Out of Sight Page 4

  For an instant he considered it. Then he shook his head. “Nothing.” This wasn’t something he could share with anyone. He’d supposedly made his peace with being as good as disinherited over the color of his hair and eyes. If he started bellyaching now he’d feel small. “Why would Poppy come to you?”

  “She told you we’ve become good friends.”

  “Good friends who made sure I didn’t know about it.”

  Marley pressed her lips together. She pulled Winnie close beside her. “Poppy didn’t think you’d like it. And before you ask, no, I don’t know why. She’s a really wonderful person but she’s hurting. I think it’s something to do with Ben but she won’t tell me.” She squinted at him. “Now I think it’s something to do with you, too.”

  “Marley?” Poppy spoke from the hall. “Where did you go?”

  Sykes looked at the ceiling. “She’s been standing out there all this time. I’m being tested, but I don’t know why. I’ve lived a good life. I’m a good man and I deserve better.”

  “You’re not and you don’t.” She turned toward the door. “In here, Poppy. Come on in.”

  “Marley!”

  “She’s got brothers. She must have seen them in bed before.”

  “I am not her brother.”

  Poppy stepped through the doorway and stopped, her eyes popping wide open. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Nah,” Sykes said. “You don’t have to be. Come on in. Everyone else does.” He deliberately sat a little taller in the bed and let the sheet fall lower around his hips.

  Poppy straightened her own shoulders. A white T-shirt and very tight jeans looked wonderful on her. The long hair that had whipped about her shoulders the night before hung down her back in a single braid and she wore no makeup. He liked her just the way she was. In fact he liked her any way she wanted to be.

  “This was a stupid idea,” she said. “I felt terrible last night. Like you must have thought I lied to you…” her voice trailed off and they stared at each other. They must both be thinking that she had lied before.

  “Will Poppy be safe if I leave her with you,” Marley said, going slightly pink. “I’m not trying to be cute, but Uncle Pascal’s on the warpath. I don’t want him to find out there’s some kind of intrigue with you two. And Nick Montrachet says there’s something he doesn’t believe, whatever that means. I need to get back to him.”

  “You’re close to Nick, too?” Sykes shook his head. “Just how big is your circle of close friends?”

  She pushed her chin forward. “I keep up with people I’ve known all my life,” she said. “My circle of friends is the same as it’s always been. You’re the one who decided to become a loner. A bad-tempered loner. We’ll talk later.”

  Marley put Winnie down and left with the dog at her heel.

  “You don’t want visitors,” Poppy said, backing up. She shook her head. “You surely don’t want to see me. I just felt so badly after I saw you leave last night.”

  “You’ve got something to say to me,” Sykes said and didn’t like his own tone. “Sit down and talk.” He inclined his head to the chair Marley had vacated.

  Poppy glanced at the chair but remained standing. She looked Sykes over and quickly averted her eyes.

  He suppressed a smile. They surely weren’t children anymore.

  “Last night you asked if I knew why you’d been invited to Ward’s party. You said you thought you were there as a potential financial backer and I agreed. You asked if I was, too, and I didn’t deny it. I wasn’t lying, I just couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

  “It’s not my business.”

  “No, it’s not.” Her chin rose. “But I’m telling you anyway. The last thing I expected was that speech about me from Ward. I’m not going to pretend I don’t like him. I do, but it’s not like that at all. We are friends. Nothing more.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. You always were horrible to me. When you weren’t around, Ben was my best friend, but when you were there you made him just as unpleasant as you are. I made a mistake and I’ve apologized for it. I can’t keep on apologizing.”

  “No. Shouldn’t think so. That could get boring for both of us.”

  “Okay, thanks for letting me set things straight.”

  “You don’t have a thing going on with Ward? He’d be a good catch for you.”

  She turned to him and her lips parted. The flash in her eyes was pure fury. “What is that supposed to mean? He’d be a good catch for me. Maybe I’d be a good catch for him, too.”

  “Would you mind giving me a chance to get up, Poppy.”

  “Don’t bother, I’m leaving. Thanks for listening.”

  Sheesh. “I don’t like the group Ward hangs out with.” He had wanted something—anything—to say, but not that.

  Poppy frowned at him.

  “Forget I said that. It’s none of my business.”

  “So you keep saying, Sykes. Nothing about me is any of your business, but you’ve got plenty to say. Seriously, if you know something I don’t, please tell me.”

  He finally kept his mouth shut.

  Poppy took her bottom lip in her teeth and stared at Sykes as if she were trying to see inside his head.

  Good luck, lady.

  She started to say something but stopped herself and started toward the door. Once more she halted, turned back and pulled the chair close to the side of his bed.

  He tilted his head to one side. A shower and shave would feel good. A quick look around the room and he located his tux in a heap on the floor. This was great. There was nothing like feeling you were at a major disadvantage.

  “I need your help,” Poppy said. She leaned close enough for him to smell her soap—something citrusy that he liked a lot. “I’m running a risk talking to you about it, but I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

  “You’ve got your brothers and your friend, Marley.”

