Running Hot

FOUR

Eclipse Bay, Oregon . . .

She would get a dog when she returned from the Maui assignment.

The decision made, Grace Renquist turned away from the dresser and placed the neatly folded nightgown into the suitcase. There was nothing sexy about the plain white cotton garment. The sleeves were long and the hemline fell to her ankles. It had not been purchased for purposes of seduction and enticement. She had selected the cozy gown for its practical virtues. Winter nights were chilly on the Oregon coast.

The nightgown was all wrong for Hawaii and so was everything else she was putting into the suitcase, especially the spare pair of thin black leather gloves. A year ago she had fled her old life with only the clothes on her back. She did not even own a bathing suit; hadn’t needed one in Eclipse Bay. But she was not about to buy a whole new wardrobe for what she had been informed would be a very short trip to Maui. The Arcane Society paid well but not nearly as well as her previous job. In her new life as a psychic genealogist, she had to exercise some financial restraint.

The work was fascinating and rewarding but it wasn’t enough to banish the increasing gloom of loneliness.

Should have gotten a dog months ago. But she knew why she had resisted the temptation. There had been so many uncertainties during this first year as Grace Renquist. What if the Florida authorities tracked her down? What if the two men whose auras pulsed with dark energy found her? What if her new identity didn’t survive scrutiny by J&J? She had wanted to be prepared to disappear again in the blink of an eye. A dog would have complicated any escape plan. She knew that she would not have been able to abandon it.

But it had been a little over twelve months since Martin Crocker had died. Surely if anyone had been looking for her she would have sensed it by now. Her survival instincts were inextricably linked to her peculiar version of aura talent. Both had been honed razor sharp at the age of fourteen. Even more reassuring, she had made it through the J&J background checks. She was safe now; tucked away in that great dusty vault of the Arcane Society officially known as the Bureau of Genealogy. True, the contents of the vault these days were housed online and she accessed them with a computer; nevertheless, the metaphor still applied.

She was safe. It would be okay to get a dog.

Her cell phone rang. She glanced at the coded number and answered immediately.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones,” she said. The formality was automatic, one of the many tools she employed to keep some distance between herself and others.

“Are you packed yet?”

She had never met the man in person. Fallon Jones ran J&J from a one-man office tucked away in a little town on the northern California coast. Some said he was an obsessively paranoid recluse. Others claimed that the reason he lived and worked alone was because no one could stand being around him for more than five minutes. It was true that he had the personality of an annoyed rhinoceros. He was also a brilliant talent.

She had done some off-the-books genealogical research shortly after her boss, Harley Beakman, had begun referring Jones’s queries to her. Evidently she was the only one in the department who had the patience to put up with the ceaseless demands of the notoriously difficult head of J&J.

It hadn’t taken much sleuthing to discover that Fallon was a direct descendant of Caleb Jones, the founder of Jones & Jones. That much was not a secret. There was also no question but that Fallon ranked very high on the Jones Scale, probably off the charts. She knew from her work that the members of the Jones family—many of them legends in the Society—were not above fudging their talent rankings with a view to making themselves appear less psychically powerful than they actually were. She did not hold that against them. She had discreetly cranked her own ranking back to a more respectable and far less intimidating level seven.

The exact nature of Fallon’s talent, however, had proved elusive, probably because no one had yet come up with a polite, scientifically neutral term for what most people referred to as a full-blown conspiracy theorist.

The thing that set Fallon apart from the general run of committed conspiracy nuts was the fact that the mysterious patterns he identified and which he wove into his elaborate theories were not a product of his feverish fantasies. They were real. Most of the time.

“Almost finished,” she assured him. “I’ll be on my way to Portland in an hour or so. Before I leave I have to drop by the post office to ask Mrs. Waggoner to hold my mail, and then I have to notify my landlady that I’ll be out of town for two or three days. That’s it.”

“You have to make an announcement about this trip to the whole damn town?” Fallon growled.

“Trust me, if I don’t inform my landlady about the trip and leave word at the post office, there will be rumors within twenty-four hours. The next thing I know, the police chief will be knocking on my door wanting to see if I’m alive. This is a very small town.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know how it is with small towns. Same story here in Scargill Cove. Do what you have to do and then get moving.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re booked into an airport hotel in Portland tonight. The ID you and Malone will be using will be delivered to you there by a Society courier. Your flight to Honolulu leaves tomorrow morning. Malone will meet you at the gate in the Interisland Terminal at Honolulu International. That’s where the two of you will catch the connecting flight to Maui.”

