THREE
THE first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a wall that might have been white once, but was now dingy and grimy and sported a fist-sized hole in the plaster. Confused, Marla blinked against the strong sunlight streaming into the room, shifting and wincing when her head protested the movement. That’s when she realized she was in a rumpled double bed with navy sheets. What the—?
She pushed upright, looking for her glasses. They were on the scarred imitation pine fiberboard nightstand by the bed, neatly closed. She grabbed them up and put them on, and looked around a room she’d never seen in her life. It was so weird, she couldn’t process it. Unless she was dreaming . . . Bits and pieces of another dream drifted to her. Luke had been in it, and Bryony, and they’d taken a wild ride on a Harley motorcycle, roaring down the highway into the night.
But that had been vastly different from this—surreal and fuzzy, like most dreams. She ran her hand along the sheets, pressed it against the mattress. She didn’t think she was dreaming now. This appeared too real. She didn’t feel drunk or disoriented. She felt fairly normal, except or the throbbing headache. She stared around the small room, taking in the threadbare indoor/outdoor carpeting, the casement window with no curtains, and the general rundown condition.
She still couldn’t process, except for the crazy thought that she’d entered
The Twilight Zone
. She tried to think, and more of last night’s dream came back to her. Luke in her house, disarming her, telling her she had to go with him. . . .
“You’re in a rental house in Needville.”
Marla gasped and whirled toward the voice. Luke Paxton stood in the doorway. Her heart started pounding. “What are
you
doing here?”
He stepped inside the room, looking large and dangerous in jeans and a plain white T-shirt. “I’m renting this place. I brought you here last night.”
She tried to digest that, tried to make sense of the situation.
Uh-oh.
“Last night wasn’t a dream, was it?” she asked. Fear slithered through her even before he answered.
“Afraid not.”
Adrenaline punched her heart rate off the charts. Oh, God. Not a dream. He really had kidnapped her! She reacted blindly, rolling to run from the bed. Luke was there in an instant. In one smooth move, he had her flat on the mattress. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he captured her hands and pinned her by leaning his upper body across hers. She was basically helpless, despite her frantic heaving and twisting. He managed to stay out of the reach of her head and teeth.
She screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Stop it! No one can hear you.”
She voted in favor of him lying and kept screaming. Until her throat locked up and all she could do was make a rasping sound. A fresh wave of terror roared through her and she made a choking noise as she struggled to get air.
“You can breathe, Marla. Be calm and relax,” Luke said quietly. A soothing warmth flooded her throat and chest, and she gasped in a lungful of air.
Sinking back against the bed, she stared up at him. “I want you to listen to me,” he told her. “Take another breath, and
listen
. Okay?”
The next breath came easier, and some of the tension left her body. She managed to nod, but her mind was whirling with horrendous possibilities.
“We’ve been together since eleven thirty last night, and I haven’t made any move to hurt you. Right?”
She nodded again, trying to push away the utter panic that was making it difficult to think clearly.
Regret filled his gaze. “I mishandled this. I wish I could go back and do this differently. Obviously, I can’t.” He eased his weight back a little. “You’re completely safe with me. I’m not going to harm you. I give you my word of honor. But I really need your help.”
“Help with what?” she asked, now distracted by the powerful chemistry between them. Despite the circumstances, her breasts were tingling; heat was spreading downward between her legs. How could she react this way to a stalker/kidnapper/possible rapist-murderer?
“I think it would be easier for you to concentrate with a little distance between us.” Luke released her and stood. “But don’t try anything. I hate to keep zapping you.”
Marla had no idea what he was talking about, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want it either. As she slipped out of the opposite side of the bed, she suddenly remembered Bryony. “Where’s my dog?”
Luke grimaced. “Psycho dog is tied up outside. I got tired of it trying to amputate my foot.” As if on cue, a high-pitched barking started up in the yard. “Terrorizing birds and squirrels,” he muttered. He gestured toward the doorway. “The bathroom is off the hallway, if you need it.”
