Bad to the Bone (6 page)

“Do women actually fall for that line?”

“Line?”

“When you pretend to be the dark, wounded man who suffers in private torment while looking for a soul mate who can understand him?”

“Oh that line. Yeah, it works most of the time,” he lied. In point of fact, Sully didn’t know whether it worked or not. He’d never tried it. “And for future reference, just what kind of line would you have fallen for?”

“Oh, I don’t fall.” Her answer was quick, her tone final.

“Then I guess my only hope is to trip you up.”

At his throwaway quip, he thought he saw fear steal into her expression, and that pulse of suspicion began to throb in his gut again. The lady was scared of him. The only question was why? What was she hiding?

She recovered quickly, pursing her lips as she considered him. She toyed with the neckline of her silk shirt and finally met his gaze. She could have given the night lessons on sultry.

“Trip me up? You can try, but the only thing you’re going to put to bed around here is this ridiculous
case
. So you drop by anytime you feel like it, Sully. I look forward to seeing you fail.”

He wasn’t fooled by her sudden willingness to play sexpot; she obviously intended to offer herself as a challenge to take his mind off of Phil Munro. To make the game interesting he gave her some advice. “Instead of looking forward, you better be looking behind you. I don’t generally play by the rules.”

“What a coincidence. Neither do I. Good night, Detective.”

“Aww … we’re suddenly back to ‘detective.’ How’d that happen? We were doing so well.”

“My good sense returned,” she explained as she walked away.

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Good night,
Miss Daniels
. You have Munro call me.”

“As soon as I hear from him.”

“The sooner the better,” he yelled at her retreating back.

She slipped in the door without a backward glance. Left in the dark Sully realized the sway of that woman’s walk was going to haunt his thoughts for the better part of the night. Just as she intended. She was dark and mysterious—an enigma. No, a chameleon would be a better description—cool one minute, shy the next, and a flirt challenging him the moment after that. With no rhyme or reason to explain the transitions.

Inconsistency intrigued him as much as coincidence irritated him. And, at the moment, she was the
only
intriguing game on an island that thrived on peace and quiet and dull routine.

Sully shook his head and started the long walk down the drive to his car. He stopped only long enough to look through the window of her rental car. As he hoped, her customer info packet had been tossed carelessly on the dashboard.

Checking to make sure no one watched, Sully leaned over the windshield until he could read the upside-down company name printed in bold logo-type letters on the folder. Good. A nice national company with rules and lots of forms filled out in triplicate.

The rental agency ought to have enough information to point him in the right direction. He’d have one
of his old buddies in Houston pay them a visit first thing in the morning. By tomorrow afternoon he’d have a head start on tripping up Miss Daniels. He tugged his tie loose and headed for his car.

A tiny internal voice, one he rarely listened to, warned him that Jessica stirred something inside him that was better left untouched, unexplored. The other voice, the one he always listened to, told him it was too late to worry about that now.

The game was afoot.

As rapidly as she could, Iris laid out a spread from the cards shuffled by the detective. The man hadn’t agreed to be the subject of a reading. He probably didn’t center and focus before he shuffled, which could mean a reading that was psychically all over the place. But a muddled reading was better than no reading at all.

Especially now that she had the feeling she needed both Jessica and Kincaid to find her dad. When they were in a room together, it was like one flow of energy instead of two. They were connected somehow. She knew that much; she could feel it.

Iris’s eyes widened as the cards fell. When the last one was placed, she set the deck aside and began to study them—looking for patterns and the flow of his story. Exhaling slowly, Iris realized Jessica wasn’t going to like this at all.

She was already angry about the phone calls. Of course Iris figured that Jessica would get over being angry, so it didn’t bother her too much. The sadness in her eyes and soul did bother her; that wouldn’t go away so easily. When she’d slipped her hand into Jessica’s,
emptiness and regret had come through loud and clear. It almost felt like Jessica wasn’t whole.

Iris wrapped her fingers around the harmony ball that hung on a heavy silver chain from her neck. The motion caused the faint chiming sounds that always gave her comfort. Briefly she wondered if she should give the necklace to Jessica.

