by Marie Jermy
Secret Eyes
When Scott Rafferty, PI and director of The Federation, a highly classified global organization for the paranormal, showers his new secretary, the sexy and blind Leia Howard, with his coffee, neither has any idea that ultimately he’s the man to restore her sight.
Behind its sumptuous five-star décor, the Manhattan Heights Hotel hides a dirty secret. And when Scott is hired to expose a perverted manager who records his guests having sex, Leia accompanies him. While performing in front of the cameras, they not only enjoy the best sex ever, but they fall in love.
But Senator Williamson, a ghost with revenge on his dead mind, is setting Scott up, and it’s only after Leia’s kidnapping that Scott discovers the truth. Yet the blast of intense white light from his Federation-issue laser Beretta causes more than the vaporization of Williamson’s pompous and dead ass—it restores Leia’s sight.
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Length: 58,301 words
SECRET EYES
Marie Jermy
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
SECRET EYES
Copyright © 2011 by Marie Jermy
E-book ISBN: 1-61034-671-8
First E-book Publication: August 2011
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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DEDICATION
Dad, this one’s for you.
SECRET EYES
MARIE JERMY
Copyright © 2011
Prologue
At the locking of the heavy steel door behind him, he listened as the jangling of keys faded away, then lay on his bunk and waited for lights out. A minute, two at the most, later, and the eight-foot-square gray-walled cell that contained such luxuries as a dingy john and basin, and to which he mockingly referred to as his palace, was thrown into darkness.
He waited five more minutes, then reached under the bunk and withdrew a cell phone from a concealed hole in the mattress. The cell had been smuggled in for a fellow inmate who had not only since been released, but was sick enough to want to take part in what he had planned. The ten grand he’d offered only sweetened the deal. Not that he had any intention of paying.
Again, he waited. Two minutes and the cell vibrated. He cursed softly at the number calling. He would have thought that the pinstriped idiot would have had the sense to use a payphone. But alas no, he’d used his private line at the hotel. Oh, well, in a couple of weeks’ time, it wouldn’t matter anyway. He pressed the answer button and immediately warned, “No names!”
“Oh, okay. How are you?”
His tone was mockingly glib at the pleasantries. “Like I said before, never better. The accommodation is still first-class. The meals are still regular and plentiful. Oh, and there’s still plenty of starch in the shirts.” He rolled over on the bunk for a more comfortable position and adjusted the lumpy pillow behind him. “Is it done?”
“Yes. And I feel sick to the stomach.”
“But you’ve avoided the hole in the head. Yes?” The line went silent, and he could almost visualize the man on the other end wringing the sweat from his pinstripes.
“Are you sure the professor will not go to the police?” There was a pronounced quiver to the Irish lilt.
“Quite sure. You see, he has another secret. One he’ll definitely not want to reveal.”
“What?”
“Never you mind.” He again adjusted the lumpy pillow. “All you need to know is that the good professor will not go to the police, but will instead go to the only man who can help him. And it’s him who I ultimately want.”
“Who?”
“The same man who crossed me by fucking my wife. In life. And in death.” In exasperation, he threw the pillow across the cell. “And when he books himself into the suite, which he no doubt will, I want you to blackmail him in exactly the same way, but with one noticeable difference. In his letter I want you to write—”
“Look, you’ll have to give me his name. I can’t let that pervert Lavengro take photos of every guest who books the suite.”
“I said no names!” he snapped viciously.
“What, and you think I give a damn?”
The pinstriped idiot’s impertinence was as unexpected as it was unwise, but he smiled all the same. “Glad to see you’ve grown a backbone. And you’re quite right, I don’t give a damn about Lavengro, either. After this is all over with, I don’t care what happens to him. Fire him. Or what about framing him? Let him take the blame if by some miracle the police do get involved.”
“Give me a name.”
He mulled it over for a full minute before agreeing fully with the pinstriped idiot. Lavengro was a pervert, and his vile penchant for voyeurism shouldn’t extend to innocent guests. “Scott Rafferty. But I doubt he’ll use his real name when he checks in. The position he holds forbids it.”
“Then how am I supposed to know—”
“Oh, he might use his first name,” he interrupted impatiently. “If he doesn’t, then it’s guaranteed y
ou’ll know it’s him by the woman he’s paid to accompany him and pretend to be his secretary.”
