Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic (16 page)

The late October sun heated his hoodie as he watched Dorrie spend an inordinate amount of time telling the guard about her nonexistent cat. She cupped her elbows and seemed to hug herself as she talked. Conan frowned at that unusual gesture. She was wearing one of her business outfits today, and she was usually stiff and formal when she had her hair up. Despite the warmth of the October sun, she appeared to be shivering. Was she getting cold feet?

She gestured toward some bushes. He couldn’t tell the difference between a jacaranda and a eucalyptus except by their spelling. The shrubs she indicated had long branches, thick leaves, and bright flowers that could conceal a good-sized cat.

The guard opened the gate. Conan eased into place, hoping distance would prevent the guard from noticing him. He didn’t want to let Dorrie out of his sight.

Instead of entering, she glanced nervously at the fence, spoke to the guard, and returned to her car. Conan swore under his breath, but she merely produced another of her damned wind chimes. This one appeared to consist of bamboo tubes.

He didn’t know what the hell kind of explanation she was giving the guard, but the guy was nicely diverted and didn’t stop her when she carried the contraption through the gate. The creep was checking out her ass, and Conan wanted to punch out his lights, but she hadn’t given him the right to do so. He’d see about that later.

He was up and over and hidden behind a shed before they could even glance his way.

***

As Dorrie entered the parking lot, the force lines inside the gate overwhelmed her, sweeping her along on a powerful tsunami of energy. She couldn’t possibly differentiate the sources of negativity, but the bad vibes jangled her nerves. Of course, she picked up bad vibes at the office, so this wasn’t precisely an indicator of anything except the existence of people and earth—in a building that looked empty.

There were no cars in the parking lot. There shouldn’t be any people to create such force. Perhaps the land here was polluted and she was reacting to that?

She was jittery about being swamped by a seemingly uninhabited building. Her skin crawled. The bamboo chimes diffused some of the power, but she was still having a hard time forcing herself to pretend to hunt for an invisible cat.

The guard watched her jingle wind chimes as if she were crazy, but she didn’t much care. She glanced toward the bushes where she’d seen Conan park, but she couldn’t see him or the car. She hoped he could get out the same way he got in.

He’d told her to leave quickly, that his getting out wasn’t a problem. She assumed that meant he didn’t care if the guard saw him leaving, that he’d be gone before anyone could catch him. But if there were other people here besides the guard…

She felt a rumble beneath her feet, a sense of disturbance in the air, and noticed the security cameras at the same time. The spike of urgency in the energy field was an alarm all its own.
Someone had seen them.
She had to warn Conan to leave
now.

“Casper!” she shouted at the invisible kitty, batting at the oleander branches and raising her voice in hopes Conan could hear. “Casper, get out of there now!”

She almost fell backward in surprise when a gray tabby darted from the shrubbery, straight across the parking lot, and toward the building.

She shrieked as further warning, then raced after the cat, almost tripping over a crack in the concrete. She could feel the energy shifting, changing—just as a black Lincoln rolled into the parking lot. Could Conan see the car?

The cat scampered toward a badly pruned hawthorne hedge along the building’s foundation. Conflicting energies bombarded her as she tried to corner the animal against the building. She concentrated on catching the cat and hoping Conan had the sense to escape unseen. She just prayed she could pull off the lie she’d given because there was no chance she could turn invisible if the guard came after her.

She’d never done anything this improper in her life. She could barely breathe for fear.

Dropping her chimes, she reached beneath the thorny hedge and grabbed the terrified kitten. It bit, hissed, and scratched, and she had to shoot mental energy arrows at it until he settled down and narrowed his green eyes at her. She stroked his head and apologized to the kitty as she emerged from the greenery to greet two men in black suits.

Black suits. In Southern California. So very uncool.

She shivered under their negativity, but she supposed if she’d just caught an intruder in a gated parking lot, she’d be unhappy, too. A pity she couldn’t read them better than that.

