Running Hot

THREE

It was after two in the morning by the time he limped up the steps to the second floor of the old, two-story Sunset Surf Apartments. Bruno the Wonder Dog yipped wildly when he went past the owner’s unit. Bruno was small and fluffy and probably weighed less than five pounds but he had the guard instincts of a Doberman. No one gained access to the grounds of the Sunset Surf without Bruno announcing the fact.

Inside 2-B, he flipped a switch, illuminating the threadbare carpet, the aging paint and the yard-sale furniture he’d bought two years ago when he moved to the islands. He’d been paying off his second divorce at the time. Money had been tight. Money was still tight.

He’d been using the J&J work to help build up his bank account. Things had just started to turn around and he’d even been contemplating a move into a more upscale apartment when he took the job Fallon had offered two months ago. Getting shot had not only hurt like hell, it had proven to be a major financial setback.

Wayne and Petra were right. He should accept the babysitting job Fallon had offered. His pride would take a hit but he could use the money. J&J paid well.

He went into the small kitchen and took down the bottle of excellent whiskey that Wayne and Petra had given him for his birthday. He poured a healthy dose, opened the sliding glass doors and went out onto the microchip-sized lanai.

He leaned on the railing and took a swallow of whiskey. The silken night closed around him like an unseen lover, soothing all his senses. The Sunset Surf was one of innumerable small apartment houses tucked away in the maze of Waikiki’s backstreets and alleys. It did not have a view of either the sunset or the surf. It also lacked air-conditioning and a pool. What it did have was a massive, heavy-limbed banyan tree in back that helped keep things cool during the hot summer months.

His neighbors consisted of the owner, a senior citizen he knew only as Bea, a couple of retirees from Alaska, an aging surfer with no discernible means of support and some guy who claimed he was writing a novel. It was not what you could call a sociable crowd.

The whiskey was doing its job. He was starting to feel if not exactly mellow, at least a tad more philosophical.

As if on cue his cell phone vibrated and buzzed. He unclipped it from his belt and opened it without bothering to look at the ID of the incoming call. There were only three people who had his number and he was pretty sure Petra and Wayne were asleep by now.

“Do you know what time it is here, Fallon?” he asked.

“Hawaii is two hours earlier than California this time of year.” Fallon sounded irritated, a normal state of affairs for him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Fallon Jones was the head of Jones & Jones, a very low-profile psychic investigation agency. He had a few redeeming qualities, including a powerful talent for spotting patterns and links where others saw only random chance or murky coincidence. Other assorted virtues such as good manners, thoughtfulness and patience, however, eluded him.

“I was going to call you in the morning,” Luther said.

“It’s four a.m. here. That’s morning. I can’t wait any longer for you to think about whether or not you’re going to take the job. I need an answer now. I don’t have time to cater to your delicate sensibilities.”

“Translated, you don’t have anyone else available who just happens to be in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, that, too. You’re good and you’re convenient. A real win-win combination in my book. What’s the problem? This isn’t like you.”

Why was he hesitating? Luther wondered. Fallon was right. It wasn’t like him. He’d been taking contract jobs with J&J ever since he resigned from the Seattle PD two years ago. He liked the work. Okay, except when he got shot. Fact was, when he was in this kind of mood he craved J&J assignments.

The agency was unique. It was established during the Victorian era, and it was always understood that its chief client was the Governing Council of the Arcane Society. Its highest priority was to protect the Society’s deepest secrets.

But somewhere along the way, the Council had acknowledged that most police departments simply weren’t equipped to deal with certain types of psychic sociopaths. Few members of modern law enforcement were even willing to acknowledge that some killers were endowed with talent. By and large, the Council considered that a good thing. The paranormal got enough bizarre press as it was, most of it in the harmless form of outrageous tabloid headlines and silly television talk shows. No one wanted the police to start making serious announcements to the media about psychic killers.

As far back as the Victorian era, the Council had reluctantly accepted responsibility for hunting down certain dangerous, renegade talents on the theory that it was better to handle such problems internally rather than risk allowing the freaks to continue to operate.

The Maui job might be a routine bodyguard assignment but it was something and he could use the money. And Petra had a feeling about it.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“About time you came to your senses,” Fallon grumbled. “By the way, you’ll be working with a partner this time.”

“Whoa. Hold it right there. In your voice mail you said it was a bodyguard gig.”

“More like a chaperoning gig.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The person you’re going to be looking after is not one of my regular agents. She’s what you might call a specialist. A consultant. It’s her first time in the field. Your job is to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. Let her do her job and then get her out of there. Simple.”

“I’m not mentor material, Fallon.”

“Don’t go into your lockdown stubborn mode on me, Malone. You’ll definitely be in charge of the operation.”

“That’s supposed to reassure me? In my experience specialists and consultants don’t take orders well.”

“Damn it, we’ve got a real shot at nailing Eubanks here. I’m not about to see it blown just because you don’t fancy working with a specialist.”

Eubanks was a suspect in the recent murder of a young woman whose family were all registered members of the Society. After the police officially ruled the death a tragic accident, the victim’s parents asked J&J to investigate the death. A psychic profiler who visited the scene of the crime prepared a profile that Fallon then handed over to one of the librarians in the Society’s Bureau of Genealogy. The librarian ran the data through the department’s latest whizbang computer program and produced three possible suspects. Eubanks’s name was at the top.

