But Caprio has other things on his mind. He pushes her up against the wall, moving in for a kiss. It takes Remi by surprise. She gives a cry of dismay as the wall hits her back, and Storm instantly knows what has happened. The bulletproof bracelets had fired their magic to cushion her from the unexpected impact at her back. Caprio is close enough to have felt it.
“What was that?” he says, sounding confused. And then. “What the fuck? Are you wearing protection?”
“What are you talking about, baby?”
“Yes you are! You’re a cop!”
“Special Agent, actually, baby,” she retorts, all pretense gone. “And I’m taking you in for questioning.” She grabs hold of his arm, twisting it behind his back.
The strength of Remi’s grip catches Caprio by surprise. He tries to twist away but is unable to break her hold. Then he stomps on her foot at an angle that causes her heel to break. She falls back as her foot gives way. The momentary lapse gives him the leverage to break free. He rushes back up the embassy stairs, taking them three at a time, and then freezes when he sees Monroe blocking the way.
Cursing, Caprio turns tail and sprints full-tilt down the road, right towards Storm’s van. Storm waits until the very last moment before opening his door. Caprio slams into it with rib-bruising force. He collapses, stunned.
Storm whips out his restraints and cuffs him. “Kris Caprio, you’re under arrest for assaulting Special Agent Remi Bronwyn.”
Chapter 21
DIANA
I had waited a full fifteen minutes after Beatrice and the ambassador had left the bathroom before I emerged from it. I’d headed towards the ballroom, and stood in a doorway for some time watching the crowds of elegantly dressed people arriving.
Everyone is in their finest outfits, greeting the ambassador and Beatrice with great joy. All so pleased to have been invited to the top society event in London this month. The arriving guests are still high on the red carpet buzz that had been outside, with numerous TV crews filming the arrivals.
A stage has been set up to one side of the large ballroom, ready for a lineup of singers who have yet to arrive, including a world famous jazz crooner and an even more famous big-voiced diva who is guaranteed to hype the crowd up later with her incredible vocals and her shaking, shimmying dance moves.
In the meantime it is occupied by a live band cranking out some well-known classics. People are already dancing, enjoying the music and glasses of champagne from silver trays smoothly navigated around the room by my colleagues.
Smithers is just one of many catering managers tonight keeping watch over things. I can see him hovering off to one side, his eagle eyes scanning the staff for any mistakes. I sense he is also keeping an eye open for me and that dance I had promised him that I have no intention of giving.
Worried? asks the little voice. I’ll take over if you like.
“No, I’ve got this.”
Beatrice is holding court near the main entrance, her one hand propping the ambassador up by his elbow, and her other hand proffered to the arriving guests, to be kissed by the gallant among the men and to be clutched by the ladies while they plant kisses on her cheeks. Caroline and Xander are with them, as if they are prime attractions on show.
A new group of guests arrives, including a famous celebrity couple and an angelus prince and princess from Otherworld. The ambassador revels in their presence, regaling them with some tale that has everyone laughing, Xander and Caroline included.
It is a long time before Beatrice murmurs something to the ambassador and slips away from the group. She hurries, clutching her little purse to her side, seemingly intent on some urgent task.
Even in her rush she skips as gracefully as a little fawn, every once in a while rising on tiptoe either to check if she is headed in the right direction or to try to catch sight of someone in the crowd.
I hurry to intercept her. This might be my one chance to catch her alone. “Mrs Grictor?” I call.
She turns on her heel towards me, looking startled, especially when she recognises it is me. “You’ve changed your dress,” she says, her eyes scanning me from head to foot.
“All the better to blend in,” I joke.
I can’t very well admit that I thought it would be easier to corner her while I was posing as a guest, rather than looking like a member of staff accosting the hostesses. And I like it better this way too. It makes me feel like her equal, rather than a servant.
She gives me a quizzical look, as if to say I’d better hurry to explain why I have detained her.
“I wonder if we could have a private word?” I say.
She hesitates only a moment, and then she nods. She leads the way towards the nearest edge of the room, beside one of the large pillars at the periphery of the circular ballroom. This offers only a little more privacy. I am disappointed. I had hoped she would lead me to a private room where it would be just me and her.
“What is it?” She speaks a little stiffly, clearly still upset that I’d invaded her home without her permission.
“I wanted to apologize to you.”
“Because Agent Storm asked you to?” she says suspiciously.
I shake my head. “I genuinely wanted to apologize. It was rude of me to invade your privacy like that, not to mention illegal. I appreciate you not pressing any charges. I’m afraid I got carried away.”