“How will I recognize Mr. Malone?”

“Well, let’s see. He’s a level-eight aura talent. With your sensitivity you’ll be able to pick him out in a crowd. Can’t be that many level eights running around Honolulu International.”

Luther Malone was the one factor in the venture that bothered her. She had not had an opportunity to research his family tree but she was not worried about his level-eight ranking. It certainly indicated above-average strength but nothing out of the ordinary, at least not within the Society. What concerned her was the fact that Malone had once been a cop, specifically a homicide detective. What’s more, his record for closing cases was extraordinarily good. Cops could be tricky. But she had dealt with a number of them over the years. She could handle one more.

“All right, I’ll watch for an eight aura,” she said. “Anything else?”

“His picture is on the driver’s license the courier will give you this evening,” Fallon said. “But let’s see, I think he said he’d be wearing khakis and a dark brown shirt. No flowers. I told him you’ll have on a pair of gloves. Don’t sweat it. I doubt that the two of you will miss each other at the airport.”

She looked down at the gloves in the suitcase and sighed. Like everyone else she met these days, Luther Malone would think she was weird. She was getting very tired of being weird.

“Right,” she said.

“I should probably warn you that Malone isn’t thrilled about working with a partner. He’ll want to know as much about you as possible. Probably try to interrogate you a little. He’s an ex-cop. He won’t be able to help himself.”

It would be okay, she thought. If she could deceive Martin Crocker and conceal her secret from Fallon Jones, she wouldn’t have any trouble dealing with an above-average aura talent. Malone wasn’t interested in Crocker’s death, anyway. He had no reason to be suspicious of her, merely cop-curious about his new partner.

“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine,” she said, going for smooth competence. She could do smooth competence very well. She’d had a lot of practice during her twelve years with Martin.

“This is your first time in the field as a J&J agent,” Fallon continued. “You’re going to have to do a little acting on this job but I don’t want you to take any risks. That’s what Malone will be there for.”

“To take the risks?”

“No, to make sure

you don’t. This is a routine surveillance and identification operation, not a takedown. Once you’ve confirmed Eubanks’s psychic profile, your job is done. Malone will get you off Maui and you’ll be on the plane back to Oregon ASAP. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Jones.”

“Look, between you and me, Malone can be a pain in the ass but he’s good at what he does. If he starts giving orders, which he probably will, just shut up and do what he says. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“I love it when my agents call me sir. Almost forgot, there is one more thing that might help you identify Malone on sight.”

“Yes?”

“He’ll be on a cane.”

That stopped her cold. “You’ve assigned me a bodyguard who has to use a cane to get around?”

“He had a little accident a while back. Unfortunately, the doctors told him that the leg would never really be right. He’ll be on that cane for the rest of his life.”

“I see. Does Mr. Malone perhaps carry a gun?”

“Not since he left his job in the police department. He told me once that he’s not comfortable with guns. Between you and me, he was a lousy shot, anyway.”

Great. She was getting a bodyguard who couldn’t shoot straight and who relied on a cane.

“I have the impression that this mission isn’t exactly a high priority with J&J,” she said.

“No, it’s not.” Fallon exhaled heavily. “Don’t get me wrong. If Eubanks killed that young woman, I want him off the street. But essentially, this is a routine case. J&J handles dozens like it every year. Clients come to me and I hand them off to one or more of the agents on my list. It’s their job to bring in evidence that will stand up in court.”

“But you’ve got higher priorities?”

“Yes, Grace, I do.” Fallon sounded grim and oddly weary.

She wanted to ask what those other priorities were but she knew Fallon well enough to realize she probably wouldn’t get an answer if she asked the question. He could be maddeningly secretive.

“I understand, sir,” she said instead. “Are you sure that Mr. Malone is the right man for this mission, though? It sounds like he should be thinking about retirement.”

“Thing is, he’s right there on Oahu. Convenient. And he needs the money.”

“On top of everything else he’s broke?”

“Two divorces in four years will do that to a man. He’s been getting by tending bar in a little place called the Dark Rainbow.”

“I see. Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for the convenience factor.”

“Damn straight,” Fallon agreed. “Look, I gotta go. Got the new Master of the Society on the other line. Have fun on Maui.”

