Broken Dolls: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 3)
Page 9
“Are you twins?” I asked, feeling the need to state the obvious.
“Yes,” Davin said with a smile.
“And you’re going to London, whether I want backup or not,” I said.
“We’re just going on holiday,” Davin replied. “We were headed to the airport anyway, so we offered to give you a lift.”
Their broad grins made me feel as though I was seeing double. “You’re terrible liars,” I said.
I could still feel my link with Peter. I sent him a thought on a tight spear, *Peter, I don’t need protection, and I resent having to worry about protecting your men.*
*They’re volunteers,* he answered, and I could feel the humor behind his thought. Men can be so smug when they think they’ve pulled a fast one on you. *Besides, they’re two of my most powerful men. Twelve Gifts each. You won’t have to worry about them.*
~~~
Arriving in London, I checked with the airline Myrna’s new owner had taken. Of course, information on passengers is confidential, but sometimes controlling someone’s mind is necessary. I really wasn’t hurting the woman who called up the records for me.
“Excuse me,” I said at the ticket counter. “I need to find out when a friend of mine is flying in.”
“We’re not allowed to give out information on our passengers,” she said, calling up passenger information on her terminal. “What is your friend’s name?”
“David Carpenter. I think he came in last Wednesday or Thursday from Dublin.”
“Oh, I can’t give you that information,” she replied, typing his name, the date, and the itinerary. “Mr. Carpenter flew in on Tuesday,” she said, and gave me his address, phone number, and credit card information.
“What was the name of the person traveling with him?”
“I wouldn’t know that information. There was a Myrna Carpenter in the seat next to him.”
“Myrna Carpenter? Did she have a passport in that name?”
“I can’t give you any information on Myrna Carpenter, age sixteen.” She gave me the passport number.
“You’re sure you can’t help me?”
“I’m sorry ma’am. Airline regulations on privacy are very strict.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you find your friend.”
David Carpenter and his daughter Myrna had flown in the previous week, about the time I’d flown out to Dublin. I assumed the address he used to book the flight was real. It would be too much trouble to fake it when he had no reason to believe anyone would be following him.
I attempted to ignore my shadows and took the Tube to the station nearest my home. But when I got there, I felt guilty leaving them standing on the street. In spite of my best efforts, and three train changes, they hadn’t missed a beat. They were right on my tail.
*I guess you might as well come up,* I sent to them. Smiling like men who have won an argument, they followed me up to my flat.
“I want you to know, you’re among a very select few people who have ever seen this place,” I told them as I unlocked the door. “Any comments about my housekeeping will put you right back out on the street. Understood?”
They nodded, still smiling like a couple of idiots.
Living room, kitchen, bath and bedroom. Sparsely furnished and no frills. As I told them, I didn’t have company very often, and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of men who’d ever seen the inside of it.
I unpacked and threw my laundry in the washing machine. Trying to ignore them, I took a shower. As I washed, running the washcloth over my body, I thought about Morrighan and Peter. Actually, I had thought about them all day. All I’d done on the plane was run that scene through my mind, over and over. They both had a Glow and he was upright. It didn’t compute.
However, I had a different and more pressing problem. Two men and nowhere to put them. Neither of them was small enough to sleep on my couch, let alone both of them.
I stepped out into the living room wearing only two towels.
“There’s a hotel about three blocks from here. Unless you plan to sleep on my floor, I suggest you call and arrange a room.”
They looked at each other, then Edwin said, “Your floor is fine.”
I had planned to go out for something to eat. Instead, we ordered a couple of pizzas.
~~~
Chapter 10
My small bathroom definitely was too small for three people. As a result, the following morning we got out of the house a little later than I planned. There was no way I could continue to take care of them and be effective at my job.
David Carpenter had given an address in the northern part of London. It was a solidly middle-class district with a mixture of townhouses and apartment buildings. I punched buttons at the door of his building until someone buzzed me in. No one answered the door to his flat, so I picked the lock. Magnetokinesis and Telekinesis work well for that.
The flat was a little more personalized than my place, and I found some pictures that matched the man I’d seen in Ramona’s mind. His computer wasn’t password protected, but his email was. Luckily, he had the password saved, and his email opened automatically. It always amazes me when people do that.
I found a confirmation email for a train reservation to Paris and for a hotel reservation there. I also found several emails concerning a meeting with someone who had a German name. The train reservation was for the previous day, and the meeting was set for the current evening. While nothing in the emails was incriminating, they included discussions of merchandise and payments. They were discussing astronomical numbers. David must be planning to deliver a large number of women.
There were also emails with someone in London concerning the same sort of business. Something struck me as strange, and I pulled up the emails to the German again. After reading a few, I split the screen and put a couple of the messages side by side.
“Son of a bitch,” I said out loud. Carpenter was playing a dangerous game, auctioning Myrna to different buyers. What I didn’t find was any evidence that he took her to Paris with him. I also didn’t find any evidence of where he’d left her, if he had.
