Why not? She had a few uneasy questions about the source of those vibes herself, questions she did not want to confront too closely. Her research had not yet turned up any reassuring answers.
Arcadia studied her with a considering expression.
“Is there anything wrong, Zoe?”
Act normal. She did not want her best friend probing too deeply, either.
“No.” She managed a rueful smile. “I’m just a little stressed out, that’s all. I have been for the past couple of weeks. I came by to see if by any chance I left a packet of photos in your office last week. I remember having them in my green tote when I showed them to you but now I can’t find them.”
“They’re here. You left them on top of the file cabinet. I meant to tell you.”
“Good. Honestly, what with the show house project and trying to come up with a dazzling proposal for the Tabitha Pine project, I’m getting a little fractured.”
“You’re not the only one who is misplacing things lately.” Arcadia ducked into her small office. “I can’t find that little Elvis pen that Harry gave me,” she called from the other room. “I’ve looked everywhere for it.”
The glass door opened. A living skeleton ambled into the gallery.
“Hi, Harry,” Zoe greeted him. “You’re back early. What happened?”
“The client decided that his daughter had done enough shopping,” Harry said. “Sent one of his regular security people to pick her up and take her back to Texas. She was not a happy camper but I sure was glad to see her go. I don’t care if I ever see the inside of another shoe store as long as I live.”
“Harry.” Arcadia appeared in the doorway of her office. “You’re home.”
Harry smiled his jack-o’-lantern smile. “Yeah. How about that?”
Arcadia was practically glowing. Zoe was amazed. Who would have thought that the aloof Arcadia Ames would ever fall in love like this?
Arcadia dropped her purse beside the cash register, walked quickly around the end of the counter and went straight into Harry’s arms. He wrapped her close in his bony grip.
The aura of intimacy that surrounded the pair made Zoe feel very good. She and Arcadia had been through a lot together, but she had never seen her friend genuinely happy until Harry Stagg had come into her life a few weeks ago.
The phone rang in the small office. Arcadia reluctantly raised her head from Harry’s shoulder.
“I’ll get it,” Zoe said quickly. “I’ll grab my photos while I’m at it.”
“Thanks,” Arcadia replied. “Tell whoever it is that I’ll be out for the rest of the day. My assistant, Molly, will be back from lunch soon. She’ll take over.”
Harry chuckled.
“Got it,” Zoe said.
She slipped around the counter, stepped into the small, neat office and blundered straight into the sticky strands of an invisible spiderweb.
The shock robbed her of breath. Something deep inside her screamed silently.
No, not here. It isn’t possible.
She grabbed the back of the desk chair to keep from falling to her knees. If she’d been able to inhale she probably would have called out. But in that moment of horrified awareness, she could not even breathe.
One coherent thought surfaced. This was the same kind of psychic energy she had encountered in the library.
The gossamer threads clung lightly to her sixth sense, not just clouding her perceptions but subtly twisting and warping them. The memory of her most recent nightmare crashed through her, electrifying every nerve in her body. Panic rose in her throat. What was happening to her?
The phone rang again. The demanding warble sliced through the murky atmosphere. She focused on the sound as though it were a lifeline, concentrating her attention on it while frantically trying to tune out the disturbing psychic energy drifting through the small office.
She succeeded, at least to a point, and started to breathe again. The light-headed sensation receded.
The phone rang a third time and she managed to grab the receiver.
“Gallery Euphoria.” She realized she sounded breathless.
“Zoe? Is that you?”
She went limp with relief. Ethan’s strong, resonant voice was an anchor in the storm. She seized it and hung on for dear life.
“I’m answering Arcadia’s phone for her.” Okay, that was better. Her voice was back under control. “She’s out in the showroom with Harry.”
“I thought Stagg wasn’t due back until tomorrow or the next day.”
“Evidently the young lady he was supposed to be guarding spent too much time on Rodeo Drive and not enough touring college campuses. Daddy lost his patience.” She paused as a thought struck her. “Why are you calling here?”
“Looking for you. You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I didn’t hear it.” Baffled, she swung her tote off her shoulder, plopped it on the desk and opened it with her free hand. She peered into the depth. The little phone was right where it was supposed to be, sitting in the special pocket on the inside of the bag. The screen was blank. “Uh-oh.”
“Leave it at the apartment?”
“No, it’s here.” She reached into the tote and picked up the phone. “I forgot to turn it on this morning. Guess I got distracted by the stupid notice that Pixie Ears left under my windshield wiper.”
“Duncan struck again?”
“I guess I parked in the wrong place last night. You were parked right next to me. Did she leave a note on your windshield?”
“Now why would she do that? I’m a guest and I was properly parked in a guest slot.”
She knew he was grinning. “I don’t think that was why she didn’t tag you. I think she leaves you alone because you intimidate her.”
“Nah. The thing is, see, you’re the one whose name is on the lease so she’s focusing her attention on you.”
“That woman is going to drive me crazy.”
