by Rebecca York
Because he was shocked that she hadn’t warned the woman? Or because the intimacy had triggered that Vulcan mind-meld thing, and he’d been as confounded by it as she?
She wanted to ask him. At the same time she heard an inner warning to stay as far away from him as she could.
And then there was the headache. Had the intimate contact been responsible for that, too? And made it hard to think clearly?
Trying to wrest her mind away from Jake, she crossed the room and turned on the television set. The hotel death had made the evening news.
But there wasn’t much more information than they’d picked up on the street. A woman had been found dead in her hotel room when the maid had come in to turn down the bed and put a piece of chocolate on the pillow.
Rachel fired up her laptop and got a web account of the incident. When she didn’t find anything new, she picked a deck of tarot cards from the shelf beside her easy chair. She had collected them over the years. There were modern interpretations. Fantasy versions. A Gothic deck with witches and vampires. But she usually ended up going back to the Rider-Waite deck because that was what she’d learned on, and she knew the cards so well.
She had never been good at doing readings for herself. Particularly anything formal. Instead of laying out one of the classic patterns, she shuffled the cards and cut, pulling out one at random.
The Lovers. Oh, great. Apparently she couldn’t get away from the heated scene between herself and Jake Harper.
Were they getting together again?
She shuffled a second time, and got the Magician. Did that mean she wanted to find a new direction in life? The card said that everything she needed was there—if she wasn’t afraid to reach for what she wanted. She had the tools and the power. Or did she?
IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, Mickey Delaney sat in front of the television set, waiting for Tanya to come home from one of her shopping trips. She liked to buy things. A lot of the time it was things she didn’t need, like clothing or jewelry, but he didn’t complain. What was the harm? If it made her happy, let her spend money. They could always get more.
“Yeah, money’s not a problem,” he said aloud just before an item on CNN caught his attention.
He’d turned it on because he liked to keep up with stuff. Now one of the talking heads was giving an account of a murder in New Orleans.
“The woman found dead in her New Orleans hotel room yesterday has been identified as…”
“Evelyn Morgan,” Mickey said.
The name had leaped into his head before the guy said it. He didn’t know why, but he waited to see if the announcer said the same thing.
“Evelyn Morgan.”
“Okay!”
“She has no known relatives, and her reasons for being in the city have not been established, but it appears that robbery was the motive.”
Mickey was still focused on the way he’d picked up her name. It was like knowing the phone was going to ring and knowing who would be on the other end of the line, but this seemed more important than a phone call.
A little jolt of fear sizzled through him.
Was Evelyn Morgan going to mess up what he and Tanya had? Was that why he’d known her name?
Mickey shook his head. Sometimes when he woke up, he had to pinch himself because he couldn’t believe that his new life was real. As a kid he had to endure the constant fighting of his parents. He was using drugs by the time he was fourteen. When good old Mom and Dad had kicked him out, he’d hooked up with some of the dealers on the street in Baltimore.
Big business for the bosses. Small potatoes for the working stiffs.
He’d met Tanya Peterson at a Twelve-Step meeting after he’d gotten into some kind of do-good program run by a city charity.
They’d helped him clean up. Gotten him an apartment. But he’d known he was going to slip back into the bad life—until Tanya.
The first time they’d met, they’d clicked in a way he didn’t understand. It had been like a hit of some exotic drug, and he’d wanted more. Their thoughts had started running along the same lines—just like that.
They’d robbed a tourist down by the Inner Harbor, then gotten a hotel room where they could be alone.
They’d taken the money and headed for Chicago. Followed by Atlanta. New York. Cleveland.
Now they were back in Baltimore in a furnished Federal Hill town house they were subletting by the month because Tanya had gotten a yen for Maryland seafood.
She was going more on whims lately. Which was starting to worry him, and he hoped to hell that she wasn’t going to screw things up for the two of them.
When the door opened, he looked up. She had a couple of shopping bags with her, from Nordstrom and Macy’s and a couple of those high-priced women’s specialty shops.
She dropped the bags on the floor and crossed to him, just as the guy on TV started in about the murder again.
Tanya went very still. “I don’t like that at all.”
“It’s nothing to do with us,” he answered, hoping it was really true.
“I think you’re wrong. It’s got to do with us, and it could be…bad.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’re going to find out before everything changes.”
The warning sent a shiver over his skin. He loved things the way they were. No way did he vote for any changes. Well, if he could have anything he wanted, he’d like it if Tanya could just relax and take things the way they came. But he didn’t hold out much hope for that.
THE MURDER OF EVELYN MORGAN and the encounter with Jake Harper had put Rachel in a strange mood. Usually she looked to the future. Now, before she went down to open the shop, she started rummaging in the storage closet at the back of her apartment, where she kept some of the mementoes she’d brought from her parents’ house after Dad had died.
She took out an old photo album and thumbed through it, studying the pictures of herself and her parents when she’d been a baby. They looked so proud and happy to have her.