There was an odd chortling sound in Grace’s ear. It was immediately followed by a click as Fallon ended the call.

She closed the phone and contemplated it thoughtfully for a couple of seconds. Had she just heard the sound of Fallon Jones’s laughter?

Impossible. Everyone knew that Fallon Jones had no sense of humor.

She put the phone into her purse and went back to packing. The last thing she tucked into her carry-on was her computer. You never knew when you might have to do a little research while on a mission. She closed the lid and zipped the small suitcase closed.

After a year of hiding out and licking her wounds, she was ready to live again. The opportunity for an exciting adventure had been handed to her on a silver platter and, somewhat to her own amazement, she had seized it. Time to start living in the now.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER she emerged from the post office and walked quickly toward her car. An SUV painted camouflage green and brown wheeled into the parking lot. The door popped open. A spry-looking senior citizen climbed out. Her bubble of steel-gray hair was partially covered by a billed cap. She wore military-style fatigues and heavy black boots. Her eyes were shielded by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. The utility belt around her waist was studded with various and assorted implements including binoculars, a flashlight and a high-tech camera.

The look was Arizona Snow’s day uniform. At night when she went out on her endless reconnaissance patrols of Eclipse Bay, she switched to black trousers and pants and added a set of night-vision goggles to her ensemble.

“ ’Mornin’, Grace,” Arizona called. “Heard you’re fixin’ to go on a little vacation.”

Grace smiled. Arizona Snow was Eclipse Bay’s resident eccentric. She must have been in her early eighties but aside from some trouble with arthritis she showed no signs of slowing down. Her commitment to protecting the town from some mysterious, unnamed conspiracy that, as far as anyone knew existed only in her mind, never wavered.

“News travels fast,” Grace said, coming to a halt a short distance from Arizona.

“Not everything you hear around here is accurate,” Arizona muttered ominously. She took a notebook and pen out of one of the half-dozen pockets that festooned her fatigues. Flipping the notebook open, she clicked her pen. “Goin’ to Hawaii, eh?”

“That’s right.”

Arizona made a note. “Return date?”

“Well, I’m not sure yet. I probably won’t be gone long, though. A couple of days, maybe three at the most. Why?”

Arizona looked up, shaking her head at the naive question. “I need to know when you’ll be back so I can alert the chief in case you don’t return on time.”

Grace was touched. Arizona had taken a keen interest in her right from the start and had been happy to rent the cottage to her. As a rule, Arizona viewed every outsider in town with acute suspicion. But with Grace she had assumed an air of comradely understanding. It was as if she had concluded that the two of them had unspoken secrets in common.

That assumption was probably not too far from the truth, Grace thought. One thing she had discovered in the past few months was that, although Arizona had lived in Eclipse Bay for several years, no one seemed to recall exactly when she had moved into town and no one seemed to know where she had come from.

There were rumors about her, the most dramatic being that she had once worked for a mysterious government intelligence agency. The theory was that she had either resigned or been forced to retire when she became permanently lost in her own strange world.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to leave my return date open,” Grace said gently.

“Understood.” Arizona snapped the notebook closed and looked around, making certain there was no one in the vicinity who might be eavesdropping.

Satisfied that they had privacy, she edged a little closer, respectful, as always, of the distance that Grace preferred to keep between herself and others. Arizona was one of the few people Grace had met who seemed to sense intuitively that she did not like to be touched. The leather gloves offered a degree of protection but they were by no means foolproof. Touching the wrong individual, however fleetingly, could be an ordeal.

“So, the agency is finally sending you out on a field assignment,” Arizona said in low tones. “You be careful now, honey. From what I can tell, you’re an analyst, not a trained operative. I’ll bet your experience has all been at a desk with a computer. I hope they’re supplying some muscle to keep an eye on you.”

The irony of the situation made Grace smile. Arizona filtered everything through her skewed view of the world. Because of that, she was the only person in Eclipse Bay who had come close to guessing the truth. If Arizona ever found out that the Arcane Society existed and that it was a secretive, centuries-old organization devoted to research and study of the paranormal, she would have no problem weaving it into her own worldview.

“Don’t worry about me,” Grace said. “I’ll have a partner.”

“Someone with field experience.” Arizona nodded, satisfied. “Excellent. You tell him I said to take good care of you.”

“Okay.” Like heck she would tell Luther Malone that he was supposed to take care of her. She didn’t need any help in that department. She had been taking care of herself since the day her mother died.

