Dangerous Tides

by Christine Feehan

  Is it Edward Martinelli?

  I can't tell. I don't want to be away from you and Hannah is uneasy as well. I need to talk to Sarah to see if she's picked up anything evil lurking in the shadows around you.

  When I was in the hospital, before I began to heal Ty, did you feel it then?

  Elle looked confused, close to tears. I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know.

  For just one moment, Elle's mind was open to Libby and she caught a glimpse of the terrible burden her youngest sister had to bear. The continual bombardment of thoughts, of emotions, the awareness of people around her, especially her sisters and their private hopes and fears. Elle knew their secrets and she fought to keep their privacy. Libby felt the oppressive burden of all those secrets and the tremendous power always running through Elle's body, the feeling that she must keep everyone safe.

  She hugged Elle close to her, deliberately allowed her hands to run up and down her sister's arms, the warmth opening deep inside her so that Libby could ease Elle's suffering. I'm safe tonight, baby. Thank you for loving me so much.

  Elle blinked back tears and looked around her, startled to see Mason Fredrickson and a waiter and Tyson so close.

  They were forming a wall with their bodies, blocking off the Drake sisters from prying eyes.

  "You okay?" Tyson asked, reaching for Libby's hand. "You look pale." He drew her hand to his shoulder.

  "Yes, I'm fine. I'm sorry to put you in that position. Martinelli must be desperate to send men with guns to intimidate me into talking with him. Do you really know him?"

  "Yes. I know him and this just doesn't sound at all like him. Whoever this John Sandoval is, he isn't associated with Ed. I'll call Ed and let him know what's going on," Ty said.

  "I hope you're right," Libby replied. She turned her attention to Mason Fredrickson, a man her older sisters had gone through school with. "Thank you, Mason. It was courageous of you to back Jackson."

  "I was having dinner with Sylvia and she realized you were in trouble. She could tell by your expression. I'm reserve with the sheriff and so is Mike Dangerfield, so we just kept an eye on things. I'll catch you all later." He sauntered across the room back to the small intimate table in a darker corner of the restaurant.

  Elle and Libby exchanged a quick glance. Are they getting back together? Elle sent the question to her sister.

  Libby shrugged. She hoped so. Mason had been good for Sylvia and in spite of the fact that she'd had an affair, Sylvia obviously loved him and had helped save her ex-husband's life when someone had tried to kill him. Deliberately Libby peeked around Tyson's larger frame and waved to Sylvia, mouthing a thank-you.

  Sylvia beamed, waving back. Elle added her small smile to Libby's larger one and lifted a tentative hand in response. "I guess I'd better be going."

  Libby caught her sister by the arm and held on. "Have dessert with us." She didn't want to face Tyson's questions, or his judgment on the things her family could do. He'd seen the brief argument between the sisters and their magic. Elle had backed off, but she had resisted at first, her fear for Libby overcoming her inhibitions of using their talents in public.

  Elle shook her head. She was trembling. "I think I need to go home and lie down." She rubbed her temples. "I've been getting those headaches again, Libby."

  "I'll come with you," Libby said instantly. She smiled up at Tyson. "Thank you for such a wonderful evening. I had fun right up until Sandoval and his henchmen joined us."

  "I don't know, that was kind of fun, too," Ty said with a faint grin. "Didn't you come with the sheriff? I'm Tyson Derrick, by the way. You're Elle?"

  "The deputy," Elle corrected. "And yes, I was running here and he picked me up. Nice to meet you. I'm sorry for horning in on your date."

  "I was getting myself into trouble anyway," Ty admitted. "I annoy Libby on so many levels."

  "Not all of them, obviously," Elle said, brushing back Libby's hair from her neck.

  Libby made a face at Elle. "Don't start, Elle. Hannah and Sarah and Kate were relentless. Elle's the baby of the family," she added for Tyson's sake.

  "Come on. I'll take you both home." His hand went to Libby's back, his palm blazing hot through her thin blouse.

  Suddenly she was very nervous. His tone was back, that sensual, husky voice, deep enough to vibrate right through her body and wreak havoc on her brain. Elle would know. Libby blushed, unable to prevent the color sweeping up her body.