I printed off what I needed, made sure to clean up any traces of me being there, and hurried out. I needed to catch a train. With low-cost trains between London and Paris leaving almost every hour, it wouldn’t take long to be in Paris.
~~~
It wasn’t until I jumped on the train as it was pulling out of the station that I remembered I wasn’t alone.
*Damn you! Where the hell are you going?* Davin sent.
They had been hanging back and letting me feel like I was alone. As a result, I had left them standing at the station. I used my phone to check the schedules, then called him. He cursed me a bit and tried to talk me into waiting for them in Paris. I compromised and gave them the addresses where I planned to go. He wasn’t happy.
The trip took two and a half hours. I used the time to call up maps on my phone and try to study them on the tiny screen. I hadn’t been in Paris in two years, though I knew the city fairly well. Carpenter’s hotel wasn’t in the best part of the city.
I was about twenty-four hours behind him, but had time to make the rendezvous he’d set up. I arrived at the cafe an hour early and found a table near the door. Since no one knew me, I wasn’t worried about anyone recognizing me. I ate dinner while I waited. An hour past the meeting time, Carpenter hadn’t shown up and neither had any other telepaths.
I paid my bill and headed for his hotel. I found out later that Davin and Edwin had gone to the hotel first, then to the cafe. We passed each other en route. It wasn’t until they arrived at the cafe that they called me.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” Davin’s voice said when I answered my phone.
“Just outside the hotel I told you about.”
“Damn. Wait for us,” he said.
“How close are you?” I asked.
“About forty-five minutes away.”
I knocked, then pulled out my pistol and used the key. I could smell death as soon as I opened the door.
Carpenter’s body was lying by the bed. He’d been beaten, but I wasn’t able to tell the cause of death. Possibly the beating, but equally possible that a mental weapon had been used. In any case, he was dead, and had been dead for several hours. I’m not an expert, but rigor mortis starts three to four hours after death, and he was definitely stiff. It was obvious why he hadn’t shown up for the meeting. The people he was supposed to meet hadn’t shown up either, which spoke volumes for who killed him.
Searching the room, I found a small suitcase with clothing in Carpenter’s size. There wasn’t anything to indicate that a woman had been there.
Frustrated, I stood in the middle of the room, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. Postcognition is a Gift that doesn’t have a clear trigger in the mind. But a scene of recent violent emotions and death often contains residual psychic traces. After a while, I was able to feel the violence and fear the room had witnessed hours before, but no visions came to me.
Repressing a shudder, I leaned over and placed my hand on Carpenter’s head. Psychometry is a manifestation of Postcognition. It sometimes will bring visions when in contact with a person or object. Carpenter’s death flooded into me. I wasn’t able to tell what was being said, but two men had obviously captured his mind. Beaten almost to death, he died when one of his captors placed a hand on his head just as I was doing. His body jerked, and his final breath rattled from his throat. I assumed his killer had used Neural Disruption to finish him off, but of course, it was just a guess. It’s impossible to determine neural damage once someone is dead.
I had a problem. No Myrna. I sat down on the bed and ran everything through my mind. There was no evidence Carpenter had brought Myrna to Paris with him. Indeed, the evidence was that he hadn’t. He hadn’t bought a train ticket for her, and the people he’d met were angry enough to kill him. The conclusion was obvious. He’d sold her to someone in London.
~~~
Chapter 11
I walked out of the hotel to meet two handsome and angry twins.
“The man I was following is dead,” I told them. “There’s no evidence that Myrna was ever here.”
Their expressions mirrored my mood.
“If you’d be kind enough to book us seats back to London late this evening,” I said, “I’m going to visit a friend.”
One of them, Edwin I think, pulled out his phone and started tapping the screen. I nodded and sent a spear to my “friend.”
*Mum, are you home?* I sent on a spear thread.
*Rhi! How good to hear from you! Yes, I’m home. Are you going to come by?* my mother replied.
*Yes, if I may. I’m on a job and need to get back to London this evening.*
*Can you stay for dinner?*
“What time can you book us?” I asked Edwin.
“Trains at seven thirty, ten and twelve thirty,” he said.
“Book us at ten,” I decided. *Mum, I have a ten o’clock train to London.*
*That’s enough time for dinner,* she sent.
We grabbed a metro up to Montmartre and hiked over to Mum’s flat. She opened the door wearing a tank top and cut-off jeans that showed off a pair of the world’s best legs. She pulled me into her flat and wrapped me in a hug. Goddess, no matter how old you are, being hugged by your mother is one of the most wonderful things in the world.
When she released me, I turned to the twins and started to introduce them.
“Rhi! What a wonderful present!” Mum exclaimed, fixing them with a smile. “Just go on into the bedroom and take off your clothes. I’ll be with you as soon as I fix my daughter a cup of tea.”
The look on their faces was priceless. She showed us into her flat and waved toward the bedroom.
When you tell someone you’re taking them to meet your mother, and that she’s over a hundred years old, they don’t expect a flame-haired beauty that looks like a screen star in her forties. I always enjoyed taking men to meet my mother.
