White Lies (11 page)

“Thanks for the enthusiastic encouragement.”

“Huh,” Jake said again. “You want to be a private investigator?”

“It’s been my dream for a while now. I’ve applied several times to the West Coast office of Jones & Jones but the dumbass who runs the firm won’t hire me.”

“Dumbass?” Jake repeated neutrally.

“Fallon Jones.” She made a face. “I know those Jones men are legends in the Society, at least the Joneses who trace their descent back to Sylvester Jones are. But if you ask me, Fallon Jones is a narrow-minded, hidebound, dumbass jerk who can’t see past the myths about my kind of talent long enough to realize that all human lie detectors are not the same.”

“Huh.”

“Honestly, you’d think that of all people in the Society, a Jones would be especially open-minded. I mean, it’s not like a lot of the Jones men haven’t been pretty extreme talents, now, is it?”

“No,” Jake admitted, sounding very cautious. “No, it’s not as if there haven’t been some exotics in that family.”

“Exactly. A Jones should be able to look beyond the myths and stories and rumors about certain kinds of unusual talents. But Dumbass Fallon Jones obviously can’t do that.”

“Huh,” he said again.

She smiled, satisfaction bubbling up inside her. “So, I’m going to start up my own psychic investigation agency and give J&J a little competition.”

“Should be interesting.”

“I expect it will be. Getting fired unexpectedly from the trust kind of put a crimp in my business plan. I had intended to work for another year in order to put together enough capital to open my agency. I was also hoping to persuade the trust to become my first big client after I left. But that all went up in smoke when the rumors about my connection to the McAllister murder reached management. So, to make ends meet, I tried to find another position right away.”

“But that didn’t work out.”

“No,” she admitted. “And now I think it was for the best. As I said, it has given me the impetus to take the big leap out on my own.” She polished off the rest of a piece of bruschetta. “Speaking of your professional activities, Mr. Salter, I went online and did a little research on you.”

“Learn anything interesting?”

She cleared her throat. “Came across your website and some personal stuff. That’s all.”

“Personal stuff.” He crunched bruschetta. “That would be an oblique reference to my divorce?”

“As you can see, I have a natural talent for inducing people to give up information.”

“Probably be useful in the investigation business,” he said. “What do you want to know about my divorce?”

“It’s not really any of my business.”

“True. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you’re curious, does it?”

“Okay, I wondered if your ex was a sensitive,” she said.

“No.” He turned the wineglass in his hand, studying the contents. “That was a deliberate choice on my part. I thought maybe she wouldn’t notice my little eccentricities.”

She watched him closely. “They’re not so little, are they?”

He did not respond immediately. For a few seconds she wondered if he was going to lie.

He met her eyes. “I’m a level-ten parasensitive.”

The truth at last. She whistled softly. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Such as?”

“Such as why you let everyone think you’re a mid-range strategy talent. Level tens of any kind tend to make a lot of people nervous.”

He watched her with an unwavering gaze. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“I’m a ten, too, remember? What happened to your marriage?”

“Let’s see.” He stretched out his legs and assumed a reflective air. “As I recall, about three months into the marriage, she started to complain that I was being overprotective and that I was trying to run her life.”

“Let me guess. Before the marriage your protective streak seemed very romantic to her.”

“Don’t know about that. All I can tell you is that she didn’t mention the problem until three months into the marriage.”

“Any other complaints?”

“I believe she may have mentioned that I was overly demanding.”

“Overly demanding?”

He looked at her. “In bed.”

“Oh.” She gulped some wine and swallowed hard. “I see.”

“Four months into the marriage she started talking about needing more space. Six months in, she went to see a divorce lawyer.”

“Your marriage only lasted six months?”

“It was a disaster from the start.” He drank some more of his wine. “I should have known better. The experts always tell you that strong parasensitives don’t do well with people who are not also sensitive. Hate to admit it, but I think they’re right.”

