White Lies (17 page)

Jake had the kitchen sliders wide open. He was working at the center island. He must have sensed her watching him because he raised his hand in a casual wave.

Probably real hard to sneak up on a hunter.

This was to have been her night to do the entertaining, she thought. She had known from the outset that it would be a bad idea to let Jake get the upper hand. But here she was in his house, getting ready to drink his wine and eat the food that he prepared.

Jake was once again in charge.

She decided she was in no condition to analyze all the possible ramifications of that situation. It had been a very long day. She needed a shower and then she needed food and sleep.

Tomorrow morning she would worry about how to deal with Jake Salter.

When she walked into the kitchen a short time later, feeling slightly more human and even a bit more energetic, Jake handed her a large glass of wine and a small bowl of roasted almonds.

“Drink,” he said. “Eat. You need the vitamins.”

“You’re right.” She sat down at the table and reached for a fistful of nuts. “So? What did you learn at the spa?”

“Found the dumbbell Valerie used to try to brain you.”

“Really?” Fascinated, she stared at him. “You could actually detect her psychic imprint on it?”

“I could sure as hell feel someone’s energy.” Jake stopped working long enough to munch some almonds. “Given what you told me and the turban in the car, it must have been Valerie’s.”

“What does that kind of energy feel like?”

He hesitated, looking thoughtful. “Raw. Elemental. Dark. It’s like touching the heart of a tornado.”

“Do you only pick up the kind of energy that is left in the wake of an act of violence? Or can you pick up other kinds of intense emotions as well?”

He looked at her. “The thing about being a hunter is that you only connect to the dark stuff.”

“I see.” She cleared her throat. “Sounds unpleasant.”

“Probably no worse than getting hit with one of those ultraviolet lies you told me about. By the way, Archer called while you were in the shower. Second time I’ve heard from him in the past couple of hours. Says he’s been trying to get ahold of you.”

“I know. I saw the calls on my phone log.”

“Going to respond?” Jake asked.

“Yes.” Reluctantly she took her phone out of her pocket and punched in Archer’s private number. “He won’t stop calling unless I do.”

Archer answered on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?”

“With Jake.”

“Doing what?”

“Jake is fixing dinner for me.”

There was a short pause on the other end.

“Jake is cooking dinner? You’re not at a restaurant?”

“Yes to the first question,” Clare said. “No to the second. We’re at his place.”

Silence hummed again for a few seconds.

“Are you all right?” Archer asked after a while.

“Yes. Elizabeth baby-sat me for a while until Jake showed up.”

“What’s the name of your motel? No one seems to know. Even Brenda was confused.”

“No point worrying about it now,” she said lightly. “I checked out an hour ago. Jake offered me his spare bedroom. I accepted.”

“What the frigging hell does he think he’s doing? If you need a place to stay, you can damn well come over here.”

She smiled in spite of her weary mood. “Bad idea, Archer. We both know that.”

“Put Jake on the phone.”

She held the phone out to Jake. “He wants to talk to you.”

Jake wiped his hands on a towel and took the device from her.

“Bad timing, Archer. I’m a little busy.”

There was a short pause.

“Sure,” Jake said. “The problem is, she doesn’t want to go to your place. She’s been pretty clear about that. You want to try to convince her?”

There was another listening moment.

“Yeah, I did notice the stubborn streak,” Jake said. “Seems to run in the family. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Archer. Meanwhile you know where to find Clare. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

He ended the call and tossed the phone back to Clare.

It rang again before Clare could ask what Archer had said. She glanced at the number and sighed.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Where are you, dear? Still in Stone Canyon?” Gwen Lancaster’s voice was tinged with a hint of hopefulness. “Everything going well?”

“Still here,” Clare said, tasting her wine. “Things have become complicated.”

She gave her mother a quick summary of events, leaving out the close call in the parking garage and the dumbbell incident. When she used the words “dead body” and “police” in the same sentence, however, there was a horrified wail from the other end of the line.

“Not again.”

