Siren's Call (A Rainshadow Novel)

by Jayne Castle

  “She’s drenched,” Rafe said. “Doing her best to look pathetic.”

  Ella pushed aside the covers. “I’ll get a towel.”

  She grabbed a robe and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Rafe opened the door. Lorelei bustled into the room and paused just long enough to give herself a brisk shake. Water sprayed across Rafe’s bare feet. Fully fluffed, Lorelei bounded up onto the bed with the limp veil.

  Ella reappeared with a large spa-sized towel. “Where did you go tonight? Meet some new friends?”

  She bundled Lorelei into the towel and rubbed briskly. Lorelei chortled with delight.

  “Everything is a game to you, isn’t it?” Ella took the veil. “I’m not sure this will ever recover but I’ll hang it up in the bathroom to dry.”

  Rafe glanced toward the lake as he started to close the door. From where he stood he could just barely make out the weak halo of hazy light that illuminated the area around the boathouse. The rest of the scene was masked with rain and darkness.

  “It’s still pouring out there,” he said.

  “I can hear it.” Ella unwrapped Lorelei and disappeared back into the bathroom with the wet towel. “I’ve never seen rain like this.”

  “Everything, including the weather, is a little different here on Rainshadow.”

  He started to close the balcony door but stopped when he caught the faint shift of spectral light at the edge of his vision. The stone in his ring sparked with a little gray energy.

  The fever was spiking again.

  Not now, damn it.

  Rage and despair splashed through him. Not another hallucination. Not now after the best night of his life. Not now when he was just beginning to hope that he might be healing. Not now.

  He fought back with all of his will and the vision weakened but it did not disappear. In the murky dreamscape a door opened. A ghostly figure, the face invisible, started to enter a gray chamber where another person waited.

  It was all he could do not to shout a warning. Don’t go into the room.

  The damn visions were getting more real by the day. How much longer did he have before he could not control them at all? How much longer until even his family had to admit that he needed to be warehoused in a para-psych hospital? How much time did he have with Ella until the visions destroyed any hope of even a short-term relationship?

  In the hallucination the mysterious figure walked through the door.

  “Rafe?” Ella spoke from the far side of the bed. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. Fine.”

  But he could not take his eyes off the boathouse and the vision. They merged into one dream fragment. There was something there at the edge of the dreamscape. If he had just a bit more light . . .

  A gunshot cracked in the night, echoing for what seemed like forever. The second shot followed a heartbeat later.

  “What in the world?” Ella whispered. “That wasn’t thunder.”

  Rafe blinked away the remnants of the hallucination. Time to get real.

  “Sounded like a mag-rez,” he said. “I think it came from somewhere near the boathouse. Hard to tell with gunshots.”

  He concentrated on the boathouse. A shadowy form appeared briefly in the small aura of light that illuminated the boathouse and dock. Running fast, the figure disappeared into the dark rain almost immediately.

  Rafe started to turn away to grab his clothes. But another ghostly shadow appeared in the boathouse light. It, too, vanished into the night.

  He closed and locked the door. “Stay here.” He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and grabbed his holster. “I’m going to take a look.” He shoved his feet into his boots and headed for the door.

  There were muffled shouts from outside on the grounds.

  “That will be the security team,” Rafe said. “Good. They’re on it.”

  “Maybe someone took a couple of shots at one of the dinosaurs,” Ella said. “They come out at night, right?”

  “Yes, but they can’t escape the Preserve.”

  “That might not be true any longer.” Ella crossed the room, coming toward him. She had Lorelei clutched in the crook of her arm. “Who knows what’s going on down below in Wonderland, or inside the Preserve for that matter?”

  Her eyes were heated with anxiety. With a flash of pleased surprise he realized that she was worried about him.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Just give me your word that you’ll stay here in the lodge until I figure out what’s happening.”

  Her lips tightened into a stubborn line but she nodded once. “All right. This is your operation. I’m just the consultant. But promise me you’ll be very, very careful.”

  He brushed his mouth across hers. “Promise.”

