Mind Tricks (5 page)

“He’s fine,” Cynthia finally said.

“And what have you been up to?”

“Not much.”

Jesus, it was like pulling teeth.

“Cynth is moving into her own place
this weekend,” Ian put in.

“You must be excited,” Emma said to
her. “To be on your own, to not have to fight for the remote control, and to be
able to leave the dirty dishes in the sink for as long as you want.”

Cynthia gave her a flat stare. “I
guess.”

Well, maybe Cynthia didn’t have
poor social skills. Maybe she just plain didn’t like Emma.

The impulse to reach out and touch
Cynthia and find out for sure what she was thinking nearly overwhelmed her. She
shoved her hands behind her back and locked her fingers together. Years and
years of bad experiences—and too many lost friendships—had drilled in the
message that 99 percent of the time, it was best not to know.

“I have six sacks of dog food in
the back of my car,” Ian said. “We were running low, so I zipped out to get
more.”

With Cynthia standing by and not
offering to help, Emma and Ian lugged the bags of dog food into the storage
shed that squatted beside the nearest kennel. Humming under his breath, Ian
began the evening feed for the dogs they currently had, and Emma returned
inside to catch up on some bills.

She went into the living room/office
and had just turned on the computer to check out the business accounts when Ian
hollered, “Emma!” The kitchen door crashed open, and he pounded into the living
room. “Emma, Brutus is gone!” Cynthia drifted into the room behind him.

Whoops, she had forgotten about
Brutus being inside. “No, he’s in here somewhere.”

Toenails clicked down the stairs,
and Brutus entered the living room, tail wagging. Ian scrubbed his head with
his knuckles, but Brutus sat in front of Cynthia, not moving, until she finally
petted him. Brutus couldn’t get enough of Cynthia, despite her lack of interest
toward him.

Ian dropped onto the couch. “Thank
God. I thought he’d somehow gotten off the leash line.”

“No, he—”

A figure appeared in the living
room doorway. “You should have woken me up,” Jake said. A yawn split his
sentence in two.

Ian and Cynthia stared. Jake was
probably the first rumored killer they’d ever met.

“Hello to you, too,” Emma said.

“Do people usually fall asleep on
you halfway through?”

Like it was her fault that he was
exhausted. “It’s never happened to me before, but I’ve heard of it.”

He stretched, arms over his head.
He hadn’t put his rumpled dress shirt back on, and his white T-shirt edged high
enough for her to see his hard stomach. Hmm, next time she’d offer to work on
his front side. Not that there’d be a next time.

“It felt fantastic at the
beginning,” he said, lowering his arms. Emma blinked and returned her eyes to
his face, which was compelling in its own right. “I wish I’d stayed awake for
the rest of it.”

“Me, too. I could have used some
help from you.” She would have asked him to focus his thoughts on last night,
so she could see if she could find the snarls in his energy lines. “But since
you were out, I had to do all the work myself.”

Afraid to get caught staring at
Jake like he was an ice cream cone in July, she glanced away and noticed Ian’s
half-fascinated, half-horrified expression. She gave him a quelling look. While
Jake was a guest in her home, Ian needed to pretend he wasn’t the number one
suspect in a murder.

Then the conversation replayed in
her mind.
Falling asleep on you…felt
fantastic at the beginning…I had to do all the work…
Oh, great. Her cheeks
felt hot enough to light her hair on fire. Should she dramatically declare, “We
weren’t having sex!” right now?

Jake was looking at her curiously.
Nope, she wasn’t going to humiliate herself in front of him. She’d tell Ian
later.

“Can we talk for a second?” Jake
asked her. “Privately?”

Sure—
now
he was big on privacy. Silently she stood and walked into the
kitchen, Jake on her heels. Behind them, in the living room, a burst of
whispered conversation split the quiet.

Jake pulled out a chair from the
little kitchen table and dropped into it. “I don’t remember anything more,” he
said straight out. As if to console her, he added, “It was a great massage,
though.”

“I just placed my hands on you. I
didn’t actually give you a massage. Are you, um, a recreational drug user? Because
I was having a lot of trouble finding your energy lines. Or maybe you drank
alcohol earlier today?”