“I think you’d better find someone else,” Luther said.

“There is no one else. I need you and Grace Renquist on the scene by tomorrow. Eubanks is due in the following day. If he’s worried about being followed, he’s more likely to be watching to see who arrives after him, not who is at the hotel before he gets there.”

“I know how surveillance works,” Luther said patiently. “Who’s Grace Renquist?”

“Among other things, she’s an aura talent like you but with a twist.”

“Every talent has a twist. What’s hers?”

“She can read auras like no one I’ve ever known.” Fervent admiration hummed in Fallon’s voice. “When she gets a look at Eubanks, she’ll be able to tell me whether he matches the psychic profile that was prepared by the agent who investigated the crime scene. What’s more, she’ll probably be able to tell if Eubanks committed an act of extreme violence anytime within the past few months. Our client’s daughter was murdered six weeks ago.”

“Give me a break. No one can see that kind of detail in an aura.”

“Grace Renquist can. You know that old saying about murder leaving a stain? She says it’s true in the sense that it taints an aura in some unusual ways.”

“Uh-huh. And just how would she know that?”

“With Grace I don’t ask too many personal questions,” Fallon said.

“Look, even if she can make a positive ID for you, that’s not going to be of much help. You need solid evidence to give to the police in cases like this. Oddly enough, they hesitate to arrest people on the basis of an aura reading.”

“Which is a major pain in the ass,” Fallon grumbled. “But I’ll worry about digging up hard evidence after I know whether or not we’ve got the right guy. I’m still looking at two other possible suspects.”

“You said Grace Renquist is not one of your regular agents. What does she do?”

“She’s a reference librarian in the Society’s Bureau of Genealogy.”

“A

librarian?”

“Specializes in the familial patterns of genetically inherited psychic traits.”

The Arcane Society had kept extensive genealogical records of its members since its inception in the late 1600s. It had not escaped the notice of the founder of the Society, Sylvester Jones, a brilliant if decidedly twisted alchemist, that psychic talent could be passed down through families. In the past few years, the Bureau of Genealogy had put the contents of its extensive collection of dusty tomes containing the family trees of generations of members into a computer database.

“I don’t believe this,” Luther said. “You want to pair me with some gray-haired little old lady from Genealogy? Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Now do you see my problem? I can’t send a sweet, innocent elderly librarian into a situation like this alone. She wouldn’t have a clue. With my luck she’d give herself away to Eubanks, who would bop her on the back of her bun and dump her body. Next thing you know, I’d have Old Beak yelling at me for getting one of his people killed on the job.”

Harley Beakman was the notoriously obsessive and powerful head of the Bureau of Genealogy. The name Old Beak had been bestowed on him decades earlier because of a certain unmistakable aspect of his profile. The moniker had stuck because he possessed the personality of a bad-tempered rooster.

“You can skip the high drama,” Luther said wearily. “I get the point.”

“I depend on Genealogy for a lot of my research. I need the cooperation of Old Beak and his staff. If I let anything happen to one of his people, I’ll be screwed.”

“I admire the way you’re always thinking of others, Fallon.”

“Listen, this is just a fast in-and-out job. Two days max. You and Miss Renquist go to the resort on Maui. You hang out awhile until she makes the ID, and then you put her on a plane home before she can muck up my investigation. How complicated is that?”

“Let me guess, I’m going to pose as a dutiful son escorting his elderly mom on a Hawaiian vacation, right? Please tell me I’m not going to be one of those guys going on forty who’s still living with his mother.”

“I’m having the documents related to your covers couriered to Renquist tonight,” Fallon said a little too smoothly. “She’ll have them with her when she meets you in Honolulu tomorrow.”

“You’re sure you don’t mean this morning?”

“I don’t make mistakes like that. She’s booked on a flight from Portland, Oregon, tomorrow morning that leaves at eight. Got a pen?”

Luther went back inside the apartment. He found a pen and a pad on the kitchen counter.

“Go,” he said.

Fallon rattled off the flight number and repeated the date. “She lands in Honolulu at eleven thirty-five. The two of you will travel on to Maui under your new IDs and check into the hotel.”

“She lives in Portland?” Luther asked.

Not that it mattered where Renquist lived.

“No, a little town on the Oregon coast,” Fallon said. “Place called Eclipse Bay.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Yeah, well, I get the impression that’s why Miss Renquist likes it there.”

“A lot of senior citizens get off the planes here,” Luther said. “How will I recognize her?”

“She’ll probably be wearing gloves.”

“Gloves? In Hawaii? It’ll be eighty-one degrees here tomorrow.”

“Miss Renquist likes to wear gloves,” Fallon said. “She’s a little eccentric that way.”

“She’ll stand out in the crowd, all right. Tell her I’ll be in khakis and a dark brown shirt.”

“Is the shirt with or without flowers?”

“Without.”

“I’m sure the two of you will find each other without too much trouble.”

Fallon ended the sentence with a couple of odd snorts and cut the connection.

Luther left the piece of paper with Grace Renquist’s flight information on the counter and went back out onto the balcony. He would get a few hours’ sleep and then he would call Petra and Wayne and tell them he had taken the Maui job. At least they’d be pleased.

He finished the whiskey and thought about the strange vocalizations Fallon had made just before ending the call.

If it had been anyone other than Fallon Jones, he would have sworn that the odd snorts were laughter.