  Elle nudged her. Jackson does that to me. I hate it.

  He does? That was a shocking revelation. And it had to cost Elle dearly to admit it, but she was fair. If she knew Libby's private secrets, she'd reveal her own in turn.

  Sadly, yes. I stay away from him.

  I should be staying away from Ty. If he'd keep his mouth closed and just let me look, everything would be wonderful, Libby admitted.

  "What are you two doing?" Ty asked, as he escorted them from the restaurant.

  Libby winked at Elle. "Elle's telepathic. We were talking about you."

  He halted just outside the door, frowning, but regarding the two of them as if they were alien specimens under a microscope. "You're not serious, are you?"

  "Absolutely. Would you like Elle to talk to you?"

  Tyson bit back his first reaction. Libby was pretty shaken up. There was no point in talking to her about living in the real world--not yet. "No." He let the door close behind them and made his way to the car. "I'll pass."

  He opened the door for Elle to climb into the backseat and stepped in front of Libby, preventing her from entering his car. His thighs pressed close and his body heat enveloped her. "On the other hand, at least you were discussing me. If you're talking telepathically about me, it has to be something really good." His voice had dropped another octave, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine.

  How did he do that? She wasn't a sexual creature, she'd always known it and accepted it. Joley oozed sex. Hannah took men's breath away. Elle could stop traffic. Her other sisters could step into a bar and every head would turn--but not Libby. She just wasn't like that. She didn't think or feel sexually. Men were colleagues and she was busy, too busy to try to tame her wild hair and put on makeup and pretend she had breasts. But every single time she looked at Tyson Derrick she melted, grew hot and had extraordinary erotic fantasies. She felt sexy even with her raccoon mask eyes, her burnt nose and wild hairdo. He could make a goat feel sexy.

  For heaven's sake, Libby, I can't keep a straight face. A goat?

  Libby burst out laughing. Stop reading my mind!

  You're broadcasting loud enough for the entire town to hear you. Elle definitely snickered.

  Tyson wrapped his arms around Libby and drew her against him, distracting her. He looked down at her with his blue eyes and his sexy sinful lips and she was fixating before she could stop herself, staring at his mouth, imagining the feel, the taste.

  "You shouldn't look at me like that, Libby," he cautioned, bending his head to hers until they were a breath apart.

  She grew weak-kneed staring into his eyes but she couldn't look away. She couldn't remember why she was so determined to keep a distance from him. She felt him wince when he drew her close and almost of its own volition, her hand came up and with slow deliberation pressed against his sternum, and once again slid down to his cracked ribs. Heat spread between them.

  His lips brushed over hers, feather-light, taking the oxygen from the air. Her heart leapt and began to pound.

  Libby! Elle leaned into the front seat and hit the horn hard. The sound blasted Libby and Tyson apart. Elle glared at them through the window. "You're fogging up the windows."

  Ty rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We're not in the car. Technically, that's impossible."

  "Not really," Libby muttered and pulled open the door. "Sorry, Elle."

  7

  "LIBBY Katherine Drake, you little hussy." Sarah Drake regarded her younger sister with a stern eye. "You stood out on the porch kissing that man for half an hour. Y
ou have whisker burn to go with the Rudolph nose."

  "Elle left me alone with him," Libby said. "It's her fault. She knew I had a weakness for him and she just went into the house and left me there. I deny all responsibility."

  Elle made a rude noise and took a cookie as the platter floated past her. "She's so bad she was practically tearing his clothes off on the sidewalk outside the restaurant in front of the world."

  Hannah flung herself onto the floor, stretching out her long legs and smirking. "Libby has fallen."

  "I have not," Libby insisted. "I don't like him. It's pure sexual attraction and nothing else. He's just so hot and I can't resist. I'm using him for sex and throwing him away afterward."

  Laughter filled the room. "Right, Libby," Kate agreed. "You do that. It's so your personality."

  "It is my personality. I'm the love-them-and-leave-them type."

  Another round of laughter went up. "You go girl," Abigail encouraged her. "We're all behind you one hundred percent."

  "Well, I'm not going to see him again," Libby said, the smile fading from her face. "It was great, you know, while it lasted, but . . ." she trailed off with a small shrug.

