Stone had given them a true Vegas welcome. He had dispatched a stretch limo to pick them up at the airport. The bar in the rear of the vehicle had offered cold beer, chilled champagne and an assortment of soft drinks. She and Jack had sipped sparkling spring water in hushed luxury on the drive out to Warm Springs Road to an exclusive enclave of private estates. Along the way they passed subdivisions and small strip malls interspersed with acres of undeveloped land covered in sagebrush.
High stone walls surrounded Drake Stone’s home. The gate was manned by a uniformed guard. Pines and purple plums shaded the grounds. The main house resembled one of the fantasy hotel-casinos on the strip, an over-the-top Mediterranean villa built around the pool and a large, lushly landscaped courtyard.
Stone’s interior designer had gone mad with what in Vegas passed for the Renaissance look. The heavily gilded furniture was oversized, covered in rich brocades and trimmed with a lot of gold tassels and velvet pillows. In the vast living room a hand-painted sky complete with fluffy clouds and plump cherubs adorned the ceiling. Tapestries covered the walls.
Stone had proven to be a genial host who was obviously enjoying his guests. He was dressed in a pair of loose, elegantly draped white trousers, a white, long-sleeved shirt, white sandals and designer sunglasses. There were a lot of rings on his hands and some gold chains around his throat. The gemstones and the gold looked real.
Chloe knew that he had to be in his mid-sixties, but there was an ageless quality about him, as if he had been preserved in plastic or maybe embalmed. He had obviously had a lot of work done, and it had all been of the highest quality. His jaw line was amazingly firm, his teeth were brilliantly white and the sprayed-on tan was just the right shade. His hair was as dark and thick as that of any nineteen-year-old, although the average nineteen-year-old probably would not have gone with the blow-dried pompadour.
It would have been easy to assume that Drake Stone was a caricature of an aging Vegas lounge crooner, but that would have been a serious mistake, Chloe thought. She knew, because Phyllis had explained often enough that it took intelligence, pragmatism, luck and sheer grit to keep a career in show business going as long as Stone had. That was especially true when that career was founded on a single hit song. It also took a lot of financial savvy and connections to amass the kind of fortune that could re-create a Roman villa in the Las Vegas desert.
There was something else about Drake Stone that caught her attention, a faint but discernable aura of energy. She could see it in his psi prints. She was willing to bet that he was a low-level sensitive, maybe a two on the Jones Scale. He was probably unaware of his talent. People with above-average intuition usually took the gift for granted. But over the years it would have given him an edge that no doubt accounted for his long-lived success in a cutthroat business.
She took a sip of the tea that Drake’s housekeeper had served. The men drank coffee. She was having a good time. Meeting people like Drake Stone was one of the perks of her job. But Jack, seated on the chair next to her, was barely masking his impatience with the pleasantries. Dark glasses shielded his eyes and his face was impassive, but she could feel the cold anticipation in him.
Drake laughed. “Trust me, I’m always thrilled to hear that I’m anyone’s favorite singer. But I’ll admit I’d have been even more flattered if you had said that I was your assistant’s favorite singer, not her mother’s.”
“Her mother was murdered a few years ago,” Chloe said gently. “The memory of her mom listening to your music is very important to her.”
“Understood,” Drake said, going very serious. “Tell her I feel honored.”
“I will.” She smiled. “Is it true that the ladies in the audience still line up for a kiss after the show?”
“It’s true.” Drake winked. “But I’ve been doing my show here for thirty years. Back at the start, the women in the audience were thirty years younger. Hell, so was I. But enough about me. How is Phyllis doing? I miss her wise counsel.”
“My aunt is doing great. She still takes calls from old clients. You should give her a ring.”
“I’ll do that,” Drake said. He flicked a look of veiled assessment at Jack and then turned back to her. “I’m curious to know how you found out that I owned the lamp. I bought it last year from an online dealer. You two are the first people who have asked me about it.”
“Finding things like the lamp is what I do,” Chloe said. “As my aunt explained to you on the phone, Mr. Winters hired me to locate it. He’s considering acquiring it for his collection.”
Drake looked at Jack. “And what’s your interest in it?”
“Family heirloom,” Jack said. “It got lost during a cross-country move several years ago.”
“You must come from a rather interesting family,” Drake said.
“Why do you say that?” Jack asked.
“Call it a hunch based on what you consider a valuable family heirloom,” Drake said drily.
“What made you decide to buy it?” Jack asked.
“Beats me.” Drake moved one hand in a vague manner. “I was approached online by a dealer shortly after one of the major design magazines did a spread on this place. The guy convinced me that he had a genuine late-seventeenth-century lamp with an interesting history that would look terrific in my house. Claimed it was made out of gold and decorated with a lot of good gemstones. What can I say? I was interested.”
“You agreed to buy it sight unseen?” Chloe asked.
“Of course not,” Drake said. “I told him I wanted it evaluated by an expert first. I invited him to bring the lamp here to Vegas. I planned to have a local authority I know take a look at it.”
Chloe nodded. “Edward Harper. He’s one of my uncles.”
“That’s right. My interior designer used him for a lot of the pieces she put into this place.”
