Out of Body (10 page)

“Three—Don’t act alone if you could be in danger.”

That was the rule he wanted to skewer her with. She didn’t look at him.

“Marley?” Uncle said. “What have you been up to? Why were you with someone who frightened you last night?”

“He didn’t,” she told him promptly. In fact, Gray had terrified her. She would never forget the shock of seeing those pale marks on his face and remembering at once the man she’d seen in the unknown place.

“Isn’t there another rule about telling each other the truth?”

Marley ignored Sykes’s interference.

Uncle Pascal stopped in front of her and peered down. “I know what I felt and it was fear. Explain yourself.”

For the good of a serious cause she would not betray the trust Belle had placed in her. “I don’t get out enough,” she said. “Last night I went to find some good jazz and ran into someone I know.”

“That’s a stretch,”
Sykes signaled.

“It takes a stretcher to know a stretcher,”
she told him.

“But you weren’t comfortable,” Uncle Pascal said. His tone eased and he became the concerned surrogate dad he’d been to her for years. “You know I worry about all of you, especially you girls. This hulk can take care of himself.” He gave Sykes’s shoulder a glancing punch.

“What is going on with you?”
Sykes asked Marley.
“You were edgy with your friend Gray. You’re into him, though.”

“You’re imagining things. I can handle it.”

“Would you ask me to come if you needed to?”

She glanced at him and felt Uncle Pascal grow edgy.

“Later,”
Sykes said.
“Uncle’s feeling left out.”

“Marley?” Uncle Pascal was still waiting for her answer.

“I am dealing with something unusual,” she admitted. Truth between them was their accepted strength as a family. “I want to continue on alone, but I promise I’ll ask for help if I have to.”

Uncle Pascal turned to Sykes. “You were there. What did you think?”

“I wasn’t there long,” Sykes said, his blue eyes guileless. “Marley knows she shouldn’t take stupid risks.”

Marley’s brother looked at her and she caught her breath. She had forgotten the man she’d seen right before she traveled, completely forgotten him. And now she had only the faintest recollection of his brief appearance. She tried to recall the sound of his voice but couldn’t. But had he been like an older version of Sykes?

“Are you being careful, Marley?” Uncle Pascal asked.

She nodded vaguely. Who was the man and why had he been there?

A jarring ring intervened. Uncle Pascal had one of the first dial telephones, a 1919 version he liked to call “a useless invention.” He did laugh at himself over that.

“Who?” he said into the mouthpiece. “Do I know you?”

Marley accepted Winnie onto her lap again. Sykes swayed, a sure sign he was anxious to be off.

Uncle Pascal grunted into the phone and signaled to Marley. “For you,” he said.

This time she hauled her dog under one arm and went to take the instrument. “Hi.”

“You called?”

She knew Gray’s voice. And she had called him while she’d still been groggy and flaked out in her workroom, but she’d hung up before he could answer. When she punched in his number she had actually wanted to ask him to come at once so she could tell him what had just happened. She barely stopped herself from reaching out to him for help. Her reason unnerved her; she had a hunch he was an okay guy. Just thinking the word
hunch
gave her chills. The Millets didn’t have hunches, they had clear insights. Nothing was clear about Mr. Disappearing Scar Face.

“You called me,” Gray said, prompting her.

“That was a mistake.”

“Too late,” he said and didn’t sound as if he were joking. “Your sister said you were upstairs with some of your family members. She said I could wait for you down here in the shop.”

G
ray heard Marley coming before he saw her, or rather he heard her dog snuffling, and its nails clicking on old oak stair treads.

Marley’s slim feet and ankles, and her knees appeared, then the rest of her followed rapidly. She wore a paint-daubed blue denim smock buttoned to the neck. Other clothes bunched underneath. One look at her face and he was glad the sister who let him in had locked the door behind her again. He would rather not be interrupted at the moment.

“How did you get in here?” Marley asked. “We’re not open.”

“A gorgeous redhead let me in,” he said.