  He unlocked the door and moved out onto the interior balcony that wrapped around the atrium lobby of the rustic lodge. He nearly collided with a balding, middle-aged man dressed in a bathrobe—John Hayashi.

  “Sorry, Dr. Hayashi,” Rafe said. He kept moving, heading toward the staircase.

  More room doors opened along the hall. Men and women in robes and slippers moved out onto the balcony.

  “I thought I heard gunshots,” John said.

  But he was not looking at Rafe. His attention was on Ella, who stood in the doorway. Other people were taking notice now as well. Rafe was pretty sure it wasn’t the sight of Lorelei in Ella’s arm that was drawing everyone’s attention.

  Ella seemed unaware of the picture she made. Her hair was tumbled around her shoulders and her feet were bare. There was a rosy flush on her cheeks and something sultry and sexually compelling about her eyes. Or maybe that’s just me, Rafe thought.

  Lorelei chortled, breaking the small spell. Sensing a new game or maybe just excitement, she wriggled out of Ella’s grasp, scampered out of the room, and hopped up onto the balcony railing. From there she vaulted neatly onto Rafe’s shoulder and made enthusiastic noises, which he translated as the dust bunny equivalent of “Let’s ride, partner.”

  John blinked and hurriedly looked away from the sight of Ella in the doorway. His gaze snagged Rafe’s. Nope, not just me, Rafe thought. Hayashi was at least two decades older but he had read and interpreted the scene with acute male accuracy. Hell, a man would have to be dead and buried to be immune to the sight of Ella fresh from a bed.

  There were other eyes analyzing the scene now. There was nothing he could do about it, Rafe thought.

  He went quickly down the stairs. So much for Ella’s professional reputation. The news that he had spent a portion of the night in her room would be all over the jobsite by dawn.

  He was not sure how he felt about that. Part of him wanted the world to know that she belonged to him, at least for now. But the realistic part of him was only too well aware that she would be pissed when she realized that she had become the subject of gossip. He did not want her to be hurt by the relationship.

  Boots pounded down below on the timbered floor of the lobby. Rafe heard the head of the security detail, Arthur Gill, calling orders to his crew.

  “Secure the main lodge first,” Gill said, pitching his voice so that it cut through the commotion. “Then we’ll figure out what we’re dealing with.”

  Rafe reached the foot of the stairs and caught up with Gill.

  The head of Coppersmith Security on Rainshadow was a formidable presence. Gill was short but he looked as if he had been constructed out of solid granite. He had a weightlifter’s bulk, tough, dark eyes, and a bald head that gleamed in the overhead lights. He nodded brusquely when he saw Rafe.

  “Mr. Coppersmith,” he said.

  “I saw two people in the vicinity of the boathouse immediately after the shots were fired. Both were running but they didn’t appear to be together.”

  Gill gave Lorelei a wary look and then refocused quickly on the more important problem. “Don’t suppose you got a good look at the running guys?”

  Someone handed Rafe a rain slicker. He put it on and moved outside into the driving
rain. Gill and the security people followed.

  “Can’t even be certain of the gender,” Rafe said. “Just shadows. Both looked like they were dressed in dark rain slickers. Coppersmith field-issue, I think. The hoods were pulled up.”

  “That’s not real helpful.” Gill turned to his team. “We’ll start the search down at the boathouse. And remember, at least one of the guys we’re looking for is armed. Lee, round up all the employees on site and get them into the lobby. I want everyone accounted for as soon as possible.”

  • • •

  At first glance there was nothing to be seen on the dock or the grounds around the boathouse. Lorelei was a soggy blob of wet dryer lint on Rafe’s shoulder. She was no longer chortling. Instead, she had gone uncharacteristically quiet, all four eyes open.

  “Boathouse door is still locked,” Gill said. He took a master keycard out of his pocket. “We closed up the place after we took over the lodge. Didn’t want anyone trying to take out one of the old rowboats. The snakeweed growing in that lake is just too dangerous. Anything that gets snagged in the stuff disappears damn quick. The weed drags it under and the weird currents carry it to the bottom.”

