“If it’s any consolation, the name is well known only at the highest levels.”
“Oh, gee, that’s a relief.”
“The reason that the Tallentyre name is not notorious throughout the Society is because the Master, the Council and J&J have deliberately tried to establish the notion that the founder’s formula is a myth. It’s part of the overall plan to discourage men like your father from deciding to become modern alchemists.”
“My father wasn’t an alchemist.” Anger shot through her. “He was a scientist. And he was brilliant.”
“He was brilliant, all right. No argument there. That’s why when he went rogue, he became a serious threat. The Council had no choice but to deal with him.”
“Murder him, you mean.”
“There is nothing in the file that indicates Wilder Jones murdered your father,” he said flatly. “By all accounts the car accident was just that. An accident.”
“Just a dose of bad psychic luck?”
“It happens.” His brows rose slightly. “And don’t smile at me like that.”
She blinked and stopped smiling. “Like what?”
“Like you’re telling me to go screw myself. Pisses me off.”
“Wow. I’ve managed to piss off the man from J&J. What’s the penalty for that?”
“Keep it up and you’ll find out. Now, do you want to continue playing games or would you like to hear why Lawrence Quinn’s disappearance involves you and your family history?”
“Tell me about Quinn. If I get bored, I can always go back to pissing you off.”
“I can promise you that you’re not going to be bored. Yesterday Fallon Jones finally got a lead on the missing Dr. Quinn. Turns out Quinn popped up in Oriana last month.”
She frowned. “He was in my town?”
“For about twenty-four hours, as far as we can determine. Then he vanished again. Now, here’s the really interesting part. Lawrence Quinn paid his one-day visit to Oriana on the same day that your aunt died. You’re a hotshot psychic. You tell me. What are the odds that confluence of events is a coincidence?”
Ten
Later he walked her back to the inn, exulting in the sensation of having her so close. In spite of the occasional bursts of fireworks at dinner, or, hell, maybe because of them, he was intensely aware of her femininity. It compelled and challenged him in all the ways that a man could be compelled and challenged. It felt very, very good to be with her, enveloped by the intimacy of the night and the rain and the subtle emanations of overlapping waves of psychic energy. It was like nothing else he had ever experienced.
“That’s really all you have, then?” she said when they reached the top of the stairs and went down the hall. “Just the fact that Lawrence Quinn showed up in Oriana the day my aunt died?”
“That’s all I’ve got at the moment, but you have to admit it’s an interesting starting point.”
She stopped in front of her room, a somber serious expression on her intriguing face. He didn’t have to jack up his mirror talent intuition to sense that she was about to confide one of her many secrets.
“Everyone thinks that Aunt Vella died of natural causes,” she said quietly. “A heart attack. But I couldn’t believe it at first. She was only fifty-nine and she was in good health. So I paid for a private autopsy before she was cremated.”
“That wasn’t in the file.”
“I’m so glad to hear that J&J is not all-knowing and all-seeing.”
“You’re doing that smile again,” he warned.
“Sorry. Can’t help myself.”
“What did the autopsy show?”
“Nothing sinister.” She dug her key out of her purse. “No evidence turned up to indicate that her death was due to anything other than a heart attack. When you think about it, why would Quinn or anyone else want to murder her after all these years? She was no biochemist. She was an artist. She painted pictures and designed a lot of the masks I sell at Incognito.”
“I’m not saying anyone killed her. I agree with you, there’s no obvious motive. But the coincidence remains and it bothers me. Bothers Fallon Jones, too.”
She opened the door, stepped inside and turned to face him. “I’ve made my decision. I’ll cooperate with your investigation.”
“I appreciate that.”
She folded her arms and lounged against the door frame, studying him through the lenses of her black-framed glasses.
“You knew I would say yes, didn’t you?” she said.
He shrugged. “Figured you’d have a personal interest in the case. I would if I were in your shoes.”
“You figured right. But I want to make one thing very clear. It’s true I’ve agreed to cooperate with you, but we don’t share the same agenda.”
The hair stirred on the nape of his neck. “Meaning?”
“Your objective and that of J&J is to find out what happened to Dr. Quinn. All I care about is my aunt. If she was murdered, I want the killer caught and punished. So long as you’re willing to help me do that, we’re a team.”
He braced one hand on the outside of the door frame. “Deal.”
“Good night, Mr. Jones.”
She unfolded her arms, plucked the file out of his hand and closed the door quietly but firmly in his face.
Eleven
“Son of a bitch,” Fallon Jones said.
Zack cranked back in the chair, stacked his heels on the hassock and spoke into the phone. “Look on the bright side. Her goal and ours are aligned, at least for the moment. As long as that holds true, we’ve got her cooperation.”
“And if it turns out there’s no connection between Quinn’s disappearance and Vella Tallentyre’s death?”
“Then I think you can pretty much forget the whole cooperation thing. Raine has no fond feelings toward the Society and she doesn’t trust J&J as far as she could throw you and your office. She thinks Wilder Jones murdered her father before he destroyed the lab.”
“Son of a bitch,” Fallon growled again. “Show her the damn file. It says that the accident was just that.”
“She’s in her room, reading the file as we speak. Doubt that she’ll believe every word in it, though. I wouldn’t if I were her.”
“It’s the truth, damn it.”
“How do you know? You weren’t running J&J when the Tallentyre situation went down. We both know that good old Uncle Wilder wouldn’t have blinked twice about a little thing like shading the facts for the record. They didn’t call him Wild Wilder Jones for nothing.”