To Touch a Thief (An Everly Gray Novella)

by Charles, L. j.

  Mrs. Pockett paused to take a breath, and I hurried to end the session. “John says that Max is grieving.”

  “Oh, the poor dear.” Mrs. Pockett sighed with elaborate precision.

  “He believes if you give Max a plant of his very own, something your veterinarian recommends, and if you allow him to sleep with you at night, he’ll stop nibbling on your violets.”

  “That’s so like Mr. Pockett,” Julia said, touching the corner of her eye with a tissue. “He always knew exactly what Max needed.” She reached up and grasped my hand. “Thank you, dear. This means so much to me and to Max.”

  I gave her hand a reassuring pat and then turned to grab Parker. “We need to end this now. Mrs. Pockett was the last participant, except for Solomon Tarik, and he’s not going to wake up.”

  Parker nodded, assessing the situation within seconds. “Let’s clear the room. I’ll speak to the participants individually and then escort them to the door. If done smoothly, they’ll believe it’s a planned ending to the evening.”

  His gaze latched on to me. “You found a pulse?”

  “Yes. He’s alive, but not…here.”

  Jayne came up behind Parker. “The tarot readers and palmists are closing their booths, but I need to get back to the adopt-a-thon crisis.”

  Parker nodded, his attention on Tarik. “Let’s try not to contaminate the scene any more than we already have. It could become a legal nightmare and a dammed nasty mess.”

  I nodded agreement then returned to the head of the table. With a few softly spoken comments, I roused everyone who had fallen asleep, thanked them for attending, and turned the floor over to Parker.

  Mitch waited for me a few feet behind Tarik’s chair.

  I slipped my hand into his, asking for reassurance. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with him, but I’m not getting any images when I touch him. Comatose, maybe?”

  Jayne’s hand flew to her lips. “Should I call nine-one-one?” she whispered from behind her fingers.

  “Not yet,” I mouthed. “He may have had one too many glasses of champagne, and we don’t want to call the paramedics for that.”

  My gut was screaming that Tarik was well beyond any help medical science could offer, but I didn’t want to say anything until all the guests had been escorted from the conference room. While Parker and Jayne emptied the room, Mitch pulled me close. “What’s really going on here?”

  “Not sure. Except for that one time, when my fingertips were on the fritz, I’ve always seen images.”

  “How about when you touched that dead cop?’

  “Even then. I got a ton of images about him being thrown in the dumpster, and a little about what he’d done before being shot. Clear images, every one of them. And he’d been dead for a while.”

  “So you don’t have a clue?” Mitch asked.

  “Not a one. I’ve never touched anyone who passed out from champagne though, so maybe that’s it, except for the strange…taste.”

  Parker flicked the lights on, signaling that the last of the participants had been escorted from the room. He reached Tarik in two long strides and checked his pulse. “Still alive.” He motioned to Jayne. “Call nine-one-one. Now.”

  She’d already punched in the number and relayed the necessary information—efficiency personified, our Jayne. She slipped her phone in her pocket, sighed, and rested her hand on Parker’s arm. “I have to get downstairs. You have this, Parker?”

  “Got it. Go fix the adopt-a-thon disaster.”

  NINE

  Jayne Hunt

  Jayne exited the elevator on the ground level and stepped into total chaos. The scent of animals, irritation, and sweat slammed into her. The tarot readers and palmists, who had been doing readings upstairs along with the remaining guests, were chasing crazed cats around the room. Arm flapping, assorted shrieks, and numerous renditions of “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” filled the air.

  Parker had wanted the shelter to find homes for as many felines as possible, so they had hauled more than one hundred animals of various ages and temperaments to Steele Management for the adopt-a-thon. Many had been placed early in the evening, before some practical joker had unlatched the remaining crates and freed the animals. Something to be grateful for amid the mess facing her.

  The officers patrolling the lobby were of no use whatsoever. They didn’t move so much as an inch from their assigned posts. Jayne briefly considered making a run for it. But, no, it would be cowardly. And they’d catch her. The humiliating memory of being handcuffed held her firmly in the building.