“I’ll keep an eye on your cottage while you’re gone,” Arizona added. “Make sure the sons a bitches don’t try to get into your files.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“Stay alert, stay alive,” Arizona said. She snapped off a quick salute and stalked off across the parking lot, heading for the glass doors of the post office.

Grace got into her car. She thought about her landlady as she drove out of the parking lot and turned toward the highway that would eventually take her to Portland.

Arizona was a powerful sensitive, although she was probably unaware of it. Her talent was similar to Fallon’s. She could see patterns in chaos. But somewhere along the line she had lost control of the paranormal side of her nature. Perhaps if she had been raised as a member of the Arcane Society community, things would have been different for her. Perhaps she could have been taught how to control her talent. Or maybe not.

There was no question but that it was far too late to intervene now. Arizona had gone too deep into her strange, private world. Now her talent controlled her.

Grace wondered if Fallon Jones ever worried that he, too, might someday get trapped forever in his own world of plots and counterplots, unable to find his way back to reality. He was trying to do too much, she thought. On several occasions during the past few months she had heard the exhaustion in his voice. Running the West Coast office of J&J was obviously too big a job for one person. He needed an assistant.

It started to rain. Fat drops spattered on the windshield. She turned on the wipers and wondered if it was raining in Hawaii. When she got bored thinking about the weather in the islands she wondered if she was pushing her luck by taking this assignment from J&J. The

what-ifs loomed in her imagination. What if she couldn’t handle the mission? What if Luther Malone uncovered her secrets?

Don’t think like that, she mentally scolded herself. How much trouble could a guy on a cane possibly be?

You’ve been hiding in Eclipse Bay long enough.

The courier from the Arcane Society—a young man who seemed thrilled to be performing a role, however small, for the legendary firm of J&J—delivered the packet to Grace at the airport hotel. He handed it to her in the lobby, so close she could feel the pulse and power of his talent. A para-hunter, she thought. She didn’t have to jack up her own senses to know that he was strong.

“What’s your name?” she asked, automatically stepping back to put some distance between them.

“Sean Jones, ma’am,” he said.

Of course, she thought. The Jones family tree was filled with hunter talents of various kinds.

She thanked him and hurried back to the elevator, ripping open the sealed packet as soon as she reached the privacy of her room. The contents tumbled onto the table—Luther Malone’s phony driver’s license on top. She picked it up and studied the picture, consumed by a curiosity she could not explain.

Like most license photos, the shot was not intended to be flattering. It was possible that it was the lighting that made Malone look so hard but her intuition told her that the brutal planes and angles of his face would look just as austere in person. His dark hair was cut short. The note said his eyes were brown but in the picture they looked unreadable, the eyes of a lone wolf.

The picture should have been off-putting. Malone appeared to be stone cold. But for some reason she could not stop staring at the image.

Reluctantly she put the license down and reached for her plane ticket and the resort reservation.

Approximately sixty seconds later—the length of time it took her to get her shaking fingers under control—she dialed the now-familiar number in Scargill Cove.

“You didn’t tell me that Malone and I would be registering as Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs,” she said, her voice rising in spite of her determination to remain cool and professional. “There’s only one room.”

“Take it easy,” Fallon said, uncharacteristically soothing. “I made sure you got a suite. Take the bedroom. It has its own bath. Tell Malone he can have the pull-out bed in the living room.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, sir. You should have warned me.”

“I knew you’d panic if I told you that you and Malone would be checking in as husband and wife.” Fallon sounded aggrieved, the voice of a put-upon employer forced to work with a difficult, temperamental employee.

“You were right.”

“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Malone is a pro. He’s there as your bodyguard and this is the only arrangement that will allow him to do his job.”

She swallowed hard. Fallon was right. Malone was a professional. She was the amateur. If she wanted to become a real agent for J&J, she had to start acting like one.

“Mr. Malone agreed to this plan?” she asked warily.

“He’ll be fine with it.”

“Wait a second, are you saying he doesn’t yet know that he and I are supposed to pose as a married couple on this assignment?”

“Thought I’d let you break it to him,” Fallon said.

“Oh, gee, thanks.”

For the first time in her association with Fallon Jones, she ended the call before he could cut the connection.

For a long time she stood there, looking at Malone’s phony driver’s license and the hotel registration.

Got to learn to live in the now.