Untouchable Read online

  Jack nodded. “People like you.”

  “Yep. Unfortunately, it turns out that there are not a whole lot of stressed-out tech workers here in Eclipse Bay, so I’m going to have to develop a different client profile.”

  “You need more clients like me?”

  She smiled. “I doubt if there is anyone else here in town like you.” She paused. “Well, maybe one other.”

  Jack grimaced. “Our landlady?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jack’s eyes were unreadable now. “Do you think I’m that weird?”

  “No, I think you’ve got a talent. You just need to learn how to deal with the dark side of your gift. Because there is always a dark side.”

  “I’ve noticed.” Jack glanced at the chunk of obsidian. “How did you know that rock would work for me?”

  “I found it one day while I was out walking. I liked it but I didn’t have any particular client in mind—not until you showed up. It just seemed to suit you.”

  “Frozen fire,” Jack said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Obsidian. It’s a form of volcanic glass that forms when lava cools very quickly. Frozen fire.”

  “Oh, right.” She looked at the obsidian. “That description fits perfectly.”

  Jack uncoiled from the chair, stretching a little. He glanced at his watch. “I should be going.”

  She tried not to stare but the truth was she liked to watch him move. He was not a big man—he did not tower over her—but when they were in the same room he seemed to be the source of all the heat and energy in the atmosphere.

  Jack glanced at her, one dark brow elevating a little. “Something wrong?”

  “Nope.” She summoned what she hoped was a bright, businesslike smile. “It looks like our time is up for today. Would you like to schedule another session?”

  “Not until I need one. It’s been a long day. What I need right now is a drink and then dinner.” He paused briefly and then fixed her with his intense eyes. “Want to join me?”

  She wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “A drink and dinner? With you?”

  “Is that a problem for you? I’m not sure what the rules are in your profession when it comes to personal relationships with clients.”

  She had always had a firm policy about personal relationships with clients: Never date one.

  She cleared her throat. “Technically speaking, I’m not a certified meditation therapist. I consider myself a meditation guide. That said, it’s never a good idea to get involved with a client.”

  “I see.”

  “You are, of course, free to fire me,” she said smoothly.

  He looked interested in that suggestion. “Fire you?”

  “It’s not like you need me anymore. Your dream problems have been resolved.”

  His smile was slow and surprisingly wicked. It sent a thrilling little frisson of heat through her entire body.

  “In that case,” he said, “you’re fired.”

  She took a centering breath, giving herself a few seconds to think. Don’t get too excited. Jack had just returned from one of his investigations. There were no happy endings in his work and now he was looking at a long night alone.

  We’re not talking about a relationship here. He just wants company.

  So do I.

  “You do realize that if we go out for dinner and drinks, the locals will conclude we’re engaged in a torrid affair,” she said.

  Jack looked thoughtful. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a torrid affair. Is it better than the non-torrid kind?”

  She processed that for a beat and finally decided that he had made an attempt at humor. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had one I would describe as torrid, either. Got a feeling they’re rare.”

  “Probably one of those things you don’t recognize until you actually experience it.”

  “Probably.”

  There was no point telling him that romantic relationships of any sort—torrid or otherwise—were rare for her. And like his cold cases, they never ended well. Jack was not the only one with a talent that included a serious downside.

  “About dinner and that drink,” Jack said.

  She smiled. “What I was about to suggest is that we eat dinner here. Nothing fancy, I’m afraid. I was going to roast a big batch of cauliflower. There’s enough for two. We can add a salad. I’ve also got some good bread and a bottle of wine from one of the small local wineries.”

  “You eat cauliflower and salad for dinner?” he asked with the polite curiosity of a tourist inquiring about odd local customs.

  She flushed. “I happen to love roasted cauliflower. I chop it up into little pieces, toss it with olive oil and salt and then roast it until it’s nice and crispy. Then I toss it with grated cheese.”

  “Interesting.”

  This wasn’t going well, she thought.

  “You’re right,” she said, trying to inject enthusiasm into her voice, “we should go out. Great idea.”

  “No,” he said. “Dinner here sounds good.” He looked pleased. “It sounds perfect.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “How bad was this last case?” Winter asked.

  Jack stretched out his legs, leaned back in the shabby, overstuffed chair, drank some wine and contemplated the fact that he was spending the evening with a woman who should have scared the hell out of him. Instead, he was feeling damned good, better than he had in a long time; maybe in his entire life.

  Winter Meadows had a witchy vibe that tantalized and intrigued and at the same time sent an unmistakable warning: Touch at your own risk. The impression was enhanced by the fact that she wore a lot of black. Tonight she had on a long-sleeved black sweater and black jeans. Over the course of the weeks they had known each other he had concluded that the combination was a uniform for her, just as his white shirts and khaki trousers were for him.

