Jeanne C. Stein - Retribution

by Jeanne C. Stein

  My thoughts jump to Frey. “I have a friend who is working his own spell to counteract Burke’s magic. What happens if Burke becomes aware of our interference?”

  The three exchange anxious looks. Min speaks first. “He is in danger,” she says shortly. “The sooner you find and deal with Burke the better.”

  Ariel holds something out to me on the palm of her hand. “Wear this.”

  I hold it up. It’s a charm, a filigree ball, on a silver chain. Light reflects off the surface like sparks from a pinwheel. “What does it do?”

  “It’s an amulet. For protection and guidance.” She helps me slip it over my head. “It will tell you when you are close.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll know.”

  I drop the charm inside my shirt, between my breasts. It’s warm where it touches my skin.

  “Don’t take it off,” Susan says. The seriousness in her eyes is mirrored in the expressions of the other two. “Promise us.”

  I don’t believe in charms but neither did I believe in vampires until about nine months ago. Besides, what could it hurt?

  “Sure,” I reply. “Promise.”

  CHAPTER 12

  I CAN’T WAIT TO GET GOING. WILLIAMS FOLLOWS me back to the elevator, droning on about how I owe him. All I can think about is getting to Burke and I mumble a “yeah, yeah, I know” as the doors slide shut.

  When I’m alone, I look at the paper.

  The address is in an industrial park on the outskirts of National City. I’ll head there directly after making one stop—I keep my gun in our office safe. When I’ve retrieved it, and it’s reassuring weight is snug against the small of my back, I’m ready.

  The exact address is a warehouse with a sign on the side that reads “Second Chance Products.” The name means nothing to me. The way the building is situated, though, does. It’s located below street level and surrounded by a parking lot and chain link fence. It’s the last building in a string of utilitarian, prefab warehouses, the nearest neighbor a half mile to the west. To the east is a vacant lot.

  It’s perfect for surveillance. I pull onto the shoulder of a frontage road where I have an unobstructed view of the entrance.

  I touch the amulet through the fabric of my blouse. I don’t know what magic it possesses, but I won’t need it to recognize Belinda Burke. I remember the first time I saw her with Culebra at Beso de la Muerte. Remember the dark hair and eyes, the belligerent way she stared at me. She was arguing with Culebra in rapid-fire Spanish, standing over him, thin face drawn with anger. I see that face in my mind now, features burned into my memory.

  I won’t need an amulet to recognize her.

  It’s close to noon. The parking lot is full, trucks and workers streaming in and out. It’s what keeps me from taking the direct approach, barge in, guns blazing. I’m not detecting any supernatural signatures. Only human. I don’t know yet if Burke is inside.

  At one p.m., a limo pulls up to the entrance. The driver disappears through the main entrance.

  A few minutes later, he returns with a woman. He holds open the rear passenger door for her and stands aside. The woman is tall, slender. She’s wearing a charcoal pantsuit tailored to accentuate broad shoulders, a small waist, narrow hips. She has red hair, fair skin. She pauses outside the limo and her gaze sweeps upward.

  Directly at me.

  I have the absurd impulse to duck. I resist. I know there’s no way she can possibly tell that there’s anyone sitting in a car so far away. Besides, this is a busy frontage road and there are two other cars, one parked in front and one, behind me.

  Still, she is looking only at my car.

  Then, a strange thing happens.

  The amulet around my neck begins to burn.

  CHAPTER 13

  I YELP AND PULL THE AMULET FREE. IT’S GLOWING red.

  What the hell? If this is what Ariel meant by telling me the amulet would let me know when I was close to Burke, she could have warned me.

  I start to yank it off, but the image of those three women and the promise I made to keep it on stays my hand. I let it fall against the outside of my blouse. It still smarts through the fabric, but not nearly as much.

  By the time I look again at the parking lot, the limo is gone.

  Shit.

  The amulet’s glow diminishes.

  It takes me a second to regroup. There’s only one egress from the warehouse. If it didn’t come by me, the limo must have gone the other way.

