As if any of that mattered, because Caleb was right. Mrs. D’Angelo was right. Zusane had saved Jacqueline, she had done her best to raise her, and all Jacqueline’s resentment was just crap.
In the end, Jacqueline knew the truth—Zusane had pushed her out of that plane to save her life, to save her from the devil himself. And Jacqueline knew, for that act of maternal defense, the devil had made sure Zusane suffered horribly, and died alone.
Oh, God. The torment was more than she could bear, because there was nothing to be done. Zusane was dead. Jacqueline was out of chances to tell her the most important thing. She could never tell her how much she loved her. “But I did, Mama,” she whispered into the pillow. “I did.”
Her own insecurity had hurt Zusane and chased Caleb away.
So what could she do?
She wasn’t dumb enough to follow Caleb. If the Others were out there, they would take her at once.
But she couldn’t lie here crying while he walked into danger. She’d already failed at her relationship with her mother. She would not do the same with him.
Zusane would tell her to sit up and stop crying.
So she did. She scrubbed at her face with a handful of tissues. She got off the bed and stood there, naked, unsteady, still hiccupping from the tears.
She thought hard, and she knew what she had to do.
No matter what the cost, no matter how much she feared the pain, she had to invite a vision.
She had to find out who had betrayed the Gypsy Travel Agency.
Chapter 32
Never before had Caleb gone to Irving’s house prepared for an ambush, but he did so now. Two days ago, the explosion had ripped the Gypsy Travel Agency from its foundations. Yesterday, Jacqueline had had a vision and been attacked. Today . . . he was going to find out what snake lurked behind a mask of friendship.
He was pretty sure he already knew who it was, and if he was right, before long, the nasty little traitor would return—and finish the job he’d started two days ago.
Caleb rang the doorbell, and when McKenna opened the door, he walked right in.
“Good to see you again, sir.” McKenna tried to take his sport coat.
Caleb shook his head. “Anything happening?”
“It’s been quiet since you left.” McKenna peered out onto the street. “Miss Vargha is not with you?”
“No.” That was all the information he would give about her. “Has Samuel Faa returned?”
“If you had come a minute earlier, you would have met him on the doorstep. He said he was going to his room and then—” McKenna found he was talking to Caleb’s back, and gave a humph of disgust. “Young people. No manners.”
Caleb ran lightly toward the stairs, caught a movement by the library, and changed courses.
And there he was, Samuel Faa, standing in the shadows, looking in the well-lit library as if he couldn’t quite decide where to set his bomb. At the last minute, Samuel caught a glimpse of Caleb. But it was too late.
Grabbing his collar, Caleb slammed him against the wall. “You son of a bitch. I can’t believe you had the guts to come back here. You tried to kill Jacqueline.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Samuel twisted, freed himself, and thumped Caleb against the opposite wall. “I never hurt your girlfriend.”
Caleb jumped at him and grabbed again, and this time when Samuel feinted, Caleb grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm behind his back, and spoke in his ear. “You went up to the attic where she was having that vision and smashed her with the crystal ball.”
Samuel stood very, very still, but his voice was dark and pissed off. “Why the hell would I bother to do that? I control minds. If I’d wanted to hurt her, I would have had her fling herself down the stairs.”
“Likely story.” Caleb was right about this.
Wasn’t he?
“It’s what I do,” Samuel said. “It’s my gift and I’m goddamned good with it. Ask Irving or Martha if you’re in doubt. Hell, ask my clients. It’s the reason I’m such a highly paid lawyer.”
“Not ethical, but highly paid.”
“I’m ethical when the occasion calls for it. When I know my client is innocent while their client is guilty as hell.” Samuel muttered as if he wanted to keep it quiet. “I’ve got a thing about not letting murderers go free.”
Was Samuel messing with Caleb’s mind right now? Because Samuel had implanted doubt, enough doubt that Caleb loosened his grip.
“Mind control is the reason I got my ass convicted of improper practice.” Bitterly, Samuel added, “That damned judge . . . I’d like to know how he knew.”
Yet Caleb had been trained by the Gypsy Travel Agency to detect the presence of someone else poking around in his thoughts, and right now, he was pretty sure he was alone in his brain. “If the Gypsy Travel Agency wanted you, they probably helped him figure it out. They weren’t immune to a few unethical practices themselves.”
“I wondered. Those bastards.”
All right. Samuel really wasn’t bothering to mess with Caleb. He was too caught up in his own resentment. “Why did you leave the house yesterday?”
“Because I am fucking tired of sitting around doing nothing but being cautious and talking about what we should do. I went out there and did something.”
“What?”
“Let go of my arm and I’ll tell you.”
“Why don’t I tighten my grip and you’ll sing every word?”
