Mind Tricks (22 page)

“So what’s the plan for today?” he
asked, settling in a chair at the table. “I have to leave by six, if that’s
okay. Cynthia and I are doing something together.”

Cynthia couldn’t be happy that Ian
was spending so much time here. “That’s fine. I’m just grateful that you’ve
handled so much these last few days. Do you want to take some time off next
week in exchange?”

“Sure, that would be cool. I’ll
talk to Cynthia, see if she wants to take a day off, too, so we can hang out
together.”

“Does she still work at her dad’s
office?”

“Yep. She assists the salespeople,
I think. Mails out brochures, makes photocopies. They just started her on doing
cold calls, which she hates.”

“I can imagine.”

The phone rang. Emma squeezed her
eyes shut for a moment and prayed that it was someone calling to say they found
Brutus, and then picked up the phone.

“Emma? It’s Jake.”

Disappointment quickly vanished.
“Hi. No sleeping in for you, either, huh?”

“Sunday is often a working day for
me. I figured that with your kennel business, it’s one for you, too. I have
some work to do at the office this morning, but if you want a chauffeur later,
I’m available after lunch.”

She took a deep breath. “Yes, please
come over. After lunch is perfect.” When he got here, she’d ask him if he
wanted her to try to enter his mind again.

He hung up, and Emma glanced at the
clock. Only four more hours to get through of butterflies in her stomach,
fluttering in both anticipation and dread. No problem.

• •

 
“It’s odd being able to walk in here without
worrying that Brutus will make a break for it,” Jake said as he came through
the back door. He’d seen Ian’s car in the drive, but only Emma was in the
kitchen. “Any word?”

“No, nothing.” She shoved a hand
through her hair, pulling a hank free from a pony tail clip. With a grimace she
smoothed her hair down and clipped it back at her nape again. He remembered how
her hair had clung to his fingers the night they’d made love on her lumpy
couch, and his hands itched to reach out and loosen her hair from the clip.

“We’ve had a few people call with
sightings, but when Ian checks them out, it’s never Brutus. Even though I know
better, I get wildly hopeful each time, only to be disappointed.”

“Maybe this will help,” he said,
and offered her the big paper tube he had tucked under his arm. He tensed as
she unrolled it. Maybe he should have brought flowers or something instead.

“What is it?” She spread the paper flat
on the table.
 
“Oh!” And then she
laughed.

She held a poster of a big-eyed gray
kitten crouched in a tree, the words HANG TOUGH at the top of the image. A bit
of tape still stuck to one corner.

“For your guest room,” Jake said. He was
shifting from foot to foot, feeling for all the world like a teenager who’d
just given his prom date her corsage and didn’t know how she’d react. “I
decided that I could spare one from my own guest room poster collection.”

“Wow.” She laughed again, and then she
gave him a smile that made every thought drain out of his head. Yep, he was a
goner. “Very generous. Thanks.”

“Sure. Anytime. I’ve got plenty more.”
He stopped jabbering and pulled himself together. “What part of town do you
want to search this afternoon?”

Emma seemed to focus on something behind
him. When he twisted to look over his shoulder, he saw Ian in the back yard,
running with a dog on a leash. Man, that guy was always here.

“Listen.” Emma stepped closer, and for a
moment Jake wondered if she was approaching him to kiss him. But then she let
her voice fall into a whisper, and he realized she didn’t want Ian to hear what
she was saying, even though it was clear Ian wouldn’t be able to hear her even
if she shouted. “Instead of looking for Brutus, we could look into your
memories again. Your memories of the night Ginny was killed.”

Elation made his hands curl. He’d
planned on asking her today if she would try again, but for her to offer
without his prompting was a priceless gift.

“Sounds great,” he said, his voice
rusty.

Without another word, she gathered up
the poster and a roll of tape and led him to the narrow staircase that climbed
to the second floor. He’d half hoped she’d take him into her own bedroom, but
she again pushed open the guest room door. “Let’s put up the poster first,” she
said.

For
luck,
Jake almost said but didn’t. Emma hadn’t seen anything to his credit the first
time she looked in his mind. What would she see today?

Not him killing Ginny—he knew that. But
would she see anything that could help him? Anything that they could give to
the police to prove him innocent?

Trying to keep his hands steady, he held
the poster flat against the wall as she taped the corners down.

“Are you nervous?” she asked, touching
one fingertip to the back of his hand. “You seem a little…off.”

He tried for humor. “I should admit a
few things before you start poking through my brain. I stole a half dozen
hymnals from church when I was thirteen, and I smoked too much pot during
college. So don’t be shocked when you see that in my head.”

Emma snorted. “That’s all?”

“And I probably beat up on my younger
brothers too much.” The thought of Daniel in the hospital toughened his spine.
Daniel was also relying on him to find a way to clear himself. Without the
income from Woodhaven, the family would have to move Daniel to a lesser medical
facility. And god knew what kind of trouble Marcus might be in that Jake would
then no longer be able to help him out of.

“I’m not going to sift through your
whole life,” she told him. “I’m just going to look at the night Ginny was
killed. Lie down on your stomach, like before.”

“Don’t I get to take my clothes off first?”

“Sure, if you want me distracted and not
able to do a good job.”

She sounded a little snappish, like she
was nervous, too, but he decided to take her words as a sideways compliment.
He, naked, was able to distract her.

Her hands—the hands he’d admired when
he’d first met her—pressed down on the base of his spine and the base of his
neck. “I can feel your energy flow just fine,” she said, sounding surprised.

