding his opinion of that, Oz noticed. His brother sent her a black look of disapproval. “How did you dispose of the old computer?”
She shrugged. “The guy at the store promised to wipe the disks, update the hardware, and give it to charitable causes. That sounded better than a landfill.”
“Three years ago, you said?” Conan asked sharply.
“Almost four,” she said warily.
“What’s the name of the store? Where was it?”
Even Oz understood the direction this was taking. Almost four years ago, a stranger had access to Pippa’s songs. Four years ago, Alys had run off with Donal, but that seemed an impossible connection. It was equally impossible that the Librarian had led him to Pippa with information garnered from an abandoned hard drive. He was out of his territory here.
Pippa gave Conan the name and street of the shop, and he jotted a note. Oz was tempted to head straight over to the store, but those places came and went with regularity. Far more efficient to let Conan do the legwork.
“I’m on it. Why don’t the two of you go get pizza or something?” Conan dived back into the computer innards.
“We could do that, or…” Oz turned to Pippa. “We could go to my place and call carryout from a restaurant with a little more class than pizza and research Santa Domenica.”
He was skilled at negotiation for good reason—he knew what people really wanted, and he knew the right bait to lure them. Pippa wanted isolation, but she would cling to that damned computer unless he offered her something more important to protect—like his son.
She hesitated, glancing nervously to the box Conan had unscrewed, then locking her fingers together when he started hooking it up to his cables.
“How long will this take?” she murmured in that dispassionate voice she used on the world.
“Depends on how much crap you’ve got in here. If you’ve had the machine for four years, that could be a lot of cookies to trek through.” Impervious to Pippa’s reaction, Conan didn’t even look up.
Oz felt her jolt of fear and exhaustion as if it were his own. He rubbed her tense shoulders and then offered his hand. “C’mon. If you can’t trust a secret agent, who can you trust?”
She returned a wobbly smile and accepted his hand. “If he’s a terrorist and the world dies tomorrow, it’s on your head,” she retorted, proving she wasn’t oblivious to his machinations.
Chapter 19
She was so stupid.
Pippa gazed out Oz’s wall of windows to the sun setting over the distant surf and wondered if it would be simpler to retreat to her studio and never come out again.
She’d unwittingly put her entire life in the hands of a stranger four years ago. And here she was, doing the same again, except now she didn’t have the excuse of ignorance. How did she know Conan and Oz weren’t planning on pirating her songs and producing them? She didn’t.
While Oz had been ordering up dinner, she’d excused herself to wash up. And she’d pried. She’d opened the door to the beautiful nursery with toy truck murals and bright red and blue toys stacked neatly on shelves, untouched for a year. She was trusting a man who wouldn’t give up on finding his son despite all odds to the contrary. Oz could be as demented as she was.
Standing at the window, she was still dithering over her next step when strong fingers shoved a beautiful handblown glass of raspberry-scented crushed ice at her. She accepted the delicate stem if only to admire the fragile facets reflecting a rainbow prism from the fading sunlight.
“It’s nonalcoholic,” Oz reassured her. “I might pollute your mind but not your stomach.”
She wanted to laugh, but she was too frozen. “I could be contaminating Conan’s mind right now,” she said without inflection. “Who knows how many minds I’ve polluted? Do you really think there’s a chance the guy at the computer store would have listened to my files? And that’s how someone knows about ‘The Silly Seal Song’?”
“I don’t want to believe these messages mean anything except some idiot is conning me into a TV production I want to do anyway.”
Oz sipped from an identical glass, but Pippa was fairly certain his drink of choice wasn’t a virgin daiquiri. Wearing a long-sleeved black polo he’d donned earlier, he stood with feet apart, looking like a captain in charge of a ship.
He practically commanded an empire. She wanted to believe he had the power to protect everyone around him. Which was patently ridiculous, since he’d lost both son and wife.
Which meant she was on her own, as always. It was a lonely place to be, and she wished it could be different.
“A show I don’t want to do,” she reminded him. “So who is setting up whom? I think I’d rather believe some kid has your number and is texting inanities to annoy you.”
“Santa Domenica certainly seems to be a wash,” he agreed, standing close enough that she could inhale his musky scent. “But giving me your name wasn’t. Even if the Librarian is batting fifty-fifty, I can’t ignore any clue. I have tomorrow free. Want to drive out there?”
“To Santa Domenica?” she asked in surprise. “We’ve already established there’s nothing there. Even if your son was, how would we find him? Go door to door?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted his big shoulders and took a drink. “I just hate doing nothing while Conan is playing with his box of tricks.”
His phone buzzed again. Hoping it was Conan with the answer to all their questions, Pippa sipped her drink while Oz checked his message. Supper had been lovely and elegant. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the delicately balanced flavors of fine dining. Her own poor efforts could scarcely compare.
