Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set Page 51

  She was glad Max had been leaving her alone. She was so rattled by the images that had been flooding her the past two days that she probably wouldn’t have made the slightest sense if she’d tried to talk with him. She would have babbled like a madwoman, and he would have run screaming from her apparent psychotic break.

  She’d had some genuinely rough patches in her life when in the thick of an FBI investigation, or the time she’d gotten the bright idea to contact her birth father’s spirit and find out just how psychic he was. All she’d learned from that one was just how criminally insane the man had been. It had taken her two weeks to speak again after swimming around in his diseased brain.

  Maybe this batch of violent, disturbing images was a result of her encounter with the mugger. Maybe these came from his head. Or maybe they were imaginary, conjured by her own brain to cope with the stew of terror and rage she was experiencing after nearly becoming the man’s next victim.

  That was the problem with a gift like hers. There was an inevitable gap between believing in it and knowing it was real. She was too logical a soul, too much the product of her skeptical family to entirely set aside her doubts about it. No matter how many bodies she found, or how many future events she correctly predicted, a little voice in the back of her head always was there, murmuring that maybe she’d just made a lucky guess. That maybe she was a fake.

  She didn’t understand why she kept having the visions, when she didn’t entirely believe in them. Over the years, she’d hoped they would go away of their own volition, fading to nothing in the face of her refusal to believe them. Sometimes she thought that skepticism was the only thing keeping her tied to reality. If she let go of it, she would lose herself entirely in the meanderings of her own disordered mind.

  At least a dozen customers came in each day and asked for her to do a reading of some kind. Apparently, Madame Callista had steady business as a fortune-teller in the New Orleans woo-woo community. The customers were all about her taking over where Callista had left off. She could no doubt make a good living telling fortunes to the steady stream of customers who asked. But she really, really didn’t want to go there. Yes, she could technically do it, but (a) it wasn’t her forte, and (b) being normal in no way included becoming a well-known fortune-teller.

  Despite her efforts to contain it, though, her power kept growing stronger, the visions becoming more vivid and frequent over time. Moving to New Orleans had done nothing to curb it, and, if anything, the shop seemed to enhance her abilities.

  Hence, the radical decision to make a conscious break with that part of herself and refuse to read for anybody. She could only hope that if she ignored the spiritual voices in her head for long enough that they would fade away. This move to New Orleans had to work. It had to.

  * * *

  The middle of the week came and went. Max watched Lissa reopen her shop, and a stream of customers trooped through her doors. The place did a fairly brisk business, in fact. Maybe she would even make enough money to finish renovating her apartment sometime this century. He had to give her credit. She was brave to pick herself up after the attack, and then the break-in, and press on like she had.

  She’d rearranged the layout of the shop, leaving an open space exactly in the middle of it. She’d set up a small table and covered it with a painted tablecloth covered in stars and moons, unicorns, fairies and an array of mystical symbols. He’d watched her paint it the past few evenings upstairs. People came in daily to gaze into the crystal ball sitting on the table or to fool with tarot cards. And they seemed to be taking whatever they saw seriously.

  Max continued to be amazed that so many seemingly sane-looking people frequented the shop. All that mystical stuff was smoke and mirrors. Everything he’d ever seen that had been attributed to the occult could be explained away by overly vivid imaginations, clever charlatans or random chance.

  On Friday afternoon his cell phone rang, an unwelcome intrusion into his private purgatory. Hell would be not being able to see Lissa at all. But watching her like this, spying on her, was not far behind.

  The caller was Peter Menchekov. “Hello, sir. What can I do for you?” he asked in reluctant Russian.

  “I just wanted to remind you to bring your girlfriend with you to the house tomorrow night. Some of the higher-ups want to meet Miss Clearmont. Her aunt was rather famous, and people are curious to see if the niece inherited the same talent for fortune-telling as Callista had.”

  Great. Not only was he supposed to expose her to danger, but she got to perform like a trained monkey while he was at it. “I don’t know if she can make it. Her schedule is quite full with clients—”

  “These clients are more important. See to it she’s here tomorrow evening,” his boss ordered brusquely.

  “Of course,” he answered smoothly.

  Now to talk Lissa into it—and find a way to warn her subtly what she was walking into—without scaring her half to death. She was never going to forgive him for this.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lissa looked up from the unidentified gadget on her counter as the bell over the shop door rang. A tall silhouette was highlighted in the entry, golden hair shining in the sunlight coming from behind him. Max. Her heart jumped, and her hands developed a sudden tendency to flutter up toward her hair.

  “Can I help you?” she asked breathlessly.

  He grinned. “Indeed you can.”

  She planted her elbows on the counter and leaned forward, blatantly flirting with him. “Do you need me to read your fortune?”

  His grin widened. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “You know, just because you don’t ask me to do it for you doesn’t mean I haven’t or won’t read your future to satisfy my own curiosity.”

  “Wouldn’t that be unethical?”

  “It would be unethical of me to tell anyone what I see or for me to take advantage of precognition in some way.”

