Sweet Fortune (6 page)

Wide-eyed, Jessie stood very still, looking up at him. This was the first time he had ever taken her in his arms. If she kissed him, it would be the
first time
. The monumental importance of the occasion threatened to overwhelm her. She shuddered. “Hatch, I was just trying to make a point.”

“Kiss me,” he commanded again, his voice very soft even though his eyes were very brilliant. “Find out for yourself if it's blood or ice water that keeps me alive.”

“Oh, Hatch…” Jessie threw caution to the winds. In that moment she knew she could not go to her grave without finding out what it was like to kiss Sam Hatchard just once. The tension she felt in his presence had been building for weeks and it had to be released.

With an anguished little cry she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers. Standing on tiptoe, she crushed her mouth against his.

Her first impression was that she was peering over the rim of a volcano. Boiling lava simmered deep down in the heart of the mountain, just as her intuition had warned her. There was definitely heat here, but it was under awesome control, surrounded by layers of frozen stone. Images of banked fires and smoldering furnaces flickered in her mind.

Moth to the flame
.

Hatch's mouth moved slowly on hers, taking complete control of the kiss with effortless ease. Jessie was not quite certain just when she was no longer doing the kissing but became, instead, the one being kissed.

Hatch's elegant, dangerous hands tightened on her arms as he held her against the length of him. She could feel the long, hard muscles of his upper thighs and was deeply aware of the strength in him. It compelled and fascinated everything that was feminine within her.

But overshadowing all the other impressions that were pouring in on her was a sense of Hatch's pure self-mastery.

Jessie did not know what she had been expecting, perhaps some proof that Hatch would be as cold physically as he was in every other aspect of his life. Perhaps she had hoped such a discovery would calm the storm of conflicting emotions she felt toward him.

What she found instead was infinitely more disturbing. It would have been reassuring to know that there really was no emotion buried in this man. To discover that the fire was there, just as she had suspected, but that he had complete control of it, was unsettling in the extreme.

Jessie began to tremble. Alarmed, she brought her hands up and pushed at Hatch's shoulders. He let her go at once, his gaze amused and all too knowing. The pace of his breathing was unchanged, slow and steady as ever.

Jessie stepped quickly away from him, aware that her mouth was quivering. She bit her lip in an effort to regain her self-control as she stalked to the cupboard and got down another mug.

“Well, Jessie?”

“I think you'd better go.” She poured the tea with shaking fingers.

He waited a moment longer and then, without a word, he turned and walked out of the kitchen and out of the apartment.

When the door closed behind him, Jessie sagged heavily against the counter, shut her eyes, and gulped down the hot tea.

*  *  *

The dowdy, worried-looking woman was hovering in the hall outside the offices of Valentine Consultations the next morning when Jessie arrived for work. Jessie was so excited at the prospect of a real live client that she nearly dropped her key.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized. “Have you been waiting long? I'm afraid Mrs. Valentine isn't here today, but perhaps I can help you?”

“I'm Martha Attwood,” the woman said, glancing around uneasily. “I had an appointment.”

“You did?” Jessie opened the door and led the way into the office. “I'm Mrs. Valentine's assistant. I don't recall setting up an appointment for you.”

“I called her at home the night before last.” The woman trailed slowly into the office, looking as though she expected to find crystal balls on the tables and dark, heavy drapes covering the windows. “I told her I wasn't sure if I really wanted to hire her. She said to come in this morning. Just to talk, you know.”

“Certainly. Have a seat, Mrs. Attwood. Coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Martha Attwood sat down on the edge of a chair, her handbag perched on her knees. She cast another anxious look around the office. “I don't really believe in this sort of thing. Bunch of silly mumbo jumbo, if you ask me. But I don't know where else to turn. I'm desperate and the police say there's nothing they can do. There's been no actual crime committed, and my daughter…” Her face started to crumple. “Excuse me.”

Jessie sprang up from behind the desk and came around the corner to extend a box of tissues. “It's all right, Mrs. Attwood. Just take your time.”

Martha Attwood sniffed several times, blew her nose, and then dropped the used tissue into her purse. “I'm so sorry. It's the stress, you know. I've been under so much of it lately.”