She walked toward the door, keeping a wary eye on him. He followed behind her until she reached the bathroom. “Like I said, don’t try anything. Unless you want me monitoring your bathroom visits.”
She nodded her understanding and shut the warped door as far as it would go. The bathroom was ancient, with a battered linoleum floor and a stained sink. Luke had obviously hedged his bets, as there was nothing but a toothbrush, toothpaste, a plastic cup, a bar of soap sitting on the sink, and a stack of towels in a plastic storage tub.
There was a rusted medicine cabinet—empty—with a mirror over the sink, but no way for her to break the glass to use as a weapon. She was shaking, from fear and adrenaline overload. But she knew she had to stay calm and focus on a plan to escape. For now, she resigned herself to taking care of necessities.
When she came out of the bathroom, Luke was waiting in the entryway to the kitchen. “In here,” he said.
She walked past him into a kitchen with battered white metal cabinets and stained torn linoleum. The back door was open, a screen door with peeling paint offering unlikely protection from the Texas-sized mosquitoes. Beyond the tiny concrete stoop, Bryony was sniffing along the ground, a rope dragging behind her. The smells of fresh coffee and humid, warm outdoors permeated the room.
In the center was a cheap Formica table that had her purse sitting on it. There was a laptop on the other side, next to a stack of newspapers and what appeared to be handwritten notes. “Have a seat,” Luke said.
She took the chair in front of her purse, but didn’t scoot it in, allowing room to make a run for it. The open door and Bryony within reach were two points in her favor.
“You can have your purse,” he said. “I took your gun, pepper spray, army knife, cell phone, and nail clippers. Their eventual return could be negotiable.”
Too bad,
she thought, pulling the purse to her.
“You might want to take a couple of the ibuprofen in there,” he suggested. “To help with that headache.”
She looked up at him, not liking his astuteness. “How would you know about that?”
“First off, I can sense it. Second, you’d had a fair amount to drink when you got home last night. And the energy bursts I was forced to use can also cause a residual headache.”
“Energy bursts?” What was this guy, an alien?
“Yeah. I’m sorry I had to do that to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. But I’ll explain. Coffee?” When she nodded, he took a travel mug, poured from the coffeemaker on the counter. “Milk or sugar?”
“Black is fine.” She couldn’t believe she was sitting here, calmly talking to her kidnapper. But then, she didn’t have any good way to escape at the moment.
Luke screwed on a spill-proof lid, tightened it with a flex of his muscular arms. He set it before her with a warning look. “Do
not
remove that top, or you will lose coffee privileges.”
Damn. She’d hoped to hurl the hot coffee in his face and make a run for it. He obviously knew many of the self-defense moves taught to women. “You can’t keep me here,” she said. “People will know something is wrong and start looking for me.”
Luke leaned negligently against the counter, a coffee mug in one hand. “That’s not likely. The manufacturing company you work for is closed next week. Your coworkers won’t miss you.”
Shock jolted through her. He couldn’t possibly know that for a fact. “You’re wrong,” she lied.
“While I was waiting for you last night, I checked your e-mail. I saw your discussion with Rebecca about your plans for next week, with the plant being closed.”
“You read my e-mail?”
He shrugged. “I did it only as a contingency in case you didn’t come home.”
His every action was that of a stalker. She knew the moves they made, having gone through it with Julia. Clenching her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking, Marla glared at Luke. “My family will certainly be looking for me.”
He set his mug on the counter. “I also sent an e-mail to your sister Julia, telling her you had decided to take off for a few days, and were heading to Mexico. I’m sorry, but it was necessary. I meant it when I said I was desperate.”
She felt like she’d been gut punched. Fear and anger intermingled, burning in her chest. “You bastard,” she hissed.
“Yeah, probably true.” He pulled his wallet from a back pocket. He opened it and took out a white square of paper, which he pushed toward her. “I really am a private investigator.”
