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“Speak for yourself. I’ve been wanting to make love to you ever since I first saw you. I hope you have the same urge again. Soon.”

  The raw emotion in his eyes worried me. I didn’t need ESP to know the tryst had been more than sex for him. “I need to talk to Rose. Can you keep an eye out for trouble?”

  Mayes laughed and zipped his pants. “What would trouble look like? A sexy nymph with designs on my body? I hope trouble gets her act together and jumps me again. Trust me, I will definitely be on the lookout for trouble.”

  “I’m ignoring you.” I scooched down the wall in the far corner of the room and turned my thoughts to dreams and my supernatural mentor, Rose. She’d bailed me out of tight scrapes, but Rose never did anything for free. She’d gotten her hooks into me when Daddy crossed the crystalline bridge on the Other Side and couldn’t return. Rose found him for me, to the tune of one hour of my life. Another time, she’d transported me and Gentle Dove, my mom’s best friend, to the ER, when it was a life or death situation. She’d required another hour of my life when my ghost dog trapped me in the transition zone.

  Cha-ching. Rose now owned three hours of my life. Far as I knew, she hadn’t collected on the debt, and the last time we’d met, she had been on a power trip. She’d nearly roasted me like a rotisserie chicken.

  According to Rose, she was an angel undercover in the demon world. She’d shown me her wings, so I believed her story. But lately, I sensed Rose had a private agenda.

  I called her name as I searched for her in the murk of the Other Side. Rose didn’t respond, but I seemed to be walking in a structured dreamscape that resembled a corridor of hotel doors. Should I start knocking on doors? Did I want to see the others Rose had compartmentalized? Did I want to know what any of them were doing?

  No.

  I didn’t want to keep walking either. I had lots to do today. “Rose? I’m here. Where are you? Show yourself.”

  A door opened to my left. I entered. A cluttered bordello met my eye. Luscious scarlet swaths draped a king-size four-poster bed. Soft pillows crowned the bed, but the main draw, the centerpiece impossible to miss, was the barely decent tattooed woman lounging on the mattress.

  “Feeling better?” Rose purred, stretching languidly.

  Her smugness said it all. She’d instigated that sexual encounter. My hands fisted at my sides. “You can’t do that,” I yelled. “You can’t mess with people’s emotions like that.”

  “I can, and I did. You’ve been unusually tense and uptight. The exercise did you good. There’s a different air about you now.”

  “It’s an air of desperation. Mayes expects me to be his girlfriend now, but I’m married. My husband is still out there, somewhere. My husband whom I love and have never, ever cheated on.”

  Rose examined her black-tipped fingernails. “Until today.”

  “Not fair. You have to take this back, to make this right.”

  Rose levitated off the bed. “I don’t take orders from you. Besides, I did you a favor. I could’ve had him service us and blanked both your memories.”

  “Getting laid isn’t part of our deal.”

  “Our deal is you owe me three hours of your life.”

  “You used some of that time today.”

  “That? I don’t think so. I have something else I need you for.”

  “A deal’s a deal.”

  “Listen to me, you ingrate. I’m calling the shots here ….”

  Rose broke off as a loud claxon tone drove me to my knees. I clamped my hands over my ears, knowing that this was a dream and that I couldn’t lower the sound. Abruptly, it ceased, and Rose looked petulant.

  In the blink of an eye, she stood beside me, dressed demurely in a simple white gown. Not one of her tattoos showed on her skin. The cluttered boudoir gave way to the unrelenting grayness of the dreamscape.

  “You will be credited fifteen minutes off your debt, though that’s extremely generous on my part. Your guy’s got good stamina, but he lacked finesse in his three-minute effort.”

  “It was more than three minutes,” I heard myself yell. Seeing Rose’s smirk, I realized I’d fallen into her trap once more.

  I swallowed the growl in my throat, quickly trying to connect the dots. Rose had a boss. The boss sanctioned her. I should be grateful. I bowed my head momentarily. “Thank you for that concession. Will you also let Mayes know it was you instead of me?”

