TheCrystal Read online

  He shook his head. Only for his aunt would he have ventured into corn country. Not that there was anything wrong with living in the middle of a prairie, if you were a farmer.

  He peeled off his clothes and lowered himself into the Jacuzzi. Leaning his head back against the edge of the tub, he closed his eyes and let the steaming eddies of water, lapping against his body, wash away his tension.

  He had his laptop in his attaché case. It would be the work of a moment finding out where Gabriella Bell lived.

  He would need to make his move before Leaky or his pals did. The girl was irritating but he didn’t want her roughed up.

  A pair of long tanned legs danced tantalizingly through his mind. The effeminate clerk was a fool.

  Chapter Three

  Dusk gave way to dark. Streetlights softened the black night casting a misty yellow glow on the gray cement sidewalks. Down the block a dog barked and another answered. No lights shone from the front of Gabriella Bell’s small house.

  Gabby sat at her desk in her study, a converted walk-in closet, located off of her bedroom. She bent over her keyboard tapping at the keys. Pausing, she pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

  Ned lay at her feet, his large woolly head resting on his paws, his tail thumping against the worn tan carpet. Jericho sat on the bookcase staring at her. It was time for his supper.

  “Rrf.” The Chow-mix gave a sharp bark and ran to the front of the house. A moment later, the doorbell rang.

  “Damn,” Gabby muttered under her breath. The brilliant idea for an article about illegal dog fights might not be so brilliant if she had to leave it and come back.

  She ignored the bell and concentrated on the story. “Two gentle, family pets were stolen from their backyard in broad daylight.“ The bell rang again. Clenching her teeth, Gabby continued to type. “A brokenhearted child mourns…”

  She closed her eyes trying to focus. She typed another couple of sentences then paused frowning, her fingers splayed on the keyboard. The doorbell had quit ringing, but Ned continued to bark. Someone was outside.

  Hitting the save button, Gabby, took off her glasses and stood up. She grabbed her purse and rummaged through it, spilling the contents onto the desk. Grabbing her mace, she walked through the living room to the entryway.

  Ned stood at the door, growling.

  Waiting a heartbeat, she took a deep breath then drew back the chain and turned the lock on the interior door. The mace clenched in her left hand, she flipped on the porch light then opened the door a crack. A quick glance showed her the security screen door was locked. Feeling safer, she opened the interior door a bit wider.

  On the other side of the security screen, a stranger stood blinking in the light, leaning toward the doorknob. As the man straightened, he slid a thin metal object into his pocket.

  Ned stood beside her, his lips drawn back in a silent snarl.

  The man jumped backward, his eyes on the dog.

  Gabby tensed. At times like this, she appreciated every one of her seventy-two inches.

  The man was as tall as she and big, with a large, crooked nose as if it had been broken at one time. Despite the chill in the air, beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

  This guy would make a good bouncer for one of Springfield’s less reputable nightspots.

  She raised her mace. “Breaking and entering is against the law. You’ve got two minutes to tell me what you want then I’m calling the cops.”

  He widened his eyes. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Gabby snorted. “You’re down to a minute and a half. What do you want?”

  He ran a hand across his balding head. “We got off to a bad start. I’m Nigel Robey and I’m looking for Ms. Gabriella Bell.”

  “You’ve found her.” She glanced at her watch then into his eyes.

  The stranger gave her a nervous smile, as he shifted from foot to foot. “Well, Miss, I’m the proprietor of Earth Religions. I believe my nephew sold you a green crystal ball.”

  Gabby nodded. “He did.”

  “Well you see, Miss, I’m afraid he sold it in error.”

  Gabby raised her left eyebrow, a trick she’d learned from her father when he was skeptical—usually at of one of her more inventive childhood deceptions. “In error?” she asked.

  The man gave an artificial laugh. “Sounds silly, I know.” The wind raised his thinning hair. “Do you mind if I come in? I’ll explain everything.”

  “Yes, I mind.”

