Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(43)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“With or without an asp?”

“Oh, she’ll have one. We here at Incognito pride ourselves on attention to detail. Wouldn’t dream of letting our mayor attend the ball in a half-asped costume.”

He laughed.

“Here it is.” She waved an arm. “Our back room.”

He walked slowly around the space, opening his senses. There was a dressing room and a three-way mirror to his left. The rest of the room was filled with a number of long, rolling carts outfitted with hanging rods. He estimated that there were a couple dozen costumes on each cart. A wide variety of elaborate masks were displayed on several rows of plastic heads arranged on shelves.

“You keep quite an inventory,” he said.

“This is a busy time of year for us.”

“Do you design all of these yourself?”

“Just some of the creative sketches and ideas. Pandora is the genius when it comes to costume design. When Aunt Vella was alive she did a lot of the masks.”

He went down an aisle between two of the long costume display carts, picking up nothing but the usual dull static.

“No hot spots,” he said.

“Well, that’s good news.”

He glanced at the door at the back of the room. “I assume that leads out into the alley?”

“Yes. We keep it locked at all times. There’s a good, solid bolt on the door and an alarm. I’m very aware of the fact that Pandora and I are here alone a lot. We don’t take chances.”

He nodded, then went to the door and checked it, making sure.

When he was satisfied they went back out into the front room of the shop. Pandora was hunched over the computer, typing swiftly.

“Another twenty orders for the new corsets,” she said to Raine, her attention on the screen. “Told you they were going to be hot.”

Zack glanced at the screen and saw a tight, black vinyl corset. It was displayed with a pair of stiletto-heeled boots and an Egyptian style ankh necklace.

He looked at Raine. “The online business you mentioned?”

Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “You know, until I met Pandora I had no idea that the neo-goth market was so huge.”

Thirty-one

The interior of the Alley Door was a midnight-dark cave studded with the fragile lights of tiny candles placed on the tables. The lone guitarist on stage was singing about the delights of illicit sex. As far as Raine could tell the entire song was based on a series of metaphors, all of which appeared to be related to shopping in a candy store.

She toyed with the swizzle stick in her sparkling-water-and-lime drink, impatient for the musician to take a break so she could talk to Zack. Out of respect for the performer, no one in the audience was conversing except occasionally and in very low tones with the wait staff.

Zack seemed absorbed by the music. He lounged in the booth beside her, one hand wrapped around his glass of sparkling water. He was so close that he was touching her at shoulder and thigh, so close that she was stirred by his scent. On the psychic level she was intensely aware of little frissons of excitement.

She reminded herself that they were both here to work, hence the sparkling waters. That fact, however, had not prevented her from taking a lot of time with her wardrobe selection for the evening. She had never been to a jazz club but she was fairly certain she would be safe with black. The dress she had decided to wear did not qualify as working attire by any stretch of the imagination. It was very sleek-fitting and featured a top that was cut lower than anything else she owned. Somehow it managed to look both elegant and outrageously sexy. She would never have bought it if Gordon hadn’t been with her at the time. He insisted that the dress had her name on it. She had intended to wear it on her first real date with Bradley.

Zack’s reaction to the dress had been very rewarding.

“That definitely works,” he’d said when she walked into the living room wearing very high heels and clutching a little purse in one hand.

It wasn’t the words that had made her blood zing. It was the heat in his eyes. She’d never seen that look in any other man’s eyes. It fired up her own temperature.

The guitarist finally finished his song about a trip to the candy store and announced that he was taking a break. The sound system was switched on. Recorded music and the buzz of conversation filled the room.

“What happens now?” she said.

Zack straightened in the seat. “Now I do a little detecting.”

“How?”

“I’m going to wander over to the bar and have a little chat with the bartender.”

“Why?”

“I did some checking earlier. The night that Quinn was here, there was a sell-out crowd. I’m guessing that the tables and booths would have been reserved for two or more people. If Quinn came here alone, there’s a good possibility he sat at the bar.”

“Got it,” she said. “You’re hoping the bartender remembers him.”

“Worth a shot. Be back in a few minutes.”

He slid out of the booth and paused.

“That really is a great dress,” he said.

She realized that he was looking down the front of it.

“Better go talk to the bartender,” she said.

“Right. The bartender. Now if I could just remember what it was I wanted to talk to him about—”

She smiled. “Focus, Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She watched him make his way through the maze of tables, aware of a fizzy sensation. Most women her age had acquired some experience with the flirting game but it was all new and exciting to her. She had never practiced the fine art with any degree of success because she had dreaded the inevitable result. She had always felt deeply uneasy sending out the subtle signals women used to attract a man when she knew that, in the end, she would never be able to allow herself to get emotionally close. To do that she would have had to explain about the voices. Telling a guy you heard voices had a chilling effect on a relationship.

But that wasn’t true with Zack.

She lost sight of him and settled back into the booth to sip her drink. The noise level was fairly high now. People talked and chattered, pitching their voices above the background music. Others came and went from the hallway that led to the restrooms.

A short time later Zack returned. When he slid back into the booth she sensed at once that he was no longer in a flirting mood.

“The bartender remembers him, all right,” he said. “Quinn had a laptop that he held on to as if it were pure gold. He ordered a beer and paid for it in cash. Then he ordered a second. Figuring he was good for it, the bartender let him start a tab. After the third beer Quinn went to the restroom and never returned.”