She lived not too far, but across the tracks, making a straight route impossible. He tried to come up with something to say once she'd given him her address, but his mind remained stubbornly blank, and she seemed lost in her own thoughts. Or maybe she had the same problem? The thought made the corner of his mouth twitch, but he refused to smile at the ridiculous thought of this poised, accomplished young woman—a professional writer—at a loss for words.
She directed him to a small driveway by a squat ranch style house with two front doors and matching Adirondack chairs.
"Duplex?" he asked.
"Yes, it's just me and my cat, so I don't need much room." She leaned over and touched him on the arm. This time he didn't flinch away. He didn't know how to tell her that her first touch had shocked him. Not literally, but more in a not-used-to-human-touch way.
Had he become that isolated? Damn, maybe Charlie was right.
"All right, be safe tonight. Weather looks nasty." There, at least he could talk about the weather.
"Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it." She tilted her face up to his, her cheeks pink, and a small smile playing around her lips.
Was that a kiss request? It had been so long. She couldn't possibly want to kiss him, could she?
He automatically said, "You're welcome," and leaned toward her but didn't close the distance, testing. The sway of the rosary's cross caught his peripheral vision, and he closed his eyes so he wouldn't see it, let it pull him away from the moment. The thought that he shouldn't be doing this tickled the back of his consciousness, but the cold rain smell of her contrasted with the warmth of the breath on his face and short-circuited his normal caution.
Before his brain caught up with his body, he touched his lips to hers. It was his first kiss in years, and when she leaned into it, he couldn't help but respond. He quivered with the need to be gentle, to not give into the urge of a man who's starved for so long he forgot how to be hungry until faced with a feast. Her mouth opened to his, and he explored it with his tongue. He'd just lifted his hand to cup her head when her phone rang. She pulled away with a curse, and he slumped back like she'd sucked the willpower from him.
She fumbled with her phone, her hands shaking. The tinkling ringtone filled the car with its sporadic bursts of melody.
"I'm sorry, it's someone I need to talk to," she said, her cheeks pink.
"That's fine."
But she still didn't answer it. Nor did she meet his eyes. "I'm working tonight at Bistro Moderne if you want to meet later for a drink."
"I'll think about it," he said. He might be out of practice, but he could tell when a girl was uncomfortable. Had he done something wrong? "I should get some sleep. I've been awake for almost twenty-four hours."
"Right, it's probably for the best," was her cryptic reply. She hopped out of the car, her phone to her ear. "Lucia?"
Damien rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just because Charlie is trying to drag you into the real world, it doesn't mean you need to go.
The internal argument continued as he put the car into gear and turned right on Ponce de Leon Avenue toward home and hopefully sleep.
Like he would be able to sleep after that. Or that you need to be so happy that she lives alone and that whoever called her wasn't a boyfriend.
Rest, he needed rest. It would straighten his brain out and give him the discipline he needed to resist the pull of a certain pair of green eyes and lips that tasted like coffee.
He couldn't help but shake his head at everything Audrey had told him, especially the "rift between dimensions" stuff. He caressed one of the smooth beads on the rosary and hoped that she wouldn't end up—what had his grandmother used to say?—"touched." People who were "touched" were never quite the same, and he suspected Maggie was one of them and was drawing others into her web of crazy.
Still, of all the women he'd picked up on Dekalb Avenue that week, Audrey was by far his favorite, even beyond her apparent skepticism, and she hadn't even been naked. Something stirred in his chest, and a smile escaped before he forced his expression into its usual neutral frown.
In spite of his internal battle between regret and a softer emotion he dared not try to name, he crashed into sleep as soon as his head met his pillow. But he didn't even get the chance to dream about what she might look like naked because it seemed that just as he dozed off, his cell phone rang. He rolled over and looked at the clock: had he really been asleep for two hours?
"Lewis," he said automatically when he answered it.
"God, Dame, I'm sorry to wake you up, but I need you back here." Charlie's voice was panicked.
"What's going on?"
"Our girls have gone missing."
"So it turns out someone saw one of our Janes leave," Charlie told Damien when he arrived at the station.
"Which one?"
Charlie's grin answered before he did. "The naked one."
A dull ache bloomed in Damien's left temple. "Was she naked when she left the hospital?"
"No, one of the nurses gave her clothes from their Take Back the Night stash, so she's running around in baby blue sweats."
"When was she last seen?"
"This morning at around eleven."
Damien plopped on the couch in Charlie's office and ran his hands through his hair. "Why weren't we notified?"
"They thought they'd find her wandering around the hospital."
"How'd she get out?"
"Just walked off a locked psych ward, apparently."
"What? How?"
"I don't know, but I bet Maggie will."
Damien glanced over his shoulder to check that no one hovered near Charlie's office door. Then he closed it and turned to his former friend, now—something. "Okay, look, now that we're alone, do you really believe in this stuff, about the goddesses tumbling down from the dream world and getting lost?"
Charlie sat back at his desk and steepled his fingers. Damien's cheeks heated. Am I about to be reprimanded?
