He noticed that she was still dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing the night before. There was an air of unnatural alertness about her. He recognized it immediately. He’d experienced the same sensation on more than one occasion after a sleepless night.
“I’m fine.” He surveyed her. “But you look like you never went to bed.”
“You were sleeping very deeply. I thought that, under the circumstances, it might be a good idea if one of us stayed awake.”
He turned away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “In other words, you were afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do my job, that I wouldn’t be able to protect either of us if someone broke in while I was out of it.”
“We’re a team, remember?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. He might be linked to her in some special way, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get pissed off at her.
“For the record,” he said evenly, “I can handle the occasional aftereffects of my job.”
“I’m sure you can. I just thought it would be best to take precautions.”
“I would have awakened if someone had tried to get into the room. Trust me.”
“Do you always wake up this grouchy?” she asked, sounding curious, rather than accusatory.
“No, only on those mornings when I discover that the client I’m supposed to be protecting thinks she has to protect me.”
“I’m not your client. I’m your partner.”
“I’m here to do my job.”
“Last night you did it. For heaven’s sake, this is a stupid argument. Why don’t you go take a shower?”
He thought about that. It was probably a good idea.
“What about you?” he said. “You need some sleep.”
“I rested in the chair. Dozed a bit off and on.”
“You didn’t have to spend the entire night watching over me.”
“It isn’t the first time I’ve gone without a good night’s sleep. I’ll be fine. Now, go take a shower.”
He grabbed the cane and got to his feet. When he looked down he realized that he was still wearing his shirt and trousers. When he looked up he caught sight of himself in the mirror. His clothes were rumpled, his eyes were wells of shadows and he needed a shave. Badly. Not a pretty picture.
On top of all that, he was hungry and not just for food. He looked at Grace, trying to gauge the extent of her fatigue.
“You know,” he said, testing the roughness of his morning beard with one hand. “A sensitive guy probably wouldn’t ask a woman who’d had a sleepless night if she might be interested in showering with him.”
Her brows crinkled together in a repressive glare. “You’re right, a sensitive man would certainly not suggest sharing a shower at a moment like this.”
He nodded, resigned. “Yeah, I know. I look a little ragged around the edges right now.”
“For Pete’s sake, it’s got nothing to do with how you look,” she snapped.
“What, then?” he asked, going blank.
“We just had a fight.” She waved her hands. “You were growling at me a moment ago. Now you’re talking about having sex as if nothing happened.”
“You call what we just had a fight?”
“How would you describe it?”
He thought about it. “It was a discussion. Now it’s over and I’m going to take a shower. Just wondered if you’d like to join me, that’s all.”
“It was a fight,” she said.
“You’re blowing it out of proportion. Probably because you’re tense from lack of sleep.”
“It was a fight and I am not tense from lack of sleep.”
“You know, showering together would be a good way to relieve that tension.”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times. Before he had time to say another word, Grace picked up one of the small decorative pillows and hurled it at his head.
He batted the pillow aside and started toward her, circling the bed.
“Now, a pillow fight is something I do understand,” he said.
He quickly closed the distance between them. The room was suddenly ablaze with energy.
She took a step back toward the wall. “If you think for one moment that I’m in any kind of mood for sex after our little
discussion, think again.”
“See, that’s the thing about men and sex.” He tossed the cane onto the bed and braced his hands on the wall behind her, caging her between his arms. “Thinking doesn’t usually enter into it.”
“That explains so much.”
“Always glad to be of service.”
He kissed her, a slow, morning kiss; the kind a man gives a woman he knows he has satisfied; the kind that makes it clear he intends to satisfy her again. And be satisfied in return. A claiming kiss.
But she did not respond like a claimed woman. Instead, she kissed him back with the kind of fierce intensity that made it clear she had a claim on him.
“Good,” he said against her mouth. “That’s how it should be.”
She pulled back an inch or so. “How what should be?”
“Forget it. I’ll explain some other time.”
Her mouth softened, her aura shimmered and began to resonate with his. He savored the knowledge that she was linked to him, whether she knew it or not.
Forty-eight hours, that was all the time they’d had together. How could he be so sure that he would think about her, yearn for her, want her for the rest of his life, even if he never saw her again? How the hell did that work?
But there was no time to think about it because Grace was undoing the fastening of his pants. When he felt her fingers on his erection, cupping him, the lazy heat of his arousal flashed into a wildfire. Her hand tightened around him in response.
He opened her shirt and discovered that sometime during the night she must have removed her bra. He was sure she had been wearing one earlier. He covered her breasts with his palms. The feel of her firm small nipples against his bare skin was exciting beyond belief.
He left her shirt hanging loose and reached down to undo her trousers. By the time he got them pushed to her ankles, she was shivering and whispering his name. Most of all she was touching him everywhere. Her hands glided over his thighs and chest and shoulders as though he was some rare and extremely valuable work of art.
