He slid a mug over to me. “Leave the dying to us old folks.”
“You’re not old.” I sipped at the coffee. Heaven.
“Sixty-one next birthday.”
“I’ll be sure to get an over-the-hill card.”
He wrung a dishtowel.
I set my mug down. “You’re not serious? Didn’t you know sixty is the new forty?”
“Then what’s forty? The new twenty? Either way, I’m still twenty years older than Maggie.”
“Sixteen.”
“Close enough.”
“Is this about the beard?” I asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you hate it?”
“More than anything.”
He laughed. “Me too. Me too.”
“So shave.”
“But Maggie likes it.”
I read between the lines. Maggie liked it, and he liked Maggie … “She liked you just fine without it.”
“It does cover the wrinkles.”
I stood up. “That’s it. I’m leaving. You’re not old. Or wrinkled. Or old.”
“Come for dinner tonight?” he asked. “Your father just called and said he has last-minute plans. I have a whole pot of cacciatore simmering.”
I scrunched my nose. “I’m supposed to be meeting Em and Marisol.”
“Bring them.”
“You sure?”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
Or them. They loved Raphael almost as much as I did.
“Okay.” I leaned across the counter and kissed his furry cheek. “Weren’t you always the one telling me to never change who I was for someone else?”
He snapped the towel at me. “Get out of here, you. Throwing my words back at me.”
I blew him a kiss as I opened the door, braced against the cold. I slid my key card through the lock of the nondescript door that opened into the stairwell leading to the upper floors. Beautiful cherrywood stairs shone in the late afternoon light filtering through the decorative windows overlooking the Public Garden. I didn’t so much as pause at the second-floor landing, but headed straight up to the third floor to see Sean.
The reception desk was empty, as it usually was. Rumor was Sean and his brother Sam couldn’t keep a receptionist on staff. Sam blamed their last full-timer, Rosalinda, a tiny wisp of a woman who apparently had ties to Santería. Word was that when she was fired for a little embezzlement, she placed a curse on whoever took over her job. All six women after her had quit for one reason or another.
As I knew a thing or two about curses, I hadn’t laughed when Sean and Sam told me about it, but suggested they look into asking Rosalinda’s forgiveness.
I think they thought I was kidding.
The scent of a Yankee candle filled the air, something strongly laced with berry. A hint of coffee tainted the smell, beckoning me to the coffeepot in the small utility kitchen off the hallway beyond the empty reception area.
For some reason I felt at home up here with the burnt-orange walls, thick area rugs, and masculine paintings. Maybe because I sensed Sean in the space. Though he spent a lot of time in my office now, this felt like his territory.
My hands full with a mug and my tote bag, I stopped at the hallway console, looked into the mirror hanging on the wall. My hair, blond and unruly, fell well below my shoulders. I smoothed it down, hoping to control the waves. No luck. Unless I used a flatiron, my hair would always have a mind of its own. I plucked an eyelash off my cheek, wished on it.
When I opened my eyes, Sean was standing behind me. My heart did a little thumpity, thump, thump.
“What did you wish for?” he asked.
“Can’t tell.”
“Very secretive of you, Ms. Valentine.”
It was a thing between us, using salutations with each other. For some reason I found it extremely sexy. But then again, everything about Sean was extremely sexy.
“Some things should be very closely guarded.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. His black hair had grown out a bit, the short spikes I was used to now curling softly at the ends. “And exactly how am I going to get you to let your guard down?”
“There may be ways.”
I took in his once-broken nose, his high cheekbones, his superhero jaw, his lips. I dropped my gaze. He wore charcoal-gray pants, black boots, black belt, a blue button-down shirt, the top two buttons open, the sleeves rolled. Under the collar, I could barely see the scar from his heart surgery.
He tapped his chin. “Chocolate?”
I crunched up my nose.
“Alcohol? Maybe some spiked eggnog?”
My mouth was impossibly dry. “Are you suggesting you get me drunk? And then what, Mr. Donahue?”
He smiled wickedly. His eyes promised things my libido had only dreamed of. My heart nearly stopped right there.
Very slowly, he said, “Some things should be very closely guarded.” He boxed me against the console table. Our hearts raced against each other.
With the tip of his finger, he nudged my chin upward.
Sighing, I looked into his eyes.
A stunning pearly gray, they were filled with lust. I nearly crumbled.
I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. And right now, this very minute, I was having trouble remembering why I wanted to take things so slowly.
Lifting my lips to his, I flinched when something vibrated against my hip.
And right then I remembered why I’d wanted to take things slowly.
Cupid’s Curse.
And it was at work.
“Is that you or me?” I asked, drawing back.
He mumbled under his breath about timing, and said, “Me.” He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket, checked the screen. Some of the color drained from his face as his eyebrows snapped into a concerned V shape.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He tucked the phone back into his pocket without answering.
“Something.”
He cupped my face, leaned in and kissed me until my toes curled inside my boots. I’d always thought that just a phrase—had never believed toes could curl. How wrong I’d been. And it made me wonder how else my body would react if it had his full and undivided attention.
I grew warm. Very warm.
Slowly, he pulled away.
