Sweet Mercy (6 page)

“Shit. I mean, crap. He’s spotted you. He must have been at the scene this morning and followed you.”

“It’s okay. I think he tried to get to me but it failed—incompatible talents.”

“We can’t be sure.” The concern in David’s voice carried over the channel.

“Yes, we can.” Fluke jumped in. “A puppet master would have made her forget seeing him—or forbidden her mentioning it. At least this one would have. How’s Johnson been living all these years? Where has he stayed? How has he gotten food, clothes, and transportation? He must have been getting people to fill his needs, but nobody’s ever reported the things stolen or bills unpaid—he’s making them forget. He wants to be invisible.”

“That’s reassuring.” Rachel sounded relieved.
Funny how he could almost feel it, even halfway across town from her.
The thought of her in that monster’s power had been intolerable—for the brief instant he’d entertained it.

“Looks like we dodged a bullet,” David returned to business. The man must have ice in his veins. His own sister might’ve been turned into a living puppet if things had gone differently.

“We can’t count on being that lucky next time—unless you’re Fluke,” David shot him a tight-lipped grin from the neighboring chair. “Rachel, I want you to talk to the police sketch artist so we can get an updated picture of Johnson circulating out there.

“Trina.” He addressed the team’s secretary—a normal—over the 
link. “We need to dig up more data on the ‘puppet master’ talent. Especially on its limitations. I need to know how we can get to him.

“Everyone, I need your input. Ideas? Suggestions?”

“He tried to get to Rachel.” Fluke started thinking out loud. “Why? He might think he can use her. He might try again. I suggest that I stick close to her—increase the odds of catching him at it if he does try again.”

“He’s not going to try for me again.” Rachel sounded annoyed. Fluke grinned to himself over that.
Kind of fun, getting to the Serene Queen
. She continued, “He already knows I’m no good to him as a puppet. He’ll look for someone more useful.”

“We can’t take that risk.” Fluke cut in before David could comment—and what was he saying? Since when had he been unwilling to take any risk that came along?

“We’re his link to the team. He obviously spotted us—Rachel and me—together at the hostage scene. He knows the team is onto him. He
has
to follow up, at least try to track us to a more vulnerable team member if he wants to keep the Guardians from messing up his plans.”

A moment of silence greeted this assessment.

“Good point,” David said at last. “We’ve got to keep
someone
on Rachel and Johnson’s already made Fluke. We won’t be exposing anyone new. Only problem is, he might get to you.” David shot him a piercing look, eye to eye.

“Odds are against that,” Fluke met the look unfazed. “I doubt my talent would allow it.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Rachel cut in.

“No.” Fluke and David spoke in unison.

~ * ~

Her overnight bag sat in the trunk of Fluke’s Porsche. She’d strapped herself securely into the passenger seat and closed her eyes against the rush of passing buildings as they merged onto the Interstate, heading south. “I don’t like this.” Rachel drew a long, deep breath, envisioning a golden light of pure peace surrounding her.

“Would you rather have your friends at the ashram in the middle of this, expose them to any potential danger?”

“No” Rachel’s breath expelled in a sigh. “No, of course not. But I hate running. I hate leaving my home, my kitchen, my familiar stuff.”

“Aren’t yogis supposed to be detached from all that material stuff?”

She could hear the grin in his voice, even with her eyes closed.

“Non-attachment isn’t the same thing as
de
tachment,” she said, “and I don’t claim to have reached that perfected state of being.”

“You could consider this an exercise to bring you a little closer.”

“I could,” she admitted, “but I’m not currently feeling all that motivated in my spiritual quest and would rather have a little sympathy.”

“I like a girl who knows how to ask for what she wants.”

I’ll bet you do.
“Why do I get the feeling that this little excursion is more about what
you
want?”

“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he told her. She peeked from under narrowed lids to see the late afternoon light trace his face in an enticing contour running from well-defined cheekbones to squared jaw to throat.

“And what does that mean?”

“It means we can both get what we want out of this.” His lips quirked at the corners.

“So where’s my sympathy?”

“Poor baby.” He spoke deadpan. “Having to spend a couple days in a luxury hotel suite where you’ll be pampered day and night.”

“You don’t sound very sincere.” But now a grin colored her tone. Why be a stick? This expedition could prove fun, if the effort to ignore his considerable charm didn’t kill her first. “What makes you think a casino is such a great place to hide out?” Rachel watched the cars falling behind to her right as Fluke overtook them one by one. It was a testament to her abilities that she could remain calm, riding with such a speed demon.

“Leading Johnson away from our other people and drawing him into the open? Two reasons. One: there’s got to be a limit to how many people he can control at one time. If he comes after you at the casino, where it’s crowded day and night, we can make sure he’s outnumbered, overwhelm him.”

“And the second reason? I know you discussed this with my brother while I packed, but I’ve got an interest here too.”

