Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (4 page)

His reaction to her was…weird.

The accelerated pounding was the staccato beat of fear. Or was it excitement? Or some sort of premonition? Damn, he didn’t know what. Nor did he want to find out. Lark was the one with precognitive powers, not him. But every instinct in him flashed a big neon warning to keep the hell away from Heather Shaw. And in his line of work, Caleb trusted his instincts. They hadn’t failed him yet.

“Earth to Middle Edge? Humor me,” Lark said smoothly in his ear, snapping him out of his reverie. “

Expensive
doesn’t exactly tell me what she looks like.”

Touchable. Dangerous. Trouble.“She’s not a blonde anymore.” In all the pictures, Shaw’s daughter was a golden, California blonde with about fifteen pounds of curls. Now the woman’s thick, stick-straight, honey-brown hair hung to her shoulders in a shiny curtain. A nice improvement.

“Pretty?”

“Not particularly.” No, not pretty, Caleb thought,
stunning.
Appealing as sin. Her even features, and lack of makeup, made her appear younger, more…vulnerable, than her publicity shots had done. He didn’t believe in tarring the offspring with their parents’ brush, but the delectable Miss Shaw had run in her father’s very fast, very public social circles. Stood to reason that there’d be nothing innocent or vulnerable about her.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Who cares,” he muttered, distracted by the way the lamp over the table brought out caramel highlights in Heather’s hair. She was making some sort of necklace, he decided. Something with swirls of silver and purple stones. Pretty and delicate. As pretty and delicate as the slender hands holding it up to the light.

Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she tilted her head to inspect her work. “We have her. Send someone in for the interrogation. My work here is done.” He was annoyed that he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Shaw’s no-longer-missing only child. Surveilling her was one thing,
ogling,
for God’s sake, quite another. Yet, for some mysterious reason he was drawn to this woman in ways he hadn’t experienced in years. Years?
Ever.

“Not so fast, Hopalong. This is now your op.”

He frowned again. While he’d love an op right now—save him from more hydro-treatments, ultrasound tissue massages, and all the other crap—this wasn’t it. Too low key. Too mundane. “Questioning Shaw’s daughter doesn’t necessitate a psi operative. I found her, now I’m ready to hand her off. Who are they sending? I’ll hang around until he/she gets here.”

Theybeing T-FLAC proper. His particular talents weren’t needed. He’d just happened to be in San Francisco when Heather’s fingerprints had popped on the T-FLAC fingerprint database.

Gotcha.

“I’m assigning Shaw’s daughter to you. Use your rakish charm to get that intel ASAP.” For an extremely Goth-looking young woman, Lark Orela’s no-nonsense tone always came as a surprise. This afternoon it brooked no argument.

Made no sense, but Caleb figured he was there, might as well save someone the trip. Fifteen minutes and he’d be done. He’d report in, results in hand, then pursue Lark in person for a mission. A
real
one.

“Yeah. Sure,” he told her easily. “I’ll give you a shout when I get the father’s location.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Good luck.” Lark sounded…odd?

Caleb’s frown deepened at the strange inflection in her usually well-modulated voice. “What am I missing?”

“Life, love, and the pursuit of happiness?” On that cryptic note the phone went dead.

Caleb stared at it as he snapped it closed. Trust Lark to be enigmatic. She was a cross between a wizard, a mother figure, and a pain in the collective asses of her operatives. But as a control she had no match. Lark could juggle from one to twenty-one operatives simultaneously. Caleb would’ve staked his life on the fact that Lark
could
see the future. She never spoke of it. Ever. But the ability had saved many an operative’s rear end, no doubt. Her advice and direction were always sound and spot-on. No one argued.

When Lark Orela said jump, intelligent people asked how high.

Caleb didn’t bother glancing around the commandeered apartment to make certain he hadn’t left anything behind. He hadn’t. He’d shimmered in. He’d leave the same way. Sight unseen.

SANFRANCISCO

MONDAY, JANUARY16

3:22P.M .

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Hunched over her worktable, Heather barely registered the unfamiliar sound of the doorbell pealing downstairs. The fog had gradually thickened during the last few hours and now the opaque whiteness pressed at the window, obligingly obliterating a boring view, and muffling the sounds of traffic in the street below. She sighed with satisfaction, enjoying the moment. Soft jazz crooned from the bedside clock/radio, and the mug of steaming chamomile tea beside her was almost steeped enough and ready to drink.

Ignoring the vague, atavistic sensation stirring the hairs on the back of her neck, she held the intricately twisted white gold necklace up to the soft light filtering through the lone window in the apartment. Taking a moment, she admired the craftwomanship of the delicate piece she’d just made with her own two hands. “Pretty, damn pretty.”

The stones, suspended on delicate wires, danced and prismed, giving off satisfying sparks resembling moonlight glittering off water and the rich purple of fine wine. “Very poeti—” Narrow-eyed, she turned to stare at the fog pressing against the window.

No one was watching her. Still, she rubbed the tingle, a primitive warning, on the back of her neck with her free hand. Her heart beat a little faster.

This piece was off to Klein’s Jewelers the next day, a special order, but for a few hours, it was hers.

Well, in some small way, it would always be hers. All her designs were made from gems—precious and semiprecious—pried straight out of her own jewelry.

