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  The woman sat up and returned the mirror to Heath. He heard the door chime from the front of his shop just as he was centering a square of surgical gauze over the reddened skin of her arm.

  “I’ll be right with you,” he called and stifled a sigh. Darq should have been here today to deal with walk-ins, but not long ago his partner had met a woman, a very special woman who’d turned him inside out and changed his priorities seemingly overnight. The younger man had been AWOL from SkIntense for over a day now, leaving Heath to handle too many things at once.

  “Mr. Gyland? Heath Gyland?” The deep voice held a tone of authority that immediately told Heath it didn’t belong to a customer. This inquiry was official.

  After helping his client climb out of the chair he turned to find two uniformed police officers standing near the back end of the counter. One seemed to be casing the shop, eyeing the artwork on the walls, the equipment arranged neatly around the work stations and the young woman now gingerly sliding her arm into the sleeve of a light jacket. The other stared at Heath as if sizing him up, watching his casual movements closely and with a mild air of suspicion.

  “Yes?” Heath wiped his hands on a clean towel and studied his visitors. Halos of brilliant green surrounded their heads—invisible to his customer of course—but to Heath, who possessed the ability to see auras, they were beacons of strong emotion.

  These men were curious, vigilant and mildly apprehensive. The colors fanning out in rays from their bodies told him they did expect trouble, and likewise had no doubt they could handle anything that might come their way.

  Immediately, he thought of Darq. His partner had certainly gotten into his share of trouble over the years they’d traveled together, but ever since the two of them had settled in this bustling city, on this crowded planet, Heath hadn’t had to bail the man he thought of as his brother out of trouble. He hoped that hadn’t changed.

  “Mr. Gyland, perhaps we could talk in private?” The lead officer inclined his head toward Heath’s client.

  “Of course. If you give me a minute, I’ll finish up here.”

  The officers nodded and stepped back toward the front of the shop. He noticed though they scrutinized his upscale décor, neither of them were relaxed enough to take a seat in the waiting area. He tried to ignore them while he finished with his customer and sent her on her way, but their presence made the skin of his arms prickle just slightly.

  His guardian beasts, fused to his body in the form of the tattooed serpents on his arms, sensed something amiss. It wasn’t physical danger per se, but the creatures he’d bonded to as a boy on his homeworld responded to the vigilance of the officers and warned Heath to tread cautiously.

  Once his client left, he met the cops in the waiting area. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

  The lead officer casually swept his uniform jacket back from his hips, revealing the service revolver holstered there. The gesture, while benign, was clearly designed to intimidate just a bit. “Mr. Gyland, do you know a woman named Tanesha Wain?”

  “Yes.” Heath didn’t need to ask if Miss Wain was dead. He saw it in their faces and in the dark sparks of apprehension that now swirled in the officers’ auras. Clearly, they expected him to bolt and their muscles tensed in readiness. Heath feigned ignorance. “Is something wrong?”

  “Would you be willing to come with us to the station to answer a few questions about Miss Wain, sir?”

  “I’m not sure what I could tell you about her. I only met her once. Has something happened to her?”

  The second officer spoke now, but his gaze still swept around the room. “You could say that, Mr. Gyland. She’s been murdered. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “No.” Again, Heath’s conscience pinged, but he wasn’t quite sure why this time.

  * * * * *

  Less than an hour later Heath sat in a small, windowless interrogation room at the police station. He concentrated on remaining perfectly still and maintaining the appearance of casual calm. Beneath his cool exterior, though, he was anything but tranquil. Fortunately the police officer currently pacing in front of the metal table at which Heath sat didn’t know that.

  Though he wasn’t under arrest, the two officers had escorted him from SkIntense and left him here with a third plainclothes officer who’d informed him that Tanesha Wain’s body had been found in her apartment. The detective in charge of the case clearly thought of Heath as a suspect, even though he hadn’t actually admitted it yet.

  After politely answering a litany of repetitive questions, Heath had noticed the detective’s aura changing color from a bright, triumphant blue to the muddy brown of frustration. Finally, when streaks of angry black had begun to color the halo of invisible light around the man’s head, Heath came to realize it wasn’t his pleasant cooperation the man was really after but a confession.

  “We need to go over this one more time, Mr. Gyland. When you met with Miss Wain, what exactly did the two of you talk about?”

  Heath sighed. He thought of the single duffle bag he’d packed this morning, full of only the most essential of his belongings. He thought of the long journey ahead of him, now interrupted by this side trip through metropolitan bureaucracy. “We discussed my work, my shop, my partner and my plans for the future. As I said before, I believe she recorded most of the conversation on a handheld digital recorder.”

  “What did you discuss once she turned the recorder off?”

  Heath raised a brow. This question was new. “Nothing. When the interview ended, she shut off the recorder.”

  “The taped conversation runs thirty-seven minutes, but the security cameras in Miss Wain’s building show you arriving at one forty-five p.m. and not leaving until after three. There must have been some discussion after the recorder was turned off.”

