Lure of the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

She flicked him a glance, noted the hard edge to his mouth. Shaking her head once, she rolled her shoulder, disengaging as easily as if he’d never touched her, and leveraged herself up and through the narrow break. One spiky heel caught on the windowpane, wrenched her ankle, and she pitched to the floor on a stream of choked curses.

  She couldn’t breathe. Hot, thick air slammed into her like a fist. She was drowning in a hot blanket of steam, like breathing in lava. Coughing, she forced herself to her hands and knees and croaked, “Hello?”

  Muffled voices trailed through the broken window, died in the stifling heat. She strained to hear through it, but only a faint, muffled rattle of pressure and machine filled the choking silence.

  Fuck. Not good.

  “If you can hear me, help is on the way!” She crawled forward, squinting in the roiling steam. It filled her lungs, strangled her as it soaked through her clothes in seconds flat. All but blind, she cursed as her foot snagged and sent her sprawling. Swore again as her hands found hot skin and wet spandex. Damp, stringy hair.

  Relief flickered. “I found her!” she shouted.

  But was she alive?

  The light over the sealed door guttered. Electricity crackled, sparked a blue-white arc over the door and exploded in a shower of sparks.

  The locks slammed open.

  With a shudder of displaced pressure, the door swung wide and sweet, blessed cool air rolled in on Phin’s heels, battering her sweaty skin. Soaked to the bone with steam and sweat, Naomi sucked in the fresh oxygen as she struggled to maneuver the old woman to a sitting position. Her dead weight strained Naomi’s balance.

  “Shit—”

  “Easy.” Phin slid his arms under Naomi’s, heedless of the wet tracks her saturated sweater left on his designer shirt. His features set into harsh lines. “Let her go,” he ordered quietly. “I’ve got her.”

  “She’s not breathing.” Naomi ignored his direction, rearranging her grip and curving her arms around the woman’s knees. “Grab her shoulders, keep her steady.”

  “I can—”

  “Just do it,” she snapped. His mouth closed, lips sealing into a thin, taut line, but he didn’t argue. Together they navigated through the door and out into the fresh, cool, richly oxygenated air.

  “Here,” she gasped, sucking in as much air as she could. “Hurry.”

  They knelt to set the sweat-soaked woman on the tile, and Naomi ignored Phin beside her, tuned out hysterical sobbing from somewhere in the small crowd, and bent over the woman’s head.

  She was so thin. Fragile as hell in her one-piece bathing suit, her gaunt limbs sticking out of the obscene splash of color and too damn still. Her skin was cherry red. Naomi prodded at her thin throat. It took too long, but she found it.

  A pulse.

  Thank God.

  The routine came as familiar as breathing. Naomi checked her throat, cleared it, and folded her hands over the woman’s chest. Four pumps, sharp, short bursts of pressure, and she covered the woman’s mouth with her own. She breathed hard, fighting back the spots flickering in her peripheral vision as her lungs protested.

  Another breath. A third.

  Four more pumps against her chest. “Come on,” she gritted out. “Three, four—come on!”

  Before her second round of breath, the old woman gagged, coughing violently.

  Phin wrapped an arm around the woman’s back, pulling her up to sit. She hacked and choked, gasped something unrecognizable, and over her head, Phin’s eyes locked on Naomi.

  Stark, raw gratitude lingered there. Approval.

  Much more appraisal than she needed.

  Naomi sat back on her heels, scraping back her stringy hair, and deliberately looked away. She didn’t need his gratitude.

  And she sure as hell didn’t want to answer the questions she saw behind that silent, raw acknowledgment.

  She backed away, striving for indifference. For casual relief. Just a run-of-the-mill heiress doing her good deed for the day. Flushed and sticky with sweat, she stripped off her sweater, balled it into a sodden mass between her hands, and watched Phin take control with easy, deliberate authority.

  Even with sweat drying on his face, with his pale gray dress shirt stained, wilted, and damp, they listened to him. As a gurney arrived and they carried the woman out on a stretcher, the small crowd nodded as Phin promised to investigate the accident. He assured them gravely that they would take every precaution and check every automated system in the resort. His expression was concerned. Everything about him was steady.