“I understand.”

“She was doing so well in college. I was so proud of her. She was studying computer science.”

“Who was studying computer science?”

“My daughter. Susan. She was always so mature for her age. Even as a child. Quiet. Hardworking. Sensible. Never got into trouble. I never dreamed she'd do something like this. I feel as though she's run off and abandoned me. Just like Harry did.”

“Where, exactly, has Susan gone, Mrs. Attwood?” Jessie sat down beside the woman.

“She's gone off and joined some sort of cult. It's operating here in the Northwest somewhere. At least, I think it is. Her last letter was postmarked from right here in Seattle. Dear God, I still can't believe it. How could Susan get caught up in something like that?” Mrs. Attwood reached for a fresh tissue.

“Let me get this straight, Mrs. Attwood. You know where your daughter is?”

“Not exactly. I just know she's dropped out of her studies at Butterfield College and joined DEL.”

“DEL?”

“In her letter she said it stands for Dawn's Early Light. I gather it's some sort of cult that thinks the rest of us are going to poison the environment so badly that we'll all be destroyed. But the DEL people claim they can save the planet.”

“I've never heard of this particular cult.”

“In her last letter Susan said she wasn't free to tell me too much yet because the DEL Foundation is trying to maintain a low profile, whatever that means.”

“What is she doing for the foundation?”

“I don't know,” Mrs. Attwood wailed. “They're using her, somehow. I'm sure of it. God knows what they have her doing. I can't even bear to think about it. Dear heaven, she was going to get a degree in computer science. She would have had a good job, a bright future, not the sort of life I had. I just can't believe this is happening. I came to you because I didn't know where else to turn. I can't afford a private detective, which is what I really need.”

Jessie frowned thoughtfully as she absently patted the woman's hand. “Why did you call Mrs. Valentine if you don't believe in her psychic abilities?”

Mrs. Attwood blew her nose again. “Because the leader of DEL, a man named Dr. Edwin Bright, is obviously some sort of charlatan. He must be. He's convinced innocent young people like my Susan that he has special powers to predict the future and that he can change it. I guess I had some vague notion that if Mrs. Valentine could find some way to expose the man, Susan might lose her faith in him.”

“You're working on the theory that it takes one to know one?” Jessie asked dryly.

Mrs. Attwood nodded, looking more miserable than ever. “It occurred to me that a…well, a professional like Mrs. Valentine would know all the tricks a man like Bright would use to convince others he had special powers. I mean, she must have been using such tricks, herself, for years.”

Jessie bristled. “I think you should understand, Mrs. Attwood, that Mrs. Valentine has a genuine talent. She is not a fraud.”

“It doesn't matter to me, don't you see?” Mrs. Attwood said hastily. “Either way, she'll recognize an impostor, won't she? Be able to expose him? And I'm sure Edwin Bright is an impostor.”

“I'm really not sure we can help you, Mrs. Attwood.”

Mrs. Attwood clutched at Jessie's arm. “Please. I don't know where else to turn. I'll pay her to help me prove Bright is a fake. Will you tell her that? I don't have a lot of money, but I'll find some way of paying the fees.
Please
.”

Jessie felt her irritation dissolving swiftly in the face of the woman's obvious desperation. It was so hard to say no to someone who was clearly at the end of her rope. And besides, this was a potential client.

“Let me see if I understand,” Jessie said carefully. “You don't actually want to buy the services of a true psychic. You simply want Valentine Consultations to prove that this man who runs the Dawn's Early Light Foundation is a fake, right?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Hmmm.” This was something she could handle on her own, Jessie told herself with gathering excitement. The client was not even looking for a genuine psychic. A successfully completed case such as this one could open up whole new realms of possibilities for Valentine Consultations. It was the perfect place to start her new marketing program.
Valentine Consultations, Psychic Investigations
.

“Say you'll help me,” Mrs. Attwood pleaded.

“You do realize that even when their leaders are exposed, people don't always lose faith in them, don't you?” Jessie felt obliged to point out. “People who need to follow a leader will make all sorts of excuses for that leader so that they can keep on following him. It's possible we could prove this Bright is a fraud but not be able to convince Susan of it. Do you understand, Mrs. Attwood?”

