The Vanishing

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Who was this man, and what was he doing in her already complicated life?

  “I suppose your uncle told you about my talent?” she said.

  “He mentioned it, yes.”

  “He told you I was one of the Freaks from Fogg Lake?”

  “I’m not from Fogg Lake but I’m in the same category as you. A genuine, but not yet certified, freak.”

  Robots did not crack jokes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, deeply suspicious now.

  “Let’s just say that my family made sure I didn’t wind up with an official diagnosis.”

  “I see.”

  “Obviously your family took good care of you, too,” Slater said. “And that’s enough getting-to-know-you conversation for now. You need to focus. Crank up all of your senses.”

  “Please stop talking like that. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Talking like what?”

  “Never mind.”

  She braced herself for the jolt that she always got when she went all the way into her other vision. First came the rush of heightened awareness. For a couple of seconds she was being spun around inside a disorienting kaleidoscope. The world got sharper but people took on a ghostly aspect. Their auras whispered, sparked, flashed and glowed. Their footsteps left seething prints on the sidewalk.

  And then she got control.

  With control came the prickling chills of dread. When she walked down a busy city street with her senses running at full blast the world was transformed into a jungle. The potential for danger was everywhere. Each and every person she passed was a threat until proven otherwise.

  “Are you running hot?” Slater asked.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice very tight now as she struggled to process the tsunami of information her psychic vision was transmitting. She had to steel herself to make the three-block trek to her office. It was not going to be a walk in the park.

  “Promise me you’ll stay on the phone,” Slater said.

  “I’ll stay on the phone,” she said, “but don’t expect an extended conversation. I’ve got to concentrate.”

  “To maintain control. Trust me, I understand.”

  For the first time there was more than just an edge on his voice. There was a faintly human quality now. She got the impression that he just might know exactly how much effort it took to remain anchored to reality when you found yourself trying to interpret the world through a storm of visions.

  Luckily the sidewalk was not very crowded. The morning surge of workers on their way to the office was over and the noon lunch frenzy was still a few hours away. Nevertheless, walking through downtown Seattle with her talent engaged was always an intense, exhausting experience. The fact that it was daytime made no difference. Her other vision transformed every individual who came within a range of twenty to thirty feet into a luminous figure that had to be scanned, assessed and categorized according to her intuition’s definition of threat level.

  Each illuminated figure pulsed with hot energy that created constantly shifting, complex patterns. Every man, woman and child was a three-ring circus with various performances taking place simultaneously. For those with the vision to see it, the truth was that humans really could walk and chew gum at the same time. It was an unnerving talent.

  Each individual was capable of thinking about a problem at work while anxiously trying to ignore the new chest pains. A person could carry on a conversation on the phone that elicited a range of conflicting emotions, all of which seethed in his or her aura. Some people she passed were hovering on the verge of an anxiety attack. Some were brooding. Some were angry.

  And for Catalina, the sense of a potential threat did not end once a person had moved out of range, because she was forced to wade through the hot energy of the footprints that had been left behind. Sure, in most cases the prints cooled rapidly and faded into the countless footsteps that had already been laid down on the sidewalk. But the speed with which most prints sank to the undetectable level was no help when you were trying to dodge the still-fresh energy tracks of a man who wanted to hit someone or a person who was mired in deep depression.

  A few of those she passed left prints so hot and so tainted with unwholesome energy that they would burn for hours before they cooled to the point where they were no longer disturbing.

  She found herself playing a game of hopscotch on the sidewalk, hastily sidestepping a hot print, skipping over one that seethed with some very unstable energy, darting around a trail of footsteps that boiled with rage.

  She was all too aware that those who noticed her weaving a convoluted path down the sidewalk concluded that she was just another crazy street person, albeit one who was better dressed than the average bag lady. They avoided eye contact and adjusted their own courses to give her plenty of room.

  Deep down, in spite of all the training her parents had provided and all the tricks she had learned to employ in order to pass for normal, sometimes she did wonder if maybe she really was one of the crazies.

  She jumped or flinched or otherwise reacted to every odd spike in every aura around her and to each hot print on the sidewalk. She was constantly in fight-or-flight mode. How could that possibly be normal?

  Two more blocks. The woman in the dark blue jacket radiated the thin, irregular energy of chronic stress. Catalina’s senses registered her as No immediate threat.

  The man passing on the left had shafts of anger spiking in his aura. Potential threat. Catalina quickened her pace to move out of range. The angry man did not notice her. His rage was directed at someone or something else, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. People with anger management issues often lashed out at anyone who got in their way.

  The young man coming toward her was glued to his phone. Whatever he was viewing was creating spikes of intense excitement that Catalina’s senses interpreted as unhealthy obsession or addiction. She decided he was probably playing a game. No threat.