  Blah, blah, and fucking blah. Naomi ignored the wide set of his shoulders and watched the crowd instead.

  Four guests. Seven staff, some wearing the dusky green uniform that the witch had worn, and others in crisp black and white.

  Were any of them in league with Joe Carson? With the unknown witch?

  Or was this just the accident it looked like?

  She pictured the shower of sparks above the door and licked at her lower lip thoughtfully. Her head pounded, a wicked echo of exertion and the knot aching at the back of her head. She’d give someone’s left nut for painkillers.

  Instead she inhaled the pungent odor of hot chlorine and drying sweat and watched the group trickle out. There’d be talk tomorrow. Gossip.

  Questions.

  She rubbed the back of her neck and narrowed her eyes at the two women who remained behind, industriously cleaning up the mess of towels and broken glass. They wore identical light green dresses designed to accommodate the kind of work she imagined hotel staff had to do. Clean, laundry, fold shit. She didn’t know.

  They looked upset. Worried. They looked at their boss often, as if gauging their own reaction to his. Waiting for him to reassure them, maybe.

  He directed the dispersing crowd back to the double doors and Naomi watched them as they filed out, eerily silent in the wake of the nearly fatal accident. None looked like accessories to murder. But then accessories rarely did.

  She stood cautiously, locking her unsteady knees before they dumped her right back onto her ass. Although she wasn’t cold in her clinging, wet camisole, goose bumps rippled over the bare skin of her arms.

  Death by steam. Not a pleasant way to go.

  She cleared her throat. “Has anyone called emergency services?”

  Phin scraped a hand through his hair, forcing his damp curls to stand on end. “No.” The structured planes of his face were taut. Troubled. Inquisitive as he studied her.

  She turned away. “I’ll call—”

  “No,” he repeated. “They’ve taken her to the clinic. We have an excellent doctor and staff in house. She’s in the best hands possible. She’ll be fine.”

  Naomi jerked her gaze back to his. Read steely resolve as it locked into place. Her eyebrows jerked upward. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Our facility is state-of-the-art.”

  “That woman almost died,” she pointed out. Low, even tones. “She needs an emergency room.”

  “She’s being taken care of.” He actually meant it. Dumbfounded, she stared at him until he looked away, gaze sliding over her shoulder to fix on the open door with its yawning, broken window. “This was an unfortunate accident—”

  “Fuck you,” she breathed. Spots flared like mini novas in front of her eyes, keeping time with the aching pulse in her skull. Suddenly shaking with rage, Naomi’s hands balled into fists at her side as Phin’s gaze slammed back to hers.

  Narrowed. “I beg your pardon?” he said quietly.

  Her lip curled. “You’re going to risk that woman’s safety because you can’t afford the bad press?”

  He flinched, but one hand slashed through the air. “My hands are tied. Alexandra is an extremely private person.”

  “I don’t care if—”

  “She chooses,” he cut in with the same quiet, deliberate, maddening tone that made her want to deck him square in his too-pretty face, “and in fact insists on maintaining a level of privacy that does not include visits by
emergency services.”

  “That’s completely—”

  “—what we’re contractually obligated to do,” he said, his tone as unyielding as the cloudy rose slate beneath his feet. “Now, you should have the clinic check out your arm.”

  “My arm is fine,” she bit out. “That woman—”

  “It’s your choice, Miss Ishikawa.”

  Point made. She clicked her teeth together before she said something she was positive rich girls didn’t say in the company of polished men like Phinneas Clarke.

  His expression remained hooded. Untouchable. “Since you refuse medical care, housekeeping will bring you a cold pack before it bruises. If you’ll excuse me.” He walked away without another word.

  She swallowed every word welling up in her throat, beat down the fury and disgust.

  Son of a bitch. She just knew his mind was already going over whatever glib platitudes he intended to foist on everyone.

  The man had a silver spoon jammed so far down his throat, it was no wonder his words came out with the same polished gleam. Phin Clarke was smooth.

