Extrasensory (7 page)

They had to. Going to the police was certainly not an option, not with her spotty track record. She’d have to call them again, just for added insurance. Deliver the message and hang up quickly. And this time she’d use a pay phone.

Pulling a dishtowel from a drawer, she wrapped it around her hand and knotted the ends. She needed to make this second call before she lost her nerve. Better first aid could wait until after that.

Driving with an open wound on one hand wasn’t the easiest thing to do but she managed it until she found a pay phone outside a convenience store without too many people around. Nervously she pulled out the slip of paper with the company’s phone number on it, tugged the edge of her shirt over the mouthpiece and used a hankie she dug out of her pocket to hold the receiver.

The same man answered and she spat out her message as quickly as she could. But this time she nearly had a problem.

“Wait a minute,” he drawled. “Let me just get a pen and write this down, okay? If it’s important I don’t want to mess it up.”

No! She knew he had to be transferring her to someone. That was unacceptable. Get the message out as quickly as possible and hang up. That was her standard method. It occurred to her that with all his sophisticated electronics, Chase Carpenter might be able to triangulate the call and pinpoint her position. Maybe get someone there before she could leave.

She hung up the phone as if it burned her hand and hurried back to her car. Heart pounding and hands shaking, she drove home as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself. She was still trembling when she pulled into her garage and punched the button to close the door. Fully five minutes passed before she could move from the car into the house. And another fifteen before she felt steady enough to treat the wound on her hand.

It probably needed stitches but in her present state she didn’t want to have to deal with an emergency room or urgent care clinic. Instead she cleaned the cut, put ointment on, used butterfly closures and wrapped the whole thing in gauze. Her hand felt as if someone was banging a drumstick on it, so she swallowed some aspirin.

What if they traced the number on the pay phone? Well, what about it? Anyone could have used it. She hadn’t left any fingerprints. The location of the phone wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the caller was from around there.

Damn! Why hadn’t she driven across town? Well, too late to think about that now.

Finally she dragged herself upstairs and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over herself the way she wished she could escape from the world and hide in a little hole.

* * * * *

“Damn it.” Chase slammed his hand on the guard’s desk.

“I tried, Mr. Carpenter. Honest. Whoever it was just hung up.”

“Not your fault, George.” Chase fisted his hands. “You did your best.” Dan had pulled out his cell phone and was speed dialing a number. “Could you tell if it was a man or a woman?” he asked while he waited for the call to go through.

George shook his head. “Sorry. The voice was muffled. And whispering. And spoke very quickly.”

“Figures.” Dan straightened and moved away from the desk to speak as his call connected. “Andy. Make yourself a gallon of coffee. I’m sending you an extremely large file of telephone records. I want you to pull off every incoming call to the main Carpenter Techtronics number yesterday and today and tell me where they came from.” He recited the main Carpenter number and had Andy repeat it back to him.

Andy’s laugh echoed back over the airwaves. He was rapidly getting used to his new boss and the ever-present crisis situations that involved the work he was given.

“And you want it five minutes ago, right?”

“I see you know me so well already, my hardwired friend. All right. Call my cell the instant you get anything. Oh and Andy? See if any of the numbers match up geographically with what you got on the email trace.” He snapped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.

“Are you ready to tell me now what you’ve got on that email?” Chase demanded, his body humming with tension.

“Yes.” Dan took him by the arm. “As soon as we’re back in your office.” Chase ground his teeth as they rode up in the elevator. He jogged down the hall, banged open the door to his office and strode inside.

“Now.” He turned to Dan. “Give. Whatever it is.”

Dan studied his face for a moment. “Do you make it a habit to visit art museums?” Chase’s jaw dropped. “What the hell does
that
mean?”

“You heard me. Do you spend a lot of time in art museums?”

