A Scrying Shame (20 page)

“I gave her that doll,” Riann said in a small voice. She started crying, great gulping sobs, and laid her head on her arms on the table.

“The doll,” Kelli whispered. Her face was as white as her dress. “I accidentally . . . I mean, one day her eye just fell off. It wasn’t my fault. But Marissa . . . she put her away on the shelf, so I wouldn’t mess with her anymore.”

“What else did you see?” Chad asked, his voice tight and still thick with anger.

“Um . . . she liked pancakes,” Arie said. “I smelled maple syrup. I think somebody made pancakes for her.”

She glanced around the room but was surprised when it was Mitch who caught her eye. He slid a glance toward Chad and gave his head the tiniest shake, telling her to move on.

Holy cow. How many guys had Marissa gone out with?

“She went kayaking on a lake. It was a really hot summer day.”

This time, Arie was careful not to look directly at anybody.

“We never went kayaking,” Chad said. “This is stupid.”

Arie peeked at Wyatt. His face was expressionless, but when he saw her glance, he winked.

Flustered, she looked away. Chad’s rising anger was palpable. In an effort to appease him, Arie said, “And she showed me her ring. It was stunning. An emerald-cut solitaire, right?”

At this, Chad took a deep shuddering breath. His eyes filled with tears. He started to say something but stumbled to a halt.

“She loved it,” Arie said. It was the truth, even though that particular image hadn’t come that particular evening. Besides, she didn’t want Chad to storm off before she’d had a chance to bring up Brant. Riann had calmed down and was wiping her eyes with tissues Mitch had brought her from Dick’s desk.

Now or never
.

“There was another man,” Arie said. The room froze. “Not anybody recent. Someone . . . I think he was somebody from her college days.” She turned to Riann. “I saw him before, remember? I think you said his name is Brant. Who is he?”

Chad laughed, but it sounded strained. He leaned back in his chair and twisted the tension out of his neck. “He was an old college fling. It was over ages ago. She told me all about it. The guy couldn’t take it when her book took off, and she started making money. I guess he was old-fashioned that way. But whatever. He wasn’t anybody important.”

But Arie had caught the secretive glance Riann and Kelli shared. Even Wyatt had grown too still. Out of them all, only Mitch looked natural.

“Well,” Riann said. “I’d better get back to the party. Richard must be missing me.” She pushed herself away from the table and circled the room, extinguishing the candles.

The rest of the group rose slowly. Arie and Chandra hung back, letting Marissa’s friends work their way out the door. Wyatt was last. Before he crossed the threshold, he turned and stared at Arie. Their eyes met. He looked at her thoughtfully, then forced a smile and walked out the door.

Wyatt called Arie the next afternoon, but she didn’t realize it until several hours later. Earlier that morning, Guts had called her and Grady in to work a biohazard scene at a local factory. Some assembly line guy had gotten the edge of his shirtsleeve caught in the machinery during a repair job and lost a finger. Unfortunately for Arie, she found it.

It wasn’t until later that evening that Arie checked her voice mail and discovered Wyatt had called. Her heart thumped, but she told herself she was being silly. Before she could give herself too much time to think—and therefore chicken out—she dialed the number he’d left.

He answered right away. His voice, soft and low, didn’t help her heart rate. She could almost feel his amused smile through the phone as she stumbled her way through the greeting. She ended with, “So, yeah. I got your message, and, uh, so I called you. Because . . . um, you left a message.”

To his credit, it sounded as though he tried to muffle his chuckle.

“I was wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner,” he said. “I know a great little place. They serve Italian, but if you’d rather have something else, we could do that.”

Long pause.

“Arie? You still there?”

“Oh. Yes, I’m . . . yes, we could do that.”

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Have I . . .? You mean, tonight?”

“How about I swing by? It’s nothing fancy. Just a nice, quiet meal. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“Sure,” Arie said. “Yes. That’ll be . . . a half hour?”

This time, the chuckle escaped. After they hung up, Arie stood in the center of the kitchen, holding her phone and waiting to see if she was actually going to have a heart attack. She was kind of okay either way, what with not minding death and all.