Clare had to hold the phone several inches from her ear. Jake looked up from slicing a tomato. She knew he had heard Gwen’s pained cry of dismay.

“Now, Mom, you don’t have to make it sound like I trip over dead bodies all the time. There have only been two.”

“Two in six months. Do you know what the odds are of that kind of thing happening if you’re not a cop or in some sort of emergency work? And the two bodies we’re discussing happen to be related to each other. Do you realize what that does to the probability factor?”

“Take it easy, Mom, you’re going into full accounting mode here. You know I didn’t get your talent for numbers.”

“Do the police consider you a suspect?” Gwen asked sharply.

“No, I’m not a suspect.” Clare kept her voice calm and soothing.

“Where is Archer in all this? Has he hired a lawyer for you?”

“I don’t need a lawyer.” Clare hesitated. “Not yet at any rate. Everyone seems to think Valerie Shipley’s death will be ruled accidental. A bad mix of alcohol, tranquilizers and a convenient pool. Please don’t worry. As soon as things are cleared up, I’ll be on the first plane back to San Francisco.”

“But what about the reason you went to Arizona in the first place? Did Archer tell you why he wanted to see you?”

There was no point putting off the inevitable, Clare thought.

“He says he intends to establish a private grant-making foundation. He wants to make me the director.”

Gwen went very quiet on the other end of the line.

“I was right,” she said eventually. “He wants to atone in some way for the past.”

“I think he feels that he has a responsibility toward me,” Clare said. “It’s bothering him that I haven’t been able to find a new job. He’s trying to create one for me.”

“Sounds like it.” Gwen fell silent.

“Mom? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Gwen said. “I’m still here. But I’m very worried. I don’t like this situation.”

“Neither do I,” Clare admitted. “But I think it will all go away in a couple of days after they do the autopsy and everyone concludes that Valerie Shipley’s death was not murder.”

“Are you still at the motel?”

“No, Mom, I’m not.”

“You’re with Elizabeth?” Gwen asked. “I thought she was staying with Archer and Myra until her condo closes. I know you don’t like to go to the Glazebrook house if you can avoid it.”

“I’m not there, either.” Clare cleared her throat. “I’m staying with someone who is consulting for Archer. His name is Jake Salter.”

“You’re staying with a completestranger ?”

“He’s not a stranger, Mom.”

“But you’ve only known him a couple of days,” Gwen said, sounding slightly stunned. “Is he married?”

“No,” Clare said, watching Jake, “he’s not married.”

“You’re there alone with him?”

“It’s complicated, Mom.”

“How did you meet him?”

“At the Glazebrook cocktail party. I guess you could say that Archer introduced us.”

“No,” Jake said, “I introduced myself.”

“I heard that,” Gwen said. “Is that him?”

“Yes,” Clare said. “He’s cooking dinner.”

“Do you think it’s wise to be staying at his house?”

“To be honest, at the moment I’m too tired to care.”

“Clare—”

“It’s been a very long day, Mom. I’m going to have a glass of wine, eat dinner and fall into bed.”

Jake was dousing the vegetables with olive oil. She saw his mouth curve faintly in a very male smile. It dawned on her that the last part of her sentence left a lot to the imagination.

“Alone,” she added hastily.

“Clare, I’m not sure about this,” Gwen said.

“I love you, Mom, but I’m going to hang up now. I’m beat. Bye.”

She ended the call and set the phone on the table.

“I’m thirty-two years old,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m still having conversations with my mother about where I will sleep. Do men have conversations like that with their mothers?”

“Can’t speak for all of the other males on the planet.” Jake crunched a chunk of blood-red bell pepper between his teeth. “But I sure as hell don’t.”

“Lucky you.”

He sprinkled salt over the vegetables. “Doesn’t mean there isn’t some pressure, though.”

She almost laughed. “I find it very hard to believe that anyone, even your own mother, could apply serious pressure to you, Jake Salter.”

“Never underestimate a mother when it comes to that kind of stuff.”

“What pressure does your mother apply?”

“She’d like to see me get married again. She’s after me to register at arcanematch.com.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Jake said. “It’s not like I’ve got anything to lose, right?”

