PROLOGUE
Five years earlier . . .
Harlan Rancourt stood in the shadows of the night-darkened alley and watched the medics carry his father’s body out of the wreckage. The explosion had demolished an entire corner of the building. Shards of glass and slivers of metal littered the street. No one who was in the second-floor lab could have survived.
If it hadn’t been for the heated quarrel that had taken place a few hours earlier, he would have died with Stenson Rancourt.
On the other side of the street the two men responsible for the explosion stood talking to the police. Harlan could not hear what they were saying but he knew they were lying, spinning a story that would portray them as innocent near-victims.
But Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine were anything but innocent. The blast had accomplished what they had intended. It left them in control of the Foundation—the powerful, secretive organization that had been in the hands of the Rancourt family for two generations. Stenson Rancourt had intended to hand off control to a third generation.
To me, Harlan thought.
The medics loaded the body bag into the ambulance and closed the doors. Harlan turned and went deeper into the alley. He was confident no one had seen him. He was very, very good at blending into the background.
His talent for going unnoticed was the one thing that might keep him alive. Once Arganbright and Pine realized his body was not inside the demolished lab, they would start hunting for him. They would be able to throw the considerable weight of the Foundation’s security apparatus behind the task.
He had tried to walk away from his inheritance, but that was no longer an option. Revenge required total commitment.
CHAPTER 1
Olivia LeClair was halfway across the parking garage and thinking about getting a cat when she realized the man coming toward her intended to murder her.
“Hi, remember me?” the killer said. “Brian. Brian Gatewood. We met at that speed date event last week. I didn’t realize you lived in this apartment building. What a coincidence. I just moved in. I’m on the tenth floor.”
As if she didn’t have enough to deal with, given the new wave of nightmares that had been robbing her of sleep lately. The dream images came in whispers and ghostly fragments: A voice she almost recognized told her to run. A cobalt blue mirror stood in the way. Unseen monsters chased her. And now she was about to confront a very real killer. She needed a vacation.
Brian Gatewood was good-looking in an open, Mr. Nice Guy way, and he was smiling, a friendly, ever-so-slightly flirtatious smile. The misty Seattle night had dampened his jacket. His running shoes were leaving footprints on the concrete floor. He had a grocery bag cradled in one arm and a key fob in his hand. A baseball cap was angled low over his eyes.
“I remember you,” she said. “Welcome to the building. I think you’ll like it here. The amenities are terrific.”
She accompanied the warm words with a dazzling smile. In the months since she and Catalina had opened Lark & LeClair, she had discovered she possessed a talent for acting. It came in handy in the private investigation business.
“That’s why I signed the rental agreement,” Brian enthused. “The amenities. What floor are you on?”
Killers were often excellent actors, too. The problem for Brian was that no matter how smooth and polished his performance, he could not disguise the faint, almost invisible wavelengths that sparked in his aura. To a woman who could read energy fields as easily as she read books, the shafts of pale radiance spelled one word: blank. It was the paranormal community’s slang for sociopath.
That information, while chilling, was not what signaled Brian’s intention to attack—not all sociopaths were violent. A lot of them were content to lead relatively quiet lives as con artists and fraudsters. They broke people’s hearts and ripped off their money, but they didn’t slice open jugulars.
But there was the other kind, the sort that fed on people’s fear, pain and, in some cases, blood. Brian Gatewood was one of those. The warning blazed in his aura in the form of hot currents of bloodred energy.
“I’m on the ninth floor,” she said. “You’ll love the gym. It’s on the top floor.”
“Looking forward to trying out the equipment,” Brian said.
She calculated the distance back to the relative safety of her car and then estimated how many steps she was from the locked doors of the elevator lobby. It didn’t take a mathematician to know she was trapped. She didn’t stand a chance of escape in either direction. Even if she could outrun Brian—doubtful, given that she was in heels—he would have no problem overtaking her while she was in the process of trying to unlock either the car door or the lobby entrance.
She stopped, careful to keep smiling. “Lucky me. I’m so glad you’re here. I just remembered I left my key fob on the kitchen counter. You can let me into the lobby. I won’t have to call the concierge desk and ask someone to rescue me.”
Brian hesitated for a split second, just long enough to confirm her suspicion that the fob in his hand wouldn’t open the lobby doors. Things were not going quite the way he had planned.
He recovered quickly. “Sure. Hang on.” He glanced at the vintage camera hanging from a leather cord around her neck. “That looks like an antique.”
“It is,” Olivia said. “Mid-twentieth century.”
“Do you collect old cameras?”
“Just this one.”
He lost interest in the camera and went toward the door. The path he was following would bring him very close to her. She stepped aside as if to get out of his way. He altered course ever so slightly, just enough to ensure he closed the distance between them.
She took another step back and let her handbag slide off her shoulder onto the concrete floor.
“Damn,” she said. “I just bought that bag. Now it’s going to have garage dirt on it. That stuff never comes off.”
She bent down, trying to appear as if she was intent on retrieving the handbag.
“I’ll get it,” Brian said. “So, what did you think about the speed date event? Any luck?”
He slipped the key fob into the pocket of his jacket. When his hand reappeared, she saw that his fingers were closed around a knife. He started toward her, moving fast.
“Nope, no luck,” she said.
She straightened, raised the camera and peered through the viewfinder. Senses kicked up, she focused a crushing wave of energy on Brian’s aura and pressed the crystal button that, in a real camera, would have released the shutter.
Paranormal energy flared around Brian. For those with the psychic senses required to view the scene, it looked as if he was about to become the victim of spontaneous human combustion. But instead of going up in flames, he convulsed. For a few frozen seconds he stared at her in disbelief. His mouth opened on a cry of panic and rage.