Paula Graves - Forbidden Touch

The answer would only lead to more questions she didn't want to answer. Not now. Not to a stranger. "I guess I heard the woman calling before you did."

He pressed his lips together but didn't ask anything else. He stood up towering over her bedside. The light from outside cast him in shadow, hiding all but outlines of his strong, square features.

He touched her shoulder. "It was interesting meeting you. Iris. I hope you find your friend."

Fire licked her skin where his fingers lay, spreading heat over her collarbone and into her chest. Pain, thick and black, trembled under the surface of his touch, a reminder of the sensation she'd felt when Maddox first touched her at the cafe. He was as much in pain as the woman at the beach, though his pain came from somewhere inside him.

If she were stronger, she might risk what she called a drawing, a deliberate attempt to ease the distress she could feel festering inside him. But whatever was eating at him was big and strong and old. She didn't know if she could bear it.

"The offer stands. You find your friend, bring her to town and I'll buy you both a drink."

"Thank you." she repeated, almost sagging with relief when he removed his hand from her shoulder and walked to the door. The tightness in her chest receded, the blackness ebbing from the edges of her vision.

He turned in the open doorway, his head slanting as he gazed back at her. "If the police don't help you. Let me know."

"What can you do?"

He smiled. "I know people who know people."

"Are any of those people private detectives?"

His only answer was a widening of his smile as he closed the door behind him.

"Man come looking for you, Maddox." Claudell Savoy looked up from behind the bar when Maddox entered the Beachcomber, a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive that catered more to locals than the tourist crowd, "Seem real interested in where you were."

Maddox shot the grizzled bartender a wary look. "You tell him anything?"

"Not me, man." Claudell didn't sound convincing.

"For enough cash, you'd sell out your mama. What'd you tell him?" Maddox slid onto a bar stool in front of Claudell. He was the only one around: the bar wouldn't open for another hour, but Claudell never minded the company,

"I just say I see you around here sometime." Claudell grinned, looking proud of himself "He give me twenty dollars."

Maddox frowned. 'Thanks, buddy"

"You ain't nobody's buddy, man. We both know that." Claudell set a tumbler in front of him and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

"Here. On the house."

Maddox put his hand over the glass. "Rain check." The temptation to drown his chronic dissatisfaction in liquor was getting a little too strong these days.

Claudell shrugged and put the glass back in a rack behind the bar. "Say, I remember something else about that man "

Maddox met the bartender's expectant gaze, "I ain't giving' you twenty bucks, Claudell. Good try, though"

Claudell shrugged, smiling. "Bah, I tell you for nothing'. He say someone name Celia looking for you."

"I don't know any Celia."

"He say she wanna talk to you. Real important"

He didn't like the sound of that. "What'd he look like?"

Claudell grimaced. "You know. Tourist."

Great, that narrowed it down. "Did he say where I could find him if I happened to want to talk to this Celia?"

"Didn't say. Give me this, though." Claudell reached into the chest pocket of his stained white uniform shirt and retrieved a business card.

Maddox took it from him, "Charles Kipler Management." he read aloud. An address in Beverly Hills, California. The cell phone number listed might be a place to start.

He pulled out his own cell phone and started to dial the number, then stopped, remembering why he'd come here in the first place. While looking for Iris's hotel room key he'd come across the photo of her friend in the front pocket of her purse. He'd snapped a shot with his phone, figuring he could show it around, help her out.

Not as if lie had much else to do these days.

He showed Claudell the image, "Ever seen this woman?"

Claudell peered at the photo. "Not me. Pretty, though. You meet you a girl. Maddox?"

Maddox ignored the bartender's salacious grin. "She's gone missing from the Hotel St. George."

"St. George?" Claudell's smile faded, "No good. I hear bad thing about St. George."

Maddox pocketed his phone, "What bad thing?"

"People gone." He snapped his fingers. "Like that."

"What do you mean?"

Claudell picked up another glass and started polishing. "A man go into the Tremaine yesterday. Say his friend missing from St. George. Gone, nobody know where."

Maddox hadn't heard about it. "Did he talk to the police?"

Claudell made a face. "They want it to go away." He lowered his voice, as if imparting a deep, dark secret, "There are more."

"More disappearances?"

Claudell nodded. "Bad thing happen at St. George. You smart, you stay away." The telephone sitting at the end of the bar began ringing. Claudell went to answer it.

Maddox looked down at Sandrine's image on his cell phone. Where'd you go, darling?

The bartender wasn't what he'd call a reliable source; his integrity was questionable, and he was a sucker for a spooky story. But if Iris's friend Sandrine wasn't the only person to go missing from St, George-

His cell phone vibrated against his palm. The display panel popped up, showing an unfamiliar number. Maddox slid off the bar stool and headed outside, pushing the connect button on the phone. "Yeah?"

"Is this Mr. Heller?"

Well, hell. "Who's asking?"

"My name is Charles Kipler. My client Celia Shore wants to thank you for your aid to her this morning "

"I think you must have the wrong guy."

"You weren't the man who gave aid to an injured woman on the beach earlier this afternoon?"

He ought to deny it. Save himself the headache. But there were a lot of unanswered questions about the woman on the beach, or more specifically. Iris's connection with her, that piqued his curiosity, 'That was me. How did you get my number?"

"I'll explain later. Ms. Shore wants to see you. She's at St. lgnacio Hospital, I'll meet you in the lobby and take you to her room. How soon can you get here?"

"You expect me to drop everything and come visit your client, and you won't even tell me how you got my number?"

"Yes."

Frowning, Maddox tightened his grip on the cell phone, "Isn't she a little busy undergoing treatment or something?"

"She's been released to a room to recover. She's doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances."

Maddox quelled the urge to ask just what those circumstances might be. This guy might be a jerk, but he'd known just what buttons to push to make Maddox too curious to resist the request. He could poke around for answers once he was face-to-face with this Celia Shore. "I need to change clothes, I can be there around two-thirty."

"I'll be in the lobby waiting"

"How will you know it's me?"

"I have a photo of you." The man hung up before Maddox could respond.

He snapped his phone closed and nibbed his forehead, where the day's tension was beginning to form a painful knot right between his eyes. Where had the man found a photo of him? He didn't make a habit of posing for snapshots. Although it was possible, he supposed, that someone on the beach had used a photo phone just as he had in Iris's hotel room.

The more important question was, who was Celia Shore and why did she want to talk to him?

The phone on the hotel bedside table rang while Iris was dressing after a long shower. She grabbed the receiver, hoping Sandnne would be on the other end of the line with a crazy explanation for where she'd been.

But it was the hotel front desk. "There's a letter at the front desk for Miss Beck." the concierge explained in his crisp British accent.