Текст книги "In Too Deep"
Автор книги: Jayne Krentz
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“I believed him.” Jenny took the handkerchief and blotted her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Fallon. But he was my brother. I had to believe him.”
“I know,” Fallon said. “He was my friend and my partner. I wanted to believe him, too.”
Jenny sighed. “You probably know everything. You’re Fallon Jones. You always have the answers.”
“Not always,” Fallon said.
“In this case I’m sure you do.” Jenny looked at him. “You’re right, I did expose you to the magic-lantern lights that night. I hid the device in a floor lamp. I was subjected to the radiation as well, but it didn’t hit me as hard as it hit you because your talent is so powerful. I . . . I knew it would be like that.”
“Tucker told you that I was the one who was running the club and selling the light in the insider rooms,” Fallon said. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
“Yes.” Jenny sniffed. “It’s all my fault. I’m responsible for everything that happened because I’m the one who created those damn lanterns in the first place.”
“Why?” Fallon asked.
“It was an experiment,” Jenny said. She sounded dull and lifeless now. “So many psychoactive pharmaceuticals don’t work well on those who possess a high level of talent. I was trying to come up with a naturopathic approach to treating problems like depression and anxiety and PTSD in strong para-sensitives. There is a lot of work being done with light to elevate moods in normal people. I thought there might be a way to use light from the paranormal end of the spectrum on those with talent to achieve similar positive effects.”
“I understand,” Fallon said.
“I was working from the records of one of my ancestors, a spectrum energy-talent who lived back in the nineteen thirties. I came up with a device that combined various kinds of amber and quartz that are naturally para-luminescent and para-phosphorescent.”
“Oh, boy,” Isabella muttered. “Geek talk. I think my eyes are starting to glaze over.”
Jenny ignored her. She continued talking earnestly to Fallon. “On their own, the rocks don’t have much effect, but when arranged in certain ways and activated by the right kind of mirrors, well, you know what happened. The effects ranged from euphoria to hallucinations and disorientation. All short-term but highly unpredictable.”
“I admit this isn’t my field,” Isabella said. “But the theory behind your research sounds very intriguing.”
“It is,” Jenny said. “And I still think there is a lot of potential in it. But as soon as I ran some tests on my own version of what Tucker called my magic lantern, I realized that although it was a mood enhancer in very small doses, the side effects could be devastating. I could not come up with a safe way to use it in a naturopathic manner.”
“But by then Tucker had learned about your experiments and concluded that it might make an attraction at his club,” Fallon said.
“I swear, I didn’t know that he was the secret owner of the Arcane Club,” Jenny whispered.
“I didn’t know it, either, until the end,” Fallon said.
Jenny sniffed into the handkerchief. “It doesn’t matter now, but I want you to know that I didn’t construct the magic lanterns for him. He used my notes and made them himself. They aren’t that hard to build if you have the right quartz and amber and an obsidian mirror.”
“I never believed that you were involved in the club lanterns,” Fallon said.
Jenny gave him a wan smile. “The thing is, I believed him when he told me that you were the real owner of the club and that you were dealing some kind of terrible psychic drug. After he . . . died I had to go on believing that what he had told me was the truth. The alternative was just too awful.”
Isabella touched Jenny’s shoulder. “You’ve accepted your brother’s guilt, haven’t you? That’s no longer the source of your pain. It’s your sense of responsibility that is driving you into despair.”
“It was all my fault.” Jenny sighed. “If I hadn’t run the experiments with those damn rocks and if I hadn’t demonstrated the results to Tucker—”
“If it hadn’t been the magic-lantern technology, it would have been something else that got Tucker into trouble,” Fallon said. “He liked living on the edge. As time went by, the adrenaline rush of proving that he was smarter and faster than everyone else became his personal drug of choice.”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “I think you’re right. His need to take risks was an addiction. Everyone in the family knew that. My poor mother worried constantly that he would get himself killed on one of his J&J assignments.”
“Proving that he could outmaneuver Jones & Jones was the ultimate challenge,” Fallon said.
Jenny dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Even knowing Tucker as well as I did, I still let him convince me that you were the bad guy. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I never blamed you,” Fallon said. “You had to make a choice between believing your brother or a man you did not know very well. Hell, if I’d been in your shoes, I would have made the same choice.”
