Hot Trick (A Detective Shelley Caldwell Novel) (7 page)

“When a beautiful woman wants to speak to me alone, what else am I to think?”

He was trying again, probing at the edges of my consciousness. White-hot streaks that zapped my mind. I didn’t waver. What did he think he was going to get from me? I mentally pushed back and smiled.

“You could think that she’s smarter than she looks.”

Sebastian ignored the jibe and returned my smile. I took the opportunity to check out his teeth. Nice and white and perfect looking, but the canines weren’t a little too long or a little too sharp.

Not a vampire.

“What are you?” I asked.

Laughing, he reached a hand out and slid it along my neck, back to front, and then brought it to rest between us, a card twined between his fingers. He offered it to me.

Taking it, I saw it wasn’t a playing card, but a Tarot card. Silke was always messing around with Tarot, so I recognized it without reading the title.

The Magician.

Sebastian entered my personal space. “You’re a woman with a strong will.”

Another glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye made me glance at the window. This time I got a good look. My pulse rushed and I fought to keep my emotions in check.

At the same time, something pressed at me psychically.

Refusing to give way, I turned my attention back to Sebastian. “Better men than you have tried to break me.”

“I don’t want to break you, Shelley. Simply to soften you.”

When he reached for me, I jutted the flat of my hand out fast, connecting just under his breastbone, and smiled at his quick intake of breath.

“I’ll be going now. But I’m sure we’ll talk again.”

“I look forward to it.”

I turned, glancing one last time back toward the window. Nothing to see now.

But I knew Jake floated out there with a front row seat to the scene inside. Thankfully, Sebastian hadn’t noticed.

Jake was spying on me.

Not for long, not if I had anything to say about it.

I hurried outside, hoping Norelli wouldn’t get impatient while I walked around the building and took care of things. Staring into the dark, I whispered, “Jake,” knowing he had superhuman hearing.

A second later he stood next to me.

Irritated, I asked, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

Jake seemed distracted, as if unable to focus on me. “Why are you so bothered by my presence?”

“Because you’re spying on me.”

That got his attention.

“I’m not spying on you.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I sensed something out of the ordinary was going on. I wanted to make sure you were okay—and now I know I was right. That Sebastian character was trying to influence you.”

“Well, he didn’t. You know I’m not suggestible. And I have an internal radar about that kind of stuff, remember? Plus, I can take care of myself.” Though his wanting the job tempered my irritation with him.

“Why do you always have to play Lone Ranger?”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m here with Norelli. I’m playing nice.” Glancing to the street to make sure Norelli’s car was still there, I softened my tone. “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need your protection, Jake. No vampires involved here.”

Jake sniffed me and his visage darkened. “That scent—it’s his. It was on your jacket too.”

And here I’d thought he’d smelled the riverbank on me. Maybe he really
was
jealous. The thought startled me. And made me feel kind of mushy inside. I’d never inspired that kind of emotion in any man before. Um, not that it was attractive, I told myself.

Catching my breath, I asked, “What about Sebastian’s scent?”

“I don’t know exactly… He may not be a vampire, but he’s more than human.”

So much for romanticism. My flesh crawled at his certainty. Jake’s senses could tell him more about a situation than mine could. Sebastian
had
been trying to hack in to my brain, but he could simply be some kind of psychic, like Silke and me.

“I asked him what he was. He thought it was funny. He told me he was a magician.”

“A mage?”

“Mage?”

“Sorcerer. Wizard.”

“He’s an entertainer, for heaven’s sake! He tricks people into believing his illusions.”

“Unless what he does is real.”

I could sense Jake’s unrest, yet he had no reason for it. “Oh, come on. Until I have proof that he’s something other than what he says he is, I’m just going to treat him like any other human suspect.”

“You’re making a mistake. You’re trying to avoid the truth, trying to avoid anything that will reflect badly on you.”

Maybe. More than that, I was avoiding facing what I had never wanted to believe. Like when we were kids and Silke used to drag me to see horror films. The movies themselves didn’t scare me, but the idea that the supernatural could exist did. I’d carried the fear with me into adulthood. How did you fight evil that wasn’t human?

Actually, I’d learned a few tricks since then.

“It’s
my
case, Jake.” And he was making something out of nothing. Either that, or he wasn’t telling me all. I felt my temper slipping. “This is my professional life. You belong in my personal life. I’m sorry, but professional and personal need to stay separate.”

He flinched as if I’d slapped him.

“Fine. Give me a call when you have time for a personal life, then.”

