Beyond Fearless (7 page)

And she knew that they all belonged to him. For long moments, she stared at the tray. She wanted to know about him, yet she had to steel herself to take the plunge.

Finally, she picked up the arrowhead and stroked her thumb over the chipped edge, then looked at him.

“You're from the West—the mountains.”

She saw him swallow. “You can tell that from holding an arrowhead in your hand?”

“Yes.” Still clutching the chipped stone, she murmured, “You grew up on a ranch.”

“Uh-huh.”

Feeling a sense of power gathering inside her, she reached for the red toothbrush, seeing a little boy leaning over a sink, brushing his teeth. This was like her act. Sort of. On stage she touched one thing from each patron. Now she had a whole tray of objects—from one man. And she could learn so much more.

“Your mother was your father's second wife. She was so happy to have a baby. But your older brother—”

“Didn't agree,” he finished for her.

“That's putting it mildly.” She scrambled for a name and came up with, “Craig. He hated you, right?”

He raised one shoulder, and she figured he didn't want to talk about his brother. So she picked up the piece of leather and squeezed it in her fist, getting another image. “As soon as you were old enough, you'd saddle a horse and go off into the mountains.”

“Yeah.”

On a roll, she kept speaking. “You had a cave that you fixed up with a blanket and a metal box for food—to keep the bears away. You called it your fort.”

His expectant gaze stayed fixed on her, and she knew he was waiting for more, so she reached for the cigarette pack.

The image from it was strong. “You took the cigarettes to your fort and tried to smoke them. But they made you sick.”

He grimaced, remembering. “As a dog.”

“So you crumpled them up and threw them away.”

“That was an expensive mistake for a kid who had to earn his allowance by doing chores.”

She picked up a metal button faced with mother-of-pearl and held it between her thumb and finger, seeing him clinging to a mean-looking horse that was trying to buck him off. “You were in a rodeo.”

“A few of them.”

She had left the keys for last. But finally she picked them up and weighed them in her hand, instantly overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness.

“You went away to college. And you never came back.”

He nodded.

“You hated to leave the mountains.”

His face turned defiant. “I did okay for myself.”

“Yes. But that's not the point.”

“What is?”

They stared at each other across three feet of charged space.

“You're the mind reader,” he challenged.

She lifted the tray. “I need more than this.”

“What?”

She felt herself start to tremble. Deep inside, she knew the answer. But she didn't want to tell him. Or admit it to herself.

Shaking her head, she took a step back and then another, until her shoulders were against a wall. When he took a step toward her, she knew there was only one way to escape.

Clawing herself from sleep, she woke with her heart pounding, remembering the collection of things on the tray and the conversation. And the feeling of panic at the end.

That was real. But what about the rest of it? Had she tapped into Zachary Robinson's life story? It felt like it. But she could have made it all up because she wanted to be close to him.

She lay in bed, holding on to a handful of the sheet as one more question circled round and round in her head.

Why did some of it—the early years of his life—seem strangely familiar?

ZACH'S EYES BLINKED
open, and he turned his head toward the window. It was very early, just after dawn. But a dream had awakened him.

First he'd been in the Sugar Cane Club watching Anna do her act. Then he'd been up on stage with her. He'd started reaching into his pockets and putting things on the tray. Things from his life. He hadn't even known what they were going to be. And as each one hit the tray, a memory zinged into his brain.

Then Anna had begun picking them up. As she did, he felt her right along with him, watching his life unfold.

So what was the dream trying to tell him? That Anna could pull his memories out of his head?

Unable to deal with the direction his thoughts were taking, he showered and pulled on his clothes, then checked his e-mail for an answer to the message he'd sent to Terrance Sanford, explaining that he had found the wreck, but he couldn't get back to it immediately.

There was no reply. Maybe Sanford was going to cut him loose and hire someone else. Damn.

He wanted to find out what exactly had happened on that yacht. It didn't look like he'd get a chance until his crew arrived.

But that wasn't the main frustration eating at him. He needed to contact Anna.

Needed? The urgency of the desire was startling. And alarming. Since his childhood, he hadn't relied on anyone besides himself.

So what was different about Anna? The question sent him back to the theory that she had powers beyond the ones she had demonstrated the night before in her act. She was a witch—and she had gotten her hooks into him. She had made him think he'd known her for years, that they hadn't just met last night.

Of course, there was a serious problem with that scenario. In the alley, the look on her face had said she was as confused as he.

Did that mean some outside force was working on both of them?

