Always Look Twice Page 3

  “Yes, but that’s because some of the old men had been through so many fastings in their lifetimes, people thought they might be wizards.”

  Exactly, she thought, as she lunged at him, knocking him against the closet door.

  He cursed, rolled over on top of her and pinned her arms to the floor. She took the opportunity to knee him in the groin. Hard. As hard as she possibly could.

  “Shit!” He doubled over, wincing in pain.

  She frisked him, checked his pockets, then pulled open his shirt.

  Nothing. Nada. No witchcraft tools.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” He found the strength to shove her away.

  “Your eyes were glowing earlier, and now here you are, in the room where my dad killed himself. That’s too damn weird for me.”

  “My eyes?” He braced his back against the closet. He was still wincing, still feeling the brunt of her attack. “They’ve always been like that.”

  “They’re your power.”

  He made a face. “Well, thank you very much, but I’m not feeling particularly powerful right now.”

  “What about this room?”

  “Maybe Casper drew me here.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To tie us together. To help you trust me.”

  She thought about her premonition, the vision of them kissing in her loft. No damn way was she going to let that happen. “Fine, we’ll call a truce. But if you try anything funny, I’ll kill you.”

  “Likewise.” He got to his feet. He was doing his damnedest to maintain his machismo, to pretend that his balls weren’t still throbbing in his brain. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  Olivia almost smiled. “See you around, Agent West.”

  With that, she left him alone, knowing this was the first time a woman had knocked him on his ass.

  Later that night Olivia couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, gazing at the window, where moonlight glinted through lace sheers, sending a filigree pattern across the floor.

  After she climbed out of bed, she slipped on a pair of sheepskin slippers, warming her feet from the linoleum. The loft was a little chilly at two in the morning. But just a little.

  She smiled to herself. That was the beauty of living in Southern California. While other parts of the country were banked in snow, L.A. offered mild temperatures, even in February.

  Olivia went into the kitchen, where a twenty-watt bulb above the stove served as a nightlight. She fixed herself a cup of mint tea and noticed conversation-heart candies dotting the counter.

  Allie had left them for the ghost.

  She picked one up, read the Be Mine inscription, almost ate it, then set it back down. Allie used to leave cookies and milk for Santa Claus, too.

  Olivia tasted her tea. She’d never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or any of those childhood myths.

  Allie had believed in everything.

  Taking her cup, she walked to her sister’s room and peeked in. A low-burning lamp bathed a collection of fancy dance shawls with an amber glow, making the retired powwow regalia look like oversize butterflies with fringed wings.

  Olivia expected to find Allie in bed, sleeping like a castle-bound princess, but the pink-and-gold chamber was empty.

  She closed the bedroom door and headed to Allie’s studio, knowing that was where she would be. Sure enough, her sister was working. The smooth side of a buffalo hide was stretched across a table, with Allie leaning over it, drawing a design she intended to paint.

  “Couldn’t that wait until morning?” Olivia asked.

  Allie looked up. She wore white pajamas and pair of cat-shaped slippers. Samantha, the real cat, slept on a nearby shelf cluttered with art supplies. “No. I have to do this now.”

  “Why? What’s the hurry?”

  “It’s going to be a portrait of Dad, so he can travel the Ghost Road. If I paint a tattoo on his wrist, the old woman will have to let him pass.”

  Olivia moved farther into the studio, still clutching her tea. In the early Lakota days, the Ghost Road was a path taken by spirits. To the south the road branched, where an old woman inspected the tattoo of each spirit. Those without tattoos would be pushed over the side of a cloud or a cliff, condemned to roam the earth as ghosts.

  “Spirits don’t get a second chance on the Ghost Road, Allie.”

  The younger woman continued sketching. “Dad might.”

  Olivia wished her sister’s artwork had the power to free their father. He’d taught them about the old ways, but he’d lived a modern life. A tattoo for the Ghost Road wasn’t something he’d considered. “Do you really think it’s him?”

  Allie glanced up. “Who else could it be?”

  “I don’t know.” Olivia laughed a little. “I’ve been calling it Casper.”

  Her sister laughed, too. “At least Casper was on TV and in the movies.” Her mood turned solemn. “Do you think Mom knows that he’s dead? That he killed himself?”

  “I have no idea.” Joseph Whirlwind wasn’t a well-known actor. His suicide hadn’t made the papers. He’d disappeared into the bowels of Hollywood, like so many others before him.

  Allie smoothed the hide. “I wonder where she is.”

  Olivia didn’t want to think about their mother, about the betrayal that still left her empty inside. What kind of woman walked away from her family? Discarded them like trash?

  She changed the subject, focusing on Allie’s project instead. “Are you going to paint some weapons for him? A lance? A shield?”

  Her sister nodded. “I’m going dress him in the traditional way, too. Eagle feathers in his hair and beaded moccasins with fully quilled soles.”

  “That’s a good idea.” There were only two times when moccasins with quilled or beaded soles were made. When a baby was born and when a loved one died.

  “So did you find out who was staying at the motel?” Allie asked.

  Olivia sighed. She couldn’t seem to shake West from her mind. “It was the special agent assigned to the Slasher case.”