  He shrugged, saying, “Well, the thing is, my nephew was unaware I was holding it for a customer, a very important customer.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the bubble of panic in his voice. Whoever his customer was, this big brute of a fellow was afraid of him. She wrinkled her nose. And speaking of Brut, his aftershave was overpowering.

  “I’ll pay you what you bought it for.”

  She blinked in surprise. “It’s not for sale.”

  “I believe you paid five hundred for it?”

  “Yes. But as I told you it’s not for sale.”

  “I’ll give you a thousand.” She could feel her eyes widen. A thousand dollars was a lot of money for an unknown journalist.

  Rubbing her lip with her index finger, she rested her shoulder against the door. There was a story here. She could smell it.

  “It’s not for sale,” she repeated.

  “All right, two thousand. But that’s my last offer.”

  She blinked. Two thousand? For one brief, wonderful moment, she thought about her VISA bill being paid off and having a small down payment on a new used car. Staring at several moths circling the porch light, she let the image fade. There was a story here, she repeated to herself. And even if there wasn’t, the globe held her in thrall.

  “It’s not for sale, at any price,” she said firmly.

  She knew what the man saw as his gaze traveled around the house’s unpretentious exterior, white paint, fading to a dirty gray, peeling in several spots on the porch. His lips curled in a sneer. Then he looked her in the eye. “All right, miss.”

  She couldn’t help it, she shivered. She could only hope he would blame it on the wind.

  Robey laughed, a raw unpleasant sound.

  Reading the menace in his eyes, she straightened, her hand tightening on the doorjamb. Why did all these strangers have to have such cold eyes? But the message was clear. He intended to have that globe.

  Robey looked at the mace, then the dog, his expression considering, as if weighing his odds. Just then a car door slammed and her neighbor came walking up his sidewalk. “Lo, Gabby,” he called.

  “Hello, Bobby,” she called back.

  Gabby turned to the stranger. “I believe you were leaving.”

  “Another time,” he promised.

  Gabby took a quick step back and shut the interior door, leaving him standing on the porch.

  For several heartbeats, she stood staring at the door. Finally, a loose board creaked as if someone had trod on it. She’d always meant to fix that board. Now, she was glad she hadn’t.

  The fur on Ned’s ruff returned to normal, which meant it only stood up about eight inches instead of a foot.

  She walked to the window and looked up and down the street, then gave a sigh of relief. The stranger was gone.

  Running to the phone, she picked it up, dialed, then with a sigh cradled the receiver. Unless it was a matter of life and death she had no intentions of involving the police. The last thing she needed was the boys in blue complicating her life.

  Chapter Four

  The fortune telling party was in full swing, exactly five days after her encounter with Nigel Robey. Amy had been so insistent about throwing it that Gabby, as usual, had given in. Since both Gabby and Amy had a wide circle of friends, Gabby’s little house overflowed with enthusiastic revelers.

  Gabby’s mind drifted from her guests and back to Robey. For several nights, she’d started at any unusual sound, but as the
days passed and she saw nothing further of the owner of Earth Religions, she began to relax. The proprietor must surely know if the globe disappeared, he would be the first person she’d blame.

  The down side to this line of reasoning, she thought dismally, was that as long as he wasn’t caught in the act he could always claim innocence, just an honest businessman trying to purchase an item that had been sold by mistake.

  She smiled, feeling mischief light her eyes. Nigel Robey had no idea how the Springfield police would frown on her home being broken into.

  A crash sounded from the living room brought her back to the present.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll clean up the broken glass,” someone yelled.

  Standing at her tiny kitchen counter, she eyed another empty cheese tray while tugging at the plunging neckline on her gypsy getup.

  She was going to murder Amy for sticking her with this bimbo outfit. Amy had picked it out, picked it up and dropped it off when Gabby wasn’t at home, of course. It had even come with a brunette wig.

  With a sigh, that swelled her overly exposed bosom, Gabby filled the cheese tray, paper crackling as she ripped open the packet of crackers.

