refusal.
Celinda was still fuming and still hungry when she opened the door of the office of Promises, Inc. Mostly she was angry at herself because she had been so embarrassed she had felt it necessary to leave a tip.
Laura Gresley was at her post at the reception desk. Her customary smile—polite, professional, and polished—seemed slightly off. There was a forced quality about it.
“Oh, good, you’re back, Celinda,” she said, clearly relieved. “I was about to call your personal phone.” She lowered her voice. “There are some people here to see you.”
“Some people?” Normally clients came in alone, not in groups. “My next appointment isn’t until two thirty.”
“These two don’t have an appointment,” Laura said with an ominous air.
“But I don’t have room to squeeze in anyone who doesn’t already have an appointment. I’m booked solid this afternoon; you know that.”
It was the wedding season, the most popular time of the year for formal Covenant Marriages. That meant that Promises, Inc., and other matchmaking agencies were swamped. The number of weddings taking place always produced a lot of new clients. It was simple physics: weddings inspired families to put a lot of pressure on relatives of a certain age who were still single. In desperation many of the pressured turned to agencies.
Whoever the clients were, they had managed to rattle Laura. That was not easy to do. She held her position as receptionist for Promises, Inc., precisely because she was virtually unflappable. She was fiftysomething, poised, and efficient. Like everyone else on the staff with the exception of Celinda, she wore a gold ring on her left hand, signifying a Covenant Marriage.
Laura was accustomed to dealing with some of the most elite people in Cadence City, from wealthy business executives to politicians and media celebrities. If she was uneasy about the people waiting for her, Celinda thought, that meant there was a serious problem.
She glanced toward the seats in the small lobby. There was no one around. That was not a surprise, of course. There was rarely anyone in the small, expensively appointed space because Promises, Inc., went to great lengths to ensure that clients were never kept waiting in a public area. Discretion was everything when you operated the most elite matchmaking agency in the city.
Promises, Inc., worked only on referral. It did no advertising. There was nothing on the front door of the office or on the business cards that Celinda and the other consultants carried that indicated the nature of the business that was done behind the company’s elegant doors.
Laura followed Celinda’s glance toward the empty reception chairs. “I put them in your office.”
“Why me? Why didn’t you give them to one of the other consultants?”
“These two specifically asked to speak with you.”
Celinda sighed. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this. You’re about to drop the other shoe, aren’t you?”
“Obviously you are an amazingly intuitive woman,” Laura said dryly. “Neither of the two would tell me why they wanted to talk to you, but one of them carries a badge that says she is with the Cadence Police Department. Detective Alice Martinez.”
“Good grief.” Celinda stared at her, flabbergasted. “Probably not a potential client, then. It’s highly unlikely that a woman living on a detective’s salary could afford our services.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. The man with her gave his name as Davis Oakes. He did not elaborate further.”
“Weird.” She did not know anyone by that name. She did not know any police detectives, either, for that matter. “And weirder.”
“I would have asked Ms. Takahashi to deal with them, but she’s at that charity luncheon today. She won’t be back until around three.”
Patricia Takahashi was the owner of Promises, Inc. The fact that Laura regretted not being able to get her involved spoke volumes about just how nervous the visitors had made her.
Celinda hoisted her large black tote higher on one shoulder. “Well, I suppose I’d better go see what they want.”
She started around the edge of the desk, heading for a short hallway lined with closed doors.
Laura looked at the oversized tote. “Where’s Araminta?”
“Napping. She had a big lunch. Unfortunately, it was not her own.”
“Oh, dear.” Laura’s smile was half-amused and half-sympathetic. “Another restaurant scene?”
“I’m afraid so. I’ve explained to her that just because the food on someone else’s plate looks better than what I ordered, it does not necessarily follow that she can help herself to a stranger’s meal.”
“How nasty did it get?”
“Very nasty. The person whose meal Araminta swiped referred to her as a rat. I, of course, took offense on her behalf. The waiter got involved. Evidently there is a rule about bringing animals into restaurants unless they are companion animals.”
“I’ve heard that.” Laura’s mouth twitched a little. “One of those boring public health regulations, I believe.”
“I explained that Araminta was a companion, but by then things had become complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“In the general uproar and confusion that followed the reference to a rat, Araminta took a few sample bites from some of the other diners’ plates as well. A large person came out of the kitchen waving an empty garbage bag and a big pot. There was talk of catching Araminta in the pot, transferring her to the bag, and delivering her to animal control.”
“Oh, my.” Laura’s eyes danced. “Sounds like a circus.”
“Suffice it to say that we will not be going back to the Quik-Bite Deli anytime in the near future.”
She went down the hall to her office and opened the door.
The waves of strong, subtle psi power slammed right through her sturdy defenses, catching her completely off guard and rezzing all of her senses. Excitement and anticipation pulsed through her. The energy was unlike anything that she had ever encountered: dark, controlled, fascinating.
The hair rose on the nape of her neck. Beneath the fabric of her neatly tailored business jacket, goose bumps prickled her upper arms. A strange, unfamiliar sensation stirred within her. She felt as if she were about to leap off a very high diving board into a fathomless pool.
Get a grip. Okay, so one of the visitors was a particularly strong psi talent. No, not one of the visitors; the man. This energy was indisputably male.
The ability to resonate psychically with amber and use it to focus the brain’s natural paranormal energy waves had begun to appear among the colonists on Harmony shortly after they came through the Curtain to settle the new world. Something in the environment had begun to stimulate the latent ability in humans.
At first the talent had seemed to be little more than an intriguing curiosity. But when the mysterious energy Curtain that had made interstellar travel possible had closed without warning, trapping the colonists, the ability to pulse psi through amber rapidly became critical to survival.
Virtually everyone on Harmony gave off some degree of psychic energy. Most people generated low or medium levels of power, allowing them to use amber to operate a toaster or start a car engine. But there were some individuals—she was one of them—who could generate an unusually high degree of psychic energy.
Being a strong para-resonator, as powerful psychics were called, was almost always a double-edged sword. Her particular talent was the ability to read the paranormal energy rhythms and patterns given off by others. To her, human psi waves were as distinctive as faces.
Her para-rez ability was rare. She had never met anyone else who could do what she did. Then again, anyone who could read other people’s psi waves as accurately as she was able to read them no doubt kept quiet about the skill for the same reason that she did. Paranormal abilities were common in the population, but powerful and unusual talents were not, and very few people were comfortable around others who possessed such powers.
She knew that most people would find her particular psychic ability especially unsettling. It wasn’t mind reading, of course. There was no such talent. But her ability did allow her sharp insights into one of the most personal and private realms of an individual’s personality. The truth was, if you could read a person’s psi waves, you could tell a great deal about that individual’s strengths and—far more disturbing to the person—his or her
