by Gwen Hunter
Well, goody. Big cop-man on the scene. “Okay if we stop by the booth where I was attacked and pick up the rough I had just bought?”
“I reckon I can keep a watch-out for you for a couple minutes. But you tell me if you see your brown man again. He might be back.”
“Thank you, Captain,” I said, padding his rank. I wanted to barf at my tone, but I had to use what worked. Feminine dependence and obsequious servility were the tickets to Tommy T.’s heart. And I didn’t have time to be as sincerely irate as I wanted nor to give the man a lesson in behavior modification.
“Just a sergeant in the sheriff’s department, little miss. But we aim to protect.”
I smiled, bit my tongue and led the way to Rett’s booth. I was cold, wet, starting to hurt, and an old-fashioned, redneck, chivalrous man could be useful. I happened to need a man with a gun and an entrée to the police for safety. A ride to the hotel was mighty handy, too, but I had a feeling that if he knew I considered him a free taxi, Tommy T. would have balked at the lift.
Back on the convention-center floor, it was short work to convince Everett that I was fine, collect my extra twenty pounds of rough and walk to Tommy’s car. I settled into the rear of the cop car without demur and laid my head back for the short ride, thinking of a hot shower and clean, dry clothes. Rather than talking, Tommy T. whistled a breathy tune as we drove and it was almost pleasant.
The hotel room was another matter entirely.
My room had been ransacked. I dropped the heavy pack in the doorway and surveyed the mess. The hotel manager and a city cop were standing in the middle of the room and met my eyes with anger and suspicion. I just shook my head and closed my mouth. I’d be looking at me like that now, too, if I wasn’t in my own shoes.
The tiny fridge had been left open, its contents on the carpet, the small unit turned on its side. The television set was pushed across the bureau, about to fall to the floor. The microwave was hanging open. The one comfortable chair had been upended, the bed had been stripped, the mattress half off, sheets in the corner. My clothes had been ripped from the suitcase and closet and thrown across the room. One of my favorite red cowboy boots was on the mattress, the other nowhere in sight.
The room safe had been ripped out of the closet and was split open. It looked like someone had attacked it with a log splitter and maul. It was in pieces of shattered plastic and hacked metal. I was glad I had put my good emerald earrings and my favorite necklace in the hotel safe along with the designs. The emerald pendant alone was insured for nearly five thousand bucks, but the replacement value would be much higher. I usually just stored them in the room. That would never happen again. As it was, the amethyst nuggets I had bought on the first day of the show and stored in the room safe were clearly goners.
A female officer with a dog on a leash entered and the manager went to stand in the doorway. The mutt was a black terrier mix with long legs and a tendency to quiver. It couldn’t have weighed twenty pounds, and started to tour my room instantly. My eyes narrowed and I glared at Tommy T. who backed up a step. I had flown often enough to know a drug-sniffing dog when I saw one. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Nobody took your valuable cabochons. Must a been looking for something,” he defended himself.
“I told you—”
“I know what you tol’ me. Won’t take us but a few minutes to check out your story.”
I rolled my eyes and moved into the room, righted the chair and sat. The cloth of my wet shirts and jeans stuck to the upholstery, a cold slime against my skin. This was ridiculous.
“Anything missing?” the manager asked.
I spotted my other red boot under the bedclothes and my other pair of jeans. Two sweaters, a jacket I hadn’t worn to the show because the temps had risen overnight. Undies. I traveled light. Bending forward in the chair, I leaned over the safe to verify it was empty. I sighed. “Some amethyst I got yesterday. Maybe six hundred bucks’ worth. I have a receipt somewhere.”
“And why was they in the room safe and the other stuff in the hotel safe?” Tommy asked.
I scrubbed my face and counted to ten. Remembered to breathe past the irritation. “Convenience,” I said. “Laziness,” I added, and refused to say more.
Tommy made a snorting sound. “Might want to check out the backpack, too, while we got Omar here. Little miss was greatly interested in keeping it to herself. And she says nothing was stolen from it. Mighty strange, you ask me.”
“You are a moron,” I said distinctly. Tommy’s face darkened, but the female dog-handler snickered, as if she might secretly agree. Omar just went on sniffing, showing no particular attention to anything.
