Out of Body

“How useful you are,” she told him.

“Anytime, sis.”

“Why are you laughing at me?” Marley asked Gray.

He held up his palms. “I’m not. No, no, never. It was the way you turned me from questioner to questionee. You do that all the time. You have a thing about being in charge, don’t you?”

Marley stood still to consider that. “Yes. Now I think about it, I do like being in charge.” She glanced at Sykes. “That could be because I’ve had to deal with a lot of domineering people in my life. I don’t put up with that stuff anymore.”

That got her a wide, eerily white-in-the-night grin.

“Good,” Gray said. “I’m sick of wishy-washy women.”

She wondered which wishy-washy women he was talking about.

“At the club you told me you were really cold?” Marley asked, suddenly remembering.

“I was,” Gray said. “I’m not anymore.”

He looked sideways at her and her tummy tightened. She swallowed. The Millets had a few problems when it came to sex. Potential problems. Dating was fine, but the Mentor’s family honor—or rules—insisted any sexual partner had to know the dangers ahead of time.

The Mentor was a mysterious person—or thing—they had all been taught to respect as the family oracle. Marley had never seen the Mentor and mostly didn’t know what she thought about him—or it—but she wasn’t about to be the first to mention doubts about the Revered One.

Marley shook back her hair. Wow, Gray Fisher had her racing in dangerous directions. She didn’t even know him and didn’t intend to…but she might.

That cold green drink she had left at Scully’s would taste really good about now. A past experience with telling a man what it meant to get really close to a Millet’s powers, and the curse they supposedly carried, hadn’t encouraged her to try it again.

“You okay?” Gray asked.

She wasn’t. This man had a force field all of his own. He was incredibly sexy.

“Now what?” Sykes said. “Holy—Marley, you’re lusting after this guy.”

“Shut up,” she told him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can feel you reacting to him.” He studied Gray. “He’s not my type, but I guess if I was a lonely little woman I could get turned on.”

“Sykes! Stop it!”

He sniggered and she noticed Gray was giving her an odd look. “Can I see you again?” he asked abruptly. “Maybe tomorrow evening when we’ve both got our acts together.”

“No,” she said.

“Okay.”

He walked on and she caught up this time.

“You don’t know anything about me, but what I’ve told you,” he said. “I’m going to give you my card and I’d appreciate it if you’d do some legwork to find out what my reputation is. I’m pretty boring so it won’t take long.”

She doubted if he was boring at all—ever.

“He’s not,” Sykes said. “He’s complicated and I think he could be dangerous. But I don’t think he’s a threat to you.”

“You’re pushing it,” Marley said. “And you’re breaking the rules. I didn’t invite you to read me.”

“Uncle Pascal called me in. We wanted you found, physically and mentally. He can’t do that, but I can.”

She crossed her arms. “Aha. You guided Uncle Pascal to me. That explains everything. I couldn’t figure out how he managed to find me.”

“He was very worried about you.”

“So you helped him invade my mind? You’re not supposed to do that.”

“It’s Gray I’m reading now,” Sykes told her. “Be careful here. We need to know what his game is.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have a game. Is your guard strong enough?”

“To keep Gray out? What do you think? Watch your own.”

“Are you sure you won’t see me tomorrow?” Gray asked. He ducked his face closer to hers and light from a window glinted in his eyes. “I’m okay, really I am. We need each other.”

“Why?”

“You and I are mixed up in the same thing and it’s nothing good. We may need each other,” he said.

Marley wanted to trust him.

She did need someone’s help, badly, but she couldn’t fool herself that she was not strongly attracted to Gray for other reasons, as well.

“I think I should go to Detective Archer and tell him what Danny said,” she told him, feeling shaky. “The police ought to know Danny and Amber are involved—and that they probably live together. The police said they were having difficulty finding a lot of information on Amber or Liza, didn’t they? Danny said he hasn’t told them anything.”

Gray cleared his throat. “He did say that, but I’ve got to think Archer knows more than he’s going to share with anyone he doesn’t think needs to know. Would you do me a favor? You could do it because I believed what you said and Nat Archer didn’t. Don’t go to Archer about anything for a bit. Come to me. Tell me if you remember something else.”

Looking straight at Sykes, she thought about that.

“Think he’s crooked and trying to get any information you may have before you give it to the police?” Sykes asked.

“You’re reading my mind,” she told him neutrally.

“Nah, just a lucky guess.”

“I know roughly where Danny lives,” Gray said. “What can he say if I just stop by to say hello?”

“Get lost, I should think,” she said. “He spelled out that he doesn’t want interference. He wants Amber back, period.”

Gray inclined his head. He watched her too intently for comfort, Marley decided. Her breath shortened. “The detective won’t like it if you get between him and his investigation,” she said.

“Maybe he won’t. But he laughed at you, remember. Maybe that’s why you could be on my side.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

They reached Royal Street and Marley tried to pick up the pace, but Gray continued to measure his strides. After a few seconds he said, “I don’t want to get there too quickly.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “You just don’t mince words. Because I want to keep you with me as long as possible,” he said.

She looked at him sharply.

He looked back and she could have sworn he was as surprised by what he’d said as she was.

“Because we haven’t decided anything,” he added, but she wasn’t sure she believed the excuse.

“There isn’t anything to decide,” she said. “I don’t make rash decisions.” Of course not, only most of the time.

“This is it,” he said.

They were in front of J. Clive Millet, Antiques. Beside the left-hand shop window a wrought-iron gate, with a griffon at its center, led to the Court of Angels at the back of the shop. Marley would rather Gray didn’t know exactly how to reach the family’s homes.

She had the keys to the shop and decided to use them. If she had to, raising the alarm wouldn’t be hard once she opened the front door. Not that any of that mattered, since Sykes was with her.