In Too Deep

extreme. In the summer it was a popular tourist attraction. There was a convenient turnout.
    In the end, one cabin stood out as the obvious choice. Certainty whispered through him.
    He yanked the listing sheet off the wall and headed for the door. Although he was ninety-nine-point-two percent sure of his calculations, there was a small, but very real, possibility that he was wrong. He had to cover all the bases. Isabella’s life was at stake. He opened his phone.
    Henry answered halfway through the first ring.
    “Six possible locations where she might be keeping Isabella and Walker,” Fallon said. “I’m taking one. I’ll read you the list of the other five properties. They’re all empty cabins along the bluffs. You and the others check them. No one goes alone, understood?”
    “Guns?” Henry asked.
    “Oh, yeah,” Fallon said. “Take guns. And the dogs. They know Isabella. If she’s in one of those cabins, they’ll tell you.”
    “Those dogs love Isabella. They’ll rip out the throat of anyone who tries to hurt her.”

34
    Isabella dreamed . . .
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She was waltzing with Fallon, wearing her lovely midnight-blue gown and her black crystal shoes. Fallon was resplendent in his black-and-white tux, the ultimate power suit.

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They circled the glittering ballroom to the strains of the relentless beat. She should have been deliriously happy, but everything seemed wrong.

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The ballroom was painfully bright, lit up with paranormal radiation from the most disturbing sectors of the spectrum. The senses-dazzling glare made it impossible to see the other dancers or the musicians. On top of that, the music was extremely annoying. She found herself wishing that it would stop.

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And Fallon was not being at all lover-like. He looked at her with eyes that were hot and dangerous with psi fever.

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“I’m on my way, Isabella. You do whatever you have to do to stay alive until I get to you. Do you hear me?”

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“Yes,” she said. “I hear you. But what about the music?”

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“Find the source and turn it off.”

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“How do I do that?”

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“That’s your problem. You’re a J&J agent. You’re supposed to figure these things out on your own.”

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She frowned, thinking. “But you’re not really here with me, are you?”

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“No.”

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“Then how can you be talking to me? There’s no such thing as telepathy.”

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“True,” Fallon said. “But you know me well enough to know what I’d be saying to you if I were there with you.”

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“Right.”

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She looked around, trying to bring the ballroom into focus, searching for the source of the music. She could do this. She had a talent for finding things.

    She came awake to the muffled sound of pounding rain and booming surf. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying on a hardwood floor. She was cold and stiff. When she tried to move, she discovered that her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. Mercifully, there was no tape across her mouth. Unfortunately, the obvious conclusion was that the kidnappers were not worried about her screaming. That, in turn, implied that the cabin was a long way from any source of help.
    The music was still playing, but it was fainter now. She turned her head and saw the still shape of Walker lying beside her. He, too, was bound hand and foot.
    She finally spotted the Victorian music box. It sat on a nearby table. The dancing figures were barely turning. The clockwork mechanism was winding down. Probably the reason she had awakened, she thought.
    First things first. She rolled awkwardly across the floor until she reached the table. She levered herself onto her back, brought her knees up into a bent position, planted her feet against one leg of the table and pushed out with all of her strength.
    The old table went over easily enough. The music box slid off and landed on the floor with a satisfying crack of glass and a clunk. The last notes of the waltz stopped abruptly. The dancing figures popped off and rattled across the floorboards until they fetched up against the wall.
    To make certain the device was inoperable, she inchwormed her way to the broken artifact, turned her back to it and managed to grasp it in her bound hands. She slammed it against the floor a few times. Pieces of the mechanism fell out.
    “That takes care of that problem,”