“Right,” she repeated. She turned and hurried up the stairs. When she reached the doorway, she paused and looked back at him.
“An intuitive flash of impending disaster?” she said.
“I’m supposed to be psychic, remember?”
“Of course.”
“Where did you pick up that factoid about the meaning of the word nightman?”
“I had what you might call an eclectic education.”
“Homeschooled?”
“Yes. Plus, I read a lot.”
“When this is over, maybe it’s time you told me who or what you’re hiding from,” Fallon said quietly.
“I should have known better than to take a job as an assistant to a psychic detective.”
4
We still don’t have any leads, Mr. Lucan,” Julian Garrett said. “Turned over every stone we could find in Phoenix. It’s like she never existed except during the short time she worked at that department store.”
“It’s been damn near a month,” Max Lucan said.
“I’m aware of that, sir.”
Max got up from his desk and went to stand at the window of his office. Absently he touched the black granite pedestal that stood nearby. The pedestal held the bronze statue of a seated cat. The creature had a gold ring in one ear.
The statue was Egyptian. Like the other antiquities displayed in the room, it was authentic. It had been created sometime around 600 B.C. But it was not the age of the bronze that intrigued Max. It was the power that the artist had somehow infused into the metal. After all these centuries, the energy in the figure still whispered to him.
“How could a little finder-talent drop off the radar so easily?” he asked.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Julian said.
“Rawlins and Burley still haven’t recovered their memories?”
“No, sir, and I think we should assume they never will. Evidently the finder-talent put them into some sort of fugue state. They remember locating her in that mall store, but the next thing either of them remembers is waking up in front of a restaurant three miles away.”
Max felt the hair on the back of his neck stir. He knew it was because he was missing some important pieces of the puzzle. “Interesting that Rawlins and Burley didn’t get run down by a car, walking blind like that through Phoenix traffic at night.”
“They can’t account for that, either,” Julian said. “They had to cross a lot of streets in the process of getting as far as the restaurant. Damn lucky, I guess.”
“I think it’s more likely there are a few things we don’t know about the finder-talent,” Max said. He could hardly blame her. He kept his own unique ability secret, too. As far as most people were concerned, he was just very, very good at tracing stolen antiquities and providing security for museum collections. “I wonder what else she kept from us while she was here.”
“We need to find her, sir.”
“I’m aware of that,” Max said.
He watched the sunlight flash on the yachts in the harbor. Lucan Protection Services occupied two floors of a gleaming new office building in one of the most exclusive enclaves on California’s Gold Coast. Not that his clients were ever impressed with the view or the refined sophistication of the décor of his company’s headquarters. The majority of the collectors who commissioned the services of his firm were wealthy and well traveled. They frequently owned handfuls of residences in locales ranging from the Caribbean to New York to Paris. It took more than a view and expensive interior design to impress them. Nevertheless, Max thought, you could not run a business like Lucan out of a storefront in a strip mall. Appearances mattered in the world in which he operated.
I’m missing something here.
“Tell me again what went wrong in Phoenix?” he said.
Julian ran through the details again but there was nothing new.
“Obviously she made my men when they found her in that department store,” he concluded. “From what they could piece together later, she escaped through the emergency stairwell. Her car was gone from the mall garage. It turned up later in a parking lot outside a hospital emergency room. All indications are that she never did return to the motel where she was staying.”
“In other words, she went to work that night ready to run if necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just like she ran from Lucan when we found the files on her computer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s damn good at getting lost.” Max pondered that for a moment. “Any news on Caitlin Phillips?”
“No, sir. She’s still missing, too,” Julian said. “We need to assume that she’s dead.”
Max tightened his grip on the edge of the granite pedestal. “Someone has been dealing para-weapons out of Department A for nearly a year, and now two women have vanished. The broker handling the arms deals was shot to death, a dangerous artifact has gone missing and I’ve got a black-ops agency breathing down my neck. This is not good for Lucan’s corporate image, Garrett.”
“I understand, sir. Believe me, I’m working the case night and day.”
Max turned around to face him. “No one gets away with using the resources of my company to deal black market weapons.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find the women and find that damn artifact.”
5
There was a take-out container sitting on top of the garbage can in the alley behind the Sunshine. Walker picked it up and was pleased to note that the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peas inside were still warm. It was his lucky night.
Just like last night, he thought. He had a vague recollection of having gotten lucky the night before that, as well, but his memory was somewhat unreliable when it came to the unimportant stuff. Sometimes it took everything he had to stay focused on his mission.
He hunkered down, bracing his back against the wooden wall of the café, and methodically consumed the chicken dinner. Really, it was a shame the way people threw away good food. All the starving kids in the world and yet folks in the Cove tossed out perfectly edible stuff like chicken and mashed potatoes and peas every night. Same deal with muffins and coffee in the mornings. Damn shame.
He finished the meal and got to his feet. He went back to the garbage can, lifted the lid and deposited the empty take-out container inside.
Adjusting the hood of the long, heavy coat to shield his face from the rain, he resumed his patrol. The pressure in his head had been building again lately. That was not good. It meant something bad was going to happen.
He had discovered the warm, waterproof coat and the boots sitting on top of another trash container in the Cove. He was pretty sure that particular can was located in the alley behind the PI’s office.
The PI was important to Scargill Cove, but Walker wasn’t sure why, not yet, at any rate. He knew what he knew and that was enough. He had gotten the same whispery sense of certainty again when Isabella Valdez arrived in town. He had watched her walk into the Cove that night and known that she belonged there. Just like Jones.
Walker walked behind the row of darkened shops and turned right at the corner. The familiar route took him past the Scar. It was early, not quite seven o’clock. The tavern was still busy. He could hear the voices of the regulars inside. Elvis music drifted out into the night. He paid no attention. Everything was normal in this sector. His job was to keep an eye out for things that were wrong or out of place.
There had already been a couple of very disturbing developments today. Several hours ago Isabella had driven out of town. Jones had followed not long after. Walker had been very relieved when Isabella had returned, but it alarmed him that Jones had not yet come back to town.