  Cell Phone Guy was clearly unaware of the woman on the bicycle approaching him from behind. She, in turn, was focusing her attention on a car, not on Cell Phone Guy.

  A vision of the bicyclist crashing into Cell Phone Guy and sending both of them into the street where they would be struck by a car ghosted across Catalina’s senses. Threat. Her intuition was alerting her, telling her to move out of the way so that she didn’t get tangled up in the imminent collision.

  She overrode the warning, grabbed Cell Phone Guy by the arm and hauled him out of the path of the bicyclist. In the process he dropped the phone on the sidewalk.

  “What the hell?” Cell Phone Guy yelped in startled surprise and a flash of panic.

  “Sorry,” Catalina said. “I’m really sorry. I thought—”

  “What’s going on?” Slater’s voice crackled in her ear.

  She ignored him because Cell Phone Guy had just scooped up his phone and was glaring at her. His aura was flaring with anger now.

  Potential threat.

  “Are you crazy, lady?” he snarled.

  The bicyclist whipped past, heedless of the near collision.

  “Catalina, talk to me,” Slater ordered.

  “Not now,” she said. She lowered the phone to deal with Cell Phone Guy. “I’m so sorry. I thought that bicyclist was going to run into you. Is your phone okay?”

  Cell Phone Guy’s anger began to fade but he was clearly annoyed. He glared and then he examined his phone. Relief spiked for an instant in his aura before it was demolished by another wave of angry alarm. He started checking his pockets. She sighed.

  “I didn’t take your wallet,” she said.

  When he discovered his wallet was where it was supposed to be he gave her one last disgusted glare and walked swiftly away.

  “Everything okay?” Slater asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Some guy on a phone was abou
t to get hit by a woman on a bicycle. At least I think he was about to get hit. It looked like both of them were going to wind up in the street and maybe get struck by a car. I pulled the man out of the way. He dropped his phone in the process. Let’s just say he was not particularly grateful.”

  “No good deed—”

  “Goes unpunished. I know.”

  “How far away are you?”

  “About two blocks.”

  “Walk fast. You’re making me nervous.”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a man in running gear coming up fast on her left. The runner had been directly behind her until now, which explained why he had not registered on her senses.

  Immediate threat.

  As the runner drew up alongside her, she could see that he looked to be in his early thirties, tall and in excellent physical condition. He was loping along at an easy, steady pace, not even breathing hard.

  It wasn’t only his proximity and the swift way he had closed the distance between them that set off all of Catalina’s psychic klaxons. It was the almost invisible bands of pale energy that whispered in the runner’s aura.

  Blank.

  It wasn’t true that blanks had some bandwidth missing from their energy fields. That was a myth that had developed because most of those who could perceive auras couldn’t detect the deceptively pale radiance that was the calling card of the average sociopath.

  Catalina had never had any trouble detecting the freakish vibe of a true human monster. She had encountered blanks often enough to recognize one immediately if he or she got within range. But she never got past the chill of dread that a brush with a blank sent across her senses. Crossing paths with one was a lot like chancing upon a snake while out on a stroll. The snake, at least, had a valid excuse for being a ruthless predator.

  “Oh, shit,” Catalina muttered.

  Maybe she should just abandon the effort to control her language today.

  Propelled by instinct and intuition, Catalina pivoted away at a right angle from the man in running gear, swiftly putting as much distance as possible between the two of them. She knew the sudden move would make her appear even more alarming to those around her. She tried to cover the action by glancing quickly at her phone as though she had just received new directions for a destination.

  “Damn it,” Slater said. “What’s going on?”

  Wow. He was cursing now. Catalina decided that indicated some degree of emotion. But she was too occupied with keeping track of the blank to respond.

  The runner flew past without seeming to notice her. He never broke stride. One of the interesting things about blanks was that they were so utterly convinced of their own strength and cleverness that it rarely occurred to them anyone could see them for the frightening beings they were. But, as Catalina’s parents had frequently pointed out, everyone had blind spots. For blanks, the weakness was invariably overconfidence in their own supposed superiority.

  The runner’s aura faded rapidly and vanished altogether as he moved out of range. By the time he reached the corner he looked like any other fitness-minded man trying to get in a morning workout.

  No longer a threat.

  Catalina discovered she could breathe again. She pulled her frazzled senses back in line and prepared to resume the grueling hike through the human jungle. But she was still focused on the close brush with a blank. She did not notice the powerful aura of the man directly in front of her until it was too late.

  She walked straight into the arms of the stranger and came up hard against his very solid chest—and an aura unlike any she had ever encountered. For a couple of beats she was once again tumbling around inside the kaleidoscope.

  “Oh, shit,” she yelped.

