Siren's Call: A Rainshadow Novel (A Harmony Novel, Band 13) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jayne Castle is a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, the author of more than fifty New York Times bestsellers. She writes futuristic romance novels under the Castle name, contemporary romantic suspense novels under the Krentz name, and historical romance novels under the pseudonym Amanda Quick. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print.

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A Note from Jayne

Welcome back to my other world—Harmony—and another adventure on Rainshadow Island, where everyone has a past. The local inhabitants are good at keeping secrets—their own and those of their neighbors. On Rainshadow you don’t ask too many personal questions. The island has long been a refuge for people who don’t fit in anywhere else.

Those who make their home on the island are also accustomed to dealing with the dangerous mysteries concealed in the ancient underground catacombs and inside the forbidden territory known as the Preserve. Rainshadow, it turns out, was once the site of ancient Alien bioengineering labs. (What could possibly go wrong, hmm?)

The tight-knit community on Rainshadow figures it can handle the monsters, the reverse-engineered dinosaurs, and the deadly legends that seethe just beneath the surface.

The real problems, as usual, are caused by humans.

Chapter 1

It was the wedding of the season and it went off flawlessly—right up until the moment when the bridesmaid announced to the bride, the pastor, and the crowd in the pews that the groom had murdered his first two wives. . . .

“If anyone knows why this man and this woman should not be married, let him speak now or forever hold his peace,” the pastor intoned.

Ella’s cell phone rang. Everyone grumbled at the breach of good manners, although several people surreptitiously checked their own cell phones to make certain they were switched off.

But Ella dug hers out of the middle of the bouquet where she had concealed it and read the text, her pulse racing.

“Stop the wedding,” she shouted.

All three hundred guests, the bridal attendants, the best man, and the wedding singer stared at her. She focused on the message she had just received and then looked at the bride.

“Karen, you can’t marry him. His real name is Leo Bellamy and he’s wanted for the murder of his first two wives. He’s also wanted for questioning in the murder of another woman, a fiancée.”

Karen Leggett, a delicate blonde draped in yards of white tulle and silver satin, was nearly speechless with shock.

“Ella,” she finally managed. “What is wrong with you? Have you gone crazy?”

Ella moved to stand between Karen and the too-handsome, too-perfect groom. Her senses were heightened and she could see the cold, dark shadows in the dreamlight fields of Bellamy’s aura. She knew a monster when she saw one, and she had known Bellamy for what he was ever since Karen had introduced them a few weeks earlier.

“I sensed that there was something off about you the first time I met you,” she said. “I had a private-investigation agency take a closer look into your background.”

Violent energy spiked in the groom’s aura but his expression was one of calm, compassionate concern. He was a chameleon-talent, Ella reminded herself. He had a talent for deception.

“Karen, your friend is having some sort of nervous breakdown,” he said gently. “Someone should escort her to the emergency room at the nearest para-psych hospital. Perhaps one of our guests will volunteer to assist her.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Ella held up the phone displaying the text message she had just received. “This is from Jones and Jones, Karen. It says that the man you know as Charles Forbes is a chameleon-talent whose real name is Leo Bellamy. He lied to you from the start. Lied to the matchmaking agency, too.”

It was the Jones & Jones name that finally penetrated Karen’s state of stunned shock and sparked a wave of low-voiced concern among the wedding guests. Like Ella, Karen and many of those present were members of the Arcane Society. Within Arcane, everyone was aware of the organization’s storied investigation firm.

Unfortunately, Leo Bellamy recognized the agency’s name, too.

“Shit,” he growled.

Before anyone realized that he was not going for the ring, he pulled a small mag-rez pistol out of the pocket of his tuxedo and grabbed Ella. He put the barrel of the gun to her temple.

“If anyone moves half an inch, the bridesmaid dies,” he shouted to the crowd. “She and I are leaving now. If I see a cop in the rearview mirror, Miss Morgan is dead.”

He edged toward a side door, dragging Ella with him. The pistol never wavered from her head.

The crowd watched in horror.

Bellamy’s arm was around Ella’s throat. She put her fingertips on his bare hand. He ignored the light touch, intent on hauling her through the doorway and out into the parking lot.

Ella pulled hard on her talent. She had physical contact. That was all she needed. The delicate crystal chimes on her bracelet shivered. They weren’t absolutely necessary but they helped her focus.

She began to sing.

It was a silent, psychic song, audible only to Bellamy because he was the focus of her paranormal music. The crashing, soaring chords drew power from the far end of the spectrum. She wove ominous, compelling harmonies that ensnared Bellamy’s dreamlight and pulled him down into the depths.

No man could withstand such violent notes. All of Bellamy’s senses—normal and paranormal—foundered on the rocks of oblivion.

The pistol fell from his limp hand and clattered on the floor. He made a weak attempt to tighten his grip on Ella’s throat but she slipped effortlessly out of his grasp.

He stared at her with eyes that were glazed with the unnatural sleep that was swiftly dragging him under.

She thought she read belated comprehension and horror in his gaze. His mouth opened on a single word spoken so softly that only she could hear.

“Siren.”

In the next instant he crumpled to the floor in a deep coma.

She decided to play it safe and give him a small encore just to make sure that when he woke up—if he woke up—he would not have any clear memories of the bridesmaid he had attempted to use as a hostage.

She crouched beside him and touched his throat as though checking his pulse. The little bells on her bracelet shivered again.

She sang a few more bars, aiming the crushing waves of music at his aura.

Bellamy twitched a couple of times and then lay very still.

•   •   •

The dramatic ending to the wedding of the season got full media coverage and made the front pages of every newspaper in Crystal City. The police and the medical professionals concluded that Bellamy had suffered from a previously undiagnosed aneurism that had burst under the stress of the moment. The mainstream press focused on the story of the wealthy bride who had almost married a two-time wife-killer.

For the most part everyone forgot about the bridesmaid who had been held hostage for a short time at the altar. That turn of events was fine with the bridesmaid.

Bellamy eventually surfaced from the coma but his senses were severely scrambled. He was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to an asylum for the criminally insane. The para-psych doctors noted in their reports that the patient was obsessed with painting. He worked on his pictures as though consumed by a fever.

All of the images featured the same subject—a woman sitting on rocks that jutted out of a wildly churning sea. In the paintings, the lady on the rocks played an ancient stringed instrument and sang to the drowning sailors who had been summoned to their deaths by her music.

Ella did not breathe a sigh of relief until the media frenzy died down. In the end only the...