  He opened the boathouse door and played the light around inside. Rafe looked over his shoulder. Two aging rowboats were tied up at the dock. Neither appeared to have been disturbed.

  Gill closed and locked the door. He surveyed the dock. “No bloodstains.”

  “Not likely there would be any,” Rafe said. “Not with this rain.”

  “Got that right.”

  Rafe walked along the dock, shining a light into the obsidian water. There was little to be seen. The thick mass of malevolent snakeweed lurked just under the surface, forming a mat of vegetation. The stuff grew so thickly that here and there it pushed twisted vines up out of the water. The snaky-looking creepers loomed in the beam of the flashlight like the tentacles of some giant water monster.

  “That damn lake is worse than quicksand,” Gill said. “If someone did get shot and the body was dumped in the water, we’ll probably never find it. Unless someone turns up missing when we do a head count we may never know what went down here tonight.”

  “Two shots fired and two people running from the scene,” Rafe said. “Something bad happened.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gill hesitated. “How about this for a scenario—someone comes down here to meet a girlfriend or a boyfriend, saw something in the lake or thought he saw something in the lake, panicked, and fired a couple of shots. The couple runs from the scene.”

  “Very few of the Coppersmith employees are armed, Gill. Most of the people here on site are scientists and techs. They don’t have any need for serious firepower.”

  “Doesn’t mean someone didn’t bring his or her own gun to this assignment,” Gill said. “Rainshadow has acquired a bit of a reputation for being downright weird, not to mention dangerous.”

  Lorelei rumbled. It was a low, disturbing growl, not quite a warning. Rafe watched her out of the corner of his eye.

  “What do you see?” he asked softly.

  Lorelei hopped down from Rafe’s shoulder and scuttled to the edge of the dock. She looked over the side.

  Rafe aimed the flashlight into the vegetation-choked lake. A narrow length of metallic chain glinted just beneath the surface. The necklace was snagged on a snakeweed vine.

  “Got something, Gill.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t put your hand into that water,” Gill ordered. “I’ll get the boathook.”

  Rafe took the hook from him, threaded the tip through the long necklace, and drew it up into the light. There was an amber pendant attached to the metal chain.

  The chain was still secured around the neck of the dead man.

  • • •

  A short time later Rafe, Gill, and two men from the security detail stood on the dock, looking down at the body. It hadn’t been easy retrieving it from the snakeweed. In the end, the task had required some wicked-looking jungle knives, the boathook, and a lot of muscle.

  “The chain got tangled in the snakeweed,” Gill said. “That held the body close to the surface.”

  The victim was in his early twenties, his blond hair cut very short. He was dressed in dark clothes from head to toe. He had been shot twice, once in the chest and a second time in the head.

  “Probably not the first time the killer has done this,” Gill observed. “Son of a ghost, looks like we’re dealing with a pro.”

  Rafe crouched and played the flashlight across the body. “This guy isn’t wearing a Coppersmith uniform and he’s not carrying Coppersmith gear. Anybody recognize him?”

  There was a chorus of nos and never-saw-him-befores from the members of the security team.

  Rafe found a wallet in one pocket and went through it quickly. “Resonance City driver’s license. The name is Kenneth Maitland.”

  “Definitely not one of ours,” Gill said.

  Rafe pulled the dead man’s shirt aside to get a look at the chest. There was no tornado tattoo.

  He picked up the amber pendant that was attached to the end of the chain. A little tingle of energy told him the amber was tuned. The design on one side was a pyramid etched against rays of sunlight. On the opposite side the letters DND were inscribed.

  “Looks like someone murdered a member of the Do Not Disturb movement,” he said.

  “No one on the Coppersmith team likes those guys,” Gill said. He exhaled heavily. “If I were the local chief of police I’d assume everyone here on the jobsite is a suspect.”

  “Including me,” Rafe said quietly. He got to his feet.

  “Nah, you don’t have to worry, sir,” Gill said. “You’ve got an alibi. You were with the new consultant when the shots were fired. Half the staff saw you come out of her bedroom.”

