The Order Boxed Set (4 page)

“You still there?” Piers asked.

“Just thinking. You need to set up a meeting with the fae.”

Piers swore. “Yeah, I’d already decided that, but I hate fucking fairies.”

Christian agreed. At least you knew where you were with a demon. The fae were tricky. He ended the call.

There were a few people he could talk to who might have information. Or he could return to the office, but that held no appeal. He headed off into the night.

…

Dawn was close by the time he returned to CR International. Graham, as he’d expected, was still at the reception desk.

“Good night?” Graham asked as he came through the doors.

“No,” Christian growled. “A complete fucking waste of time.”

Graham raised an eyebrow, and Christian shrugged.

“Fae problems. I spent most of the night trying to find out just how big, but I don’t seem too popular. I couldn’t find anyone who might talk. They all seem to be avoiding me.”

“Is that significant?”

“Probably. Definitely. How about you?”

“I looked up that information you asked for
,
about Kathryn Collins.”

Christian forced his mind from the night’s findings or rather lack of them. “Aunt Kathy?”

“Yeah, Aunt Kathy. You’re not going to believe it. And you aren’t going to like it.”

Christian sighed. “Give me the file.”

Graham handed it over and Christian flicked through the contents. “You’re sure about this?”

Graham nodded.

Christian thought about Tara Collins. What was it she’d said she wanted? A normal life? He suspected he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to be pleased about this information. That was, if she ever got to the point of even believing it.

…

The young red-haired man, Graham, was at the reception desk when Tara came through the sliding doors of CR International at seven o’clock on Friday night. He looked up as she stopped in front of the desk and regarded her curiously. A slight sense of misgiving niggled at her. She ignored it and smiled with forced brightness.

“Hello,” she said, “I have an appointment with—”

“I remember. You can go right up.”

“I can?”

He nodded.

“Don’t you need to come?” she asked.

His lips curved in a smile, and he shook his head. “Not this time.”

Within minutes, she stood outside those huge double doors, her stomach churning, her pulse thundering.

It wasn’t entirely the thought of seeing Christian Roth again—though that came into it. The truth was, she was still shaky from her bout with Rule Number Two. One teensy sip of wine and she’d blacked out. She’d eventually woken four hours later, to find herself on a trolley in the local ER.

In the two days since, she’d almost managed to convince herself it had been some sort of allergic reaction to the alcohol. Almost but not quite, because she clearly remembered those few seconds before she’d blacked out. The wild exhilaration racing through her veins. It had felt so good. Even now, if she closed her eyes she could feel a residual buzz humming in her blood. That was so not normal.

She’d raised a hand to knock when the doors swung open and Christian stood before her.

Tonight he hadn’t bothered with a suit, but was wearing black cargo pants and a black button-down shirt. He looked lean and mean, and heart-stoppingly beautiful. Which was strange. Last time she’d been so sure he wasn’t handsome, now she couldn’t look away. She made a lingering sweep of his body before forcing her gaze to his face.

“You look different,” she said.

A flicker of amusement flashed in his silver gray eyes. “I’ve been eating well,” he murmured. “Come in.”

He stood back and gestured for her to enter. Tara hesitated, then took a deep breath and stepped past. She stood just inside the door and listened as it clicked shut behind her. “Right, shall we get on with this?”

“First, can I get you a drink?” he asked.

Tara shuddered at the thought of alcohol. She wasn’t ready to face that particular challenge just yet. ”I don’t think so.”

“A coffee, something to eat?”

“This isn’t a social call, Mr. Roth.”

“I thought we’d decided you would call me, Christian.” He circled, his eyes sliding over her. “I like your outfit, by the way, very nice. Black suits you.”

“Er, thank you.” He was standing too close, and she edged away and sat in one of the upright chairs in front of the desk, clutching her bag on her lap.

He took the seat opposite her and regarded her through half-closed eyes. His gaze lingered on her mouth then dropped lower to focus on her throat. Tara refused to twitch under his stare, however much she wanted to.

After a minute, he smiled. “You seem more confident this evening.”

“I am. I’ve decided I’m being stupid worrying about all this—there’s bound to be a rational explanation.”

“There is?”

“Yes. My friend, Chloe, thinks maybe Aunt Kathy kidnapped me as a baby.”

“Why would she do that?”

A flicker of irritation jabbed at her. “Because she lost her own baby, or maybe she couldn’t have one. I did a search on the Internet and found all these cases.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the papers. She handed them over and his eyes widened at the hefty file. “I’m convinced I’m in there somewhere. So I thought maybe you could concentrate your investigation on these.”

He stared at the file. “Let me get this straight, you want me to investigate all these missing persons. Have you any idea how long that would take?”

“I told you I have the money.”

He opened a draw
er
in his desk, dropped the file in, and slammed it shut. “In the meantime, I do have some information regarding your aunt.”

Tara had been leaning toward him eagerly, now she drew back in her chair. A lump formed in her throat. She tried to swallow it, but it stuck somewhere halfway down. This was what she wanted
,
wasn’t it? Why did she feel afraid? She bit down hard on her lower lip, tasted the sharp metallic taint of fresh blood.

She swiped her tongue over her lip, wiping away the drop of blood, and Christian stood abruptly, shoving back his chair. He crossed the room to stare out of the window, his shoulders tense, fists clenched at his side. Then the tension drained from him, and he swung around to face her. His gaze flickered to her mouth, then away, but not before she saw the heat in his eyes.