After ten minutes, the deputy brought Omar to me. “Sorry, but would you let Omar sniff you?”
I sighed but slid to the floor by the chair and held out my arms for the small dog. The deputy appeared surprised by my action and maybe she hadn’t intended for me to get on the floor, but it seemed the quickest way to get this nonsense over with. And besides, my back was really beginning to hurt. I propped against the chair and Omar sniffed all around me, paying particular attention to my shoes but not acting very excited about them. Which just proved that he was a male dog, because they were the latest sport wear by Lorenzo Banfi and any self-respecting female animal of any species would have been impressed.
“Nice shoes,” the dog handler said.
I held up a foot and rotated my ankle to show off the lace-up. “Thanks.”
When Omar was done, I asked permission, then ran a hand down his body and told him he was a good dog. And he was. A sweet-tempered mutt with happy black eyes that looked into mine with adoration. A dog who had never met a stranger or an enemy. I could put away my hope that he’d pee on Tommy T.’s leg for me. Omar went back to work.
“We’d like permission to see your belongings stored in the safe,” Tommy said.
My temper shot into the royally PO’d stage in a single instant. My mouth took over before I could think. “And if I say no?”
Tommy T.’s face went permanently harsh, and I figured that meant he was tired of my glaring and immune to any womanly wiles I might have faked, had I not been so mad.
“I’d be forced to ask a judge to provide a warrant. And we’d likely find the need to hold you overnight for questioning.”
“Let me get this right.” I levered myself up from the floor. My back was stiffening and I was not exactly graceful, but anger gave me strength I might not have had otherwise. “I’m attacked in a public place and I’m the one being investigated?”
“Attacked. Hotel ransacked. Nothing taken. Or not much. Mighty strange, you ask me.” He hitched his utility belt for emphasis.
My mouth opened to argue. I wanted to tell Tommy T. he’d rue the day he took me on. I really wanted to slap him silly, but that would land me in jail. Instead, I blew out a hard breath. The cop was bigger than I was, both figuratively and literally. Fighting him would take time and resources I didn’t have at the moment. And I had to face the fact that it did indeed look weird to have been attacked and so little taken. I reined in my temper, counting slowly to twenty with my eyes closed.
When I could speak without calling him a redneck, undereducated, inbred hillbilly, and getting myself into double trouble, I said, “Let’s go.” When he started to reply, I said, “You call me little miss again and I’ll write a letter to the city or county board about your needing a course in social adjustment or whatever the heck they call it.” The female cop laughed, a startled burst of sound. I figured she agreed that a moment of politically correct time-out would do the burly cop good. Tommy T. just glared.
2
Sunday, 1:55 p.m.
I had been cleared of wrongdoing in everyone’s eyes except Tommy T.’s and had returned to my room to clean up my belongings. The attack on the room’s decor had worn out my welcome and I suddenly had no desire to return to the show for its last three hours. Most of the vendors would be packing up to leave and the best barga
ins of the entire weekend would take place on the leftover, picked-over items but I couldn’t make myself care. My back was giving off little spasms of warning pain, my hand was throbbing, and I had a headache from the short and unprofitable spate of temper I had been forced to hold in. A temper hangover without the joy of a real row.
I took a hot shower, swallowed back two ibuprofen, layered on dry warm clothes and slid into the red boots. After checking out, I tossed my belongings into the back of the Geo Tracker and headed home early. I was nearly out of town when I had a sudden wild hair and did a U-turn at the bottom of a steep hill. I was in Asheville, there was a fabulous spa nearby. Why not indulge?
Lying in bed, just before midnight, I lifted a leg from my mattress and wiggled my toes. Polished nails caught the light. I’d paid a small fortune for the leg waxing, massage, facial, manicure and spa pedicure but the afternoon of pampering had been worth every dime. My face was still tingling from the ginseng-and-pearl hydrating mask, and every muscle in my body felt loose and pliable from the hands and elbows of the masseuse. Even the bruised places on either side of my spine felt better. Noelle would have a fit that I took a spa day without her, but after being kidney-punched, I had deserved the indulgent hours preceding the drive home.