“Maybe the Rohypnol in my system was
screwing things up that first time.”

“Hmm, that makes sense. Okay, I’m going
to relax you a little so that I can slip more easily into your mind. You might
feel a tugging sensation now.”

The next moment, Jake felt his shoulder
muscles loosen. And then the muscles down his back followed, until he felt as
spineless as a marshmallow. At the same time, an electrical charge seemed to
course through his arms and legs and up and down his back, feeding his body
with energy.

“Ah,” Emma said, sounding hugely
satisfied. “There we go.” Her hand on his nape curled so that she was now
cupping his neck. “Ready? I’m going in. Try to think about that night—about the
last thing you remember.”

He concentrated on being at the
Waterview, and a few more memories began to spin through his mind. Memories he
hadn’t seen before.

Ginny taking charge of the meal, deciding
that they would have only appetizers and do dinner elsewhere. He’d thought
about protesting Ginny’s idea, but he couldn’t remember why he wanted to.

Standing out in the parking lot, the
rain falling softly around them in a ghostly mist.

Ginny kissing him. And him kissing her
back.

He shuddered and tried to pull his mind
away. That couldn’t be right. He hadn’t been attracted to her, and he’d been
angry about the false rumors. He wouldn’t have kissed her.

Emma’s hand on his neck spread wide, and
she threaded her fingers through his hair. The gesture smoothed down his rising
edge of panic, and her low voice—probably the voice she used on crazy
dogs—coaxed him deeper into relaxation. “Don’t fight your thoughts. You were
drugged, Jake. Rohypnol can make people act against their usual character.”

He shuddered as an insidious thought
wiggled through his mind. If he’d gone so far against his character, his
beliefs, to kiss Ginny, was it possible—?

Emma said softly, “Come on, Jake. Focus.
Go back to the parking lot.”

He gritted his teeth and did.

Torn, blackened fragments of memory
jumped into his brain: Walking with Ginny to her car. Rain dampening his
trouser cuffs so they clung to his ankles. Her voice, raised in anger. Then a
man, faceless in the dark, but his knife in plain view. A sharp, angry cry that
turned into a mewl of agony. Then Ginny’s car, her passenger seat covered in
blood. Then more rain. And rain. And rain…

“Jake. Jake! Come back to me.”

Emma’s voice washed through him like a
cool antiseptic, severing him from Ginny’s murder and snapping his eyes open.
The gray kitten stared down at him from its poster on the wall.

Hang
tough.
For a long moment it was all he could do as he fought back the bile spidering
up his throat.

“I was there,” he finally rasped.

Emma curled up next to him on the bed,
throwing an arm and a leg over him. He was shivering, he realized. “I know,”
she said. The horror lingering in her voice reminded him that she’d seen
everything he’d remembered.

“But I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill her.
That man with the knife did.” He hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of the
man—and not enough to identify him to the police and convince them of Jake’s
innocence.

His chest went hollow as hope trickled
away. They were back where they’d started.

But after seeing his memories, Emma
would be convinced. And that was more important than the police, in many ways.
He repeated, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill her.”

She placed her palm against his cheek
and turned his head so that he had to look at her. Her blue eyes flared with
exasperation. “I already knew that, you idiot.”

Then she layered herself on top of him
and kissed him like she’d been storing up all her kisses for him and him alone.

He wrapped his arms around her and
answered her with hungry kisses of his own.

Due to Ginny’s senseless murder, he’d
both found Emma and almost lost her. If he had his way, he wouldn’t let her go
for a long, long time.

He didn’t quite get his wish of holding
her forever, but he didn’t object when she sat up and tugged at the hem of his shirt,
telling him without words what she wanted. “Oh, so you want me to take my
clothes off now?” he teased her, even as he placed his hands at her waist and unhooked
the button on her jeans. Then he slid her jeans zipper down, the metallic rasp
trembling up his fingers. The top edge of lacy pink panties peeked at him, and
he peeled the front of her jeans open, like he was unwrapping the best birthday
present he’d ever received in his life.

Emma smiled. “Close.
I
want to take your clothes off.”

“No problem. My turn first, though.”

Sitting up, he turned her around so that
she was in his lap but no longer facing him, his legs bracketing hers. He
dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck, pulled her thin cotton tee shirt off
over her head, and dropped it on the floor.

She reached between them to unsnap her
bra, and he shook his head. “I’ll do it.” But he didn’t do it immediately. Curling
one arm around her and drawing her bare back against his chest, he drew the tip
of one finger along the skin where the silk edge of her snow white bra kissed
the top of breasts. Emma shivered. Then he leaned forward and lightly traced a
line along the top of her right shoulder with his tongue.

This time Emma shuddered. “It’s too
much,” she said, her voice strangled.

Jake laughed as he slipped the straps of
her bra down over her shoulders. A flick of his fingers opened the hooks at the
back. “Sweetheart, we’ve just started.”

“You don’t understand. I feel everything
twice. Once as myself…and once as you.”

Ah, that made sense. He didn’t pause in
tossing her bra down next to her shirt. “Then prepare to have your mind blown.”

She half turned in his lap, grabbed his
chin, and forced him to look her in the eye. “That’s what I’ve always been
afraid of. Until you. With you, I’m safe.”

He appreciated that—he really did—but
safe
wasn’t what he wanted her feeling
right now.
Hot, wild, aching, wet
—any
of those would do.