“I gave him Reason One. Reason Two is that we can enjoy ourselves —and each other —while we’re there.”

His words sent a frisson through her, but she ignored it, even knowing he probably hadn’t.

“I’m not into gambling.”

“You don’t have to be—besides the spa, they’ve got live entertainment every night, a world class buffet, and I’ve reserved the top three floors of the hotel—there won’t be anyone else close enough to be affected if you let yourself go.”

He had to have felt the spike of excitement thrill through her at these words—even if his control of the car never wavered. She focused again on her breath.

She had no idea how to respond to the prospect he presented. Even thinking about it at eighty miles per hour seemed like a bad idea. “Um. Do they have a pool and gym?”

“Sure do.”

Eyes on the road, he still grinned, damn it.

“Aren’t you being just a bit presumptuous?”

“How so? With all those rooms you can have a suite to yourself—if that’s what you want—you don’t
have
to include me in your fun.”

“I should hope not.” And she should feel a lot more sincere in saying it than she actually did.

After miles of idle chat while suburbs turned increasingly rural, Fluke tossed out a question in casual tones, “Can you tell if someone is following us?”

“I haven’t been paying that much attention to what’s behind us.”

“Me either, but I’d swear I’ve seen that same blue Toyota behind us—a few cars back—since we got on the highway.”

Rachel turned sideways in her seat, checking the road behind them.

“Could be he’s just another gambler heading for the casinos.”

“Could be, but I’ve been changing my speed over the last few miles, slowing down, then speeding up, slowing down again and switching lanes—and that car always stays about the same distance back.”

“Sounds suspicious.” She focused inward to soothe her rising sense of anxiety. “What should we do about it?”

“Just keep an eye on it for now. Let’s see how long it stays with us. Better the devil we know.”

“Right.” Like a wasp in the room, it was better to know where it flew.

Now that she knew of it, Rachel couldn’t keep from glancing back at the suspicious car. Could it be Johnson? One of his puppets? A thought struck her and she opened her specs channel.

“David? You there?”

“Yeah, Sis.” His tone conveyed long-suffering patience.

“Did you or the police detail someone to follow us to the casino?”

“No. We’ve already got people operating in that area. Why are you asking?”

She quickly filled David in on the situation.

“Keep an eye on it and get back to me if anything changes. Meanwhile, don’t worry. The casino’s still a good place to try to corner our target, Fluke’s still with you and I’m counting on his luck slanting things in our direction.”

Rachel signed off. David made a good strategist. She generally trusted him in these things, but she didn’t like this at all, leaving her home base, going into strange territory, running like a hunted animal. It reminded her too well of parts of her past best forgotten. This whole expedition was as much about flushing Johnson into the open as it was about protecting her. The thought gave rise to more anxiety. She closed her eyes again, turned her focus back to envisioning herself embraced in that familiar all-encompassing golden light of peace and serenity.

~ * ~

Fluke shifted his gaze back and forth between the traffic ahead and 
around him and the rearview mirror. Fewer cars traveled the highway now, ahead of the homeward rush hour traffic. Their presumed tail stayed in sight.

He couldn’t help but catch Rachel’s nervousness, but it helped knowing its source and, as she focused on calming herself, the waves of peace washed over him as well until he had to admit some of those nerves had been his own. That constituted a change from his usual state of cool.

How long since he’d been truly nervous about anything? He’d come to rely so much on his luck he’d started to take winning for granted. He’d come to expect things would always go his way. Where was the fun in that? After the first few years anyhow. No wonder he’d started taking bigger and bigger risks lately—not just buying into more volatile stocks and taking up sports like sky diving, but volunteering with Team Guardian to defuse bombs. Is that what it took these days to get a thrill out of life?

But Rachel changed the ball game. If he wasn’t afraid for himself he was afraid for her, with her, sharing her apprehensions. He could only hope his luck would extend to protecting her. That, more than anything else, made it imperative to keep her close.

He continued monitoring the rearview mirror as he drove on, but also shot glances to the passenger seat beside him where Rachel appeared to be in some deep meditative state, eyes closed as if in sleep.

~ * ~

Rachel jolted alert when the car slowed to a crawl. She looked up to see they’d reached the Spirit Lake complex and had turned in to a parking lot stretching over the acres surrounding hotel and casino.

She looked behind them and saw the blue Toyota enter the lot, still a few cars behind them. “You see it?” she asked.

“Yep. Don’t look back. Let him think we haven’t spotted him.”

He drove a winding route between the lots, finding a parking space in front of the hotel, but back far enough to have some other free spaces nearby.

When they went to get their luggage from the trunk he raised the lid and whispered, “Don’t look around, but stay here for a minute. Rearrange my tire iron and jumper cable, make it look like you’re dealing with a lot of baggage.”