by Meg Allison
“Hey, you okay?”
She looked up at Adam and smiled. “Yes, I’m fine. But I should go. I have that call to make, remember?”
He raised a brow, his mouth tilted into a half-smile. “Will you still swing by the precinct later or have I pushed too far for one day?”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” she told him. She looked up into the concerned green eyes of her big brother. Her protector. Her most avid fan. Her smile blossomed. “I’m fine,” she assured again, “And I’ll happily meet Liam’s friend. Let’s just hope he’s willing to talk.”
“Oh, he will be,” Adam replied, a slight smile tilted one corner of his mouth. “One look at you and he won’t be able to resist.”
Samantha glanced heavenward but just shook her head. “Yes, I am that adorable, aren’t I? Just promise you’ll give me a way out if things get too weird.”
“Of course, Baby Girl. I’d never leave you high and dry.”
“Yeah, and why does it feel like I’ve heard that before?”
* * ‡ * *
The mingled dissonance of perspiration and bleach filled her nostrils as she entered the front door of the Savannah Police Department. Despite her mental preparation, the assault of emotions was immediate and strong. Many of them lingered from those passing through the building but others were from her own, more personal memories. Anger led the pack, followed by a vicious amount of personal guilt that twisted in her gut. She wanted to run, but instead she took a breath, lifted her head and pasted a smile on her face. Then she hurried up the narrow steps to the second floor and her brother’s division, the emotions like ghosts racing behind her.
Several uniformed officers smiled as she walked by. Most recognized her and knew her brother. One young officer stopped in his tracks, a familiar, wolfish expression on his lean face. He was about to speak when his companion, a man Samantha knew from way back, whispered something near his ear. The young man’s expression fell into some mixture of fear and embarrassment and he quickly turned to walk down the stairs without a word.
Samantha shook her head and chuckled. She didn’t always have to use her empathic gift to read people. It was good to have a big brother with Adam’s reputation. She rarely had to fend off unwanted advances once they found out Detective Bays was her brother. Of course, there were days when she wished he didn’t guard her so diligently. Those were usually followed by long, lonely nights sitting in her apartment watching old movies alone. But the last thing she wanted in her life was another cop to lie to her and cheat on her. The last thing she needed was another cop like Johnny Porter to use her and toss her aside when he was good and tired of her
Heads turned as she entered the homicide division offices. The malice permeating the corridors seemed to fade. The bitter smell of stale coffee mingled with a myriad of various aftershaves and the ever-present musk of sweat and gun oil. A dozen computers hummed across the room, the cacophonous pitches ebbing and changing as she moved past desk after desk toward the back of the room to where Adam had worked for the last six years.
“Hey, Red,” Max Coleman, Adam’s partner of five years, said as he lumbered by. “Adam’s in interview room three with our witness.”
“Hi, Max. Does he want me to wait here?”
“I’ll check.” He returned a minute later. “He said Mr. Quinn is almost finished looking at mug shots. They’ll be right out. You can wait at his desk.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Want some coffee?”
She grimaced. “Not if you made it.”
Max laughed and shuffled a stack of files from his desktop to a drawer. “Just as well, I think it’s been sitting in the pot since lunch. It’d be more useful as road tar by now. I’ll be back in a few, just make yourself at home.”
The clock on the wall ticked as she swiveled back and forth in Adam’s old beat-up chair. Soon the squeak of ancient springs along with the muffled groan of the cracked plastic seat lulled her senses. Her mind started to wander as she gazed out the window to the street scene below. Her thoughts filled with memories of her former fiancé—a man to whom she had promised her love and her life. But his demons had taken him from her and left behind an empty shell of a man. An empty man addicted to heroin in his veins and filled with anger where his soul once thrived. That was the real reason she rarely stepped foot into Adam’s precinct house: the sounds, the smells all reminded her of the man who had crushed her dreams and almost killed her spirit when he’d beaten her to within an inch of her life.
