LITMIR.BIZ

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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—?

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