Carol Ericson - Intuition

He crossed his arms over his massive chest, and Kylie swallowed. Hadn’t he been tall and skinny as a teenager? Now he was tall and…built.

“I’m a private investigator. Mr. Harris hired me to look into Bree’s disappearance.” He shifted back, almost straddling the stool. “He didn’t tell me I’d have a partner.”

A P.I., not a cop. The grapevine was wrong.

She grabbed her purse from the bar and hitched it over her shoulder. “I don’t work with partners.”

“You call what you do work?”

“Do you even know what I do?”

He snorted. “I have a pretty good idea. You sit in front of a Ouija board and say in a spooky voice—Where’s Bree?”

The blood pumped hot and fast through her veins and it had nothing to do with the way Matt’s T-shirt molded to his perfect pecs. “You’re a bigger idiot now than when you were riding fast bikes and playing loud music in high school.”

Okay, she had to stop thinking about the love-hate obsession she’d had with Matt when she was a stupid teenager.

She drew in a deep breath and tucked her hair behind one ear. “I’ve worked with police departments all over the country, even the FBI, to help with cases. And my success rate is phenomenal. How many cases have you solved lately? Or have you been too busy following cheating spouses around?”

His eye twitched, and his hands curled into fists against big biceps. If she were a man, she’d be very afraid right now.

“I’ve solved a few cases.”

“Yeah, whatever.” A thought slammed against her brain and she drew back her shoulders. “You were following me, weren’t you? Mayor Whatsisname knew why I was here, so it’s no leap that you knew, too. You followed me to Columbella House because you thought I was tracking a lead on the Harris case and you wanted to horn in on it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He slammed a fist on the bar and the bartender dropped a glass in the sink.

“Really?” Her heart skittered in her chest. “Because it sure felt like someone pushed me through that railing…and you’re big enough to do it.”

He threw his head back and laughed. This time the bartender and the couple by the window openly stared at them.

“You’re nuts. First of all, why would I be pushing you if I was trying to steal your info? Secondly, wouldn’t you have noticed someone behind you on the landing? I mean, I’m no ballerina. I think you would’ve heard me coming.”

“I—I…” She bit her lip. Oh, to hell with it, he had her pegged as a loon anyway. “I was in a trance.”

That wiped the sarcastic smile right off his ruggedly handsome face.

“You mean like—” he closed his eyes and held his arms out to his sides and hummed “—om.”

She poked him in the chest, and his eyes flew open. “A trance, not meditation.”

“So what happens in a trance and how do you get there?” He parked his very fine rear end on the bar stool and hunched forward.

She studied him through narrowed eyes. The man could change moods faster than a rat slipping beneath a door. “Are you serious? You really want to know?”

The bartender edged toward them, a towel bunched in his hands. “Are you folks going to order another round?”

“I’ll have a club soda, lots of lime.” Matt cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you want another?”

She just might need another glass of wine to unwind from the roller coaster named Big Matt. “Yes.”

“Does that prove it?” Matt pointed at the bartender spritzing club soda into a glass.

“What?”

“That I’m serious. I really want to know how you do what you do.”

“Even though you don’t believe in it.”

“You believe in it.”

She rubbed the back of her neck and glanced at her watch. “We’re going to close this place down.”

“It’ll be the first time I’ve closed down a bar, but I’m always up for new experiences.” He flicked the straw out of his glass and downed half the fizzy, clear liquid.

Matt’s dad had been the town drunk, and Matt obviously didn’t want to follow the same path. That gave them even more in common since she had no intention of following Mom’s path either.

She peeled her gaze away from Matt’s strong hand wrapped around his sweating glass. The man oozed masculinity and confidence. No wonder he’d been annoyed when he discovered she was on the same case. Why hadn’t Mrs. Harris told her Mr. Harris had hired a P.I.?

“Trance?”

His low voice, almost an intimate whisper, was enough to put her under again. He had entranced her during high school. He was the rebel without a cause, who had all the teenage girls swooning.

And Kylie hated him because even though he was as much of an outcast as she was, he still went after the popular girls…and got them, much to their parents’ dismay. The parental units didn’t have to worry for long though, because Matt never had a girlfriend. He swooped in, swept some cheerleader off her feet for a few weeks, shook her pom-poms and then deposited her back onto the football field. Kylie had always figured he’d done it just to piss off the jocks.

She huffed out a breath and took a sip of wine. “Trance.”

“How does it happen?”

“It can happen at any time, but I’ve learned to control it, to block the sensations. Some days I’m in a heightened state of sensitivity.”

“Like today.”

She nodded. “On days like that, I go with the flow. I don’t try to block anything. If I have something from the victim, I can pick up vibes from it. I guess it is sort of like meditation.”

He snapped his fingers. “See? I did have it right.”

“I close my eyes. I concentrate. Tonight at Columbella…” She hunched her shoulders and gulped another mouthful of wine.

“Rough, huh?” He skimmed his cool fingertips along her forearm. “That house is enough to raise the hackles of someone who isn’t even sensitive…like me.”

She stared into Matt’s dark eyes and got a little lost. At this moment, with his fingers lightly resting on her wrist, Kylie couldn’t completely dismiss his sensitivity.

“So you were in one of those optimal states and hightailed it to Columbella—to do what?”

“I already told you, Matt. My mom hung herself from that landing. I went there to…get some closure.”

“And instead you fell through the railing.” He tapped her wrist bone once before withdrawing his hand. “That’s some kinda closure.”

“I sensed fear when I was up there.” She traced her finger around the base of her wineglass. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Anyone who commits suicide has to experience some fear, or are you implying your mother didn’t kill herself?”

Was she? That thought had been a niggling doubt in her mind for a while. “I don’t know. The fall didn’t give me a chance to sense much more than a swirl of emotions.”

“And to sense someone behind you before the fall.”

She raised her brows. “Oh, you believe me now? I thought you figured that was a bunch of bull.”

“I thought your suspicions of me were a bunch of bull. The rest? You’re the medium.”

“You’re good.”

“Excuse me?” He choked on his drink and grabbed a cocktail napkin to wipe his mouth. “I’m good at a lot of things. Which talent are you referring to?”

Her cheeks grew warm in the dim light. Why did everything Matt said have a sexual connotation to it? Or was that her spin?

“When I first told you Mrs. Harris hired me to find out what happened to her daughter, you weren’t too happy about it, implied I was a fraud. Now you’re cozying up to me and opening your mind to my gift.”

His slow smile twisted his mouth, and he waved his hand in the space between them. “This ain’t cozy.”