Deadly Night (11 page)

“But he had a tough time as a kid?” Aidan asked. Childhood rejection was something profilers always looked for. He was tempted to ask her if she’d ever seen Vinnie torturing small animals.

“Who doesn’t have a tough time as a kid?” she asked, then eyed him knowingly. “Except, of course, the guys on the football team.”

“I wouldn’t know. I never played,” Aidan told her.

“You didn’t play sports?” she asked skeptically.

“Tennis and golf,” he told her. “Someone once told my mother that you should buy your kids a tennis racket, golf clubs and a guitar. My mother took it to heart. Oh, I also have a decent bowling average.”

She smiled. “Sorry. I was stereotyping you, I guess. The bruisers usually go out there and…inflict bruises.”

“And it sounds as if you’ve gone through life acting like Vinnie’s older sister, bolstering him up, looking out for him. A cheerleader, right?”

She laughed. “No. School newspaper—I wrote about the cheerleaders.”

“Snide little digs?”

“Not at all. I have nothing against cheerleaders
or
football players.”

“Vinnie must be grateful to you for looking out for him, though,” he said.

“Friends don’t have to be grateful to friends,” she told him, frowning. “He’s always been around when I’ve needed him, and I’m there when he needs me.”

Her tone indicated that she knew Vinnie was under some kind of attack—and she wasn’t going to have any of it.

“I guess it’s nice that Mason and Vinnie seem to be such good friends.”

“Of course it’s nice.” She looked at him, confused, but instinctively wary. “Vinnie’s not an actual employee, but he still works at the shop when I need him and he’s free. When I’m not around, it’s often the two of them. Of course I’m glad they hit it off.”

Aidan kept his features impassive. Inwardly, he couldn’t help but think of the occasional serial killers who worked in pairs. It wasn’t that he was suddenly convinced Mason and Vinnie were some kind of bloodthirsty symbiotic duo, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility. Frankly, he had no real evidence that
anyone
was a killer, but had to start somewhere. And Jenny Trent’s last credit card charges had been at Kendall’s shop and the bar where Vinnie played and Mason hung out.

“What are you getting at?” she asked him.

He hesitated, then drew Jenny Trent’s picture from the breast pocket of his jacket and laid it down in front of Kendall.

Her reaction was far worse than he had expected. She turned white. Pure white. Her eyes rose to his, stricken.

“Why are you asking me about her?” she demanded.

“She disappeared in New Orleans. She was supposed to be heading—”

“On a trip to South America, I know. What happened to her?” Kendall asked. She was staring at him with dread.

“No one knows what happened to her,” he said. He leaned closer. “You tell me. I know she was in your shop. Obviously something happened there.”

“Nothing happened in my shop,” she protested.

“Then why are you whiter than Christmas snow?”

“She came in for a reading,” Kendall said.

“And did she say a stranger had been following her? Was she nervous about anything?” he pressed.

“I remember her because she was full of life and very nice. That’s all,” Kendall said.

“You’re lying, Kendall,” he accused evenly, quietly.

“Is this why you asked me out to dinner?” she asked. “To accuse me?”

“No. I didn’t know what I know about this woman until today.”

“That’s right. You wanted to know about the house, about Amelia. Well, I’ve told you what I know. And anyway, what does the past matter? The house is yours now.”

She was nervous and defensive. He couldn’t understand what about the photo of Jenny Trent could have thrown her so badly.

“What happened at your shop?” he asked again.

“She was like any tourist. She came in,” Kendall told him, her voice hard. “She wanted a tarot card reading. I gave her one. She was pleasant. She told me she was a teacher and that she’d saved for years to pay for her vacation. She was excited to be going on such an adventure.”

Everything she was saying was true, he knew; she just wasn’t saying everything.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” she told him firmly.

“Then why did you look as if you’d seen a ghost?” he demanded.

She shook her head, just staring at him. Then she said, “I know why the cops hate you.”