“Maybe.” She settled back in her lounger. The wine was starting to have an effect. She was feeling much more relaxed than a few minutes before. A lot more insightful, too. “But in your case I’m not so sure that your marriage went on the rocks just because you married an outsider.”

He raised one brow. “Got a better theory?”

She contemplated the glowing pool. “You’re the take-charge type. Not your fault. It’s part of who you are.”

Jake made no comment. Inspired by his lack of argument, she warmed to her theme.

“The way I see it, your ex-wife was probably telling you the truth when she said that you were trying to run her life. Running things is what you do.” Clare raised a finger. “But your instincts weren’t the problem. Neither were your intentions. The real issue was that she didn’t know how to hold her own with you.”

“Think that was it?” Jake asked in an odd tone of voice.

“She probably couldn’t set boundaries and, when necessary, put you in your place. So, in the end, she panicked and fled the scene, leaving you confused and bewildered and wondering what the hell you did wrong.”

“You sound very certain of your analysis.”

“Yep.” She nodded, feeling very sage now. “You are what they sometimes call an alpha male. Leader of the pack. Trouble is, in the modern world, there aren’t a lot of packs to lead so your natural talents get applied to whatever comes into your orbit. Family, spouse, business, whatever.”

Silence greeted that statement.

Clare turned her head to see how he was taking her brilliant insights. A cold shock went through her when she realized that he was watching her with an unnervingly enigmatic air.

“How did you know?” he asked evenly.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Just a wild hunch, honest.”

“How did you know?” This time the question sounded distinctly dangerous.

“That you are a much stronger talent than you lead others to believe?” A trickle of unease penetrated the pleasant wine haze. “Uh, well, it really isn’t all that hard to tell. I mean, it’s sort of obvious.”

“No, it is not obvious.” He put his half-finished wine down on the table. “And it isn’t in the Arcane Society’s genealogy files, either, at least not the ones that are open to the public. So how did you figure it out?”

“I’m getting a little confused here, Jake. What, exactly, is so secret about you being a take-charge type?”

“I’m talking about your alpha male comment. Don’t try to slide out of this. You know, don’t you?”

Understanding finally dawned on her. “Oh. I see. You’re a hunter.”

He watched her with the steady, unblinking gaze of a top-of-the-line predator.

“Yes,” he said.

“Actually, I hadn’t guessed that part. Just that you’re a high-end talent.”

The corners of his eyes tightened ever so slightly.

She cleared her throat. “Well, you have to admit that it does sort of explain your little problem with your marriage. Everyone knows that hunters are very difficult to match.”

“Some people think that’s because our type of sensitivity is so damnedprimitive ,” he said. There was a gleaming edge on every word. “They used to call us throwbacks. Some people still do.”

“Get over it. We’re all primitive beneath the surface. That’s why they invented civilization, remember?”

“Civilization doesn’t always work.”

“Maybe not, but it’s definitely way ahead of whatever is in second place.” She frowned at the nearly empty plate. “Are you going to eat that last piece of bruschetta?”

There was no response to what seemed to her to be a perfectly polite question. When she looked up from the plate she saw that Jake was still studying her with a disturbing gaze.

“What now?” she asked.

“It doesn’t bother you.”

“Knowing that you’re a hunter? Nah. It’s kind of reassuring.”

“Why?”

“It explains why you have to lie a lot. I respect secrets, Jake. And I know how to keep them. Trust me. Now, about that last piece of bruschetta.”

“Help yourself,” he said.

“Thanks.” She scooped up the bruschetta and took a crunchy bite. “What with having to shop for this dress and nearly getting run down in the garage, I didn’t have time for lunch. I’m starving.”

“Dinner will be ready soon.”

“Lovely.” She drank a little more wine, ate the last of the bruschetta and settled back to enjoy the descent of the desert night.

“Level-ten hunters often make other sensitives nervous,” Jake said after a while.

“Hey, you want to narrow your social life down to a humiliatingly small vanishing point? Try telling everyone you know that you’re a human lie detector.”

“I can see where that might do the trick,” he said.

