Rebecca York - Sudden Insight

Too late for what?

He wasn’t sure, but he knew he had to get to her. Now.

He started running, dodging around a couple who were holding hands, taking up the whole damn sidewalk.

“Watch out, buddy,” the man called.

Jake didn’t bother with a reply. He just kept running.

RACHEL HAD GONE DOWNSTAIRS and opened up in the afternoon. She saw her last client at four-fifteen, a woman named Mrs. Sweet, who’d been referred to her by a friend. The new customer was from Denver, and she was excited about coming to New Orleans to see “the great Rachel Gregory.” The adulation from a stranger was embarrassing. She didn’t think of herself as great—just a woman who picked up insights that others might not see.

Trying to live up to the advance reviews, she did her best to give a professional reading. To her relief, as far as she could tell, Mrs. Sweet didn’t have any problems in her future. In fact, her son was going to tell her soon that she was expecting her first grandchild. Rachel was pretty sure it was going to be a boy, but she didn’t go out on a limb and say so, in case she was wrong because she wasn’t exactly concentrating as well as she should. Even when she was focusing on the cards the other woman had drawn, Rachel’s mind kept wandering to Jake Harper.

Had it been a mistake to run away from him? She wasn’t sure, but she had the sense now that she needed him.

For what?

When Mrs. Sweet left, she straightened up the room where she did her readings. Everything here was familiar to her. The comfortable high-backed Queen Anne chairs and square table where she and her customers sat. The muted colors of the stained-glass lamp hanging in the corner. The lacy curtains at the window.

She’d decorated the room for her own pleasure and to create what she thought was a charming atmosphere for clients. Usually, sitting at the table alone gave her a sense of peace. Today she felt restless, as though a thunderstorm was building. Not in the air but in this room.

Which made no sense.

She shuffled the cards again, turning them up at random the way she’d done the day before. She got the Lovers again. Then the Seven of Cups. The card showed a man trying to decide among the objects in several goblets. A castle, jewels, a victory wreath. And one cup with a drape over the top so there was no way to know what was inside.

It all represented emotional choices. Difficulty making decisions. Which was a good description of her present state—at least with regard to Jake Harper.

She was studying the card, trying to see more in it, when a noise in the front of the shop made her go still. She’d locked the door after Mrs. Sweet, but it sounded as if someone was out there, moving stealthily toward the room where she sat.

She might have called out. Instead, she got up and started for the back door. Before she reached it, a man stepped into the room where she was sitting.

He was holding a gun, pointed at her.

“Hold it right there. Hands in the air.”

With no other choice, she raised her hands, studying him. He looked to be in his late thirties. His hair was blond, his eyes were icy blue. She would have noticed him if she’d passed him on the street. There was something in his face that made her shiver. Up close his dangerous aura seemed to pulse around him.

“What do you want?” she asked, struggling to keep her tone even because she sensed that he wanted her to show fear.

He liked a woman’s fear. She didn’t have to read his cards to understand that. Not this close to him.

“I’ll ask the questions.”

She swallowed. “I don’t keep much money in the shop.”

“I don’t want money.”

“Then what?” she asked, playing for time. Why? What was going to change in the next few minutes? She couldn’t answer, but she knew it was important to keep him from hurting her. Because she sensed something just outside her reach. Something that would help her.

“You know Evelyn Morgan,” he said.

“I don’t know her.”

“You’re lying. Your name was in her daybook.”

She raised one shoulder. “She came here. I did a reading for her. That’s all.”

“You’re lying.”

She struggled to keep her voice even. “Why would I lie?”

He made a rough sound. “You know she’s dead, and you don’t want to get involved.”

And he was the man who had killed Ms. Morgan, Rachel knew with sudden conviction.

He kept speaking. “Or you have information that you want to keep to yourself. Either way, we’ll get to the truth. Sit down.”

When she moved to one of the Queen Anne chairs, he gestured toward the ladder-back against the wall.

“Over there.”

She sat with her heart thumping inside her chest, watching him as he pulled a set of handcuffs from his pocket and tossed them to her. She caught them and clattered them in her hand.

“Put them on.”

His total focus was on her, so that he didn’t see the flicker of movement behind him.

Rachel clanked the metal cuffs in her hand.

“Stop playing with those damn things and put them on!”

She kept moving the metal links in a hypnotic rhythm, willing him to watch her, holding his focus and struggling not to give anything away.

The man who had appeared behind the intruder was Jake Harper, standing like a coiled spring in the doorway, taking in the scene, a grim expression on his face.

She kept her gaze on the guy with the gun. “I don’t know anything about Evelyn Morgan besides what I saw during the reading.”

“We’ll see. But first we’re going to get comfortable.” He laughed, a grating sound that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “At least I will be. Put on the handcuffs if you don’t want to get shot.”

The man might be enjoying his power over her, but if he wanted information, he wasn’t going to shoot her. She hoped.

Still, questions whirled in her mind. Why had he killed Evelyn Morgan? Because she hadn’t talked? Because she’d told him something incriminating? Or had he gotten too rough and done it by accident?

Her heart was pounding as she lifted the cuffs in her fingers, still making the links click together.

“Stop stalling.”

Instead of snapping one of the bracelets around her wrist, she threw them on the floor, watching from the corner of her eye as Jake silently picked up a heavy glass paperweight from the display shelves.

“You witch. You’re going to be sorry,” the man growled. “Get down on your knees and pick them up.”

As she slipped off the chair, getting on all fours and drawing the man’s gaze downward, Jake leaped forward, striking the intruder on the back of the head with the paperweight. She’d already dodged to the side as the weapon discharged, and the man went down in a heap in the middle of the floor.

Jake ducked around him, pulling her up. “Are you all right?”

The feeling of relief was overwhelming. Relief and more. As he held her in his arms, they exchanged silent messages.

You knew something was wrong .

Yeah .

Thank you for getting here in time .

You kept him busy .

She wanted to stay in Jake’s arms, but she knew that the feeling of safety was only an illusion. They had to get out of here.

Her eyes flicked to the man on the floor, seeing the blood oozing from his hair.

“You hurt him.”

“Not as much as he was planning to hurt you. Head wounds bleed a lot.” She winced.

Jake squatted beside the man, picked up the gun and handcuffs and cuffed the guy to a heating pipe.

Next he handed her the gun. “Keep him covered.”

She accepted the weapon, wondering what would happen if she had to shoot it.