  "Why?" Sarah asked abruptly. "It's obvious you do like him."

  "Is it?" Libby blew on her tea, frowning. She couldn't very easily tell her sisters Tyson didn't like her family. "He confuses me. I don't trust such a strong attraction. I'm not like that. It actually bothers me that I can't seem to think straight when he's around. And I feel silly. He held my hand and my heart started pounding like I was a teenager or something. It's all too bizarre for me."

  "Before we deal with you being chicken of the century," Sarah broke in, "I think we need to address the fact that someone is threatening you."

  Libby looked around at her sisters. They were all in the room, even Joley, although she'd just performed in a show the night before in front of thirty thousand people. Joley lay sprawled out on the floor as she often did, her fingertips tapping a rhythm on the throw rug and her head bobbing to some internal song, but her mind was clearly on Sarah's words.

  "It doesn't make sense that this Ed Martinelli would want to hurt Libby when he needs her to help his sick child. Maybe he's trying to scare her?" Joley guessed.

  Sarah nodded. "I was wondering the same thing. If it's so important that he speak with Libby about his child, what good will it do him if she's dead? Which is probably why Martinelli's henchmen threw out Hannah's name."

  "Unless he's a complete moron," Abigail agreed. "Which is certainly within the realm of possibility."

  "It doesn't feel like a threat to me," Hannah said. Her hands moved in a complicated, graceful pattern over Libby.

  Small symbols leapt in the air and vanished as if they'd never been there. She shook her head. "I definitely think Libby's in danger, but I can't understand why I can't get any direction." She glanced at her youngest sister. "Elle, what do you think?"

  "I'm running into the same problem as you've had. I feel a menace surrounding her, but I can't pinpoint it. I can't see it at all."

  The sisters all looked to Sarah. She shook her head slowly. "I can't get anything either. One moment I feel the danger to Libby and then it's gone."

  "We can ask Mom and Aunt Carol," Elle pointed out. "Maybe one of them can pick up on it."

  "If they haven't already," Joley said. "Mom's called twice to make certain everything's all right. I told her Libby was turning into a hussy and she'd be horrified to learn I am now the 'good' Drake sister." She winked at Elle and Hannah. "The two of you can never be the good one because you both have such bad tempers."

  A collective groan went up. "As if you don't." Elle sniffed. "If it's possible, you're worse than I am. And Hannah is, too. She just looks angelic."

  "So true," Hannah agreed.

  "Mom will never believe you're the good one, Joley. She reads the magazines. I even cut out articles and send them to her just to make certain she sees them," Sarah said.

  "Thanks a lot." Joley grinned at her sisters, completely happy with her wild reputation. "I told Mom to relax, we could handle it, but now I'm not so sure. Has anyone tried looking in the mosaic?"

  They all looked down at the beautiful masterpiece on the floor of the entryway into their home. It had been made a couple of generations earlier by seven sisters in the Drake family. In addition to being a work of art, the mosaic was an invaluable tool to them for scrying.

  "Let's try then," Sarah said.

  "Why haven't we heard from Jonas?" Hannah asked as they all sat on the floor surrounding the large mosaic.

  "Shouldn't he be telling us about this man who threatened Libby tonight? He's had plenty of time to intimidate the guy. He does intimidation so well." She glanced up at the clock, uneasiness in her eyes.

  "He's had plenty of practice on us," Abbey pointed out.

  "Jonas isn't working tonight," Elle said. "Jackson said he went to see his friend Brannigan in Willits."

  JONAS Harrington pulled his Jeep Wrangler up to the stop sign at the junction of Highway One. The drive from Willits had gone much faster than usual with so little traffic late at night. He'd put his favorite Joley Drake CD into the player and cranked up the volume, although he'd never admit to singing while he drove. Jim Brannigan had called him earlier in the evening and asked him to drop by the forestry heliport. Jonas stayed longer than he intended before heading for Sea Haven and home.

