White Lies (The Arcane Society #2)(8)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“I’ll take you back to your hotel,” he said.

“Thanks, anyway, but I’ve got a car.”

“It’s not a problem. It will give me an excuse to leave early. Cocktail party chatter bores me.”

“Why come, in that case?”

He shrugged. “Archer invited me. He’s the client.”

She gave him an odd look. She knew he was lying to her, he thought. But he sensed that she wasn’t going to call him on it.

She was trying to figure him out, he realized. Fair enough. He was doing the same thing to her. He smiled slightly.

“What is so amusing?” she demanded crossly.

“We’re like a couple of fencers,” he said. “Testing each other’s defenses. Looking for openings. Makes for an interesting game, don’t you think?”

She went very still. “I didn’t come here to play games.”

“I know. But sometimes the game finds you.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Jake Salter, but whatever it is—”

He took her arm. “Let’s get you back to your hotel.”

“I told you, I’m fine. I can drive myself.”

“Be reasonable.” He steered her toward the veranda. “You’re soaked to the skin. You’ve had a long day. You’ve been through some family drama and a major scene with a woman who seems to hate your guts. On top of everything else, you probably don’t know your way around Phoenix very well. Let me take you back to your hotel.”

“No, thank you.” Polite but determined.

“You’re as stubborn as Archer.”

They reached the veranda. Clare halted abruptly and looked at the open doors.

“I’m not going to go back inside,” she said, glancing down at her robe. “Not like this.”

“No,” he agreed. He tightened his grip on her arm and drew her along the veranda. “We’ll go this way.”

He walked her around the side of the house. When they reached the crowded driveway Jake saw the parking attendant. The young man was hovering over Clare’s rented compact.

“Looks like my car is blocking another vehicle,” Clare said.

“That would be mine.”

She gave a small start and then smiled ruefully. “What are the odds, huh?”

“I figure maybe it was psychic karma.”

“You believe in psychic karma?”

“Didn’t until tonight,” he admitted. He didn’t like the way the attendant was studying Clare’s car. “I think we may have a problem.”

“What?” She looked up, keys in hand.

They were close to the compact now. Jake could see the spiderweb of cracks in the windshield. Clare noticed them a couple seconds later.

“Oh, damn,” she whispered. “The rental agency is not going to be happy about this.”

The attendant saw Jake. “I was just about to go talk to my boss.”

“What happened?” Clare asked.

“Mrs. Shipley came outside a little while ago,” the attendant said unhappily. “She wanted to know which car had arrived in the last half hour. I told her that it was this one.”

“Good grief,” Clare said. “What did she do to my windshield?”

“She, uh, smashed it with a rock,” the attendant said.

“Where is Mrs. Shipley?” Jake asked.

“Her husband came after her. Said he was going to take her home. He apologized and said to tell you that he’ll make things right with the rental company.”

Jake released Clare. “That settles it. You won’t be driving yourself back to the hotel tonight.” He took the keys from her unresisting fingers. “I’ll move your car so we can get mine out.”

She sighed, resigned now. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Psychic karma, remember?” He opened the door of the compact and got behind the wheel.

Clare waited, her hands stuffed into the pockets of the robe, while he switched the positions of the two vehicles. When he had reparked the compact, he settled Clare into the front seat of the BMW and went around to the driver’s side.

…

He got behind the wheel and drove down the drive and out onto the road that looped through the gated golf course community. The security guard waved him through the massive wrought-iron gates.

Clare looked out the window, evidently absorbed by the night and the lights of Phoenix in the distance.

“I knew that Brad McAllister was murdered six months ago,” he said after a while. “Archer mentioned that the cops believe he interrupted a burglary in progress at his home here in Stone Canyon.”

“That’s the official theory.” Clare did not turn her head away from the inky-dark view. “But as you may have noticed, Brad’s mother is convinced that I murdered her son. She’s had several months to promote her theory. I understand she’s been quite successful, although Elizabeth assures me that most people in Stone Canyon are very careful not to speculate too loudly in Archer’s hearing.”

“Archer sure as hell wouldn’t want that kind of gossip going around.”

She turned her head to look at him. “The police did question me, you know.”

“Be surprising if they didn’t. You were the one who found the body.”

“Yes.”

He glanced at her. She had gone back to studying the night.

“Must have been bad,” he said quietly.

“It was.”

He said nothing for a moment. “How did it happen that you were first on the scene?”

“I flew into Phoenix that evening to see Elizabeth. There was a mix-up with a message I had left for her. She thought I was due in the following morning. She was out attending a reception for the Stone Canyon Arts Academy when I arrived. I drove straight to her place. The front door was open. I walked in and found Brad’s body.”

He didn’t need his parasenses to pick up the lingering traces of shock and horror under the simple, straightforward words.

“Archer told me that the safe had been opened,” he said. “It certainly sounds like an interrupted burglary scenario.”

“Yes. But that hasn’t stopped Valerie from concluding that I was the killer. She thinks I was having an affair with Brad and that I murdered him because he refused to leave Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth and McAllister were separated at the time. Any idea what he was doing at her house that evening?”

“No,” she said.