What was up with him?

It was weird, but she had the strangest feeling he was thinking about kissing her. Probably more delusions.

Tara forced herself to break the silence. “So, what did you find about my aunt?”

“Are you sure you won’t have that drink?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “Just tell me, please.”

“Do you have a photograph of your aunt, a recent one?”

“Sure.” After searching in her bag for her purse, she removed the small photo she always carried and handed it to him. Christian glanced at the picture briefly, then returned to his desk and opened a file. Taking out a photograph, he compared it to the one Tara had given him, before handing the second photo to Tara. “You agree that this is your aunt?”

“Of course it is.”

“That’s a photograph of Kathryn Collins. A photo taken nearly twenty-three years ago.”

Tara studied both pictures. “But she looks exactly the same.”

“I know, but then the dead don’t age.”

“What?” She must have misheard that last comment.

“The photograph I just gave you was taken over twenty years ago,” he repeated. “Shortly before Kathryn Collins was killed when a drunk driver ran her car off the road.”

The room went out of focus. Tara closed her eyes, trying to make sense of what he was telling her. A woman with the same name as her aunt, who looked identical to her aunt, had died over twenty years ago. There had to be an explanation. She opened her eyes to find Christian watching her, his face expressionless.

“Let me get you that drink,” he said.

“No!” A drink was the last thing she needed. She took a gulp of air. “I’m all right. I just need to think this through.” Her brain latched on to the obvious answer. “Identical twins?”

“How would that explain the fact that your aunt didn’t age? Because she didn’t, did she? Think back, Tara, remember your aunt when you were young. Was she really any different?”

Her aunt had just always been her aunt. Tara closed her eyes and pictured her first memories. Aunt Kathy explaining the rules when she was little, then again at regular intervals all the time Tara had been growing up. And each time she looked the same. Even her aunt’s hair had never changed although Tara could never remember her going near a hairdresser.

She rubbed her temple with the tip of her finger, then pressed hard against her closed lids. She opened her eyes to find Christian still watching her. “What do you think happened?”

He crouched in front of her and ran a finger down her cheek. She shivered, his touch cool against her heated skin. Then his thumb brushed over her lower lip and she felt it as a caress low down in her belly. He was so close. If she leaned forward just a little bit…

He straightened and backed a step away. “What do you know of the supernatural?”

The question caught her off balance. “You mean, ghosties and ghoolies and…” She frowned. “I seriously hope you’re not trying to tell me my aunt was a ghost.”

“Actually no, I don’t think your aunt was a ghost. You could touch her couldn’t you? She ate and drank like a normal person?”

“Yes, she ate like a normal person. Because, you know what? She was a normal person.” Albeit a rather strange one, but Tara pushed that thought to the back of her mind.

“Tara, your aunt was far from normal.” He gestured to the photographs. “However much you dislike the idea, you have to acknowledge that something strange was going on.”

Tara forced herself to calm down. “Okay, tell me what
you
think happened.”

“The body of your aunt was never buried.”

“Yes it was, I was there at the funeral.”

He sighed. “I mean twenty years ago.”

She felt a spark of hope. “Well obviously it wasn’t buried, because she wasn’t dead. They made a mistake.”

“There was no mistake. I’ve seen the death certificate and the coroner’s report—she was dead twenty years ago. The body disappeared before it could be buried. There are reports
,
they’re all in the file.”

“You’re telling me I was brought up by a dead person. That Aunt Kathy was some sort of zombie?” She could hear her voice rising.

“Not a zombie, no.”

“Well, thank goodness for that.”

“There are other ways to reanimate a corpse.”

Tara bolted from her chair. “I am not listening to this.”

“You have to. The woman who brought you up has been dead for over twenty years.”

She stared into his face, sure she must have heard him wrong, but no, he seemed serious. Suddenly she was furious. She took a step toward him and poked him in the chest. It was like stubbing her finger on a lump of rock and she winced. “You are so not funny.”

She blamed her cat for this. Trust Smokey to pick the one nutcase private investigator in the whole of London. “And by the way,” she added. “You’re fired!”

She grabbed her purse and stormed away. She’d almost reached the door when he spoke again.

“Tara—”

She whirled.

Somehow, he was right behind her and she almost slammed into him. She put up her arms to ward him off and her palms flattened against his chest. He leaned forward and kissed her.

She stood there, hands splayed against his chest
,
while he touched her only with his lips. The kiss was slow, erotic. He tasted her with his tongue, and she let him do whatever he wished. It was over far too soon, and he stepped back.

In a daze, she opened the door and was just about to step through when he called her again. She stopped and turned.

He handed her the file, his expression sympathetic. “When you’ve read this, calmed down, and are willing to listen, come back.”

“When hell freezes over.”

She tried to calm herself as she rode down in the elevator, but bitter disappointment clogged her throat. She’d been so hopeful a private investigator would find a nice logical explanation for what had happened in her past, why her aunt had kept them isolated for so many years. Instead, she’d hired a madman, who talked about dead people as though they had the power to walk and talk and eat. A madman who’d had the nerve to kiss her. She could still feel that kiss against her lips—she’d never imagined a kiss could feel like that.

Graham regarded her as she stepped up to the reception desk, his eyes widening as he took in the red folder she clutched. Did he know what was in there? Had they laughed as they put it together?

“Would you like another appointment?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I won’t be coming back, and you can return this to your madman of a boss.” She slapped the file on the desk and headed for the door.