Are you all right, Mr. Chastain?” Sierra asked.
North Chastain was clearly startled by the question. It immediately became obvious he was also seriously pissed off.
“I’m fine,” he said.
He was lying. She could see enough of his reflected aura in the mirror on the wall behind him to tell her that the man from the Foundation was sleep deprived. She was sure North Chastain was drawing energy from his paranormal senses not simply to stay awake but to ward off the disorienting effects that resulted from a severe lack of sleep.
It wasn’t just lack of sleep that was disturbing his senses, she concluded. There was something else going on with his aura, something more complicated. The dark reflections in the mirror were difficult to interpret. She might be able to get a better read on him if she could get a look at his eyes—she was pretty good at reading eyes—but that was impossible at the moment because North was wearing wraparound mirrored sunglasses. Indoors. In the shadows of the dimly illuminated basement of the Vault nightclub.
He did not appear to be the kind of man who adopted dramatic affectations like sunglasses in a nightclub. The glasses were part of the mystery that enveloped him.
With his hard, sharp profile, he had a predatory edge that gave him an intriguing but decidedly ominous vibe. He was not a man you would want to cross. Like her, he was wearing a lot of leather—jacket and boots but no gloves. She assumed he wore it for the same reasons she did. Cleaners kicked down a lot of dangerous doors and had to be prepared to come in contact with some hot artifacts. They chased the bad guys, after all.
Beneath the jacket North wore a gray crew-neck pullover and black cargo trousers festooned with a lot of pockets. He had dropped a pack onto the floor when he sat down in the booth.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” North said. He sounded cool and professional now, having evidently managed to control his short rush of irritation.
She gave him her most polished smile. “Anything for the Foundation.”
North winced. “In other words you figured that if you didn’t agree to see me, you might be looking at trouble from Las Vegas.”
“Exactly. Also, I need the money and Mr. Jones assures me the Foundation always pays its tab. Okay, I’m here. You’re here. Tell me about the case.”
North drank some coffee and lowered the big mug. She was drinking coffee, too, a frothy cappuccino. North had ordered a triple-shot grande.
“Are you aware of Swan Antiques in Pioneer Square?” North asked.
“Of course,” Sierra said. “Gwendolyn Swan is a player in the hot artifacts market. I’ve done a few jobs for her. Why?”
“Yesterday afternoon Chandler Chastain bought an artifact from her.”
“I’m assuming the Chastain name is not a coincidence?”
“No,” North said. “Chandler is my father. At some point after he purchased the artifact, he was attacked. He’s awake but he’s almost entirely unresponsive, although he does seem to be able to communicate a little through Mom when they have physical contact.”
Shocked, Sierra set her cup down. “I’m so sorry. Was he shot?”
“No. There is no evidence of physical trauma, which makes me think he was attacked with something that affected his paranormal senses. He may have been drugged. That’s the theory the doctors are going on at the moment. But there is another possibility.”
Sierra eyed him warily. “What?”
North hesitated. “The attacker might have used a hot artifact, one infused with a lot of dangerous, unknown radiation that destabilized Dad’s aura.”
Sierra went still. “Are you talking about a paranormal weapon? That’s the unholy grail of the underground collectors’ market. If such a thing existed the Foundation would be breathing fire down the neck of any dealer or go-between or collector who tried to buy or sell it.”
Too late she realized she should have kept her mouth shut.
“Have you picked up any rumors about a para-weapon coming onto the market?” North asked.
She cleared her throat and reminded herself to proceed with caution. “There are always rumors in the underground market.”
“New rumors? Maybe a device from one of the lost labs?”
She folded her gloved hands on the table. “I assure you, I have no personal knowledge of any artifacts that might be weapons from the Bluestone Project.”
“Talk to me, Sierra. I’m on the clock.”
She spread her hands. “All I can tell you is that recently I’ve been approached by a couple of clients who made it clear that if anything that could be considered a functioning paranormal weapon came onto the market, they wanted to be in on the auction. Price was no object.”
“That’s all you know?”
“Yes,” she said. She said it very firmly because it was the truth. “It occurs to me you picked the wrong go-between. You would probably do better with someone who’s had more experience in the Pacific Northwest market. I’m still fairly new in this line of work. I’ve been doing it for only a few months.”
“Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine think you’re the best one for this job. They’re almost never wrong.”
“Almost never?”
“When they screw up, they tend to go big.”
“I think you should consider the possibility they screwed up when they sent you to me.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have time to line up another go-between,” North said. “Our first stop is Swan Antiques. We’re going to find out exactly what my father bought and take it from there.”
Grim determination charged the atmosphere. She understood. If it were her father who was trapped in a nonresponsive state she would be doing exactly what North was doing—using any means or any person necessary to get answers. Family was family.
“You do realize I’m not in business to do favors for the Foundation,” she warned. “My hourly rate is high. Very high.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get paid. Now that I’m officially a client, let’s move. We’re wasting time.”
She held up a forefinger. “Just one more box to check off before I accept you as a client.”
North was starting to look pissed again. “What?”
“You’re not a Puppet, are you?”
“What self-respecting Puppet would work for the Foundation?”
He had a point. There were a lot of loose screws rattling around at the fringes of the paranormal underworld. Some were mentally ill individuals who heard voices or experienced hallucinations and believed they were being manipulated by people with psychic talent. There were also those with a measure of genuine talent who were unable to handle their psychic side. Instead of rationally processing the input from their paranormal senses they grasped at bizarre conspiracy theories to explain what seemed otherwise inexplicable. And then there were those who preyed on such individuals, conning them or luring them into cults.
All the so-called Puppets had one thing in common, aside from their fascination with conspiracies. They were afraid of the Foundation. They were convinced Victor Arganbright and his cleaners were bent on hunting them down with the intent of silencing them. Some believed that if they were picked up by the Foundation teams they would end up as test subjects in strange paranormal experiments.
Those who ran the cults and the scam artists who took advantage of the gullible also feared the Foundation. Victor Arganbright and his cleaners had developed a reputation for taking down the cons and the frauds. Most were handed over to regular law enforcement, but the underworld whisper mill held that some of the really dangerous people disappeared into a locked ward at Halcyon Manor, the private psychiatric hospital run by the Foundation.
So, yes, it was unlikely a Puppet would want to be connected in any way to the Foundation.
“Just checking,” Sierra said.
“Fine. You checked.” North downed the last of his triple-shot grande and got to his feet. “Let’s go.”
Sierra reminded herself that she needed the work. A woman in her current financial situation could not afford to be too picky.
She got to her feet. “Swan’s shop isn’t far from here. We can walk to it.”