He shook his head.

She hadn’t been able to read his
mind, and she hadn’t been able to loosen his energy flow. Not a banner day for
her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

He looked back at her without
blinking.

She sucked in a hard breath. God,
he didn’t believe her at all. Didn’t believe she helped animals. Didn’t believe
she’d done anything to him except give him a massage while he slept. You didn’t
need to be a psychic to read the contempt in his eyes.

And she’d been
attracted
to him. Well, she’d always had terrible taste in men.

She stabbed a finger at him.
“Listen, bucko, in case it escaped your notice, I’m trying to help you. How
many other people are helping you today? Huh?” She waved at the door. “Good
luck, see you later, bye.”

He stood slowly. “Do I owe you
anything? For your…help?”

She snorted. “Your respect would be
nice, but that’s unlikely. No, you don’t owe me anything. I did it because I’m
a friend of Mickey’s.”

His mouth twisted. Because Mickey
had “weird” friends whom Jake disapproved of? Probably.

He went to the back door and opened
it. “I liked your dog.”

That was probably his idea of an
apology. Barbarian. “He’s not mine.”

Jake stepped outside, but turned
around to face her. “This might sound odd, but I think your assistant believes
we’re sleeping together.”

“You think? I guess I’ll have to
clear that up by telling him you think I’m too wacko to date then, huh?” And
she slammed the door.

Jake staggered up the stairs to his
bedroom, pulled his clothes off, dropped them onto the floor, and slid under
the covers. He’d forgotten to pull the curtains closed, so the faded sky of
dusk peered in at him until he flipped over on his side, away from the window.

He’d briefly spoken to his parents
on his cell phone as he’d driven home, updating them on what had happened.
After he’d turned down their offer to fly up from Arizona to be with him and to
temporarily handle Woodhaven, his mother had reminded him, “It’s okay to take
other people’s help.” Sure, he knew that. But he didn’t need help running
Woodhaven. He needed help finding his alibi.

He needed someone who could tell
him what he’d done last night.

Emma’s words echoed in his ears:
I’m trying to help you. How many other
people are helping you today?

Well, Mickey had helped him. And
his lawyer Halliburt had helped, sort of. Jake thought Halliburt’s confidence
was too high, considering Jake’s memory loss, and he would start looking
tomorrow for someone else who would take the case more seriously.

As for Emma…Her indignation as
she’d practically tossed him out of her house hadn’t been feigned, whatever
else psychic stuff she’d been faking. Okay—he’d give her the benefit of the
doubt and accept that she
believed
that she was trying to help him. Maybe she also truly thought she could read
animals’ minds. Well, there were people out there who believed stranger things.

Her parting shot had thrown him,
though. Had he really been so rude that he’d said out loud that he thought she
was a wacko? He didn’t remember it, but he couldn’t claim to have been entirely
clearheaded and on his best behavior while with her.

Funny. Even though she’d blasted
him as she’d kicked him out the door, and even though she unfortunately
believed she had a paranormal talent, he was looking forward to seeing her
again.

So: Emma, Mickey, Halliburt, and
his parents had helped him today. His family, a pet psychic, and a lawyer. Not
an overwhelming show of support, actually. His buddy Mike could have called,
but hadn’t. Benjamin, another friend, hadn’t called either.

On impulse, he rolled over, picked
up the phone, and dialed Mike’s number.

Mike’s wife answered. She and Jake
had never been chatty, but she handed the phone off to Mike with unusual
abruptness.

“Hey, Jake. How’s it going?” Mike,
a former high school stoner, had always been laid back, almost approaching
lazy, but now his voice was edgy.

“Fine.” What a dumb answer. “Well,
actually, you probably heard that some bastard killed Ginny last night, and I
almost got arrested today. So, not so fine.”

“Yeah, Benjamin told me. A bunch of
cops came to talk to him at work this morning. He called me to let me know, and
about five minutes later the cops came to talk to me, too. Asking me about
Ginny and all.”

“I didn’t even know you knew her—”
Oh. “Asking you about Ginny, or asking you about me?”