  “No. This is your mess now.”

  “But, but ….”

  Rose raised her hands in mock surrender. “I gave at the office.”

  I closed my mouth. Rose began to fade. “Wait! I need to ask you about something else. Two somethings, actually. My case—”

  “Can’t talk about the case. I just got reamed out by my boss. You gotta do more discovery work for yourself. You already know how to find Mandy Patterson.”

  I cursed under my breath. It would take twice as long to close cases with me fumbling around up here. “Okay. Moving on, I’ve been having fleeting pains here and there. The doctor says I’m fine. Could it be voodoo? Is that possible?”

  “Anything’s possible. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  “But why would I be a target? What did I ever do to them?”

  Rose crossed her arms and gazed down her nose at me. “Indeed.”

  “That’s it? You can’t tell me who is behind this?”

  “Nope. Discovery. That’s your job.”

  “This sucks.”

  “You could always get laid again.” Rose laughed hysterically as she faded from sight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  My head bobbed as I came back to my normal senses. The small observation room zoomed into focus, cold and impersonal. Everything in here, from walls to the table and chairs, was a shade of gray. I would forevermore associate the plain room with the emotional combustion of what Mayes and I did here.

  Not quite consensual sex.

  Cold seeped from the tiled floor and numbed me like an epidural. I clambered to my feet, feeling as wobbly-kneed as a new foal. Mayes watched me like a hungry predator. A chill shivered down my spine that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with sensual abandon. My pulse skittered. Oh, it would be easy to have a torrid affair with this man.

  The sex had been amazing, but it was more than acrobatics and physical release on my end too. Mayes was a Dreamwalker. He knew the things I dealt with on a daily basis and wasn’t freaked out. He had a good job. He respected and knew my family. He treated me with respect. Even now, after I’d waved a big red flag to stop any further intimacy, after I’d denied responsibility for my actions, he still wanted me.

  I hesitated. How could I explain and keep my pride and respect without shredding his? I didn’t like cleaning up Rose’s mess, especially since she’d usurped my free will to get her jollies. I’d known what I was doing during her takeover, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Dear God . I still owed her two hours and forty-five minutes of my life. Would she use me to satisfy her baser urges?

  “Did you find her? You weren’t gone very long,” Mayes said.

  The tang of our sexual encounter lingered in the air. Great. While I’d been trying to get Rose to square things for me, Mayes had been immersed in this pheromone-laced atmosphere.

  “I found her.”

  “And …?”

  I stared at my hands, willing each finger to move independently. I was in control of my body, not Rose. “And she orchestrated what happened here.”

  “Prove it.”

  My ears heated. It was hard to meet his fierce gaze, but I dug deep. “I can’t. She refuses to come here and apologize. I’m sorry you got caught up in her mischief. Truly sorry. I wish she’d left well enough alone, but she didn’t.” I swallowed thickly and forced the rest out. “I’m attracted to you, Sam Mayes, but I made a commitment to my husband. Until I know what happened to him, until I know where he is, I can’t move forward in a relationship with you or anyone. I’m being totally honest with you
.”

  His face clouded. Would he conclude I was making excuses? Was he hoping Rose would pay us another visit—say, this evening when everyone else went to sleep?

  It stunned me to realize I wanted that too. That one taste of this man would never be enough. We hadn’t known each other very long, and I’d never been to his house or met his family. But still. The tangible, incendiary, and wonderfully X-rated chemistry between us made me realize how empty my life had been. How lonely I’d been.

  The reality of sexual attraction clashed with the responsibility I had to my family. Never would I have acted on the attraction, not while there was a chance Roland was still out there. When I made a commitment, I stuck with it.

  My eyes misted. Stuck. That’s exactly how I felt. Trapped in an Other World-like dimension of reality, unable to move forward or back. I would honor my vows, and if that cost me Mayes, I had to live with that. A deep sigh shook my entire body as I resigned myself to my duty.