Jenny looked at him with unconcealed desperation. “Do you really think so?”
“Family is something we Joneses understand,” Fallon said.
Jenny crushed the handkerchief in her hand and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Fallon.”
Isabella hugged her again. “Now you need to forgive yourself, Jenny. That’s the only way to make the fog go away.”
Jenny opened her eyes, bewildered. “Fog? What are you talking about?”
Isabella smiled and released her. “Never mind. Just a figure of speech.”
Jenny turned back to Fallon. “You were right.”
“About what?” he asked.
“A moment ago you said that I’d been forced to choose between believing my brother or a man I did not know very well. That’s the truth. I didn’t know you very well, Fallon.”
“No,” he agreed.
“Even if things had been different, I don’t think that would have changed,” Jenny said.
“Probably not.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you about that night. Even if there had been no Arcane Club and no magic lanterns and things had not ended the way they did, I was going to give you back your ring.”
“I know,” Fallon said.
She shook her head, rueful now. “Of course you do. You’re Fallon Jones, the brilliant chaos theory-talent. You can see the pattern before anyone else.”
“Not always,” he said. “But you were right, Jenny. It would never have worked between us.”
She gave him another misty smile. “We both made the same mistake when we got engaged. We thought we could rely on logic and reason when it came to choosing a mate.”
“Obviously a false assumption,” Fallon said.
Jenny turned back to Isabella. “Fallon may not have done a very good job when he tried to find a wife, but I think he did very well, indeed, when he hired an assistant.”
She turned and walked back toward the lights of the ballroom. Isabella jacked up her other vision. The terrible fog was already diminishing. With luck, Jenny would allow herself to heal.
Fallon came to stand beside Isabella. They waited until Jenny had disappeared into the crowd.
“You knew she was going to give you back your ring that night?” Isabella asked.
“Doesn’t take a lot of talent to know when you’re about to get dumped. Even I could see it coming.”
“And if she hadn’t ended things first?”
“I would have had to do it,” he said. “You heard her. Jenny felt as if she never really knew me. That problem went both ways.”
“Everyone has secrets. Everyone has a private place. I don’t think it’s ever possible to know anyone completely. I don’t think we would want to know someone that well even if it were possible. Part of what makes other people interesting is that there is always some mystery beneath the surface.”
“The kind of knowing I’m talking about goes deeper than secrets,” Fallon said.
She thought about that. “I see what you mean.”
“Do you?” He shook his head. “Then you’re way ahead of me because I sure as hell couldn’t define it.”
“But you’ll recognize that kind of knowing if you ever find it?”
“Yes,” he said. “So? What does it mean?”
“To want to know someone in a way that goes deeper than just learning a person’s secrets? It means you’re a hopeless romantic, Fallon Jones.”
There was a heartbeat of stunned silence. And then Fallon began to laugh. The sound started out as a hoarse, harsh, little-used chuckle. But it quickly gathered depth and volume. In a moment, Fallon was roaring with laughter. The sound reverberated across the terrace, spilling out into the night.
Isabella sensed a presence behind her. When she turned around she saw Zack and Raine silhouetted in the entrance of the ballroom. As she watched, a number of other Joneses, including Fallon’s parents, gathered to watch the spectacle on the terrace. The expressions on their faces ran a short gamut from stunned to fascinated.
She poked Fallon in the ribs. “We’ve got an audience,” she whispered.
His laughter faded. He turned to look at the crowd in the doorway.
“Good joke?” Zack asked.
“Best one I’ve heard in a long time,” Fallon said.
24
The auction started at ten. Fallon stood with Isabella at the back of the room. A hush fell over the crowd. The auctioneer picked up his gavel.
Fallon took Isabella’s arm.
“We can leave now,” he said, keeping his voice low.
She glanced at him, surprised. “Don’t you want to see who bids on those weird artifacts in the display cases?”
“No. I’ve had about as much socializing as I can handle for one evening. I’ve done what Zack asked, helped him provide a show of force. He can handle the Society’s politics from here on in. That’s what he gets paid to do.”
Her eyes narrowed a little in suspicion, but she allowed him to steer her out of the ballroom and into the hallway.
“You’re up to something,” she whispered. “I can tell.”
“You know us small-town folks. Early to bed and early to rise.”
