Scarlet Nights (16 page)

Mike was glad the darkness covered his smile. Sara seemed to think Mitzi Vandlo would fall for the ruse of the fake tarot cards. Did Sara imagine policemen throwing back the tent flaps and putting handcuffs on the woman?

“You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“Yes, you are. I can feel it.”

“Women’s intuition?”

“If you don’t stop making fun of me, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” His voice lowered. When she turned to look at him, the moonlight on her face made him want to pull her into his arms. Most of the women he’d met in his adult life let him know they were willing, so why did Sara look at him like he was her … her
friend
?

“I’ll get you back by setting you up with a second date with Ariel.”

“You really hate her, don’t you?”

Sara started walking again. “I can assure you that it’s mutual. Want to hear what she did to me in the fourth grade?”

That was the last thing Mike wanted to hear about. “What’s that smell?”

“Probably my mom’s perfume. When’s your first date with Ariel?”

“Saturday. Is your mother here and hiding in the bushes and that’s why I smell her?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m wearing her perfume.”

Reaching out, Mike caught her arm and looked at her in the silvery light. “Do you mind if I smell it at a closer range?”

Sara lifted her chin to give him access to her neck, but then she abruptly straightened. “Wait! You’re not a vampire, are you?”

“What in the world goes on in that head of yours?”

“I’ve been watching teen movies. Who would have thought that teenagers liked sex?”

“Every counselor of teen pregnancy,” Mike said. “So what about the perfume?”

“Oh, sure.” Sara turned her head, and Mike leaned forward, his face on her neck.

When his lips touched her skin, she jumped away from him, frowning. “Don’t do that. I’m only human.”

Mike stepped back until he felt a tree. “Sara, you’re going to drive me insane.”

“That’s nice to hear, but I don’t believe you.”

He was trying to get himself under control. A warm evening, darkness, beautiful, desirable Sara in a white dress that seemed to be made of moonlight, and an erotic, enticing smell that surrounded them. “Where did your mother get that perfume?” he managed to ask, his voice low and throaty.

She was looking at him in speculation, and what she wanted to do most in the world was put her hands on his chest. “She …” Sara had to take a couple of breaths to calm herself. Greg, Greg, Greg, she silently chanted—and tried to forget that it had been months since they’d made love. It had been even longer since they’d kissed more than a parting peck.

“You’re looking at me oddly,” Mike said as he held out his hand to her.

Sara took a step back. “My mother.”

“What about her?” Mike took a step forward.

“She dabbles with making products, shampoos and such. But this is the only perfume she’s ever made. It’s called—”

“What?” Mike took another step toward her.

“Scarlet Nights.”

“Sara …” Mike held out both hands to her.

She started walking backward down the path she knew well, facing him, and she was talking fast. “My sisters and I have always been embarrassed by the name. About eight years ago my parents went away for a long weekend and they came back … well, giggling. Two days later, my mother made a perfume and named it Scarlet Nights.”

“I like it,” Mike said softly. “I like that scent, and I like the name.”

“My sisters and I said she couldn’t possibly call it that, but she just laughed at us and said …”

“Said what?”

“That every generation loves sex. I think we should go inside. It’s getting cold out here.” Before he could reply, Sara ran past him toward the house.

As for Mike, he needed to stay outside until he was fit to be seen in public. He knew he needed to get himself under control—
all
of him, mind and body.

At the moment, the situation he was in confused him. In the past, he’d made love to women for the sole purpose of getting information from them. Later, some of the women had been taken off to prison. But except for one time, Mike had been able to disassociate himself from them because he’d known that they’d be all right after he left. They’d all had money, children, and homes. They might tell Mike he’d broken their hearts, but he knew they’d recover.

But Sara was a whole different case. What would happen to
her after Mike left? Especially if they did become intimate? He hoped the two Vandlos, mother and son, would be handcuffed and put in squad cars, but what then? Would Mike also get in his car and leave?

He visualized the scene. Would he wave good-bye to the people of Edilean? Luke and Joce? Tess and Ramsey, the brother-in-law he’d never met?

If he later returned to visit his sister and her kid, would the townspeople hate him for having deserted Sara?

And what about Merlin’s Farm? Could Mike live there after his retirement? Would Sara be married by then? To some local guy who smoked cigarettes and watched football all weekend? Some man who fried a turkey and set the house on fire? Or would she fall for another out-of-towner who’d slick-talked her into…

Mike ran his hand over his face. Long ago he’d trained himself not to get emotionally involved with his undercover subjects. He’d not always succeeded, but no matter what his feelings, in the end, he’d left them behind and gone on to another job. The thought of doing that to Sara made him feel queasy. Whereas he usually dealt with criminals, Sara was a true innocent.

Maybe it was this town that was bothering him. Or maybe it was the fact that he was facing retirement and didn’t have a clue what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He remembered standing in that old orchard at Merlin’s Farm and seeing a future that didn’t involve shooting people, or even betraying them. Maybe, just possibly, his sister knew what she was doing when she’d given Mike that old farm.

Turning, he looked back at the house. If catching the Vandlos weren’t so important, he’d leave now before anyone—especially Sara—got hurt.

But he couldn’t do that.

He walked back to the apartment and smiled when he smelled popcorn. Inside, Sara was bent over the DVD player.

“Want to see a movie?” she asked.

“Only if it’s a romantic comedy. They’re my favorite.”

“That’s odd. I would have pegged you for a Jason Statham fan.” She held up a copy of
Shank
. “But if you don’t like it, I have a couple of Katherine Heigl films around here somewhere.”

“I’ll suffer through another action film if I have to.” He walked toward the couch, where a huge bowl of popcorn was on the coffee table. “How’s your neck?”

“Washed, so you can draw in your fangs.”

