Love on the Run

by Katharine Kerr

  WHEN I SAID THAT SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL ME THAT NIGHT,

  I didn’t mean the shooting incident.

  We left Aunt Eileen’s with Ari at the wheel and drove down Silver Avenue to Alemany, where he cut off three drivers in fast traffic and swerved violently into the left lane. In a blare of horns we turned off onto a side street. Eventually, we reached O’Shaughnessy. This particularly long street runs along the edge of a shallow valley called, with a profound lack of imagination, O’Shaughnessy Hollow. A steep drop-off falls down to high grass studded with nasty looking rocks, on your right if you’re traveling uphill, which we were.

  Ari had just swerved around another car when I saw a truck barreling toward us in the wrong lane, our lane.

  I screamed before I could choke it back. Between perception and rational thought lies a dangerous interval. Ari kept going at top speed and drove right through the false image.

  “What did you see?” he remarked. “Something ghastly, I suppose.”

  “A semi in the wrong lane.” My pounding heart began to slow down. “Sorry about the shrieking.”

  Ari laid on the horn and swung around a white sedan that was traveling too slowly for his taste. My heart sped up again, especially when I looked into the rearview mirror and saw a police car, lights flashing, trying to pull us over. I said nothing. It vanished. What would have happened, I wondered, if I’d been driving and stopped? Who might have appeared for real to work a little mayhem?

  A third illusion followed later. We’d turned onto Sloat Boulevard out in the avenues when I saw flashing lights, flares, and what appeared to be a six-car pileup ahead.

  “Do you see that accident?” I said to Ari.

  “No. Is there one?”

  “Not if you can’t see it.”

  He drove straight on and passed right through the shadowy cars and flares.

  Available from DAW Books:

  The Nola O’Grady Novels:

  LICENSE TO ENSORCELL

  WATER TO BURN

  APOCALYPSE TO GO

  LOVE ON THE RUN

  Katharine Kerr’s

  Novels of Deverry,

  The Silver Wyrm Cycle:

  THE GOLD FALCON (#1)

  THE SPIRIT STONE (#2)

  THE SHADOW ISLE (#3)

  THE SILVER MAGE (#4)

  KATHARINE KERR

  LOVE ON THE RUN

  A NOLA O’GRADY NOVEL

  Copyright © 2012 by Katharine Kerr.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Aleta Rafton.

  Cover design by G-Force Design.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1598.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Nearly all the designs and trade names in this book are registered trademarks. All that are still in commercial use are protected by United States and international trademark law.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Agency Talents and Acronyms

  Deviant Worlds

  For my three nieces

  Rebecca, Katherine, & Rhiannon.

  Amazing women, all of them!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to all the friends who helped make this a better book! Alis, Darcy, Megan, Jo, Jan, Trevor, Madeleine, Berry, Karen, and Cliff—I very much appreciate all your feedback.

  CHAPTER 1

  ON THE SUNDAY that my boyfriend and I announced our engagement, some unromantic soul tried to kill me.

  When my aunt, Eileen O’Brien Houlihan, found out that Ari had bought me a ring, she insisted on throwing a party at her house in San Francisco’s Excelsior district. In my family, a party means food, in this case a backyard barbeque and a double-length picnic table buffet. I’m one of seven kids, and so’s my aunt, so you can imagine how many people showed up. By nightfall, most of the family—now overstuffed—had drifted off homeward. My older sister Maureen and I stayed to catch up on gossip. I hadn’t seen her in almost two years.

  By the light of a string of tasseled paper lanterns, I was giving her a close look at the gold-and-sapphire engagement ring when I heard a bang. Something whizzed past me like a very fast bee or very large mosquito. On the buffet table the crystal punch bowl exploded.

  “Down!” my fiancé yelled. “Everybody!”

  The female relatives screamed. I grabbed Maureen and pulled her to the grassy ground just as a second shot whined over us. Ari dodged behind the thick, gnarled trunk of the ancient apple tree and drew his Beretta from its shoulder holster.

  “Police!” he called out. “Drop your weapon and come forward!”

  I heard rustling in the neighbor’s shrubbery. A light went on in their window. Ari fired a shot into the ground. A man yelped in fear. The neighbor woman shrieked. More rustling, then running footsteps—at the sound Ari left shelter and raced down the length of the fence, yelling, “Police! Stop!” all the way until he fetched up against the locked gate in the tall safety fence.

  Ari swore in Hebrew and tried to shove the gate open. Whoever it was kept running. A motorcycle revved up and sped away. I ran a fast Search Mode: Danger.

  “He’s gone,” I called out.

  There are times when being a psychic in a family of psychics has its rewards. Everyone believed me. They all began talking at once, more outraged than frightened. Ari strode over to join me.

  “Nola,” Ari said, “take everyone into the house. The sodding bastard might come back.” He learned his English in London, and he sounds middle-class British. In case you haven’t guessed, he’s also a police officer—with Interpol to be precise. I got up and helped a trembling Maureen to her feet. Maureen’s two children, Brennan and Caitlin, rushed over. She gathered them into her maternal grasp. Brennan, just turned seven, squirmed out of it again.