  “Yeah? So what do you see in my future?”

  A dark vision of him standing over a man he’d just shot passed through her mind’s eye for a moment and then cleared as she shook her head. She smiled playfully at him. “I see dinner at a very expensive restaurant with an exotic and slightly Goth redhead in the very near future. And you’re paying.”

  He grinned down at her. “Wow. You are good at that psychic stuff.”

  “I know. Right?”

  He glanced down at her fingers, which at the moment were toying with some electronic doodad she’d found in the debris. She had yet to identify which piece of the inventory it could have come out of. It looked like a speaker of some kind. Maybe a recorder from inside one of the dolls? She hadn’t been aware of any of the antique dolls in the store being able to talk.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked.

  “No idea. I thought maybe one of the smashed dolls might have had some sort of voice-activated speaker in it. Maybe you can figure it out?” She held it out to him, and he lifted the gadget from her fingers lightly.

  He turned it this way and that and then asked, “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  “Sure. Just a sec.” She fetched one for him. He examined the thumbnail-size bit of black plastic carefully. He even pulled out his cell phone and typed a string of letters and numbers into it.

  “Well?” she demanded. Curiosity always had gotten the best of her.

  “Where did you say you found this?”

  “In the mess I swept up on Sunday. I didn’t find it digging through the pile of bits and pieces until Tuesday, though. Why?” Her curiosity was quickly being replaced by apprehension.

  “I’m going to be honest with you. It’s a bug of some kind. I’ve copied down the serial number and will research what it’s used for and who might have bought it.”

  “A bug?” she echoed blankly. “Like spies use?”


  “Or police or criminals or rival business owners just trying to get a leg up on the competition.”

  “That’s crazy.” But as she said the words, a flood of images raced through her brain. Men and women coming into the curiosity shop over and over through the years, leaving notes and messages, even envelopes of money, stashed around the shop. More images of other people retrieving the dead drops flashed across her mental movie screen. The clothing changed through the decades, but the shop remained mostly the same.

  She gripped the edge of the counter until it dug into her palms, the pain anchoring her once more in the present. For a person who’d given up doing the whole psychic thing, her powers were bloody well not giving it a rest. Worse, the powers that be seemed to delight in amplifying her sensitivity every time Max was nearby, watching her with that intent gaze of his that missed nothing.

  Speaking of which, he was staring at her quizzically now. She gave him a lame smile and prayed he wouldn’t question her any further. No such luck.

  “I know you haven’t been in New Orleans long, Lissa. But have you run into anyone hostile since you came? Someone who was unpleasant with you or threatened you? Or was there someone back in Vermont who might have followed you down here to get revenge for something? Maybe an ex-boyfriend or someone you crossed in some way?”

  “Nobody,” she answered firmly. Please God, let him believe her. For goodness knew, it was a bald-faced lie. Urgency to distract him from this line of questioning coursed through her. “Is that bug thing still working?” she asked nervously.

  He dropped it on the floor and stepped on it hard with the heel of his shoe. “Nope. Not anymore.”

  “That’s so creepy. Why is all this stuff happening to me all of a sudden?”

  “Why, indeed?” he echoed cryptically. He sounded almost as if he had some idea of who could be doing all this awful stuff to her.

  “And you’re sure you’re not a cop or an FBI agent?” she asked, glancing down at the remains of the crushed bug.

  “Positive.”

  His unspoken thought popped into her head. Right government, wrong alphabet letters. That was weird. She’d never been able to read peoples’ minds before.

  “Ex-military, then?” she asked.

  “Definitely not.” She didn’t have to be very psychic to sense him projecting with all his might his unwillingness to talk any further about himself.

  “Then where did you learn about bugs?” she demanded.

  He sighed. “My father was into such things. He taught me about radios and stuff, whether I was interested or not.”

  She studied him for a moment, weighing his words. They were not a lie. They just weren’t the whole truth. She took pity and let him off the hook, changing subjects. “You said there was something I could do for you, Max. Name it. I owe you big-time for all the help you’ve given me.”

  If she wasn’t mistaken, he cringed a little at her gratitude. Now, why would he react like that? Most men would kill to have a reasonably decent-looking single woman beholden to them. Was he up to something more than met the eye? What? He’d been nothing but protective and helpful to her.

  He spoke up with obvious reluctance. “There’s this party I have to go to tomorrow night. A client is throwing it and has insisted that I come. Furthermore, he’s demanding that I bring a date.”

  Her breath caught. Was he asking her out on a date?

  “Some of the people there were friends of your aunt. I thought you might like to meet them.”

  Her interest perked up even more. A date with the hot guy and she got to learn more about her cryptic aunt? Sounded like a win-win situation.

  “It’s formal,” he continued. “You’d need to wear a long gown. But the food will be great, and there will be some interesting people there. And we’d get to spend some time getting to know each other better.”

  Her heart leaped. He wanted to know her better? Awe. Some.

  “Would you by any chance be willing and able to rescue this knight in shining armor, fair damsel?”