There was a pause, then, “Okay. This letter, what did you want me to write?”
He told him along with the address to send it to and then disconnected the call. His smile was evil.
Time’s up, Rafferty.
Chapter 1
One week later…
“You’ve been AWOL for a month, Scott. Where have you been?”
“Living in darkness,” Scott Rafferty murmured in response to the question posed by Jessica Anderson, his friend, fellow P.I., and ultimately boss, as he stared at the view on the other side of the glass.
Eighty floors up, the October sun glinted off thousands of windows. The Manhattan skyline was perfect. Untainted. Unlike the other side of the building, where, and despite the ongoing construction of the One World Trade Center, the scar from man’s fight against terrorism still ran deep. Exactly the reason why he’d chosen this office for the new location of Magnum Investigations Private Detective Agency and the secret headquarters of the Federation. Too many lives had changed beyond recognition on September 11, 2001.
His included.
Scott turned away from the window. Parked on the other side of his desk, one leg crossed over the other, Jessica waited for further explanation. Casually dressed in a pink lightweight wool sweater and blue jeans tucked into brown calf-length suede boots, her long, glossy dark brown hair brushed straight, her amber-flecked blue eyes sparkling, she was as beautiful as ever. “Laura’s left me.”
“Oh, Scott. I’m sorry.”
There was a loud derisive snort from the doorway. “She left you eighteen months ago when her husband shot her dead. How do you screw a ghost anyway?” As usual, Lieutenant Ross Anderson, Jessica’s husband of six months, didn’t even make a conscious effort to mask the sourness in either his tone or his expression.
“You’re a hard man to please, Ross. I save your life, and all I get is grief,” Scott said, referring to an incident shortly after Laura’s death when Blade Harknett, the very dead aide of Senator Charles Williamson, took offense to the hole in the head that Anderson had dealt him for taking a potshot at Jessica. It was only because of those events that they knew of the Federation’s existence.
“Don’t get me wrong, Rafferty, I am grateful. Grateful that it was you and not Carrick. That man’s ripped my family apart.”
Scott hissed a curt expletive. He was sick of hearing how Sam Carrick, his best friend and mentor, had, after a thirty-year absence, caused a rift wider than the San Andreas Fault when he’d decided to reacquaint himself with the living, namely Ray Ferris, his father—also Jessica’s father—and Anderson’s mother, once his lover and partner in the LAPD. The fact that Carrick was Anderson’s brother-in-law only inflamed the situation.
It was all bullshit, of course. According to Jessica, the Andersons were still as close, still as strong, and she should know—she was part of them. Her brother was too, as he was married to one of Ross’s sisters.
Though none of his business, Scott himself had warned Carrick about the consequences of returning from the grave, but in the end it had been a waste of his breath. Carrick always did what he wanted, and to hell with everybody else.
“You two should be the best of friends.” Jessica spoke quietly as her husband stepped over to her, placed a possessive arm around her waist, and dropped a kiss on her mouth.
“I’d rather be friends with the devil,” Anderson remarked sourly.
“Likewise,” Scott agreed. But even he couldn’t stop the rumble of laughter when Jessica murmured he probably was friends with the devil.
As the North America Division’s Director of the Federation, a highly-classified global organization that even the President had only limited knowledge of, he, on a daily basis, was party to and dealt with matters far more serious than a friendship with the devil. Matters that 99.9 percent of the world’s population only saw on TV. Ghosts. Witches. Warlocks. Shape-shifters. Vampires. Werewolves…
Out of habit, Scott touched a hand to his chest, the five ten-inch jagged scars that lay beneath his pristine and pressed white shirt a testament that such creatures existed in real life. Not that they were all evil. One of his friends—Henry Pakefield—was an extremely horny five-hundred-year-old vampire with quite a talent for procuring and producing fake identities. Pakefield had also learned to control his thirst for human blood and classed himself as a “vegetarian” because he drank from animals.
Actually, Pakefield wasn’t his only vampire friend. Carrick was now a vampire too, having been turned by Alice Reinhold, a relatively young fifty-year-old “New Generation” vampire that could survive sunlight for up to five hours. Carrick was supposed to stake Alice for various crimes against humanity, namely biting people and drinking their blood—accusations later found to be untrue—but instead had fallen in love with her. The bad-girl blood-sucking seducer and the bad-boy badass staker made an interesting team.
