a Touch of Intrigue (10 page)

I sat in the middle of the great room floor, legs tucked into a half-lotus, and breathed into my center, grounding, becoming one with nature and with my new home. It didn’t go well. Images filtered across my internal monitor, but they were vague and unhelpful. Millie had been keeping the house clean, vacuumed, and she’d rearranged furniture when a new piece arrived.

And then I got hit with an image I couldn’t ignore—Millie dusting a huge sage green ceramic bowl that sat on top of an enclosed bookcase. It looked exactly like one I’d admired at a North Shore art gallery, and I’d commented to Annie that I wanted it, but she’d…oh, holy crap! She’d told me to wait. To be sure because it was a major purchase.

Jumping up, I ran to the bookcase.

And there it was! How had I missed seeing it? I stretched onto tiptoes, but couldn’t reach it so I shoved the coffee table over, stood on it and lifted the bowl down. Heavy. Weighed a damn ton. I carefully set it on the coffee table. There wasn’t a single doubt it was the same bowl. Corroborating images poured onto my internal screen of Annie and me touching it, caressing all the smooth places. They were like magic under our fingers then, and even now, I couldn’t stop touching it. How in the freaking hell did…whoever…know to purchase it? Annie? Couldn’t be. She was obviously surprised yesterday when she showed me the info on the property. She could’ve told Aukele about it. Maybe. But they rarely saw each other.

It just didn’t fit. And my Grandfather had given me a different sort of present—a puka shell, and a tiny green piece of sea glass that I always carried. I stuffed my hand in my pocket to finger the shell and glass. They meant as much to me as the diamond belly jewel Pierce had given to me. All of them carried powerful energy. When I rubbed the diamond a rush of energy exploded in my chest, and for a one clarifying second I was positive I was meant to finish what my mother had started.

But first I needed a trail to follow.

I lifted my phone from my back pocket, and hit speed dial for Annie. It took her two rings to answer and she was breathing like she’d run ten miles. No reason to make her talk, so I jumped right in. “The bowl we found at that art gallery? The green one?”

Deep breathing. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s in my living room,” I shouted into the phone, then calmed enough to hear her gulp something. Probably water. “Are you okay, Annie?”

Another gulp. “Rough about of morning sickness, then Maddie ran wild outside and I had to scale the back wall to catch her. Kid has suction cups for feet. Just got her confined to her playroom when you called.”

I felt for Annie, really I did, but I was a bit jealous too. “Want me to come get the little angel?”

“Sean’s on his way home, so I’m going to take a rain check on that. Now what is it about the bowl? And how’d it get in your living room? We’re the only two people who…surely you don’t think I was in your house before yesterday. Hold on. You do, or you wouldn’t sound like a woman on the verge of crazy. I have no idea how it got there, Everly. Better fill me in on what else has been going on. Besides great sex.”

Heat rushed through me. “Yeah, that.” I headed for the kitchen to get my own drink of cold water, talking while I walked. “Fred was here.”

“Well, shit. Hang on.” There was a long pause. “Okay. I’m sitting. Spill it.”

It took me a while to fill her in on the Fred-slash-Harlan and Millie situation. Long enough that I started to wonder where Pierce had gotten to. “How long would it take you to recon this property. Not the whole thing, just for, say, a mile radius around the house?”

Silence. Another gulp of water. “Depends on what I’m looking for. Pierce probably wants to be sure you’re safe and not under surveillance. That would probably take a few hours if I hustled.”

I wasn’t wearing a watch, but the sun was higher in the sky, and that meant I’d been sitting in meditation for over an hour. How long had it taken me to panic over the bowl and phone Annie? Twenty minutes? A half hour? I squelched the worry knotting my stomach. Pierce was fine. He hadn’t been gone
that
long. “He’s okay then. I probably shouldn’t go out looking for him.”

“I hope that was a statement, El, and not a question. Stay in the house and let him do what he’s trained to do.” A loud crash echoed through the phone line. “Maddie. Gotta go.”