  Burke must have been in the limo.

  I hang a U and take off.

  The limo is a quarter mile ahead. I hang back and follow. They jump on 805 North and proceed up the coast. At the junction with 52, they head west, into La Jolla.

  La Jolla is a wealthy enclave of the rich and famous. It attracts lots of tourists—so forget about finding a place on the street to park. But people try. As a consequence, traffic along Prospect, the main drag, is usually stop-and-go. At lunchtime, it’s stop and stop and stop before a short go. But it gives me plenty of time to watch the limo as it pulls up in front of La Valencia hotel.

  The driver doesn’t get out this time. Instead, an extremely big, extremely burly guy in a cheap black suit that strains across his chest gets out of the driver’s passenger side door, scans the street, then opens the rear door.

  The redhead steps out and goes straight into the hotel. Burly guy slams the door, scans the street once again, then slaps the roof of the limo. It pulls off and he follows the woman into the hotel.

  So where is Burke? Is she meeting the redhead inside? The damned amulet is throwing off heat again. Whoever the redhead is, she must have a powerful connection to Burke.

  I know this hotel. Unless the redhead is staying here, she’s probably on her way to lunch in one its four restaurants. I can narrow her choices further because one of those restaurants, the Sky Room, is open only for dinner. I’m hoping she’ll go for one of the two places that open onto the patio. That would make it easier for me to check her out.

  First though, I have to find a parking spot. Not valet. Not with this crowd. If I have to beat it out of there in a hurry, I don’t want to stand around with my thumb up my ass waiting for a kid to find my keys. That burly guy in the bad suit is probably not a date.

  There’s a parking structure across the street on Girard. I leave the Jag there and jog back to the hotel. I realize I’m taking a chance, assuming Burke is meeting the redhead. What if she’s not? What if she left with the limo? Too late to worry about that now. Besides, the amulet is still glowing. If Burke is not inside, my backup plan will be to keep tailing the redhead.

  It wouldn’t be smart to walk into the hotel and start scoping out the restaurants. If she’s here, Burke will recognize me. Instead, I go around to the back. The hotel is built to take advantage of an ocean view. Prospect sits above Coast Boulevard and a green ribbon of park that snakes along the shore. The hotel is built another twenty feet or so higher. There is a terrace along this side that two of the restaurants open onto. It’s not a pretty day, cloudy, cold with an ocean breeze dropping the ambient temperature another ten degrees. Since anything below seventy-two sends most San Diegans scurrying for winter coats, no one will be eating outside today.

  Which works to my advantage.

  The base of the hotel is ringed with evergreens and bou gainvillea. Perfect cover for a person scurrying like a lizard up the wall to the deck. Thorns tug at my clothes and tangle my hair, but at the top, I slide over a wooden railing and hide myself behind stacked tables.

  So far, so good.

  There is a buffet being served in the Mediterranean Room, the restaurant in my direct line of sight. It’s crowded. I don’t see the redhead. I wonder if I’m going to have to go inside when a figure moves into my line of sight. A big, broad back holds out a chair and the redhead slips into it. Burly guy takes up a position near the table, his back to the sliding glass door, scanning the crowd.

  I wait to see if anyone joins the redhead. She
’s already begun to eat. Rude, if she’s with another party. Finally, after five minutes, I come to the exasperating conclusion that she’s alone.

  Shit.

  Was I wrong? Did Burke leave with the limo? So much for letting a superstitious relic determine my course of action. I finger the thing, tempted to take it off and throw it into the bushes.

  Instead, I squat down behind a big potted plant. Superstitious or not, I made the witches a promise. Stupidly maybe, but I did it nonetheless. Nothing to do now except follow the redhead. Or go back to the warehouse and start over. Patience is not my strong suit. The urge to grab the redhead and shake information out of her curls my hands into fists.

  Serves me right for putting my faith in a damned charm. Burke is nowhere in sight.

  I don’t have time to waste.

