After Glow

Chapter 35

"Martinez got the rest of the story from Gannon's faithful butler, George." Emmett settled deeper into the big chair, his heels propped on the ottoman, and absently scratched Fuzz, who sat on his lap.

He had enjoyed the role of invalid for the first day and a half, he decided. Having Lydia hover attentively was a pleasant novelty. But now he was getting a little bored. Lydia was not merely fussing, she was giving orders—a lot of them. The instructions covered everything from the amount of sleep he needed to what he should eat and how often the bandage on his arm had to be changed.

Luckily the mag-rez gun had not done any permanent damage. The wound was healing quickly. He was profoundly grateful that he had arrived on the scene before Lydia had been forced to use the trapped quartz in a last-ditch bid to save herself. After the ghost burn she had endured during her Lost Weekend, the last thing she had needed now was the para-psych trauma that would have accompanied an immersion in a sea of alien nightmares.

This morning Mercer and Tamara had arrived to help piece together the entire tale. Lydia had prepared a large pot of tea and set out a plate of cookies.

It was only tea and cookies, he thought, watching her pour, but it was the first time they had had company over. This was the kind of thing that married couples did.

"After years of searching that sector and securing the property rights aboveground as well as exploration rights below," Emmett said, "Hepscott and his followers finally found that massive wall of illusion shadow. They knew it had to be the gateway to Vance's lost headquarters but they couldn't get through it."

"Hepscott was a good tangler but he didn't want to take the risk of trying to de-rez such a vast, complex trap," Lydia said. Her jaw hardened. "So he ran several experiments using some of Herb's Greenies. Two of the Greenies died when they combined forces to untangle the trap. Later, two more Greenie tanglers wound up in para-psych wards. They never recovered."

"Must have been a little tough on morale among the Greenies," Tamara observed.

"It was," Emmett said. "Hepscott knew he couldn't afford to risk too many more followers. That's when he decided to kidnap a first-rate ephemeral-energy para-rez, someone who would be expendable. After doing his research, he chose Lydia."

"The two hunters I accused of abandoning me in the catacombs actually nabbed me. They used a knockout drug and stashed me in a hiding place. Then they pretended to search for me. Later, when the search was called off, they came and got me, intending to take me to Master Herb. I pretended to still be unconscious." Lydia shrugged. "They got careless."

"She escaped and fled into the antechamber," Emmett said. "Once there she understood intuitively that the only hope was to carve out a small hole in the trap. She made it into what we now call the library and out through another passageway."

"Which is where I ran into a huge ghost, got singed, and developed a case of amnesia that probably saved my life," Lydia concluded.

Tamara's elegant brows tightened quizzically. "Saved your life? Oh, I see what you mean. When Hepscott realized that you had no memory of what you had seen underground he decided not to take the risk of murdering you to ensure your silence."

"He had another reason for not getting rid of her seven months ago," Emmett said, adjusting the pillow Lydia had put under his injured arm. "She was, after all, the only person he knew who had ever made it through the illusion wall. If she had done it once, she might be able to do it again. So he decided to watch and wait to see if she recovered enough from the para-psych trauma to go back underground."

"I did recover," Lydia said. "But I didn't get a chance to prove that I could handle working in the catacombs until Emmett showed up at Shrimpton's looking for a P-A consultant a few weeks ago."

Mercer nodded slowly. "The next thing Hepscott knew, you and Emmett were seeing a lot of each other. He was aware of Emmett's Guild connections and he probably realized it would be extremely dangerous to grab you again. This time he'd have the entire Cadence Guild on his trail."

"Hepscott was aware of the risks involved," Emmett said. "But he was also growing desperate. Getting through that illusion wall was vitally important to him. He was convinced the secrets on the other side were worth any risk. But he had another problem, namely the Cadence Guild. He knew that it was the one organization that could stand in his way when he began to organize his forces into an underground army."

Mercer snorted. "So he made plans to take control of the Guild."