At that moment, the door opened and closed with a whoosh of negative energy. Maybe not, Iris decided. She needed it herself right now.

After Jessica’d had enough time to walk the distance from the foyer to the coffee table, Iris announced, “We got ourselves a problem.”

“We’ve got ourselves a problem?” the woman echoed as she came to stand beside her. “
A
problem, Iris? Try four problems. One: According to you, your father’s fallen off the face of the earth because he didn’t make his scheduled never-miss Sunday phone call to you. Two: I’ve got a suspicious detective on my hands because you called the police.”

Jessica sat down and rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands for a second. “Sully was right about you. You are Goldilocks, which brings us to problem number three: I can’t believe you called the CIA before you called the police!”

“I already explained that. I didn’t know they felt cold until I talked to them.”

“Of course not. It all makes perfect sense. The CIA was cold. The police were full of negative energy, and lucky me—I was ‘just right.’ ”

“You were. As soon as I heard your voice, I knew you were the only one who could find Daddy.”

“Well, that’s problem number four: I’ve got maybe forty-eight hours to find your dad before the police
figure out he’s really missing and come after Madame Evangeline and Jessica Daniels as their prime suspects.”

Frowning, Iris shook her head and lifted her eyes from the tarot cards. “Um … I don’t think you have that long. He’s after you already.”

“That much is obvious. The man probably chases everything in a skirt.” She pulled on the cuffs of her khakis. “Or in shorts.”

“I don’t mean like that.” Iris took a deep breath and got it over with. “He’s hunting you. It’s like he’s following a trail.”

“Where would you get an idea like that?”

Iris pointed at the spread in front of her. “He handled the cards. I did a reading on him.”

“Oh, great. Maybe we can get out the Ouija board and find your dad.” Jessica sighed, realizing how short she sounded, and leaned forward. The section of hair with the white streak brushed the coffee table as she did. “Iris, I don’t believe in tarot cards or crystal balls. All that stuff we said about your
feelings
and the cards was just to fool Sully. To get rid of him.”

“You’re in the reading.” Iris knew that would get her attention. People loved to hear about themselves.

“Me?”

Iris picked a card up and handed it to her. “The Empress.”

Hesitantly Jessica took the card and looked down at it, surprised by its sensual nature. The card’s predominant figure was a naked woman standing in a moonlike boat with a snake twined around one arm and some kind of staff in the other hand. “Does your dad know you have these cards?”

“Of course he does! There isn’t anything here I haven’t seen in sex education. I
am
twelve.”

“Right. Twelve. Naked snake ladies in sixth grade. Where have I been?” She handed the card back. “So should I be insulted or impressed with myself?”

“Scared. Major Arcana cards mean it’s out of your control. I don’t think you can stop whatever’s going to happen between you and the detective.”

Smiling, Jessica said, “Believe me. I am in complete control.”

“Not a chance.” Iris tucked her hair behind her ear and began pointing out cards. “Here. This card, where it all begins. It’s
so
strong; this part is so cool. He’s a hunter who seeks prey to escape his own darkness. And it’s capped by the Wheel of Fortune, which means something has changed, been set in motion by cosmic forces. Which is probably the problem with my dad. See the hand reaching up to grab hold of the wheel?”

Stunned by Iris’s performance—Jessica didn’t quite know what else to call it—she asked, “How do you know all this?”

“I read about tarot.”

“You can’t get all this from books.”

“Sure you can. All you need is a great memory. I’ve got one of those. I read two thick books just about this one deck, and I’ve read all about symbols and colors and numerology and
I Ching
. It’s all here in the cards. Once you memorize all the meanings, you just have to read the pictures and the symbols.” Iris lifted her eyes to make sure Jessica was ready to go on.

Jessica nodded.

“Okay,” Iris said. “Tarot is like a story. This is where the Empress comes in. That’s how he sees the situation. She’s the card of passion, of energy. And love. I don’t mean kissy-face Valentine’s Day love. I’m talking about major emotional stuff. That’s represented by the water. See it rocks the boat.”

