Finally, when they were alone, she asked, “How did Beth meet my mother? How did they get to be friends?”
“Yvonne modeled in Beth’s boutique, at an in-store fashion show.”
She tasted her shrimp, trying to recall if her mom ever mentioned a modeling gig on Melrose. “Bethany’s? Is that the name of your ex’s boutique?”
“Yes, that’s it.” He topped up his wine, noticed her glass was still full. “You don’t like the Chardonnay?”
“Alcohol dulls my senses.”
“It’s supposed to.” He lifted his glass, drank. “Oh, of course. You mean your psychic senses.”
She looked up, saw him gazing at her, smiling like the satyr in the painting. “You know I’m psychic?”
“Yvonne told me about her children.” He ate his shrimp, savoring the herbs, making a show out of enjoying it. “You’re clairvoyant. You see images in your head. And you’re clairaudient, too. You hear voices and sounds.” He angled his head. “But your strongest gift is your empathic skills. You can feel what others are feeling.”
“I can’t feel what you’re feeling.”
“That’s because I have powers, too.”
“You’re blocking me?”
“Yes, my dear. I am. I don’t like having my emotions read. It’s rude and invasive.”
“Good magic,” she muttered, wondering if Derek Moon was misrepresenting himself. Even his name sounded phony.
“Glenn told me that you were my mother’s lover.”
“Glenn slept with her. Not me.”
She gave him a lethal stare. “Can you prove it?”
“Actually, I can.” He rose from his chair and walked around to her side of the table. Then he leaned over. “Ask me if I slept with your mother.”
She squinted at him. His face was inches from her. “You’re not going to block me?”
“Put your hand on my heart if you don’t believe me.”
She did just that, knowing it was easier to get a reading if she was physically connected to him. “Did you sleep with my mother?”
“No, I didn’t.”
She closed her eyes, listened to the rhythm of his heart. He was telling the truth. She could feel his energy. His honesty. He hadn’t been Yvonne’s lover.
He moved away from her, resuming his seat. “That’s all you’re going to get from me. The only reading I’ll allow you to have.” He scooped up a forkful of rice. He looked calm and composed, elegant in the tangerine-tinged light. “You’ll just have to trust me with the rest of your questions.”
Trust him? At this point, she didn’t know whom to trust. Then again, he hadn’t gone to bed with her mother, and that put him a notch above Glenn. “Why was Yvonne determined to break up your marriage?”
“Because she wanted me. My wealth. My influence in the entertainment industry.”
“But you spurned her advances?”
“I was in love with my wife. Beth meant everything to me. Besides, I don’t condone adultery. Your mother behaved like a whore.”
And that made him a suspect, Olivia thought. That gave him motive to kill Yvonne, to punish those other women in her likeness.
He finished his meal, leaving a few scallops on his plate, a few untouched morsels. “Any more questions?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t through interviewing him yet. “How did my mother destroy your marriage? What did she do?”
“She told Beth stories about me.”
“What kinds of stories?”
“She claimed that when my wife was at work, I invited other couples to our house and watched them have sex.”
“Voyeurism?” Olivia glanced at the satyr, almost expecting it to leer at her. “That would put a damper on someone’s marriage.”
“It shattered mine. Beth believed every word of it.”
When they both fell silent, she looked out the window and noticed the moon was shimmering in the sky, sending a stream of light over the flowers, zigzagging along the shrub-lined paths.
A few minutes later, their server brought dessert, a poached pear drenched in caramel sauce.
Without speaking, she and Derek ate their treats. And then her cell phone rang. She excused herself, walked away from the table and answered it.
“Hello?”
West came on the line. “Hello, yourself.”
Olivia pressed the receiver closer to her mouth. “You shouldn’t have called.”
“Your sister told me you were dining with a witch.”
She shifted her gaze, caught sight of the candle, the flame dancing on the wick. Suddenly she felt strangely sexual, aroused by West’s voice, by the sloe-gin tone that laced his accent. “I don’t need this.”
“Need what?”
“Someone checking up on me.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No. I don’t.” She could taste the caramel on her lips, and the sticky sweetness made her want more. She glanced at Derek. He watched her from the corner of his eye. Voyeurism? she wondered. Or curiosity? “I have to go.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” West said. “You can fill me in then.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Determined to sever their tie, she hung up on the FBI agent and returned to the witch.
“Was that your boyfriend?” Derek asked.
“No.”
He doused the orange candle with his dessert spoon, drizzling caramel onto the wax. “Potential lover?”
“Maybe.” She watched the flame go out, but that didn’t redirect her desire. Olivia wanted to tear off West’s clothes, to rip open his shirt, to unzip his pants, yet he was thousands of miles away.
Too far to satisfy the urgent craving in her soul.
Chapter 8
Ian stood back and watched Olivia blast the hell out of a paper target. He’d driven to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, a patch of sand in the high desert that someone had the nerve to call a town. And, much to his surprise, the address Olivia had given him belonged to an indoor shooting range.
She’d rented the whole damn place. Aside from the range officer tucked away in his control booth, he and Olivia were the only people in the building.