  Chapter 19

  News that a body wearing a DND medallion had been found in the lake spread swiftly through the lodge. Ella dressed in the jeans and black pullover she had purchased in Thursday Harbor and went downstairs to join the rest of the staff. A roll call was taken. No one was missing.

  For the most part, techs and other employees huddled in small groups in the lobby, talking quietly. The cook brewed large quantities of coffee and tea and disappeared into the kitchen to start working on an early breakfast. It was obvious that no one was going back to bed.

  Vividly aware that many of the people present had seen Rafe emerging from her room at three fifteen in the morning, Ella chose a big leather chair in a quiet corner and sat by herself. She sipped strong coffee from a thick mug and tried to ignore the curious glances and occasional flat-out stares.

  Rafe eventually returned. He stood in the lobby entrance, dripping water on the wooden floors. Lorelei was perched on his shoulder.

  There was a grim vibe in the air around Rafe but Lorelei spotted Ella and bounced down to the floor. She gave herself a shake and scampered across the room. She was once again in full adorable mode. She hopped up onto the arm of Ella’s chair and chortled a greeting. Ella patted her gently.

  “What have you two been up to?” she asked softly. Lorelei mumbled cheerfully.

  Rafe looked across the lobby, saw Ella in the corner, and nodded once. He immediately turned back to his conversation with a lot of serious-looking people. Someone gathered up the wet slickers and disappeared. Someone else produced mugs of coffee.

  A short time later the island’s chief of police arrived. Ella heard someone identify him as Slade Attridge. He was a dark-haired man with cop eyes. Even from across the room it was clear that he had some sort of talent. He vanished into an office with Rafe and all the other serious-looking people.

  “Doughnut?”

  The voice was male, pleasantly gruff, and friendly. Ella turned her head and saw the cook standing beside her chair. He was in his forties with thinning hair, broad features, and warm brown eyes. He was attired in a clean white apron and a pristine white paper cap. His face was a little flushed from the kitchen heat. He held a commercial-
sized serving tray piled high with freshly made doughnuts. There were some small paper plates and napkins on the tray.

  Lorelei went very still at the sight of the tray. Her blue eyes were rapt with wonder.

  The cook looked at Ella and raised his brows. “Name’s Bob. Okay to give the little dust bunny a doughnut?”

  “Sure.” Ella smiled. “I’m Ella Morgan. The dust bunny’s name is Lorelei.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Ella.” Bob selected a doughnut covered in powdered sugar and handed it to Lorelei. “Here you go, Miss Lorelei.”

  Lorelei was thrilled with the gift. She gurgled exultantly, bounced up and down a few times, and devoured the treat with delicate greed. Powdered sugar flew everywhere, much of it dusting her fur.

  Bob winked at Ella. “Figured everyone could use a little comfort food and caffeine right at the moment.”

  “Good thinking.” She helped herself to a plate, a napkin, and one of the doughnuts. “What have you heard?”

  “They’re saying they found a body in the water near the dock. Shot twice. Not one of the Coppersmith team. A DND guy.”

  “Yes, I heard that.”

  “Doesn’t make sense.” Bob shook his head. “I mean, everyone knows the DND folks are irritating, but it’s not like they’re a serious threat. They just make a lot of noise. No reason to shoot one.”

  “Rafe said something along those same lines.”

  Bob squinted a little. “I hear tell you’re the consultant Rafe Coppersmith brought in to clear out the dinosaurs. You’re some kind of music talent, right?”

  “Right.”

  Bob grinned. “What do you plan to do? Play the piano for the monsters?” He broke off, wincing. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

  “No problem.” Ella took a bite out of her doughnut. It was still warm. It was also incredibly good. “But just so you know, and strictly between you and me, I’m lousy on the piano so I’ll probably have to come up with something else.”

  Bob chuckled. Then he grew more serious. “I heard the techs talking. They’re looking for an answer they can translate into tuned quartz—some kind of anti-dino gadget everyone on a team can carry.”