“Did you?”
“The number of people at the table is important to the aesthetic of filming,” Kristi told him. “It’s apparently important that Carl Brentwood be exactly opposite Shelley. Shelley, of course, is in seventh heaven, thinking this will make her the most important medium in the city.”
Dallas smiled.
“Are you all right with being at the table?”
“I might as well be,” she said. “It’s my house, and now...now I know for sure it’s got ghosts. I’m fond of them, too. It’s amazing to see that even though they died so long ago, they watch, and they learn, and they seem to become very wise and wonderful human beings. I’m kind of sad—Jedidiah would have loved to have known them.”
They’d finished eating, and were lingering over coffee.
“I guess it’s time to go back,” Kristi said.
“I have to walk you home,” he teased her.
Dallas enjoyed the walk; he liked hearing Kristi talk about how she thought Savannah was especially beautiful by night. “There’s a mist over the city, or so it seems. By day, even the really old parts are bustling and alive, and by night...it’s grown quiet. There are areas of the city where you could close your eyes and go back hundreds of years, and almost see it as it all began,” she commented.
“Seriously,” she said, and in her enthusiasm, she set her hands on his shoulders. “Close your eyes for a minute. Think back, way back...and when you open your eyes again, ignore the cars and electric lights...”
Her words came to his ears, and against his face and lips in a soft breeze. When she trailed off, he opened his eyes and hers were still closed. Yet it seemed that she had stopped speaking just because they were so close.
And she had suddenly realized it, the same way he had.
“You’re right,” he said quietly, aware of her on an almost painful physical level. “You can feel the energy here.”
“Yes,” she said softly. Then she gave him a quick, tight smile, removed her hands suddenly from his shoulders and added, “Okay. I guess we’d best move on.”
They came to her house. The front of the house was off of the square, and by night, at that moment, the street was empty.
Looking up, Dallas could see the mannequin of Monty McLane in the window. It had one hand on its hip and stood in a jaunty manner, hat pulled low, dark locks curling down by the collar.
“Which room is he in?” Dallas asked Kristi.
“Oh, he’s not in a guest room at all,” she told him. “There’s a little room off the hall—very small. I think it was once a dressing room for the bedroom in the center, but now it’s just got a little love seat, a lamp and some of Genie’s and Sydney’s favorite magazines, and some GQ for Jonah. It’s a little escape for them during the day. Monty stands at that window.” She hesitated, smiling. “He used to be in Jedidiah’s room—my room. We think it was created sometime in the 1800s—right when wax museums became a rage. But Jonah never wanted him in a guest room. He had a friend who had stayed at the 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant, and she’d been freaked out every time she had to pass the mannequin to get to her room. Ghosts didn’t scare her—the mannequin did.”
“Like clowns and dolls,” Dallas said. As he spoke, he saw the real thing—or the real specter—of Monty McLane coming around the side of the house.
“Evening. All is well,” Monty told him. He inclined his head politely to Kristi, but addressed Dallas. “We are keeping guard, Justin and I. Guests are all in, as well. You are the last to return,” Monty said, and he saluted.
Dallas saluted in return.
Monty walked around the side of the house again as Kristi and Dallas headed up the steps to the front; she used her key to open the door, and he made certain to lock it when they were in.
“Why would people be digging in the yard?” Kristi wondered.
“I think the answers lie across the square, at the Murphy place,” he said.
Upstairs, they lingered awkwardly for a moment in front of his room.
He reached out and took one of her hands in both of his. “Thank you,” he said softly, “for showing me the city through your eyes.”
She didn’t pull her hand away. They stood for a moment. Her gaze dropped to where their hands touched.
“I... um...” she said, and then he wasn’t sure if he released his hold, or if she did pull away.
“Good night,” she told him.
Dallas watched as Kristi locked herself into her room, and then he went to his own. He slipped off his jacket, and put his Glock and holster onto the bedside table. He pulled out his computer. With a heavy sigh, he booted it up and started going through files. He had barely begun before there was a tap at his door.
It was Kristi. She had changed into a flowing silky black robe.
“Hey,” he said, when he could find his voice.
She slipped in. “I was just wondering...”
“What’s that?” he asked.
She looked exceptionally beautiful in the dim light of the room, almost as mystical as the ghosts of McLane House, golden hair tumbling around her shoulders, shimmering against the black silk of her robe, eyes wide and luminous.
“I... I don’t understand what’s happening. I can’t believe that anyone in my staff could have had anything to do with anything heinous—whatsoever. But maybe I’m too lax around here. Maybe people—strangers—can get in too easily. What if we’re somehow locking ourselves in with a killer?” she asked.
“I—I would never let anything happen to you,” he said softly, moving closer.
She stepped suddenly into his arms, hands slipping to his neck, body pressed to his. Her lips touched his, and he instinctively pulled her in—it would take a better man than him to resist. Her mouth was sweet and provocative at first, seductive, and then he—or she—deepened the kiss until it was something passionate, something that took them both unaware, perhaps, and he drew her closer and closer. His mouth traveled from her lips to her throat, and their embrace grew more frantic and urgent until she stumbled forward, and her movement brought him with her so that they tumbled back onto the bed. And it was there she suddenly drew back, rising above him—apologetic.