The twins stared at her with their mouths hanging open. I took pity on them.
“Mum, they aren’t a present. They’re O’Byrne Protectors who are following me around and getting in my way. Lord O’Byrne will be upset if you distract them.”
She pursed her mouth and shook her head, then rebounded. “You’ve seen Caylin and Fergus? How are they doing?”
Ushering us into her sitting room, she went into the kitchen and returned with a tray holding a teapot, four cups, and a plate of biscuits.
We chatted and, with some help from Davin and Edwin, I told her about recent news of O’Byrne. Eventually, the conversation turned to why I was in Paris.
“We think there’s a ring selling young telepaths, especially succubi and carriers,” I said.
“I’ve heard rumors of that,” she said. “There’s a demand for succubi. And as you know, anything and everything a telepath might want is for sale in Paris.”
I nodded. Paris is an open city, not controlled by any Clan. As a result, it is a holiday hot spot for telepaths. The city is full of restaurants, clubs and brothels catering to telepaths. Outside the city are exclusive resorts catering to tastes that make Roman orgies look tame.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d make some discrete inquiries. I would be very interested in finding the people who are buying these girls,” I said.
“Be careful, Rhi,” she said. “You know there was a group of young succubi attacked here in Paris a couple of weeks ago. There was a fight on the Left Bank in broad daylight.”
“I heard something about that,” I said.
“Everyone in the world heard about it! There were bodies in the street. One of the girls was Seamus O’Donnell’s granddaughter, and O’Donnell is pouring Protectors into England and France.”
“I’ve been in Ireland,” I said. “It seems everyone knows more about the situation than I do.”
Edwin spoke up, “The news hit the media about the time you flew to Ireland. It was on the telly, in the newspapers. It was very untidy.”
Mum snorted out a laugh. “Untidy? Dead men with massive electrical burns. Other men dead without a mark on them. Gibbering idiots with their minds burned out. They had pictures of them on the telly, flopping about like fish out of water. News cameras filming the whole thing. I’ve never seen such an incident in my entire life. Whoever made the mistake of attacking those girls was a complete moron. You don’t go messing with succubi.”
“There were pictures of the battle?” I gasped. I hadn’t grasped the enormity of the incident until that moment. To let the world know we existed was something no telepath wanted.
“No pictures of the battle,” Edwin said. “It happened too fast for any bystanders to comprehend what was happening. But there were eye witnesses, and the news media swarmed the place afterward, along with police and ambulances.”
“Rhi, keep your eyes open and your head down,” Mum said. “There’s something dangerous in the air.”
~~~
Back in London, I insisted the twins find a hotel. I value my privacy, and three in my small flat was a bit claustrophobic. A shower and a few hours of sleep helped to clear my mind. With a cup of coffee in hand, I called Morrighan and related my lack of progress.
“Lord O’Byrne said you should contact a man named Nigel Richardson at the O’Donnell offices in London,” she said. “He talked to Seamus and they think Myrna’s disappearance ties into the problems they’ve been having in the States.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m kind of at a dead end.”
“O’Donnell thinks Lord Gordon is behind it all,” Morrighan said.
I had seen a connection between Gordon and
O’Driscoll in Ramona’s mind. At a loss, I called O’Donnell’s headquarters and secured an appointment with Richardson. On my way to their building in the West End, I stopped by Carpenter’s flat and searched it again. I looked into the computer in more depth and made note of the other buyers he was talking with about Myrna.
Shown into Nigel Richardson’s office, I was surprised at how young he was. I’d expected the O’Donnell regional director to be much older. He turned out to be quite elegant, a trim six feet tall, with immaculately styled sandy blonde hair, and wearing a Savile Row suit.
“Miss Kendrick,” he said in a smooth baritone, “may I get you some coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, please.”
He poured it from an insulated carafe on his sideboard, and it smelled divine, much better than what I usually can afford.
“Lord O’Byrne and I spoke this morning,” he said. “From what he told me, it appears we might be able to help each other. O’Donnell has been aware for some time that young telepaths, primarily Druids and carriers, but not exclusively, are being trafficked. We’ve broken up several rings in the States and there have been attempts at kidnapping some of our people.”
“Paris,” I said.
Richardson wrinkled his nose and pursed his mouth. “There were a couple of incidents in Paris. One was unfortunately public.”
He put his hand on a stack of files on his desk.
“Miss Kendrick, Seamus O’Donnell has authorized you to see all of the information we have. I can’t let you take the files out of the building, but we’ll provide you with an office and you can take as much time as you like to go through them. Either I or my chief of security will be available to answer any questions you might have.”
Seamus O’Donnell is the O’Donnell Clan chief and the most powerful telepath on the planet. A legend. Simply the fact that he knew of my existence made my mouth go dry.
“Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Lord O’Byrne will be very grateful.”
“So he told me.” Richardson cocked his head slightly to the side and stared at me for several seconds. “I’m a bit surprised that he trusts you so completely. Our intelligence tells us that you haven’t kept in touch over the years.”