Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(23)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Yes. I gave the chief your number as a reference. I thought that would be the easiest way of staying off the list of suspects. Do you mind if we talk about this later? I’m headed into the shower.”

Bradley flicked a suspicious glance at Zack. “Who’s he?”

“A friend,” she said. She couldn’t resist giving him her special smile.

“Good friend,” Zack corrected helpfully. “The name’s Jones. Zack Jones. By the way, does it piss you off when she smiles at you like that? It sure pisses me off when she does it to me.”

Bradley rounded on him, looking ready to explode.

“Please go downstairs, Bradley,” Raine said quickly. “I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

Bradley’s face tightened further but it was obvious he was out of practical options.

“Twenty minutes,” he said.

“Or thereabouts,” she said sweetly.

Without another word, he turned and stalked off toward the staircase. Zack closed the door very gently behind him and looked at her.

“I’m guessing the two of you did more than just find a few bodies and track down some killers together,” he said without inflection.

“Not a great deal more,” she said, choosing her words with exacting care. “My fault.”

“What went wrong?”

“I’m what went wrong. Bradley and I had a nice little friendship thing going on. I made the mistake of thinking it had the potential to blossom into something else.” She paused. “He knew about the voices, you see.”

Zack nodded, comprehending immediately. “So you figured he was okay with your psychic side?”

“One night after a case I invited him to my place. I had a bottle of wine waiting. A little chocolate fondue. A fire. Not to put too fine a point on it, I tried to seduce him.”

“I sense a bad outcome here.”

She flushed. “It was extremely awkward for both of us. In the end he finally had to tell me the truth.”

“Which was?”

“That the thought of making love to a woman who hears voices really creeped him out.”

“What do you know?” Zack shrugged. “Gets me hot.”

Nonplussed, she just stared at him.

“Go figure,” she finally managed.

He gave her a quick, wicked grin. “Yeah. Go figure. So where do things stand with you two now?”

“Nowhere. The debacle in my condo happened last month, shortly before Aunt Vella died. I’m surprised to see Bradley here today. I thought, given our mutual embarrassment, that he would want to avoid me just as much as I want to avoid him.”

“What about your working relationship?”

“It would be extremely difficult to go back to being just friends or colleagues after what happened. At least it would be for me. I was humiliated beyond belief.”

“Not to mention hurt?”

She winced. “Okay, I’ll admit that being told I gave him the creeps was a little hard on the ego.”

“Wonder why he drove up here today?”

“I have no idea. Last I knew he was fixing to become famous.”

Zack raised his brows. “How’s that?”

“Ever hear of Cassidy Cutler?”

He narrowed his eyes very faintly. “Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?”

“Probably because you’ve seen it on the best-seller lists. She’s a true-crime writer.”

“Right.” He nodded. “She’s the one who did the book about the freak who was stalking and killing members of a family in Florida. The cops couldn’t figure out why he had targeted them. They finally arrested a cousin, I think.”

“Did you read it?” she asked.

“Hell, no. I don’t read stuff like that. Got enough nightmares of my own. I just know what I saw in the papers.”

She smiled wryly. “Sounds like we have something in common when it comes to our bedside reading. Be that as it may, evidently Cassidy Cutler has decided that her next best seller will feature a certain small-town homicide detective who has recently closed a string of cold cases.”

Zack laughed. “She’s writing a book about Mitchell?”

“Bradley called me a few days ago. He was very excited. He told me that Cassidy Cutler had arrived in town with an assistant and had started background research.”

“Interesting. I wonder if Mitchell plans to tell her that the reason he was able to close those cold cases was because he worked with a psychic?”

She shuddered. “I sincerely hope he never says a word about me. As far as I’m concerned, he can have all the credit.”

“Because the last thing you want is to have your name appear in one of Cassidy Cutler’s books?”

“The very last thing.”

Fourteen

Bradley downed a long swallow of coffee, lowered the dainty china cup to the saucer and glowered across the table.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Are you sick?”

“Good grief, no. Never felt better, in fact.” Raine poured tea for herself from the pretty yellow-and-green pot. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” He searched her face, frowning. “You look like you’re running a fever or something.”

She stifled a smile. “Must have been the shower.”

The inn’s small dining room was packed with the same media-heavy crowd that had filled up the restaurant the night before. The din of cell phones and conversation assured privacy.

“It’s not the damn shower,” Bradley muttered. “There’s something about you this morning.”

“Well, I did get a good night’s sleep last night,” she said smoothly.

Bradley’s jaw hardened. “How the hell did you meet Jones?”

She was seated facing the entrance to the dining room. Zack was at the front counter, collecting a cup of coffee in a plastic cup and a muffin from the harried-looking woman at the cash register. He saw her watching him and raised a hand in a casual greeting. She wriggled her fingers at him and then turned to Bradley.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” she asked.

He scowled. “Where did you meet Jones?”

“Good grief, you don’t actually expect me to discuss my personal life with you, do you?”

“I didn’t know you had a personal life,” Bradley muttered.

“I do now,” she said demurely.

“Does Jones know what you do?”