Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online Page B

town with acute suspicion. But with Grace she had assumed an air of comradely understanding. It was as if she had concluded that the two of them had unspoken secrets in common.
    That assumption was probably not too far from the truth, Grace thought. One thing she had discovered in the past few months was that, although Arizona had lived in Eclipse Bay for several years, no one seemed to recall exactly when she had moved into town and no one seemed to know where she had come from.
    There were rumors about her, the most dramatic being that she had once worked for a mysterious government intelligence agency. The theory was that she had either resigned or been forced to retire when she became permanently lost in her own strange world.
    “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave my return date open,” Grace said gently.
    “Understood.” Arizona snapped the notebook closed and looked around, making certain there was no one in the vicinity who might be eavesdropping.
    Satisfied that they had privacy, she edged a little closer, respectful, as always, of the distance that Grace preferred to keep between herself and others. Arizona was one of the few people Grace had met who seemed to sense intuitively that she did not like to be touched. The leather gloves offered a degree of protection but they were by no means foolproof. Touching the wrong individual, however fleetingly, could be an ordeal.
    “So, the agency is finally sending you out on a field assignment,” Arizona said in low tones. “You be careful now, honey. From what I can tell, you’re an analyst, not a trained operative. I’ll bet your experience has all been at a desk with a computer. I hope they’re supplying some muscle to keep an eye on you.”
    The irony of the situation made Grace smile. Arizona filtered everything through her skewed view of the world. Because of that, she was the only person in Eclipse Bay who had come close to guessing the truth. If Arizona ever found out that the Arcane Society existed and that it was a secretive, centuries-old organization devoted to research and study of the paranormal, she would have no problem weaving it into her own worldview.
    “Don’t worry about me,” Grace said. “I’ll have a partner.”
    “Someone with field experience.” Arizona nodded, satisfied. “Excellent. You tell him I said to take good care of you.”
    “Okay.” Like heck she would tell Luther Malone that he was supposed to take care of her. She didn’t need any help in that department. She had been taking care of herself since the day her mother died.
    “I’ll keep an eye on your cottage while you’re gone,” Arizona added. “Make sure the sons a bitches don’t try to get into your files.”
    “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
    “Stay alert, stay alive,” Arizona said. She snapped off a quick salute and stalked off across the parking lot, heading for the glass doors of the post office.
    Grace got into her car. She thought about her landlady as she drove out of the parking lot and turned toward the highway that would eventually take her to Portland.
    Arizona was a powerful sensitive, although she was probably unaware of it. Her talent was similar to Fallon’s. She could see patterns in chaos. But somewhere along the line she had lost control of the paranormal side of her nature. Perhaps if she had been raised as a member of the Arcane Society community, things would have been different for her. Perhaps she could have been taught how to control her talent. Or maybe not.
    There was no question but that it was far too late to intervene now. Arizona had gone too deep into her strange, private world. Now her talent controlled her.
    Grace wondered if Fallon Jones ever worried that he, too, might someday get trapped forever in his own world of plots and counterplots, unable to find his way back to reality. He was trying to do too much, she thought. On several occasions during the past few months she had heard the exhaustion in his voice. Running the