Chapter Ten

 

The warm scents of comfort food and the embrace of bright yellow light and lively conversation eased Emma’s mind. She and Sam settled into a far corner booth, each ordering the manager’s special: meatloaf with mashed red potatoes and home-style gravy. When the waitress brought their drinks, a domestic beer for Sam and a vanilla coke for herself, he raised his glass.

“To diners. And meatloaf.”

She smiled, a willing victim of his killer charm. “To meatloaf.”

A blissful look came over Sam. “Doesn’t matter how many meatloaf recipes I try, none can compare to what you get at a good greasy spoon. It’s like they have fairy dust they add.”

“Calorically dense, sodium-laden fairy dust,” she added, glad for a neutral topic.

“When I was a cop, I lived in places like this.” Sam glanced around, a faraway look in his eyes. As if he saw a different time. A different place. “They still remind me of the force.”

“I grew up on the blue plate special.” Emma took a sip of her vanilla coke and sighed with appreciation. Perfect. Like the man seated across from her. She’d savor them both for as long as possible. “Diners were my constant, one of the few normal things I knew I could count on to be exactly the same. Even now, I’ll take good down home diner cooking over a Manhattan hot spot in a heartbeat. Especially if they serve fountain made vanilla Coke.”

“This place is owned by two Manhattan restaurateurs who moved up here to get back to nature.”

Judging by the studiously chic retro décor, and the fact the diner had a liquor license and featured New York State artisanal breads, Emma could believe that. Still, it had all the home comforts of the ubiquitous greasy spoon. “Are you going to make your home up here again, or just move your company?”

She wasn’t sure where the question came from. She should have started back on the case. But her mind and her heart were on more personal matters, and the setting seemed to support that. If she knew more about him it would be easier to stop judging the superficial, and give him the chance Eric suggested. Then she realized opening personal avenues with him would allow him to open them with her.

Panicked at the thought, Emma was about to retract her question, but Sam jumped in without missing a beat. It was too late, then. The door was open and there was no telling what would come out.

“I plan to sell the New York condo and buy a place in Saratoga,” he began. “Split my time between there and the lodge. I never felt comfortable down there anyway.”

“Why Saratoga?” If he was open to twenty questions, she was going to fit them in before the magic wore off and reality came stomping into view. Maybe wear him out before he threw his own at her.

He took a drink of beer, and shrugged. “I grew up there. It’s a nice area. Good place to raise a family.”

‘Raise a family’ sounded very immediate. To do that he had to have someone already on the hook. Disappointment stabbed through her. “So you’re seeing someone?”

“Not yet.” He stared at her for a long moment. “Solving Jen’s murder is the last thing on my plate. Once that’s done, I’m going to focus on what I’ve been missing. A big house. A wife. A family. Life’s too short. I’ve put these things on hold for too long.”

Emma’s throat tightened. She pushed her soda glass away as hope drained out of her. Sam was looking his fairy tale ending. This mythic woman he’d take as his wife could never be her, and that hit where it hurt most.

She could tell herself he was nothing more than a passing fancy, that she didn’t do forever, and didn’t want it with a man she’d known a few days. But she’d only be lying to herself. He had some weird power over her. She could see building a life with him. God, she was hopeless. “Sounds like you have it all planned out.”

“I was sidetracked for a while,” his deep voice held a curious note, as if he wasn’t quite as sure as he wanted to be about what he said, “but things have gone into high gear since you showed up.”

“You wanted to compare notes.” She tried to change to a topic that didn’t make her sick to her stomach.

Sam stretched his arm out along the back of the booth and pinned her with the hot look he seemed able to turn on at will and use with laser-like precision. “How about you Emma? What are your plans?”

When he looked at her like that, so focused, so predatory, every nerve in her body fired up to high alert. She fidgeted with the silverware. “I plan to help you solve this case, go home and write my book. Get on with things.”

“There will be more publicity, things we can’t stop now that the case is hot again. You won’t be able to hide out in Eric’s shadow.” His words had a prophetic ring. Emma hadn’t considered the case would take such a dramatic turn.

Before she could respond, he continued. “Besides, that’s not what I mean. Long term what do you plan?”

“Like white picket fence, prince charming, two point five kids kinds of plans?”

