“Sidney,” Gray said. “Do you have any ideas where we could look for Liza and Amber? Has Amber talked about somewhere she likes to go—to get away?”
“No.”
Sidney started to walk away. “You can talk to Pipes and me about the article at the same time,” she said, turning back toward Gray. “Danny’ll let you know our schedule at Scully’s.”
Bernie poured himself a brimming margarita and sat down. “Thought we were saved when Pipes walked in. Shows what I know.”
“Plenty more where she came from,” Danny said. Either he wanted bad feelings, or he really was drunk.
“Time to go,” Gray said to Marley. He checked his watch. “I’d see you back, but I’ve got to get on.”
“You’re going to see Nat Archer,” Marley told him quietly, not that anyone else was interested in what they might be saying. “I’m coming, too.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’m only going to back you up about Pipes being around again.”
“I don’t need backing up.”
Of course he didn’t, but she had decided to stick to him regardless. “Between us we won’t forget anything the detective will want to know,” she said.
She wanted to be with him, period.
Marley liked being with him—too much.
Leaving a dejected Bernie gazing into his margarita, Gray put a hand at the small of Marley’s back and guided her behind Danny and the two other women.
“Thanks for nothing, Pipes,” Bernie said behind them.
Pipes didn’t answer. Marley gave the man a sympathetic smile.
Outside the front doors, clammy heat hit them in the face.
“Whooee,” Gray said. “Too bad we don’t have time for a swim.”
She was getting used to his unexpected remarks. “It would be if I could swim,” she said. Her mouth remained open. The female Millets couldn’t swim. They didn’t know why, but they couldn’t. But one of their unwritten rules was that they never let anyone else know.
Gray didn’t say anything. Thank goodness he was preoccupied. She hoped he would forget Bernie’s inconvenient suggestion about a curse.
Danny hailed a cab, although Marley couldn’t imagine why when Scully’s was so close—unless he didn’t trust himself to walk. She opened her mouth to say as much to Gray.
“Probably because he’s feeling his liquor,” Gray said.
Marley squinted against the sun to look up at him. “Yes,” she said. He didn’t show any sign of knowing his ideas weren’t his own.
“Bye,” Sidney called when she was getting into the taxi. “Talk to you soon, Gray.”
Pipes waited to follow Sidney into the backseat and Danny lowered himself into the front with the driver.
Traffic jostled, horns honked, and pedestrians passed on the sidewalk. A guitarist sat on a box at the corner and played, his instrument case open in front of him for tips.
“It’s all so normal,” Marley said to Gray. “Look around. It’s like there’s nothing wrong with the world.”
He gave her a long look. “Strange, huh?”
She nodded.
Pipes bent to get into the cab. Her shiny blond hair did its pretty, slipping forward thing.
Two red, swollen welts marred the back of her white neck.
Chapter 16
“There they go,” Gray said. “Shucks. And they barely said goodbye. I’m wounded.”
“You could
The cab carrying Danny and his newly formed singing duo had cut a left at the end of the block.
Standing there in the sunshine, gold hoops glinting in her ears, Marley attracted all the light to her hair and skin—to her green eyes—or so it seemed to him.
“You’ll want to get to your friend’s office,” she said.
It took an instant for him to know what she meant. “Nat Archer?” Only moments ago she’d said she was going with him. What gave? He said, “Yeah. I need to keep Nat in the picture if there’s something I find out. Do you want to take a cab, too? Or shall we walk?”
He didn’t much care how they got where they needed to be as long as she was with him. Black was great on her and he’d like to tell her how much he appreciated the tight shirt, and the shorts that showed off her legs. Smoothing his hands up her thighs would feel so good. His fingers would slide all the way around to her tush. And her breasts would make sweet little handfuls—sexy-as-hell handfuls.
Shoot, he had lousy timing.
Marley dug in her pocket and pulled out a key. “Wow, I thought I’d forgotten this.”
She didn’t sound as if she thought that at all. He would bet she was uncomfortable with him again and searching for things to say.
If she had any idea how much research he had already done on the Millets, she’d be mad.
“The key to my flat,” she told him, waving it in the air. “Difficult to get in without that.”
“Why is it called Court of Angels?” Damn, he shouldn’t have asked that.
“How do you know about that?”
“You mentioned it,” he lied.
“Really? It’s filled with angels—all kinds of them.”
He looked at her narrowly. “All kinds?”
She nodded. “Stone angels. Young ones, old ones, pretty ones, plain ones, visible and invisible.” Her little smile amused him. She did like to try getting a rise out of him.
“Good,” he said. “You can’t have too many guardian angels.”
“I’ll take as many as I can get,” she said.
He nodded, fresh out of answers.
He’d done some research on her family on the Internet and discovered a lot of odd details. But the really odd thing was that once he hit a site—usually containing nothing more than a few cryptic innuendos—it went away and he couldn’t get back there. The one time he had tried to print something to get around what seemed like a self- destruct setup, he only got what looked like Sanskrit or something equally indecipherable.
“Well.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “I’d best be going. Good luck with everything.”
“I thought you wanted to come with me.”
She spread her hands and shrugged. “You don’t want me tagging along all the time.”
With an awkward, bouncy step, she backed away.
“Okay,” he said slowly. Her act wasn’t convincing. Marley didn’t want to be with him anymore, and she was in a hurry. That was obvious, but not why.
“Thanks for letting me come here with you,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him.
A few more feet separated them. She was hiding something, but he didn’t think it would help to press her.
“It’s nice to have company,” he said and felt lame. “Better than walking alone. Hey, I’m going right past your place anyway.”
She flushed, that lovely bright blush he was getting to like a lot. “You go on. I’m already out so I’m going to do a few things first. Better than breaking away from work again later.”
Marley, he decided, was perfect to look at. And she’d be perfect in bed.
He actually sucked in his gut. When was the last time he had thought about sleeping with a woman and felt as if someone had punched him? He couldn’t remember.
