The thought of getting cornered on the roof by the two hunters held no appeal. But the odds were good that the pair would assume that she would flee down into the mall garage or out onto the street. Going up might be an excellent strategy.
Okay, she was rationalizing. Still, there was a slender thread of logic involved. The bottom line was that she had to find whatever was waiting to be discovered on the mall roof and she had to find it quickly.
The emergency stairwell was a highly efficient echo chamber. The sound of footsteps carried from top to bottom. If the hunters realized that she was not coming back out onto the sales floor, they would surely guess that she had escaped via the emergency stairs. If they decided to risk following her into the stairwell, they would hear her climbing up toward the roof.
She slipped out of her flats, clutched them in one hand, and went quickly up the stairs in her stocking feet. At least she was dressed for flight, she thought. She always wore trousers and flats or boots to work, always dressed to run for her life.
She had been living on the edge for ten days. Lately she had begun to wonder how much longer she could keep up the unrelenting vigilance. The fact that Julian Garrett’s men had found her so easily tonight was a sure sign that her life in hiding was taking a toll on her senses. She could not go on like this much longer.
Start thinking like that and you might as well jump off the roof when you get there.
At least it would all be over. If her grandmother was dead, there was no one left who was linked to her by bonds of blood. Ten days ago, she had been forced to sever the workplace friendships she had forged at Lucan Protection Services. Now she was profoundly alone in a way that most people could never imagine. In a world where everyone possessed an identity, she was utterly anonymous. In a very real sense she did not exist.
So why go on?
Rage kicked in, generating heat and energy and another burst of adrenaline. She dashed up the stairwell. She did have something, she thought. She had an enemy. His name was Julian Garrett. She would not let the bastards win so easily.
Always nice to have a goal.
She made it up the final flight of stairs, breathless now, and opened the door. Warily, she stepped outside into the balmy Arizona night. The lights of Phoenix, Scottsdale and the neighboring communities glittered and winked below. A nearly full moon bathed the scene in silver.
The vast expanse of the roof was dotted here and there by the looming shapes of several tons of HVAC equipment. It took a lot of air-conditioning for a mall to survive summer and winter in the desert.
She hesitated, trying to concentrate on the possibilities that might be available if the hunters followed her to the top of the mall. She could see at least three other stairwell entrances that opened onto the roof.
But the river of icy fog did not lead toward one of the potential escape routes. It illuminated a path to the edge of the roof. At the end of the trail of freezing mist a woman stood silhouetted against the city lights.
Isabella slipped into her shoes and went slowly toward the woman.
“Hi,” she said. Her heart was pounding, but she managed to keep her voice calm and soothing. “Are you okay?”
The woman gasped and turned quickly. “Who are you?”
“This week I’m Annie. What’s your name?”
“Sandra. What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sandra sounded angry now.
“You’re thinking of jumping off this roof, aren’t you?”
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Okay.” Isabella stopped. “I’d really like to help you, but we’re going to have to make this fast. I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Got another appointment?” Sandra’s tone was utterly flat now. “Don’t let me keep you.”
“The thing is there are a couple of guys downstairs who want to kidnap me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Isabella inched closer. She was still too far away from Sandra to do what needed to be done.
“They’re hunting for me as we speak. It won’t take them long to realize that I’m not coming out of the stockroom. It would be good if I could get off this roof before they find me.”
“Two men are hunting you?” Sandra’s voice rose in disbelief. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“I wish.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Very.”
“You’re probably on drugs. Did you stiff your dealer? Look, I don’t want to get involved, okay? I’ve got my own problems.”
“No, honest,” Isabella said. “This has nothing to do with drugs. Ten days ago I stumbled into a very dangerous conspiracy. Someone set me up to take the fall. The real conspirators think I know too much. I’m afraid they may have murdered my grandmother because I told her about the scheme. And now they’re trying to kill me. Oh, damn, I really don’t have time for this conversation.”
“Are you some kind of nutcase? One of those conspiracy freaks?”
“That opinion has been floated occasionally.” Isabella edged closer. Almost there. Another couple of feet and she would be able to touch Sandra. All she needed was physical contact.
“Stop,” Sandra said. “Don’t come any closer. I mean it.”
Muffled footsteps sounded inside the nearby stairwell.
“I think we just ran out of time,” Isabella said. “Here they come.”
“Who?” Bewildered and distracted, Sandra turned her head toward the stairwell.
“The killers,” Isabella replied.
She pounced. Seizing Sandra’s wrist, she found a focus and pulsed some energy.
Sandra’s face became expressionless. She stared off into the distance.
Isabella yanked her behind the massive metal housing that shrouded the HVAC equipment. She pushed her down onto the rooftop. “Stay here. Don’t move and don’t say a word until I tell you it’s safe to come out.”
Sandra did not respond. Isabella pulsed a little more energy and then released Sandra’s arm. The woman sat very still, her back against the metal housing, and gazed out into the night.