The dark, red-brown nail polish seemed to turn greenish in the candlelight, much like the hunk of greenish turquoise I had bartered over at the rock-and-gem show. The skin of the fist-sized turquoise rough was a vibrant burnished brown that seemed to bleed into the rich green nodules throughout. I had never seen such lovely turquoise. Pretty great-looking toes, too. Heat seeped into my bones, soothed the pain in my back.
The light flickered over the puckered scar on my left shoulder. I flexed my fist, twisting my head hard to the right. It was an old scar, an injury sustained when I fell on a pick as a young woman. I had nicked a tendon, leaving the shoulder occasionally stiff in winter. It had taught me a lesson most people learn as toddlers—never run with sharp objects.
I turned the page of the cheesy romance book I’d picked up at the spa and sipped the Blue Moon Blonde, its ice-crusted bottle catching the light of the full moon through my front window. Fragrant candlelight wavered beside my bed, haloing the wedding band on the bedside table where I had placed it when I took it off a year ago. Stan had wooed and won me and then dumped me for a bleached-blond bimbo. The bastard. I pushed the memory away.
I drank again and slipped lower against the pillows, the silk teddy shushing against the sheets, and finished off the bottle, twisted off the top of another. Despite the attack and the incident with Tommy T., the bruises and soreness, I had done better than expected at the show—I had done spectacularly well, in fact, selling almost all last year’s remaining rough stock, trading for rough for the spring line and getting some polished cabs and focal stones I could use as is. And the rubies…. Just for the deal I’d scored on the rubies I deserved a moment of revelry, even if I had to carouse alone. One cab was of such vibrant red that I would recoup the entire seven grand from its sale alone.
With the exception of the stock stolen from the room safe, my losses had been few, and I hoped insurance would cover a portion of that. Yep, even with sore ribs and hand, a theft, a room ransacked, and a visit with a hillbilly cop, the show had been stellar. This year’s rough stock I had picked out and brought home would cut and polish into exquisite pendants and focal stones. Picture agates from Arizona would marry perfectly to Jubal’s asymmetrical silver and copper bezel settings and Noe’s new line of dichroic glass beads.
Perhaps best of all, I had discovered the double-fist-sized hunk of African bloodstone rough that would work up into some of the shop’s signature necklaces with bleeding-heart focal stones. Rich, vibrant bloodstone was increasingly rare in the world of lapidaries, and I counted myself lucky to have come across it. And Rett’s simply sumptuous blue labradorite had stimulated an entire line of necklace designs. While getting my pedicure, I’d sketched out six fabulous new styles. All in all, a long, exhausting and delightfully successful event.
The cell phone rang and I jerked, focusing on the small gold unit, lights flashing all around its high-tech edge. It rang again, the sound crisp as breaking stone. I stared at the cell on the little table covered with candles, lotions, oils and unguents. The pleasure I’d been nursing drained away.
Again the tinny sound echoed into the cavern of the loft, and a slow-spreading dread twisted through me. Only bad things happened when the phone rang after midnight. I lifted the phone as it started its fourth ring, flicked my wrist to open it and said, “Tyler.”
“There’s a blood-aura on the moon tonight. I suggest you get out of the bed and get dressed. A policeman will be at your door momentarily.”
“Aunt Matilda!” I started, as the line clicked dead. I tossed the cell to the table, threw off the covers and stood. “Blood-aura. There’s no blood-aura. Crazy old woman.” I pulled on a robe as the doorbell in the shop downstairs rang. Bending, I looked out the window, across the small porch I used in warmer seasons and up at the full moon, shining on a foot of fresh snow, brightening the entire world. A thin line of palest red circled the pure white orb. “Spit and decay!” I swore.
I slid my feet into slippers as the downstairs bell rang again, unrelenting. I tucked a three-pound sphere of polished bloodstone into a pocket as a weapon just in case Aunt Matilda was wrong about the occupation and intentions of my visitor.