In the blink of an eye, he was gone, leaving me with an empty feeling. I hadn’t meant to take out my frustration on him. I loved that he wanted to protect me, to help me even if I couldn’t let him. I’d just…reacted. I promised myself that I would make it up to him later.

In the meantime, my unease about Sebastian grew. Jake couldn’t be right about the guy. Sorcery was an invention of fantasy novels. Real magicians didn’t exist.

Right?

Then, again, that’s what I’d thought about vampires…

Maybe he had a point about my wanting to avoid looking bad. I’d been walking on eggshells around the department ever since the supposed cult case had been closed.

And maybe I’d been holding back on Jake for the same reason, because I couldn’t deal with who he really was.

Tucking the whole supernatural possibility someplace where I didn’t have to think about it for the moment, I stormed over to the street, happy for once to see Norelli. He still seemed to be in some kind of a trance. When I opened the door, I swore I heard him mutter, “Edmund Fox…Edmund Fox…Edmund Fox,” under his breath, like he was afraid of forgetting the name.

“Talking to yourself again?” I asked.

Norelli didn’t seem to be listening to me. “Hmm, how do I get a handle on Edmund Fox?”

Realizing his going down that road might be a good idea until I figured out what was what, I said, “According to the media, he’s in town.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did. You kind of got on a roll in Sebastian’s place and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I really hadn’t been holding out on him. The conversation had merely turned in a different direction.

A few minutes later we were back at my car, and Norelli said, “You’re coming straight back to the office, right?”

“Yeah, I need to make out a report about Snake Eyes attacking me. And then the plan is for me to check those mug shots.”

“Good. Good. And I’ll see about getting to Fox.”

I nodded. I wasn’t ruling out Fox. I simply hadn’t liked the way Sebastian planted the idea in Norelli’s mind.

If
that’s what he had done.

This was one of those rare times when I wasn’t sure of anything.

Jake waited until Shelley drove off with Norelli to return to Sebastian’s windows. He’d almost lost his cool earlier when the magician had reached for Shelley.

He thought about Sebastian escorting Shelley to the door. When the magician had turned around, he’d worn a satisfied expression and had held an object in his hand that Jake hadn’t been able to see. An object he assumed belonged to Shelley.

What the hell was Sebastian up to? Jake was certain there was more to him than stage illusion.

At the moment Sebastian sat on the loveseat, sipping his wine as if he had all the time in the world.

Whatever object he’d pocketed earlier, no way could Jake get a look at it, not even with his enhanced vision. All his senses were intensified, including his sixth, the sense that was now on super alert. Though he hadn’t had a face-to-face with Sebastian, Jake had a negative feeling about the situation. And though the magician had answered Norelli’s and Shelley’s questions as if he were innocent, Jake sensed he was hiding something big.

That’s why he’d come back to spy on the man.

He watched as Sebastian picked up his glass and paced the room, stopping in front of his desk. He didn’t reach for anything, simply stared. Jake manipulated himself horizontally to a far window with a better angle. Sebastian stood in the same place, as if mesmerized.

At the back of the desk were several framed photographs. Jake thought the other man was staring at one in particular—a woman with dark, hypnotic eyes. Sebastian looked so much like her, Jake had no doubt this was his mother. Another photo showed the same woman with a kid. Sebastian. No father in sight.

And then Jake noticed something else.

Frameless, a torn old photo of a boy sat like a discarded Tarot card on the surface of the desk. An odd feeling gripped him around the middle and he zeroed in on the photograph, his supersensitive eyes picking up details an ordinary person might not catch.

Like the smoothed down cowlick in the hair. The dot of a mole below one ear. The fresh scratch on the lower lip.

It couldn’t be…

But he would almost swear the boy was…

Him.

I traded vehicles and Norelli zoomed off, leaving me with time to think as I pulled away from the curb. Would I get a name to match Snake Eyes? And how could I find Casey Brogan?

Were banshees listed in the Yellow Pages?

Okay, so it was no laughing matter. I was trying to lighten things up for myself, trying to believe it was all nonsense, when a creepy feeling at the back of my neck told me otherwise. Not a Silke SOS. Or even a Sebastian moment. More like a dawning…a realization that things could spin out of my control.

I wouldn’t have believed vampires existed before running into them. So who was to say banshees couldn’t be real. Or magic.

I was so distracted by my thoughts that the vehicle behind me was practically in my trunk before I realized it had gotten too close. I tapped my brakes to get the driver’s attention, to warn him to back off.

Instead, the other car bumped me from behind. I might have thought it was my fault for slowing if I hadn’t been rammed a second time. Harder.