“Uncle Edward was the person who told me that you might have the lamp,” she said. “But he couldn’t confirm it. He said he never actually saw it. Who did you get to examine and appraise the lamp?”
“No one,” Drake said. He drank some coffee and leaned back in his chair. “The morning after I informed the online dealer that I had arranged for the evaluation, the crate containing the lamp showed up on my doorstep. There was no invoice, no delivery papers, no records of any kind. I went back online and tried to find the dealer, but he had disappeared. I figured the lamp had been stolen and someone didn’t want it traced back to him.”
“Why didn’t you go ahead and have the lamp appraised?” Chloe asked.
“As soon as I opened the crate, I realized it would be a waste of time. At first glance the metal looks a lot like gold, but it isn’t gold. That was obvious immediately. Gold is soft, but you can’t even put a dent in that lamp. Believe me, I tried. The thing just has to be made of some kind of modern alloy.”
“What about the gemstones?” Chloe asked.
Drake grimaced. “They’re just big, cloudy glass rocks. I didn’t need Edward Harper to tell me the lamp was definitely not late seventeenth century.”
“Hell,” Jack said, his tone flat. He looked at Chloe. “Should have known that finding the lamp so quickly was too good to be true.”
Disappointment and frustration twisted through her. There was also a lot of embarrassment in the mix. All in all she felt utterly deflated.
“I was so certain,” she said. She looked at Drake. “Are you absolutely sure the gemstones are glass?”
“Well, I couldn’t put a scratch on them, so I guess it’s possible that they may be some high-tech crystals,” he admitted. “I ran a couple of experiments with a hammer and then with a drill. Couldn’t even chip the stones.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jack said evenly. “You did your best to destroy the lamp?”
Drake shrugged, unperturbed. “I have to admit it aroused my curiosity. Something about it interested me. But after a while, it started to bother me. Can’t really explain it. At first I stuck it on a pedestal in one
of the guest bathrooms. As a joke, you know? But my housekeeper told me it bothered her. After a while I realized that I didn’t even want it in the house. I put it back in the crate, nailed the crate shut and stashed it where I wouldn’t have to look at it on a regular basis.”
Chloe cleared her throat. “If you didn’t like the lamp, why did you keep it? Why not just chuck it into the trash?”
“Beats me,” Drake said. “I thought about doing just that from time to time. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t. There’s something about it.” He looked at Jack. “Every time I considered getting rid of it I got this weird feeling that I should hold on to it.” He smiled his stage-lights smile. “Like maybe until the real owner showed up.”
There’s just something about it. A tiny flicker of hope sparked inside Chloe. Paranormal artifacts exerted their own kind of compelling attraction, especially on those who possessed even a small measure of talent. Maybe Drake Stone had sensed some energy in the object. But the Winters lamp had been forged in the late 1600s. Drake seemed certain the item he had bought online was modern.
Jack was looking interested again. “I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind.”
“Come with me.” Drake put his coffee aside and rose from the lounge chair. “Frankly, I’ll be thrilled if you take it off my hands. Hell, I’ll pay you to remove it.”
He started across the heavily landscaped pool gardens.
Chloe glanced at Jack, but he was already on his feet, moving to follow Drake. She put down her tea and got up to follow the two men. A familiar fizzy sensation was whispering through her. Harper intuition always told her when she was on the right track.
Drake threaded a path through the maze of plantings, statuary and fountains to a low building tucked out of sight behind a high hedge. He stopped, dug out some keys and opened the door.
“Like I said, I kept it in the house for about a week.” Drake pushed the door open. “After that I couldn’t stand it any longer. The guys from the pool service gave me some static when I stored it in here, but given what I pay them, I figured they could just get over it.”
“Why did the pool service people complain?” Jack asked.
“They decided that the crate contained some toxic gardening chemicals or pesticides. They wanted me to get rid of whatever was inside it.”
“Bad smell?” Chloe asked.
“No,” Drake said. He smiled wryly. “Whatever it is, it seems to affect the nerves.”
He reached around the edge of the door, flipped a light switch and stood back.
A tendril of dark, powerful energy wafted out of the opening. It didn’t just stir the hair on the nape of Chloe’s neck, it prickled the skin on her upper arms and caused her pulse to quicken. An unsettling chill swept through her. She knew Jack sensed the currents, too. He said nothing, but she could tell that he had opened up all of his senses. Energy pulsed invisibly in the atmosphere around him. He stood in the doorway and looked into the shadowy interior of the pool house.
She took a couple of steps closer and peered past him into the crowded space. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the low light. When they did, all she saw was a lot of gardening equipment, pool chemicals and cleaning devices. She did not see a crate.
“It’s all the way at the back,” Drake said, as if he’d read her mind. “Under some tarps.”
Jack removed his dark glasses, dropped them into his shirt pocket and entered the pool house as if he knew precisely where he was going.
“I’ll wait out here,” Chloe said. He gave no indication that he had heard her.
Energy spiked higher in the atmosphere, not the stuff that was uncoiling in ominous waves from inside the structure. She slipped into her other vision and looked down. Hot ultralight dream energy burned in Jack’s footsteps.
