Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (5 page)

     Jack noticed the young woman's rounded abdomen and realized she was pregnant. Tyler addressed her as Maria and patted her on the shoulder. Maria blushed and smiled. Then Tyler and her companion hurried on.

     That gave Jack pause, forcing him to make an adjustment to his preconceived character assessment of Abby Tyler.

     Picking up his pace, he hurried after her. "Miss Tyler!"

     She turned. For an unguarded instant, she looked preoccupied, troubled almost, and then a mask went up. "Jack Burns," he said, holding out his hand.

     Her handshake was unexpected—two-handed, taking his between hers in a welcoming grip. And then she smiled and that further surprised him—a sunny, confident smile. Closer up now, he saw the crinkles around her eyes, not from being out in the sun but from smiling a lot. He sensed a warmth deep within her as she tilted her head and her dark curls caught the sunlight in copper streaks. "Have we met before, Mr. Burns? Your name seems familiar to me."

     "It's possible," he said, offering nothing more.

     Her perfume was delicate and feminine, wafting over him when the desert breeze shifted. She seemed to be studying him. It caught him off guard. He knew she had a reputation for rarely mingling with guests. He was unprepared for such a direct confrontation. He removed his aviator glasses to give her look for look.

     As the breeze swirled around them, Abby studied him, wondering why his name was so familiar. He himself was a stranger: the shiny aviator glasses, the leather jacket, the stance, the shortly trimmed hair that had never seen a comb. Then, remembering the crisis in the kitchen, she withdrew her hands. "I hope you are enjoying your stay. If you will please excuse me..."

     He looked this way and that, like a man not wanting to be overheard, or plotting his next words, a cautious man, Abby thought, and the gesture gave her a good look at both sides of his jaw, his sinewy neck, the trim hair buzzed halfway up his skull. "Maybe I could buy you a drink later?" he said.

     She had not expected the invitation. "Thank you, but I am really very busy. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Burns." And she moved on.

     She had gone a few yards when she turned to look back to find him still standing there watching her behind those silvery glasses again.

     As she felt the sharp desert air on her face, Abby felt fresh new fear. She had the feeling he was sizing her up, that he was here on a fact-finding mission. Where did she know him from? Were you ever in Little Pecos, Texas? she wanted to ask. She searched her memory...

     The summer of 1971, an innocent sixteen-year-old girl named Emmy
Lou Pagan was living alone with her grandfather in a roadside nursery and feed store on a stretch of Texas highway when she met and fell in love with a nameless drifter. She had known nothing about the stranger, and he had volunteered no information about himself, so that when she fell in love with him it was with a phantom of her own imagination. She had not known, as she lay in his arms beneath the Texas stars, that he had a black soul and that he would commit murder for fifty cents.

     
The drifter stealing her grandfather's truck to kill an elderly woman for her money, and the local sheriff arresting Emmy Lou, believing she had done the killing.

     Did Jack Burns know about the trial in which flimsy circumstantial evidence led to a guilty verdict by a jury of twelve good Christian men and women, not because they thought she had committed the crime but because, in the course of the trial, it was discovered she was pregnant—sixteen and unmarried in Texas Bible country—and therefore they could not let her go unpunished?

     Did he know that Emmy Lou's sentence of life in prison had caused her grandfather to drop dead of a heart attack, leaving his sixteen-year-old granddaughter alone in the world except for the baby growing within her?

     
Did Jack Burns know that Emmy Lou Pagan was now Abilene Tyler, owner of The Grove, and that she had been in hiding for over thirty years?

     Abby was brought back to the present by Vanessa's voice. "Do you think he knows something?" her best friend was asking.

     If he did, the two of them might have to move on. It wouldn't be the first time they had had to flee. But this time Abby didn't
want
to run. Not now that she was so close to finding her daughter at long last...

C
OCO
M
C
C
ARTHY HAD HAD TOO MUCH TO DRINK WHICH WAS WHY
she was letting Rodrigo slide his magnificent hands under her blouse to feel her breasts. He was a fantastic kisser and his body was hard all over, not just down
there.

     
Coco was on fire. She had had the secret hots for Sergeant Rodrigo Diaz for months and hadn't thought he was aware she was alive. Yet here he was, getting her under the mistletoe, pressing up to her and seducing her with his melting black eyes.

     
Now his hands were on her thighs, lifting her skirt. Coco squirmed against him, unable to get away even if she wanted to because he had her pinned to the wall. My God, everyone could see! Was he actually going to give it to her right there, in the middle of 17
^th
Precinct squad room, in the middle of this wild Christmas party?

     
What had the captain put in the punch anyway? Because Coco's right leg was moving on its own, creeping up until it hooked around Rodrigo's perfect rear, giving him wide access. The flimsy panties came away and the sergeant's fingers were inside, exploring.

     
Coco thought she would faint with desire. She felt the eyes of everyone on her, all the cops, their dates, the prisoners in lock-up, all watching what Rodrigo Diaz was about to do to her. It excited her beyond belief.

     
"Yes," she whispered against his olive-skinned ear. "Yes, yessss..."

     Coco's eyes snapped open.

     She blinked.

     Where the hell was she?

     She rolled her head on the pillow and squinted at blinding sunlight pouring through the window. What happened? Had she left the Christmas party with Rodrigo? Was she at his place?

     And then she remembered: It wasn't Christmas. It was April. And she had won a contest. She was at a place called The Grove.

     She sighed. Rodrigo had been but a dream. They had never kissed under the mistletoe. She had never felt those wonderful fingers deliciously inside her. Not in real life, just in her fantasies.

