Sex & Sensibility

by Shannon Hollis

  SHE SAYS THAT Christina was trying to impress someone. An older man, she thinks.

  That’s bloody impossible. The only things Christina cares about are shopping, clothes, and a hundred and one ways to avoid filling out college applications. Tessa says she doesn’t want to commit. I don’t get it. If moving out here isn’t a commitment then what is?

  Unless she didn’t really want to come. But she wasn’t forced. I stated my case, told her I wanted her to come live with me. I may have told her I loved her; in fact, I’m sure I must have. That isn’t forcing anybody.

  Then why the hell didn’t she want to commit? And speaking of committing, who is this older man?

  I’m getting that urge to hurt something again. Time to go whack a bucket of golf balls or go out to my secret log pile behind the garage and chop wood. Screw the shrinks—chopping wood is the best therapy I know. A big axe, lots of violence and it lets you think at the same time.

  I can’t think of a single person Christina has ever shown an attraction to. We have parties here, she talks to everyone—or more to the point, no one. She speaks when spoken to and the rest of the time she looks out the window as if she can’t wait to get out of there. I used to think she hated hanging around with us fuddy-duddies, but now with this older man thing I’m not so sure. What if she was looking out the window at the driveway, waiting for his car?

  What older man?

  This is gonna drive me stark-raving mad.

  Tessa said it might be me, but probably not. Why is Christina trying to get attention? I practically work from home so I’ll be here for her. We eat supper together every night. How much more attention does a girl need? Does she want me to take her on a trip or something? I have to go to Singapore anyway—maybe she’d like shopping on Orchard Street. It would be pure purgatory for me, but I’d make the sacrifice.

  If she’d just come home.

  GRIFFIN WRAPPED UP the day’s details with Jay Singleton over dinner, though details was a bit of a stretch. Singleton seemed satisfied, though, which surprised the hell out of Griffin. But then, if you had no clues at all, a theory was better to go on than nothing.

  He suggested hitting up Christina’s gal pals at the country club for information, but none of them could figure out how to do it without alerting the immediate world that she was missing. At least it was a possibility, as soon as someone came up with a story that would work.

  After dinner, Tessa declined the offer of drinks. “I’m going to the cottage,” she said. “Since she vanished during the night maybe it will help to see things at that time, from her perspective.”

  Which sounded like total B.S. to Griffin, but his job was to shadow her, so shadow her he would.

  The wisteria vine shading the patio outside the cottage created wavering trails of shadow on the flagstones as they crossed to the front door. The night was damp, and he breathed in the scent of freshly cut grass and the perfume of the purple wisteria, mixed with the tang of seaweed washed up on the beach several hundred yards away. The marine layer sitting offshore breathed cool air ahead of itself as it moved in for the night, giving relief from the heat of Indian summer.

  The scents of the night, the quiet, the sensuous sway of the woman walking ahead of him…at any other time this would be a perfect setting for a night of lovemaking.

  He shook off the thought. The night was creating a false sense of intimacy, that was all. This sense of waiting, of anticipation created by the wash of waves in the distance and the sweet scent of flowers, was just an illusion. The only thing he was waiting for was some kind of information provided by Jay’s rent-a-mystic, here. That was it.

  It was strange how confidently she moved in the dark, though. Had she memorized the place when they’d been here earlier?

  “Want me to stay on the step again?” His voice sounded rough in the breathing silence, even to him.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him as she pushed open the door. “No, it’s okay. Don’t turn on the lights, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sometimes you can see better in the dark.”

  O-o-o-kay. You in this case obviously did not mean him. He preferred light. Clarity. Facts. Things that could be catalogued and checked into an evidence locker, things that didn’t lie or hold double meanings.

  He moved cautiously behind her, expecting at any moment to stub a foot on a table leg or run into a chair. The moon had not risen yet, but still, a little silvery light filtered in through the windows, just enough so that he could see her moving softly, slowly, touching things as she had before. Just a light caress of the fingers, one that gently asked, Do you have anything for me?

  He wondered if she touched her boyfriend like that after she hadn’t seen him for a while. Do you have anything for me? Because of course she had a boyfriend. A woman whose hips swayed like that and who could make a man think about falling on his knees and nuzzling her just by the simple act of sitting down surely had to.

  Too bad the guy, whoever he was, was going to have to do without her until they found Christina. Too bad he couldn’t enjoy the sight of that sweet, pear-shaped derriere or that dimpled smile. Griffin had spent the whole time in the upstairs hallway trying to imagine what her breasts would look like without the confines of bra and T-shirt. Would they be perky and pointed? Or lush and full? This unknown guy, damn him, already knew the exact color of her nipples, and whether she had large areolas or small.

  He was betting small, with hard nipples a man could roll on his tongue like ripe raspberries, making her moan when he sucked—

  “—know if she had any special possession?”

  Griffin came out of his fantasy with a start. Thank God she’d kept the lights off, because he definitely didn’t want her to see what was happening in his pants while he stood watching her.

  “What?”

  “I said, do you know if she was attached to a special possession? A toy, a necklace, something like that?”

  He was having a little difficulty making the shift from thinking about an adult woman’s body to random possessions. “Damned if I know.”