She bared her teeth and muttered,
“Willow,”
in a threatening tone. “She’s never careful enough.”

Gray wanted to move on. “Have you been to bed?” he said. “You don’t look good.”

She didn’t even smile at his gaffe. “Yeah, I know. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“True,” he said, jerking his head back as if she’d struck him. “You’re in a great mood, too.”

Marley gave him an uncomfortably direct look. She came closer, then closer. Without another word, she came within kissing range although he was damn certain that wasn’t on her mind.

Bucking the urge to ask what she was staring at, Gray
held still. While she peered at him, he took advantage of getting up close with her.

When it came to women, he considered himself an animal-magnetism type. Plenty of all the good female stuff appealed to him—long legs, big eyes, soft mouths of the lips-to-lips touchable kind. This woman bedeviled him. The big, green eyes sucked him in and he’d really like the full mouth to suck him in. He’d seen her legs and, considering her lack of height, they were long and meant to be looked at. Marley had very nice breasts and yesterday he’d seen that she had curvy hips, but she was small.

What did you call it when a female made a man want to be careful with her, and have hot, sweaty sex with her at the same time? Unhinged was the word that came to mind.

His heart was pounding and he had an inconvenient stirring. Inconvenient and intoxicating. He was grateful her interest was in his face, not in his lower regions—although the rogue side of him wanted to see her reaction.

The examination had gone on too long for his health. “What?” he said and could not believe it when his voice cracked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Marley just about leaped back a step, and another. “I want you out of here,” she said, turning red. “Go on. Leave. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t like it. Out.”

He barely managed to keep his hands from his face to check for lumps, bumps or missing bits. “You were really staring. Come on. Have pity on a man and let me in on the secret.”

“There isn’t one.” She drew herself up, but rather than make her look fierce, she seemed embarrassed. “I’ll see you out.”

Instead he sat on a chair with a square seat, arms that joined at one corner, and no back unless you sat sideways against one of the arms. Damned uncomfortable it was, too, but he was making a point.

“That’s a valuable chair,” she said. “You’re not supposed to touch things like that…not like
that
.”

“I can’t imagine wanting to get anywhere near it,” he said, getting up. “It looks like a mistake and it’s damned uncomfortable.”

She puffed and said, “It’s a sword chair for a gentleman wearing a sword. Not that you care. This isn’t the best time.”

“You bet it’s not,” he told her. “Our mutual friend Detective Archer hauled me out of bed before six this morning and you know I hadn’t been there long enough.”

Apparently the “don’t touch” rules didn’t apply to the dog. Wagging her tail, and her entire body with it, Winnie wiggled to jump onto one of those fainting couches. This one was covered with some faded gold brocade Gray wouldn’t want draped over a birdcage—not that he had a bird. He looked pointedly at the dog. Marley smiled indulgently at her pet.

“I thought you’d like to know what Nat Archer had to tell me?” Gray said.

As if only just waking up, Marley blinked rapidly, started to stretch but changed her mind when the smock rose higher on her thighs. She gave him a panicky look. “Not here,” she said, glancing up the stairs. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“And hang up like you did the first time? We need each other. Get used to it.” He checked out the frilled pink material poking from the hem of her smock. “Did you come right down from bed? I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You’ve got to leave,” Marley said.

“There’s nothing about me that’s going to upset anyone,” he said.

Her hair looked wild…and appealing. And her sleepy, half-lidded green eyes were pure, sexy come-on, not that she could mean to send him that kind of impression, not given the way she was talking to him.

“Seriously,” he continued. “I think you’re telling the truth. You know something useful about what’s going on in this town and I want to help you follow it up.”

“You want to pick my brains,” she said shortly. “I don’t know if I should trust you at all and you can’t blame me for thinking that.”

He thought for a moment. “No, I can’t. But what other choices do you have, unless you’re planning to forget these desperate women you supposedly saw?
Missing
women. Don’t you feel responsible?”

