“I was so afraid he had killed you,” she whispered. Her throat tightened. Panic flickered.
“Breathe,” Jake said.
She did, albeit cautiously because she expected the action to fire up a splitting headache. To her enormous relief, there was no new wave of pain. The blast of psychic energy that had seared her senses had been intense while it lasted but evidently it did not leave a residual effect.
“What did Owen do to us?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Some kind of trick that temporarily shorted out our senses, I think.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do that.”
“There are some references to something similar in the old archives concerning the founder’s formula.”
She frowned. “I’ve studied the history of the Society. I don’t recall any stuff about mind blasts.”
“The details are in the private archives of the Jones family.”
“Those files are not open to the regular membership of the Society,” she said. “Only the Master and the Council have access. And the members of the Jones family, I suppose. How did you get to see them?”
“It’s sort of complicated.”
“A J&J thing, huh? Never mind.” Glumly she surveyed the steam room. “We’ve got other priorities here.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I don’t suppose you have your cell phone?”
“When I woke up it was gone. Shipley must have taken it off me. You don’t have one on you, either. I checked before you opened your eyes.”
“Not good.”
“No.” Jake straightened and began to prowl the chamber. “Gotta tell you, this hunting-cabal-freaks stuff is for the young hotshots. I’m too old for this kind of excitement.”
She couldn’t help it. In spite of everything, a little laugh bubbled out of her. “You’re lying through your teeth, Jake Salter. You live for hunting bad guys. You need to hunt them.”
“Maybe the old saying is right.” There was no inflection at all in his words. “It’s in the blood.”
“Yep.” She struggled unsteadily to her feet. “Just like lie detecting is in mine.”
He looked at her, not speaking.
She spread her hands. “Hey, we are what we are, Jake, a couple of exotics. We aren’t the first in the Society and we won’t be the last. I say ditch the angst. You know, we might make a good team.”
“You offering me a partnership?”
“Why not? If the two of us work together, we could not only handle a wider variety of cases, we could sell our consulting services to Jones & Jones as a package deal. Think about it. How many lie-detector and hunter investigative firms are out there? Probably none. What we have to offer will be impossible to duplicate.”
There was a short, startled silence. Then Jake took two long strides across the chamber, wrapped a hand around the nape of her neck and kissed her hard and deep.
When he raised his head she was a little breathless again, but not from panic.
“Damn,” Jake said. “I really like the way you think.”
She smiled modestly. “Guess a flair for business runs in the family.”
“Guess so.” He released her and went back to studying the ceiling.
“Where’s Owen?” Clare asked.
“Still here in the building,” Jake said. “I can feel him. He’s throwing off a lot of weird energy.”
“Weird how?”
“I can sense when someone else is running hot. Shipley is definitely at full throttle. But his energy waves feel distorted somehow. Abnormal. Twisted. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Waiting, probably.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Well—” Jake didn’t finish the sentence.
The temperature was starting to rise. Clouds of steam were forming. Clare looked around uneasily.
“Does it feel like it’s getting warmer in here?” she asked.
“Someone fired up the steam system after dumping us in here. Full blast.”
“That can’t be good.” She rubbed her arms uneasily and looked around. “Somehow I can’t see Owen worrying about our personal comfort.”
“No.”
She could feel her skin growing moist. Jake’s shirt was already plastered to his back.
“I wonder how hot this room gets,” she said.
“I’ve been thinking about that myself.”
“There must be some sort of safety valve to control the temperature,” she said.
“Probably.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Jake?”
He vaulted up to the highest stone bench and stretched his arm straight up. She saw that his fingers just barely reached the surround that concealed the recessed lighting fixtures.
“The problem with any kind of mechanical temperature control,” he said, “is that there is almost always a way to remove it or override it.”
“Why would anyone want to—” She broke off, horror shafting through her. “Oh, Lord. Don’t bother to answer that.”
“Okay,” he said, “I won’t.”
She tried to take her mind off the implications of what he had just said. “What are you looking for?”
“An access panel. Given all the high-tech plumbing and the HVAC stuff in this chamber, there has to be one.”
“HVAC?”
“Heat, ventilating and air-conditioning.”
“Oh, right.” She shivered again in spite of the heat. “You don’t really think Owen plans to steam us to death as if we were a couple of oversized artichokes, do you?”
“If you put yourself in his position, that scenario does offer some distinct advantages,” he said.
“Describe your idea of advantages.”
“When our bodies are discovered in the morning, it will probably look like we died of heatstroke.”
“For crying out loud,” Clare yelped. “People don’t croak from sitting too long in a steam room.”
“Sure they do.” He glanced at the wall near the door. “Why do you think they put up those little signs warning you not to spend more than a few minutes inside one?”
She swallowed hard. “But if they find our bodies in here tomorrow morning, the first thing everyone is going to ask is what were we doing in the steam room after hours. The second question is going to be, why didn’t we just open the door and walk out when it got too hot?”
