Tempted by Fate (13 page)

Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “The zap I felt when she walked into the room was pretty telling—a definite disturbance in the Force if I ever felt one.”

“She?” Frowning, Carrie turned to her husband. “Didn’t Francesca deliver the Book of Water to a guy?”

“Yes.”

“She was the Wood Guardian.” Gabe wrinkled her nose. “I thought I smelled fresh-cut wood when I got close to her.”

“Why was the Guardian of the Book of Wood in the Pour House?” Max asked, a puzzled look on his face.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault she
walked into the bar.” She glared at him. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what happened, love?” her boyfriend said in that aggravatingly reasonable voice of his.

She threw her hands in the air. “That’s what I was trying to do.”

Carrie reached up and patted her arm. “We’re listening, Gabe.”

“The short of it is, she was sitting at the bar when I walked out of the storeroom. We saw each other, I lost it, broke a few bottles, and then she hit me with the Force and ran out.” Gabe rubbed the spot on her chest. It felt like something had thrust into her and split her in two. It still ached, and she had a huge bruise, too. She’d had to hide it from Rhys that morning because he overreacted to things like that.

Rhys stood with the quick grace of a striking rattlesnake and held her by her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did she hurt you?”

See? That’s what she was talking about. She smoothed the superfine wool of his suit. “I’m fine. Really.”

He didn’t look like he believed her, but he eased down a little. He took her hand and pulled her down next to him on the couch, keeping hold of her.

“You know what?” Carrie said slowly. Her gaze distant, the same look she got when she was contemplating the complexities of ancient Chinese texts. “I felt something weird last night as Rick and I were headed to his car.”

Max went on instant alert. “What?”

“Easy, big boy.” She patted her husband’s leg. “I just felt a strange sensation. Kind of like a ripple in a pond.”

Gabe stared at her friend, the klepto, who’d stolen the Book of Water from a monastery in China because she wanted to make a splash in her academic world. Carrie had lucked out. Except for the occasional rippling twinge, she’d emerged from her time with the Book of Water unscathed. She could have been killed, or worse, for what she had done. She’d also managed to find true love in the process.

“I think I must have felt her,” Carrie continued. “I wouldn’t have felt the zap you guys apparently feel when you’re in the same room, but I’m still a little sensitive to your energies.”

“The question is what she wanted,” Max said, slipping a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“The question is what the hell is she doing here,” Gabe corrected. “It’s against the commandments.”

Max raised his brow. “Commandments?”

Amusement lit Rhys’s eyes. “Gabrielle was taught several rules where the scrolls are concerned.”

Gabe raised a finger. “One, the Guardian who protects the scroll possesses its power. Two, the Guardian must keep his scroll hidden—”

“I think I know the basic tenets of being a Guardian,” Max said dryly. “I’ve had the job a few years.”

She shrugged. She couldn’t help it. She’d only come into hers last year. The other Guardians had had their scrolls forever. They’d learned the ins and outs of being a Guardian from a master, right at the source of it all in China.

What she did know was that the scrolls were
not
meant to be united, because it harbored way too much concentrated power. It was the reason they were separated in
the first place. “Doesn’t it bother anyone that four out of five Guardians are all in San Francisco right at this moment? Isn’t that frickin’ bizarre? It’s not supposed to be that way.”

Rhys lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Gabrielle is concerned about the fate of the world.”

Max grunted. “She should be. I’ve seen her in action.”

Rhys’s lips quirked, but to his credit he held his smile back.

“Sure, laugh it up, you two.” She wanted Max and Rhys to get over their animosity, just not at her expense. They hadn’t recaptured the closeness they’d once had, but at least they didn’t go for each other’s throats anymore. “When the world gets blown to bits, don’t look at me.”

“I don’t think the world is going to self-destruct.”

They all looked at Carrie.

Looking thoughtful, she ran a hand over the small mound of her belly. “If you guys weren’t supposed to be in the same space, Wei Lin would have made sure that couldn’t happen. He would have set those parameters when he stole the scrolls, found the five people worthy of protecting them from the rest of mankind’s misuse, and marked them.”

Gabe shook her head. “Maybe he trusted the Guardians to know to do that on their own.”

Carrie shook her head. “I don’t believe that. If it were so taboo, he would have done something about it. I should know. I stole his journal.”

Like any of them needed to be reminded of that. Carrie’s sudden bout of thievery resulted in all of them almost being outed as Guardians just a few months ago.
They needed to keep their identities concealed for fear of being discovered, and having the world after their powers.

“I’ll look into it,” Carrie announced with her usual enthusiastic perkiness.

“No!” Gabe and Max exclaimed together.

Rhys addressed her calmly. “No need, darling. I’m sure among the three of us, we can suss out what this other Guardian wants.”

“What, you’re going to storm her house with swords and torches?” Carrie rolled her eyes. “In case you guys forgot, I’m a scholar. I’m an expert at research. Let me look into the potential hazards of having the Guardians amassed in one place.”

Max shook his head. “You—”

His wife covered his mouth with her hand. “I promise I won’t do anything crazy or put myself in any danger. I’m just going to do a little reading.”

“The last time you did a little reading, you almost got skewered by your thesis advisor,” Gabe pointed out.

Her best friend shot her an exasperated look. “Thanks for bringing that up. Like Max isn’t protective enough.”

“I’m willing to let Carrie do her research,” Rhys said. “As long as she doesn’t put herself in danger.”

