Page 102 of Shattering Dawn
Irene
P.S. Don’t forget to follow up on the real estate agent who wants to hire you to do the shoot on his waterfront listing in La Jolla. That was for real, I promise. His card is enclosed. Remember: Attitude is everything.
P.P.S. You were right about Falcon.
Chapter Fifty-seven
“Do you thinkCutler Steen’s daughter poisoned him?” Pallas asked.
“No,” Amelia said. “But I think she figured out very quickly that someone was adulterating the version of the drug that Steen and Falcon and the rest of the security team were taking. She apparently decided not to warn her father. But she couldn’t be certain the serum would do the job so she planted the explosives on the boat as a backup.”
It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon and the entire podcast team plus Gideon and Shelton were gathered in her apartment. She had poured some expensive wine from Irene’s curated stash for everyone and was now on the kitchen side of the island, prepping the hors d’oeuvre trays that had just been delivered.
Talia March and Luke Rand were seated on the sofa. They had hired a charter pilot to fly them back to Seattle from the San Juan Islands. In the city they had picked up Phoebe Hatch and boarded a flight to San Diego. Phoebe was in a chair near the balcony door, phone in hand. She was glued to the screen.
Pallas Llewellyn and Ambrose Drake occupied the chairs that faced the sofa.
Shelton had somehow managed to commandeer the recliner. That left Gideon with a barstool. He was angled on it, one foot braced on the floor. His cane was hooked over the edge of the dining counter.
The explosion in the cove and the arrests of some men suspected of transporting and distributing illegal drugs had barely made a ripple in the mainstream media. Just another drug bust. But Phoebe was tracking the online activity and reporting in every few minutes. Evidently theLost Night Filespodcast fans were celebrating their triumph on social media and word about the closing of the case was drawing considerable attention.
Pallas looked at Amelia. “Irene decided to monitor you because she thought you might be a success story?”
“Yes.” Amelia took some plates down out of a cupboard. “Until recently Cutler Steen had written off all of us as failed experiments. Yes, we had survived, but we weren’t exhibiting any indication of psychic talents.”
Shelton spoke up from the recliner. “Like I told the government people when I was compiling that list back in the day, it’s damn hard to measure or prove paranormal talent, especially if the test subject doesn’t see any reason to cooperate in the process.”
“Eventually, though, Steen concluded that Irene might be right about Amelia’s talent,” Gideon said. “If nothing else, he wanted to know why she and the rest of you weren’t deteriorating the way he and Falcon and the others were. I think he targeted Amelia for kidnapping because she was still on her own. She lived alone and there was no close family in the area. It should have been an easy grab-and-go job, but things got complicated.”
Luke raised his brows. “Because Amelia realized she was being stalked and decided to hire a professional investigator, one who had some serious talent.”
Amelia looked at Gideon and smiled proudly. “Thanks to Shelton’s list, I got a first-class investigator.”
“That damned list,” Shelton groaned. “I never expected to see it resurface, not after all this time.”
Phoebe yelped in excitement and waved her phone. “Listen to this. We added a thousand new subscribers today and more are joining by the minute. With numbers like these we’re going to have sponsors begging us to take their cash.”
There was a short silence. Everyone looked at Phoebe.
Amelia knew they were all wondering the same thing. “And what are we going to do with that cash, assuming it does roll in?”
Phoebe stared at her, appalled. “What do you mean?”
Pallas took a breath. “She means we have to make a decision about the future of the podcast.The Lost Night Fileshas solved the mystery and closed the case it was created to close. Cutler Steen is dead. He won’t be running any more drug trials. Our only connection to him is Irene, and she has vanished.”
“What about the Aurora Islands Pharmaceutical Laboratory?” Talia asked.
“We can’t quit now,” Phoebe declared, passion infusing the words. “There are still so many questions to be answered. Who was making the enhancement formula? How many people on that list got one or more doses of the drug? Is the government somehow involved?”
“She’s right,” Shelton announced from the recliner. “Lots of questions left to answer.” He sounded pleased.
“Phoebe and Shelton have a point,” Ambrose said. “This is decision time for the podcast.”
“Are we talking about keeping it going?” Amelia asked. “Because that would fit perfectly with my own career objectives.”
“Yes,” Phoebe said.
Ambrose smiled. “I’m in. Hell, I’m a writer. I can always use the plot material.”