by Rebecca York
He sat back in his chair, trying to put himself in Morgan’s place. She was up to something, but did it involve putting the screws to her own boss?
For what?
Money.
He had no intention of paying. And no intention of leaving her roaming around on the loose where she could make trouble for him or drag the good name of the Howell Institute through the mud. He could have used the operative who’d sent the report on Morgan for the next part of the assignment, but he’d always found it better to compartmentalize. He went back to his computer and opened another file—this one a list of men he’d used for supersensitive assignments in the past. All of them were efficient and reliable.
Carter Frederick was in the New Orleans area, which meant he could get on the job quickly.
Wellington had never met the man in person. In fact, he dealt with him only through an alias—the Badger. Frederick didn’t know who he really was and never would.
After dialing the number beside the name, he waited until an answering machine picked up.
“If you know your party’s extension, you may dial the number at any time.”
He punched in 991 and waited for a set of clicks.
Frederick came on the line. “How may I help you?”
“This is the Badger calling. I have a problem in New Orleans. A rush job.”
“That will cost you.”
He didn’t like the guy’s assumption that he was in charge of the conversation, but he was willing to overlook that, if he got results. “Not important. I’m having issues with a former employee. I want you to find out what she’s doing there and what she knows.”
“About what?”
“It’s your job to get that from her.”
“Better tell me a little bit more, so I’ll know if she’s spinning some kind of wild story.”
“If I knew why she was in town, I wouldn’t need you to question her.”
“Okay. You got her location?”
He gave the hotel’s name and address.
RACHEL SAW A FEW MORE clients, one a woman who came to her every few months for advice. She was glad to focus on the familiar customer so that she didn’t have to think about Evelyn Morgan.
But finally she was alone again and unable to shake the sense of dread that had dogged her ever since she’d read the woman’s cards.
She’d been sure Ms. Morgan was going to die. Could she tell her that, and maybe help her prevent it, if she did another reading when they met again tomorrow night?
After closing the shop, she went up to her apartment and busied herself fixing tuna salad, which she spread on some fresh greens and ate on the second-floor terrace adjoining her apartment while she looked through a catalog of new-age books she was considering for the shop.
Finished with the light dinner, she washed the dishes, then sat up in bed and read a romance novel for a while. She liked them for the intensity, for the emotions of the characters in relationships she was never going to have. Tonight, though, she was unable to keep her mind from wandering to Evelyn Morgan.
She finally gave up and lay in the darkness, trying to calm her nerves with relaxation exercises, but she knew she was definitely going to say something to Ms. Morgan tomorrow.
The decision was like a giant weight lifted off her chest. It was the right thing to do, and she was able to relax.
With a little sigh, she closed her eyes, and for a few hours she slept peacefully. Then she woke. Or did she?
She was lying in her bed, only she had the strange feeling that she wasn’t really conscious.
Before she could puzzle that out, a shadowy figure stepped into her bedroom. A man. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she knew he was large and solid.
She lay rigid as he walked toward the bed. In a shaft of light from the street, she got a look at him. He was tall and a little rough around the edges with dark hair and dark eyes.
He stood staring down at her, then glanced over his shoulder at something she couldn’t see.
“We have to get out of here.”
She shrank back. “Why?”
“They’re after us.”
“Who?”
He made a sharp gesture with his hand. “I don’t know, but we have to leave before it’s too late.”
There was no reason to believe him. Then from downstairs, she heard the sound of a door quietly opening, and the realization of danger almost choked off her breath.
“Come on!”
He reached out and grabbed her arm, and a blaze of sensation shot through her, as if she’d suddenly grabbed a live electric wire, and the current was sizzling along her nerve endings.
But it was more than a physical reaction. So much more. Part sexual. Part longing. Part intimacy. None of which she could explain.
She’d never met this man before. Was he even real?
Yes!
It was like when she was reading the cards and she got a sudden insight into the person sitting across from her. Only this was so much deeper.
Did he feel it, too?
Yes.
He hadn’t spoken. But she had heard the word in her head.
Before she could stop to consider that, he was urging her to leave.
Come on, he said again, another mind-to-mind communication.
She’d never experienced anything like it, nor did she know what to make of it.
But she got out of bed, wearing a sheer white nightgown that did nothing to hide her body from him.
He gave her a long, hot glance, and she knew that under other circumstances, they would be heading back to the bed, not away from it.
Instead, he led her quickly to the French doors.
They stepped out and ran across the roof, just as a man burst through the doors behind them, and she knew that if they didn’t get away, they were dead.
The man who had first come to her room jumped nimbly down to the street level and held out his arms.