  “Where are we?” Mayes asked.

  “What?” We were at the sheriff ’s office. He knew that.

  “Us, Bax. I’m talking about us . You look miserable, and that was never my intent in visiting you. We were friends. Now we’re … I don’t know, prickly, awkward even.”

  “Any chance you’d forget what happened earlier?”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  Though his words were alarming, the cheesy smile on his face was contagious. I laughed. “It was worth a shot.”

  “Friends?”

  “Friends.” I glanced around. The room next door was dark. Questions about the case rattled around in my head, but my stomach growled. The sheriff would let me know when he needed me. “Apparently, I’m hungry.”

  “About time.” He opened the door and motioned me through it. “And after we eat, I’ll catch you up.”

  * * *

  During lunch at the barbecue joint, Mayes asked about the history of Native Americans on the coast. I shared what I knew of the Guale Indians who’d been here when the Europeans arrived in the 1700s. “You should talk to Running Bear tonight at my parents’ house. He lives and breathes this stuff.”

  “He’s familiar with their totems?” Mayes asked.

  “I believe so. He is a deeply spiritual man and my father’s best friend. He’s very interested in meeting you. Will y’all exchange a secret handshake or something?”

  Dishes clanked as a waitress cleared a nearby table. I instinctively held my breath in the frigid silence. Inwardly, I cursed my glib remark. An apology was on the tip of my tongue when he answered, “Or something.”

  The flat tone of his voice told me I’d hurt him. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t knocking your culture or anything. I was thinking you and Running Bear were both powerful spiritwalkers and holy men for your people. That you would have so much in common that you would recognize each other in some special way.”

  His expression cleared. “Apology accepted.”

  “I don’t know what it’s like to walk in your shoes, but I know what it feels like to be different. I didn’t intend to be negative.”

  He regarded me steadily. “God willing, you will never know what it’s like to grow up in another man’s world, to be subject to his rules, to be told where to live and what to think. My people have barely clung to their traditions. Generations’ worth of history is lost every day as we assimilate into the white man’s world. The elders pressure me to step forward and lead the tribe, but I’m being assimilated too. This job, it suits me. You. You suit me. I am a man at war with myself.”

  I’d hit a nerve all right. I sucked air through my teeth. “I’m an idiot. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

  His hand covered mine. “You’re not an idiot. I look like a tough guy, but my heritage is my Achilles heel. Your remark shouldn’t have bothered me. But it did. And because of the mind-blowing sex we shared, you felt my distress. And I feel your distress at upsetting me. So, we’re even.”

  The sounds of the busy restaurant faded. Mind-blowing sex? Euphoria flitted through me. He’d enjoyed it as much as I had, but I couldn’t handle the guilt that came with adultery. I’d hoped he wouldn’t bring up the encounter, especially in a public place, but he was good at pushing my buttons.

  “I don’t know about ‘even,’ but I promise to pay closer attention to what I mean to say.”

  “You’re all right, Powell.” With that, he deftly snagged the check from the waitress and paid in cash.

  I waved a twenty at him. “Wait. We should split that.”

  “Not happening.”

  This wasn’t a date, but I could see paying the bill was important to him. “I’ll get it next time.”

  He didn’t respond, going all inscrutable on me. I could do inscrutable too. I thrust on my dark glasses.

  We headed to the sheriff ’s office, and I turned my focus to the case. I needed to find Mandy Patterson’s spirit, to learn what caused the explosion that took her life, and the best way to do that was to touch her things. If the arson investigator had found the source of the fire, even better.

  “So, June stormed out of the interview and dragged Doodle with her?” I asked as Mayes slowed to turn onto the state highway. He’d only been here a day, but he already had a good grasp of the basics of getting around Marion.

  “Doodle balked, but the sheriff said it was either his aunt or Child Protective Services for Doodle. The kid’s face turned white.”

  “He doesn’t get along with his aunt?”

