The Lost Night (33 page)

Darwina retreated but she kept her attention focused on Lancaster, ready to spring at him in an instant.

“Don’t move or I’ll let Darwina tear your throat out,” Rachel said.

“You can’t do this,” Lancaster gasped. He put a hand to his throat and then stared at his bloodstained fingers, shocked. “It bit me.”

“She missed your jugular,” Rachel said. “You’ll be all right. Sort of. But you have no idea how much meditation I’m going to have to do tonight
to harmonize my senses. It’s not like I don’t have better things to do with my evenings these days, you know.” She turned to Jilly. “Are you okay?”

“I will be after I’ve had a few drinks,” Jilly said. “What did you just do to him?”

“I extinguished his talent. He’s still Marcus Lancaster but he won’t be quite the super salesman he was once upon a time.”

“Oh, geez,” Jilly said. “And here I thought you were just real good at brewing tea and reading auras.”

“I can do those things, too.”

The muffled roar of a big flash-rock engine sounded in the drive. The heavy vehicle slammed to a stop in front of the cottage. Boots pounded on the steps and an instant later Harry came through the door riding a dark wave of fierce energy. His eyes burned.

Slade Attridge was right behind him, gun at the ready. Rex raced through the doorway with the men, all four eyes and plenty of teeth showing. There was no clutch purse in sight. He had come ready for battle, Rachel thought.

But Rex seemed to register almost immediately that there was no longer a threat. He fluffed up, closed his hunting eyes, and scurried over to greet Darwina. She, too, went into full drier-lint mode and chortled coyly.

Harry looked at Lancaster, who was moaning on the floor. Then he switched his attention to Rachel.

“Are you okay?” he asked a little roughly.

She gave him
a wan smile. “It seems like you’ve asked me that question a lot lately.”

“What’s the answer?”

“I’m okay.”

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “Don’t ever, ever scare the hell out of me like that again.”

“Okay,” she mumbled into his shirt front. “How did you know that he was on the island?”

“When I realized that there had been some kind of bureaucratic snafu, I called your old boss, Ian Oakford. He told me he had a feeling that the paperwork mix-up at the clinic had been engineered by Lancaster. Said to tell you that he thinks you were right about him all along. He also said that the bastard’s obsession with you was real—the only thing that Lancaster didn’t fake. Said that if Lancaster had managed to slip away, he would go after you immediately.”

Rachel raised her head. “Dr. Oakford said that I was right in my diagnosis?”

“I think he said something about telling you that you could have your old job back, but by that time I wasn’t listening. Slade and I were heading for the door.”

“Lancaster is going to be a problem,” Slade said quietly. “If we send him back to the Frequency City cops, he’ll use his talent to slip away again, just like he did this time.”

“I know,” Harry said.

The cold, hard edge on his words made Rachel lift her head from his shoulder. She looked at Harry and then she looked at Slade
. She knew what both men were thinking. It would be so easy and so convenient to make Lancaster disappear into the Preserve.

“That won’t be necessary,” she said briskly. “If he gets out of jail, it won’t be because of his talent.”

“What did you do to him?” Harry asked.

“You could say I charmed him.”

“When I generate the right amount of energy through the charms on my bracelet, they
create a psychic dissonance. It’s very disturbing to those in the vicinity but it doesn’t do any real damage unless I focus on an individual’s aura,” Rachel said. She wrapped both hands around her teacup. “When I do that, each charm becomes a small paranormal mirror. I can aim those mirrors at any place on an individual’s spectrum, but I need physical contact and a clear target. When Lancaster flew into a rage, he automatically rezzed his talent.”

“Which provided you with the psychic target you needed,” Harry said. “I understand.”

They were sitting in the kitchen. Dinner was over but the table had not yet been cleared. The last slice of the enormous takeout pizza that Harry had picked up earlier was sitting in a box. The bottle of wine next to the box was almost empty. Instead
of dessert, Rachel had brewed some harmony tea for both of them.

Darwina was on the windowsill munching a chocolate zinger. She had Amberella with her. Doll and dust bunny looked out into the night as if expecting company.

“Technically speaking,” Rachel said, “I didn’t destroy that section of his aura but I threw the wavelengths into what will probably be a permanent state of disharmony. He won’t be able to focus his psychic talent clearly again.”

“Serves the bastard right.”

“Lancaster is still one of the monsters.” Rachel picked up her tisane, took a sip, and lowered the cup. “Like I told Dr. Oakford, some things can’t be fixed, at least not with the para-psych knowledge that we have now.”

Harry set down his cup, reached across the table, and captured her face in one hand. “Have you considered Oakford’s offer to return to the clinic?”

She smiled, enjoying the power and tenderness of his hand. “Nope.”

“Not even for a moment?”

“I knew the day I was fired that I was not cut out for the mainstream world.”

“I don’t seem to be cut out for that world, either.”

“Where does that leave you?” she asked.

“Here on Rainshadow Island with you.”

“You won’t be going back to Frequency City?”

“Not to live,” he said. “My work is here on Rainshadow, at least for now.”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re needed here.”

“I need to be here but
not because of the Preserve. I could handle the logistics of the investigation from off-island. I need to be here because this is where you are. I loved you from the first moment I saw you, Rachel.”