“Good try, Mr. Donahue, but I’m not so easily distracted.”
“No?”
We had an undeniable connection. His caresses, his skin on mine, even if we were simply sitting shoulder to shoulder, created a whirl pool of desire, pulling me closer to him, making me fall that much harder, when I knew better. It didn’t help that his was the only hand I touched where I saw visions of things other than lost objects. When I touched him, I saw visions of us together in the future. Usually sexy in nature.
Those visions had always come true, but I’d yet to have one where I saw us having twenty-four hours of the best sex ever.
Unfortunately.
I was holding out serious hope that it was only a matter of time, when Sean said, “Then I guess I’ll just have to try harder.”
I was about to make a saucy comment about not needing it to be any harder, when he swooped in for a kiss that had me wriggling out of my coat, trying to undo the buttons on his shirt, and completely forgetting any definition of SLOW my brain might have stored away.
Sean’s hand slid up under the hem of my sweater, his fingers glancing over my stomach and cupping my breast.
Hot. Seriously hot in here.
I unwrapped my scarf, started peeling Sean’s shirt down his arms.
His hand circled to my back and, with a flick, my bra was undone.
A voice in my head was screaming to stop, stop, stop, but it was quickly quieted by my libido shoving a rag in its mouth, duct-taping it for safe measure, and sticking the now muffled voice into a closet at the back of my head.
Finally. Maybe my wish would come true!
“Ahem.”
The vo
ice barely registered. “Ahem!”
Sean slowly dragged his lips away from mine. We both turned.
Sam Donahue was leaning against the kitchen door frame, smirking. Funny, but he looked nothing like Sean with his light brown hair and dark blue eyes. The only thing they had in common was their height. Both stood just shy of six feet. “You’ve heard the phrase ‘get a room’?”
Sean tugged down my sweater before turning his attention to his buttons. I picked up my coat from the floor and caught a glance of myself in the mirror. Beyond the fuss and muss of our almost-rendezvous, I couldn’t help but notice my eyes. And the disappointment in them.
Sean said, “Aren’t you supposed to be in court?”
“You wish,” Sam answered.
I certainly did. Sam had no idea how much.
“Case was dismissed,” he added, turning away. “I’ll, ah, be in my office. Not that you two will need me.”
As soon as he was out of earshot, Sean said, “So close.”
I tried to keep the disappointment at bay. “Try, try again?”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t it always feel like something’s trying to keep us apart?”
“It’s the Curse,” I reminded him. I’d told him all about it after we started dating. He was one of the few who knew all the Valentine secrets.
“Honestly? I hadn’t really believed you.”
“And now?”
“I’m starting to believe.”
“Welcome to my world.” I reached around my back and fastened my bra. I swore I could hear that little voice in my head laughing in triumph.
“How was the meeting this morning?” he asked, tucking his shirt into his pants.
I bit back a sigh of longing when I spotted the trickle of hair leading from his belly button down below his waistband. “Good.” I forced myself to look away. “Well, mostly. Preston was there.” I filled him in. “The antiques shop where I saw the ring is in Falmouth. I’ll make a trip down there tomorrow. You free?” Thursdays were usually quiet at both of our offices.
“I’ll make some time.”
I was suddenly thinking of all the quaint inns on the Cape and how we could make a whole day—and night—out of the trip. Maybe a long weekend.
“Preston’s not going, is she?” he asked, leading the way to his office.
“No.” Hell no. My brow wrinkled.
“What?”
I sat in one of the two chairs in front of his pristine desk. “Something Preston said earlier is bothering me. Or didn’t say, really.” I told him all about Leo’s comment about us being related, and Preston’s strange reaction. “You don’t think we look alike, do you?”
“No.”
“I don’t think so either.” I wouldn’t so much as consider the idea that we might be related somehow—too dangerous to my mental health. I needed to change the subject ASAP. “I need to borrow some toys.”
He blinked, then a slow smile spread across his face. “What kind of toys?”
“Investi—Wait.” My eyes widened. “What kind of toys are you talking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Some things should be very closely guarded.”
“Very, very secretive of you, Mr. Donahue.”
“There are ways,” he said, his voice husky, “of getting the information out of me.”
The voice in my head had clearly busted out of the closet because it was screaming at me to get a grip. I cleared my throat. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind. I’m in need of toys of the investigative variety. Cameras, video recorders, bugs, wires, night vision goggles. Those sorts of things.”
“Toys?” He was offended.
“What would you call them?”
“Equipment.”
“Ah. So noted. Can I borrow your equipment?”
“Why?”
“Marisol.”
“That’s all you’re giving me?”
“That should explain it all.” I glanced at my watch, reluctantly stood. “Can I pick up the equipment in the morning?”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
I didn’t dare go around the desk and kiss him good-bye. I only had ten minutes before a meeting with a potential client.
And what I had in mind with Sean would take much longer than ten minutes.
As I headed back downstairs, I suddenly remembered the call he’d gotten and realized that maybe I was easily distracted after all.