“I am so sorry... I mean, oh, Lord, are you... Is there someone, will I get you into any kind of trouble? I am so sorry...”
He didn’t let her draw away. He held her there, promising her, “I am not married, I have never been married and I am not in a relationship. You?”
“No, not in...forever. Two years ago, before I started spending so much time with work and Jedidiah... He was an ad exec, and he was transferred to Chicago, and I knew I wouldn’t go, and...too much information, right?” she whispered.
He rolled, rising above her, smiling. “Marina Hall, couldn’t take the life I was living... And I couldn’t ever let her know how I knew some things. We were destined to fail. A two-or three-night stand with a cop in Vegas that we both knew wasn’t going anywhere...” He paused. “In a very strange and probably almost unbelievable way, I have been captivated by you since you plowed into me out on your front porch, and nothing that’s happened since then has done anything but convince me I absolutely have to be with you.”
She reached out and drew him down to her, and they locked in a kiss again. They struggled together to remove his shirt quickly; her robe seemed to melt away in a pile of black silk.
She was everything he’d imagined, skin so soft as he caressed the length of her back. Her fingertips moved from his shoulders and down his back while his kisses streamed lower, over her throat and breasts and down to the lean, smooth plane of her belly. They adjusted again, dealing with the annoyance of his belt buckle and jeans, and he rose to toss the offending clothing to the floor and came down to her again.
They tangled into a deep, passionate kiss, and then she pulled away and looked at him again. “But...it’s al
l right?” she questioned.
“All right?” he queried, grinning. “I was thinking it was fantastic...”
He didn’t finish; her lips were on his again, and then she was showering his shoulders with kisses, shimmying down his body in the most provocative way. Searing flashes of heat tore through him.
“Definitely fantastic,” she murmured. “I just meant—”
This time, he didn’t let her finish. He pulled her back up to him and caught her words with his mouth, indulging in another long kiss, deep, wet, like a bond that drew them together, that made them one. Then they both writhed against one another, planting touches and kisses here and there on their flesh, until the play and caressing became all but unbearable; they paused just briefly, and he stared into her eyes.
“I think you make me halfway insane,” he whispered to her.
“That’s all right,” she whispered. “I might be entirely insane.”
He captured her mouth again as he lowered himself into her, slowly, and then completely. She sighed, and then gasped as he began to move.
They made love slowly and excruciatingly, then urgently.
Night and shadows seemed to dance around him; it was sex but more. He rose to heights he didn’t even remember, and he realized there was nothing else like this because she knew him, knew so much about him, knew a part of him that few else did...
Climax with her was incredible, and the feeling remained as she lay against him, as they felt the urgency drift into mist, and the beauty of just lying there, touching, not talking...
And then, as suddenly as she had come to him, she rose.
“Oh, wow. I really had no right. I mean, you’re a guest here.”
“You’re the most welcoming hostess I’ve ever known.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, on her knees, staring down at him in horror. “You don’t think that I... Oh, my God, I’ve never, never—”
He rose and caught her to him. “I know! I was teasing.”
“How do you know?” she whispered, falling to his side again. “You don’t know me, you don’t really—”
“I know everything I need to know,” he whispered, pulling her to him so that her head rested on his chest, so he could draw his fingers through the gold tangle of her hair. “How do we know people? Sometimes, we just do.”
She managed a weak smile, and then she whispered, “I should go back to my own room.”
“Why? You know you’re safe here.”
“I really didn’t... I mean...”
“It’s all right. Don’t go. Stay here with me.”
“Okay,” she whispered after a moment. “But you have to know, I’m not that terrible a coward, I will be all right and when it’s time you have to leave...”
“Not tonight!” he whispered passionately.
Maybe never, he thought, and he wondered if he wasn’t caught up in the moment, in Kristi...
No. There had been something. From that first moment she had crashed into him, when he had held her, seen her eyes.
“Not tonight,” he said again, wrapping her into his arms and holding her to him. “Not tonight.”
* * *
“You’re asking about Eliza? Again—now?”
The man staring at Dallas from behind his desk—Eli Harrington—was in his early fifties, perfectly dressed in a blue designer suit and very bitter. He’d barely risen to shake Dallas’s hand, and now he was having trouble being courteous in the least.
“The case remains open. Joe Dunhill has never forgotten. Sir, you have to understand that leads dry up. The police never had anything except that Ms. Malone was heading to a meeting she didn’t explain to anyone—and she was last seen in the Johnson Square area.”
“How do you disappear from Johnson Square?” Harrington asked, his tone still filled with anger and pain. “And it was two years ago now. I guess they are finally looking at Eliza’s disappearance again because of that politician who went missing. I mean, twice. People just vanished.”
“I’m hoping if I can find out more about Eliza, I can understand better where she might have been headed—and if we could figure out where she was going, we just might figure out why someone was trying to stop her,” Dallas said.
