Out of Mind

Chapter 8

He was in deep shit.

Ben hung out in the courtyard overlooked by the Millets’ flats, and the shadowy forms of stone angels. There was nothing to stop him from going up to Sykes’s place and tucking himself into bed—other than intense curiosity and a sense of doom about Willow’s reaction to her little journey.

She was no fool, and she’d spent enough time around families like theirs to know she’d been snaffled, and who she had been snaffled by.

He smiled slightly. This might not be all bad. First he’d gotten her away from the sleazeballs Uptown, and then he’d created the kind of upheaval bound to get her attention.

Ben wanted Willow’s attention, on him. He also wanted to quit waiting for something crazy to start happening. Not that a couple of people dying for peculiar, indefinite reasons wasn’t crazy, but that didn’t have to be the end of it.

That was the other thing. Those deaths seemed to have something to do with Willow and her company—otherwise why would both events take place around the presence of Willow or one of her employees?

He had gone a bit far at that party.

Could be he should have found another way to protect Willow—and get her attention.

Soft laughter met his thoughts and he looked sharply around the courtyard. Water poured lightly from a fountain in the center, a young angel holding a shell. He couldn’t see it clearly, but he remembered it well enough.

As he’d experienced before, the faces of angels and the few gargoyles hiding above lintels had brightened in the darkness, and they all looked at him. He nodded in all directions, acknowledging their presence. And he accepted the strong likelihood that others—he did not know who—were using the figures to focus his concentration on them.

“Friend or foe?” He projected the thought and it was met with titters. He had tried this before and already knew his thoughts reached listeners in the courtyard.

A gentle and fleeting caress passed over his face, and he lowered his eyes. It could be a mark of friendship, he thought, a reassurance. But there were those entities that would use any subterfuge to find what most unattached spirits wanted: a host.

Ben wasn’t available to be anyone’s host body.

He would go to bed, but first he owed it to Willow to stop by—probably to apologize, too.

He ran up the steps, making no attempt to be quiet. Pascal slept in apartments above the shop, on the Royal Street side, and with most of the other Millets in London or making themselves scarce, as Sykes was, only Willow would be here.

He gritted his teeth. He’d forgotten Gray and Marley. One look at their darkened flat suggested they were probably not at home—he hoped not.

With the lightest of taps on Willow’s front door he wondered if she’d hear him at all. He could see light through the drapes in her sitting room.

But only a few moments passed before she opened the door a crack and peered out. She saw him and scowled. “You’ve got a nerve.”

With an innocent look, he shrugged. “What’s the matter? I saw your light on.”

“And I saw you at the Brandt place, Ben.”

“Did you? Well, I admit I was there, but I didn’t think you saw me. You didn’t answer when I spoke to you.”

“You were on the other side of the pool. How was I supposed to hear you?”

“You know what I mean.” He tilted his head to the side. “You heard me contact you exclusively earlier today—in the shop. You answered.”

“A fluke,” she said, and he heard snuffling.

“Is Winnie with you? I was afraid I might wake Gray and Marley, but I guess they are out.”

“I don’t know,” she said, opening the door a little wider. “Come in. It’s time we got some things straight.”

She turned away, but not before he saw a small dog with what looked like wiry orange fur. The animal was tucked under Willow’s arm where it appeared completely comfortable.

“That’s not Winnie,” he said.

“You noticed.”

“Don’t be smart. You’ve got a new dog.”

“Yes,” she said. “Marigold. She’s a stray I’ve taken in.”

“When?” Ben said.

“When, what?”

“When did you adopt the mutt? I didn’t see her when I was here before.”

Willow gave him a smirk. “Goes to show how unobservant people can be.”

He followed her into the living room, and she sat in a well-worn but comfy-looking blue chair, the dog on her lap.

“D’you like small dogs?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Not much of a conversation starter there. “Just a puppy, I guess,” he added and dropped to sit on the edge of the couch. “It’ll grow.”

“I don’t care one way or the other. She’s mine and I like her however she is.”

“You got her from a shelter?” he asked, becoming suspicious about the origins of Marigold.

Willow didn’t answer. She lifted the dog and looked into its eyes. “You’re beautiful, aren’t you? Wait till you meet Winnie. You’ll have to put her in her place.”

“Did you find it in the street and decide to bring it home? That sounds like something you’d do. Someone could be out there looking for that dog.” He looked a little closer. “Probably not, though.”

“My dog is very good-looking,” Willow said. “And her ego is too good to let her be crushed by your meanness.”

“You can’t call it Marigold, though,” Ben said.

If he could just sit there and look at Willow he’d be a happy man—at least for a little while.

“I can and I’m going to,” she said.