  Brannigan admitted he was worried about the harness Tyson Derrick had worn on the day of the cliff rescue. The safety harness had been cut off of Tyson and taken back to the fire station for examination. Brannigan didn't like the look of it and wanted Jonas to have the laboratory check it out. The harness was in an evidence bag in the front seat beside him. Brannigan had convinced him there was no way the harness could have torn, but the material looked as if it had been eaten through. If it was defective, the helicopter crew needed to know as soon as possible. Jonas promised to overnight the harness to the lab.

  Jonas frowned as he turned onto the coastal highway, his mind replaying everything Brannigan had said. If the harness hadn't been defective, why had it failed? He accelerated on the straight away, the only car on the deserted highway. Without warning a bottle flew out of the trees and landed in the middle of Jonas's lane, exploding on impact and hurling flames into the air.

  Jonas slammed on the brakes, and the Jeep skidded across the road. Bullets burst through the windshield. He yanked on the wheel in an attempt to use the passenger side of the Jeep as a shield. Tires screamed as he slid sideways, fighting for control of his Wrangler. More bullets tore through the door of the Jeep and slammed into his body, driving him against the driver side door.

  It wasn't the first time he'd been shot, but he'd forgotten the intensity of pain, the feel of a bullet tearing through his flesh and cutting a path deep inside his organs. It took his breath, made him sick, so that he had to fight off waves of dizziness. He wasn't dying this way, not from a coward's bullet. There were too many things left unsaid and undone.

  The Jeep hit the slight ditch on the shoulder of the road, ran up the embankment and flipped, rolling several times, throwing him around like a rag doll. The seat belt tightened as the airbag deployed and for a moment he was blind and deaf and disoriented.

  Jonas tasted blood in his mouth and his chest throbbed as if a truck had smashed into him. He felt for his knife, stabbed the airbag and cut himself loose, his hand finding the familiar butt of his gun. Heart pounding, not sure where the enemy was, he kicked until the driver's door opened enough for him to drop to the ground. He fell hard, his legs rubbery, unable to support him. Using his elbows to drag himself forward, he crawled for the cover of the shrubs and grass of the embankment.

  Shots sprayed the grass, thunked into a tree and slammed into his body. Jonas felt the impact tearing through his insides. He rolled the last few feet to make it behind a large rock, his only chance. He was off-duty and not wearing a vest. How many times had he been hit? There was movement b
y the Jeep but he couldn't see anyone. His arm felt numb. He couldn't feel the gun in his hand, but he had to stay alert. The Drake sisters would come and he would have to protect them.

  Jonas stared at the night sky, listened to the pounding surf. The wheel of the Jeep was still spinning, but everything around him seemed to go still and silent. After a moment all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat and the steady dripping of his blood onto the ground.

  "Hannah." He whispered her name to the night.

  THE Drake sisters joined hands and stared down at the complex picture, the midnight blue sky, the stars and moon, the shadows forming, beginning to whirl around the edges and creep with long trails inside toward the very heart of the mosaic. The shadow spread, darkening the sky and blotting out the star that seemed to shine much brighter than the others.

  Hannah gasped and pulled back with a startled cry, her hands going to her throat as it seemed to swell in panic. She looked at her sisters in desperation. "Jonas." She whispered the name around her raw, hurting throat.

  Elle leapt up and ran for the phone, her face still and set, mirroring the same fright as her sisters.

  "It's too late. It's too late," Hannah chanted, rocking back and forth. "Why didn't we see this? Why didn't we feel this?"

  "We did. We just didn't recognize it," Sarah said, wrapping her arm around her sister to comfort her.

  Elle turned back from the phone. "I've called Jackson and he'll get an ambulance started, but we have to go now if we're going to have any chance to save him. All of us." She looked at Libby. "We'll need you again, Lib. It's going to be bad."

  Hannah ran for the car. "Hurry. He's not going to die. I'm not going to let him die. Reach for him Elle. I know you can hold him to us."

  "I've got him, hon, but he's weak. Very weak. We have to find him fast."

  Sarah nabbed the driver's seat and the other sisters quickly joined her in the car. "Where, Elle?"

  Elle closed her eyes, her face pale as she sought outside herself for information. "He was coming back from Willits and had just made the turn onto Highway One. Someone shot up the car. He was hit multiple times. He's in pain, thinking of Hannah, counting on her to bring us to him."