Not that it was his business, but Scott had yet to tell either Jessica or Anderson about Carrick. Why heap more trouble on their carefree and blissful marital lives?
With a wry shake of his head, Scott parked himself in his comfortable leather chair. He picked up a list of names he had compiled from the responses to an advertisement he had placed for a secretary before he’d gone AWOL. “I’m back now. And we still need a secretary for the agency,” he said to Jessica. “I’ll telephone these applicants, see if they can come for an interview. Be quicker than letter and—”
“Already sorted,” Jessica interrupted. “Leia Howard starts tomorrow. Eight o’clock sharp.”
“Leia Howard?” Scott ran his eye down the names. “She’s not on my list.”
“Well, that’s because she’s my choice. She’s a good friend of mine and of my dad’s. We met through his charity work. She wanted a new challenge. I’m giving her one. But don’t worry; she knows nothing about the Federation. And unless you tell her, she’s not likely to, either.”
He wasn’t worried. When it came to the Federation, his lips, along with Jessica’s, even Anderson’s, were firmly sealed. Besides, every Federation file was on his laptop which nobody but he had access to. Sure, it could be stolen, but not even the world’s best hackers could penetrate its firewalls. The only reason he’d left it at home today was because he’d wanted to concentrate solely on Magnum Investigations. And they were discussing a secretary for said agency. “Don’t I get a say?”
“No.”
Anderson’s tone held just a hint of managerial authority toward him as he, too, parked himself on the desk. Scott decided against gesturing to the perfectly good chair not five inches away from Anderson. The sooner he left, the better. It really bugged him with having to justify any decisions he made concerning Magnum Investigations to Anderson. Jessica was his boss, and with any matters relating to the agency, he answered only to her.
“You may have gotten your way when it came to a new office, Rafferty, but Jess is still your boss. She employs and pays you, not the other way around.”
“Well, that’s not quite true,” Scott pointed out, the use of his surname bugging him further. “I’ve never taken a salary.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. You don’t need one. You’re ‘Lord Of Things That Go Bump In The Night.’”
Scott barked out a humorless laugh and then rose to his feet, his unusual black eyes glittering. He withdrew an imitation Beretta from the shoulder holster under his slate-gray tailored suit jacket. Not that the gun was a fake. Far from it. Instead of bullets, though, it fired an intense laser beam capable of vaporizing any creature living or dead. Jessica started, whereas Anderson stood his ground. Or rather sat his ground. “You know what this can do, Ross. Don’t make me use it.”
“All right, enough already!” Quickly recovering, Jessica swore with exasperation. She pointed a stern finger at Scott. “You. Put it away.” Her husband was next with a sharp dig in the ribs. “And you… For the umpteenth time,
Scott’s not to blame for Sam.”
“Hear, hear,” Scott murmured, holstering the gun and resettling himself back in his chair. “This Leia Howard,” he said to Jessica, reverting to their original topic of conversation. “What qualifications does she hold?”
“Enough to satisfy you.”
“Really?” He quirked a teasing brow. “And what exactly satisfies me?”
She ignored him. Anderson, on the other hand, looked ready to rearrange his face. Scott inwardly scored that as a win. Where his wife was concerned, Anderson was so easy to wind up. But flirting was as far as it went. He knew that Jessica loved her husband, and nothing would change that. Besides, he was in love with another man’s wife.
And Laura had died because she’d returned his love and had dared to ask for a divorce to be free to marry him. Eighteen months ago.
“She’s very good at what she does. Just don’t let her disability bother you. Give her these.” Jessica leaned over to slip a set of keys into the breast pocket of Scott’s jacket and then made toward the door. “Right, I’m going home to pack. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
Scott shook his head to dispel the bittersweet memories of Laura and tuned back into what Jessica had just said. “Disability? What disability? And what do you mean you’ve got a plane to catch? A plane to where?”
“To London. To see Mom and Dad. It’s been arranged for weeks. But with you disappearing without a trace, it was a bit difficult to pass the message on. I couldn’t even contact you on your Federation cell. Were you ignoring me?”