  She sprinkled wheat wafers around the little blocks of white and yellow cheese in the center of the plate, then spearing one of the yellow squares, popped it in her mouth, savoring the tangy taste of Wisconsin cheddar.

  Feeling ill-used, Gabby plunked another handful of cheese squares in the center of the tray. The party was Amy’s idea and she wasn’t even here. Amy had promised to help, but at the last minute had backed out because she had a date with a divine stranger. So instead of doing prep work for the party, Gabby’s best and most irritating friend had opted for getting a facial and her nails done at a pricey little salon that wooed its customers with new age music and glasses of white wine.

  “Princess Amy,” she muttered under her breath, then threw a couple more crackers on the tray, hoisted it over her shoulder and headed for the living room.

  The smell of spilled beer permeated the air, causing Gabby to wrinkle her nose. She snaked her way through the crowd, balancing the tray on the palm of her hand with the efficiency born of moonlighting as a waitress.

  As she wound her way through the room, the doorbell pealed, rising above the noise of the revelers.

  Ned barked and pushed his way through the crowd. Gabby shrugged. He stood a better chance of getting through than she did.

  Reaching a little round table she’d picked up in a secondhand shop, Gabby set down the tray. As she straightened, the door opened.

  Gabby gasped. It was a good thing she’d put the tray down, because she would have dropped it.

  Amy walked in, on the arm of the stranger Gabby had bumped into in the rain…the stranger who kept sneering at her from her globe.

  A stocky-built young man jostled her. “Sorry, Gabby.”

  “No problem,” she murmured never taking her eyes off Amy’s date.

  The man in her crystal ball was gravely listening to Amy, who was batting her eyelashes and flirting for all she was worth.

  As if feeling the pull of her stare, he looked up.

  Their eyes locked. The people and noise receded into the background. It was the weirdest thing Gabby had ever experienced. It was like the two of them were alone in the universe. She had read about this peculiar phenomenon, of course. When she wasn’t reading murder mysteries, she was devouring romances. But she had always thought the phenomena greatly exaggerated. Boy, was she wrong!

  “Gabby. Gabby.” She heard a voice droning her name, but ignored it. She started walking toward the door.

  As she watched, Amy tugged at his arm to pull him forward, but he stood his ground, waiting.

  His obvious expectancy that she would come to him snapped her out of her trancelike state. “You! What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, stopping in front of him, bound and determined not to acknowledge that strange magnetic pull she’d felt a moment ago.

  “Oh, you’ve met,” Amy said smiling brightly and showing exquisite white teeth, whose orthodontia had cost her parents a bundle during her teen years.

  “I don’t believe so.” The stranger’s voice was low and hypnotic and his gaze drew Gabby like the pull of the moon.

  Ignoring the tightening in the pit of her stomach, she gave him a brittle smile. “In front of Earth Religions. You nearly knocked me down. And you keep appearing in my damn crystal ball.” Gabby hadn’t meant to add that, but she was glad she did. His eyes widened and color washed and receded from his face, before he quickly regained his composure.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said haughtily, his left eyebrow rising. As it settled back to normal, he looked her over.

  Much as one assessing a horse one planned to buy, Gabby thought with disgust. His gaze lowered to her cleavage, skimmed her short skirt, wended down her tanned legs and red-tipped toes, then traveled back up and rested on her brunette wig and large hoop earrings. He grinned nastily.

  Gabby colored. No self-respecting gypsy would be caught dead in this getup. Damn it, this was all Amy’s doing. She’d worn this goofy costume because she was supposed to tell fortunes. And there stood her best friend in a clinging turquoise jersey and white designer slacks, while she looked like an escapee from the circus.

  The damn man wasn’t helping much either, with his look of amused condescension.

  His hair pulled back in a ponytail, he wore an expensive sports jacket over a green silk shirt that matched his cool eyes. Her gaze lowered to tight faded jeans and soft leather loafers. She’d always had a weakness for faded jeans on a well-built male.

