by Rachel Grant
He cleared his throat. “We have to get the mask back.” His voice was husky. Pained.
“We will,” Rhys said, hating that Helvig had gotten the mask but knowing there was nothing they could have done. Jana had blocked them, and in so doing, saved Rhys’s life.
Chuck looked up at the ceiling as he again rubbed his massive hand across his face. To Sienna, he said, “Is she trapped?”
She closed her eyes. Finally she answered, “No. I don’t think so. I can’t talk to her directly, but…” She paused again, her brow furrowed and mouth twisted as she seemed to be deciphering messages. She opened her eyes again. “I don’t think she’s trapped so much as clinging. Her grip on the mask—her portal to this side—is weak. The orca isn’t her totem. It belongs to a shaman, which makes her connection fragile. I think the shaman is helping her, somehow, trying to keep her connected to this world. When she shows us a vision, it drains her further. She was nearly pulled to the other side last night. If she crosses, she won’t be able to come back.”
“Where is the mask now?” Rhys asked.
Again, Sienna closed her eyes, but the answer came more quickly this time. “The Pelligrews have it. Not sure where. It’s in a dark space. I don’t think it’s in the cedar box anymore.”
“Why can she communicate with you but not with me?” Chuck asked.
“My sense is she’s had months in my head and has learned her way around. After she pulled Rhys into the dream, communication with him opened somewhat, but it’s not the same two-way flow she’s developed with me. Maybe distance kept her from communicating with you these past months? Fifteen or twenty miles doesn’t seem to matter, but I definitely feel the connection more strongly when I’m closer to the mask. Itqaklut to Tacoma is a long way.”
“But she sent me a dream when I was in Anchorage. Now I’m here, and I can’t feel her at all.”
“I’ll try to ask.” Sienna closed her eyes again. She frowned, then eventually met Chuck’s gaze. “There was a rift last night, it opened a path in which distance and time didn’t matter. She used it to send you the dream, but the same rift is what almost sent her to the other side.”
“What caused the rift?”
This time, the moment Sienna closed her eyes, she jolted, her head jerking to the side, as if she’d taken a blow. Her face went pale. “Adam was holding the mask when he was shot by Nick Pelligrew at midnight. The bullet went through the mask, creating the rift.”
“Did you just witness Adam Helvig’s murder?” Chuck asked.
“No.” She looked down and rubbed her forehead. “I—uh—felt it.”
Rhys jolted away from the door and swore. He’d guessed from her physical reaction, but knowing she’d taken a bullet to the head for the second time in less than a day was too much. “No more questions. We can’t keep putting Sienna through this, and it sounds like it’s hard for Jana too.”
Chuck nodded.
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Rhys stood before her and pulled her to her feet. He hated seeing her suffer and would take the pain if he could. Too bad Jana couldn’t communicate directly with him.
Behind him, Chuck said, “Jana was always a matchmaker. And matching you, Rhys, was the Holy Grail for her. Half the single women at our wedding were invited so they could meet my best man.”
Rhys stared into Sienna’s eyes. He’d known Jana’s matchmaking proclivities—and he’d been amused even if sometimes annoyed by it. But not anymore. Jana had succeeded, and now he was worried about the safety of the woman Jana had chosen for him. “After the FBI gets here and we’re interviewed, you’re getting on the next flight back to Seattle,” he said to Sienna.
She nodded. “As long as the Pelligrews are here, we’re all in danger. But, dammit, we can’t tell the FBI we know who shot Adam. We can’t tell them we know Adam stole the mask.” She turned to Chuck. “The cops don’t know Jana was murdered and didn’t believe you were deliberately poisoned.” She returned her gaze to Rhys. “Are they going to be able to catch these guys?”
“Doug and Nick Pelligrew aren’t smart enough rob a blind man and get away with it,” Rhys said. “They’ll be caught.”
Her lips tightened with frustration. “But we can’t even tell them that the mask has a bullet hole in it now.”
