"Settle down," he growled at my ear. Another jerk on my arms. "Settle."
I wasn't even aware I'd been fighting, and it damn sure didn't matter anyway; there was no way I was breaking free. I had no leverage at all. I forced myself to relax, and the pain in my arms reduced to a dull throb. I couldn't fight with supernatural means. For all I knew, the Wardens were parked across the street, monitoring my every move.
"You'd better listen to me," Rodriguez said. "I'm not playing with you. You know what happened to Tommy; you'd better tell me right now or I swear, I'm going to toss you in the back of that van and we're going to go someplace we can talk in private a really, really long time. You got me? I can make you hurt. Believe it."
"Okay," I whispered. Metal felt cold against my cheek, the raindrops as warm as tears. "You don't want to know this. I'm not kidding you, you really don't. Let him be who you think he was. Let his family remember him that way. I can't do anything to make it any better-ah!"
That last was a sharp cry, just short of a scream, ripped out of me when he wrenched up on my wrists and dug a knee into my ass to grind me harder against the car. Nothing sexual about this; it was all pain. He didn't care that I was a woman. I was just a suspect, and I had something he wanted.
Just then, a car turned the corner and slowed down to pull into the parking lot.
Not one I recognized. Not Cherise's flashy little chickmobile; this was a conservative black sedan, with rental plates. Two people in it, that was all I could make out through the veil of my hair and the tears in my eyes.
It screeched to an abrupt halt, and the driver's side door flew open.
I felt a sudden, visceral rush of relief as Armando Rodriguez let go of me. I collapsed against Mona's sleek finish, knees wobbling, and clawed hair out of my eyes to look over my shoulder.
The cop walked quickly but without panic back to his white van, got in, and gunned the engine. He'd picked the premium getaway spot, I noticed. It was a slick exit. He turned right and disappeared into traffic within seconds.
A strong pair of hands gently closed around my waist and helped me steady myself. I smelled expensive cologne. "All right?" a low, liquid voice asked. I managed to nod. "Do you know that man?"
I looked up to see my rescuer, and for a panicked second I didn't recognize him.
Then all the pieces clicked together. Slightly shaggy brown hair, beard, mustache. Warm British voice.
Eamon.
I didn't have either the breath or the time to answer his question. "Oh my God! Jo, are you all right?" Sarah's shrill voice ratcheted a couple of octaves higher with fright. She hit me in a flying rush, hugging me, and I winced when I felt strained muscles creak.
And then I hugged her back, grateful for the unquestioning love and concern in her embrace.
Eamon stepped away and watched the two of us, blue-gray eyes bright in the morning light. After a moment, he put a hand on Sarah's shoulder.
"It's all right, she's safe now," he said in a steadying voice. "Joanne? Are you hurt?"
I shook my head and pulled back from Sarah's hug. "No, no, I'm all right. Thank you."
"We were coming to see if you wanted to go to breakfast," Sarah blurted. "Oh my God, Jo, that man-that was the same van! He was-was he trying to abduct you? Did he-"
"I'm okay," I interrupted. "Really, Sarah, I'm okay. He was just trying to scare me."
Eamon, apparently reassured that I wasn't bleeding profusely or otherwise horribly injured, took a step away and looked at the street where Rodriguez's van had disappeared. His eyelids dropped slightly, hooding the hard light in his eyes. "Looked like more than a scare to me, love," he said. "Looked like he was really trying to hurt you."
"As big as he is, if he'd wanted to hurt me, I'd be hurt," I said, which was pure wishful thinking; actually, I was hurt. My arm ached like a son of a bitch.
I didn't want to move it much. "Besides, he's-" A cop. I don't know why I didn't say it. Years of concealing things. Old habit. "-He's gone."
"And what if he comes back?" Eamon asked, reasonably enough. "Seems persistent."
"I can take care of myself."
He turned that look full on me, and I felt something inside both shudder and jump at the force of it. "Can you?"
I straightened and nodded.
"Well, then," he said. "I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."
"But-" Sarah frowned.
Eamon took her hand in his, and she went quiet. Well, I would've, too. There was something gentle and persuasive in the way he did it, not a shut up kind of gesture, but something reassuring. Comforting. "Let's talk over breakfast," he said, and led her back to the rental car. Handed her into the open passenger side door with an old-fashioned grace, then turned to me as he shut it. He was wearing a dark shirt today, top two buttons undone, and a freshly pressed pair of dark pants. Long, thin shoes-I was no expert on men's couture, but the shoes looked vaguely like Bruno Magli. Expensive. Maybe even custom.
He sure didn't look poor. Not at all.
"Coming?" he asked me, and quirked his eyebrows.
I took a deep breath. "Sure."
He opened the back door and held it for me like a gentleman while I slid inside.