“Why?” she says bluntly.
“Why am I sorry?” I wonder what more she wanted from the apology,
“Why did you get carried away? I don’t understand what your involvement in this case is.”
“I used to work for the Agency, but due to an unfortunate event I lost my job. I thought I could win it back.”
She nods her head, this time a little more sympathetically. “Well, that’s either very brave of you or…” She hesitates.
“Or what? Really, I’d like to know.”
“Or a little bit impulsive, obsessive even. The characteristics of someone who may be suffering some instability, either emotional or material, in their lives.”
She says it with clinical coolness but that soft voice of hers takes the sting out of her words. I wonder if that is why she uses it—to keep her patients from getting upset.
“Wow, you leave me no doubt that you’re a psychologist,” I joke.
“Sorry,” she says. “Force of habit.”
“So do you think that I need professional help too? Did you talk about me with Storm?”
“No of course not,” she says, seeming surprised. “May I ask what it was in my office that made you scream?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
“Is that why you’re here? You’re hoping to seek my professional help?”
“Storm thought it would be a good idea,” I say grudgingly.
“Agent Storm seems to care a great deal for you.”
My eyes narrow. I don’t want her talking or even thinking about my relationship, or lack of, with Storm. “You seem very interested in what Agent Storm cares about,” I say icily.
She doesn’t rise to the bait. Her tone is still calm when she says, “I do care what Agent Storm cares about. He is investigating the death of my business partner and dear friend.”
Enough of the chit chat, the little voice hisses. Ask her for her help already.
I sigh. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Mrs Grictor.”
“Ms Grictor,” she corrects me.
I nod in acknowledgment. “Storm said you do pro bono work and I’d promised to ask him whether you might fit me into your schedule. Maybe for an assessment or something?”
“That must have been a difficult thing for you to ask,” she says.
“You don’t know the half of it. I find it hard to trust people in your profession, given that my last psychiatrist tried to abduct me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “However the first step to recovery is somebody genuinely knowing that they need help. Not asking for it because someone else
has told them to.”
“Wow, you’re not making this easy for me, are you? I do need help, okay? Satisfied?”
“What sort of help?” She nudges in that gentle little voice.
“If you must know, I’ve been feeling a lot of anger recently. Somebody close to me was murdered, and maybe I could have stopped it if I tried hard enough, but I didn’t. And now there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“That must have been very difficult for you to admit. That was a good start. I’m sorry you went through all that.”
“Does that mean you’ll help me?”
“I sense there’s still something you’re holding back,” she says. “Some deeper issue that pre-existed before the death of your loved one, which made the grief even more difficult to manage. You’d need to be open with me for this process to work. I sense that you are not able to easily trust people.”
Just tell her already, the little voice snaps. We need her to trust us.
I grit my teeth. The last thing I want is to bare my soul to this woman. I take a deep breath and do it. “I lost my adoptive mother in a car crash when I was fifteen. I don’t remember her at all. I don’t remember what happened in all my life before that, because the crash left me with amnesia. It’s always left me feeling alone and incomplete. Is that what you want to hear?”
There is a momentary glint in her eyes that almost seems like a victory. It makes me want to slap her. But it disappears before I can be sure it was there.
When she speaks her voice is gentle. “I see. It’s not difficult to imagine in those circumstances why the death of a loved one must have impacted you particularly hard.” She frowns. “I usually only work with otherkind.”
“You could have said that at the start,” I say, feeling resentful. If she is trying to find out about my origins, that is a step too far. I have no intention of discussing my confusion about what I am with her or anyone. Ever. “I’m human, as far as I know.”
“You’re not a succubus?” she says with a frown.
“What makes you say that?”
“Experience,” she says, but something in her eyes tells me that this was not it at all. “I sense that you’re not accustomed to asking for help. It means a lot to me that you did, Diana. So I will book you in for a couple of sessions and we can see how it goes from there.”
“Oh thank God,” I say in a rush. I had been severely worried that she was going to refuse me. “Storm said if I got some professional help it was the first step towards getting my job back. I means a lot to me. Thank you.”
I reach out and I hug her. She stiffens in my arms, as if shocked. And then her one arm pats me gently on the back, reassuring me that everything is going to be okay. When I step back from her, I quickly wipe away tears from my eyes.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I never cry. I thought it was going to be really hard to trust you because—”
I cut myself off abruptly, averting my gaze and looking down at the ground.
“Because what?” She sounds curious.
