Fired Up Read online

  “Trust me; I’ve done the research on this. There have been a few cases of two strong talents occurring naturally in a single individual, but they show up together at an early age and invariably the result is insanity. In the handful of cases that I was able to find in J&J’s files the victims were all dead by their late teens or mid-twenties.”

  “No offense, but I’m guessing you are not in your twenties.”

  “I’m thirty-six.”

  “And you’re telling me that this new talent of yours just started showing up?”

  “The symptoms that something was going on started about a month ago.”

  “What kind of symptoms?”

  “Hallucinations. Nightmares.” He started to pace the office. “Serious nightmares. The kind that leave me shaking in a cold sweat. But they were starting to dissipate, or at least I was telling myself that they were getting less intense, less frequent. But then something else happened.”

  “Stop.” She held up a hand, palm out. “Tell me about the hallucinations and the nightmares first.”

  He shrugged. “Not much to tell. The nightmares were bad but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was the hallucinations that really worried me. They can hit at any time. I’ll be walking down the street or sitting in a bar, and suddenly I’ll see things that aren’t there.”

  “Things you know aren’t there?” she asked.

  “Right. Images in mirrors. Scenes from the nightmares sometimes.”

  “But you’re always aware that you are hallucinating?” she clarified. “You don’t mistake those images and scenes for reality?”

  He frowned. “No. But the fact that I know I’m seeing things doesn’t make it any better, believe me.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s an important detail. Okay, go on.”

  “Like I said, I had convinced myself that the visions and the dreams were starting to become less intense or, at least less frequent. But then I had the first blackout. It lasted a full twenty-four hours, although I’ll admit that my memory is a little fuzzy on both sides of that time frame.”

  She folded her arms, thinking. “Sounds like some sort of short- term amnesia. There is a technical name for it: transient global amnesia. It’s rare, but it’s well documented.”

  He stopped and turned back to look at her. “All I know is that about a week ago I lost about twenty-four hours of my life. I have no idea where I went or what I did during that time.”

  “What’s your last memory before the episode?”

  “I was walking home after having a couple of beers with a friend. I blanked out at First and Blanchard, not far from my condo.”

  “And where were you when you came out of it?”

  “In my condo.” He walked back to the window and stood looking out at the gray skies. “I was in a raging fever. Thought I had the flu.”

  She relaxed a little. “If you were ill, that explains a lot. A high fever can play all sorts of tricks. Among other things, it can trigger hallucinations and nightmares.”

  “No.” He shook his head once. “I was somewhere else during that twenty-four-hour period but I don’t know where.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  He looked back at her. “I know it. What’s more, I’ve had three more blackouts since then. All at night. The first two times I went to bed as usual. When I woke up I was back in bed, but I was fully dressed. My clothes were wet from the rain, and my shoes had fresh dirt on them.”

  “Sleepwalking. It’s not that uncommon.”

  “The last time I came to after one of the episodes, I was standing in an alley on Capitol Hill,” he said evenly. “There was a dead man at my feet and a woman was running for her life.” He paused a beat to let the meaning sink in. “Her name is Susan Billings. The dead man’s name was Aaron Paul Hanney.”

  A strange sensation twisted through her, as if she were looking into a very, very deep well. “The guy they think killed those two women? The one they found dead in . . . Oh, geez.” She took a deep breath in an attempt to settle her rattled senses. “The one they found dead of a heart attack in an alley on Capitol Hill.”

  “Evidently I went out for a late-night walk and killed a man.”

  She frowned. “He was going to murder that nurse.”

  “I’m not saying I have a problem with the fact that he’s dead. The problem is that I don’t know what the hell I was doing in that alley in the first place. The problem is that I killed him with my talent, my new, second talent.”

  “What makes you think that you killed him? The papers said he died of a heart attack. Maybe you just happened on the scene.”

  “Trust me,” he said. “I killed him. Without a trace.”

  “But how? You’re a strat.”

  “I’m not absolutely sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck in a weary gesture. “But I think I scared him to death. Literally. I think that is my new talent.”

  She went back behind her desk and more or less collapsed into her chair. She said nothing for a moment, trying to wrap her brain around what he had just told her. He watched her intently.

  “You think I’m crazy,” he said at last.

  “No.” She drummed her fingers on the desk blotter. “I know what crazy looks like because it shows up very clearly in dream psi. Whatever else you are, Mr. Winters, you are not crazy.”

  Some of the hard tension in him eased a little. “I guess that’s a start.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that you had better tell me a little more about what you call the family curse.”

  “The short version is that Nicholas Winters’s DNA evidently got fried the first time he used what he called his Burning Lamp. The genetic change was locked into the male bloodline of my family. The mutation doesn’t show up very often. According to family legend and Arcane rumors, it has only appeared one other time. That was in the late eighteen hundreds.”

  “What, exactly, happens to those who get this so-called curse?”

  “I don’t know.” He gave her a chilling smile. “No one does because there’s just not enough hard information to go on. But the theory is that I’ll become a psycho and start trying to murder anyone with the last name of Jones along with anyone else who gets in my way.”

