Page 69 of Shattering Dawn

Gideon was right. She had developed a bad habit of catastrophizing.

Chapter Thirty-seven

The violent poundingon the door of her apartment startled Irene just as she was about to pour herself a cup of coffee. She had been unable to get back to sleep after the disturbing call from Amelia, so she had abandoned the effort.

She had showered and dressed for the day, made a large pot of coffee, and sat down at the computer. It was going on five a.m. now. She had tried to get some work done but she could not stop thinking about Amelia’s warning.Falcon is the reason I’m calling. Your new boyfriend murdered three people tonight and I’m pretty sure he would have killed me and my assistant, too, if he’d had the opportunity.

The drive from Lucent Springs took approximately two hours. If Amelia was right—if Falcon had been in the desert town earlier tonight and if he had left around the time she had called—he would be returning to San Diego about now.

Another series of demanding raps reverberated through the apartment.

Falcon. It had to be him.

She looked at the aquarium on the end of the kitchen island.Daisy and Dahlia were cruising through the underwater forest of fake plants and miniature statues, on the lookout for their next meal.

“I may have made a serious mistake,” Irene said.

The goldfish ignored her. Unfortunately, she could not ignore the door. If she didn’t respond, the jerk in the neighboring apartment would call the manager.

“I’m coming,” she said,

She left the coffee on the counter, went to the door, and peered through the peephole. Falcon was on the other side. He was wearing his leather jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans and she knew he probably had a shoulder holster and pistol under the jacket. The outfit went with his tough undercover cop attitude. But there was something different about him tonight.

It took her a couple of beats to figure out what had changed. When he wiped his forehead on the sleeve of the jacket, she realized he was sweating. There was a haunted look in his eyes. Falcon was scared. Terrified.

She undid the locks and opened the door.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”

“Things got fucked up bad,” Falcon rasped. “You have to help me.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

The faint clickof a key in a lock followed by a small draft of air brought Gideon out of a nightmare-free sleep, the third he had enjoyed since the messy ending of the Colony case. Make that since meeting Amelia.Coincidence? I think not.

He opened his eyes but he did not move. Something felt different. Yes, the intruder had just entered room ten via the parking lot door, but this was another sort of different.

It hit him with a disorienting rush. He was in the wrong bed.

He had promised himself that as soon as Amelia fell asleep he would move to the other bed. Instead, he had drifted into a heavy sleep—in her bed. Even more astonishing was the fact that Amelia was also asleep. She had not awakened in a screaming nightmare.

Fascinating. But he would ponder it later. First he had to deal with the uninvited guest in room ten.

Reluctantly he eased himself away from Amelia’s soft curves and sat up with care, trying not to make any noise. There was a faint squeak from the bedsprings but the intruder did not pause. Theshadows shifted on the floor when a figure moved past the partially open connecting door.

He reached for his cane and got to his feet, profoundly grateful that he had put on his briefs before getting back into bed with Amelia. He did not consider himself to be unduly modest, but the thought of confronting the intruder while nude was unsettling, especially since he was pretty sure he knew who was in the other room.

He crossed to the connecting door and pulled it open. The light that he had left on in the bathroom in room ten glinted on the large knife the intruder gripped in both hands.

“Good morning, Ms. Shipley,” he said. “A little early to be up trying to kill me, isn’t it?”

At the sound of his voice, Katy Shipley turned toward him. In the dim light her eyes had a vacant expression. She was no longer the friendly tourist trying to shake off a bad divorce. She looked like a woman who was under a spell.

“You murdered Merlin,” she said. Her voice was flat, utterly devoid of emotion. “I am his bride. He chose me above all others. Now I must avenge him. Then I will follow him into death.”

She moved forward, the knife poised to strike. Gideon went into his talent, trying for a pulse of energy, not a killing blow.

“Gideon, wait,” Amelia said from the bed.