“Arcane keeps J&J on retainer,” Fallon pointed out. “We get plenty of other business from members of the Society. We don’t have to go after the Lost Dogs and Haunted Houses trade. And on the rare occasion when we do take on that kind of job, we hand it off to one of our contract agents who doesn’t mind the work.”
“Norma’s office is over in Willow Creek. She says the Zander house is about three miles from there somewhere out on the bluffs. There are no other J&J agents available for a radius of nearly a hundred miles. We’re all she’s got.”
“Forget it,” Fallon said. “I need you here.”
“This will only take an afternoon. I think we should develop new revenue streams.”
He wasn’t into the zone. Nevertheless, his intuition went ping, sounding a lot like his computer when a new bit of data arrived.
“You were a waitress before you took this job,” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t tell me you picked up the term revenue streamin the food-and-beverage business?”
She ignored that. “You said yourself that the Governing Council or whatever it is that runs the Arcane Society is starting to whine about the costs of the recent operations against that Nightshade conspiracy you’re chasing. It would be sound policy for J&J to find other sources of income in case our budget gets cut by the Council.”
“The Council can grumble all it wants. Zack is the Master of the Society and he understands what’s at stake. He’ll see to it that I get the funding I need.”
“Fine.” Isabella gave him another radiant smile. “Then I’ll take Norma Spaulding’s payment as a commission for my work. I could use the money, given the lousy salary you’re paying me.”
He felt like a deer in the headlights when she used that smile on him. It was more dangerous than the crystal gun that had turned up in the Hawaii case. His finely tuned brain seemed to short-circuit when she glowed the way she was glowing now.
“You’re the one who told me how much to pay you,” he said, grasping at straws. “If you wanted more money, why didn’t you ask for it?”
“Because I needed the job,” she said smoothly. “I didn’t want to scare you by asking for what I’m really worth.”
“I don’t scare that easily.”
“Are you kidding?” She chuckled. “You should have seen the look on your face when the new desk and chair arrived.”
“If I flinched, it wasn’t because of the price of the damn furniture,” he said.
“I know.” Her tone gentled. “It was the shock of realizing that you were going to be sharing your working space with me. I understand.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re accustomed to being alone,” she said. “By now you’ve probably convinced yourself that you need solitude in order to do your work. And it’s true, up to a point. But you don’t require as much of it as you think you do. You’ve built a fortress around yourself. That’s not good.”
“Now you’re analyzing me? I sure as hell didn’t hire you to do that.”
“You’re right. You don’t pay me nearly enough for that kind of work. Do you have any idea how much a psychologist charges per hour these days? And good luck even finding one who understands those of us who are psychic. Most respectable shrinks would take one look at you and conclude that you’re crazy.”
He went cold and still.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Isabella said. She made a face. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re not crazy. Not even close. I wouldn’t work for you if I thought you were. Now let’s get back to the Zander house case.”
He exhaled slowly. “Fine. Your case, your commission. But don’t spend too much time on it. Like I said, I’m not paying you to chase ghosts.”
“Right.” She got to her feet and plucked her yellow raincoat off the Victorian wrought iron coatrack. “Norma told me that there is a key box on the Zander house. She gave me the code to open it. I’ll drive out to the mansion now, check it out and pronounce it a ghost-free zone.”
“Have fun.”
Isabella flew out the door, taking all the light and energy that had illuminated the office with her.
He contemplated the closed door for a long time.
I need you here at the office. I need you.
He listened to her light footsteps on the stairs. After a moment he got up and went to the window. Isabella appeared on the street. She paused long enough to hoist her umbrella against the rain and then hurried along Scargill Cove’s twisted little main street to Toomey’s Treasures. Toomey’s window was filled with a lot of New Agey, so-called metaphysical tools, chimes, tarot cards, crystals and exotic oils.
Instead of going up the outside stairs to the rooms she had rented above the shop, Isabella disappeared around back. A short time later she emerged behind the wheel of a little yellow and white Mini Cooper. She had bought the car from Bud Yeager, who operated the Cove’s sole gas station and garage. No one knew where Yeager had obtained the vehicle. In the Cove you did not ask those kinds of questions. Fallon braced one hand against the windowsill and watched Isabella drive out of town toward the road that would take her to the old highway.
She had not arrived in Scargill Cove in a car. She had appeared, as if by magic, late one night, carrying only the backpack. That was not so unusual in the Cove. The tiny community had always been a magnet for misfits, drifters and others who did not fit in with mainstream society. But most people moved on. The Cove was not for everyone. Something about the energy of the place, Fallon thought.
The aura of power that shimmered around Isabella Valdez had sent up a lot of red flags. He did not like coincidences. Having another strong talent move into town and take a job at the café directly across the street from J&J had struck him as highly suspicious. The fact that he had been blindsided by the sudden and acute physical attraction he had experienced had been even more disturbing. He had not been able to explain away the sensation by reminding himself that he had been living a celibate life far too long.
His first thought was that Isabella was a Nightshade spy. When he researched her online, he found a very neat, very tidy bio that, as far as he was concerned, only added to the mystery. Nobody had such a pristine personal history. According to what few records existed, she had been raised outside the Arcane community by a single mother who had died when Isabella was in her sophomore year in college. Her father had been killed in a traffic accident shortly before she was born. She had no siblings or close relatives. Until her arrival in the Cove, she had made her living in a series of low-level jobs, the kind that did not leave a lot of footprints in government databases or corporate personnel files.
Hungry for answers and the need to make certain that Isabella was not a Nightshade operative, he had brought Grace and Luther, his best aura-talent agents, all the way from Hawaii, just to take a look. They had detected no signs of the formula in Isabella’s energy field. Grace’s verdict was that the town’s newest resident was just one more lost soul who had found her way to a community that specialized in lost souls.
But Fallon knew that there was more to Isabella’s story. Sooner or later he would get the answers. For now he was left with his questions.
And an inexplicable need to keep Isabella close and safe.
2
The old Zander place definitely fit the classic image of a haunted house, Isabella thought. A three-story stone monstrosity from the early 1900s, it hunkered like some great, brooding gargoyle on the cliffs above a skeletal beach.
She brought the Mini Cooper to a halt in the drive and contemplated the weathered mansion. She was still not certain why she had felt compelled to take the case. Fallon was right. J&J was a for-real psychic investigation agency. The firm had enough to do handling the weird Nightshade conspiracy that obsessed Fallon, as well as the routine jobs commissioned by members of the Arcane Society. The agency did not need to take on Lost Dogs and Haunted Houses cases.