At the Clearest Sensation Read online

  “Rally school. Traded a guy a boat engine for a five-day course at his racing school. What about you?” He let his tone supply the “bitch.”

  “Thunder Lane. Stunt school. Remember?”

  He did. It was just hard to attach those ideas to the shapely five-six woman sitting next to him. “Who’s your third driver?”

  Isobel hooked a thumb toward the little blonde in the back. Hannah was so quiet that Devlin kept forgetting she was there.

  “What’s your training?” He called back.

  She just stared at him in the rearview.

  “Delta Force. Right. Never mind.”

  The old heart of Seattle, dating back into the 1800s, was only moderately insane as it was still early for lunch. The parking gods smiled and he nailed a spot right at the base of James.

  Across the street, Merchants Cafe had just opened and he walked them past the long wood bar and down the stairs into the old Underground Saloon. Every now and then Isobel stopped and did a slow turn with her camera to capture the setting. Gave him an excellent three-sixty view of Isobel in her flirty sundress—this time in softest lavender—with each turn.

  Maybe, if the bitch stayed gone, he could actually enjoy this gig. The visuals were certainly exceptional.

  Downstairs was all low-ceilinged, exposed brickwork dating back to Seattle’s birth, a small bar, and cramped tables. His kind of dive.

  After she’d done another slow spin, she popped the remote control in her pocket. No little red light, so she’d stopped recording.

  “This is the other end of the spectrum, the new tunnel and the old underground. There used to be a whole level of the city here. Too close to sea level, muddy all the time, toilets that flushed backward during storm high tides, all sorts of issues. And I mean really muddy. Couple times they lost an entire horse and cart in a mudhole right in the street and had to sort of dredge for them smack in the middle of 1st Ave. They boosted the whole city up a story and just left this behind. There are a few leftover pieces like this open to the public, but there’s a whole network that isn’t. Underground tours can get to part of it. Tammy there at the bar could get us into the rest.” He thumped his foot on the floor by the seat he’d chosen.

  Isobel did one of her one eyebrow things at the hollow sound.

  “Trap door into the old city.”

  Her smile said she was liking this game.

  “There’s probably fifty or more miles of tunnels under Seattle even though it’s just three miles long and half that wide. There’s a personnel evacuation tunnel that runs the full length of that new thing we just drove through that has some possibilities. Whole chunks of downtown, couple hundred buildings, are heated from a steam plant that’s just across the street from here. Water mains almost as tall as Hannah weave all through the place.” He winked at the little woman.

  She offered back a deadpan expression and no words. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her speak yet.

  Tammy strolled over, far too chill to react to Isobel with more than a nod. He ordered the Mac N Cheese with bacon and shrimp. He figured the three women would split appetizers or salads like they always did. On top of staying up all night to rename his boat, he’d been too pissed this morning to eat much breakfast and was starving. To his surprise, Isobel went for the Tuna Melt and a side of onion rings. Hannah and Jennie didn’t slack either. By the look of her, he’d guess that Jennie only remembered to eat when food was put in front of her.

  He refocused on Hannah. Isobel hadn’t hesitated to point her out as someone capable of stunt driving. “You’re really what Isobel said you were?”

  Hannah studied him like a bug before finally nodding. Hard to believe, but maybe equally hard to argue with.

  He turned back to Isobel. “You got any superpowers you want to be telling me about?”

  Isobel didn’t do one of her amused, raised-eyebrow things this time.

  She flinched.

  Before he could ask what that was about, Hannah twisted to face him. In that instant, there was a loud cracking of wood right under his butt as if his chair had shattered.

  He lunged forward for balance so that he wouldn’t be dropped to the floor. He ended up banging the table and knocking over an iced tea that would have spilled into Isobel’s lap if Hannah hadn’t pulled her instantly aside. Damn she was fast.

  Tammy cleaned up the spill and replaced the tea. No problem.

  He checked his chair carefully. Then the floor.

  No sign of any broken wood. He sat back down carefully, not even a creak.

  But the sound had been so clear.

  Jennie at first, then Isobel began asking detailed questions about the look and atmosphere of Seattle’s different tunnel systems. He’d found ways to prowl a lot of them as a kid, and was deep in answering her questions by the time the food arrived.

  But he didn’t miss Isobel briefly placing her hand over Hannah’s and whispering a thank you. Seemed a bit heavy duty for rescuing her from a spill.

  Chapter 7

  By the day’s end, Isobel felt as tired as Devlin looked.

  After Merchants, they’d toured parts of the underground. Then they’d visited the steam plant, been given a look at some of their tunnels, and finally taken the underground light rail from Pioneer Square up to the University of Washington. There he’d talked his way into a new subway tunnel that was being bored further north and had definite possibilities as a setting, without having to interrupt any traffic flow or worry about other people.

  Back on the surface streets, their progress had run into no end of problems and delays. All to do with fans wanting her autograph or a selfie with her.

  “Your sundresses makes you too damn beautiful,” Devlin had growled after she’d been accosted for the third time, or maybe the thirty-third.

  He’d ducked into a souvenir store and come out moments later.

