Orchid (26 page)

They stepped out into the frenetic activity of the gaming floor.

“We're going to follow Mr. Amazing after he finishes the show, aren't we?” Orchid asked.

Rafe smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice. She was not a strat-talent, but she definitely had a few primitive instincts of her own. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Then what?”

“Depends.” Rafe drew her through the throng of eager gamblers toward the front of the casino. “The dressing room entrance is in the alley. We can keep an eye on it from outside.”

The street in front of the Icy Dicey was even more crowded now than it had been earlier. The few cars that had ventured into it were trapped by the milling revelers. No one seemed to mind.

The decibel level had escalated. Another street band had joined the ice rock group on the corner. Rafe heard Orchid crunch a discarded noisemaker underfoot. Streamers drifted through the night.

He found a spot near a doorway that offered shelter from the jostling crowd and a good view of the alley entrance. A street vendor dressed in a Founders' Day costume held out a large paper bag.

“Popped nut-corn. Get 'em while they're nice and hot.”

“Sounds good.” Orchid fished in her pocket, found some change, and handed it to the vendor.

She accepted the brimming bag, took a handful of popped nut-corn for herself, and offered some to Rafe.

He scooped up a fistful of the salted nut-corn and shoved it into his mouth. Using his talent for extended periods of time heightened all of his appetites, he reflected.

“I love Founders' Day.” Orchid surveyed the cheerful crowds as she dug into the bag for more nut-corn. “I know we're here on serious business, but it's actually turning into a fun evening. You know how to show a girl a good time, Mr. Stonebraker.”

“Glad you're enjoying yourself.”

“Are you going to give up this private investigation
hobby of yours when you take control of your family's firm?”

The question stopped him cold. “I hadn't thought about it, to tell you the truth.”

“You probably won't have time for this kind of thing once you start running a big company like Stonebraker,” Orchid said conversationally. “But I think maybe I'll start specializing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I like this kind of work,” she explained. “There must be other private investigators, maybe some who actually have a license, who need the services of an ice-prism. I think I'll tell Clementine that I want to limit my practice to working with them.”

Rafe's gut tightened. “You intend to work with other private investigators?”

“Why not? Clementine wants us to think exclusive. What could be more exclusive than a full-spectrum ice-prism who helps conduct discrete private investigations?”

The thought of Orchid working in a dangerous situation with another talent sent a chill through Rafe. He had a sudden, clear vision of her standing on a street corner on a warm summer night munching popped nut-corn with another man while staking out a person of interest. A fierce sense of denial raced through him.

She was his.
They were meant for each other. Didn't she understand that?

“I don't think that would be a good idea,” he managed in what he hoped was a reasonable tone.

Her brows rose as she took another handful of nut-corn. “Why not?”

“Uh, because you don't really have any experience in investigation work.”

“Sure I do, thanks to you.” She shrugged. “And I'll get more as I go along.”

“Orchid, this is not the kind of work you go into on a casual basis.”

“You're the one who called it a hobby.” She munched nut-corn. “How did you get started, anyway?”

“I did a favor for a friend shortly after I returned from the Western Islands. Found something that had been lost, something valuable. A few weeks later one of his friends called. Asked me to find something else. One thing sort of led to another.”

“Sounds pretty casual to me. No training, no apprenticeship with a private investigation firm, no license. You only take referrals. You only take jobs that interest you. You only work for people who, for one reason or another, can't or won't go to the police.”

“Damn it, Orchid, if you think you can just blithely go to work as a prism who does private investigations—” He broke off as he caught sight of a shadow emerging from the alley. “There he is.”

“Mr. Amazing?” She spun around to stare at the alley entrance. “I don't see him.”

“Not Mr. Amazing. His prism. But he'll do.” Rafe took the half-full bag of popped nut-corn out of Orchid's hand and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. “In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a good idea to start with him.”

“Why?”

Rafe smiled as he took her arm and plunged into the crowd. “Because he's the weaker one.”

Easy prey.

“Do you think he's headed back to his car?” Orchid asked.

“I doubt it.” Rafe kept his eye on the curly haired man. “He's acting as if he's late for an appointment.”

There was something nervous and hurried about the prism's movements. He did not glance back over his shoulder, however, so whatever he anticipated lay ahead, not behind.

Rafe found it simple to pursue his quarry through the crowd. The prism was the only one who was walking
purposefully along the sidewalk. Everyone else was either strolling, ambling, or dancing.

Rafe and Orchid followed the prism at a discreet distance. After a block and a half they passed the last tavern on the street. The crowd thinned rapidly.

Rafe dropped back a few more paces. The prism had yet to look over his shoulder, but if he chose to do so now that there were fewer people about, there was a chance he would notice his tail.

In the middle of the next block, the magician's assistant slowed his pace. Rafe got the impression that whatever the appointment was, it was not one the prism wanted to keep.

Something was wrong. The nervousness Rafe had detected in his quarry was increasing. He looked more agitated. There was a stiff, tense set to his shoulders. His strides became almost jerky. He began to fiddle with something under his coat. A knife?

Rafe's driving curiosity was suddenly tempered with caution.

“Link,” he ordered softly.

“What's wrong?” Orchid supplied the prism even as she asked the question.

“I don't know.” He shoved power through the crystal prism. “I just want all the information I can get.”

The night shifted around him. Awareness infused his senses. He sorted through the new array of sounds, smells, and sights.