  “She views him as a meal ticket, and he knows it. There’s no love lost between that pair.”

  “How odd.” Just then my elbow twinged. I winced.

  Mayes noticed my sea change immediately. He scanned the vicinity and slowed the truck. “What is it?”

  “Sharp pain in the elbow. Feels like someone jabbed me with a knife. Same point-source throbbing I felt in my heel before. This isn’t natural.” The pain intensified. I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

  Mayes pulled over onto the shoulder and unhooked his seatbelt. His hand rested lightly on my arm. The pain subsided.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “We did it.”

  “How?”

  “There seem to be some lingering side effects from … before.”

  “The mind-blowing sex?”

  He gave me a sensual smile. “Yes.”

  “Do tell.”

  “I’d rather show you.”

  “No.” I batted him playfully, dislodging his hand. Pain throbbed in my elbow. I moved his hand back to my elbow and the pain receded. “How is this possible? Your touch is like taking an aspirin.”

  “It’s more than that. Slip into your extra senses and look at my aura.”

  “Hmm.” I did as he suggested, not sure I liked the fact that his touch took away my pain. His aura had transformed. The dark, emerald-green cloak of power he wore so naturally was shot through with bright blue. My aura was bright blue. The colors were still distinct, yet integrated. “Weird.”

  “Not weird. Fantastic. Our energy fields merge when we touch. Keep watching mine as I remove my hand.”

  Sure enough, the blue in his aura winked out as soon as he released me. He touched me again, and the blue returned. “Your blue aura changes to turquoise when I touch you. You see it, don’t you?”

  “I can’t see my energy field. You know that.”

  “But you know it’s blue, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our connection is enhanced, not just in this world, but my guess is in the next world as well.”

  “What does it mean? Will it stay this way?”

  He gently massaged my elbow, soothing the hurt exactly at the nexus of pain. “I don’t have answers. This is a first for me.”

  “Are you in my head too?”

  “A little. Pain penetrates through the virtual firewall you always have up.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I just do, same as I know the pain
is gone from the spiritual attack.”

  He removed his hand, and it was true. The pain wasn’t there anymore. “Does this link work both ways?”

  He shrugged. “Try to see what I’m thinking.”

  I took his hand and focused the same as I would when I sent a telepathic message to my father or daughter. The image of my face caught up in sensual bliss flashed in my head. “Not fair.”

  He grinned. “Mind-blowing sex. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  I let go of him and the image faded. “Now what? How will we find out who’s attacking me?”

  “Seeing as how the onset is new, I believe it’s related to the case.”

  “Who is it? Why are they doing this?”

  “Given the timing of the attack, I believe it’s someone involved in the case. You know any voodoo priestesses?”

  “No.” An image of a cloth sachet flashed in my head, followed by the scent of herbs. “Maybe.”

  “And …?”

  “And I shouldn’t make an accusation because I lack proof. I’m thinking of Cipriona Marsden, my dreamwalking client yesterday. She’s a palm reader and her granny’s in prison for murdering her father.”

  “We should pay her a visit.”

  “Agreed, soon as we have a spare moment. I have something of hers. It gives me an excuse to see her again.”

  “Good.” He buckled his seatbelt and eased the truck onto the highway. “Getting back to our blended auras. We should try a dreamwalk together to see if we have more firepower.”

  “Then we need to visit the evidence room.”

  “Headed there now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  We burst in on Mr. GBI, Burnell Escoe, and the sheriff in the evidence room. I covered the awkwardness of our intrusion by introducing myself and Mayes.

  “Nice to meet you, but you’re not needed here.” Escoe had rolled up the sleeves of his starched dress shirt and taken off his suit coat. The long examination table before him was full of boxes. “I’ve taken point on this investigation, and I’m playing this one by the book. We need solid connections between the evidence and the suspects. No loosey-goosey stuff.”

  I glanced over at Mayes. His grim expression mirrored the sheriff ’s. “So we’re off the case?”