“It started out being about Ginny,
but it moved pretty fast to you.” A pause. Mike sounded oddly neutral as he
added, “They showed me some photos of her, man. That was some sick stuff.”

“They showed me the photos, too.”

Did he have to come right out and
say
I didn’t do it
? But Mike should
know he hadn’t killed Ginny. Hadn’t stabbed her over and over again and then
left her on the wharf. He and Mike had known each other since junior high.
These things shouldn’t have to be said.

“You know I didn’t do it?” Crap. It
sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Yeah. Listen, I gotta go. But
first I have to say, Jake, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the police showing up
today at my work to ask me questions. It looked bad. And I really don’t want
them showing up here, at my house, in the future. You know?”

Jake’s teeth clenched. “Sure, Mike.
Next time I see them, I’ll make sure I tell them that.”

“Hey, no, don’t mention me at all—”

“Right. Got it. Bye.” He snapped
down the receiver with his finger, cutting off anything else Mike might have
said. Asshole.

Quickly he dialed Benjamin’s
number. His girlfriend answered on the third ring. “Hi, Jake. Benjamin’s not
here right now.”

Her knowing his name made him pause
for a moment, and then he remembered that Benjamin had caller ID. “Okay. Just
tell him I called.”

“Sure.” But before she replaced the
phone on the wall, Jake heard a deep male voice in the background. Benjamin’s.

Jake slowly nestled the phone in
its cradle, then leaned back against his pillow and blew out a long breath. It
didn’t do anything to cool the building disgust that was temporarily pushing
away the fog of his exhaustion.

So much for friendship. The number
of people he thought he could count on had just gotten much smaller.

Crap.

God, he wished Daniel were here
right now. Talking, joking…awake. But he was locked in a coma and lying
motionless in a nursing home ten miles away. When Daniel had been injured in
that car crash, Jake had lost more than a brother. He’d lost his closest
friend.

And then when Marcus had left only
a few weeks later, off to parts unknown for reasons unknown, Jake had thrown
himself into Woodhaven, the only thing left in his life that was reliable.

What would Daniel say about Jake’s
not-so-stalwart buddies? Probably that Ben and Mike both deserved to have
police cars stationed in front of their homes, freaking them out every time
they looked outside.

Speaking of which…

Jake got out of bed and moved to
the window, which overlooked the street in front.

Ah. There. Settled behind a white
truck was a sedan with a man in the driver’s seat, apparently reading a
newspaper. But people didn’t just sit in their cars and read newspapers. A cop,
without a doubt.

Jake jerked the curtain closed and
threw himself back into bed. Let the police look all they wanted. Heck, let
them go through his trash, secretly break into his house while he was gone, or
even get another search warrant. He had nothing to hide.

Nothing to hide…but nothing to
prove him innocent either. Panic began to squeeze his chest again.

Jake shut his eyes. If the police
were going to bust in and arrest him, hopefully they’d let him get a good
night’s sleep first. The nap at Emma’s had refreshed him only long enough to
get him home.
 

Panic slowly receded like an ebb
tide, and then sleep was waving long fingers at him, coaxing him closer. But
something was bothering him, keeping him from succumbing.

Not the police suspecting him of
murder. Not his missing memories. Not the lack of support from his “friends.”

Something Emma had said…
Are you taking any medication now? Because I
was having a lot of trouble finding your energy lines.

He’d blown her off, imagining that
she’d come up with that as an excuse for her failure. She must have a list of
excuses as long as her arm that explained away blunders.

But he’d been wrong: he was on a
medication, kind of. The doctor had told him that Rohypnol could circulate
through his system for days.

A lucky guess on Emma’s part? Or
maybe she’d heard through the grapevine, or even from Mickey, that he’d been
dosed up.

Or maybe she
had
had trouble finding his energy lines, whatever those were.

He rolled over, settling into a
better position.

In any case, he had to rely on
himself to fix this problem, not rely on the dubious talents of a pet psychic.
Tomorrow, after calling up his current customers and reassuring them that
Woodhaven would continue to build their boats, he’d talk to Mark, the waiter at
the Waterview, to find out what he remembered of Jake and Ginny’s dinner there.
Maybe Mark could lead Jake to something—anything—that would help him clear
himself.