Oz swore viciously and fluently and showed her the phone.
The message on the screen read Urgent. Nothing more.
Her heart threatened to climb up her throat, but she was still paralyzed. “What does it mean?”
“It means I’m heading to Santa Domenica. It’s all I have. That could have been Donal wandering in the road today. I can’t take chances if he might be in trouble. You can stay here if you like, or I’ll call a driver to take you home.” Oz looked at her with regret.
His chocolate eyes held warmth that melted her icy sh
ield in ways she shouldn’t allow. Pippa knew what he’d hoped to do with the evening. She was guilty of similar thoughts. Her body was already humming with anticipation, wondering what his bedroom was like and if they could get any better than last night.
But now their minds were elsewhere, on an urgent message from the desert. It wouldn’t be the same.
“I’ll go with you. I couldn’t sleep otherwise.” She drained her glass and set it on a coaster. The sun had slipped into the ocean. They would be driving mountain roads in the dark. “I’ll need a sweater. Should you call your brother?”
Oz leaned over and kissed her, a kiss of appreciation as well as desire. Pippa’s knees, and her resistance, weakened. She didn’t want to go to the desert. She wanted to try his bed.
The desert was undoubtedly safer.
Oz talked to Conan while disappearing into the depths of the house to retrieve warmer clothing. Pippa listened to the classical music pouring soothingly from his stereo and wondered if she should take up an instrument. Perhaps a violin. Could she create havoc with a violin?
Not if she didn’t know how to play it, she decided with amusement. Oz returned with an overlarge hoodie as she was smiling at her own fantasy, and he stroked her cheek after she took the giant pullover from him.
“Your smile lights the room. You should use it more often.” He shrugged into a black jacket with elastic bands at the wrist and waist and zipped it up.
The hoodie fell to midthigh, and Pippa had to roll the sleeves up a dozen times to find her hands, but the bulk made her feel safe. “I smile at the kids all the time. It’s adults I avoid.”
“Make the world go away?” He caught her elbow and steered her toward the door. “You’ve been granted the talent to create joy. In a world of woe, you can provide hope. You’re being selfish by denying your audience as well as yourself.”
“Well, aren’t we full of sermons?” she asked edgily, jerking away from him. “If I could also lead people off a cliff like lemmings, would you encourage me?”
“Could I choose the audience?” He took her arm again as the elevator opened in the basement garage.
Imagining what audience he would choose to leap off a cliff ought to make her laugh, but she was too nervous. “I don’t know why I try arguing with you. I should recognize genius and bow before it.” Pippa shook her head in dismay as they walked out of the elevator and he unlocked a sedate black Mercedes. “A truck, a sports car, and a sedan. Do you own a plane and a train as well?”
“Not yet. Haven’t the time. But I can always call my rescue team if I need them.” He held the door and assisted her inside.
She heard the mirth in his voice. He was being obnoxious to distract her, and it was working. Not that she needed a great deal more distraction once he slid into the leather seat beside her. His presence filled the dark car as he turned on the ignition and the dash illuminated.
“Has Conan found anything yet?” She tried to remember why she was here. It wasn’t easy. Her gaze followed Oz’s strong hands as he expertly swung the big car out of the tiny space and into the night.
“He has some software running on your computer’s innards, so he’s been hunting your computer store while he waits. It’s moved a block or two from the original location and isn’t open tonight. If he finds anything suspicious about the owner or management, he’ll find a way in, but it’s a long shot.”
“Thank goodness I keep my financial information on the other computer,” she murmured, looking for positives. “I don’t think anyone could tie me directly to the songs on that drive. Maybe anyone hearing them will just assume I’m downloading from the Internet.”
They were both avoiding talking about the Librarian’s urgent message. Pippa could feel Oz’s tension in the way he held his shoulders and steered the car. He hit the accelerator once they were on the freeway. The car shifted smoothly into high gear and purred past traffic.
There was nothing to be said about a meaningless message from nowhere. They were both keyed up and overreacting. But anything was better than doing nothing and wondering what they’d missed.
“Someone has connected the seal song and Syrene,” he reminded her. “What I want to know is how they’re related to Donal.”
“And Santa Domenica. Are we driving into a trap?”
Oz smacked the wheel with his fist to vent his frustration. “I can’t see how. So far, the Librarian has just provided information. You may feel threatened, but it’s all been good for me.”
Pippa sat silently and pondered that. He didn’t regret finding her, didn’t mind that she’d dragged in the town of El Padre and tortured him with hysterics?
“You are a single-minded man,” she decided.
He laughed curtly. “That’s a polite way of calling me an obnoxious bully. Dinner must have mellowed you.”