She picked it up, saw it was a private investigator license for the state of Texas, embossed with the official seal. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be a monster. The man who’d stalked and almost killed Julia had been a well-respected business owner. Luke’s actions up until now were not positive indicators.
“I know.” Marla pushed it back. “I checked you out.” Luke Paxton was indeed listed as a PI license holder on the State of Texas Private Security Bureau website.
He slid his wallet into his back pocket and refilled his coffee before taking the chair across from her. He had his hair pulled back today, and his face was even more striking, with the well-defined bone structure, the strong jawline, and those startlingly blue eyes. She wondered if he wore colored contacts.
“If you checked on me, maybe you went a little further and saw the requirements for PI licensing in Texas. Then you’d know my fingerprints were run in the national databases, and that I underwent a background check. I’m also a licensed PI in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. That means I’ve been investigated from six ways to Sunday, and it’s now public knowledge that my favorite foods are green fried tomatoes, lasagna, and pineapple upside down cake—not necessarily in that order.”
He took a sip of coffee, sat back. “Before that, I served four years in the Air Force Security Forces. You wouldn’t want to cross my path if you were a criminal, but I’m sworn to protect the innocent.”
She fervently hoped he was telling the truth. But if he was, why had he kidnapped her? “Then what am I doing here?”
“That’s a tough one to explain.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No good way but to come right out and say it. Just hear me out before you react. And try to keep an open mind.”
She waited, apprehension skidding through her.
“I don’t do the usual private investigations,” he began. “I use my training and skills to track down special criminals. I also use unique abilities. Sentinel abilities.”
She wasn’t comprehending. “Sentinel?”
He raised his hand in a “wait” gesture. “Let me finish. I am a Sentinel.” He leaned forward, pinning her with his gaze. “I’m not completely human, Marla. I’m a being with superhuman powers. More specifically, I’m a reincarnated Atlantian.”
She stared back, aghast.
Superhuman? Atlantian?
Delusional was more like it.
“My job on Earth,” Luke continued, “is to track Belians, which are also reincarnated Atlantians, but very evil. They thrive on terror and chaos, on pain and blood-shed. They come into human bodies and they take on the roles of serial killers, mobsters, gang members, dictators—anything that allows them to do their dark work. They cause of a lot of destruction and suffering on Earth, and the Sentinels are sworn to find them and dispense karmic justice.”
He was more than delusional. He was probably a paranoid schizophrenic psychopath. She inched her chair back a little. They were both equal distance from the back door, but she had the element of surprise and speed.
“There’s more,” he said. “Sentinels track Belians using psychic powers. We can pick up the energies they leave at crime scenes and where they hole up. We then take those energies and filter them through a our ‘third eye,’ which is a special spiritual center everyone has.”
Yeah, and there were little green men from Mars, too.
“And,” he continued, “there are a small number of humans who are psychically wired to enhance the Sentinel tracking abilities. They’re called conductors, and they can be very crucial in some investigations.”
Before she could fully absorb this, he leaned closer, placing his hand over hers. “You’re one of those humans, Marla. You’re a conductor.”
She jerked her hand free and bolted to her feet. Time to check out of Hotel California. She raced toward the back door. It swung shut before she reached it.
On its own.
With a yelp, she whirled and ran for the front of the house. A chair skidded to the entryway. She tried to go around it, but it moved with her. She feinted right, then sprinted to the left, bouncing off the chair, which moved with lightning speed to block her.
She hit the floor hard, but juiced on adrenaline, she leaped to her feet. Freaked, she whirled to see Luke still sitting at the table, his expression impassive. “I asked you to hear me out.”
Chest heaving, mind in a tumult, she could only gape at him. He looked at the chair she’d knocked over; it levitated and floated to the table. “Sit down, and allow me to finish.”
Her gaze went to the chair and then back to him. She was still dreaming, that had to be it. Only it sure felt
real
.
“Sit down,” Luke said again, steel edging his words.
