In Too Deep (Looking Glass Trilogy #1)(48)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

"You’re crazy," Jenny whispered.

"I’m sure Fallon knows the truth. He has probably known it all along."

"That’s not true." Jenny’s voice rose. She turned to Fallon. "Make her stop talking."

"That’s not so easy to do," Fallon said.

Isabella took a step toward Jenny and stopped. "Don’t mean to scare you, but I really don’t think you’re going to be able to keep the secret much longer. I’ve seen this kind of hot fog before. If you were a sociopath, it wouldn’t be a problem. They feed on the flames. But you are a decent person and you once cared about Fallon so you feel the heat, don’t you? You know what it’s doing to you."

"Shut up," Jenny pleaded. "Just shut up. Please."

Isabella said nothing. Fallon did not move.

Jenny started to cry. Everything about her seemed to crumple beneath the crushing weight of the secrets she had been holding.

Isabella went to her and put her arms around her. Jenny resisted for a few seconds and then the last of the dam gave way. Jenny sobbed against Isabella’s shoulder.

After a while Fallon offered a pristine square of white linen. Isabella smiled a little. How many modern men carried a crisp white handkerchief on the off chance that they might need to produce it for a distraught woman, she wondered. Then, again, the small gesture suited Fallon. In many ways he was a man from another era, some mythical time and place where honor and chivalry were important concepts.

"I believed him." Jenny took the handkerchief and blotted her eyes and took a deep breath. "I’m so sorry, Fallon. But he was my brother. I had to believe him."

"I know," Fallon said. "He was my friend and my partner. I wanted to believe him, too."

Jenny sighed. "You probably know everything. You’re Fallon Jones. You always have the answers."

"Not always," Fallon said.

"In this case I’m sure you do." Jenny looked at him. "You’re right, I did expose you to the magic-lantern lights that night. I hid the device in a floor lamp. I was subjected to the radiation as well, but it didn’t hit me as hard as it hit you because your talent is so powerful. I . . . I knew it would be like that."

"Tucker told you that I was the one who was running the club and selling the light in the insider rooms," Fallon said. It was a statement of fact, not a question.

"Yes." Jenny sniffed. "It’s all my fault. I’m responsible for everything that happened because I’m the one who created those damn lanterns in the first place."

"Why?" Fallon asked.

"It was an experiment," Jenny said. She sounded dull and lifeless now. "So many psychoactive pharmaceuticals don’t work well on those who possess a high level of talent. I was trying to come up with a naturopathic approach to treating problems like depression and anxiety and PTSD in strong para-sensitives. There is a lot of work being done with light to elevate moods in normal people. I thought there might be a way to use light from the paranormal end of the spectrum on those with talent to achieve similar positive effects."

"I understand," Fallon said.

"I was working from the records of one of my ancestors, a spectrum energy-talent who lived back in the nineteen thirties. I came up with a device that combined various kinds of amber and quartz that are naturally para-luminescent and para-phosphorescent."

"Oh, boy," Isabella muttered. "Geek talk. I think my eyes are starting to glaze over."

Jenny ignored her. She continued talking earnestly to Fallon. "On their own, the rocks don’t have much effect, but when arranged in certain ways and activated by the right kind of mirrors, well, you know what happened. The effects ranged from euphoria to hallucinations and disorientation. All short-term but highly unpredictable."

"I admit this isn’t my field," Isabella said. "But the theory behind your research sounds very intriguing."

"It is," Jenny said. "And I still think there is a lot of potential in it. But as soon as I ran some tests on my own version of what Tucker called my magic lantern, I realized that although it was a mood enhancer in very small doses, the side effects could be devastating. I could not come up with a safe way to use it in a naturopathic manner."

"But by then Tucker had learned about your experiments and concluded that it might make an attraction at his club," Fallon said.

"I swear, I didn’t know that he was the secret owner of the Arcane Club," Jenny whispered.

"I didn’t know it, either, until the end," Fallon said.

Jenny sniffed into the handkerchief. "It doesn’t matter now, but I want you to know that I didn’t construct the magic lanterns for him. He used my notes and made them himself. They aren’t that hard to build if you have the right quartz and amber and an obsidian mirror."

"I never believed that you were involved in the club lanterns," Fallon said.

Jenny gave him a wan smile. "The thing is, I believed him when he told me that you were the real owner of the club and that you were dealing some kind of terrible psychic drug. After he . . . died I had to go on believing that what he had told me was the truth. The alternative was just too awful."

Isabella touched Jenny’s shoulder. "You’ve accepted your brother’s guilt, haven’t you? That’s no longer the source of your pain. It’s your sense of responsibility that is driving you into despair."

"It was all my fault." Jenny sighed. "If I hadn’t run the experiments with those damn rocks and if I hadn’t demonstrated the results to Tucker–"

"If it hadn’t been the magic-lantern technology, it would have been something else that got Tucker into trouble," Fallon said. "He liked living on the edge. As time went by, the adrenaline rush of proving that he was smarter and faster than everyone else became his personal drug of choice."

"Yes," Jenny said. "I think you’re right. His need to take risks was an addiction. Everyone in the family knew that. My poor mother worried constantly that he would get himself killed on one of his J&J assignments."

"Proving that he could outmaneuver Jones & Jones was the ultimate challenge," Fallon said.

Jenny dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. "Even knowing Tucker as well as I did, I still let him convince me that you were the bad guy. Can you ever forgive me?"

"I never blamed you," Fallon said. "You had to make a choice between believing your brother or a man you did not know very well. Hell, if I’d been in your shoes, I would have made the same choice."

Jenny looked at him with unconcealed desperation. "Do you really think so?"