“Ha. You had me at the top of your suspect list.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” He seemed genuinely confused.

“Are you serious? How could you fall in love with someone you thought was up to no good inside the Preserve?”

“You expect me to answer a question like that?” Harry asked. “You’re the one trained in Harmonic Enlightenment philosophy.”

“All right, maybe you were sexually attracted to me from the start,” she suggested.

“Maybe?”

“That’s okay. I was attracted to you, too. Sexual attraction can sometimes be a starting point for a deeper, more enduring relationship.”

Harry smiled his pirate smile. “Honey, I’m a guy. I know all about sexual attraction and how fast it works.”

“Oh, right.”

“There was definitely a lot of heat between us right from the start. But here’s a little insight into my personal psyche. I wouldn’t set out to rescue a female suspect from whatever mess she had landed in just because I was sexually attracted to her.”

Rachel was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears gathered in her eyes. “You wanted to rescue me? Even though you thought I might be guilty? That is so—”

“Irrational
? Crazy? Unenlightened?”

“No.” She sniffed and grabbed a napkin to blot her eyes. “That is so romantic.”

“First I’m a gentleman for taking the fall in my divorce and now I’m a romantic because I fell in love with a suspect.” He shook his head. “Mind telling me what herbs you put in the aura tea blend that you brew for yourself?”

She ignored that. “What would you have done if it turned out I was guilty of stealing those three stones?”

“I knew that you weren’t exactly the cold, calculating criminal type. I figured that, if you were involved, it was because you had been lured into trouble and gotten in way over your head.”

“Gee, thanks. You think I’m that naïve?”

“Worst-case scenario was that you had allowed misplaced loyalty to a friend to get you into trouble,” Harry assured her.

“Like my loyalty to Calvin Dillard? Because I don’t consider that misplaced.”

“Neither do I,” Harry said. He captured her hand, rose, and pulled her to her feet. “It’s part of who you are. I’m good with that. In my family we understand loyalty, even when it’s misplaced. Marry me, Rachel. I want a full Covenant Marriage with all the trappings.”

“Again?”

He smiled. “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” she asked uneasily. “You’d have to meet my family, and there will be an additional Harmonic Enlightenment ceremony to go through. We have our
own set of traditions in the Community.”

His eyes burned with the heat of love. He drew her into his arms.

“Lately you and I survived a firebombing, an encounter with a sea monster, and some bad guys who wanted to kill us. Not to mention the escape from an exploding Alien laboratory full of hot artifacts and the results of some paranormal biology experiments. As long as I have you at my side, I can deal with your family and an HE wedding ceremony.”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Of course you can. You’re the great-grandson of a pirate and you’re a shadow-aura. You’re a real-life legend. You can handle anything.”

Harry kissed her. She kissed him back.

After a while he picked her up in his arms and started to carry her out of the kitchen.

Darwina grabbed Amberella and another chocolate zinger. She hopped down from the windowsill and bustled to the door, chortling.

“I think she’s expecting a hot date,” Rachel said. “I’d better open the door for her.”

“We may have to install a dust bunny door,” Harry said.

He carried Rachel across the kitchen. She reached down and opened the door. Warm, balmy night air wafted into the room.

“No storm tonight,” Harry said. “That’s a good sign.”

Darwina dashed outside
onto the darkened porch with Amberella and vaulted up onto the railing.

“Have fun,” Rachel said. “But no riding around in fast cars with guys.”

Darwina chortled.

Rachel closed the door and locked it. Then she de-rezzed the lights. After all, Harry did not need artificial illumination to find his way to the bedroom.

At the top of the stairs Rachel heard the delicate, musical clash of her charms and then she forgot everything except the sweet, hot fire of love that burned in the atmosphere.

Rex appeared out of the night, his crystal-studded clutch purse glittering in the moonlight. He fluttered across the yard and bounded up onto the railing, chortling a romantic greeting. Darwina was waiting, with Amberella clutched in one paw. She gave him half the chocolate zinger.

They perched there together for a while, savoring the evening and the chocolate zinger. When the moon rose, they bounced down to the ground and slipped away into the darkness. A wonderland lit with sparkling crystal waterfalls and flowers that glowed in shades of ultralight beckoned. It was a fine night to go hunting.

The dead diver was wedged like a bone in the stone throat of the underwater cave they called
the
Monster. The body—still clad in a tank and regulator, fins, buoyancy compensator, and mask—shifted gently in the subtle current. One gloved hand rose and fell in spectral warning.

Turn back
.

But for Judson Coppersmith there was no going back.

The locals on the island claimed that the flooded cave beast swallowed divers whole. The adrenaline junkies who were foolish enough to ignore the signs outside at the entrance never got far inside the uncharted labyrinth of underwater passages. The smart ones turned back in time. But the explosion in the dry section of the cavern had sealed the aboveground exit and canceled that option. His only hope
was to try to swim out to the sea through the Monster.

There was no darkness as dense and relentless as that of the interior of an underwater cave. But the clarity of the water was surreal. The beam of the flashlight sliced through the deep night like a laser, pinning the body.