Samuel struggled and snarled like a tiger with his tail in a trap. “You really think you’re in charge here, don’t you?”
“No.” Caleb ratcheted up Samuel’s pain by a few degrees. “But I think I’m in charge of making sure Jacqueline is safe, and I hate knowing I’ve done a bad job.”
Samuel gave up, stood very still, and recited the facts. “I made contact with one of my lawyer friends who’s into investment properties in New York City. I told him I wanted to buy the site where the Gypsy Travel Agency had stood, and asked him who the heirs were.”
Good idea. Astonished, Caleb let him go. “What was the answer?”
Samuel straightened his tie and turned to face him. “Right now they’ve got no bodies, because the bomb—which the bomb squad is saying must be a gas leak and the fire department is saying must be a new kind of explosive—vaporized everything inside and outside the building. But the list of beneficiaries goes on forever, and there are only two my buddy knows are alive. One is that guy in a coma, Gary White. The other . . . is Irving.”
“Irving? Is the heir? I don’t want to hear that.”
“Look. I don’t care about Irving one way or the other—I haven’t known him long enough—but it doesn’t make sense that he would do it. The first thing the lawyers have to do is provide death certificates for everyone who is in front of Irving on the beneficiary list, and unless the old man has discovered the Fountain of Youth—and with these people, I’m not saying that’s impossible—he’s going to be dead long before he comes into the inheritance.” Samuel had obviously considered all the angles.
Coldly, Caleb turned over the possibility in his mind. “I’ve questioned Irving’s morals”—today, in fact—“and I know sometimes guys have to have more, whether it makes sense or not.”
“I’m a lawyer. No one knows that better than me. But Irving hasn’t got any heirs, and he doesn’t seem to be banging anyone, so who would it be for?”
“Who, indeed?” Irving stepped out of the shadows at the end of the corridor. “No, gentlemen, I’m not your man. But I’m willing to bet Samuel got the list of beneficiaries out of his friend.”
“I did,” Samuel admitted.
“I have a list, too, and it’s supposed to be the most current.” Irving looked both grim and angry. “Shall we compare the names?”
“God, yes,” Samuel said with harsh delight. “That might throw some light on our perpetrator.”
The two men started down the corridor.
Caleb didn’t budge. “I don’t give a
damn about the list. I want to know who picked up the crystal ball and smashed Jacqueline’s skull with it.”
Irving and Samuel halted, swiveled.
“You know that for a fact?” Samuel asked.
“Yes.” Caleb had no intention of explaining the crystal ball had been the tattletale.
“Someone in this house?” Irving clarified.
Caleb met his eyes. “You set the enchantment, Irving. I’d say by your swift appearance you know who’s coming and going, and when. So has a stranger sneaked in?”
“No,” Irving said.
“Then yes, someone in this house.” Caleb met his eyes. “If it wasn’t Samuel, then who?”
“We could ask our second psychic if he knows,” Irving said.
“Our second psychic?” Samuel stepped back. “I wasn’t gone that long. Who the hell are you talking about?”
An ugly suspicion stirred in Caleb’s gut.
“Tyler Settles. Didn’t you know?” Irving stared hard at Samuel. “That’s his gift.”
“No, it’s not.” Samuel couldn’t have sounded more scornful. “He controls minds, like me. I saw him manipulate Zusane.”
A quick glance at Irving proved his chin had sagged and his eyes were round.
Okay. This was a surprise to him, too. Caleb didn’t feel quite so stupid. “When you saw him do it, why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I didn’t want to be in that silly chalk circle. I didn’t want to be part of the Gypsy Travel Agency. I didn’t want anything to do with the whole stupid setup, and I figured the less I got involved, the better off I was.” Samuel was frank to a fault.
“And now?” Irving asked.
“Now I’m stuck.” A hot flush settled on Samuel’s cheekbones. “For more reasons than one.”
“Yeah. Women.” Caleb could relate.
“Settles can mind-speak, too,” Samuel said. “When he was testing me out to see which of us was stronger, he tried to make me think his thoughts were mine. I let him know that didn’t work on me, and he backed off.”
“Guys, have you got a minute?” Charisma stood in the door of the library. She’d obviously been listening for a while. “I’ve got something you’ll be interested to see.”
Caleb shifted impatiently.
She looked right at him. “Really. You need to know this.”
He followed the other two men into the library.
She shut the door behind them. “Over there on the computer. When Tyler was having his vision, I kept thinking I’d seen something similar before. So I searched YouTube and guess what I found.” She clicked the mouse and started the video in motion. “Check out the character actor on this episode of Grey’s Anatomy.”
“It’s Tyler.” As if his knees could no longer hold him, Irving sank into the desk chair.
“The dialogue’s completely different, and he’s holding a gun, but . . . Man, that’s exactly the same routine,” Samuel said.
