Unfair Advantage

CHAPTER TWO

“It’s the right thing to do.” Ashlyn skipped a rock across the lake’s choppy surface. A stiff wind had the water peaking and troughing like the ocean in a storm.

Dani dropped to a squat, plucked at a long blade of grass. Her fingers slid along the slick stem to the rough, slightly fuzzy leaf portion. A tiny black ant scurried along its length. For a fleeting instant she pictured the world from its point of view. Considered this forest as a vast universe.

“What is right?” Dani asked aloud. She watched the ant for a moment, stood.

Ashlyn regarded her with those intensely vulnerable-powerful eyes. “Do you know why I love you?”

Her friend possessed a talent for cutting straight to the quick of any matter. “Because I’m in the process of redemption.”

Ashlyn’s milk chocolate skin and painfully beautiful features acted as showcase for razor-sharp intellect. “That’s over simplification. I loved you first because you despite everything horrible that had happened to you, you were a fighter.”

Dani shrugged. “You have a weakness for underdogs.”

“That’s why I used work in social services, honey.”

Dani smiled. “Can we go have wine now?”

After making a plate of nibbles, they adjourned to the living room. Dani built a fire in the hearth while Ashlyn returned to the kitchen for chilled Fume Blanc. She placed the bottle in an ice bucket on the tapestry rug at the tiled edge of the fireplace. Dani accepted a glass from her friend then added tender to the blaze.

Ashlyn poured for them both. "What were the detectives like?"

Dani took a seat in a nearby chair, chose a wheat cracker stacked with Swiss and smoked turkey from the plate. She leaned back, stretched her legs to prop her feet on the cushioned ottoman. "Fielding seems nice. Simple. Sex-on-the-brain."

"Oooh."

"Not much to back it up."

"Oh." Ashlyn put the bottle of wine into the terra cotta bucket, tilted her glass to drink. Her dark eyes sparkled above the rim. She set the glass on the tiles of the hearth, fed a handful of kindling to the struggling blaze. "Tell me what you're not telling me, girl."

"Larkin is ..." Dani tried to summon her poetic observations. Finally said, "He's huge, dark, serious and makes me glad I remain on the correct side of the law."

"Handcuffs come standard," Ashlyn quipped. "Have bondage equipment and testosterone, will make house calls."

Dani finished the cracker. The weight of responsibility closed heavily. She set her wine on the occasional table. "Honestly, Ash, I'm terrified. I haven't seen a spirit, ghost, hallucination. Whatever. Not since eight months ago."

"Maybe that's passed." Ashlyn put a small log on the now thriving fire and helped herself to a cucumber slice with hummus. "That's the way my Grandmere Graimeaux had the sight. Regular as rain. Then nothing for the last twelve years she lived."

Ashlyn's Cajun grandparents raised she and her brother after their parents perished in the crash of their Dehavelin Beaver. The nine years spent in New Orleans with a spiritually cognitive grandma had made Ashlyn completely open and understanding of Dani.

"That still leaves me with the fear that I can trigger it."

Ashlyn added a few more logs, came over to crash Dani's seat. With her friend snuggled close in the chair-and-a-half, Dani sighed.

"Girl, I know how terrifying that was for you." Ash put her lean arm around Dani's shoulders. "I also know you have The Gift. Just like Grandmere. You're touched by angels. God has his finger on you."

Dani's dark doubts surfaced. "Are you sure it’s God?"
#



He called himself Brand. He’d once heard an immigrant woman in Hell’s Kitchen yelling from the sidewalk outside a burning building. He’d heard the word ‘brand’ several times. At the time it caught his attention because he’d always liked the idea of branding. So, he asked another German. Brand meant burn.

Brand loved fire. Fire maimed and killed with pure indifference. It attacked and consumed. Here blackening, there cindering to nonexistence. It leapt in the air, smoldered underground. With the addition of an accelerant, fire could even move upon water. It ruled its fellow elements.

He stood at the panoramic windows of his apartment. The woman he’d spent the last few hours filming and fucking remained in the workroom. He’d picked her up at a new club in Manhattan.

A fresh-from-middle-America-actress-wannabe. Dumb bitch swallowed every line he gave her over four rounds of martinis. Didn’t even ask about the pills he hand fed her. He'd shown her the set of expensive fake credentials he used for this sort of thing. She'd melted, offered to blow him during the cab ride to this apartment.

Brand gave her champagne, used her for about fifty minutes of footage. After she passed out, he reviewed and edited. It would work. Not top drawer but good.

Before she could wake, he called a cab, dressed them both and carried her downstairs.