INTERLUDE
For something so powerful, a storm is oddly vulnerable. This one-born out of the heat of water and a whim of air-is no different. All it will take is a powerful west wind from the middle latitudes to cut the top off its clouds, stall it in place to starve and die. Or maybe it avoids the west winds, but it moves into cooler waters, which would slow it down. It might find drier air that would leave it tired and weak, blown apart by the first little challenge.
But none of that happens.
It advances at the rate of about ten miles an hour, sometimes slower as it encounters small patches of cooler water; it captures the cooler air it finds and wraps it around-insulates itself, keeping its energy-producing warmer air inside. Clouds find resistance at higher elevations, and pile up like soldiers storming a wall. The fluffy, blunt-headed anvil thunderheads are its war flags.
As it pushes forward-an army on the march-inside the huge, thick mass of clouds there are bright blue-white pops of energy as the generator bleeds off excess.
Just small flares. It isn't ready yet.
But it's getting there fast.
THREE
Eamon had exquisite table manners. For some reason, that fascinated me. The neat, precise movements of his hands, the elegance in the tiny adjustments of his knife and fork. Elbows off the table at all times. He didn't talk with his mouth full. In fact, he didn't say much at all, just listened politely as Sarah rambled on. And on. And on.
"I just can't believe that happened in broad daylight!" my sister said for about the twentieth time. I took a bite of French toast, made sure it was liberally dosed with maple syrup, and savored the sugar rush. "Don't those people you work for have any security? It's awful!... There should be security lights in that parking lot!"
"Well, I don't believe it would have helped, Sarah. It was broad daylight," Eamon pointed out reasonably. Bless him, he sounded more amused than irritated. "Do you have much trouble with such things around here? Criminal trespass, assault... ?"
"Couple of car break-ins," I said, and washed down the sugar with coffee. Which accounted for two of the major food groups. "Nothing serious. Kids, probably."
"And am I to think he was just another hooligan?" He ate a neat mouthful of eggs and arched his eyebrows at me.
"Not him," I admitted.
"Sarah said you were being followed," he continued after a polite pause to chew and swallow. "The same kind of van."
"The same van," Sarah insisted, and turned her big eyes to me. "Was it the guy? The one from the mall?"
No point in lying about it. "Yes. But-it's all right, really. I'll handle it."
"Are you certain that's the right thing to do? You might want to go to the police," Eamon asked. He sounded neutral about it. Around us, other diners clinked silverware on plates and went about their daily lives, which probably didn't involve getting stalked by out-of-state cops. I shook my head. "Ah, I see. Any particular reason why not... ?"
"I know him, sort of," I said. "I'll handle it."
Eamon gave me a long, considering look, then put down his fork and dug his wallet from his back pocket. I've always thought you could tell a lot about a man from the state of his wallet; Eamon's was slick, black, and expensive. He pulled a business card from it and handed it over.
"Cell phone," he said, and tapped the corner of the thick paper. Sarah was right, the cards weren't lightweights-creamy paper, raised type, a match in price range for the wallet that held them. "Look, I know you hardly know me, and I'm sure ladies like you have no shortage of men waiting to squire you around, but best to be safe."
I nodded. He put the wallet away.
"I don't care if you know him, Joanne. It's the ones you do know that hurt you."
I looked up from the card into his eyes. Large, gentle eyes that somehow mitigated the harsher angles of his face.
"No offense," I said, "and I don't want you to think I'm not grateful for the rescue this morning, but are you sure you really want to get into this? The two of us together could be a whole lot of trouble. You're just an innocent bystander. And if we hardly know you, well, you hardly know us. What if we're-"
"Villains?" Eamon sounded vastly amused by that. "Oh, love, I hardly think so. Keep the card, though. I've no duties just now, waiting for a deal to come through; there's no reason I can't help if you need it. Even if it's just the occasional walk to and from your car, which, by the by, is quite the looker. Your car, I mean. What model is she?"
Firmer territory. We talked autos. Eamon had a startling breadth of knowledge about British race cars, and had a taste for Formula One, and ten minutes later I noticed that Sarah was looking more than a little put out by the whole conversation. Oh yeah. He was Sarah's date, not mine. I suppose having animated, extended chatters probably was the wrong side of friendly.
I mopped my lips and excused myself to the ladies' room, and took my time with the hand-washing and the application of vanilla cream lotion and refreshment of lipstick. My hair wasn't too badly damaged from the wrestling match with Detective Rodriguez. In fact, I looked pretty good, for a change.
I felt a tug of longing so strong I had to grab the counter with both hands. I wanted David. I wanted to call him out of the bottle and have him sit across from me and smile and talk, as if there were something approaching a normal life for us, somewhere.