"I don't know." Charlie sighed. "I know your bias against all things supernatural—you're the only one in the station who doesn't mind working Halloween so you can avoid celebrating it. All I know is that this Maggie chick has helped me crack some really tough cases, and she always turns up just before a bizarre one comes along. Like this morning, I came in and found this." He flicked a business card at Damien: The Crystal Cave Magic and Novelty Shop, Proprietor: Margaret Cornwall. "That's when I knew it was going to be a crap day."
"I know better than to believe that."
Charlie didn't argue. "Not that I don't love a challenge. Speaking of which, did you see anything on your drive down College Avenue?"
"Just another young woman, but not one of supernatural origins."
"Oh, really?" Charlie raised his eyebrows. "Do tell."
Damien didn't mention he'd kissed her. "It was the coffee shop girl. She was in that lot that's just been sold for condos, you know, the one with the house that burned down years ago."
"Yeah, people used to say it was haunted. What was she doing there?"
Damien hesitated, then said, "She said she was looking for signs of a rift between dimensions."
"And did you find anything?" Out came the notebook, but Charlie didn't seem surprised.
"Just some charred grass that shouldn't've been, nothing more."
"No more naked nymphs?"
Damien couldn't help but smile. "Just the real girl."
"And she's still hot, right?"
"Very. Slender, tall, light brown hair, green eyes…" Something that had been bothering him popped into his head.
"And…?"
"Ears with pointed tips. But not freakish, just cute. I never thought much of them before all this." He could picture himself kissing them and stopped that line of thought before it led to another blush and more teasing. And more bad decisions later.
The phone rang, and Charlie answered it. While Charlie talked, Damien half-listened, but the gray clouds
drifting across the sky mesmerized him with their shifting patterns. It had been a crisp autumn day, but now that evening fell, the air temperature dropped, a change noticeable even from inside. This weather was made for sleep. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, willing his eyelids to stay open.
"We've got one," Charlie said and hung up the phone. "Taylor found her."
"Which one?"
"Do you remember a blonde?"
The image of a slender girl with hair the color of ripe wheat and blue eyes that reminded him of a perfectly clear fall day came to Damien's mind. "She was the first one."
"Well, she's been hit by a car. Killed instantly."
"Son of a…" Damien recalled her innocent face, and anger stabbed through him for whoever had ended her young life. "Where?"
"Down Clairmont near Emory Commons. Let's go."
They took a patrol car so that they'd be able to use the lights and the siren to cut through traffic. When they got to the tangle of police cars, paramedics, a Dekalb County CSI truck, and yellow tape that blocked the major artery between Decatur and I-85, they found the coroner had already arrived and was examining the partially tarp-covered victim.
"What've you got, Leo?"
The tall man with a shock of red hair, square jaw, and black-framed glasses sat back on his heels and took off his blood-stained rubber gloves. "Looks like a pretty simple hit and run to me. Classic bumper marks. She died of a ruptured spleen and fractured neck, as far as I can tell."
Charlie turned to the patrolman who had called it in. "Any witnesses, Taylor?"
With a nod to Damien, the policeman said, "No, sir. Looked like she was trying to cross right over there, and that's when she was hit."
Charlie took his flashlight and examined the road, already wet from the cold, stinging rain. "Did you get any pictures?"
"Yes, sir. Not that they'll tell us anything."
Damien knelt on the pavement where the impact had happened and aimed his flashlight at it. "There aren't any skid marks. They didn't even try to stop."
"Then when we find the bastard who did this, it will be a pleasure to feed them to the lawyers. You know what else I'm thinking?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah." Damien tried to blink away the image of what must have happened from his overtired and therefore over-imaginative brain. "We've got to find the other two before something worse happens to them."
"Exactly. But I can tell that you need some sleep, so how about this? I'll get some guys on locating the others, and I'll call you the instant we find something."
"That works." Damien released the breath he'd been holding. "But call me if you need help."
"Will do. Oh, and come in streets. The Chief gave you temporary permission to join me on the case as an investigator-in-training, and we may need to go places that the uniform wouldn't be welcome."
"Thanks, Charlie, I really appreciate this." I think. He wiped his hands on his pants before opening the door to the squad car.
"The problem with you, Dame," Charlie told him after he got in the passenger seat, "is that you're too self-effacing. You need to put yourself out there."
"Yeah, I know." He'd heard variations of that his entire life. But there was something to be said for being invisible.
"So this is your big break, man. If we can crack this one, then the Powers That Be may promote you to investigator."
"That would be incredible." He brushed something wet and very cold off his sleeve and tried to do the same with the doubts planted by DeMarco. "Is that sleet?"
Something ticked against the window, and the wipers swept little chunks of ice away.
"Looks like it."
"Since when do we get sleet in October?" He looked out the window and up at the dark sky. "The more we get into this, the more I'm convinced that there might just be something to your supernatural theory."
"Then you'd better get home and sleep while you can. It's gonna be a long night."
7
Audrey sighed and tried not to touch her lips, which she swore still tingled from the kiss Damien had given her. How else could she explain the desire to smile every time she thought about it? She wished she'd not tried to answer Lucia's call—she had missed her anyway, but when she finished trying to call right back and leaving a voice mail, Damien had already left.
