Sizzle and Burn (4 page)

Zack smiled slightly.

Elaine stopped in mid-stride, rounding on him. “Good lord. Don’t tell me he actually tried to do it?”

“Grandmother told me he mentioned the idea over breakfast one morning a few months ago. Don’t worry, she talked him out of it.”

Elaine made a
tut-tutting
sound. “Talk about old school. Just another example of why we need new blood at the top. In fact, if you ask me, the entire internal organizational structure of the Society requires serious reform and modernization.”

“It’s not that bad. The changes that Gabriel Jones made in the late 1800s served the Society very well throughout the twentieth century.”

“This happens to be the twenty-first century, although I sometimes think that certain members on the Council haven’t noticed.”

“Uh-huh.” He resigned himself to the lecture. He’d heard it often enough.

“I predict that within the next twenty or thirty years, research and study of the paranormal will come out of the closet,” Elaine continued forcefully. “It will move into the realm of mainstream science. When that happens, it’s quite possible there will be some risks for those who possess any sort of psychic sensitivity. We need to start preparing now.”

“Uh-huh.”

“In the long term, it is the Society’s fundamental duty to help move the study of the paranormal into the mainstream, to make the scientific establishment take it seriously. The last thing we want is another round of witch burning if and when that happens.”

“Doubt if there’s much chance of that,” he said. Agreeing to have coffee had definitely been a mistake. He glanced covertly at his watch. Maybe he could get an earlier flight. “Today, people who claim to possess psychic powers don’t go to the stake. They go on talk shows.”

“Being treated as a carnival act or an exhibit in a sideshow is hardly an example of mainstreaming, and that’s exactly what those silly talk shows are, if you ask me, modern carnival acts and sideshows.”

“Right.”

“To say nothing of all those poor people who end up in psychiatric institutions or on the streets because they’ve been driven mad by the psychic side of their nature or because someone decided they were crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Take me, for example. Why, if I told any of my professional colleagues outside the Society that I could determine the age and authenticity of an object by the use of my psychic sensitivity, I’d become a laughingstock among my peers.”

“Right.” It was definitely time to invent a belatedly remembered appointment.

But Elaine was in full flight now.

“It will take decades to prepare the scientific establishment and the outside world for the reality of the paranormal,” she said. “It’s the Council’s job to guide the Society and its members during the transition period.”

“The Council is pretty big on tradition, Elaine,” he reminded her.

“Tradition is all well and good, but survival is the most important imperative. I’m telling you, Zack, the Society’s antiquated ways could well come back to haunt us in the next few decades. People quite naturally fear secret societies. One can hardly blame them.”

“I agree with you,” he said.

And then, just as if he actually did possess a genuinely useful psychic talent for escaping from awkward social situations, his phone rang.

He unclipped it from his belt and glanced at the coded number. The hair stirred on the back of his neck. There was no such thing as precognition. No one could predict the future. The best you could do was a probability analysis. But it didn’t take any keen paranormal talent to know that when Fallon Jones called, something interesting was about to happen.

“Sorry, Elaine,” he said, “I’m going to have to take this. J&J business.”

She gestured toward an empty conference room. “You can talk privately in there. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop.”

“Thanks.” He walked into the room, shut the door and punched a button on the phone.

“Hello, Fallon.”

“Where the hell are you?” Fallon demanded.

The head of Jones & Jones always sounded as if he were calling to inform you that the sky was falling, but today Fallon seemed even more grim and impatient than usual.

He was a strong psychic like almost everyone else in the Jones family tree but his talent was an unusual one. He could perceive patterns and connections where others saw only a bunch of dots or dangling strings, a natural born chaos theorist.

He was a descendant of Caleb Jones, who, together with his wife, established Jones & Jones in the late Victorian era. The firm still had an office in the United Kingdom. There were currently four in the United States, each responsible for a region. Fallon was in charge of the branch that handled the West Coast and the Southwest.

