a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures

by L. j. Charles

  When I wandered into the living room, Lorcán had just deposited Fion on the sofa. Siofra and Annie were still in the bathroom with water running—probably cleaning up after having being exposed to Connor’s ugly personality. I owed them both.

  I moved in front of Fion Connor, ripped the duct tape off her mouth, then offered her the water. If eyes could be used as weapons, she would have impaled me with flaming daggers, but when I put the glass in her hand she accepted it and drained the contents—minus the spillage due to the awkwardness of her bound wrists. I snatched back the empty glass before she could think of a way to use it as a weapon, and carried it to the kitchen.

  When I put the glass in the sink, I caught a flash of movement outside the kitchen window. Pierce was on his way to the cottage. Stunned, I rushed to the back door and chased after him. “Pierce?”

  He caught me in a half-hug. “Thought I’d start going through the papers in that box. Be good to have the information before you question Connor and Grady.”

  I’d forgotten about the papers. Excitement partnered with my curiosity and created a fresh burst of energy. “Great plan. We should probably move it to the house, ’cause with that hole in the wall the cottage will be chilly, especially since it doesn’t look like the rain is going to let up anytime soon.”

  Pierce kissed the top of my head. “I’ll get it. Stay inside where it’s warm and dry.”

  I stepped back, giving him the once-over from my “healer’s perspective.” His skin had lost the gray pallor, and was back to its usual healthy golden-olive tan, but there were still shadows in his eyes. Looked like making the trip to the cottage was something he had to do alone, to give himself some time to absorb all the changes—both in his body and between us. I totally understood. “Thanks for reminding me about the box. I can’t believe I forgot about it, but there’s been so much… Oh, my God. What if Connor is zapping your family with her witchy energy right now? “

  I whirled around and ran back to the house, barreling through the kitchen and into the living room, fear fueling my grand entrance.

  Everyone was fine. Connor had worked her way into a curled position on the sofa, Lorcán sat in an overstuffed chair reading the newspaper, Siofra was sitting a matching chair across from him, her hands busy with a knitting project, and Annie had her eyes on Fion Connor. There was something in her expression… I glanced at the target of Annie’s intense scrutiny.

  Connor’s eyes were partly closed. There was a visible slit, probably just wide enough for her to watch us without being obvious. It sent shivers into the pit of my stomach. Annie stood, motioned me toward the kitchen. She helped herself to a glass of water, downed it.

  Siofra wandered into the room, knitting tucked under her arm. “Would it be helpful for me to make a pot of coffee?”

  My taste buds tingled with need. “I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee for I don’t know how long. Do you have any cinnamon?”

  She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Yes, and I make a fine cup of coffee.” She set the knitting aside, and began selecting spices from the cupboard while she hummed a jaunty tune. “We have an Indian family here at Tuatha Dé Danann, and they taught me the art of making their special coffee. You’ll love it, mo iníon.”

  “It sounds wonderful…” My words stuttered to a stop. I’d almost called her mother. This was getting way too comfortable.

  Pierce rapped on the back door, and I hustled to let him in. “Guest room?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s probably best. I’d rather Connor not know I stole that stuff, and if we go over it before I…we interrogate her, I should have some specific questions to ask.”

  He balanced the edge of the box on the kitchen table. “You making Indian coffee, Máthair?”

  She beamed at him, then at me. “A celebration, yes?”

  What celebration? There was a crazy woman in her otherwise pristine house, her son had been seriously injured by an explosion that destroyed a good hunk of her and Lorcán’s guest cottage, I’d brought weapons into their home, and their son was looking at me with all kinds of happy in his eyes.

  I gripped the counter for support.

  Pierce grinned. “I’m up for a celebration.”

  He winked at me, hoisted the box, and made his way toward the guest bedroom.

  I pressed my hands into my abdomen, trying to get my stomach to quit bouncing around. It had been flip-flopping so much lately, the movement had practically become a habit.

  Annie swallowed hard. My best guess was that she wanted to laugh, but knew I’d punch her if she did. “So,” she said. “Why don’t you just touch Fion Connor and see what the heck is going on?”