“Fangs aren’t the part of me that needs drawing in,” he said as he sat on one end of the couch and patted the seat beside him.

Sara picked up the bowl of popcorn and put it next to him.

With a grimace, he said, “Give me that” as he held out his hand for the remote.

Sara suppressed her laughter and sat down as far from Mike as the couch allowed.

In the main house next door, Jocelyn sent a text message to Tess:

DID YOU KNOW YOUR BROTHER IS FALLING IN LOVE WITH SARA?

Immediately, Tess wrote back:

I’M GOING TO SPEND TOMORROW AT ONE OF THE CATHEDRALS HERE PRAYING IN THANKS. WHAT ABOUT SARA?

SHE TREATS HIM LIKE HE’S ANOTHER COUSIN.
CONTRIVE TO GET HIM UNDRESSED.

Joce looked up at Luke. “You said you saw Mike at the gym. Did you happen to see him with his clothes off?”

“Not something I would pay attention to, is it?”

“So what’s he look like naked?”

“Fat. Big belly. Scrawny legs. Not a muscle on his body.”

Joce texted back to Tess:

WILL DO. YOU REALLY
ARE
MY BEST FRIEND.

11

M
IKE LOOKED FOR
Sara across what he’d been told was Nate’s Field, but he didn’t see her. “Maybe I should look for a woman so angry her hair is on fire,” he muttered as he remembered what she’d seen that morning, of his sitting on the edge of Erica’s desk and openly flirting with her.

Across the open field were about a dozen men wearing leather tool belts as they built the pavilions for the coming fair. If he weren’t going to spend a second day searching Merlin’s Farm he’d be helping them. Maybe he’d be able to tomorrow, he thought. Jocelyn had sketched some designs for the fortune-telling tent, and she’d given them to Sara to replicate. Mike and Sara laughed that Joce had won the argument over her participation in the fair.

“She won’t be in any danger, will she?” Sara’d asked. “I mean this Mitzi person won’t bash Joce on the head to get the cards?”

“And miss out on what she really wants—whatever that is?” Mike asked. “No, I don’t think she will.”

Mike didn’t say so, but he didn’t want Sara in direct contact with Mitzi. But he did want to obtain as much DNA as he could. His new plan—which he didn’t tell Sara—was to get the notorious Erica to help out. She would call as many women of the appropriate age as possible to come into the shop, fit them with dresses, and get them to drink the free wine from a paper cup. She would write the name of the woman on the cup and bag it. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Mike had asked a couple of people about Erica, and if she was half as sexually voracious as he’d heard, he knew how to deal with her. He’d persuaded a lot of women like her into doing what he wanted.

Earlier that morning, on the way to the gym where he was to meet Luke, Mike had stopped to talk to Sara’s mom and got her to agree to keep both Sara and Brewster Lang busy all day so Mike could search the farm in peace. Ellie said she’d give Sara the job of making wreaths for Luke’s booth for the fair, but that Lang was about as easy to trap as a greased eel. She promised to do her best.

Mike had gone from there to the store that Sara owned with Stefan. Mike had left the quaint little town center of Edilean, where people felt as though they’d stepped back in time, to the inside of a store of all chrome and glass. He couldn’t help it as he glanced back through the front windows to reassure himself that he was still in Edilean. The town’s building codes hadn’t allowed the outside to be changed, but the inside was utterly modern. Mirrors were everywhere, as were gold fixtures and silk-upholstered seats. Mike glanced at a price tag: $1,200 for a simple white blouse.

No wonder the town of Edilean hated Vandlo. The clientele this type of store would bring in weren’t the ones who’d contribute to
the town. No, they’d just park their expensive cars, get what they wanted, then leave.

As Mike looked around he saw what people like the Vandlos would think was high class, but he didn’t see anything that reminded him of Sara. He hadn’t seen her apartment yet, but he doubted if it was like this place.

“May I help you?” a young woman asked.

Mike looked her up and down. Her all-black attire was more appropriate for New York than Edilean. “I need to see Erica,” he said.

An hour later, he was leaving the store. Everything with Erica had gone just as he’d planned, and he’d managed to coax her—fortyish and desperate—into taking over the job with the women. The problem came when Sara, carrying a load of clothes, had walked into the store before he was finished.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara leave, and he could tell from her quick step that she was angry. He’d wanted to go to her, but at that moment he couldn’t stop what he was doing with Erica. In fact, he’d had to spend extra time soothing her to get her back in the correct mood after Sara’s unexpected appearance. He knew that what he was doing with Erica might not look like business to Sara, but it was, and he had to continue.

So now, everything was arranged with Erica. At the end of the day an agent would pick up the bags containing the cups and take them to a lab. Their great hope was that one of the samples would be a relative of Stefan’s.

With Lang being kept busy at the Farmers’ Market, all Mike had left to do was calm Sara down.

“My salary ought to be doubled for this job,” he muttered as he walked across the fairgrounds. A few people raised their hands to acknowledge him, but Luke knew what Mike wanted. He pointed
to the shade trees along one edge. Mike saw Sara’s golden head bent over what looked to be a few tons of weeds.

She glanced up, saw Mike, started to smile, then her face changed and she looked down again.

Around him, men he didn’t know looked at him with curiosity, and Luke slapped him on the shoulder in sympathy.

“Good luck,” Luke said, laughter in his voice.

Mike went to where Sara was sitting, her lap full of wire and long stalks of purple-flowered stems. He wondered if she’d speak to him.

He shouldn’t have worried.

“You were disgusting,” Sara said, her upper lip curled into a sneer. “You were sitting on the corner of Erica’s desk like some 1950s secretary. And you were leaning over her and using that weird voice of yours to … to flirt with her.”