"What a manipulative bastard Hepscott was." Tamara was quietly furious. "First he sent Sandra Thornton to seduce Mercer, hoping to learn as much as possible about the inside workings of the Guild. Not that he got anything, of course," she added proudly. "Mercer wouldn't be so stupid as to give away his secrets during pillow talk."

Mercer's eyes glinted with rueful amusement. He patted her hand. "I appreciate your confidence in me, my love."

To Emmett's surprise, Tamara seemed to relax a little at Mercer's touch. The two of them exchanged a glance in one of those moments of silent, personal communication that could only take place between a couple that had formed a genuine bond.

Emmett looked at Lydia and saw that she, too, had picked up on the small flash of intimacy between Mercer and Tamara. She raised one shoulder in a tiny "who knew" shrug.

Hell, he thought, maybe that marriage was going to work, after all.

Lydia shuddered. "Hepscott used poor Sandra Thornton to lure you to that rendezvous site that night, Mr. Wyatt. He was the one who shot you. Later, when he wanted the investigation halted, he killed Sandra and wrote the suicide note himself. Can you believe it? After all those years together, he calmly set his lover up and killed her without a second thought just to further his plans."

"Meanwhile Hepscott had been using his money and influence to help Dorning move up quickly through the ranks of the Guild," Tamara said. "Dorning was a powerful hunter and thanks to Hepscott, he had the cash to grant a lot of favors. He made it all the way to the Council Chamber. From there it was only a step into the offices of the Guild boss."

"But no one had counted on Emmett taking charge of the Guild immediately after you were shot, Mr. Wyatt," Lydia said. "The transition in leadership went so smoothly that there was barely a ripple in the organization. Suddenly there was no power vacuum and Hepscott's plans for Dorning were in a muddle."

Mercer straightened his legs, wincing a little as he changed position in the chair. He looked at Emmett thoughtfully. "Dorning, I assume, was the one who sent that ghost to attack you on your wedding night?"

Emmett munched a cookie. "It was a test to see if he could take me. An old-fashioned formal challenge was the last option he had for grabbing control of the Guild in a legal way. Evidently Hepscott was reluctant to murder two Guild bosses in a row. Probably worried that the cops would notice a pattern."

Tamara frowned. "You de-rezzed his ghost that night when he tried to get a feel for your psi abilities, but he was obviously ready to go ahead with the challenge anyway."

Emmett shrugged. "Dorning was good but he knew he probably couldn't take me so he and Hepscott came up with Plan B. The scheme was to proceed with the formal challenge and then slip me a small dose of knockout drugs just before the match. The idea was to slow me down, not put me to sleep. I would have felt a little off, but I probably wouldn't be aware that I'd been drugged. Even if I did figure it out, it would have been difficult to stop the match just because I didn't feel in great shape."

Tamara picked up her cup. "In the end, when he realized that his entire scheme had unraveled, Hepscott tried to get rid of all the loose ends before he pulled another disappearing act. Sandra Thornton was already out of the way so he killed Dorning and Master Herbert."

"Hepscott blamed me for all his problems," Lydia said. "So he summoned me to his mansion. He wanted to know where he'd made his mistakes. After he had his answers, he intended to kill me and dump my body into the catacombs where it would never have been found. Then he planned to disappear."

Emmett put his hand over hers. "He was right about one thing: You were, indeed, to blame for his problems. Because of you, everything went wrong for Gannon Hepscott."

Mercer contemplated Lydia for a long, thoughtful moment.

"It would seem that the Guild owes you some very large favors, my dear," he said.

Lydia choked on a bite of cookie. Gasping for air, she yanked her fingers out from under Emmett's palm and flung up both hands.

"Whoa. Stop. Halt," she wheezed. "Don't go there. Forget the Guild favor thing, okay?"

They all looked at her as if she had just suggested that the sun would not rise.

"The Guild never forgets a favor," Mercer assured her.