She tore the check in half very deliberately and then put the halves together and ripped them into fourths.
He regarded her with polite inquiry.
“Not enough?” he asked.
“There is no amount of money that I would feel comfortable accepting from the Guild.” She shuddered. “In point of fact, I don’t want anything from the organization.”
“You’re going to make this difficult?”
“Not at all.” She gave him a tight little smile. “You can have the stupid artifact, because the last thing I want is to become involved in Guild business.”
“You’re sure you won’t accept the money?”
“Positive.”
“You do realize that this means that the Cadence Guild now owes you a favor,” Davis said neutrally.
“No, absolutely not.” She was appalled. “The Guild doesn’t owe me a thing.”
“You know what they say, the Guild always pays its debts.”
“Sounds like a real nightmare scenario to me. Look, I’ll make a deal with you. You can thank me for giving you the artifact by not mentioning my name to your client.”
He thought about that briefly and then nodded once, his expression somber. “If that’s what you want. I don’t see how keeping quiet about your role in this will violate my professional obligation to my client.”
“Terrific.” She went to the door, opened it abruptly, and held the relic out to him on the palm of her hand. “Good afternoon, Mr. Oakes. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure, but it has been interesting.”
He picked up his briefcase and walked toward the door, halting directly in front of her. “Are you a good matchmaker, Miss Ingram?”
“The best.”
“I notice you’re not wearing a wedding ring. I take it that means you haven’t been able to find a match for yourself.”
She knew she was turning red, but she managed to keep her composure. “Very observant of you.”
He nodded. “Probably just as well. I got matched by a pro once.”
“I can tell by your tone of voice that it did not work out.”
“No,” he said. “Luckily for both of us, we found out shortly before the wedding that the match was a bad one.”
“I see,” she said coolly. “I’m sorry you had such an unfortunate experience. All I can tell you is that what happened to you was an anomaly. Statistically speaking, the odds of making a good match are significantly improved when you employ a knowledgeable, reputable marriage consultant.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Personally, I’ve pretty much decided to skip the whole happily-ever-after thing.”
She stared at him, startled. Very few people went around announcing that they planned to skip the happily-ever-after thing. Even if one were personally inclined to avoid marriage, family and social pressure proved too strong for most people. Folks who didn’t get serious about marriage after a certain point in life found that their careers stalled, invitations from one’s peers—all of whom were married—dried up, and people began to regard the unmarried individual as exceedingly odd.
In spite of her annoyance, her consultant instincts kicked in immediately.
“Never say never,” she said bracingly. “I’m sure the right person for you is out there somewhere.” She couldn’t believe that for a while there she had actually thought that person was her.
“Yeah, sure.” He did not look convinced. “What about you?”
“Me?” Good grief, was that her voice? The word had come out sounding like a squeak.
“Are you involved with anyone at the moment?” he asked with an air of great patience.
This was getting awkward. She cleared her throat and tried to appear nonchalant. “No, not at the moment. Life has been very busy lately. New job, you know.”
“Care to go out to dinner and discuss something besides marriage and relics?”
She went blank. “Huh?”
He smiled a little. She could see the sexy heat in his eyes. Psi energy tingled in the atmosphere, hers as well as his. She was shocked to realize that her insides were starting to melt.
“Got a feeling a date with you might be interesting.” He paused a beat. “Or am I picking up the wrong signals here? If so, my apologies.”
He was daring her to take the leap with him, challenging her.
“I usually don’t date—” she began.
“Hunters. Yes, I got that impression. Let me make it clear that, while I come from a Guild family, I don’t make my living as a ghost hunter.”
“I was going to say that I usually don’t date people I meet at work.”
“I’m not a client.”
She took a deep breath. In spite of his incredibly seductive psi patterns, they had nothing in common. Even if they got past that monumental hurdle, he had made it very clear that there was no long-term future for them together. Dating a man under these circumstances violated all the matchmaking rules, but she had never felt this way about any man in her entire life. She might never again meet someone who had this effect on her senses. Why shouldn’t she take the opportunity to experience a romantic fling?
Once again she reached up to touch Araminta.
It would have to be a terribly discreet fling, of course. Professional marriage consultants had to be exceedingly careful about their reputations.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose that might be all right.”
“Are you free tonight?”
She stopped petting Araminta. She could do this.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” she said. Belatedly, a thought struck her. “I can’t stay out late because I’m going out of town tomorrow morning and I still have some last-minute packing to do. But tonight is definitely clear.”
Great. She sounded just like Amberella in the fairy tale. After midnight the beautiful amber carriage turned back into a large squash, and a shoe went missing.
“If you’ll give me your address, I’ll pick you up at seven. I promise to have you home before midnight.”
“My address,” she repeated. A tiny chill of uncertainty swept through her. What did she really know about Davis Oakes? She had only just met him, and she was probably not thinking clearly, because standing close to him like this stirred all her senses.