“I guess I go to a benefit now and then with Joy. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”

Dan dropped his rangy frame into one of the armchairs. “Whoever sent that email is very clever. They know how to build enough layers to create anonymity.” He grinned. “Except from the Dragon, of course. The Dragon can seek out anything.” He paused. “The email came from someone at the DeWitt Museum.” Chase stared at him. “But that’s absurd. What would anyone in a museum have to do with techtronics? Especially sophisticated robotics.”

“You’ve got me. What about your partners. Any of them doing a weird dance with museum people?”

“No more than I do. We all give a chunk of change to the art world and hoist a glass of champagne when we have to. Jesus. An art museum? Why would someone there want to steal Oscar?”

All humor disappeared from Dan’s face. “I don’t know. But someone’s trying to warn you about this and doing their damnedest to make sure you get the message. You think it might be a good idea for you to call your partners now and fill them in?” Chase shook his head. “Not until we know more about who this is. They’ll want specific information. So do I.”

“Okay. Meanwhile I want to meet with your security people. I’m calling Troy to send in some reinforcements. I think we should beef things up.” Troy Arsenault, among his many other responsibilities with the agency, supervised the training and assignment of field agents, juggling schedules as new jobs came up. “And I want to get hold of the director of the museum.”

Chase’s eyes widened. “You think
he
might know something?” Dan shook his head. “No. But I want access to all his computers. I want to find the right one before I confront whoever it is.” He stood up. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. I know you want to run around and pull someone’s hair out but you’ve got to let me do my job. I promise to keep you up to date. And I agree with you. Let’s not tell the others until we know who we’re dealing with.”

“You do realize the ramifications if someone steals Oscar, right?” Chase was pacing nervously, hands shoved in his pockets, a muscle jumping in his cheek.

“Trust me, Chase.” Dan’s voice was even, calming. “Oscar will be perfectly safe. It’s what I do for a living, remember?”

“Yeah, well.” He yanked a hand from one pocket and raked his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “Until you get back, you don’t mind if I keep Oscar company, do you?”

“I think you should go home and relax with your fiancée. Before I leave here, I’ll have four extra men surrounding Oscar, plus a television monitoring system. That’s in addition to the biometric system we set up for you. He’ll be perfectly safe for the weekend.”

“But—”

“Trust me on this, okay? This is what I do.”

Reluctantly Chase shut down his computer and locked his desk. “My future’s in your hands, Romeo. Just so you know that.”

“Got it. Now let’s go.”

As they headed for the elevator, Dan was already calling his office again and handing out orders.

Mia spent the weekend in a frenzy of anxiety. She left the envelope with the printout on Carpenter Techtronics on her kitchen counter, rubbing her hand over it frequently, hoping to call forth another image. But as if Fate was playing games with her, her mind remained blank. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to touch the kitchen knife repeatedly but again nothing resulted from it.

“Damn it,” she screamed, kicking at a kitchen chair and shouting into the air.

“When I want you to leave me alone, you drive me crazy. When I want your help, you leave me alone. No wonder people think I’m nuts. I must be for sure.” The cut on her hand didn’t help either, throbbing most of the time and serving as a constant reminder of her frustration. She cleaned it and applied ointment twice more.

Then, after rewrapping it, stuffed ice cubes in a plastic bag and held it over the wound until the cold hurt worse than the cut.

Her sleep, what she got of it, was broken and uneven. Images from past visions invaded her dreams, bombarding her senses and confusing her brain. She found herself waking frequently and afraid to let sleep return.

At least her mystery man hadn’t made another appearance. Maybe her sense receptors had just been out of whack. Maybe her brain cells were getting fried. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She almost found herself waiting for him to materialize in front of her eyes, then mentally kicked herself for anticipating it.

Pathetic, Mia. Get a real date.

She was exhausted by the time Monday morning came around. Listlessly she dressed for work, picking up her newspapers before she left the house. She stuck them in the car with her briefcase, determined to wait until she got to her office to see if there was any new mention of Chase Techtronics or its possible new project. She stopped in the little employee kitchenette to get a cup of coffee. Then, settling herself at her desk, juggling everything with her good hand, she opened the paper to the business section and began scanning the articles.

