House Of Secrets

Perhaps sending Louis away was her best option, to keep the poor man from getting too upset. “Louis, do you think your mother might want her newspaper?” she asked gently.

“I know Joe. I know Joe. Joe’s newspaper,” he chanted in response.

“Maybe you can go give it to her, and then come back after dinner and have some juice with me.”

Louis grew quiet, though he continued to rock on his heels, then nodded.

“Come have some juice later, all right, Louis? After Joe goes home? You know I’m always happy to see you.” Jasmine was always diligent about not letting Louis stay at her house for more than half an hour, but Emma would have gladly welcomed him for longer visits. Through some miracle and despite his disability, he played the piano with a virtuoso’s touch, and she loved to hear him practice Mozart on the small antique upright in her sitting room. He’d been in a car accident as a child that had left him in his current mental state, but somehow the talent that was to be his had been left intact.

“Okay,” Louis said, staring at something on the ground only he could see.

“Great, I’ll see you later tonight.” She gave him an encouraging pat toward his house.

Louis dropped his newspaper and clutched at the buttons on his shirt. “Come to Joe’s house tonight,” he muttered as he shuffled home. “Play in the tower with Joe and Daniel.” And then he hopped up the steps to his house and disappeared inside with a slam of the screen door.

“Joe’s house?” Emma scooped the newspaper Louis had left behind off the ground and folded it carefully until it was the size of a small notebook. She turned to face the man leaning against the car behind her. The “tower” Louis had referred to was most likely the turret on the east side of her house, which left her with only one question: “Who’s Daniel?”

“No clue.” He shrugged, though she saw something flicker in his eyes. Obviously Louis’s words weren’t as meaningless to him as he’d have her think. “You were really good with him, you know?” he said.

It was her turn to shrug. “He’s sweet. I’ve never seen him yell like that. Does he know you from somewhere?”

He shook his head, his brow furrowing as the familiar confused look replaced the cocky one. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know anyone in this area?”

Pause. “I’m not sure.”

“Did you grow up here?” she persisted.

His mouth flattened, and he flipped a palm into the air. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t—”

Joe abruptly spun on his heel and walked a couple of paces away from her, his broad shoulders heaving as he inhaled deeply. A moment later, he turned back, his hands shoved into the pockets of his black, flat-front trousers. “I know I might have alarmed you coming here, and I’m only telling you this because I can’t promise I won’t do it again,” he began. “But something—” He took a deep breath, and then dove right in. “I don’t remember the first ten years of my life. Not school, not my parents, not anything.” He clenched his teeth and worked his jaw for a moment. “Something happened… It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

He leaned against the side of his car, crossing his arms as he stared blankly at her house. “All I know is that the minute I landed in this godforsaken city, something kept calling to me, bringing me to this house. And I wish for the life of me I knew what it was so I could go back to blocking it out.”

He pushed himself off the car in an explosive movement. “It’s right here,” he said, tapping his right temple with his fingers, “and I can’t see it. I can’t remember, but it’s right on the edge of my brain. That man—” he gestured in the direction of Louis’s house “—he knew me. I can feel it. But I have no idea who he is or whether I’ve seen him before.”

Emma rolled the newspaper in her hands, feeling an almost irresistible urge to touch him, to comfort him somehow. But he was a stranger, and though her gut told her she wasn’t in any danger, she didn’t want to invite trouble. In the awkward silence that followed, she unfurled the newspaper, which was dated a couple days ago, and glanced at the front page. To her surprise, the bottom right photo was a clear shot of Joe’s face scowling back at her, with a caption identifying him as one José Javier Lopez, a private detective who was receiving the National Association of Private Investigator’s P.I. of the Year award for his work on several cases about which she didn’t have time to read right now. Emma rolled the paper back up again, figuring now wasn’t the time to bring up his fifteen minutes of fame in L.A. “Do you have any family?” she asked. “Someone who can help you put together the pieces?”

“There’s no one,” he said abruptly in a tone that told her he wasn’t going to discuss that topic any further.

Darn it. First, she’d nearly gotten herself violently assaulted last night, and now she was standing here, in front of a total stranger who had been making unscheduled appearances in her front yard for the past two days, and instead of calling the police, all she wanted to do was help him. But before she could do or say anything more, Joe reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a business card, which he held out for her to take.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t mean to scare you any more than I already have. My name is Joe Lopez, and I’m a private investigator. I work mostly missing persons cases up in the Salinas Valley.”

“Emma Jensen Reese,” she responded automatically as she took the card from him. Like the newspaper caption, the card also identified him as José Javier Lopez, but he obviously preferred the more Anglicized “Joe.” “Mr. Lopez—” she began, and then stopped.