“So good,” she said, kissing his shoulder. “It’s so good to be able to touch you like this.”
“I like it that you like touching me.” He captured her face in his hands and raised his head to meet her eyes. “But the thought of you touching anyone else like this would make me crazy.”
“The only man I want to touch right now is you.”
“That’s not quite what I want to hear but we can talk about it some other time.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Doesn’t matter. Not now.”
He grabbed the cane, caught hold of her wrist and led her into the gleaming marble-tiled bathroom. There he got both of them out of the rest of their clothes and into the rain forest of a shower.
He lowered himself onto the built-in seat and eased her down so that she could ride him astride. He made love to her beneath the artificial waterfall until they were both locked together in hot climax.
Whatever else happened between them, he thought, she would not forget him.
Sometime later she stood in front of the steamy mirror, a huge white towel wrapped around her breasts, another around her wet hair. She felt energized. Invigorated. Who needed a full night’s sleep?
Luther was shaving beside her, a towel draped around his waist. She met his eyes in the foggy glass.
“It was a fight,” she said.
He grinned. “We should do that more often.”
TWENTY-TWO
The housekeeper was humming. She pushed her cart past Grace and continued down the hallway. The melody sounded vaguely familiar. Grace found herself trying to identify it. The harder she concentrated, the more intricate and compelling t
he tune seemed to become.
The song was definitely not from the contemporary pop repertoire. Not classic rock, either. It was far more elaborate and sophisticated; an aria from an opera, perhaps.
She wondered how many housekeepers hummed opera. Someone had certainly missed her calling. Then again, perhaps the woman sang professionally. Maybe housekeeping was just her day job.
The humming echoed softly in the corridor, growing ever more illusive and more intriguing as it faded.
Music was a form of energy. It acted directly on all the senses and across the spectrum. The proof was evident everywhere. It could stir the passions, excite the nerves or send adrenaline rushing through the veins. Some religions feared its power to such an extent that they tried to ban it. Others harnessed its unique energy to exult and glorify their deities. Music could throw an intoxicating spell over crowds, drawing people to their feet and compelling them to discharge the energy in the form of motion; dancing.
Music could make you want to focus on something very important.
Name that tune.
An odd chill fluttered through Grace. It suddenly seemed very important that she identify the housekeeper’s song. She had attended the opera on several occasions over the years. The over-the-top emotions of the stories appealed to her primarily because she had always been so careful to control her own passions. The singers’ astonishing ability to project their impossibly gorgeous voices to the farthest corners of a three-thousand-seat theater without the aid of microphones never failed to amaze her. But she was not a dedicated fan. She lacked an intimate acquaintance with the music. She had heard the housekeeper’s piece somewhere on an opera stage, though, she was sure of it.
The inexplicably intense need to recall the name of the song dissipated almost as swiftly as it had come.
Ice touched the nape of her neck. Her pulse beat harder, faster. From out of nowhere an anxious, almost panicky sensation gripped her senses. She recognized the syndrome. Her survival instincts were kicking in hard and fast.
Get out of here.
Music was a form of energy.
It occurred to her that although she had come within a yard of the housekeeper, she could not recall anything about her, not even her hair color, let alone whether she had been plump or thin or middle-aged or young. Nothing at all except an overpowering urge to focus on the tune that the woman had been humming.
Grace stopped and turned. The housekeeper and her cart had disappeared around the corner at the far end of the long corridor.
She hesitated, uncertain of her next move. She was on her own for the morning. The five Nightshade executives and their bodyguards had left for the golf course an hour ago. Luther had followed them after giving her strict orders to remain either in the suite or in the hotel’s public spaces.
She had been on her way back to the room to pick up the hat she had forgotten to take down to the pool when she passed the humming housekeeper. For a moment there, she had been so distracted by the compulsion to identify the song that she had even forgotten the purpose of her return to the suite.
Something was very wrong.
She had to get a look at the housekeeper.
She walked quickly back the way she had come, following the path the housekeeper had taken. When she reached the corner, she heard the humming again, very faintly this time. Once again the urge to focus on the pattern of the music came upon her. But she was ready for it this time. She pushed back, gently but firmly. The urge evaporated.
She went around the corner and saw the housekeeper. The woman was waiting for the freight elevator. Her hair was an explosion of dark curls that partially obscured her profile. A pair of heavily framed dark glasses veiled her eyes. She moved with vigor and grace. There was an air of glowing enthusiasm about her; clearly a woman who loved her work. She didn’t appear to be struggling with the heavily laden cart. She manipulated it effortlessly.
Grace slid into her other senses. The housekeeper’s aura flared brilliantly. Waves of an unfamiliar but extraordinarily powerful psychic energy pulsed through it. The rest of the profile was complicated. There was also something wrong with it. There was none of the darkness that was the signature of the Nightshade auras; nevertheless, the pulsing bands of energy looked warped in places and very erratic in others.