Drive me crazy. Cold fingers touched her spine. Her control started to slip. She felt the spiderweb drift past her senses once more.
She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to refocus. The ghostly threads floated back to the edge of her awareness. She concentrated hard on the curtain-veiled opening that led to Arcadia’s back room, steadying herself.
“You can handle Pixie Ears,” Ethan said easily. “I’ve got complete confidence in you. Look, I’m calling to tell you that I’m going to drive out to the Kirwan House to take a look around. I thought that if you didn’t have a client appointment this afternoon, you might want to come with me.”
“Yes.” Anything would be better than sitting alone in her office for the rest of the day, worrying. “I’d like that. I’m going back to my office now.”
“I’ll pick you up there.”
She put down the phone, seized the red tote and fled the cobwebs of dark energy.
“Got to meet Ethan,” she said to Arcadia and Harry as she hurried toward the front door. “See you later.”
Neither of them paid any attention to her. They were too busy looking at each other.
Outside in the warmth of the desert sun it was easier to think.
Halfway back to her office she finally calmed down sufficiently to contemplate the similarities between her two encounters with the spiderwebs.
There was one undeniable fact that both incidents had in common, she thought. At some point in the past few days, Lindsey Voyle had been in the vicinity of both places where the nasty stuff now lingered.
22
A short time later she climbed out of the passenger seat of the SUV. Ethan came around the front of the vehicle to join her. Together they walked across the newly paved parking lot toward the front entrance of the restored hacienda-style house. There were only a half dozen vehicles in the parking lot because the house was not yet open to the public.
“Bonnie said the Historical Society spared no expense on the hacienda and it looks like she was right.” Zoe gestured with one hand. “It’s stu
nning, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Ethan said. “And it’s not even pink.”
“No, it certainly isn’t,” she said softly. “It’s beautiful.”
There was no doubt that the hacienda Kirwan had built was worth the cost of the loving restoration it had received. It was an elegant, graceful structure painted in a rich, warm shade of golden brown. A long shaded and colonnaded patio ran the entire length of the front of the structure and had probably once functioned as an extension of the living room on warm evenings. The wall was studded with intricately worked iron sconces.
“You know,” Zoe said, “the paint on the outside of this place is close to the color I’m trying to convince you to go with for the exterior of Nightwinds. You said you’ve been having a problem visualizing how the house would look if it were any other color than pink.” She swept out a hand. “This should give you a good idea. What do you think?”
Ethan removed his dark glasses with slow deliberation. He contemplated the hacienda for a long moment. “Not bad.”
She folded her arms and looked long and hard at the walls of the big house. “It’s better than not bad. Admit it.”
Ethan said nothing for a long moment. She was aware that he was studying her now, not the house.
“Okay,” he said finally.
Startled by the abrupt capitulation, she dropped her arms and spun around to face him. “Are you sure? I see Nightwinds a couple of shades more toward ocher.”
He shrugged. “I can’t do ‘a couple of shades more toward ocher’ in my head. But if you like it, let’s go with it. Hell, anything is better than peppermint pink.”
She smiled tremulously. “Thank you, Ethan. It will work, I promise.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Sooner or later, you gotta have a little faith in your decorator, I always say.”
“Actually, I’m quite positive that is the very first time that you ever said it in your entire life, but that’s okay, I’ll take it.” She took a step forward and went up on her toes.
She’d intended to brush her mouth lightly across his, but before she could step back, he wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and pinned her against his chest.
“You didn’t tell me there would be a reward for going along with the decorator’s choice,” he said.
He kissed her slowly and deliberately.
When he was finished she discovered that her knees were a little wobbly.
“Let’s get one thing clear,” she said breathlessly. “I am not bribing you with sex.”
“It’s okay. Sex works. I see entire new areas of compromise opening up before us.”
“Hmm.”
He laced her fingers through his own and they walked toward the wide, arched doorway.
She hesitated, as she always did at the entrance to a new building. Ethan did not comment, nor did he use his grip on her hand to urge her into the shadowy interior. Instead, he waited patiently.
Having been taken off guard twice in recent days, she opened her senses with more caution than usual. But she encountered nothing more than the low-level psychic hum that was typical of older buildings. Layers of human emotions had built up over the years, but it was just the normal stuff, she thought, easy to tune out.
She stepped through the doorway with Ethan, ignoring the gentle, faded psychic energies in the atmosphere the same way she routinely ignored the background noise of a busy city street.
Inside the hacienda, tall, well-proportioned windows illuminated high, dark-beamed ceilings. The paintings and artifacts of the Kirwan Collection were artfully arranged in what had obviously been originally designed as the main reception room.
At one end of the long salon, Paloma Santana stood talking to two men who were dressed in work clothes and tool belts.
The mayor glanced toward the entrance and inclined her head in greeting. She said something else to the workmen and then walked down the length of the room toward Zoe and Ethan. The heels of her designer-label sandals rang on the floor tiles.
“Ethan, I’m so glad you could come take a look at the house.”
