by Jayne Castle
“I know all about your ability to sense plant psi,” Frazier said. “Griggs figured it out. When he visited your shop he watched you working with the herbs and realized that you could do the same thing he could do with plants. A couple of weeks ago I sent him into your shop with one of the new amber frequency readers to get a reading on your earrings. Those new gadgets are really something. All he had to do was stand a few feet away from you. He was able to get your number without you ever knowing what he was doing. It was just a safety precaution to protect you in case Boone kidnapped you and took you underground.”
Cooper rezzed blue ghost light, forcing it into a vortex. Using the blue storm as a shield, he moved through the opening.
He saw motion in a heavy stand of monstrous ferns not more than twenty feet away. Frazier was sticking close to the gate in the wall, no doubt afraid to move too deeply into the unknowns of the jungle.
The storm of blue energy caught Frazier’s attention.
“Boone.” He pushed through a fan of giant fern fronds. “You son of a bitch freak. This is all your fault.”
A blue vortex flashed across the space that separated them. It struck the shield that Cooper had constructed. When the energy masses collided there was a brilliant, intense explosion of blue light that briefly lit up the primal darkness of the underground rain forest.
Another vortex arrow followed, and then another and another, until the air was filled with violent shafts of energy. Frazier was going for an all-out assault, hoping to overwhelm and disorient his opponent.
Cooper’s shield flared and pulsed in response to the hail of arrows. The strobe light flashes became so intense, so eye-dazzling, that Cooper had to close his eyes and fight with only his psi senses to guide him.
Somewhere in the vast reaches of the jungle, creatures shrieked and screamed in warning and panic. Cooper heard a wild, chaotic fluttering of heavy wings.
Rain started to fall. He heard it first because it pounded against the canopy of tree leaves, creating a dull roar of noise. Then the water began to penetrate the leafy ceiling. It descended in a steady, unyielding torrent, drenching him. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that the mist created by the deluge was so heavy he could not see more than a few feet.
If he was half-blind now, so was Frazier. The only thing giving away their positions to each other was the luminous ghost energy they used as weapons.
He stopped pulsing power through amber and moved quickly into the nearest stand of trees.
Suddenly aware that he no longer had a target, Frazier ceased the barrage of energy arrows.
“You’re a dead freak, Boone,” Frazier screamed. “Do you hear me? You’re dead. When this is over, the Aurora Springs Guild is going to be my private property. And so is your handpicked woman. I’m going to screw her as often as I like, and she’s going to smile at me when I do it, because if she doesn’t, I’ll destroy her whole damn family. Just like I’m going to destroy your family, Boone. Got to save innocent people from blue freaks like you now, don’t we? It’s a prime responsibility of the Guild.”
Cooper watched the little sparks of blue popping and snapping a short distance away. They were the only things he could see through the steady downpour. Frazier was so out of control he didn’t even realize he was summoning the stray bits of blue ghost light, didn’t realize that he was giving away his position.
Cooper pulled all of the energy he could out of the atmosphere and sent it smashing into the epicenter of the dancing blue lights.
He knew he had found his target when he heard Frazier scream. The shriek of pain and rage and fear seemed to go on for an eternity.
It ended with a shattering abruptness.
Cooper walked through the driving rain to the place where he had last seen the flickers of ghost light.
Frazier was sprawled on his back, his mouth open, dead eyes wide.
Cooper crouched to check for a pulse. There wasn’t any. He rose.
“Elly?”
“We’re up here,” she shouted from somewhere off to his right. “Be down in a minute.”
Rose reached him first. He heard the dust bunny’s cheerful chortle before he saw her. She tumbled toward him through the rain, her wet fur plastered to her small, sleek frame. A bracelet fashioned of green and yellow stones swung from her neck.
He reached down to pick her up. “Lookin’ good, gorgeous.”
Elly emerged from the trees, Doreen right behind her. Both women were soaked to the skin.
The steely tension that had been driving him for the past half hour finally began to ease. Elly was safe.
