She shouldn't wake the man.
Unless he slept with a light on, he wasn't asleep.
Sonnie approached a door that faced the back of The Rusty
Nail. She would convince him of two things. The first, she
hoped without clueing him in to how little there was to go
on, would be the worthiness and the strangeness of what she
needed to find out. The second point, and the one most
likely to bring him onto her team of two, was her ability
to pay just about anything for his services.
Metal slat shades covered two windows, one either side of
the door. Music--violin?--sounded as if it would be loud
inside. Sonnie looked down at herself. Regardless of her
mood, she always took care of her appearance. Tonight--or
this morning now--she could pass for a member of the
homeless.
It didn't matter. There was no one to impress. She knocked,
and crossed her arms to wait. He was probably the type who
wouldn't answer unless he was in the mood.
The door swung open almost at once.
If the man who blocked light from inside were not Roy's
brother, Sonnie would flee.
"Holy . . . What are you doing, you little idiot?"
"Coming to see you." She felt horrified, horrified by the
disbelief on his face, and horrified that she was there and
looking wild.
"I told you there's nothing I can do for you."
"I think there is. You just don't want to."
"You've been walking around in this, haven't you? Walking
around in a storm, in the dark? Alone?"
"I haven't been walking around. I went home, then changed
my mind is all."
"You should have stayed at home."
Crying wouldn't accomplish one thing with this man--much as
she felt like doing just that. "May I come in, please?"
"You don't know when to quit. You just don't know." He
stood aside to let her pass. "If there was anything that
mattered around here, I'd tell you not to drip on it.
You're going to be sick."
"You don't get sick from being wet."
"You do get sick from doing what you're doing to yourself.
There isn't one damn thing in this life that's worth that
much pain, Mrs. Giacano."
He'd have to be from another planet not to see her
desperation, but she didn't like it that he could look at
her and see exposed emotion. "Don't mistake sartorial
disaster for anything else, please."
"Whatever you say. Get in here before you collapse."
The violin music sounded like something intended for snake
charming. "Nice of you to care," she said, entering a
crowded room.
"I don't. A body on the doorstep could ruin a man's day."
She smiled and it almost felt good. "I'm not close to
death. Just wet and muddy." She looked around, gauging
where she could safely stand without making something
dirty.
"Ah, hell."
Sonnie looked at Talon sharply. With his hands on his hips,
he bent forward so she couldn't see his face. She'd swear
he'd spoken aloud without knowing he'd done so. He'd wore
only jeans. His feet were bare.
Nice chest.
She glanced around again. A door led to what was probably
the bathroom. Everything else was right here, including a
murphy bed pulled down from the wall and neatly made, a
tiny sink and stove with minuscule cupboards above, a
prehistoric refrigerator that clanked, a laptop computer,
open, and on a table built into a corner--and a very large,
black Harley Davidson parked crosswise, and filling almost
every inch of spare space.
"I'm not your man," Talon said.
Adrenalin ebbed, and exhaustion crowded in its wake. "I'm
not looking for a man," Sonnie said. "I'm looking for an
investigator. Roy told me you're an investigator."
She'd seen him on a number of occasions and noticed he was
a big man, a big, muscular man with dark curly hair on the
wrong side of too long. She also noticed he might be good-
looking without a few days' growth of beard and a tendency
to appear too bored, or too cynical to wear any particular
expression.
He wore an expression now. The man was angry.
"Did you hear what I said?" She was angry, too. So she'd
interrupted his cozy evening with his bike. He was mooching
on Roy, and refusing to do anything for himself. That's
what this was all about. He was probably every bit as good
at his job as Roy suggested, but he was lazy.
"We already had this discussion," he said. "And I already
told you I can't help you."
"Won't help me." Her stomach contracted. "Because you're
too lazy to help me. That's it, isn't it? You're one of
those men in some sort of second childhood. Riding around
on the bike you couldn't have when you were the right age
to have one."
His dark brows shot up.
He had light brown eyes, or hazel, maybe. And she'd
definitely got his attention. Sonnie shifted in her soggy
sandals. Her clothes weren't just wet, they were also
growing cold.
"Why would a supposedly normal woman decide to come to the
home of a man she doesn't know in the middle of the night
and insult him? Push him?" Talon's North Carolina roots
became more pronounced as his temper deteriorated. He
stepped closer, so close she could see the faint sheen on
his chest, beneath smooth black hair. "Are you fearless? Or
stupid?"
"I'm . . ." Oh, no, she wasn't going to admit to being
desperate. "I've got to find something out and I'm not
getting anywhere on my own because I don't know how. There.
Absolute honesty. And I trust Roy. He said I could trust
you, too, so I do." Brave words. A pity they didn't make
her feel more confident.
"If you were absolutely honest, ma'am, you'd have finished
what you started to say. You're desperate. Isn't that what
you mean?"
A mind reader. She thought for a moment before
saying, "Close. You seem like a smart man. You've got to
know I wouldn't come to you like this if I had anywhere
else to turn."
"Thank you," he said, with that smile that only touched one
side of his mouth--and slightly. "Flattery like that could
go to a man's head."