The yellow sedan halted curbside. Brand opened the door, put her in back. Standing up straight, he dug through her purse, located a card with her address and three twenties, one fifty. The broad didn't even have a drivers' license. He walked around to the cabby’s window, knocked. The glass lowered.

Brand tossed the purse and wallet minus card and cash into the cabby’s lap.

"Hey, buddy!"

Brand handed the driver the card and money. "Take her to that address."

The guy assessed the card with professional shrewdness, held up the money. "This fare should total about a fourth the green. What's the catch?"

"You have to carry her drunk ass upstairs, find her keys in the purse and dump her in the apartment."

"No problem, buddy."

Brand watched the cab pull away. He drew in a deep breath. It was time for another high-end project.




Roarke sat in his little Brooklyn house. Rather than think about work, he took a look around.

He'd bought this place last year when Uncle Patrick left him a hundred grand. Roarke hadn't really needed the cash for a purchase. A fluke stock investment three years ago gave him a hefty cushion. Still, he felt obligated by his late uncle's sense of putting down roots. That in mind, Roarke saw the unpacked boxes, sparse furniture.

He hadn't put down anything. A long string of - for him - unemotional affairs, and the job made up his life. He had drifted from close involvement with his family. They tended toward having kids and weekly social gatherings.

The phone rang. Roarke reached across the wide chair arm, toppled the forgotten glass of Glenfiddich sitting there to the floor as he grabbed the handset. "Larkin."

Fielding said, "I've spent the last four hours reading news and magazine archives."

"Here I thought I was a sad example of Friday amusement."

"Danielle Richards left Wilton and Belmont Advertising going on fourteen months ago. She'd just made partner at the ripe old age of twenty-nine."

"What the hell is she doing living at Pine Mountain Lake?" Roarke recalled her explanation of gaining her abilities. Still, he had a tough time understanding.

"A dozen magazines featured her as a future Forbes top ten. Not only was kicking ass up the advertising ladder, she'd made investments in real estate that made her an up-and-coming predator on the financial food chain. Articles predicted she'd give Trump serious competition within a decade or so."

"A woman under thirty makes partner, has massive further success on the horizon, then does what?"

Papers shuffled, keys clicked. "Okay, she has an accident in Connecticut. Suffers head trauma that causes a four-day coma. Two weeks later she's released. She returns to the city, resigns from Wilton and Belmont, sells her eight million dollar penthouse, the Rolls Royce Grey Ghost that wasn’t smashed - she had a set - her two buildings in the Upper East Side, one Upper West, another small structure in the Financial District, then part ownership of one in Chelsea." Fielding's voice held boyish excitement. He hadn't shut up about the woman since she performed her little exhibition. "Records show the sale for the cabin at the lake occurred mid-October."

"What am I missing?" Roarke surged up from the chair went to grab a towel from the kitchen to clean up the spilled liquor.

"She liquidated her assets the second week of September."

"Where was she for a month?"

"Bingo."

Roarke strode back to the living room, mopped up the scotch. "Don't make me fish, Fielding."

"That's the question. Where was she?"

Roarke carried the soaked towel to the big kitchen pantry. Under a shelf resided the washer and dryer. He opened the washer to toss it in. Leaned back. "Jesus!" The smell could knock down the Chrysler building.

"Yeah, I know. Fascinating, huh?"

Roarke braved a look. "Sure." He had no idea when he'd put the load of now-mildewed clothes in the machine. Thankfully whites could take bleach. He started it again, poured in detergent and Clorox, glanced at the blue- and green-check towel, mentally shrugged, and dropped it in too.

"Can we investigate? I mean, she's a potential source on this case."

"Before I can accept anything she has to say, I need more information." Roarke closed the lid, walked to the corkboard hanging by the fridge. Take-out and delivery menus crowded the space. Chinese, steak house, Indian, Mexican or Italian? "I'll talk to her tomorrow. See if she'll sign releases for us to question the treating physicians and anyone else with information."

"She's the genuine article. The real deal, Larkin."

For a split-second Roarke pictured her perfect ass, glorious skin. "We'll see."




Dani woke from a restless sleep. She went for a long hike, showered, and dressed. Then put on coffee and went out onto the porch to wait. Detective Larkin drove up maybe twenty minutes later. He got out of the red pick-up wearing a faded navy tee with NYPD in white letters across the wide chest, worn jeans and cowboy boots.

In the brilliant sunshine his mahogany hair showed hints of deep copper. He possessed a sensuality that no doubt made women ready to offer sexual cart blanche. He represented controlled wildness. Danger without risk. A gentleman who would perform like a brothel stud.