  I’m climbing to my feet when the redhead slips her jacket off and hands it to the bodyguard. She’s wearing a sleeveless silk tee. It’s cut to reveal her shoulders and lean muscled arms.

  My stomach lurches at the same time the amulet emits another blast of white-hot heat.

  The redhead has a tattoo on her right shoulder. A skull with a crimson rose where the mouth should be.

  I’ve seen that tattoo before.

  On Belinda Burke.

  Reason is telling me not to jump to conclusions—that there could certainly be more than one woman in the world sporting a tattoo like that.

  But the amulet is blazing away, trumping reason. If this isn’t Belinda Burke, it’s someone close to her. It has to be.

  I’m not going to waste another single minute with Culebra’s health hanging in the balance.

  The redhead has headed back for the buffet. I use the opportunity to sneak into the restaurant through the unlatched sliding glass door. The people at the table nearest the door, an elderly couple, look puzzled. I’m in jeans and a leather jacket. Not exactly lunch attire in La Jolla.

  I put a finger to my lips and whisper, “It’s my mom’s birthday. I just got in from London to surprise her.”

  They give me the once-over but don’t call for security. After all, I might be a rock star with my shaggy hair and faded jeans. You never can tell anymore.

  I make my way toward the redhead. Her bodyguard is with her. She’s looking over the dessert table. He’s looking over the crowd. He watches me approach, but doesn’t react with anything but bored indifference.

  The amulet is so hot now, I think it’s going to catch my clothes on fire. I reach for the .38.

  The redhead’s back is to me. She has a plate in her hand. I’m no more than ten steps away when she puts the plate down and turns around.

  The world stops.

  Literally.

  Everyone around us freezes in place.

  Everyone except the redhead and me.

  The unfamiliar face looking at me smiles and the glamour falls away. I’m staring into Belinda Burke’s amused eyes.

  “Very good, Anna,” Belinda Burke says. She points to the amulet. “Now wherever did you get that little beauty?”

  I lunge for her, drawing the gun.

  She flutters manicured fingertips and I’m trapped, too, in suspended animation.

  I can’t move. Not my limbs. Not my head or hands. My thoughts slow, become sluggish.

  I can only watch helplessly while she steps close. She reaches for the amulet, but smoke and a tongue of flame shoot out. She snatches her fingers away.

  “Cute trick,” she says, shaking her hand. “From a witch, am I right? I’ll have to pay her a visit. Too bad it won’t save Culebra. Or that pathetic shape-shifter with his derisory spells. I should have killed that one when I had the chance.”

  She’s enjoying herself, enjoying the sound of her own voice. If I could break free, I’d wipe that smug smile off her face.

  She cocks her head and watches me, as if privy to my thoughts. She’s not afraid, though. Why should she be? I can’t move a fucking muscle.

  Her smile widens and she goes on. “Culebra’s finding me was an inconvenience. I would like to have had a little more time to—” She lets her voice drop and sighs. “Well, we can’t have everything, can we? It was good while it lasted. Life has a way of throwing you curves when you least expect them. The trick is to know how to adapt.”

  She leans her head closer and whispers in my ear. “I could kill you, too. Right now. But what fun would that be? I think we should play a little game. See how clever you really are. Then you can watch your friends die.”

  The hand flutters again and the bodyguard is released from the spell. He acts neither surprised nor shocked, but simply goes to the table, retrieves her jacket.

  Burke slips into it. “Have a nice day, Anna,” she says.

  I struggle against invisible bonds, powerless to stop them as they leave the restaurant. For another ten seconds, nothing happens. Then, the world returns to normal. People revive and resume whatever they were doing without the slightest notion of what happened. I hide the gun down by my side, look around. I appear to be the only one who feels slightly off-kilter, faintly nauseated at being suspended like a bug in amber.

  By the time I gather my wits and race for the exit, Belinda Burke is gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  GRUDGINGLY, I GIVE THE DEVIL HER DUE. THE witch pulled off a good one.

  Shit.

  I’m looking up and down Prospect with no real hope of spying the limo and the sinking realization that it would make no difference if I did. By the time I retrieve my car, Belinda Burke will have vanished.