4
“She’s dead.” Detective Lieutenant Aiden Holliday shoved an expandable file folder across my father’s kitchen island. His usual Marine-like shorn blond hair had grown out into something resembling a Chia Pet. His blue eyes were bloodshot. Scraggly reddish-blond stubble covered his cheeks, his chin. He looked as though he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week.
The “she” in question was Sarah Loehman. “If this is a homicide case, then why come to me? I only work with missing persons.” I released the elastic around the folder’s clasp and peeked inside at the thick mass of papers.
Raphael was stirring a giant pot of cacciatore and pretending not to eavesdrop. I knew him better than that.
Marisol and Em were supposed to meet me here in twenty minutes for our once-weekly dinner. How Marisol and I were going to keep our mid-afternoon snooping from Em I didn’t know. I just hoped I wouldn’t accidentally blurt out something. Like the fact that Joseph had a box of condoms hidden behind the washcloths or a comment on the new sexual artwork. Those sorts of revelations could be a bit awkward to explain.
Raphael set a plate of steaming linguine smothered in cacciatore in front of Aiden, who glanced up. “But—”
“Don’t bother to argue.” I handed him a napkin. “Just say thanks.”
I’d finally reached Aiden after meeting with my last client of the day. He had a case he wanted me to look at and, as he happened to be going to a Celtics game tonight, I asked him to meet me here before tip-off.
“Th-anks,” Aiden said, still bewildered. He cautiously picked up a fork. Raphael nodded, silently urging him to dig in.
I took a second to admire the stunning view beyond the floor-to-ceiling living room windows. Under bright moonlight, Boston Harbor swayed, small crests crashing atop each other, bright white smudges in a sea of black. Along the opposite shore lights twinkled.
My father had moved to this penthouse in the exclusive Waterfront District when he and my mother separated, twenty-five years ago. It was as much a home-away-from-home to me as my mother’s place in Cohasset.
Aiden said, “Aren’t you eating, Lucy?”
“In a little bit. Go ahead without me.”
“Wine?” Raphael asked, poised to pour into the long-stemmed glass that he’d just set on the counter.
Aiden said, “Thanks.”
Obviously a fast learner.
“My pleasure.” Raphael retrieved another glass, poured Pichon Lalande to the rim. He slid it in front of me.
He knew me well too.
“Technically the case is missing persons,” Aiden clarified between bites, picking up our conversation. He pointed with his fork at the plate of cacciatore. “This is really good.”
Raphael beamed with pride and turned to wipe down a counter.
I flipped through the papers in the file while Aiden ate. “Why technically?”
“Scott Loehman’s a cop. He knows the ins and outs of law enforcement. He knows how to cover his tracks.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” I asked, nursing my wine. A dull ache pulsated behind my right temple. It had been a long day.
He twirled his fork, dragging linguine through a river of sauce. “Sarah Loehman, age twenty-one, disappeared from her middle-class Rockland home on June twenty-second, two years ago. Her kids, one and three, were at a neighbor’s house. When the kids were to be dropped off, no one was home.”
I pulled a picture of Sarah from the file. Short dark hair framed her face. Brown eyes with long inky lashes dominated her features, and a p
out pulled at the corners of her lips. She landed somewhere in between cute and beautiful. A smile could easily push her over to stunning.
I vaguely remembered the case—young missing mothers tended to dominate the news. Throw in a cop as a husband, and the media sank their eyeteeth into the story. Her abandoned car had been found in a CVS parking lot, her purse inside, her wallet missing. Theories of robbery or carjacking abounded, but nothing ever came of them.
Essentially, she’d disappeared without a trace.
Her husband Scott had been named a person of interest in the disappearance, but due to a lack of evidence and no body, charges had never been filed.
“Is he still a cop?” I asked.
Aiden swirled his wine. “Yeah. Was put on paid leave when she disappeared but the department had to let him back on the streets eventually.”
“Did he have an alibi for when she disappeared?”
“Said he was boating with some friends. Time frame is fuzzy. Nothing could ever be nailed down a hundred percent.”
“How did Scott take the news that she’d disappeared?”
These questions were merely formalities. I didn’t need background on the case; all I needed was to touch the palm of someone who’d given Sarah a gift that she might still have on her—or on her skeleton. However, I liked to know the history before I signed on.
“Big, fat crocodile tears, the cradle robber. She was only eighteen when they married.”
“How old was he?”
“Twenty-four.”
A plane descended into view, coming in for a landing at Logan. “You think he did it.”
He didn’t disagree. “There were whispers that the kids had been abused. A bruise here, a broken arm there. Nothing ever substantiated.”
“And he currently has custody?”
“Like I said, nothing was proven. Nothing the courts could do, even though Sarah’s mother fought for the kids.” His lips twisted into a frown. “Scott’s being careful now, the perfect dad.”
“Raphael!” My father’s voice preceded him down the stairs. “These damn cuff links. Oh,” he said, stopping short. “I didn’t know we already had company.”
Oscar Valentine was nothing if not debonair, and tonight he fit the role to a T. Dark Armani suit, pristine white shirt, silk tie. Dark brown eyes, dark hair. Strong chin, chiseled cheeks, full lips. He was like something off a 1940s movie poster.