Not that she had much to smile about otherwise. It was going to be a long night. Even if Audrey had wanted to ponder how Damien kissed so much better than Kyle—he seemed to actually pay attention, for instance—or keep an eye out for the missing goddess, she didn't have the time or mental space.
Bistro Moderne was busy for an evening with crappy weather, and apparently two more of the wait staff had quit that day, so it was just her, a guy named Tim with a self-proclaimed "high weirdness tolerance," and a new girl named Stephanie, who had obviously been hired out of desperation. She had no idea about waiting tables and followed Tim around for the first hour. So, between one waiter, one new to the restaurant, and one green trainee, they were lucky none of the customers had walked out on them yet. Even with the hostess and Cece pitching in, all three ran around like mad people.
Then there was the kitchen. The elves had rearranged things to their liking, so it had been everything that Cece could do to keep the chef from leaving in a huff. Audrey made a mental note to mention that blatant interference in human affairs to Maggie. Even with Cece's coddling, the chef sulked through the evening, and they all heard about it every time a favorite pot or utensil was not in its correct place.
Audrey had followed Tim around the first half hour or so until she learned the specials and figured out the serving order and table numbers. Water, bread, salads… It was pretty standard stuff. Plus, she got the chance to take a good look at the food, to taste the specials, and to observe the flow in the kitchen.
So, all in all, the night progressed pretty well until a flood of people came in at six-forty.
"What the heck is all this about?" she asked Tim. She hurried to fill a water pitcher from the filtered tap and ended up with a stream of ice-cold water down her forearm to her elbow. "It's still early."
He looked at her with raised eyebrows and a smug grin. "You're obviously not Catholic."
She refrained from asking if he always looked like a demented clown when he was being condescending. "No."
"There's a big Catholic church down the road, and the evening service just let out."
"Ah, so they figured it was too late to cook and came out?"
He patted her on the shoulder, and she flinched away from him. He didn't seem to notice. "Exactly. You see, Audrey, you have to know your area as well as your restaurant."
She was relieved when he ran to take another order before she could smack him for being such an ass. He's likely working a weekend night because he has no friends.
Shaking off her mean thoughts, Audrey checked on Stephanie, who filled water glasses. There was something strange about the girl, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She learned too quickly, for one thing. After her observation hour, Stephanie had taken to waiting tables like a veteran, and she'd had the most incredible luck. Audrey had to fight for fresh rolls for her customers, but she noticed that Stephanie seemed to instinctively know when to grab them so they'd be warm, but not hot enough to burn fingers.
"So," Audrey asked her once the evening rush wound down, and more customers left than came. "What do you think?"
Stephanie smiled but wouldn't meet her eyes. She spoke with a slight accent. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
"Have you ever done anything like this before?"
"Just some private party stuff. Nothing on this scale." Stephanie looked up like she’d heard something call to her. "Excuse me."
Audrey watched her walk into the kitchen. She started to follow, but when she turned around, she saw a familiar face at the bar.
Dressed in plain clothes, khaki pants and a white Oxford shirt, Officer Damien Lewis leaned on one elbow and smiled when her gaze met his. He had w
ashed his wavy dark hair, and it curled slightly. Even better, he watched her with laughter in his eyes, and a smile played on his lips. Lips that she'd kissed when she really shouldn't have, but thinking about it made her own curl upward with the memory.
"You have a boyfriend. You have a boyfriend. You're not officially broken up yet although it's headed that way," she chanted under her breath, but she could never discuss the day's happenings with Kyle, who wouldn't talk to Madame Lucia because he believed she was a charlatan. Plus, she wasn't entirely sure of his whereabouts, only that he was likely playing doctor with one of his fellow medical students. She walked over to Damien.
"Howdy, Officer. What are you doing here?"
"Call me Damien." His dimple showed, but the laughter faded from his eyes. His very tired-looking eyes.
"Did you go home and nap?"
The dimple vanished. "For long enough. I couldn't sleep this evening, so I came to fill you in."
Audrey looked over the restaurant. "I have one table that's on dessert, but then I should have a moment before I have to help Stephanie, the new girl, out. It will probably be about twenty minutes."
He shrugged. "No problem. It'll take me that long to get through half of this beer. I'd actually like to talk to her, too."
"Good." But her heart sank. This seemed like more of an official visit. You really shouldn't have kissed him. You have a boyfriend… Who doesn't seem to care much for you right now, that little doubtful voice reminded her.
Audrey walked back to the kitchen and found Stephanie waiting for the decaf coffee to brew.
"These things take forever," complained Stephanie. "I thought it was ready."
"Here, watch this." Audrey grabbed a cup with her left hand, snatched the pot from the coffee maker, and without spilling a drop, substituted the cup under the stream. She reversed the process after it filled. "Now you try."
"Isn't that cheating?"
"Not if you have customers waiting."
Stephanie grabbed the coffee pot, and with a deep inhalation, pulled it out and put the cup under the stream, but she misjudged the angle, and hot coffee spilled over the rim.
Tangled Dreams Page 7