“Would you consider Mario?” he asked.

Willow frowned and took a better look at her new pet. “Oh. I’m only used to girl dogs so I thought… Ben, I don’t want you interfering in my life.”

“I’m not responsible for your girl dog being a boy dog,” he said, deliberately obtuse.

“Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not,” he said with his best boyish smile. “I’d settle for you accepting me and not treating me as if I’ve got a disease.”

“You know it doesn’t work for us to be around each other.”

“It used to work perfectly until you had your personality change. Will you call him Mario?”

“My personality has nothing to do with it, never did.”

“What, then?”

She swallowed audibly. “Common sense. I got plenty of hints that I wasn’t right for you, and I finally figured out I wasn’t.”

This was the closest she’d come to an explanation for the cold front that had preceded his dismissal. Or her retreat would be nearer the truth. Willow had gradually withdrawn from him until he forced her to say what she wanted from him. Big mistake. “I want you to go and find someone else,” she had said. “Please just leave me alone.”

He had been too shocked to refuse at the time, and later, when anger set in, he couldn’t make himself risk hearing her say it again.

“You can’t go on pretending you don’t have paranormal powers,” he said, hoping for some shock value from the sudden attack. “It’s ridiculous. It’s not true. And if you ever needed to be able to call on your special talents, it’s now when something is out to get you.”

The dog squirmed free of her arms and landed on the arm of the chair, where it sat like an intelligent red squirrel with a push face and stubby tail.

Ben tried not to meet its shiny black eyes, which were staring right into his own.

“Why aren’t you staying at Fortunes?” Willow said. “Poppy must be furious you’re not there. And Ethan and Liam can’t be pleased you’re in town and hiding out.”

“They don’t know I’m here—yet.”

She blinked slowly, visibly turning over the idea he’d just presented. “You’re in New Orleans and your family doesn’t know it? You run the businesses, Ben. That’s weird. Wait till they find out. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if Poppy figures you didn’t go to see her first.”

“Poppy will understand. Anyway, I came to help Sykes.” He had come to make sure Willow was all right, but figured she didn’t want to hear that. “Did you put the gun in a safe place?”

“It will be within my reach all the time,” she said.

“You shouldn’t mess with it until you’ve learned how to use it.”

She raised one eyebrow.

Ben puffed up his cheeks. “O-kay, moving right along. Marley and Gray talked to me about you having second sight.”

She laced her fingers tightly in her lap.

“You can tell when someone has suffered violence. You know what was done to them and how they’ve been affected. And you are telepathic. Can you project yourself at all, mentally or physically?”

Her lips pursed.

“It’s useful if you can, Willow. You must know that. If you’re in a tight spot, you may be able to extricate yourself.” Or not, depending on the circumstances and how strong her power was. “I should have pressed you on this years ago. I never understood why you pretended you were…untalented. I guess I always thought I could take care of you so it didn’t matter what spin you put on things.”

“Arrogant,” she muttered.

“Can we continue with this topic?”

Not a word.

“Auras. Anything there? Do you see them, read them?”

She turned her face from him. God, she only made him want her more.

“Travel at all—out of body perhaps, like Marley?”

“Or whatever it was you did to me earlier?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Snatch people up and transport them against their will?”

He ignored that. “How about created reality? Pretty sophisticated stuff, but useful for creating a diversion under dire circumstances.”

Her face became blank again. The dog licked her.

“I enjoyed kissing you earlier.”

Willow turned red and looked at her hands.

“You enjoyed it, too. I could feel it.”

At least that got her looking at him. “That was a mistake,” she said. “A reaction to not seeing each other for a long time.”

“So you didn’t like it.”

Willow wasn’t into lies. She chose to be silent again.

“It wasn’t anything to do with our separation. That kiss was automatic. We both wanted it, and there’s plenty more where that came from.”

With every word spoken, the wiry-haired dog with his sprouting mustache, pointy little ears and fur jutting out over his eyes, watched first Ben’s then Willow’s face.

“He looks as if he’s got an opinion,” Ben said, trying a smile on Willow. “If you did pick him up somewhere, you’ll have to look for the owners.”

The troubled light in her eyes didn’t make him feel happy. Damn it, if this dog already had a home, he’d find another mutt for Willow.

“You look stressed,” he said.

“I don’t need a shrink, thank you.”

“How about a brandy?”

“I don’t have brandy.”

“Coffee? Come on, loosen up. You can’t hide your head in the sand, sweetheart.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You can hope no one figures out you made the mess with that ministorm of yours in the grounds of the Brandts’ house.”

He threw up his hands. “How could I have made any mess anywhere? We’re all normal, remember?”