His lips curved in a sexy grin. Her heart began to pound. The sound was deafening in her ears. She only hoped the din of the patrons drowned it out before it reached him. Before it tipped him off to how vulnerable she was to his attack.

“I don’t know. Princes are in short demand right now. I run into a lot of toads. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“So you’re looking for a prince after all.”

Her attempt at humor hadn’t sidetracked him. He was a ruthless opponent. Emma’s heart swam in turbulent, unwanted emotions. “I told you, I don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Because you don’t want to get hurt.”

“A few good kisses don’t give you the right to grill me like this.”

His grin turned cocky. “So I’m a good kisser. Doesn’t that make me even a little bit of a keeper?”

That boyish charm came on strong, and her anger vanished. “Most men like casual. Why can’t you?”

“I’m not most men. I’m just wondering why you’re so guarded. I can’t believe a woman like you hasn’t been snapped up.”

“Are you proposing?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“You can’t deny we have something between us. I want to see where it leads. But I need to know more, I need to understand you better.”

“Women are supposed to be mysterious.”

“You told me I was still a cop. You know how cops are about mystery.”

Emma realized he had her trapped. She considered her routes of escape. There wasn’t much more of this she could take. She could try lying to Sam, but she suspected he’d know and only probe more. She could try to blow it off, or tell him to shut up, but he was relentless. The only way out of this was the truth. Not something she shared often. Not something she was sure someone outside of ‘the life’ would get. She decided to try.

“My mother and father had a deep love. I don’t doubt it for a moment. But when they ran certain scams, they’d be with other people. They’d act as if the other didn’t exist. In the life, illusion and truth blend until you’re not sure where one ends and the other begins.”

The words were stiff at first, and she spoke them in a hushed tone, worried someone might overhear. Reverting back to her cautious self, the kid on the grift who had to protect herself and her family and preserve the delicate web of lies no matter what. “When you run outside the law, live a certain way, you stay with your own kind. I left the life, but it stays with you. I don’t want to explain myself, or have to justify who I was. I don’t want to be with someone who will constantly question my integrity because of my past.”

“You don’t want to because you’ve been in that situation.”

“Early on, when a relationship turned serious and I’d have to own up to parts of my past, it created problems I decided were not worth the hassle. My other option is to do what the rest of my clan does, and stay within our own circle, but I’m not about to shack up with someone living the life I fought so hard to escape. Casual works. I’m not about to fix what isn’t broke.”

Speaking the truth out loud for the first time to someone other than Eric had a strange, liberating effect. A weight lifted from her, even as she waited for Sam’s judgment.

“Makes sense,” he said, holding his beer but not drinking. “Cops are the same. They stick with their own kind.”

With merely a handful of words, he’d dissolved the tension rising between them. Sam had a drink of beer, and Emma did the same with the coke, letting the liquid and the confession cool her blood.

“Since we’re sharing, why’d you become a cop? You attended a top technical college, founded a computer game company with Keith before you even graduated. You had a golden life, and you traded it in for the uniform. Why?”

“My mom died from breast cancer when I was twelve, so for most of my life it was just me and my dad. He owned a sporting goods store in downtown Albany, but to me, he was my hero. My last semester of college, the store got robbed. My father was killed over a couple hundred dollars. I graduated, and became a cop. Sounds like the plot of Spider-Man, but I felt I needed to do something real that made a difference. Inventing video games wasn’t real enough.”

So much made sense now. Why he fought the good fight and why he couldn’t stop fighting the good fight. “I’m sorry Sam. That’s terrible. When my mother died from an aneurism I thought my world would end.”

Sam covered her hand with his, and a bond forged with the contact. It stopped the fall of bad memories, allowing the good ones to gather instead.“It’s never easy, is it? Losing a parent. But when it comes suddenly...”

“There was no warning. One minute she was frying bacon for Sunday breakfast and next, she was gone.” She didn’t think often of that time, because when she did it was fresh like it happened only yesterday. “Doesn’t matter if it’s sudden, or you have warning. It still hurts.”

The waitress swept by for refills a moment later, and Emma pulled her hand back, but the bond remained.

“Keith didn’t talk to me for a while. He was furious. But he came around. When I left the force, he was there to help me pick up the pieces. He was the one who suggested I stay in the game with the programming and analytic skills. I owe him everything.”

“I like the company name—Lost and Found.”

