“I’ve got my computer with me,” Zack said. “I’ll read the file in flight.”
“I wish you didn’t sound so damn cheerful,” Fallon muttered. “Makes me nervous.”
Three
Zack finished the file shortly before the small jet touched down at the Sonoma County Airport. He spent the drive home to the quiet house in the wine country thinking about what he had read, searching for weaknesses, concocting a strategy.
He talked to Fallon while he threw some things into a duffel bag and retrieved his gun and holster from the small floor safe.
“You didn’t tell me the subject of the file was Judson Tallentyre’s daughter,” he said.
“Didn’t have time to go into detail. Figured you’d do better reading it in context.”
“Some context.” He zipped the duffel bag shut.
“Now you know why I’m in a hurry. This is big, Zack. I can feel it.”
“I’m not arguing with you.” He picked up the duffel bag and started toward the door. “Tell me about the trips to Vegas.”
Fallon snorted. “Obviously Raine Tallentyre has a serious gambling habit.”
“According to the file, she rarely went to Vegas until about a year ago. Then it became a monthly routine.”
“She sure as hell wouldn’t be the first sensitive to develop a taste for the casinos. Amazing how many folks forget that the laws of probability and plain old random chance are not automatically suspended just because someone with a little psychic talent decides to roll the dice.”
“She plays cards, not roulette or craps. Blackjack. Never goes to the same casinos two months in a row. Never wins big enough at any one casino to draw the attention of security. But according to your info, she must have taken home close to a hundred thousand dollars during the past twelve months.”
“Okay, so she’s good.” There was a shrug in Fallon’s voice. “Maybe you’ll be able to use that information.”
“You’re sure you don’t have any more on the aunt?”
“You’ve got everything I’ve got. Vella Tallentyre was Judson Tallentyre’s sister. She was a level-eight clairaudient. Heard voices. Started to suffer prolonged bouts of depression in her early thirties. She was eventually institutionalized last year. Died of a heart attack on the twentieth of last month.”
“The same day that Lawrence Quinn disappeared from Oriana.”
“You see now why I’m getting nervous here?” Fallon growled. “Doesn’t take a psychic to connect those dots.”
“I’m going to need the Judson Tallentyre file.”
Fallon went uncharacteristically silent for a couple of beats.
“That’s a grade-four classification,” he said eventually. “Master and Council eyes only.”
“Get it for me, Fallon.”
There was another two-beat pause.
“Damn,” Fallon said, thoroughly disgusted. “I knew this was going to happen.”
“What?”
“Five minutes into the case and you’re already giving orders. How many times do I have to remind you that I’m the boss here at J&J?”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
He ended the call and clipped the phone to his belt. Hoisting the duffel, he walked through the big, silent house and stopped briefly at the front door.
He turned and looked back at the gleaming stone tile in the foyer, the warm, Tuscan-style colors on the walls and the soothing views of green vineyards and mountains.
He’d been content in the house for most of the six years he’d lived in it. But then Jenna had arrived in his life. She moved in with him while they planned the wedding, living there just long enough to put her stamp on the place.
It would never be home again. When the Oriana case was finished, he would sell it.
Four
Over the course of his years in police work, first as a cop in San Diego and even once or twice during his short tenure as chief of police in Shelbyville, Wayne Langdon had encountered his share of strange folks. None of them, however, had given him the peculiar, downright eerie sensation he was getting from the woman seated on the other side of his desk.
None of them had ever had eyes like Raine Tallentyre, either.
“Is the girl all right?” she asked.
So cool and composed, he thought, as if she found the victims of serial killers every day of the week.
He finally realized what it was about her eyes that was so unsettling. The cat that hung around the back door of the station had eyes the same gold-green color. Looked at you the same way, too. Raine wore a pair of severe, black-framed glasses but they didn’t do a damn thing to soften the impression. You got the feeling that she saw things at midnight that other people couldn’t see, didn’t want to see.
“The ER doctor told me that, physically, she appears to be unharmed,” he said, trying not to stare at her eyes. “But she’s obviously been through an ordeal. Says her name is Stacy Anderson. A prostitute from Seattle. The kidnapper posed as a client. He brought her here sometime yesterday and put her in that storage locker. Told her she was being punished. Before he locked the door he took pictures. Used a digital camera.”
A tiny, visible shudder went through Raine. She inclined her head once, as if he had just confirmed something she had already suspected.
“He’s keeping a scrapbook,” she said. “Souvenirs of his successes.”
She was in her early thirties, he decided. Tall for a woman. She didn’t try to disguise her height by wearing flat shoes, either, the way a lot of tall women did. The heels on her black boots had to be a couple of inches high. She wore her dark hair pulled back in a twist that emphasized those cat-like eyes and her cheekbones. Her black blazer looked like it had been created for a female mob boss by some high-end Italian designer. She wore it open over chocolate brown trousers and a matching brown turtleneck.
No wedding ring, he noticed. He was not surprised. An adventurous, maybe intoxicated man might take a walk on the wild side with a woman like this but he’d have to be a fool to marry her. The lady was dangerous territory. Everyone said that her aunt had been certifiably crazy. Stuff like that sometimes went down through the bloodlines.
At least Raine hadn’t tried to tell him that she was psychic. Not yet, at any rate. That was a relief. He hated dealing with the quacks, frauds and phonies who frequently showed up in cases like this one, claiming paranormal powers.
“You say this is the first time you’ve been back to Shelbyville since you moved your aunt to Oriana last year?” he asked.