Pandora's Daughter

And would she ever be able to look at him without remembering his hands on her? She hadn't even gone to bed with him. He'd only petted her, stroked her.

Yet her heart was pounding so hard she was having trouble breathing.

Damn him.

A SOFT KNOCK SOUNDED ON the adjoining door an hour later.

She didn't answer.

'Megan. Open the door. I come bearing gifts.'

Harley's voice.

She got up and opened the door.

He smiled and handed her a folder with a sheaf of papers. 'The faxes of the Tribunal Reports you asked Grady for. He asked me to pass them on to you. He said there are a couple more pages, but he'll give them to you after you've read the report.'

'Thank you. I didn't expect to see you tonight. You said you'd be too busy.'

'I tracked down the first two Renata Wilgers and came up with zilch. However, I have a promising lead that I'm going to follow up on tonight.'

'Tonight?'

'This Renata Wilger works for an international brokerage company and from what I've discovered, she's amazing at predicting stock and real estate trends. Wouldn't you say that could reflect one of those so-called talents?'

'Possibly. But would this company be open at night?'

'Her apartment manager said that she's a workaholic and seldom got in before midnight. So I'll be off in an hour or two to contact her. But first Grady asked me to come and have dinner with him and play errand boy.' His brows lifted. 'I take it you're not joining us for dinner?'

She shook her head. 'I need to read these Tribunal Reports.'

'From what Grady said, some of the content will give you nightmares. Ring my cell phone if you need a sandwich later. Grady doesn't want you calling room service.' He gave her a mock salute and closed the door behind him.

Megan looked down at the folder. She didn't care if the reports were going to be gory and upsetting. At least, it would give her something worthwhile on which to focus. She needed that distraction right now. She sat down, opened the folder, and took out the first fax page.

I write this on the twelfth day of June in the year of our Lord Fourteen hundred and eighty-five by command of Tomas de Torquemada, Inquisidor General, regarding the just and holy investigation of the heretic Devanez family.

'AT LEAST, SHE DIDN'T THROW THE folder back in my face,' Harley said as he strolled across the room to where Grady was standing at the minibar. 'But she did appear a little tense. What on earth did you do to her?'

'Not nearly enough.' He poured himself a drink. 'And it's none of your business.'

'Of course it is. When I have to delay my own business and rush in and run interference. Am I supposed to stick around to hand her those last pages you told her you'd give her later?'

'No, she'll want to talk to me about them.'

'That's a relief.' He picked up the phone. 'What do you want to order for dinner?'

'Anything.' He carried his bourbon to the window and looked down at the street below. There hadn't been any doubt in his mind that she'd take the report. He just hadn't wanted to add fuel to the tinderbox he'd already set in place. He'd been supremely clumsy. Why couldn't he have just either not made any move, or gone for broke and gotten her into bed?

Because he'd waited too long to touch her. Because when she finished reading that report she was going to be questioning everything he'd ever said or done to her. 'Just make sure you order plenty of coffee. It's going to be a long night.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANOTHER DAY OF TORTURE for Ricardo Devanez.

Megan wanted desperately to skip over the brutal details, but the reports had interwoven the questions and answers into the torment inflicted on that poor man.

She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. She'd give herself a break for a few minutes. The first part of the report had not been too bad, the preliminary heresy investigation into the Devanez family. Painstaking reports from the local priests who'd been ordered to spy on Jose Devanez and all his close and distant relations were repeated. Both the immense wealth the clan had acquired and the stories the peasants told of their strange powers were carefully documented as the Tribunal prepared to act.

Strange powers, indeed, Megan thought. A good many of the stories had to be fabricated. A shape changer who turned into a beast at the full moon, healers, mind readers, a woman whose touch made an old woman go mad, a child who could find water on barren land. With such outrageous stories circulating the countryside, it was no wonder that the family had been put at risk. They had been charitable, peaceful, and tending to keep to themselves, yet even their kindness aroused suspicion. They were accused of deception and secret devil worshiping.

It was when the priests had captured Ricardo Devanez that the report became almost unbearable to read. He had held out for three hideous days of extreme torture before he broke and told them of the exodus of his family from Spain. At the point where she had stopped they were making him talk about the family members and their demonic powers. Jose who could see the future and tell if a venture would be successful, Isabelle, his daughter, who could grow flowers where there was no sunlight or rain, his brother Diego, who could make fire by wishing it to flare.

Was it truth as Ricardo saw it, or telling his torturers what they wished to hear? It didn't matter. Megan had to finish the report. But she'd try to scan the rest and see if there was anything to which she could relate. So far Ricardo had not mentioned any Listeners among the family members.

She opened her eyes and started to read again. Skim, don't absorb that horror.

Ricardo must have been babbling at this point, pouring out his soul. The list of psychic talents was astonishing and Ricardo gave names and examples. If any of these people were captured by Torquemada's agents, there would have been no doubt they would have been burned at the stake.

It was almost at the end of the report, the last page, that Ricardo started to talk about his sister, Rosa, who was a Listener.

Megan stiffened, her gaze flying over the paragraph:

Clearly the most heinous and wicked of all the demons, the priest wrote. Not only did the woman hear voices from hell, but she was a demon incarnate herself. It's fortunate that the subject, Ricardo Devanez, states that only with great rarity was a woman with that power born. Because each Listener almost always is also possessed of the darker curse they are generally known as a Pandora.

Megan froze, memories rushing back to her.

The night at the cave when her mother died.

Not Pandora. Not Pandora. Not Pandora.

Molina questioning Edmund.

'Tell me about the Pandoras.'

Darker curse? What on earth could be the nature of the curse the priest had written about?

And this report wasn't complete, dammit. There were the last two pages that Grady had withheld from her.

She jumped to her feet, strode to the adjoining door, and pounded on it. When he opened the door, she said, 'I