They both stopped when they saw Larissa on the floor.
North moved toward Sierra.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right. How did you know?”
“Victor called to tell me the DNA tests showed that Loring had no biological connection to Rancourt. But I was sure that only someone with Rancourt’s signature would have been so determined to find the tuning crystal that had been engineered for Crocker Rancourt. I knew there had to be someone else involved. When I realized Larissa had followed you into the restroom, I got what we in the psychic business like to call a real bad feeling. She wasn’t supposed to be here in Vegas. She had told me her assignment at Fogg Lake would last two months.”
Jake moved to Kimberly. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She gave him a shaky smile and used a forefinger to push her glasses higher on her nose. “I’m okay. Thanks.”
Jake relaxed. “That’s good. Great.” He looked around at the shards of shattered mirrors. “What the hell just happened in here?”
“I’ve always had a little trouble controlling my talent without my mirror crystal,” Sierra said. She picked up her locket and put it around her neck. “Turns out Larissa is the true descendant of Crocker Rancourt. She was born to a woman who had a one-night hookup with Stenson Rancourt. He never acknowledged her, but after his death an heir hunter found her. She inherited the Riverview Trust and eventually found her grandfather’s vault. But the artifacts inside were useless to her.”
North looked down at Larissa. “So she joined the Foundation to look for what she considered the rest of her inheritance—the other tuning crystal.”
“That wasn’t all she wanted,” Sierra said. “She wanted revenge, too. She blamed the Chastain family for making her inheritance useless. And in the end she blamed me for ruining her grand plans. She’s the one who poisoned you, North. Loring was just following her orders when he infused the radiation into the lenses of your glasses.”
Jake took out his phone. “I’ll call Arganbright and tell him what’s going on.”
North surveyed the wreckage in the women’s room. “After you talk to Victor you’d better tell Hank that he’s going to need to get some cleaners in here.”
Jake grinned. “Oh, you mean the professional kind, the sort that actually know what they’re doing when it comes to cleaning.”
“Right.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Jake took Kimberly’s arm and escorted her tenderly into the lounge. Sierra watched him seat her on a velvet stool. He hovered protectively over her as he made the phone call. Kimberly adjusted her glasses again and regarded him with a mix of admiration and fascination.
Sierra got a ping. It was accompanied by a deep sense of certainty. She smiled.
“What?” North asked.
“Who would have thought I’d hear the voice calling out to me in a Las Vegas nightclub restroom?” she said.
“You’re losing me here.”
She patted his arm. “I’ll explain later. Right now all you need to know is that I finally found my calling.”
CHAPTER 47
North touched the locket at Sierra’s throat. “You didn’t have a chance to use it when you confronted Larissa Whittier.”
They were back at the Abyss. It was four in the morning. North had poured a glass of brandy for Sierra and one for himself. They were relaxing on the crimson velvet sofa, their feet propped on a couple of gold-tasseled hassocks. Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine had taken charge of Larissa Whittier, who had yet to awaken.
“She made me take it off,” Sierra said. “She threatened to shoot Kimberly if I didn’t. Larissa assumed I needed the crystal to access my talent. But the truth is I can work with any kind of reflective surface. There are always plenty of mirrors in a women’s room.”
North smiled a little. “I get it. You just use the crystal to help you focus your talent.”
“Right. Otherwise things tend to get out of hand very quickly.”
North thought about the cracked and shattered mirrors in the restroom at the Fogg. When he had gone through the door he had been hit with a wave of wild storm energy—and that was just the aftermath of the forces that Sierra had unleashed.
“I noticed,” he said.
“When I first came into my talent, my parents realized things were going to get complicated. But Harmony helped me get control.”
“I think Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine would like very much to recruit the Oracle of Fogg Lake. The Foundation could use her talent.”
“I doubt if they’ll be successful.” Sierra smiled a knowing smile. “You saw her. It’s obvious she has found her true calling. For now, at least, she needs to be in Fogg Lake.”
“Speaking of callings, did you mean it when you said you found yours in the women’s room at the Fogg Club tonight?”
“Yes.” Sierra glowed. “It was watching Kimberly and Jake that finally made me realize what I want to do with my life.”
“What’s that?”
“Matchmaking. Psychic matchmaking.”
That stopped him cold. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, that wasn’t it.
“Matchmaking?” he repeated cautiously.
“Right. I’ve got a gift for it. I always have. But I never paid much attention to that aspect of my talent. I thought of it as just a parlor trick.”
“How does it work?”
“If I see the reflections of two people together I can usually tell immediately if their auras are harmonious. I can also tell if it’s a hopelessly bad match. I can tell you if two people will be friends or if they will always be in conflict. I can tell if the relationship will be great for a short-term fling but toxic over time, and vice versa.”
“And you know if those two people could be a happy couple?”
“Right. When Kimberly and Grant Tolland stopped at our table I caught their reflections, along with Jake’s, in my mirror locket. I knew Kimberly and Grant were headed for disaster. But I could tell that Jake and Kimberly would be perfect together.”
