Dream Eyes (5 page)

“Hello, Gwen,” he said.

“Judson. Nice to see you again.” She managed a bright, welcoming smile. “You made good time. This is Trisha Montgomery. She owns the inn.”

“Welcome to the Riverside Inn,” Trisha said, smiling warmly.

“Thanks,” Judson said.

“I understand you’ll be staying with us for a few days while you help Gwen settle Evelyn Ballinger’s affairs,” Trish continued.

Gwen knew a rush of panic. She had not had time to brief Judson on the cover story she had concocted.

Judson looked at Gwen, utterly unfazed, his brows elevated ever so slightly. “That’s right.”

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief and flashed him an approving smile. He had handled the situation very smoothly. As well he should, she thought. He was a security consultant, after all.

Trisha got to her feet and took her computer bag off the back of the chair. She hitched the strap of the bag over one shoulder. “If you two will excuse me, I need to have a chat with my cook. Please let me know if I or anyone else on the staff can help in any way.”

“We’ll do that,” Judson said.

Trisha went briskly toward the kitchen. Judson lowered himself into the chair across from Gwen. He set the leather bag on the floor near his feet.

“So, we’re here to settle Ballinger’s affairs?” he said, speaking in very neutral tones. “That’s our story?”

“Well, it’s not like I can announce that we’re conducting a possible murder investigation, now, is it?” Gwen said. She spoke crisply, authoritatively. It did not require psychic intuition to know that with a man like this a woman had to take charge right at the outset and stay in charge. Guys like Judson Coppersmith were far too accustomed to giving the orders.

“Probably best not to bring up the word
murder
yet,” Judson agreed. “You’d be amazed how that subject tends to upset people.”

“I realize we can’t discuss it in public. The room I booked for you is next to mine on the third floor. There’s a connecting door so we can talk privately without being seen coming and going from each other’s rooms.”

“Wow,” he said, his voice still perfectly neutral. “Connecting doors.”

She was starting to get flustered. “The inn is a little more expensive than either of the two motels in town, but it’s actually a good bargain when you consider that we get breakfast and afternoon tea.”

“Afternoon tea?” Judson repeated thoughtfully. “Will there be scones and clotted cream?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be picking up your expenses, of course.”

Something that looked suspiciously like amusement came and went in his eyes. “I’ll keep track and make sure you get a detailed accounting when I send you my bill.”

No doubt about it, he was laughing at her.

“I realize that you consider this case very low-rent compared to the jobs you’re accustomed to handling for some no-name government intelligence agency. But Abby assured me that due to some unfortunate circumstances on your last mission, you are currently without a client and that you would give this investigation your full attention.”

Judson’s smile was slow and dangerous. “Rest assured you have my full attention, Gwen Frazier.”

A middle-aged woman in a white pinafore apron appeared at the table. Her nametag read
Paula
. She handed Judson a menu and beetled her brows in a severe manner.

“It’s almost four o’clock,” she warned. “Tearoom closes at four. We’re out of sandwiches and cakes. I think I’ve got a couple of scones left, but that’s it.”

“Just coffee, please,” Judson said.

“Huh.” Paula was obviously disappointed that Judson was not going to argue about the closing time, but she recovered quickly. “Cream and sugar?”

“Black,” Judson said.

Naturally, Gwen thought. How else would a man like Judson Coppersmith take his coffee?

Paula eyed Gwen. “More green tea?”

“Please,” Gwen said.

“Heard you’ve got Evelyn Ballinger’s cat upstairs in your room,” Paula said.

“That’s right,” Gwen said.

“Gonna take it to the pound?”

“No, I’ll probably haul Max back to Seattle with me.” Gwen paused. “Unless you know someone who might like a nice cat?”

“Nope. Got too many cats around here already. Folks from Portland are always driving up here to dump their unwanted cats and dogs on the side of the road. Besides, according to Sara, the housekeeper, Evelyn’s cat isn’t a nice cat. Sara says it hissed at her from under the bed when she cleaned your room today.”