Then he got a closer look at Doreen’s face.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked.
“Long story.” Doreen looked at Frazier’s body. “Is he dead?”
“Yes,” Cooper said.
“Excellent,” Doreen said, supremely satisfied.
Elly hurled herself against him.
“I was scared to death when I saw all that blue ghost fire,” she whispered. She tightened her arms around him as though she would never let him go. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. What about you?”
“I’m okay. Rose saved us by showing us the gate into this place.”
“Let’s save the explanations until later, okay?” Doreen urged them toward the opening in the wall. “We’ve got to get aboveground as fast as possible so that we can claim the most important underground discovery made since the First Generation settlers found the catacombs.”
Elly pushed herself slightly away from Cooper. “You know something? You’re right.”
“Yep. And there’s another thing here.” Doreen winked one bruised eye. “At this point, as far as anyone knows, you, my friend, are the only person who can open and close that gate over there. If we play our cards right, this rain forest is going to make us all very, very rich. I suggest we hustle.”
Elly laughed. “You do realize that we’re going to have to share this find with Bertha Newell?”
“No problem,” Doreen said, urging them toward the opening. “There will be plenty of money to go around. Elly, you’d better close up that opening in the wall after we leave. Don’t want to take the chance that some other ruin rats will stumble into this jungle before we file our claim.”
“All right,” Elly agreed. She caught Cooper’s hand.
Cooper looked at both of them. “Hate to rain on your parade, seeing that you’re both already soaked and all, but we’re going to have to deal with the cops before you can start in on the paperwork you’ll need to file your claim on the jungle. We’ve got a dead body here.”
Elly made a face. “And a famous detective who is sort of passed out on my kitchen floor. That will probably take a little explaining.”
“No problem,” Cooper said. “I’m a Guild boss, remember? I handle stuff like this.”
Doreen frowned, suddenly looking distinctly wary. “That was quite a light show you put on in there. I’m guessing you probably melted amber.”
“Mmm,” Cooper said.
“Are you going to go out of control and turn weird on us before we get to the surface?” Doreen asked.
“Don’t be silly,” Elly said. Her hand tightened around Cooper’s. “Guild bosses don’t go out of control and turn weird.”
“Not unless we’re provoked,” Cooper said.
Chapter 40
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, DETECTIVE ALICE MARTINEZ stood in Elly’s kitchen watching two uniformed officers hoist a snoring Grayson De Witt onto a stretcher.
Elly thought she detected amusement in Alice’s dark eyes. There was no doubt but that the detective’s mouth was twitching at the corners.
“He actually drank the tea you made for him?” Alice asked a little too neutrally.
“I didn’t force him to drink it,” Elly said quickly. “I made it, and I poured some for Doreen and me. He helped himself. Honest.” She looked at Doreen, who was hovering nearby. “Isn’t that right?”
&n
bsp; “Absolutely,” Doreen said earnestly. “Elly even warned him not to drink it.”
Alice’s brows climbed. “You warned him, Miss St. Clair?”
Elly cleared her throat. “I did say that if I were him, I wouldn’t drink anything that had been brewed up by a person who was under suspicion for manufacturing drugs.”
On the other side of the kitchen Cooper paused in his restless pacing. Elly noticed that the intense heat of his afterburn was starting to fade from his eyes, but now he was slipping into the inevitable exhaustion.
“Sounds like full disclosure to me, Detective,” he said.
“It certainly does.” Alice started to smile. “And yet our ace detective, Mr. Special Task Force, went right ahead and drank the tea.” She was grinning widely now. “Oh, man, this is good. This is so rich. I can’t wait until they hear about this down at headquarters.”
Elly watched her closely. “Does this mean that you aren’t going to arrest me?”
“For what? Making a pot of tea in your own kitchen and then telling Detective De Witt that he shouldn’t drink any?” Alice chuckled. “Don’t worry, Miss St. Clair, no one’s going to arrest you. In fact, on behalf of the rest of the detectives of the Cadence City Police Department, allow me to extend our thanks and appreciation. You don’t know what a pain in the ass De Witt has been in the past few months.”
