a Touch of Intrigue

by L. j. Charles

  “Don’t like it.”

  “And?” I nuzzled my nose against his neck.

  “Trust you.”

  I leaned back to look at him, and caught the tail end of an eyebrow twitch. Damn it all, he figured something out, and I wasn’t going to like it. The eyebrow twitched again.

  “And fuck it all, but I trust Fred. He’s a bastard, but he’ll do what’s right.” Tynan’s arms tightened around me. “My past is dangerous for anyone near me. That’s why my parents live in Tuatha Dé Danann. This property is as safe as I can make it. It’s not enough. I can’t be with you, Everly, unless you’re trained to protect yourself by the most devious bastard out there. It’s selfish, but I you. Can’t do that unless we both work with Fred on this.”

  My stomach shuddered. “I’ll call him and set it up? I should probably leave tomorrow.”

  He ran his fingers through my hair, fisted a handful. “I’ll call. Schedule a late morning pick up, so you can spend time with mo mháthair before you leave.”

  I breathed out a sigh. So soon. And not soon enough. “I should do this. It’s my gig. What will it be like? Training?”

  “Hell. Some structured, some not. If you’re not back in forty-eight, I’ll come after you. Best if I make the call, set the boundaries.”

  Two days. I could survive anything for two days. “Without sleep?”

  “Running hard the whole time. Think bare bones intro to Navy SEAL training.”

  Well, shit. I’d read books, and heard rumors about that. I’d be in way over my head, not that being unprepared would stop me. “What are my chances of success? SEALs go though a long, hard program and I’m not even close to being ready, physically or mentally.”

  “Chill. Fred’ll push your mind and body. Hit the bare basics of survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. That’s it. Can’t do shit in forty-eight hours, but it’ll get you inside. Don’t sign any damn thing.”

  The natural pool was sun-warmed, but didn’t ward off the uncontrollable shiver that rippled through my muscles. “I’ll be in the field with just my fingers for backup, and it’s my first…mission. I’m not sure if I’m stupidly excited or wisely terrified. At least we got the implant out, so Fred can’t track me. Or listen to me. Damn, but I hope he was never able to actually hear my conversations. How embarrassingly intrusive.”

  “He’ll know it’s been removed, and won’t like it. You’ll have backup. I’ll put Boulay on it.”

  A sigh of relief worked its way through me. “She knows my strengths and weaknesses. That’ll work. I have a feeling that a trial by fire with Fred isn’t going to help us with the formula, but it’s critical for…us. What we have is worth it.”

  “I have to know you’ll be prepared if—”

  I pressed my fingers against his lips. “Don’t say it. I get that you need a partner who has a fighting chance if something…happens to you, and I want to be her.”

  “You are her, Everly.”

  His touch, our kiss, spoke in a language too deep to be anything but silent. When we broke apart, Tynan brushed my hair away from my face. “Loving you fucks with my nerves worse than an op gone to shit.”

  No point arguing with that. “I could say the same. So, how will you get Whitney into Fred’s inner sanctum? And where is it? The bottom line for this, um, mission is to get Millie and Harlan away from Fred, and the timing is critical. Makes me nervous that Ghost Guy is wandering around looking for the formula, and I don’t want to take any chances that I’ll fail. I want backup, especially with so much hanging in the balance.”

  “The Pentagon sub-basement. I’ll pull in favors from former colleagues with Fred’s rank, different sectors.” He touched my cheek. “You won’t fail, Belisama.”

  That simple touch left no doubt that Tynan trusted me. And damn it all, I was going to make sure I lived up to his expectations. And mine. “One last question. What rank are you compared to Fred?”

  His chest tightened. “Don’t have a rank anymore. We’re equals in power, control, influence…but in different ways, different work. And different eras.”

  And that ended the talking.