“Or being out in the world again is going to my head. Be ready to box me in if I lose control. I can’t always know when it’s happening.”
“Good topic. We’ve got over an hour’s drive ahead. Let’s explore your limits. What does it take to stop you once you—what was it you called it? The Beast? Once the Beast escapes?”
His deep baritone expressed no more than curiosity. She didn’t hear mocking or doubt. His logical approach made more sense than her emotional reactions.
“No one has tested my limits,” Pippa admitted. “If I’m sad, crying will ultimately choke me into silence. You’ve shut me up by tossing me in a pool.” She ignored his chuckle. “When people respond oddly to what I’m saying, I’ll notice after a while and shut up. Keeping my mouth closed works best, but I’m not naturally mute.”
“I noticed,” he replied with humor. “I like knowing where I stand, so I appreciate your willingness to let me know. You realize you’ve had nine years to explore your self-restraint, and that without unpredictable teenage hormones to mess with your mind, you may be able to manage better now?”
“Providing I’m not PMSing?” she asked. “That’s just your weird ability to be unaffected talking. You wouldn’t say that if I knocked you over like I did the drunk earlier. Yes, I’ve practiced control. No, it doesn’t always work.”
She stared into the starry heavens above the hill ahead and tried to imagine a day when she could converse normally without fearing anything she said would cause people to turn against her or one another. One person at a time, and she might manage. An entire TV production? No way.
“Then we can stop the car on Main Street, Santa Domenica, let you out, and you can bring everyone running just by shouting?” he asked, prodding her sore points.
“I could sing a siren song and open every door in town, unless there are more like you. But if there’s a villain of some sort out there, do you really want to lure him out in the street with the innocents?”
The angles of Oz’s face were shadowed as he glanced in her direction. “Setting aside the impossibility of that feat, what’s the reverse? If a villain appears and you have a shrieking fit in the center of Main Street and people are writhing in agony, do I have to throw you in a pool to shut you up?”
“Trying to disarm my Voice?” she asked in amusement. “To my knowledge, you’re the only one who has ever succeeded. Once I lose control, I have no idea how to stop on my own. It’s probably the reason I’m here. With you, I don’t have to watch every sound I make.”
Without Oz, she could shriek a man into suicide, with no way of stopping herself.
Scary, terrifying thought. They both stared out at the ribbon of highway ahead. Maybe now he understood.
She was a walking, talking time bomb.
Chapter 20
It was past ten o’clock by the time the Mercedes cruised the silent main drag of Santa Domenica, if a huddled group of aging buildings constituted a town. Pippa had been close to the truth, Oz acknowledged. The town had a gas statio
n with an all-night mini-mart, a few deserted storefronts, a scattering of battered wooden shacks, a cluster of rusted-out mobile homes, and a pack of starving dogs running the street. A tumbleweed rolled after them.
“Now what?” his companion asked in a whisper, gazing at their dismal surroundings with the same dismay as him.
Pippa had tolerated his prying questions with remarkable good humor for the past hour or more. Oz assumed that just being able to talk freely of a secret she’d locked away for a decade had oiled hinges and opened doors. She was likely to slam them again any moment, but he had the keys now.
What worried him was this miserable excuse for a town. What if Donal was being kept here? Putting stark reality to his nightmares ate at his gut.
The Mercedes was conspicuous. Anyone watching would notice them. Oz pulled up at the gas station, trying to look innocuous. He wasn’t certain he wanted gas polluted with sand in his expensive machine, but he needed time to think.
“I could stand on the roof and sing the seal song,” Pippa said facetiously.
She looked too terrified to set foot outside the car. Even without her handicap—and he was starting to believe there was something compelling about her voice—he couldn’t blame her. Desert rats were often armed and dangerous.
“I think the best we can do is be seen,” he told her. “Maybe the Librarian will send us a text. I’m hoping we’ll get to meet him.” Oz climbed out and examined the rusting gas meter. It didn’t take credit cards. He’d have to give the clerk cash. He leaned back in the car. “I have to go inside. Want to come with me or stay here?”
She hesitated and then opened her door. “Come with you.”
She didn’t explain, but Oz was relieved that she’d agreed. He was fairly confident that she could take care of herself, but he liked the idea that she trusted his strength more than her own. He’d examine that notion at some better time.
He locked the car doors and, with his hand at her slender waist, led them inside. In the bulky hoodie, she didn’t look quite so frail. In the fluorescent interior, a scruffy teen watched them from behind a cage at the register as Pippa headed for the bottled water and Oz poured coffee. Without standing in the street and shouting as she’d suggested, he didn’t know how else to let the Librarian know that they’d arrived. Provided that’s what the note had meant.
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