Sudden Insight

“I think you’re wrong. It’s got to do with us, and it could be … bad.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. But we’re going to find out before everything changes.”

The warning sent a shiver over his skin. He loved things the way they were. No way did he vote for any changes. Well, if he could have anything he wanted, he’d like it if Tanya could just relax and take things the way they came. But he didn’t hold out much hope for that.

THE MURDER OF EVELYN MORGAN and the encounter with Jake Harper had put Rachel in a strange mood. Usually she looked to the future. Now, before she went down to open the shop, she started rummaging in the storage closet at the back of her apartment, where she kept some of the mementoes she’d brought from her parents’ house after Dad had died.

She took out an old photo album and thumbed through it, studying the pictures of herself and her parents when she’d been a baby. They looked so proud and happy to have her.

Seeing their faces gave her a little pang. Things hadn’t turned out the way they’d expected. She hadn’t exactly been the daughter they wanted. She’d never been warm and cuddly with them. She hadn’t made friends with kids in school, and when she’d gotten interested in tarot card reading, she’d seen their disapproval. At least they hadn’t forbidden her to work with the cards, but they’d insisted she graduate from college before she could become a full-time reader. Which was why she had a useless degree in history.

She turned more pages in the album, looking at pictures from the early life that she barely remembered. There was a picture of her at about age three with Mom outside a white building, with a plaque beside the door. She could see the word clinic, but she couldn’t read the name of the place because a tree branch partly hid it.

She clenched her fists in frustration. Intuition told her the name was important, but it looked as if whoever had taken the picture had deliberately made the sign unreadable. Could someone scan the photo and enlarge it?

Maybe, but she wasn’t going to take it to a photo shop or a computer store. That would be dangerous.

Dangerous?

She wasn’t sure where that conviction came from, but in this case, she trusted her instincts and went back to the albums, looking for a picture taken at the same place. When she couldn’t find any, she gave up.

Finally, she snapped the book closed and sat with it on the table in front of her, staring into space, thinking about Jake Harper—the subject she’d been trying to avoid since last night.

JAKE HAD PLENTY TO DO TO keep himself busy over the next twenty-four hours. Like several businesses to run. With the restaurant, his assistant, Patrick, who’d been trained in one of the country’s top cooking schools, did the major work like ordering supplies and overseeing the kitchen.

But Jake was the one who knew antiques, and he did have to inspect an out-of-town shipment that a dealer had given him first dibs on.

He was usually good at bargaining. This time, though, he couldn’t focus on Victorian desks and Queen Anne dining room sets because his thoughts kept zinging back to Rachel Gregory.

Finally he made an offer on the furniture, just to satisfy the dealer. When the guy’s eyes widened, he knew he’d paid too much, but he wasn’t going to go back on the deal.

He left as quickly as he could, hardly aware of his surroundings as he started thinking about the woman from last night again. They’d been heading for lovemaking before she’d left. And it was his own damn fault that she’d fled. Maybe if he hadn’t been so harsh, if he’d just kept his damn mouth shut, they would have ended up finishing what he’d started.

Or would they?

He’d wanted her—more powerfully than he’d ever wanted any other woman. Yet at the same time, as the heat had built between them, he’d felt the edge of danger. If he made love with her, it was either going to be the best thing that had ever happened to him … or the worst.

And when he’d read the information about the dead woman in Rachel’s mind, he’d used the excuse to pull away.

Unfortunately that hadn’t stopped him from thinking about Rachel, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

Telling himself he wasn’t obsessed, he searched her on Google and found out that she’d been reading tarot cards in the city for about fifteen years. She’d started as a teenager on summer school breaks and quickly developed a reputation that brought customers coming back and recommending her to their friends, just as he’d surmised.

She’d stayed through the aftermath of Katrina, and she’d been able to pick up property in the French Quarter at a reduced price—leaving her in a very good financial position. She made money from her readings and also from the tourist items she sold in her shop. And she also had her inheritance.

In addition, she’d made good investments.

Because her profession gave her advance market information?

Maybe.

He laughed. He could use someone like that on his staff, giving him hot tips. But he doubted she’d want to work for him.

He tried to get her out of his mind, but finally he gave up. They’d left a lot of stuff unanswered when she’d fled his office.

What if he went over to her place and asked her some questions? He laughed, then sobered. If he asked for a reading, was she going to make the price so high that he’d turn around and leave? Or was she going to tell him he was marked for death?

He tried to shove those thoughts out of his mind, but he couldn’t do it.

Finally, just before five, he told Patrick he would be out for a while and walked into the street. It was almost dark, and he didn’t need a pack of tarot cards to feel a sudden sense of dread.

He looked around, expecting some kind of trouble on the block, but saw nothing.

He’d planned to stroll to Rachel’s, but a leisurely walk was suddenly out of the question. He had to get there fast. He had a choice of cars and trucks, but since he didn’t need them in the French Quarter, they were all in garages several blocks away. By the time he got a vehicle and drove to her shop, it would be too late.

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.