Chapter Five
Five
“Deke and your aunt apparently have had a long-standing personal relationship,” Luke said.
He smiled a little as he put the SUV in gear and drove away from the cabin.
“Wait until my grandmother finds out. She’ll be pissed.
She married into the family, so she’s not a Wells by blood, but somewhere along the line she became more of a Wells than the rest of us, including the Boss.
Family is everything to her, and that means holding on to the old feud. ”
“I’m still in shock myself,” Sophy said. “My sister will be stunned. But Chloe is out of the country working in a collector’s private library on an island in the South Pacific. It’s very hard to get in touch with her. But that’s a problem for another time. We need to stay focused.”
“Agreed,” Luke said.
Bruce was in the back seat, but he had both front paws braced on the console, his head thrust between the two humans.
Luke suspected he had chosen the position because it enabled him to get closer to Sophy.
From time to time, she raised a hand and ruffled the fur behind his ears.
The dog practically groaned with pleasure.
I should be so lucky, Luke thought.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. She was right. Time to focus. He was good at that. As far as his family was concerned, it was his only real talent.
Sophy was all business now. She sat, square-shouldered and tense, in the passenger seat. Evidently she had decided to pretend nothing unusual had happened between them when she had emerged from the trance. He wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
The aura-resonating experience had been a first for him. He was still feeling some of the afterburn—a disorienting sense of discovery and an intimate connection that went beyond the physical. Dad and the Boss said it would be like this.
Both men had also warned him that situations like this could go full fubar.
What if Sophy had not experienced the same exhilarating rush of bone-deep awareness? What if she had been oblivious to the moment of resonance between them? Maybe it had amounted to nothing more than a few sparks as far as she was concerned. A momentary distraction.
Talk about a depressing answer to the Was it good for you, too? question.
He had not been entirely blindsided tonight. On some primal level he had been anticipating fireworks from the moment Sophy opened the door of the Shop on Hidden Lane and glared at him through her black-and-crystal-framed glasses. Something deep inside had stirred.
She had been dressed in gray joggers and an oversized sweatshirt.
Her autumn-brown hair had been caught up in a careless twist on top of her head and secured with a large tortoiseshell clamp.
The style emphasized her strong, feminine profile.
He hadn’t been able to see much of her figure because of the shapeless clothes, but that hardly mattered, because he’d been transfixed by her intense hazel eyes.
“You must be Wells,” she had said. “You’re late. I expected you a couple of hours ago.” She eyed Bruce. “That dog should be on a leash.”
“Bruce doesn’t like leashes.”
“If he takes off after a squirrel or a deer you might never find him.”
“Bruce won’t get lost unless he wants to.”
“I don’t see a collar.”
“Bruce only wears collars for formal occasions.”
“Whatever. It’s not my problem if he gets picked up by animal control. There’s a storm coming in. We’re going to have to hurry if you want to get the reading done before it hits.”
The atmosphere was charged with the vibe of the oncoming gale but there was another kind of energy around Sophy. She was not what he had expected. She was also not his type. Then again, he had never met anyone like her, so how could he be sure of that?
For a beat he felt disoriented.
“You are Sophy Harper, right?” he asked, needing confirmation that he hadn’t dropped into an unscheduled dream.
“Yep, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Mr. Wells.” She smiled a smile that was too bright and too polished. “You are Luke Wells, right?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Your grandmother called me this afternoon to tell me you were on the way.”
“You’re a reader and a housekeeper?”
“Those are side gigs. Mostly I’m a librarian. You were obviously expecting someone more exciting. I get that a lot. Don’t worry, I’m good at what I do. Come on in and have some coffee while I change into my work clothes.”
Her working gear had consisted of a puffy jacket that had enveloped her from neck to ankle. She wore it over the sweats. With the cat-eye glasses attached to a sparkly little chain around her neck, it was as if she was trying very hard to avoid looking sexy. It wasn’t working.
He had been intrigued by her outfit because it was sartorial overkill. Sure, it was chilly in the mountains at night, but it was late spring, not midwinter. Judging by her clothes you’d have thought there were five feet of snow outside.