Her dream-lover was so different with his laughing dark eyes and boyish smile. He was nothing like Johnny, whom she clearly saw now in her memory, even though he had died years earlier. The man she loved had been dark, brooding, and secretive. There hadn’t been any laughter in Johnny’s dark eyes. She wasn’t sure if there had ever been any light there at all.
“Sam?”
She spun toward the sound of Adam’s voice, a smile on her lips, and froze. The room faded as her gaze focused on the tall figure next to her brother. She blinked, but he remained. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be standing there. He was only a dream, but she saw no laughter in these eyes gazing back at her, only darkness.
Chapter Two
“Samantha?”
She blinked and rose to her feet. The floor seemed to sway beneath her. A hand grasped her arm just as her knees buckled. She felt the warmth of a body pressed to hers and heard concern in voices around her. But she couldn’t focus for a moment. Something was horribly wrong. She was hallucinating. She must be.
“Sam, baby, what’s wrong?” Adam’s voice brought her back to reality. “Here, sit down.” He gently pushed her back into the chair and knelt on one knee beside her, both of her hands clasped between his warm, rough palms. “You okay?”
She tried to smile. “Yes, I’m sorry. I must have stood up too fast,” she muttered. From the corner of her eye she could see the other man still standing there, staring down at her. Silent.
“Are you really okay?” her brother asked. “Do you need some water? A doctor?”
Okay? Besides seeing someone who didn’t exist, she was fine. Fine and dandy.
“No, really, I’m okay,” she lied, daring a glance in the other man’s direction, hoping the image had faded. No, he was still there. “I…I just got a little dizzy. I haven’t eaten since lunch. I guess my blood sugar is low. I’m fine now.”
Adam frowned and stood. “If you’re sure…”
“Can I help?”
Oh, God. He was real. It wasn’t possible. How could it be? But there he stood in all his handsome, exotic, full three-dimensional glory. Even his voice was the same. If she wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t dreaming, what was going on? How the hell could this be happening?
“No, she seems to be okay,” Adam replied. She looked at her brother, silently willing him to make sense of what she saw. “Sam, this is Nathan Quinn. I mentioned him to you earlier. Nathan, this is my sister, Samantha Bays.”
The other man stepped forward, a small smile on his full mouth. All she could think was that now, finally, her lover had a name. She looked into his eyes and concentrated on breathing normally. It couldn’t be the same man. Logic told her this had to be someone different—someone with similar characteristics. Someone with the same dark almond eyes and the same longish black hair cut in the same haphazard style. Someone with the exact same build and chiseled cheek bones and complexion and nose and…
She took a deep breath, praying the oxygen would send some sense into her gray cells. The man couldn’t be her dream-lover. Fantasies didn’t walk out of the night and show up at her brother’s police precinct.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Bays.” Her heart stuttered as he spoke again. His voice was the same, too, right down to a slight inflection she couldn’t identify—almost an accent, like an Irish lilt mixed with a faint southern drawl. “I don’t know if you remember me at all, but I queried you about a year ago. You were nice enough to reply with the names of a few a
gents who might be willing to look at my work.”
“Yes, I remember,” she acknowledged.
“I really appreciated the extra help you gave me,” the mystery man continued, seemingly oblivious to the chaos of her psychotic thoughts. “Thanks to you I found a wonderful agent.”
“Oh, that-that’s good to hear,” she said. The tremors began to subside. Sure, he sounded like dream-man…looked like dream-man…but that didn’t mean it was him. She swallowed and clasped her hands together in her lap. Tension seeped up the back of her neck. “Who did you sign with?”
“Bob Jensen, he’s been great to work with.”
“Oh, yes, Bob’s a nice guy. I’ve known him for years. His oldest son and I went to school together.”
