by Mary Blayney
Taste of Desire
A Talent for Sin
Bound by Temptation
Taken by Desire
What a Duke Wants
The Real Duchesses of London Novellas
Kathryn, the Kitten
Linnette, the Lioness
Elizabeth, the Enchantress
Annabelle, the American
Georgianna, the Last Real Duchess
The Psychic Detective
By
Evie Owens
Dedication
For Sommer, Sally, and Cylee —my reasons to believe.
And for Deborah, Candy, and Marjanna, who kept me going until I could find the writing again.
And last, but never least, for the Lifesavers. Because it couldn't have happened without you.
Prologue
The last thing Erin Healy saw—before the darkness swallowed her—was her partner, Rolly, rising up like an angel out of the flames that licked their way, bright yellow and orange, across the filthy shag–carpeted floor. Then, Rolly looming above her, his watery blue eyes turned to black in the smoky darkness.
"You're a good kid," he said, gathering her up in his long ropy arms.
That was also the first thing Erin remembered, when she woke up in the hospital. Rolly, coming to her rescue. But when Chief Dern came in to see her, and she told him what had happened, what little she could remember from the night when everything went wrong, he just shook his head. He stood next to her hospital bed and his mahogany–colored hands wrapped around the top rail of the bedguard stood out, stark between the peach blanket and the white cuffs of his shirt.
"He saved me," Erin said again. And again the chief shook his head—once—No. "Officer Connors was shot," he said.
Erin remembered that. The slow motion way that everything went to shit—the shouting, the gunshots, Rolly staggering to his knees then pitching face first to the floor. Her shoulder jerked so hard she stumbled back a step, even as her whole left side went cold and wet, like getting blasted with a fire hose, but when she brought her hand up to touch, it had come away hot and covered in blood. She'd stared at her hand, unable to comprehend the freezing cold oozing under the Kevlar vest, and the hot mess on her hand. She was shot. She was shot, too. Then something connected hard with the back of her head.
She tried to turn, tried to figure out where the blow had come from, but as she twisted, her knees gave out. And the next thing she remembered was Rolly rising from the flames and coming over to her.
"He moved me," she said again. She wasn't trying to argue with the chief, but it was true. She'd fallen not far from where Rolly had, and if she hadn't been moved—if Rolly hadn't carried her out of the crack house to where they found her across the street—she'd have burned along with him.
"He shouldn't have gone back in," she said.
"He never left," the chief said. "He died from the gunshot wounds. He was dead before the fire ever got to him."
Now Erin was shaking her head. "He picked me up, Chief. I swear to you, he carried me out."
"What nobody can figure out, is how you got out," he said. "Rolly never left. But you did."
His hands hadn't moved an inch on the rail the whole time they'd been talking, but now he let go and the rail shuddered. "Well, you, five–hundred thousand dollars, and a duffle bag of heroin."
"What?"
"Healy," he said.
Not Erin, like he usually called her. Not even Officer Healy.
Erin was conscious of her own breathing—the harsh sound of it in her ears, the cold air, the chill expansion as it filled her aching lungs.
"There were three bodies in that house," Chief Dern said. But her heartbeat was so loud that Erin had to concentrate hard to hear him. "And the department is missing extremely valuable evidence. I came to hear your side. Now I need you to hear mine. Internal Affairs is all over this. They haven't determined that your wounds were self–inflicted …"
"What? Self—"
Erin struggled to sit up, forgetting the tubes and monitors—sputtering, flailing. Chief Dern took a step back and watched her struggle for a moment, then he raised his hand. Stop.
"They haven't determined that your wounds were self–inflicted," he said again. "But they haven't ruled it out, either."
"Chief! I can't—you don't—"
"I know what I'd like to believe. But we're not exactly in the business of believing, are we? You need to figure out what went down in that house. You need facts. You need evidence." He grabbed hold of the rail and the whole bed shook, the IV bags swaying on their metal hooks. "I need proof. And all you're giving me is a fucking ghost story."
Chapter One
Two months later
The phone rang.
Martin Sterling groaned and rolled over. When it rang again he reached for it, but missed, his hand landing with a thud against the bed frame.
"The only way to stop the ringing is to answer it, you know," Rose said, gliding into the room.
Perfectly coiffed, as always, she trailed her red, manicured nails along the edge of the tall dresser. Her signature scent, tea rose, wafting ever–so–lightly in her wake filled his nose like a chemical assault. He sneezed.
"A real assistant would answer it for me," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes.
Rose shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, you assist me. Besides, it isn't stabbing me in the ear drums."
The phone rang again and this time his hand landed on it. He hit the "Answer" button without opening his eyes. Followed immediately by "End."
Silence and relief. But it wouldn't last.
He slid reluctantly out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom. He was brushing his teeth when the phone rang again.
"Get that, won't you?" he asked around the brush, knowing full well Rose would do no such thing.
She was still laughing as he stumbled back to the nightstand.
"Martin?" his mother said, the moment he answered. "What in the world took you so long? What are you doing? Are you alone?"