I shake my head. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.”
“I used to see this psychiatrist back when I lived in America, and he was helping me with trying to recover my memories and other things. His name was Dr Carrington.” My eyes flick up to check her reaction.
She has gone still. She waits for me to continue, not giving anything away.
“Dr Carrington was the one who tried to abduct me and nearly got me killed,” I say.
“How terrible.”
“It’s just your perfume,” I say. “That apple scent. But it’s smoky too, because it’s not just perfume is it? It’s an e-cigarette. Apple flavored. That’s where you were going right now, isn't it? For a smoke?”
Her eyebrows rise. “Not exactly a pleasant habit to admit to,” she confesses. “But what of it?”
“I’ve smelled it before once. That exact same scent. It was the last time I saw Dr Carrington. He’d come to my house for a visit, and the car that he’d used was parked in our driveway. There was someone still inside it. Someone smoking that same apple-scented cigarette. So I guess when I met you I must’ve subconsciously remembered that and my old life, and felt uneasy.”
She gives the little laugh. “Scent-memories can evoke strong subconscious associations. Even mistaken ones. A lot of people smoke apple-flavored e-cigarettes.”
“True,” I say. “I knew that it probably wasn’t you. I don’t even know if my memory of the car and the cigarette was all real. Because I’m psychic too. But you must already know that, from seeing me talking to Raif Silverstone’s ghost when we were both in the morgue waiting room.”
“Yes,” she confesses. “I did think that was rather odd. It took me by surprise.”
“But you didn’t react,” I say. “And in hindsight that was a really strange thing for me when I realized it.”
“In my job you get used to odd things, and I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“But you knew it was Raif’s ghost I was talking to? Weren’t you curious? Didn’t you want me to ask him anything about what happened to him?”
“In hindsight, yes. But I have to admit that it took me by surprise of the time. What did he say?”
“He was babbling. He wasn’t really making sense, I’m afraid. His remnant was fading quite fast and was nearly already gone.” I watch her face, and I cannot quite tell if I see a hint of relief on it.
“That’s a pity. It would have been incredible had he been able to tell you what happened.”
“True,” I say. “But the point I was making was that I’m psychic. I’ll admit the thing that made me scream in Raif’s office was that being in your presence gave me a vision.”
She is watching my face eagerly, her eyes riveted, and I sense her nervousness. But her shoulders are stiff and defensive. No matter what I say, she knows that she is perfectly placed to deny it.
Just say it already, snaps the little voice. I want to see the look on her face.
But what if we’re wrong? I ask.
We might be, she says firmly, but we won’t know until you say it.
“In the vision,” I continue. “I saw you in Otherworld. You were younger than you are now. Probably around my age. And you were wearing a wedding dress, white, with a beautiful lace veil. But you were marrying Dr Carrington. And it was such a shock to me that I screamed.”
She has gone perfectly still, her face pale. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn't want to bring up bad memories for you.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says.
“He was an awful man. So controlling and clever and relentless. It must have taken a lot of courage for you to leave him and start this new life. I imagine you’ve had to change your name and everything. You must have been so worried that he would find you.”
Her eyes are wide. Hands trembling. I take hold of one gently. I squeeze her fingers. “I’m sorry that you went through that. It must have been terrible for you. And I’m so sorry to bring it up here and now. I just… I just really needed to tell you that I know. So that we can trust each other.”
She gives a brief jerky nod of her head. When she speaks her voice is husky with held back tears. “I never knew what kind of man he was until it was too late,” she whispers. “What kind of business he ran. How he used people. I just can’t believe how he was able to keep it from me for so long.”
I nod. “I know what you mean. Everyone thought he was so wonderful. He hid it so well.”
Her voice turns angry. “He turned me into a fool. I felt so stupid. And then I was so scared because no one would believe me. The whole community adored him and thought he was doing wonderful work. And in the end I just had to leave.”
“And that’s why you started your charity. To help young women. To make up in your own way for the awful things your husband did.”
She nods. “To make it right. But it’s never enough. Never enough.”
I clutch her hand sympathet
ically. “But it is! It’s why you’re the perfect person to help people like me. The only one we can trust. Because you know what that was like. And you were strong. You survived it. You came through the other end, and I just really need someone to show me how to do that. To stop being so angry and afraid all the time.”
She sniffs, and quickly wipes away the tears that had been shining in her eyes. This time it is her who hugs me, wrapping me tightly in a warm embrace. “Thanks for trusting me,” she whispers huskily.
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