  “Aunt Nola?” Brennan said. “Were those real bullets?”

  “Sure were,” I said.

  “I bet it was Chuck,” Caitlin, the nine-year-old, said. “He’s a creep.”

  Chuck was Maureen’s ex-boyfriend, a drug dealer, and, I’m glad to say, not the children’s father.

  “We don’t know it was him,” Maureen’s voice shook. “I hope not.”

  “Let’s all go inside.” I spoke as firmly and calmly as I could. “Everyone, stay away from the windows.”

  Between us, Ari and I managed to herd the relatives inside. Uncle Jim had already called 911 on his cell phone, but Ari put in a separate call to the police in his official capacity. After Aunt Eileen closed all the drapes in the living room, Maureen distracted the kids by turning on the
TV. The teenagers who lived with the Houlihans—their son Brian, my brother Michael, and his girlfriend, Sophie—joined them. Maureen stayed with the kids while the remaining adults—Ari, Aunt Eileen, Uncle Jim, and I—huddled in the kitchen. Uncle Jim went straight to the counter by the sink and poured himself a juice glass full of whiskey. The rest of us sat down at the round maple table.

  “I suppose this has something to do with that lousy job of yours.” Uncle Jim saluted me with his glass.

  “Probably,” I said. “Being a federal agent does have a few drawbacks.”

  My name is Nola O’Grady. I work for a government agency so secret that you won’t find it listed on any Web site or Washington directory. Two State Department officials act as our liaison to the security apparatus as a whole. The CIA, the FBI—they’d never accept as real the threats we agents battle with our various psychic talents. The forces of unbridled Chaos threaten our civilization, just as the masters of Chaos threaten civilizations throughout the multiverse. My agency’s job: stop them wherever we find them.

  I’m the head of the San Francisco bureau, the Apocalypse Squad, as they refer to us back in DC. Ari Nathan, my fiancé, is technically my bodyguard and officially an Interpol officer, but he’s also an Israeli national who works for a mysterious agency of his own. This makes him a seconded officer, as Interpol calls them. Besides Ari, I have several full-time operatives on staff and one part-timer, my younger brother Michael. For complex reasons, my entire family carries the genes for a variety of psychic talent. Most know how to use them. The Agency would love to hire more of my relatives, but I’d prefer that they stayed away from danger. Obviously, considering the end of my engagement party, danger often comes to us.

  Uncle Jim had barely sipped from his glass of whiskey when we heard sirens blaring up the hill. As the squad cars squealed to a stop out on the street, Ari got up and ran into the living room to open the front door. I hurried down the long, oddly angled hallway after him. Ari stepped out onto the front porch to meet the officers. The crowd in front of the TV looked up.

  “That had better go off,” I said. “Sorry, kids. How about going upstairs?”

  My brother Michael stood up. “Come on,” he said to the children. “You can play a game on my computer.”

  The kids made a rush for the staircase. The three teens followed more slowly. Maureen turned off the TV and gave Michael a grin of thanks as he walked by. She and I stayed downstairs to talk with the police. I could hear Ari explaining the situation out on the front porch. Eventually, he came back inside, followed by two beefy officers. They paused just inside the door and looked around the long white living room. I noticed that the Hispanic guy had a quick smile for the portrait that hung on the wall down at one end of the room: my uncle, Father Keith O’Brien, in his Franciscan robes. The white guy was more interested in sizing up me and Maureen.

  “The second pair of officers are going next door,” Ari told me. “And Sanchez is on his way. The department called him at home.”

  “Poor guy!” I turned to Maureen. “Detective-Lieutenant Sanchez of Homicide. We’ve worked with him before.”

  The two cops followed Ari back down the hall and outside to look over “the scene,” as they called it. I heard Uncle Jim’s voice bellowing, then fading—I could guess that he went out with them. Aunt Eileen came into the living room to join us. She’d taken off her party shoes and put on her favorite pink bunny slippers. Somehow, they went with her black toreador capris and vintage Fifties pink blouse.

  As usual, the family gathered at the end of the room that housed some comfortable chairs, the TV, and scatter rugs to keep snacks off the white carpet. At the other end, an orangey-gold brocade sectional sofa stood under the portrait of Father Keith. I’d never seen anyone sit on its shiny-clean upholstery.

  “I’m so glad no one was hurt.” Aunt Eileen paused to tuck a lock of her gray hair behind one ear. “It’s a good thing we’d already cleared off most of the food. There were bits of glass flying everywhere, and I’ll have to throw the rest of the fruit salad out, just in case some of the splinters ended up there. Once the police are done, of course.”

  “Yeah,” Maureen put in. “They won’t want anything touched.”

  Aunt Eileen nodded her agreement. “I’ll admit to being sick about losing that Waterford punch bowl. I was planning on giving it to you, Nola, when the wedding comes round.”

