“One thing I know about Zara: she hates me. She also knows I’m the one person on the island who might be able to help her retrieve those two Keys. When she finds out I’m in Shadow Bay, she’ll make a move. She won’t be able to help herself.”
“How will she find out you’re here? From the sound of things, she’s as cut off as we are.”
“According to Karen Rosser, Zara always seems to know what is going on here in town. She’s probably using the flutes to navigate the Preserve.”
“Wouldn’t someone in Shadow Bay notice if a gorgeous mad scientist showed up on occasion?”
He thought about Zara’s uncanny ability to charm the male species. “Not if she’s using some man in town as her spy.”
Alice regarded him with a somber expression. “If you’re right, her spy could be any man in Shadow Bay. Officer Willis, the cook in the tavern tonight, one of the men we saw in the restaurant. And then there are the folks staying at the B-and-Bs.”
“True. But we aren’t without our own resources. Harry says Rachel has a talent for aura reading. And Charlotte’s a high-level talent. Her intuition is probably way above average. Both of them are well acquainted with the locals. They’d know if someone was acting out of character. We’ve also got Fletcher Kane and Jasper Gilbert. They’re former hunters, according to Harry. He trusts them. And they know the locals, too.”
“Yes, but they are men. According to you, they’d be vulnerable to Zara’s charm.”
Drake smiled. “I think they’re safe. From what I’ve witnessed, Zara’s talent for seduction is based on opposite-sex attraction. Kane and Gilbert are married.”
Understanding brightened Alice’s expression. “You think the fact that they’re gay makes them immune to her?”
“Yes. Trust me, I’ve had good reason to delve into Zara Tucker’s background. I found no record of her using women or gay men for her purposes.”
“So your plan is to alert Charlotte, Rachel, Fletcher, and Jasper to the possibility that there’s a spy here in our midst and ask them to vet every hetero male left in town.”
“Not much of a plan, is it?”
“Actually, it sounds brilliant.” Alice hugged her knees. “We’ve got the perfect locked-room mystery setup, except that our locked room is a small town. Same principle, though. All the suspects are gathered together in one convenient place. What’s more, we’ve got a motive. Our spy is the victim of a calculated seduction. He thinks he’s in love, or at least in lust. The task now is to start working through the list of straight men in town to see which one is acting like a man who is bewitched.”
“Don’t forget the ticking-clock angle,” Drake said. “That always adds to the drama. If there’s one thing we know for sure, Rainshadow is a bomb waiting to explode.”
Chapter 23
“DRAKE SEBASTIAN MARRIED HER.” OUTRAGE SHIVERED in Ethel Whitcomb’s refined, private-school voice. “I can’t believe it. The woman is a witch, I tell you. Alice North is nothing but a cheap little gold digger with nothing to recommend her. No family, no social connections, not a dime to her name. She’s not even beautiful. Just an ordinary-looking woman who one wouldn’t glance at twice on the street. How does she manage to attract the attention of men like my son and Drake Sebastian?”
“You said the marriage is only an MC, according to the investigator.” Aldwin Hampstead struggled to keep his tone calm and soothing. It wasn’t easy. He was seething inside with something akin to panic. But his task now was to keep Ethel under control. “We both know that a Marriage of Convenience is nothing more than an affair that’s been given a sham of respectability. It won’t last long.”
He had to be careful, he reminded himself. Judging by the last message he had received from Rainshadow, the situation on the island was shaping up to be a disaster. He knew now that would be the best possible outcome for him. He wanted nothing more than to cut his losses.
It had all seemed so brilliant at the start. Zara Tucker had dazzled him with the promise of riches and power beyond his wildest imaginings. But in the past few days the scales had fallen from his eyes. He had awakened that morning with the sure and certain knowledge that he had been a fool. The best thing that could happen would be for the whole damn island to explode in flames and take the bitch with it.
But the immediate crisis was Ethel Whitcomb. She was obsessed with the death of her son, but obsession did not equate with stupidity. He must not forget that, not for an instant. Everything depended on Ethel. She was the matriarch of the Whitcomb family. She controlled a fortune, and now that things were falling apart on Rainshadow, he needed access to the money more than ever.
They were sitting in the living room of Ethel’s home in an exclusive gated community on Emerald Sunset Drive. The front windows had a panoramic view of the Old Quarter of Resonance City. The ethereal green towers of the Alien ruins were clearly visible, sparkling in the sunlight. But the interior of the Whitcomb mansion was shrouded in gloom.
When he had arrived a short time ago, he had been shown into Ethel’s study. The room was decorated in an elegantly neutral mix of off-white and cream with discreet touches of rich, dark amber for counterpoint. The space had been designed to showcase a few pieces from Ethel’s rare collection of Old World antiquities and First Generation art.
Ethel was a formidable woman, straight-shouldered, tall, arrogant, and regal. She wore her graying hair in a refined chignon. Her black silk trousers and pale blue silk blouse had been hand-tailored. She’d had a little work done on her patrician face, very good work. She could afford a fortune in jewels but she always kept her jewelry to a tasteful minimum. Today that amounted to a pair of gold and amber studs in her ears and a gold necklace.
She had been widowed for several years but she still wore her wedding band. Ethel had never remarried. Aldwin was quite sure that was because she enjoyed having full control of the Whitcomb money. And she handled it brilliantly. In the years since her husband’s death, she had become something of a legend in the business world. While Whitcomb Industries could not match the Sebastian, Inc. empire in size, scope, and power, it was certainly a force to be reckoned with here in Resonance City.
Aldwin had been a little unnerved at first by Ethel’s obsession with the murder of her son. It was not as if she didn’t have four other offspring, he thought. The Whitcombs were a prolific family. In any event, it was a known fact that Fulton Whitcomb had been the Whitcomb family screwup. That was, of course, what had made it so easy to manipulate him. Fulton’s obsession in life had been to prove to himself and his mother that he could be a smashing success.
Ethel’s fixation on Fulton’s death and her unwavering conviction that he had been murdered in spite of the lack of evidence struck Aldwin as over the top. But then, he did not really get the whole heavy-duty family-bond thing. Hell, his own mother probably wouldn’t have noticed if he’d gone missing. She had spent most of her time lost in an alcohol-and-drug-induced haze until the crap had finally killed her.
It was not that he did not have his own passions, Aldwin thought. He was only human, after all. But those passions were centered on one objective—making a place for himself in the rarefied social circles in which Ethel and her family moved. He had a right to enter that world. His father had come from that world—a realm where money and connections could buy a reckless young man out of any problem, including those that resulted from a one-night stand with a cheap, drug-addicted whore.
No doubt about it, his unknown father was his true, if unwitting, inspiration, Aldwin thought. He wanted nothing more than to follow in the footsteps of dear old dad. His talent had already brought him a long way. He had started out as a low-rent drug dealer from the Old Quarter slums and today he was the curator of the most exclusive private museum in the city.
