RS01 The Lost Night

by Jayne Castle

  “In that case I’ll keep an eye on these two while you drive us all back into town.”

  “Sure,” Rachel said. “I can do that.”

  She stopped and watched Harry march the firebombers past her toward the SUV. It was the first time she had gotten a close-up look at them. Each man had a tattoo on the back of his hand. The image was that of a griffin.

  “Harry,” Rachel said. She spoke very quietly.

  He registered the urgency in her voice immediately.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that what happened last night had anything to do with your investigation here on Rainshadow.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m the reason this pair torched your house last night,” she said. “You almost got killed because of me.”

  Chapter 14

  “You never told me that some psycho criminal psi-path was obsessed with you,” Harry said. It took more effort than he would ever have imagined just to keep his voice locked down a notch or two below a roar. “And what were you doing working with a bunch of criminal psi-paths, anyway? Were you out of your not-so-enlightened mind?”

  “We were supposed to call them patients, and as a matter of fact it seemed like a golden career opportunity at the time,” Rachel said. “I thought it would give me a chance to prove that my Academy training had some real-world value—that it wasn’t all Harmonic Enlightenment woo-woo stuff. And as for Lancaster, I did tell you that he was the reason I got fired.”

  “You said you were let go because you disagreed with the staff’s diagnosis but you never told me that you were alone with Lancaster in a therapy room. You never mentioned that he was dangerously obsessed with you.”

  “I didn’t see the point. He’s in a locked ward at the Chapman Clinic and he’ll be there for another few months. Dr. Oakford doesn’t think that Lancaster is a psi-path but he is convinced that Lancaster is suffering from a severe breakdown of the para-senses.”

  “When were you planning to tell me about Lancaster?” he said.

  “Harry, calm down. In my own defense, I would like to point out that until this morning I didn’t realize that Lancaster was still obsessed with me. He hasn’t made any effort to communicate with me. Stalkers always want their victims to know they’re being stalked. And there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “You and I have only known each other for about three days. A girl doesn’t usually mention that she might have a stalker until at least the third date.”

  “Do not try to make a joke about this,” he warned. “I am not in the mood.”

  “Right. I can see that.”

  They were in her kitchen. She was at the counter, a row of glass jars, lids open, lined up in front of her. She was using small tongs to select an assortment of dried leaves, flowers, and herbs from the jars. Each judiciously chosen specimen was carefully placed in the white tisane bag. An empty pot and a small round cup stood ready.

  The power was out, so Rachel had set the kettle to heat on the small wood stove.

  He could tell that the jars Rachel used to store the tea and tisane ingredients here in her kitchen were not standard-issue canning jars. Each was elegantly shaped and delicately etched with botanical designs. The lids were set with amber stones. The tongs were fashioned of some intricately engraved silver metal. The pot and the cup were obviously handmade.

  Rachel had explained that she was going to brew another cup of the exorbitantly priced restorative tisane that she had concocted for him yesterday in her shop. When he had declared he wasn’t going to pay ten bucks for another cup of tea, she had said there would be no charge. It wasn’t like he could stop her, he thought. They were in her kitchen, after all. But he sure as hell didn’t have to drink the stuff.

  As far as he was concerned, his energy field had been just fine until she had started talking about Marcus Lancaster. Nothing like a night of World Class Extreme High-Rez Sex to restore a man’s aura, he thought. It was the news that Rachel had been doing one-on-one therapy sessions with dangerously disturbed crazies that had messed up his harmonic resonance.

  He studied her as she went about the task of brewing the tea. In spite of the fact that a couple of thugs had tried to murder her last night, the energy around her was as bright and positive and resilient as ever. How did she do it? he wondered. He was ready to kill a few folks at the Chapman Clinic, starting with Lancaster and Dr. Ian Oakford, but Rachel was serenely focused on making tea.

  “After last night I’ve got nothing but respect for your abilities,” he said, “but you’re not exactly a trained para-shrink. How did you end up working at the Chapman Clinic?”

  “Dr. Oakford observed my readings at the tea shop where I was working. He has enough talent of his own to recognize that I really can read and diagnose auras. He thought having me on the staff would give him an edge in his research.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “I told him that Lancaster’s aura could not be balanced either by me or by the new drugs that were being used in the trial. I explained that Lancaster was missing a vital band of energy on the aura spectrum and that I could not fix what was never there in the first place.”

  “Oakford didn’t believe you?”

  “No.” Rachel picked up the kettle and filled the pot with hot water. “He concluded that he had been wrong about the range of my talent.”

  “And he fired you.”

  She set the kettle aside. “Oakford did give me two weeks’ severance pay. I think he did feel bad about the whole thing.”

  Harry stopped in front of the windows and looked out at the gray horizon. It felt like another storm was brewing. The sense of impending disaster that had been riding him ever since he had landed on the island was still building. His hunter’s intuition flared.

  “Tell me about Lancaster.”