  He heard her sigh. “Never mind. I thought all cops had photographic memories like my sister, but evidently not.”

  There was nothing wrong with his memory, once something registered. And a young woman’s stuff did not register unless it had been stolen or sent to the anxious parents with a ransom note.

  “Can we turn on the lights?”

  “You might as well,” she said from the vicinity of Christina’s vanity table. “It looks like I’m going to have to go through her things after all.”

  He turned to find a wall switch and ran his foot into something solid sitting next to the bed. “Damn! I just found your suitcase.”

  “And I found a switch.”

  He heard a click and the room was illuminated by the mirror on the vanity, which was one of those theater-type ones with lightbulbs all around it. Tessa leaned on her hands, gazing into the mirror as though she could see through it to something beyond, like Alice and the looking glass.

  His gaze stalled on the gentle angle her body drew, from lower back to derriere to thigh. Her breasts swayed forward, creating another deep curve, the kind that begged to be followed with the hands.

  Griffin’s body tightened and he glanced away—at the ceiling, at the closet, at the window—anywhere but at Tessa.

  “What do you have to tell me? Oh.” Her voice trailed away, as though she’d come around a corner and the view had stopped her cold.

  “Tessa?” She didn’t reply. Cautiously, he moved to the end of the bed and sank onto it, watching her from a couple of feet away. “You okay?”

  “Touch me,” she whispered into the mirror.

  That was not what he’d expected her to say. In fact, he’d probably misheard her. “What?”

  “She wants him to look at her,” she said, her voice soft and far away.

  Was she talking to him? Had she seen the boner in his pants? Griffin sat frozen
, as though a spotlight had come on and caught him in the act of lusting after her. This was bad. He couldn’t start anything with her—he didn’t trust her. Hell, he didn’t even like her. Not that liking someone had anything to do with this balled-up investigation. Under other circumstances, maybe, he might act on the messages his body was sending him, but not with a woman who could—

  “She says, ‘I’m right in front of you, but all you see is what you want to see. Not the real me, the one who wants you.’”

  With a sudden jolt, he knew.

  She doesn’t care about you, you idiot—she’s telling you about Christina!

  He’d seen plenty of strange things in his career, but this really rang the bell on the Weird Shit-O-Meter.

  “She even bought a new dress,” she said to her reflection. “The taupe one, because he told her he liked it in the shop. It makes her look at least five years older. And it does fabulous things for her. You know—here.” She straightened.

  Griffin almost swallowed his tongue as her hands cupped her breasts and lifted them the way that dress might. His body leaped in response to the seductive movement while his common sense shouted that it wasn’t—couldn’t be—personal.

  Gathering what was left of his fried brain cells, he asked softly, “Where is she going to wear it?”

  “Not around here,” Tessa told him, and to his enormous relief, dropped her hands to her sides. “To the club in Santa Rita. He knows the guy working the door.”

  “Who?” Griffin asked.

  “Don’t know his name. He’s at Atlantis. She likes to dance.”

  “No, I mean who knows the guy working the door?” Griffin held his breath. “Was he the guy who took Christina?”

  “She lo-o-o-ves to dance.”

  Tessa raised her arms above her head and swiveled her hips, her feet moving to the beat of music he couldn’t hear. He stared as she turned slowly, her hips undulating as smoothly as those of a belly dancer or one of those hip-hop stars on TV.

  Think! Get some information before she comes out of it!

  “Tessa, who does Christina go dancing with?” he asked urgently. “And who did she get a fake I.D. from?”

  “Ashley and Melissa,” she sang, ignoring his second question. “So smooth.”

  Griffin watched her, frustration and desire at war in his veins. Were you supposed to wake a sensitive out of a trance? It wasn’t like sleepwalking, was it, where you could scare someone by waking them up?

  He couldn’t sit around and wait, either. It would take him a half hour to reach Santa Rita, giving him a few short hours to make inquiries before the club closed.

  He got up and reached for one of her hands. “Tessa?”

  She drew in a sharp breath and her dancing slowed to just a movement of her shoulders. “Yes, I’m here.” Her voice was back to normal, with none of the breathy, dreamy quality it had held a moment ago.

  “You had some kind of vision.”

  Simultaneously, they both realized he was still holding her hand. She smiled and twirled under his arm, as if they were swing dancing. “It was about the D and G dress and a club, right?”

  He let go of her hand. “Yeah. The Atlantis. So…” How could he word this? Then he thought, Look who you’re talking to. Just spit it out. “So were you channeling Christina, or what?”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t feel like dancing?” When he didn’t reply, she shook her head in mock regret. “Channeling isn’t one of my gifts,” she said. “I was, well, watching the playback of a memory would be a way to put it. Maybe she was rehearsing things she wanted to say to him. The man. Whoever he is.”

  Griffin felt a little lost. “This is way outside my experience,” he said at last. “I don’t even know how to reply to this.” Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t get the sight of her dancing out of his head. That sinuous movement, that invitation—

  “Hey, we all have our gifts.” She sounded as if she meant to comfort him or something. “But she’s definitely keeping secrets from me. I couldn’t pick up any names. Just Atlantis.”

