“You’re probably wondering how I know all this.”
“Yeah, kind of. He doesn’t strike me as the type to bare his heart to his coworkers.”
“He wasn’t, but Sheryl was.”
“Ah. Linn said you worked with her.”
“She was our admin, so we analysts got the instant replay every morning during their courtship, the engagement, the wedding plans, you name it. I even helped her pick her colors. And then when Griffin got shot, we were as supportive as we could be. Until it started going a little weird.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah.” Natalie sighed. “You know, in-house romances are really a bad idea, especially in police departments. And when you have a talker like Sheryl, there are no secrets.”
“I can imagine.”
“Sheryl and Griffin’s partner spent a lot of time in the hospital with him. And then they started spending a lot of time out of it.”
Tessa saw where this was going. “Uh-oh.”
“Yup. She left him for his partner. Caleb resigned and took a job with Sacramento P.D., and that’s where they’re living now. I have no idea how much contact there is between Griffin and Sheryl, but when it all went down, he was completely shattered.”
“No kidding. And all this happened six years ago?”
“More or less.”
“Wow. Well, thanks, Natalie. This helps me understand him better.”
“I hope so. Because I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, he didn’t swear off women or anything. That would be a simple way to deal with it. From what I’ve heard from a couple of the girls who tried to comfort him in his loss, he’s just not emotionally available.”
“Still hung up on Sheryl?”
“It’s hard to say. But between us girls, just watch your heart.”
Yeah, she’d figured that one out on her own.
Tessa thanked Natalie, hung up and reached for her tarot deck. With Griffin and his story filling her mind, she asked the universe for some guidance, cut the deck and chose a card.
The King of Swords.
Why was she not surprised?
This card was about a man of intellect who worked with information using the active, outward focus of the leader. She couldn’t have picked a card that described Griffin better. Truthful, impartial, analytical—and a man who acted on what he believed. So, actions were called for here. But what kind? Thinking up a solution? Yep, definitely. Communicating? He was in the house doing that right now. But what about with her? The only thing he communicated was desire, and his intellect was busy shutting that down.
Hmm. Tessa shuffled again, cut, and pulled another card.
The Hierophant. Okay, that symbolized institutions and their values. Like police departments. And marriage. Members of institutions are rewarded for following convention, though in the case of the latter that hadn’t really worked out for Griffin. But what did the card mean for her? Simply that she was up against a force that was not innovative, free-spirited or individual like herself? Or that she needed to get with the program, whatever that was?
She shuffled again and pulled a third card. The Ten of Pentacles.
Tessa sat back with a sense of accomplishment. Well, as her mom used to say, that tied it. The Ten of Pentacles was a reinforcing card to the Hierophant. It meant material success, as evidenced by all the coins floating in the air in the marketplace scene on the card, but it also meant seeking permanence and following convention.
In Griffin’s case, though, it might mean something deeper. Natalie Wong had said he wasn’t emotionally available. But maybe he was looking for a longer-term solution than what the girls at the office had offered. The card confirmed that he still wanted to create a lasting foundation in his relationships, that he craved being “in it for life.”
There was hope for the guy yet. But did that mean she was part of the solution?
Tessa gathered up the cards and slid them into their bag. Permanence and convention had never been part of her life plan. Whatever the universe had in mind for Griffin Knox, her part was to help him solve this case—and, she thought wickedly, maybe loosen up that oh-so-stiff spine of his.
Maybe she’d pave the way for some dignified long-term woman to walk in and make the guy happy.
It certainly wasn’t going to be her.
16
From the private journal of Jay Singleton
I can’t believe it. Trey Ludovic. A guy I like(d), a guy who’s been in my own home, drunk my scotch, sat at my table.
That bastard.
It all falls into place now. I flew Christina out here on the company jet for Christmas, had that costume made for her…and then she meets him at the Christmas party. She calls me in February and asks me to send her an application for UC Santa Rita. Like a big dumb trout, I snap up the bait and say that if she’s interested, she can just move out here. She’s here by April, all expenses paid, and voilà, they’re together, courtesy of dear old Dad.
Griffin says there’s no evidence in her laptop that indicates they had an online affair, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have built a private chat room and met there a dozen times a day.
I swear, I’m going to kill him. But first, I’m going to talk to Mandy. I’m spoiling for a fight, and by God, this is it. If he’s going to take my daughter, I’m going to take his company. I’m gonna redefine the “hostile” in “hostile takeover.” Mandy will know exactly how to position it with the SEC and with Stellar Memory’s board.
Trey Ludovic is going to be massively sorry he ever set eyes on my daughter.
NOW WOULD BE a good time for a software pirate to hack into Ocean Technology’s server farm.
Griffin cruised past the condo complex half a mile down the beach from the Singleton property, where supposedly Stellar Memory had a company suite. After showing his ID at the gatehouse, he parked the truck in a guest space and gazed at the tumble of Spanish-style cubes zigzagging down the hillside. In the quiet of the night, tastefully illuminated by lamps hidden in the shrubbery, you’d never guess the units went for a million or more each.
