Trace of Magic (11 page)

Jealousy clawed inside me. Oh hell. I didn’t want to feel this way. He worked for the Tyet, I reminded myself sternly. And he’d tabbed me.

I must have really been out of it earlier, because as soon as I thought of the tab, I realized it was gone. After a moment, I realized the blood null must have cooked it off.

Not that it really did me any good. I wasn’t going to try to escape Price; I needed his help to find Josh. I remembered the stuff we’d taken from his office. Had there been any clues to his whereabouts or who’d taken him in there?

I glanced around the room, looking for a clock. The room was big enough to fit four king-sized beds in comfortably. The dressers were made of mahogany wood. The bed had four tall posts, and a fireplace dominated the wall between the closet and the bathroom. Windows lined one wall. They were smothered in dark curtains, and I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. The clock on the mantle said four o’clock. I hadn’t been out all that long, then.

I looked outside. I could see faint shapes like buildings, but mostly all there was to be seen was snow and more snow. I let the curtain fall back into place and followed after Price, my stomach twisting nervously.

I didn’t really want to know he regretted having sex with me. But did I want him to care about me? The idea was almost as unnerving as working for him in the first place. If the man cared about me, he’d not let me disappear when our business was done. Sooner or later, he’d have to choose between me and the Tyet. I’d like to say he’d choose me. But I had no illusions about being special enough that Price would break ties to keep me safe. Besides, I’d seen what the Tyet could do, what they demanded once they had you. Even if he wanted to, they wouldn’t let him.

Chapter 10

I WAS ON THE second floor of Price’s condo. His bedroom suite took up half of it. The other half was divided between a posh entertainment room with a Bowflex in one corner, a pool table in the middle, and a comfortable TV nook with a leather corner couch and flat screen I could have parked a car on, plus a wet bar. It pays to be a Tyet man.

Next door was another full bathroom and next to it, an office. The dark wine curtains were pulled all the way open. A wood desk faced the windows, with bookcases behind it and a couch and some chairs to the left. There were some lovely landscapes on the walls, and a fountain bubbled on a marble table in front of one window. Price had a collection of rocks and minerals, with a six-foot-tall amethyst geode in the corner. Stacks of papers and files littered the couch and desk.

I ducked out and found the stairs. I could hear him moving around in the kitchen, and the smell of bacon began to permeate the air. My stomach cramped hard.

I held hard to the railing going down. My head was spinning again. Blood loss, I supposed. Or maybe the mind-blowing sex.

At the bottom of the stairs, the apartment opened up into a living room. It was definitely masculine, but tasteful, with antiques mixed with more modern pieces. Gorgeous art—a mix of prints, photographs, and textiles—sprinkled the walls. I don’t know what I expected—posters from the Gun of the Month Club maybe. Most of the outer walls were windows. The floors were a scraped wood with plush rugs strategically scattered around.

Instead of turning right to the kitchen, I went left up the hallway. I found another bathroom and a guest bedroom, plus a big storage closet that could have been a small bedroom, but contained a gun safe, several mountain bikes, and who knows what in the floor to ceiling cupboards along two walls. There was also a washer and dryer. Neither were running. I took a chance and opened the dryer. My clothes were inside and dry. Neither my underwear nor pants showed any hint that I’d bled all over them.

Once dressed, I shut the door and wandered back toward the kitchen. Time to beard the lion in his den.

Even Taylor would have approved of Price’s kitchen. It looked vaguely Italian, with exposed brick on the back wall. It had stainless steel appliances, espresso-colored cupboards, and white granite counters.

Price had his back to me as he flipped bacon on the stove. I slid onto a barstool at the counter. It took him a minute or two to figure out I was there. I just waited.

Finally, he turned around. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “I didn’t feel like it.”

His jaw tightened. “You need rest. You were shot and you lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m better now. Got anything I can snack on? And coffee. I could really use some coffee.”

He blew out an annoyed sigh and put some bacon on a plate and poured me coffee, putting a carton of cream and some sugar up on the bar.

Price went back to cooking and ignoring me. My head throbbed. I rubbed the spot and remembered I’d hit my head in the shower.

The silence continued through my omelet with toast and more bacon. Price let me have another cup of coffee, but then forced me to drink orange juice.