  She exhaled slowly. “I see. Is that what happened to your ancestor? The one who lived in the eighteen hundreds?”

  “No. Evidently Griffin Winters managed to find the Burning Lamp and a woman who could work it. Family legend holds that Adelaide Pyne was able to reverse the process. She kept Griffin Winters from becoming a triple-talent. The Arcane records agree with that version of history.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I have developed a second talent. As far as J&J is concerned, I’ve already become a Cerberus.”

  “Cerberus had three heads, not two,” she said absently.

  “Unfortunately, the distinction isn’t going to matter much to J&J. The agency will hunt me down and take me out.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  He smiled a very cold smile. “If I were Fallon Jones, it’s what I’d do.”

  He was telling the truth, she realized. In Fallon Jones’s shoes, he would do what he thought had to be done.

  She exhaled deeply while she pondered that.

  “All right, assuming that you actually are turning into a multi-talent—and for the record, I am not convinced that is what is happening—do you really think the lamp can help you?”

  “It’s a long shot but it’s all I’ve got,” he said simply. “Will you take my case?”

  She had made her decision the moment he walked into her office. But there was no need to tell him that.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Thank you.” He sounded like he meant it.

  She cleared her throat. “There are a couple of things we need to go over. Have you considered the possibility that the Winters lamp has been destroyed?”

  The cold fire leaped in his eyes and just as quickly faded. “It would take a hell of a lot
to do that. According to the legend, Old Nick forged the metal and the crystals of what he called his Burning Lamp using his own alchemical secrets. Even Sylvester Jones admitted that when it came to furnace work, Nicholas Winters had no equal.”

  “Few things are indestructible. It could have wound up in an auto-wrecking yard.”

  “I’m not sure that even a car compactor could destroy an object created by Old Nick. In any event, the legend says that the lamp reeks of energy. You know how it is with paranormal artifacts. They tend to survive.”

  “That’s true,” she admitted. “People, even folks with no real talent, are usually fascinated by them. Para- energy is always intriguing to the senses, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.” She reached for a pad of paper.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Hmm?” She did not look up from the notes she was making.

  “You said there were a couple of things you wanted to talk about.”

  “Oh, right.” She glanced again at the glowing palm print on her desk. “What kind of medication are you taking?”

  He did not respond immediately. She put the pen down and waited.

  “What makes you think I’m taking medication?” he asked finally.

  “I can see the effects in your dream psi. Whatever it is, it’s heavy-duty stuff, and it’s disturbing the energy at that end of the spectrum.” She paused delicately. “Are you by any chance taking some kind of sleeping medication?”

  His ascetic features hardened. “I started using the meds after I woke up in that alley. Got them from my doctor. I told him I was having some problems sleeping. They seem to work. They knock me out. I haven’t had any sleepwalking episodes since I began taking them.”

  She clicked her tongue against her teeth, making a tut-tutting sound.

  “You must realize that any kind of strong psychotropic medication can be problematic for a strong talent like you.”

  “It’s not like I had a lot of choice, Chloe.”

  “The meds may knock you out, as you say, but it’s obvious that you are not sleeping properly. You aren’t getting the deep rest that you need and that your psychic senses require. The result is that you’re walking around on the verge of exhaustion.”

  Cold amusement flickered in his expression. “Do I look like I’m about to fall asleep?”

  “No, but that’s because you’re using a low level of psi to overcome the effects of sleep deprivation. That trick will work for a while, but eventually it’s all going to catch up with you. Sooner or later you’re going to crash, and when you do, you’ll crash hard.”

  “I’ll worry about getting some sleep after you find my lamp.”

  She sighed. “Why is it that no one ever takes my good advice when I have so much of it to give? That’s why I became a private investigator instead of a dream therapist, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When I was younger I planned to get a degree in psychology and go into dream therapy work. But I found out soon enough that it would be terribly frustrating. Oh, sure, people are willing to pay for good advice, but they won’t follow it.”

  “I hope you’re a better PI than you are a therapist.”

  That hurt, but she refused to let it show. She straightened a little and picked up the pen again. “I told you, I’m good at what I do. Give me your contact information. I’ve got another case that I’ll be winding up tonight, but I’ll start the search for your lamp immediately. I’ll be in touch within a couple of days.”

  “You sound very confident.”

  “Are you kidding?” She gave what she hoped was a ladylike sniff. “A paranormal artifact created by the alchemist Nicholas Winters? If I can’t locate it within forty- eight hours or find out what happened to it, I’ll go back to school and get that degree in psychology.”

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  6

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK THAT EVENING ROSE STALKED INTO THE office, a pizza box in her hands. Raindrops glittered like ebony diamonds on her long, black raincoat. Rose always stalked rather than walked. Chloe thought it probably had something to do with the two-inch platform soles of the steel-buckled, black leather boots she wore.

  “Dinner time,” Rose declared. “You’ve been at that computer or on the phone ever since Mr. Winters left. All you’ve had is a few cups of tea. Got to keep up your energy, boss.”