Now he understood why she had bundled up. She had dressed for the aftermath she knew would follow the reading. There was always a dark side to every strong talent.
He knew he had to take some of the blame for the tension that shivered in the atmosphere in the front of the SUV. But he refused to take all of it. The Harpers and the Wellses had a murky history that stretched back four generations. He felt free to hold ancestors on both sides responsible.
When he needed a crime scene reader he usually went with one of the in-house talents from Wells, Inc.
But this was not just another security job.
This was a family matter. You didn’t use employees when it came to an investigation that touched on the past. You went with a talent who could be trusted to keep her mouth shut—a Harper.
Sophy folded her arms. “How did you do it?”
He took a deep breath, fortifying himself.
She finally wanted to talk about what had happened when their auras had clashed and then resonated.
This was going to be tricky. It wasn’t the dreaded morning-after conversation, but it was the closest thing to it.
It was the We could be really, really great in bed together conversation.
But in this case that probably would be followed by the We hardly know each other discussion, and then Sophy would point out that she was a Harper and he was a Wells. He would be forced to defend his family’s legacy and she would be obliged to defend her family and that wouldn’t go well.
“Do what?” he asked, stalling for time as he turned onto Lake Road.
“How did you talk to me while I was reading the scene without shattering the trance?”
He had not seen that coming. But then, it was no secret that he wasn’t much of a psychic. So much for the post-resonance-experience conversation. He should probably be relieved.
“Is that what’s been bothering you since we left the cabin?” he asked. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“A lot of things have been bothering me tonight.” She did not take her attention off the narrow strip of pavement that bordered the lake. “That question just happens to be at the top of my list right now.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just knew that it was possible to talk to you without breaking your trance.”
“I’m not buying that. What kind of talent are you, Luke Wells?”
“I have some serious night vision, but that’s it as far as psychic talents go. I’m sure you know they call me No-Talent Wells.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do I at least get some credit for shutting down the ice fever?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She continued to stare at the road through the windshield. “You saw my eyes.”
“Yep. And, as I told you, they are very nice eyes. My turn. What were you afraid I would see?”
She switched her gaze to the black mirror of the lake. “It’s not a good idea to look at my eyes, let alone make physical contact, when I am in a trance or when I’m coming out of one.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She turned back to the view of the road. “I’ve run a few experiments. The problem is that none of my test subjects have stuck around long enough to give me a detailed analysis. I scare them. No, I terrify them. They act like they’ve seen a ghost or…something worse.”
“What’s worse than a ghost?”
She hesitated. “A demon, maybe.”
He thought about that while he turned onto the side road that dead-ended at the Shop on Hidden Lane.
“Sounds like when you’re in your zone you give off some hallucinatory vibes that can affect people who are in close proximity,” he said. “Something to do with the energy it takes to will yourself in and out of a trance, probably.”
“That’s what Aunt Bea says.” Sophy looked at him. “So why didn’t you freak out tonight?”
He brought the SUV to a halt in front of the two-story house. “Maybe I’ve got a form of immunity because of my night vision.” He shut down the engine. “What’s this about running experiments?”
She paused and then cleared her throat. “Occasionally I conduct what you might call a test. Sometimes, like tonight, the experiment is accidental.”
“I’m an accidental experiment?”
“Not exactly. Well, yes, in a way.” She unclipped her seat belt and prepared to get out of the vehicle. “Look, this is hard to explain and it’s got nothing to do with our problem.”
She cracked open the door.
“Wait,” he said. “I need to know what usually happens when you run your experiments.”
She jumped down to the ground, turned, and looked at him. Her eyes sparked with a little heat.
“My last experiment screamed, called me a succubus, and took off running,” she said.
“That’s the kind of thing that happens when I run one of my experiments.
Satisfied? It’s late. The storm will hit soon and I need some sleep.
I’m going to leave for that art colony first thing in the morning, assuming the road is clear. ”
“A succubus?” He whistled softly. “A female demon who visits men in their dreams to have sex with them. I’ve always wanted to date one of those.”