  Shelter personnel were doing their best to restore order and rescue the frightened cats, but there were too many people interfering with the howling, meowing, peeing, pooping terrified animals for them to restore order.

  Jayne grabbed a handful of assorted items, pushed them to the side of a table, and then hoisted her skirt and climbed on top. Deep inhalation. She let it go with a spate of words, authority in every syllable. “Stop! Everyone stop right where you are.”

  The din dissolved into expectant silence.

  “Steele Management is grateful for your participation this evening, but we need to gather these frightened animals—a task that is best left to the professionals who are accustomed to handling them. If all of our guests would please exit through the main doorway without further delay, it would be very helpful.”

  The next hour passed in a flurry of activity. Jayne successfully cleared the lobby of “helpful” volunteers, and assembled the shelter personnel into capture teams—one person to corner the cat, the other to swoop down and nab the unsuspecting animal.

  It didn’t go well.

  Cats, apparently, were resistant to organization. But there was one—a gray tabby, hardly bigger than a jumbo cotton ball—that Jayne caught halfway up the carpeted wall that framed one end of the lobby. She pulled it free, and it cuddled into her hand, purring loudly enough to be heard over the din. The rhythmic vibrations helped to calm her when she spotted the paramedics hustling Solomon Tarik’s gurney through the lobby and into the waiting ambulance.

  It was with some reluctance and a surprisingly heavy heart that she deposited the kitten in an oversized crate with its siblings. Probably just an emotional hangover from the Tarik fiasco.

  With the lobby finally empty, she called in the maintenance crew to start cleanup, then made her way upstairs.

  The conference room was deserted.

  She wandered to the chair Solomon Tarik had been sitting in and ran her hand over the fabric. The rough nap against her palm irritated her nerves, a direct contrast to the silky fur of the gray kitten. Exhaustion was taking its toll. Ever since her fake arrest she’d been on edge, working through the financial discrepancies in the Steele Management books. The answer was there. She’d found several trails to follow, but every time she got close to the thief, the tracks disappeared.

  Jayne squared her shoulders. Her career, and possibly her life, rested on her forensic abilities. Now was not the time to falter. She slipped the penthouse key card out of her pocket, its sharp edges digging into her palm.

  Breathe, Jayne. The night is far from over and you can’t show any weakness in front of Everly or Mitchell. Mitchell would lock you up with your parents, and Everly? Well, no telling how Miz Unpredictable would react.

  She inserted her key card into the slot and turned the knob. One disastrous evening was over and settled, and now it was time for the midnight installment of the day from hell.

  Voices floated toward her—Mitchell, Everly, and Parker—all accounted for. She tucked her key into her pocket, and moved along the hall, assessing the situation in the great room. A solid glass wall revealed city lights winking against the night sky. It also served as a mirror, giving her full view of the sunken conversation area.

  As she moved closer, the voices became distinct.

  “I haven’t got a clue,” Everly said. “As far as my Hollywood experience with séances goes, it was moving right along—” she glanced at P
arker— “until I started to work with Steele.”

  Parker’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t sitting near Tarik, and certainly did not have anything to do with his unfortunate experience.”

  His gaze shifted to Jayne, standing at the edge of the hallway, and he motioned her to sit with him on the sofa.

  A smile tugged at her lips as she crossed the room, her attention on Parker. He looked natural, in charge, as he leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, fingers interlaced. She sank onto the overstuffed sofa and inhaled the familiar scent of leather. Parker tucked her hand into his and continued. “Hope his illness can’t be linked to the séance.”

  “How could it?” Jayne asked.

  “We don’t know, Sis. The paramedics asked a lot of questions.”

  Jayne nodded. “Of course they would. You should phone the Western Wake Emergency Department, Parker, and see what you can find out.”

  He snagged his cell from the coffee table. “Solomon Tarik is not who I would expect to be extorting funds from charities.”