  “Thanks.” Chloe studied the e-mail that had just arrived in her in-box. “I am feeling a little hungry, now that I think about it.”

  Hector trotted across the room to greet Rose. He sat down directly in front of her, blocking her path, and gazed at the pizza box with an expression that, in a human, would have indicated that the carton contained a winning lottery ticket.

  “Don’t worry—there’s enough for three,” Rose told him. She set the box on Chloe’s desk and took off her raincoat. “How’s the investigation going?”

  “Let’s just say it’s been interesting.” Chloe swiveled around in her chair. “And getting more interesting by the minute.”

  Rose hung up the raincoat and sat down in the client chair. “Find the lamp yet?”

  “I think so. Got a solid lead on it hours ago from Aunt Beatrice.”

  “Your relative who runs that antiques shop in Los Angeles? The one that specializes in old movie star memorabilia?”

  “Right.”

  Beatrice Harper did a thriving business in original movie posters signed by famous stars, rare film footage, and other artifacts associated with Hollywood’s golden era. From long-lost outtakes of Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant or Joan Crawford to one-of-a-kind Art Deco cigarette lighters guaranteed to have been used by Humphrey Bogart, Beatrice could find it for you.

  Mostly Beatrice found such valuables in a certain workshop located in Redondo Beach. The shop was operated by Clive and Evelyn Harper. The pair had a talent for “discovering” vintage original film clips that had been lost since the 1930s. Their daughters, Rhonda and Alison, were true artists: Rhonda produced an unlimited number of “original” posters; Alison forged the stars’ signatures.

  Beatrice went to others in the family for the cigarette lighters or the odd piece of furniture that had belonged to William Holden or Gloria Swanson. The reproductions were so good they could pass for the real thing. So that’s what Beatrice did. The arrangement worked well for everyone concerned.

  Chloe studied her notes. “The last probable owner of the lamp is Drake Stone. All indications are that he still owns it.”

  “You’re kidding.” Rose opened the pizza box. “Are you talking about that old rocker Drake Stone?”

  “Right.”

  Rose removed a slice of the vegetarian pizza and gave it to Hector. “I didn’t realize he was still alive.”

  “There may be some room for debate on the subject.” Chloe helped herself to a slice from the box. “After all, he lives in Las Vegas. Still performs six nights a week, two shows a night. You know what they say, old stars never die; they just go to Vegas.”

  “Huh.” Rose slid a slice of pizza onto a napkin. Her blue eyes, heavily outlined in black, seemed to soften. “I remember my Mom used to like Drake Stone. There was this one song she loved. Played it over and over when I was a kid.”

  Chloe tried to conceal her surprise. Rose rarely talked about her childhood, which had come to a shattering end the night her parents were murdered. She had been fifteen, and she was the one who had found the bodies. She had gone to live with her aunt, a divorced mother already struggling with two kids. The aunt had tried to do what she saw as her duty, but a third mouth, especially one that belonged to a traumatized teenager, had not been welcome. There had not been enough love and affection to go around, let alone money.

  Rose had bailed a few months later, having concluded that the streets were friendlier than her aunt’s home. She had managed to survive nearly six months out in the cold, relying on shelters and her natural intuitive talents, before she fetched up at Harper Investigations. Chloe had found her i
n the same place she later discovered Hector: scrounging out of the garbage containers in the alley.

  “By any chance was the name of your mother’s favorite song ‘Blue Champagne’?” Chloe asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Rose brightened. She hummed a few bars. “How did you know?”

  Chloe tapped the computer screen. “According to my research it was Stone’s first and only real megahit. That was over thirty years ago. But it was enough to make him famous. It’s his signature song. He still does it at every performance. Evidently the women in the audience still line up for a kiss after the show.”

  Rose rolled her raccoon eyes. “I’ll bet he’s really sick of singing it.”

  “Probably. At any rate, I just talked to Uncle Edward in Vegas. He confirmed that he thinks Stone has an old lamp matching the rather vague description Winters gave me, or at least he did at one time. I’m going to consult with Aunt Phyllis tomorrow.”

  “Your uncle in Vegas is the one who sells the high-end antique furniture, right?”

  “Uncle Edward is the go- to dealer for antiques in Vegas and the whole Southwest. He supplied a lot of the furnishings that Drake Stone’s interior designer used in Stone’s mansion. When Stone acquired the lamp last year he evidently asked Edward to take a look at it to verify its authenticity. But my uncle told me that he never got the chance to inspect it.”

  Rose fed another bite of pizza to Hector. “Why not?”

  “Because Stone changed his mind. He told Uncle Edward that after he received the lamp he could see right away that it was a modern piece. But Uncle Edward isn’t so sure. Harper intuition. At any rate, he told me that if anyone could arrange for me to meet with Stone, it would be Aunt Phyllis.”

  “Bet your new client is thrilled with the news that you’ve located his lamp.”

  “I haven’t informed Mr. Winters of my progress yet,” Chloe said. She took a bite of the pizza.

  “I thought he was in a big rush to find that lamp.”