  “He’s a true psi-path, a genuine psychic vampire, in my opinion. He’s smart and he’s got a high-rez talent for manipulation. He made a fortune running scams and defrauding people. I strongly suspect that he arranged the murder of his wife in order to get his hands on her money but he made it look like an accident. I’m sure that her death will never be investigated.”

  “Yet, instead of lying low and spending his dead wife’s fortune, he checks himself into the Chapman Clinic claiming he’s had a breakdown due to the trauma of her death?”

  “I knew that was an act, but no one would believe me,” Rachel said.

  “The question is why would he get himself locked up like that?”

  “I don’t like to sound egotistical but I’ve got a nasty suspicion that he did it because of me.”

  “All right, he’s obsessed with you. But how did he learn about you? When did you meet him?”

  “As far as I know, we never met until that day at the clinic. I would have remembered, believe me.” Rachel went very still. “At least I think I would have remembered.”

  “I know where you’re going here,” he said. “But if you had experienced another fugue state, you would know it the same way you know about the one that took you into the Preserve. There would be a blank spot in your memories.”

  She cheered up a little at that. “Right. Well, I can tell you that Lancaster never came into the tearoom for a reading.”

  “But you think his obsession with you is genuine? He wasn’t faking that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’m also quite certain that he wore that rainstone ear stud to our initial therapy session to send me a message.”

  Harry gripped the edge of the window. “The ‘I know where you live’ kind of message.”

  “Yes.” Rachel paused, her fingers elegantly still in midair over the teapot. “But there is something here that doesn’t fit properly.”

  “Got news for you.” He turned away from the view of the gathering storm. “There’s a lot of stuff here that doesn’t fit right. Why do you think this bastard fixated on you?”

  “Hmm?” Rachel shook off
her distracted air and went to the stove to pick up the kettle. “Oh, that part is quite straightforward. He realizes that I know him for exactly what he is. What’s more, I can resist his psychic seduction talent, therefore I fascinate him.”

  “Because you’re the one woman he can’t have?”

  “And because I see him for the monster that he is. In some ways that makes me a challenge.”

  “I would think the fact that you know his true nature would make you a threat, not the bride of his dreams.”

  Rachel smiled and carried the pot across the kitchen to the table. “Shows how much you know about psychic vampires.”

  “And here I thought I was one.”

  “The fact that you don’t understand Lancaster is proof positive that you aren’t one of the monsters. Come, sit down and have some of your special blend.”

  He watched her for a moment. Last night she had come close to being incinerated alive by a paranormal-enhanced fire. Afterward she had matter-of-factly dealt with the side of his nature that others considered monstrous. And then she had made passionate love with him in the backseat of his car. This morning she was calmly pouring tea and talking about the psychic vampire who was stalking her from afar.

  He smiled and crossed the room to sit down at the table.

  Rachel raised her brows. “Something amusing?”

  “Not amusing. Amazing.”

  “What?”

  “You. Are all the women in the Harmonic Enlightenment community as strong as you?”

  She blinked, startled. “What an odd question. I’m one of the weaker members of the Community. I had to leave to try to find a place where I belonged.”

  “Just because you have a foot in both worlds doesn’t make you weak, Rachel. The opposite is true.”

  Her brows crinkled. “I don’t see how.”

  “Never mind. Tell me more about Lancaster.”

  “The long and the short of it is that he wants to seduce and control me. He isn’t particularly interested in me physically. Possessing me sexually would be more symbolic than anything—evidence of his power over me. What he really wants to do is enslave me psychically. As long as I am unobtainable I am both a threat and an object of desire.”

  “In other words, he looked at you and he knew that he had two options. Control you or kill you.”

  She blinked a couple of times. “That does sum up his thinking processes quite succinctly. But I would remind you that there has been no follow-up on his part.”

  “Until last night.”

  She sighed. “Until last night.”

  “So he sends two young street kids to burn you alive?”

  Rachel frowned. “That’s what doesn’t quite add up. I doubt that he’s reached the stage where he’s concluded that he has to kill me. I’m sure he’s still at the point where he wants to prove to himself that he can seduce and control me. The only thing that makes sense is that he somehow found out about you. He wants me to know that no other man can have me.”

  “But you were in the cabin with me last night.”

  “I’ve got a hunch that was where things went wrong. I have a feeling those two firebombers were after you, not me. They probably didn’t know that I was in the cabin. How could they? There was no second car in the drive. My bike was on the porch. The violence of the storm would have made it impossible for them to get a clear view through the windows.”

  “I’ve only been on the island a few days. How could Lancaster know about me—about us?”

  “I have no idea,” Rachel said. “But I think he somehow found out about that first night we spent together. We were the talk of the town yesterday morning, if you will recall.”

  Harry contemplated that while he picked up the cup and inhaled the invigorating fragrance of the tisane. “If Lancaster found out about the night I spent at your place so quickly, it can only mean that he’s got a spy here on the island—someone who is keeping an eye on you for him.”