Whatever she thought about his question didn’t make her happy. She bit into her bottom lip, then said, “I can get someone down here to help me anytime I want to,” and the way she said it sounded believable. “Come with me. But remember what I’ve just told you. Someone will come if I need them.”

From that he was to take it that if he put a foot wrong with her, all hell would break loose? He started toward her. “Should I bring your dog?”

“Don’t touch Winnie,” she said, her eyes narrowed. “She’ll do her own thing.”

Sure enough, the instant Marley turned to walk back upstairs, Winnie followed, bustling past Gray and eventually leading the way for Marley, as well.

On the third-floor landing, a small recess held a door with stained-glass panels. Marley used an old-fashioned key on the lock then pushed the door open. “Come in,” she said without looking back at him. “Please don’t touch anything. My projects are fragile because they’re old. And they’re in bad shape. Or most of them are.”

Don’t touch
was definitely her favorite phrase today.

From where he was looking, Gray didn’t see anything worth calling a “project.” Furniture, mostly with flaked finishes peeling off, a huge blurred mirror with a frame that had once been gilt, assorted picture frames with similar problems, boxes, chests, a grandfather clock—there were dozens of pieces jumbled around. Peeling surfaces in various finishes were all they had in common.

“I restore them,” Marley said, cutting off the obvious question. “Now, keep your voice down and tell me what the detective said to you.”

He wondered if she was naturally blunt. She as good as ordered him to spill information. “It’s dark in here,” he said, and didn’t add that it was dusty and smelled of turpentine.

“I like it that way.”

“Can we at least get away from the door?” he asked. “Better yet, we could go out for coffee. I haven’t had nearly enough yet.”

“Chocolate,” she said vaguely and her eyes lost focus.

“Okay, chocolate then. You have chocolate and I’ll have coffee.”

She snapped her attention back to him. “This way,” she said.

Almost running into the dog, he did as he was told and Marley led him to a furnished space at the far side of the junk. An old, brown leather recliner with a table beside it, a padded stool losing its stuffing, a large cabinet, and a workbench with a little red house on top were what he noted first. Jars of brushes, palette knives, pencils, jars of varnish and pigment and a host of other painting supplies, and dozens of tools overflowed from shelves and rested in muddled piles on the bench.

“How do you find anything in all this?” he said, then wished he hadn’t.

“I know exactly where my things are,” she told him tartly. “I’d only have a problem if someone tried to organize me, but that isn’t going to happen.”

The lamp she turned on cast minimal yellowish light over the chair and table.

She sat in the chair, a recliner, and pushed back to shoot out the footrest. He guessed that meant she wouldn’t mind if he used a stool beside her chair, which he did. Immediately Marley jumped up again and went to the cabinet. After rummaging around inside, she returned to make herself comfortable with a big box of chocolate-dipped pralines on her lap.

“Want some?” she asked, offering the box.

It was the friendliest sign she’d given him so far. He wasn’t a sugar guy, but he took a piece of the candy. Meanwhile, Marley rapidly ate a piece and washed it down with whatever was in a glass on the table.

“Mmm,” she mumbled, part of another praline already in her mouth. She put her shooting chair in reverse again, gave him the box of pralines and returned to the cupboard. More rustling followed.

“Here you are.” She exchanged boxes with him and resumed her seat. “Those are chocolate-covered coffee beans and they pack a wallop. They’ll keep your eyes open for a week.”

Gray doubted that, but smiled at her and chomped some of the beans. Maybe she was right—he did begin to feel a slight buzz. Or was that from the headiness of being alone with Marley Millet? He had difficulty not staring at her—especially at her legs, which were even more displayed now that she was sitting.

He studied a bean between finger and thumb. “We’ve both got the same addiction, y’know,” he said, waiving at the box of chocolates. “It’s all about caffeine.”

“There are different ways to get it,” she said, smiling, turning her expression into pure charm. “Chocolate is queen. Don’t argue, just take it from me. Now, what did the detective say?”