Her father had often complained that she didn’t smile enough, resulting in the same inscrutability that her mother had wielded to good effect. Dorrie had never considered that a problem. She didn’t smile to placate the goons now. She merely gathered her wind chimes and bruised dignity and gave them a grave nod. “I apologize for my intrusion, but Casper ran out the door when my boyfriend’s dog chased him. I’m not certain whether to get rid of the boyfriend or the cat.”

They didn’t smile at her joke.

They did let her breeze past, stroking the kitten. She figured that was disbelief pouring off of them, but what could they do? Their guard had let her in. She was leaving. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Although she was now wondering why a seemingly empty building needed heavy security.

Maybe one developed spines from constant stiffening in the face of conflict. She thought her stomach pressed against her backbone as she walked away.

She prayed Conan had time to run back to his car. Behind her, she sensed the men marching off to circle the building. Could the cameras see Conan? Probably. But maybe the men didn’t realize there were two intruders just yet.

Practically choking on fear, she clung to the cat, nodded at the now grim-looking guard, and climbed into the Prius. She was sure they’d taken down her license plate number. She certainly would have. What the hell had Conan got her into?

As she hit the ignition button, the cat she’d petrified with energy arrows huddled on the plastic sack of underwear that had fallen to her floorboard. Trembling, Dorrie drove off without looking back, as if she broke into secured parking lots and chased feral cats all the time.

She circled the block to the street where Conan had parked. To her utter relief, he was already in the car, facing in the opposite direction. She turned around and followed him out—away from the building instead of around it again.

To her utter shock, he led the way to a cat rescue society.

She hadn’t expected him to care about the poor cat much less know of a safe place to take it. The man had more facets than a rock crystal. She probably ought to take a hammer to him, but she blessed his compassion now.

She cuddled the kitty as Conan opened the car door for her. The poor thing was trembling as hard as she was. “I don’t have a home to take you to,” she whispered in a furry ear. “You’re much better off with someone who can stay home and tame you. You’ll be warm and well fed.”

To Conan, she said nothing. He placed a hand at the small of her back and steered her into the building, where she reluctantly handed over the protesting kitty. The worker who promised to find him a good home looked earnest and trustworthy, so Dorrie was persuaded the tabby was in better hands than hers. She’d arrowed him, after all. He would never really trust her again.

She petted the kitty’s head and murmured her farewells. She really needed a house of her own so she could keep pets.

Not until they were out in the parking lot again did Conan grip her arm and force her to look at him.

“How did you know there really was a cat in there?” he asked with curiosity.

“I didn’t.” Drawn from her black mood at leaving the cat, she gazed at him incredulously. “That’s ridiculous. I was as shocked as anyone when Casper darted out.”

“You shouted at it before the cat appeared,” he pointed out.

Oh, well, she might have known he’d notice that anomaly. Now she supposed he’d nag her for explanations that he wouldn’t believe. She really needed to lie better. Or faster. “You were supposed to be studying the
building
, not me,” she retorted, pulling away and evading the subject. The man was just too damned observant.

“Most people would stand there calling
kitty, kitty,
not shout a warning before there was anything to warn about.” Conan didn’t stop her from climbing into her car, but he didn’t go away either.

He was a big man. Leaning one hand against the roof of her car, he could be intimidating. But she didn’t feel threatened. She knew it was his curiosity driving him, not anything fearful.

“I see no need to explain what you don’t believe. Did you find anything?” she asked. She could have been wrong about the camera and car and the energy, after all.

He scowled through the window at her. “I didn’t see anything labeled
toxic waste
or
dangerous chemicals.
I’ll go through their personnel list and see what I can find out from them.”

“There’s an underground level,” she reluctantly told him, bracing for a wave of questions.

Instead, he shut up and stared. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he took a deep breath. “Okay, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. They could keep labs below ground. Want to go get something to eat? I’m starved.”

