by Ciana Stone
“And you think they’ll honor that promise?”
“So far they have.”
“What is it you want from us?” Konnor asked.
“I want you to keep this.” Ian patted the DVD lying on the bar. “It’s the last place they’ll think to look. As long as we have this we have some leverage to use against them…if the need rises.”
Senna thought it sounded like a good idea. Konnor made no comment but picked up the disc and took it into the living area to slide it on the shelf in among the other DVDs. Senna’s attention was on Ian.
He gave her a weak smile. “Maybe I’m being a little paranoid,” he said.
“Maybe,” she agreed for his peace of mind, even though she really didn’t think so.
“I have to get going,” Konnor said and walked over to stand beside her. “I should be back in a couple of hours.”
She nodded and Konnor looked over at Ian. “Are you staying?”
“For a bit.”
“Fine. I’ll see you later.”
Senna turned to Ian as Konnor left the house. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all, Ian.”
“It could help you regain your memory.”
“Or erase my mind all together.”
“Senna, I don’t think Slater would do anything intentional to endanger you. Whatever it is he thinks you know is too important to him. He wouldn’t take a chance—”
“Excuse me.” She got up to answer the phone. “Hello?” She tried not to let her surprise show as the caller’s identity was revealed. “Yes… No, I have company… Now?… Yes, I suppose… All right, see you soon.”
She hung up and went back to the bar. “Ian, I have to leave. An appointment I can’t cancel.”
“No need to apologize.” He stood. “I have a two o’clock session, so I need to get back. See you this evening.”
“Sure,” she smiled. “And thanks, Ian. I think you did the right thing—about the disc, I mean.”
“Just make sure nothing happens to it.”
“It’ll be safe here,” she assured him as she grabbed her purse and dug out her car keys. “Shall we?”
She made sure the door was locked then went out to her car. As soon as she reached the main road, she called Konnor on her cell phone. His voice mail picked up.
“Hi, it’s Senna. I have to go out for a while and I don’t know if I’ll be back in time for the session this evening. I don’t have time to tell you everything now, but it has something to do with…with what’s going on. I’ll call you later.”
She stuffed the phone back in her purse and turned her thoughts to the call she’d received at Konnor’s. How in the world did he know to call me there? she wondered, and then thought, of course, we gave Min the number. She must have given it to him. But what does he want?
Curiosity and a sense of urgency made her accelerate. She never noticed the car that followed.
Chapter Nine
“Keep me informed,” Kitaro said and hung up the phone. His eyes were narrowed to mere slits when he looked at the woman sitting across the room on the sofa.
“I take it that your people have the situation under control?” she asked.
“No thanks to you,” he replied sharply. “You should not have made a unilateral decision in this matter. I should have been consulted.”
“There wasn’t time,” she replied, seemingly unaffected by the anger on his face, or the cold tone of his voice. “I did what I thought was best at the moment.
“And,” she added as he took a seat across from her on a matching sofa. “It worked out just beautifully, so you can quit pouting.”
“Pouting?” he asked archly. “My dear, I never pout.”
“Of course not.” Her voice was filled with laughter.
“Do not start,” he warned. “This could have proven disastrous if I had not been able to arrange—”
“But it wasn’t,” she interrupted. “And I’m not going to listen to any more about it. If he knows something then we need to know what it is. What better way than to play along with his demands?”
Kitaro considered it for a moment. Even he would admit that had he been faced with the matter, he might have acted in the same way. And she was right. They needed all the information. As he mulled it over, he realized that it might work to their advantage.
A smile began at the corner of his mouth and her eyes twinkled. “I see you’re starting to see things my way,” she said.
“When have I not?” he asked, thinking to himself that there were times when she was exceedingly difficult to put up with. He wondered when the day would come that he would tire of her and have her terminated.
She slithered off the sofa and onto the Persian rug at his feet. Her hand snaked up one leg to his crotch, a lascivious smile on her face. “And what about now?” she asked in a husky voice.
Kitaro couldn’t deny the erotic desires she provoked in him and didn’t try. She still had the power to make him feel like a young man in the arts of love, and he had not grown weary of that particular aspect of their association.
“You tell me,” he replied as she stroked the hardness beneath the fine linen trousers he wore.
Her smile faded to be replaced with a look of hunger. She reached for the zipper. Kitaro smiled with pleasure and closed his eyes. Life was certainly a strange phenomenon. The irritations of one moment could suddenly transform into the exquisite sensations of the next. Surprise setbacks could miraculously transform into fortuitous opportunity, and hardship could abruptly mutate into fortune. That was what made it such a wonderful adventure. There were so many variables.
Reedy Creek Park
“Why did you want to meet here?” Konnor asked as he took a seat on the park bench beside Shen.
“There is little privacy in your home at this time.”
Konnor didn’t bother to ask who Shen referred to or how he knew. “Why did you ask me to come?” he asked instead.
