“Me too.”
He blew out a breath. “Watching her… I was watching you.”
She took a moment to absorb that. “It was her. Not me.” Even though I wanted it to be.
He looked as if he wanted to refute that but didn’t. “None of that is why I needed to talk to you. I’ve been looking all over town the past three days for that painting. I catch glimpses of it in my visions. I know it’s here, that the person who stole it is here with it, but I can’t get a fix on it. Then, earlier today, I ran across some disturbing news.”
“What happened?”
“I was in the library looking into Cecilia Fine’s history. Like you said, there’s not one damn picture of her but loads of descriptions. And after what we just saw, I don’t think there’s any question that the woman in the picture is her.”
“Yeah. Makes sense.” Like why the woman’s ghost haunted Lara in the inn.
“Your resemblance has got to be something more than coincidence.”
Go figure. “I have a hunch you’re going to need me to find your painting.”
Noah smiled, a slight curve of his lips that lit his face up with more than sex appeal but an emotional attainability she hadn’t sensed until now.
“Yeah, I need you, all right.”
She swallowed, not comfortable with how her body responded to him. “I have a feeling this might be dangerous.”
“Don’t discount instinct. It’s saved me once or twice before.”
“I guess you’ve been in similar situations investigating, hmm?”
He nodded. “The bad news I mentioned? While I was researching, I overheard the librarian gossiping with a few members of a book club.”
“They meet for lunch and discuss their books at the library.”
“One of them was talking about a body found outside of town.”
“What?”
“Apparently one of the ladies is married to your county doctor, who I imagine got tapped to play coroner.”
“Doc Jeffries.” A body?
“According to Mrs. Jeffries, they found a woman naked and bound. She’d been beaten severely and died of what looks like blood loss from several stab wounds. Mrs. Jeffries also said the victim looked surprisingly like you. So I went out to where they found the body and opened my senses.”
“Your retrocognition.”
He nodded. “I saw her. The woman’s hair had been styled and her makeup painted to resemble the woman in the painting—to a tee.”
“This is too bizarre.”
“In the shadows, the dead girl looked enough like you to be your twin.”
How could her day go from bad to worse this quickly?
Noah didn’t look happy either. “Before I arrived in town, I’d tracked down the painting to Superior, just a half hour away. The art dealer who’d owned it recently died, victim of a hit-and-run. The painting disappeared.”
“Good Lord.”
“A theft was bad enough. Then the art dealer’s death? Two strikes. But if whoever killed for the painting is killing again, we have a problem.”
“Hell, yeah, we have a problem.” She stood, too nervous to sit. “You’re sure the gallery guy was murdered? It wasn’t some accident?”
He grimaced. “No. I saw it, a version of it, I mean. He was deliberately run over. At the gallery, the echo of violence was strong. I could see the same dark energy of the thief and the person involved in the hit-and-run. There was a brutality to it not found in an accident. No question it was deliberate.” He stood and ran a hand through his hair. “But I didn’t see his face. The killer was shadowed, but I knew his destination. Then I come here, see you, and find out there’s been another murder? This is all tied together; I just wish I knew how.”
“It could all be coincidence this dead woman looks like me. A lot of people have dark hair and dark eyes.”
“I don’t think so.” Noah crossed to her.
He grabbed her arms, and the heat of contact between them felt better than good; it felt right.
“You need to see her. Tell me I’m wrong. That I’m imagining this.”
“This is crazy.”
“I wish it were.” He brushed a lock of hair back from her forehead.
How the hell was Noah mixed up in this? He’d not only heard the ghost, but could supposedly see the past. Should she trust him? Hell, she didn’t know much more about Noah than that she liked the look of him, and he wasn’t a hardened criminal. Not even so much as a speeding ticket. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t also be a crazed killer.
One who sent her libido into overdrive. What a crazy time for her body to wake up and want sex. But her desire didn’t seem to be one-sided; he desired her too. Or did he want the image he’d envisioned superimposed over her? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about Noah and sex?
“Right. So we have a murder, a theft, and weird ghost sex.” She blew out a breath. “Tell me I’m not alone in all this.”
“Hot ghost sex,” he corrected, “that gave me the hard-on from hell.”
She didn’t know how to answer that, especially since it now looked like Noah would like nothing better than to return to what Cecilia Fine had been doing. How the hell did the man blow so hot and cold? “So what now?”
He met her gaze again, his eyes intense. “Now we wait until dark, then break into the morgue and check out a dead woman.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Dead serious.” At her wince, he shrugged. “Sorry, bad pun. But yeah. I want another opinion. And it seems to me you’re a part of this. You’re hearing and now seeing Cecilia Fine. You’re more than qualified to help. Besides, I don’t want you alone.”
“Great. And here I thought I’d get a chance to relax with business getting into the slow season.” Lara hardened her resolve. “Okay, Noah. Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.” Another thought struck, and before Lara lost her courage, she forged ahead. “One more thing. You seem to know a lot about this psychic stuff.”
He watched her, saying nothing.
“Maybe you could answer a few questions for me later. Because God knows, there are some things I’d love to understand.”
“Let’s get through tonight. Then I’ll answer any questions you have. I know a lot of people who deal with the extraordinary on a daily basis. So if I don’t know something, one of them might.”
Imagine understanding the impossible. “Okay, then. Let’s figure out how we’re going to break into the morgue.” Saying it out loud made it worse. She tried to pretend this whole thing wasn’t freaking her the hell out. But like it or not, she couldn’t ignore all the links connecting her to Noah’s painting. And to Noah. “I need to find out what all this has to do with me.”
He nodded. “Yeah, you do. But don’t worry, Lara. I’ll be right there with you.”
Chapter Four
Noah wanted nothing more than to leave this entire case behind and return to Bend. The monotonous routine of repetitions and sets, weights, crunches, and push-ups didn’t tax him, leaving his mind free to float with the historic simplicity of the area. No emotional entanglements, no need for social niceties…no dates over a dead body.
It’s not a date. Christ, this is an investigation.
So why did being with Lara feel so good? Spending time with her appealed to him, a loner who had little use for people in general, though he admitted he needed some socializing, which the PowerUp! gym provided. People kept him grounded in the present. But Lara awoke a part of him he hadn’t realized had been asleep.