Beyond the Highland Myst(701)
She was about to log off when a new E-mail popped in. She scanned the sender’s ID.
Myrddin@Drui.com.
She didn’t know a Myrddin@Drui.com and had a phobia about viruses. If something happened to her laptop, a new one wasn’t in the budget. There was no topic in the subject line, which meant, according to her stringent guidelines, there was no place for it but the Trash folder.
As she slid the pointer over it, she got an instant bone-deep chill. She whisked her fingers over the mouse pad, jerking the pointer away.
Slid it back again. An immediate, painful, bitter chill licked up her hand.
She shivered, jerked the pointer off.
Oh, that was just too weird.
She frowned, thinking about the way it had arrived. Had an E-mail ever just popped into her inbox when she’d been sitting idle on the inbox page?
Not that she could remember. Sometimes when she was refreshing a page, or reentering the inbox, new ones showed up, but one had never popped in like that when she was just sitting static on the page.
Gingerly, she slid the pointer back over the topic line: NO SUBJECT. Grimacing at the immediate sensation that her hand had been plunged, dripping wet, into a Subzero freezer, she clicked on it hard and fast and yanked her fingers from the mouse pad.
She pressed her palm shakily to her cheek. It was as cold as ice.
Wide-eyed, she stared at the screen. The E-mail contained three short lines.
Return the mirror immediately.
Contact Myrddin@Drui.com for instructions.
You have twenty-four hours.
That was all it said. There was nothing else on the screen but for a line of nonsensical symbols and shapes at the very bottom.
As she scanned them, a sudden shadow seemed to fall over the hotel room. The bedside clock dimmed, the overhead light in the little entrance foyer hummed, and the ivory walls took on a sickly yellowish hue.
And as clearly as if a man were standing in the room with her, she heard a man’s deep, cultured baritone say:
“Or you will die, Jessica St. James.”
Whipping around, she scanned the room.
There was no one there.
Beyond the bathroom door, the shower still ran, and Cian MacKeltar still splashed.
She sat perfectly still, brittle as glass, waiting to see if her disembodied guest had anything further to add.
The moments ticked by.
Her shoulders drooped and she stared morosely at her reflection.
He’d called her Jessica St. James. Freaking everybody knew her name.
Lucan removed his hand from the screen.
She was gone. But for a moment there, he’d had her.
Vibrant and young. By his measure, so very, very young.
Beyond that—an enigma. Concealed by shadows he couldn’t penetrate. Who was this woman with Cian MacKeltar?
Usually if he was able to secure a connection, he could deep-listen, probe, and get more than the general sense of her he’d gotten, which was why he’d attempted the contact to begin with. He’d wanted to see if there was anything he could learn about her and pass on to Eve so she could expedite matters.
People were so concerned about viruses and identity theft, and so oblivious to the true risks of plugging themselves into the World Wide Web, wiring themselves to any and everything that might be out there, hungry, waiting. They worried about cons and killers, sexual molesters enticing their children. They had no notion how thoroughly they could be violated, probed, and coerced by a skilled practitioner of the Dark Arts across a phone line.
Still, he’d not gotten far with this woman. The moment he’d pressed at Ms. St. James, he’d encountered some sort of barrier.
Flipping open Roman’s file, which contained the dead assassin’s thorough evaluation of his targets, including photos, addresses—both real and cyber—vehicle registration, birth certificate, passport, lines of credit, available funds, and other pertinent facts, he studied Ms. St. James’s picture again.
Her driver’s license supplied her vital stats. Twenty-four. Height: five feet six inches. Weight: 135 pounds. Eyes: green. Hair: black. Organ donor: no.
She was a lovely woman.
He had no doubt Cian MacKeltar wanted her. The Highlander would be as fascinated by her resistance to probing as was Lucan. He and the Highlander weren’t quite as different as the condescending bastard liked to believe.
Closing the file, he punched in a series of numbers on his phone and conveyed a change in plans to Eve’s associate: The mirror was still the priority, but make every effort to bring Ms. St. James in alive.
He’d enjoy cracking her open and studying her. He’d not been intrigued by a woman for a very long time.
He would do it while the Keltar watched from his powerless perch high up on his study wall.
“Oh, now that’s just not going to work,” Jessi said flatly when Cian stalked out of the bathroom. She hopped off the bed and moved to regard him from a safer vantage, over near the window. Sitting on a bed with that man in the room just didn’t seem wise. “You go back in there and get dressed,” she ordered.