The two men were close now, within touching distance. Suddenly, as if a psychic switch had been turned off, the pacing man’s aura dimmed, becoming markedly less intense. It was still the aura of a para-hunter but not one who is on the prowl. Instead, his energy field took on the colors and wavelengths of a person who is calm to the point of being sleepy. Whoever he was, the hunter was not interested in her or in Luther.
He went past, showing no signs of curiosity about the couple to his left. She had to fight the urge to look over her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Luther said quietly. “He’s gone.”
“Hunter,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She glanced at him, half afraid of what she might see. But his aura was normal again. Maybe she’d been mistaken a moment ago. Perhaps the proximity of the hunter’s fierce aura had confused her senses.
“You could tell he was a hunter?” she asked.
“I don’t have your brand of aura-reading talent but it isn’t hard to identify that kind of energy, especially when the guy’s running hot. Didn’t you notice how everyone else on the path unconsciously got out of his way? Even nonsensitives can detect a high-level predator in the vicinity. What did you pick up?”
“I have to admit I wasn’t taking notes. He was powerful, though, and, as you said, he was running wide open.”
“Hunting?”
She thought about it. “No. I didn’t get that from his aura. He wasn’t focused. I don’t think he was after anyone in particular. Maybe he was just out for an evening stroll and felt like running jacked. You know how it is. Sometimes you use your parasenses just because you can.”
“He could have been checking out the terrain,” Luther said. “Doing a little recon work.”
“That’s certainly a possibility. But for what purpose?”
“Good question. Anything else I should know?”
“One thing,” she said. “Whoever he was, he’s comfortable with violence.”
“A killer?”
She hesitated. “I think he has killed, yes, but he’s not a rogue or a freak. He wasn’t crazy or out of control. He wasn’t a sociopath, either. Those are easy to spot. What I saw indicated a cold, almost businesslike approach to violence.”
“Think he might have been military or maybe a cop?”
“Possible. Or maybe he’s a professional gangster. Whoever he is, he knows how to compartmentalize.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She wrinkled her nose. “It means that regardless of what he does in his day job, he’s quite capable of having a loving wife and family.”
“About that conversation we had earlier,” Luther said evenly. “The one in which we discussed Fallon Jones’s probability theory as it relates to this job.”
She swallowed hard. “That would be the theory which, roughly paraphrased, was ‘What are the odds that there will be more than one high-grade talent at that resort?’ ”
“Yeah, that theory,” Luther said. “I think it may be flawed.”
“I agree. But I suppose it’s theoretically possible that guy we just passed was an innocent tourist who happens to be staying at one of the nearby resorts. There are a lot of hotels on this beach.”
“Still.”
“Right. Still. Hunters that powerful aren’t exactly common on the ground.”
“No, they aren’t. Neither are high-level aura talents like us.” Luther came to a halt. “So the question becomes, what are the odds that three very strong sensitives would show up on this stretch of beach on the same night?”
“You’re wondering if this little coincidence is connected to our mission, aren’t you?”
“Looks like I’m going to have to call Fallon. Talk about a fast way to ruin the evening.”
She knew the exact instant when he reached for his cell phone because he had to release his tight grip on her arm to do it.
NINE
He couldn’t see her expression clearly in the moonlight but he didn’t need to in order to know that she was stunned. So was he, but not because he had just touched her.
They both looked down at where, until a moment ago, his fingers had been firmly wrapped around her upper arm.
“Damn,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Just wanted to steer you as far out of his path as possible. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said. Wonderingly, she touched his bare arm with her fingertips. “There’s no pain. None. I’m all right. It’s been so long, more than a year. You can’t imagine what a relief it is to know that I’m more or less normal again.”
“You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” She sounded elated, almost euphoric. “Yes, I’m fine.” She paused, staring down at her hands. “At least with you.”
He liked that, he realized; liked the idea that he was someone special, at least as far as she was concerned. She could not even begin to guess how she had just rocked his already slightly weird world. No one had ever detected his subtle aura manipulation, let alone actively resisted it.
The hunter had passed blithely by, never even noticing that his jacked-up senses had been temporarily suppressed. Yet Grace had pushed back at the quick, light attempt to calm her panic as easily as she would have closed a door that had been blown open by a breeze. Now, why was that so damn intriguing?
“Blame it on the magic of Hawaii,” he said. “Come on, let’s get somewhere private where I can call Fallon.”
They left the path, heading away from the beach, and moved deep into the heavily landscaped gardens of the nearest hotel. He stopped beneath the low-hanging branches of a large tree. Grace halted nearby. He fired up his senses again, this time to make sure there were no auras in the vicinity. No human lightbulbs appeared in the shrubbery. Satisfied that they were alone, he punched Fallon’s code into the phone.
He watched the dark silhouette that was Grace while he waited for Fallon to answer. She stood quietly beside him, arms folded beneath her breasts again. He wondered what she was thinking.
It was probably a very good thing that she did not seem to know what he had tried to do to her back there on the path. He got the feeling that she hadn’t been consciously aware of what she had done, either. Her attention had been riveted on the hunter.
Fallon answered on the second ring. That was unusual for him.
“What’s up, Malone?” he growled.
“I was starting to think you weren’t home. You usually jump on the phone halfway through the first ring.”
“I was making another pot of coffee. Been a long night. Why are you calling?”
Luther provided a brief run-through of the encounter and waited patiently while Fallon brooded on the new factor in the equation.
“I agree that it’s unlikely that you and Ms. Renquist would run across a high-grade hunter within a short distance of your hotel,” Fallon said finally. “It’s a red flag but not a huge one. Sensitives go on vacation in Hawaii like anyone else. Hell, it could have been a Jones.”
“I know there are a lot of hunters hanging around your family tree, Fallon, but what are the odds that one of them is here at the same time that Grace and I are supposed to be conducting surveillance on a high-grade killer?”
“Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve percent. Lot of Joneses live on the West Coast and a lot of ’em like to vacation in Hawaii. Been there myself.”
“You took a vacation?”
“It was a long time ago. Before I got this job. You’re sure the guy was a hunter? Any chance he might have been some other kind of talent? Maybe Eubanks got in early?”
“You said Eubanks is a level-nine strategist. This guy was definitely a hunter. Grace and I both made him.”
“Okay, I’m a little tired at the moment,” Fallon said. “Not at my best. Let me think about this some more. Meanwhile, stick to the original plan. If Eubanks shows up on schedule tomorrow, we can probably assume that the hunter’s presence in the area is just a coincidence.”