  “An FBI guy?” Her sister stopped drawing. Her hair was loose, falling in a thick black curtain, glimmering under the studio lights. “Wow. That’s wild.”

  Yeah, wild. “He confuses me.”

  “Why? Because Dad drew him to that room?”

  Olivia frowned. West had implied the same thing. “We don’t even know if the wanagi is Dad.”

  “It is. It has to be. And after the Slasher case is solved, he’s going to travel the Ghost Road.”

  After it’s solved? Olivia glanced at the buffalo hide, at the rough image that had begun to appear. She sipped her tea, needing warmth, needing reassurance.

  Then without the slightest warning, Samantha opened her eyes, arched her sleek black body and hissed at a shadow on the wall.

  Leaving Olivia chilled once again.

  At daybreak Olivia drove to an area in the high desert where the Manson gang once dwelled, an area where methamphetamine labs brewed illicit drugs, and relocated sex offenders pretended to be part of society.

  She parked beside a house encompassed by a chain-link fence. The front yard was littered with old car parts, broken-down swing sets, wagon wheels, goofy-looking lawn jockeys and bearded gnomes. Several outbuildings stored even more salable junk, things exposure to the elements could damage. A metal aircraft hangar sat behind everything else, taking up a noticeable portion of the seven-acre property.

  Olivia approached the perimeter of the front yard and waited for the rottweiler on duty to snarl and bark his fool head off.

  He did just that, baring his teeth until he realized who she was. Then he wagged his docked tail and whined for attention.

  “Clyde, you big baby.” She unlocked the gate with her key, entered the property and knelt to pet him. “Where’s Bonnie?”

  Just then, a miniature dachshund came around the corner, her long, low-slung body wiggling. She looked like what she was—a wiener dog Clyde could consume for breakfast.
But he wouldn’t dream of it. Bonnie and Clyde adored each other.

  Olivia tapped the dachshund’s pointed nose and received a sappy grin in return. “Okay, you guys, I’m going to wake up your master.”

  She walked passed the junk, where a sixty-year-old house with a sagging porch made a run-down statement.

  Once again, she used her key, hoping Kyle wasn’t in bed with his latest lover, whoever the unfortunate girl might be.

  His house was a mess, almost as cluttered as his yard. She passed the kitchen and winced. Food-encrusted dishes were piled in the sink and stacked on the counter, leaving little space for much else.

  Kyle Prescott was a decorated Desert Storm soldier, a half-blood Apache who looked like an indigenous god, but he was also the biggest slob on the planet.

  She tore open his bedroom door, and he awakened with a start. He was alone, as big and broad and surly as a brown bear.

  “Olivia.” He cursed her name. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I need to blow off some steam.”

  “Oh.” His demeanor changed. He smiled and patted the empty space next to him. “In that case, I’m all yours.”

  “Not that kind of steam.”

  “Figures.” He climbed out of bed, unabashed and completely naked.

  Olivia had seen his bare butt before. She had been his on-and-off lover for nearly three years, a mistake she didn’t intend to repeat. He was a bit too bizarre to make a woman feel secure.

  “Go make some coffee and I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” he said. “Then we can get started.”

  He stumbled down the hall to take a shower, and she battled the dishes in his sink, searching for cups that were worthy of washing. He had three coffeepots, and all of them were thick with caffeine-laced drudge. Finally she found a fourth unit. A reconditioned model, it was clean and shiny and stored in a generic box. But what did she expect? Kyle was a junk dealer.

  By the time he finished his morning routine, Olivia handed him a cup of his favorite brew. His blunt-cut, shoulder-length hair was held in place with a cloth headband, styled after the Mexican Period in Apache history.

  Bare-chested with jeans and knee-high moccasins, he was an Indian groupie’s dream, a gorgeous sight to behold. But in spite of his mixed-blood roots, Kyle didn’t sleep with white women.

  Olivia had met him through AIM, but somewhere along the line, he’d outgrown the American Indian Movement. These days he belonged to an underground warrior society, a militant group the government wouldn’t approve of.

  Not that the feds approved of AIM, she thought.

  Kyle called the FBI the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude, and men like Special Agent West, fibbies.

  “I shouldn’t let you use me like this,” he said, taking his coffee to a Formica-topped dinette set near the window. “I should make you return my keys.”

  She plopped down in the chair across from him. “We can’t be friends if we’re not sleeping together?”

  He shrugged, feigning indifference. Olivia wanted to kick him. She knew he enjoyed being her instructor. The power-blasting rush probably gave him a hard-on.

  “What’s got you so wound up?” he asked.

  “Everything.” She blew a weary breath. “The Slasher, my sister’s passive nature, the FBI.”

  That caught his attention. “What FBI?”

  “The agent assigned to the Slasher investigation. I had a premonition about him. We were kissing, pawing each other, getting all hot and nasty.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “He’s registered with the Muscogee Nation.”

  “A Creek?” Kyle sipped lazily from his cup. “I knew those civilized tribes couldn’t be trusted.”

  And she knew he was being smart. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “I didn’t say it was. An Indian fibbie is some serious shit.” He frowned at her, and the sharp, rugged expression made him look even more handsome. “Why’d you kiss him?”

