“When you face up to your own vibes you won’t find them so funny.” Her teeth came together sharply.
“More mysteries?” he said, but he did get feelings. The only true surprise about this conversation was that Marley seemed to know what he did or didn’t feel.
She didn’t enlighten him.
“What’s worrying me is that you could do something that’s dangerous.”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“I think you’re getting to be my responsibility—I like it that way.” He didn’t see any way to step back and make this a leisurely game of “getting to know you.” In fact, he wasn’t even going to try pussyfooting around. “You’re not
“You already are,” she said. Her blush was furious. “Please give me Winnie,” she said quietly. “I promise I’ll call you. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”
Gray reached for her, but let his arm drop to his side again. “One woman is dead. You heard Nat. She died hard and I’m not standing by and risking your life. I won’t do it, Marley, I mean it.”
“How can you stop me?”
“I’ll go to your family and tell them what’s going on.”
She laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it. “We’re a tight family. We stick together.”
“Good. Tell me how you go about this out-of-body stuff.”
“What?” She gave him an amazed stare. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t explain something to you when I wouldn’t know how to explain it to anyone else.”
“You leave your body and go somewhere else.”
Marley looked right and left, grabbed his elbow and towed him into the shop. She closed the door resolutely behind them, but the bell jangled on.
“Hello,” someone called from deeper in the shop. “Can we help you?”
“It’s Marley, Uncle.”
“Good, good, I’ve been looking for you.” A man came into view. Husky in a toned, muscular manner, he was handsome with definite signs of the same genes as Marley. He shaved his head, but his brows were auburn and his eyes a glowing green. He wore a green jacket over an open-necked shirt and green plaid cravat.
“Who are you?” the man asked, frowning, his attention ricocheting between Gray and Marley.
“Gray Fisher,” Gray said, smiling, keeping a firm hold on Winnie and offering his hand. “Marley’s one of a kind. I don’t blame you for being suspicious of any man she brings home. Ouch!”
Marley had, very surreptitiously, stepped on his toe. Apparently he’d said something wrong.
His jaws tightened, but Gray kept on smiling. “You are, sir?”
“Pascal Millet.” He shook Gray’s hand. “Marley’s uncle and guardian.”
“How would you know? Marley, who is this guy? He’s trying to impress me and we both know what that means. You and I need to talk.”
“Gray is my friend, Uncle,” Marley said.
Gray nodded and tried not to look too smug.
Another man entered the shop from upstairs. This one also exuded health, but he didn’t have Pascal’s elegance. The newcomer wore sweatpants and a muscle shirt. Blond tips scattered his hair and complemented sharply defined, male-model features.
“Pascal,” he said. “I could hear you two floors up. You have to consider your blood pressure. Let me make you an energy drink.”
“Anthony,” Pascal said, indicating the man. “My trainer.”
“Good idea, Anthony,” Marley said. “Please look after Uncle Pascal’s nerves. Gray and I are going up to my workroom. He’s interested in the restorations I do.”
“Is he really?” Pascal said, his voice entirely too soft.
“Sit, sit, at once,” Anthony told him, pulling a chair over.
Marley and Gray left the two of them. They arrived at her workroom and she unlocked the door.
“Any reason why you keep that locked all the time?” Gray asked. It seemed odd to him.
She didn’t answer. He walked into the workroom behind her and she locked them in.
“I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m working,” Marley said abruptly. “What I do calls for concentration.”
He nodded. How did you argue with that?
“You’re going to wait a few minutes, then leave,” Marley said. “Thanks for bringing me back.”
He sat on the same stool he’d used before and Winnie crawled higher on his neck.
Watching her dog, Marley frowned. “I don’t understand what she’s up to.”
“She likes me. Some women do.”
“I like you,” Marley said. “I’ve got a bunch of questions about you, but I do like you.”
“More than like me, maybe?”
“Don’t push it.”
“D’you have any more of those chocolate-covered coffee beans?”
“You’re stalling,” Marley said, but she went to her big, cavernous cupboard and delved inside. Then she spun around. “We left without the fresh pralines from Aunt Sally’s. Will they eat them down there?”
She looked so stricken, he laughed. “If they do, I’ll get you some more.”
“Oh.” More crumple and shove followed and she emerged with the coffee beans and a bag of broken chocolate pieces. She gave him the beans. “Take those with you,” she said.
He put the box on the floor and started eating.
Marley sat down in her leather chair and leaned forward. “Did you notice anything about Pipes Dupuis when you saw her this morning?”
He frowned.
Marley pushed up the long sleeves of the black T-shirt she must have roasted in all day and rotated her arms to show the angry-looking welts on her wrists. “Pipes has some of these on the back of her neck. I told you that before you went into the house.”
“Damn, there was too much going on.” He stood up, furious with himself, but still clinging to Winnie. “I forgot. Why didn’t you explain to Nat?”
“He doesn’t believe in me. If he wasn’t desperate, he wouldn’t have asked me to help.” Her tight smile worried Gray. “People should know better than to doubt just because they’ve never seen something. If they can’t touch and smell, they pooh-pooh. Skeptics are always so righteous—until they start feeling foolish because they’re proved wrong.”
That was what he’d been afraid she’d say. “Don’t blame Nat. His job is to look for proof. If he doesn’t have evidence to show, the people he works with, and for, don’t want to know. It’s all about proving things in a court of law.”
“But he’s against the wall so he asked me for help.”
“Because he’s too good a cop not to go after anything that could help.”
Marley wagged her head. “I guess.”
“How do we get to Pipes Dupuis? She knows something.”
“She surely does,” Marley said. “But I don’t think she wants to talk about it.”
“Why wouldn’t she if she’s scared?”
“I don’t know.” She thought about it. “And I could be mistaken about what those scratches are. Either way, she has to want to talk to us about it.”
“Nat needs to know.”
“Does he? If I tell him about Pipes having those marks, I’ll have to talk about the ones I’ve got. I don’t want to talk about more details until I’m ready.”
“Why, if you say you want to help? You already told him the main stuff about you.”
“I’ve been laughed at before. And it wouldn’t help because they’ll ignore whatever I say. You said they work on proof so I’ll get them proof,