“It seems that new players may have entered the game.”
Konnor couldn’t hide his surprise. “New players? Who are they working for?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Konnor waited for Shen to elaborate. “And?” he asked when Shen said nothing more.
“The game of life is much like the Western game of chess. One mind directs all the pieces on the board in a united strategy. The essential difference between the game and life is that in life, often the pieces being manipulated are operating under the delusion that they are acting in the role of manipulator instead of manipulated. Their greed for power, riches and glory blind them to the fact that there is someone other than themselves moving them in the direction they think they choose to go.”
Konnor knew there was a message buried in the words and so he gave it thought. Shen sat relaxed and seemingly at ease, his face turned up to the washed-out winter sky, as if basking in a warm spring day.
“So, we’re dealing with another player who thinks he’s pulling the strings,” Konnor said. “Like Slater.”
Shen chuckled. “Slater likes to consider himself a master manipulator, hiding in the shadows, playing his games of intrigue.”
“Are you telling me that we shouldn’t consider him a major player?”
Shen turned to look at him. “He should not be discounted. He has many resources and is a clever and cunning man. He makes an excellent implement. Maintain your relationship with him for the time being. As long as he believes he is in control, he is controllable. We may have need of him.”
“And our opponent?” Konnor couldn’t call their adversary by name because he didn’t know it. While Shen had taught him many things, he had never divulged either the name of their rival or the prize for which they were in competition.
“His moves are those of the viper. Silent, swift and deadly. We must be vigilant and circumspect so as to mislead him with well-placed truths hidden between credible lies.”
Konnor nodded and started to stand but Shen put his hand out and s
topped him. “There is more.”
Konnor sat down again to listen as Shen spoke. Within moment a dark scowl had taken hold of his face. When Shen finished, Konnor rose and gave him a brief bow before hurrying to his car.
Southpark Mall—Charlotte
Senna parked her car in the lot under the mall and walked to the glassed entrance. She had only been standing there a few moments when a dark sedan pulled up to the curb.
“Dr. Laserian?” an older man, nearly bald, wearing a brown tweed jacket, asked as he rolled down the car window.
She gave him a suspicious look. “Your father’s favorite dessert was strawberries dipped in chocolate on vanilla wafers, but he always told everyone it was peach sorbet because your mother teased him about it,” the man said.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she slid into the car beside the man. “Where’s Harlan?” she asked.
“Nearby,” he said as they pulled away. “He was hesitant to come himself as there have been several disturbing incidents of late.”
“What kind of disturbances?”
“It would be best if he told you himself.”
She nodded and looked around as they left the mall parking lot. “You didn’t tell me your name,” she commented.
“Oh, my. How rude. Please forgive me. All this cloak and dagger business seems to have me addled. Emory Ashbrook at your service.”
“Emory Ashbrook? I don’t think I’ve ever heard Harlan mention you.”
“Is that so?” He smiled and said no more.
“So you and Harlan are old friends?” she asked as he turned off the main thoroughfare.
“Oh, yes. For a great many years. As a matter of fact, I was quite close to your father.”
That surprised her even more. “Really? I don’t remember him ever mentioning you.”
“Perhaps because I’m a relatively boring chap,” he chuckled. “Now, here we are.”
They turned into the drive of an expensive hotel that specialized in suites to accommodate visiting executives. He parked and Senna followed him to the door of one of the suites. He unlocked it and stepped aside for her to precede him.
She stepped past him and stopped just inside the door. The room was empty. The door closed behind her. She started to turn and ask where Harlan was, but before she could, she felt a sharp prick at the base of her neck. Then everything went black.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
“Dalton!” someone shouted from the squad room, making Ryan look up from the stack of paper on his desk. “Captain wants to see you in his office. Where’s Landers?”
“Late,” Ryan said as he headed for the captain’s office. “You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked as he walked through the open door of Captain Prichard’s office.
“Got another one,” Prichard announced, shoving a piece of paper across the desk at him. “Male, age sixty-two, registered under the name of Benjamin Harlan. Take Landers and get over there.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan didn’t mention that Paige was not in yet.
“Dalton!” Prichard called as Ryan was leaving.
“Sir?”
“Have you made any progress locating Southgate?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
“Well, stay with it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ryan returned to his desk and called Paige’s home phone. When her voice mail answered, he hung up and called her cell phone. He got no answer. “Damn!” He couldn’t wait around for her to show up. He had to get over to the scene.
He grabbed his jacket and went down the hall to the elevator. For once, he didn’t have to wait on it. It opened just as he reached it. When the doors opened again to let him out in the basement parking lot, Paige was waiting.
“Come on.” He swept by her.
“What’s up?”
“Another murder.”
She hurried along beside him and slid into the passenger seat. “Where’ve you been?” Ryan asked as he started the car.