He owned a security firm, she reminded herself. Okay, he had the Guild for a client, but he appeared to have a working relationship with a police detective. That would seem to indicate that he was not a serial killer. Still, she wasn’t quite ready to break all the rules. Safety first.
She rezzed what she hoped was a polished, confident smile. “Why don’t we meet at the restaurant? I’ll take a cab.”
Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “The careful type, huh?”
“We in the marriage consulting business tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to this sort of thing. First dates are tricky. If both parties take responsibility for getting themselves to and from the appointed venue, there’s less pressure.”
“That sounds like it came out of some kind of dating manual.”
“It did. The title is Ten Steps to a Covenant Marriage: Secrets of a Professional Matchmaker.”
“Since we’re talking about a date, not a Covenant Marriage, we can forget the rule book,” Davis said. “All right, how about Verdigris in the Old Quarter? I’ll wait for you in the lounge.”
“That sounds lovely.”
He held out his hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the relic now. The sooner I get it back to my client, the better.”
Belatedly she realized that she was still holding the artifact.
“Right.” She started to hand it to him.
Araminta suddenly went wild. She chortled shrilly in Celinda’s ear and went into full predatory mode. Her second set of eyes, the amber-colored ones she used for hunting, and a lot of teeth suddenly appeared. Her lint-ball form sleeked out, revealing a tough, sinuous little body and all six paws.
She sprang straight down Celinda’s outstretched ar
m, seized the relic, and bounded to the floor. With her prize clutched in her two front paws, she raced through the open door and disappeared.
“Araminta, come back here,” Celinda called.
She rushed out into the corridor and saw Araminta dashing around the corner. She raced after her. When she rounded the corner, she was just in time to see the dust bunny disappear through the open door of the stairwell.
Jana Pace, the consultant who had the office next door to Celinda’s, rushed out of the stairwell, shrieking.
“A rat. I just saw a rat. I’m going to call the janitor.”
Jana fled toward her office and a phone.
Celinda came to a halt at the top of the stairs and looked down. There was no sign of Araminta.
She heard Davis’s footsteps behind her. He stopped and looked over her shoulder, gazing down into the empty stairwell.
“Had a feeling this case was going a little too smoothly,” he said without expression.
“Hey, it’s not my fault Araminta ran off with the relic.”
His eyes narrowed. “She’s your dust bunny.”
“Araminta doesn’t belong to me. She’s a companion. She’s very independent, and she obviously considers that artifact her toy. I’ll bet she’s going to hide it somewhere.”
“In which case, she’ll eventually retrieve it.”
She’d known him less than forty minutes, but she already knew enough about Davis Oakes to realize that he wasn’t about to give up easily. This was a man who, once he set an objective, kept going until he reached it. Furthermore, he was currently working for Mercer Wyatt, which meant he had the full power of the Cadence Guild behind him. What chance did one small dust bunny have?
She needed to find a way to take the heat off Araminta.
She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and put a tremor in her voice. “Araminta has probably run away for good. I’m going to miss her so much. She was my little pal.”
“In my experience, once dust bunnies form a bond with a human, they are fiercely loyal,” he said, showing no signs of sympathy. “Your little pal will be back. She’ll probably be waiting for you when you get home tonight.”
So much for that ploy. Nevertheless, she sniffed and blinked furiously, as though trying to suppress a flood of tears. “I have your card, Mr. Oakes.” She added a delicate sob to her voice. “I’ll give you a call if she ever shows up again and brings back the relic.”
“You do that.” He went back out into the hall. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work to do. See you at seven tonight.”
That stopped her cold. She cleared her throat. “I, uh, sort of assumed that this new development meant our date was probably off.”
He paused and looked back at her. “Guess again, Miss Ingram. You and I are going to be spending a lot of time in each other’s company until that damn relic reappears.”
She knew a threat when she heard one.
“No offense, Mr. Oakes, but under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be a comfortable evening for either of us. What do you say we postpone the issue of a date until we see whether or not Araminta comes back with the artifact?”
“Not a chance,” Davis said. “By the way, under the circumstances, you can forget about taking a cab to the restaurant. Something tells me you might not show up.”
“Oh, good grief, if I say I’ll be there, I’ll be there.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“You don’t have my address.”
“Not a problem. I’m a private investigator, remember? I find things. You’d better believe I’ll find you.”
Chapter 3
SHE MUST HAVE SENSED THE ENERGY THAT HAD PULSED between them. He couldn’t have been the only one who had felt that high-rez stuff ricocheting back and forth back there in her office. Or was he?
Davis got out of the parking garage elevator and made his way through the rows of cars to where he had left the Phantom. He was still half-aroused.
Max was waiting for him when he reached the car. The dust bunny was napping on the passenger seat in his favorite position, flat on his back, all six paws up in the air. When Davis opened the door, he stretched, opened his blue eyes, rolled over, and made little chortling sounds.
“Hey, there, buddy.”
They did the brief greeting ritual, which consisted of him patting Max on the top of his furry head and Max bouncing up and down a little.