“Ha. What’s going on, Jones?”
“We’re leaving first thing in the morning.”
“Define first thing,” she shot back.
“After breakfast.”
“Okay, that’s not so bad. You’re anxious to get back to Scargill Cove?”
“We have a lot of work waiting for us.” The wesurprised him, coming out of his mouth as it did. For so long he had thought of the agency as his sole responsibility. But lately he had begun to think of Isabella as something more than an assistant or even an investigator. He was starting to treat her like a partner. That was probably not wise.
“Yes,” she said, looking satisfied at the prospect. “J&J never sleeps.”
“There’s another reason for getting an early start.”
She gave him an expectant look.
He drew her through the lobby toward the elevators. “We’re going to make a stop on the way back to the Cove.”
“Where?”
“Cactus Springs.”
She halted abruptly, forcing him to halt, too. Her eyes widened. “That’s where my grandmother lives. Lived.”
“I’ve done all the investigation I can do online. Now I need to take a look at the scene of the crime. Isn’t that the kind of thing Sherlock Holmes would do?”
“But you don’t believe that there was a crime.”
“I told you, I’m reserving my opinion until I have all the facts.”
She gave that some thought. “Grandma warned me not to go to her place if something happened to her because she was afraid they might be watching, waiting for me to show up. But I suppose there’s no reason you and I can’t go there together. As long as you’re with me, it should be safe. Grandma is the one who told me to find you if I couldn’t hide from them. She said they would not want to involve Arcane.”
“ Theybeing Julian Garrett’s people?”
“Right.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know you don’t believe my theory of the case.”
“Your conspiracytheory of the case,” he corrected. “Thus far I haven’t found anything to indicate that Garrett or anyone else was involved in any way with your grandmother’s death, assuming she is dead.”
“It’s okay.” She gave him a glowing smile. “You don’t have to explain. You’re still investigating. That’s all that matters. Sooner or later you’ll find the proof.”
They started up the stairs to the second floor.
“You do understand that we may be trying to prove a negative here,” he cautioned. “There is no way to do that. Which is, of course, how conspiracy theories work in the first place and why they manage to stay alive.”
“You never know, we might find a solid clue in Cactus Springs.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure that Sherlock Holmes never said that to a client.”
“You’re my assistant, not a client.”
They reached the landing and went down the hall to Isabella’s room. He took out the card key and opened the door for her. She stepped into the room on the impossibly high heels and turned to face him.
“We didn’t really need to go to the expense of booking two rooms,” she said. “Evidently everyone back there in the ballroom knows that we’re personally involved.”
“How the hell did they find out?” Outrage crackled through him. “Zack or Raine must have said something, although how they knew is an interesting question. I’ll have a talk with Zack in the morning.”
“No, no, no,” she said hastily. “Zack and Raine didn’t gossip about us. It’s just something about our energy. Even nonsensitives can often tell when two people are involved in a physical relationship. The energy of that sort of attraction is very strong.”
Annoyed, he gripped the door frame and checked the hallway to see if anyone was watching. Then he turned back to her. “Damn it, I won’t let anyone embarrass you.”
“Trust me, I’m not in the least embarrassed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “What about you? Do you mind people knowing that we’re sleeping together?”
He gave the question a couple of beats, trying to sort out his reactions. Deep down he liked the fact that everyone knew that Isabella was his, at least for now. He wanted other men to know that she was not available. And since when had he developed a possessive streak?
He finally got to the bottom line.
“Only if it makes you feel awkward,” he said.
She put her arms around his neck. “Poor Fallon. How did an old-fashioned gentleman endowed with such quaint Victorian virtues ever survive in the modern world?”
He groaned. “You think I’m some kind of throwback?”
“Only in the nicest sense of the word.”
“Calling me old-fashioned and Victorian makes me feel ancient. I know I’m a little older than you, but not that much. I just look old.”
“No.” She stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. “You don’t look old. You look perfect.”
The touch of her mouth acted like an electrical switch. Everything inside him went to flashpoint in a heartbeat.
“You’re the one who is perfect,” he rasped.
He moved into the room and shut the door. The action plunged the small space into a shadowed realm, a world lit by the silver light of the canyon-country moon.
He took off his tux jacket for the second time that evening and tossed it across the back of the nearest chair. When he started to loosen the black bow tie, Isabella stopped him.