“Well, Nathan,” Adam interrupted. “Since we didn’t have any luck with the mug shots, I’d say you can go ahead and leave. But if you think of anything else or produce any more drawings, I do hope you’ll let me know as soon as possible. I’d also ask that you not leave town anytime soon—just in case we need to speak with you again.”
“Yes, of course,” Quinn said as he glanced between her and Adam. “I’m not going anywhere, Detective. My work and family are in Savannah so there’s no reason for me to leave.”
“Good,” Adam turned to her with a half-smile. “Sam, I made reservations for us at seven, but I have to come back here afterward to finish up some paperwork.”
Samantha frowned. She didn’t remember him saying anything about dinner, but his quick wink clued her in to play along.
“No problem.” She stood and smoothed down her skirt. “I should make it an early night, anyhow. I have a conference call tomorrow at nine. I took a cab here. I can get one home.”
“Quinn, would you like to join us?” Adam’s question made her freeze. Was he serious? “After all, you are a friend of Liam’s and I’ve always been intrigued with his artistic cronies. Unfortunately, he doesn’t introduce me too often. I think my complete lack of imagination embarrasses him.”
“Oh, well, I don’t have any plans,” Quinn glanced at her quickly. “But I don’t want to intrude.” His hesitant smile sent a pleasant surge down her spine. God, this could not be happening. She swallowed hard.
“It was my suggestion, wasn’t it?” Adam asked as he completely ignored her. “As a matter of fact, I believe Liam is still in his office. How about if I give him a call and see if he can join us?”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Quinn relented. “If you don’t mind, that is, Ms. Bays?”
His gaze caught hers and Samantha felt heat fill her cheeks. “Of course not, Mr. Quinn. But please, call me Samantha.”
His smile widened, lifting the corners of his dark eyes and sparkling there like small white flames. “Only if you call me Nathan.”
“I think I can do that, Nathan…” She cleared her throat and looked at Adam. He was watching her with a quizzical expression. “Shall we go?”
“Um, sure, you two go ahead and I’ll meet you out front,” her brother said. “I just need to give Liam a call first.”
“Okay,” she glanced at Nathan and forced a smile despite the tremors in her belly. “But don’t be too long. I’m starved.”
Nathan followed her silently out of the office and down the wide stone steps. When they reached the main door, he held it open until she passed through. She thanked him without making eye-contact. But she knew she’d have to do better than ignore him. It was going to be one hell of a long night otherwise. After all, this was the man Adam wanted her to read—the man who had been drawing murder scenes before they happened. Was it merely coincidental that she had been dreaming of his doppelganger for months?
“So, I understand you have quite a few brothers,” he acknowledged as they stood on the sidewalk in uncomfortable silence. Her own thoughts were so jumbled there was no way she could do what Adam had asked. Not yet.
She turned her head and forced a smile. Small talk, sure, she could handle that easy enough. It was her best tool of the trade. “Yes, five all together.”
“No sisters?”
“No, not even one.”
“Ouch,” he said with a grimace. “That must have been tough on you growing up.”
“Honestly, I loved it most of the time. They were always looking out for me; protecting me. If anyone hassled me all I had to do was tell one of the boys and they’d take care of it.”
He laughed. “But wasn’t it hard when it came to dating? I mean, a guy would have to be pretty sure himself to go up against that kind of scrutiny.”
“Yes, it was. I didn’t date much during high school. Looking back on it, I imagine my brothers might have had something to do with that. At least the older three. Luckily, I wasn’t the baby, as well. That would have been unbearable.”
“You’re in the middle, then?”
She nodded. “I get the best of both worlds—big brothers and little brothers. Although none of them is technically little anymore. What about you? Any siblings?”
“No, unfortunately, just an over-protective mother and my dad. I often wished I had had a brother or sister to hang out with. It was lonely being an only child.”
Something in his tone soothed her for a moment. “Are you close to your parents?”
“My dad, yes. Mom and I, well, she’s a great lady and I love her to death, but she’s not easy to talk to.”