Yeah, a pirate would be great. A spectacular crime like a hack job would give him a perfect excuse to get the hell out of here and back to some semblance of a normal life.
A life that didn’t contain a blond psychic with a kissable mouth and a body to die for. Who wore gauzy dresses and short skirts and had no idea of the havoc she created inside him simply by walking up a flight of stairs.
It was a case of deprivation, that was all. It had been months since he’d had the time or inclination to pursue anyone. His last affair, with one of the software engineers who had been a witness in the breach of a nondisclosure agreement, had lasted six months and then fizzled from lack of interest.
Griffin sighed and got out of the truck, landing with most of his weight on his right leg to spare his aching left knee. The important thing here was not his body and what happened to it when Tessa got anywhere near him. In the cold light of reality, he’d meant what he’d said to Tessa this afternoon. The important thing was finding Christina.
The super of the building was unusually helpful, probably due to Griffin’s Ocean Tech ID and the fact that everyone in Carmel knew Jay Singleton. In twenty minutes he was back at the truck, in possession of three facts: one, that Trey Ludovic was indeed using the company condo; two, he’d recently purchased a house in Carmel Valley; and three, that he was out of town—where, the super didn’t know.
Griffin had hoped the super would let him into the suite, but without a police badge and a warrant, the guy had every right to give him that “Are you kidding? I’d lose my job for that” look and say no.
Griffin fired up the truck and headed back up the highway. So Tessa’s vision checked out—again. It had been perfectly possible for Ludovic to stroll down the beach and meet Christina at the rocky outcrop. But fact-checking wasn’t getting them any closer to finding t
he girl. He had to figure out some way of getting Tessa to focus on details—and not of the two runaways making love, either. He needed details of their surroundings that would lead him to a real place, somewhere they could go to convince Christina to come home.
If she wanted to.
Griffin shook off that thought. One thing at a time. And the first thing was Tessa.
Back at the estate a few minutes later, he found her in the cottage in front of the laptop. She had evidently taken advantage of his absence to shower and change into the cotton bottoms and tank top she slept in.
He willed himself to focus on the back of her head, where her hair was drying into a wavy bob. “Working on the case?”
Tessa sat back. “No, just checking my e-mail. I wanted to send a thank-you note to Na—to someone. For something they did for me. Um, how’d it go? Did you find where he lives?”
“Yep.” Griffin sat on the end of the bed and kept his gaze resolutely on her hair. No lower. “Stellar Memory has a company condo about half a mile south—via the highway. It’s closer if you use the beach. He’s not there.”
“That would be way too easy.”
“I didn’t think we’d find them holed up there, but it had to be checked out. The super says Ludovic bought a house, though, so he won’t be in the condo much longer.”
“A house.” She hugged one knee and rocked back in the chair. “I did some more surfing around. He’s from Houston originally, so the condo was probably temporary housing when he took on the job here. Looks like he’s going to make it permanent.”
“That’ll make Jay happy. No chance of bribing the guy to go back to Houston and pick on someone his own age if he’s laid out a couple of mil for a place here.”
A silence fell. Tessa shifted uncomfortably on the chair, and then got up and pulled on her blue sweater, hiding the tank top but not the spectacular curves under it. She was dressed exactly the same way she had been the first time he’d—
Stop, he commanded his memory. Don’t even go there.
Tessa took a step toward him, then two more. “She wants to know if he’s coming,” she said.
He stared at her. “Coming where?”
“To bed, silly.” She smoothed her hands down the curves of breast and hip. “She got some new lingerie today.”
She’s looking at Christina. His skin prickled. Shazam. Just like that.
Griffin got to his feet carefully, so as not to startle Tessa out of Christina’s reality. “Come on over here,” he said softly.
She let him lead her to the bed, where he sat beside her. “What does the room look like?”
Her gaze tracked from left to right. “They’re sitting on a big couch in front of a window. There’s a chair that matches it over there.” She gestured to the left, where the laptop sat on its table. “It’s covered in something striped. Blue and white. There’s a table between, with nothing on it. Um, what else?” She wrinkled her forehead. “A bookcase. A kitchen door, that way.” She waved her other hand to the right. “Um, a rug.”
“You’re doing great. Can you see a motel sign through the window?”
“A motel sign? Outside the house? No.”
“You’re in a house, not a motel? Where?”
Tessa giggled. “She wants to make out, right there on the couch. She wants him to pretend he’s eighteen, too. Like this.”
And before he could think of a way to distract her or bring her out of the trance, Tessa had wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
This is too weird. Stop. Stop it. He wrenched his mouth away. “Tessa. Wait.”
“She’s not into delayed gratification.” She caught him off balance and pushed him backward onto the bed, where she climbed on top of him, her body measuring the length of his.
His erection was not as fussy as his brain about whose reality this woman was in. It reacted enthusiastically to the pressure of her pubis and he groaned. “Wait—”
“She says, ‘Look at this, beautiful man. Check out what two hundred bucks will get you.’”
Still lying on top of him, she whipped the blue sweater off over her head and flopped down on him again. Slowly, she writhed so that the weight of her breasts, naked under the tank top but presumably, in her mind, in some kind of fancy bra, teased him. “She says, ‘How do you like it?’”
