White Lies (6 page)

Clare had been raised by her mother, Gwen Lancaster, an accountant, and her great-aunt, May Flood, in the San Francisco Bay area. She had a degree in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He knew enough about the reputation of that branch of the UC system to be aware that she had probably emerged with not only a respectable education but a slightly offbeat view of the world, as well.

He paid attention to that small fact because here in Arizona, Glazebrooks were not inclined to be offbeat. They were pillars of the community, active in civic, business and charitable affairs.

He dug a little deeper into the files and found the item he was looking for. There was a small note to the effect that following graduation Clare had applied to work for the West Coast branch of Jones & Jones. Her application was rejected.

In the intervening years she had applied several more times. And been rejected several more times.

Following her failure to obtain a position at J&J, Clare had gone to work for a small nonprofit foundation. She stayed there three years before accepting a managerial position in the larger, more prestigious Draper Trust.

The Draper Trust was a private foundation that specialized in making grants to organizations that worked with battered women and homeless families, and in the fields of early childhood health and education. She had evidently been very successful at the trust. At least, that had been true until six months ago. That was when she was questioned in connection with the murder of Brad McAllister.

When she had returned home to San Francisco she was fired from her position at the Draper Trust. Her engagement to another executive at the trust, Greg Washburn, ended at the same time. She had spent the intervening months searching for a new position in the charitable foundation world without any luck. She had also sent another application to the West Coast branch of J&J.

Rejected again.

Jake did a quick search on Greg Washburn in the Arcane Society records. There were a few Washburns listed, but not the Gregory R. Washburn who had been Clare’s fiancé. She tried to fake it with a nonsensitive, he thought, just as he tried to do with Sylvia.

That gave them something in common. They both knew that very few members of the Arcane Society were interested in marrying a level-ten exotic of any kind, let alone a hunter or a human lie detector. They had each gone outside the community to find mates. The results had been spectacular failures for both of them.

He sat back in his chair and sipped the scotch, thinking.

After a while he pulled up the data on Brad McAllister’s murder.

There was a good deal of information available because McAllister’s death had been big news among the country club set in Stone Canyon. Most of the material was unhelpful, however, and superficial at best. The investigation had gone nowhere.

Clare had given a statement to the police but was never an official suspect. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out why she was cleared so quickly, he thought. She was, after all, Archer Glazebrook’s daughter. No one affiliated with the Stone Canyon Police Department would have been eager to press an investigation without solid evidence. It would have been a career-breaking move.

He sipped more scotch and thought about what Clare had told him. She had called Brad evil and claimed he was responsible for Elizabeth’s nervous breakdown. That was pretty heavy stuff. It was also the first hint of negative gossip he’d picked up concerning Elizabeth’s sainted husband. As far as the rest of Stone Canyon was concerned, Brad had been a damn near perfect husband.

But what if Archer Glazebrook had suspected that Elizabeth had been abused? Jake didn’t doubt for a moment that Archer was capable of gunning down a son-in-law if he thought said son-in-law had done something terrible to one of his children. Archer grew up on a ranch and spent time in the military. He knew guns.

The problem was that Archer, Myra and Elizabeth had all been seen at the Arts Academy reception that evening. There was no shortage of witnesses.

Then again, how hard would it be to slip away from a crowded reception long enough to kill someone who was only a couple miles away?

Jake pulled up the Bradley B. McAllister file. There wasn’t much of interest in it.

McAllister and his mother, Valerie, were both members of the Society, but neither had tested high on the Jones Scale. Valerie was a two and Brad a four. Both had been rated as possessing “generalized parasensitivity” with no special aspects.

As a four Brad had probably been a very good card player. The talent also explained his success as an investor. McAllister had been a very wealthy man.

The Arcane Society members were statistically more inclined to possess varying degrees of paranormal talents because of the group’s long history of encouraging marriage between psychically talented people. Like every other human trait, genetics played a role.

He went swiftly through the rest of the information Jones & Jones had on McAllister. Brad appeared for the first time in the local area a few months after his mother married Owen Shipley. Brad had no previous marriages, according to the file. He was well educated, had a flair for the financial world and had worked for a medium-sized brokerage house before going out on his own as a private investor. By the time he arrived in Stone Canyon, he had amassed a sizable fortune.

Didn’t mean he hadn’t married Elizabeth for her money, Jake reminded himself. Some people never had enough.

After a while he opened his cell phone and punched out a familiar number. Fallon Jones answered on the first ring.

“I hope this call is to tell me that you’ve finally made some progress in Stone Canyon,” Fallon said.

The low, dark voice suited the man, Jake thought. Fallon was a brooding loner. He was probably at his desk. Fallon was nearly always at his desk, hunched over his computer. He resembled some mad scientist. The analogy was apt. Fallon Jones could trace his lineage straight back to the founder of the Arcane Society, Sylvester Jones the alchemist.

Like most of the men in the founder’s long line, Fallon Jones was a strong sensitive. He was also uniquely qualified to head up a psychic investigation agency because his exotic paranormal abilities allowed him to discern patterns where others saw only randomness; conspiracy where others saw coincidence. He was invariably right.

When Fallon sent his agents out to hunt, you could count on the fact that there was prey out there somewhere.

“There’s been a new complication,” Jake said. “Her name is Clare Lancaster.”

“Glazebrook’s other daughter?” Fallon paused. “Hell. The probability guys told me she wasn’t likely to show up.”

“Well, she’s here. I think it’s safe to say that she knows there’s something not quite right about my story.”

“Damn. You can’t let her screw this thing up. There’s too much riding on the project.”

“She doesn’t seem inclined to blow my cover,” Jake said. “Says she’s used to the fact that everyone lies. In any event, she’s scheduled to fly back to San Francisco day after tomorrow.”