Eli Harrington stared at him. He sighed, and it was as if he breathed out all his anger. “First off—we weren’t having an affair. We were business partners. We couldn’t have been having an affair.”
“Because Eliza was gay—I know that,” Dallas said.
“Do you think she was killed because...because she was gay?” Eli asked.
“I don’t think what happened to her had anything to do with sexuality,” Dallas said.
“But you do think she’s dead. That wasn’t a question. I know she’s dead. She didn’t just disappear on purpose. She loved what we did, and our company worked very hard to put the right people in the right places—residential real estate, and commercial. If you couldn’t care less about being in the historic section, it’s more economical—most of the time—to be outside of the designated area. Eliza had a way with people, and she could charm them and find out what was more important to them...which was why crime was a big issue to her. When she told someone that an area was safe, she wanted it to be the truth. It hasn’t been the same since she’s been gone,” Harrington said. He shook his head. “Sometimes it’s the best people, huh?”
“Yes, sometimes it’s the best people,” Dallas agreed. “Was she friends with a man named Ian Murphy?”
“The old guy who took a header a few weeks back?” Harrington asked.
“Yes. Mr. Murphy had a house off of Johnson Square.”
Harrington sighed again. “The police know all this, but the last time I saw her, she kissed me on the cheek and winked and said she was drawing the whole neighborhood in—it was going to be great. We would have a citizen’s crime watch to rival anything anywhere in the country. So, heading toward Johnson Square...she was seen there. A bit of her walking by was caught on a bank security camera. But you know that, right?”
“I have the files,” Dallas said. “Do you think it’s possible she was going to see Mr. Murphy that night?”
“Anything is possible. Like I said, she was talking to just about everyone—especially people with homes or businesses in the historic district.” Harrington hesitated. “Now Simon Drake is gone, too. It’s like there’s a black hole out there somewhere—the two of them just stepped through it, and that was it!”
Dallas stood. “There are no black holes. The two of them are somewhere. I do intend to find out where, Mr. Harrington. Thank you sincerely for your time. I know this is painful.”
“Dunhill called you in, huh?” Harrington asked him.
“Yes.”
“He’s a good man. He never wanted to give up. He just walked that square night after night after Eliza disappeared. He went door to door. He searched and searched for her.” He took a deep breath. “The law says an adult who wants to disappear has the right to do so—and at a point, I guess, the law has to give up. Joe never gave up, though. I’m grateful for that. Like I said, I know Eliza didn’t suddenly choose to disappear. She loved her life, loved her work—loved me and my family. She’d have never done this to the people who cared about her. I know she’s—dead. Thing is, whoever the hell killed her has to pay. They took her life—and they took a great woman from the city, and a great friend from people who loved her. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Simon Drake is dead, too. Find who did this. Make them pay, Mr. Wicker. Can’t bring back the dead, but hey—I’m human. I want them to hurt.”
“I understand,” Dallas said quietly. He thanked the man again for his time, and left the handsome offices on Bull Street that Eliza Malone had shared with Eli Harrington.
He believed Eliza and Simon were dead, as well.
Dallas began the walk back to McLane House;
when he’d gone out that morning, Kristi had already been in the kitchen with Genie and Sydney—breakfast was being served. Kristi had given him a smile, and a kiss on the lips—in full view of her staff—before he’d headed out for the day.
He’d heard the titter of delighted laughter that had passed between Genie and Sydney, and he was sure Kristi had been quizzed mercilessly as soon as he had walked out of the kitchen.
He was glad; it made him smile just to think about her. It quickened his step to remember the details of the night they had shared.
When he’d passed through the parlor, Carl Brentwood had stopped him excitedly, and while he’d assured Carl he didn’t want to be at the table for the séance, he was more than happy to be in the house and observe while it was going on.
The cameraman-slash-director, Matthew Guyer, arrived just as Dallas was leaving; Guyer wanted to do a number of interviews with people who worked for, or—in Shelley’s case—were associated with McLane House.
Dallas had been tempted to stay and observe the interviews, but he’d also considered it important to speak with Eli Harrington as soon as possible. Dallas hadn’t been in Savannah long, and cases could take a very long time to solve, but he couldn’t help but feel a sense of urgency.
He wondered if it was a growing fear for Kristi’s safety—something that went along with his growing desire. He tried to separate his feelings, but he knew, in this case, feelings were important—even those, or especially those, he had for Kristi.
She’d known Lachlan Plant, she’d been close to Ian Murphy...
At least, to the best of his knowledge, she’d had nothing to do with Eliza Malone or Simon Drake.
Everything seemed to be gelling on the one concept—each of those missing or dead had been involved with the city on some level—and the history of the neighborhood. Somehow, it tied into the Murphy place, or Ian Murphy...possibly the McLane house, and, perhaps, Jedidiah McLane as well.
They really needed to get into Ian Murphy’s house again—and methodically go through every single book in his library. His books often were his notes—and his ideas, and his discoveries.
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