Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) (16 page)

 
Jamie followed the blue car into a hip-looking suburb full of bars and restaurants. Ryder slid into a parking spot on the street, and we shot past about half a block and turned into an alley. Jamie jumped off the bike and went to the end of the alley to watch. After a moment, he pulled off his helmet.

“Figures he’d get a spot,” he muttered.

“Is this where he lives?”

“No, and he’s not the social type, but he went into that bar over there.”

I didn’t ask how Jamie knew these things. “Why are we following him?”

Jamie scratched at his stubble. “I have an itch that needs scratching, and it told me today would be a good day.”

“Is this a Talent thing?”

He nodded abruptly. “I feel lucky.”

I came up beside him at the end of the alley. “Holy crap,” I said. “You are lucky.”

He turned back to the road and we both watched Justine walk into the bar.

Chapter Sixteen

“What do we do now? Should we go in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“I want to talk to her,” I said. “She has to know where Eric is.”

“I wonder why she’s talking to Ryder,” Jamie mused under his breath.

“I bet it’s the same reason he talked to me. He’s trying to get her to turn him in.” Damn Ryder and his reasonable-sounding arguments. Justine might be stupid enough to fall for them.

“Let’s try and talk to her when they finish.”

We didn’t have long to wait. Ryder came out after only a few minutes. His face was dark, his mouth turned down at the corners. He jumped in his car and drove away. As soon as he disappeared, Jamie headed down the sidewalk toward the bar, and I followed.

Inside, the bar was nothing to write home about. Justine sat at a table in the back, stirring a clear drink with a straw.

“Mind if we join you?”

She jumped a little and looked up. I could see why Eric liked her, despite the tough-girl clothes and tattoos. Her dainty, heart-shaped face was dusted with coffee-colored freckles. I thought she’d look better if she hadn’t tried to hide them with a ton of makeup. Her eyes, ringed with black eyeliner, looked like they belonged on a panda.

“I’m on my way out,” she said. Her voice had a real Southern drawl to it. She started to push her chair back.

“Wait,” I said. “I’m Eric’s sister, Cat. I have to talk to you.”

Her rosebud mouth formed itself into an O, and then snapped shut. She stared at me, looking me up and down.

“I was going to ask you to prove it, but I can see the family resemblance. You two look a lot alike. Like twins, almost.”

“I don’t know what he looks like now.” Like me, apparently. Poor Eric. “I haven’t seen him for a long time.” But I might see him again soon. My heart sped up.

“I know,” she said. “I guess you all had better sit down.” She looked Jamie up and down, calculation in her eyes. “Who’s he?”

“This is Jamie,” I said, “a friend of mine.” He nodded, but said nothing.

“What do you want from me?”

I pulled up a chair and leaned forward over the table. “We know about the fire in Vegas. Eric is in a lot of trouble. I love my brother, and I want to help him.”

“What kind of help did you have in mind?” She narrowed her eyes.

I lifted my hands. “I don’t know, but I’d like to talk to him and see what he wants to do.”

“I see.” Her little mouth pursed, she stabbed her straw in and out of her drink.

Whatever she was thinking, she didn’t seem happy.

“We saw Ryder leaving,” Jamie said. “What did he want?”

Justine folded her hands back around her drink, holding the glass tightly. “How do you know him?”

Jamie smiled, and not in a friendly way. “We’re rivals from way back. I have nothing to do with the Grey Institute, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did Ryder have to say?” I asked.

“He wants Eric to come back to the Institute,” she said, fingers white from the pressure on the glass. “Eric doesn’t want to go back.”

Not surprising. I didn’t want to go back there either. “That seems simple enough. Are you carrying messages between them?”

Justine nodded. “I’m passing them on.”

“Look,” I said, “I know you don’t want to trust me, but can I at least talk to my brother on the phone?”

She sighed. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell him I saw you, and that you want to talk to him. If you give me a number, I’ll pass it on, and if he wants to talk to you, he will.”

I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t. I scrawled my cell number on the back of a cocktail napkin and handed it to her. “Please. I’d like to know he’s okay.”

“I’ll pass it on.” Justine stood up. “I have to go.” Her little shoulders sagged. Everything about her looked tired, but she picked herself up and clicked out of the bar in her high-heeled boots. I watched the phoenix tattoo, visible beneath her cropped shirt, sashay out the door.

“We should follow her,” Jamie said quietly.

“Do you think she won’t give him the message? Why wouldn’t she?”

“If she doesn’t, we’ll be stuck, so I’d like to know where she’s going.” He stood up and walked over to the door, watching the street through the glass. Then he grabbed the door handle, wrenched the door open and ran into the street.

I got up and followed him. He was on the sidewalk, turning his head this way and that.

“She’s gone,” he said. “The weird thing is I haven’t the smallest feeling about where she went.”

“It would be handy to be Ryder right now,” I said.

Jamie shuddered. “I can’t think of anything less handy. I guess we’ll have to hope he calls you.”

“He will,” I said, surprising myself at how certain I sounded, but I was certain. He might not want my help, but I was sure he would call me.

“Shall we eat, while we wait?”

“Not here,” I said, unable to face bar food. My stomach betrayed me by rumbling, and laughing, Jamie took my arm and guided me down the street.

When we returned to the mansion, full on Italian food, it was near dark, the cusp of twilight. Jamie took me to a part of the house I hadn’t seen before—there always seemed to be more—to a room with a pool table, a small wet bar and a couple of couches.

“This is one of my favorite places here,” he said, “at least partly because I often have it to myself.” He went over to the bar and began pulling out glasses.

I wandered along the edge of the pool table, trailing my fingers. “Do you have many friends here?” I asked.