  “Put this on.” He shoved a crumpled-up t-shirt into her hands. Snatching it back, he ripped off the price tag and shoved it back at her.

  “I don’t have pants and I have nowhere to change. We’re standing in the middle of the street.”

  “Just pull the damn thing on over your dress. Gotta funk you up some, woman, or we’ll never get rid of these fools.”

  “This is so not my color.” Bright yellows made her skin look sallow and washed out. “And it will make my dress look ridiculous.”

  “That’s the point. The great Isobel Manella would never be out in public looking less than perfect. Just put the damn thing on and don’t give me any grief.”

  And she’d done so. Then she’d looked down to read it upside down.

  Eat. Drink. SAIL. Repeat.

  The “sail” was stretched to twice its already large size as it stretched over her breasts.

  “You bought too small a size.”

  “No. I bought the perfect size,” then he’d offered her the first lascivious grin since they’d met—though he made it a joke or she’d have hit him. Then he turned serious again. “Not a man born is gonna be looking at your face now. I mean, it sucks that you have to leverage that, but welcome to the warp in our society. At the moment my only other idea is a raincoat with a collar that zips up to the top of your head.”

  “It’s not raining.”

  “My point.”

  And it had worked, especially after he yanked a bright blue (also not one of her colors) Seattle Mariner’s ball cap out of his back pocket. With a quick grab and twist, he’d tucked her hair sloppily inside the hat and jammed it on her head. Then he yanked a tuft of it back out to hide the headset camera.

  “There, now you look like any other sloppy-as-shit Seattle chick showing her anti-cultural-norms attitude.”

  “Chick” was one of those words that she really hated, but she didn’t think complaining was going to help any.

  Especially when he was proved to be absolutely right. No one recognized her after that. In fact, no one had bothered her for the rest of the day. There were still some who go
t past the ridiculous t-shirt. They’d look at her face with a puzzled expression for a moment, then dismiss the thought and hurry on. A few looked at her attire then looked away quickly as if she might try to ask them to sign a petition to free the lemurs at the Seattle Zoo or something if they made eye contact.

  Isobel only made the mistake of looking at her reflection in a windowed storefront once. Utterly ridiculous.

  But she was also anonymous. It was worth it—almost.

  After they’d returned to town, Devlin had begun touring them through the city parks.

  Volunteer Park had an Old World feel that didn’t match the movie at all. Madison lost the urban feel, though it was an exceptional spot to sit on a bench eating ice cream and staring out at the amazing view across Lake Washington and up to the Cascade Mountains.

  The more places they looked, the more they were able to cross off their shoot list. However, almost every one added to her list of places to while away a quiet afternoon.

  She’d never had time to explore Seattle during the first movie. Sail had been her first major film and nerves had kept her perched and ready at the set even when she wasn’t on call. Now maybe she could.

  By the time Devlin dropped them off at the head of the houseboat dock, she felt as if she could barely move.

  Jennie begged off coming in because she wanted to race back to her apartment and think about the new settings she’d never explored, despite living here for over five years as a screenwriter.

  Devlin was proving to be an exceptional resource in several ways.

  “What are you doing?” Hannah asked softly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This,” she waved a hand in the direction of Devlin’s car, now jouncing away down the waterfront lane. At the next corner, he took the turn and disappeared out of sight. Isobel hadn’t been aware she was watching his departure.

  “Shut up,” Isobel teased her.

  Hannah just shrugged.

  Isobel looped her arm through Hannah’s and they headed down the dock.

  Devlin was hammered.

  He hit the lounger on his back deck and collapsed into it. This was one of his favorite places to be. The University drawbridge buzzed with the sound of car tires crossing the metal grate. Twenty stories up, the I-5 overpass was offering a steady, low-roar of rush hour madness. He heard it as no more than as a counterpoint to what lay before him.

  He rented the dock-level apartment of a three-story house that urbanization hadn’t managed to drive into the water. In front of it were three slips to moor a boat bow-in. His Dragon was the smallest of the three, a sleek racer beside a bulky live-aboard sailing cruiser and a forty-footer Fat Cat showpiece that he’d never seen anybody actually sail in the three years he’d been here.

  The view wasn’t much, as this end of the lake was quite narrow, but any floating traffic between the massive Lake Washington and the ocean via Lake Union had to float right past his door. Everything from luxury yachts to NOAA research vessels floated past his back deck. He liked his slice of reality.

  It was a quiet cloister. The tiny park just to the west was a real haven for ducks that spent a lot of time paddling around the three boats.

  “Hell of a day,” he told Broken Bill. The drake mallard had a broken edge to his yellow bill that curved up like a crazy one-side mustache. He and his lady had been regulars since Devlin had moved in with his Dragon.

  Bill eyed him, but he’d forgotten to grab a slice of bread to tear up and toss into the water.

  He held up empty hands. Hell, he hadn’t even grabbed a beer.

  Bill seemed to huff out a sigh before leading his family of three ducklings elsewhere.

  Devlin let the rippling lake water soothe his eyes.

  He hadn’t much minded losing the night’s sleep; he did it often enough when a project was going well, or even when a good book took him sideways.

  But, good Christ, the woman was exhausting. The morning’s emotional shitstorm had been the least of it.