Her heart sank. He might just as well have come straight out and told her that he didn’t see any future for the two of them, she thought.

“Guess not,” she said.

“Ever register yourself?” he asked.

“Tried it once.” She drank some wine and lowered the glass.

“I’m getting a bad feeling here,” Jake said. “I take it the matchmakers at Arcane House didn’t come up with a match?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Let’s just say that being told that you are unmatchable with any other member of the Society is hard to take, even for an optimistic, upbeat, positive thinker like myself.”

“Are you still registered?”

“Good grief, no. It was too depressing getting that stupid little ‘Welcome to arcanematch.com, Clare Lancaster. Sorry, no match yet. Check back later’ message.”

“Think you’ll give it another try someday?”

“What’s the point?” she asked.

“You might get lucky,” he said.

“I doubt it. And I’m really not in the mood for any more rejection at the moment.”

Clare came awake very suddenly from a dream in which Valerie Shipley was hunting her through an endless series of spa chambers. Each room contained a bottomless pool. In the dreamworld she knew she had to keep running, hoping to find a way out, but Valerie was closing the distance between them.

Valerie’s gone. Let it go.

The image of Valerie’s dead body floating in the turquoise blue pool refused to fade.

Think of something else.

She lay still for a moment, orienting herself to the unfamiliar bedroom, trying to pinpoint whatever it was that had awakened her. Eventually she turned on her side and looked at the clock.

It was just after midnight.

She had a vague memory of tumbling into bed almost immediately after dinner. Sleep had come, hard and fast, her body shutting down so that it could recover from the long, difficult day. But now the effects of the wine and exhaustion had worn off. She felt unnaturally alert and restless.

Shoving aside the covers, she got to her feet and padded barefoot to the sliding glass doors.

She pulled the curtains aside. The underwater lights were off. Half the pool lay in heavy shadows cast by the walls of the house. The other half was illuminated by the brilliant desert moon. When she saw the dark figure in the opaque, silvered water she stopped breathing for a couple heartbeats. Not again. She really could not deal with any more bodies.

Belatedly she realized that the person in the pool was not floating; he was swimming toward the far end, where the shadows were deepest, with smooth, powerful, controlled strokes.

Jake.

Impulsively she went into the bathroom, pulled on the robe she had borrowed from the Glazebrook house and went back to the glass doors.

She unlocked the slider, opened it and stepped out into the night.

The air was a pleasant temperature now. The stones that paved the pool terrace still radiated the warmth that had been absorbed during the day. She walked to the edge of the water.

Jake had seen her and changed direction. He swam to the side and looked up at her. Moonlight gleamed on his wet hair and sleek, powerful shoulders.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Slept like a log until a few minutes ago.”

“Bad dreams?”

She hesitated. “Only to be expected under the circumstances.”

“A swim might relax you so you can get back to sleep.”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit with me.”

“You don’t need one. The lights are off. You can’t see anything under the surface at night.”

Automatically she glanced down into the water below his chest. He was right. She could not even see the dark outline of his body.

“Well,” she said, thinking about it.

“Haven’t you ever gone skinny-dipping?”

“Actually, no, I haven’t.”

“Try it. You’ll like it.”

The note of sensual amusement in his words stirred something deep inside her. She realized that she wanted very much to be in the water with Jake.

“All right,” she said. “But you’ll have to turn around while I get in.”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for the shy type. Pretend you’re on one of those European beaches where everyone is nude.”

“I’m not sure I’m capable of that degree of imagination, but I’ll give it a shot.”

She walked around the edge of the pool into the dense shadows at the far end. Feeling more than a little reckless and uncharacteristically, excitinglybrazen, she untied the robe and tossed it onto a lounger.

She kept an eye on Jake, who was treading water at the opposite end. He was in the moonlit section, so she could see that he had his back to her.

Quickly she started down the steps.

Jake turned around just as the water reached her knees. She wasn’t sure how much he could actually see in the shadows, but if even some of the rumors were true, his night vision was much better than average.