“Let me,” she said.
He opened his senses and saw the heat in her eyes.
When she reached up to unknot his tie, her fingers trembled a little. He caught her hand and kissed her palm. She let the ends of the tie dangle around his neck and went to work unfastening the onyx cuff links. There were two faint clinks when she put the cuff links carefully on the table. The small, intimate sound jacked his senses even higher. He was certain he had never been so hard in his life.
She went to work on the black studs that secured the front of his shirt.
He kissed her and began to strip her with quick, focused motions. The evening gown collapsed into a dark pool at her feet. He got the lacy bra off next. The panties followed, leaving her in the sexy high heels.
Energy ignited the atmosphere of the shadowed room. Isabella’s effect on him could only be described in terms of alchemy, he thought. She was the fire that transmuted the cold iron inside him into gold. With her he could look into the heart of chaos and glimpse the ultimate goal of the ancient art, the Philosopher’s Stone. With her he was, for a time, complete.
Desperate now, he picked her up and braced her against the nearest surface, the wall. She put one bare leg around his waist and then the other. Her scent was more intoxicating than any drug. He cradled her with one hand and stroked her with the other until she was wet and frantic.
“For me,” he said. He caught her earlobe between his teeth and bit down a little, needing to reinforce the words. “I want you like this only for me. No one else.”
“It has never been like this with anyone else. It couldn’t be. Only you.” She clutched at his shoulders and looked at him with her mysterious eyes. “This had better work both ways or it’s over now.”
“Only you,” he said. He was shatteringly aware that his voice was hoarse with passion. He could barely speak at all. “Never like this with anyone else.”
She smiled her devastating smile.
“Good,” she said.
Her fiercely wonderful energy filled the room, enveloping him.
He managed to unzip his trousers and then he was pushing into her. She closed tightly around him.
He thrust again and again, fast and hard. She clung to him, wrapping herself around him. He could hear her breathing: quick, shallow gasps that betrayed her rising excitement.
“Fallon. ”
He forced himself to stop pounding into her long enough to lift her away from the wall and put her down onto the bed. He got rid of his trousers and briefs, kicked off his shoes and lowered himself onto the bed beside her.
“My turn,” she said.
She flattened one hand on his chest and pushed him onto his back. He went willingly. And then she was on top, sliding slowly downward, fitting her tight core to him.
She rode him slowly, tormenting him until he thought he could not endure it. But he forced himself to let her set the pace. He gripped her soft thighs and opened his senses fully. He did not try to focus his talent. Rather, he gave himself up to the glittering exhilaration of the moment. It was only at times like this, when he was so intimately connected to Isabella, that he could safely slip the bonds of his self-control and fly free.
Sensation and the heat of desire carried him on a relentless tide. The knowledge that Isabella was riding the same wave thrilled him beyond measure.
When she came undone in a storm of energy, he followed her over the edge into the endless night.
25
She came back to her senses a long time later, aware of a faint rustling sound. Fallon was no longer in the bed.
She opened her eyes and saw him dressing by the light of the moon. She pushed herself up on her elbows and watched him tuck the white shirt into the waistband of his trousers. She was not sure whether to be amused or annoyed or hurt.
“You’re leaving?” she asked, trying not to show any emotions at all.
“If I stay here until morning, there’s a good chance that someone will see me leaving your room.”
She relaxed, smiling a little. “I told you, everyone at the conference already knows we’re sleeping together.”
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
He walked to the bed, bent down and braced a hand on either side of her. He kissed her, his mouth deliciously rough on hers. It was a branding kiss, she decided. He was letting her know that on this level she belonged to him. He straightened reluctantly.
“But there’s something called discretion,” he said.
“Gosh. Haven’t heard that word used in a long time. You are aware that’s another old-fashioned concept?”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, but it’s very sweet.” She yawned and waved a hand toward the door. “Go on back to your room. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Breakfast at six-twenty. I want to talk to Zack before we leave and then I’ve got to say good-bye to my parents. Plane leaves at eight. I haven’t told the pilot that we’re making a detour. I’ll inform him just before we take off.”
“Why not let him know earlier so he can revise the flight plan?”
“Just a precaution.” He went to the table and collected his cuff links. “No sense advertising our schedule in advance.”
