Boris’s ears flattened. She gave his side a reassuring rub. “Well, nothing’s happened here. I’d know if it had.” Wouldn’t she? “In any case, you must have seen the headlines. The escape Wainwright and two other inmates engineered three months ago resulted in a smashed helicopter and the remains of three dead bodies. And don’t tell me Wainwright couldn’t be positively identified, because both the police and the FBI were satisfied he was among the fatalities. Story’s dead, and so is he.”
“Dentures aren’t proof positive in my opinion, and no Wainwright-related story is ever dead. If it were, would I still be living in exile under a new name?”
Swallowing a snarl, Jasmine started for the kitchen. “Daniel, if you called to give me heebie-jeebies because you’re bored with your new life, I’m hanging up. I watched people die protecting me from the hornet’s nest you agitated just as the cops were about to close in.”
“Hey, all I did was nudge the investigation along.”
“Hanging up,” she warned.
“No, don’t. Listen, Jas, I do know that a handful of people who should be alive today have died during the six weeks since Ballard’s funeral. Wainwright’s chopper went down three months ago, right?”
Pausing, she rested her back on the kitchen door frame as another bolt of lightning shot through the sky. Wisdom told her she should disconnect. But Daniel had never been an alarmist. He wouldn’t have contacted her without a very good reason.
“Okay, I give up,” she relented. “Who besides the captain—and his death was absolutely of natural causes—has died?” Her eyes went up as thunder rolled like a slow-motion wave from ceiling to floor. “Better make it fast. The storm here’s getting worse.”
“Here, too,” he returned above the static. “The answer is two of Wainwright’s top executives, as well as the assistant D.A. of San Diego.”
Boris wandered through the kitchen, sniffed the air. Watching him, Jasmine offered a cautious “Go on.”
“The trial judge’s sister-in-law.”
“Don’t you think in-laws are a bit of a stretch?”
“Not done yet. One of the investigating officers under Captain Ballard, a man who was an integral part of the security team, got word that his uncle was knifed in a New Orleans alley a few days ago. And here’s the kicker. I can’t get hold of my contact.”
“Maybe he’s on vacation.”
Daniel’s protracted silence elicited a sigh.
“Fine, things have happened. And you know about them because…?”
“Sources, Jas, plus a little hacking prowess I’ve acquired.”
Boris gave a short bark as lightning speared down once more. Pushing off, Jasmine crossed to the back door and checked the dead bolt.
“I assume you think one of Wainwright’s people is out for blood.”
“One of his people, one of his South American counterpart’s people or, hell, even Wainwright himself.”
“Stretching, Daniel.” She observed the light show through the door’s half window. “People like Wainwright never do their own dirty work. Especially if they’re dead.” Boris had gone rigid beside her. “What is it?” she asked with a frown.
He gave two quick barks. Not a warning, but—something.
“Jasmine?” She could barely hear Daniel now. “Whatever’s unfolding here, I’m worried. About you more than me—even though I’m the one who got the raven’s feathers.”
“What raven’s feathers?” she demanded. “Daniel, are you drunk?”
“I wish. You need to call someone you can trust. And no, I’m not going to name names, because even if we have been divorced for three years, I still care about you. Hell, I love you. So don’t expect me to suggest you put your life, or any other part of you, in someone else’s hands.”
Now a very different set of memories popped into her head, though truthfully, they’d been swimming on the fringe since the thunder had started.
“Will it make you feel better if I contact Ballard’s replacement?”
“Sorry…can’t hear you.” Daniel’s voice faded in and out on elastic bands of static. “For the record, and just in case the feathers are for real, I’m…”
Interference took over.
“Daniel?” She quieted Boris. “Where are you?”
“Raven’s Cove… Maine.”
So close? She’d expected him to be in some innocuous Midwestern town.
“Ballard’s replacement’s in San Diego,” he continued. “That’s a country’s width away from Massachusetts. I’m not sure who’s in your area, but, well, do what you have to do to stay safe.”
His frustration came through loud and clear.
“Whatever you decide, just keep away…too dangerous…don’t believe in gobbledygook as such, but I did get those feathers, and there’s a raven…local legend says…certain death…”
The rest of his sentence was swallowed up in a sizzle of sound that had Jasmine jerking the handset from her ear a second time.
“Daniel?” she tried from a distance.
But there was only fuzzy noise. And a moment later not even that as both the lights and her phone went dead.
* * *
HE LINGERED FOR AN exhilarating moment in the rain and gusting wind. Lingered and savored and visualized the prize.
There’d been no hitches so far, no obstacles thrown down that he couldn’t handle. They would come, though, and from more than one direction, because it was the woman’s turn now. Her long-overdue, highly anticipated turn.
Anger bubbled like hot acid. But he needed to maintain control, fight for balance. He couldn’t allow a single wrong emotion to slip in or out.
Lightning directly above fractured the night. Watching it fade, he ramped up his resolve, shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and prepared to set the wheels of Jasmine Ellis’s death in motion.
* * *
JASMINE WONDERED DISTANTLY how her mother, her only family, would react to Daniel’s call.
Colleen Ellis had been forty-four years old when she’d marched into a sperm bank and been impregnated. Time was right, she’d decided. Her tenure at Harvard was secure, and her internal clock was winding down.
She’d taught art history for twenty-five years after Jasmine’s birth, then she’d packed up her hiking boots and cameras and headed for Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster.
Confirming the existence of at least one legendary