“I do, but the younger ones of us come and go, doing various jobs for Dorian. Most of the people who live here all the time are either older or, how can I put this, less employable.”

I remembered Jamie’s invitation to live here, and thought that I would count myself in that number by Talented standards. If I came here, I’d end up playing cards with Herb. Unless Herb was correct, of course.

“What are you thinking about?” Jamie asked, handing me a glass of red wine.

“Oh, nothing really.” I made eye contact, and decided to spill. “Just thinking about what Herb said.”

He nodded. “We’ll work something out. I was actually serious about the Tai Chi. I’m sorry it didn’t work for you.”

“Even if I could learn to relax, I can’t imagine a single session of Tai Chi would do the trick. Although, having done one, I don’t think a hundred sessions of Tai Chi would help.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I have other ideas.” He put down his glass and racked up the pool balls. “Do you play?”

“Yes, but I heard you cheat.”

He laughed. “I do. It’s almost like a compulsion at pool, cards too. But I’ve no reason to cheat you. Or any desire to, either.” He left the balls where they were and sat down on one of the couches, sprawling one leather-clad leg over the arm. “Tell me then, Catrina, and tell me true, when was the last time you felt relaxed? How can we get you to loosen up a little?”

I flushed, thinking about how loose he’d gotten me in Vegas.

A slow smile spread over his features, as if he’d read my mind. He sat up and beckoned to me. “Come here,” he said. “Come sit with me.”

I walked over and sat next to him. He surprised me by turning me away from him, and then came his hands on my back, stroking firmly through my shirt.

“Do you like massages?”

“Who doesn’t, I suppose,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. His hands were huge and warm, leaving contrails of sensation in their wake. I closed my eyes.

He warmed me up with long, loose strokes that traveled from my hairline to the top of my hipster jeans. After a few minutes, he tugged at my shirt. “Here,” he said. “Let me lift this over your head.”

“What if someone comes in?”

“I’ll lock the door,” he said, and got to his feet.

Tentatively, I pulled the body of my shirt over my head, leaving my arms in the sleeves and my chest covered.

Jamie gave me a hooded look that I could not interpret, and then sat down behind me again and continued the massage. Where was this going? He’d said he wasn’t going to seduce me in a house full of telepaths.

I wondered when we’d get the chance to be properly alone again.

“This will work better,” he said, “if you don’t hold yourself upright like you’re on a parade ground.”

“Sorry,” I said, and let go of my breath, trying to relax. The gentle strokes of his hands continued against my shoulder muscles, inexorably working the knots out of my back.

After a few minutes, I forgot to be tense as some of the knots started to come undone. I let my breath out in a catching, involuntary sigh. Jamie continued, working his way up to the base of my neck and then stroked his fingers up to my hair.

“It’s short as a boy’s,” he said.

“Practical,” I said. “And cheap.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love it. The back of your neck is sexy as hell.” There was a pause, then he continued, “Do you cut it yourself?”

“Sometimes. Other times I’ll get whoever’s around to cut it for me, with variable results.”

“Don’t you ever spoil yourself?”

“Right now,” I said, and it came out with a little hitch as his breath tickled the back of my neck. This room was awfully warm all of a sudden.

He stroked down my back, long and gentle. “Relax and breathe, Cat. I’m not going to jump you. I want you to take a load off.” Slipping his fingers under my bra, he unhooked it to expose my back. I felt terribly naked, and a little disappointed.

Jamie began moving the tips of his fingers in tight circles up and down my spine. It took everything in me not to moan. The circles went on and on, and I lost track of time, my thoughts floating off into a seductive dream.

Finally he ended with a series of featherlike flutters over my skin, and at last the warmth of his lips at the base of my neck, dropping a kiss there, almost casually. The touch of his mouth tightened things deep inside me.

“Go get some sleep, Cat,” he murmured.

“Alone?” I asked. Why couldn’t I ask him to hold me?

“I’ll sleep by you. But you need some rest.”

We went back to Jamie’s room and climbed into bed like an old married couple. Half asleep, I found myself too tired to question anything or ask for more. I was out moments after my head hit the pillow.

Tall, tall trees, and the smell of damp and growing things in my nostrils. Singing off in the distance, a voice I didn’t know. The earth, dark and peaty beneath my feet.

“Kitcat?”

I turned around. Eric stood there, looking older than I had imagined. His blond hair was long and lank, his skin sunburned, but the shadows under his eyes were as dark as tar.

“What are you doing here?”

In the dream, I had no voice. I merely shrugged my shoulders and stepped toward him.

Eric vanished and everything became dark. The darkness filled with gunshots, shouts, an explosion, and then a wall of flames rose before me.

In my ear came Jamie’s urgent whisper, “Run, Cat, run.” I ran into the flames and was consumed.

The sound of screaming woke me and I realized it was me. I shut my mouth abruptly.

The bedside light clicked on and Jamie turned to me. “The dreams, again?”

I nodded, untangling my legs from the sheets.

He reached over and pushed sweaty hair back from my face. “I know you say they don’t mean anything, but tell me anyway. A nightmare shared is a nightmare dispelled.”

“I dreamed of Eric, in a forest. And fire. There’s always fire in my dreams of him.”

“I suppose that’s not surprising. Do you think he’s in a forest?”

“I don’t know. Even if he were, there are a lot of forests. It’s not helpful.” I rolled over, glanced at my watch beside the bed. “Ugh. It’s three in the morning.”

“The pit of the soul. Did you know more people die at 3:00 a.m. than any other time? It’s when our conscious minds are at their lowest ebb, and we wash away in the night.” The light clicked off and Jamie moved behind me to spoon me with his body. His warmth along my spine and legs comforted me.