LITMIR.BIZ

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you’re here for,” Raine McAllister said, “whoever sent you, I really can’t help you.”

      She had stopped pushing against the door with her slender strength. She simply stood there, her eyes holding his, her face as empty of expression as her voice had been of emotion.

      “Montgomery Gardner.”

      Before he had completed the enunciation of the last name, her face changed. Then, exactly as the old man’s had two nights ago, her eyes seemed to focus on something other than the present. After perhaps five seconds, she closed her mouth, pressing her lips together before she stepped back, opening the door wide enough for Ethan to step through.

      Chapter Two

      “Exactly what does Mr. Gardner think I can do for you?”

      After directing him to the couch, Raine McAllister had perched on an ottoman that belonged to one of the two tall fan chairs in the sunroom she’d led him to. Although there was no ocean view from here, the atmosphere created by white wicker furniture, with its pale-green and yellow cushions, left no doubt this was a beach house.

      The room was both elegant and comfortable. During the day, it would be full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Tonight their jalousies had been closed against the darkness, but with the woodwork painted white and the walls a nearly colorless shell pink, the effect was still spacious and airy.

      “I’m trying to gather information about The Covenant.”

      There was a heartbeat of silence. Ethan wasn’t sure if that was because she didn’t recognize the name or because she was reluctant to reveal to a stranger that she knew anything about the organization.

      Given the cloak of secrecy that shrouded The Covenant’s operations and considering how dangerous he believed the group to be, either was a possibility. He was hopeful, of course, that the latter of the two explanations was the one that made her hesitate.

      “That’s why he sent you? To find out if I can provide you with information about… I’m sorry. What was it? A covenant?”

      Despite what the old man had implied, Raine McAllister seemed genuinely puzzled by the reference. The sinking feeling in the pit of Ethan’s stomach reflected his disappointment.

      “The Covenant,” Ethan corrected. “He gave me your name and address and indicated you might be able to help with an ongoing investigation that otherwise, quite frankly, seems to have reached a dead end.”

      “So…Mr. Gardner sent you here for my help, but he didn’t tell you how or why I might be able to give it? And you didn’t ask.”

      He couldn’t quite read her tone. Bemused, perhaps? Or maybe amused, he amended. Because he’d come all the way down here from Washington based only on an old man’s recommendation that she might be able to help him?

      At the same time he was aware that he’d been let in only because he’d invoked the name of Montgomery Gardner. He didn’t want to destroy whatever advantage that had given him by saying something that could be construed as derogatory about the old man. Not before he was sure this really was the wild-goose chase he was beginning to believe it might be.

      “Since Mr. Gardner is both a former DCI and a lifelong resident of the D.C. area, when he suggested I talk to you, I assumed you had either worked at the agency or had some specialized knowledge that he believed might be useful.”

      There was a moment’s hesitation, as she appeared to think about what he’d just said.

      “I suppose in a way I did work for him. I guess I just never looked at it like that.”

      “You didn’t consider what you did at the agency work?”

      Even as he posed the question, he was trying to figure out how this woman could have worked for Monty Gardner, whose tenure at the CIA had ended almost twenty-five years ago. He would have guessed her to be in her late twenties. Early thirties at the outside. In either case, she would have been far too young to have been an operative during the old man’s regime.

      “As far as I was concerned, we played games.”

      “Games?”

      “They’d point to some place on a map, and I’d describe to them what was there.”

      Suddenly everything he hadn’t understood when she’d opened the door clicked into place. And he felt like a fool that he hadn’t put it together sooner.

      Short of divine intervention or clairvoyance, Griff had said, I’m not sure how we pierce that veil of secrecy. And in response, the old man had denied any special pull with the Divinity and had suggested they contact this woman.

      Both he and Griff had missed the significance of the thing Gardner hadn’t denied knowledge of. Clairvoyance. Raine McAllister was a clairvoyant.

      Ethan knew very little about the CIA’s experimentation with parapsychology—other than the fact that it had occurred in response to the Soviet Union’s psychic research. And the time frame in which it had taken place fit into the era when Gardner had been the head of the agency, he realized.

      It even made sense of the picture in the old man’s file. It was obvious Raine had been a little girl when she’d taken part in those experiments.

      There was something about the exploitation of a child, despite the genuine concerns about national security during those years, that troubled him. It must have bothered Gardner, as well. Why else would he have kept in touch with this woman all this time?

      “You were part of the CIA’s psychic research program.”

      He had thought the old man must be onto something, especially in view of what had happened after his and Griff’s visit. Now it seemed that must have occurred, not because Gardner had any information to share, but simply because they’d asked him if he did.

      “Something which, judging from your tone, has apparently fallen out of favor,” she suggested.

      “A long time ago,” he said. “Probably because it didn’t prove to be as valuable as they’d hoped. I never realized the project involved children.”

      His discomfort with that scenario undoubtedly showed. She smiled as if amused at his naiveté.

      “I take it Mr. Gardner also failed to mention what I was doing before they brought me to Langley.”

      There was an almost challenging tilt to Raine’s chin. Ethan wasn’t sure where she was headed with the question, but since Gardner had given him no clue about her, either before or after she’d been involved with the CIA, he told her the truth.

      “He said nothing about you beyond his hope that you could help with the matter I mentioned. Information about The Covenant.”

      “Maybe he was trying to spare me embarrassment.”

      “Embarrassment?” Where the hell was this going?

      “I told fortunes. Read palms and auras. I even read the cards.”

      “Tarot?”

      Despite the polite tone of his question, Ethan was furious at how much time he’d wasted coming down here. What she was saying now was only what he’d expected when he had finally realized her connection with the agency. Carnival sideshow quackery.

      “Occasionally I’d see something about the person I was reading that was…tragic. The first beating I ever got was for telling someone they were going to die,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t know any better. I didn’t understand the concept of entertaining the customer.”

      The word beating had tightened the muscles in his stomach, although it had been uttered without any inflection. Maybe she’d used the term in jest. An exaggeration of the spankings that were fairly typical methods of discipline when they’d both been children. Something in her eyes belied that comforting thought.

      “So you see, I liked playing

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