“You forgot the part where the succubus sucks out the victim’s vital bodily juices so that he grows weaker and weaker and finally croaks.”
“What’s life without a little risk?”
“I’m glad you find the idea of a succubus entertaining. The man who called me one did not.” She winced. “I terrified him.”
“Sounds like he was a real loser.”
“No, actually, he’s a police sketch artist. He definitely has some talent, both the artistic kind and the psychic sort.” She paused. “He said I was his Muse. He wanted to watch me work. He thought it would inspire him.”
“Have you heard from him since he ran off into the night?”
“Not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s complicated and not important.”
She shut the door with a very firm kerchunk and headed for the front steps of the shop.
He knew that was all he was going to get out of her tonight. He opened his own door and extracted himself from the driver’s seat. Bruce bounded across the console and vaulted to the ground.
They both hurried to catch up with Sophy.
The Shop on Hidden Lane had a Victorian vibe. Luke had seen enough earlier to realize that it served as both a home and a business. Sophy had left the downstairs lights on. The windows glowed with an inviting warmth.
“Where are you staying tonight?” she asked as she went toward the front steps.
“Deke’s cabin,” he said.
She stopped abruptly. “You can’t sleep there.”
“Why not?”
She swept out her hands. “Because someone got killed there.”
“Not in the bedroom.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“That cabin is stained with a lot of bad energy. It will affect your senses. Your dreams.”
“You cleaned it, remember? Are you telling me you didn’t do a good job?”
“I did an excellent job.” She hesitated. “But no housekeeper can scrub out every last bit of the kind of stain left by the energy of extreme violence. I muddied the waters, so to speak. There’s no useful evidence left but there will be a vibe. I don’t like the idea of you sleeping in that house.”
“I just told you, I don’t have much of a talent. I doubt if I’ll pick up on any residual energy.”
“Everyone has some intuitive awareness of that sort of thing. We’ve all experienced that cold feeling you get when you walk into a structure where something terrible has happened.
Do you know how many requests I get to do housekeeping work in a space where someone died?
Listen up, Wells, sleeping in that cabin would be a dumbass thing for anyone to do. ”
“The alternative is sleeping in my vehicle, which, while certainly doable, would be inconvenient and uncomfortable. I’ll risk some bad dreams in exchange for access to convenient indoor plumbing.”
“Bad idea.”
“Okay,” he said. He held up both hands, palms out. “I’ll see if I can get a room at the B and B.”
“Forget the B and B. It’s closed. The owner sold it last month and the new owners haven’t reopened. There’s no help for it. You’ll have to stay here. You can sleep on the sofa.”
“I appreciate your gracious offer of hospitality, but aren’t you afraid having my vehicle parked in front of the shop all night will cause gossip?”
“Got news for you: it’s too late to worry about my reputation. By noon tomorrow everyone in town will know your car was seen outside my aunt’s shop tonight, long after closing time. They already know that Bea is gone and that I am the only one in residence.”
“Is that going to be a problem for you?”
“Don’t worry about it. Nothing I can’t handle.” She paused, remembering the case attached to his belt. “I don’t mean to pry, but I noticed your auto-injector. What are you allergic to? Anything I should know about?”
He glanced at the house. “No. My allergy is to a rare kind of pollen. Nothing that’s in bloom around here.”
“Okay.” Reassured, she took out the small wooden mallet and chimes and played a short series of notes.
“Why are you doing that now?” he asked. “Are you going into a trance?”
“No. Listen. Do you hear that?”
He stopped talking. The wind chimes on the front porch clashed angrily in the night. The music was discordant. Disturbing. It raised the hair on the back of his neck and sent a stiff shot of adrenaline through him.
Bruce growled softly, ears pricked, his gaze intent on the front door of the shop. That was not a reassuring sign, Luke thought.
“The storm is rattling the chimes,” he said. “That’s all I hear. What am I missing?”
“That’s Aunt Bea’s alarm system,” Sophy said quietly. “We’ve got a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
“The chimes indicate that an intruder entered the shop while we were out.”