His base of operations consisted of a one-man storefront in tiny Scargill Cove on the Northern California coast. During normal times he and his web of loosely connected agents were kept busy handling a wide range of security and investigative work for members of the Society. It was understood, however, that J&J’s primary client was the Governing Council of the Arcane Society.

On rare occasions, someone who was not affiliated with the Society stumbled onto the existence of J&J and came looking for the services of a psychic detective agency. Once in a while—rarely—such clients were accepted. They included certain trusted investigators who worked for a handful of police departments and a highly classified, unnamed government security agency.

“I’m in LA,” Zack said.

“The museum?”

“Right.”

“You’re supposed to be home.” Fallon sounded deeply aggrieved.

“I know this is going to come as a shock to you,” Zack said, “but strangely enough, I don’t sit around the house twenty-four hours a day waiting for the phone to ring in the faint hope that you might call with a job for me. I have another business to operate, remember?”

As usual, the sarcasm went straight over Fallon’s head, probably without even ruffling his hair.

“I need you in Washington ASAP,” he announced.

“State or city?” It was sometimes necessary to be patient when one worked with Fallon Jones. He was always several moves ahead on an invisible chessboard that no one else could see. For some reason he expected those in his loosely knit network of contract agents to follow his unfathomable logic.

“State,” Fallon snapped. “Town called Oriana. It’s about twenty miles east and a little north of Seattle. Know it?”

“No, but I can probably find it.”

“How soon?”

“Depends on whether or not I can get an earlier flight out of LAX, how bad the traffic is on the drive home, how long it takes to pack a few things and then get a flight out of Oakland or San Francisco to Seattle,” Zack said.

“Forget commercial. Head for the airport now. I’ll have one of the company jets waiting when you get there. After you pick up your stuff from home, it will take you on to Seattle.”

Company jet
meant one of the Society’s private, unmarked corporate planes. Fallon commandeered one only on those rare occasions when he had a very hot situation on his hands.

“I’m on my way,” Zack said.

“That reminds me, when you pack?”

“Yes?”

“Be sure to add some hardware.”

So Fallon thought he might need to be armed for the assignment. This was getting more interesting by the moment.

“Understood.” Zack headed for the door.

“Why the hell do you sound so cheerful?” Fallon asked, immediately suspicious. “You haven’t been in such a good mood in damn near a year. You smokin’ something, Jones?”

“No. Let’s just say your timing is better than usual.” He lowered his voice. “You saved me from what was turning into a very long and extremely boring lecture on the future of the Society.”

“Huh.” With his usual preternatural ability to connect the dots, Fallon put it together instantly. “Elaine Brownley on your case?”

“Damn, Fallon, you must be psychic.”

Fallon ignored that.

“I just e-mailed you a file with some background on the Oriana case,” he said. “The data is sketchy. Sorry about that. You’ll understand why when you read it. By the way, the file is encryption grade three.”

Zack felt another little rush of adrenaline. An encryption grade three explained the company jet and the urgency in Fallon’s voice. Lately he pulled out all the stops only when the matter involved the dangerous organization he had recently dubbed Nightshade.

Until the Stone Canyon case, Fallon had referred to the shadowy group of powerful psychic criminals as a cabal. But Stone Canyon changed all that. In the wake of the affair it became obvious that the group was not composed of a small number of closely linked conspirators. It was, instead, a highly disciplined mob-like organization run by a ruthless inner circle and a director. Nightshade had proven that it was willing to kill to achieve its objectives.

“I’ve got my computer with me,” Zack said. “I’ll read the file in flight.”

“I wish you didn’t sound so damn cheerful,” Fallon muttered. “Makes me nervous.”

Three

Z
ack finished the file shortly before the small jet touched down at the Sonoma County Airport. He spent the drive home to the quiet house in the wine country thinking about what he had read, searching for weaknesses, concocting a strategy.

He talked to Fallon while he threw some things into a duffel bag and retrieved his gun and holster from the small floor safe.

