Dancing on the Wind (26 page)

exception.”

She held his malevolent glare for a second or two longer then relaxed her fingers.

“You’re going to pay for this tonight, Robbie. I promise you, you will,” she swore.

“Yeah, like I’m shaking in my goddamned boots,” he shot back, lowering his

sunglasses and turning around to switch on the motor. He revved the engine loudly,

backed the bike out of the parking slot and peeled out of the rest area, zipping narrowly

ahead of a sixteen-wheeler as he melded onto the interstate. A blast of the semi’s horn

brought Fallon’s hand up in a nasty salute before the bike shot forward with a

vengeance.

“You’re going to get us killed!” Bolivar screamed in his ear. Her arms were locked

around his waist, her chest pressed tight to his back.

“We all gotta die someday,” he said under his breath.

* * * * *

Four Days Later

Keenan was just as restless—if not as angry as her partner—for she’d just learned it

would be another week before she would be allowed to join Fallon. Between them, the

Supervisor and Breslin had decided that speaking in tongues was something they

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needed to add to the repertoire of strange and mysterious abilities Tandy Lynch

possessed and only Breslin would be able to translate her words. Coming up with a

pseudo-language that would allow Keenan and Breslin to communicate when she was

“filled with the Holy Spirit” had seemed like a good idea at the time but was proving to

be harder than she could have imagined.

“You aren’t concentrating,” Breslin complained as he threw down his notebook of

words and phrases they’d created.

“I’m tired, Zack,” she replied. “We’ve been at this for hours and I’m just tired.”

“There can’t be any room for error, Kiki,” Breslin reminded her. “These people are

dangerous. If they find out we’re playing them, they won’t hesitate to sic whatever that

thing is they’ve got on us.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not

ready to meet my maker yet.”

Keenan released a long, weary breath. She had a headache, her stomach was

growling and she was nervous because she hadn’t heard from Fallon in six days. The

last communication anyone at the Exchange received from him had come just before the

ministry left Georgia and that had been several days past. A quick phone call to a

number in New York had been rerouted to the Exchange in Iowa. All Fallon had said

was they were on their way to Florida and nothing more. She was worried about him

and concerned that he hadn’t sent her at least a reassuring touch from his mind to hers

for nearly a week.

“All right. Obviously your mind is on the prick,” Breslin said, showing his

irritation. “Get the hell out of here. We’ll take this up again tomorrow.” He slammed his

briefcase shut, snatched it up and stalked out of the room.

Keenan winced as he slammed the training room door shut behind him. Sometimes

she forgot he could read her thoughts as easily as Fallon could, and she knew she had to

work on that. It wouldn’t do to have Breslin privy to the inner turmoil roiling around

inside her. When the door opened again, she put a tight clamp on her thoughts and

turned, expecting Breslin.

“Matty,” she said, relieved. “When did you get back?”

“About an hour ago,” he said, coming over to give her a hug. He’d been at a

convention in Las Vegas since Fallon had been gone and she’d missed talking to him.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she told him. “I could really use a friend right now.”

Matty’s eyebrows shot up. “What happened? Is Misha all right?”

“Yeah, as far as I know. I haven’t heard from him in days but he checked in with

command and things appear okay.”

“But you’re not so sure.”

“The last contact I had from him, he wasn’t in a good place mentally,” she said. “I

think the assignment is getting to him.”

“You mean getting close to his target is getting to him,” Matty suggested, searching

her eyes.

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“I think he believed he could handle it, but the bonding…” She cocked a shoulder.

“Well, well, well,” Matty said, grinning. “You think the big dog is feeling the tether

and not coping well with the limitations?”

“Maybe,” she mumbled, wanting to tell Matty she was getting feelings of shame

from Fallon but knowing her partner wouldn’t want her saying such a thing about him.

“He’ll maintain, Kiki,” Matty said, using the nickname Breslin had given her. “No

need to worry about him.” He looked around. “Are you through for the day, or is the

big, bad taskmaster coming back?”

“No, I’m through,” she said, and started gathering up her notebooks.

“Then let’s go get some supper and I’ll take you to the show in Grinnell. That new

space pirate flick is playing.”

“I don’t know…”

“It’ll take your mind off everything. All work and no play and all that,” Matty

insisted.

She’d been working hard over the last week and it would be another week before

she’d see Fallon. Worrying about him was all she could do at the moment, and that was

taking its toll on her. She hadn’t been sleeping very well and couldn’t concentrate.

Perhaps what she needed was to relax and unwind for a few hours.

“Okay,” she said. “Let me go ditch this stuff in my locker and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Fantastic!” Matty said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby. How’s that?”

“That’ll work,” she said.

When she met him later in the lobby, he was standing there with one hand behind

his back. As she came up to him, he brought his hand around and in it was a single

deep red rose.

“For you, my beauty,” he said, extending it to her.

Keenan accepted the rose then gasped as a thorn pricked her thumb.

“Oh sweetie, I’m sorry!” Matty said. He took out his handkerchief. “Let me see.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, but he reached for her injured finger and blotted the drop

of blood.

“Damned florist,” Matty said. “They’re supposed to snap off the thorns.”

“They just missed one, that’s all,” she said. Her thumb was stinging so she drew on

the injury again. “No harm done.”

“Well, I intend to give them a piece of what’s left of my mind tomorrow,” he told

her. He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket then draped his arm around her. “I

promise I won’t let anything else hurt you tonight.”

Uncomfortable with his arm around her, Keenan started to move away but his hold

tightened and he started walking, chatting a mile a minute about the movie they would

be seeing that evening. As he led her out of the building and to his car, she realized the

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man walking beside her was acting as though this were a date and not two friends

having supper and taking in a flick.