North cleared his throat. “And now you think you’ve found your calling as a matchmaker.”
“Yep.”
“I hate to break this to you, but I’m not sure how much demand there is for a psychic matchmaker. Most people are doing the online dating thing these days or stumbling into affairs at the office.”
“I’ll go after a niche market—psychic dating for people who have a paranormal vibe. We all know it’s really hard to meet other people who can accept the reality of the paranormal. I’ll build a registry of people of talent. I bet I’ll be booked solid as soon as the word gets out.”
“Sounds like you’ve targeted your demographic.”
Sierra spread her hands wide. It was clear she was energized and excited. North realized how much he liked seeing her happy and determined.
“Normal people spend fortunes on fake psychics and palm readers,” she said. “Why wouldn’t smart people of talent pay for the real deal? I bet all of the singles who work for the Foundation will want to sign up, to say nothing of people who have grown up and moved away from Fogg Lake. Then there are the residents of my hometown, Quest. There’s also the underground market of people who are in the hot artifacts trade. The go-betweens. Collectors. Dealers. The world is waiting for my unique services.”
North smiled. “Spoken like a true entrepreneur.”
“If I don’t have faith in my own ability, no one else will.”
“True. Where do you propose to open your matchmaking business?”
“I can run it from anywhere, but every applicant will have to pass a background check. I’ll hire Lark and LeClair to do that for me. Then I’ll have to have a personal consultation in order to assess the stability of the candidate’s aura and figure out wh
at kind of aura would pair well with it. I’ll need to develop a large but select roster of clients. The more people who sign up, the greater the odds of finding good matches.”
“You’ll need an office for that. You can’t invite strangers into your home.”
“Good point,” Sierra said. “I’ll discuss it with Victor Arganbright. I bet I can convince him to give me space at Foundation headquarters. Clients who don’t live in the area will have to fly to Las Vegas for an appointment, but I don’t think that will stop most people who are serious about finding the right mate.”
“If anyone can talk Victor Arganbright into setting up a psychic matchmaking service, it’s you.” North pulled her into his arms. “Now let’s get back to us.”
“Okay.” Sierra put her hands on his shoulders and gave him an expectant smile. “What specifically did you want to talk about?”
“I never got an answer to my question this evening. Do you think you could be happy here in the Abyss?”
Her eyes got deeper and more mysterious. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Yes,” she said. “I could be very happy here.”
“Be honest.” He glanced around. “It’s the mirrors, isn’t it?”
“They are a very nice feature,” she admitted.
He took a deep breath. “I love you, Sierra Raines. I fell in love with you that first night when we met at the Vault. I know you’re afraid that my feelings might be based on gratitude, but I am very sure that isn’t the case. I do know the difference between gratitude and love. I realize it’s too soon to ask you to marry me, but will you move in here with me? Get to know me? Give me a chance to prove that my feelings for you are real?”
“I love you, North. And no, it’s not too soon to ask me to marry you.”
A rush of euphoria flashed through him. He pulled her back into his arms.
“Will you marry me?” he said.
Sierra opened her mouth to respond. Before she could say a word, a strobe light concealed in the recessed ceiling began flashing.
She glanced up and then hastily looked away from the senses-dazzling strobe.
“What in the world?” she said. “Is that an alarm?”
“Well, damn,” North said. “If it isn’t one thing tonight, it’s another.”
He released Sierra, took out his phone and hit the app that controlled the security camera screens. One of the mirrors on the wall slid aside, revealing a series of video screens. The views covered every part of the gardens inside the walls. There was movement in sector two, the pool and fountain area.
Sierra gazed at the screen, startled. “There’s someone out there.”
North glanced at the information that was coming in on the app. “Two people, to be precise.”
Two men wearing baseball caps were prowling around the edge of the fountain pool, pistols in hand. North zoomed in on one of the faces.
“That’s Ralph,” Sierra said. “One of the orderlies from Riverview.”
North got a close-up of the second man. “Joe. So much for hoping the cops back on Bainbridge or the cleaner team in Seattle would pick up the Puppets.”
“Ralph and Joe are probably out for revenge. In their minds we ruined their chances of becoming super psychics armed with untraceable weapons. I doubt if they had to go to a lot of trouble to find us. By now everyone involved in this thing knows you’re Griffin Chastain’s grandson, and this house isn’t exactly hard to identify.”
“True. Luckily, the house can take care of itself.”
He put the phone down and reached for her again. “Now, about my proposal. Will you—?”
“Wait,” Sierra yelped. “You need to call the police. There are two armed intruders out there in the backyard.”
“Don’t worry about them,” North said.
“I’m not worried about them; I’m worried about us. We’re alone out here in the desert and those two creeps probably intend to murder us. Call nine-one-one.”
“That won’t be necessary,” North said. “At least, not immediately. The house can take care of itself. About my question—”
“We can’t discuss marriage while we’re under attack.”
