“Do you remember if she left here with anyone?” Aidan asked.
“You might want to ask the guys about that, too,” the waitress said, and laughed. “Especially Vinnie. He’s always such a flirt. He was taking her requests all night, I remember.”
“Thanks,” Aidan said.
A minute later, his brother sat down across from him. He indicated the departing waitress and asked, “She remember seeing Jenny?”
Aidan looked at his watch. Time to go. “Yeah. Hey, I’ll be back in here about ten. Keep an eye on your buddy until then, huh? And I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take note of some of the other clientele, as well.”
“You got it,” Jeremy told him, and shrugged. “At least the music is good.”
Aidan grinned. The work they had chosen was often deadly dull, watching someone or, worse, some place for hours on end. Good music was definitely a plus.
The Stakes’s official hours at the bar seemed to be from six to one o’clock in the morning, Aidan noticed on the billboard out front. He had plenty of time.
He headed back to his hotel for his car.
Kendall had never intended to treat her dinner with Aidan Flynn like a date. She had planned to do a little light housekeeping, catch some news or just chill out while she waited for him to come by for her.
But she had been keyed up and nervous all day, though at least there’d been no repeat of the incident with Ann. Her psychology courses weren’t helping a bit. Maybe she needed to see a shrink. Tarot cards did not come to life. She tried to tell herself that she was simply playing her role too well. Act like Marie Laveau long enough and it was natural that you would begin to imagine things.
It had been easy to explain away her intuition about Ady Murphy. The woman was old, and she herself was very wary of cancer now, after Amelia’s death.
But today…
She poured herself a glass of wine and walked out to her courtyard. To her amazement and distress, she felt uneasy outside, almost exposed. She walked back into the apartment and locked the French doors.
She turned on the evening news. The screen blurred, and her thoughts took control again.
When had the tarot cards seemed…strange before?
The first time, it had been with a stranger. A young woman from Louisiana, but not New Orleans. She was getting ready to go on vacation….
The second time, it had been with her friend Sheila Anderson, who was also planning a vacation. She’d freely admitted to Sheila that she was really a fraud, that reading cards was just learning which interpretations went with which card, what all the possibilities were. It was kind of like being a therapist or a bartender—listening to what people said—or didn’t say. Skeptics were easy to spot, and it didn’t pay to try to convince them that anything was possible. It was better to deal with them subtly and let them draw their own conclusions. It was amazing to see the biggest doubters begin to read what they wanted to see into the cards.
She felt her hands trembling and forced herself to keep a grip on her wineglass.
Sheila…
She found that she was suddenly afraid for Sheila.
She told herself that was ridiculous. Sheila was off having the time of her life, and she would be back soon. Safe and sound.
Kendall wished her friend were home already, though. She wished that she could just pick up the phone and call her.
She wished that she didn’t feel such a dull sense of fear in her heart. A sense of…
Fatality?
Now that was truly absurd.
She looked at her wineglass and realized she had drained it. She was tempted to refill it, but she didn’t want to start out an evening with Aidan Flynn half soused. But she needed to do something to distract herself, so she quickly hopped into the shower, then went through her wardrobe, even her jewelry. The clock seemed to crawl.
To her amazement, she couldn’t wait for him to come to her door, even though he was the biggest skeptic in history and able to rouse her temper without even trying.
Something brushed against her ankle, and she almost shrieked out loud. She looked down, and managed to laugh, then stooped to pick up Jezebel. The massive Persian snuggled against her. “Sorry, baby. I forgot to feed you,” she said.
More busy work. She fed the cat. And then she looked at the clock again, hoping Aidan would be on time.