In this case, the six round checkerboard-cut amethysts, held by three prongs, were from a necklace her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday. Those she was a little sorry to lose for their sentimental value. But she would be able to get two pairs of earrings out of the other stones still left in the original.

The .34 carats of pavé diamonds had been part of a bracelet her mother had picked up on one of her regular trips to her favorite flea market in Paris.

Heather’s heart ached when she thought about her parents. God—If only…There wasn’t a day in the past year that she hadn’t thought about them. She missed her mother desperately. Her death had rocked Heather’s world. The loss of her mother, and her father’s actions, coupled with subsequent events, had flipped her world on its axis, irrevocably changing her life, and her, forever.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

She’d never know for certain if her mother’s death had been the accident her father had claimed it to be, or murder. She still loved her father and desperately wanted to believe what he’d told her. Her brain told her one thing, her heart another.

She missed her father as well. She had no idea where he was. Worse, she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. He’d promised to place an ad in a London newspaper to let her know when she could come out of hiding. But although she religiously checked the paper every Sunday, so far there hadn’t been the hoped-for notice.

Her father was a brilliant man, and he had unlimited resources. She had to believe that he was alive and well and keeping a very low profile until this situation was resolved.

Situation.

She shivered, rubbing her upper arms, cold despite the cashmere sweater she wore. She had too few facts to work with to make any real sense of what had really happened that day a year ago. She didn’t know what had precipitated her parents’ violent argument. And she’d only heard snippets of their conversation. None of it enough to arrive at any definitive conclusion.

All she knew for sure was what her father had told her. One of his banking clients believed that he’d embezzled money—a
large
amount of money. The client was angry and unpredictable. Capable of killing, he finally admitted when she suggested they stick together to work it out.
That’s
when she’d learned who her father’s clients really were. Heather shuddered.

Terrorists. That’swho had paid for her college degree, for her horse, for her clothes, for the roof over her head.

Terrorists. My God.She pressed a hand to the nerves jumping in her stomach. “How did I not
see
that?”

The dots had joined up like a speeding bullet.

The thought of who she and her mother had been associating with for all those years, oblivious to the trail of blood and death those people had left in their wake, still managed to make her feel sick to her
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

stomach.

Her father had made no excuses for his business associates. After assuring her that the current situation was nothing more than a misunderstanding, a bookkeeping error, he’d insisted she disappear until the matter was resolved.

Easy for him to say. The difference was that he had a veritable army of security people. The two men he’d sent away with her were dead, and she was now alone.

Her father also knew what was going on, while she was in the dark.

Despite everything, she loved her father, but Heather had absolutely no illusions about him. He’d cover his own ass, and ensure his own safety and well-being before he remembered that he even
had
a daughter.

No matter how self-absorbed he was, though, she didn’t doubt her father’s love for her. Eventually he
would
remember, and he
would
place the notice in the London
Times.
Until then, she couldn’t allow her life to be on pause.

“I have things to do and jewelry to make. And you, if I may say so myself, which I do,” she said with determined cheerfulness as she briskly buffed the stones with a soft cloth, “are a thing of beauty.” And would bring in at least two thousand lovely dollars.

“Not that I
care
so much about the bucks. It’s just pretty damn astounding that I’m capable of
producing
something that someone wants to buy.” She grinned. “And I’m talking to myself again.”

Oblivious to the second peal of the doorbell, she wrapped the necklace carefully in tissue paper and laid the piece in a small silver foil box. It was only when her visitor held a finger to the buzzer that her head lifted at the intrusive noise.

“Damn. The cops are back.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

One of her customers’ jewelry stores had been robbed the day before. The police had come over last night, scaring the hell out of her when they’d buzzed. God. She put a hand over her manic heart and tried to take a deep, steadying breath. She’d managed to retain her composure as they’d questioned her. But inside she’d been a mess of tension and raw nerves.

Her fake ID was good enough to fool even the police, but they hadn’t asked for proof of her identity.

They’d just questioned her because she’d been in the jewelry store the day before.

“Didn’t you get enough information yesterday?” she muttered, striding over to the window overlooking the street. In the months she’d lived in the apartment she’d made a point of familiarizing herself with the cars that belonged in the neighborhood. Standing to the side she scanned the parked cars on either side of the foggy street below.

No unfamiliar vehicles. No police car. Parking was at a premium in this district of San Francisco.

Yesterday the police car had double-parked. So, no car. That she could see. Someone on foot then?

That perked her up. “Girl Scout cookies?”

She’d made no friends, no casual acquaintances, no personal attachments in the last eleven months.

She’d purposely not developed relationships with her neighbors beyond saying hi when she went to and fro. But she’d bought cookies from the little girls in their green uniforms at the grocery store yesterday, and knew there were three little Scouts living several houses away.

She’d been so damned stressed after the police had left last night that she’d eaten the entire box of cookies before she’d even started dinner.

More chocolate would be good right now. She’d been bent over her worktable for hours. Cookies with her tea sounded terrific on this chilly afternoon.

She liked the Bay Area. It, and her new life, were vastly different from her jet-setting life before. Now everything was changed. For one thing, she’d never stayed in one place for longer than a few weeks.

Even when she’d been a child she’d had a tutor because the family traveled so extensively.

It had been a nomadic kind of existence, and she’d only realized just how odd it was once she was no longer doing it.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html