  “Shape up,” she snapped. “Liam and Ethan would try to stop me and they’d make such a racket that Ben would come roaring back into town. I don’t want that. Marley’s five months pregnant and doesn’t need extra stress. Now, are you going to keep on being a jerk?”

  “Probably, but you’ve got my attention.”

  She gave a slight and completely disarming smile. “I bet you know how sexy you look sitting in that bed wearing nothing but a white sheet. And not very much of the sheet.” Poppy cleared her throat. “That was way out of line.” But she didn’t look contrite—smug was closer to the truth.

  “You look pretty sexy yourself. There’s nothing like a pair of beautiful breasts with hard nipples filling out a T-shirt—unless the T-shirt happens to be wet.”

  She tried to frown but failed. “Now we’ve got that out of the way. Concentrate. You know I’m aura sensitive.”

  He shrugged. Aura sensitives were a dime a dozen.

  “I knew you’d react like that. Do you realize I can read brain waves? I see their patterns and I know what they mean.”

  His expression changed. “Since when?”

  “Always. I never discussed it because I’ve been working on getting things right for as long as I can remember. Don’t worry, I can’t read yours.”

  “Paranormals don’t exhibit brain patterns,” he said indifferently.

  “That’s right. To my eternal disappointment. But I’ve decided it’s time for me to put my talent to work.”

  “Any change in the telepathic skills?”

  She turned her mouth down. “I can still hear what any of you want me to hear but I can’t send out a word.”

  “Bummer.”

  “That’s putting it kindly.”

  He thought a moment. “You may be blocking yourself. It would be worth looking into.”

  “You hate me, don’t you?”

  He knew why she thought so, but hadn’t expected her to say it. “Some mistakes take a long time to get over—if you ever can. Let’s leave it at that. We’re both grown-ups. Finish what you’re tr
ying to tell me.”

  “I didn’t go looking for Ward. He and his buddies came into Fortunes. Ward seemed interested in me and kept coming back.”

  “He’s more than interested in you.”

  “That makes it harder,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. But he can be my open door to the kinds of people I don’t usually deal with. We’re all—the Millets, the Montrachets, the dePalmas and others—we aren’t part of the social scene. Some people think we are but we keep our distance and our own counsel. Everywhere the Embran have shown up has been where the money and pedigrees are in New Orleans.”

  He rubbed a hand over his chest and belly. Poppy followed his hand with her eyes.

  “I didn’t know you were a social climber,” he said.

  She threw up her hands and fell against the back of the chair. “I’m not. Don’t be so difficult. I’m going to crack the Embran issue wide open and I’m starting by finding ways into places I couldn’t go before. Or never tried to go before. Sooner or later I’ll get a lead that will take me to whatever the Embran come up with next. Marley’s talked a lot about it and they are going to come back. These past weeks when they haven’t done anything are only to make us all think they’ve given up.”

  Speechless, Sykes could only wait to hear what else she had to say.

  “I wish I’d had a chance to be around some of them already. I’m going to talk to that Nat Archer. You know, the homicide detective, and ask if he can get me into the jail to interview an Embran. If I can find common brain patterns in them, I could be able to start picking them out when they pop up.”

  He wasn’t sure which would be more effective. To shake her or hug her until she couldn’t breathe. “You will not go near an Embran,” he said. “They aren’t pixies with bags of fairy dust. They are vicious killers.”

  “I know that. We’ve all got to get together and bring them down.”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you,” Sykes said. “You mean well. But if you think this is a way to redeem yourself for…to redeem yourself, you’re wrong. You’d be in way over your head. I’m calling Liam and Ethan right now.”

  “If you do, I’ll tell everyone you found another of those secret keys and you’re not sharing it with them.”

  He closed his mouth. Between them, he and Ben had discovered three keys not more than an inch long apiece. He had found a fourth—this one in the fountain in the Court of Angels where he knew it could not have been before. This was another one with a carefully removed chip in the edge of the hole.

  Sykes gathered himself. “How do you know that?” Denying it would be pointless since she obviously knew the truth.

  “Marley saw you and told me.”

  He began to think of ways to make sure Marley stopped confiding in Poppy. “I am collecting them. I have no idea how many there are or what they mean. And they’re nothing to do with you.”

  “Two of them were in a little red stone griffin in the courtyard and one showed up with Willow’s dog.”

  He couldn’t believe Marley had got so loose lipped. “Uh-huh.”

  “You all think they’ve got something to do with a legend or something? An angel? Are the keys here?” She looked around.

  Sykes groaned. “This is serious stuff, not some sort of kids’ game.”

  “Ben feels something different in the courtyard. He told me that. The stone angels’ faces change sometimes. They glow green and he hears them laugh and whisper.”

  Oh, great, Ben has spilled just about everything. Everything he knew that was; fortunately Sykes hadn’t told him much about Jude, although it didn’t help that Jude had appeared to Ben. Sykes looked away. Jude had needed Ben’s help otherwise he wouldn’t have shown himself.

  “For Ben and me, I’m asking you not to discuss any of this with strangers.”

  She made an irritated sound. “As if I would. Try to remember that it isn’t just the Millets who could be dragged into this. If it was only you, then Jude wouldn’t have talked to Gray and Ben.”