“You can put a mug of coffee in the microwave. It’s in a pot, but it’s cold.”

He automatically curled his lips, but turned the expression into a smile. “Sounds great.” He hopped out into the hallway and the kitchen before she could change her mind and returned in minutes with two steaming mugs. Willow’s was half milk, which he remembered she preferred. He’d also found cookies and brought the whole package with him. Willow didn’t cook much unless she got in the mood.

He’d smelled the gumbo while he was in the kitchen and it made his mouth water.

Willow got up and took the tray from him. She put it on a marquetry table and stripped paper and cardboard from the box of cookies. “You didn’t bring a plate,” she said.

Ben grinned. He liked it that she could forget herself and behave as if they were still just Ben and Willow in the comfortable relationship they’d once had—if regular physical pain and intense sexual frustration could be called comfortable.

It would make his argument easier if he could talk about his visit to the morgue, but that would be revealing his whole hand and he wasn’t ready for that.

She gave him his coffee and curled up with hers. The dog sniffed her mug and she offered it to him. To Ben’s disgust, the creature lapped with obvious pleasure before Willow drank herself.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” he said.

Willow looked confused.

“A dog drinking your coffee, from your cup.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said and kissed the creature’s nose.

Ben could have sworn the dog’s eyes crossed.

He decided on a slight fabrication over the body in the morgue. “Gray called me.” She didn’t have to know how he had called him. “Apparently, he and his old partner, Nat, are still pretty close. They discuss cases.”

“I know,” Willow said. “I look after Gus’s cottage in the Marigny, you know. He’s Gray’s dad. I wish he was my dad.”

That didn’t say much for Antoine, her own father, who, with her mother, Leandra, had managed to be absent from their family most of the time since Willow was ten. The older Millets had gone in search of something none of them would discuss, but Ben figured it related to the Millet legend and the fact that Sykes’s dark hair and blue eyes were considered a danger to the future of his clan. Too bad none of his own attempts to ferret out more details about this mystery had worked.

He made much of drinking his coffee and eating chocolate cream-filled cookies. He’d never been close with his own parents, but for different reasons. They ran a retreat house, a very select retreat house for advanced paranormals in California. Fortunately for them, money was something Ben understood and made with ease so he ran the family businesses and kept the parents supplied with everything they needed.

“Can I talk about my conversation with Gray?” he asked, deliberately offhand.

“Of course.”

“He told me that the autopsy’s been done on your baker. He’s keeping the coroner scratching his head.”

Willow’s expression closed, and Ben didn’t imagine that tears filled her eyes.

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s a shock. I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

“Billy’s dead—he’s the one we should be sorry for. What are they saying about what killed him?”

“Heart attack, like Nat thought.”

“I’m so sad about it,” Willow said.

Now he had to take a calculated risk. Somehow she had to be rattled into taking what was going on seriously, very seriously. “The question is why he had it. His heart wasn’t perfect, but he shouldn’t have had an attack.”

“What does that mean?”

The dog scooted back on the arm of the chair and rested his chin on Willow’s shoulder. She looked at him with such obvious affection, Ben felt jealous.

“Blades—he’s the medical examiner—said the man was frightened to death. By something he saw coming.”

“How could the medical examiner know that?” She sounded short of breath. Her small, high breasts rose and fell rapidly in the thin, yellow dress.

Ben looked elsewhere. “When they found the body, there were little puncture wounds on the forehead.”

She looked sick. “Something attacked him? Nat mentioned there were marks, but they didn’t sound like anything serious.”

“Doesn’t look as if we’re going to know what scratched him because all the skin peeled off. From the ribs up, the skin is completely gone. There’s just raw flesh—”

“Stop it!”

“Sure. Sorry about that. I was thinking out loud.”

“I’m not squeamish,” Willow said. “But Billy was a friend and he was alive and normal this afternoon.”

Absently, her hand went to her neck and she felt around with her fingertips.

“What is it,” Ben said. “Does your neck hurt?”

“No!” she said fiercely, dropping her arm.

“How about the woman over the dance hall on South Rampart?” he asked.

She sat up very straight, and her freckles stood out sharply from her pale skin. “Surry Green? How do you know about that? Are they reporting anything about it on the news? What are they saying?”

No way would he mention his ride in her trailer.

“Nat knows about it.” Ben felt pretty safe saying so since Archer was bound to have found out by now. “One of your people was there, right? Where the woman died?”

“How do you know that?” She sounded desperate. “This has been a horrible day.”

“Pretty horrible for two people, anyway,” he said, without meaning to sound judgmental.

“You think I don’t know that? What are they saying about Chris?”