  There was something strong and fierce about her, and at the same time utterly, devastatingly feminine. She struck his senses with the thrilling, disorienting impact of a wave crashing on the beach.

  Dark fire burned in her shoulder-length auburn hair. Her amber-gold eyes gleamed with intelligence and mystery. She was petite, slender and gently rounded in all the right places. At the moment, she was curled into the oversized chair on the opposite side of the hearth, one slender ankle tucked under a lushly curved thigh. He really liked the way her snug-fitting jeans emphasized the curve of that thigh. He liked it a lot.

  The meal had been surprisingly good, definitely the best he had eaten in a very long time. Cauliflower had never been one of his favorite vegetables but tonight he had discovered that roasting the stuff transformed it. Then again, he probably would have enjoyed canned stew just as much tonight so long as he was able to eat it in the company of Winter Meadows. And now they were drinking the last of the wine.

  He forced himself to focus on her question. He rarely discussed his work with anyone except the members of his foster family. But Winter was different. Winter accepted him as normal.

  “The case was bad enough,” he said. “But I’ve had worse. The client seemed relieved by my analysis. I could tell that the answers made her sad, but she thanked me.” He paused. “I never understand that part.”

  “The thanks from a grateful client? Why does that surprise you? You give people answers to questions that have probably kept them awake for years. It’s no wonder they thank you.”

  “It doesn’t always work like that,” he said. “Sometimes clients get angry. They blame me for giving them answers they don’t want to hear.”

  Winter rested her head against the back of the big chair and contemplated the flames. “I have a hunch that the real problem for the clients who get angry is that when you give them the answer they don’t want to hear, you remove the last, faint sliver of hope.”

  He
turned his glass in his hand and studied the play of the firelight on the wine while he considered the observation. He decided it rang true.

  “That makes sense,” he said. “Until I show up, the client can always hope that the body that was charred beyond recognition was not that of the missing loved one. Or that the killer was a stranger, not a trusted member of the family.”

  “Why did the client in this last case thank you?” Winter asked.

  “Who knows? It’s not like I was able to give her a happy ending. There was never any doubt but that it was her mother who died in the house fire nearly seventeen years ago. My client had always suspected murder but the authorities had concluded that the blaze was caused by an electrical malfunction.”

  “What made you believe that it was an arson homicide?”

  “I used one of the oldest tricks in the world.” He paused to swallow some wine and lower the glass. “I followed the money.”

  “Ah.” Winter nodded approvingly.

  “When I examined the files and looked into the backgrounds of the people who were connected to the victim, I discovered that one individual had profited from the death—the woman’s second husband. He had taken out an insurance policy on his wife about a month before she died. No one else knew about the policy. He had managed to keep it a secret.”

  “How did you prove murder?”

  “Basic research. Once I started digging, I discovered that the second husband had been married twice before. Each of those women died in suspicious fires as well. The husband collected insurance money on both occasions. He got away with it because he moved around the country and changed his name each time he remarried.”

  “Was he arrested?” Winter asked.

  “No. He collapsed and died of a heart attack a few years ago.”

  “So your client did not have the satisfaction of seeing him put in prison.”

  “I could give my client answers but not justice.”

  “Yet the client thanked you,” Winter said.

  “Yes, she thanked me.”

  He drank some more wine.

  Winter watched him from the depths of the big chair. “You did more than just confirm her suspicions, you know.”

  “I did?”

  “I would be willing to bet that the reason she thanked you was because you believed in her enough to take another look at the case. Sometimes just knowing that someone thinks you deserve to be heard, that your opinion has merit, means everything.”

  He thought about it while he watched the flames. “You make me sound like some sort of therapist.”

  Winter said nothing. She just smiled.

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “It occurs to me that in your own way you are a therapist. You help people find closure.”

  He shook his head. “I’m more of a hired gun—minus the gun. People come looking for me online when they’ve run out of options. When they are desperate. I give them answers even if I know they won’t like them. That’s part of the deal. There is no therapy involved, trust me.”

  “Okay. It’s your work, so you get to define it any way you like. I do have a couple of questions, though.”

  “What?” he asked, wary now.

  “How did you get involved in the cold case work? I know you studied criminal psychology and that you taught it for a while. I also know that you wrote a couple of books on the subject. But here you are in Eclipse Bay. Evidently you’ve turned your back on the academic world. What made you walk away from teaching and research? I can’t imagine there’s much money in the cold cases.”

  He almost smiled at that. “There is almost no money in the cold case work—at least not the way I do it. Each case takes a lot of time. And the expenses add up fast. Very few of my clients have that kind of cash. No private investigator could make a living doing what I’m doing. And I’m not even a licensed investigator. Just a writer who is interested in certain kinds of crimes.”

  “Crimes involving fire.”

