Chapter 3
Seven years later.
The phone buzzed for the third time. A news reporter on the wall screen in front of the bed was still elaborating on the death of Detective Adamson.
Madeline stared at the phone. ‘No Caller ID’ appeared on its small screen. “How do you know it’s Stefan? It could be Jo.”
On the other side of the bed, Ciaran tossed his clothes on. Madeline winced. The two bullet wounds and the five gashes on his body hadn’t had a chance to heal. Not that she was one to complain about the explosive sex they’d just had—that certainly hadn’t helped his recovery—but she wished they had more time to let him rest.
“If it’s Jo, she’ll leave a message,” Ciaran said.
“Jo said she was going to your London headquarters. We don’t know if she was with Adamson when Stefan killed him.” She knew she was talking nonsense again. She tended to babble when she was nervous. And she had every right to be.
Ten years in journalism should have taught her better than letting herself be used by Stefan to get inside Mon Ciel. Stefan had killed Mrs. Rutherford and had shot Ciaran and Tadgh and then fled without getting what he wanted.
Stefan had arranged the kidnapping of Jo. Madeline should have anticipated what he would do when blackmailing Ciaran didn’t help him obtain the information he wanted. He would kidnap Jo again. Damn it! Madeline cursed to herself.
“If he hasn’t had a chance to talk to me, he won’t get to demand anything. He will keep Jo alive because she’s his currency now, am I right?” she asked Ciaran again, more to reassure herself that she was doing the right thing.
Ciaran headed toward the door, and she trailed behind him. He said nothing but headed down the hall toward the old section of Mon Ciel. The phone in Madeline’s hand had stopped buzzing.
Ciaran stopped in front of a double-doored room. The rusty handles suggested it hadn’t had visitors for a while. He gazed briefly at the handles. A flash of pain crossed his eyes, so quickly that Madeline didn’t notice.
Ciaran cleared his throat, a tell-tale sign that he was about to say something difficult for him. “This used to be my room,” Ciaran said and shoved his hands in his pockets.
She nodded and waited patiently for the next bit of information.
“Juliette died in here. I left Mon Ciel after that incident. The room—the whole place, in fact—was deserted after that. We still have maintenance staff. But the family rarely comes back here.”
She pulled one of his hands from his pocket and rubbed her thumb in his palm. She didn’t know when or why she had developed that habit, but she often did it to herself whenever she needed to stay calm. She hadn’t realized she was doing it to Ciaran, but by the time she noticed, it was too late. He was watching her gesture with a twinkle in his eyes.
“If the memories are too painful, why dig them up? What are you looking for here, Ciaran?”
She pulled her hand away. But he grabbed it and held on for a short moment before giving it a slight squeeze. Then he sighed and let her hand go.
“There are two places in the house that Stefan didn’t search. One is this room, and the other is the old lab. He believed Juliette hid the crucifix in a statue, which suggests she didn’t tell him much.”
Ciaran turned, facing her now. “Before we enter this room, I need to tell you something.”
He proceeded to tell her about the incident in which Juliette died.
“I didn’t return to the room afterward. Mother told me it hadn’t been cleaned up because she thought I wouldn’t care for that. What I’m looking for in the room is a trace of the air bender. He had some kind of connection to Juliette. Maybe he controlled her in some way to learn our family secrets. He might be controlling Stefan now. If we can trace him, we’ll have the upper hand when we talk to Stefan.”
Madeline nodded. “I didn’t realize Stefan had anything to do with aliens. Not that I know anything about him . . .”
Ciaran smiled. “An air bender doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with extraterrestrials. It could be some kind of an earthly talent.”
Madeline scowled. “I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t. It would be strange for you to know about these sort of things.” Ciaran chuckled. “I know because it’s my field of interest, and I research the topic quite extensively.”
“I know, but it still doesn’t make me feel any less stupid.”
“Humm. How about this explanation? It has to do with dimensions. You know our standard three-dimensional world.”
“Yes—vertical, horizontal, depth. And time is another dimension, I hear.” She grinned.
“You see, you’re not too bad after all. Anything with a status of being that changes constitutes a dimension. Our mind is a dimension, for example.”
“Like we are changing our minds all the time?”
Ciaran laughed. “No. That’s an ingrained human psychological problem. Status of mind is more like a perception of the world in general. Let’s say you believe this world is heaven, and you behave accordingly. That’s your status of mind. When that status changes, it constitutes a dimension.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“There are people who have the ability to influence other people’s status of mind. They can use their talent to manipulate people and drive their behavior.”
“Like hypnotizing people?”
Ciaran shook his head. “I’d call people with that talent mind benders. They can change your mind’s dimension by simply wanting you to do so. They can see your mind.”
“See it?”
“Yes. If it’s their talent, the minds of others become tangible to them. They manipulate it however they want, just like you steer a car. The same deal with the air bender. He can see the air and manipulate it. That man turned the air into hands, and it did whatever he wanted it to do. It almost strangled me.”
Madeline nodded, thinking about her psychic blue dots. “Are there many like that around?”
“I don’t know, Madeline. But this air bender had a light circle around him . . .” He shook his head. “I haven’t given it much thought. I didn’t know much back then, but maybe the light circle was a holocast.”
“A what?”
“It’s like a broadcast of a hologram”
“Like in Star Wars?”
Ciaran chuckled. “Not quite. But yes, I can accept that explanation for now. Anyway, I think we have enough information to go inside the room.”
She nodded. She wasn’t nervous or anything, but Ciaran wrapped his arm around her protectively and pushed the doors open.
Holy cow! That was all she could think of. She froze.