  Every second of the long day she’d been focused—without a single break. Across lunch she’d extracted every bit of detail his brain had ever held about the new Alaskan Way Tunnel and the old Seattle Underground. By the time they’d left the steam plant, he’d probably make money betting that she’d know how to run the place in a pinch. The manager had certainly enjoyed showing off his domain to a genuine Hollywood superstar with a brain.

  In addition to being a seriously hot number, she was also an incredible actress. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that she also had a brain, though he was. It didn’t take long to figure out that she was the smartest person in any room she entered. And she always seemed to know what someone was thinking before they did—simply fascinating to watch.

  The construction and extent of the light rail tunnels had been next. What it took to drive a train, and to derail one, were gleaned from conductors and line managers who fell easily to her charms.

  He’d always wanted to see the inside of one of the tunnel-boring machines, but it was Isobel Manella who’d extracted a promise to tour one later in the week.

  The history of every park they’d visited wasn’t enough, but also the types of people who used each one and what time of day.

  She inhaled information.

  It didn’t just disappear there either. She did things with it.

  He’d seen the front of the script, and only Jennie’s name had been on it. But Isobel would suddenly turn to her and say something like, “That line on page sixty-three about the knife fight, what if the heroine’s knife came from that display case in the Seattle Underground? I could smash it with my elbow or something. That would set up a real contrast with the modernity of her more familiar normal arsenal. Forcing her back into older patterns, facing older pieces of her past.”

  And Jennie would begin scribbling furiously.

  The fact that they’d been walking through the Olympic Sculpture Park gardens at the opposite end of downtown, and it was six hours after they’d left the Underground, was irrelevant.

  He’d also been drained after spending the whole day on some kind of hyper-alert. Constantly fearing for her safety. Sure, he was protective of any woman he was escorting, even the true flakes who really needed it. But he’d never been out and about with a truly major actress before, and that was unnerving all on its own.

  Her own people were a real puzzle, too. Devlin had tried to keep it casual, but that Hannah unnerved him.

  Not only did she seem to have eyes in the back of her head, but there was something else odd.

  It was midafternoon by the time he’d noticed the pattern.

  Someone would start to recognize Isobel—there was only so much a man could do with a t-shirt and ball cap to distract from that level of beauty. And just before he’d felt the need to intervene, the person would startle and look away.

  By the time they looked back, Isobel would be well clear of them.

  Eventually he noticed that each time they startled, he heard small sounds. Not very loud, but once he was listening for them, they were always there. A dropped pot, a bird call, a horn honk… Each one he could barely hear, but each was enough to completely distract the person. As if it was happening right next to their ear.

  And finally, he spotted Hannah watching each one carefully until they were clear. Somehow she was tied to those sounds. Stupid idea that he did his best to dismiss.

  Though it reminded him of…something.

  He was too tired to come up with what.

  The scent of seafood drifting over from the restaurant on the other side of the Montlake Cut earned him a stomach growl. Less that two hundred yards by water. He didn’t want to get back in the car to drive around. And he sure as hell wasn’t up for the most of a mile walk.

  A sail.

  Two minutes later, he was unlashing the last stern line. Not bothering with the engine, he hoisted the main and shoved the Unicorn…the Belle out into the channel. It was more than eno
ugh to ghost him across the channel.

  But for some reason, he turned south into the lake.

  Chapter 8

  “We so need to put that in the movie,” Michelle was mixing daquiris for everyone and serving them on the houseboat’s back deck.

  “What?” Isobel had shed the too-tight t-shirt, though she’d kept the ball cap to block the setting sun.

  “That boat. It’s lovely.”

  Isobel raised her gaze enough to squint out across the shining water. Her breath caught the moment she spotted it. “It’s a Dragon.”

  Regrettably, Michelle wasn’t stupid. She jolted upright, almost flipping a mango daquiri into Hannah’s lap.

  Isobel sighed. She really should learn when to keep her mouth shut.

  “Swept you away on a dragon,” Michelle repeated from this morning.

  “He did.”

  “Mr. Kicked-me-out-of-the-bathroom Jones.”

  “That’s him. And that,” Isobel nodded toward the passing boat, “is his lovely boat.”

  For a moment she thought he was going to sail past without even waving. Then she saw him gauging the turning radius to the end of the dock.

  As he threw over the tiller to come about into the wind, Isobel rose to her feet. She hopped over the porch rail, landing lightly enough on the narrow dock that it bobbed but didn’t try to pitch her over the side.

  “Hey!” Michelle called out behind her.

  Isobel reached the end of the dock just as the last of his speed bled off.

  “How do you feel about fried fish?” Devlin’s idea of a greeting.

  “I’m from Texas,” she stepped aboard with one foot, grabbed the rigging, and gave a kick off the dock with her back foot to turn him back into the wind before he lost all way. “We deep fry Froot Loops and chicken noodle soup.”

  “Together?”

  “No. Though maybe someone has.”

  “Any good?”

  She settled on a seat and shrugged. “I prefer the deep-fried shepherd’s pie myself.”

  “Hey!” Michelle stood at the very end of the dock, poised to jump in and swim out to her.