Drawn into the bizarreness in spite of herself, Jessica made a connection to Sully, and she felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickle. “He doesn’t like the boat rocked.”

“Not the way the Empress rocks it. It’s too real. He doesn’t like real. That’s what he’s afraid of.” She tapped another card. “He doesn’t like being human. He fears the devil in himself, but he’s drawn to the Empress and she’s about as real as you can get. She’s good and bad.”

Jessica’s heart skipped a beat. “W-what?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean
you
were bad. The Empress is human. That snake represents”—Iris frowned and closed her eyes as she struggled for the right word—“
transformation!
Because of how it sheds its skin. That’s change, right? Some people say it also means evil, that desire and evil are a part of the Empress card just like love is.”

“A part that she tries to hold away from herself,” Jessica whispered.

“Cool! It does seem like she’s holding the snake away. Or trying to. I never noticed that before. It doesn’t work, though.”

I know
, Jessica agreed silently. “Iris, what does any of this have to do with your father being missing?”

“Everything in this reading points to you. The detective can’t see anything but you. I don’t know what you did to set him off, but he thinks you’re the key. The cards are about pursuit and getting justice. He’s a hunter. If he’s hunting, then he’s hunting you. Well, there’s his father, but that’s in his past—”

“Where?”

“This one. It’s the only other people card in the reading. It’s the Father of Cups in the North. He’s like
a majorly powerful father figure. A very emotional father, but the card’s upside down.” Iris’s expression was grim. “That means something went wrong in their relationship. Bad wrong.”

Jessica shivered as she remembered what Sully had said about having more to hide than most. Quiet descended on the room as Iris waited for her to ask another question. Instead Jessica told her to put the cards away. She didn’t want to know anything more about Sullivan Kincaid. Or her attraction to him.

Whoa!
she told herself as she realized the trap she’d fallen into. No matter how convincingly Iris spun her tale, these cards were just a game. They couldn’t tell her anything about Sully. She didn’t believe a word of it. Not a word.

“I need to look at your dad’s calendar and his papers. Maybe I can find a lead. Where’s his office or study?”

“Off the TV room, but it’s always locked.”

“Who’s got a key?”

“Daddy.”

“How about the housekeeper or Lincoln?”

“Lincoln doesn’t, and Rosa’s not here. She’s been going home at night lately to take care of her mother.”

“Okay, we’ll improvise.” Jessica stopped in the foyer, unzipped one of her bags, and drew out a lock-pick kit. “Lead the way.”

The office was toward the back of the house, off of an entertainment room that held two large-screen TV’s and a wall of videos and CD’s. The airy seascape pastels in the rest of the house gave way to bold burgundies and greens. Crossing the threshold into the entertainment room was like crossing the border between peacefully coexisting countries.

Iris stopped suddenly. She put a hand on Jessica’s arm and silently directed her attention to the double doors on the left side of the room. They led to the office.

One of them was ajar.

Simultaneously Jessica swept Iris behind her and reached inside the neckline of her blouse. A custom-made stacked barrel derringer nestled between her breasts, hidden in her bra. The weapon was so small, she could almost palm it, but there was nothing small about the two hollow point bullets. Sliding the gun gently from its hiding place, she thumbed the safety off.

Surprised by how easily she’d slipped back into old habits—like carrying the derringer, Jessica assessed the room in a way that had nothing to do with decoration. The windows to the right were shut; no panes were broken, no signs of entry. The only other ways in or out of the entertainment room were through the double doors leading to Phil’s office and through the hallway behind them.

She glanced over her shoulder, assuring herself that the corridor was empty. Then she eased her way around the two leather sofas toward the office door.

Iris clutched the back of Jessica’s shirt with both hands and followed her like a shadow. Thankfully, Iris
was smart enough to keep silent; she hadn’t asked a single question. Given a choice, Jessica would have preferred to investigate alone, but she had no choice right now. If something went wrong, the kid was safer with her than standing like a target in the doorway.