His mother had only a vague idea of what his being a so–called "private investigator" involved. By careful design on his part, of course.
"Good morning. Yes, I'm alone. And thanks to someone very rude, I'm also awake. Now."
"It isn't rude to call at 9 o'clock in the morning."
"But it isn't strictly necessary, either. Can we agree?"
She ignored that. "Are you okay? You sound–"
"Busy?"
"Well. I was going to say 'tired' but—"
"I'm working. That's all. I'm in the middle of something."
At that, she had to keep her suspicions to herself. The alternative—having to address the truth about her son—always came a little too close to the danger zone for her.
"I'm sorry," she said, confusion edging into her voice. "I didn't realize."
"It's—" But before he could finish, Rose loomed up and snapped her fingers under his nose.
"Heads up, bright boy," she said in a breathy stage whisper, as if his mother might be able to hear her. Which was absurd, since Rose had been dead for years—twenty that he could vouch for personally—and his mother had never once heard a thing.
The whole 'talking to the dead' gene must have trickled down his father's side of the tree. It was hard to say for sure, since he split when Martin was ten.
"Company coming, hon," Rose whispered, waving toward the front of the house.
"Mom," he said. "I have to go."
"What? Right now? But—"
"There's someone at the door. I'll call you later."
She was still protesting as he clicked the off button.
He turned to Rose. "Who is it?"
Rose went to the door and then—the strangest thing happened. She turned, looking confused or…maybe even afraid. He moved toward the door and she lurched in front of it, extremely un–Rose–like, thrusting her arms out to the sides as if she were actually some kind of barrier. "Don't answer it."
"What?"
She shook her head. "I can't—I don't—"
He reached for the doorknob and without warning Rose dashed down the hall. Or more accurately, she dashed through him and down the hall and the next thing he knew he was leaning against the wall, shaking uncontrollably, cold to the marrow. The doorbell rang again.
"Seriously?"
No answer.
When he opened the door there were two women at the bottom of the steps. One of them was Amber, an old friend of his. Sort of. And as far as he knew, Rose had no problem with her. But the other one was a stranger. The other one stared up at him for several long moments, as if he wasn't what she'd expected to find.
Well that made two of them.
How had this cool blonde with the even cooler gray eyes startled his usually unflappable Rose?
The woman looked him up and down in a way that made Martin feel like he'd left his body and was seeing it through her eyes, and that was when he realized. Oh. She was a cop.
Great. And there he was, tweaking like a meth head.
#
"He's not what you think."
Erin eyed her friend Amber. "He's exactly what I think."
"MmHmm." Amber shook her head. "Way to keep an open mind there, cop shop."
Erin glanced up at the man, framed now in the door. Six feet tall. Maybe six one, she thought, noting that he was barefoot. Wide shoulders. Forbidding glower under dark disheveled hair. The thin white t–shirt and charcoal colored sweatpants slung low across his hips had the effect of making him look almost naked, even though he was fully covered. Or maybe that was the way he was shaking. Like he'd just climbed out of a freezer.
"I can hear you, you know," he said, in a voice so rough he must have dragged it across the floor of every bar in Old Town. And up the steps.
So raw it made her own throat hurt.
"Don't sulk, Martin," Amber said. "It makes you look like a sociopath."
"Sociopaths don't look like sociopaths," Erin said. "That's the problem with sociopaths. This guy's just hungover."
The man's wide sulky mouth lifted at one corner. But only for a second, before he turned and glanced back inside the house. "What brings you to my door so early on a …" He turned his glare on Amber again. His voice ground to a halt and he coughed, gave an impatient wave. "Day. With the police?"
"Let us in." Amber hiked up the steps, forcing him back inside the house. "And I'll tell you."
Erin couldn't help smiling as she followed Amber through the door, but once inside she had to stop and stretch, tilting her head carefully from one side to the other. Her shoulder still hurt like a mother sometimes.
Amber caught what she was doing. "Next time," she said, her eyes soft with concern, even though her words sounded careless, "you ought to try dodging the bullets, instead of catching them."
Erin gave her a narrow look, aware that the man, Martin, was watching.
"Martin," Amber said. "I'd like you to meet my friend and neighbor, Erin Healy."
He looked down at the hand Erin held out and she looked up into the most amazing brown eyes she'd ever seen—dark around the edges, lightening to gold. Fiery, but not warm.
He took a quick breath and, as if making a difficult decision, took her hand. "Hello—"
His eyes might not have been warm but his hand was. Or not warm, exactly, but alive—like a wire. Biologically electric. Like holding the beginning of something in the palm of her hand.
"Erin," Amber said, continuing the introduction, "this is Martin Sterling."
"I'm confused," Martin said, looking from Erin to Amber. "Unless you've joined the police force, babe—"
"They should be so lucky," Amber said. "No. We're not here on police business. Well, we are, I guess, but not officially. Remember that crack house fire a few months ago? In Brookland?
Martin blinked, shook his head. "I don't watch the news."
The way he said it reeked of boredom but Erin couldn't help noticing the way he kept surveying the room, searching the hall behind him at ten–second intervals as if looking for somebody. He clearly wasn't home alone, but there was no sign that anyone else was there.