I ended the call with a huge smile. Annie’s daughter had turned into a very lively child, and that was one of the best gifts ever. She’d come so close to dying… I pushed the memory away. Wait. Pushed the memory away. If I could do that, why couldn’t I
pull
out memories from my childhood? Same technique, only reversed. I reached for the spot on the right side of my neck where the pain usually centered. Couldn’t quite touch it with my right hand, so I switched hands, and hiked my left elbow up, giving it an extra shove with my right hand. Still couldn’t reach. Well, damn. When the pain hit, it usually started much lower than my neck, more in the no-man’s-land around my shoulder blade where I simply couldn’t reach. I’d always grabbed for my neck to stop the painful stabs because I could reach them there, and because the deeper the agony spread into my neck and head, the worse it got. Why had I not paid more attention to this phenomenon earlier?

There was nothing more to be gained from touching the bowl, so I put it back on the shelf, took Grandfather’s gifts out of my pocket, and sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table. Spreading them in front of me, I arranged them into different configurations. I’d hardly thought about them until today, just carried them around like I did my keys or phone.

There were no special memories connected to any of the pieces, except that he’d given them to me during the time I was so lonely, while I waited for Pierce to get back from his last mission. They’d helped to ease the loneliness, and it had become an absent-minded habit to stuff them in my pockets when I got dressed. A niggle twitched in the back of my mind. Aukele didn’t do much of anything without a reason, so what was I supposed to do with these? My internal monitor was a total blank, so I shrugged my thoughts aside, stood and dropped the booty into my pocket.

And Pierce strode through the front door, gave me the once-over. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Let’s walk.”

He didn’t question me, just held the door open. I started toward the path we’d taken earlier, but he caught my elbow and steered me through a narrow opening in the trees. “This way. Time to show you the surprise.”

“Surprise? Now? When someone’s been in the house? Well, Fred obviously, but I mean someone who knows what I’ve been doing. Saying.” Hearing the words stopped me cold. “Well, freaking hell.”

He grinned. “What happened to flippydoodles?”

“I’m always careful around Maddie, but she’s not here.” I waved my hand, brushing his question aside. “This is important. Critical. Someone’s bugged me.”

Another grin. “Besides me, you mean?”

“Yes, besides you. You haven’t done anything like that for a while. There’s a ceramic bowl in the house—”

“Green, sits on top of the bookcase.” He tugged on my hand, dragging me behind him.

“Yeah. How’d you know? Did you buy it?” Relief spread through me. Of course. That made perfect sense. “I texted you a picture when Annie and I found it.”

He shot me a sideways glance. “Same bowl?”

My stomach bottomed out. “You didn’t buy it, then?”

“I haven’t exactly been on island for a while.” His voice held that special, careful tone people use when they’re almost lying, but not quite.

I resisted stamping my foot. “If Annie didn’t buy it, and neither of us did, don’t you see, that means someone was following, and, or, listening to me while Annie and I shopped. Or maybe there’s a tap on my phone since I texted you. And what does
exactly
on island mean? You rarely use ly words.”

I yanked my hand free and scrambled for my phone. “Shit,” I whispered. “What if they’re listening to us?”

Pierce lifted the phone out of my hand, pocketed it. “Annie’s been monitoring it. You’re clear.”

“But the bowl. I…” The pain started, dull, on the edge of my shoulder blade. I turned in a circle. “I’ve been here, Pierce. I remember…” And a shaft of pain shot from my neck into my head. I grabbed on, sinking to the ground.

Pierce dropped to his knees, wrapped me in his arms, and ran his hands over my head. It helped. But my tears flowed until the pain subsided into a manageable ache. I shifted position, and sniffed. Tynan pressed a handkerchief into my hand. “Lean your forehead against me, Everly.” There was something in his voice, like barely leashed anger. It scared me.

I dropped my head to his chest, and he slipped his hand under the neck of my shirt. “Tell me when I hit the spot where the pain starts.”

His touch was soothing. I closed my eyes and relaxed into the moment—until he reached a tender spot just next to my shoulder blade. “Ouch! There.”

He turned me so he could see my back, then lifted my shirt, and sucked in a loud breath. “Implant.”