  I shook my head. “Bad idea. She works with dark energy, and there’s every chance she’d be able to read me as well as I could read her. Also, touching that kind of ugliness makes me sick, which isn’t a good trade-off when I’m looking for revenge—kind of a reverse effect, you know.”

  “I can see that. How about touching Grady?”

  “That’s a possibility. I’ve only caught a glimpse of him, though.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure why, but when I try to plan the next step in my revenge, I keep getting side-tracked with other stuff. It’s odd. I really thought this was going to be a simple in-and-out deal. Swoop in, grab some answers, exact my revenge, then bug out.”

  I dropped into one of the chairs around the kitchen table, and inhaled the amazing scent of spices that filled the kitchen. There was cinnamon for sure, and ginger, plus…”Is that cloves and cardamom I smell?”

  Siofra broke off humming. “It is, yes. Coffee’s almost ready. I’ll just put everything on a tray for you, then you can take it into the back bedroom and set to work on that box of papers.”

  I glanced at Annie. “One of us should be guarding Connor.”

  Siofra handed me the tray. “Lorcán and I can take care of the likes of her. The three of you go ahead and get to work on what needs doing.”

  My neck prickled. “No, that’s not a good idea. Connor is capable of some unusual tricks, and I’d hate for either of you to be hurt.” That was an understatement. I’d flat out die on the spot if that sorry excuse for a human being did anything to harm Siofra or Lorcán. It was bad enough that she was on their sofa, contaminating their home.

  Pierce came up behind his mother, took the tray out of her hands. “I’ll get this.” He shared a look with Annie.

  She nodded. “And I’ll hang out in the living room, as long as I can bring a cup of that brew with me. I’ve never tasted coffee that smelled so rich and fragrant.”

  Siofra snatched one of the mugs, a napkin, and a spoon off the tray, then handed them to Annie. “Come along, then, these two need to go to work, and we have to keep an eye on our charge.”

  I led the way to the guest room, pausing to sneak a quick peek into the living room. Connor appeared to be asleep, but she wasn’t. I turned toward Pierce. “We need to leave the door open. Something’s…off.”

  He grunted, soft, recognizable, and it put me back on firm footing. Whatever Connor was up to, we’d handle it. As soon as he put the tray down, I snagged a mug of coffee, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply. The first taste was so exquisitely spicy, I moaned.

  Pierce’s eyebrows arched. “If Máthair’s coffee does that, I can hardly wait to see what interesting sounds you’ll make when—”

  I pushed the other mug into his hands. “Drink. And please tell me you know how to make this.”

  “I know how to make this.” He swallowed a mouthful, then grinned, a promise in his eyes. “Let’s get this revenge mission locked up, hmmm?”

  He’d put the box in the middle of the bed, so we settled on either side of it, our backs braced against the headboard.

  I set my mug on the bedside table and flexed my fingers.

  Pierce had a stack of files on his lap and had already opened the top one. Precise lines of numbers covered the page. “Incubation times.” He thumbed through the rest of the file, then set it aside. “Goo
d to have, but not immediately useful.”

  I hadn’t moved.

  He cut me a glance. “Nervous fingers?”

  “Yeah, my mother might have…probably did…touch some of these files.” I tried to inhale a smooth, even breath. Failed. “I’m not sure how high to dial up my fingers. Do I keep them shut off, and just go with what’s written on the page, or rev them up and soak in the images?”

  “Trust your gut.”

  Only a man would boil it down to three words.

  “But—”

  “I get it. Live with the difference between my life choices and parental values every damn day. I love Siofra and Lorcán, respect them. Makes me shit-ass sick to disappoint them.”

  No wonder he’d been gray. “It’s better now, isn’t it? From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like, since all this happened on their doorstep, the three of you understand each other a lot better. There really isn’t any difference in your values, it’s just that you live them differently.”

  “Yeah. Better.” He pointed at the files. “Go for it.”