“In fairness, he had a little help along the way.” Cooper gestured toward the journal he had found in Frazier’s duffel bag. “I had a chance to glance at some of the notes he made. Looks like after resigning from the Aurora Springs Guild Council, Palmer Frazier went underground for a while and concocted a plan.”
“Back home everyone believed he had moved to Frequency City,” Elly explained.
“Frazier created that impression on purpose,” Cooper said. “After Elly moved to Cadence, he followed, using a new identity. He did some research here in the Old Quarter and stumbled onto the very small-time drug operation that Stuart Griggs was running out of his shop.”
Alice folded her arms and looked thoughtful. “Let me hazard a guess. Frazier saw the potential of the enchantment dust business and made Griggs an offer he couldn’t refuse, right?”
Cooper nodded. “In his journal Frazier says he put things on a production basis and set up a small network of dealers. He wasn’t giving Griggs anything resembling a fifty-fifty split, but whatever his cut was, the florist was suddenly looking at more ready cash than he had ever seen in his life. Obviously he used the windfall to buy the Jordan herbal hoping it would help him pursue his search for the jungle.”
“Because that was all Stuart Griggs really cared about,” Elly added quietly. “But a few nights ago, my friend, Bertha Newell, accidentally discovered his underground drug lab.”
“Frazier states in the journal that Newell not only saw the lab, she also saw and recognized Stuart Griggs,” Cooper said. “Griggs hit her on the head and left her lying unconscious in the tunnels while he went aboveground to call for help. By the time Frazier arrived on the scene, however, Newell had recovered enough to flee in her sled. Frazier had the sled’s frequency and tracked her through the catacombs.”
“Bertha can’t recall the details,” Elly added, “but it appears that at some point she realized that he was using the sled’s locator device to follow her. She evidently abandoned the sled and hid in one of the nearby chambers. Frazier gave up searching for her and, uh, disabled the sled by attaching a ghost to it.”
Actually, he’d done it with blue ghost light but she wasn’t about to say that. Everyone would freak.
“When Newell tried to retrieve the sled, she must have gotten zapped,” Cooper explained. “She made it as far as the nearest chamber and collapsed.”
“That’s where you found her?” Alice asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s clear that Frazier was DeWitt’s mysterious informant,” Alice said. “What was the connection to The Road?”
“Frazier got a job there a few months ago,” Cooper said. “He had planned to set Ripley up as the first major bust for DeWitt.”
“Would have created a lot of media attention for DeWitt,” Alice acknowledged. “But what was in it for Frazier? If he was making a fortune with the drugs, why arrange to have the operation uncovered and destroyed? And why kill Griggs?”
Cooper looked at her. “The drugs were only a stepping-stone to his real goal. When he was ready for the next step in his plan, he got rid of Griggs to cover his tracks. He didn’t want to leave any loose ends.”
Alice cocked a brow. “So what was Frazier’s ultimate goal?”
“Getting rid of me,” Cooper said quietly. “And getting his hands on Elly.”
Doreen’s eyes widened. “He wanted Elly that bad?”
“No,” Elly said flatly. “What he wanted was to be boss of the Aurora Springs Guild. He only wanted me because I would have made him the perfect Guild boss wife.”
“Marrying Elly would have cemented an alliance with her father.” Cooper yawned. “John St. Clair is the most powerful man on the Aurora Springs Guild Council. Frazier figured that if he controlled Elly, he could control her father. He badly underestimated the St. Clairs, of course. Knowing what I do about the clan, I think it’s safe to assume that Frazier would have turned up missing shortly after he got the job he wanted so badly. But that was always one of Frazier’s big problems.”
“Underestimating people?” Alice asked.
Cooper smiled his dangerous smile. “The guy just didn’t grasp the nuances of Guild politics.”