Amber pointed at her. "It was a bust, or it was supposed to be, but the place burned down with all the drugs, money, and everybody involved inside of it. Everybody except Erin."
His gaze slid to back to her, sharpening to a fine point. "How did you get out?" he asked.
"I'd rather not talk about it with an audience."
"Audience?"
She gestured down the hall. "I'd rather talk when you're alone.”
"You better not mean me," Amber said. "Because seriously? I've already heard it."
Martin shrugged. "I'm as alone as I ever get."
Erin took a breath. Took a beat. Weighed the circumstances. The man had to be a con artist. She knew Amber believed him, but people didn't talk to the dead. That was an act.
But when he reached past her for the door and said, "Well this has been … fun … but I've got a hangover to nurse here and a natural aversion to the police so if you don't mind…"
Chief Dern's words rang in her ears—All you're giving us is a fucking ghost story—even as a vine of disbelief, so strong, so absolute it could have been made of stone, wove itself through her rib cage and around her heart.
It was galling, was what it was. Coming here. But fine. She was running out of time. Hell, she was out of time. If they closed the case … if they brought her up in front of the review board … her job—and let’s be real here, her job was her life—hung in the balance. Whether she believed this man could talk to the dead or not, she had nothing to lose.
Nothing.
She closed her eyes and conjured the bits and pieces she could remember. "It was like they were expecting us. They started shooting the second we hit the door. I don't know which one, there were two of them." And it was dark and they were all facing each other, she and Rolly on one side of the shitty little coffee table, the two dealers on the other and everybody had guns in their hands…
She opened her eyes only to find Martin staring fixedly down the hall. "My partner went down first," she said, the words coming easier now that he wasn't watching. "I took a hit in the shoulder…" And maybe on the back of the head, except that made no sense. How could she get hit on the back of the head when she was looking at everybody? It was all out of order… She must have hit her head when she fell… "The next thing I remember is Rolly—my partner—picking me up and carrying me out of the house. He went back in but didn't make it out again."
Martin shook his head as if to clear it, and turned away from the hall. His gaze swept over her, up then down. "That's a real drag, but—"
"The coroner's report says my partner died on the spot. Gunshot wound to the chest."
"He got shot again, after he carried you out?"
"The first shots were fatal. According to the coroner, Rolly was dead when he hit the floor. There was no way he could have carried me out of the house."
#
What was up with Rose? Freaking out? When was the last time Rose freaked out over anything? He'd never seen her act like that and he kept looking at Amber's police officer friend, trying to figure it out.
Amber waved her hand in his face. "Hey hot shot! This is the part where you come in. We need to know what happened in that house before it burned. She needs to know. But everybody in there is dead. Get it? So we came to you." She made an impatient gesture in his direction. "Go. Do your thing."
His thing. Martin almost laughed out loud. He was still so cold he was shaking like a drug addict and Rose was gone. He couldn't communicate with the living right now, let alone the dead. "You sleep with a girl once in high school and she thinks she can order you around for the rest of your life."
That one would order you around even if you didn't sleep with her, Rose said, from somewhere behind him.
He smiled. Glad to have her back.
"It was twice," Amber said, bristling. "And even if you put the two times tog
ether they didn't add up to one good—"
"That's not how I remember it," Martin said. Even though that was pretty much exactly how he remembered it. "I believe the words 'thank' and 'you' were—"
Amber bristled. "Oh please. I—"
"What exactly is your thing?"
The words, spoken in a low clear voice, cut through their bickering.
Erin shrugged, then winced and brought her hand to her shoulder. "I mean I know you supposedly talk to the dead. But how do you do that? Exactly?"
Show me.
His least favorite words.
Her mouth was a straight line—the shortest distance from here to there—and when he looked into her cool gray eyes, so terrifyingly perceptive, he felt the shock of something that he would have called recognition. Except that made no sense.
This woman didn't believe anything without scientific proof, that much was clear, and that should have annoyed the fuck out of him. But instead it made him want to show her something. Made him want to show her plenty.
She let go of her shoulder. "And how much does whatever you do cost?"
"I'm a private investigator," he said, aware that he was snarling. "That's what I do. If you want me to investigate this fire it will cost you by the hour."
"Seriously, Martin," Amber said, "Don't—"
He turned to glare at her.
"I mean it," Amber said, undaunted. "It took me forever to talk her into coming here. And she's running out of time. She's already on suspension and they're about to…" She motioned at Erin. "What did you say they were going to do? Close you out if—"
"Close the case," Erin said. "And if they close the case as inconclusive my suspension will have to go before the Board and—"
"She'll lose her job," Amber said. "Bottom line."
Silence.
The woman's spine remained rigid, her shoulders back and squared, but as she bowed her head, the arch of her neck—a thing of beauty—rang with such pain it silenced everything and everybody else. "And that's what I am," she said, her naturally low voice even lower, directed at the floor. "My father was police. It's what I grew up with. It's all I've ever wanted to do. It's what I am."