The housekeeper might enjoy her work but she had some serious mental health issues.
It’s not like I’m one to talk, Grace thought. She had just gone an entire year barely able to touch another human being.
The door to the room across the hall from the freight elevator opened. A couple emerged.
The housekeeper stopped humming and started singing. Her voice was soft but it floated down the hallway on wings of energy. Every note was crystalline. Grace had the impression that she was not the intended audience; even so, she had to resist the urge to try to capture the bell-like notes as they drifted through the air.
The couple went past the housekeeper, paying no attention. A lot of people might be inclined to ignore a hotel maid, Grace thought, but surely not one who could sing like this. The expressions on the faces of the man and the woman were utterly blank.
The elevator doors opened. There was a ping and an arrow glowed indicating that the cab was going up. The housekeeper pushed her cart inside. The doors closed, cutting off the song. Grace watched the couple become visibly more animated and engaged. The woman blinked a few times and then looked at her companion.
“My spa appointment is at eleven,” she said. “When will you be back from the golf course?”
“Not until five,” the man said.
“In that case, I think I’ll do some shopping this afternoon.”
They nodded politely at Grace and continued along the hall to the guest elevators.
She waited until they were out of sight before she opened the stairwell door and stepped inside. There were two floors above the one on which she stood, five and six.
She rushed up the concrete stairs and listened intently before opening the door. No aria sounded on the other side. Cautiously she opened the door and checked the corridor. Empty.
She hurried up the next flight and again paused at the hall door. She sensed the music pulsing gently, insistently, even though it was almost inaudible.
She opened the door and moved out into the corridor just in time to see the singing housekeeper vanish into a room at the far end of the hall. The woman, her aura flaring hotly, left her cart outside. She did not follow the hotel’s usual routine of leaving the door open, however. Instead she closed it firmly behind her.
Grace glanced at the number on the door across from where she stood and did the math. More adrenaline splashed through her. If she had counted correctly, the housekeeper had just vanished into 604, Eubanks’s suite.
Mr. Jones, what are the odds?
Whatever was going on here, it was important. She was very sure of that. The question was what to do next. Luther would know but he was not around. A good field agent had to be able to make independent decisions.
It would be no big deal to walk past the room the singing housekeeper had just entered and check the number to make absolutely sure that it was 604. It would not be good for her future as a J&J specialist if she screwed up on something that important.
She started down the hall in what she hoped looked like a leisurely manner, card key in hand, as though she were on her way to her own room. There were no other guests about.
Another housekeeper, pushing a heavily loaded cart, appeared at the far end of the corridor. She paused in front of a room and rapped lightly.
“Housekeeping,” she called.
That was something else the operatic maid had failed to do, Grace recalled. The woman had entered the room without knocking and without announcing her presence, as if she knew full well that the occupants were not inside.
Grace reached the singing maid’s cart. She looked at the closed door: 604.
She kept going, unsure what her next move should be.
It seemed logical, however, that a sharp, independent-thinking J&J agent would keep an eye on the singing housekeeper and follow her after she left Eubanks’s suite. This was a surveillance mission, after all.
It was also imperative to notify Luther that a woman with a high-level psychic talent who may or may not have been a member of the hotel staff had just entered the room of one of the Nightshade members.
She took out her phone and entered a quick text message.
Talent entered E’s rm. Will watch.
She dropped the phone back into her purse and looked around for someplace to conceal herself while she waited for the singer to reappear. All she could see were two long rows of doors stretching out ahead of her. The hall ended where it intersected with another corridor. She had two choices, either go back the way she had come and hide in the stairwell or go around the corner at the far end and wait for the door to 604 to open.
She opted for the stairwell. It was closer. She hurried back past Eubanks’s suite and was almost at the door when she sensed movement behind her. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw the second housekeeper striding purposefully toward 604.
She switched to her other senses and studied the woman’s aura. It was average for a nonsensitive but it was clear the housekeeper was annoyed. The sight of the other cart in the hall bothered her for some reason, perhaps because this was her territory.
Grace was suddenly very certain that it would not be a good idea for the housekeeper to confront the woman who had just disappeared into 604.
Impulsively she started back toward the suite but the housekeeper was already knocking briskly. Without waiting for a response, the maid jammed her master key into the lock and pushed open the door. She stared into the room, her body tense, her aura registering a growing unease.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “This is my floor and I didn’t ask for any extra help today. You must be new.”
The singing started up inside the room, intense and so darkly compelling that Grace felt as if she were in danger of being extinguished by the crushing weight of impending doom. Power and violence conveyed in a coloratura soprano’s pure, utterly mesmerizing voice poured out into the hall.
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