In Too Deep (8 page)

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

“No,” she said. “But you make me feel beautiful.” She flattened her palms on his bare chest and slid her fingers up to close around his shoulders. “You, however, are absolutely gorgeous.”

He knew he was probably turning red, but he did not care.

“Sounds like we have a mutual admiration society going here,” he said.

“Works for me.”

He fell with her onto the bed, careful to make certain that he landed on the bottom. She sprawled on top of him and kissed him with an abandon that enthralled him. He felt her warm, damp mouth on his throat and then his shoulder. She started to go lower.

In an effort to get a grip on what was left of his self-control, he rolled Isabella under him, anchoring her there. In response her eyes became luminous. He could have sworn that the energy level in the bedroom kicked up a few more degrees. The place was so hot now, he half expected bolts of real lightning to appear.

He wanted to take his time, to make everything perfect for her, to imprint himself on her so that she would never forget him. But when he moved his hand down over her belly and slipped his fingers under the waistband of her panties, he discovered the liquid heat between her thighs. The scent of her arousal drove him to the edge. He groaned. The knowledge that she was so hot and wet for him undermined what little was left of his control. He was a man in the grip of a raging fever, and he had never felt more alive.

When he probed she made a soft, low sound and twisted beneath him. Her nails sank into his back. He raised his head and looked down at her.

“I want you,” he said.

He knew that his voice sounded stark and savage with the force of his need. He was afraid that he might frighten her. But she wrapped herself around him and opened her thighs so that he could settle between her legs.

He seized the invitation and thrust into her. She was snug and tight and he was desperate not to hurt her. He longed to please her but the need to join with her in the most intimate, elemental way was paramount tonight. The small muscles of her passage resisted at first but he pushed steadily deeper until she sighed and closed around him, accepting him completely.

He dragged his mouth across hers as if he could somehow seal the bond between them with a kiss.

“Remember me,” he grated.

“Always.”

Then he began to move within her, seeking the rhythms that pleased her. She clutched at his shoulders. Her head tilted back on the pillow. She closed her eyes.

He felt the tension gathering in her. She started to tremble in his arms. He sensed the first small contractions sweeping through her lower body.

“Fallon,” she gasped.

Everything inside him went rigid. For a timeless moment he hung there with her on the edge of the abyss. The searing intimacy was the most profound sensation he had ever experienced.

The storm broke. And then he was flying with Isabella into the dazzling energy that fueled the heart of chaos.

H
e awoke to the sweet-and-sour aroma of the ginger-scented soup. He could hear Isabella moving about in the kitchen. He hauled his arm up over his face and looked at his watch. An hour had passed since he had carried Isabella into the bedroom and made love to her as though the future of the world depended on it. Maybe his own future had depended on it, he thought. One thing was certain. He felt a hell of a lot better than he had an hour ago. Almost human again.

He climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom. When he saw the man in the mirror, his sense of well-being faded rapidly. It was replaced with dread.
She’ll want to talk about it
, he thought. He was not good with conversations of that sort.

He washed up, dressed and went back into the front room, determined to do what a man had to do. Isabella was waiting for him. She had put on a fresh shirt and a pair of trousers. She looked a little flushed and her eyes seemed brighter than usual but she made no comment on the fact that he had just emerged from her bedroom.

“Dinner’s ready,” she announced. She ladled the soup into two bowls. “Have a seat.”

It dawned on him that she was acting as if nothing of significance had happened between them. He’d been worried about having the conversation, but now he was more alarmed by the fact that she didn’t seem interested in discussing what had occurred on her new double bed. Maybe the sex was what she had meant when she talked about decompressing together. He did not want to think that was all it had been for her.

Warily, he sat down at the table. “Smells good.”

“It’s my grandmother’s recipe. She used to make it for me whenever I got a cold or felt ill. Vegetable stock, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, water chestnuts, tofu, red bell peppers and then, at the very end, you drizzle in some beaten eggs. The eggs come out looking like little noodles.”