  “Well...” she drawled. “I do have a fair bit of damsel stuff to do this weekend, but I think I can manage to squeeze in a knight rescue. And goodness knows, you’ve rescued me enough times already. I owe you one back.”

  His eyes lit with enough heat to curl her toes into little ecstatic knots of pleasure. A surprising amount of relief flooded his face, as well. She’d have thought he would be more suave and confident about asking a woman out. As handsome and experienced a man as him...

  “I’ll pick you up at eight, then.”

  “Great.”

  The shop door had not finished closing behind him before she panicked. What on earth was she going to wear? She couldn’t afford to spend a bunch of money on a fancy gown she’d wear once this century. Not with the repair bill for the shop yet to pay off and the upstairs apartment waiting to be renovated.

  She remembered Callista’s trunks in the basement. One of them held some old clothes. Maybe there was something in there that she could make work. She rushed downstairs and threw open the first trunk on the right.

  And frowned. It was full of papers. But they were neatly organized and stacked. Which was weird. She distinctly recalled all this paperwork being strewn in here willy-nilly in a chaotic mess.

  Okay. Ghosts might be able to whisper to her, but since when did they sort and organize business papers for her? She lifted out the first pile to check it out. Sure enough, all the random sheets of paper, notebooks and file folders from before appeared to have been sorted and categorized. All of these were potion recipes, for example. She lifted out part of another stack. All magic spells. What on earth?

  She spoke to the ceiling. “Look. I’m willing to concede that ghosts exist. But I’ve never seen a ghost do anything like this before. What’s up?”

  Silence.

  The darned voices in her head wouldn’t shut up all week, and now that she finally asked them a direct question, they clammed up as if they didn’t exist. Jerks.

  She opened the next trunk. This one was similarly organized and sorted, too. Although its contents now appeared to be composed solely of business records. What. The. Heck?

  Perplexed and more than a little weirded out, she opened the third trunk. At least it was still a mess, full of dresses, coats, old shoes and who knew what all. She reached in and pulled out the first dress, a floral cocktail number that looked vintage 1955 or so. It screamed of Doris Day or June Cleaver. Not sexy enough, and it wasn’t long enough.

  She had a great time looking through the collection of old clothing, some of it dating back to the 1920s, but nothing came even close to being right for a fancy date with Max. And then she lifted out something black and satin from near the bottom of the trunk. This garment was carefully folded, and she shook it out with a gasp of wonder.

  It was a strapless ball gown, slim and simple and classic. Whalebone stays gave the bodice structure, and the neckline was modest. Timeless. It looked like something Grace Kelly would have worn. Please, please let it not be too small. She could always take it in, but she probably wouldn’t be able to let it out.

  She shimmied out of her T-shirt and jeans and into the gown. She had to contort herself to zip the thing, but it hugged her body as though it had been custom-made for her. It dragged the floor, but that would be easy enough to fix. Overjoyed, she took her find upstairs and plunked down on the floor of her apartment to hem her treasure. Oh, this date was going to be fun.

  * * *

  Max tugged at his tuxedo jacket impatiently and opened the curiosity shop door. This was going to suck. Not the part about spending the evening with Lissa, but everything else about it.

  Normally, he didn’t worry about maintaining his mob member persona, but tonight? With a woman he genuinely liked on his arm? How was he supposed to balance his tendency
to be his real self around her with his tough-guy act?

  Lissa emerged from the stairwell, and all thought of acting flew out of his head. “Wow. You look fantastic.”

  She smiled shyly, which only made her look more spectacular. Her black dress was narrow and simple, skimming down her slender curves as if it were painted on her body. It was strapless, which left lots of perfect porcelain skin bare. She’d swept her striking curls up into some sort of loose twist that managed to be both soft and formal at the same time. As she turned her head, he couldn’t tell where dark brown stopped and that deep red color started in her hair. He’d never seen anything like it before in art or in life. Her eyes looked huge and mysterious. The only splash of color against her pale skin was her red lipstick.

  She looked dramatic, a creature not entirely of this world, every inch the seer she was. Nobody was going to be able to take their eyes off her. Which was both good and bad. It would make her a star among his new mob bosses, which might serve to protect her from their violent whims. But it also would draw a ton of attention to her. Which might, in turn, draw the attention of some of the more unhinged criminals in the organization.

  “You’re going to make it damned hard for me to keep you to myself, looking like that,” he commented as he waited for her to lock the front door and activate the new alarm system he’d hired workmen to install after the break-in. He held out his forearm to her, and she laid a light hand on his designer wool sleeve.

  “I won’t even know there’s anyone else in the room,” she replied stoutly.

  They strolled slowly down the sidewalk in consideration of her high heels. “Here’s the thing. This is a bunch among whom you’d do well to keep your eyes open. Wide-open. They may look polished and classy, but most of them are not. Do not be fooled by the clothes and jewels.”

  He helped her into his Ferrari and went around to climb in beside her.

  “But what if, when I look at a person, I don’t see their exterior. What if I see their soul?”