Running Hot (The Arcane Society #5)(72)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Comprehension struck with the force of an explosion.

“I’ll be damned. You father wasn’t just a member of Nightshade, he founded it, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Pride and rage flashed across Damaris’s face and aura. “For years he hoped that the Council would come to see the true value and potential of the drug. He was convinced that eventually the Society would authorize research on it.”

“What the hell for?”

“He had a vision of what the Arcane community could have been. An organization of elite, powerful sensitives capable of controlling governments, corporations and scientific endeavors of all kinds.”

“But that never happened and it’s not going to happen.”

“No,” she said wearily. “The only reason my father established the organization you call Nightshade was because he was finally forced to acknowledge that the Council would never permit its scientists to work on the formula, at least not in his lifetime. He was determined to build what the community refused to create. He wanted to leave a lasting legacy. Now he’s dead because of you. Tell me what happened in Hawaii.”

“No wonder Nightshade got such a head start on J&J. As a trusted member of the Council, Craigmore had access to all of the Society’s secrets from the start.”

Anguished fury leaped in Damaris’s eyes. “Tell me about Hawaii.”

He was sweating now. Cold chills alternated with spikes of fever. Nevertheless, he used some of the energy that was holding the effects of the beam at bay to calm Damaris’s aura. She blinked a couple of times and then grew more composed.

“First tell me why your father wanted Eubanks taken out,” Luther said.

“Eubanks had become very ambitious and very dangerous. He had developed a new, capsule version of the drug in his lab. He was using that, along with his own enhanced strat talent, to demand a place on the board of directors.”

“Craigmore didn’t want him on the board?”

“No. My father didn’t trust him. Eubanks didn’t know who Daddy was, of course. Only the members of the board are aware of the identity of the CEO of the organization. The others at the top thought Eubanks had proven himself worthy. They were getting set to vote him into the highest circle of power.”

“Your father didn’t want that to happen.”

“He wanted Eubanks taken out but he wanted it done in a way that could not be traced back to him.”

She fell silent. He could have sworn that she was shivering.

“You tried using Sweetwater to remove Eubanks,” he said, coaxing her to start talking again.

“It was Daddy’s idea to use Sweetwater,” she said, sounding dispirited now. “Worst-case scenario was that the board would suspect J&J. Either way no one would think that the head of Nightshade had anything to do with it. But something went wrong. Sweetwater called off the operation.”

“So you turned to your sister.”

“We didn’t have any time to set up something more elaborate. Eubanks had to die on Maui. The board of directors intended to vote on whether or not to give him a seat the following week.”

“So you decided to keep it in the family. Well, your sister was certainly successful.”

Damaris tensed. “She’s had a good deal of experience. Daddy said she’s a natural. He thought all she needed was direction.”

“A target.”

“I don’t think Daddy ever really understood Vivien. My sister is nothing if not self-absorbed. Until Eubanks, the only people she had killed were those she thought were standing in her way professionally. But yes, she does seem to have an instinct for the business. Probably a side effect of her talent. After all, what’s the point of having the ability to kill with the power of your voice if you don’t have the inclination to do it once in a while?”

“No offense, but your logic is a little weak. Anyone can commit murder with a gun. But not everyone has the inclination to do it. Your sister’s talent is freakish but evolutionarily speaking, it was probably designed to be a psychic self-defense mechanism.”

Damaris’s smile held no humor. “You don’t know my sister very well, do you? In her mind she does use her Siren talent for self-defense. It’s not her fault that the people she finds threatening happen to be rivals, critics and irritating managers.”

“So why did she agree to do Eubanks? As a favor to Craigmore?”

“No. She and Daddy never bonded. They were never close. Vivien did it for me. I’m the one person in the world La Sirène cares about, aside from herself, of course.”

“Hell of a favor, killing someone for you.”

Damaris shifted uneasily. Her focus weakened. Luther grabbed a deep breath and jacked his senses a little higher.

“It wasn’t like Eubanks was an innocent victim,” Damaris said, oddly defensive. “Daddy told me that he murdered two wives for their inheritances and another young woman with whom he was having an affair. Evidently she found out about Eubanks’s Nightshade connection.”

“Did Craigmore know that J&J was watching Eubanks?”

“No, not until after my sister was seen in that hotel room on Maui. He concluded that Vivien encountering a woman who could even partially resist her singing was too much of a coincidence. He checked the J&J files and discovered that the agency was investigating Eubanks.”

“That must have worried him.”

“Why? It was clear that J&J was only interested in Eubanks because of the murder of the young woman. The agency didn’t know that Eubanks was Nightshade. He was concerned, however, that if J&J pursued the investigation too deeply, they might uncover the link to Nightshade. It was just another reason Eubanks had to go, as far as he was concerned.”

The ice-and-fire sensation was still sending chills through him but Luther relaxed a little. Fallon and Zack Jones had pulled it off. Craigmore had gone into that parking garage thinking that his only problem was Eubanks’s ambitious nature. He never realized that Eubanks and four members of Nightshade’s upper management had been identified. Score one for J&J.

“Craigmore came after me because he knew he had to get through me to get to Grace,” he said. “He was afraid Grace would be able to identify La Sirène.”

“Yes.” Damaris’s hand tightened on the laser. “He said we had to get rid of the aura talent who saw Vivien. He decided to take care of that problem himself. But you murdered him, didn’t you? How did you do it? He was powerful.”