The door of the stairwell slammed open. Isabella knew that there was no point trying to hide on the rooftop. The killers would conduct a thorough search.
She moved out from behind the HVAC tower and looked at the figure that had just emerged from the stairwell. The hunter-talent didn’t see her at first. Moonlight and neon glinted on the small pistol in his hand.
“Hi,” Isabella said. She waved.
He turned toward her with preternatural speed, gun elevated.
“Got her,” he called over his shoulder.
His companion emerged from the same opening. He, too, gripped a gun.
“Did you really think we wouldn’t find you?” the first man said. “You’re coming with us.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Isabella said.
“No shit,” the second man said. “So are we. Wasted over a week trying to find you. The boss is not happy.”
He moved forward and seized Isabella’s arm.
The contact acted like a psychic electrical contact, making it possible for her to pulse energy directly into his aura.
She got a focus and sent out a small blast of disruptive psi.
“Get lost,” she said softly.
The gunman went still for a few seconds. Then he turned and started to walk toward the edge of the roof.
His companion stared. “What the hell? Hey, Rawlins, where are you going?”
Isabella took a step toward the stairwell doorway.
“Don’t move,” the man snarled. He lunged forward, grabbed her wrist and turned back to his companion. “Rawlins, have you gone crazy? Come back here.”
Rawlins continued toward the edge of the roof as though captivated by the clusters of lights sprinkled across the desert.
“Rawlins,” the second man shout
ed. He sounded on the verge of panic. “You’re gonna go off the damn roof, man. Come back.” He put the barrel of the pistol against Isabella’s head. “What did you do to him, you little bitch?”
“I just told him to get lost,” she said. She got the fix and pulsed energy into his aura. “Same thing I’m telling you. Take a hike.”
The gunman froze for a beat or two and then he lowered the gun. She took the weapon from his unresisting hand. He turned and started to follow Rawlins toward the edge of the mall roof.
“Oh, good grief,” Isabella said. “I’ll admit, I’m tempted to let you both walk off this roof, but it would probably cause more trouble than it’s worth.”
She put down the gun, hurried forward and stepped in front of Rawlins. She touched him lightly. “Wrong way. Come with me.”
He stopped obediently, his face a complete blank. She took the gun from him and set it down. Then she took his wrist in one hand and grabbed the other man’s arm. She guided them both toward the stairwell. When they reached the doorway, she urged them inside.
“Go down the stairs, leave the building and keep walking,” she ordered. “Cross the streets only at the crosswalks. Wait for the green light.”
Sometimes the hypnotic suggestions worked; sometimes they didn’t.
Rawlins started down the stairs. The second man followed.
There was no way to know how long the trancelike state would last. She simply did not have enough practical experience. It was an aspect of her talent that did not allow for a great deal of experimentation. But with luck she would have time to get out of the mall and disappear. Again.
She went back to where Sandra sat, took hold of her wrist and pulsed a little energy.
Sandra blinked and came back to her senses.
“I know you,” she said, frowning. “You’re the nutcase who thinks people are trying to kill her.”
“Right, let’s go.” Isabella guided her toward another stairwell. “I hate to rush you, but I’m in a hurry here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re crazy.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who was about to jump off the roof.”
“I’m not crazy,” Sandra said, annoyed. “I’m depressed.”
“Whatever, you’re coming with me.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the nearest hospital emergency room. You can explain everything to someone who will know what to do. I’m not a shrink.”
Sandra paused at the doorway of the stairwell. She looked back out at the edge of the roof.
“I don’t want to jump anymore.”
“Glad to hear that.” Isabella drew her down into the stairwell.
“But if you hadn’t come along when you did, I wouldn’t have had a chance to change my mind.”
“Always a good idea to give yourself time to reconsider the really big decisions.”
“I’ve been planning to jump for weeks and suddenly I changed my mind.” Sandra frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re smart and stronger than you think.”
“No, it was something about you that made me decide not to jump. Something in the atmosphere around you.”
“You’re the one who made the call. Don’t ever forget that.”
They went down the stairs to the parking garage. Isabella stuffed Sandra into the beat-up junker she had bought for cash ten days earlier and drove to the hospital. She escorted Sandra into the emergency room and stayed with her until an orderly came to take her into a treatment room.
Sandra paused in the doorway and looked back. “Will I see you again, Annie?”
“No,” Isabella said.
“Are you an angel?”
“Nope, just a garden-variety conspiracy theorist who thinks some people are out to silence her.”
Sandra studied her intently. “I remember the footsteps on the emergency stairs. I remember you telling me to stay quiet and not move. And I saw a gun lying on the mall roof. Be careful, Annie.”
“Thanks,” Isabella said. She smiled. “I will. You do the same, okay?”
“Okay,” Sandra said.
She followed the orderly down a white corridor.
Isabella went back outside to the hospital parking lot. She would have to leave the car behind. They had found her at the mall. She had to assume they had a description of the junker.