Seeing their faces gave her a little pang. Things hadn’t turned out the way they’d expected. She hadn’t exactly been the daughter they wanted. She’d never been warm and cuddly with them. She hadn’t made friends with kids in school, and when she’d gotten interested in tarot card reading, she’d seen their disapproval. At least they hadn’t forbidden her to work with the cards, but they’d insisted she graduate from college before she could become a full-time reader. Which was why she had a useless degree in history.
She turned more pages in the album, looking at pictures from the early life that she barely remembered. There was a picture of her at about age three with Mom outside a white building, with a plaque beside the door. She could see the word clinic, but she couldn’t read the name of the place because a tree branch partly hid it.
She clenched her fists in frustration. Intuition told her the name was important, but it looked as if whoever had taken the picture had deliberately made the sign unreadable. Could someone scan the photo and enlarge it?
Maybe, but she wasn’t going to take it to a photo shop or a computer store. That would be dangerous.
Dangerous?
She wasn’t sure where that conviction came from, but in this case, she trusted her instincts and went back to the albums, looking for a picture taken at the same place. When she couldn’t find any, she gave up.
Finally, she snapped the book closed and sat with it on the table in front of her, staring into space, thinking about Jake Harper—the subject she’d been trying to avoid since last night.
JAKE HAD PLENTY TO DO TO keep himself busy over the next twenty-four hours. Like several businesses to run. With the restaurant, his assistant, Patrick, who’d been trained in one of the country’s top cooking schools, did the major work like ordering supplies and overseeing the kitchen.
But Jake was the one who knew antiques, and he did have to inspect an out-of-town shipment that a dealer had given him first dibs on.
He was
usually good at bargaining. This time, though, he couldn’t focus on Victorian desks and Queen Anne dining room sets because his thoughts kept zinging back to Rachel Gregory.
Finally he made an offer on the furniture, just to satisfy the dealer. When the guy’s eyes widened, he knew he’d paid too much, but he wasn’t going to go back on the deal.
He left as quickly as he could, hardly aware of his surroundings as he started thinking about the woman from last night again. They’d been heading for lovemaking before she’d left. And it was his own damn fault that she’d fled. Maybe if he hadn’t been so harsh, if he’d just kept his damn mouth shut, they would have ended up finishing what he’d started.
Or would they?
He’d wanted her—more powerfully than he’d ever wanted any other woman. Yet at the same time, as the heat had built between them, he’d felt the edge of danger. If he made love with her, it was either going to be the best thing that had ever happened to him…or the worst.
And when he’d read the information about the dead woman in Rachel’s mind, he’d used the excuse to pull away.
Unfortunately that hadn’t stopped him from thinking about Rachel, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
Telling himself he wasn’t obsessed, he searched her on Google and found out that she’d been reading tarot cards in the city for about fifteen years. She’d started as a teenager on summer school breaks and quickly developed a reputation that brought customers coming back and recommending her to their friends, just as he’d surmised.
She’d stayed through the aftermath of Katrina, and she’d been able to pick up property in the French Quarter at a reduced price—leaving her in a very good financial position. She made money from her readings and also from the tourist items she sold in her shop. And she also had her inheritance.
In addition, she’d made good investments.
Because her profession gave her advance market information?
Maybe.
He laughed. He could use someone like that on his staff, giving him hot tips. But he doubted she’d want to work for him.
He tried to get her out of his mind, but finally he gave up. They’d left a lot of stuff unanswered when she’d fled his office.
What if he went over to her place and asked her some questions? He laughed, then sobered. If he asked for a reading, was she going to make the price so high that he’d turn around and leave? Or was she going to tell him he was marked for death?
He tried to shove those thoughts out of his mind, but he couldn’t do it.
Finally, just before five, he told Patrick he would be out for a while and walked into the street. It was almost dark, and he didn’t need a pack of tarot cards to feel a sudden sense of dread.
He looked around, expecting some kind of trouble on the block, but saw nothing.
He’d planned to stroll to Rachel’s, but a leisurely walk was suddenly out of the question. He had to get there fast. He had a choice of cars and trucks, but since he didn’t need them in the French Quarter, they were all in garages several blocks away. By the time he got a vehicle and drove to her shop, it would be too late.
Too late for what?
He wasn’t sure, but he knew he had to get to her. Now.
He started running, dodging around a couple who were holding hands, taking up the whole damn sidewalk.
“Watch out, buddy,” the man called.
Jake didn’t bother with a reply. He just kept running.
RACHEL HAD GONE DOWNSTAIRS and opened up in the afternoon. She saw her last client at four-fifteen, a woman named Mrs. Sweet, who’d been referred to her by a friend. The new customer was from Denver, and she was excited about coming to New Orleans to see “the great Rachel Gregory.” The adulation from a stranger was embarrassing. She didn’t think of herself as great—just a woman who picked up insights that others might not see.