“Keith’s idea. But it does fit the bill. We find things that have been lost: people, items, truth, information, if it’s missing, we go out and get it. There are some highly specialized contracts I’ve taken lately that require more than the usual resources, so I needed a bigger training and research facility.”

“And you chose the Meyerville backwoods?”

“I know it seems like the boonies, but actually, the Adirondacks are working on modernizing and getting high tech brain trust types of businesses up here. Besides, I needed a remote location. Many of the staff are contract employees who keep a low profile for a variety of reasons. The lodge and a town like Meyerville provide the level of anonymity and discretion they require.”

“Sounds like you work for the CIA.”

“If the check doesn’t bounce, sure, why not?” He gave an exaggerated wink, and Emma couldn’t help but laugh. She’d run the range of emotions with him in the few minutes of conversation, and somehow, it all ended up very comfortable. It made the pain of anticipated loss all the worse.

The waitress arrived with dinner and they tucked into the food.

Sam took a bite and moaned low in appreciation. “This meatloaf is worth killing for.”

Emma agreed. Something about the way meat, salt, breadcrumbs and thick brown gravy went together made her want to cry with joy. The lodge and its horrors seemed distant, a story in a novel she’d bookmarked and put down for a break.

Through the meal they talked on and off about his business, and what she did for Eric. She shared some stories of the crazier people she’d stopped from getting close to her boss, including an eighty year old would be stalker, and the male heir to a famous German brewery who thought Eric was the reincarnated patron of the family line.

They fell into a comfortable rhythm, the kind an old married couple would share, or friends of many years. But always on the edge was that tight awareness of sexual connection. She was falling, falling hard, falling fast. What pieces would be left afterward? She found she didn’t care, and that was a dangerous thing. She’d shelved her survival instinct. There was no more fatal a flaw.

 

~ * * * ~

 

After the meal they ordered pie, apple for her and strawberry rhubarb for Sam, along with a carafe of coffee. Emma went for the full octane, knowing there was a long night ahead of them. She filled her cup to the brim with cream and added two packets of pure sugar.

“We’re having coffee together,” Sam said, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You know what that means.”

Emma stared blankly at him. “Dinner’s over?”

“It means I get to ask you how you got into the psychic gig.”

“The psychic gig?” The terminology made her smile.

“You promised. I’m holding you to that promise.”

Everyone always wanted to know, but there wasn’t anything special. Not to Emma’s way of thinking. Normally she kept her history to herself, but Sam had worn down her defenses tonight. “My mother’s family always has someone, each generation, who gets the gift. It comes in different forms, uses different tools. She’s half Ukrainian and story goes, generations back, visiting gypsies took liberties with an ancestor when the caravan rolled through town and that’s how the power got into the line.”

“Ancient gypsies.” Sam winked. “Intriguing.”

“If you can believe it. I’m not so sure it’s true. We are a bunch of professional liars.” Memories washed over her, days and nights learning with her Aunt Melanie and Granny Galena. “Anyway, the family has several scams revolving around fortune telling and sooth saying and all that hot trash. You learn early how to use crystal balls, tea leaves, tarot cards. How to fake a trance or spirit possession. But if you have the sixth sense, it shows for real”

She had an acute awareness of how long it had been since she’d felt like she belonged anywhere. Her family might have been crooked to the core, but they loved her without condition and never questioned her. Home was always a moving target, but with family around, she never missed that. Never had to worry about acceptance.

“I showed the signs, so I learned how to do it for real. Doing psychic readings was one way Dad would lure in marks, and a way to sus out what scam to get involved in as well. Gave him an edge and kept us ahead of the law more times than I can count.”

“Must have been hard, growing up that way.”

“It has ups and downs.”

“Why’d you leave?”

That one was easy. “I didn’t want to be a career criminal. Once I hit eighteen, I told my family I wanted out. They weren’t happy, thought I was crazy, but let me go. Everyone figured I’d try a legit life for a few months and then come back to the clan.”

“But you stuck with it.” There was admiration in his voice.

“I did. It wasn’t easy, either. Establishing my real identity, for one. Affording college. I never finished, you know. Eric found me junior year, doing readings out of a new age shop on the tip of Long Island. I had two types of valuable talents: being psychic, and being an excellent con-detector. I could spot the people trying to work him a mile away, knew the scams inside and out. He hired me away, and I never looked back.”