NINE

I WRENCHED FREE OF PIERCE’S
hold, twisted to see my back. Absurd. I knew I couldn’t see without benefit of a couple mirrors. “Implant? As in they’ve been tracking me?” Wave after wave of shivers crept under my skin. “Fred?”

Pierce nodded.

“Get it out! Now!” I’d lost any remnants of sanity, and tipped into total hysteria.

He held me loosely, letting me pound on his chest while I worked out some of my frustration. And then I realized what I was doing, stopped, and jumped back. “Oh damn. I’m so sorry.” I reached toward him, and immediately jerked my arm back. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yeah, you did.” He grinned. “I’m proud of you, Everly. I’ll have a bruise or two, but—”

Guilt slammed into me, and I carefully traced my fingers over his chest. “It was…I lost control. That’s not okay, not when I’m trained to protect myself. To stay focused and
in
control.”

He grabbed my hand. “It was emotional, not planned. You automatically pulled your punches. And now I know I can trust you.”

I shook my head, trying to make sense of his words. “What?”

“Whitney and A.J. did their job. Your mind has programmed the difference between lethal and pissed off.”

It took a minute for me to juggle my brain cells. “Are you saying that because I wasn’t in fight mode I somehow knew it was safe to lose control for a few minutes?”

Pierce gathered me into a hug. “Bigger than that. I know I can trust your gut reaction in any situation.”

He was proud of me. Praising me. My insides glowed with all kinds of happy. “Still, I should have hit the ground or a tree, anything but the guy I love.”

His kiss landed on the top of my head. “Payback’s a bitch. Wait for it.”

I leaned away, looked into his eyes. “That’s going to suck, ’cause you know, I don’t look good in bruises.”

“Never heard you complain when we spar.” He fingered the skin near my shoulder blade.

I froze. “Better get back to the house so you can cut that thing out of me.”

His arms tightened around me. “Not the best plan.”

Wriggling free, I tossed my hair out of my face. “There is no other plan. It has to come out and there’s no one else I trust to do it. Besides, you’re a real doctor, not that you’ve practiced lately.”

Pierce’s face turned into a blank mask, the one I hate.

“You
have
been practicing medicine.” I made it a statement because I knew he couldn’t respond. Tynan didn’t ever leak confidential information, even, or maybe especially, to me.

“Gotta keep my hand in.” It was a non-answer, but more than I’d expected.

“So why don’t you want to cut this thing out of my back?” I was holding my temper back, waiting to hear his reasons. Pierce was smarter than most of the population, and I wanted to have all the details before I pressed him into doing minor surgery. Never mind that the implant would be coming out no matter what he thought, even if I had to dig it out myself. Surely someone had designed a curved knife that I could hook over my shoulder, and using a mirror…

“Consequences.” Pierce broke my thought bubble, and I wiggled my hand in a keep-talking gesture.

His sigh bounced against the heavy humidity. “Could be fatal to take it out.”

Fatal. As in it could kill me. My stomach lurched. “You’re thinking it might have poison attached to it, a killer dart, what?”

“Fred’s resources are extensive. And questionable.”

I couldn’t argue with that, and there was a high probability Fred had tampered with the device, so I moved on. “Aukele might know about things like that, and be able to tell us how to neutralize it. Millie and Harlan might know as well, so we’re back to finding all of them, stat.”

Pierce slid his hand down my arm, held my hand. “Surprise first.”

Snarky words backed up in my throat. I sorted them into a response that was more dignified than my inner two-year-old thought was appropriate, then sucked in a breath. Pierce clapped his hand over my open mouth. “The surprise will help track them.”

I uttered my best imitation of his huh-maybe-we’ll see grunt, but he’d triggered my curiosity. “How about a hint?”

“Patience, Belisama. Stay close.”

The path had narrowed into an almost invisible trail, so I took his warning seriously. My impatience grew with every step. I’d never find my way back to the house without a guide, and that just wouldn’t do. “I need to learn every inch of this land, etch an indelible map in my head, because I can’t be getting lost every time I leave the house.”