Page 26 of Shattering Dawn

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because your intuition is telling you that it is connected,” he said, striving for patience.

“That’s enough for you to go on?”

“For now.” He frowned. “What? You don’t trust your intuition?”

“Seven months ago, my intuition is what convinced me to apply for the job here at the Lucent Springs Hotel.”

“Well, there’s no such thing as one hundred percent certainty.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“Best I can do for now.” He walked toward the SUV. “Let’s go find the motel room that fits this key.”

“How do you plan to do that? Drive to every motel and resort in the area and try the key in all the rooms that have a number ten on the door? We’d probably get arrested.”

“We’ll limit our search to the motels that meet our criteria,” Gideon said. “Small, located nearby, minimal security, few amenities, and—”

“And what?”

“There may or may not be a cactus garden on the premises.”

She raised her brows. “Is your intuition telling you there may be a cactus garden because of the partial sketch of a barrel cactus on the key?”

“I admit I’m winging it with the cactus garden guess.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cutler Steen stoodon the wide deck of the big house, clenching the railing with both hands. The warm California sun shone down on the calm waters of the cove and sparked diamond-bright on the vast expanse of the Pacific beyond. He was always uneasy when he left the security of his island fortress but this time the sensation of hypervigilance was worse than usual. He had become an insomniac.

He refused to consider the possibility that he was fighting off panic. He was a survivor. He did not panic.

He had done his best to secure the house here on the Southern California coast but there was no avoiding the fact that he was far more vulnerable than he was on the island.

He traveled as infrequently as possible because the risks were many and varied. A man in his business accumulated dangerous clients, competitors, and enemies. The safest place from which to operate his global security network was his headquarters on the island. There he was in control of everything, including the local government and the police.

Here on the California coast his control was far more limited. Yes, he had sophisticated security tech installed inside and around the walled-and-gated compound that surrounded the cove house, and yes, he was accompanied by a small contingent of his carefully selected security team. But whenever he left the island he was acutely aware that he no longer exercised the power he wielded at home.

He’d had no choice but to risk the journey. Time was running out. The entire project was in danger of blowing up in his face—all because of three women, threefailures—who had launched a fucking podcast.

He had been assured that Amelia Rivers, Pallas Llewellyn, and Talia March had failed to respond either positively or negatively to the formula. Yes, they had survived a dose of the drug, but there had been no indication that the enhancing serum had been successful, no sign that they had developed any strong psychic senses. Instead, their personal lives had fallen apart. Their relationships had soured. Their careers had gone off track.

According to the medical records he had hacked into, they had sought help from therapists for complaints ranging from amnesia and sleepwalking to nightmares and hallucinations. Luckily, their memories of their lost night had not returned. But they had managed to find others who had been used in the trials.

When they fired up theLost Night Filespodcast it was as if the three witches had put a curse on him. His expensive, carefully planned projects had started to disintegrate.

In hindsight it had been a mistake to entrust the drug trials to his three offspring. It was rapidly becoming evident that they were failures, too.

He had never thought of Benedict, Celina, and Adriana as hischildren, but rather as his longest-running experiments. Each was the product of a different union, their mothers selected because they appeared to exhibit some genuine psychic ability.

He had hoped that his own talent—a gift for strategy coupled with the ability to manipulate others—would be enhanced genetically in his progeny if he mated with females who also possessed a sixth sense. Each woman had conveniently disappeared shortly after giving birth. He had taken care of that part of the process personally to make certain the bodies would never be found. And then he had proceeded to place his three infant test subjects into the hands of nannies, tutors, and the best private schools.

Until recently he had been satisfied with the results. His offspring had, indeed, inherited some paranormal talent from him as well as from their mothers, although it had manifested in different ways in each individual—nothing extraordinarily powerful, but enough to give each of them an edge against the competition in a tough world.

And then, a little over a year ago, the directors of a small offshore pharmaceutical lab had approached him with an offer to provide him with access to a drug they claimed enhanced the psychic senses. There was, of course a catch. The drug was in a highly experimental stage. Results were dangerously unpredictable. Human trials were needed to fine-tune the formula and determine a profile of the ideal candidates—those who could both tolerate the drug and benefit from it.