  AFTER A QUICK BREAKFAST, I led Siofra around our property, and then through the maze guarding my mother’s living lab. I had a hard time concentrating. Trepidation, and the occasional burst of panic about my upcoming meet with Fred were constant reminders that I only had a few hours with Siofra before I’d be dropped into a new phase of the intrigue that had begun before I was born. I fought the distraction, and forced myself to focus on the task at hand. “Is there a special way you’d like to approach this, Siofra? The only thing I’ve done is look at the plants, and run my fingers over the leaves.”

  “I believe we should sit with them for a bit, and get a feel for the energy running through them. You said there are four specific plants that aren’t native to Hawaii, so we might want to select a sample of each one and hold them in meditation, alone, in pairings, and then all together in aggregate.”

  I pointed toward several large boulders that had been placed along the far side of the garden. “We can sit there. The ground harbors a lot of insect life we probably don’t want to disturb.” Since I didn’t get along with bugs at all, I wouldn’t be doing any meditation in a classic crossed-leg position on the ground.

  “Yes.” She wandered around the perimeter of the garden, randomly touching a few of the plants. “I see the four that stand out. It’s as though they speak a foreign language and you can see the accent.”

  Plants speaking. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “That’s a significant observation.” I parked myself on a boulder across from one Siofra had chosen, breathed into my quiet place, and listened. There was nothing but silence for a few minutes, until I realized I was tunnel-listening, trying to hear words instead of opening to the voice of nature.

  Damn it all! I’d been distracted by Fred-anxiety again. I shoved the interfering thoughts aside, and slipped deeper into meditation, and eventually picked up different tones coming from the garden. When Siofra stood, I opened my eyes. “That rainbow eucalyptus at the far end of the garden has one heck of a loud voice. Happiness just oozes from it, and it sounded to me like deep, age-old joy.”

  Her eyes danced with laughter. “Yes. And I’m so pleased that you were able to hear the plants. It’s an uncommon ability…” She cocked her head to the side, considering me. “You’ve some of Tynan’s gifts, then?”

  I’m sure the color drained from my face. I wasn’t comfortable discussing the blood-sharing, but if Siofra and I were going to work together successfully, we needed to understand each other’s strengths. “We created a ceremony, and shared our…talent.”

  “Of course. Nothing else would do after your souls had merged. Let’s begin with this one.” She bent to pluck a leaf from a plant near her. “If we sit on that large rock, we can take turns listening, and then both of us can hold it while we listen. Is that acceptable?”

  “Absolutely. As desperately as I want to obliterate my mother’s formula, if we go too quickly we might miss something critical. I should warn you, though, my patience won’t be cooperative.” I sat on one side of the rock Siofra selected. “You first.”

  She joined me, lightly holding the bright green leaf lovingly in her palms, and then she closed her eyes.

  I listened too. Would there be a difference in what I heard when she held the plant and when I did? This one rustled, like walking on dry autumn leaves. When Siofra handed it to me, my fingers zipped a couple images to my internal screen. The first one was expected—her hands holding the leaf, but when I focused on the second picture, I dropped it. “Holy shit it’s Ghost Guy. He’s been in the garden, and he touched this plant.” I barely stopped myself from trailing my hands all over the plants to see how many of them he’d touched, but if I did that, it might interfere with the research Siofra and I were trying to do.

  She picked up the leaf, then tapped my hand. “What guy, Everly?”

  “At the cottage where your hel
icopter landed yesterday. My…guardians lived there, and were abducted by someone my mother used to work for, and yesterday I picked up images of this other guy searching their home. It’s how Tynan and I found the file you read last night.”

  “Oh, my. This is a very secure property.”

  “We don’t know how he got in, but I recognized him from… It’d take too long to explain. He used to work with my mother, and we have no idea how he got in. Tynan thinks Mom must have invited him, but that wasn’t like her. Not when she was trying to protect her family and the formula.” An ugly wave of doubt washed over me. What if she had invited him? Her known colleagues were Fion Connor and Eamon Grady, but what if she’d been working with someone in secret? Someone who was honest and helped he keep the formula from Connor and Grady.

  The doubt must have shown on my face, because Siofra stood and hugged me. “Let’s put that aside for now and focus on the plants.”