“When the FBI recovers the mask, it will be a direct connection between the Pelligrews and Adam Helvig’s murder. Mask fragments will be in Helvig’s body.”
Rhys felt a strange flash of cold and heat on his hands. The heat intensified into a burn, sharp. Painful. He glanced at Sienna. She flushed a deep sunburn red—face, throat, and shoulders. She winced, then seemed to hold her breath.
Her gaze swung to Rhys’s. Her mouth was pinched and her face had paled, even as her hands turned cherry red. She let out a slow, hissing breath. “You feel it too?”
He nodded. His hands throbbed, but he suspected it was worse for her.
“Feel what?” Chuck asked. “What’s going on?”
“My hands are burning.” To Sienna, Rhys asked, “Is Jana telling you what it means?”
Her eyes widened. “The mask is going to burn, and you and I will burn with it.”
They left a tired, frustrated, and worried Chuck in the clinic and headed back toward Chuck’s house. “You’re packing your bag and flying back to Seattle,” Rhys said.
She shook her head, feeling drained, knowing they were about to have an argument and not exactly thrilled at the prospect. “I don’t have anything to pack. And I’m not leaving without you.”
“I can’t leave Chuck here, not with the Pelligrews on the loose.”
“Then I guess I’m not leaving.”
“Sienna, you saw how beat he looked at the end. He shouldn’t have flown here, but now that he has, he can’t travel again. At least not today.”
“I know that, Rhys. And I understand why you need to stay with him. But I’m not leaving without you. We don’t even know if my leaving would change anything. So far the mask has never lied to us. The only vision of the future it sent happened exactly as we saw it.”
“This wasn’t a vision. This was burning hands.”
It hadn’t just been burning hands for her, but Rhys didn’t know that, and she had no intention of telling him the truth. “Well, our hands weren’t on fire, so it must have been a vision. A weak one. Maybe Jana is slipping. Moving away. We know who killed her and why. She can go to the other side now. Maybe she’s already gone.”
“Bullshit!” Rhys pulled off onto a gravel-lined turnout on the twisty, narrow road that cut through the green marsh and wound around arctic lakes. He threw the SUV in Park and faced her. “Why are you lying to me?”
She couldn’t answer that.
“Is Jana gone?”
“No.”
“Don’t ever make a claim like that unless it’s true.”
He was right. “I’m sorry, Rhys. I shouldn’t have said that. I won’t do it again.”
His deep blue eyes bore into hers. “There is a reason she sent us the burns. It was a warning.”
“I honestly don’t know what it was. The mask—Jana—she’s never done anything like that before.” She was still getting used to the idea the mask had a name. She’d seen the woman’s pictures. Had even met her in the dream that later turned into something more.
“It was a warning, Sienna. I know it in my gut. And my gut says you need to leave.”
She stared down at her hands, her legs, her feet. No longer red. No longer in agony. The flash of burning pain had been head to toe, and excruciating. And, even scarier, she’d felt flames lick along her cheeks and burn her hair.
She met his gaze. Those incredible blue eyes—the very first thing she’d noticed about him. “I don’t want to leave you, Rhys.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want you to stay. Not anymore.”
She flinched. The way he’d said it wasn’t I care about you and can’t stand the idea of you getting hurt. No, it was more I
’m pretty much done with you now. Especially because you just lied to me. She didn’t believe he felt that way, but still, the painful words made a home deep in her insecurities and settled there, where they would live unhappily ever after.
Had he guessed where she was heading in saying she didn’t want to leave him? Smart of him to cut her off before she did something stupid, like telling him she was falling in love with him.
Yeah. Deep in her heart, she knew that was exactly what he’d done. She’d lied to him, and now he was done, so he’d seized on the first opportunity to get rid of her, before she became a clingy mess. That was how players worked, after all.
She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “Fine. Take me to the airport. Now.”
He cocked his head, looking at her in confusion. Then he frowned and said, “Good.” He made a quick U-turn, and they were headed toward the small airport.
With luck, she’d be on a flight within the hour.