A tiny chill shivered through her. “You don’t want anyone to know that you’re investigating my grandmother’s death, do you?”
“Zack and Raine know.”
“Sure, but they won’t say anything because they’ve got the same concern that you do. My point is that the three of you don’t want folks on the Council to suspect that you’re wasting valuable time and money checking out a conspiracy theory about the murder of a known crackpot.”
His hand closed tightly around the cuff links. He watched her steadily. “I didn’t say that.”
“But it’s what you’re thinking.”
“What I’m thinking,” he said evenly, “is that the fewer people who know that I’m looking into your grandmother’s death, the better. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Ha. With you there’s always something more. But never mind. I understand. Heck, I even agree with you. The fewer people who know about this, the better. See you in the morning, Fallon.”
For a moment he did not move. She held her breath, wondering if he was reconsidering his decision to leave. But after a couple of seconds he went to the door, opened it and checked the hall.
“Lock the door after I leave,” he ordered.
“Yeah, sure.”
She waited until he moved out into the hall and shut the door before she got out of bed. She padded barefoot across the room and put on the safety lock. There was no sound out in the corridor for at least three full seconds. Then the light shifted under the door. She knew that Fallon had finally walked back to his room at the end of the hall.
She crawled into bed, pulled up the covers and pondered the ceiling for a very long time.
After a while she drifted off and tumbled into a troubled dream in which her grandmother appeared in the heart of a storm of icy fog. Grandma was speaking, trying to send a warning, but as was so often the case in dreams, the words made no sense.
SHE CAME AWAKE on a current of fear, pulse racing, heart pounding. The primal instincts of childhood took over. Do not move. Maybe the monster under the bed won’t see you.
She forced the crushing wave of panic aside, but she remained very still. Her other sight, aroused by the surge of adrenaline, was already at full throttle and sending her a confusing flood of stimulation. The psychic senses operated both independently and in conjunction with the normal senses. Engaging one’s talent without also getting feedback from the regular senses could be wildly disorienting unless a person was accustomed to dealing with only the psychic sense.
Cautiously she opened her eyes partway. She was curled on her side, facing the sliding glass doors that opened onto the little patio.
The curtains were still parted, allowing moonlight to slant into the room. But something was different. The atmosphere was much chillier than it had been earlier. She realized that she was inhaling the fresh, clean scents of the desert night, not air-conditioning. As she watched, the edge of one of the curtains fluttered.
The sliding glass door was partially open. Paranormal fog boiled through the entrance. Someone had entered the room. She remained frozen for another instant, trying to adjust to the shock.
And then she tried frantically to leap from the bed. She discovered she could not move.
“I know you’re awake.” The voice came out of the shadows behind her, the voice of an irritatingly unctuous salesman. “I’ve used my talent to trap you in the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness. Don’t bother trying to move. You can’t even twiddle your thumbs.”
The hot acid of adrenaline splashed through her. She struggled desperately to get to her feet and managed to twitch, if not actually twiddle her thumbs. Her left foot jerked an inch. That was more than the intruder expected but not nearly enough to get her out of bed and through the sliding glass door to safety.
Damn it, Fallon, why didn’t you stay? This wouldn’t have happened if you’d been here with me where you belong. You see where those old-fashioned notions of discretion get you?
She stared fixedly at the open window, fighting the terrible panic so that she could concentrate on her psychic senses. They seemed to be fully functional. She had no problem perceiving the river of hot fog that seethed and roiled across the floor and past the foot of the bed.
“You can talk,” the intruder said, “but if you try to scream, I’ll have to use more energy to silence you. You won’t like it, trust me.”
“What do you want?” She tried to speak as loudly as possible, testing her voice. But the words emerged as a thin whisper.
“I won’t hurt you. I don’t do that kind of work. I’m staying out of your range of vision because that’s one of my policies. Clients and those who receive the message never see my face.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed in the same reedy whisper.
“They call me the Messenger. I consider myself a go-between. I’m here to make you a very handsome offer.”
“And if I refuse it?”
“Let’s not go there. It will be more profitable for both of us if we start on a positive note.”
