Those who weren’t into the yin- yang thing went out and bought special light boxes designed to treat the depressive condition known as SAD, seasonal affective disorder.
She was okay with darkness and rain. But maybe that was because of her talent for reading dreamlight. Dreams and darkness went together.
She went down the steps and crossed the vast, circular drive to where her small, nondescript car was parked. The dog sitting patiently in the passenger seat watched her intently as she came toward him. She knew that he had been fixated on the front door of the house, waiting for her to reappear since she had vanished inside forty minutes ago. The dog’s name was Hector, and he had abandonment issues.
When she opened the car door he got excited, just as if she had been gone for a week. She rubbed his ears and let him lick her hand.
“Mr. Paddon is not a happy man, Hector.” The greeting ritual finished, she put the satchel on the backseat and got behind the wheel. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing him as a client of Harper Investigations anytime soon.”
Hector was not interested in clients. Satisfied that she was back, he resumed his customary position, riding shotgun in the passenger seat.
She fired up the engine. She had told Paddon the truth about the little Egyptian queen. It was a fake, and it had been floating around in the private market since the Victorian period. She was certain of that for three reasons, none of which she could explain to Paddon. The first was that her talent allowed her to date objects quite accurately. Reason number two was that she came from a long line of art and antiquities experts. She had been raised in the business.
Reason number three was also straightforward. She had recognized the workmanship and the telltale dreamlight the moment she saw the statue.
“You can’t rat out your own several times great grandfather, Hector, even if he has been dead since the first quarter of the twentieth century. Family is family.”
Norwood Harper had been a master. His work was on display in some of the finest museums in the Western world, albeit not under his own name. And now one of his most charmingly brilliant fakes was sitting in Paddon’s private collection.
It wasn’t the first time she had stumbled onto a Harper fake. Her extensive family tree boasted a number of branches that specialized in fakes, forgeries and assorted art frauds. Other limbs featured individuals with a remarkable talent for deception, illusion and sleight-of-hand. Her relatives all had what could only be described as a true talent for less-than-legal activities.
Her own paranormal ability had taken a different and far less marketable form. She had inherited the ability to read dreamlight from her Aunt Phyllis’s side of the tree. There were few practical applications—although Phyllis had managed to make it pay very well—and one really huge downside. Because of that downside, the odds were overwhelming that she would never marry.
Sex wasn’t the problem. But over the course of the past year or two she had begun to lose interest in it. Perhaps that was because she had finally accepted that she would never have a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. Somehow, that realization had removed what little pleasure was left in short-term affairs. In the wake of the fiasco with Fletcher Monroe a few months ago she had settled into celibacy with a sense of enormous relief.
“There is a kind of freedom in the celibate lifestyle,” she explained to Hector.
Hector twitched his ears but otherwise showed no interest in the subject.
She left the street of elegant homes on Queen Anne Hill and drove back downtown through the rain, heading toward her office and apartment in Pioneer Square.
2
JACK WINTERS WAS TRACKING DARKLY IRIDESCENT DREAMLIGHT all over the hardwood floor of her office.
“Please sit down, Mr. Winters,” Chloe said.
Clients came in an endless variety of guises, but you did not last long in the investigation business unless you learned to distinguish between two broad groups: safe and dangerous. Jack Winters was clearly in the second category.
Hector got up to greet the newcomer. He usually gave clients a brief, assessing once-over and then proceeded to ignore them. But he was treating Jack Winters with what looked like a canine version of polite respect.
In spite of the icy control and sense of determination that radiated from Winters in an almost visible aura, he surprised her by taking a moment to acknowledge her dog. Most clients lost interest in Hector once they had been assured that he was not likely to bite. Hector was not cute or fluffy. Then again, neither was Jack Winters. Maybe that allowed for some male bonding.
Winters had been cool about Rose, her secretary, as well. The elaborate tattoos and piercings sometimes made clients nervous. Then again, she decided that it would probably take a lot more than some extensive body art and unusually placed jewelry to make Winters uneasy. Hand the man a flaming sword, and you would have a warrior-priest or maybe an avenging angel, she thought. It wasn’t just the stern, ascetic features or the lean, hard body. It was the cold, knowing look in his green eyes. It was as if he sensed all your weaknesses and wouldn’t hesitate to use them against you.
Satisfied, Hector retreated to his bed in the corner of the room and settled down. But he did not go back to sleep. Instead, he continued to watch Jack with an expression of rapt attention.
It occurred to her that, in her own, hopefully more subtle, way she was doing pretty much the same thing; watching Jack Winters closely. She was torn between fascination and profound wariness. The energy stirring in the room disturbed her in new and unsettling ways. She probably should be a lot more worried, she thought. Instead she was intrigued.
Winters ignored her invitation to sit. He walked across the hardwood floor to the windows overlooking First Avenue and the rain-drenched scene of Pioneer Square. Her senses still heightened, she took another quick look at his footprints. No question about it, Winters was a powerful talent.
On general principle, she was always deeply suspicious of strong talents. It was not just that high-level sensitives were rare and potentially dangerous. The more serious issue was that there was always the possibility that they were affiliated with the Arcane Society. Avoiding contact with Arcane was a Harper family motto.
Most of her regular clients came to her through referral. Someone who knew someone who needed her services arranged for an introduction. Jack had not been referred. Harper Investigations was not in the phone book. Her online presence was extremely discreet and so was her upstairs office. She rarely got walk-ins. Yet somehow Winters had discovered her. Intuition told her that it was not random chance that had brought him to her. Common sense dictated that she be wary.