Dorrie would rather rest her head against the steering wheel and fall apart, but Conan made spying seem a byproduct of daily life. Just because he wasn’t questioning her now didn’t mean he wouldn’t later. She clutched the wheel and tried to organize her spinning thoughts, but he was giving off that curious zigzag energy and messing with her head.

“Groceries. I need to buy food and empty the car. I don’t have time for restaurants. I’ll buy sandwich food. What kind do you like?” She hoped he would back off when she mentioned boring errands.

“I’ll stop and pick up some subs and meet you back at the house. That should give you time to put your story together.” He whacked the roof of her car, pushed off, and arrogantly sauntered back to his Mercedes.

Dorrie narrowed her eyes, ready to hit him with mental arrows, too, but it wasn’t worth the effort. He was too damned insensitive to even notice being struck unless she knocked him over.

Sucking at a cat scratch, reaching for her purse to drag out the antibiotic wipes, she decided she was better off looking for an apartment than following Conan Oswin anywhere.

While shopping, Dorrie mentally tallied her bank accounts and the limits of her credit cards, but the effort of apartment hunting on slim funds overwhelmed her. Until she was certain Conan could do no more, she was stuck with him. She wasn’t certain if his curiosity or her attraction to him would do her in first.

She returned to the house, where she found the sandwich he’d left on her cardboard table. It was rather like having a benevolent genie watching over her. She nibbled the sub while walking Toto and unloading the car. She was aware of Conan’s presence every second. He was like a humming low frequency radio wave—unavoidable.

She’d purchased a money tree for Tillie and an easy-to-care-for snake plant while she was out. She added the plant to her table. She wasn’t certain that improving her career sector would help find Bo or even help her at the office, but she replaced the wet suit at the entrance with a black-and-white Oriental motif rug from home. Maybe it would keep her from being fired. Or thrown in jail. If nothing else, the familiar rug helped ground her and soothe the room’s flow.

When she heard Conan’s shoes on the stairs, she wanted to hide from the inevitable confrontation, but she had nowhere to run.

He had his curious face on again as he studied the changes she’d made to his basement. He’d removed his hoodie, exposing stone-hard, bronzed biceps in a t-shirt from some surf shop. The physicality of the man was enough to render her speechless without adding the impact of all those brains.

She poured boiling water from her electric teakettle over a cup of jasmine tea leaves and faced him over the soothing scent. “Have you found anything?” she asked, taking the offensive.

She didn’t want to like Conan, but she couldn’t help being intrigued by his hidden depths. So she did her best to slip beneath his radar. If he had any inkling of how dangerous she could really be, he’d never leave her alone. She kept her pleasant face on.

“No. I have no reason to believe Adams is any more than they seem. But I found on-line access to their security cameras.” He glanced at her teacup and looked around for the source of the hot water. The electric kettle was functional plastic, but she’d added her hand-painted porcelain tea set to the cardboard table.

“Do the cameras show anything interesting?” she inquired. She had a feeling that his fascination was with her and not her tea. There wasn’t a woman alive who could resist the intensity of his interest. “And is it legal for you to be hacking their security?”

“No, it’s not legal, but unless I act on my knowledge, no one will know. And if they’re doing anything illegal, I’ll tip off the feds, who’ll give me a warrant. I told you, I have federal security clearance to snoop.”

Dorrie raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to answer her first question.

He examined the grinning Buddha she’d set in her knowledge corner. She settled into a chair, sipped her tea, and waited.

Conan fumbled in the ball bag and located a basketball. Spinning it on his finger, he faced her again. “The film shows men coming and going at odd hours, dropped off by company cars but not inherently suspicious. It just explains why there were no cars to reveal anyone was working today. It also shows that you shouted before the Lincoln was even in sight. The kitten appeared after that. And it quit fighting you as if you’d used a tranquilizer gun.”

Dorrie debated shooting
him
with energy arrows. But Conan was so damned
compelling
…. Even with the unmowed hair, he looked commanding. She shot a
chi
arrow at the ball and knocked it out of his hand. Sometimes, she could focus.