That was the guy she’d talked to on the phone. “I really don’t have any details,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll all be out by tomorrow. No one said anything about a stake in the heart, though.” The risk was worth it if he got a measurable response.

“That was just Chris speculating,” she said. “Some idiot said it in the crowd outside the building. Ben, what’s going on here?” She skewered him with a green stare like none other he had ever seen.

She knew the answer to her own question. “You know too much.”

“I have ways of finding things out, honey,” he said. “You can’t change that.”

“Why don’t you find someone else to interfere with?”

“You make that sound vaguely obscene.”

She actually snickered. “You know what I mean.”

“Obscene was that party you attended earlier,” he said. “Things like that aren’t suitable for you.”

“Why? Am I too pure?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t attending the party, I was talking about a job.”

“Which you won’t be taking under any circumstances,” Ben said. “You don’t belong in places like that.”

“It’s a very nice place, and if I decide the job is worth having, I will take it.”

“I saw the guy who got too hot for his clothes. He prefers the way he looks without them. He thought you would, too.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You didn’t look away when he put on his show.”

“Did you look away when women were swimming nude in the pool?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Sometimes it was best to wait for a better time to push a point.

“Ben,” she said quietly, “have you heard any comments about Mean ’n Green showing up at the sites of two sudden deaths today?”

He raised his brows, following her line of thought. “No,” he said, glad he could be honest. “Don’t worry about that.”

Her expression gradually grew horrified. “My scooter,” she said. “It’s outside the Brandts’ house. When they see it there, they’re going to ask how I got home.”

“It’s downstairs in the storeroom,” he told her.

“How—”

“It is. That’s all that matters. Are you going to cooperate with me? I need to know exactly what’s been happening. When did you start feeling as if you were being watched and followed around?”

“I never could keep anything from my meddling family. I figured they knew pretty much what was going on with me, but Sykes didn’t need to bring you all the way from Hawaii.”

“He knew I’d be mad if he didn’t.”

She looked at him. “Sykes isn’t intimidated by anyone getting mad. He’s just interfering.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Are you going to stop closing me out and let me help you?”

“With what? All I’ve got are silly premonitions, and—”

“Yeah. Only your premonitions aren’t silly. You’ve felt danger. And two people with some sort of connection to you died today. Stop the pretense, Willow. Do you think I’m not aware of it when you close your mind to me?”

“I’m not in your league.” She sounded almost frantic. “I never could be, and it only makes it more obvious when we’re around each other.”

“Fine, only I’m not leaving. If I have to shadow you day and night, that’s what I’ll do. I thought you might like to do what you can to help is all.”

Willow put down her coffee. “I don’t need a shadow.”

“Not if the shadow is me, right?”

She jumped to her feet. “I didn’t say that.”

Ben got up and moved closer. Willow backed away. “Dammit,” he said. “Why don’t you just give in and admit we need each other? Why don’t you stop fighting it? I want you, Willow. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

“Do you think this is easy for me? Something happens whenever we get too close.”

“You noticed?” He took her by the shoulders. “Willow… Okay, okay.” Resting his chin on top of her head, he took deep breaths.

He sat with her on the couch, and she gave one of the sweet smiles that reminded him of how shy she had been when they were first attracted to each other.

“Okay, Ben. We’re fine, aren’t we? Or we will be?”

Taking her hand to his mouth, he kissed her palm and folded her fingers over it carefully. “I will never give up on us.”

The phone rang and Willow jumped. She drew back as if she feared being attacked.

“I’ll answer it,” Ben said.

“No, I will.” She snatched up the receiver and listened, hardly responding to whoever had called.

She hung up and the thing rang again. Willow answered again. “I’m not answering any questions tonight. Leave me alone.”

A second passed and she said in a hesitant voice, “Nat. Sorry…yes, someone at the Times just called. It was nothing.”

Ben held out his hand for the receiver, but Willow motioned him away. “This has been a really long day,” she said. “I need some rest or I can’t think straight. Not that I know anything helpful anyway… Leave Chris to me. I’ll track him down in the morning. He doesn’t like to be interrupted at night.” She listened some more. “In the morning, Nat. I’ll be in your office first thing. That’s the best I can do.”

She held the phone away, and Ben took it from her fingers to hang up. “What’s that all about?”

“I was at Billy Baker’s right before he died. Chris was seen going into the flat above the dance hall on South Rampart tonight. Someone gave his name to the cops, but they can’t find him to ask him any questions.

“And my scooter was seen outside the home of Val and Cleo Brandt this evening. Apparently, a freaky and very localized storm set down on top of their guests at a pool party there. After all the mayhem, I wasn’t there anymore but no one saw me leave. Nat’s starting to think there are too many coincidences involving me.”