“I won’t,” she promised. At Max’s snort, she squeezed his thigh. “I swear I won’t.”

Max leveled a look at Rhys. “You’ll check from your end.”

Rhys smiled, that killer shark smile Gabe had seen him flash just before he decimated one of his business opponents. “Of course.”

Gabe sat back, cuddling into his side. She didn’t feel
sunny and light, but she did feel a little better for having the other three on it, too. Despite the challenges of the three Guardians being in one place, they (and Carrie) made a pretty great team. If only they could keep from killing each other, and everyone else in the world.

M
artin Weinberg, from the Computer Forensics Unit, slapped a manila folder onto Ramirez’s desk. “This chick is like the wind.”

Ramirez looked up from his laptop. “What does that mean?”

The kid was practically frothing at the mouth. He snagged the chair next to the desk, flipped it around, and straddled it. “She totally doesn’t exist. I’d stake my rep on it.”

As young as Weinberg was, his rep was solid. All the detectives used him when they needed more than the usual information. Weinberg had been a famous hacker before he was recruited out of the schoolroom to join the force. Ramirez knew the kid wanted more fieldwork, which made him eager to help with any case.

“What makes you say that?” he asked even though he didn’t have a single doubt that
Sophie Mitchell
was fabricated.

The kid leaned forward, his gaze bright. “Dude, don’t
get me wrong. The cover is brilliantly done. I mean,
brilliant
. I couldn’t have made up an identity better than this.”

A cover.
Ramirez leaned back in his chair and straightened his tie. It wasn’t like he didn’t know she’d been lying. He hesitated, torn between needing to know who she was and not wanting to, at the same time. “What did you find?”

“The alias is perfect. There’s an existing birth certificate, credit cards, passport, apartment, the works. And the records all go back in time.”

“If it’s so perfect, what makes you think it’s fake?”

“Because I’m a supergenius.” He recoiled in affront. “Duh.”

Ramirez nodded, ignoring the smirk Taylor shot him. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”

“Damn straight. Anyway, before you rudely doubted my abilities, I was going to tell you that most credit reports only extend seven years into the past. No one ever researches beyond that, given there’s a valid driver’s license and birth document. But I, of course, always check further back.” Weinberg leaned in again, his momentary pique forgotten in his excitement. “There’s no paperwork before ten years ago.”

It was on the tip of Ramirez’s tongue to ask if he was sure, but he didn’t want to insult the kid any further.

“So I dug deeper. You told me to go all the way, right?”

Ramirez nodded. “I did.”

The kid widened his eyes, trying to look innocent. “Even if it meant tapping into networks I shouldn’t have been in?”

“Stop.” Ramirez rubbed his face. “Don’t tell me. I just want to know what you found out about her.”

“All of it?”

“Of course.”

The kid pulled out another manila folder and smacked that on top of the previous one. “Willow Tarata. Age unknown. Kiwi, though some might call her a citizen of the world, given all the countries she’d lived in. She doesn’t travel under her own identity, but under several different ones, including Sophie Mitchell.”

Willow Tarata.
Willow. That
name suited her. Tall and reedy. Sad. Grounded. Vibrant with life.

He straightened in his chair. What the hell was coming over him? She was a suspected criminal. If Taylor knew the direction his thoughts were going, Ramirez would never hear the end of it. He picked up the folder and stared at it. “Go on.”

Weinberg leaned in. “The most interesting part is that she has plenty of money, but she’s never been employed. It looks like she receives a modest deposit each month. I’d need more time to find out where the deposits come from, they’re so wrapped up in red tape.”

Interesting
wasn’t the word he’d use. “Does her address in New York check out?”

The kid shook his head. “Totally bogus, dude. That building is condemned and about to be gutted.”

Ramirez glared at the dossier, anger blurring his vision. Why he was so furious, he had no idea. He’d known she’d lied to him—it wasn’t as though this was a surprise. Yet, that didn’t seem to make a difference.

The kid drummed his fingers on the chair’s metal back. “I tried tracking where she was now, but she hasn’t
left any kind of trail. She’s like a ghost. Whoever is masking her trail is a fricking artist.”

“Anything else?”

“All in the report, boss.” He blinked eagerly. “Brilliant work, if I say so myself. Aren’t you going to read it?”

“Yes, I am. Thanks for this.”

“Because there’s this one part where—”

Taylor leaned over from his cubicle. “I think that means you’re dismissed, kid.”

“Aw, man. Already?” He stood reluctantly. “I thought I could wait to see if you had questions. Or to see if I could help you when you go after this
bee-yatch
.”

Ramirez frowned. “Don’t be disrespectful.”

The kid sighed in defeat. “Call me if you need more. Or if you want to go to the range sometime. I’ve been practicing and I—”

“Out,” Ramirez ordered.

With a regretful sigh, Weinberg stood and scampered away. His expression made Ramirez regret being harsh, but he needed to read the report, and he didn’t want an audience.

“Annoying kid, but he knows his stuff.” Taylor nodded at the file. “What’s that about?”

He hadn’t told his partner about Willow. He’d had no choice. He couldn’t exactly say he saw a woman at the scene of the crime who had disappeared into thin air, leaving behind the breathy harmony of a flute. He’d be laughed straight out of the station and into a mental hospital. “At Bohemia I noticed a woman who seemed suspicious.”