  I arranged a solemn expression. I had no intention of ever marrying Ari or anyone else, for that matter. In my line of work, it’s best to avoid legal entanglements, especially with foreign nationals. Ari knew how I felt. We’d staged our so-called engagement to keep the unlapsed Catholic members of my family from nagging us about our living together. At least, I hoped that Ari wasn’t secretly plotting marriage. I glanced at my left hand and the ring, a simple gold band set with a marquise-cut sapphire that must have cost him several thousand bucks, judging from its size.

  “It’s such a deep blue,” Maureen said wistfully. “Really lovely.”

  “Have you thought about the date yet?” Eileen said. “For the wedding, I mean.”

  I was saved from answering by my cellphone, which rang in my shirt pocket.

  “That’ll be Dad.” I took the phone out.

  “Yeah,” Maureen said. “It’s him.”

  I clicked the phone on and answered.

  “What’s going on over there?” Dad said. “I picked up something dangerous.”

  We call this “mental overlap” in the family.

  “Someone took a shot at either me or Maureen,” I said. “Out in the backyard.”

  “That bastard ex-boyfriend of hers, I bet. I’ll be right over.”

  “You don’t want to. The house is crawling with cops.”

  I heard him sigh. Since he’d gotten out of prison only a few weeks previously, being around police officers other than Ari gave him the creeps.

  “But if you need me,” Dad went on, “I can manage.”

  “No, it’s okay, really. Ari’s got everything under control.”

  Dad snorted, but it was a pleasant snort. “He usually does. All right, then, darling. But call me later and let your mother and me know what happened. I’ll want to know that you’re all safe.”

  Dad’s comment about Maureen’s unpleasant ex reinforced what Caitlin had said earlier. The problem was that Maureen and I look a lot alike. Pretty much everyone in my family shares a look: black hair with a slight wave, dark blue eyes, the typical tilted Irish nose, thin lips, and decent cheekbones. I’m something of an exception in that my eyes are hazel; witch eyes, we call them. While none of us are particularly short, none of us are particularly tall, either. Maureen and I had been standing together under a Japanese lantern lit by a white Christmas tree bulb, that is, in poor light. As far as I could tell, the bullets had passed between us. The shooter could have been aiming at either of us.

  Ari had reached the same conclusion, it turned out, when he and the two patrol officers returned to the living room. I got a good look at their name tags when they walked over to study the family group.

  “You’re right,” Officer Ruiz said to Ari. “They do look like twins, not just sisters.”

  Officer Owens nodded his agreement. “Miss O’Grady,” he said to Maureen. “Your current companion is named Chuck Trasker. Correct?”

  “No,” she snapped. “That’s his name, but I don’t have anything to do with him anymore. I broke up with him two weeks ago now.”

  “That’s what Inspector Nathan told us. Just confirming it,” Owens said. “And you and your children are living with your parents?”

  “Until I find a new job, yes. It’s too far to commute to the old one.”

  If you’ve watched them on TV, you’ll think that police investigations are interesting, maybe even thrilling. Well, no. The two patrol officers asked me and Maureen questions. The cops from the second squad car finished with the neighbors and came inside to stand around and listen. Aunt Eileen went into the kitchen
, then returned. The Forensics team arrived, and everyone official, including Ari, trooped out back again. Maureen took the chance to run upstairs and check on the kids.

  “Where’s Uncle Jim?” I asked Aunt Eileen.

  “In his study. There’s a baseball game on TV.”

  “Good. Keeps him out of trouble.” I paused, listening. “Someone’s coming up the front steps.”

  The someone turned out to be Lieutenant Sanchez of the Homicide squad. A tall man, with dark eyes that reminded me of birds of prey, he had a bristling mustache and thick black hair. He was wearing his trademark navy blue suit.

  “No one’s been killed,” I said. “I’m surprised they bothered you at home.”

  “Let’s not play games, O’Grady,” Sanchez said. “You know why I’m here.”

  I did. Sanchez knew I worked for a government agency. He merely didn’t know which one. I have ID from a well-known bureau that I can show around as necessary. While I don’t belong to them, the ID’s not exactly fake, because they know I have it. Sanchez disliked the idea of seeing a federal agent murdered in his territory. It would definitely have made the San Francisco police look bad.

  “Where’s Nathan?” Sanchez continued.

  “Out in back with Forensics. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  I took Sanchez out back to the scene. Someone, probably Aunt Eileen, had turned on the back porch light to supplement the Japanese lanterns. A member of the Forensics team stood on the far side of the picnic table and directed the beam of a powerful police-issue flashlight onto the shards of the crystal punch bowl while an investigator picked through the ruins. Sanchez trotted over to talk with the team leader. Ari left the group and came over to stand next to me.

  “They find anything?” I said.

  “The bullets. The second shot lodged in the fence. They’re photographing everything to get some idea of the angle of incidence.”

  “What about the neighbor? The one who turned on the light and screamed. Did she have anything to add?”