He had no answer. Because in that moment, sprawled on him in sexy abandon, Tessa Nichols came back.
WARM. HARD. She was lying full length on a man’s body.
Griffin’s body.
Griffin’s aroused body.
Tessa came out of the vision the way a diver rises to the surface of the ocean, through graduating layers of clarity. She was stretched out on top of him, her breasts flattened against his chest and her legs on either side of his. His lips were parted in a combination of pleasure and distress, mirroring the chaotic state of his emotions.
The distress was mostly in his head, a pale curtain of agitation that gained color and heat as it got closer to the source of his pleasure buried under her hips. This was intellect at war with inclination again, and she’d be willing to bet on which one was going to win. Especially if—since she was in this position anyway—she helped it along a little.
“Tessa—” he rasped.
“Shut up and kiss me,” she said with soft command. Short of being thrown off him with sheer brute strength, she was more than a match for his stuffy old intellect. Especially when it was perfectly obvious that his pleasure was working on her side.
With her elbows bracketing his head, she moved in and kissed him. His lips remained stiff for about half a second as he debated on what he was going to do, and then it seemed as though he decided to just go with the moment. Or maybe his body’s demand was shouting louder than his brain’s need for caution.
Whatever. She didn’t care what was going on inside that cop’s mind of his. She was just going to kiss him for all she was worth.
“Mmm.” A sound of pure pleasure escaped her throat as his tongue met hers and slid its length in welcome. His lips were mobile and firm, and knew exactly how to woo and tease, and finally, how to take charge.
He slid both hands around her waist, then stroked down over her derriere, learning its shape. Then he held her as he rolled to the side and slid one arm under her head as a pillow.
“I thought we decided this wasn’t a good idea,” he whispered.
Which would be fine if his gaze wasn’t tracing the contours of her mouth as though he couldn’t wait to taste it again.
“You may have decided,” she said. “I like it.”
“But it’s not a good idea to—”
She put a finger on his lips. “Stop thinking. And parts of you think it’s a great idea. Trust me. I know.”
“Parts of me are highly undependable.” Even as he spoke, his hand wandered from her hip to her waist to her rib cage, hovered, then moved south again as if sticking by some internal resolution.
Ha. I know what you want.
She laid her hand over his and guided it north again, slowly. Sliding over ribs and fabric. Arriving at its destination.
“Tessa,” he breathed, and closed his eyes as he cupped her breast. She released him and sighed with pleasure as the heat of his hand covered her and his thumb teased her nipple into a pebble of delight.
He lowered his head and nuzzled the curves of her cleavage above the scoop neck of the tank top. “This is wrong,” he groaned, and pulled the neckline down with his thumb so he could thrust his tongue deeply into the valley between her breasts. “I shouldn’t be doing this.” His tongue swirled over her skin.
“No,” she agreed with a sigh of pleasure. Was there anything this man’s mouth couldn’t do well?
He pulled up her tank top by its hem and tugged it off over her head. “Absolutely not,” he breathed. “Damn, you stun me every time.” He gazed at her naked breasts in the lamplight. “A visual feast.”
“Eat me,” she suggested breathlessly, and he lo
wered his head and bit her nipple gently.
She took a deep breath, forcing her nipple into his mouth, and he suckled it, each caress of his tongue sending pleasure careening through her, arrowing down to that dark, wet place between her legs.
He seemed to lose control a little, but then, so did she, as his hungry mouth devoured her, suckling fiercely, tugging at her flesh, and then assuaging any hurt by soft laps of his tongue. She could die like this, she thought, drowning in the adulation of his mouth, the pleasure of tongue and teeth and hot, hungry eyes.
“Your nipples drive me crazy,” he said against her skin. “And I’m becoming obsessed with what you wear.”
“Bad policeman,” she chided. “What are you doing, thinking about my nipples when you’re supposed to be working?”
“Can’t help it,” he said. “You look like every man’s fantasy.”
She rather doubted that, considering the state of her love life, but it was marvelously obvious that she was his fantasy. And that was fine. She was completely prepared to be his dream lover, even if it didn’t go any further. It wasn’t every day a girl was treated to a mouth like his.
Her skin craved the contact of something other than his shirt and jeans. She undid the buttons of his shirt, slowly, taking time to touch the planes of each muscle in his chest and marvel at the mat of hair she found there. When she got to the buttons at the bottom where the shirt was tucked in, she pushed him gently onto his back.
Now it was her turn to taste the shape of him, to run tongue and teeth gently over the ripples of his abs, to taste where she had touched before. She nibbled happily on his erect nipples, then coasted down again to swirl her tongue around his belly button.
He made a gasping sound that might have been her name and she smiled against his skin. Then with a twist of her fingers, she undid the button on the waistband of his jeans and slid the zipper down. Each of its teeth gave a tiny click as it opened, revealing another fraction of skin and then the band of his briefs. The heel of her hand rested on the bulge of his erection, and she could feel the tremor in his muscles as he willed himself not to move. At last the zipper reached the end of its track and she spread the placket wide, cupping her palm over his penis.
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