“I blame the whole negative attitude toward hunters on the Jones men,” she said. “The Joneses who are the direct descendents of the founder, that is.”

“Why do you hold them responsible for the bad image?”

“They haven’t all been what we call hunters by any means, but some of them were and over the years that bunch managed to make themselves legends in the Society, right?”

“I’ve heard that,” he agreed.

“That’s all well and good. Every community needs its legends. But the problem with a powerful legend is that it usually consists of a little dollop of truth surrounded by several layers of fluffy lies. After a while the lies conceal the truth at the core and everyone starts to believe the lies. In the case of hunters, there has been a decidedly dangerous image associated with that type of talent because so many of the stories connected to the Jones men who were hunters involve violence.”

“So?”

She took another sip of wine. “The way I see it, hunters, in general, get a bad rap simply because of those darn Jones men. If they had pursued normal, ordinary careers the way you have instead of chasing after bad guys, no one would think twice about a sensitive who happened to be a hunter today.”

“You don’t think that answer might be a little too simplistic?”

“Makes sense to me.”

He let that ride for a while.

“Did your engagement end because of your sensitivity?” he asked eventually.

“Nope. I did a pretty good job of covering that up. It ended because of what happened here in Stone Canyon.”

“The McAllister murder?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. Between you and me, I think someone right here in Stone Canyon phoned Greg and warned him that he was engaged to an ax murderer.”

“McAllister wasn’t murdered with an ax.”

“Details.” She waved that off. “The bottom line is my fiancé had good reason to get cold feet.”

“Did he?”

She frowned. “Well, yes. What would you have done in his shoes?”

“If I had questions, I would have gone hunting.”

She stilled in the act of taking another sip of wine. Slowly she lowered the glass. “I beg your pardon?”

He stretched out his legs and contemplated the jeweled pool. “You heard me.”

“You would have gone hunting for what, exactly?”

“Answers.” He picked up his wine and drank what was left in the glass.

“Answers aren’t always available. This isn’t exactly a pension and benefits issue. The police think a burglar killed Brad. That kind of crime is notoriously hard to solve. It’s quite possible the murderer is in jail now for some other offense.”

“Do you believe that?”

It was getting a little hard to breathe. She tried another sip of wine in hopes of calming her jittery nerves.

“It’s comforting to think that the killer is probably off the streets,” she said.

“You don’t look particularly comforted. I assume that is because you believe that whoever murdered McAllister is probably not sitting in jail.”

How had the conversation strayed into such dangerous territory? Not an accident, that was certain. It was time to take the offensive.

“Why are you so interested in Brad’s death?” she asked coolly.

“Because you interest me, Clare Lancaster. What happened to your sister’s husband had a major impact on your life. It cost you a fiancé and it’s the reason you’re currently unemployed. Therefore it follows that I’m curious.”

She dared not move. “Why are you interested in me? Is it because Archer is your client?”

“No, Clare.” He smiled slowly, letting her see the hunter beneath the surface. “This is personal.”

The incident in the parking garage had been a reckless, idiotic, potentially disastrous act, Valerie thought. She was still shaking.

She had made the mistake of giving in to impulse and an irresistible moment of opportunity. That must not happen again.

Luckily she had failed. What if she had succeeded? Yes, Clare would have been dead or grievously injured and that would have been enormously satisfying. But there would have been so many problems. How would she have concealed the damage to the car, for instance? Owen would most certainly have demanded an explanation. There would have been blood or some other type of forensic evidence left behind.

She might have been arrested, Valerie thought, horrified.

Shuddering, she gulped down half the martini and topped off the glass.

She had not followed Clare from the Glazebrook house with the intention of running her down. The plan had been to find out where she was staying in Phoenix. No one seemed to know anything other than that she was at a hotel near the airport.

Valerie clenched one hand into a fist. This morning she had opened a city map of Phoenix and drawn a circle around Phoenix Sky Harbor. She methodically called every hotel and motel within a two-mile radius of the airport. There was no Clare Lancaster registered at any of them.