  I turned my spidey sense down to a faint whisper, then lifted a stack of files out of the box. Dust and a faint musty scent tickled my throat. I opened the file and began reading. Connor’s notes. Grateful that my fingers were shut down, I braced myself with a few swallows of Siofra’s fabulous coffee, then settled in to read. Connor repeatedly referred to something called spy dust and a cadaver labeled M6342N. Near as I could figure, it was the body of a CIA officer that had been tagged by the KGB way back during the Cold War. “You know anything about spy dust?”

  “Soviets used it to tag our agents. Not sure how it worked, but it hit our operatives hard. You got something on it?” Pierce leaned into me, reading over my shoulder.

  I skimmed the page, my gaze zeroing in on a name. I pointed to it. “Kaimi Maliu. My mother’s real name, I think. Way back before the shit hit the fan.”

  “Fuck. I forgot to tell you. Xola Muerte was Kaimi Maliu’s code name. She became Loyria Gray when she left the CIA. The intel came through just before we hiked over to Grady’s house.”

  There was a split second when I doubted him, wondered what else he’d forgotten to tell me. He must have picked up on my hesitation because he grabbed my hand and flattened it against his arm. “Look.”

  I pulled back. “Don’t need to. I trust you.” And it was the truth. Yeah, he was a spy and trained to say nothing or to prevaricate whenever possible, but he didn’t lie to me. Not ever. “The question is, who exactly was my mother, and what did she know?” Why did my chest feel so empty?

  He nodded at the files on my lap. “Keep looking.”

  Then a couple minutes later, he handed me a few pages that had been stapled together. “Looks like the estate is in some serious financial trouble.”

  I scanned the numbers. “Poor Cait. She’ll have work to pull this out of the fire. But look, here are some notations about my parents’ finances. You don’t suppose Connor thinks she can get access to my inheritance if she kills me? Is that why she wants me dead? It’s too simple, and totally insane. The bulk of that money could only be accessed if withdrawal documents were signed by Millie and Harlan and me. When I turned thirty, I had a lot more freedom with it, like to buy my house and whatever, but if I wanted to break the trust, it would require all three of us agreeing to it. There’s no way Connor could access those accounts.”

  “Unless she killed all three of you.” Pierce—pragmatic to the core.

  I reached for my phone to try and get a message to my grandfather. He’d assured me that Millie and Harlan were safe, but…

  Pierce tapped my hand. “They’re fine. If I couldn’t find them, no one could.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d looked.” The man was full of surprises.

  He shrugged. “You wanted to know they were safe. I checked.”

  I loved him. I wanted to tell him, but it wasn’t time yet. I had to finish my quest for revenge before I would feel free to say it. “Thanks.” It was so…trivial compared to my feelings. I sighed, then went back to work. Our time would come.

  The rest of the file I’d been reading didn’t have anything of interest, nothing I could understand, anyway. There were lab results on several different formulas, but nothing conclusive on any of them.

  I tuned my fingers up a notch, and skimmed through the rest of the files in the box. The third from the bottom zinged me, and I wrenched it free from the stack. It wasn’t labeled like the others. No date, no experiment number. “This might be something.” I opened it, cautious.

  A tangle of shock and oh-shit clogged my throat. I elbowed Pierce. “Look at this.” My voice was thin with excitement. “They drank the formula. There’s a record. And results. Connor and Grady both did it, together, like some kind of pact. What the hell were they thinking?”

  He slid the sheaf of papers from my fingers. “Let me…” All that beautiful color that had returned to his face after the healing drained away, leaving him dingy gray.

  I snatched the page, started reading. “How are we going to tell Cait?”

  Pierce ran his hands over his face. “Don’t know. Teenage girls aren’t in my job description.”

  I stared at him, mouth open. “Right. She’s the product of an experiment, has a right to know, and, damn it all, she probably needs to be examined for whatever these…” I slapped the paper, “untested drugs, I guess you’d call them. Anyway, who knows what they’re doing to her?”

  Pierce leaned back, tapped his head against the wall. “Same thing they did to you.”