When her body finally resumed normal functioning, she realized she’d needlessly whittled away precious preparation time, and that smelling like disinfectant was probably not the best first date impression.

Not that this was a date. Because it wasn’t. She knew that. At least, she didn’t think it was.

But then, what was it? Or, better question, what was Wyatt really after?

Some other questions occurred to Arie as she scuttled around trying to get ready. The “how did he get my number” one was easily answered. Riann, of course. It would have been nice for her to have asked Arie before giving out her personal number, but it was doubtful that subtlety even occurred to Riann. If she’d questioned anything, it would have been Wyatt’s taste—or maybe his sanity.

The other questions—what did she want to get out of this, and did Wyatt have anything to do with Marissa’s death?—proved much harder to answer.

Wyatt had chosen well. Spinnaker’s was exactly as he’d described: nice, but not fancy. Unfortunately, Arie was so nervous, she doubted she’d be able to enjoy it.

Although Wyatt was a smooth conversationalist, the waiter’s appearance was a relief. Arie stuck with ordering a simple chicken Alfredo. There wasn’t an Italian restaurant in the world that could screw that up, and she wouldn’t have to worry about slopping red sauce all over her shirt.

Arie expected that, as soon as the waiter left, Wyatt would bring up the reading. She still hadn’t figured out what his angle was. Even though he was attentive and borderline flirty, her gut told her he was after something else.

Instead, he fell back on the age-old “what do you do for a living” icebreaker.

Well, this should be fun.

“I’m a hazardous waste technician,” Arie said.

“You’re a . . .?”

Arie repeated herself, enjoying the look on his face. Then she explained and watched his face morph from oh-that’s-what-it-means enlightenment at her explanation to eww-that-sounds-so-gross disgust. In fact, his skin turned almost as green as the salad the waiter plunked down in front of them.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it before we eat.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I mean, I did ask.” He pushed his salad away.

Arie covered her mouth to keep from giggling, but he caught her. Then, to her relief, he burst into laughter.

“Okay, you win,” Wyatt said. “That is so gross. I’ve worked a lot of tough jobs in my life, but I couldn’t imagine ever cleaning up that kind of stuff. How can you stand it?”

Arie shrugged lightly. “It’s a job. And, well, somebody’s got to do it. Besides, we wear head-to-toe biohazard suits and gloves and facemasks. We never actually touch anything.”

“Does all that gear keep out the . . . you know . . . the smell?”

“Nope.”

The waiter set their steaming plates in front of them. “I hope you have a good appetite.” Then he looked confused as they both cracked up.

Midway through the meal, Wyatt finally asked. He chose the right moment. They’d gotten over the awkward phase of first dates, and Arie was feeling pleasantly sated by the delicious food.

“So,” Wyatt said. “You’re psychic, huh? What’s that like?”

“I’m still getting used to it.”

“What, it’s like a new thing? How does that work?”

“It’s a long story.” Arie realized she’d lost her appetite and pushed her plate away.

“I bet. Listen, I gotta tell you. Before last night, I wouldn’t have believed any of this stuff. But that whole séance thing was pretty freaky.”

“I don’t mind talking about the reading yesterday.” After all, that was what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it? Of course,
he
didn’t know that.

Wyatt’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. A girl could get lost in those eyes. Arie reminded herself that, apparently, Marissa already had. Past tense. Had.

“I have to admit, it was pretty uncanny,” Wyatt said. “It even shut Kelli up, which is next to impossible.”

He hadn’t seemed as though he’d been pushing away the young heiress the night before.

“She’s young. And she’s grieving. We should give her the benefit of the doubt.” Arie had no clue why she was defending Kelli. Except, no matter how bratty the girl was, her sister
had
just died. And in a particularly gruesome way.

“I know. But if you knew her, you’d realize that’s Kelli. She’s always been a spoiled brat. In fact, she’s even worse now that she knows she’s getting all Marissa’s money. And she doesn’t even act sad.”

“People grieve in different ways. Maybe she—”

“Kelli’s been mooching off her sister her whole life. She even wanted to live with her. Marissa said no way. I think she even offered to send her to college, but Kelli said she wanted to ‘enjoy life for a while.’ Can you believe that? College. I would’ve given my left . . . anyway, now Kelli says she’s trying to write a book. She thinks all she has to do is write books like Marissa, and she’ll strike it rich.” Wyatt snorted.

