“Listen,” she said. “Every minute that passes makes me more scared for Liza and Amber. I really want Pipes to show here. She could know something useful.”
“I hope she does,” Gray said. Muscles in his jaw tensed. “I’m thinking Bernie, the manager, contacted the police to tell them she’s alive and kicking. Maybe they already came and picked her up. They’ll have questions for her.”
“If she knows something it could make all the difference,” she said. “For both of us.”
He gave her a speculative look.
“The front doors of this place are wide-open,” Marley said. “But the lights aren’t really on, are they? Or is it always gloomy like this?”
Gray raised a brow. “You don’t like a lot of light, remember?”
“In my own space,” she told him. She caught hold of his arm. “Are you taking any of this seriously? I thought all you wanted was to find Liza and Amber, but—”
“You can’t know how badly I want that,” he said, cutting her off. “But it isn’t all I want.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. A flinch? Or a wince? Then he smiled faintly and she wasn’t sure, but he had a lot on his mind and he wasn’t in a hurry to share it with her.
“I get it,” she said, although she didn’t really. “This is supposed to be a one-way street. I put myself on the line and tell you whatever I can. You give me nothing in return. Forget it. I’ve got problems of my own to solve.”
“I don’t want you to put yourself on the line.” The smile was gone as if it had never touched his lips. “We’re both on edge. If Pipes isn’t here, she’s probably with the police. We’ll give her a few more minutes, then move on. Either we’ll take another shot at comparing what I know and what you think you do, or we won’t. I’m game but it’s up to you.”
“What you know and what I
He put a hand over hers on his arm. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Marley caught a breath. His eyes really were the color of whiskey and right now all they were seeing was her. Gray’s lips parted. He pulled air in slowly through his nose and kept on looking at her.
“I had a dream early this morning so I traveled back.” The words tumbled out. “It was about something that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I got a message in a dream. I didn’t want to travel to that place where I saw Liza and Amber again. I had to. That’s what the message was about.”
“Do you always believe dreams?”
“No.” She couldn’t help being defensive. “But this was different.”
“So you did whatever you say you do and went—wherever.” His fingers curled around hers, crushing them together. He pressed them against his arm.
“I went,” she agreed.
A current flowed between them, from hand to hand, and from his arm to her hand. Not a tremor. An exchange of energy.
“What did you see?” he asked very quietly.
“A woman lying on her face.” Without knowing why, she wanted him to believe her. “She was on top of a lot of silk pillows.”
“Was it in that other place again? With the cold storage room.”
He startled her. “Cold storage room? I don’t know for sure if that’s what I saw the other times. There was a room with cold fog.”
His features were hard, completely stark, except for his eyes. Gray’s eyes were vividly alive and filled with questions.
“Couldn’t that have been a cold storage room?” he asked. “A place for keeping things…cold?”
She shivered involuntarily. “I didn’t see it this time.”
“You mean you went to a different place and saw a woman? Was it Amber or Liza?”
“It seemed…I think I went to the same place and it looked different. Or maybe the light was different. I don’t know who she was—she was sleeping.”
Gray’s grip tightened. “You’re sure she was sleeping?”
Marley wasn’t sure, couldn’t be. “I hope she was.”
He looked away. “Did your arms get hurt while you were…traveling?”
For an instant she was back there, her skin connecting to that foul, spined thing.
“What is it?” Gray said.
“Stop it,” she said and startled herself by giving him a push. He stood fast, but she staggered. “I don’t like it here. And I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“You’re not going to have a choice,” he said, his voice even and firm. “We’re going to be together. I feel it.”
Flight was her first impulse. Her second was to put a little distance between them and hold her ground. “You sound strange,” she told him. “Do you know that?”
“Nothing strange about me,” he said, the easy smile tipping up his mouth again. “Although I could be a bit punchy.”
Intuition made her almost certain Gray was either a psychic, or becoming one. And if he was turning into a psychic she thought it was happening because he was around her. Similar cases were documented, but she hadn’t encountered one before.
Another overhead light came on, this one behind a small dais where empty mike stands, an upright piano and two high stools kept company.
A door opened in a parrot-padded wall and a woman came through with a tall man behind her.
“Is this them?” Marley whispered.
When Gray didn’t answer, she glanced at him and realized he hadn’t moved, or turned toward the light. He still stared at her as if he would find the answer to anything that bugged him if he only studied her long enough.
“Gray Fisher!” the tall, thin man hollered. The thick walls muffled his voice. “Here we are.”
“No kidding,” Marley murmured.
“Careful what you say.” Gray had snapped to life and he gave her a warning nod. “Pipes is a jumpy one.”
“Hey, Bernie,” Gray said. “Is that you, Pipes?”
The woman said something but Marley didn’t hear what.
“We were just attendin’ to some business in the office,” Bernie said. “I want this songbird of ours back at work. When she isn’t here, we don’t do so well.”
Blonde and nicely made, Pipes hung her head and the shiny, straight hair fell forward to conceal her face.
Bernie chuckled. “She’s still a shy one,” he said. His accent was Cajun, softly rounded on the edges and impossible not to like. “Best voice in N’awlins, this one.” He said this to Marley.
“I hope I get to hear you sing,” Marley said to Pipes.
“Uh-huh.” Shaking her hair back, Pipes set her head on one side and looked out from long bangs. “The show’s not till nine.”
A pretty, dark-eyed woman, she had an emptiness about her. Marley wondered if she could be high on something—which wouldn’t be so unusual.
“Good to see you,” Gray said. “You haven’t forgotten we’ve got a date for an interview, have you?”
Pipes shook her head.
“You were reported missing,” he persisted. “How did that happen?”
She drew up her shoulders. “They don’t listen. The band. I said I was goin’ to be gone awhile. Went to visit the folks a few days.”
“Are you in the band?” Marley asked Bernie politely.
“Nah,” he said. “I’m the manager around here.”
“Has someone let the police know you’re okay?” Gray asked.
Pipes’s eyes got bigger. “I don’t know.”
In other words, she hadn’t done it herself.