  She let her eyes travel back up his lean frame, looking at him as insolently as he’d eyed her.

  With an almost imperceptible nod, he acknowledged the exchange. Touché, his look seemed to say. “Are you telling fortunes?”

  “How did you know?” her flighty friend asked, putting her tiny well-manicured hands around his hard biceps.

  At least, if Gabby remembered correctly, they were hard. Hard arms, hard chest, flat stomach, Gabby fanned herself with her hand. She was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm.

  “Call it a hunch,” he said, his eyes still on Gabby. “So where’s the crystal ball?”

  Gabby got a prickling sensation at the base of her spine that traveled straight up to her cranium. She’d had it three other times, all three times had turned out paying stories.

  “And why would you be interested in my ball?” She watched him closely, her eyes narrowed.

  He waved a languid hand around the room. He fit in with the rest of her friends about as much as a tiger did with housecats, she found herself thinking.

  “I thought that’s what this, err, party was about. We were to get our fortunes told. Or maybe I misunderstood. You read palms, perhaps?”

  “How did you meet, Amy?” she countered.

  Before he could respond, Amy burst out, “Darling, it was the wildest thing. We literally bumped into one another. And you know,” she twitched her shoulders and tossed back her hair, smiling. “One thing led to another.”

  “Oh, really. All I got was ‘a watch where you’re going’,” Gabby muttered.

  “I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else,” the stranger said.

  Gabby could feel her eyes spark. She didn’t believe for one moment that he didn’t remember her.

  Amy looked from one to the other then said skeptically, “It’s not like Gabby to forget a handsome face. But since there seems to be some confusion let me introduce you. Christopher Saint, meet my friend Gabriella Bell.”

  He took her hand and bowed over it in a European manner, then dropped it as a charge of electricity ran up her arm. “Charmed,” he said in a bored voice.

  “Likewise,” Gabby replied flatly.

  Either unaware of the antagonistic sparks flying about her or deciding to ignore them, Amy clapped her hands. “Gather round everybody. Gabby bought a new crystal ball and is going to tell our fortu
nes.”

  A mass of bodies surged foreword, crowding eagerly around the party’s fortune teller.

  Gabby held up her hands, laughing. “Just a minute, I have to get it.”

  She felt Christopher’s gaze bored into her back, as she walked through the open door and into her bedroom, staring for a moment at a square white box that held a $24.95 crystal ball purchased specifically for the party. But she knew in her bones he’d come to see her crystal and she wanted to know why.

  Gabby walked to the bookcase and plucked it out of the sandstone bowl. Holding it protectively, like a mother cradling a child, she walked back into the living room.

  “Me first. Me first,” Amy cried, clapping her hands.

  “Of course,” Gabby replied, heaving a resigned sigh.

  She glanced at Christopher. He stood with his arms crossed, a sneer of distaste on his face.

  She wasn’t particularly excited about using her precious crystal to do parlor tricks either, but it angered her that this stranger stood there looking down his nose at her and her friends. Especially when it was at his instigation she’d brought the ball out. She felt certain he’d wanted to see it not play parlor games.

  “Bring in a couple of the kitchen chairs,” she called.

  A couple of men, who’d been high school jocks, swaggered into the kitchen and returned stiff-arming the chairs over their heads. “For The Norse Queen and Princess Amy,” Joe, the shorter one with freckles and red spiked hair said.

  Gabby smiled. They had been dubbed that in high school and it had stuck through college.

  Making a show of sitting down in her rickety pine chair, Gabby placed the ball on the coffee table in front of her. She gestured toward the other chair with a flourish. “Princess Amy.”

  Amy nodded her head, gave a regal wave to her loyal subjects and sat down then spoiled the effect by giggling and winking at Joe.

  Gabby placed her hands on the ball. It felt warm and comforting.

  “Well?” Amy demanded.

  “I see a tall dark stranger,” she intoned. “With a ponytail,” she added.

  Amy looked at her date flirtatiously.