He laughed. Sure. Like maybe the Vadiana Blessed Ones? They were supposed to be powerful here, weren't they? Maybe they wanted him and Anna together for some reason.

He snorted. What was he thinking now—that in the Caribbean the old religions held sway? And the gods were playing with him and Anna?

Angry with himself for letting his mind drift toward the supernatural, and too restless to stay around his hotel room, he walked to a nearby coffee shop for a latte and a cheese croissant. It was hard to sit still and sip the coffee; he wanted to start prowling through old town, looking for Anna's hotel.

He should have followed her last night. And he would have if Bertrand hadn't been there.

Jesus! What did that make him? A stalker?

No!

He just needed to think. And the best place for that was the water. Not on the
Odysseus
, which would be hard to handle on his own. Something smaller.

After taking a final sip of coffee, he strode down to the docks, rented a motor launch, and cast off.

As he steered the small boat into the wind, he felt the rush of pleasure he always got when he reached the open water. At the same time, his thoughts returned to the dream. To the details of his life that had come flooding back as Anna had picked up each possession.

He'd acquired a lot of nautical know-how in college. And after graduation he'd gotten a chance to sign on to a treasure hunting expedition off Hispaniola. That was when he discovered his knack for diving in the right place.

He was the one who had led the more experienced men to the wreck of the
Santa Inez
. They came up with a chest of Spanish doubloons and a boatload of museum-quality artifacts.

Zach had gotten to be friends with James Foster, the man who financed the expedition. They struck up a business deal where Foster set Zach up with a boat of his own in exchange for 25 percent of the profits. Zach worked under that arrangement for four years, until he had enough money to buy his own rig. By that time, he'd also acquired a reputation that led to a string of customers lined up to hire him for jobs.

He'd dived for ancient treasure and modern wrecks. And in between, he sometimes took tourists out on diving expeditions.

The salvage jobs had led him to Grand Fernandino. Maybe he and Anna had both arrived here about the same time. He didn't even know her last name or where she was staying. And maybe that was good.

Last night he'd been under the spell of Magic Anna. Now that he was thinking more clearly, maybe he should go back to his hotel, get his gear, and leave the island. Before he got into serious trouble.

Or maybe he should stop focusing on Anna and start trying to figure out who had put that image of Pagor on the
Blue Heron
.

 

NADINE
Linzer opened her eyes. Slowly she turned her head. When she saw that Raoul was gone, she breathed out a little sigh. She had the house to herself for the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of the night. Or he might not be back for a few days. Sometimes he'd drop in unannounced. Other times, he'd send a message. Like yesterday evening. So she'd washed her hair and made herself pretty for him.

She stretched, her muscles sore from the kinky sex of the night before.

After the man had rescued her from what amounted to slavery, she'd been grateful. Then as she'd gotten to know him better, she'd wondered if she'd jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Raoul had set her up in this nice little house, and she'd thought all she had to do to earn her keep was make love with him. It was a couple of months before she found out what was in the locked room down the hall.

Her benefactor had strange tastes, starting with his tattoo. And progressing to fucking and sucking on a table in what looked like a religious shrine. She'd come to realize that he was serious about what they were doing in there. The sex was part of worshipping his goddess, Ibena.

At first that had creeped her out, but she'd learned how to deal with it. And they usually ended up in bed, where they could finish off with his doing something spectacular to her.

She got up, pulled on a silk dressing gown, and padded down the hall to the kitchen. He'd made coffee and left a pot on the warming pad in the coffee machine. She sniffed the dark liquid. French roast. The good stuff.

She poured herself a cup and added cream and sugar, then thumbed through the stack of cash he'd left on the counter. A hundred dollars. Not as payment for the sex, but for the household expenses.

As she showered, she planned her day. She'd go to the market and buy some supplies. Fruit. Cheese. A chicken. Alive and flapping a minute before they wrung its neck.

Since she'd learned to shop the way the island women did, she'd put away at least thirty-five or forty dollars out of every hundred. Her little stash was adding up. And she had more money, too. Money Raoul thought he'd hidden under a floorboard behind the sofa.

She knew where it was, and she had no compunctions about using it. Raoul was using her. That was the ugly secret of their relationship.

He thought he was in control. But if she needed to get away from him, she had the money to do it. Not just travel expenses; enough to live on while she found a paying job.

Transportation was a problem, though. She'd have to find someone willing to take her away. Someone who wasn't afraid of Ibena and Pagor and the other saints Raoul worshipped.

Meanwhile, she had a pretty good deal with Raoul. Except that the bastard wasn't satisfied with a mistress; he wanted to add a wife to the mix, and she knew the kind of woman he wanted. Someone with psychic powers to juice up his mojo.