He was standing at the top of the stairs directly in front of her door—her unlocked door—and he’d gotten there so quickly and quietly she hadn’t even noticed. Before Emma could ask him what he was doing, Joe pushed the heavy wood and beveled glass door inward, stepping inside without so much as a “May I?”

She really was going to have to do something about these annual cravings for adventure before they got her killed.

THE DOOR SWUNG SHUT behind him with an audible click, bringing Joe back to reality. Somehow, he’d ended up inside Emma Jensen Reese’s house, and Emma Jensen Reese was apparently still outside. And for all he knew, he’d teleported there, because he definitely couldn’t remember letting himself in. One thing he did know—Emma Jensen Reese was probably calling the police at that very moment.

Knowing he should go back outside, Joe backed up until his body bumped gently against the door—but as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t make himself leave. His eyes took in the muted burgundies and golds of the antique runners lining the hardwood hallway stretching out in front of him, the fluffy white furniture and the rich red walls, the rows of gold-framed photos and artwork. He noted with passing interest that his homeboy Diego Rivera’s art was prominently displayed in more than one frame. It was a pretty house, an obviously much-loved house. It definitely wasn’t a house that should make his hands feel clammy or his body want to lose its lunch.

But it did.

He focused on the rounded shapes and brilliant colors of Rivera’s “Flower Carrier,” knowing somehow that by doing so he was trying to avoid looking at the staircase.

Staircase. Now why would an innocuous little staircase frighten a big bad P.I. from San Francisco? Just to prove his masculinity—to himself if not to anyone else—Joe turned his head and scowled at the staircase. It was just your basic grand Victorian stairway—wide, wooden, flanked by two ornately carved newel posts.

And somehow, he knew that just behind it lay the doorway to a room he didn’t want to see.

And then the world tilted on its axis. Really not wanting Emma Jensen Reese to find him doing a face-plant in the middle of her sitting room, he focused his entire being on the newel post nearest him. The air around it clouded, blurred, until all he could see was the smooth, round contours of the carved horse’s head. He reached out with a swift, jerky motion and closed his now shaking fingers around the post. It felt familiar.

Turn your head, baby.

Snatching his hand away, Joe whirled around, searching blindly for the door.

Close your eyes.

Out. He had to get out. But his body wouldn’t cooperate, and he felt himself being sucked backward into the darkness. He widened his eyes and hurled his weight to the right until he felt the solid connection of the wall against his shoulder. Glass-covered pictures of women holding bunches of calla lilies rattled in their frames from the impact.

Just get out. Just don’t remember. Don’t ever remember.

And then the front door swung open, and Emma stood before him, haloed by the golden light of a California Indian summer afternoon. “What are you—?” she began, her voice sharper than he’d remembered, but then she took two steps forward with those impossibly long legs of hers and caught him around the arms “Are you okay?”

Before he could stop himself, Joe let his forehead drop down to rest on her thin shoulder. A minute. He just needed a minute and then he could talk to her and pretend everything was perfectly normal. He breathed in the warm, peaceful scent of the shampoo she used, and, just for a moment, he was himself again. Don’t ever remember.

“Joe? You know, the only reason I’m not calling the police is that picture of you in the paper. I figure the P.I. of the Year isn’t highly likely to be a psychopath,” she said, though her smoky, Marlene Dietrich voice had softened and her hands circled around his back in a soothing motion, much like she’d used with good old Louis earlier. “Let me take you into the living room, and you can sit—”

The mere mention of the living room was enough to make him lose it, and he pulled out of her arms to lurch toward the door. Just a few steps and he’d be outside, in his car, away from that house, this city, and the questioning eyes of Emma Jensen Reese.

Bursting through the sun-filled opening, he raced down the steps two at a time, feeling a trickle of clammy sweat slither down the side of his face to trail inside the collar of his shirt. He tried to get back to the Honda, but he only made it as far as the fat little palm tree near the edge of the walkway.

Joe fell against the tree, and he wrapped one arm around the thick trunk to steady himself, his stomach heaving as his body tried to purge the fragments of memory buried so deep inside, they burned.

EMMA FOLLOWED Joe through the doorway, pausing at the top of the stairs while he stumbled through her yard to get sick in the white sage she’d just planted around her baby palms a few weeks ago. He might be NAPI’s Investigator of the Year, but he sure was odd.

She hovered over the top step, wondering whether she should go to him or not. He might be odd, but he was also obviously in pain, and not the physical kind. Maybe she could help.

And maybe it was none of her business. Number one, he had emotional baggage. Number two, he kept appearing on her doorstep and then running away again. Number three, he had emotional baggage. Number four, she couldn’t help but think that he was good-looking, even while he got sick in her flower bed, and there was no way that would end well. Plus, she quite simply didn’t have time for this, for him.