Ticked, I didn’t want to get into it with some idiot, so I sped up fast enough to leave the other vehicle in my dust. Only I didn’t. When it caught up to me, followed me into the next lane, turned when I turned, I had the distinct feeling that the meeting of vehicles had been no accident. I was being…well, not followed, but pursued.

Luckily, I knew the neighborhood. I looked for a familiar street and made a sharp left turn, then checked the rearview mirror. Yep, lights followed. The car behind the lights seemed to be an old model sedan, long and dark. I picked up my radio and contacted dispatch.

“This is Detective Shelley Caldwell, Area 4 Homicide. I’m being pursued by unknown suspects. I need backup.”

I gave my location, then shot into what I knew to be a dead-end street, slowing to make the U-turn curve at the end, waiting until the other vehicle was into the turn, before spinning the Camaro ninety degrees to block the exit back into the street.

I reached for the gun at the small of my back when the sedan’s door opened and the driver started to get out. There was just enough street light to recognize Snake Eyes’ comrade Tattoo Boy. I couldn’t see past him to ID anyone else, but there was at least one other person in the vehicle. One of the other thieves?

How in the hell had they known where to find me? Had someone alerted them? Sebastian was the first person who came to mind, though could they have reached me so fast if he’d called after I left?

But DeGroot and Tanya had left before me…

A siren blared, cutting through the night. Down the street the way we’d come, the dark passage strobed blue. Tattoo Boy got one look at my arriving backup and changed his mind about approaching me. He slid into his seat and slammed the door. With a screech of brakes and a couple of loud thunks as his muffler hit cement curb, the sedan took off over the barrier dead-ending the street—but not before I got a look at his license plate.

“About time you got here,” Norelli said when I dragged myself into the office some twenty minutes later. “I was about to send a search party after you.”

“I had company. Some of Snake Eyes’ friends.” Good thing I’d recognized the driver.

“What did they want?”

“As far as I could tell…me.”

“You mean in a lascivious sense?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Norelli. They were trying to scare me off. Maybe worse. And I’m impressed that you used
lascivious
correctly. Got yourself one of those word-of-the-day calendars, did you?”

Norelli scowled. “I’ll let that one go since the bastards probably made you wet your pants and you gotta take your frustration out on someone.”

I
was
frustrated. I hadn’t been willing to take the low-slung Camaro over the divider and maybe end up with some major body damage. My backup hadn’t been pleased that they’d come on a wild goose chase, either.

My head felt too small for my skull.

“So you’re gonna get on those mug shots?” Norelli asked.

“As soon as I get my report done.”

On the way to my desk, I asked one of the uniforms to run the plates on the sedan and then to see if she could track down Casey Brogan. I filled out a report about the attack at the river, then for good measure, did one on the car chase, both times identifying the offenders as having been the escapees from the paddy wagon.

Once at my computer, I called up the electronic mug shots. I used the database search and filled in sex, age range, race, hair and unusual markings. I went through the photos looking for Snake Eyes until I was bleary eyed. No luck. I did the same with Tattoo Boy. Strike two. And going through the newest flyers compiling mug shots of gang members only managed to blur my vision further.

Worse, I was getting that crawly feeling at the back of my neck again. I tried rubbing it away and realized a hunk of hair had escaped the clip I’d used to hold it in place. I must have lost the clip during the night’s adventures. Great.

“Any results?”

I hadn’t heard Norelli coming. Startled, I glanced up at him. “Nothing here. I need to check the plates.”

“Don’t bother. The car was reported stolen last night.”

I groaned and tried to rub my eyes wide open.

“It’s obvious you’re working on half a cylinder. Go get some sleep.”

“I just need some coffee.”

“So you can be a more awake zombie? Don’t argue with me, Caldwell. Take some time. That’s not a request.”

An order I might have resented following if I weren’t so exhausted. “All right. I’ll take an hour.”

“Take two or three. You’re no good to me on this case if your brain isn’t functioning.”

Nodding, I half stumbled toward the back room and threw myself on a cot. The moment I made contact with the pillow, I let go…

I walk along the riverbank, half expecting to see evidence of another murder. The night is dark, the moon full, the wind strong and blowing in gusts that push me closer to the water’s edge.

The river’s current distorts the moon’s reflection, but from its sparkling surface, I see an object rise.

Blinking, I realize it’s a head. Waterlogged black hair covers the face and trails along bare broad shoulders belonging to a man. His muscled chest rises out of the water. He’s naked to the waist, where his belt is undone and his zipper is partially open.

I can’t stop myself from staring, wondering what might be revealed if it opened all the way.

