After walking over to the bed, he lifted the pillow and felt the fabric between his fingers. Her scent seemed to drift up to him. A knot formed in his stomach, and a little constriction of desire tugged at him with the sensory memories that invaded his mind and body. He tucked the lace back beneath the pillow, wondering again if they weren’t both insane, then realizing that although Ashley had gone pale with everyone staring at her that morning, she hadn’t backed down, hadn’t made apologies or excuses. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if she would roam his way so quickly that evening.
The tightness remained. He couldn’t believe it. He wanted her here. Well, hell, of course. She moved like magic. There were moments with Ashley when the entire world could collide with the sun, and he wouldn’t even know he was dying. She was naturally sensual, instinctive, a knockout in bed. But that wasn’t it. Or wasn’t all of it, anyway. She had challenged him and, somehow, shaken him, everything about him. He didn’t just want to sleep with her; he liked waking up beside her. In the past, he had felt crowded when a woman stayed too long, but he felt an emptiness when Ashley wasn’t there. She could be all business, cool, efficient. She could be aloof, angry and speak her mind. But she was always sensual and compelling, whether she meant to be or not. And persistent.
He hesitated, wondering if it wasn’t the growing feeling of…need inside him that had made him so quick to respond to her request for help. Of course, it was, damn it. She’d entered his life like a whirlwind. And like a whirlwind, she had changed it. She had changed him, he thought.
Thinking of Ashley, Jake gave a quick call to Carnegie, who assured him that he didn’t mind at all if the family wanted their son guarded.
“Anything new on the case?” Jake asked him.
“Zilch. The only people who believe there’s a mystery behind it are the parents, the friend who involved you in the whole thing, and that nutcase who did some stories for the tabloid and got the cops digging in all the wrong places. But we’re still working it.”
“Thanks. Listen, I’m dealing with a mountain of shit today, but I may talk with the folks at that rag myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest. Like I said, I’ve been around too many years to let pride get in the way of truth. I take anything I can get.”
When Jake hung up, he was irritated with himself. The day was going fast. He didn’t need to be here; he had to get moving, had to check out the properties. He shook his head, thinking that he couldn’t afford to spend any more time on a case that wasn’t even his.
He sat at his desk, rubbing his temples for a moment, swore, then got up and dug in his medicine chest for something to cure a headache. He sat at his desk again, turned on his computer and began to bring up his records.
He was certain that whoever had been on the boat hadn’t been out to rob him. They had been searching for information.
Therefore, he had information worth looking for.
What the hell was it?
Words, numbers, names, swam before his eyes. Smoke and mirrors. Corpses, descriptions of the damage done to the bodies. The most glaring common factor to be found among the murdered women, the slashing of the ears.
A religious cult.
The ears slashed—like Custer’s had been at Little Bighorn, because he hadn’t heard the words of the Sioux, hadn’t listened. Obvious.
What if it wasn’t so obvious?
What if the ears had been slashed because of what the victims had heard, rather than what they hadn’t heeded? He hesitated, thought of the list of properties that Cassie Sewell had shown or represented, and made a phone call. His mind worked as he waited for someone to pick up.
Smoke and mirrors.
Back to the obvious. The dead women had been associated with the cult. Had they died because they hadn’t pleased their cult leader, had they revolted against his leadership, not listened to his commandments?
What if the cult itself had been nothing but smoke?
“Sharon, you here?” Nick Montague called. The bar was quiet; Katie was handling the few customers. It still bothered him that he hadn’t known Ashley had taken the new position until he had seen the drawing. He felt as if she was slipping away.
Sharon’s car was out in the lot. She wasn’t in the bar, so she had to be in the house. Sharon had been acting very strange lately, now that he thought about it. She came and went frequently because of her work, but in the past, he always knew where she was. She’d made a point of saying she was showing such-and-such a place, maybe taking clients to lunch or going to a closing. But lately…she’d been very affectionate one minute, quiet and moody the next.
He was crazy to put as much time into working the place himself as he did. In the last several months the business had been doing exceptionally well. Maybe it was time he stopped focussing so much on the restaurant and focussed more on the important people in his life.