She heard the clang and thud of some gardening tools being shifted about inside the shed. A moment later Jack emerged, a wooden crate under one arm. He used his free hand to put on his dark glasses.
“I’ll take it,” he said to Drake. “What’s your price?”
“You haven’t even opened the crate,” Drake pointed out.
“That won’t be necessary,” Jack said. “Whatever is inside this crate belongs to me.”
Drake studied him for a long, considering moment and then his neon-bright teeth flashed in the sun. “It’s yours, Winters, free and clear. It didn’t cost me a damn thing in the first place, and you’re saving me the cost of having it carted away by the garbage company. A real deal as far as I’m concerned.”
“I can afford to pay for it,” Jack said.
“I know that. You’re Jack Winters of Winters Investments, right?”
“You did your research.”
“Of course. You’ve got more money than God. But so do I. Take the lamp. It’s yours.”
Jack studied him for a moment. Chloe felt another little rush of energy. Then Jack nodded once, as though a bargain had been struck.
“I owe you,” Jack said. “If there’s ever anything you need that I can supply, you’ve got it.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Drake said. He was obviously satisfied with the deal. “Good to know. Money can’t buy everything, even in this town. I learned a long time ago that sometimes a favor owed is a hell of a lot more valuable.”
He closed the door of the shed.
19
“AREN’T YOU EVEN GOING TO LOOK AT IT BEFORE WE GET ON the plane?” Chloe asked. “Don’t you want to make sure that whatever is inside that crate really is the Burning Lamp?”
“Like I told Stone, whatever is inside that crate has got my name on it,” Jack said. “And, yes, I intend to examine it before we go back to Seattle. But not here. Not now.”
They were standing outside the entrance to McCarran Airport. The long limo had just deposited them and the crate on the sidewalk. The big vehicle was already vanishing into the endless stream of cabs and cars.
She glanced at her watch. “You want to find someplace more private? I understand, but our plane leaves in an hour and a half.” She looked around. “I suppose we could take a cab to a nearby hotel, but we’d need to get a room. There’s just not enough time.”
“A room is exactly what we need,” Jack said. He gripped the crate tightly under his arm. He had not let go of it since he had carried it out of the pool house. The case containing his computer was slung over his shoulder. “We’ll spend the night here. Figure out how to work the lamp and fly back to Seattle in the morning.”
She blinked. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I want to get this done. Tonight.”
She sensed the psi burning through him. He was focused one hundred percent on the object inside the crate, obsessed with it. In this condition he was not likely to listen to anything she had to say. But she had to try.
“I realize that you’re anxious to see if the lamp can stop what you think is happening to you,” she said, “but I’m the one who is supposed to work it, remember? I don’t have a clue about how I’m going to do that. I’ll need time to study the lamp. Time to do some research online. Time to think.”
“What’s to study or think about? The lamp emits radiation on the dreamlight end of the spectrum. You’re a high- level dreamlight reader. You’re supposed to be able to work that radiation to make sure I don’t turn into a monster.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.”
“Oh, yeah? And what happens if I screw up my part of this business?”
He looked at her through the dark shield of his sunglasses. “According to the legends, if things go wrong there are two possibilities: You’ll either destroy all of my talent or you’ll kill me.”
“Gee, you know, given those options, I think we might want to allow a little time for study and contemplation here.”
For a moment he did not speak. She was beginning to hope that he was starting to see the wisdom of her logic when his jaw tightened.
“There?
??s something else, Chloe,” he said finally.
“What?”
“If things go wrong, if you can’t get rid of this second talent and stabilize my dreamstate, I will have to disappear.”
“Because of J&J, you mean?”
“For all I know they’ve been watching me for months. Years, maybe.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Because that’s the way Fallon Jones is when it comes to potential problems that could blow up into major headaches for the Society. As Nicholas Winters’s direct male descendant, his only male descendant, I fit the profile of a walking time bomb as far as Fallon is concerned.”
“Just how do you plan to pull this disappearing act?”
“A year ago I established a second ID for myself. I carry the passport and credit cards with me at all times. If the lamp doesn’t work, I’ll get on a plane and vanish.”
She cleared her throat. “Uh, Jack, does it strike you that you’re becoming a trifle paranoid here?”
“Fallon and I talked about it once.”
“You and Fallon Jones talked about this human time-bomb thing?” she asked, incredulous.
“The last time we went out together for a beer. Just before he moved to Scargill Cove. We’ve known each other since childhood. We were friends once upon a time. He knew the history of the lamp, knew what might happen to me if I got hit by the curse. And he made it clear what he would have to do if I turned rogue.”
“He actually warned you that he would hunt you down?” She sniffed, disgusted. “Guess that’s what you get when you have a Jones for a friend.”
“I knew where he was coming from. I told you at the start of this thing that if I were in his place, I’d do the same. The Society has a responsibility in situations like this. It can’t allow artificially enhanced psychic rogues to run free.”
“Whoa.” She put both hands up, palms out. “Back up here. You are not a rogue. I can personally testify to that. I’ve read your dreamlight. I know the bad guys when I see them. You are not one of them.”