When she put the steaming bowl in front of him, he discovered that he did have an appetite, after all. In fact, he was suddenly starving. He picked up the spoon and started to eat. Nothing had tasted so good in a very long time. The sense of well-being flooded back. Nothing like sex and home cooking to put the world to rights.

Isabella sat down across from him. She looked pleased to see him eating with enthusiasm. “I understand that this Mrs. Bridewell could manipulate the paranormal properties of glass, but that clock isn’t generating any energy now.”

“It has to be wound up first,” he said.

She pursed her lips, thinking. “But winding up a clock is a mechanical action. How does that produce paranormal power to activate the special properties of the glass?”

He liked the way Isabella’s brain worked.

“Good question,” he said. “That, as it happens, was Bridewell’s real genius. She found a way to use mechanical energy to ignite paranormal energy that was otherwise locked in stasis.”

“Like using a mechanically generated spark to ignite the pilot light in a gas fireplace?”

“Right. According to the J&J notes on the case, Mrs. B. also supplied the client with a small mirror that could be used to switch off the curiosity.”

“So the customer didn’t accidentally zap himself?”

“That was evidently the idea. The deactivating devices were not ordinary mirrors, however. The glass involved, like the glass in the killer toys, possessed unique properties that have never been duplicated. To my knowledge, none of the small deactivation mirrors survived. There are no examples in any of the Arcane museums.”

“Holy cow. I’d like to read the file on that case one of these days.”

It was the first time she’d shown any curiosity about the history of the agency, he thought. Progress of a sort.

“Sure,” he said. “Remind me tomorrow. You can tell me what you’re running from then, too.”

“Not tonight?”

“I’m too tired to concentrate tonight.”

“Okay,” she said.

They were both quiet for a while.

“So Kevin Conner Andrews, alias Nightman, turned out to be an upstanding citizen.” Isabella said after a time. “Sterling employment record at the construction company. No criminal record. Everyone thought he was such a nice, normal guy. Blah, blah, blah.”

“They always say that. The fact that he was local and in the construction business does explain how he knew about the basement in the old Zander house. Explains the new floor, as well.”

“Yes. Want some more soup?”

“Yes,” he said.

She got up, refilled his bowl and came back to the table.

“Think the cops are done with J&J?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” he said. “The detective might come back for another statement from me, but everything I gave him was the truth, at least up to a point. Norma Spaulding hired us to check out the rumors of ghosts in the old Zander mansion. I went there to take a look. Found the dumping ground in the basement and was confronted by the killer, who must have been watching the house.”

“Said killer attacks you in the basement and dies of sudden cardiac arrest.”

“It happens, even to men Andrews’s age. The authorities may spring for an autopsy but they won’t find anything more. And I doubt they’ll go that far, not when there’s so much evidence.”

She looked at him. “You mean the bodies?”

“Not just the bodies. Andrews took pictures. The cops found them in his house.”

“Geez.”

“Sudden deaths happen, even to killers,” he stated. “The cops know that no shots were fired and there’s no sign of a struggle. There’s no way they’re going to go with a theory of the crime that involves death by paranormal forces, so cardiac arrest is all they’ve got.”

“Sounds like you’ve had experience in situations like this.”

“Some,” he admitted. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. The detective in charge just cracked the biggest case of his career. He’ll be too busy giving interviews to the media to wonder why a serial killer in his prime keeled over and toppled down a flight of basement stairs. As far as he’s concerned, the incident saved the county the cost of a trial.”

“But it wasn’t an
incident
,” Isabella said quietly. “You had to kill a man.”

“Yes.”

She watched him with her knowing eyes. “That sort of thing, no matter how justified, causes some major psychic trauma.”

“Not as major as the trauma that Andrews went through.”

“He deserved it. Do you want to talk about the psychic trauma thing?”