“Think you can control her until then?”

“I don’t think anyone can control Clare Lancaster,” Jake said. “At least not for long. But with luck she won’t wreck the project. I called because I’ve got a question about her.”

“What?”

“I came across a file that says she has applied for a position at Jones & Jones on several occasions.”

“Every six months, regular as clockwork. She’s been persistent, I’ll give her credit for that.”

“Why does she get rejected?”

“Why the hell do you think?” Fallon said patiently. “Because she’s a level-ten lie detector. Make that a level ten with an asterisk.”

“Seems to me like someone with her talent might be very useful to a business like yours.”

“Maybe. But not a ten. They’re way too unstable. When her first application came in I had one of the analysts do some background research on other members with her kind of talent. Turns out there have only been a half-dozen or fewer in the entire history of the Society. Most of ’em were either extremely neurotic or downright crazy. Four committed suicide. It’s a tough talent to handle.”

“You rejected her because you thought she’d be unable to do the job?”

“This is an investigation agency, Jake,” Fallon pointed out drily. “You know as well as I do that in our business everybody lies—the clients, the suspects and the J&J agents. No level-ten-with-an-asterisk lie detector could last long under that kind of pressure. She would have been a risk to herself and others in the field.”

“You may have underestimated her.”

“It’s possible, but I have to go with the probabilities,” Fallon said philosophically. “Whatever you do, don’t let her mess up your assignment.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Fallon Jones got up from behind the battered mahogany desk and went to stand at the window. He was always aware of the weight of Jones family history when he was in his office.

The desk, like the distinctive glass-fronted bookcases and the Egyptian motif wall sconces, was in the Art Deco style. They had been among the original furnishings in the West Coast branch of Jones & Jones when it opened for business in Los Angeles back in 1927.

Eventually Cedric Jones, one in a series of Joneses to head the branch, had made the decision to move the office to the secluded beachside town of Scargill Cove on the northern California coast in the late 1960s. Cedric had brought most of the L.A. furniture with him. When Fallon inherited the job, he kept everything, right down to the wall sconces.

Back in the 1960s, Scargill Cove had been a remote village populated by an eclectic group of hippies, New Age types, artists, craftspeople and others seeking refuge from the relentless forces of the modern world. A psychic detective agency fit right in with the rest of the neighborhood.

Not much had changed in Scargill Cove over the years. It sometimes seemed to Fallon that the town was trapped in a time warp. That was one of the things he liked about it. He worked here alone, supervising his far-flung team of part-time investigators, analysts and lab techs via the Internet and his cell phone. Once in a while he considered hiring an assistant but had yet to act on the notion.

He knew what Jake and the others thought about his decision to run his empire from this hidden place on the coast. But he needed his privacy in ways the others could never understand. Virtually all the members of the Jones family were strong sensitives of one kind or another, but his particular talent was unique in the Jones line. No one else understood it. He didn’t understand it himself most of the time. All he knew was that to do his best work, he needed the solitude and tranquillity of Scargill Cove.

It was late. The fog-shrouded moon illuminated the looming outlines of the natural foods grocery, the craft galleries and a handful of other shops that composed the town’s tiny commercial district.

This was July but the windswept cove, with its slice of rocky beach and looming cliffs, attracted few tourists. Those who found their way into town never stayed long, primarily because there was very little in the way of lodging. The Scargill Cove Inn had only six rooms. Visitors hung around just long enough to browse the arts and crafts galleries. They left before sunset in search of accommodations and restaurants farther down the coast.

Cedric Jones, with his level-ten intuition, had sensed that Scargill Cove would stay undiscovered for a long, long time. He had been right.

Jones & Jones was a family business with branches in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was founded in the aftermath of the First Cabal in the late 1800s. All the branches were headed by members of the Jones family who had descended from the alchemist founder, Sylvester Jones.

Most of the time the firm’s various offices were kept busy handling a wide range of security and investigative work for members of the Society and others in the general population who chose to seek the assistance of psychic detectives. But those in the Society who were aware of J&J’s history understood that its primary client was the governing Council of the Arcane Society.

As far as the Council was concerned, J&J’s chief job was to protect the Society’s most extraordinarily dangerous secret: the founder’s formula.

The original formula was created by Sylvester Jones. In his private journals he claimed it could greatly enhance psychic abilities in those who possessed at least some traces of paranormal talent. Over the years the formula had become just one more Arcane Society legend as far as most members were concerned. But the Jones family and the Council knew the truth. The formula had existed and it had worked.

The para-enhancement elixir had also proved to be exceedingly dangerous, its effects wildly unpredictable. Those who had tried it had, indeed, developed frighteningly powerful psychic abilities. But they had also become obsessed with the drug. Inevitably the formula had transformed its users into ruthless, psychically enhanced, highly unstable sociopaths.

Despite the risks, however, it seemed that in every generation some power-hungry sensitive came along who would stop at nothing to re-create the founder’s formula. Whenever that happened it was understood that it was J&J’s job to deal with the problem.

In some instances, the person intent on obtaining the formula was merely an unbalanced eccentric or someone who had become fixated on the legend of Sylvester Jones. Generally speaking such individuals did not get far before J&J stepped in to deal with the problem.

But this latest situation was different. The information that had filtered in thus far suggested that they were dealing with a highly disciplined, carefully structured, utterly ruthless organization. In fact it had all the earmarks of a full-blown conspiracy along the lines of the First Cabal.

The cabal was another Arcane Society legend, and, like the story of the founder’s formula, it was based on more than a nugget of truth. The original conspiracy formed in the late 1800s. Its goal was to take control of the Society and, using it as a base of power, to extend its tentacles into the highest levels of business and government in the UK.