  “That’s my specialty,” he said. “Once in a while I get a client who can afford to pay me, but that’s the exception, not the rule. I’m able to do the pro bono work because my first two books managed to cross over from the academic market into the mainstream and because I’ve got a contract for another one.”

  “How did you end up here on the Oregon coast? This is a very small town with zero nightlife and extremely limited social potential.”

  “I’m not a real social person,” he said. “And I could point out that you seem to be in a similar situation—you’re living in the same very small town. How did you end up here?”

  She raised one shoulder in a graceful little shrug. “It just feels like the right place to be, at least for now. I don’t know how long I’ll stay. You?”

  “Eclipse Bay works for now. Don’t know how long I’ll be here, either.”

  “Wow. Talk about a couple of people who know how to live in the moment, hmm?”

  “Either that or neither of us is any good at long-term planning,” he said.

  “I tried long-term planning recently. I even bought my first piece of serious furniture, a gorgeous red sofa. But the plan did not go well. The sofa is now in storage.”

  He figured that meant there had been a man involved in her long-term plan.

  “You want to tell me how you wound up here in Eclipse Bay?” he asked.

  “Pure random chance.”

  “There may be such a thing as random chance,” he said, “but if it does exist, it’s damn rare.”

  “Yes, I know you’re big on chaos theory,” she said. “A butterfly flaps its wings on one continent and sets off a series of currents that eventually cause a hurricane on another continent.”

  “Something like that.”

  “When I decided to leave my job in California, I set out on a road trip. I followed the highway up the coast. I stopped at several places along the way but I kept moving until I arrived in Eclipse Bay. I like the energy here.”

  “The energy? Really? That’s the reason you stopped in this place?”

  She laughed. The sound sparkled in the room.

  “I love the energy of this place,” she said. “The surf during a storm. The amazing sunsets. The way the locals make me feel welcome even though I know they’re wondering if I’m a refugee from another universe.”

  “They treat me that way, too. But so far everyone has been friendly.”

  “They’re bound to be curious about us,” Winter said. “We’re the classic outsiders.”

  “Yes, we are.” It was probably time for him to go. Reluctantly he got to his feet. “It’s late. I should head back to my place. Thanks for dinner.”

  “You’re welcome.” She uncurled from her chair and stood. “You’ve had a long day. Make that several long days. You were gone for nearly a week this time.”

  “There was a lot of traveling involved in this last case. I had to talk to some people who had moved away from the town where the crime occurred.”

  “I understand.” She crossed the room to the wall, took his windbreaker off the hook and handed it to him. He pulled it on while she opened the door.

  They both looked out into the crisp, chilly night. The September moon was rapidly disappearing behind the solid bank of storm clouds rolling in across the ocean.

  “The wind is picking up,” Winter said. “I guess somewhere a butterfly flapped its wings and now we’re going to get the results.”

  “The storm will make landfall in another couple of hours,” he said. “According to the weather reports it’s going to be a big one.”

  “The waves on the beach will be spectacular in the morning.”

  “Also dangerous,” he said. “Every year a few people get swept out to sea on this coast because they decided to take a walk during or after a storm.”

  “Thank yo
u for the advice,” Winter said a little too politely. “I’ll be sure to stay up on the bluffs.”

  He winced. “Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself.”

  She laughed. “I know. It’s all right. Truly. I appreciate your concern but I know the old rule about beach walking. Never turn your back on the ocean.”

  “Okay. Good. That’s good.”

  He realized he was looking for an excuse to stay a little longer. No, not just an excuse to hang around. What he really wanted—what he craved—was an excuse to kiss her. He couldn’t find one.

  It’s probably too soon. You do not want to screw this up, Lancaster.

  He went out onto the porch and down the front steps before he could talk himself out of leaving. There were no streetlights to mark the unpaved trail along the top of the cliffs. It wasn’t far to his place, the equivalent of a long city block. But for some reason it seemed like an endless journey tonight.

  “I’ve got a flashlight you can borrow,” Winter said from the doorway.

  Jack took a penlight out of the pocket of his jacket. “I brought my own.”

  She smiled. “Of course you did. Were you a Boy Scout?”

  “My foster dad was the chief of police in our town. He was big on being prepared.”

  “I see.”

  Jack studied her, wanting to store up the image of her for his dreams. Her hair glowed like a dark copper sunset in the light from the porch fixture. She watched him with her mysterious eyes.

  “I enjoyed tonight,” he said.

  “So did I.” She made no move to step back inside and close the door. “Can I ask you one more personal question?”

  “Sure. Can’t guarantee you’ll get an answer.”

  “You specialize in cold cases that involve deaths by fire,” she said.

  Damn. He had known this was coming, he reminded himself; he’d dreaded it. She was bound to wonder about the fire thing. Sooner or later everyone who got close to him wondered about it—after all, it wasn’t exactly normal.

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  She folded her arms and propped one shoulder against the doorjamb. “Why fire?”