Chapter Five
Okay, they were not yet clear of the danger, but things were definitely looking up, and Owen discovered he was unable to suppress an exultant sense of satisfaction.
Alice Radstone was proving to be the woman he had imagined her to be as he worked to find her these past two weeks.
That was gratifying from a professional point of view because it validated the psi profile he had created.
But it was also deeply satisfying on a more primal level.
Yes, they were on the run, but at least he had been right about the fascinating woman in the passenger seat. She was not insane. Probably not a killer, either, although he knew from personal experience that everyone was capable of killing. Take him, for example.
Nevertheless, he was certain now that Kelbrook and Twitchell had lied about Alice from the beginning.
He concentrated on the narrow road, navigating the cracked and chunked pavement while listening for the ping from the monitors that would indicate they were being followed.
A few things about Alice had changed, he thought. That was only to be expected. She had spent the past several months living under a new identity.
The single photo from her wedding day pictured a disconcertingly passive-looking bride with hair the color of fallen leaves.
It had been a small wedding—just the couple, plus the required two witnesses, neither of whom were in the photo.
It had all been very informal for a Covenant Marriage ceremony. CMs were usually big, splashy events.
Unlike the more casual Marriage of Convenience, a CM was a critical milestone, intended to last a lifetime.
The institution of the Covenant Marriage had been cemented into the social fabric with laws, customs, and cultural attitudes by the First Generation colonists after the Curtain had closed and they had realized they were on their own.
The Founders had viewed marriage and the family as the basic building block of a society that was about to be pushed to the brink and would need every tool available to survive and rebuild.
After two hundred years, the city-states were thriving and the laws had begun to change, but divorce was still rare, complicated, and wildly expensive. It also carried a heavy social stigma. It frequently destroyed careers, friendships, and golf club memberships.
So yes, CMs were seldom rushed events. In addition, they were almost always arranged with the assistance of a professional matchmaker.
Families insisted on it. But Alice had met and married Travis Poole within a matter of days.
There was no fancy gown, no reception, just an ill-fated wedding night at the Hotel of Dreams.
The fact that she and Poole had been able to get a license for a CM, and had convinced an official to perform the ceremony, was a strong indication that strings had been pulled and bribes had been paid.
Alice was thinner now than she was in the photo.
She was also very toned, very fit. She obviously worked out.
There was nothing passive about her expression tonight.
She was not beautiful in the conventional sense, but somehow that just made her all the more fascinating.
He was drawn to her in a way he had never before experienced.
He had spent the past two weeks tracking her, trying to understand her, speculating about her talents, and being awed not only by her escape from Serenity Gardens but by the fact that she had managed to survive under a new identity for seven months.
Somewhere along the line she had stepped into his dreams.
He had assumed that reality would shatter the fantasy, and he had been right. Alice was not a dream woman. She was a force of nature. Irresistible.
She had not used glasses at the time of her wedding—there was no indication in the file that she needed them—but tonight she wore a pair.
Probably her attempt at a disguise. The frames, black and tailored, did little to conceal her vivid green eyes, but they sent a message: The wearer was a serious, professional woman. Do not touch.
In the wedding photo there was a gold ring on her finger. That had disappeared. Every item of jewelry—the small studs in her ears, her watch, and the pendant around her neck—was set with tuned amber. That went with the go bag. She was ready to run at a moment’s notice.
In the close confines of the car, he was intensely aware of the whisper of her powerful aura. He could feel his own energy field stirring in response.
I would know you anywhere, Alice Radstone. I would recognize you with my eyes closed.
“Why did Kelbrook and Twitchell hire you?” she asked quietly.
The wary chill in her voice told him that she was a long way from trusting him. He didn’t blame her. He had been focused on her night and day for two solid weeks, but she had only been aware of his existence for about forty-five minutes.
“A while back Leonard Twitchell came to see me,” he said.
“He identified himself as a vice president of Kelbrook Industries and made it clear he was a trusted member of Dunstan Kelbrook’s inner circle.
He demanded discretion because it was a family matter.
He told me that Dunstan Kelbrook had recently been informed that you had disappeared from Serenity Gardens.
He was anxious to have you found and returned. ”
“For my own good, of course.”
“Yes. He said you had been committed because you were a danger to yourself and others. I don’t usually do that kind of work. Family situations are always messy. But I agreed to take the case.”
“Why?”
He hesitated. “You interested me.”
“Are you telling me you took the job because you were motivated by professional curiosity?”
“That was part of it,” he admitted. He slowed for another turn. Still no warning pings from the monitors. A little luck at last. “I’ve studied the case files of a couple of individuals who were believed to have possessed a talent similar to yours.”
Alice sighed. “Psychic vampires.”
She sounded resigned, not angry or bitter. That was wrong. She ought to be pissed off. He was plenty pissed off on her behalf.
“The two individuals I studied were not vampires, and neither are you,” he said.
“For the record, both of the patients had psi profiles that were very different from yours. They were not true dreamlight talents. They were, however, delusional and had to be hospitalized. I was unable to interview them because both died by suicide.”
“Do you think I’m an interesting case because I’m still alive?”
“No, because you escaped Serenity Gardens. That told me that you were in control of your talent. Getting out of a locked ward would have required a logical, well-planned strategy. Neither of the other two talents I studied would have been capable of formulating such a complicated plan, let alone carrying it out. In addition, you had managed to stay off everyone’s psi-dar for seven months.
That was a pretty strong indication that you had not gone on a murderous rampage. ”
“Nice to know you observed something positive in my psi profile. I realize I should feel gratitude, but I’m not in the mood tonight.”
“Good to know there are limits to gratitude, even for a practitioner of the Ballantine Method. Personally, I’ve always considered it an overrated virtue.”
She shot him an irritated look. “I’d rather have you think I’m a psychic vampire than know that you’re laughing at me.”
This was not going well.
“Trust me, I’m not laughing at anything right now, least of all you,” he said.
He turned left onto the coast highway. The car’s monitors informed him that there was still no nearby traffic.
That was reassuring, but he did not like knowing that for the next thirty miles, the strip of pavement along the top of the rugged cliffs was the fastest, most efficient route away from the hotel on Cape Midnight.
According to the mapping program, there were some old farm roads that led inland, but they were likely to be poorly maintained and unpredictable. It would be all too easy to discover that one was blocked by a small creek because of a washed-out bridge.
He tried to think of a way to reset the conversation. “Let’s go back to the start. How did you meet Travis Poole?”
“Before I answer any of your questions, tell me how Kelbrook and his fixer discovered that I was missing from Serenity Gardens.”
He smiled a little. “You did a very good job of organizing your escape, but of course people noticed that you were gone. Dr. Nathan Webber, for instance.”
“Yes, I know, but I’d hoped he would keep his mouth shut, sit back, and continue to collect the money Kelbrook was paying to keep me drugged and locked away from public view.”
“I think you did more than merely hope that Webber would keep quiet. You used your talent to put the idea of pretending you were still at Serenity Gardens into his dreams, didn’t you? You made him think it was his own cunning plan.”
She stiffened. “You make it sound like I’m a hypnotist. I’m not.”
“Technically, you’re a unique kind of lucid dreamer. You can not only control the scripts of your own dreams, you can use your talent to rewrite the scripts of other people’s dreams.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration,” she said quickly. “I can sometimes nudge someone into a slightly different script, that’s all.”
He smiled. “Back on the Old World they had a name for people like you.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“Dream spinner.”
“Oh.” She brightened. “That sounds better than hypnotist or psychic vampire.”
He decided this wasn’t the time to let her know that he’d been spinning a few dreams of his own about her during the past two weeks.