  “Sure. Well.” Back to the business of concrete facts. “I’m going to this club to see what I can get.” He walked over and opened the door. The night breeze wafted in, carrying the scent of wisteria.

  “Now?”

  “Well, sure, now. Do you want me to sit around until it closes?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’ll show a picture to the bouncer at the door. I might get lucky and he’ll tell me the name of this guy Christina’s hung up on. Then I can go track him down. Whether he has anything to do with this or not, he’s got to be able to give me some information.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Maybe I’ll pick something up there,” she argued. “She had strong emotions about the Atlantis. That might work for me. Besides—” she took a couple of dance steps “—I still feel like dancing.”

  Well, he’d look a lot less like an investigator if she was there posing as his date. He just had to be careful to keep his focus on the job instead of this blond baggage whose dancing made him think about sex.

  “All right,” he said at last. “My truck’s parked in the staff lot, right behind the main garage. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes, after I brief Jay.”

  “You got it.” She brushed past him and heaved her suitcase up onto the bed. Jasmine mixed with the scent of wisteria.

  If someone had told him two days ago he’d be going clubbing with a psychic, he’d have told them where to put it. He had never been one of those people who wanted to know the future. The present and the prospect of a decent 401(k) were good enough for him.

  A PICKUP TRUCK. She should have insisted that they take the Mustang; at least it had some style. Tessa sighed and climbed onto the running board. She parked her butt on the seat and then swung her legs into the cab. Complicated, yes, but better than the alternative, which was flashing everyone in sight.

  Griffin looked at her a little strangely, then did a double take. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a skirt, obviously. Suede. I thought the fringe was cool. When I saw it at this secondhand shop I go to on P—”

  “That isn’t a skirt, that’s a frigging Band-Aid! What are you trying to do? Turn this into a circus?”

  “Oh, great.” She tugged on the skirt and fastened the seat belt as he fired up the engine with a roar and wheeled out into the long driveway. “A zillion cops in the world and I get the one who’s a father figure in training.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Good thing she’d been hanging on to the armrest. If she hadn’t, she might have bumped her head on the window as he took the first curve in the drive.

  “That’s the kind of thing dads say,” she replied. “Well, not my dad. He’s a ‘live and let live’ kind of guy. But most dads—Jay Singleton, for instance—would certainly say something like that.”

  “I am not a father figure!” he snapped. He gave the brakes a nominal tap and turned onto the main road.

  “You don’t have to get grouchy about it.”

  “I don’t like being slotted into a role that has nothing to do with how I really am.”

  “Like what you’ve been doing to me this whole time? Gosh, I’m so sorry.”

  That stopped him. She probably sounded like a petulant teenager herself, but she couldn’t help it. He may look like a beat-up warrior, but all this distrust and authority-figure stuff just rubbed her the wrong way. And when that happened, her filters went down and she said what she thought without considering anybody else’s feelings.

  “Besides, I wear what I want. Just because a woman wears something that’s fun and makes her feel sexy doesn’t mean it’s going to turn into a circus. Like men are going to lose control when they see it. I have more confidence in guys than that.”

  He just snorted and didn’t reply until they were out on the highway. This beat-up old truck had one heck o
f an engine, and it was obviously in perfect running order. She couldn’t see the speedometer, but they had to be doing nearly eighty.

  “You’re right,” he said abruptly five or six miles later.

  “What, about guys losing control at the sight of my skirt?”

  “No. About what I’m doing. You said you weren’t involved in that street fair episode and I didn’t believe you.”

  “What did you think I’d done?”

  He kept his eagle eye on the road, but his tone had lost the edge it usually had when he spoke to her. “There was a ring of small-time cons and scammers using the fair as a front for fraud.”

  She sat back. “Wow. No kidding.”

  “Turns out it was all the people selling herbal remedies in a cooperative. One of them said that you and the woman in the booth next to you were in on it, so I hauled you all in.” He glanced at her. “You make an enemy there or something?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. I got one of the better booths as far as placement goes, though. Maybe somebody got angry about it.”

  “Anyway, that’s the story. Fraud is one of my hot buttons, and having you involved then and now just bent me out of shape.”

  Tessa’s mind flashed to the first impression she’d received of him. She’d resolved not to bring it up again, but it had to be said. “It has something to do with your mom, doesn’t it?”

  He threw her a glance, then returned his gaze to the highway. They were nearly to the Santa Rita exit. “Keep that up and I’ll start to believe you know what you’re doing.”

  “Keep this up and you won’t have to apologize for the circus remark.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, and then he sobered. “My mom’s getting old and she lives on her own. She’s pretty sharp, but women in that age group are targets for a certain kind of character. When I was still with the P.D. she hired this handyman to do some stuff around the house. He came off as Mr. Trustworthy and soon he was giving her financial advice and before I knew what was going on, he’d talked her into giving him access to her accounts. I think he even had her convinced they were going to get married. Anyhow, she dropped something in conversation one day and I made it to the bank just in time. He was in the process of cleaning out her savings account, after he’d used her checking account to buy a one-way ticket to Guatemala, where he was from.”