“‘Hate’ might be too strong a word.” Or was it?

“You’re never going to make it here. You aren’t an insider. You don’t know the area. You come in here like you think you can save the day when we’ve all been picking up the pieces for a long time. Seriously, just who do you think you are?”

It was strange, he thought. She was genuinely indignant.

And just as genuinely afraid.

“I’m not that much of an outsider—I’ve been coming around here forever,” he said curtly. “My brother is involved in a major benefit for the area kids. So you think I’m an intrusive ballbuster? Well, I’m pretty sure this girl is dead,” he said. “And I think I found a piece of her remains.”

Kendall stared at him. He was surprised she hadn’t gotten up and walked out on him yet. But she was just staring at him, her eyes very wide and her skin ashen.

“What makes you so positive that you’ve found this girl?”

“I’m not positive about anything.”

Almost unconsciously, she ran fingers over the picture as she stared down at it. For a moment he thought she was going to cry. She was definitely distressed. He reached across the table, setting a hand on hers. “Kendall, what the hell is it?”

“She was very sweet,” she said.

She started to move her hand away; he held firm.

She shook her head. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“So that you can look down on me even more?” she asked bitterly.

“I don’t look down on you.” All right, so he was lying then, at least a little bit. But hell, it
had
looked as if she’d been living off a frail old woman. And he did have a problem with people who indulged in all that psychic claptrap, believers or not.

“All right, so I’m a skeptical man,” he admitted.

“I think I should go,” she said.

“Please, stay. Help me. I know I’m floundering in the dark.”

She was searching his eyes, wondering if he was sincere. His hand was still on hers, and he sincerely hoped she wasn’t going to bolt.

“Please,” he said again.

“If you laugh at me, I swear, I will never speak to you again,” she said. She meant it. He could tell.

“I don’t find anything about Jenny Trent to be amusing,” he said.

Her lashes fell; she looked toward the table. “There was something strange when I tried to give her a reading….” She looked up at him again. She seemed to sit taller; she was stiff and regal. “I don’t actually believe in psychic powers myself. Yes, I give readings. Good ones, I think. But I graduated with degrees in psychology and fine arts. I had a teacher who taught me once that entertainment has to do with knowing your audience, and psychology taught me how to do that. So then the shop came up, and I was positive I could make a go of it, but
I never thought I could read anyone’s palm or look into a crystal ball and tell someone their future.
But I knew something—that presentation could make or break a show, and giving readings, giving people what they want, is a way of putting on a show.”

As she spoke, he found himself wanting to reach out and stroke her cheek, wanting to tell her that it was all right, that she had done everything right. Except he still didn’t know what she was getting at.

“I see,” he said, but the truth was, he didn’t see at all.

She took a deep breath. “There have been a few times when something really strange has happened. One of those times was with Jenny Trent.”

“Kendall, what happened?”

“Tarot cards have more meanings than you can begin to imagine. A good reader should have instincts to help sort through those meanings as they relate to each client.” She took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to explain is that they really are a perfect tool for…well, for a psychologist, for a way of listening and then trying to point out certain aspects of life that someone might want to be blind to. Every card can mean many things. The Death card doesn’t mean death. Not usually. It means change.”

He stared at her, pinning her with his eyes. “And you drew the Death card for Jenny Trent? You…you
saw
death for her?”

“Yes and no.” She took a deep breath and went on. “I just explained that the cards have all kinds of meanings. That the Death card doesn’t mean literal death. It indicates an ending for something. Depending on what other cards turn up, it can mean a major upheaval, the end of a relationship. But it’s also associated with the concept that when one door closes, another opens.”

“So why did it bother you when the card appeared for Jenny Trent?”

She looked at him across the table, and he could see her steeling herself to answer.

“It laughed at me,” she told him.

“What?” He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it certainly hadn’t been that.