Without hesitation, she gave him her total trust, jumping into his embrace, crashing against him. He staggered back but kept his balance. When his arms came up to enfold her, she burrowed into him, feeling safe and at the same time more terrified than she ever had in her life. Not just because someone was after them. It was him. Them. Whatever was between them was going to change her whole life, and she couldn’t stop it.
He lowered his mouth to hers for a hard, frantic kiss. As the contact deepened, something strange happened. She felt as though she was looking right into his mind, and the experience was like nothing she had ever imagined.
She opened for him, tasting him, taking in the flavor of man and fine wine.
She was so wrapped up in the experience that she had forgotten all about the guy on the roof, until his shadow loomed over them.
She saw it, even with her eyes closed.
Breaking away, she gasped.
Even though they were supposed to be running from an intruder, they had gotten wound up in each other. Now they were trapped.
She woke with a start, the dream leaving her feeling disoriented and scared and exhilarated, all at the same time.
She lay in bed, breathing hard, going over the details of the encounter. The man who had first come to her room had been familiar. She should know him. But she couldn’t dredge up his name.
He had come to warn her that they were in danger. Was it a premonition? Or had she made it all up because she was upset about Evelyn Morgan?
RACHEL WAS RESTLESS ALL the next day and feeling as though she wasn’t doing her best work for her clients. Finally, in frustration, she closed the shop and changed into a comfortable dress and low-heeled shoes before stopping to put on a little lip gloss and blusher.
The building she owned was several blocks from the Bourbon Street Arms, and she had plenty of time to change her mind as she walked through the winter New Orleans evening, past bars and restaurants, T-shirt shops and strip joints—that rich mix of French Quarter sights and sounds she’d known all her life.
It was still early, and the Quarter was crowded with tourists and locals out to have a good time, many of them walking along carrying cups of beer or mixed drinks.
Everybody appeared to be having fun, but she was feeling as if she were going to her own funeral.
Maybe she should just forget about this meeting, turn around and go home.
Since that wasn’t really an option, she made her way through the crowd, pulled forward by the aura of danger surrounding the woman who had asked for a meeting that evening.
And not just around Evelyn Morgan. Rachel knew deep down that her disquiet had something important to do with herself, as well. And the man who had invaded her dream. Not invaded. He’d been the reason for the dream.
That was a strange notion, but again she couldn’t shake it. Lost in thought, she turned the corner and stopped short, suddenly assaulted by the flashing red-and-blue lights of several police cruisers.
They seemed to be flanking the door of the Bourbon Street Arms, but she couldn’t be sure because a crowd had gathered to watch the action.
“What happened?” she gasped as she stared at the cop cars and the bystanders.
“Don’t know,” a woman answered.
“Some lady’s dead.”
The breath froze in Rachel’s chest. It was Evelyn Morgan. She knew it.
She brought herself up short. She didn’t know that. Not for sure, but she couldn’t drive away the sick feeling gathering in her throat.
Uncertain, she looked around the crowd of gawkers. She could stay here, or go home and turn on the television where she might get more information than by hanging around.
She was starting to back away, looking to her right and left, when her gaze came to rest on a tall, dark-haired man who was craning his neck forward.
His features were a little rough around the edges. As though he’d done more living in thirty years than most men did in a hundred.
He drew near her, and she studied his blade of a nose, his hooded eyes, the shock of dark hair that he obviously had trouble controlling.
It was him. The man in the dream. Standing right on the street only a few feet away.
Oh, Lord, he was here, too, and no way could that be a coincidence.
As she stared at him, she realized what she hadn’t been able to figure out after the dream. He was Jake Harper.
She’d seen his picture in the paper at charity events and at the opening of a new housing development for residents who’d been displaced by Katrina.
He’d interested her, and she’d done some reading on him. She remembered he owned some restaurants and antique shops and also a construction company. But he never talked about his background. She gathered he didn’t come from money, but he’d worked his way into New Orleans society, although getting mentioned in the papers didn’t seem to be his goal. It just happened from time to time.
What was he doing here?
The same thing she was.
As though he knew she was watching, he turned toward her, working his way through the press of bodies.
Just before he reached her, someone jostled her, and she almost lost her footing.
As she fought not to get trampled, Jake surged across the four feet that still separated them, catching her arm to steady her. And as his fingers closed around her flesh, everything changed.
A sizzle of electricity shot along her nerve endings, the way it had in the dream. She tried to jump back, but the crowd around her was too thick, and his grip was too tight for her to escape.
Chapter Two
Jake’s heart was thudding, and at the same time his head was pounding. He wanted to let go of the woman, and at the same time he wanted to keep holding on to her forever.
The contradiction whirled in his brain along with a confusion of impressions that were more vivid than the street scene around him.
A shop in the French Quarter. Tarot cards. Tuna salad on a bed of greens. A woman alone in the swirl of humanity. Not just here but for as long as she could remember.