  I run back to the garage to get the Jag.

  Thoughts cascade through my head like white water over a dam. She knows about Frey. She knows about the amulet. Can she trace it back to the witches in Balboa Park?

  I’ve got to warn them.

  The first call I make is to Frey. He doesn’t answer. I try Culebra’s cell, hoping Sandra will pick up.

  Once again, there’s no answer.

  I disconnect and, fighting off the fear that they are both dead, call Williams. He does answer. Before I can ask, he tells me that he talked with Sandra a few minutes ago. Culebra is hanging on. I fill him in on what happened with Burke, including her threat against the witches. He assures me they are protected as long as they stay at the headquarters. He asks the obvious questions and I give him as full a description as I can of Burke’s new persona. He wants me to come in and give the description to a psychic artist who can render a sketch.

  There isn’t time.

  Now that I know Burke’s assumed the guise of someone else, my next task has to be to determine who that someone else is. And get to her fast.

  We ring off.

  I’m back on Prospect. Burke must know it was no coincidence, my appearing in the restaurant. She’s smart enough to know I probably followed her from the warehouse, which makes it safe to assume she won’t be going back there anytime soon.

  Which also makes the warehouse the logical place to start.

  I’m retracing my footsteps to National City. Worry about Culebra and Frey and sudden doubt about my choice to go back to the warehouse are unwelcome passengers in the car with me. What if I’m wrong and Burke is waiting for me at the warehouse? What protection do I have against her power? I was helpless in that restaurant.

  I’m suddenly aware that I’ve got the charm clutched in my fingers.

  This is my protection. The moment I feel its warning heat, I’ll know she’s near. This time, the moment I see her, I’ll shoot the bitch no matter where we are.

  The warehouse parking lot is still crowded. Trucks from a loading bay around the side come and go. I pull right up to the door and park in a visitor’s space.

  May as well.

  I check the .38 and slip it into the pocket of my jacket.

  Quicker access.

  I touch the amulet.

  It’s cold.

  A gun and a charm.

  I’m not leaving anything to chance.

  A glass door opens into a reception are
a. Simple, utilitarian, no fancy furniture. Only an oversized metal desk behind which sits a woman with a computer monitor in front of her and a telephone headset attached to her ear. She’s in her twenties, stylishly dressed in a light wool pantsuit and silk blouse. She has dark hair and eyes. When she looks up at me and smiles a welcome I detect no threat. She’s human. That doesn’t mean she can’t be a witch. Or that Burke hasn’t assumed another disguise.

  I touch the amulet to be sure.

  Nothing.

  She’s not Burke and Burke must not be close.

  The woman has not yet greeted me and I realize she’s talking on the phone. She rings off and says, “Sorry about that. The phones have been crazy since that newspaper article appeared yesterday. Are you here to place an order?”

  She pulls a clipboard from a stack on her desk and holds it out to me. “We’ve had trouble with the website. So many hits, customers have not been able to access order forms. I’ve been telling them to come in and do it in person if they’re in the San Diego area. They’ll get the product much faster that way.”

  “Product?”

  “Eternal Youth.” The smile dims a little when she sees I’m not reaching for the clipboard. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  Eternal Youth? Why does that ring a bell? I let the name filter through the cogs. It comes to me in a lightning bolt of recognition.

  Yesterday’s paper.

  Gloria and her new gig.

  And something else.

  The woman with Gloria. The president of the company.

  The redhead, Simone Tremaine.

  One and the same. Belinda Burke.

  The woman behind the desk has returned the clipboard to its stack as she takes another phone call. I’m processing possibilities. I could go to Gloria and see what she knows about Simone Tremaine. Good old Gloria, once again she’s gotten involved with a less than scrupulous business partner.

  Last resort. I’d rather not see Gloria again—ever. She’d likely use any opening to weasel her way back to David.

  The second possibility is to find out what I can from the receptionist. I doubt she’s going to give me Simone’s address or home telephone number no matter how sweetly I ask.