  Jayne’s pulse jumped in her throat, and she shifted to look at Parker. “Do you think he’s the one? I’ll work on that angle tonight, right after I—”

  “No. You’ll take the rest of the night off. You need to be rested before you tackle his financial situation.”

  Parker had a point, but she’d never sleep, wondering… “You don’t think Emir Tarik is going to die, do you?”

  “His pulse was weak, but I don’t have enough medical experience to make an educated guess.”

  “Emir? Tarik is the ruler of a country?” Everly asked. “I didn’t get any images from him.”

  “Yes, a small country in the Middle East,” Parker said. “I don’t know much about him other than he’s not a big player in our fundraising efforts.”

  El shook her head. “Wonder why I didn’t get any images from him? Were any of the other participants invited because of similar interests? I thought your guest list was created to narrow down potential criminal activity.”

  “It was,” Jayne answered. “Solomon Tarik has many small philanthropic projects, but it was the paranormal element that drew him here tonight.”

  “That’s why we chose a psychic fair for the venue,” Parker said, finishing Jayne’s thought. “Turned out that many of the participants had an interest in unexplained phenomena.”

  El leaned forward, focusing on Jayne. “When will you have the results from tonight’s…I don’t know what to ask about? What are you looking for?”

  Jayne glanced longingly at the computer sitting on a modern, glass console, and then turned back to Everly. “I’ll have the answers tonight. There’s no way I’ll rest until I know everything about Tarik’s financial background. And I really want to begin eliminating potential thieves from my short list, so I’ll do a thorough examination of the spreadsheets from tonight’s donations as well.”

  Mitch frowned. “You look like hell. I’m thinking you should spend a few days at my place before you tackle this mess.”

  “I’m fine. I wouldn’t rest out there in the country, and I have a lot of data to input and process before I’ll know about discrepancies. And it’ll keep my mind off my situation with law enforcement.”

  Parker stood, practically shooing Mitch and Everly out the door. “I’ll see that Jayne gets the rest she needs, and we’ll give you the details as soon as they’re available.”

  After seeing them out, he strolled into the great room, his fingers working the buttons on his shirt.

  A shiver of need rippled over Jayne’s skin, sensitizing it. She crossed to the console, picked up her laptop, and clutched it to her chest. Her sensitized nipples peaked against the cool surface.

  “I need to work.” She hated the fragile tone lacing through her words.

  Parker tugged the laptop from her grasp, his gaze skimming her chest. She shuddered.

  “No work tonight.” He set the laptop on the console and gathered her into his arms, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. “Tonight is for us.”

  The heat of his bare chest penetrated the thin silk of her blouse. She inhaled his scent, purely male. No products interfered with the wild, untamed essence that was all Parker.

  “What will happen if Tarik dies?” Jayne mumbled, not so much wanting an answer as to rub her lips against his skin.

  “We don’t have much choice but to let him rest in peace, Kitten.”

  Warmth flooded her body. He’d never called her anything affectionate before. The memory of the furry gray kitten brought a smile to her heart. Not such a bad endearment.

  He stepped back. The silver in his eyes had almost disappeared, pushed aside with dilated pupils.

  Hers probably looked the same, considering the need weakening her knees and pulsing under her skin.

  “I’ll pour us some champagne.”

  His words sounded rough against her ears, the syllables strangled with…it had to be desire. Didn’t it?

  Parker bent to pull a cold bottle of champagne from the wine cooler, then turned, crossed to the front door and pushed it closed, locked it.

  A chill crept along Jayne’s spine. “Did you leave the door open?”

  “Must have. I was in a hurry to get back to you.” He poured the sparkling wine and picked up both glasses. “Come with me.”

  She knew his apartment. Not from intimate moments, but from many hours of work and sharing several meals with him. But this was different. He was leading her to the master suite. Excitement raced along her nerves, leaving an insistent tingling that edged out common sense. Maybe he was right. Work could wait until tomorrow.