  “I just told you, it was a vision. A premonition. It hasn’t happened yet. And it’s not going to,” she added, even though the idea had begun to arouse her.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a premonition.” He leaned back in his chair, scraping the metal legs against the floor. “Maybe it was somebody’s fantasy.”

  “Somebody’s? You mean his?”

  “Or yours.”

  Trust him to bait her, to accuse her of being the guilty party, to figure out that she was attracted to West.

  Olivia yanked away his cup, nearly spilling the rest of the hot brew. “I’m tired of shooting the breeze.”

  He came to his feet, six foot four of raw, rugged muscle. “Then what do you want to shoot, Liv?”

  She gave him an exasperated look. No one but Kyle called her Liv. And no one but Kyle offered her the tools, techniques and tactical training she craved.

  She needed him.

  And he damn well knew it.

  Chapter 3

  Olivia followed Kyle outside, where they took his Jeep to the aircraft hangar, a ten-thousand-square-foot structure designed to his specification.

  They reached the metal building, and once they were inside, he smiled at her, looking a tad wicked in the compound he’d created.

  Kyle claimed it was nothing more than a sophisticated, indoor, laser-tag course, equipped with a montage of movie props and set changes, including lifelike audio tracks and things that varied the weather, creating heat, rain, ice or wind.

  But to Olivia it was more than that. The other people who came here—mercenaries and militants—played war games. But she was a psychic honing her skills, using her mind, instead of her eyes, to locate a target.

  Kyle, of course, was the great and powerful Oz. He controlled the environment, modifying the course when necessary, putting new obstacles in each participant’s path.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, handing him her pistol. He placed the Glock in a gun case and fitted her with a laser pack, then a laser gun. Next, he readied himself, using the same type of gear.

  At the moment, the course was prepared for low-light combat. The hangar was dark, not pitch-black, but dim and shadowy. Only that wasn’t Olivia’s agenda.

  Kyle came up behind her, placing a blindfold around her eyes.

  “How long will I have this time?” she asked.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  She nodded. Soon Kyle would become her target. The man she had to locate, the human predator she had to kill. They’d been working on this exercise for months, but she’d yet to catch him.

  “On the thirty-first minute, you’re fair game,” he said.

  “I know.” He would be able to see her, she thought. He would have the advantage. But that was her choice, her challenge, the reason this drill mattered so much.

  He leaned into her again, adjusting the blindfold, making sure it was secure. “Is that good?”

  “Yes.”

  “How good?” he asked.

  Confused, she frowned. “What?”

  “Is it as good as when he touches you?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t need this testosterone crap. She knew Kyle was talking about West. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I’ll bet you can see him in your mind right now, Liv. I’ll bet you can feel him rubbing against you.”

  “Not a chance,” she said, but her denial came too soon.

  There was no time to think, to stop it from happening. Within a heartbeat, within one breathless moment, an erotic image flowed through her blood, sending chills along her spine.

  The vision seemed so real, so lifelike, forcing her to react. She moistened her lips. Warm, wet, much too eager.

  West was going to kiss her.

  She could see him, tall and tan, his obscure eyes a silvery shade of gray. She reached out to touch him, to feel the texture of his clothes. He moved closer, and her knees went weak. She could smell his cologne.

  Beneath the blindfold, she rebelled, battling her desire, trying to will it away. But s
he couldn’t. The enchantment was there, deep inside her, like a—

  “Now!” A pair of strong hands shoved her, and she went sprawling, falling to the ground, losing her weapon in the process.

  She snapped out of the vision, cursing herself for falling for Kyle’s scheme, for letting him trick her. She could hear him running through the building, his footsteps echoing, then disappearing into a maze of silence.

  Her thirty minutes had begun.

  She took a deep breath and focused on her missing gun, on the laser pistol that had skidded across the concrete floor.

  There, she thought, using her ability to retrieve lost objects. To the right.

  Olivia stretched her arm, found it, smiled like a siren. She was going to blow Kyle Prescott to smithereens.

  She moved forward, zeroing in on the energy around her. Pickle barrels, shelves with canned goods, a pallet of paper products.

  Confident, she continued on the same path, then nearly lost her footing on a rock that got caught under her shoe. The terrain had changed.

  Dirt, boulders, instant sounds from the night. Crickets chirping, owls hooting. Her nostrils flared. Trees. Tall, realistic props, scented with evergreen.

  Olivia put her hand out, making sure there was nothing in front of her, nothing blocking her way.

  Then something growled, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned, took aim, fired the laser gun.

  An alarm sounded her victory. She’d hit one of the booby traps.

  Elation streamed through her body like mist from a waterfall. She felt giddy, warm.

  Sexual.

  No, she told herself, as the forest turned quiet. She needed to stay on guard. No more hot-blooded visions, no more wax-melting moments.

  She kept walking, sensing the terrain, the vines clinging to breakaway walls. She needed to zero in on Kyle’s pulse. She needed to find him.

  But she didn’t. She tripped, nearly fell, realized she’d almost stumbled into a pond. Frustrated, she cursed beneath her breath. She should have been aware of the water.