With that, she turned and went back inside, although sheer guilt allowed her exactly half a second to ignore Joe before it propelled her to the downstairs linen closet. Reaching inside, she took out a fluffy beige washcloth, went to the front bathroom to dampen it with cold water and headed back outdoors.

Joe was still there.

As she walked toward him, she noticed a black SUV with half-tinted windows sitting across the street and a few car lengths away from Joe’s Honda. Someone was sitting inside it, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was watching her.

Ignoring the prickle of uneasiness she felt at the thought, Emma looked away. Better to deal first with the regurgitating evil you know than the potential spying evil you didn’t.

Squaring her shoulders, Emma marched toward Joe’s bent form, folding the cool washcloth and, when she reached him, placing it on the tanned skin at the back of his neck. She kept her hand over the cloth until his dry heaves stopped.

Swiping a hand across his mouth, Joe reached behind his head to touch the washcloth she was holding against his skin. She let her fingers slide away, and he pulled the cloth around his neck and let it rest in his hand. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“Mmm.” She took the now lukewarm cloth from him.

“I’m really sorry, Ms. Reese,” he began.

“It’s Emma,” she interjected, not bothering to correct the “Ms.” “And it’s all right. Really.”

In the awkward silence that followed, Joe reached into his jacket pocket and rattled his keys. “Well, I—”

“Look,” she said, unable to shake the feeling that he shouldn’t go. Not yet. “Whether you remember or not, there’s obviously something about you and this house. Is there anything I can do to—?”

“No!” Joe snapped, then winced. “I’m sorry. I mean, no, thank you. I just need to get back to San Francisco.”

So he’d go away, out of her yard and out of her life. Just like that.

She licked her lips, her tongue sliding across the smooth layer of beeswax lip balm she’d applied earlier. “Well. Good luck to you, then.” She tucked the newspaper under her arm and held out the hand not holding the clammy washcloth for him to shake.

He took it, her slender fingers almost disappearing inside his large, brown hand. “Same to you,” he said.

Just for a moment, Emma let herself look, really look, at the man. She inhaled, breathing in the same air, standing in the same space, feeling the warmth of his fingers. He was a stranger. He was leaving. She’d never see him again, and, as had been the case with countless strangers whose lives had intersected hers for small moments in time, that should have been perfectly fine. But it wasn’t. Something felt wrong. He wasn’t supposed to leave. There was something unfinished here, and somehow she knew it was important that he tie up the giant loose end in his life.

She had to tell him.

Emma exhaled. Her fingers slipped out of his. “Okay, then. Take care.”

He nodded. “You, too.”

He gave her a small half smile, his light eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, and then turned away.

Just like that.

Okay. Back to the house we go.

As she was about to turn away from him, she noticed him jerk around suddenly to face her once more. Her eyes followed his line of sight, and she noticed a small hole in the wooden siding of her house. Had that been there before? She stepped forward and reached up to touch it, when another appeared right next to her hand, splintering the wood with its impact. What—?

“Get down!” she heard him shout behind her. And then something hit her in the small of her back with the force of a rock avalanche.

Chapter Four

The impact literally knocked Emma off her feet and sent her soaring into the air in a tangle of arms and legs.

She landed in the tumbled earth in front of her stoop. Her gardening shovel jabbed into the small of her back, and her head was surrounded by soft white flower petals. The force of the blow and the landing emptied her lungs of air, and all she could do was open and close her mouth like a beached fish, unable to take a breath. The newspaper and washcloth had gone flying with the impact; when she turned her head, she could see them a few feet in front of her.

Joe raised his head from where it lay between her shoulder blades, and it was then that Emma realized he was the unbalanced force that had hit her—and now he was lying on top of her. She craned her neck to look at him and opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to convey with her expression her surprise, her gratitude that he’d pushed her out of harm’s way and her fervent wish that he get the heck off of her. Simultaneously, she contracted her chest muscles a couple of times, but still she couldn’t breathe.

“Gun!” Joe hissed, a hunk of glossy black hair falling into his amber eyes.

“Unnnhhh,” Emma responded, greedily sucking in oxygen as her lungs finally, finally opened up. “Omigod,” she gasped, pausing to take in a few deep, gasping gulps of air.

“Someone’s shooting at us. We have to move.” Joe rolled over so he was on the ground beside her instead of on top of her, using his body to shield hers.

Shooting? Her heartbeat went into triple time, while Joe looked as if he were discussing the weather, albeit very intensely. Emma wagged her head up and down in agreement and started shuffling as fast as she could for the side of the house, keeping low to the ground while still gulping air.

He gripped her elbow and began to crawl along the grass with her. Smashing flowers left and right, they quickly made their way to the side of the house, and then Joe pulled her upright and together they ran to the back.