  She was right. I only had a few hours to work with my almost mother-in-law’s Circle of Nine intuition, and wasting the time wasn’t acceptable. “I need to send Tynan a text about it first.” And I couldn’t get it out of my head that Fred had something to do with Ghost Guys appearance on my property. My anxiety about the coming “exercise” upped a notch.

  It only took a minute for Pierce to let me know he was “on it.” The confidence in his voice had calmed me, so I settled into my meditation place, and listened to the leaf while I held it. There was no change in the basic sound, but the notes were sharper, the rustle crisper. Without opening my eyes, I moved my hands closer to hers. “Both of us now?”

  She slipped one hand under mine, and the other hand over the top of the plant. I listened carefully, but didn’t detect any difference, so I opened my eyes and shifted the leaf into her hands. “The rustle was slightly muffled when I wasn’t in contact with the leaf, but nothing else changed. “Did it sound like dry autumn leaves to you?”

  Siofra laid it on the ground. “Yes. Shall we christen it Autumn?”

  “Perfect. Which one shall we do next?”

  “I chose the first one, your choice this time.”

  I wandered to the far end of the garden and selected the plantlet that most intrigued me. The leaves held some of the same bright green, blue, purple, orange, and maroon shades of the rainbow eucalyptus, and the plant only grew at that end of the garden in the shade of the tree. I selected a medium-sized leaf, grateful the only attached image was last night’s rainstorm, and brought it back to Siofra. “Are there rainbow eucalyptus trees in the Amazon?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, but the climate is similar. What is it telling you?”

  I cupped my hands around the leaf, and found my center. “There’s a tinkling sound like fairy laughter, and under that a swish like blood coursing through veins when you listen through a stethoscope, and maybe one more. Deeper, almost hidden.”

  “Take your time, mo iníon.”

  My breath caught, and tears burned behind my eyes. “It’s crying.”

  Siofra slipped the plant out of my hand. “I’ll take a quick listen.”

  It was a relief to have empty hands. Who knew a plant could talk to me, much less take over my body? It was disturbing

  “Yes, there are three voices in this plant. That’s quite rare.” She sounded…perplexed.

  “I wonder why Ghost Guy didn’t go after these. Wouldn’t the color have drawn him to them?” Now I was perplexed.

  Siofra pointed toward the small patch of garden where they grew. “They’re difficult to see unless you’re under the tree, looking down on them. Crafty little devils, I think.”

  She was right. From this angle they appeared to be a uninteresting, faded green. “You pick the next one. I need a minute to clear my head. Siofra stood. “We’re hearing the same thing, so won’t need to double check with paired listening.

  I nodded, and used the quiet time to empty my mind and meditate on one of my favorite memories—the sound of afternoon rain hitting the roof of our sun porch.

  When Siofra returned, she dropped the third specimen in my lap. “Careful with that one, it’s prickly.”

  I barely grazed my fingers over the top of three tiny leaves attached to a small stalk. “No image of Ghost Guy. In fact I’m not seeing anything at all.” I picked the plant up by the stem, held it gingerly between my index finger and thumb, and listened. “It’s an interesting sound. I once broke a hair clip that was covered in tiny metal balls. They spilled all over a mirror that sat on my bathroom counter, and this plant is like that. Metal hitting glass. The sound loud at first, then fading, then escalating back to loud. Like a wave.” I handed the specimen to Siofra. “What do you think?”

  She listened for a minute. “I agree, although I wouldn’t have thought to describe it like you did. I have some steel mixing balls that I use to clean my glass jars. This little guy mimics the clickety sound they make banging into the glass. I say we’ve nailed it.”

  Nailed it? The colloquialism made me smile. “I bet that’s the first time you’ve used that expression.”

  She grinned, proud. “I’m practicing being in the States. I’ll just grab that last plant, and we’ll be through with this morning’s work. It happened to be growing right next to us, so she stretched and nabbed the stem closest to the edge of the garden. “I’ll listen first.”