Beneath the bedding she succeeded in getting one hand clenched into a fist. The gesture of rage was useless. Her only hope was to somehow find the strength to roll off the edge of the bed onto the floor. If she got out of the intruder’s line of sight for even an instant, he would likely lose focus for a couple of seconds. That might give her enough time to scramble out the door into the night. At the very least she would be able to scream for help.
“I’ll keep this short,” the Messenger said. “I represent an individual who is extremely interested in acquiring inside information about Jones & Jones. You are uniquely placed to provide that sort of data.”
“Forget it,” she mumbled.
The fact that the intruder could hold her virtually paralyzed was extraordinary on its own. That he could do so without making physical contact meant that his talent was truly off the charts. Nevertheless, he had to be using a great deal of energy to control her movements. He could not go on for long generating power at such a rate.
She had to find a way to make him touch her. If he put a hand on her, she was sure she had enough power to disorient him.
“Listen to the rest of the pitch before you make your decision,” the Messenger said smoothly. “First, the money will be excellent. A hundred thousand dollars has already been wired into an offshore account just to show my client’s good faith. There will be more as soon as you start to forward information to a certain e-mail address.”
She poured everything she had into moving one leg an inch closer to the edge of the bed. She succeeded but the effort cost her. She was drenched in sweat.
“No,” she said hoarsely.
“I put a slip of paper with the number of the account and details for accessing it on the console.”
“No.”
“You really do want to think about the offer before you make up your mind.”
“There’s nothing to think about. The answer is no.”
“Your decision, of course, but I have been instructed to inform you that turning down the offer would not be a wise move in terms of your future health and well-being.”
THE OLD DREAM Started out in the usual manner. He was lost. He had traveled too far out on the multidimensional grid. He had gone too deep into the dark zone. This time he would not be able to find his way back.The endless night was illuminated here and there by small galaxies composed of points of light. Each tiny sun was important; each was connected to another but he could not quite grasp the patterns.The clusters of stars were like swarms of fireflies in an endless garden of night. He was well and truly lost.But someone was calling to him across the vast reaches of time and space.Isabella.He looked for her but he could not see her in the shadows. He had to find her. She was infinitely more important than whatever fabulous discoveries awaited him in the heart of chaos. And she was in danger. . . .
Fallon awoke on a rush of energy, all of his senses at full throttle. He had to find Isabella now.
He was out of bed and reaching for his pants before he could assess and analyze the decision. The part of him that was always engaged in probabilities and possibilities did a fast assessment of the situation. If Isabella was in danger, that danger would have arrived via the patio.
Given the hotel’s desert landscaping, that meant he would be covering some rough ground. He paused long enough to pull on the low boots that he had worn on the plane. He was going to look like a lust-crazed idiot if he showed up on her patio half-naked with no good reason.
He jerked open the sliding glass door and went out into the night.
“ARE YOU THREATENING TO murder me?” Isabella asked. The new tide of energy slamming through her was enough to propel her to the very edge of the bed. Another inch and she would fall onto the floor. She was battling the invisible psychic thrall the whole time, but she was making some progress.
“No, no, no, Miss Valdez. I assure you I am not a hit man. I told you, I’m the Messenger.”
“You know what happens to messengers.”
There was no sound out on the patio, just a sudden shifting of the shadows. But suddenly Fallon was there, sweeping into the unlit room on a pressure wave of energy. He went straight toward the intruder like a hawk zeroing in on prey.
“Shit.” The Messenger no longer sounded like a silver-tongued salesman. He sounded panicked. He leaped for the only available exit, the door that opened onto the hallway.
Isabella felt the paralysis lift instantly as the intruder lost his focus. She rolled out of bed and got to her feet in time to see Fallon grab the fleeing Messenger and spin him around. For the first time, she saw the ski mask that covered the man’s face. He had relied on more than his unnerving talent to conceal his identity.
“No, wait,” the Messenger gasped. He flung up his hands to ward off a blow.
Energy flashed in the atmosphere.
“Don’t kill him,” Isabella said quickly. “Not yet. He knows stuff. We need to talk to him first.”
“Yes,” Fallon said. “We’ll definitely have a chat first.”
He slammed the Messenger onto the floor. The man groaned. Fallon leaned down and ripped off the ski mask.
“Always knew you’d come to a bad end, Lockett,” Fallon said. “Didn’t know I’d be the one to take you out, though. I assumed it would be some other disgruntled client.”
