Sizzle and Burn

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Now, however, after learning what had happened to Houdini, it was clear that it would be wise to back off from the attempt to expand his range of psychic talents.

  The steel door opened. He stepped into the room and waited for the door to relock behind him.

  Three people were at work at the lab benches. They all looked up when he entered. One of them, Dr. Humphrey Hulsey, regarded him with pale, emotionless eyes. Hulsey was a tall, thin skeleton of a man, with spindly arms and legs. Nash thought the safety glasses he wore made him look like an oversized insect.

  “Well?” Hulsey demanded. “Did your operative get that information for me yet? I can’t proceed with the new experiments until I see the Tallentyre data. According to Quinn’s notes, it’s critical to stabilizing the formula.”

  Nash resisted the impulse to pick up a nearby microscope and smash it against Hulsey’s shiny skull. Hulsey was the only person in the building who dared to speak to him as if he were an employee rather than the CEO. Hulsey got away with it because he was a brilliant research chemist. He was also a level-eight intuitive with a psychic talent for analyzing patterns—the kind that were hidden at the molecular level.

  Hulsey was also the only other person on the staff who was a high-ranking member of the organization. The combination of his intellectual and paranormal abilities made him invaluable. Unfortunately he was all too well aware of his critical importance to the members of the Inner Circle.

  “No,” Nash said. “I’m here to talk about the latest version of the X9 that you prepared for me.”

  Thus far Hulsey’s greatest contribution to the ongoing research on the founder’s formula was a breakthrough that had made it possible to genetically tailor the drug to an individual’s specific psychic profile.

  “I just altered the drug for you again a few weeks ago.” Hulsey sounded disgusted. “What’s wrong now?”

  Nash moved closer to him and lowered his voice. His assistants had been cleared to the highest security levels but Nash made it a policy not to trust anyone any further than absolutely necessary.

  “The surges haven’t stopped,” he said quietly. “They’re coming more frequently.”

  Hulsey snorted. “Don’t blame the drug for your anger management issues. If you’ve got a problem with self-control, I suggest you take a close look at your own psych profile. You know the old saying it’s in the blood.”

  He turned back to his microscope.

  Nash managed, just barely, to clamp down on the tide of white-hot rage that threatened to consume him.

  “You will prepare a new batch,” he said, “without the additional enhancement capabilities. I want to return to the original version, the one that jacks up only my hunter talents. Do you understand, Dr. Hulsey?”

  Hulsey did not look up from his microscope. “Of course I understand. You can’t handle the other talents.”

  Nash forced himself to leave the lab without giving in to the urge to slit Hulsey’s throat.

  For the time being he needed Hulsey but eventually that would change. No one was irreplaceable, not even Dr. Humphrey Hulsey.

  Thirty

  Zack stopped on the sidewalk outside Incognito and studied the window displays. On the other side of the glass were two mannequins dressed in Victorian-era attire, an astronaut, a pirate and a familiar superhero. An array of elegant and fanciful masks dangled on long ribbons secured to the ceiling.

  “No offense,” he said to Raine, “but I would never have guessed there’s a large market for costumes except at Halloween.”

  “Halloween has become a major adult party night,” she said. “People spend small fortunes on their costumes.”

  He pushed open the door for her. “That’s just one day a year.”

  “Add to that the annual Oriana charity fund-raiser, which is traditionally an old-fashioned costume ball, a variety of kids’ parties during the year, several high-end private bashes and events, contracts with some regional theater groups and an online site and you’ve got a viable business.”

  He smiled. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.” He followed her into the shop. “Got to tell you, though, I find it hard to believe that anyone over the age of ten would want to put on a costume.”

  “Aunt Vella used to say that everyone wears a mask.”

  The sales floor of the shop was not large. It was dramatically decorated in vivid colors and lit with theatrical lighting. There were several more costumes on display, including a mannequin dressed in a tutu and one wearing an elaborate gown that reminded him vaguely of the big, ornate dresses worn by women in the eighteenth century.

  A series of paintings in sleek, modern frames hung on the walls. Each one featured a haunting image of a mask.

  “Aunt Vella did them,” Raine said. “Painting was one of the few things that calmed her. She could lose herself in a picture for hours and days at a time. I could only hang so many of them here in the shop. Most are stored in the Shelbyville house.”

  “You don’t have any hanging in your condo.”

  She gave him an enigmatic look. “Would you want any of those masks on your walls at home?”

  He studied the nearest painting. He was a good three feet away from it but he could sense the faint, disturbing energy.

  “No,” he said.

  “Luckily most of my customers don’t notice the bad vibes,” she said quietly. “People think the pictures are fascinating. I’ve had several offers for them.”

  “Ever sold any?”

  “No,” Raine said. “They’re all I have left of Aunt Vella.”

  There was a sales counter to the right and an opening draped in red velvet set in the far wall.

