Page 28 of It takes a Psychic

But now there had been another unexpected development, and the result was that she was at a possible turning point in the project. She had found the original version of the machine, the very one that Vance had used to transform himself into a powerful andstablemulti-talent. There were answers to be had from the device, but she could not open it. She needed Leona Griffin to unlock Vortex.

Events had gotten chaotic for a while tonight, but all was well now. She could move forward with her plan.

Maybe the author ofAchieving Inner Resonance: A Guide to Finding Your Focus and Channeling Your True Potentialwas right. It was just a matter of thinking positive.

Chapter Eleven

“You werefired?” Charlotte Griffinmet Leona’s eyes in the dressing room mirror. “I can’t believe that. You’re the university’s star para-archaeologist.”

“Turned out to be a temporary position, Mom,” Leona said. “You know what they say about glory. Fades fast.”

She had known that breaking the news to the family would not be easy. She was still reeling from the shock herself. Her day had started off on a depressing note when she had discovered that Roxy had disappeared at some point during the early-morning hours. There was no way to know if she would ever return.

The departure of the dust bunny had been followed by the devastating interview with the head of the para-archaeology department. Morton Bullinger had been weakly apologetic but he had claimed there was nothing he could do. The board of directors was in full damage-control panicmode, with the goal of severing any and all links to the Antiquarian Society. The FBPI raid had changed everything.

She had been given a cardboard box and thirty minutes to clean out her desk. A security guard had been sent to hustle her out of the building via the parking garage exit.

The doors of most of the offices that lined the hallway had been ajar. She had been aware of her colleagues watching her covertly as she did the academic perp walk. Some, like Drayton and Grant, who had shared the trauma of the kidnapping with her, had been sympathetic. Margery Bean, a friend, had cried. She had promised to call soon.

Others had been privately relieved that they were not the unfortunate individual being marched out of the building. One in particular was no doubt exultant: Leona was no longer standing in Matt Fullerton’s way. He now had a clear path to tenured status.

The door at the end of the hall had been firmly closed. She had paused in front of it and reached for the door handle. The security guard had tried to stop her but he had changed his mind when he saw her mag-steel smile.

Matt Fullerton had been seated at his desk. He had looked up, first startled and then wary.

She kept her smile in place. “We had an arrangement, Matt, remember? We made a deal.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He leaped to his feet. “This wasn’t my fault. You can’t blame me. I had nothing to do with—”

She had shut the door and continued on to the parking garage with her box and the escort. She had told herself that she had picked up a panicky vibe in Matt’s energy field. As revenge went, making him nervous was not very satisfying, but she was realistic enough to know it was all she was going to get. It was time to move on. Her academic career was in smoking ruins but she had a new agenda. She had to find a way tomaintain possession of the pyramid crystal until she learned its secrets, and she had to relaunch her career. Priorities.

This afternoon she would deal with the problem of persuading Oliver Rancourt to let her keep the yellow stone. The glimmer of a plan was taking shape in her mind, but Rancourt would not be easy to convince. She was sure he was as obsessed with the pyramid as she was. The question was, why?

But first things first. Her sister was getting married, and at the moment that was the number one priority. She and the rest of the family—Molly and the moms, Charlotte and Eugenie—were gathered in one of the spacious, elegantly furnished dressings rooms at the Amery Ames Wedding Salon.

She had waited to drop the news of her firing until the sales consultant had disappeared on a mission to find earrings to go with Charlotte’s mother-of-the-bride gown.

Eugenie had already chosen her outfit—a stunning dark blue tuxedo that set off her mane of silver-blond hair. She had put up some token resistance but Charlotte had warned her that under no circumstances could a mother of the bride show up at her daughter’s wedding in jeans, boots, and a lot of studded leather—Eugenie’s go-to look.

Molly’s crystal-beaded wedding gown, veil, and shoes had been selected at a previous appointment and were currently displayed on one side of the dressing room. Her dust bunny pal, Newton, had been packed off to spend the morning with the groom, Joshua Knight. Everyone had agreed that allowing Newton into the bridal salon would have been to invite disaster. No dust bunny would have been able to resist all the glitter and glamour. Gossamer veils, frothy fascinators, elbow-length gloves, and sparkling jewelry were artfully scattered across every available surface. It would have made for a dust bunny circus.

She had known Molly and the moms would be furious on her behalf.That’s what family was for. She took comfort from their sympathy, and under other circumstances she would have been happy to wallow in it for a time. But today she wanted to limit the drama as much as possible. This was supposed to be all about Molly and her upcoming Covenant Marriage wedding.

She and Molly were not biologically related but they had been sisters in all but blood from the beginning. Left on the front steps of the Inskip School for Orphan Girls when they were infants, they had spent the first six and a half years of their lives together in the orphanage before Molly had been kidnapped. That event had brought Charlotte and Eugenie Griffin, proprietors of Griffin Investigations (Want answers? We’ll get them for you. Call now. No waiting.) into their lives. Charlotte and Eugenie had wound up adopting the girls, and that had proved to be a new beginning for all of them.

“They can’t fire you,” Eugenie snapped. She had been lounging in one of the plush chairs, her jean-clad legs extended out in front of her. Now she pushed herself to her feet, maternal outrage charging the atmosphere around her. “You’re one of the heroes of the Hollister Expedition disaster. You kept your head and kept your team alive until you were rescued.”

“The moms are right,” Molly said, equally outraged. “You’ve brought nothing but good publicity to the Department of Para-Archaeology and the university. What possible reason could they have for letting you go?”

“I think the explanation involves covering several asses on the university’s board of directors and the endowment fund,” Leona said. “They’re terrified of the potential fallout from the FBPI raid on the Society last night. If the media follows the money, it will discover that the university took huge donations from a secretive organization that just saw a whole bunch of its members arrested on charges of illegal artifact dealings.”

Eugenie’s jaw tightened. “If they think they can get away with blaming you for any part of that mess, they had better forget it.”

“Damn right,” Charlotte said, her eyes going cold. “This is Illusion Town. We’ve got connections.”

“And Joshua is friends with the Guild boss, Gabriel Jones,” Molly added. “Those sneaky, spineless creeps at the university will melt faster than chocolate in summer when they find themselves facing a few casino enforcers and some ghost hunters.”

“Thanks, but believe it or not, figuring out my future career path is only number two on my to-do list.” Leona braced herself to deliver the next bombshell. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you about last night.”

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