Ben’s gut tightened. “Should we get off the street?” He searched around, but saw nothing unusual. Then he deepened his sight to see the others, the ones who drifted among those who were physically present. The others, and there were never many of them at a time, were going about their business without expecting to be seen by people like Ben. They continued to search for a way back from the deaths they had not accepted.
None of them took notice of Willow or approached her. He felt satisfied that these were not part of the puzzle, a good thing since that would be a complication he would rather not deal with, given that he and Sykes Millet were the only ones he knew of who had the deeper sight, the third eye.
“You’re doing something,” Willow whispered, her attention darting from him to each person who passed.
“Not really. Tell me about your neck and what you feel.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? That’s ridiculous.”
Willow crossed her arms over Mario. “Okay,” she said, keeping her voice very low. “I don’t know who, but someone is watching me—all the time. And I get these feelings on my neck. Tap, tap.” She drummed the fingernails on one hand against the opposite forearm. “Like that only sharper and creepier. Almost like a stroke with little stings in it. No, not that… I don’t know.”
He felt a deep anger. He could tell she was telling the truth. But what did it mean? The type of elements that went in for torture—and Willow was being tortured—didn’t care about domestic engineering outfits. They didn’t care about the businesses of their victims one way or the other. But it looked as if Mean ’n Green had been targeted as a way to discredit Willow.
What made him feel mean was the idea of something touching her.
“Last night at the Brandts I felt fingers on me—on my skin. That never happened before.” She turned bright red and rested her cheek on the dog’s head. “It was horrible, the worst. An intimate attack and it came while I was talking to people. I couldn’t react or they would have thought I was mad. And it wouldn’t have changed anything if I suddenly said someone I couldn’t see was running fingers all over my body.”
Feeling mean turned into feeling murderous. Someone had touched her intimately? It didn’t matter how it happened, it happened, and he would find out who was responsible.
“Willow,” he said gently. “Let’s get you home.”
“I can’t move,” she murmured.
He looked at her closely. “Try,” he told her with a reassuring smile that cost him. “Come on—start walking.”
“I don’t mean I really can’t. I’m afraid to. The prickly thing will come back.” Again she reached for her neck and he heard her shallow breathing.
Ben deepened his sight again, narrowing his eyes to concentrate on the space around her.
And he tensed.
A small, gray-black, almost transparent thing darted from behind her head. Ben reached for it, but the shadowy object dissolved. He caught sight of its pallid shadow rising against the face of the building behind Willow.
In a whisper of an instant, he put himself on the roof and spread his hands to catch the phantom. Power pulsed through his body. He leaned out, horizontal to the wall where he could see the top of Willow’s head far below and people in the street appeared smaller.
This way and that he searched. He could only be away another beat in nontime, or he would be missed.
It, whatever it was, had completely disintegrated. That, or some cloak of complete invisibility had covered it.
He reversed his trajectory, put himself back a fraction later in the instant, and stood with Willow again.
“Ben,” she said, and her skin took on a transparent quality. Her forehead looked damp. “I think I’ll be next. It’s taunting me, but then it will kill me—just like the other two.”
Mario barked and Ben jumped. So did Willow. He had never heard the animal bark before. A ferocious attitude turned the little creature into a bundle of struggling legs.
“Cool it,” Ben snapped.
“He’s feeling something, too,” Willow said.
Ben knew that. “Yes,” he said. “But nothing will happen to you, Willow. I’m here and I won’t let anything happen.”
“What if you can’t stop it?”
Another surge of power pumped through him. He looked into her eyes. “I will stop it—if something tries to happen.”
“Benedict Fortune?”
For the second time today, the second time in perhaps years, Ben heard the ominous sound of his full name. This time, spoken by another female, it was loaded with reproach. “Poppy,” he muttered.
“Stop right there, Ben Fortune.”
His tall and very beautiful sister, with his brother Liam ambling along behind, approached with heavy footsteps. She noticed Willow, and Ben could have sworn Poppy blushed. But at least she stopped thundering toward him and her expression lost some of its fury.
Liam waggled his fingers at Ben from behind their sister’s back. Like Ben and Poppy, Liam was dark-haired and had almost navy blue eyes. The three of them came together, regarding each other with question, although Ben’s expression was a cover for guilt. He should have let his family know he was in New Orleans.
Chapter 12
“We won’t open at all until I know where Willow is,” Pascal declared. He paced back and forth between a display of Meissen china and cases of Victorian jewelry. “She’s not answering her phone, and she always does. How could she have gone without you knowing, Marley?”
The faint tinkle of low-hanging crystal chandeliers usually pleased Marley. This morning it set her teeth on edge. “I don’t interfere with Willow’s life,” she said. “Unlike some, I stick to the rules—completely.”
Uncle Pascal had been known to bend those rules and show up in the mind of a family member at the most inconvenient times.
“It’s my job to look after all of you,” he thundered. “If I have ever seemed to step beyond our written code, it has been to protect one of you.” His head shone and he smelled of a subtle aftershave. His energy in the morning exhausted Marley.
“Pascal,” Gray said.
Marley looked up at her husband and smothered a grin. His attempt to be serious in the face of Pascal’s famous temper was a miserable failure.
“Go on, go on,” Pascal said, gesturing with one hand. “What do you want, Gray? But I warn you, it had better be something useful.”
“I was only going to mention that it’s early and she may not be up.”
“Not up? Not up, you say? I told you she didn’t answer her phone—not her cell, either—and the office is still switched over to the service. Willow is my most industrious and dependable niece. She is out and about her business first thing. But she doesn’t leave without… My dear niece comes to tell me to look after myself every day. Every day—do you hear me? She never leaves without making sure her old uncle is still alive and kicking.”
That was too much for Gray. He laughed. Not just a quick chuckle, but a laugh that had him squeezing Marley’s arm and doubling over. She couldn’t be certain what amused him most: that Willow, whom Pascal constantly told off for not admitting her psychic gifts, was suddenly a saint, or that glowingly healthy and youthful Pascal would feign infirmity.
She had to smile. “Uncle, you’re the fittest of the lot of us. You pump iron every day—Anthony sees to that.” Pascal’s trainer made sure his only client was in perfect shape. “And if you’d ever tell us how old you are, I bet it’s not a day over fifty.”
“Are you suggesting I look fifty?” Pascal said, glowering.
