Intuition
Page 14
Kylie waved. “Hello.”
“Hello. We’re going into your room next. Do you want us to skip it and come back later? We’re running really late already.”
“Did you see someone in the hallway a few minutes ago?”
“No.” She turned back to Matt’s open doorway. “Maria, did you see someone in the hallway when we finished with the other room?”
Kylie held her breath. This could be it.
The maid in the hallway shook her head. “Sorry. She didn’t see anyone either.”
Kylie sagged against the doorjamb. “C-can someone get a master room key from your cart?”
The maid’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. “No. Do you want us to clean your room now or later?”
“Later.” Kylie slammed the door. The maid was lying. Someone had come along and lifted a master key card from the cart and had tried to enter Kylie’s room while the maids were busy cleaning another room. And that person had done it before.
Her cell phone buzzed on the bed and she scooped it up. “I’m coming up. Are you okay?”
“Not really. I’ll tell you when you get here.”
Kylie perched on the end of the bed with bouncing knees until someone slipped a card into the door and once again it yanked against the chain.
“Kylie, it’s Matt.”
Relief flooded her body and she slipped from the bed. Peering through the crack in the door at Matt’s tight face, she slipped the chain from the door, and he charged in.
“What happened?”
“Someone tried to enter my room, but the chain stopped him.”
“With a key? He had a key card?”
“Did you see the maids’ cart out there? I think that’s where he got the key.”
Matt slammed the wall with his fist. “How does that happen?”
“I think the maids were careless. The one acted very nervous when I asked her if there was a master key on the cart.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
“It couldn’t have been Sloan. I was talking to him.”
“Do you really think Sloan would do his own dirty work? Can you really see him skulking around my mom’s house setting up an explosive trap? He knew I was alone while you were occupied with him in the bar.”
“I don’t know, Kylie.” He kissed her cheek below the scratches. “Before we go out to eat, we’re going to stop at the front desk and make a complaint about their lax security. We told them once already that someone had broken into your room to leave that message on the mirror.”
“What did you find out from Sloan?”
“Not much. He admitted having an affair with Bree, and acknowledged that she’d taken it more seriously than he did.”
“He’d have to admit to the affair because he had to know we already knew about it.”
Matt snapped his fingers. “The local roadies, Kenny and Toby, both told me Eric Evans is back in town for the festival.”
Kylie sucked in a breath. “Is he staying with his father?”
“I didn’t ask, but if he is we’re going to have to find him when he’s not home.”
“Do you really think Chief Evans is going to allow us to talk with his son?”
“He’s a big boy. He’s not going to be hanging on to his daddy’s coattails the entire time he’s here.” He laid his hands lightly on her shoulders. “How are you feeling otherwise? Have you put any more ointment on your burns since your shower?”
“No. I dozed off in front of the TV after you left.”
Matt patted the bed. “Lie down.”
Kylie crawled onto the bed and flopped down on her stomach, hugging a pillow to her chest.
Matt tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. “May I?”
“Uh-huh.” Kylie mumbled into the pillow to mask the rising excitement she felt at Matt’s touch.
He rolled up her T-shirt, exposing her bare back to the cool air. She twitched when he dabbed the first bit of ointment on a burn on the small of her back.
“Did that hurt?”
“No.”
He made his way up her back, skipping over her bra strap to get the burns on her upper back and shoulder blades.
“That should do it. They don’t look too bad.”
“They don’t feel too bad, thanks to you.” He pulled her shirt down and she turned and sat cross-legged on the bed. “If you hadn’t spotted that trip wire on the door, I’d have been blown to bits walking into the house.”
“I got suspicious when you started hedging. Turns out I trusted your instincts more than you did.”
“How are the cops handling the investigation?”
“Checking for witnesses, checking out purchases of the items used to make the Molotov cocktail.” He capped the ointment and tossed it onto the nightstand. “They may get lucky.”
“They didn’t get lucky with the investigation into Bree’s disappearance, and I don’t expect their luck to change until Dylan Reese replaces Evans as chief. We need to find Eric Evans.”
“We can look for Eric Evans tomorrow. How about dinner and a movie in the room tonight?”
Kylie scooted off the bed, straightening out her T-shirt. “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy…or crazier, but I need to go to Columbella House tonight.”
“You’re right…crazier. Why, after nearly getting yourself blown up, are you going to traipse around another abandoned house?”
“Nobody’s going to booby-trap Columbella House. Anyone could walk into that house at any time.”
“Which is exactly why you’re not going there.”
Kylie raised an eyebrow and flushed with warmth, not knowing whether to be annoyed by Matt’s imperious attitude or flattered that he cared enough to forbid her to traipse around.
“I appreciate your concern, but someone blocked my first attempt at contacting Mom and he’s not going to prevent me from my second.”
“A trip wire connected to a Molotov cocktail is a little more than blocking you.”
“I have to do it, Matt. I have to go to Columbella tonight.” She glanced at him through the corner of her eye. “Of course, if you want to join me I won’t say no.”