“It’s not often that I actually get to visit the scene of the crime in one of these old cases. I’d like you to meet my wife, Zoe.”
The possessiveness in his voice was unmistakable. Zoe felt her cheeks warm.
“It’s an honor, Mayor Santana,” she said, politely extending her hand.
“Call me Paloma. I understand you’re an interior designer, Zoe. What do you think of the restoration job?”
“It’s wonderful,” Zoe said with real feeling. “It’s going to be a terrific addition to the community and also a fine tourist attraction.”
“I agree. We’re all quite pleased with it.” Paloma looked at Ethan. “I assume you’re here to see Kirwan’s study?”
“If that’s possible,” Ethan said.
“Of course. Follow me.”
Paloma led the way through the long reception area, past the restored dining room and kitchen and into a long, book-lined room. A massive stone fireplace covered most of the wall at the far end.
Zoe hesitated once again at the arched entrance to the study, bracing herself for whatever awaited her inside. She experienced a profound relief when nothing out of the ordinary brushed across her psychic senses. She did not need any more traumatic encounters that day.
“One of our goals was to re-create Kirwan’s library,” Paloma said, moving into the study. “Fortunately, there was a complete catalog of the original collection. We were able to duplicate it almost entirely.”
Zoe watched Ethan walk into the study. She could feel the predatory curiosity of the born hunter awaken in him.
He prowled the room, examining the bookshelves, the large desk and the massive stone fireplace. Eventually he came to a halt in the middle of the room and looked at her.
Belatedly she realized that he was waiting to see if she would enter. She probed once more and stepped into the room. Traces of old, low-level emotions whispered around her but nothing strong, violent or worrisome.
“How is your investigation going?” Paloma asked Ethan.
“At this stage I’m still gathering information,” Ethan said easily. “I went through several newspaper accounts of Kirwan’s death. Singleton Cobb helped me locate some letters that were written by Kirwan’s biographer, his agent, Exford, and a few of his friends. From all accounts Kirwan was a difficult, temperamental man.”
Paloma nodded seriously. “My grandmother confirmed that.
But she always said that she knew how to deal with him. What about Exford? Were you able to locate him?”
“Dead in a car crash a few years after Kirwan died. He had a serious drinking problem.”
“I don’t suppose you found any indication that he was the one who took Kirwan’s last manuscript?”
“I’m still pursuing that line of inquiry,” Ethan said.
His professional aplomb made Zoe struggle to conceal a grin.
Outside in the parking lot, she got into the passenger’s seat and buckled her belt. “ ‘Pursuing that line of inquiry’?”
“That’s what you say to the client when you’re not sure what the hell is going on. I’ll bet you decorators have a few similar client-handling phrases.”
“I’ve always been partial to ‘I thought you understood that special orders from Italy required up to four months’ additional delivery time,’ myself.”
“Remind me not to special-order any furniture from Italy.” He twisted the key in the ignition. “Well? Feel anything in that room?”
She glanced at him, startled that he would ask the question. “Hey, you don’t believe that I’m psychic, remember?”
“I have great respect for your intuition, you know that.” He put the SUV in gear and drove toward the exit. “What did it tell you?”
“Nothing useful,” she admitted. “But I’ve explained to you that I only pick up on very strong, dark emotions, remember? Rage, fear, panic, lust.”
“
All the fun stuff.”
“Yeah. In any event, I’ve been thinking about it and it occurs to me that I’m not sure I’d pick up anything at all in a case of death by poison.”
“Why not?”
She groped to explain something she did not entirely comprehend herself. “There might not be any violent energy released in that sort of situation. Kirwan might never have realized that he had been poisoned. Perhaps he simply felt ill, passed out and died very quietly. Unless the killer stood over him, gloating and generating a lot of intense emotion, I’ve got a hunch that there would be very few vibes left behind for me to feel years later.”
“In other words, you can’t tell me diddly-squat.”
“Look on the positive side, you’re getting the advantage of my psychic consulting services for free.”
“Yeah, well, you get what you pay for, I guess.”
“Okay, Mr. Hotshot PI, what do you think happened in that room?”
“Well, to begin with, I’m pretty sure that Maria did not steal the manuscript.”
That caught her attention. “You didn’t say that to the mayor.”
“Because I can’t prove anything one way or the other yet.”
“What made you decide the housekeeper didn’t take the book?”
“If she killed him and stole the manuscript, it would have turned up sooner or later. It was too valuable to stay hidden all these years.”
“Unless she burned it that night.”
He shook his head. “Why would she do that? She had worked for Kirwan for years. Long enough to know that the manuscript was worth a good deal of money. She probably overheard the argument between Kirwan and his agent and knew that there was at least one potential buyer.”
“The publisher?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about the agent? Think Exford killed Kirwan and stole the manuscript that night?”
“No. Same reason I don’t think Maria took it. The agent had financial problems. If he took the manuscript, he would have sold it or seen to it that it got published.”
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