  Heath worked at controlling his breathing. Memories of those extra forty minutes in Tanesha Wain’s company raised his heart rate just a bit. She’d asked him to look at her own body art…all of it, which turned out to be rather extensive and cleverly positioned. He’d inspected her naked body quite thoroughly and given her some…pointers on where she might want to adorn herself with more ink. “We continued our discussion off the record.”

  “Hmm.” The officer, whose name was Brogan according to his badge, pursed his lips and raised a brow. “Did you have sex with her?”

  “No.” Perhaps Heath answered too quickly, though he told the truth. By his personal definition, he had not had sex with Tanesha Wain. He hadn’t fucked her, though given better circumstances he might have been so inclined. Clearly his response didn’t satisfy Brogan.

  “No?”

  “No, Detective?”

  “You spent approximately forty minutes alone in the company of an attractive young woman and you just talked.”

  Heath shrugged. “I spend a lot of time in the company of attractive young women at my shop. I am capable of scintillating conversation.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are.”

  “Detective, am I being charged with something?”

  Brogan checked his watch. Clearly the man was waiting for something or someone. “Not yet. If you did…have sex with Miss Wain, no one would hold it against you, as long as it was consensual.”

  “Are you implying Miss Wain had non-consensual sex before she died?”

  “No. I’m just curious as to what happened between the two of you in her apartment the day she was last seen alive.”

  “As I said before, we didn’t argue, we didn’t have any physical confrontation. Our conversation was pleasant. It revolved around my business. Once the interview ended, she shut off her recorder and we had a more personal conversation, which was also pleasant, and then I left her apartment. I have not seen or heard from her since then.”

  “So let’s talk more about this personal conversation.”

  The effort Heath expended not to roll his eyes at Brogan’s constant innuendos was beginning to give him a headache. He rubbed one ha
nd over his face, noting the stubble that had begun to form on his lower jaw. He wondered how long he’d be held in this room if he blurted out the sordid truth of those forty minutes with Tanesha. She took off her clothes, detective, and I bent her over her bed. I ran my hands up and down the artwork that covered her gorgeous ass and then I rolled her over and thumbed her clit until she came. She thanked me and offered me a blowjob, which I would have accepted except I was running late for another appointment. If either of us had been in possession of a condom, I would have fucked her thoroughly, but we weren’t, so I left her apartment with a hard-on, which I took care of myself later that evening in the shower. He supposed by some definitions, what had taken place might be considered “having sex” but since no DNA changed hands, they hadn’t actually consummated anything.

  He decided on an abbreviated version of the truth that probably would have been enough to get Brogan drooling, but he never got to say a word. A knock on the tightly closed door echoed around the room. Brogan’s head shot up and he glared at the person who entered without waiting for an invitation.

  Heath’s next breath caught when he made eye contact with the woman who strolled into the room. Wrapped in a sparkling aura of lavender and gold, she moved with a deliberate grace. Her supreme self-control showed in her eyes. Pale sea green and rimmed by curling lashes, they made a surreal contrast to her flawless café au lait complexion. A stunning combination of Caucasian and African-American had produced such ethereal beauty that Heath found his mouth had gone dry and his cock semi-rigid against the zipper of his jeans.

  Brogan offered a disdainful sound as she floated across the room and removed her bulky NYPD windbreaker. Beneath the jacket, she wore a form-fitting black shirt with a flattering scoop neck that just hinted at her well-rounded cleavage. Camel-colored pants covered her long legs and she wore casual heels, tasteful gold hoop earrings and a hint of green shadow at the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. She was perfectly cool, professional and composed, and yet Heath’s mind immediately undressed her. He pictured her dusky skin beneath his hands, a taut navel perhaps adorned with a diamond stud, flexing as he ran curious fingers toward her sex. He pictured muscular female thighs wrapped around him and her slender fingers, tipped with neatly manicured, buff-colored nails, grasping his cock.

  Normally, he had no problem keeping his thoughts professional in the presence of a beautiful woman, but there was something about her that set his nerve endings tingling.

  “You can go,” she said and Heath’s renegade thoughts snapped back to the present. For a split second he thought her melodic comment had been directed at him then Brogan huffed and flung himself at the door.

  “It’s about time you got here.”

  “DeYoung had me wait until you’d completed your questioning.”

  “Well, I’m not done.”

  “He thinks you are.”

  The detective’s aura darkened even further, mirroring the man’s expression. The animosity in Brogan’s tone stunned Heath. How could this gorgeous woman make the detective so angry? Unless, perhaps, she represented a failure of his less than adequate masculine charm.

  Brogan slammed the door on his way out and Heath allowed himself a relieved exhalation. She smiled at him and his cock responded with a twitch.

  “Good evening, Mr. Gyland. My name is Rihana Daniels. I have just a few more questions for you and then you can be on your way. I apologize for the amount of time you’ve had to spend here and I assure you, we’ll be done very shortly. I’d like to thank you for your cooperation so far.”

  We’ll be done very shortly. Heath suppressed a grin at those words. If he had his way, he might never be done with Ms. Rihana Daniels.