Paula stalked off toward the kitchen.

Judson waited until she was out of earshot. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a cat.”

“For now, apparently.” Gwen said. She lowered her voice again and leaned forward a little. “How long do you think it will take you to conduct the investigation?”

“Depends how far you want me to go with it.” Judson kept his own voice at a normal, conversational level.

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It will take me about five seconds at the scene to determine whether or not your friend was murdered.”

“Really? Your brother made it clear that you’re a professional investigator and that you have a talent for this sort of thing, but five seconds at the scene of the crime doesn’t sound like enough time to conduct a thorough investigation.”

Judson swept her misgivings aside with a slight motion of one powerful hand. “Murder is murder. It leaves a calling card, even when it’s done by paranormal means. But you already know that, don’t you? You must have sensed something when you found your friend’s body—something that made you suspect foul play.”

She drummed her fingers on the table. “Okay, obviously, I have my suspicions, but my talent is kind of dicey when it comes to this sort of thing.”

“Dicey?”

“I read dreams and view auras. I don’t investigate murders. Look, the bottom line here is that I need to be absolutely certain about what happened to Evelyn. That means that I need an investigator who is willing to spend more than five seconds at the scene.”

“Is that right?” Judson lounged back in his chair and shoved his booted feet straight out under the table. He hooked his thumbs in his wide leather belt. “What, exactly, do you want from me?”

“Well, I expect you to determine cause of death, for starters.”

“You mean, you want to know if Ballinger was killed by paranormal means.”

“Yes. I admit that given her health history it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she had a heart attack or a stroke. I want to be sure.”

“What else?” Judson asked.

“If you conclude that she was murdered, I want you to find the killer, of course.”

“See, that’s where things can get—what was the word you used? Oh, yeah, dicey.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Complicated?”

“Very complicated.”

“Because you aren’t particularly good when it comes to identifying the killers?” she asked in her sweetest tones.

“Nope. I’m good at that, too.”

He broke off when Paula returned to the table with his coffee and the check for Gwen to sign. Paula hovered while Gwen scrawled her name and a tip on the little slip of paper.

Paula took the signed paper and departed in the direction of the kitchen.

“She didn’t look impressed with the tip that you left,” Judson observed.

“Well, she should have been impressed. It was a good tip. I’ve worked as a waitress. Everyone knows that ex-waiters and -waitresses always overtip, even when the service is lousy.”

“I’m just saying she didn’t look impressed.”

“And she doesn’t like cats, either. Forget Paula. Let’s get back to the subject at hand. You said you’re good at identifying the bad guys. So what is the hard part of a murder investigation for you?”

Judson picked up his coffee. “The complication in situations like this is finding the type of evidence that we can take to the local cops, the kind they need to make an arrest and build a case.”

“But isn’t that what you and your brother do?”

“Not exactly,” Judson said. “Mostly we work off the record.”

“Off the record?”

“Didn’t Abby explain what it is that Coppersmith Consulting does?”

Gwen hesitated. “She said you conducted security investigations for a government agency that recently shut down due to severe funding cuts.”

Judson looked pained, but he did not correct her.

“That’s true,” he said. “But the great thing about working for our former client was that the guy in charge wasn’t overly particular about the sort of legal technicalities that regular law enforcement has to deal with. Sam and I were hired to gather intelligence and make security recommendations. We were not in the business of making arrests.”

“I see.”

“Is there a problem here?” Judson asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Did your brother warn you that if we do manage to prove that Evelyn Ballinger was murdered, the local chief of police will probably consider me to be the lead suspect?”

Judson drank some coffee and lowered the cup. “I believe Sam did mention that possibility, yes.”

“Let’s get something straight here, Judson. I’m employing you to find the person who murdered Evelyn Ballinger, assuming she was murdered. I expect you to do so in a way that keeps me out of jail.”

“I usually charge extra for that kind of work.”

She stared at him, speechless for a few seconds. Judson used the time to down more of the coffee.

“Are you serious?” she finally managed.

