AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shit.”
“Yes, well, you’re quite welcome.”
He groaned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know. You’re pissed because you’re a little embarrassed, or maybe you think you owe me. It’s okay. We’re partners, remember? You saved my life yesterday at the Geddings house. If I’d gone down those stairs on my own I would have hit the trip wire.” She paused for emphasis. “And I would have gone down those stairs.”
“Partners,” he said.
He drank some coffee while he tried to come to grips with theword; tried to understand why it still felt off somehow. Not wrong, but not right, either. He was probably overthinking things.
“How do you feel?” she asked, studying him with a critical eye.
“A lot better than I probably look.” He raised one hand to the side of his face and grimaced when he felt the stubble. “I need to shower and shave.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She checked the time. “Why don’t I meet you downstairs in about half an hour? We’ll grab some breakfast and then figure out how we’re going to break into Fenner’s house. It’s still early. I assume we will want to wait until we know for sure he’s at the Institute.”
“Right.” He finished the last of his coffee, set the empty cup on the table, got to his feet, and headed for the door. “Thanks.”
She watched him cross the room, frowning a little in concern. “Are you sure you feel all right?”
“Yes,” he said, aware that he had spoken much too sharply. He had no reason to be irritated. He needed to take the advice he had given her and practice gratitude. “I know I look like hell warmed over, but I feel fine, really.”
“I’m guessing you’re not a morning person,” she said, amused.
He ignored that, but a thought intruded. He paused, one hand wrapped around the doorknob. “That was the first good night’s sleep I’ve had since San Diego. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Any idea how long the effects will last?”
“No. Sorry. For obvious reasons I haven’t had much opportunity to run experiments with that particular side effect of my talent. Turns out balancing a person’s energy is a little more complicated than adjusting the energy flow in a room. It’s also a lot more unpredictable, because the individual keeps generating fresh energy.”
“Makes sense,” he said.
He moved out into the hall, shut the door, and went downstairs to shower and shave. Time to focus on the day’s agenda: break into Conrad Fenner’s house, take a look around, and don’t get arrested. Also, it would be good to have a plan B.
He realized that for the first time in a very long while he actually was able to focus. It was amazing what a good night’s sleep could do for a man.
CHAPTER THIRTY
So much forplan A,” Ambrose said. “Fenner didn’t go into the office today. Looks like we’ll be going with plan B.”
Pallas studied the car parked in the drive in front of the house that Fenner had rented. When she and Ambrose had realized that Fenner was still home they had decided on a confrontation instead of B and E. Their car was now also parked in the drive. She was surprised Fenner had not emerged from the house to demand an explanation.
“Do you really think he’ll let us in, offer us coffee, and tell us what’s going on at the Institute?” she said.
“What I think,” Ambrose said, “is that we’ll get some information out of him when we tell him we know that Brooke Kendrick was the other patient booked into the clinic the night I was there and that she disappeared and we want a statement from him before we go live with the podcast.”
“In other words, we’re going to threaten him,” Pallas said. “You’re hoping he’ll panic and tell us everything he knows.”
“Maybe not everything, but, with luck, something.”
They started toward the porch. The house Fenner had rentedstood alone at the end of a side road on the outskirts of Carnelian. It was desperately in need of fresh paint and some carpentry work. The wooden railing around the front porch was broken in places, and the lawn had long since been colonized by some aggressive weeds. Faded curtains drooped across the windows. The only thing that looked remotely new was Fenner’s late-model car parked in the driveway.
There was no doorbell. Ambrose raised his hand to rap on the flaking wood panels. “I’m guessing Fenner doesn’t do a lot of entertaining at home.”
Pallas shuddered. “Having met him, I think I can safely say the man is not the sociable type.”
