Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(64)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Raine folded her arms on the counter. “I thought you Arcane Society folks relied on your own in-house matchmakers to find partners.”

“I like to do my own hunting.” He went back to watching the street in front of the shop. “Besides, arcanematch-dot-com isn’t what you’d call one hundred percent reliable. Just ask Zack about his fiancée.”

“He told me about Jenna,” she said.

“No telling what Nightshade might have been able to do if they had succeeded in marrying an operative off to Zack,” Calvin stated.

“I can see where it would have been a big coup for Nightshade to have an agent married to a member of the Jones family.”

Calvin snorted softly. “Not just any member of the family, the Number One Jones.”

She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

Calvin glanced at her. Surprise and then amusement dawned on his broad features. “Sorry about that. I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“When Fallon called me he said something about you having been raised outside the Society. Guess you don’t know much about the politics of the organization.”

“I’m aware that the Society was founded by a Jones and that the Jones family has always been extremely influential.”

“That’s putting it mildly. In the last century the Society went through some major changes. Members of the Governing Council are elected now, for example. But one thing hasn’t changed. The head of the organization has always been a Jones, usually a Jones from Zack’s branch of the family tree. Society’s pretty strong on tradition.”

She nearly collapsed on the counter. “Are you telling me that Zack is slated to be the next Master of the Arcane Society?”

“The US branch,” Calvin clarified. “The UK has its own Master.”

“Another Jones?”

“Afraid so.”

“Good grief. I had no idea.”

“Zack’s appointment is supposed to be confirmed by the Council anytime now. It gets officially announced at the Society’s annual Spring Ball. Problem is, ever since his fiancée died, Zack’s been telling everyone that he’s decided to opt out of the job. No one’s taking him seriously, though.”

She frowned. “Zack doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who changes his mind once it’s made up.”

“True, but in this case folks figure he just needs some time to get past what happened last year.”

“Don’t know about you, but speaking personally, I can see how finding out that you nearly married a Nightshade operative and then having said operative try to poison you might make you reconsider your goals and objectives in life.”

“Nah. Zack was born for the job. Sooner or later he’ll realize it.”

“Would it be the end of the world if he did opt out?”

Calvin shrugged. “Like they say, no one’s irreplaceable. And lord knows, there are plenty of other Joneses around. Thing is, Zack’s grandfather, the current Master, and the majority of the Council, which includes a lot of intuitives, by the way, feel that Zack is the best guy for the job. There’s a lot of pressure on him.”

“What makes him so unique? You said yourself there are a lot of Joneses.”

“He’s the first Jones in a long time who is a level-ten mirror talent.”

“So what? Why does that make him the best person to take on the Master’s responsibilities?”

“Mirror talents are so rare they’re the stuff of legend within the Society,” Calvin explained. “The Council and the old man at the top are thrilled with Zack. See, the ability to intuitively second-guess the opposition is just exactly the kind of talent you need in the Master’s Chair when you’re up against some real bad guys. And Nightshade is definitely a world-class collection of bad guys.”

Forty-eight

He left the car in the herd of vehicles clustered in a lot that served a small city park and walked a block to a sprawling six-story condominium complex.

Bradley Mitchell’s home security was stunningly low-end. Then again, maybe hotshot detectives assumed that the bad guys wouldn’t dream of burglarizing a cop’s home. Talk about a state of denial.

He deactivated the simple alarm system with the same J&J gadget that he had used to open the front door.

Once inside, he found himself in a one-bedroom apartment decorated in surprisingly good taste. He had been expecting a cluttered, dust-laden bachelor pad filled with cheap rental furniture, a lot of high-tech media equipment and the kind of artwork that was ripped out of girlie magazines.

The state-of-the-art television and sound system were present but the sofa, chairs and coffee table were comfortable and modern in design—clearly several steps above rental quality. The pictures on the walls were Ansel Adams prints. Maybe the biggest shocker of all was the well-stocked bookcase.

Okay, so he had been hoping that Mitchell would prove to be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal with no redeeming traits. He should have known that Raine would never have been attracted to a man who didn’t exhibit some civilized behavior patterns and a degree of intelligence.

He brushed against the first ghostly images when he took off a glove and touched the bed. The scenes were very faint, little more than gossamer flickers slicing through his mind. His powerful intuition conjured up a vision of two people engaged in heated sex. One of them—the one who left the strongest impression—wasn’t enjoying the act, at least not in a normal, healthy way. For one of the two lovers, sex was a weapon—no, a tool—that had been used to achieve some objective far more vital than a momentary release. Power was the goal.

He steeled himself against the visions long enough to absorb the few clues they offered and then suppressed them, temporarily at least.

Moving more quickly now, he pulled the glove back on and went into the kitchen. Disappointment shafted through him when he found no unmarked vials inside the refrigerator but he used the little metal stick to sample a carton of orange juice and the milk, just to make sure.

He closed the door and stood quietly in the middle of Mitchell’s neat, tidy kitchen, thinking about things. All his parasenses were yelling at him, telling him that the drug had to be somewhere in the apartment.

He went back into the living room and stood listening intently. Nothing. Then he went down the hall and opened a closet door. There was a stacked set of apartment-sized appliances inside, a washer and dryer. He finally heard it: the high-pitched whine of a miniature refrigerator, the kind designed for a den.