He strutted around, acting like he could do the Vulcan mind-meld or something. Although she wasn't so sure his beetle-browed look had any effect on reality, she had learned to live with the religious mumbo jumbo.

Now there was that other woman to consider. One night Nadine had walked down to the art gallery and heard Raoul and his friend Etienne discussing business. He'd asked the club owner to hire the woman, and now she was here, working a “mind reading” act down at the Sugar Cane Club.

Maybe it was Nadine's duty to save the woman from Raoul. Or maybe she'd better keep the hell out of it—if she didn't want to end up like one of those chickens with its neck wrung.

When she'd dressed modestly in white capris and a loose-fitting white shirt, she left the house and headed for the marketplace.

She had reached the corner when she saw a dark-skinned, bald-headed man with a neatly trimmed beard walking toward her. Going stock-still, she wondered what she was going to do or say.

She knew who he was.

Joseph Hondino, the most influential Vadiana priest on the island. Raoul had pointed him out and talked about Hondino from time to time. He'd sneered at the old man because he had a completely different view of the religion.

But there were aspects of the worship practices that gave Nadine the creeps. No matter who was sacrificing chickens and goats for whatever reasons, she didn't go for that kind of stuff. In her mind, it was worse to kill them than to have sex on the altar—the way Raoul liked to worship with her.

Probably Hondino had the opposite opinion. Still, from what she gathered, the older man had a sense of morality that Raoul completely lacked. And in Raoul's mind, that made the priest a chump. He should be out for what he could get. He should be consolidating his power and getting ready to rule the island.

But maybe he couldn't. Maybe Pagor and Ibena and the other saints were on Raoul's side.

All that flashed through her mind before the man said, “How are you?”

“I'm fine.”

“Maybe I can help you.”

“How?”

“Are you frightened?”

“No!”

He gave her a considering look, and she felt like he could see into her head.

“I think you're lying to me—or to yourself.”

As the priest studied her, she struggled not to squirm.

“I see you're not ready to ask for my help. But you will be. I think you'll know when the time is right. You know where to find me?”

“I…”

“My house is the yellow one with the purple bougainvillea in the front yard. And the old stone altar—made from ships' ballast. You know the one?”

She answered with a tight nod.

“Don't be afraid to come to me when you feel the world closing in on you.”

She swallowed and looked furtively around to make sure nobody was watching them. If Raoul found out she'd said anything at all to this guy, he'd be furious. Without another word, she walked quickly toward the market, praying that nobody was going to report this meeting on the street to Raoul.

 

ANNA
had vowed to sleep late, but once she woke from the dream about Zachary Robinson, it was impossible to go back to sleep. She lay in bed, thinking about him, adding details about his life—and then pondering the strange fantasy she'd experienced just before she'd gone on stage last night. When the two of them had been together.

Yes, the two of them. Because when she dared to be honest with herself, she knew that he had been the man holding her in his arms. But he hadn't been the only one there. Another man had been hovering in the background, watching them, his anger simmering. And he had yanked them back to reality.

She grabbed two wads of sheets to keep her hands from shaking.

What did it mean?

The fantasy—and the dream?

She'd felt like she'd been dragged into the first encounter against her will. But in the dream, she'd been in charge.

Or was she kidding herself?

She wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she got up and pulled on cotton shorts and a T-shirt so she could go down and get a cup of coffee and some fruit, which was about all she could handle that morning, even though the hotel provided wonderful baked goods, eggs, and bacon.

The breakfast was served in a charming courtyard where orange and magenta bougainvillea climbed the walls and pink and white geraniums bloomed in island-manufactured clay pots.

While she was still sitting at the Spanish tile and wrought iron breakfast table, an island boy arrived with a note. Etienne Bertrand needed to see her at the club.

She'd rather take care of whatever it was over the phone, but there was no phone in her room. She'd have to talk to him in the hotel parlor, and he probably wanted to have a private conversation.

So she told the boy who'd brought the message that she'd go to the club in an hour, then gave him a tip for delivering the message, although she was pretty sure Bertrand had already paid him. But she'd seen the poverty on the island. And if she could feed stray cats, she could give kids money, too.

She took her time showering and washing her hair. Last night Bertrand had told her to sleep late. This morning he was sending for her. So had something changed?

She put on loose-fitting white cotton pants and an aqua shirt with a sea plant pattern, along with comfortable sandals. Maybe on the way back she could stop at a couple of the market stalls and buy some more of the comfortable cotton clothing that was a specialty of the island.