“Answer to Question Number One will probably be that we booked a couples special in this chamber last night in order to enjoy hot sex. Very hot sex. Nobody noticed that we hadn’t come out by closing time. Maybe we were having such a great time we didn’t want to be discovered.”
“What about the answer to Question Number Two?”
“We got accidentally locked in here when the staff closed up for the night.”
“Terrific. What about the steam? Why didn’t it shut off?”
“Mechanical malfunction.”
“Archer isn’t going to believe that for a minute,” she said.
“Jones & Jones won’t buy it, either. But by then it will be too late for us.”
“But Owen must know our deaths will only serve to bring the full resources of Archer Glazebrook and the firm of J&J down on his head.”
“You’re forgetting one very important thing,” Jake said.
“What?”
“No one but you and I know that Shipley is the cabal freak.”
She felt a little flare of psi power. She was no hunter but she was definitely becoming sensitive to Jake’s energy, she thought. It had the same unique, intimate, compelling impact on her senses as his scent and the sound of his voice.
Jake gripped the lighting surround with both hands and hoisted himself up into the shallow recessed area. She saw his face tighten into a stark, grim mask. A dark crimson stain appeared on his left shirtsleeve.
“Jake, your arm.”
“Some of the stitches ripped. I’m okay.”
&nbs
p; The recessed lighting shelf was not very wide. Jake had to remain on his side to wedge himself into it.
He probed the painted ceiling directly over his head. She had a hard time seeing exactly what he was doing with his hands because the clouds of steam had grown so thick. But a moment later she heard him give a small sound of satisfaction.
“Got it,” he said.
A section of the ceiling swung downward on hinges. He scrambled up out of sight through the shadowy opening. A rising current of steam followed him, billowing upward into the darkness.
He reappeared, leaning partway over the edge of the panel. His belt dangled from a loop he had made around the wrist of his right arm.
“Grab the end with both hands, wrap it around one of your wrists and hang on tight,” he ordered.
She climbed up onto the highest bench as he had done, reached up and grabbed the end of the belt.
He hauled her up swiftly. The leather strap burned into her wrist but somehow the pain didn’t seem like a big deal at the moment. She set her teeth and tightened her grip.
When she reached the level of the lighting fixtures, she managed to find purchase with one foot on the surround. That took some of the pressure off her wrist. From that vantage point Jake helped her slither awkwardly into the recessed opening.
She became aware of the hum and whine of the building’s air-conditioning system reverberating through the darkness.
“You’re good,” she whispered. “You’re really good.”
“I had some strong motivation.”
He leaned out of the opening again, caught hold of the panel and pulled it closed. An intense darkness enveloped her. A tingle of panic, the non-psychic kind, flickered through her.
“With luck Shipley won’t check to see if we’re forktender for a while,” Jake whispered.
She shuddered. “You can skip the visuals. But I think you’re right. By now he must know that you’re a hunter and that you’re bound to be really pissed off. It would be dangerous to open the door until we’re, uh, done.”
“That should buy us a little time.”
“Wonder why he didn’t tie us up,” Clare said.
“He wouldn’t want the authorities to find any restraint marks on the bodies.”
She winced. “Got it. Doesn’t fit with the death-by-accidental-steaming scenario.”
“Right. Follow me.”
“Glad to, but I don’t think that’s going to work,” she said. “I can’t see anything except the crack of light around the access panel.”
“I can.” His fingers closed around her wrist. “Stick close. There are air-conditioning ducts and pipes running everywhere up here. And whatever you do, try not to make any noise. Take off your shoes. We don’t want any squeaking in the ceiling if we can avoid it.”
“Hang on. What, exactly, are you going to do if you find Owen?”
“Ripping out his throat comes to mind as an option.” Jake sounded inordinately cheerful.
“Get a grip here,” she whispered. “What about his psychic freeze trick?”
“I’ll take him down before he even knows I’m in the vicinity.”
His confidence worried her. She suspected that it was rooted, in part, in the fact that he was running hot.
“No offense,” she said, “but I think we should have a Plan B.”
“Got one?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “When Owen did his mind blast thing to you were your senses wide open?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Mine were on edge but I wasn’t running hot, at least not at the moment when he got out of the car. I was expecting you. Then Owen spoke to me, told me a lie. That was when my senses kicked in. And that was when I felt the full blast of whatever it was he used to knock me out.”
“You think his trick only works on our psi senses?”
“Maybe. There’s no way to know for sure without doing some tests. But it seems logical that since his power is generated on the paranormal plane, it would be most effective against that side of our natures, doesn’t it?”
“All right,” Jake said. “I’ll keep that in mind. But I still prefer Plan A, the one where I rip his throat out before he even knows I’m around.”
“You don’t like taking directions, do you?”
“No, but on occasion I’ve been known to be reasonable.”