“Yes, yes, I understand. But I have to try. I have to get my Susan out of the clutches of DEL.”

“All right,” Jessie said, making her decision on a crest of rising enthusiasm. “Valentine Consultations will take the case.”

Mrs. Attwood blinked in the face of Jessie's new gung-ho attitude. “Thank you.” She opened her purse. “I've brought some things along. A picture of Susan. Her last letter. There isn't much. If you can think of anything else you might need, let me know.”

Her first real case
. Jessie picked up the photo of a shyly smiling young woman who appeared to be about twenty years old. She wore glasses and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. There was something rather innocent and naive about Susan Attwood's face. She looked as though she had grown up in a small farm town, not a city.

“I will certainly keep you informed, Mrs. Attwood. And don't worry, I'll get started on this right away. In fact, I'm going to consult with Mrs. Valentine immediately.”

“Where is Mrs. Valentine?” Martha Attwood peered through the open doorway of the inner office.

“She took a nasty fall the night before last and she's still recovering.”

“Oh, dear. Will she be able to work on my, uh, case?”

“Don't you worry about a thing, Mrs. Attwood. I'm Mrs. Valentine's assistant and I'm in charge around here now.”

Mrs. Attwood cleared her throat, looking vaguely alarmed. “You're sure?”

“Absolutely positive. Relax, Mrs. Attwood. I was born for this kind of thing. It's in my blood. I just know it.”

Irene Valentine looked even more worried than Mrs. Attwood had appeared. She lay back on the white pillows and listened to the entire tale, shaking her head slowly back and forth.

“I don't know, Jessie. I don't like the feel of this.”

Jessie stared at her in astonished delight. “The
feel
of it? You've got your psychic abilities back, then, Mrs. V?”

“No, no, I mean I just don't like the plain old ordinary human feel of it. It doesn't take any psychic ability to sense a little trouble on the horizon, my dear. Just common sense. And my common sense tells me this cult business is way out of our league.”

“But, Mrs. V, just think what a case like this could do for the image of Valentine Consultations.”

“This isn't the sort of thing we normally handle, Jessie, dear. You've been with me long enough to know that. We deal with people who are under a lot of stress. Or people who are confused about things. We soothe their fears of the future and give them self-confidence. We're therapists of a sort, not private detectives.”

“But this is an ideal chance to expand our business,” Jessie said, unwilling to give up. “Please, Mrs. V. I told the client we'd take the case. I can work on it while you're recovering. It's not like I'm going to try to fool the client. Mrs. Attwood herself said she really doesn't expect to hire someone with genuine psychic ability. She just wants someone who can prove this Bright character is a fraud. That should be easy enough to do.”

“Don't count on it. Con men are extremely clever.” Mrs. Valentine narrowed her eyes. “You really want to take on this case, don't you?”

“It's a great opportunity for me to prove myself to you, Mrs. V. Let me at least do a little research on the cult and this guy Bright. If it looks too big for us to handle, I'll tell Mrs. Attwood she'll have to go to someone else. What do you say?”

“If I had any sense, I'd say no.”

“Mrs. V,
please
. I have a feeling about this case. I know I can handle it.”

Mrs. Valentine sighed. “As it happens, I've just taken a nasty blow on the head and I'm obviously not thinking clearly at all. All right. Do a little research, dear. Find out what you can about DEL and this man named Bright.” She fixed Jessie with a firm gaze. “But you are not to go any further than that on your own, understand? Keep me posted every step of the way, and please don't do anything foolish. We don't know what is involved here, and I do not want you taking any chances.”

Jessie grinned, satisfied. “Don't worry, Mrs. V. I'll be careful.”

“Why do I get this overwhelming sense of impending doom?”

“You must be psychic.” But Jessie regretted the little joke instantly when she saw the tears in the corner of Mrs. Valentine's eyes. “Oh, God, I'm sorry, Mrs. V. I didn't mean to upset you. You
are
psychic and you will get your inner sight back when you've recovered from the fall. I know you will.”