He picked up the mix of sweat, unwholesome, adrenaline-fed excitement, and a trace of anxiety and recognized the indefinable essence of bloodlust.

Not the prism, Rafe thought. Someone else. A predator waited in the darkness of a side street up ahead.

He saw that his quarry was moving even more slowly now than he had been a moment ago. But the prism kept going forward.

Rafe realized the curly haired man was going to turn down the side street where the predator was waiting.

“Oh, shit.” Rafe released Orchid's hand. He shoved her into the shadows of a darkened doorway. “Stay here. Don't follow.”

“What is it? What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“Just hold the focus for me. Whatever you do, don't lose it.”

He broke into a silent, loping run. His para-heightened instincts told him he had only seconds to catch up with his quarry.

The prism was
his
prey, damn it. He would not give him up to the other hunter who lay in wait in the shadows.

Chapter
14
 

Time ran out a heartbeat later. Rafe launched himself at the prism just as he reached the corner and started to turn down the street where the predator waited.

At the last instant, the curly haired man apparently sensed Rafe bearing down on him. He jerked around, his face a mask of startled fear. He threw up one hand in a reflexive gesture while he struggled to bring an object out from beneath his jacket with the other.

“Christ, no. Don't—”

The prism's scream halted abruptly as Rafe slammed into him. The jarring impact sent both men crashing to the sidewalk.

A figure came around the corner. Rafe did not need the weak streetlight or his paranormal senses to see the pistol in his hand.

There was a flash of icy flame when the gun roared. The bullet crashed into a brick wall above Rafe's head. He rolled and pulled the stunned prism deep into the cover of the doorway.

Rafe released the prism, got to his feet, and reached
down to yank a small pistol out of his ankle holster. He raised the gun and fired in one single motion.

But the predator who had been waiting for the prism had either lost his nerve or concluded that he did not like the new odds. He had apparently braced himself to shoot one man in cold blood. He was not prepared to deal with two, one of whom was also armed with a pistol.

He whirled and fled back into the darkness of the side street. Rafe tasted the fear in the other man. It had swamped the bloodlust.

“Rafe.”
Orchid's shout rang from her doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Stay where you are,” he yelled back. She had to know he was in reasonably good condition, he thought. They were still firmly linked on the psychic plane.

For once, she obeyed orders.

He waited another few seconds, listening to the gunman's retreating footsteps.

“It's okay,” he called. “You can come out now.”

When he heard her start toward him, he broke the link. The night world dimmed, shifted, returned to normal.

Rafe became aware of the shaking man he had pinned against the wall with one arm.

“What's your name?” he asked very softly.

“Let me go.”

“What's your name?”

“Uh, Crowder. Phil Crowder. Look, I don't know who you are, mister—”

“Sure, you do. We met the other night outside of Theo Willis's house.”

“No,” the man licked his lips. “That wasn't me.”

“It was you, all right. I never forget a—” Rafe broke off before he said
scent.
“Forget it. You're the prism. Mr. Amazing is the illusion-talent who was with you that night.” It was not a question.

Orchid came to a halt a short distance away. “Are you sure you're all right, Rafe?”

“Yes.” He did not look at her. “But our friend, here, is not all right. Someone just tried to kill him. Who was it, Crowder?”

“I don't know.”

Rafe pushed him harder against the wall. “Try again.”

“I swear, I don't know. I was supposed to meet my bookie here. I owe him some money. Got a little behind at the tables. But that wasn't him. It was someone else.”

“Someone the bookie sent, maybe?”

“Shit, no. Murphy wouldn't have sent someone to kill me. I'm not that far behind in my payments.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don't know, I tell you.”

Rafe concentrated intensely for a few seconds. He only needed a short burst of strat-talent awareness to assure him that the man was not lying. “Got any ideas?”

“No.”

“I do,” Rafe said very gently. “I think maybe whoever hired you to watch Theo Willis's house and get rid of Morgan Lambert has decided that you've become a liability. He came here tonight to get rid of you.”

“Oh, Christ.” There was fear and weary defeat in Crowder's voice. “I never wanted to do those jobs. But I needed the money real bad. For my bookie, y'know? He was threatening to send his knee man after me. Shit, I knew this was gonna be trouble. I knew it right from the start.”

“Tell me about it.” Rafe could feel Orchid watching him question Crowder. Her tension was palpable. He reminded himself to be careful. He didn't want to do anything too primitive in front of her. “Start with who hired you.”

“Jink hired me. That's all I know, I tell you.”

“Jink?”

“Mr. Amazing. I don't know the rest of his real name. He goes by Jink off-stage. He's an illusion-talent. Really strong. He needed a prism who could handle his power on stage. Said he didn't want to get someone from a
focus agency. I found out why after I'd been working with him for awhile.”

“He wanted you to do some work on the side, right?”

“Yeah. But he booked the outside stuff, y'know? I never even knew who hired us. Jink handled everything.”

Orchid stirred in the shadows. “You tried to murder Rafe that night outside Theo's house.”

“No, Founders' truth. We were just supposed to rough him up a bit. Scare him off. Least, that's what Jink told me.”

“What was in the letter you took from Morgan Lambert's houseboat?” Rafe asked.

“Shit, I don't know. Jink found the letter. He never showed it to me.”

“You deliberately overdosed Morgan on dirty-ice,” Orchid said.