“No.” His smile was cold steel and his eyes burned. “Don’t worry, you’re getting the friends-and-family rate. That means you won’t pay extra for little add-on services like making sure you don’t get arrested for murder. I’ll throw those in for free.”

“Gosh, thanks.” Her temper threatened to flare, but she wrestled it to the ground. It wasn’t like she had a lot of options when it came to investigators, she reminded herself. “What, exactly, do you propose to do first?”

“According to
Psychic Detecting for Dummies
, the first step is to visit the scene of the crime.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll do that later tonight when I can get inside without being seen.”

“There’s no reason to sneak around. As it happens, I have the keys.”

“Well, hey, that sure makes life simpler. Can I ask why you happen to have the keys to the victim’s house?”

Gwen braced herself. “Evelyn didn’t have a lot. She spent her life studying the paranormal.”

“Not a profitable career path unless you’re a scam artist.”

“No,” Gwen agreed. “But what Evelyn did possess, she left to me.”

Judson’s brows rose slightly. “This case is getting more interesting by the minute. You do realize that in some circles the fact that you are Ballinger’s sole heir might be viewed as a motive for murder?”

“Trust me, the thought has crossed my mind more than once today.”

Five

J
udson let himself into his room on the third floor and tossed the black duffel onto the bench at the foot of the big four-poster bed. One thing was now blazingly clear. Nothing had changed when it came to his reaction to Gwen. When he had seen her there in the tearoom, he had experienced the same rush of sensual hunger—the same bone-deep thrill—that had slammed through him a month earlier when he’d met her for the first time in Seattle.

She’d hit his senses like an intoxicating drug that night. He’d gotten the same exhilarating shock today.

If anything, his reaction was even stronger this time, probably because he’d been thinking about her nonstop for the past month.

She was tall for a woman, just the right height for him, Judson thought. Attractive, but not in the generic cover-girl style. What she had was a hell of an edge.

She wore her dark hair snugged back in a sleek knot that emphasized her regal nose, high forehead and deep, watchful, witchy eyes. Her curves were subtle but one hundred percent feminine. There was a sleek, feline quality about her that appealed to all of his senses.

Which immediately brought up the obvious question. Where was the man in her life? According to Sam and Abby, there was no significant other in Gwen’s world. But that seemed unlikely.
Who do I have to kill to get to you, Gwendolyn Frazier?

The old floorboards creaked beneath his boots when he crossed the room. The inn dated from the late eighteen hundreds. According to the black-and-white photographs on the walls, it had started out as a private mansion. The lumber baron who had built it had used it as a summerhouse to entertain guests and business colleagues.

He stopped at the window to study the view. The river was visible through a thick stand of trees. From where he stood, he could not see the falls. He thought about what he had managed to discover concerning the events of two years ago. The first two deaths had occurred less than three weeks apart. Gwen had found both bodies. A few days later, Zander Taylor had gone over the falls, an apparent suicide. Gwen had been the one who had called 911 on that occasion, too.

It was all very murky, but the one fact that stood out was that the series of mysterious deaths had ceased following Taylor’s death. The surviving members of Ballinger’s research project were all still alive according to Sam. At least they had been until this morning.

But now the director of the project was dead. And once again it was Gwen Frazier who had found the body.

He contemplated the heavily forested landscape for a while. There was a lot of wilderness left in the mountains of Oregon. Every year, people went out hiking in this part of the Pacific Northwest and disappeared forever. The rough terrain provided ample hiding places for all kinds of predators, including the human kind. A killer could commit murder and vanish into the woods for as long as it suited him.

He turned away from the window and yanked off the crewneck pullover. Opening his leather bag, he took out a fresh edition of the shirt in a slightly different shade of gray, grabbed his overnight kit and went into the grand, Victorian-style bathroom to freshen up. He wasn’t used to working for private pay clients, but he suspected that neatness counted; at least he was pretty sure it counted with a client like Gwen. Downstairs in the tearoom she had made it clear that she had some doubts about both his talent and his commitment to the job. He’d better get his act together before she fired his ass.