  “So much for a little privacy,” Sykes said. “You could be right, but you could be wrong. And, in case you feel a need to go running to Ben or Nick Montrachet or anyone else right now, I haven’t had a chance to tell everyone about the keys yet but I do want to be the one to do it. Not that there’s any point since I don’t know what they’re for.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “But I guess we can talk about it if it comes up?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “And I’d rather you didn’t involve Liam and Ethan in my business. I’m not the little sister anymore.”

  No, she wasn’t. “On one condition. You don’t make a move without letting me know what you’re up to. Wiggle out of that one time and your brothers will know—all of them. And they’ll have to line up behind me to deal with you. You’re late to this party and you could make a mistake that would set us back badly. And maybe cause you a lot of pain.”

  She gave him a sweet smile she must have practiced for such an occasion.

  “Thank you, Sykes. I’ll remember everything you’ve said. I don’t expect you to like me, but I think we can make a good team.” She got up again.

  Mmm, he could so easily wrap her up with him in his bed and they could both get the rest they had missed last night.

  Another time.

  Her cell phone rang and she looked at it. “I knew it was too good to be true that no one called for a couple of hours. I’m not answering it.”

  “Who is it?”

  She raised her brows. “Someone for me—calling on my phone. Okay, it’s Ward’s office.”

  “Ah, well, you’ll want to go somewhere private to talk to him.”

  She gritted her teeth and answered. “Hi, Ward? Joan? Yes, of course it’s okay. Is there something wrong?” She was quiet for a couple of minutes before she said, “Thank you,” quietly and hung up.

  Sykes waited. Poppy kept her eyes on him but he didn’t think she was seeing him.

  “Ward’s been arrested. A body was found at his place early this morning, and they’ve arrested him for it.” He noted that she seemed more bemused than upset.

  “I’m sorry.” He was more than curious. “Who was it?”

  “Sonia Gardner. She was the woman singing and playing the piano last night.”

  5

  From the windows in Sykes’s spartan sitting room, Poppy could see about half of the courtyard below. She also had a good view of the back of J. Clive Millet, the antique shop, and the flats closest to the Royal Street side of the property.

  She had promised to wait while Sykes took a quick shower before doing anything else about Ward.

  In the very left corner of the Court of Angels, bamboo and giant fatsia plants crowded together. Poppy looked hard and counted three angels in that one area—and a palm tree with the upper half of its crown too high for her to see.

  The squelch of wet footsteps preceded Sykes’s arrival and she started to turn away from the window. A small, bright patch of red caught her eye and she looked again, putting her nose close to the glass.

  It must have been a trick of the light because there was nothing red there now.

  “What’s so interesting?” Sykes walked in and Poppy faced him.

  “The courtyard,” Poppy said. “Each time I come I see something I hadn’t noticed before.”

  Sykes didn’t comment on that. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, slinging a towel around his bare shoulders. Water glistened all the way past his navel to the low waist of his jeans, ran down his face and dripped from his hair. “They’re not going to let you anywhere near Ward while they’ve got him in custody. You might as well wait until they finish questioning him.”

  “What if they keep him there a long time?”

  “I don’t know. They must have some strict visiting policies. We’d have to find out.”

  “You said you’d see if Nat Archer could tell us anything.” If Sykes would not help, she’d go alone.

&n
bsp; He shoved the fingers of one hand into his hair. Sculpting must use a lot of muscle. Sykes lean body redefined defined. Poppy concentrated on his face.

  “What would be wrong with giving the cops more time before we go wading in there. This doesn’t apply to you, but some members of our families aren’t great favorites with the local police. Some of them think we’re either the problem they’ve been having in the past year, or causing it.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with the families,” Poppy said. “As far as I’m concerned it’s personal.”

  “Of course it is.” His features tightened.

  Sykes didn’t like her involvement with Ward. Why he objected to a man who was no more than an acquaintance, she had no way of knowing.

  “Ward is a friend,” she said. “If he hadn’t thought he could turn to me he wouldn’t have asked Joan to contact me.”

  “I’ll get a shirt and shoes.” Sykes pulled the towel from around his neck. “I’d better make some calls myself and make sure where they’ve got him. If I can get to Nat, he’ll tell me that much.”

  “I just want to get going.”

  “I understand that,” he said. “But there’s no point until we know where to go. He could even have been released by now.”

  “He’d have got in touch with me if he had.”

  His long look made her uncomfortable.

  “Hang in there, Poppy. I’ll be right back.”

  “No.” She made up her mind what she needed to do. “You don’t need to bother with this. I’ll deal with it.”

  “What does that mean—‘deal with it’?”

  “I’ll go to Ward’s place on St. Louis Street and be there when he gets back.”

  He bunched the towel in one fist. “The police will be all over it. You won’t get anywhere near the building.”

  She turned away from him.

  “I’ll try to call Nat now,” Sykes said.

  He left the room and Poppy’s first instinct was to get out of the flat before he came back.

  “If you do, I’ll be right behind you,” Sykes called out.

  Startled, Poppy jumped. She marched into the hall and followed him into the bedroom. “You aren’t supposed to do that.”