He had to admit that it was an interesting facility, an innovatively engineered modular structure constructed for the remote location. Designed for shooting clubs and other private organizations, it offered ten firing positions for a reasonable hourly rate. But as professional as this place appeared to be, he had a feeling something wasn’t quite right.
He moved a little closer to Olivia. In between rounds, she’d told him about Glenn Sabolich and Derek Moon, which included the sordid claims each man had made about her mother.
She fired at the human-shaped target again, nailing it in the heart.
“Who are you trying to kill?” he asked. “Sabolich? Moon? Your already-dead mom?”
“You,” she said.
“Me?” Offended, he compared himself to the paper thug, a hard-nosed criminal aiming a pistol at her. This time she’d shot him in the groin, blowing a hole right through his imaginary dick. “What did I do?”
She checked the chamber, then reloaded. Today she was playing cowgirl, firing a single-action Colt. “You called me last night.”
“You’re still pissed off about that?” He frowned at the back of her head. He could smell her perfume, a seductive mélange of jasmine, lime and ginger. Combined with the lingering odor of gunpowder, it created a heady combination. “I don’t understand why it was such a big deal. Not unless you were enjoying Moon’s company. Is that it? Did I disturb your fancy-ass dinner?”
She didn’t turn to look at him. Instead she raised her revolver and castrated her opponent again. “I thought it was the orange candle. But it wasn’t. This isn’t a spell. I always feel like this when I’m around you.”
Felt like what? Riddling his fly with bullets? “You’re not making sense.”
She rested her Colt on the bench and retrieved her target, using the automatic control panel. When she handed him the hole
y thug, he wondered if she expected him to frame it.
“Watch me,” she said. “And you might learn something.”
“Learn what? How to be psycho?”
“How to take down an FBI agent in your mind.”
“I’d rather leave my fellow feds standing.”
“Just watch.” She put another target in place and reached into her pocket and took out a blindfold.
“What the hell are you doing?” He waited for the range officer to stop her, but the other man allowed her to continue. Ian had been right about this place. They didn’t play by the rules.
After she covered her eyes with the blindfold, she reached for her loaded weapon, found it without the slightest hesitation, aimed it in the direction of her target and focused on something she couldn’t see. Then she cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger.
Bull’s-eye.
She shot the thug, just as she’d done before, unmanning him.
Ian actually glanced down, making sure his zipper was still intact. “Can you pick on another body part for a while?”
Olivia smiled, took aim. “Like what? His throat? Maybe I’ll give him a scar to match mine.”
Sure enough, she plugged the paper target. One. Two. Three. Four. As neat as a pin. He’d never seen anything like it.
She fired the last shot, hitting the bad guy in the head. “I guess I’m done with him.” She placed her Colt on the bench and removed the blindfold.
When she turned to give Ian a smug look, he merely blinked. Now that it was over, he had a hard-on. A big, raging boner. And considering her penchant for blowing off a man’s balls, he wasn’t sure why.
She studied his dumbfounded expression. “That was a piece of cake, as easy as pie. Do you want to try it?”
Did she think he was crazy? “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter? Did I show you up? Shrivel your manhood?”
He bit back a smile. He was still hard, as virile as a pocket rocket on its way to the moon. “Oh, yeah. You emasculated the hell of out me. Do you use blindfolds in bed, too?”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. As usual, she wore an outfit that accentuated her curves. Her stretchy red top was the same notice-me shade of her lipstick, and her low-rise jeans cupped her rear like a man’s greedy hands.
“What do you care?” she said. “You’re never going to find out.”
Liar, he thought. She was just waiting for him to say the word, to admit that he needed her. But Ian wasn’t about to grovel for sex.
“Do you want to blow this Popsicle stand?” he asked.
She batted her lashes. “Do I want to blow what?”
He wasn’t about to laugh. Sooner or later he would end up groveling. Begging like the divorced, thirty-five-year-old dog he’d never wanted to become. “I noticed a biker bar a few miles back. We could stop for a drink.”
“Or shoot some bikers,” she said, reaching for her Colt.
“That, too.” He shoved the paper thug she’d given him in the trash, even though he was tempted to keep it.
An offbeat memento, he thought, to remember her by.
The bar was a dive, a dingy, smoke-filled cracker box with a dozen or so grungy patrons sucking down beers in the middle of the afternoon. Sunlight glared from the windows, making Ian squint. A battered pool table, a jukebox blaring with Kid Rock, the aroma of greasy pizza. No wannabes here, he thought. No doctors or lawyers pretending to be bikers, shucking their Rolexes for the day. These hard-ass Harley mongers were the real thing.
Olivia turned every head, male and female alike. Or maybe he had caught everyone’s attention. With his dark suit and G-man vibe, he didn’t need to flash his badge. He had FBI written all over him. But that was how he liked it.
“I enjoy crashing these kinds of places,” he said.
“Why?” Olivia led the way, choosing a small wooden table near the front. “Do you have a death wish?”
Did he? Yeah, he thought. He probably did. “I should have hauled you in here in handcuffs. Then we would have looked like we belonged together.”
“You can handcuff me now.”
