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Sullivan had no clue who that was. He didn’t sound local. “Did you see anyone suspicious outside?” He asked Steve. “Anyone about seven foot tall, with a mohawk maybe?” Sax would be hard to miss in a crowd.

“No way.” Steve shook his head, his eyes wide. “Nobody like that. Just the regular people, who I always see walking by in the mornings. We’re right next to the coffee shop, so the same folks walk by every day. Miss Peabody. Dr. Ashley. Mr. Quigley. Mr. Foster. Mrs.…”

Sullivan cut him off. “Ben Foster?”

“Ah ha!” Daven cried, like he’d just single-handedly solved the case.

“The human with the pink boat.” Mannus agreed grimly. “I knew it.”

Steve’s eyebrows lifted. “Um… Yeah, Mr. Foster was there, for sure. He’s one of our best customers.”

Chapter Twelve

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology.

Carl Sagan

“We don’t know that Ben is the one stalking Randa.” Rye leaned against the condominium’s wall, watching as Kahn carelessly ripped through the human’s belongings. “We could be destroying the home of an innocent man.”

“If he’s innocent, he’d be here to prove it.”

Rye looked skeptical. “You just hate Ben because he showed interest in Randa.”

“He didn’t ‘show interest in her.’” Kahn sneered. “He was salivating. His slimy human eyes crawled all over her.” To Kahn’s mind, that was more than enough justification for tracking the asshole down.

Unfortunately, Ben seemed to have vanished without a trace. His condo was a complete blank. Ben had a view of the Mayport Beach Marina off his third-story balcony, but there was nothing about the rest of the boxy space that hinted at any personality. No clutter. Nothing out of place. Not a single indication as to where Ben might have gone.

Kahn detested the guy even more for wasting his time.

He shredded Ben’s leather sofa cushions, fruitlessly looking for clues about the man’s whereabouts in the stuffing. They’d torn apart every room in the condo and found nothing, thus far. It pissed Kahn off.

“I’m just saying, it’s far more likely that Saxon is the stalker and that Ben is a distraction.”

Kahn shot him a look. “Ben had his slimy human eyes on Tallulah Jayne, too.”

Rye gave a grudging nod. “Yes, but I’ve risen above my annoyance over that. I don’t believe the human is a threat to Tallulah Jayne. I don’t believe anyone is a threat to Tallulah Jayne. She is a primal force of nature, unstoppable in her relentless cruelty. Nothing can stand against her adorable and ferocious might.”

Kahn grunted, unable to argue with Rye’s smitten prose. That human woman was scary as fuck. “You really believe that she’s your Match?”

Rye smiled. “I do. I begin to feel the Phazing energy already.”

Finding your Match meant a mix of physical and metaphysical changes. Your powers would start caressing each other. Deep feelings would develop very quickly, so you could provide love and care for your partner. A memory sharing occurred, allowing you to understand your Match better by witnessing key moments of their past. And obviously, there was the intense sexual need to complete Phazing and combine your individual energies into a new whole.

Kahn was glad that Rye got to experience all that. He was also jealous, because why shouldn’t Kahn get to experience it, too? And he was frustrated, because he didn’t imagine experiencing it with some faceless stranger.

No, he imagined experiencing it with Randa.

The woman wasn’t even speaking to him. Last night, he’d felt like they were making real progress, but then Isaacs had ruined it all. Randa was cooking that bastard dinner! Kahn couldn’t believe it. Who cooked dinner for an Air Phase? Randa, that’s who. Now she was angry that Kahn was angry, and so she was back to ignoring him again.

Kahn had decided to let Mannus and Daven act as her bodyguards, while he and Rye took over the stalker investigation. If he wasn’t in Randa’s presence, he couldn’t mess anything else up with her. Maybe she’d forgive him faster. It was worth a try.

Being away from her was harder than he’d anticipated, though. He was antsy to see her again, even if she was frowning at him. She had a beautiful frown. Everything about her was very, very beautiful.

And very, very good.

It was shameful how badly he’d misjudged her. Randa could never conspire with Parald. She was gentle and kind, even when people didn’t deserve it. She defended the Light Phases. She evidently saw some redeeming qualities in Isaacs. For Gaia’s sake, the woman had protected Raj, of the Color House after he threw an egg at her in the grocery store!