Iris Johansen - Pandora's Daughter

"And I won't stop trying." He passed her and went into the bathroom. "It was too good. A little distraction is good for the soul. I'll be out in thirty minutes. Harley should be here by then." The door closed behind him.

She drew a deep breath. Stepping away from Grady obviously wasn't going to be easy. It didn't surprise her. Nothing about their relationship had been easy from the very beginning.

Keep busy. She opened her suitcase and pulled out an outfit and began to dress. Move forward on Molino and the Ledger and Grady would become too focused to think about "distracting" her. That was what was important to both of them and Grady had been obsessed for years before she had even known it existed. Yes, get things back on a normal, even keel, and she would be able to rid herself of this confused mixture of emotion and lust.

She would go to the little kitchen adjoining the living room and make coffee. She pushed her feet into loafers and opened the bedroom door. By that time Harley should be here and they would be able to-

"I've already put the coffee on. It should be ready in a few minutes."

Megan stopped short, her eyes widening.

Renata Wilger was lounging in the easy chair by the window, one jean-clad leg thrown over the arm. "Though I was wondering if you'd ever come out of that bedroom. You didn't tell me you and Grady were lovers."

"We're not. It just… happened." She frowned. "What are you doing here?" She vaguely remembered Grady locking the door after they left the kitchen for the bedroom. "How did you get in?"

"I picked the lock. It was too easy. You're lucky that it was me and not Molino." She stood up. "Come on. Let's get that coffee. Harley should be here soon and I came to talk to you and not him or Grady."

"Why only me?" She followed her into the kitchen. "Why not Grady?"

"You're family. I trust family." Renata went to the coffeemaker on the counter and poured the liquid into two cups she'd set in readiness. "Trust Grady if you like. I suppose it's hard not to trust someone you've gone to bed with. If you trust them with your body, I guess it goes along with the territory."

"Not necessarily. But I do trust Grady." She took the cup Renata handed her. "But if you mean I'm part of the Devanez family, I didn't even know they existed until a few days ago. I can't claim to have any family feeling for any of you."

"You have a feeling for Edmund. And the bond is there. We're the same blood." She looked at Megan over the rim of her cup. "And I think you do have a feeling of family. You can't help it. It's been bred in us for centuries."

"Last night you didn't seem to think I was particularly worthy of trust," she said dryly. "You wouldn't even tell us where you were staying."

She smiled faintly. "I knew you'd find out from the bug Harley planted on me."

"You knew he planted it?"

"I'm not unskilled in this sort of thing. My cousin, Mark, has been training me since I was a youngster. The question was, what you would do with the information once he found out where I was holed up. Would I be raided by Molino? Would I be paid a visit by your Grady? He wants the Ledger and he strikes me as being very ruthless."

"He can be." She frowned. "This was some kind of test?"

She shrugged. "I had to be sure. If you just watched and waited, then I would be able to trust you."

"And if we were the bad guys, then you'd have put yourself in danger."

She shook her head. "I was ready for you." She smiled as she took another sip of coffee. "What I wasn't expecting was having to wait here while you and Grady indulged in fun and games." She glanced around the kitchen. "I had to put all the chairs back around the table before I made coffee."

Megan could feel the heat flush her cheeks. She changed the subject. "How did you know where to find us?"

"I used a device to tap Harley's cell phone through the nearest tower. I thought he'd contact you."

"And how did you get out of your cottage without Harley seeing you?"

"There's a root cellar in the cottage that leads to a passage down the hill."

"You could have just told him you were coming here."

"I could." Her eyes were suddenly twinkling. "But I wanted him to have egg on his face. He's too sure of himself for my taste. He thinks that his little bug is going to keep me firmly in view."

"You still haven't told me why you've come." She paused. "Will you let us use the Ledger?"

Renata shook her head. "But I'll let you use me."

"What?"

"The chances are that Molino knows that Edmund gave me the Ledger. He sent Falbon after me. If you back away, pretend you haven't found me. He'll think I still have the Ledger and go after me the way he did Edmund."

"My God, Renata."

"I'll have to send the Ledger to someone safe in case something goes wrong. I've already chosen my replacement. Edmund told me I had to do it when he gave me the ledger."

"Your cousin, Mark?"

She shook her head. "No, but I wouldn't tell you anyway. It doesn't matter if I trust you. This is the Ledger. But once it's safe, you can use me."

"No," she said flatly. "I won't stake you out and let Molino have his chance at you. I went through that with Edmund."

"And I won't let Molino live after what he did to Edmund. It was only a matter of time anyway. He's been quietly murdering anyone with psychic ability he's been able to track down for years. Two years ago, a young woman in Arizona was a hit-and-run. Last year, a young boy in Orlando was drowned in a lake. I'm not even sure that Molino knew they were Devanez. They were freaks and that was all he cared about. Lord knows how many deaths can be laid at his door." Her grasp tightened on her cup. "But I know exactly how many deaths, he'll be able to cause if he gets his hands on the Ledger."

"Then for God's sake, destroy it," Megan said fiercely. "If he can't find the people listed in the Ledger, he can't hurt them. Don't let one book cause all this misery."

"I can't. Do you think it's some kind of outdated tradition that keeps us maintaining the Ledger? Some of the people in that book don't even realize they're part of the family. We try to leave them alone to live their lives. But some have talents they can't control that bewilder them. Some will develop talents later and we have to have someone there to help them." She paused. "And some will have to be saved from the Molinos of the world. Do you think he's the first monster to go after the Ledger? They've always been hovering on the horizon. That Tribunal Report was public record for centuries. By most people it was considered an example of the wild tales the Inquisitors brought from the mouths of their victims. But there were others…" She put her cup down on the counter. "Did you know my great-grandfather was in Auschwitz?"

Megan nodded. "Religious persecution?"

"No, he might have ended up there anyway, but he was sent to Auschwitz to be interrogated. Hitler and the entire Nazi party were founded on the occult. He had his own astrologers and fortune tellers. Even the Nazi symbols harkened back to esoteric traditions from the Scottish Masons and Knights Templars and other societies; the swastika, the eagle, the red, black, and white color scheme. Hitler himself believed he was the chosen one of the 'Superiors' who endowed him with uncanny hypnotic power." She paused. "But he was also absolutely convinced of the coming of a new race of supermen. He expected them to be a mutation of homo sapiens just by arriving at the higher level of consciousness. That's why he was so obsessed with the so-called purity of the Aryan race."

"I've read about his attempt to form a master race."

"Then you can imagine how overjoyed he was when he came across the copy of the Tribunal Report. It meant that he didn't have to wait for evolution to take place. He could create his own supermen. It fostered his image of himself as being godlike. He was going to find the least offensive members of the Devanez family and breed them with his blue-eyed Aryan favorites. He'd use the talents of others in the family to make his dictatorship invulnerable." She shook her head. "He was even willing to risk the purity of the blood to breed mental supermen. Of course, it meant he had to find them. So he sent Himmler on a witch hunt to track down any stories of anyone with psychic abilities and try to trace their lineage back to the family. Himmler found documents that led him to my greatgrandfather Henrich Schneider." Her lips twisted. "Unfortunately, he was no good to Hitler as a stud. He was a Jew and that made him too polluted to risk contamination. But there was a chance that he'd know where other, more acceptable, psychics could be found. He arrested him and his entire family and sent him to Auschwitz. The interrogators killed his wife and two children before his eyes because he refused to tell him about the location of the Ledger."