  He placed his hands on the table in front of him and leveled a pointed gaze at her. “You say that like you’re expecting my cooperation to stop.”

  She blushed, just slightly, tilted her head down and let out a polite laugh. “Usually at this point, the people we question are ranting about their rights and demanding to speak to their lawyers.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “No, Mr. Gyland. I’m almost certain you don’t. I just need to go over a few things with you and then you can be on your way.”

  He watched her while she opened a slim manila folder and produced a pen from the pocket of her slacks. She touched one of her dangling earrings and smoothed the spiky ends of her short, black hair near the nape of her neck before she began her own, far more pointed interrogation. “How long have you lived in Manhattan, Mr. Gyland?”

  “Heath.”

  “Very well. Heath.”

  “I’ve lived here eight years.”

  “I notice that’s when you were issued a social security number and naturalization papers. They list your country of origin as…Verakos. Where is that?”

  “It’s a very small island in the Mediterranean.”

  She observed him from under the fan of her lashes. “You don’t look Mediterranean.”

  “I’m not and neither were my parents.”

  “You don’t have an accent.”

  He wondered what these questions had to do with Tanesha Wain. “No. Neither do you, and yet I get the impression you’ve spent a lot of time in the Deep South.”

  Her sharp glance told him he’d struck a nerve. Her pink lips flattened. “And how would you know that if I don’t have an accent?”

  “Oh, it’s there, under the surface of your words. There’s a hint of Cajun spice. You keep it hidden along with a lot of things about your personality.”

  Her aura darkened. Streaks of red obliterated the purple. Heath smiled. He liked spice, and underneath her sleek exterior, Rihana Daniels was a boiling cauldron of it.

  “You worked hard to obliterate your background. I suppose that’s to make your life easier as a female in a male-dominated profession.”

  She bristled at his use of the word dominated. Violet stained the edges of her aura now. “I’m not a police officer. I’m a civilian adjunct to the department, attached to the social services division, which is largely populated by women, for your information.”

  “Why would social services be interested in me?”

  “No particular reason. These are just routine questions. You were, as far as we can tell, the last person to see Tanesha Wain alive and therefore probably our best source of information regarding her state of mind and physical condition just prior to her murder.”

  Heath stared at her mouth while she spoke. Her elocution was perfect. Her straight white teeth flashed and he caught just a glimpse of silver on her pink tongue. She had a piercing. He wondered if that was her only one and how the small, metal ball would feel running over the sensitive skin of his shaft. He imagined her using it to tease the slit of his cock and the ache in his balls intensified. “That’s a nice way of saying I’m your chief suspect.”

  “I don’t believe you killed Miss Wain.”

  “But maybe I know who did?”

  “Do you?”

  “Sorry. No. If I did, I would tell you.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “So you think I’m lying?”

  She raised her gaze to his, and for one electrifying moment, Heath looked beyond Rihana Daniel’s mint julep eyes and directly into the maelstrom of conflicting emotions in her soul. A tremor ran through him and his blunt fingernails dug into the thin layer of gray paint on the surface of the table.

  He knew in that instant that she could read him. She’d been sent in here to see into his mind.

  “You’re psychic.” That was the word the people of this world used, often in a derogatory sense. Now he understood Detective Brogan’s attitude. The man had fled the room quickly not because this heart-stoppingly beautiful woman had rejected him or emasculated him in some way, but because he feared she could see the truly pathetic quality of his mundane thoughts.

  She raised a trembling hand to her chest, held it there for a moment as if by pressure alone she could calm her heartbeat. “
I have certain…abilities that have proven useful to the police department in the past.”

  Heath didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch, though his own heart hammered against his sternum.

  “Yes, I’m psychic.”

  “Well, then you know I was not involved with Miss Wain’s death.”

  She nodded. “I need to be able to convince my supervisors of that. In lieu of hard evidence to the contrary, you are, in fact, the prime suspect.”

  Heath flattened his hands out on the table. “I see. They would believe you without question if you walked out of here and told them I did it. But they won’t be as easily convinced of my innocence as my guilt.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Other than laying bare my psyche to you, I’m not sure what I can offer you that would be convincing.”

  “Leave that to me, Mr. Gyland. All I need you to do is answer my questions.”

  “What else would you like to know about me?”

  “When did you—”

  The door banged open, cutting off her question. The sudden intrusion clearly startled Rihana. Her whole body stiffened and her pupils contracted when she made eye contact with the man who’d walked in.

  He was older than Detective Brogan. His brown hair was graying at the temples and the lines around his eyes were clearly not from laughing. He never glanced at Rihana as he moved toward the table. He tossed a glossy photograph down in front of Heath. The 8 x 10 showed the lower portion of Tanesha Wain’s face and her upper left shoulder. A swirling black mark cut across her collarbone, darkening her light skin in an all too familiar pattern.

  Heath clamped his lips shut and held himself motionless, afraid any wayward breath would give away his shock at what he saw.