His plan had been to say just enough about the meeting at Ambrose’s to get her talking about what she thought she knew. “Why don’t we try to stay focused,” he said.

“Meaning?”

“Tell me more about what you actually…saw.”

She sighed and rested her head against the back of the chair. “I already told you. Liza and Amber. In a place I can’t locate.”

She chewed her bottom lip again and this time it sug
gested she had more on her mind than she was saying and it worried her.

“Shirley Cooper wasn’t a singer,” he said. “She worked as a maid at a club.”

“So she probably has nothing to do with Liza and Amber,” she said.

He wanted to be sure of that, but wasn’t, not entirely. “She could.” It would make him feel less of a suspect if the three were connected. Damn, he didn’t want to think about the other two being dead.

“Do they have any suspects in Shirley’s killing?”

He shrugged. “Sounds like her boyfriend has been told not to leave town, but that doesn’t mean much.”

She reached for the glass again. When she drank, her sleeve slipped up her forearm. Glaring red welts showed on the inside of her wrist.

“Those are nasty,” he said.

Marley looked blank.

He turned over the hand that rested on her thigh. More wide scrapes disappeared beneath her cuff.

“What?” She seemed confused.

He was confused. “How did you do this?” Where he touched her, his fingers throbbed faintly.

“Don’t you know you’ve scratched yourself badly?” he said. Gently, he ran his hand along her arm. Last night he’d put his hands on hers to show her he was cold. As soon as he did it he wondered why he felt compelled to touch her, and why he didn’t pull back right then. Instead of letting go, he had held tighter and felt tingling, but nothing like what he experienced now.

The sensation quickly became intense, close to pain, like the heavy pulse of arousal when he was close to a climax.

“These must hurt you,” he said, and the huskiness in his voice was obvious, even to him.

The color of Marley’s eyes changed through shades of
green, growing darker. He leaned closer, and he thought she moved nearer to him.

“They’re nothing,” she said, pulling away. She tugged her sleeves down, but her face had turned pale.

Gray took a deep, calming breath. “Did you clean them?” he asked.

As quickly as she’d paled, Marley’s face glowed red. He recalled that redheads blushed easily. She didn’t answer him and she probably wished he would forget what he had seen.

Could someone have deliberately hurt her? Women often denied abuse. He’d seen enough of that as a cop.

In one corner, a deep stone sink stood on metal legs. “Why don’t we wash those?” he said.

Marley sat quite still. “They’re all right. I don’t think the skin’s broken.”

He hopped to his feet and found the clean handkerchief he carried out of habit. There was only cold water. Sticking his head under the faucet sounded like a good idea, but he doubted Marley would be impressed. He soaked the cloth and returned to her. When she didn’t move, he took hold of her right wrist and dabbed the wounds.

No blood came off on the cloth. He repeated the process with the other wrist with the same result—no blood. Through his thin linen handkerchief he could feel the swollen welts.

“Thank you,” she said when he finally finished. “I’d forgot. I slipped in the courtyard.”

Gray didn’t believe her and he wanted a closer look at her arms. She wasn’t going to let that happen. He didn’t recall seeing the same type of marks before.

The dog whined and Marley patted her lap. Winnie jumped up. A grown man shouldn’t envy a dog, but Gray just might. Having Marley stroke him all over could be heaven.

He got an instant, erotic reflex.

“I’m considering trying to do remote drawing,” she said quietly. “They use it a lot in law enforcement.”

He wanted to know who “they” were, but kept his mouth shut, hoping she’d continue. No one he knew had ever used a psychic on a case—with or without remote drawing. That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

The faraway expression on Marley’s features seemed to mean she’d as good as forgotten he was there.

Since last night his hands had warmed up, but the quivering he still felt along his tendons wasn’t normal. A prickling sensation, a shooting thrill, hit hard enough to wind him. Objects around him grew fuzzy at the edges. He wondered if he could be ill, but no, this wasn’t any illness, or not the kind most people thought of.