The two men circling the fountain pool abruptly stiffened as if they had touched a live electrical wire. Their mouths opened in soundless horror. Joe collapsed on the concrete pool surround. Ralph, however, managed to fall facedown into the long, shallow fountain pool.
“Damn,” North said. “You can drown in a few inches of water just as easily as you can if you go into the deep end of a pool.” He got to his feet. “Why can’t anything go right tonight?”
“Where are you going?”
“To haul Ralph out of the fountain. If he drowns there will be paperwork. My insurance company will probably have a fit. Go ahead, call nine-one-one. Those two Puppets have managed to kill the mood.”
Sierra yanked out her phone. “Out of curiosity, what just happened to Ralph and Joe?”
“They tripped one of Griffin Chastain’s little home security devices. They walked into the abyss trap that guards the backyard. You can’t see it on the video monitors because they can’t display paranormal energy. The shock temporarily stunned Ralph and Joe. They’ll be out for a while.”
He started down the hallway that led to the back gardens.
“Be careful,” Sierra called after him.
“Will you marry me?” he yelled back.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” He smiled. “Okay.”
He opened his senses and went outside to collect the unconscious Puppets. He pulled Ralph out of the shallow pool, made sure he was breathing and then paused for a moment to savor the night.
He jacked up his senses and watched the paranormal auroras shimmer and flow across the vast desert sky.
Sierra was in his house. She loved the Abyss and she loved him. She had just agreed to marry him. He didn’t have to be psychic to know the future looked terrific.
CHAPTER 48
The bell over the door of Swan Antiques chimed. Gwendolyn Swan paused in her dusting and watched a stylishly dressed woman with auburn hair walk into the shop.
“I got your message,” Olivia LeClair said. “I’ll be happy to discuss your problem.”
Luring Olivia into the shop was incredibly risky, Gwendolyn thought, but time was running out. The underworld chatter about Vortex and paranormal weapons was getting louder. The myths and legends of the Bluestone Project were surfacing and starting to look very, very real.
She put down the duster and went behind the counter.
“Thank you for dropping by,” she said. “As I told you on the phone, I’m a little concerned about some jewelry I picked up at an estate sale. I would like to hire Lark and LeClair to check the provenance. The paperwork from the auction house looks good but I can tell that the items have a strong vibe. I’m concerned some of the pieces may have been stolen. They came from the collection of a particularly reclusive collector. You know how it is with that sort. They rarely tell the truth about how they obtained their acquisitions.”
“I can do some research for you,” Olivia said. She looked around the room. “I’ll need photographs of the pieces that you’re concerned about.”
“Certainly. The jewelry is downstairs.” Gwendolyn waved a hand at the array of reproductions that cluttered the sales floor. “The items up here are for tourists and decorators who are looking for an interesting garden statue, or perhaps a vase for the hall. I keep the real collectibles, the items with a true paranormal provenance, in the basement. Easier to maintain security down there.”
“I understand.”
Olivia started through the maze of fake statuary, tables, vases and other assorted items. Halfway across the room she halted abruptly. She gazed down at the vintage camera, riveted.
Gwendolyn opened her senses.
She wasn’t an especially sharp aura reader—her talents were connected to artifacts. She was, after all, an archaeologist by training. But it wasn’t difficult to tell that Olivia was responding to the old camera.
Tentatively Olivia touched the artifact. A visible shiver of energy went through her.
“This isn’t a reproduction,” she said, speaking very quietly. She did not take her eyes off the camera.
“Hmm?” Gwendolyn tried to sound only vaguely interested. “Oh, no. It’s definitely got a little heat in it, but it’s not the type of energy that appeals to true collectors. It’s just a vintage camera. It probably picked up a bit of a vibe because it was sitting on a shelf with a lot of relatively hot artifacts.”
Olivia used both hands to carefully lift the camera off the display stand.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
Excitement flashed through Gwendolyn.
“Are you sure?” she said. “I’ve got more interesting objects downstairs. I doubt if they even make film for that old camera anymore.”
“I don’t think it was intended to take traditional pictures,” Olivia said. “How much?”
Gwendolyn took a deep breath. “Ninety-five dollars.”
A reasonable price for a relic that wasn’t supposed to have much value, she thought, but high enough to sound realistic.
“Fine.” Olivia smiled and clutched the camera very firmly, possessively. “Now, let’s go see the hot jewelry you’ve got downstairs.”
* * *
—
Half an hour later Olivia left with the vintage camera and a promise to research the suspicious jewelry. Gwendolyn wasn’t worried about the status of the bracelet, necklace and ring she had just hired Lark & LeClair to check out. The provenance on them was clean. But allowing the precious camera to be taken off the premises was unnerving. Still, it wasn’t as if she’d had much choice.
She locked the front door, turned the sign over in the window and pulled down the shades. She hurried to the counter and picked up the landline phone. Eloisa answered immediately.