“Maybe she should read Marissa’s book instead. It’s full of ideas on finding a rich guy to whisk you off your feet. Even I considered trying a couple of them.” Arie laughed to show she was kidding. Kind of.

Wyatt smiled and shook his head. “Don’t. You’re too nice to be a gold digger, and that’s all it was.” Despite his smile, he sounded bitter. “A how-to book on screwing old rich guys for their money.”

The pause was long and strained.

Wyatt was the one to break it. “You know, that guy you asked about?”

Arie’s heart pounded. “What guy?”

“That Brant dude. Chad won’t admit it, but he was a bigger deal than Chad wants to believe. Marissa was engaged to him first. Brant, I mean. And the thing is, the dude didn’t have any money. Not a dime. He was barely out of college.”

“So you’re saying Marissa was only with Brant because she loved him?”

Wyatt pinched his lips together, but he nodded reluctantly. “And he was back. I saw him coming out of her place one night a few of weeks ago. I tried to get Marissa to tell me what the hell was going on, but she . . .”

Another pause.

“You loved her, too, didn’t you?” Arie finally asked.

Wyatt leaned back in his chair, a distant look in his eyes. “She was . . . lovely. It didn’t matter where she came from. She was beautiful and . . . magical.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I bet you didn’t know Mitch met her first. They only dated a month or so, right after she broke up with that college dude. Can you believe that? He broke up with Marissa right when the money started pouring in. That’s crazy.”

“Mitch did?”

“No, the college dude. Mitch was a rebound fling. And then she met Chad. He stopped in at Mitch’s place one day when she was there.”

“That must’ve been hard on Mitch,” Arie said.

Wyatt nodded. “Sure, but she was never as into him as he was for her. It never would’ve lasted. But after she met Chad, it was all about him.”

“Not exactly
all
about him, was it?”

For the first time since they’d started talking about Marissa, Wyatt’s eyes connected with Arie’s. He smiled ruefully.

“Yeah, well . . . she and Chad had some rough patches. Chad grew up with money, you know. Never meant the same to him as it did to Marissa or Riann.”

At Arie’s pointed look, he acknowledged, “Or to me, either. Chad met Marissa a couple months after the money from her first book started rolling in. Nobody expected it to take off the way it did, but apparently, there are a lot of females interested in bartering their youth and beauty for a four-carat diamond ring and a platinum credit card. The older the dude, the better.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Marissa started doing television interviews and magazine features. Things went crazy for a while. And she loved it, but underneath . . . she was scared to death. I guess it’s not until you have it all that you realize how easy it would be to lose it.”

“Did Marissa—” Arie broke off when she noticed Wyatt’s attention shift abruptly over her shoulder. She turned and found herself staring directly into a man’s crotch.

Snapping her eyes up, she met Detective O’Shea’s blue eyes. For dignity’s sake, she tried to pretend she liked the eyes better.

Had he heard her talking about Marissa?

O’Shea swung his gaze to Wyatt, who had straightened in his chair at the other man’s approach. The two locked eyes. Testosterone surged.

“Good evening, Detective.” Wyatt was trying to pull off casual, but it didn’t take.

“Mr. Striker.” O’Shea gave a tight nod then turned to Arie. “Ms. Stiles, good to see you again.”

“You, too.” Arie’s mind raced.
How did he know Wyatt?
She felt Wyatt staring at her and assumed he was asking himself the same question about her.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” O’Shea said. They all knew he was lying. “I thought I would stop by and say hello.” With another nod and a smile, he sauntered off.

Arie and Wyatt stared at each other. She asked first.

“How do you know O’Shea?”

Wyatt’s lips pinched together slightly. For a second, Arie wasn’t certain he was going to answer.

“He had some questions. For Chad, mainly. I came along for, you know, moral support. How do you know him?”

“From work,” Arie said. No reason to go into details.

There was another long pause, then Wyatt cleared his throat. “Hey, listen. About that thing you saw with Marissa and me. The kayaking. There’s no reason to . . . I mean, I’m not sure how much you saw but—”

“You kissed her.”