She jerked her hand back at last. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I knew you would just laugh at me and think that I must have been drunk or that I’m crazy, or I am just taking myself too seriously. Look, I’ve told you my history, Jenny’s history, and I’ve even answered your ridiculous questions about Vinnie. What more do you want from me?”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” he said.

“May we please leave?” she asked.

“I swear, I wasn’t laughing at you. I just don’t understand.”

“No, and I don’t think you’re going to, so I want to go.”

All right, maybe he did think she had just been seeing things. But even so, her reaction to Jenny Trent’s picture had been real. Whatever was really going on,
she
clearly believed something strange had happened that day.

And didn’t everything he himself was doing now come from something unexplained? A hunch?

“Kendall, I promise I wasn’t laughing at you, and I’m sorry if you thought I was,” he told her soberly. He glanced at his watch. He did want to get to the club, but he didn’t want to end the evening with her feeling like this.

“May we leave?” she asked again, her voice cold. Clearly she wasn’t buying his apology.

“Of course.”

He motioned the waitress for the check. Kendall didn’t speak, wouldn’t even look at him, while he waited for the return of his credit card.

As they rose, she spoke as if by rote. “Thank you for the lovely dinner.”

“It was my pleasure,” he told her, knowing he sounded equally wooden.

They drove in silence the whole way back.

He went around her block twice without being able to find on-street parking.

“You can let me out anywhere along here,” she told him.

“No, I can’t,” he said.

“Then just double park and see me to the door.”

“No.”

Stubbornly, he drove around the block again and finally found parking. She waited impatiently while he put coins in the meter. She was clearly anxious to shake him, but even so, she was going to be polite and not take off without him.

She didn’t protest when he took her arm to escort her down the street, but he could feel the tension in her. He walked her to the door of her building, and then to the door of her apartment.

When she turned to say good-night, he was ready.

“Kendall, you’re fighting with yourself right now, not me. I didn’t say a word to you. No, I don’t understand. But I know that something happened, and that it upset you. I saw the way you reacted to Jenny Trent’s picture. I know you’re sincere, and that you’re telling me the truth.”

She stared at him blankly. Then she took a breath. “I hope you find her. But…you have to lay off Vinnie. He’s a good guy. And I know it.”

“Sure.”

“Liar.”

“If he’s a good guy, I’ll know it.”

“But you won’t take my word for it?”

“I wouldn’t take my own mother’s word for it. That’s not the business I’m in.”

She seemed agitated, and not just about Vinnie.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Of course.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I can’t explain.”

They just stood there for a moment, and it was very strange. It was as if he could feel waves of expectation emanating from them both. If they’d been on a date…

Hell, he could hardly remember dating, and it wasn’t the same anymore, anyway. People seemed to meet one another casually—in a bar, mostly—size each other up and head for the bedroom, sometimes even before they made it to a first-name basis. He’d done it himself. He’d woken up once or twice not even knowing the name of the woman with whom he’d slept the night before.

And it hadn’t mattered. They wouldn’t meet again.

But Kendall…Kendall was different. He knew her name well. It often haunted his thoughts. He knew her eyes, and he was coming to know her moods, her smile, even her laughter. Her resentment, her sense of justice, her pride. He knew all those things, knew he was being charmed by them. And he knew, as well, that he was equally seduced by the softness of her skin, the curves of her body, the silken brush of her hair.

So what the hell was the matter? Yeah, he knew her name, and she knew his. But screw it. Why couldn’t it be what it had been for him before, and a fast and casual physical fling for her? The attraction was there: chemical, carnal, whatever. Get it over with. Leave.

He had never been more tempted to simply step forward and take a woman in his arms. Explore every part of her in a mindless need to explore, and spend the night in a tangle of sheets and naked flesh.

No. He knew her name too well. And that changed everything.

He stepped back. “Good night. And thank you.”

“Thank you.”

She looked at him for a moment.

And in that moment, he thought that she was thinking the same thing he was.

But the moment passed.

She stepped inside and closed the door.

And he headed up to Bourbon Street.