A short time later he pulled into the garage attached to the house that served as his home and his business. There was no sign out front. He worked by referral only.
He would have a drink and get some sleep. In the morning he would pack and head for Burning Cove.
He collected the mail from the box, used his key to open the front door, and let himself into the darkened house. He turned on the hall light and paused to drop the contents of the mailbox onto the small table. There were the usual assortment of advertising circulars and bills. There was also a letter.
Most of the letters he received were from potential clients requesting his assistance in tracking down and authenticating a rare volume. Occasionally he got complaints because he had not provided the answers that the client wanted. It wasn’t his fault there were a lot of forgeries in the world of antiquarian books.
But the letter on the table tonight was different. The stationery was cheap, for one thing. Most clients used good-quality paper. If they couldn’t afford quality paper, they couldn’t afford him.
He picked up the letter. There was no return address. Cautiously he heightened his senses.
A whisper of anxiety. Desperation. Excitement.
He opened the envelope and took out the single sheet inside. The note was short.
Dear Simon:
I write with wonderful news. A prestigious academic institution in California is offering me a position in its new parapsychology laboratory. It is a fully equipped and well-funded facility designed to rival the parapsychology lab that Rhine and McDougall established a few years ago at Duke University. There is one small condition that must be satisfied before the appointment is final, namely a demonstration of my paranormal energy–sensing machine. A simple matter, of course, but I would appreciate your assistance. I promise you it will not take much of your time.
I am currently finishing my East Coast tour. As soon as I am free I will take the train to Los Angeles.
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Yours truly,
Otto
Simon crushed the letter in his fist and tossed it into the waste basket. He had been struggling to close the door on his past for nearly five years, ever since he had walked away from Dr. Otto Tinsley and his Institute of Parapsychology road show.
The memory of learning a hard truth while standing in the pouring rain in a Seattle graveyard rose up to haunt him, as it always did when he thought about Tinsley. Predictably, it was accompanied by another memory.
He was twelve years old and he was in the hallway outside the office of the director of the orphanage. He was straining to overhear the conversation taking place on the other side of the closed door because he knew his future hinged on the outcome.
It was not the first time he had eavesdropped on Elaine Marsden’s conversation with a doctor. Marsden was the director of the orphanage, and this was not the first consultation she had sought. There had been two previous occasions. Each one had ended with a terrifying recommendation: “The boy is hopelessly delusional. He should be committed to an asylum for the insane.”
Director Marsden had insisted on obtaining one more opinion. Dr. Otto Tinsley was now about to deliver it. If this ended with the same diagnosis, Simon had plans to run away that night.
“I am convinced that I can cure the boy’s delusions, but it will take time,” Tinsley said. “He will have to accompany me.”
“The only way I can allow him to leave with you is if you adopt him.”
“Certainly,” Tinsley said.
“Sign here,” Marsden said.
There was relief and hope in her voice. She did not know what the future held for Simon, but she had managed to save him from an asylum. She had given him a chance.
Out in the hall Simon decided he would not be running away that night after all. He was going home with Dr. Otto Tinsley, who had promised to cure him of the delusions; make him normal.
Things hadn’t quite worked out that way, of course. Home had turned out to be a life on the road and Tinsley hadn’t even tried to cure him of his delusions, but the two of them had formed a family of sorts.
Until Seattle.
He went into the bathroom, took out the cream he kept in a drawer, and massaged it into the scars on his right hand. Then he headed into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and took down the whiskey bottle.
No question about it—a vacation in Burning Cove and some long, hot nights with a fast, reckless divorcée who wouldn’t ask a lot of questions were exactly what he needed.
Chapter 4
Raina took a sip of her martini and set the stemmed glass on the pristine white tablecloth. “I didn’t know what else to say to her.”
“You told her the truth,” Luther Pell said. “She did what she had to do to survive and now she will have to learn to live with that knowledge.”
Raina looked at the man she had never expected to meet, the one man in the world who knew some of her secrets and understood that she concealed others, but who accepted her without judgment. In the flickering light of the candle that sat in the middle of the table, Luther’s eyes were as cold and unflinching as those of a leopard. You had to look deeper to see the wounded artist under the sleek and rather dangerous exterior.
Luther Pell played the part he had crafted for himself with cool ease and a great deal of style. Raina suspected that was because on one level it was the truth. He actually was the sophisticated, successful owner of a glamorous nightclub. He really did have connections in the criminal underworld and equally murky links to a certain clandestine government agency. He allowed very few people to get close enough to him to catch glimpses of the complicated man beneath the surface.
Luther Pell had secrets. So did she. Over the course of the past couple of months they had begun to share some of those secrets, but in many ways they were still mysteries to each other. Lately she had allowed a little flame of hope to ignite. For the first time in a very long while she was beginning to imagine a future that involved love, a future with Luther.
At the moment they were seated in one of the star booths that ringed the dance floor. Normally, she and Luther occupied the private booth on the mezzanine. The discreetly concealed table upstairs provided Luther with a full view of his nightclub. But tonight Raina had requested a booth near the dance floor for herself and Lyra because she had concluded that the best tonic for her new apprentice investigator was a night of champagne and dancing. Luther had joined them at the table, which had made certain that everyone in the Paradise was aware of his guests.
“Your plan is working,” Luther said. He angled his head toward Lyra, who was whirling around the floor with the well-dressed scion of a wealthy family that was vacationing at the Burning Cove Hotel. “Your apprentice has been dancing ever since the two of you arrived.”