"Have fun," Kay said. "And don't forget to thank Fontana for me."
Sierra turned slightly to look over her shoulder. "Why?"
"Because he just gave me my next big scoop. 'Guild Boss Proposes Covenant Marriage to New Bride.»
"Hey," Phil said. "Does that mean another night in the mysterious alien temple of love?"
"No," Kay said. "This is a CM. We need a new venue and some new secret rituals."
"I can help with that part of the story," Matt said.
"What would you know about secret wedding-night rituals?" Kay asked.
"It's another guy thing." Matt spread his hands. "What is it with women? You think we know nothing about this kind of stuff."
Sierra went out the door and hurried down the stairs. When she reached the lobby, she looked out through the glass doors. A long, black limo waited at the curb. A dapper-looking man attired in a uniform, black leather gloves, and a cap stood beside the big car. A tiny chill shivered through her. It's the fog. Kay is right. It makes everything seem a little strange.
She pushed through the heavy doors and hurried across the sidewalk. The icy sensation grew stronger. Relax. You're still a little over-rezzed because of all the excitement lately.
The chauffeur opened the rear door for her. She looked into the dark interior. The inexplicable rush of dread brought her to a complete stop. She could not get into the vehicle. A possibility occurred to her. Maybe this was the wrong limo.
"Is this the car that was sent for Sierra McIntyre?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
The discordant hum of her intuition was rattling every nerve in her body now. "You're Harlan Ostendorf, Fontana's assistant. I recognize your voice. You called me a short time ago to tell me that Fontana wanted to do lunch."
"Yes, ma'am. At the Amber Club" Harlan checked his watch. "If you don't mind, we're running a little late. Mr. Fontana likes people to be on time."
"But you're an executive assistant, not a chauffeur."
"Mr. Fontana likes me to drive whenever possible." She took a step back and reached into her purse for her phone. "Just a minute. I want to give my husband a quick call and make sure he's still on for lunch."
"Get into the car," Harlan Ostendorf said. "Now." She looked up swiftly. There was a mag-rez gun in Harlan's gloved hand.
"You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Sierra McIntyre," he said quietly. "Get into the car, or I will kill you where you stand."
Chapter 42
THE ICY, HYPERVIGILANT SENSATION WAS NOT UNLIKE the feeling he got when he encountered ghost light. But there was no dissonance energy in the room. What he was looking at, Fontana knew, was the answer to the question he had been asking ever since he and Sierra had escaped the burning mansion.
He raised his eyes to meet Ray's. He shook his head once, indicating that he wanted silence. Then he reached for a pen and wrote the name on a piece of paper. Ray glanced at it, frowning a little. His expression cleared and his face went hard. He nodded once, in agreement.
Fontana rezzed the intercom. "Harlan, would you come in here for a minute? I've got a question about the Foundation files."
"I'm sorry, sir, Mr. Ostendorf has gone to lunch," Dray Levine said. "Is there anything I can do?"
Fontana felt everything inside him turn stone cold. "Did Harlan go down to the cafeteria?"
"No, sir. He said something about going out to a restaurant."
"What restaurant?"
"He didn't say, sir."
Fontana reached for the phone and entered the number of the Curtain's newsroom. Matt answered on the second ring.
"This is Fontana. I want to talk to Sierra."
"Huh?" Matt sounded bewildered. "She left a few minutes ago to have lunch with you."
"The hell she did. Who picked her up?"
"She said you were sending a limo for her. She went downstairs, and that was the last we've seen of her. To tell you the truth, we were starting to get a little worried."
Gripping the phone very tightly, he got to his feet. "What was your first clue?"
"Elvis has left the building."
"Skip the Elvis jokes."
"I'm serious. He's gone. One minute he was in his balloon basket, and the next he just disappeared. The door was open, but no one saw him leave. What's wrong?"
"I think Sierra has just been kidnapped by my executive assistant."
"Shit," Matt whispered, stunned. "I told her you weren't going to propose a Covenant Marriage over lunch."
Chapter 43
IT WAS MIDDAY, BUT THE COMBINATION OF THE DENSE fog and the heavily tinted car windows made the view so dark it might as well have been midnight. Sierra sat in the rear seat of the vehicle. The car doors had locked automatically as soon as she was inside.
She hadn't bothered with a seat belt. If she got an opportunity to make a break for it, she did not want to waste any time unbuckling.
They were headed deep into the neighborhood near the south wall of the Dead City, the most dilapidated section of the Quarter. Harlan was forced to drive slowly because of the dense mist and the narrow streets. She could see the back of his head, but there had been no conversation between them. Harlan had not lowered the window that separated the driver's seat from the passenger compartment.
He brought the limo to a halt in an alley and climbed out from behind the wheel. She heard the door to her left unlock. Harlan yanked it open.
"Get out," he ordered. He held the mag-rez steady, pointing it at her midsection. "Hurry."
"This is a Guild car," she said, sliding slowly across the seat. "Fontana probably has a way to track it."
"I'm not an idiot. This isn't from the Guild fleet. It's from a commercial limo service. Besides, Fontana has no idea that I'm here with you. As far as he's concerned, I'm his ever-faithful executive assistant, one of the few people he thinks he can trust in the organization. And he'll go on thinking that when I help him try to find you after you disappear."
Slowly she stood. "Why do I have to disappear?"
"Because you have been a great nuisance, and you are poised to become even more of a problem. I have no choice but to get rid of you. You have destroyed one of my enterprises. I will not allow you to destroy the other."
Shocked, she could only stare at him. "You were involved with the ghost juice business?"
"Yes, of course." He motioned her toward the entrance of a nearby building. "There were three of us all along. Jenner, Patterson, and myself." He motioned her forward with the nose of the gun. "But the other two were thick-headed hunters. They knew nothing about how to set up a profitable business enterprise. I was the one who was responsible for the pricing and marketing strategy. I'm the one who suggested we partner with the Riders to handle distribution and transportation. Jenner and Patterson took all the credit, but the truth is, they would have been nowhere without my genius."
"You built your business on slave labor."
"The least expensive kind." He herded her toward the entrance of a nearby building. "Jenner and Patterson needed me, but they never made me an equal partner."
"You mean they didn't give you your fair share?"
"Exactly." Rage bubbled in the word. "They said that I was just their accountant. They said they were the ones taking all the risks. I only got a fraction of what I was worth, not the full one-third partnership I deserved."
"That all changed when Fontana and the other members of the Council decided to force Jenner to retire, didn't it?"
"I saw my opportunity at last. Patterson was equally happy to get rid of Jenner. We both knew that he had become a liability."
"Who murdered Jenner? You or Patterson?"