He swore out loud, stared at his computer screen and began to type, back taut and painfully tense. He rubbed his nape. Impressions, notes, things that had been said that somehow seemed important, jarring.
Lazarus. The kid had been crazy; he’d listened to voices.
Smoke and mirrors.
Stuart Fresia had been working on a story.
Ashley Montague had great—
He erased the last. Called himself every name in the book. Turned off the computer. Then went back outside to stand on the Gwendolyn’s deck.
Damn, she was close. Right across the grass.
Good. Not good. She shouldn’t be a cop. She didn’t have the patience. She didn’t have…
Not true. She would probably make a great cop. Like Nancy. But Nancy had made a mistake and now she was dead. Other cops had made mistakes. They, too, were dead.
Smoke and mirrors…
Lazarus.
What if the kid hadn’t been crazy? Maybe he hadn’t been listening to voices. One of the sect members might have been called Lazarus.
He wished he had Bordon in front of him again. Wished it were legal to put the man on the rack, force him to tell what he knew.
It wasn’t. But it was galling, because he was certain there was an answer right in front of him that he wasn’t seeing. Smoke and mirrors. Bordon had sworn he’d had nothing to do with Nancy. Jake had never taken her with him when he’d questioned the People for Principle members. He’d taken two trips out there—alone. The first time, she’d gone to question the tourist who had stumbled on the second body. The second time, she’d been busy tracing Bordon’s financial sheets.
Then…she’d been gone.
Strange. Bordon hadn’t met her, but he seemed to know all about her. All about her problems with Brian.
Smoke and mirrors. Lazarus.
Sleep on it, he told himself wearily. Maybe something would make sense by morning.
He locked up the Gwendolyn and went to bed. Sleep eluded him for a long time.
He dreamed again that night.
He was in a forest, a forest filled with mirrors. An old man in long white robes was walking through the trees. Lazarus. Awakened from the dead.
The mirrors dissolved into crystal. Like powder, they drifted onto the breeze. The forest faded away and he was staring at the shore next to the marina. A woman was walking toward him. Slim, lithe, sensual, moving slowly, provocatively. Soft flesh shimmering in the moonlight. Hair seemingly afire.
She was naked.
She walked slowly down the dock.
A moment later, she was on the boat. On him. Another moment later…
He woke abruptly, sweating, swearing.
The dream had been so damned vivid, he was drenched. He shook himself fully awake. Hell, no more coming straight home. He was obsessed. He had to get out. Tonight he would take himself to a club on the beach.
He sat still, listening. Had the dream awakened him? Or a sound? He slid out of bed silently. Padded through the houseboat, listening. He focused on sensual recall. A sound…not on the boat. Just somewhere…near.
Well, hell, he didn’t live out here alone. Someone else had been coming home, boarding their own boat. Or someone had left Nick’s. Or Nick had thrown out his trash.
He went to his bedside drawer and pulled out his gun. He walked through the living area and opened the door to the deck.
He walked out. The night was silent, other than the lapping of the water against the boats, the soft thumping when the tide brought the vessels against the bumpers.
He walked onto the dock and looked down the length of it. All seemed quiet.
He looked across the grass.
Ashley Montague was out there, just outside her door. She was wearing a long T-shirt with a cartoon character and something written on it.
It was the most erotic outfit he’d ever seen.
He stood for a moment, staring at her, knowing she was staring at him.
He leapt over the rail and strode over to her. She looked at the gun in his hand, then at him, but she didn’t move.
“Are you going to arrest me?” she asked him.
“No. What are you doing out?”
“I heard something. What are you doing out?”
“I heard something.”
“Think we heard each other?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
The night breeze moved by, soft, cool. They continued to stare at one another. He could hear her breathing, see the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the gently hugging cotton.
“You have your gun.”
“The safety is on.”
“Good.” She moistened her lips, her eyes, very emerald, on his. “So…?”
He shrugged. He felt like a tower of lava himself. Mount Etna on a bad day. He was nowhere near touching her, but it felt as if little sparks were shooting from her, filling the air between them like diamond dust.
“Fuck,” he muttered, shaking his head. What the hell was he doing?
Then she said, “Your place or mine?”
A whisper. Not as ballsy as she had intended, he was certain. Then she shook her head, and he thought she was going to renege, withdraw.
She didn’t.
“Your place,” she said, and grimaced. “This is still my uncle’s house.”
He didn’t reply, just took her arm with his free hand, starting back across the grass.
CHAPTER 11