moved into the main room. The lack of sales had not stopped a few desperate homeowners from listing their properties with Spaulding Properties. Unappealing photos of a handful of aged cabins and the old Zander mansion adorned the wall.
He disregarded the mansion because, although it was no longer an active crime scene, it had become a grisly attraction for tourists and thrill seekers. It would not make a good place to hold Isabella and Walker.
He slipped into his other senses and studied the half-dozen featured listings with the cold-blooded logic of a killer. Swiftly he calculated distances from Walker’s house, the degree of geographical isolation offered by the various properties and the proximity to the two locations in the area that provided the kind of powerful, reliable currents required to drag two bodies out to sea and make sure that the evidence disappeared.
Tremont would not use the Point, he concluded. It was too close to Scargill Cove. There was a serious risk that someone in town would see her and her companion, even in the midst of a storm. That left the second location, the blowhole site. The surf was violent there, and the currents were extreme. In the summer it was a popular tourist attraction. There was a convenient turnout.
In the end, one cabin stood out as the obvious choice. Certainty whispered through him.
He yanked the listing sheet off the wall and headed for the door. Although he was ninety-nine-point-two percent sure of his calculations, there was a small, but very real, possibility that he was wrong. He had to cover all the bases. Isabella’s life was at stake. He opened his phone.
Henry answered halfway through the first ring.
“Six possible locations where she might be keeping Isabella and Walker,” Fallon said. “I’m taking one. I’ll read you the list of the other five properties. They’re all empty cabins along the bluffs. You and the others check them. No one goes alone, understood?”
“Guns?” Henry asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Fallon said. “Take guns. And the dogs. They know Isabella. If she’s in one of those cabins, they’ll tell you.”
“Those dogs love Isabella. They’ll rip out the throat of anyone who tries to hurt her.”
34
Isabella dreamed . . .
She was waltzing with Fallon, wearing her lovely midnight-blue gown and her black crystal shoes. Fallon was resplendent in his black-and-white tux, the ultimate power suit.
They circled the glittering ballroom to the strains of the relentless beat. She should have been deliriously happy, but everything seemed wrong.
The ballroom was painfully bright, lit up with paranormal radiation from the most disturbing sectors of the spectrum. The senses-dazzling glare made it impossible to see the other dancers or the musicians. On top of that, the music was extremely annoying. She found herself wishing that it would stop.
And Fallon was not being at all lover-like. He looked at her with eyes that were hot and dangerous with psi fever.
“I’m on my way, Isabella. You do whatever you have to do to stay alive until I get to you. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I hear you. But what about the music?”
“Find the source and turn it off.”
“How do I do that?”
“That’s your problem. You’re a J&J agent. You’re supposed to figure these things out on your own.”
She frowned, thinking. “But you’re not really here with me, are you?”
“No.”
“Then how can you be talking to me? There’s no such thing as telepathy.”
“True,” Fallon said. “But you know me well enough to know what I’d be saying to you if I were there with you.”
“Right.”
She looked around, trying to bring the ballroom into focus, searching for the source of the music. She could do this. She had a talent for finding things.
She came awake to the muffled sound of pounding rain and booming surf. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying on a hardwood floor. She was cold and stiff. When she tried to move, she discovered that her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. Mercifully, there was no tape across her mouth. Unfortunately, the obvious conclusion was that the kidnappers were not worried about her screaming. That, in turn, implied that the cabin was a long way from any source of help.
The music was still playing, but it was fainter now. She turned her head and saw the still shape of Walker lying beside her. He, too, was bound hand and foot.
She finally spotted the Victorian music box. It sat on a nearby table. The dancing figures were barely turning. The clockwork mechanism