“You don’t need more caffeine. You won’t get any sleep,” he growled.

I was getting tired of the fact that he was avoiding talking about us in his bed, but neither did I want to push it. From his behavior, he was interested in forgetting it happened. Even though that hurt more than I cared to admit, he was probably right. Definitely right. So I decided to ignore the elephant in the room, too.

“Sleep is overrated. Did you look at the stuff from Josh’s safe? Is there something that will help us find him?

He was still standing, leaning back against the opposite counter while he ate. “I think you need to stay out of this and let me handle it.”

Suspicion trickled through my heart. I set my fork down and shoved my plate aside. I wasn’t hungry anymore. “Why?”

“You got shot. You’re a penny-ante tracer, and you’re way out of your league. Leave this investigation to someone who’s better suited for it.”

“That’s what I was afraid of all along. You’re Tyet through and through. They don’t want me to find Josh, so you’re supposed to pat me on the head and send me home to wait for whenever his body turns up.” I pushed up off my chair. “You do whatever you want, Detective Price. But I am not quitting until I find him.”

I sagged and had to grab the counter to stay upright.

He watched me, the skin just beneath his right eye twitching. “I’m sure you’ll be a great help to him. Maybe you can faint and distract his captors. Of course you’ll only get yourself killed for your trouble. But you could be right. Bleeding all over their floors could free your sister’s boyfriend.”

“It’s better than just letting them kill him without bothering to try to get him back,” I retorted.

“But you don’t need to. I told you I would help you.”

“The stunning thing is that you just expect me to believe that because what, you’re a cop? That’s a second job. You are an enforcer for Gregg Touray. He owns you, body and soul.”

He slammed his plate into the sink. It shattered, the fork flying across the kitchen. “No one owns me.”

I snorted. “Who are you trying to kid? You had a price tag. I don’t know what it was, but Touray paid it a long time ago. You’ve been on his payroll ever since, and no one gets to break the rules or walk away.”

“There’s a flaw to your logic. The people attacking us yesterday worked for the Tyet, too. I’ll remind you that you weren’t the only one they were shooting at. I am in this with you.”

“On the other hand,
you
didn’t get hit. You’re a bigger physical target and you were between them and me. Don’t you find that odd?”

His mouth thinned. “Are you suggesting I was working with them? That I wanted you shot?”

I wasn’t, really. But it was a possibility. I said so.

“Why would I bother healing you, then? Why would I sit up for more than twenty-four hours holding your hand and worrying that I’d got you killed? I could have just let you die.”

He’d held my hand? “Twenty-four hours?” I repeated. Twenty-four? That meant Josh had been missing for nearly forty-eight.

“You lost a lot of blood. If you hadn’t had that blood null, I don’t know if you’d have made it. As it was, it slowed the bleeding enough to keep you alive. The bullet was a through and through, but I think it nicked something inside. I keep heal-alls on hand, just in case. You used up four of them. Lucky they worked. There was no way to fetch a tinker to help.”

I ran a hand through my hair. It shook. I’d come
that
close to actually dying. I didn’t quite meet his gaze. “Thanks.”

“You can trust me,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t be part of this. I’ll get it figured out. You just need to stay safe.”

My dad had said that to me a lot. I was tired of letting other people look after me, though it warmed me more than it should have that Price wanted to. And the truth was, even though I wanted to, I couldn’t trust him. Not with Josh’s life. I shook my head. “I can’t and you know it. I’d like to, but you have loyalties to people who are willing to kill me. You can’t deny it. I believe you want to help me, for now, and I’m grateful for all you’ve done. But a leopard doesn’t change its spots.” And I had secrets that would win him a lot of points with the Tyet.

He looked away, then back at me, his expression unreadable. “Let’s have a look at the stuff from Josh’s safe,” was all he said.

He stalked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving me to follow. I drew a breath and let it out slowly before heading after him. By the time I got upstairs, he was sitting on the couch in his office. He’d pulled the coffee table close and emptied the bag of stuff he’d collected from the office. The other was still zipped up. I sat down on the chair on the opposite side of the table.

He glanced up from the papers he’d picked up. “These look like they are mostly investment papers. They look aboveboard.”

I was grateful he was sticking to the subject at hand. “How can you tell?”