Trying to live up to the advance reviews, she did her best to give a professional reading. To her relief, as far as she could tell, Mrs. Sweet didn’t have any problems in her future. In fact, her son was going to tell her soon that she was expecting her first grandchild. Rachel was pretty sure it was going to be a boy, but she didn’t go out on a limb and say so, in case she was wrong because she wasn’t exactly concentrating as well as she should. Even when she was focusing on the cards the other woman had drawn, Rachel’s mind kept wandering to Jake Harper.
Had it been a mistake to run away from him? She wasn’t sure, but she had the sense now that she needed him.
For what?
When Mrs. Sweet left, she straightened up the room where she did her readings. Everything here was familiar to her. The comfortable high-backed Queen Anne chairs and square table where she and her customers sat. The muted colors of the stained-glass lamp hanging in the corner. The lacy curtains at the window.
She’d decorated the room for her own pleasure and to create what she thought was a charming atmosphere for clients. Usually, sitting at the table alone gave her a sense of peace. Today she felt restless, as though a thunderstorm was building. Not in the air but in this room.
Which made no sense.
She shuffled the cards again, turning them up at random the way she’d done the day before. She got the Lovers again. Then the Seven of Cups. The card showed a man trying to decide among the objects in several goblets. A castle, jewels, a victory wreath. And one cup with a drape over the top so there was no way to know what was inside.
It all represented emotional choices. Difficulty making decisions. Which was a good description of her present state—at least with regard to Jake Harper.
She was studying the card, trying to see more in it, when a noise in the front of the shop made her go still. She’d locked the door after Mrs. Sweet, but it sounded as if someone was out there, moving stealthily toward the room where she sat.
She might have called out. Instead, she got up and started for the back door. Before she reached it, a man stepped into the room where she was sitting.
He was holding a gun, pointed at her.
“Hold it right there. Hands in the air.”
With no other choice, she raised her hands, studying him. He looked to be in his late thirties. His hair was blond, his eyes were icy blue. She would have noticed him if she’d passed him on the street. There was something in his face that made her shiver. Up close his dangerous aura seemed to pulse around him.
“What do you want?” she asked, struggling to keep her tone even because she sensed that he wanted her to show fear. He liked a woman’s fear. She didn’t have to read his cards to understand that. Not this close to him.
“I’ll ask the questions.”
She swallowed. “I don’t keep much money in the shop.”
“I don’t want money.”
“Then what?” she asked, playing for time. Why? What was going to change in the next few minutes? She couldn’t answer, but she knew it was important to keep him from hurting her. Because she sensed something just outside her reach. Something that would help her.
“You know Evelyn Morgan,” he said.
“I don’t know her.”
“You’re lying. Your name was in her daybook.”
She raised one shoulder. “She came here. I did a reading for her. That’s all.”
“You’re lying.”
She struggled to keep her voice even. “Why would I lie?”
He made a rough sound. “You know she’s dead, and you don’t want to get involved.”
And he was the man who had killed Ms. Morgan, Rachel knew with sudden conviction.
He kept speaking. “Or you have information that you want to keep to yourself. Either way, we’ll get to the truth. Sit down.”
When she moved to one of the Queen Anne chairs, he gestured toward the ladder-back against the wall.
“Over there.”
She sat with her heart thumping inside her chest, watching him as he pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket and tossed them to her. She caught them and clattered th
em in her hand.
“Put them on.”
His total focus was on her, so that he didn’t see the flicker of movement behind him.
Chapter Four
Rachel clanked the metal cuffs in her hand.
“Stop playing with those damn things and put them on!”
She kept moving the metal links in a hypnotic rhythm, willing him to watch her, holding his focus and struggling not to give anything away.
The man who had appeared behind the intruder was Jake Harper, standing like a coiled spring in the doorway, taking in the scene, a grim expression on his face.
She kept her gaze on the guy with the gun. “I don’t know anything about Evelyn Morgan besides what I saw during the reading.”
“We’ll see. But first we’re going to get comfortable.” He laughed, a grating sound that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “At least I will be. Put on the handcuffs if you don’t want to get shot.”
The man might be enjoying his power over her, but if he wanted information, he wasn’t going to shoot her. She hoped.
Still, questions whirled in her mind. Why had he killed Evelyn Morgan? Because she hadn’t talked? Because she’d told him something incriminating? Or had he gotten too rough and done it by accident?
Her heart was pounding as she lifted the cuffs in her fingers, still making the links click together.
“Stop stalling.”
Instead of snapping one of the bracelets around her wrist, she threw them on the floor, watching from the corner of her eye as Jake silently picked up a heavy glass paperweight from the display shelves.
“You witch. You’re going to be sorry,” the man growled. “Get down on your knees and pick them up.”
As she slipped off the chair, getting on all fours and drawing the man’s gaze downward, Jake leaped forward, striking the intruder on the back of the head with the paperweight. She’d already dodged to the side as the weapon discharged, and the man went down in a heap in the middle of the floor.