“You didn’t tell me the subject of the file was Judson Tallentyre’s daughter,” he said.

“Didn’t have time to go into detail. Figured you’d do better reading it in context.”

“Some context.” He zipped the duffel bag shut.

“Now you know why I’m in a hurry. This is big, Zack. I can feel it.”

“I’m not arguing with you.” He picked up the duffel bag and started toward the door. “Tell me about the trips to Vegas.”

Fallon snorted. “Obviously Raine Tallentyre has a serious gambling habit.”

“According to the file, she rarely went to Vegas until about a year ago. Then it became a monthly routine.”

“She sure as hell wouldn’t be the first sensitive to develop a taste for the casinos. Amazing how many folks forget that the laws of probability and plain old random chance are not automatically suspended just because someone with a little psychic talent decides to roll the dice.”

“She plays cards, not roulette or craps. Blackjack. Never goes to the same casinos two months in a row. Never wins big enough at any one casino to draw the attention of security. But according to your info, she must have taken home close to a hundred thousand dollars during the past twelve months.”

“Okay, so she’s good.” There was a shrug in Fallon’s voice. “Maybe you’ll be able to use that information.”

“You’re sure you don’t have any more on the aunt?”

“You’ve got everything I’ve got. Vella Tallentyre was Judson Tallentyre’s sister. She was a level-eight clairaudient. Heard voices. Started to suffer prolonged bouts of depression in her early thirties. She was eventually institutionalized last year. Died of a heart attack on the twentieth of last month.”

“The same day that Lawrence Quinn disappeared from Oriana.”

“You see now why I’m getting nervous here?” Fallon growled. “Doesn’t take a psychic to connect those dots.”

“I’m going to need the Judson Tallentyre file.”

Fallon went uncharacteristically silent for a couple of beats.

“That’s a grade-four classification,” he said eventually. “Master and Council eyes only.”

“Get it for me, Fallon.”

There was another two-beat pause.

“Damn,” Fallon said, thoroughly disgusted. “I knew this was going to happen.”

“What?”

“Five minutes into the case and you’re already giving orders. How many times do I have to remind you that I’m the boss here at J&J?”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

He ended the call and clipped the phone to his belt. Hoisting the duffel, he walked through the big, silent house and stopped briefly at the front door.

He turned and looked back at the gleaming stone tile in the foyer, the warm, Tuscan-style colors on the walls and the soothing views of green vineyards and mountains.

He’d been content in the house for most of the six years he’d lived in it. But then Jenna had arrived in his life. She moved in with him while they planned the wedding, living there just long enough to put her stamp on the place.

It would never be home again. When the Oriana case was finished, he would sell it.

Four

O
ver the course of his years in police work, first as a cop in San Diego and even once or twice during his short tenure as chief of police in Shelbyville, Wayne Langdon had encountered his share of strange folks. None of them, however, had given him the peculiar, downright eerie sensation he was getting from the woman seated on the other side of his desk.

None of them had ever had eyes like Raine Tallentyre, either.

“Is the girl all right?” she asked.

So cool and composed, he thought, as if she found the victims of serial killers every day of the week.

He finally realized what it was about her eyes that was so unsettling. The cat that hung around the back door of the station had eyes the same gold-green color. Looked at you the same way, too. Raine wore a pair of severe, black-framed glasses but they didn’t do a damn thing to soften the impression. You got the feeling that she saw things at midnight that other people couldn’t see, didn’t want to see.

“The ER doctor told me that, physically, she appears to be unharmed,” he said, trying not to stare at her eyes. “But she’s obviously been through an ordeal. Says her name is Stacy Anderson. A prostitute from Seattle. The kidnapper posed as a client. He brought her here sometime yesterday and put her in that storage locker. Told her she was being punished. Before he locked the door he took pictures. Used a digital camera.”

A tiny, visible shudder went through Raine. She inclined her head once, as if he had just confirmed something she had already suspected.

“He’s keeping a scrapbook,” she said. “Souvenirs of his successes.”