“See? Nothing epic.” Emma folded her hands and tucked the memories away with fondness. “No soap opera style story line with angry relatives trying to lure me back to a life of crime. No witches granting me special powers. I picked up the gift by accident of birth, and when I turned eighteen, decided to leave the family business and strike out on my own.”

“When you say it that way it does lack mystery, doesn’t it?”

She shrugged. “I’m not into drama.”

“Me either,” he said. “Everything we’ve dealt with, all the chaos I’m sure is to come, I wish it never happened. I wish we’d met without it. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

Not trusting herself to speak to that topic, Emma merely nodded.

The fell to discussing the case again until the conversation came back to how much was still unknown.

Sam’s body language changed with the topic, growing stiff, uncomfortable. “This whole case has a bad vibe. Worse than when I first started. You’re right about a bigger evil. And I bet it has to do with the second body found in Heath’s car.”

“The picture’s changed.” And would continue to change. “We know the people present at her death have been lying. I wish we knew about what.”

“One of the five people present on the grounds the night Jen died factor into her death. Maybe more than one. I’d stake my reputation on that.”

The evidence was supporting him, at least on the surface. Evidence could be misleading, though. Sometimes taking a thing at face value was the worst mistake you could make. She hadn’t learned that being a psychic, but from her con artist father. Always look deeper, he’d told her. Don’t fall for the smoke and the mirrors, and don’t take what someone tells you to be true just because it seems convenient.

“Why do you think Wes was so accommodating with information about Audrey and Mike? Why change his story after so many years? What do you think he has to gain?”

“With Wes it’s hard to know. He’s always been one of those do-gooder crusader types. Save the whales, recycle garbage, rehabilitate criminals. Not a year goes by he isn’t knee deep in some cause or trying to set a social wrong to right. Maybe lying finally got to him. What’s your read on him?”

“My psychic read, or my con job read?”

“Either.” He was obviously interested, and Emma found it didn’t bug her that he wanted both opinions.

“Psychically, I don’t get much. He’s in a profession where he’s trained to keep himself neutral, so that may be the reason I’m blocked. Con job wise, I have to wonder why he’s so helpful.”

“Wes has always felt like a poser because the Vaughn line was started by a Canadian fur trader on the run from the law and has a weird history with a lot of dead brides. He always acted as if he had to prove himself better than his roots. Audrey comes from blue blood all the way back to English nobility. Marrying her got him the cachet he was looking for. The kind money can’t buy.”

Sam’s words hit home. Maybe she needed to set down this whole ‘prove yourself’ chip she carried around on her shoulder and get over it already. Trying to force acceptance was a losing game, and being hung up on that acceptance even worse. “You think Mike and Audrey are having an affair, or had one?”

“Mike likes women, they like him back. Audrey, though, that’s hard to figure. The pictures indicate clandestine meetings but we don’t know what’s really behind them. It bears more investigation.”

“Everything does.” She reflected on all the information gleaned in her readings. A strange sense of doom crept into her thoughts. “We need to put the pieces back together, try another angle.”

This pulled a laugh out of Sam. “You sound like a cop.”

“Cops and cons, same game, just different sides.”

Sam settled up and they walked back to the car. A cold rain started to fall fast from a bleak sky as they pulled out of the parking lot. The sense of foreboding intensified. “Is it ever nice up here, Sam? Do you ever see the night stars? Or the sun?”

“You need to know where to look.”

“We’re missing things in this case. They’re right in front of us, psychic clues and mundane ones, and we can’t see them.” Like the absent starts concealed in the canopy of night covering this isolated mountain town, she knew something was there, something critical and elemental, but knowing didn’t put it any less beyond her grasp.

“We’ll look again, and keep looking, until we find what we need.” He reached across and took her hand. This time his touch brought her neither ease nor excitement. The worry tugging at her wouldn’t let go.

When they pulled up to the Lodge, the land was hushed and tensed, as if the spirits and energy had coiled tight and waited to spring on some secret signal. Emma reached out psychically and found only a heavy void. She wished she had the same assurance Sam did. She wished this time his steady vibe could comfort her. But isolation cocooned her and the knowledge that somewhere a clock ticked, and time ran short, left her chilled to her soul.