There was no suspicion or disbelief in his voice, she decided. He was simply looking for evidence.
“I don’t know if I can explain…Wait…”
She could not look away from the mirror. A searingly sharp memory slammed home and locked into place…
…She was standing beside Travis in the chambers of the judge who had arranged for the hasty Covenant Marriage license. One of the witnesses, a stranger, handed her a pen and showed her where to sign.
Something was wrong. The room was enveloped in a strange gray fog. She did not want to sign the papers, but Travis was telling her that it was necessary. He loved her. She would be safe with him. That didn’t feel right, though. Yes, she was supposed to feel safe with him, but she didn’t…
For a few seconds the fog lifted. She looked at Travis’s hand wrappedaround her upper arm and saw the diamond amber face of his watch. It was pulsing with energy—Travis’s energy. “Where did you get that?” she asked…
She was still processing the memory when Sebastian chortled and wriggled out of her grasp. She realized she had been clutching him like a life preserver. He bounced up onto the table and gave himself a brisk shake to fluff up. His sunglasses flew off. He recovered them immediately and used two paws to plunk them back onto his furry head.
Owen sat quietly, watching her. Waiting.
It dawned on her that she now had a new problem. Claiming they were watching her supposedly dead husband help someone else haul her off to Serenity Gardens might be enough to convince Owen that Kelbrook was right—that she truly was delusional. She had no solid evidence that the man in the video was Travis.
She eyed the distance to the door. Her go bag was on the small console at the entrance. If they moved quickly, she and Sebastian might have a chance. It was easy to get lost in Illusion Town. But first she would have to deal with Owen. She was reluctant to use her talent to put him under—the man had rescued her tonight—but she did not have a lot of options. If she went back to Serenity Gardens a second time, she might not be able to escape again.
“You don’t have to run,” Owen said mildly. “What I said earlier still holds. We have a mutual agenda and both of us will be safer if we stick together. We can watch each other’s back.”
Bracing herself, she turned to him. He was sitting very close, within easy reach. But he wasn’t watching her as if he feared she might suddenly grab his arm, rez her talent, and overwhelm him with nightmares. He wasn’t even looking at her now. He had turned back to the screen of the mirror camera. He was studying it and riffing a drum roll on the table with his left hand.
She suddenly felt awkward. Almost embarrassed. As if it was rude to doubt his good intentions.
“I wasn’t thinking of running,” she mumbled.
“Yes, you were, and I don’t blame you. Go, if you feel you must, but as the only friend you’ve currently got besides Sebastian, I’m telling you it would be a bad idea.”
She glanced at Sebastian. Seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, he bounded back to the windowsill and resumed his deep study of the heavy fog. He was not at all concerned about Owen.
She made her decision.
“To be clear,” she said, “I do have other friends.”
“Right. And grateful clients.”
“But I’m not going anywhere. Not yet. I’m feeling a little unsteady, that’s all. It’s hard to think clearly when you’re consumed by strong, unbalanced emotions.”
“No kidding,” Owen said. “You’re furious with yourself because you didn’t realize Poole was a con. You feel naive. Gullible. Foolish.”
That hurt, she thought, but it was the cold, hard truth and it had a therapeutic effect. It yanked her out of the state of shock that had descended on her when she realized that her worst nightmares during the past ten months had been presenting her with glimpses of the truth. The visions of monsters looming over her, injecting her with some unknown substance, and carrying her away into endless darkness had all been real. Travis had lied to her from the start, and she had fallen for his big con. And to add insult to injury, she couldn’t even remember all the lies.
“I was an idiot,” she said. “How could I have let him deceive me so easily?”
“Anyone can be taken in by a con artist, especially one with some serious talent for the work. The critical questions are, why were you targeted and for what purpose?”
“I have no idea.” She looked up from the screen. “But I’ve got another question. Assuming I’m right and that’s Travis in the video, who was the man who jumped off the roof of the hotel that night? According to the police reports and the media, it was Poole who died. Kelbrook apparently believed that to be true, too. He claimed Travis as a long-lost relative. But that’s Travis in the video and he’s certainly not dead.”
“Yet.”
“What do you mean?”
Owen contemplated the screen for a long moment. “The likely scenario is that Poole died sometimeafteryou were taken away in the ambulance.”
“But he was supposed to have jumped off the roofbeforeI was picked up by the ambulance crew. His death was thereasonI was hauled away to Serenity Gardens in the middle of the night. I was the deranged bride who had gone mad and used my monstrous talent to murder my husband.”
“Let’s take this one step at a time. Why are you involved in this thing in the first place? It’s possible you were chosen as the target because you were alone in the world. The Ballantine Academy had closed. You were grieving the loss of your mentor and the only home you had ever known. You had no traceable family, no husband, no one who might demand answers if you disappeared. In short, you were vulnerable.”