He crossed his arms. “Wouldn’t matter if you said no, nyet or nein, I’d be coming along anyway.”
“After a quick dinner?”
“Pizza at Vinnie’s and we take the car.”
“It’s a deal.”
Later, they squeezed into Vinnie’s at the height of the dinner rush and after a fifteen-minute wait, they grabbed a table in a corner beneath the big-screen TV blasting a baseball game.
They ordered a large pizza and a couple of sodas.
Kylie tapped his glass so the ice tinkled. “Are you sure you don’t want a beer? I’m just having a soda because I don’t want my senses dulled.”
“I had my one drink for the day.” He held up his index finger.
“You take your vow of teetotalism, or near teetotalism, very seriously, don’t you?”
“You know what they say? Alcoholism is a disease, and it has a genetic component. I don’t know why I just don’t abstain completely—it’s not like I’d miss it.”
Kylie dropped another slice of pizza on her plate. “I wonder if I could’ve rejected my inheritance from my mother.”
“It’s not the same, is it? ESP isn’t going to kill you.”
“Really? Because I’m not feeling that way lately.” She shot a glance across the room and gripped Matt’s wrist. “Looks like this is our lucky day.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
She tipped her head toward a table of men commenting on the game in loud voices. “That’s Eric Evans over there.”
Matt turned in his chair to stare at the group. “Which one?”
“The guy with the Giants cap on backward.”
“Time to introduce myself.” Matt sucked down the rest of his drink and got up from the table.
Watching Matt stride over to the
raucous table, Kylie covered her mouth with one hand. Matt approached every situation with both barrels blazing.
He leaned in toward Eric and gestured back toward their table. Eric nodded and pushed back from the table, and Matt returned alone.
“What happened?”
“Told him we had a few questions about his relationship with Bree Harris. Said he had to hit the john and he’d be right over.”
“Must be your winning personality.” She had no idea how Matt got all these people to agree to talk to him. Like Harlan Sloan pointed out, nobody really owed a P.I. anything. And they owed a psychic even less.
Eric ambled out of the restroom and pulled out a chair, straddling it. “Who’s this?”
“This is Kylie Grant. She’s my partner…for this case.”
“Yeah, I know.” Eric snapped his fingers. “You and your mom are gypsy fortune-tellers or something, right? Or your mom was until she offed herself.”
Matt made a sharp movement and the liquid in the glasses sloshed from side to side. “Show some respect.”
“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean anything.” Eric held up his hands. “I had a cousin who killed himself. Damned shame.”
Kylie cleared her throat. “So what can you tell us about Bree Harris?”
“That girl got around.”
“You mean she hooked up with a lot of guys?” Matt clenched his jaw into a hard line.
“She sure did.” Eric outlined an hourglass in the air with his hands. “She was hot and she knew it. She’d been in town less than two weeks, I think, and had a lot of dudes sniffing after her.”
Kylie wrinkled her nose at his crude expression. “And were you…sniffing after her?”
“I’m only human.” Eric smacked the table and shook his head. “That girl played everyone, and then I guess she got played in the end.”
Matt asked, “So you had a relationship with her?”
Eric crossed one finger over the other. “Whoa. I didn’t say that. I noticed her, I hit on her and she shot me down.”
“Did that piss you off?”
When Eric’s face twisted in anger, Kylie was glad Matt asked that question and not her.
“No.”
“That’s not what we heard.” Matt scratched his chin and acted bored.
“Let me guess—you heard that from Mindy Lawrence.”
Kylie swallowed. She didn’t know much about questioning people, but she knew you didn’t want to reveal your sources. “Why do you say that?”
“Because that chick was jealous of Bree. She couldn’t hold a candle to Bree in the looks department, and she wanted a piece of that Harlan Sloan action for herself. I never got why the cops, my dad included, didn’t look more closely at Mindy. She was the last one of her friends to see Bree alive, and the cops only had her say-so that Bree got some text and left the concert.”
Great. Now they had everyone pointing fingers at each other. And Eric obviously didn’t know that text had come from Sloan’s phone.
“Eric, watch this replay.” One of Eric’s friends gestured to him from across the room.
“I gotta go.” Eric jumped up from the table. “You’ll never find out what happened to Bree if my dad couldn’t.” He strolled back to his friends and made a rude gesture at the TV.
Kylie sank her chin in her hands. “What do you think?”
“I think everyone connected to Bree is very free and easy about discussing how free and easy Bree was. Nobody denies knowing her, but everyone is quick to make the point that the girl got around.”
“Do you think they’re lying?”
Matt narrowed his eyes as he studied Eric’s table of buddies. “I don’t know. That means Mindy lied, too. And I don’t feel like bringing it up with Mr. Harris. Their missing daughter’s loose morals are not something you want to discuss with her parents.”
“With Mindy, it could’ve been a matter of jealousy, like Eric said.” Kylie crumpled her napkin and tossed it onto the pizza tin, littered with crusts. “I sure wish we could get in touch with Patrice.”