  Even when she was in her normal senses she disliked touching or being touched by anyone except the people she knew and trusted. The sensation of colliding with a complete stranger was a thousand times more disturbing when all her senses were engaged and on high alert.

  It wasn’t the heat of the unknown aura that shocked her. It was the jarring sense of intense intimacy. Aura incompatibility was one of the many reasons why her romantic relationships always ended in disaster. Even a simple kiss was a balancing act. When it came to actually engaging in sex she had learned the hard way that she had to keep a tight rein on her senses. Letting go in bed had one of two dramatic effects on her partners. Men either concluded that she was an exciting dominatrix or else they ran for the hills. Regardless of which outcome prevailed, the end result had led her into a series of spectacularly boring relationships that sputtered along for a while and then collapsed.

  But the darkly radiant energy field that had just slammed into her own was profoundly not boring. For a few seconds she was literally dazzled. She was unaware of anything or anyone else around her. All her senses were flaring and all of them were focused on the man in whose arms she stood.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She knew that voice. A moment ago she had been listening to it on her phone. Her already disoriented senses did another unstable spin, trying to find a new balance.

  “Slater Arganbright?” she said.

  “Yes. Apologies for the clumsy introduction.”

  He still had his hands on her, and her senses were still spiking and flashing.

  “Oh, shit,” she muttered.

  Frantically she lowered her senses and tried to untangle herself. He released her very quickly, as if he had been the one who had been burned by the collision of their auras.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Annoyed, she straightened her shoulders and regained her composure.

  “You don’t have to act like I’m going to fall apart,” she said. “I’m not fragile or delicate. You took me by surprise, that’s all. I was . . . focused on someone else.”

  “What’s going on? You sound breathless.”

  “I was walking quickly because you insisted that I get back to the office right away, remember? Just got too close to a blank, that’s all. Or, rather, he got too close to me. I didn’t see him coming until he was next to me.”

  “Trust me, I know how it feels.” He glanced briefly over his shoulder. “The runner with the gray jacket?”

  “Yes.” Catalina peered past Slater’s shoulder. The runner was no longer in sight. “You noticed him?”

  “I caught a glimpse of his aura. He was strong.”

  That was interesting. A lot of people who could detect auras were able to tell that something was off about a blank’s energy field but very few could actually see the cold heat of a blank’s aura.

  “You could see the bad light in his field?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Slater looked at her with a thoughtful expression. “He got close to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think he even noticed me. He’s long gone now, thank goodness. How did you find me out here on the street?”

  “No big mystery to it,” Slater said. “I have a photo of you. Your receptionist described the coat you’re wearing and gave me your most likely route back to the office.”

  “I see.”

  “Also, it’s not like there are a lot of women walking down the street who are trying to avoid the hot footprints.”

  She groaned. “In other words, I looked like I was drunk or crazy?”

  “Not to me. I knew exactly what you were doing.”

  She wasn’t sure how to deal with the information her senses were providing about Slater Arganbright. The heat in his aura was breathtaking. Even though she was no longer using her second sight, she would never forget the way his energy field had felt when it collided with hers. Summer lightning.

  She had never before experienced anything like the sensation.

  Now that she had calmed down an
d put some distance between them, she had a chance to study the man in more detail. He wasn’t big and bulked up. He was leopard-sleek, and leopard-powerful. The sharp planes and angles of his face had a severe, ascetic cast. His dark hair was cut short in a no-nonsense style. Even though the sun illuminated the street in the warm glow of springtime, Slater seemed to be enveloped in shadows. There was a grim, haunted quality in his amber eyes.

  It was obvious he had not bothered to shave that morning. He didn’t look as if he had spent much time putting together his sartorial look, either. He wore a pair of rumpled-looking, multipocketed cargo trousers, a black T-shirt, an extremely distressed leather jacket and low boots that appeared as well-worn as the jacket. He had the strap of a sturdy-looking backpack slung over one shoulder. He might be built like a big cat but he dressed like a cross between a tech ace and a biker.

  To her chagrin she’d had to exert a little raw willpower to shake off the mesmerizing impact of his eyes. But maybe she should cut herself some slack. After all, she had been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Tell me what you want from me in exchange for helping me find Olivia,” she said. “Because that’s what this is about, right?”

  “My uncle obviously left a bad impression.”

  “No shit.”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s too late to discuss your uncle’s actions. The damage has been done. I’m on the other side. I prefer not to be reminded of all the details.”

  “Right,” Slater said. “In that case let’s stick to the problem at hand.”

  “My friend Olivia is missing. That is the problem at hand. You seem to know something about the situation. I want answers and I want them now.”

  “I don’t have many. All I can tell you is that I’m pretty sure I’m chasing the people who grabbed her. You said on the phone you found a witness, someone who saw Olivia kidnapped?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Slater said.