  “Is that you, Raine?” a voice called from the other side of the crimson curtain. “I was just about to call you.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” Raine said. “Things got complicated this morning.”

  The velvet curtains parted. A short, round woman in her early twenties appeared. She looked as if she had just walked out of a vampire film.

  “This is Pandora, my assistant,” Raine said. “Pandora, Zack Jones.”

  “How do you do,” Zack said. “I didn’t catch your last name.”

  “I don’t use one,” Pandora said, eyes slitting in a not-so-subtle warning.

  “Right,” he said. “That explains it.”

  He managed, just barely, not to smile.

  Pandora was dressed in a long, flowing black gown with wide sleeves. Massive platform shoes with five-inch heels graced her feet. A heavy necklace decorated with an odd design wrought in some silvery metal hung around her neck.

  Her artificially black hair was parted in the middle and fell halfway down her back. Pale makeup gave a ghostly pallor to her skin. Dark lipstick and elaborately painted eyes provided a startling contrast. Small rings and studs gleamed in her nose, ears, brows and lips.

  Pandora looked at Raine, expressionless. “New boyfriend?”

  To Zack’s amazement, Raine blushed.

  “No,” Raine said quickly. “New, uh, acquaintance.”

  Zack looked at her. She turned even pinker and hastily cleared her throat.

  “Like I said, my life has become somewhat complicated lately,” she added smoothly. “Zack wanted to see the shop and meet you. He’s going to hang out here with us today.”

  “Why?” Pandora asked, still suspicious.

  Raine made a face. “Because the Bonfire Killer has decided I’m his nemesis. Zack is playing bodyguard for a while.”

  Pandora was horrified. “That freak has targeted you?”

  “Looks that way,” Raine said.

  “Damn it, I was afraid this would happen someday. Didn’t I tell you that getting involved in all those cold cases would come back to haunt you?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Where did you find him?” Pandora angled her head at Zack. “You don’t know any professional bodyguards.”

  “Zack is sort of an investigator,” Raine said.

 
; Zack smiled. “Actually I’m a real investigator.”

  Pandora crossed her arms and looked disgusted. “Not another guy in law enforcement. Thought you learned your lesson with Mitchell.”

  Raine frowned. “I told you, Zack is not a boyfriend.”

  Zack looked at Pandora. “I don’t worry about enforcing laws. I just ask questions and try to get answers.”

  “Yeah?” Pandora did not appear convinced but she shrugged a plump shoulder.

  “Mind if I take a look around the back room?” Zack said to Raine.

  “No.” She went toward the velvet curtain. “Follow me.”

  Pandora gave Zack one last, suspicious glare and then went behind the counter and sat down in front of the computer.

  “By the way, Marie Antoinette called,” she said over her shoulder to Raine. “She rescheduled her fitting for Thursday.”

  “No problem,” Raine said, moving through the curtain.

  Zack followed her. “Marie Antoinette?”

  “Joanne Escott, the mayor of our fair town. She’s getting a costume from us for the annual charity ball I mentioned. She doesn’t know quite how to deal with Pandora so I make it a point to be here when she comes in for her fittings.”

  “Why the Marie Antoinette name?”

  “This year Joanne wanted to wear an elaborate eighteenth-century gown, complete with the big, powdered wig like the costume out front. I told her she’d look like Marie Antoinette and that was probably not the image she wanted to project as mayor. She was very determined. I finally pointed out that if she wore the costume, her critics at the Oriana Journal wouldn’t be able to resist printing a picture of her at the ball with a let ’em eat cake caption.”

  “I assume that observation made her change her mind?”

  “Yes, but unfortunately, I don’t think her second choice was particularly wise, either. Couldn’t talk her out of it, though. She’s going as Cleopatra.”

  “With or without an asp?”

  “Oh, she’ll have one. We here at Incognito pride ourselves on attention to detail. Wouldn’t dream of letting our mayor attend the ball in a half-asped costume.”

  He laughed.

  “Here it is.” She waved an arm. “Our back room.”

  He walked slowly around the space, opening his senses. There was a dressing room and a three-way mirror to his left. The rest of the room was filled with a number of long, rolling carts outfitted with hanging rods. He estimated that there were a couple dozen costumes on each cart. A wide variety of elaborate masks were displayed on several rows of plastic heads arranged on shelves.

  “You keep quite an inventory,” he said.

  “This is a busy time of year for us.”

  “Do you design all of these yourself?”

  “Just some of the creative sketches and ideas. Pandora is the genius when it comes to costume design. When Aunt Vella was alive she did a lot of the masks.”

  He went down an aisle between two of the long costume display carts, picking up nothing but the usual dull static.

  “No hot spots,” he said.

  “Well, that’s good news.”

  He glanced at the door at the back of the room. “I assume that leads out into the alley?”

  “Yes. We keep it locked at all times. There’s a good, solid bolt on the door and an alarm. I’m very aware of the fact that Pandora and I are here alone a lot. We don’t take chances.”