She opened the trunk, took out the small backpack she kept inside and closed the lid. She slung the strap of the pack over one shoulder and walked through the garage toward the street.
She knew where she was going now. The events of the evening had left her no choice. To get to her destination she would use the one form of transportation that did not leave a paper or computer trail.
She would hitchhike to Scargill Cove.
1
This is the perfect case for me to cut my teeth on here at Jones & Jones,” Isabella said. “You know that as well as I do. You’re just being difficult, Mr. Jones.”
“I’m told that’s a good working description of what I do,” Fallon said. “Evidently I have some expertise in being difficult. And stop calling me Mr. Jones. The name is Fallon, damn it. You didn’t start with the Mr. Jones thing until you went to work here. When you were pouring coffee for me at the Sunshine, it was Fallon.”
“All right.” Isabella paused a beat and then she smiled. “Fallon. Now, about my new case.”
As always her smile and her energy seemed to light up the whole office. He had been struggling to comprehend the para-physics involved, but thus far he’d gotten nowhere. In theory, a smile was merely a facial expression, the result of small changes in the position of tiny little muscles and nerves. It should not have the kind of power that Isabella wielded with her smile.
There was no scientific way to explain how her personal aura could create a sense of well-being for others in her vicinity, either; no logical reason why her force field helped him clarify and organize his thoughts.
“Your so-called case,” he said deliberately, “falls into the category of Lost Dogs and Haunted Houses. We try not to encourage that sort of business here at Jones & Jones. This happens to be a real investigation agency.”
“Norma Spaulding just wants us to check out that old house she’s trying to sell and declare it ghost-free.”
“There are no such things as ghosts.”
“I know that, you know that and so does Norma,” Isabella said patiently. “She doesn’t actually believe the place is haunted. She just wants to put the rumors to rest. She says the gossip about weird stuff going on at the house is killing sales. She thinks that getting a clean bill of health from a genuine psychic detective agency will take care of the problem.”
He lounged back in his chair and stacked his booted feet on the corner of his desk. The desk, like the glass-fronted bookcases and the Egyptian-motif wall sconces, had been among the furnishings of the Los Angeles office of Jones & Jones when it opened for business back in the 1920s. Before that the West Coast office of J&J had been located in San Francisco. Unlike the London office, the West Coast office had been moved a number of times since it was established in the late 1800s. The directors tended to be a restless lot.
In the 1960s Cedric Jones, one in a long line of Joneses to inherit the business, had moved the headquarters to Scargill Cove for a time. The office had been moved yet again twenty-five years ago when Gresham Jones had taken charge. Gresham’s wife, Alice, had flatly refused to live in the remote little village on the Northern California coast. At that point, J&J had returned to Los Angeles, where it operated out of Arcane Society headquarters.
But when Fallon had inherited the business, he had found Cedric’s notes about the Cove and the unique energy in the area. Intrigued, he had come to the little community to check out the location and discovered that Cedric was right. Something about the energy of the Cove suited the business. It also suited him, Fallon thought.
He had unlocked the door of J&J and walked into a room that had
been trapped in a time warp. Beneath three decades of dust, everything, right down to the desk and the wall sconces, was just as Gresham had left it when he had closed the office to move back to L.A.
In addition to the art deco furnishings, there was a scattering of other antiques reflecting the history of J&J. They included the Victorian-era clock on the desk, an old umbrella stand and a wrought iron coatrack. The only things Fallon had added were the computer and a new, industrial-sized coffee machine.
He contemplated his new assistant, trying for what had to be the millionth time to get a fix on the mystery that was Isabella Valdez.
Outside rain fell steadily. The Pacific Ocean was the color of tempered steel and the waves churned down in the Cove. But here in his small, second-floor office all was bright and relentlessly positive. Under other circumstances he would have found all the warm, cheerful energy irritating in the extreme, but for some reason things were different with Isabella.
She was sitting at the other desk, the new one that she had ordered from an online antiques reproduction store her first day on the job at J&J. It had taken two people—that would be the delivery guy and himself, he reflected—to muscle the heavy wooden Victorian-style desk and the chair that went with it up the narrow stairs to the second floor of the building. Isabella had supervised. He had to concede that she had a flair for organization.
But it wasn’t her office management skills that disturbed and intrigued him. It was the fact that she had no problems with his talent. She acted as if there were nothing unusual about his psychic nature. That made her unique in his considerable experience. The core of his talent involved an intuitive grasp of patterns within chaos. It was a messy, complicated ability that he himself did not understand. Others often found his ability unnerving.
Within the Arcane Society there had always been rumors about powerful chaos theory-talents, especially those that popped up now and again in the Jones line. He was well aware that there were those who whispered that he was doomed to fall deeper and deeper into a web of dark conspiracy constructs of his own making. Some speculated that there would come a time when he would no longer be able to distinguish the boundary between fantasy and reality: the classic definition of madness.
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