“I’ve searched for her—last known address is Boston.” He slipped the bill from the table and peered at it while reaching for his wallet.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Kylie snatched the bill from him and plunked down some ready cash. “I’m getting paid for this gig, too.”
“You got it.” He checked his watch. “Are you ready to go? I don’t want to be creeping around Columbella at midnight.”
“That just might be the best time.”
Kylie drove out of town toward the coastline. When she stepped out of the car in front of Columbella House, she shivered—this time from the cool night air and not the hulking presence of the house. Tonight she felt ready, ready to reclaim the sensitivity that had been dulled by Matt’s nearness…or rather replace the sensations that Matt’s nearness inspired with the ones Mrs. Harris had employed her to use.
As they made their way to the side of the house and the patched-up kitchen window, Matt turned and said, “Someone may as well leave a key in the front lock. I don’t get why that mayor isn’t doing his level best to get Mia St. Regis back here to do something about this ruin.”
“Since it was Tyler Davis’s fiancée and Mia’s sister who ran off with Mia’s boyfriend, I don’t think he wants to revisit the embarrassment.”
“That was several years ago. Who cares about that anymore?”
She poked him in the back as he peeled back the plywood and reached through the gap to open the door. “Your father’s reputation still bothers you. My mom’s legacy still haunts me. Who are we to tell someone else to get over a trauma?”
“I suppose you’re—” he clicked the dead bolt from the inside “—right.”
Kylie made a move to open the door and he grabbed her arm. “Hang on. Do you remember what happened the last time you opened the door to an abandoned house?”
She stumbled back, square into Matt’s chest, and he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her snug against his body while he ran his hand along the seam of the door. He let her go and crouched down to inspect the bottom of the door. “I think we’re good.”
Tucking her behind the broad expanse of his back, he blocked her entrance and swung open the door.
Kylie held her breath as if waiting for another explosion, but silence greeted their intrusion into the old Victorian and its secrets.
She scooped in a breath of damp sea air and shuffled into the kitchen behind Matt. A blast of sensations slammed her and she staggered back beneath their weight.
Matt craned his neck over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“I feel—” she pressed a hand against the base of her skull “—everything.”
“Do you want to leave?” The light from the flashlight highlighted the furrows of worry stamped on his face.
“No.” She pushed passed him into the entrance hall of the great house and tipped her head back to stare at the spot where her mother had hung herself.
Matt backed off and dropped into a stout armchair covered with some kind of white sheet. He set up the flashlight on a table next to the chair and steepled his fingers, watching her over the tips.
Kylie closed her eyes. Swirls of emotions battered her. Filter. Filter. She withdrew her mother’s necklace and crunched the chain in her fist.
Mom, tell me what you know about Bree. Instead of an answer, three women cried out for help.
Three. Dead. Women.
* * *
MATT FOLDED HIS ARMS and clamped his hands against his body. Kylie had warned him on the drive over not to interfere. No matter what happened.
Watching her face contort and her body shake, he didn’t know if he could follow those orders. She’d been through hell already today. He didn’t want to see her go through any more…but it wasn’t his call.
She took her gift seriously. She considered it her profession, just as he considered being a detective his. He had to respect that.
No matter what happened.
He swallowed against his tight throat, regretting the salty pizza he’d consumed hours ago—no, less than an hour ago. The back of his eyeballs burned and his muscles ached.
Five more minutes. He’d let her go five more minutes. Two more minutes. He shifted in the deep chair. He had to stop this.
As Matt coiled his muscles, Kylie let out a long breath. Her frame slumped, her shoulders rounding and her chin dropping to her chest. She looked ready to collapse to the floor.
Matt vaulted out of the chair and caught her as she began slipping. Her languid body felt boneless in his arms, and he swept her up and deposited her in the chair he’d just vacated.
“Kylie?” He cupped her smooth cheek—the one that hadn’t been ravaged by road rash. “Come out of it, sweetheart.”
Her long lashes flew open and her fingers, fashioned into talons, clawed at his shirt. A film clouded her green eyes, giving them the appearance of a misty sea.
“It’s okay. It’s Matt. I’m right here.” He felt inadequate, more at ease rescuing her from an exploding house than trying to coax her out of a trance where she saw and heard things he couldn’t fathom.
“Matt!” Her nails dug into his chest through the material of his T-shirt. “Matt, she’s here.”
He gathered both of her hands in one of his and kissed her stiff fingers. “Bree’s here? In this house? What do you mean?”
Leaning forward, she shook her head, and her long hair with the crispy ends brushed his forearms. “I’m not sure. She’s dead…and…and…”
She extricated her hands from his and pressed the heels of her hands against both temples. “Others are dead.”
Matt’s heart jumped. “What does that mean? Was Bree the victim of a serial killer?”
“No, no. At least I don’t think so. Bree’s dead and so is Marissa St. Regis.”
“Marissa St. Regis? What does she have to do with this?” He massaged the back of her neck. “Calm down, Kylie. Take some deep breaths.”
She panted and licked her lips. Her gaze, which had never fully focused on his face, traveled over his shoulder to the winding staircase. “We have to go upstairs, Matt. She’s up there.”