“Matty,” she said when he opened the car door for her. “This isn’t going to lead to

anything. You know that, don’t you?”

She watched some strange emotion flicker across his face but then he grinned.

“You’re off limits,” he said. “The hound dog made that very clear.”

“Just so there’s no misunderstanding,” she said, still uneasy with the way he was

looking at her.

“Nope. I see things very clearly, sweetie.” He shut her door then walked around the

front of the car to the driver’s side.

Keenan looked down at the rose. It was beautiful—floral perfection—and the color

was vibrant and the petals as soft as velvet, but that lone thorn had marred the

flawlessness of the flower and her thumb still stung from the bite.

“Okay, so what do you feel in the mood for?” Matty asked as he got into the car.

“Chinese, Mexican, Italian, American, what?”

“I had pizza for supper last night,” she replied. “How ’bout that new Thai place in

Grinnell?”

“Sounds good,” he said. “The spicier the better!”

Keenan asked about his conference in Vegas and he began to wax enthusiastically

about the biogenic innovations he’d been shown. As he talked, she put a hand up to her

temple. Her headache had increased and she knew it was because she’d skipped

lunch—not something she normally did. Her stomach was growling so loudly Matty

heard it.

“Are you starving yourself, darling?” he asked.

“Breslin worked us all the way through lunch and I am famished,” she admitted.

“Good,” he said, nodding. “I like to take my women out on an empty stomach.”

“Why’s that?”

“Makes me look like a hero when I feed ’em,” he said with a laugh.

She laughed and they talked about this and that until he asked her if they’d learned

anything new about Mignon Bolivar.

“Oh, she’s a piece of work,” Keenan said. “Her real name is Francine Cook. Her

grandmother Yvette was a white woman who worked kooch shows back in the forties

and fifties. According to police records from Oklahoma City, she was raped by a black

man and nine months later gave birth to her only child, a daughter she named Jonelle.

Jonelle is Bolivar’s mother.”

“Still alive?”

“Yes. She and the grandmother live in Gibsontown, Florida.”

“What about Bolivar’s father? Do you know who he was?”

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“It’s a pretty good assumption that he was one of the carnival workers though

Jonelle never named him. It could have been one of many although she did have a

carnie marriage with a man named Bud Tolliver for about four years.” She rubbed her

temple where the headache had become a stabbing agony. “Francine was born to the

carnie way of life and later became a talker for one of the game booths.”

“Talker?”

“What most people call a carnival barker. Anyway, by the time she was twenty-

four, she owned her own joint and it’s a safe bet she was pulling down somewhere

around a hundred grand a year, bilking unsuspecting customers—or rubes as they call

them—out of thousands of dollars from rigged game booths.”

Matty whistled. “Man, I’m in the wrong business.”

“You and me both,” Keenan agreed.

“I didn’t realize carnival people made that kind of money.”

“The ones good at their job do all right. You ever notice the motor homes at the

fairs? Those things don’t come cheap.”

“No, I don’t suppose they do,” Matty replied. He flipped on his turn signal. “So

why did she leave the carnie and become a faith healer?”

“More money obviously,” Keenan said, “but African-American people in the

carnies have a tough row to hoe. Carnival goers make it rough for them and the local

authorities do the good old racial profiling thing to the max when a man or woman of

color arrives in their town.”

“So she moved on to a profession where color obviously doesn’t matter.”

“Desperate people who are quickly losing hope don’t care about the color of your

skin if you can lay your hands on them and heal,” Keenan said. She put her thumb up

to her mouth, annoyed that the wound was still burning. “In the guise of religion where

there should be no color boundaries, Bolivar has found a perfect avenue to steal from

those who are too weak, too old and too helpless to know she’s conning them.”

“Are you going to be okay with doing the same thing?” Matty asked quietly,

flicking her a side glance as he stopped for a red light.

Keenan couldn’t tell him about the powers she had been given in the Ozarks. Only

three people knew. Fallon would say nothing and she was sure the Supervisor would

never reveal what had transpired down there.

“I guess I’ll have to be,” she said. “It’s better to hurt a few now than to allow Bolivar

to keep on bilking hundreds more.”

“And killing those who oppose her.”

Keenan nodded. “Yeah. That’s the most important thing.” She twisted around in

the seat. “What could it be she uses to do those killings, Matty? Breslin said the victims

looked like they’d been put through a meat grinder. Every bone in their bodies had

been broken, every organ flattened.”

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“Breslin thinks its some kind of supernatural entity she’s controlling,” Matty said.

“I’ve seen and heard enough at the Exchange to know that’s not as farfetched as an

outsider would think. I mean, look at Fallon. He’s not altogether human, you know?”

He snapped his fingers. “Hey, that may be why you haven’t heard from him in a few

days.”

“Why?” she asked as he pulled into the Thai restaurant.

“I’d have to look at his records to be sure, but he could be going through that three-

day Transition cycle he undergoes four times a year. If that’s the case, he’s holed up

somewhere.”

“He told me about that,” she said. “About the containment cell here.” Her face

mirrored her worry. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“Yeah, sure. If I know Misha—and I do—he’ll pretend he went on a bender. No

way he’d let anyone see him like that.”

Keenan shivered. “He said he never wanted me to see that side of him.”

“Believe me, darling, you don’t want to,” Matty told her. He turned off the engine

and opened his door. “Okay, let’s go fill that growling tummy of yours!”

As they sat eating the spicy Thai food, Matty thought back to a very enlightening

phone call he’d made a few hours earlier. Over the course of that long conversation, he

had discovered a kindred soul whose objectives could be made to mesh quite well with