“Wait a second,” Doreen said. “I get that Frazier started dating me a couple of weeks ago so that he could keep an eye on Elly. And I understand that he forced Stuart Griggs into a partnership. But how did he know that you would come to Cadence to see Elly?”
Alice looked at Cooper. “Good question.”
Cooper shrugged. “Frazier still had contacts and connections back in Aurora Springs. He had been a member of the Council, after all. Last month it was no secret that I was making arrangements to spend a couple of weeks here in Cadence courting Elly.”
Elly felt her jaw unhinge. “What? Are you telling me that everyone back home knows you came here to try to convince me to marry you?”
He spread his hands. “You said it yourself: Aurora Springs is a small town. Every man on the Council and probably most of the members of the Guild and their families understood that I considered our wedding postponed, not called off.”
Elly sagged back against the counter. “This is so embarrassing.”
Doreen grinned. “I think it’s incredibly romantic.”
Cooper smiled at her, pleased. “Thanks. Glad someone appreciates the work involved here. As I was saying, everyone expected me to head for Cadence sooner or later. I figured six months was long enough to wait. But as the Guild chief, I couldn’t just up and disappear for a couple of weeks. I had to organize matters so that Elly’s dad and the Council would be able to handle Guild affairs while I was out of town.”
Doreen nodded sagely. “And someone back in Aurora Springs notified Frazier of the date you planned to head for Cadence.”
He yawned again. “Like I said, it was an open secret.”
Alice drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter. “You’re telling me that Frazier spent months setting a trap that was supposed to end with you being arrested for dealing drugs, Boone?”
Cooper propped one shoulder and his head against the wall. He crossed his arms and half-closed his eyes. “Uh-huh. I was supposed to be DeWitt’s second and biggest bust.”
“Seems like a pretty elaborate sort of plan,” Alice said slowly. “Why not just lie in wait in the alley out back and shoot you when it was convenient?”
“Killing a Guild boss in cold blood is sort of a big deal to the Guilds,” Cooper said dryly. “Sets a bad example. Frazier didn’t dare try it back in Aurora Springs because the risk was too great. Small town thing, you know? Hard to get away with a high-profile murde
r in a place where everyone knows you. And regardless of whether or not there was any proof, he had to be aware that he would have been suspect number one in the eyes of the Council.”
Understanding lit Alice’s face. “And the murder of a visiting Guild boss here in Cadence would have infuriated Mercer Wyatt. He would have turned the city upside down to find the shooter.”
“Frazier had to keep himself above suspicion at all costs,” Cooper agreed.
He started to slide down the wall. Alarmed, Elly hurried over to him, grabbed one arm, and slung it around her shoulder.
“You need to get to bed,” she said.
Alice angled her chin at the officer in the doorway. “Give her a hand, Drayton. Boone looks like he’s going to pass out. He’s too heavy for Miss St. Clair.”
“No problem.” Drayton moved forward. “I’ll handle him, Miss St. Clair. Where do you want him?”
“This way,” she said.
She went down the hall to the bedroom. Drayton maneuvered Cooper as far as the bed.
“Thanks,” Cooper mumbled. He fell full length onto his back on the quilt. He closed his eyes. “Are you all going to stand around this bed and watch me sleep?”
“We’re leaving.” Elly leaned down and kissed him gently.
Cooper smiled a little, looking content.
Elly made shooing motions at the others. They backed out of the bedroom reluctantly.
“One last thing,” Doreen said from the doorway. “Why was Frazier so sure you’d come after Elly sooner or later? You didn’t need her or her father’s influence to become the chief of the Aurora Springs Guild. You already had the job.”
“That was the one thing he got right,” Cooper said without opening his eyes. “He figured I’d show up here sooner or later because he knew Elly was my weakness. Like everyone else back home, he knew that I loved her.”
“He knew what?” Elly shrieked.
Cooper turned on his side and went to sleep.
“Typical male,” Doreen said.