Then he shakes his head so his hair falls away from his face and I recognize him.

“Sebastian.”

“I’m honored you summoned me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Of course you did or I wouldn’t be here,” he says, moving toward me.

My stomach knots and I feel choked up inside but I stand my ground. I won’t let him intimidate me.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“The question is what do you want of me?”

My pulse rushes and I try to will him away, but my will is obviously not fully engaged, for he draws closer instead. My heart beats a little faster. I fight any response to him, but my body ignores me. Though I want to scream at him to leave me be, a squirrelly sensation twirls my stomach and makes me catch my breath.

“You know you want me,” he says, reaching out as if to touch me.

Though I duck back, I feel his knuckles brush my jawline…collarbone…the crevice between my breasts. My nipples harden, and the flesh between my thighs heats and dampens. Guilt sluices through me. I hate that I respond to him at all.

“I want Jake…”

“I know you do,” said a familiar female voice laced with irritation. “But I’m assuming he’s not here.”

I blinked myself awake. A dream. I’d been having a dream. A sexual one, starring Sebastian Cole. A rabid monogamist, I was horrified.

Flushing, I looked up and groaned. Mom, the last person in the world I wanted around after being aroused in my sleep. Well, it could have been worse. Norelli could have walked in on me.

Forcing the vestiges of the dream from my mind and body, I tried to act as if nothing were wrong. I pushed myself upright on the cot and took a good look at my mother. As usual, she was dressed in a skirted uniform and pumps—her choice, not a requirement of her job. Her thick chestnut hair so like mine was pulled back in a twist and ruthlessly pinned in place. Other than a swipe of subtle gloss across her lips, her still beautiful face was free of artifice. Her features pulled into a frown.

“How long have I been out?” I asked.

“You tell me. It’s seven-ten.”

“Seven…”

Not having meant to sleep for four hours, I jumped up from the cot and almost tripped over my own feet.

“Whoa, there, Detective. Take it easy.”

So it was Detective today, meaning Mom was here to speak to me in her official capacity. Not that we had many in-person mother-daughter chats. We normally had a face-to-face only at our once-a-month family brunch.

“So you’re here to see me about…?”

“Judge Rafferty called me at dawn.”

“Then you know about his sister. Why did he call you? She wasn’t killed in your district.”

“Bobby was an assistant state’s attorney when I was a lieutenant. We worked together on several cases. I consider him a good friend. He wants to make sure the proper attention is being paid to his sister’s murder.”

“The victim’s brother doesn’t have to be a friend of yours for me to pay attention to a case,” I informed her. “Besides, this isn’t actually my case, but I’m sure you know that. Maybe you want to put the fear of God in the first chair,” I said, referring to the state attorney in charge of the case.

“Norelli is on it.”

“And you think I’m not? Why?”

Mom glanced at the cot.

“I just worked seventy-two straight on the White case and then jumped right into this one.” I couldn’t help sounding defensive. “Norelli forced me to take a breather, by the way.”

“I don’t like your tone, Detective.”

We were even, then, because I didn’t like hers. District Commander Rena Caldwell could be one big pain, especially to me. I thought we’d found some common ground on the last case we’d worked together, but apparently not. She expected more from me than she did from anyone.

So what else was new?

I put the same steel in my spine that Mom was wearing in hers. “You can reassure Judge Rafferty, Commander. Everyone on the case will do whatever it takes to catch his sister’s murderer.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

We glared at each other for a moment before Mom suddenly relaxed and asked, “Did Silke talk to you?”

Uh-oh. I knew what was coming, but I tried to play unenlightened.

“About?”

“The barbeque I’m planning. We need to set a date. And I want you to bring Jake.”

“Jake and I aren’t sure where this relationship is headed, Mom.” I assumed it was safe enough to address her as Mom since she’d been the one to shift the conversation from professional to personal.

“Obviously it’s headed somewhere and I would like to get to know the man you’re seeing.”

“We had a fight tonight.” Maybe the reason I’d dreamed of another man.

“You broke it off?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, all couples fight. Make up with him and—”

“Yeah, well I’m hoping.”

I really was. I didn’t want to lose Jake. I just wanted to slow things between us a bit. I’d never cared this much about a man before and sometimes it scared me spitless.

“So then you’ll bring him.”

“Actually, I don’t have much time for personal business, not when a commanding officer is sitting on me to make sure I don’t screw up a case.”

“Shelley, that’s not what I think at all.”

“It’s what you made it sound like. I don’t know when I’ll have a day off with this case being so important and all. I’ll let you know if and when I can fit in a personal life,” I said, echoing Jake. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”