“You do keep up.”
“The cop who took out Hobart—the first on scene? She became my partner when I made detective. She’s part of the reason I became a cop.”
“Isn’t the world a fascinating place, Reed? How it intersects, crosses, separates, pulls back? That boy destroyed that sweet girl, and she was a sweet girl. He destroyed all her potential. Simone brought her back, triumphantly, with her talent and the love she had for our Tish. This police officer responds because fate put her right there, and stops that sick boy from taking even more lives than he had, and helped Simone through the start of the awful aftermath.”
She stepped over, gave him a Bloody Mary. “That same police officer connects with you, and you become a police officer. I’m a little bit psychic,” she said, “and I sense you’re a very good police officer. Then that sick boy’s sick sister kills, and tries to kill you. And here you are, in my house that you admired as a boy. I believe you were meant to be.”
She touched her glass to his. “I’m a decent enough cook, but my pancakes are exceptional. So prepare to be astonished.”
“I have been since you sat down on the rocks with me.”
“I definitely like you. That’s now an absolute, irreversible fact. Sit down while I mix up the batter, and tell me all about your sex life.”
“It’s flat at the moment.”
“That’ll change. Exercise, good diet, yoga, meditation, a reasonable imbibing of adult beverages. Some time on the island, and absolutely time with me. You’ll get your mojo back.”
“Today’s a hell of a start.”
She smiled. “You rented Whistler’s Bungalow.”
The Bloody Mary had the kick of an angry mule—just the way he liked it. “You don’t miss much.”
“Or anything at all. It’s not a bad location, but this is better. After breakfast you need to go back, pack up. You can stay here.”
“I…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t Mrs. Robinson you. It’s tempting, but you need to ease back into that area, not start off with the crescendo.
“There’s a guest suite over my studio,” she continued. “I only let particular people stay there. You’ll have the view, beach access, and my amazing company. Do you cook?”
He couldn’t stop staring at her. She had a tattoo on her wrist like a bracelet, a purple crystal shaped like a spear around her neck.
“Not really … at all.”
“Oh well, you have other qualities. You’d be doing me a favor, too.”
“How’s that?”
“Simone lives here, works here most of the time. Since she has, I’ve gotten used to having someone else stir the air around here. Someone simpatico and interesting. You fit. Simone just left the other day for Boston, then New York. Do a lonely woman a favor. I promise not to seduce you.”
“I might want you to.”
“That’s sweet.” She sent him a blazing smile as she mixed batter. “But believe me, Delicious, you couldn’t handle it.”
*
She was a force of nature, Reed decided. How else did a woman he’d just met feed him cranberry pancakes (awesome) and convince him to move into her guest room?
A force of nature, obviously, as he’d never believed in love at first sight. And now he was a victim of it.
He unpacked. It didn’t take long, as he hadn’t brought a hell of a lot with him. Still half-dazzled, he looked around the room she’d offered him as cheerfully as someone else might have offered him directions to the local bar.
Like the rest of the house, like all of her, it burst with color and style. No safe neutrals for CiCi Lennon, he thought. She went deep, rich purple on the walls, then covered them with art. Not the beachy scenes you might expect, he noted, but stylized nudes or mostly nude, male and female.
He was especially struck by one of a woman who seemed to be waking, reaching up toward the sky with one hand, a sly, knowing look on her face, and the bloom of just unfurling wings on her back.
The bed, a massive four-poster, gleamed bold bronze with tendrils of vines carved into the posts. The spread had a garden of purple flowers sweeping over bright white. Massed with pillows because, in his experience, women had a strange love affair with pillows. The bases of the lamps formed the sort of trees he’d expect to see in some magic woods.
It offered a sitting area with a small sofa covered in a green you might get if you plugged the color into an electric socket, a table supported by a curled dragon—maybe the mate to the one that stood on a stone pedestal and looked ready to breathe fire—and a dresser with curved feet and fairy faces painted on the drawers.
A magic room, he thought as he took a closer look at the dragon, admiring the detail of the scales, the expression of barely banked power in the eyes.
But for all its wonders, the room didn’t hold a candle—whatever that meant—to the view. The bay and out to the ocean, the boats, the rocks, the sky, all as much a part of the room as the magical mix of art and color.
He hadn’t come to the island for adventure, but for the time apart, the time to think, the time to recharge. But in one morning, he’d found the conduit to all of that.
He cleaned up first—she hadn’t stinted on the bathroom, either, but he bypassed the body jets in the shower. His ribs still troubled him.
She’d told him to come down to her studio once he’d settled in, so he walked down on steps painted hot pepper red and around to the matching side door flanked by grinning gargoyles.
She called out, “Come on in,” to his knock. And he entered another wonderland.
It smelled of paint and turpentine and incense—with a hint of weed. Not surprising, since she held a paintbrush in one hand, a joint in the other. She wore a butcher’s apron splattered with paint, and that amazing hair—about the same color as the guest-room walls—was piled up with what looked like jeweled chopsticks.
Art supplies and tools were jumbled together on tall red shelves. A long worktable, as splattered as her apron, held more.
Canvases stood, leaned, hung everywhere.
He really didn’t know much about art, but he knew spectacular when it was slammed in his face.
“Whoa. It’s like … nothing else ever.”
“Just the way I like it. How’s the room?”
“It’s magic.”
She sent him a beam of approval. “That’s just exactly right.”
“Thanks doesn’t cut it. I feel like I—I was going to say walked into the pages of a really cool book, but … What it is? Like I walked into one of these paintings.”
“We’re going to have a really good time here.” She held out the joint, had him half smiling, shaking his head.
“CiCi, I’m a cop.”
“Reed, I’m an old hippie.”
“Not a damn thing old about you.” He wandered over, let his jaw drop. “This is…”
“The Stones, circa 1971. That’s just a print. Mick bought the original. It’s not easy saying no to Mick.”
“I bet. I’m now one degree from the freaking Stones.”
“You’re a fan?”
“Definitely. I know some of these album covers,” he added as he wandered. “And posters. I had this poster of Janis Joplin.”
Intrigued, she drew on her joint. “A little before your time, I’d have thought.”
“She’s timeless.”
“We’re made for each other,” CiCi decided, watching as he admired her work, and rubbed the heel of his hand at his right side.
“Is that where you were shot?” she asked him.
He dropped his hand. “One of them. Ribs are healing up, but they’re still a bitch.”
“Got drugs?”
“I’m giving them a pass for now.”
She wiggled the joint. “Organic.”
“Maybe so, but the couple times I tried it in college, after the high and the insane munchies came the ice-pick headache.”
“That’s a shame. Me, I loved drugs and did them all. I do mean all. You don’t know until you try, right?”
“I know if I jump off the cliff into the ocean I’m going to die.”
She smiled behind a thin haze of smoke. “What if there was a mermaid who pulled you out, nursed you back to health?”