“What are you getting at?”

“I’m a walking lost-and-found department, Fallon, not a human lie detector,” Isabella said. “You’re the one who can assess the subtle details and spot tiny inconsistencies. Do you really think Julian is telling the truth?”

“He definitely wants to recover that device and he needs you to do it. No question about that.”

“But?”

“But I think he knows more about the nature of the weapon than he’s letting on.”

“Well, that’s no surprise.” She hesitated. “So Lucan really is working for a government client. And here I thought Julian was the one doing the illegal deals.”

“It can get complicated in the black market.”

Isabella was quiet for a moment.

“The beagle,” she said, perfectly neutral.

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s what Julian and the others used to call me behind my back when I worked for Lucan. Whenever one of the agents came up against a brick wall in an investigation, someone would say, get the beagle. She can find anything.”

“Beagles are born to hunt.”

She brightened. “Never thought of it like that.”

“Doesn’t matter now. You don’t work for Lucan anymore.”

“That’s true.” She looked around the trailer. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I guess I’m going to have to accept the fact that Grandma really did die of a heart attack.”

“I’m ninety-seven percent sure that your grandmother is alive.”

“What?”

He took the calendar out from under his jacket. “I think she left this picture behind because she knew that I’d be with you when you finally came here to the trailer park. She knew I’d recognize it. Your grandmother has gone to ground like the former intelligence agent that she probably is.”

“Are you telling me that Grandma once worked for some secret agency?”

He studied the picture. “Got a hunch she’s hiding out with an old colleague.”

“But that beach scene means nothing to me.”

“It does to me.” He held out the calendar so that she could read the caption beneath the photo.

“Eclipse Arch, Eclipse Bay, Oregon,” Isabella read. She looked up. “Never heard of the place.”

“I have. Your grandmother is safe, but we can’t risk contacting her until this thing is over. She was right about one thing. Communication between the two of you at this juncture might put both of you in danger.”

“You said if my grandmother was alive, it would change everything.”

“Yes,” Fallon said. “It does.”

Shortly before midnight, Isabella stood with Fallon in the night-darkened gardens of the Vantara Estate. They were not alone. Julian and the Lucan agent who was posing as a security guard were with them. They all contemplated the theatrically illuminated mansion. With its pastiche of Baroque, Renaissance and Iberian architectural elements, the ornate structure looked like a fairy-tale castle.

“Got to admit, those old 1930s film stars knew how to do over-the-top,” Fallon said.

Isabella smiled. “I like it.”

“Let’s go,” Julian said. Urgency and impatience crackled in the atmosphere around him.

“I’ve got the code,” the hunter said. “I’ll let you into the house through one of the side doors. I turned off the alarm system just before you got here. You’ll have the mansion to yourselves. You should be okay if you stick to pencil flashlights, but don’t turn on any lights in the main rooms. There’s not a lot of traffic out here at night, but the county cops run regular patrols every couple of hours.”

“I don’t need visible spectrum light to do my job,” Isabella said.

The hunter led them through a section of gardens steeped in shadows. He wielded a flashlight, but Isabella knew that he did not need it for himself. His preternatural night vision allowed him to move through the darkness as confidently as if the path were lit with floodlights.

He stopped at a discreetly concealed side door and punched in a code. The door opened. He ushered Isabella, Fallon and Julian into a hallway.

“Got the floor plan?” he asked.

“Yes,” Julian said.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” the hunter said. “I need to check in with company headquarters. Don’t want to break routine or they might send someone to check.”

He closed the door, plunging the hall into darkness.

Fallon switched on a pencil flashlight. Julian did the same. Isabella raised her talent.

There were always secrets aplenty in old houses and the Vantara mansion was no exception. Traces of psi fog swirled in the hallway. Layer upon layer of wispy mists indicated decades of small, private secrets that were nobody’s business but that of the individuals who harbored them. Isabella suppressed her awareness of the old radiation and concentrated on the newer mysteries. As usual in a space that had been well traveled, there was a great deal of fog, including some very hot stuff that she recognized as having been left by the hunter.

“Nothing here that looks like it ever had any connection to your broker,” she said.

Fallon consulted the map. “According to the team, he entered the mansion on a regularly scheduled tour. All the tours start in the Grand Hall.”

“To the left,” Julian said.

He led the way around the corner and down a long, high-ceilinged corridor paneled in rich, dark hardwood.

Isabella lowered her senses, not wanting to waste energy that she might need later for more nuanced detective work. Still, even when perceived with only a fraction of her talent, there was an abundance of fog to wade through. There were no such things as ghosts, but sometimes she wondered if down through the centuries, others endowed with her kind of talent had started the rumors of spirits from the Other Side. It was easy enough to imagine phantoms in the eerie light.

She followed Fallon and Julian through another doorway and into a heavy sea of fog.

“Whoa.” She stopped abruptly, adjusting her senses down another notch. “This, I take it, is the Grand Hall?”

Even in darkness lit only by moonlight slanting through high, Gothic-style windows and the two thin beams of the flashlights, the vast space glowed with gilded splendor. The walls were hung with huge ancient tapestries depicting medieval hunting scenes. Marble tiles covered the floor. Heavy, ornate furniture adorned the room. Couches and chairs covered in velvet and embroidered brocades were arranged in groupings around tables inset with lapis and malachite. Massive chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

“We know for certain that the broker was in this room,” Julian said. “He was seen entering. He exited the house with the rest of the tour group through the kitchens.”

“There’s a high probability that your broker had some serious talent in order to survive as long as he did in his line of work,” Fallon said. He studied the cavernous space, keeping his flashlight aimed at the marble-tiled floor and the richly woven rugs. “Probably a strategy-talent or an intuitive.”

“He definitely had some juice,” Julian agreed, “although he seemed unaware of it.”

“Strats and intuitives often take their psychic side for granted,” Fallon said absently. He crossed the room to examine a wall of glass-fronted bookcases. “Their abilities don’t strike them or those around them as unusual unless they are extremely powerful.”

“If he did have some talent, he would have been jacked when he entered this hall,” Isabella said.

“Right.” Fallon aimed the beam of the flashlight at a gilded red lacquer console table. “He knew that what he was about to do was dangerous. There would have been a lot of adrenaline, and that means his senses would have bounced sky-high.”

“Which would heat up the fog,” Isabella said.

Julian frowned. “What fog?”

“Never mind,” Isabella said. “Just give me a minute to take a closer look.” She opened her senses slowly. “Sheesh. There’s a ton of energy in here.”