“I don’t think talking about it will do anyone, including me, any good.”

“Okay,” she said.

“That’s it? You’re not going to lecture me about the dangers of ignoring the consequences of serious psychic trauma?”

“Not tonight.”

HALF
AN
HOUR
LATER
, after consuming two bowls of soup and another glass of whiskey, Fallon Jones fell profoundly asleep on her sofa.

Moving quietly, she turned off the lights and took a spare blanket out of the hall closet. She covered Fallon with the blanket and then stood for a time in the shadows, looking at him. He was too big for the sofa, too big for the tiny apartment. But for some reason it felt right to have him here in her space, surrounded by her plants and the precious used furniture, lamps and dishes that her new neighbors had given her.

Fallon Jones and the secondhand treasures that filled the small apartment anchored her now. She belonged here in Scargill Cove.

T
he smell of freshly brewed coffee and the unfamiliar sounds of someone moving about in his kitchen awakened him. The cramped, stiff feeling told him that he had fallen asleep on the office sofa again.

He opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark sky of a foggy winter dawn. It was raining but his office seemed much cozier than usual.

Something wrong with the view, Jones. You’re a hotshot detective. Figure it out
.

Not his office. Not his kitchen. Not even his sofa.

Memory kicked in. He’d had decompression sex with Isabella, eaten her homemade soup and then proceeded to fall asleep on her sofa.

Hell of a way to impress a woman, Jones
.

It was an awkward scenario but he felt surprisingly good, rested. He glanced at the table. The clock was still there, wrapped in its blanket, silent and still.

“Good morning,” Isabella said.

He turned his head and saw her. And instantly got hard. She was in the kitchen, looking as if she had just stepped out of a shower. Dressed in a robe and slippers, her hair caught back in a ponytail, her face still bare of makeup, she was the most erotic sight he had ever seen.

He tried to think of something intelligent to say and came up empty.

“Morning,” he managed.

“How did you sleep?” She cracked an egg into a bowl. “The sofa is a little on the small side for a man of your size, but you were sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Feeling like a great, clumsy mastodon, he lumbered to his feet.

“Sorry about this,” he said gruffly. “Not sure what the hell happened.”

She looked amused. “You were exhausted. You went to sleep after dinner. That’s it. No big deal.”

“Didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at all.”

“You’ve been pushing yourself and your talent too hard for too long. Yesterday you drew on the last of your reserves when you took down Andrews. Last night your body signaled that it had had enough. It more or less forced you to give yourself a chance to recover.”

That wasn’t the full answer, he thought. He’d experienced the after-math of violence before and it had kept him awake for a couple of days. It was Isabella’s good energy that had made it possible for him to get some much-needed rest last night. But he did not know how he knew that, much less how to explain it to her.

“I’ll have breakfast ready when you come out of the bathroom,” Isabella said.

Grateful for the opportunity to have a chance to figure out how to handle the situation, he headed down the hall. Once again he contemplated the man with the thousand-year-old eyes gazing back at him in the mirror.

The damage was done. There was nothing he could do now to stop the gossip.

“You really screwed up,” he said to the man in the mirror.

When he emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later Isabella handed him a warm mug.

He drank some of the coffee and studied the rapidly lightening sky.

“I’d apologize,” he said. “But it won’t do any good.”

“What are you talking about?” Isabella asked.

“This is one very small town,” he said. “When I leave here this morning to go back to my place, someone is sure to see me.”

She opened the door of the ancient refrigerator. “So?”

“So, by noon, everyone in the Cove will know that I spent the night here.”

She closed the refrigerator and set a dish of butter on the counter. “So?”

His usually reliable brain seemed to have locked up like a computer that had been hit by a stealthy cyberattack. It took him a second to realize that he was actually feeling a condition that could be classified as confusion. He never got confused. He tried raising his talent a few notches to see if he could achieve a clearer view of the situation, but it didn’t help. If anything he was more confounded than ever.