The thoughts came from her brain.
She was like him. Alone.
Her head turned toward him, her eyes wide with shock, and he knew that she was getting the same kind of impressions from him that he was getting from her.
Impressions and memories. Some of them recent. Others older.
A cute little girl walking home from school by herself. At the movies trying to understand the emotions of a love story. The same girl, sitting in her beautifully decorated room weeping.
Things that would be impossible for him to know, yet he was sure he wasn’t making them up.
And under the thoughts and memories was an aura of danger gathering like a dark cloud around them. Was she going to attack him?
Not likely. They’d met by chance in the middle of a crowd. Or was it by chance? Had someone sent her to ambush him?
Another image leaped into her mind. A woman with dyed brown hair. In her sixties. Walking with a limp. Wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come to see him.
She was the only one who knew he’d be here.
“Evelyn Morgan,” she breathed.
“What do you know about her?” he asked, hearing the shock and uncertainty in his own voice.
He’d forgotten the people around them. Now he remembered they were standing in the middle of a crowd, speaking in low voices, but they might as well have been alone for all the other people mattered.
The woman raised her chin. “She asked me to meet her tonight.”
“Are you lying?” he demanded.
“Why would I?” she challenged.
Could she lie? After all, he’d pulled the information from her mind.
He held on to that extraordinary thought as he kept his hand on her, drawing her back through the mass of people until they had emerged into a clear space in the middle of the street.
A man in a wrinkled shirt strode toward the hotel. It was Detective Moynihan, whom Jake knew from his work with kids at risk in the city. “Detective,” he called out.
The cop stopped and looked at him.
“What happened?” Jake asked.
“You know I can’t give out any information.”
Jake’s hand was still on the woman. He was close enough to reach out with his other hand and touch Moynihan.
He wasn’t sure why he did it, but as his fingers closed on the detective’s sleeve, information leaped into his mind.
Evelyn Morgan. Lying in a pool of blood, her limp body on the floor of her hotel room.
Jake stared at him, struggling not to let the shock he felt show on his face.
“Got work to do,” Moynihan said and pulled away, making for the hotel, leaving Jake alone with the woman.
“Let me go,” she demanded.
“Not likely.”
When she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, he held on to her, afraid she might run if he gave her the chance. Or was that her thought?
He wasn’t sure. He’d never been less sure of himself in his life. Well, not in years.
He steered her a little way down the street, under one of the balconies that ran along the second floor of the buildings, providing shade during the day and shadows at night. His head was pounding, making it hard to think.
When they were alone, he dragged in a breath and let it out. “What just happened?”
“Evelyn Morgan was murdered.”
“You picked that up?”
“Yes.”
He hadn’t been asking about the murder. That was a given. He was asking about the two of them.
“Will you take your hand off me?” she asked.
“Why?”
“You’re making me nervous.”
He dropped his hand to his side, ready to reach out again if she decided to turn and dash away. At least she looked as confounded as he felt. That was something.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She looked as if she didn’t want to answer, but she finally raised her chin and said,
“Rachel Gregory.”
“You have a shop in the French Quarter,” he said slowly as he recalled the mental images. “You read tarot cards.”
She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “You researched me?”
“No. I picked that up from…your mind.”
“Impossible!”
“Is it? Are you saying you didn’t learn anything from me? You’re the…psychic.”
She sighed. “You’re Jake Harper.”
“You got that from my thoughts?”
“Actually, no. From the newspapers. You’re a local celebrity.”
“Oh, come on.”
“What would you call yourself?”
“A businessman.” He swallowed hard. “Let’s cut to the chase. What’s Evelyn Morgan to you?”
“She had a tarot reading yesterday, then asked me to come to her hotel room tonight.” When he raised an eyebrow, she asked, “You don’t believe me?”
“Actually, I do. Did she say what she wanted?”
“No.”
“What time was that? I mean, the reading.”
“Three o’clock. Why?”
“She had a busy afternoon. After she left you, she came to my restaurant, Le Beau, looking for me. She also asked me to come to her hotel room tonight.”
This time it was Rachel who asked, “Why?”
“She said it was something personal. Something she couldn’t tell me at the office. She said she wanted me to meet someone.” He kept his gaze fixed on her. “I’m assuming it was you.”
They stared at each other.
“We need to talk,” he said.
She considered that. “What if I don’t want to?”
“You’re afraid?”
“Aren’t you?” she retorted.
He gave her a hard look. “I always hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
“Which is what in this case?”
He waited until a couple walking along the street passed them. “I don’t know. Let’s get off the street. Le Beau is only a block away. We can talk there.”
His heart started to pound as he watched her considering the suggestion. What if she said no?