Leaving the gas logs and candles burning, I raced down the steps, my heart in my throat. Not all blood-auras were evil, I told myself. Not all, but sometimes. When I was a kid, there was a blood-aura on a full moon. My mama had died. She had been killed less than an hour after Aunt Matilda had called to warn us all. The warning hadn’t helped. Hadn’t stopped the drunk driver from plowing into her car. Aunt Matilda’s warnings never helped. The best I ever hoped from them was a single moment to catch my breath before I was pummeled by whatever she saw in her disastrous visions. But maybe this was one of the other times—a blood-aura that passed without incident. I could hope.
The stairway was cold and poorly lit, the treads creaking as I raced down. I found the keys to the shop on their ring at the foot of the stairs, turned off the security system, ran into the shop and unlocked the door. Without even looking through the window into the night, I heaved open the door. Icy air blasted in, chilling my bed-warm skin. Scent rose from my massaged flesh, a sweet, oiled aroma.
I looked up, into his face.
Cool eyes, green flecked with brown and blue, stared back at me, dark brown hair falling over his forehead, full lips against an austere expression, chin marked with a reddish haze of shadow. The breath hissed out of me. “What’s happened?”
“Why do you think something’s happened?” He looked interested. Professionally interested.
I stared into his face, feeling the tug of blood to blood. He felt it too; I could see his reaction in the narrowing of his eyes. A St. Claire man. Had to be. I shook my head to clear it. A strand of hair whipped my cheek. “A cop rings my bell after midnight and I’m not supposed to think something’s happened?”
His eyes narrowed. “Who says I’m a cop?”
“My great-aunt.” Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to say—I saw it in his eyes. I looked around him. No cop car in the street. No uniform. Just a man in a well-cut suit. My shock at Aunt Matilda’s call had turned me into a fool and a chatterbox. I shoved the lock of reddish-blond hair off my face.
He offered a black wallet, badge on one side, State Bureau of Investigation ID on the other. “SBI, Special Agent Evan Bartlock. Your great-aunt.” It was neither question nor statement. It was a phrase weighted with mild disbelief.
A cop at my door. A St. Claire cop at my door. A sign from Aunt Matilda, stirring the pot as always, keeping a finger in my business? Or something worse? An icy draft swept up my robe and I shivered in reaction, clutching the lapels close. I should have put on jeans over the teddy. Something warmer than a robe. “Great-great-aunt, actual
ly. She’s psychic. Sort of.”
Bartlock’s eyes narrowed and grew thoughtful, as he considered me. Suddenly they started to twinkle. “And she sent you down to meet me. At midnight. In a bathrobe with a tiny bit of lace sticking out at the shoulder. Hope you don’t mind if I find that just a bit implausible.”
He was laughing at me, I could see it in the depths of his oddly colored eyes. My hackles rose. I tossed back my head and thrust out my chin. “She called just before you rang the bell the first time and told me you were here.” I was talking too much. It sounded stupid. I sounded stupid.
Something was wrong. There was a St. Claire relative on my doorstep in Connersville, hundreds of miles from home, a man I’d never met as a child. Currents wafted between us, currents I hadn’t felt with anyone except my brother. Currents that were part of the family gift. Sudden fear undulated through me. What had Aunt Matilda seen? I could almost hear the cop’s heartbeat speed up. He knew something I didn’t know. Did he think I was guilty of something? What did he think I’d done?
“Are you Tyler Walker?”
I stared into his eyes, shivers of trepidation running up my spine, weakening my limbs. My back, where knuckles had injured it, twinged beneath the robe. I nodded. I had been a Walker until I took back my maiden name, but I didn’t say that. I’d found a bridle for my tongue in the fear of Aunt Matilda’s portent and in the inexplicable presence of a man from back home.
“I’d like to ask you some questions. May I come in?”
I wanted to say no, but he was a cop. It would be smarter if I let him come in, rather than be stubborn and have him take me downtown to question me. Two cops in one day. Yep. Something was wrong. Confusion, traces of anger and fear warred within me.
I held the door open for him, keyed the lock shut, reset the alarm and led the way up the steps to the second-story loft. Heat wrapped around me like a warm hand as I entered my apartment. Evan Bartlock stopped just inside the door. I could feel him scanning the open area as I crossed the width of the vast space. On the way, I placed the bloodstone sphere back in the bowl of stone rounds. I felt more than saw him note the weapon he hadn’t seen until now.