“Looking for something special?”

She hadn’t heard the man come in and his voice startled her so. When she looked up she jerked her hand so hard she knocked over her coffee. It spilled onto her desk and dripped onto her skirt.

It was him! The man from her visions. But who was he? And what was he doing in her office?

“I’m sorry.” His voice was deep and rich, like warm, thick honey. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Mia closed her eyes and counted to ten, hoping he’d disappear.

“Miss Fleming?” She opened her eyes. He was still there. “Here, let me help you with that.”

He grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her desk and began mopping the liquid. Mia was frozen in place, unable to make herself move. How was this possible?

How in the freakin’ hell was this possible?

He stopped, his hands full of soggy tissues. “Are you okay? You seem a little…out of it?”

Out of it?
Mia thought that was one way of putting it.

“W-Who are you?” She couldn’t seem to stop looking at him. Was he real or another vision that had popped into her brain?

Like
that
man, he was well over six feet. Instead of the revealing boxers he wore a well-cut gray sports jacket and black slacks that looked as if they’d been custom-made for him. The lean body beneath the fabric was the same, though, what she could see of it, giving the impression it was all hard muscle. The same thick black hair now brushed the top of his black silk turtleneck. Dark eyes like onyx, fringed by thick lashes, were the centerpiece of a face with an olive complexion, high cheekbones and a classic nose.

And a hard look about his face that made a stone wall look soft.

Mia felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Sexuality radiated from the man, an invisible heat that made her mouth dry and her pulse speed up.

I want to fuck you.

She dropped the files she’d been gathering out of the way, shock radiating through her. Had he really said that out loud or had she just imagined it? That damnable pulse at the core of her pussy was beating like a tom-tom and her skin felt too hot and too tight.

She’d have to get to the ladies’ room and a sink full of water to repair the damage from the coffee. And cool down her blood. Luckily her computer sat on a side extension so the coffee didn’t get to it.

Taking a deep breath she forced herself to look at him. “I’m fine, sorry, you just startled me.”

He handed her a business card. It carried the symbol of the phoenix rising from the ashes and beneath the graphic his name—Dante “Dan” Romeo.

She set the card on the corner of her desk. “Give me a minute to clean up this mess, Mr. Romeo. Then you can tell me what you want.”

“Here. I’ll give you a hand.”

Mia wasn’t sure she could stand him touching her, and was very careful to avoid contact while they disposed of the debris. When she’d tossed the tissues and wet papers in the trash, she sat back down at her desk, trying to compose herself. But when she looked at him again an arrow of heat pierced through her. His presence filled the room with an overwhelming sense of power that made the air vibrate.

Get real, Mia. You’re not the type of person who falls in lust with a total stranger like this.

Especially this type of man.

Oh, no?
her other self said
. What about the vision? What about what happened yesterday?

She managed to pull herself together, trying to ignore the coffee stains on her gray skirt, checking to see that nothing had splashed on her tweed jacket, willing herself to keep it together.
Ha!

“I don’t recall having any appointments today.” She hoped she sounded cool and professional. “May I help you?”

“You can if you’re Mia Fleming.” He was still looking at her strangely. “And, that is, if you’re all right.”

The timbre of the deep voice made her shiver and butterflies began a dance in her stomach. Impossible that he could be looking for her. She was used to strangers in the museum but not to having them rattle her like this. Besides, men like him never wandered into her corner of the museum. Or any corner, for that matter, except for special events. And they certainly never came deliberately looking for her.

Unless they show up in one of my visions.

Mia took a deep breath, centering herself and trying her best to focus. Breathing, however, was difficult. This man seemed to take up all the air in the room.

“I’m Dr. Fleming.” She hoped her voice sounded at least close to normal. “Is there something I can do for you? If you want to discuss an exhibit or an event, Dr. Hunter is the person you want to see but I’m afraid you’re out of luck. He’s away until this evening.”