LITMIR.BIZ

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hear,” he replied evenly. He ignored, but he heard. Julio G. and his boys were about to deeply regret messing with one Lissa Clearmont.

      Tonight’s police interview took considerably longer than last night’s. Not only were the police less concerned about her mental well-being, since she hadn’t been physically attacked this time, but they were highly suspicious of two attacks by a notorious gang in such quick succession. They probed at length for some connection between her and a gang member, some enemy, some ex-lover or disgruntled customer who could have caused Julio G. and his boys to target her.

      Dawn was breaking by the time the last law enforcement professional packed up his tools and left. Max carried down a sheet of plywood from upstairs and sawed it to fit in the frame of the broken shop door. “You’re going to need a new door. While you’re at it, you should upgrade to something with a wrought iron security grill.”

      “I’d have no idea how to go about finding something like that.”

      “Then you’re in luck. I know every antique and secondhand dealer in town. We’ll find you something. But first, breakfast.”

      * * *

      Lissa looked around the interior of one of New Orleans’s most famous restaurants in dismay. They were the only customers. “Is this place even open for breakfast?”

      “It’s open for us. I did the owner a favor a while back.”

      “What kind of favor?”

      Max grinned across the white linen tablecloth at her. “A big one, chère.”

      She subsided, knowing an evasion when she heard one. Max ordered eggs Benedict, bacon, sausage, grits and fresh fruit for two, and then leaned back to study her intently enough that she started to squirm a bit.

      “About that kiss last night,” he started.

      Oh, Lord. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t bring that up. She had no idea why such a massive flood of impressions, images and information had come over her when they’d kissed. Her big visions were always tied to violence, not to hot kisses.

      Maybe it had been her own fear that triggered the sudden onslaught of psychic emanations in her head. She’d probably just been too scared to put a lid on the vivid emotions that had flooded her. That was all it had been—emotion. Physical attraction and arousal. Not anything psychic. She was done with opening herself to those energies.

      Max leaned forward curiously. “What happened? Is that what it’s always like to kiss you?”

      “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never kissed myself.”

      “Something happened when you kissed me, Lissa.”

      He hadn’t picked up on some of the visions that had shot through her when they’d kissed, had he? “You mean the earth moved under your feet?” she joked.

      He frowned across the table at her. “I’m serious.”

      She really wished he would drop the line of questioning, but she sensed there wasn’t a chance in hell he would do that. Instead she asked, a shade shortly, “Describe something.”

      “It was like my imagination went crazy. I saw all kinds of images and felt all kinds of feelings. Hell, I even thought I heard music. But it all happened in, like, a millisecond.”

      She swore under her breath. Did he have a gift of his own, then? Most mundanes were lucky to catch tiny snatches of her vision flow. Nobody saw the whole unedited show inside her skull. She leaned forward. “Has anyone ever told you you’re empathic?”

      He frowned. “As in the woo-woo kind? An empath?”

      She smiled broadly. “That, or merely that you have a talent for picking up on other peoples’ emotions.”

      He leaned back hard in his chair. “I’m a—” He broke off and started again. “I have some experience in watching other people’s body language. Reading facial expressions. But that doesn’t make me some kind of psychic.”

      He said the word as if it were filthy. A momentary knife of pain twisted in her gut. No. It was all right. She wasn’t part of that world anymore. He could despise it and not despise the most important piece of her.

      “Are you a cop?” she blurted.

      “No,” he answered promptly.

      He wasn’t an FBI agent, was he? That would be disastrous. He’d be an easy phone call away from talking to the feds she’d worked with in the Northeast, finding kidnapping victims and murder victims over the years. Heck, he would probably already know some guys out of the Boston office.

      “Are you FBI?” she asked reluctantly.

      “Nope.”

      Thank goodness. But then her confusion returned, bigger than before. “Then how did you know how to drop Julio G., and how did you know all that stuff you told me to do on the phone last night? And now that I think about it, you came into the store at the same time as the police. How did they let you do that?”

      “I got to your place first. They just followed me in.”

      She sensed evasion in his voice. “And the other stuff? About how I should hide and defend myself from an intruder in my house. How did you know about all that?”

      He grinned at her. “Easy. I watch a lot of cop shows on TV.”

      That was totally more evasion. She started to challenge him but was interrupted by the arrival of their breakfast. The food was beyond delicious, and she dug in with gusto.

      Eventually Max said, “Tell me more about your aunt. I gather she was some sort of psychic? What’s up with that? That stuff’s not real, is it?”

      She’d had this argument so many times over the years that she’d long ago learned just not to go there in conversation. “I am no scientific authority and can’t comment on that one way or another. Each person sees and believes whatever they want to regarding psychic phenomena. As for my aunt, most people who knew her believed she was not only psychic but very psychic.”

      “And you? Do you believe that?”

      She shrugged noncommittally. “She knew some stuff that was awfully hard to explain any other way.”

      “There’s always an explanation. Scientists can always successfully debunk anyone who claims to be psychic.”

      She stared at him intently, willing him to understand. “Many people use mundane skills to pass themselves off as psychics. The technique is generally referred to as cold reading. I do think that some people who actually cold read believe themselves to be genuinely psychic. In point of fact, they’re picking up on subtle body language signals from their subjects.”

      “Like your aunt?”

      He sounded as if he was trying to make a joke, but she answered seriously. “Most people who saw her in action believed she had a genuine gift. It’s not possible to cold read the future, but she could predict it spot-on. She could give uncannily accurate readings to people she’d never met, over the phone, in a different part of the country from her. And she never did it as a parlor trick or for financial gain.”

      To his credit, Max didn’t make any snarky comments. He actually seemed to take her at her word when she claimed her aunt had possessed out-of-the-ordinary skills. At least he didn’t disbelieve her outright. That was more than she could have asked from him.

      “If you’re not psychic,” he remarked lightly, “then I guess you’re simply a spectacular kisser.”

      She shot him a damning look. “You don’t believe that.”

      “I dunno. That was a pretty hot kiss you laid on me. Perhaps we ought to try it again and see if the same thing happens.”

      “We’re in a restaurant, sitting in front of the window on a crowded street!”

      “All

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