“Is it.” Caleb wasn’t asking a question. He was making a threat he intended to keep.
“He’s supposedly an epileptic patient who suffers from delusions.” Charisma’s gaze never left the screen. “In this version, in the end, instead of getting up off the floor on his own steam, he chokes to death on his own tongue.”
“We should be so lucky,” Irving said.
“I found a video of his faith healing show. He does the same routine there.” Leaning forward, she clicked her mouse, brought up another video, and started it playing.
Caleb turned on Irving. “I’m confused. How could you not know what his gift was? I thought the top dudes always knew.”
“They did. They do. I did know.” Irving blinked as he concentrated. “I remember thinking he was a mind manipulator, but after the explosion, I was in such an uproar, and when he said he was a psychic, I realized I had been wrong.”
“He never said that when I was around.” Samuel planted his feet. “Or at least not loudly enough that I could hear him.”
“Because you were the stronger manipulator and you would have called him on it.” Caleb hated knowing he had been criminally unperceptive. “And he waited to have a vision until you were out of the house.”
“How could I have been so gullible? I’ve been trained to recognize fakers.” Irving could not have been more chagrined.
“You said it. You were in an uproar of grief and fury.” Caleb balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to take action. “Where is he now?”
Irving squarely met his gaze. “He told me he was going out.”
“You let him?” Caleb hadn’t thought the state of affairs could get any worse. What a bitch to find out he was wrong.
“He had an important mission, so I encouraged him.” Irving spoke slowly, his eyes unfocused.
“What important mission?” Charisma asked.
It took a minute for Irving to snap to the realization he’d been manipulated again. “I don’t remember.”
“When did he leave?”
“He walked out of the meeting right after you did.”
“I’ll just bet he did. Search his room. See what you can find. A computer, a GPS, a cell phone. Something he can communicate with. Something that lets them know where we are. I’m going to see if I can locate him.” Caleb turned to the door.
“It’s a big city,” Samuel warned.
“I think I know where he is,” Caleb said. “And I’m going to make him sorry he ever tried to hurt me and mine.”
Chapter 33
Head down, Jacqueline walked with jerky determination up the stairs to Mrs. D’Angelo’s attic, and all the while fear buzzed like a thousand bees in her head.
She shouldn’t be here.
She was trespassing.
Mrs. D’Angelo wouldn’t like it.
Caleb would be furious.
She could have a vision and be hurt.
She wiped a sheen of sweat from her forehead, and with a trembling hand opened the door to the attic. She stepped inside and tried to focus on something besides her fear.
Mrs. D’Angelo’s attic was the polar opposite of Irving’s—small, cramped, with tiny windows and a low ceiling, stuffed with trunks and hung with old clothes and more of the inevitable lace curtains.
Jacqueline liked it. It felt cozy. Lived in. And without the spooky undertones of Irving’s stark space. If only she didn’t have to have a vision up here.
But second thoughts were useless. She would do what she had to do. She would. For Caleb.
The thought of him steadied her. Caleb wouldn’t be having second thoughts. Caleb wouldn’t be afraid. He always did what had to be done. The memory of his bravery pushed her forward. Shutting the door behind her, she looked around, and realized—she was too new in the vision business to know how to make it work. What if she needed the crystal ball to induce a vision? What if she had to be in Irving’s attic?
Panic choked her . . . and a shameful relief.
Coward. She was such a coward.
Then she stiffened her spine. If pain and death were the price she had to pay to invite a vision, she would pay. She owed Caleb all the help she could give him. If anything happened to him—no. She wouldn’t let it.
Spying an artist’s easel and a collection of drawings on the wall, she hurried over to see a lineup of crayon works with Caleb’s name scrawled in the corner of each one. Some of the pictures made her feel his passions—the young boy Caleb drew fire engines, firemen, big buildings, taxis, all the things he saw in his new world. Some made her feel his sorrow: He drew pictures of his father and mother, of his brother and himself, of a cottage overlooking the sea, and finally, of fire and his mother’s blind brown eyes.
Jacqueline stared at that one, stared hard, imprinting it on her brain. Mrs. D’Angelo had defended her husband and her son, and paid a horrific price in pain and blood and darkness.
Jacqueline touched the place on her forehead and remembered the pain of her concussion. She took a free, clear breath and wanted never again to
breathe smoke-filled air. She looked at her bandage-wrapped hand.
It was shaking so hard the stones of Charisma’s charms clinked against the silver bracelet.
She tried to close her fingers into a fighting fist.
It hurt. It ached. The stitches pulled.
She felt sick.
She recognized a pencil sketch of Zusane, clad in one of her sequined gowns and sporting a fur around her neck. Picking it up, she whispered, “Were you ever hurt by a vision?”
Storm of Visions Page 24