"I didn't know if I'd catch you," he said. Strode up the stone walk and wood steps to the porch.

Dani stood. "I'm never hard to find." She opened the door, "Shall we talk inside?"

Inside the door she shed her hikers. He followed the lead.

She remained very aware of him as he followed her to the kitchen. The aroma of coffee permeated the air. "Have a seat, detective."

She heard his chair scoot on the wood floor. "Call me Roarke."

"Your father was Irish?"

"Father and mother."

She poured his coffee, "Your first name means 'famous ruler' and your last name means 'rough and fierce.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Three years ago the firm I worked for had a huge Irish industrial account.”

"Mom never lets me forget my heritage."

Dani poured coffee, added cream and two packets of raw sugar to hers. She carried both to the table, handed him his. "She's traditional?"

An old break interrupted the line of his nose. Blatant brawn made him an impressive presence. "She's always pushing history. Erin go braugh."

She suddenly felt very female. Vulnerable. Images from her experience with him taunted. She'd never reacted this way to a man. Maybe celibacy made her susceptible. Summoning strength, she replied. "Why did you make the drive?"

"Miss Richards, I need to speak to the people who treated you following the accident."

She sipped her coffee. Tried to ignore the self-defense reaction. "If you don't have official forms, I can write up something."

"You don't mind?" Those cranberry-brown eyes searched for secrets.

Dani shook her head. "Call me Dani. And no, I don't mind."

"That will help my partner and I get started. I have some questions for you first."

"All right."

"You told me that when you came out of the coma you realized your life had changed."

She resisted the urge to fidget. "Yes."

"Could you tell me what exactly?"

"I saw people in the room who,” Dani wrapped her hands around the mug to hide their shaking. "People the doctors and nurses couldn't see."

"Ghosts?" His tone remained even, objective.

She felt as if only her skin held her together. The terrifying bewildering experience remained fresh. "I didn't realize it right away. The doctors thought my concussion had caused hallucinations. They sedated me."

"When did you arrive at the conclusion these hallucinations were in fact supernatural?" The same tone, same unreadable expression.

"When the nurses recognized the description of a woman who kept pacing my room screaming at me." Dani sipped a little of the hot drink. "She had been rushed from the psyche ward to ICU for a brain hemorrhage."

His eyes held hers for a moment. "You saw her before she died?"

"No, she died a week before the accident."

For long seconds he studied her. "Do you still have these visions?"

"Not for almost nine months."

"Any idea why they stopped?"

"No more than I understand why it started in the first place."

"Any other new talents?"

"Sometimes I dream things that I read or hear later happened. A sense of angst before something occurs directly to me."

"Average person would start buying lottery tickets, betting the ponies. Why is it you don't use these abilities to advantage?”

"I can't see the future on demand. Just the past and that with limits. Any time I get something about the future it's more an accident."

He lifted his mug, drank. When he set it down, he asked, "What you did with the victim, touching his body and seeing what you described, that ability came after the accident, too?"

"Yes."

"It works like what you demonstrated to my partner and I?"

"I suppose. That was the first time I tried it on a ... Without the person living."

"What about the woman whose daughter you helped find?"

Dani pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. "The mother believed very strongly that an ex-boyfriend had kidnapped her daughter. He didn't know me, so I was able to get close to him in a bar. First chance I had I touched him."

"And?"

"I saw the girl tied in a shed. The mother knew he had a shed behind his house. She convinced the guy's neighbor to make a 911-call saying they could hear noises coming from there. Authorities obtained a warrant, found the girl alive."

"Any chance you still have an address and phone number for her?"

"Yes. But, I doubt she'll talk to you. She's afraid she'll get in trouble for that bogus call."

He shook his head. "I'm not under any obligation to investigate that matter."

Dani stood. "Let me get that number and write up a release for you to speak to the hospital staff who cared for me."

He rose as well. "One more thing."

"Yes?"

"Where were you from the time the doctors discharged you until you purchased this cabin?"

She'd known to expect that sooner or later. "At a private retreat in Sedona. I can get that information and privilege release for you as well."

"I appreciate your cooperation."

Amusement beat back her little attack of nerves. "You couldn't be anything but a cop."

He smiled. It cemented the impression of potent sexuality. "Probably right."



Dani woke from a sound sleep. For a moment, she stared at the ceiling. Light from the lamp in the hall shone into the bedroom. Gooseflesh erupted over her skin. An eerie chill curtained the bed. Slowly, heart pounding erratically, she sat up.

A small child stood silhouetted in the doorway.

A gasp lodged in her throat.

In a soft voice, the child said, "I remember you. You came with my mother to see me in that cold place."