“Really?” Damn if he wasn’t getting a boner again. He moved his chair next to hers, as close as possible.
She laughed, adjusting her racy-red top. “You can use the blindfold, too.”
Okay, now he was really hard. “You’re corrupting me, Olivia.”
“I aim to please.”
A reed-thin waitress with dishwater-brown dread-locks came by to take their order. Her name tag read Bunny. Ian wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the way her teeth bucked in front.
Olivia wanted to try the pizza, making him wonder if she had a death wish, too. They settled on pepperoni and mushroom, as well as a couple of draft beers.
Before Bunny departed, he removed his handcuffs and locked Olivia’s wrist to a post on her chair. The waitress’s heavily lined eyes went wide.
“She’s been bad,” Ian said. “But I like naughty girls.”
That made Bunny smile. “I’ve been known to be bad.”
No doubt, he thought. But at least she would stop the cook from spitting in their food. As she darted off to fill their order, Olivia glared at him.
For effect, he rattled the steel that confined her to the scarred wood. “You told me I could.”
“I didn’t even know you had them on you.”
“Did you think I’d waltz into a place like this without the tools of my trade? Take a gander, babe. It’s infested with outlaws.”
Her gaze bore into his, but her lips hinted at a smile. “I’m going to get you back for this. Punish you like no other.”
Amused, he shifted in his seat. Then he waved away a stream of smoke that drifted toward them. The California smoking ban wasn’t being enforced, but he supposed that was out of his jurisdiction. “Can I blindfold you now?”
“Try it, and I’ll blow you to smithereens.”
“With your mouth?”
“With my gun, you moron. I still have one hand left.”
Their beers arrived, followed by the pizza. Ian didn’t unlock Olivia. Instead he watched her eat with the free hand she’d boasted about.
And when she was absorbed in her greasy meal, he crammed his fingers into her pocket and snagged the blindfold. But instead of putting it on her, he slipped it over his own eyes.
She laughed and bumped his shoulder. He felt around for his beer and took a long cold swig.
“Damn. I can’t see a thing.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
He thought about what she’d done at the shooting range. “How did you pull that off?”
“Pull what off?”
“You know.” He raised his finger and cocked his thumb, pretending to fire. “That psychic-sight thing.”
“I can feel the position of the target in my mind. Sense where it is.”
“Can you do that with moving targets, too?”
“I’m working on it. But not with live ammo. A friend of mine has a laser tag course on his property. So I’ve been training there.”
Ian pushed up the blindfold, wearing it like a headband. “What friend?”
“A guy who lives around here.”
“Anyone I should know about?”
She went after her second slice of pizza. “Old lover.”
“How old?”
“Too young to be the killer.” She motioned with her head. “You shot that biker in the corner.”
“What?” He looked up and saw a three-hundred-pound bruiser giving him the evil eye. “Oh, the finger-gun thing.” So much for his psychic sight. He shrugged at Bruiser and the other man flipped him off. Ian merely smiled. He wouldn’t forget the biker’s ugly mug.
“So, what happened in Virginia?” Olivia asked. “Did your colleagues agree with your analysis? The profile in your report?”
“Yes, but they think the killer is fooling me. That there’s something I’m missing.”
He felt that way, too. But he couldn’t grasp it. He couldn’t figure it out. “Something vital. Something important.”
“Maybe it’s his heritage.”
“No. That isn’t it.”
“I think it is.” She yanked on the handcuffs. “Will you take these off me now?”
He nodded, realizing their conversation had taken a serious turn. They were done flirting, done causing a scene in an already rowdy bar. The billiards game in the back was getting loud, the language and the laughter turning rough.
When he removed the cuffs, she rubbed her wrist. “Glenn could be the perpetrator,” she said. “And so could Derek Moon. And neither of them are Indian.”
“I already spoke to Muncy and Riggs about that. They’re trying to connect Sabolich and Moon to the victims, but with all the witch-tampered evidence, it’s next to impossible.”
“Those men are connected to my mom.”
“True. But we don’t have her body.” He reached for his beer. “Of course, the killer might have buried her somewhere.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, especially if he knows the authorities can link her to him. He’d want to cover his tracks.” She paused. “I’ve tried to get a reading on where her body is, but it hasn’t worked.”
“No vibes?” he asked.
She sighed. “A complete blank.”
“Until we locate the man she ran off with, we’re grasping at straws.” Yvonne Whirlwind’s trail had gone cold. No tax records, no valid driver’s license, no current credit history. “Maybe he killed her twelve years ago.”
“Who? The man she left my dad for?”
“Yeah.”
Olivia shook her head. “She looked older in my vision. The age she would be now.”
“Which means we’re back to square one.”
“That’s why I’ve been investigating Glenn and Derek on my own.”
He couldn’t blame her for that. Nor did he intend to discourage her. “What about Moon’s ex-wife? Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet. Do you want to stop by her boutique with me? For all we know, she has powers, too.”
“Sure, I’ll go with you.” At this point, he was game for anything. His grandfather had reared him on ghosts and witches and things that went bump in the night. And this case was chock-full of supernatural occurrences.
Always Look Twice Page 9
