Raintree: Inferno (Raintree 1)

“When you’re ready,” he said, holding her gaze a moment longer. Then he dropped his hand and nodded toward the fast-food restaurant. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

He had his door open and was getting out when, in tones of astonishment, she said, “You brought me to get breakfast at McDonald’s?”

“It’s those gold enarches,” he said. “They get to me every time.”

SEVENTEEN

“They’re going into McDonald’s,” one of the Ansara watchers reported.

“Sit tight,” said Ruben McWilliams, sitting on the bed in his motel room. Why the hell didn’t motels put the damn phone on the stupid little table so a man could sit in a chair when he talked on the phone, instead of sitting hunched over on an uncomfortable mattress? “Keep them in sight, but don’t get any closer. Something spooked him. Let me know when they leave.”

Something had prompted Raintree to abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic and take the exit ramp at seventy miles an hour, but Ruben doubted it was a sudden urge for a McMuffin. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t have gone another couple of exits and found another McDonald’s, without the dangerous maneuver.

He didn’t think it was anything his people had d

one that had caused the aberrant behavior, but he wasn’t on-site, so he couldn’t be certain. His people were supposed to watch and follow, that was all. Raintree wasn’t a clairvoyant, so he shouldn’t have picked up any warning that way, but he could have had a premonition. Premonition was such a common ability, even ordinary humans had it. Raintree might have felt a twinge of uneasiness, but because he was one of the gifted, he would never dismiss the warning; he would act on it, where most ordinary humans would not.

Since there had been no immediate danger—that would come later—maybe he’d sensed an accident in his immediate future if he stayed on the interstate, so he’d gotten off at the next exit. That was possible. There were always variables.

Staging the planned incident hadn’t been possible on such short notice. They hadn’t known when Raintree would leave his house, or where he would go when he did. Now that they had a tail on him, they could direct the amigos to him wherever he was; then they would fall back and let the amigos do their job.

Over a McMuffin, Dante said, “Tell me exactly what you felt when you were in my office.”

Lorna sipped her coffee, thinking. After the weird feelings she’d had in the car, she’d wanted something hot to drink, even though Dante had dispelled all the physical chill. The heat of the coffee couldn’t touch the remnant of mental chill she still felt, but it was comforting anyway.

She searched through her memory. It was normally excellent anyway, but everything had happened so recently that the details were still fresh in her mind. “You scared the crap out of me,” she finally replied.

“Because you’d been caught cheating?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately go on.

“I didn’t cheat,” she insisted, scowling at him. “Knowing something isn’t the same as cheating. But, no, it wasn’t that. Once, in Chicago, I was going home one night and was about to take a shortcut through an alley. I used the alley a lot—so did a bunch of people. But that night, I couldn’t. I froze. Have you ever felt a fear so intense it made you sick? It was like that. I backed out of the alley and took another way home. The next morning a woman’s mutilated body was found in that alley.”

“Presentiment,” he said. “A gift that saved your life.”

“I felt the same way when I saw you.” She saw by his expression that he didn’t like that at all, but he’d asked, so she told him. “I felt as if this huge force just…slammed into me. I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid I’d pass out. But then you said something, and the panic went away.”

He sat back in the booth, frowning. “You weren’t in any danger from me. Why would you have such a strong reaction?”

“You’re the expert. You tell me.”

“My first reaction to you was that I wanted you naked. Unless you’re terrified of sex, and I don’t think you are—” he gave her a hooded look that had her nipples tightening again “—you weren’t picking up anything from me that would cause you to feel that way.”

Heat again pooled low in her belly, and it wasn’t from the coffee. Because they were in McDonald’s and there was a four-year-old sitting in the booth behind her, she looked away and forcibly removed her thoughts from going to bed with him. “At least part of it was from you,” she insisted. “I remember thinking that even the air felt different, alien, something I’d never felt before. When you got closer, I could tell the feeling came from you. You’re a dangerous man, Raintree.”

He just watched her, waiting for her to continue, because he couldn’t accurately deny that particular charge.

“I could feel you,” she said, her voice low as she became mired in the memory. “Pulling at me, almost like a touch. The candles were going wild. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move.”

“I was touching you,” he said. “In my imagination, anyway.”

Remembering how she’d been snagged by his sexual fantasy, drawn in, stole her breath. “I knew something was wrong,” she whispered. “I wasn’t in control. I felt as if I’d been caught in a power surge that kept blinking out, and then coming back, pushing me off balance. Then I got so cold, just like in the car. Not a normal cold, with chill bumps and shivering, but something so intense it made my bones hurt. Then that feeling of dread came back, the same feeling I had in the alley. You were talking about how I was sensitive to the currents in the room—”

“I was talking about sexual currents,” he said wryly. “The summer solstice is in a few days, and control is more difficult when there’s so much sunshine. That’s why the candles were dancing. I was turned on, and my power kept flaring.”

Lorna thought about that. She’d been attracted to him from the first moment she’d looked him in the eyes. Regardless of the fear and panic she’d felt at first, when she had met his gaze, she’d fallen headlong into lust. The debilitating coldness had come afterward and hadn’t affected her physical response to him, because when the coldness left, the attraction remained—unchanged.

“The cold went away,” she said. “Like something had been pressing me into the chair and then suddenly was gone. I thought I might fall out of the chair, because I’d been pushing back so hard, and all of a sudden the pressure was gone. That was it. We talked some more, and then the fire alarm went off. End of scene, beginning of even more weirdness.”

“And you felt the same thing in the car?”