“If I disappeared tomorrow would you walk into hell to
find me?” Olivia asked.
She did not look up from her phone. She wasn’t supposed to
be on it. The rules of the speed dating event were quite specific about that.
All phones, watches and assorted tech were to be powered down for the evening.
But she had concluded the event was a waste of time, so she had palmed her
phone from her handbag. She was now holding it under the edge of the cocktail
table, where the event coordinator could not see it.
The knee-length burnt orange wool coat she was examining
was stunning, but, sadly, the color was over-the-top for Seattle. Most of the
outerwear on the city’s streets came in shades of gray, black, navy and forest
green. If she were to stroll down Pine Street in a burnt orange coat, she might
as well carry a sign that shouted tourist.
The man who had just sat down on the other side of the
small, round table did not respond to the question. With a sigh, she looked up.
It was obvious from his uncertain expression that he thought she was texting.
“I said, if I disappeared tomorrow would you walk into hell
to find me?” she said.
“Excuse me?” He looked around and then leaned forward. He
lowered his voice. “I think they said that we should turn off our phones.”
“Sorry.” She dropped the phone into her large handbag,
wedging it between her turmeric-yellow wallet and the vintage camera. She took
a closer look at her new date. The name tag stuck on his shirt identified him
as Nathan.
“Hi, Nathan. I’m Olivia,” she said, going for bright and
sparkly. “I’ll repeat my question. If I disappeared tomorrow would you walk
into hell to find me?”
“Uh.” Nathan got a deer-in-the-headlights look.
She recognized the expression. Nathan was rapidly coming to
the conclusion that she was weird. Within the next thirty seconds he would do
what the previous dates had done—excuse himself and take off to find the
restroom, where he would hide out until the bell rang.
It was not Nathan’s fault she had signed up for the Four
Event Success Guaranteed package offered by the speed dating agency. So far
most of the people she had met had been nice. A bit boring—but nice. The
experiment had been a disaster for her, however.
She had purchased the package because it was 20 percent
off. The first event had been a washout, but she had told herself to be
optimistic. You couldn’t expect immediate success. But now she was midway
through the second event and the prospects were looking even more dismal.
“I’m not sure exactly what you mean,” Nathan said.
He did a quick, furtive glance around the room. It didn’t
take any psychic talent to know he was searching for the restrooms
She gave him another shiny smile. “The matchmaker said we
are supposed to ask each other questions. That’s my question.”
“Oh.” Nathan cleared his throat. “Well, uh, I guess it
would, you know, depend.”
At least Nathan was considering his answer, not running for
the restroom. That was promising.
“What would it depend on?” she asked.
“How well I knew you. Whether or not you and I were, you
know, close.”
“And if we were close?” she pressed. “Then would you walk
into hell to find me?”
Panic sparked in Nathan’s eyes. He glanced at the table
where the event coordinator sat. When he realized there was no salvation coming
from that direction, he made a heroic effort to move forward.
“My turn,” he said, bubbling with artificial enthusiasm.
“My question is, where do you like to go on vacation?”
“Hawaii. My turn. If I went missing would you walk into—”
“I guess I’d call your friends first,” Nathan said. He sat
back in the booth, putting a little more distance between them. “See if they
knew where you were. Then, uh, maybe call the cops. Hey, I like Hawaii, too. Do
you snorkel?”
“No.” She leaned forward, closing the space he had just
made. “How hard would you look for me?”
“Well, uh, I’m not an expert when it comes to search and
rescue work. Don’t you need a dog for that?” Nathan shot to his feet. “Excuse
me. Gotta hit the restroom. Be right back.”
And another one bites the dust. No,
that wasn’t right, Olivia thought. I’m the one who just bit
the dust. Again. She realized she didn’t care.
The speed dating experiment was a failure. If she hadn’t bought the Four Event
Success Guaranteed package she would leave right now. But she had made an investment,
and the fine print was firm—no refunds.
New York Times bestselling romantic thriller writer Jayne Ann
Krentz returns this fall with the explosive final installment of her
chilling Fogg Lake trilogy. Whispers of the elusive Vortex lab have erupted the
paranormal underground into chaos, and it is up to psychics Olivia LeClair and
Harlan Rancourt to find it before its immense power falls into the wrong hands
in LIGHTNING IN A MIRROR (Berkley Hardcover; January 18,
2022).
Private Investigator Olivia LeClair wasn’t sure what to
expect when she signed up for the Four Event Success Guaranteed speed
dating package, but a run-in with a serial killer certainly wasn’t on the list.
Thinking it couldn’t get much stranger than that, Olivia decides to give it
another shot. Of course, when you’re a powerful aura reader from a mysterious
town buried under government conspiracies, strange doesn’t even begin to cover
it.
So, when Harlan Rancourt, a man long thought to be dead,
shows up at the next round of speed dating, she takes it in stride. After years
on the run from the Foundation, a shadowy organization that both protects and
polices psychics, Harlan is sure he’s finally found a lead on the mysterious
Vortex, which played a role in permanently altering the DNA of every resident in
Fogg Lake. He’s convinced that Olivia, a direct descendent of powerful oracles
in Fogg Lake, is the only one who can help him locate the lab.
Olivia isn’t convinced. She’s not an oracle, and though
she has powerful psychic energy, so do plenty of others. She doesn’t even know
if she can trust Harlan. Though he looks perfectly “average” on the surface,
Olivia immediately sensed he was far more powerful than the Foundation knew—and
there was a very real possibility that he only resurfaced to claim leadership of
the Foundation for himself. But when Harlan tells Olivia that Vortex may be the
key to uncovering her mother’s killer, she has no choice but to follow him into
the depths of danger and secrecy before those hunting the lab—and the oracle at
its center—catch up to them.
With over 40 million novels sold, Jayne Ann Krentz is one of the most commercially successful authors writing today. While she is a household name for her romantic thrillers, many of her more than fifty New York Times bestselling novels were historical and futuristic romance, written under the pseudonyms Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, respectively. Krentz lives in Seattle, Washington. Learn more online at jayneannkrentz.com
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