“Oh, no!” Emma gripped the brass knob on the back door and rattled it, knowing what the result would be. “It’s locked.”

Glancing around, Joe reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat and pulled out what looked like two oversize metal toothpicks. “Duck here,” he said, gesturing to the shrub beside him. She did as he asked, then noticed with some guilt that he was once again shielding her with his body. He inserted the picks into the keyhole.

“Isn’t that going to take a while?” Feeling guilty about using him as a human shield, she stood.

He didn’t even look at her but continued to work the lock. “You know, it’s hard to concentrate when I’m worried about you getting your pretty head shot off.”

“You say the sweetest things.” When her sarcasm made him stop picking so he could stare at her, she crouched back behind the bush, if only to get him to open the darn door faster and preserve their lives. In an attempt to be helpful, she peered over the top of the shrub, keeping watch in case their sniper friend decided to come around the corner. Every slight movement, every noise rattled her, but she gritted her chattering teeth, clenched her shaking hands and swallowed the impulse to run away screaming like a banshee. Banshees probably made very good targets.

As Joe worked at the lock, Emma’s breathing finally slowed, in tandem with her pulse. She couldn’t help feeling somewhat amazed that she could feel even a smidgen of calm in a situation like this. Sure, adrenaline was still racing through her system like a hormonal freight train, heightening her hearing and sharpening her vision of the world into bright, crisp clarity. But still, you’d think she’d be a panicking mess. You’d think…

She yelped when a sharp click sounded near Joe, like an empty gun being fired.

“It’s okay,” Joe said, still concentrating intently on her door. “That was just me.”

So much for her Zen-like calm. Emma watched him work and willed him with all her mental energy to hurry.

Fortunately, Joe made short work of her lock, opening her door inside two of the longest minutes of her life. And here she thought the house had been burglarproof. Jeez.

Gripping her elbow, he hustled her into the house, closed and locked the door behind them, and pulled her through the back enclosed porch and her walk-in pantry to the kitchen. She felt a burst of gratitude that the windows in that room were small and facing the neighbors, making them much more difficult for someone to shoot through. All the same, Joe sat down on the floor, his back resting against the under-the-sink cabinet, and gestured for her to do the same.

She sat and waited, toying with the sleeves of her beige summer sweater while he took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the local branch of the LAPD. When he’d finished, she hugged her silk-clad knees to her chest and asked the question that had been burning in her mind since the first hole had appeared in her newly painted siding. “For the love of God, I’m an English professor, and I’m nice. Most of the time. Why on earth is there a sniper in my front yard?” She struggled to keep her voice calm, but her confusion and, yes, even anger at the thought of someone wishing her ill—major, major ill—made her last word end on a humiliating squeak.

Joe snorted. “No clue, but if he were a sniper, we’d be dead. Not a bad shot, but he did miss.”

It was a sobering thought, that their lives had hung in the balance between good aim and great aim. And Joe sounded so blasé about it. Emma stared at a knothole in the hardwood flooring of her kitchen and quietly freaked out for a few seconds, her arms still wrapped around her knees.

“You okay?” Joe finally asked after the silence had stretched out for too long.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Her brain had obviously gone on automatic pilot for a moment, because even she knew as soon as it came out of her mouth that the question was ridiculous, given their situation. The offer had been automatic, made partly out of reflexive politeness and mostly out of denial. People didn’t shoot mild-mannered English profs stuck in ruts. Not even in Hollywood.

He shot her a look that was a blend of mild amusement, his mouth curving upward into a half smile that was starting to look familiar. “Sure. And do you have any of those little cakes?”

“Sorry.” Resting her elbows on her knees, Emma pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, as if she could block out the bizarre events of the last couple of days. “Apparently, my brain is still processing the fact that someone wants to kill me, and my mouth went on without it.”

She felt him put a hand on her shoulder. His touch felt warm. “I know. I shouldn’t be giving you a hard time. It’s normal in a situation like this to want to pretend everything’s fine.”

“But it’s not.” With a sigh, she folded her arms across her knees and rested her cheek on them, facing Joe. “I’ve known you for exactly two days, and my life seems to turn into an episode of Jungle Raider whenever you’re around,” she said, referring to the only non-reality show she watched, an action-adventure program with a heroine who kicked booty on a weekly basis. “Why?”

He drew his knees up and let his wrists rest on them. “You know, you’re awfully calm for someone who just got attacked twice in two days,” he said.

Truthfully, even Emma couldn’t believe the calm she was projecting, all things considered. “I’m having a hysterical hissy fit on the inside.”

“Ah,” he replied soberly, keeping his eyes on the back door. “Actually, I think you’ll be fine once I leave you alone. I’m pretty sure it’s me he wants, and you’ve just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He flicked a glance at her. “I’m sorry about all of this.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.