It had taken Rhys a moment to realize why she’d so suddenly capitulated. She’d misinterpreted his words—taking them in the worst possible light. Part of him was pissed that she was so ready to believe him that shallow, when his reason for wanting her to leave was blatantly obvious.
For a nanosecond, he considered correcting her rotten assumption. Except, he had what he wanted—her agreement to leave. Did it matter how they got there?
Not really, if it kept her safe.
But what if she was right and she couldn’t escape the flames?
All he knew was, they’d both felt the burning, but it seemed to be worse for her. She had to leave.
But what if the flames were inevitable? She’d suffer in addition to believing the worst about Rhys and his feelings for her.
Silence stretched between them on the short drive to the airport. Should he walk her into the terminal? Could he say good-bye to her without telling her how he felt? If she didn’t believe the worst of him, he had a feeling she wouldn’t leave.
He parked the SUV and turned to face her. It was clear from the hurt in her eyes she’d worked herself up into a painful lather. When he returned to Washington, they’d have to work on her insecurities. He imagined several different techniques he could use to convince her he was crazy about her. It would be a long, arduous process, but he was pretty sure he’d be up to the challenge.
He just wished he knew how long he’d need to stay in Itqaklut before he could return home and make it clear exactly how much he wanted her.
“Well then,” she said, her voice flat. “See you around.” She grabbed her purse, jumped out of the SUV, slammed the door, and headed toward the tiny terminal with her head down.
Okay, then. Mission accomplished. Not the good-bye he’d have hoped for, but still.
The moment she stepped off the curb, it hit him: her sharp reaction and maddening belief in his utter callousness had been sent by the mask. Jana had taken her known insecurities and magnified them by about a thousand.
He watched her back, and from the tilt of her head and the way her hand swiped at her face, he suspected she was wiping away tears. Jana had sent her into the throes of a bitter breakup, when that was the furthest thing from Rhys’s mind.
He broke, unable to play along with Jana’s coldhearted method for sending Sienna on her way. Sonofabitch. He jerked open the SUV door. “Sienna!”
She kept walking. Marching forward without looking back. He jogged after her, catching up to her just outside the terminal door. “Wait!”
She stopped but didn’t turn around. He reached her and pulled her around to face him. As he’d guessed, her eyes were full of unshed tears. “It’s the mask, Sienna. It’s driving you away again. Making you hurt and angry so you’ll go. Jana’s trying to protect you.”
She angrily wiped at her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“You honestly believe I’m that much of a bastard that I’d suddenly announce I want you to leave because I’m done with you? Forgetting the entire context of the conversation, the fact that you might be safer if you leave?”
Her brow furrowed. He was getting through the haze of emotions spun by the mask, but she hadn’t pulled out yet. Damn, Jana knew Sienna’s insecurities well—but then, she’d had months to get to know her. She probably knew every one of Sienna’s triggers, and Rhys had created an opening with his careless words. Jana seized them and dug a deep pit in Sienna’s heart. He couldn’t fault her for doing it to save Sienna, but he also couldn’t let Sienna leave like this. He’d have to convince her to leave some other way.
He cupped her face between his hands. “Sienna, I think I’m falling in love with you. It’s crazy fast, I know, and we’ve had a whole lot of crazy these last few days, but at least this is good crazy. I want you to fly home because I care about you. The idea of anything happening to you drives me nuts. I want you safe. Period.”
He studied her face during his declaration. She showed not even a flicker of joy. “You think you’re falling in love with me,” she said. “I find that hard to believe when the mask is so good at manipulating emotions.”
He released her and stepped back. “Now you’re pissing me off. Don’t you dare tell me the mask is just manipulating me. You’re the one Jana manipulates emotionally. Not me. All she did for me was invite me into your dream. But everything that’s happened between us—both in the dream and out of it—has been real for me.”
“I think—” She stopped abruptly, and Rhys died a thousand deaths while he waited for her to finish. “I’m terrified this won’t be real for you, because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recover from losing you.”