  But how smooth?

  The witch in her suite. The old woman in the sauna. Did he know more than he let on?

  No. The raw fear in his eyes as he’d maneuvered the unconscious woman out of the death trap of a sauna hadn’t been faked.

  Had it?

  Shit.

  And then there was the uniformed witch in her suite.

  “Fuck!” she snarled, ignoring the startled glances from the two women who cleaned up the remains of the glass she’d shattered.

  Was Timeless harboring witches?

  Wouldn’t that just make her goddamn day.

  Chapter Three

  Naomi turned, shaking her head, and hesitated as a door across the hall eased slowly closed.

  Her gaze flicked to the staff as caution slipped into the exhausted vacuum of leached adrenaline. One maid, a teenager, diligently swept glass into a dustbin. The other, a dark-skinned woman with closely cropped brown hair, hummed something off-key as she vanished into the empty sauna with another broom in hand.

  There was nobody else to enter the locker room clearly marked for women. She hadn’t seen anyone else enter or stay.

  Instinct spiked a warning, and she ran for the swinging door as the teenager with the shard-filled dustpan stepped into her path.

  “Move!” Naomi bit out. Too late.

  Glass scattered in a fine arc as they collided. As if in some awkwardly maneuvered dance, Naomi wrenched her around, caught the flying dustbin in one hand, and tossed it heedlessly back at the flailing maid. Plastic hit stone; the maid managed an inquisitive “Mmph!”

  Naomi didn’t stop to check on either. She sprinted between the colorfully tiled pools, pushed open the door, and dodged its rebound as it slammed back at her on well-oiled hinges.

  Checking behind it was habit, and she stalked into the luxurious locker room ready for anything. A fight, an attack, anything, god damn it.

  She caught a glimpse of her own narrowed eyes in the wide bank of mirrors, frowned at the color riding high on her cheeks, and ignored the silvered surface as a rasp of movement echoed from the adjoining room.

  Darting through the access frame, she barely managed to process the warning flicker. Cursing, she dropped to the floor as a glint of gold sailed over her head, just where her skull had been seconds ago. Metal rang like a bell, gonged once as a decorative urn bounced off the wall. It clattered to the stone floor, rolled lazily before it tapped the edge of an elegantly gilded shower stall.

  The echoes died away into silence sharp as a knife.

  Her pulse skittered; pounded with the sudden anticipation of danger.

  Hell, yes. Almost better than sex.

  This was what a mission should be.

  Naomi shoved to her feet, stepped over the slowly spinning vase. “Come out, come out,” she taunted. Her voice bounced from tiled wall to wall, thrown back at her in flat echoes. The room wasn’t huge, but floor-to-ceiling panels segregated the shower stalls, leaving too many places to hide.

  Mirrors adorned the wall behind her, reflected back the shades of dusky green and lavender that seemed to be the spa’s signature colors.

  Nothing moved around her.

  If she searched the room, she’d run the risk of leaving the exit clear. But was there another exit somewhere else?

  Her empty fingers twitched, desperate for the solid weight of her gun.

  Cautiously she crossed the floor. Her shoes clicked loudly, echoes dogging every step as she checked every extravagant shower stall, every corner. She stepped over the pile of flowers, noting how quickly the rose-colored slate sucked at the water.

  She was close. The vase hadn’t been dumped out that long ago. Where the fuck had the bastard gone?

  By the time she’d made a full circuit, anger spiked a sharp burn through her chest. There was nobody here. No footsteps, no breathing, shit, not even a whisper of sound under the constant hum of the spa’s electrical grid. There were no other exits.

  Just in case, she reached up and tested the decorative vents inset into each wall.

  Locked fast.

  What the hell had she missed?

  She whirled, strode through the single exit, and made a full circuit of the front dressing room. Finding nothing but rows of lockers, shelves, and mirrors, she pushed through the door and pinned her gaze on the two maids still cleaning up.

  The younger one slanted her a wary glance.

  “Did anybody come through here?” Naomi demanded. “Within the past five minutes.”