  “That would appear to be a distinct possibility,” Rachel said. She shook her head with a wistful air. “But I just cannot imagine that any of my friends and neighbors would do something like that. And as I keep reminding you, those two young men he sent to blow up the cabin are not locals.”

  “You say he’s got a talent for seducing and manipulating his victims. Whoever informed on you may not realize that he or she was putting you in harm’s way.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.” Rachel cheered a little at that. “Whoever told him about me may have believed that I needed Lancaster’s protection. He may have convinced the person that you were a threat.”

  “All right, we’ve got motive. But it wasn’t Lancaster who torched the place last night, it was a couple of young toughs.”

  “Those two kids have griffin tattoos,” Rachel said. “The image is the same as the figure on the ring that Lancaster wore the day I met with him. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “No. There’s a link between the three of them. Now I need to find it. It shouldn’t be too hard to break them.”

  Rachel frowned. “Break them?”

  “Make them talk.”

  “No, probably not.” Rachel watched him uneasily. “What, exactly, do you plan to do to make them talk?”

  “Relax, I’m not going to torture the kids any more than I already have, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  She perked up immediately and gave him an approving smile. “Good.”

  He wrapped one hand around the cup. “It won’t be necessary.”

  She stopped radiating approval. “I see. That’s the only reason you don’t intend to subject them to any more of your talent? Because you think you can get the information you want without scaring them half to death?”

  “Something tells me that’s a trick question,” he said.

  “Not really.”

  But it was and damned if he was going to answer it. He did not like it that her faint air of disappointment bothered him. He reminded himself that even though she had been out in what she called the mainstream world for a while, she’d lived a very sheltered life.

  When he inhaled the aroma of the gently steaming tisane, however, he immediately felt better about himself and more optimistic about everything else, including his odds of finding the answers he sought. He could not identify the herbs but he liked the spicy fragrance they produced. He liked it a lot. There was something clean, centering, and invigorating about their scent. He could feel the pleasant effects across all his senses. He took a deeper breath.

  “Smells good,” he said.

  “I’m glad you like it.” Rachel rewarded him by looking pleased. “Those herbs resonate nicely with your aura.”

  He glanced at the jars on the counter. “You sure they’re all legal?”

  She gave him a serene smile. “Do you care?”

  “Not right now. Is this cup of tea going to cost as much as the last one?”

  “Anything that is worthwhile comes with a price,” Rachel said demurely.

  “Sounds like another quote from the Principles.”

  “I’m afraid that bit of wisdom is much older than the philosophical tenets of the Principles.”

  He took a swallow. It tasted as good as it had the first time he had tried it in the bookshop café. It was as if Rachel had distilled the essence of sunshine and rain. The stuff rezzed all his senses in a subtle way.

  “You know, this tea is actually worth ten bucks a cup,” he said.

  Rachel laughed. “I’m glad you agree with my pricing strategy.”

  He studied the amber-hued brew. “Could you create a tea like this for one of the guys you call the real monsters? Lancaster, for example?”

  “No. I could create a tisane that would have a sedating effect or one that would act like caffeine on someone with Lancaster’s aura. But I couldn’t brew a drink that would balance his energy field for even a short period of time because there’s an entire chunk of his spectrum that is simply dead. There is nothing that will harmonize a
psi-path’s aura.”

  “But you could poison a monster.”

  “Yes.” She watched him drink. “I could poison him. But as I told you, killing, no matter how justified, exacts a heavy psychic toll.”

  “Except for the monsters,” Harry said. “They can kill or damage without remorse and without taking any psychic damage.”

  “Because they are already damaged.” Rachel moved one hand. Her bracelet jangled lightly. “That’s what makes them monsters.”

  He lounged back in his chair and stuck his legs out under the table. “You know, you could make a fortune selling your teas and tisanes on the mainland.”

  “Sadly, it’s not that easy. Each batch has to be individually blended to suit the customer’s aura. There’s no way to go into mass production. What’s more, an individual’s aura is never static. The oscillation of the currents is affected by any number of factors like age, health problems, and emotional issues. Even the weather has an effect. The blend that is beneficial one day may not be so effective the next day or next week.”

  “Okay, I can see the problems involved,” he said. “Sounds like the best way to make real money off your products would be to charge a lot more than you do for each individually blended batch. Make everyone pay ten bucks a cup or more.”

  She shook her head. “No. That approach would mean turning away too many people who need my brews but can’t afford them.”

  “Didn’t think you’d go for that business plan.”

  She made a face. “Making a lot of money is not a big priority for those of us who were raised in the Community.”

  “Strange. For those of us in the Sebastian family, making a lot of money has always been a major priority.”

  “Maybe because your family has a talent for it. Mine doesn’t, trust me.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  It was good to sit here with her like this, he thought. He drank some more of the brew and enjoyed the gentle stirring of his senses.