“You are such a killjoy,” he responded. “It’s boring to float. Too easy.”
To Gray, Marley said, “You still didn’t say how you chose Liza and Amber.”
“I didn’t, really. A drummer at Blues Heaven mentioned Liza and Liza introduced me to Amber Lee. They were both right for what I wanted. What I still want.”
“Which is?” The more she could get out of him, the better.
Sykes leaned forward and touched the tips of a thumb and forefinger together.
“Glad you approve.” She let him know she didn’t appreciate his interference.
“Sarcasm never suited you,” Sykes said.
“The story’s about the network here, the jazz network, and what it takes to break in,” Gray said. “I’m not interested in anyone with connections. Not anyone who already knew people who would help them out when they got here. All Liza’s got is her voice—and she’s easy to look at.”
“This is where you tell him all men are the same,” Sykes said. “We only care how sexy a woman is.”
“All he said was, she’s easy to look at.”
“Code for sexy,” Sykes said. In a single long stride, he bounded forward and turned to walk backward in front of Gray. “Do you know he’s sensitive?” he asked Marley. “He’s just waking up to it. Don’t know why, unless it’s something to do with you. Yeah, could be. He’s trying to pretend he doesn’t notice anything really different.”
“I do know about him,” Marley said. “Be careful he doesn’t intercept you talking to me. Keep your guard up. I think he heard Uncle Pascal.”
Sykes snapped his fingers soundlessly and danced in front of them to music only he heard. “Baby, baby,” he sang in his husky tenor. “My guard is always up, up, up. I’m always ready. Bring it on.”
“I’m glad we’re having this opportunity to talk,” Gray said.
Marley did her best to shut out Sykes’s image. “Really?”
“I was serious when I said I want to know more about your…what do you call that?”
Her instinct was to leave him flailing around, searching and finding ever more foolish terms for the powers she had. “You don’t have to call it anything,” she said, taking some pity. After all, he hadn’t jumped her yet. “You don’t have to think about it at all.”
“Didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t.” But he might very soon.
“So tell me,” he said. “You saw Liza and Amber somewhere since they went missing?”
“Does anyone even know how long they’ve been missing? Who told the police about it first?”
He laughed.
Marley risked glancing at Sykes, who made an owlish face.
“How useful you are,” she told him.
“Anytime, sis.”
“Why are you laughing at me?” Marley asked Gray.
He held up his palms. “I’m not. No, no, never. It was the way you turned me from questioner to questionee. You do that all the time. You have a thing about being in charge, don’t you?”
Marley stood still to consider that. “Yes. Now I think about it, I do like being in charge.” She glanced at Sykes. “That could be because I’ve had to deal with a lot of domineering people in my life. I don’t put up with that stuff anymore.”
That got her a wide, eerily white-in-the-night grin.
“Good,” Gray said. “I’m sick of wishy-washy women.”
She wondered which wishy-washy women he was talking about.
“At the club you told me you were really cold?” Marley asked, suddenly remembering.
“I was,” Gray said. “I’m not anymore.”
He looked sideways at her and her tummy tightened. She swallowed. The Millets had a few problems when it came to sex. Potential problems. Dating was fine, but the Mentor’s family honor—or rules—insisted any sexual partner had to know the dangers ahead of time.
The Mentor was a mysterious person—or thing—they had all been taught to respect as the family oracle. Marley had never seen the Mentor and mostly didn’t know what she thought about him—or it—but she wasn’t about to be the first to mention doubts about the Revered One.
Marley shook back her hair. Wow, Gray Fisher had her racing in dangerous directions. She didn’t even know him and didn’t intend to…but she might.
That cold green drink she had left at Scully’s would taste really good about now. A past experience with telling a man what it meant to get really close to a Millet’s powers, and the curse they supposedly carried, hadn’t encouraged her to try it again.
“You okay?” Gray asked.
She wasn’t. This man had a force field all of his own. He was incredibly sexy.
“Now what?” Sykes said. “Holy—Marley, you’re lusting after this guy.”
“Shut up,” she told him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can feel you reacting to him.” He studied Gray. “He’s not my type, but I guess if I was a lonely little woman I could get turned on.”
“Sykes! Stop it!”
He sniggered and she noticed Gray was giving her an odd look. “Can I see you again?” he asked abruptly. “Maybe tomorrow evening when we’ve both got our acts together.”
“No,” she said.
“Okay.”
He walked on and she caught up this time.
“You don’t know anything about me, but what I’ve told you,” he said. “I’m going to give you my card and I’d appreciate it if you’d do some legwork to find out what my reputation is. I’m pretty boring so it won’t take long.”
She doubted if he was boring at all—ever.
“He’s not,” Sykes said. “He’s complicated and I think he could be dangerous. But I don’t think he’s a threat to you.”
“You’re pushing it,” Marley said. “And you’re breaking the rules. I didn’t invite you to read me.”
“Uncle Pascal called me in. We wanted you found, physically and mentally. He can’t do that, but I can.”
She crossed her arms. “Aha. You guided Uncle Pascal to me. That explains everything. I couldn’t figure out how he managed to find me.”
“He was very worried about you.”
“So you helped him invade my mind? You’re not supposed to do that.”
“It’s Gray I’m reading now,” Sykes told her. “Be careful here. We need to know what his game is.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have a game. Is your guard strong enough?”
“To keep Gray out? What do you think? Watch your own.”
“Are you sure you won’t see me tomorrow?” Gray asked. He ducked his face closer to hers and light from a window glinted in his eyes. “I’m okay, really I am. We need each other.”
“Why?”
“You and I are mixed up in the same thing and it’s nothing good. We may need each other,” he said.
Marley wanted to trust him.
She did need someone’s help, badly, but she couldn’t fool herself that she was not strongly attracted to Gray for other reasons, as well.
“I think I should go to Detective Archer and tell him what Danny said,” she told him, feeling shaky. “The police ought to know Danny and Amber are involved—and that they probably live together. The police said they were having difficulty finding a lot of information on Amber or Liza, didn’t they? Danny said he hasn’t told them anything.”
Gray cleared his throat. “He did say that, but I’ve got to think Archer knows more than he’s going to share with anyone he doesn’t think needs to know. Would you do me a favor? You could do it because I believed what you said and Nat Archer didn’t. Don’t go to Archer about anything for a bit. Come to me. Tell me if you remember something else.”