He pulled her against his chest. “Sweetheart, you aren’t going to lose me.” But even as he said the words, his hands flashed with burning pain again, and he feared more than anything, he would lose her.
She whimpered, and he released her so he could take her hands. A bright, angry red swath spread up her fingers, over her wrists. Her chest, neck, and face all rivaled a fire engine in shade. He glanced around. Jana had sent them here by manipulating Sienna, and now that they were stopped outside the terminal, she was sending them another message. “You need to leave, Sienna. Jana sent you in this direction. She hasn’t let us down yet.”
“Leaving won’t change the future. I can’t escape what’s coming.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“Well, I don’t believe it.” He couldn’t communicate with Jana like she could, but he knew in his gut Jana had sent them here for a reason. “Please, sweetheart. For me, will you go?”
She nodded.
Relief flooded him. “Let’s get you a flight, then.”
They stepped inside the tiny terminal, slightly larger than an auto-parts store and with the same smell of rubber and oil. He took Sienna’s hand to lead her to the one and only ticket counter.
She came to a dead stop, tugging his hand, forcing him to do the same. She leaned in to him and whispered, “Jana didn’t manipulate me so I’d leave. She manipulated me so we’d end up here, in the terminal, now. Do you see the box the woman in the shipping line is holding?”
He glanced toward the shipping counter at the other end of the room, and shock rippled through him.
The box. The one that held the mask. A carved piece of artwork in and of itself, it was distinctive.
The box was here, clutched in the arms of a short woman who glanced furtively around the small terminal. Adrenaline coursed through Sienna. Was the mask inside?
“Are there others like it?” Rhys asked.
“No. A year ago, I had a project for a Seattle-area tribe and thought I might find human remains in the collection. My company commissioned the box, just in case. Handling of tribal remains is tricky, and it’s always good to be prepared. I didn’t end up needing it for that client. When the mask started haunting me, I tried several different museum containers for it. Nothing muted the strange vibration I felt whenever I touched it, so I tried the cedar box, and t
he tension in the mask eased immediately. Do you think that woman has the mask?”
“Let’s go ask her,” Rhys said.
“We can’t—”
He smiled. “Yes, you can. We reported the mask stolen, including the box. You own the box, right?”
“Yes.”
“That woman has something that belongs to you, which was stolen yesterday. And you and I both know it’s connected with a murder.” He walked with confidence across the room. Sienna had to admit, she was so jumbled with what she could and couldn’t admit to anyone other than Rhys—and now Chuck—that she’d lost sight of the fact that they could question this woman as easily as they’d questioned Archie.
The box was hers.
The woman, however, wasn’t exactly cooperative. When Rhys began questioning her, she turned defensive and complained. Loudly. Security entered the fray, and she insisted Rhys was harassing her.
It took several minutes and pictures of the box Sienna had on her cell phone to convince the guard to call the police, all while the woman howled that she was shipping her father’s remains to the lower forty-eight for a military honors burial ceremony scheduled for tomorrow, and this delay would mean the dearly departed would be late for his own funeral.
Officer Tourney showed up, very unhappy to see Rhys and Sienna, and he muttered several unflattering things not quite under his breath. It appeared he didn’t appreciate Rhys pulling strings to get the FBI involved, and Sienna guessed Tourney had already been scolded for his shoddy investigating of the break-in at Chuck’s and the shooting. Not to mention that if he’d picked up Helvig for questioning as Rhys had requested, the man might not have been murdered.
All Sienna cared about was the fact that Rhys had put enough pressure on Tourney that the man had to intervene now—especially with Sienna’s photos of the box and the fact that they’d reported the theft by the book.
Now Tourney said in a strained voice, “Sorry, ma’am, but I’m going to have to take possession of the box until we sort this out.”
He reached for it, but the woman jerked away. The heavy lines on her face deepened as she struggled with the heft of the container. She coughed, the guttural, morning cough of a long-time smoker, then said, “It’s mine. I paid an Eskimo to carve it for me.”