“I understand,” she said. “My mom and I are close, but Dad is more of a man’s man. He worries too much about me.”
“Sounds like my mother.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Adam said as he approached. “Are you two ready to go?”
“Yes, of course,” she answered. “But what about Liam? Isn’t he coming?”
“No, he’s made plans,” Adam reported. “Apparently, he has a date.”
She raised a brow in surprise. “A date? With an actual woman?”
“Yep, that’s what the man said. We’ll have to interrogate him later.”
She caught Nathan eyeing them quizzically. “Liam doesn’t go out much.”
“Try never—”
“I wouldn’t say never,” Samantha interrupted. “Just not very often. He’s a little shy around women and more than a bit picky.”
Adam cleared his throat and took her by the arm. “Yes, well as much as I’d love to discuss Liam’s private life and embarrass the hell out of him, I think we should get going before we lose our table.”
He led her down the stone steps and to the street, Nathan following close behind. She could feel the warmth of his gaze on her back. Visions of him naked and aroused suddenly leapt to mind. Heat blazed in her cheeks, and she prayed neither of the men would notice.
How had she managed to have erotic dreams starring a man she had never met? A man who turned out to be a real, flesh-and-blood friend of her brother? A man who she was now going to have dinner with? The momentary ease she had felt in talking with him fizzled into a nervous hum.
“I’ll follow you two,” Nathan said as they neared a silver Lexus. He unlocked the driver side and stood poised to slide behind the wheel.
“If we get separated, we’re going to Cajun Cuisine downtown,” Adam said.
“Good, I’ve been there before.”
“Great, see you there.” Adam ushered her to his black sedan three spaces down and opened the door. Try as she might, Samantha couldn’t resist one backward glance at the other man—only to find him staring at her from the driver’s seat.
“You do realize I’m going to kill you for this?” she asked Adam. He looked at her in surprise.
“Why?”
“You didn’t tell me we’d be having dinner with the man.”
“It was a last-minute decision. I didn’t think you’d be able to get a good feel for him at the station. Now come on, get in. You can flay me alive later.”
“Don’t worry,” she said as she slid into the seat. “I will.”
* * ‡ * *
He couldn’t help but stare. He had se
en Samantha’s picture from time to time in the society pages, particularly a few years earlier when her star client had been the target of a stalker. Liam Bays also had a few of her and his other siblings scattered around the parlor at his restored antebellum estate on the outskirts of town. But those photographs didn’t do the woman justice. None of them did.
She laughed at something her brother said and his breath caught. He would love to capture her on paper—to preserve the image of her shining hair and sparkling eyes forever on canvas. But he mostly worked with ink and charcoal pencils. Mere shades of gray were not sufficient to portray the beauty of her creamy complexion or the fire of her long, wavy hair. Only vivid color would convey the amazing emerald green of her large, wide-set eyes.
“Nathan?”
Her voice shook him from his reverie and he fought back a guilty flush. “Yes? Sorry, my mind drifted a bit.”
Her brows dipped slightly but she bore on. “I asked how you got into graphic novels.”
“Oh…” he glanced at the detective. “Like most boys, I loved comic books. I guess I just never really outgrew them. It seemed the best medium to combine both my style of drawing with my writing. I also work at a small advertising firm as a graphic designer. The novels are a fun escape from reality, but they don’t pay the bills.”
“Is it normal for the artist to be the writer of the story, as well?” Adam asked. “I always assumed it took two or more people.”
“It depends on the book. I’ve done artwork for other authors, but I prefer to do my own writing and art from start to finish.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I have greater control over my drawings—over what I can and cannot do. Artistic integrity, for want of a better term.”
“I understand,” Samantha agreed with a nod. “Creative control can be a big sticking point with a lot of artists and writers. That’s one reason I don’t submit my clients’ novels for screenplays. You rarely come out with the same product sold in the beginning. Some writers don’t care, but I’d rather not deal with the fallout either way.”