     But that was about to change because she had come to The Grove to find her soul mate!

     Jumping out of bed, Coco made a hasty room service call for a breakfast of lox and bagels and cream cheese, then she dashed into the shower which she set at an energizingly low temperature.

     
"He is well traveled. He knows the world."

     That was what her crystal ball had said the night before, although not in exactly those words, and not in an actual voice. The crystal communicated in ideas and images. And it wasn't the crystal itself speaking, but Coco's spirit guide, Daisy.

     What Coco needed were details. The first time the message had come through was several weeks ago, when Coco was working on a missing child case. She had been con

     sulting the crystal when her phone rang. Gerard, the cute African American detective who looked like the cop on
Law & Order
, calling to break their date.

     Big surprise there. Men thought she was great—Coco had a bubbly personality, voluptuous figure, and a fabulous smile—until they learned she was a psychic and worked for the police. Gerard had said he could handle it,
after all his own grandmother was psychic (she predicted rain storms). But when Coco voiced what she saw in her famous "flashes"—usually mundane things, such as "your car keys fell behind the dresser," but sometimes she saw secrets—Gerard had started acting uneasy. That night was to have been their first date—dinner and a movie. But he had called with a lame excuse and that was it. Bye bye Gerard.

     Depressed over the sorry state of her love life—at thirty-three Coco was starting to yearn for the white picket fence—she had looked at the crystal that was trying to tell her where a lost child had wandered to, and a forbidden thought had come to her:
Ask the crystal if there is a man somewhere in the world just for you.

     Coco had been psychic from an early age and her mother, recognizing that her daughter's gift was unique and precious, had admonished Coco that she use her talents only to benefit others. "If you work it for your own personal gain," she had said many times, "you invite disaster."

     Coco had heeded that advice until Gerard's phone call. It was the final straw. For years she had helped the police find murderers, kidnap victims, lost children—wasn't it time to get something in return? It wasn't selfish, was it? After all, as a sideline Coco offered psychic advice to friends and relatives. Her own sister had found her soul mate through Coco and the crystal ball. Why
was
it wrong for Coco to consult the orb for herself? Who besides her mother said it would bring bad luck?

     So Coco had relaxed herself, spread her hands over the orb and opened her mind to Daisy, and the message had come through loud and clear.
Yes, there is a soul mate waiting for you.

     Excited, Coco had asked: Where?

     Behind her eyes, she had received a vision: the setting sun.

     But the crystal would reveal no more. And then the FedEx envelope had arrived containing the announcement that she had won a contest, a week's stay at a desert resort in California.
Setting sun.
West! It could not be a coincidence. Coco had accepted at once, cancelled all readings and séances, informed the local police she was going out of town, and jumped on a plane for the West Coast.

     And now here she was, getting dolled up for her first foray into the land where her soul mate dwelled.

     Her long session with the crystal the night before, after she had checked into her private cottage, had not revealed the man's name, nor what he looked like, nor anything useful. The message that Daisy, through the crystal, kept sending was: He is well traveled.

     Great. That could describe every guest in the place. People who could afford The Grove could also afford to globe trot.

     She must not waste any time. All the crystal could do was advise—it did not arrange introductions. The rest was up to Coco. And if she wasn't on her toes, she could miss her soul mate and never again have the chance to find him.

     As she stepped out of the shower and vigorously toweled off, she knew exactly where to start looking. Morris What's His Name, the man she had flirted with the night before in the bar at The Grille. They had had something going until Coco felt inexplicably sleepy. Remembering that her inner clock was set three hours ahead, she had made excuses and left. She would look for him now. Last night he had said he wrote travel books and had been all over the world. Exactly the man Daisy had told her to look for.

     As she was about to leave, her phone rang. It was the manager, Vanessa Nichols, rescheduling Coco's lunch date with Abby Tyler. "Something has come up." It was fine with Coco. More time to find the man of her dreams.

     The Grove was alive with morning birdsong, not only from the aviary that dominated the center of the resort, but all the wildlife that inhabited the imported trees that grew there. The shaded path led her to one of the swimming pools, where happy guests were splashing and sunning and flirting in the bright desert sun. Coco selected a stool at the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary with extra salt and the first sip immediately put her in an upbeat mood.

     As she scanned the scene for Morris the travel writer, she spotted famous faces cavorting in and around the waterfall and fountains. A sexy young man with a cute butt came by with an armload of towels. When he offered her one, Coco said, "No thanks, I'm allergic to swimming."

     She had loved pools when she was younger, but when she and her waist-line
both reached thirty—years and inches, respectively—she had put away her bathing suit. With a sigh she watched the cute butt walk away. Had he given her the come-on? She had heard stories about this place, the rampant sex, that everyone was into it.

     "Excuse me."

     Coco turned to find a familiar face smiling at her: the man from the boarding lounge the night before, whom she had pegged as a cop. She liked the look of him—salt and pepper hair, lined face, hard eyes. And was that a gun bulge under the leather jacket?

     "Yes?" she said.

     He put his hands on his hips and looked this way and that. "I'm trying to find a magazine kiosk. Somewhere I can buy a newspaper. But this place is so big and I keep getting lost."

     "Sorry, I'm new here myself," she said.

     "It's quite a resort. Never seen anything like it. Do you come a lot?"

     It sounded like a pick-up line, yet she had the feeling he wasn't hitting on her. "This is my first time. Believe it or not, I won a contest I don't even remember entering! A week's stay at the Grove."