  Parker’s bedroom was large. White area rugs set off the bamboo floors, and ivory brocade wallpaper warmed the room. An alcove off to one side held a red leather sofa and an ebony coffee table. Recessed lights flooded the area with a soft glow, and a king-sized sleigh bed loomed from across the room.

  Jayne inhaled deeply, the lingering scent of fresh-washed sheets and spicy citrus resting on the air. She sat next to Parker and accepted the glass of champagne he offered. “I…” she started, then brought her lips to the edge of the glass and sipped. The bubbles tickled her nose. She quickly set the glass down and brought her hands to her face to stifle a sneeze, then glanced at him through her fingertips. “Not cool.” She tumbled into the corner of the sofa, laughing.

  He set his glass down, lifted her feet onto his lap and eased her shoes off, one at a time. “Very cool,” he whispered. Bringing her left foot to his lips, he pressed a kiss against her ankle, worked his way up her calf. The tip of his tongue found the sensitive skin in the curve of her knee, and heat exploded in her belly.

  He tucked her foot onto his lap and grinned. “No hose.”

  “Sp-spray on,” she stuttered. “Hose make me claustrophobic.”

  Lowering his body over hers, he caught her mouth with his lips, exploring, tasting, and then moved back to look at her.

  She laid her palm against his cheek, and lost track of everything but the love in his eyes. “Parker…” she breathed then pulled his mouth back to hers, and wild need flashed through her body.

  He slid his hand along her bare thigh, pushing her skirt up, finding the edge of her lace panties. He toyed with her, sliding one finger under the lacey edge, then sat up. “Pink? No, don’t tell me. I need to see what I’m touching.”

  She reached for his belt, her breathing unsteady.

  Capturing her hand, he stopped her. “Not yet.”

  The buttons on her blouse slipped free at his touch, and he followed the path of her bare skin with flicks of his tongue.

  Her breath hitched, unsteady from his touch, and her heartbeat stumbled under his meticulous attention.

  “I want you, Kitten.”

  She braced her leg, pulled away from his hands, and shifted her body to straddle him. She’d never had so much power, and at the same time felt so helpless. Her fingers found the smooth expanse of his chest, and his breath came in rough gasps that
made her tremble.

  He skimmed the blouse from her shoulders, dropping it on the floor in a pool of snowy white.

  Her camisole was thin and her nipples pebbled against the delicate fabric—it hadn’t been abrasive until now.

  Parker didn’t rush to touch her breasts, but ran his fingers through her hair, playing with the spikey strands.

  Until an unfamiliar whisper of sound cut into their sensual haze.

  TEN

  Jayne Hunt and Parker Steele

  Parker stood, lifting Jayne, then sliding her down his body until her feet were safely on the floor. She clung for a moment, then stepped back, the cool air a shock against her hot skin.

  A swishing sound wandered through the air, faint like wisps of smoke.

  She scooped her blouse off the floor and crushed it against her chest.

  The bedroom door moved, a scant three inches, and then stopped.

  Jayne’s pulse kicked up a notch and her stomach bottomed out. How could Parker be so still, his face calm, his arms and hands relaxed alongside his body?

  He stepped in front of her, a smooth, calculated move. “What the hell?”

  He inched forward, one step. Two.

  Jayne twisted to peer around him. “Oh.” She dropped to the floor and stuffed her arms into the sleeves of her blouse.

  A tiny, pink nose poked around the edge of the door, and bright green eyes focused on them. The door moved again uncovering a quivering bundle of gray fur, delicate white paws, and a fluffy tail.

  Parker grabbed his champagne, muttered something under his breath, and downed several swallows.

  Sensing his gaze, Jayne flicked a glance at him. “Quiet. We mustn’t scare it.”

  He nodded, watching as she crawled toward the cat on her hands and knees, mumbling soothing nothings to the furry interloper.

  “You have the most delightful wiggle I’ve ever seen.” Parker said, dropping to the floor next to her and running his hand over her bottom.

  Her pulse jumped into her throat. “Delightful wiggle?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t add those words to my vocabulary until I turned thirty-five. Old men can get away with more.”