Spin and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 3)
Page 22
The sound was magic, heart-stoppingly melodic. ‘Joanna’, ‘Little Darlin”, ‘Embraceable You’ … this music cleared my head of cobwebs and took my soul soaring to paradise. I lived for this music. It flowed from one note to another. The plaintive melodies shifted through tempos and harmonies, through improvised jazz that managed to cling to the original tune with drifting harmonics and sounds that defied description.
He was healing me with suspended wanderings, notes that turned my body into molten music with a treasure of surprise. ‘Satin Doll’, ‘Shiny Stockings’, ‘Call Me Irresponsible’ … my blood was only an emotion. There was nothing I could do but sit and listen.
My toes were tapping each other in time without my knowing. The trumpeter smiled at me again. His eyes were teasing, saying that he liked a woman who sat at his feet.
It was not easy to stay rooted to this earth. I was already drifting away to some other place when the temperature changed in the crowded pub as the door opened. DI James came in, collar turned up, frozen-faced with cold.
I could not believe my eyes. How could this be happening? James appearing in this pub (which he never came to) at the same time as my magical jazz trumpeter? Please, fate, don’t do this to me.
‘Jordan, what are you doing here? Why are you sitting on the floor?’ He stood over me like a custodian.
‘I’m listening to music,’ I said staring at the red patterned carpet. There were worn patches. ‘You know I like jazz.’
‘Get up. Come and have a drink.’
‘No, thank you.’ But I couldn’t let him go. ‘I’ll take a rain check on that invite.’
‘I don’t do rain checks,’ said James. ‘It’s now or never.’
He turned his back on me, went over to the bar to order and I was flattened. My stomach contracted. A bubble of dread coursed my veins like an embolism. I could die from this.
The door opened again. Still the music flowed in an ethereal golden stream, but I was losing the magic of the blues and was sinking under it. My head was spinning. I was trying to stay afloat in an alien sea.
‘Jordan, señorita! My beautiful lady. I see you have put my red rose in your window. How perfect, how enchanting. I must kiss you for the New Year blessing.’
Miguel Cortes strode into the crowd, pulled me to my feet and planted a warm Latin kiss on my cheek. Twice in one night. Perhaps the drought had broken.
But I was a woman condemned to endure a nuclear device exploding my dreams. Would I ever find the energy to pick up the pieces and start again? Would the painful debris littering my feet, cut and shred forever?
Were they really all here, all three of them? Surely I was dreaming.
DI James was leaving, beer barely touched. He’d had enough. He jammed the glass on the counter like a full stop. The music had come to an end. The jazzman was taking a break, shaking moisture from the mouthpiece, coming towards me, a man of sweetness and charm, eyes full of warmth, ready to talk music for hours. Just what I wanted, what 1 needed.
Miguel had his arm protectively round my shoulder, very amorous. ‘Bella señorita, lady of the rose,’ he murmured into my ear.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, heading for the ladies’ loo.
I climbed out of the window, jabbing awkward arms and legs, and slithered to the ground. I stood outside in the night air, leaning against the cold wall, howling into the harsh wet bricks. I wanted to bury myself inside my own body. It was too much to bear. The roughness cut my skin.
‘I thought you’d try some hair-brained escape,’ said James, strolling casually towards me, hands in his pockets. ‘That was the men’s window you climbed out of. They put little drawings on doors to help people like you.’
It was like getting the last after-dinner mint.
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