“Running down a lead.” She pulled a notepad from her purse. “Did you know that Doctor Dud’s uncle was some sort of mad scientist?”
“What?” Ryan cut her a look.
“It’s true! Seems like he was some kind of genius or something. He went into medical research and supposedly was killed while on some expedition in South America.”
“Supposedly?”
“Yeah, no body was ever recovered. They found what they thought were his remains, but the hands, feet and head were missing.
Ryan grimaced at the image that conjured. “What happened to him?”
“The official story is that he was whacked by a group of natives who were pissed about him poking around in their jungle.”
“And the unofficial?”
“That’s just it. There is no unofficial. In fact, there’s no one alive who was with him on that expedition. The ones who survived died under mysterious circumstance within weeks of returning home.
“So?”
“So, it’s just like her father. He dies, or supposedly dies, and not only is no body ever found, but everyone associated with his work at the time is either killed at the same time or dies under mysterious circumstances within days of getting home.”
“And your point is?”
“That this whole fucking family is a walking curse! Everyone who gets involved with them ends up dead.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, you would.”
Ryan didn’t bother to argue. He could see no reason for Paige wasting time digging up dirt on Senna’s family. It wasn’t relevant to the cases they were working.
There were a number of police and crime lab vehicles on the scene when they arrived. Ryan steeled himself for what they would find when they entered the hotel suite. Even so, his stomach lurched when he got his first look at the victim.
The man was lying on his back, his legs crossed at the ankles, as if in repose. His arms were bent and his hands positioned at waist level, holding his severed head. An expression of pain and shock was frozen on the corpse’s face. Like the two previous murders, the victim had multiple cuts on his body and one of his index fingers had been severed and stuck behind his right ear like a pencil. There was a blood inscribed note rolled up loosely and inserted between the victim’s parted lips.
Ryan went over to the medical examiner. “Any idea on the time of death?”
“I’d guess he’s been dead close to twenty-four hours. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”
Ryan nodded and wandered over to a couple of the technicians who were off to the side, arguing quietly.
“What’s up, guys?” he asked.
“This room’s been cleaned,” one of them, a middle-aged man named Raymond, declared.
“No way,” his partner, a younger man by the name of Joe argued.
“I’m telling you it’s been cleaned,” Raymond insisted. “Look at this.” He held up a plastic evidence bag in front of Ryan’s face. “I just vacuumed the bathroom and this is what I got.”
“What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?” Ryan asked. As far as he could tell the bag was empty.
“That’s my point! If this room hasn’t been cleaned by the hotel since yesterday morning then there should be something in this bag—hair, dust, fibers…something.”
“I see what you mean,” Ryan said thoughtfully and left the two men to their argument.
When he finished all he had to do, he went to his car. Paige was waiting for him.
“Well?” she asked as she got in the car.
“Looks like someone else got there before us.”
“Huh? You want to run that by me again?”
“In a sec.” Ryan turned out of the parking lot and reached for his phone. He dialed Senna’s number. Her voice mail answered so he hung up. He considered calling her at Konnor’s but decided against it.
“Okay.” He gave Paige his full attention. “This is what
the lab techs say…”
Jackson Township
Konnor was pacing the floor when the phone rang. He snatched it up before it completed the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I think we may have a lead.” Slater sounded like he hadn’t slept either.
Konnor was already reaching for his jacket. He had only been home an hour and had done nothing but pace the floor and try to come up with an idea of what to do. Since Senna’s disappearance, there had been no leads on what had happened to her.
He had been all over the city, gone through her address book, and called everyone she knew, and no one had seen or spoken with her. If it were not for Shen’s assurance that their adversary didn’t have her, he’d think it was hopeless. He hadn’t realized until she vanished just how deep his feelings for her were. The fear that something had happened to her filled him with rage and despair.
“Where are you?” Konnor asked on his way through the house.
“A mile from your house. Put on some coffee.”
Konnor set the phone on the kitchen counter, peeled off his jacket and tossed it over the back of one of the barstools. By the time a thin stream of coffee was filling the coffee decanter in the machine, he heard a car coming down the driveway.
He unlocked the door then turned and took two cups from the cabinet. Slater didn’t bother to knock. Two men followed him inside. Konnor glanced at them but didn’t comment. He just took two more cups from the cabinet.
“Well?” he asked Slater.
“Caffeine first.” Slater took a seat at the end of the bar and lit a cigarette.
“Answers,” Konnor demanded.
“I’m not in the mood for your—”
Slater never got a chance to finish his sentence. Before he or either of his men could react, Konnor had Slater by the throat. “Neither am I.”
Slater had time to wheeze once before the first man rushed Konnor. Without easing his grip on Slater’s throat, Konnor delivered a back-kick that lifted the man up and drove him across the kitchen and into the counter.
“Back off, Del,” Konnor warned the second man who started to make a move, keeping his eyes pinned on Slater.