  “No, ma’am,” the older woman replied. “Just maintenance.” She jerked a thumb toward the brightly lit, still leaking sauna. Masculine voices echoed from the interior.

  Naomi locked her teeth before she gave in to the urge to scream. “Thank you,” she managed.

  “Are you all right?”

  No. She was not all right. She was so far from all right that the first idiot to cross Naomi’s path was going to get decked. She plastered on a smile that made her jaw ache. “Fine. Sorry about the mess.”

  They both said something pacifying, but Naomi didn’t care. She turned and left, long legs eating up the ground as she studied the large, open hall.

  Ten different pools, one major exit.

  Two attacks in one day. Maybe the same one, maybe not. One witch. One ghost in the form of a rogue agent.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  What else could go wrong?

  In the privacy of the family wing, Phin could allow his mask to drop. His hands shook as he scraped them through his hair. Nausea clenched in a stomach roiling with belated terror, so he paced, stalking room to room in the pretty, elegantly decorated suite as he went over and over the scene in his mind.

  What had caused the doors to malfunction? The doors were only locked after hours as a safety precaution. Never ever during the hours that guests used the spa area. Why had the steam regulators gone haywire? The monthly maintenance had been done three weeks ago.

  Oh, God. Why hadn’t either of his mothers contacted him yet? Both had hurried to the clinic at his call, and he hadn’t heard anything for too long. Was Alexandra all right?

  The elevator door slid open just as he reached for his comm, and Phin whirled. The look on Lillian’s face caused hope and fear and nervous energy to collide somewhere on his tongue, leaving him splaying his hands in wordless demand.

  Lillian Clarke’s green-gold eyes were tired, but her reassuring smile loosened the tight ball of anxiety in Phin’s chest even before she answered his unspoken question. “Alexandra will be all right,” she said firmly. “She’s exhausted, but resting well.”

  Phin’s shoulders slumped as he half slid into a large wingback chair. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed.

  “I believe we can drink to that.”

  He could only nod.

  A tall, elegant woman, Lillian kept her hair gray-free, bright as gold on a summer day. She kept it rolled into a n
eat, chic twist at the back of her head, and didn’t fuss with anything but plain, undecorated pins. Effortlessly polished, her aging features were strongly defined, aristocratic, and just a shade too square.

  Now her handsome face was set in calm, encouraging lines as she poured a layer of russet liquid into two crystal glasses. “Here,” she said as she pushed one into his hand.

  His fingers closed on it out of habit, but he frowned as he glanced at the elevator. “Isn’t Mother coming?”

  “She’s going to stay with Alexandra for a while.” Lillian perched on the arm of the chair, her gray, neatly tailored suit as unruffled as if she’d just stepped away from her desk. Phin sipped at the brandy in his glass.

  It warmed a path from tongue to stomach, and loosened another anxious knot.

  He glanced at the framed photo of his two mothers on the end table beside him. In stark contrast to Lillian’s svelte sophistication, Gemma Clarke’s nut brown curls, round cheeks, and warm, dark eyes couldn’t help but give an impression of cheerful, bohemian housewife.

  It was one of many differences that he adored about them both. He’d spent his life intercepting the small, secret glances like the one they shared in the photograph, and Phin felt a sweet, familiar squeeze in his chest.

  His parents were his world. They’d built Timeless, founded it when the city was just coming to terms with two decades of reconstruction. Passed it on to him as he became a man. Nothing had shaken him so badly as the almost fatal accident to one of their guests.

  “I’m going over and over it,” he admitted suddenly, fingers clenching on the glass. “I pulled up the logs first thing.”

  Lillian smoothed back his hair with a steady hand. “Tell me what happened, my love.”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know. We heard Barbara screaming—”

  “We?”

  “The newest guest, Naomi Ishikawa. She was with me.” Phin took another bracing swallow of brandy and replayed the scene again. The Asian beauty with the cool smile had broken through the sauna window, as easily as if she’d known exactly what to do. How to do it.

  It was so vivid in his mind’s eye that he flinched. The impact must have hurt. More than she’d let on.