I found my hand slipping down to press flat over my stomach. There was still that unsettling flutter, deep down. The promise of life. I didn't know how to feel about that... hopeful? Terrified? Angry, that he'd committed me to a responsibility so huge it made my Warden job look easy?
I wanted to have a normal life with the one I loved. Ones. What was vibrating so gently under my fingertips was the possibility, however small, of... family.
But I knew normal life was a fantasy, and not just because of the oddness of loving a Djinn. This morning, I'd felt him getting weaker before he'd gone back in the bottle. He hadn't been out that long.
He wasn't getting better, as I'd convinced myself he was.
David was dying.
The despair of that just went on and on, when I let myself look at it straight on. There's a way to fix this. There's got to be a way. I just have to... find it.
"Jonathan," I said. "If you can hear me, please. I'm asking you. For David's sake. Help me."
No answer. Not that Jonathan was particularly omniscient, of course. I didn't flatter myself to think that he had me on constant observation; hell, I probably didn't even rate a speed dial. Time passed differently, to Djinn. He'd probably forget all about me until I was eighty and pushing my walker around the retirement home.
That was an oddly cheering thought, actually.
I took a deep breath, practiced a smile in the mirror, and went back out into the restaurant. As I weaved around tables and kicking children and a man who just happened to have his hand at butt level, waiting for me to squeeze by, I saw that Eamon and Sarah were deep in conversation. I slowed down to study the body language, and liked what I saw; he was leaning forward across the table, taking in every word, eyes fixed on her face. She was animated and vivid and luminous in the morning light.
The silent language of attraction.
As I watched, she dropped her hand down on the table, leaning forward into him, and his long, elegant fingers moved to cover hers. Just a brush, but enough that I saw the tremor go through her.
I almost hated to interrupt. Almost. But then, that was a younger sister's place, to screw up the good times.
I slid back into my chair and they immediately sat back, aside from giving each other little secret smiles. "So," I said to Eamon. "What are your plans for the day?"
"Actually, I'm at loose ends." He was still watching Sarah, eyes half-closed. "I was thinking of taking in the sights. I'm not well acquainted with Fort Lauderdale. What can you recommend?"
He was including me, but not really; I got the clue memo. I politely bowed out.
"Wow, that would be great, but I've got a thing today. To do. So why don't you and Sarah go have some fun? It looks like it's going to be-" Without even thinking about it, I felt for the weather.
And fumbled the effort.
I froze, blank, coffee cup half to my lips, and concentrated harder. I felt horribly clumsy. The delicate sensitivity I'd always had to the balance of things, the breathing of the world, it felt... muffled. Indistinct.
"Jo?" Sarah asked, and looked over her shoulder, toward the wall I was staring a hole in.
I blinked, forced a smile. "-it's going to be beautiful," I finished. "Warm and sunny. Or so says Marvelous Marvin, anyway. So you might want to take in the beach. I think Sarah picked up a killer swimsuit yesterday, right, Sarah?"
My sister turned a rapt smile back to Eamon, who was watching me with a little frown grooved between his eyebrows. I sent him a silent I'm okay, and Sarah distracted him with a question about England, and they went back to living in a two-person world.
I closed my eyes for a second, concentrated, and drifted up toward the aetheric.
Moving between dimensions was something so automatic that it was like breathing for me; I lived half my life there, connected to the world, seeing its layers and levels.
It felt like swimming through syrup, today. And once I was there, the colors looked dim and indistinct, the patterns muddy and confusing. There was something happening to me, but I couldn't think what; I didn't feel bad. I just felt... disconnected.
"Jo?"
Sarah was saying something, and from her tone of voice, she'd been saying it more than once. I opened my eyes and looked at her, saw her impatient frown.
Eamon was measuring me again.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Fine," I said. "Sure. A bit of a headache, I guess. Listen, I'm really-I'm just really tired. I think I'm going to go home and lie down for a while before I have to do-the thing I have to do. Why don't you guys go have fun?"
They didn't seem too unhappy about that, although Eamon insisted on paying for breakfast and taking me back to the studio for my car, and tailing me home, and even went so far as to escort me upstairs and do a quick tour of the apartment.
(I wished I'd cleaned up better.) When he was satisfied that I wasn't going to be jumped on by a crazed stalker hiding in the overstuffed closet, he and Sarah took off. I waved at them from the patio balcony, and stood outside for a few minutes, watching as his car made its way out onto the street again, heading for a glorious day of sun and fun.
A white van turned a corner, glided into the lot, and parked. I could see a shadow in the driver's seat.
"Hope you're comfy," I said grimly, and looked up at the sky. It was clearing.
The humidity was down, and the cool ocean breeze whispered over my skin and rustled palm trees down at ground level.
There was absolutely nothing I could think of to do that would make a damn bit of difference, except wait and pretend to be completely comfortable with Detective Rodriguez's continuing campaign of intimidation.