She didn't want this, this banter. Maybe she just wanted to
close her eyes and be silent, feel nothing, think nothing.
The sensation of a large hand closing on her upper arm
jolted her and she realized she had actually closed her
eyes. She stared at him.
"Are you okay?" He was too close. "Sonnie? You'd better sit
down."
Drawing herself up straight took effort. "I'm just fine,
thanks."
"I doubt it." He kept his grip on her arm. "You're
exhausted, and you're wet. When did you eat?"
"Eat?" She wanted to hire him as a detective, and he'd
decided to become a stand-in mother? "I eat regularly. Are
you going to take my case?"
"Sit down."
"I don't--"
"Sit down. You're about to collapse and I don't feel like
picking you up."
He led her to a sagging chair draped with a brown and
orange afghan and plunked her on the seat.
"I'm sorry." She had no right to come here like this. But
she would do what she had to do. "I've probably shocked
you. Turning up like this."
"It takes a lot to shock me. This isn't the way you are, is
it? Not really."
She coughed into a fist. "Annoying, you mean? It doesn't
matter how I really am. I have to find some things out. I
came back to Key West thinking--I probably wasn't thinking.
That's the trouble now, I didn't think anything through.
Because I suddenly knew what I wanted to find out, I just
came without figuring out how I'd do that."
"So you told Roy all about yourself and he elected me your
right hand man."
"No."
"No?" He retrieved a denim shirt from a hook on the wall
and pulled it on, but not before Sonnie caught a glimpse of
a tattoo on one shoulder. "No, you didn't tell Roy, or no,
he didn't elect me?"
"Either. Neither. I mean I didn't tell Roy much except I'm
in trouble. Maybe in danger. I could be. I don't know."
He stopped in the act of buttoning the shirt and let it
hang. He approached until he stood at a bottom corner of
the bed. So large a man who could move so silently
disconcerted Sonnie. He sat down and leaned toward her.
Their knees almost touched.
"What kind of danger?"
She jumped, then laughed, felt foolish.
"I'm not for hire. Let's be straight about that. But I am
interested in what makes a woman like you act out of
character. You're scared out of your wits."
Sonnie shook her head, spraying drops of water from her
hair. "I'm not the kind who gets scared."
Talon rested his hands on his knees. Spots of moisture had
hit his shirt and began to spread. "So you often change
your mind about going home. You bang on strangers' doors
instead--in the early hours of the morning?"
"Of course I don't."
"Okay." He drummed his fingers. His hands were huge. Not
meaty. Lean, but with wide palms and long fingers--and
prominent tendons extending to powerful forearms.
Strong hands.
A strong, strange man who kept a Harley Davidson in the
middle of his living room and played eerie violin
music . . .
"If you aren't afraid of something, and you're here by
mistake, we don't have anything else to talk about,
Sonnie."
She didn't have a right to be here. He owed her nothing. If
he wasn't interested, he wasn't interested.
"Hmm?" He leaned closer. "Do we?"
"I have a house here on Key West," she said, avoiding his
eyes. "That's where I'm living."
He crossed his arms.
"After we spoke this evening, I went back there. I went
inside and felt as if there was someone there." Sonnie did
look at his face then.
The expression in his eyes changed subtly. "Felt?"
"How do people ever explain these things without feeling
foolish?"
"If they do, I'm less likely to take them seriously."
"So you do take me seriously?"
"I didn't say that. It was just a feeling?"
He would never give her the smallest break. "A door slammed
upstairs."
"You're living there alone?"
"Yes."
"Probably a draft." His stillness didn't help her
discomfort. "Either from an open window or when you opened
the front door."
Mentioning a light she might or might not have seen was out
of the question. "Probably."
"But because of other things you know, you're afraid it
might not have been."
The beat of her heart pounded at her eardrums. "I'm just
going to tell you what I need to find out. Okay?"
He bent a very long leg and rested a bare ankle on the
opposite knee. He did not encourage her to continue.
"I want to know if I'm a wife or a widow."
"If the people who abducted your husband don't make further
contact, that's something you may never know. Not for
sure."
"How--" Sonnie hesitated, made to get up. "I didn't tell
Roy--"
"No, you didn't." He shrugged and indicated the
computer. "I did a little checking."
"And found out my history? On the computer?"
"Not hard if you know where to look--and have some
connections. Don't worry. Most people don't know. But the
question's the same. What I said about your husband's
abduction."
Face to face with voicing at least a facsimile of what she
believed, Sonnie felt as if her diaphragm had been cut out.
She would not say that what she needed most was her memory.
"Isn't it true?"
"It may be. If he was really abducted."
Another subtle shift in expression. His eyes narrowed now,
and his nostrils flared.
"I don't think the crash I had near the airport--Smathers
Beach--was an accident. I think I need to find out if
someone tried to kill me, and I can't risk asking anyone I
know for help."
"So you're trying to dump a guilt trip on me. I'm supposed
to take you on because I'm too honorable to let you go it
alone."
Sonnie stood up. "I hadn't thought about it quite like
that. But, since you mention it. Won't it make you feel bad
if you send me away now and you read about my murder in the
morning?"
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