“I should have taken you in there with me,” Davis said. “You might have saved the day. Takes a dust bunny to catch a dust bunny, I always say. As it is, we’ve got a whole lot of new problems.”
He set the briefcase on the floor on the passenger side. Max hopped up onto the back of the seat where he had an excellent view. Max liked riding in cars.
Instead of rezzing the engine, Davis sat for a moment, hands resting on the wheel, trying to suppress the unfamiliar sense of anticipation and hungry excitement that was flooding his veins.
“Damn near knocked me off my feet, Max. Felt about nineteen again. And it’s not like she could ever get hired to read the evening news on the rez-screen. I mean, she’s attractive, okay? But not in the usual way. She’s, I dunno, different.”
Max made understanding noises.
Different. That was it, he thought. She wasn’t perfect. In his experience, perfect was pleasant to look at, but it was never interesting for long. Perfection never made you curious. It never raised any questions. Everything was on the surface with perfect. You knew in your gut that, in the end, perfect was going to be boring long-term.
No, Celinda Ingram was not perfect. What she was, he thought, was fascinating. Fascinating always carried some risk.
He looked through the windshield at the Slider parked nose to nose with the Phantom and summoned up a mental image of the mysterious woman in the office four floors above him.
Hair the color of rich, dark amber, caught up in a severe knot at the back of her head, a couple of wisps dangling down in front of her delicate little ears. Big, hazel green eyes, soft mouth, assertive nose and chin. There was an elegance and dignity about her. He liked that in a woman, liked to know that she thought enough of herself to carry herself like a queen.
He had also sensed a whisper of power. She had worn an amber bracelet on her left wrist. Could have been a fashion statement, he thought, but it could have been something more. Everyone could generate a little psi energy, but powerful para-rez talents like himself often carried tuned amber in some form to help them concentrate and focus that energy.
Whatever else he had been expecting when he and Martinez tracked down Celinda Ingram, it had not been the deep rush of sexual excitement that had made him long to throw her over his shoulder and take off into the rain forest.
How the hell could she be a matchmaker? He didn’t trust any of them, not after the fiasco of his engagement to Janet.
But what the hell, he wasn’t looking for long-term. He could overlook the matchmaking thing. He wondered why she wasn’t married. And then he thanked his lucky amber that she wasn’t.
“If nothing else, it’s going to be a really interesting evening, Max.”
The thought cheered him. He hadn’t had a really interesting evening in longer than he cared to recall. Ever since the fiasco of his close encounter with a Covenant Marriage, he had devoted himself to his business. Life was simpler that way. At least it had been until today.
He rezzed the Phantom’s engine. Beneath the gleaming hood, flash-rock melted. He backed out of the parking slot and drove out of the garage, heading toward his office in the Old Quarter.
A short time later, Max on his shoulder, he pushed open the door of the offices of Oakes Security.
Trig McAndrews, seated behind the reception desk, looked up from his computer. His bald, shaved head gleamed in the overhead lights. So did the gold ring in his ear.
Trig was built like one of the Colonial-era buildings in the Quarter: not too tall but solid as a brick right down to the foundation. H
e looked as if he moonlighted as a pro wrestler. The elaborate tattoos enhanced that impression.
“Any luck, boss?” Each word sounded like it had been dragged through crushed gravel.
“Yes and no.”
“I hate answers like that.”
“Me, too.”
Max hopped down off Davis’s shoulder, landed on the desk, and greeted Trig with a small chortle.
“How’s it hangin’, big guy?” Trig patted Max on the top of his head and then looked up at Davis. “So, what happened?”
“The person of interest Martinez and I interviewed had the relic in her possession,” Davis said. “She was apparently willing to turn it over to me. But, in what may strike you as an amazing coincidence, her dust bunny ran off with it just as I was about to take possession. Bunny and relic disappeared.”
Trig’s expression did not change. “A dust bunny ran off with our client’s artifact?” Each word was very carefully spaced.
“Miss Ingram says the bunny thinks the relic is a toy, which means that the little sucker will bring it home soon. Dust bunnies don’t like to be parted from their toys for very long.”
“Gonna be a little hard to explain this chain of events to Mercer Wyatt,” Trig observed.
“I don’t plan to tell Wyatt what happened. Not as long as there’s a chance of getting that relic back. Keep the client in the dark whenever possible is the company motto. You know that.”
“What do I say if Wyatt’s assistant calls again for an update?”
“The usual. Tell him that we’re making progress.”
Trig nodded. There was no need for him to say anything more. They both knew how important recovering the relic was to the future of Oakes Security. It was the first big case the firm had landed since Davis’s world had gone to green hell six months ago. A lot of old clients had been unwilling to take a chance on him after the disaster. He was well aware that if he screwed up, it was a good bet they’d never see any more business from the Guild or any other high-profile corporation.
Trig snorted. “Sounds like you’d better keep an eye on the matchmaker. If she didn’t know the relic was worth a lot to the Guild before she talked to you, she’ll know it now.”