  He nodded, then went to the door and checked it, making sure.

  When he was satisfied they went back out into the front room of the shop. Pandora was hunched over the computer, typing swiftly.

  “Another twenty orders for the new corsets,” she said to Raine, her attention on the screen. “Told you they were going to be hot.”

  Zack glanced at the screen and saw a tight, black vinyl corset. It was displayed with a pair of stiletto-heeled boots and an Egyptian style ankh necklace.

  He looked at Raine. “The online business you mentioned?”

  Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “You know, until I met Pandora I had no idea that the neo-goth market was so huge.”

  Thirty-one

  The interior of the Alley Door was a midnight-dark cave studded with the fragile lights of tiny candles placed on the tables. The lone guitarist on stage was singing about the delights of illicit sex. As far as Raine could tell the entire song was based on a series of metaphors, all of which appeared to be related to shopping in a candy store.

  She toyed with the swizzle stick in her sparkling-water-and-lime drink, impatient for the musician to take a break so she could talk to Zack. Out of respect for the performer, no one in the audience was conversing except occasionally and in very low tones with the wait staff.

  Zack seemed absorbed by the music. He lounged in the booth beside her, one hand wrapped around his glass of sparkling water. He was so close that he was touching her at shoulder and thigh, so close that she was stirred by his scent. On the psychic level she was intensely aware of little frissons of excitement.

  She reminded herself that they were both here to work, hence the sparkling waters. That fact, however, had not prevented her from taking a lot of time with her wardrobe selection for the evening. She had never been to a jazz club but she was fairly certain she would be safe with black. The dress she had decided to wear did not qualify as working attire by any stretch of the imagination. It was very sleek-fitting and featured a top that was cut lower than anything else she owned. Somehow it managed to look both elegant and outrageously sexy. She would never have bought it if Gordon hadn’t been with her at the time. He insisted that the dress had her name on it. She had intended to wear it on her first real date with Bradley.

  Zack’s reaction to the dress had been very rewarding.

  “That definitely works,” he’d said when she walked into the living room wearing very high heels and clutching a little purse in one hand.

  It wasn’t the words that had made her blood zing. It was the heat in his eyes. She’d never seen that look in any other man’s eyes. It fired up her own temperature.

  The guitarist finally finished his song about a trip to the candy store and announced that he was taking a break. The sound system was switched on. Recorded music and the buzz of conversation filled the room.

  “What happens now?” she said.

  Zack straightened in the seat. “Now I do a little detecting.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to wander over to the bar and have a little chat with the bartender.”

  “Why?”

  “I did some checking earlier. The night that Quinn was here, there was a sell-out crowd. I’m guessing that the tables and booths would have been reserved for two or more people. If Quinn came here alone, there’s a good possibility he sat at the bar.”

  “Got it,” she said. “You’re hoping the bartender remembers him.”

  “Worth a shot. Be back in a few minutes.”

  He slid out of the booth and paused.

  “That really is a great dress,” he said.

  She realized that he was looking down the front of it.

  “Better go talk to the bartender,” she said.

  “Right. The bartender. Now if I could just remember what it was I wanted to talk to him about—”

  She smiled. “Focus, Jones.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She watched him make his way through the maze of tables, aware of a fizzy sensation. Most women her age had acquired some experience with the flirting game but it was all new and exciting to her. She had never practiced the fine art with any degree of success because she had dreaded the inevitable result. She had always felt deeply uneasy sending out the subtle signals women used to attract a man when she knew that, in the end, she would never be able to allow herself to get emotionally close. To do that she would have had to explain about the voices. Telling a guy you heard voices had a chilling effect on a relationship.

  But that wasn’t true with Zack.

  She lo
st sight of him and settled back into the booth to sip her drink. The noise level was fairly high now. People talked and chattered, pitching their voices above the background music. Others came and went from the hallway that led to the restrooms.

  A short time later Zack returned. When he slid back into the booth she sensed at once that he was no longer in a flirting mood.

  “The bartender remembers him, all right,” he said. “Quinn had a laptop that he held on to as if it were pure gold. He ordered a beer and paid for it in cash. Then he ordered a second. Figuring he was good for it, the bartender let him start a tab. After the third beer Quinn went to the restroom and never returned.”

  “You mean Quinn ran out on his bar bill?”

  “That’s the way the bartender interpreted events. Quinn didn’t pay for the beers. Didn’t leave a tip. Just went to the restroom and never came back.”

  She realized that Zack was studying the opening that led to the restrooms.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking that, according to Fallon, the trail Quinn left stops very abruptly in Oriana. Maybe it came to an end right here in the Alley Door.”

  “You think Quinn might have been kidnapped out of this club?”

  “All we know for sure at this point is that he was here on the evening of the twentieth. After that, he vanishes.”

  She could feel the energy shimmering around Zack. It was the same kind of dangerous aura she had sensed emanating from him the night before, when he showed up at her door fresh from combat.