“That’s very reassuring.” She slipped out of her loafers and held them in her left hand. “Okay, I’m ready.”
She followed him through the inky darkness, aware of the objects in their path only when he altered course to avoid them. When they detoured around a large, vibrating heat pump she saw another rectangular crack of light indicating another access panel. The room below was illuminated.
Jake’s fingers tightened around her wrist. The hunter had scented his prey.
They crept closer. She could hear the low, muffled sound of voices now. Owen and a woman were speaking. The female voice sounded vaguely familiar.
Jake put his mouth very close to her ear. “Got a hunch we just located Kimberley Todd.”
“I know that voice,” Clare whispered. “I’ve heard it somewhere. Good grief, it’s Karen Trent.”
“Who?”
“The assistant manager here at the spa. The one who didn’t believe me when I told her that someone tried to brain me with the dumbbell.”
“Like I said, I think we just found Kimberley Todd.” Satisfaction reverberated through Jake’s low voice.
“Damn. She was here at the spa all the time.”
“All right,” Jake said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. First, I want you out of this place. I’ll open one of the other panels and lower you into an empty room. Get clear of the building, find a phone and call the cops. Understood?”
“I don’t think I should leave you here alone with those two.”
“I can handle this,” he said. “But I can do it even better if I know you’re safe.”
This was the kind of thing he was born to do, she reminded herself. It was time to let Jake hunt.
Chapter Forty-five
He opened an access panel above a darkened massage therapy room. Taking hold of both of Clare’s wrists, he lowered her until she could stand on the white-sheeted table. He was aware of the pain in his left arm but with his senses wide open he could push the sensation to the edge of his awareness, at least for a while.
Clare found her footing on the table and looked up at him. He knew she could not see him in the dense shadows of the ceiling crawl space.
“Be careful,” she said softly. “Please.”
“I will,” he promised. “Go on, get out of here.”
He waited until she had opened the door and slipped out into the hall. There was enough moonlight filtering through the skylights out there to illuminate her way to the lobby.
When she was gone, he made his way back across the ceiling to the illuminated access panel. The voices of the two people in the room below were loud and clear, thanks to his jacked-up hearing.
He realized at once that something had changed in the atmosphere. Shipley was throwing off even more of the disturbing, abnormal psychic energy.
“You bastard,” Kimberley shrieked. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t kill me.”
“Of course I can,” Owen said calmly. “In fact, it is absolutely necessary. I need to throw some red meat to Glazebrook and the local cops.”
“You’re crazy. You need me. We have a plan, damn you.”
“I have a plan,” Owen said. “Sadly, it is somewhat different from the one we discussed. You are going to commit suicide.”
“No one will believe that.”
“Of course they will. As the months went past you became despondent after you murdered McAllister. The gun you used to kill him will be found in your desk drawer. I put it there myself a few minutes ago.”
“You can’t do this,” Kimberley said, frantic now.
“Valerie’s death will remain a probab
le accident as a result of drugs and alcohol. You will leave a suicide note on your computer explaining the other deaths, however. You murdered Brad McAllister because he dumped you in favor of Clare. When she came back to Stone Canyon, you couldn’t stand it. You lured her here to the spa with the intention of murdering her tonight. Unfortunately for him, Jake Salter showed up with Clare, no doubt anticipating a couples’ massage. You had no choice but to get rid of him, too. You locked them both in the steam chamber.”
“We’re partners in this,” Kimberley pleaded.
“As I said, there has been a slight change of plan.”
“You need me.”
“Not any longer,” Owen said. “In a few days Archer Glazebrook will suffer a heart attack following the shock of Clare’s death. His son, Matt, will die in a car crash on the way home to his father’s funeral. And in their grief, Myra and Elizabeth will turn to me, an old friend of the family. I will take control of the company and lift that burden from their shoulders.”
Jake sensed movement in the room below. Kimberley was edging toward the door. She was probably going to make a desperate bid to flee into the hall. That would be good. He could use the distraction.
“You can’t shoot me from across the room,” Kimberley said. “No one will believe I committed suicide if you do.”
“I am fully prepared to make adjustments to my plan,” Owen said, unruffled. “If you make me kill you this way, I will simply take your body into the steam room and stage what will appear to be a battle over the gun. You lost.”
Jake let the access panel swing open. He put one hand on the edge of the dropped ceiling and plummeted, feet first, straight down.
Owen’s head jerked up at the sound of the panel falling open. Startled shock and then rage flashed across his face. Instinctively he brought the gun around, trying to aim for an impossibly awkward shot.
Jake landed inches from his prey. He brought his hand down in a short, chopping action, striking Owen’s arm. The gun clattered to the floor.
Owen skittered backward, clawing at the desk for support.
“Son of a bitch,” Owen snarled, his face a demented mask. “You want to know how bad it can get? I’ll show you.”