“Nothing seems shorted and no odd overages. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Someone good with finances could hide stuff pretty well. What we really need is a forensic accountant.” He tossed the papers aside. “I grabbed a pile of letters.” He waved to indicate the stack of papers on the edge of the table. “They may tell us more. But first let’s see what’s in the bag that he worked so hard to keep hidden.”

I nodded, and he reached out to unzip it. I picked up one of the letters and scanned it. I went cold.

“What was the name of that guy you wanted me to trace for you?”

Price looked up at me. “Corbin Nader. Why?”

I tossed the page at him. “He knew Josh.”

He scowled and snatched up the letter and read it, and then read it again. He stood and paced down in front of the windows, deep in thought. What did the guy he wanted me to find have to do with Josh? Clearly it had surprised Price.

The letter had been pretty innocuous. A confirmation of an account setup and a request for an appointment to discuss Nader’s holdings in more detail.

Price came to stand by my chair and thrust the letter at me. “Can you get Nader’s trace off this?”

No, not if I wanted to keep him thinking that I was a hack. “Will this help us find Josh?”

Something flickered in his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why are you looking for Nader?”

“He’s got a connection to a missing woman.”

“Who?”

He hesitated.

“So I’m supposed to trust you, but you don’t trust me?”

“I don’t want you involved. I don’t want to see you get any more hurt.”

I wanted to believe him, but he was lying. He was hiding something. I figured I didn’t have a choice. Josh had been in the hands of the haunters for two days now. Between what they might be doing to his mind and what the tinker had already done to his body, he needed help now.

I opened myself to the trace. Power sluiced into me and ribbons of light fluttered through the air. I clutched the arm of the chair, trying to make the room slow down, but it tilted and started to spin.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting on Price’s lap on the couch. He’s got a cold washcloth, and he’s sponging it over my face. I pushed his hand away and tried to sit up. He held me still as he searched my face.

“What happened?” My head throbbed like someone had punched me.

“You passed out.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Care to explain why?” He sounded angry again.

“No idea. I opened up to the trace and got overloaded.”

“Has that ever happened to you before?”

I shook my head, holding myself stiff so I wouldn’t curl up like a kitten on his chest. “I probably overdid it. Using the blood null took a lot of energy and then getting shot . . . I probably just need some sleep.”

“Haven’t I been telling you so?” He stood up, holding me easily in his arms. He carried me down the hall and laid me on his bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. “Sleep. We can’t go anywhere until the storm lets up early tomorrow. We’ll have a little window before the next one.”

He spun around and shut the door behind him.

I stared at the door. My body was stiff as a board. I could smell him on the sheets; I could smell
us
on the sheets. I wasn’t sleeping in his bed. I didn’t belong there.

I slid out of the sheets and went back downstairs to his spare room. I crawled into the queen-sized bed and closed my eyes.

I’M NOT SURE how long I slept. It was still dark when I woke up. I was on my side. A weight lay across my side and something nestled warm against my back. My head was pillowed on Price’s arm. I blinked, feeling his breath against the back of my neck. My heart thudded against my ribs as something like elation swept through me. For a second I felt drunk.

I lay there, breathing in his scent and reveling in the feel of him. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before I felt tension return to his body. He was awake.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You’re here,” he said, as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. He groaned and turned onto his back, pulling me around to snuggle against his side. “My bed is bigger and a lot more comfortable. You should have stayed there.”

I put my head on his chest. He held my hand, toying with my fingers.

“Why did you follow me?”

“My bed was cold.”

“Don’t play games. I’m not good at games.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. I stayed silent, enjoying the feel of him beneath my cheek, the smell of him filling my lungs, and the touch of his fingers on mine.

“I had to,” he said finally.

I let that seep in. I had no idea what he meant. There was a crazy, vast satisfaction in having captured his attention and interest. He was the sort of man that didn’t usually look twice at a woman like me. I would have thought Taylor was more his style.

At the same time, terror curled hard talons in my gut. He was a Tyet man. That in itself was enough reason for me to run and hide as far from him as I could get. Being a cop made it worse. My father had made it very clear from the moment I could first understand—there was no possible happily-ever-after moment for me. I would always have to be on guard; everyone would want a piece of me.