  “What? You think my parents drank all these different versions of the formula? And maybe that’s why I have ESP fingers? Why the government has been watching me?” I crumpled in on myself, then straightened. “You’re right. Cait and I could have some of the same unknown substances in our genetic makeup. But I’m positive my parents wouldn’t have experimented on themselves when my mother was pregnant.”

  Pierce shoved the papers aside and gathered me in his arms. “No, they wouldn’t. Not intentionally. But your mother was in a confined situation with Connor and Grady.”

  I buried my nose in his chest, inhaled the scent of lavender. It was so out of place on my man, but damn, it was soothing. “True. And as demonic as they both are, they could have tricked her, or forced her to do any number of things.” It made my skin crawl. “At least now I know exactly what I want to question Connor about.”

  He tipped my chin up. “You ready to do this?”

  I nuzzled into his hand. “Yeah. Let’s get it over with, then move on to Grady.”

  My neck prickled, and I jerked back. “Something’s wrong.” My feet were on the floor before I realized I was standing. “Witch energy.”

  Siofra’s scream rattled my bones.

  THIRTY-ONE

  SIOFRA’S SCREAM WAS A SOUND I never expected to hear, and would rather die before hearing again.

  Pierce crowded behind me. “Got your back, Belisama.” Tension throbbed in his voice. Not being right there to save her had to be tearing him up. The weight of his trust in me rode heavy, but there was no choice. I was the only one who had a weapon equal to Connor’s.

  The violence was palpable as we stormed into the center of it. Together.

  I took in the scene with a single glance. Lorcán and Annie were held by an invisible force, splayed against the far wall in the living room, ghost white, faces frozen in horror, their hands curled tight to the plaster.

  Siofra dangled from the ceiling, her neck bent at an unusual angle.

  “Fuck.” Pierce angled to get in front of me, shoved at me. I blocked him. “She’ll slam you against the wall, too. I need you mobile and alert.

  Fion Connor sat on the sofa, stone still, her stare riveted on Siofra.

  Total calm washed over me. This was all mine. Just Fion Connor and me, energy to energy. And I was totally dependent on Pierce for backup if something went wrong. I shot a glance at him. Contained violence, but he had it under
control.

  I closed my eyes to get a clear view of the evil Connor was pouring into the room, and I hoped to get a glimpse of her intentions as well. They would make a difference in how I approached the battle.

  The heat from Pierce’s body warmed my back. “Tell me what you need, Everly.” It came out a snarl. If Connor survived this, somehow, some way, Pierce would see that she didn’t leave the room alive.

  But right now it was my fight. “Not sure yet. Stay close, but don’t touch me.” It was all I could do to get the words out when I wanted nothing more than to have his arms wrapped around me while I worked. But it wouldn’t be safe.

  “Got it.” He backed up a half step.

  Time skidded to slow motion while I assessed the situation. This attack was different from my other encounters with Connor’s destructive energy. It was nothing like the patterns she’d created to block the doors and windows in her house; this was depraved and ruthless.

  And worse, I recognized the energy immediately. It was so similar to the colorful weavings I used when I healed, I could barely tell the difference between her work and mine—apart for the intention behind what we created. Disgust coiled in my belly and worked its way to my throat. Connor was using the energetic manifestation of my mother’s lethal formula, and she planned to kill us off one by one.

  Siofra first, because her personal aura was the most pure. Connor would be able to “steal” that energy as soon as Siofra’s soul left her body, and from what I could tell, believed she’d be able to twist it and use it against us. What Connor had failed to understand: the very power she hoped to gain with the theft of Siofra’s life would drain her reserve energy.

  There was a balance in nature that simply couldn’t be altered. It was one of those laws of physics, and woe be to the person who tampered with it.

  The aura surrounding Siofra was a deep pink, almost pure love, and rare enough that I’d never seen anything like it before. Love, the most powerful force in nature, would be impossible for Connor to tame, and she didn’t have anywhere near enough badass to counteract Siofra’s strength. Temporarily incapacitate her, yes, but even that I couldn’t allow.