  It was time for us to get back to the house. I wanted to prepare a go-bag so I’d be ready when Fred showed up to collect me, and needed to see Pierce, talk to him one more time before I left.

  “Everly.” Siofra brought me back to the present. “Sorry. Planning the rest of the morning. What did you hear?”

  “You listen first and tell me.” She handed me the specimen, this one with dark, shiny leaves. I took it without thinking, and an image of Ghost Guy slammed into me. Clear. Close. “I think he’s still on the property. That can’t be possible with the new alarm system.”

  “Who? The one you call Ghost?” Concern radiated from Siofra’s question.

  “Yes. We need to get back to the house.”

  We quickly packaged the four plants into separate paper bags, and raced home. I ran up the front steps, and shoved the door open. “Pierce. He’s here, on our property.” My shout echoed through the great room.

  Pierce came from the sun porch at a jog, Lorcán from upstairs, his pace slightly slower.

  “Fred?” Pierce asked, biting out the name.

  “Oh. No.” I hadn’t thought of that. “The Ghost Guy we followed around the cottage. When I touched the last plant Siofra and I worked with, an image hit me. And it was too strong to be in the past.”

  Pierce stared at me through narrow eyes. “No alarms went off.” He motioned me toward the monitor, pointed at the bright array of green lights. “All clear.”

  I whirled to face him. “I don’t care what the damn system says, he’s here.”

  “I believe you, Belisama. Lot of land and no starting point if he didn’t trigger an alarm.”

  Deflated, I shook my head. “I get the problem, but we can’t just let someone roam around out there, not knowing what they’re doing. We need a dog, a tracker.”

  “Soon as Fred arrives, I’ll recon every inch of the property.”

  Oh, damn. Fred. “I can’t leave now, not with this going on. Your parents—”

  Lorcán stepped forward. “Are right here. I can guard the house while Tynan takes care of the outside.”

  My nerves shot through the ceiling when a familiar, but barely audible, thwhop-thwhop sounded in the distance.

  EIGHTEEN

  PIERCE GRABBED ME IN A crushing hug, snagged a canvas bag off the kitchen counter, and handed it to me. “I’ll walk you to the cottage.” I’d never heard his voice so gravelly.

  It was a silent walk because we’d talked everything out the night before, and because there was no need to share normal platitudes. Our love was strong, would see us through this, come hidden Ghost Guys or scarier-than-hell Freds.

  When
we reached the cottage, Pierce started to say something, and then stopped, folding me into a hug. “Chopper’s on the roof,” he whispered.

  I nodded, then straightened my spine, and stepped back.

  When I turned around, there he was. My current nightmare stood in front of the cottage with a smug grin splashed across his face. “Welcome aboard, Ms. Gray.”

  I gave Pierce a fierce kiss, shouldered the go-bag he’d packed for me, patted the .380 in my cargo pocket, and fell in line behind Fred. When we reached the helipad, he pointed to a seat. “Headphones. Don’t want to damage those pretty ears.”

  And then he slipped into the pilot’s seat. Fred was flying the chopper. My heart hammered. What if he was senile and forgot what control to use when? He started the engine, gave me a thumbs-up, and we were airborne.

  Tears prickled as I watched Pierce fade into a tiny spec. Get your head in the game, Everly. Mission underway.

  I settled in and closed my eyes for a few minutes of meditation. Fred had to be heading for the airport so we could transfer to a military jet of some sort, so I’d only have to trust his flying skill for about fifteen minutes, give or take.

  The images my fingers picked up from the headphones and shoulder harness were nondescript, so I opened my mind to whatever random insight the Universe wanted to share. Love poured through me, and a knowing that everything would be okay. I basked in the sensation, clung to it, because it was like being held in Tynan’s arms.

  Conscious thought came back slowly, and then with a blast when I realized we were on the ground and the rotors had stopped moving. I whipped off my headphones, stared at my surroundings, and my stomach bottomed out.

  I catalogued my surroundings: forest, dense foliage, and a heavy mist in the air. The Universe got it all wrong. Everything was not okay. “Where are we?”