Burning Books Read online

  He gripped the steering wheel, not looking at her. “Are we in agreement that the sign by the parking-lot entrance said Seven Two One Beemer Lane?”

  “Yes, it did. But he said—”

  He started the engine and put the car in gear, executing a tight U-turn that made her stomach roll. When there was no traffic, he guided the car onto the street and stopped in front of the address sign. They both stared at it, struck mute.

  1148 Elliot Avenue W

  She closed her eyes, opened them again, one at a time. The sign hadn’t changed.

  “Maybe the street at the other end of the warehouse is Beemer Lane.”

  “There is no Beemer Lane, Molly. Even Google says so.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a strong cup of coffee, liberally laced with Bailey’s.” His prismatic eyes pinned her, their intensity stealing her breath. “Do you have any Bailey’s at your house, Molly?”

  Instead of answering, she asked, “What does the Augury Group mean to you?”

  “Nothing. I’ve never heard of them. But the word augury means sorcery.” He leaned toward her, his hand cupping the back of her neck, and whispered, “Breathe, Molly.”

  She sucked in a breath, dispelling the black motes that danced in her vision. “I don’t have any Bailey’s, but I’m sure there are at least seven liquor stores on the way to my house.”

  There were probably more venues than seven, but after retrieving her car from the parking lot at Red House, she followed him to the Total Wine and More in Tukwila, where he dashed in and purchased Bailey’s Irish Cream and a bottle of Mangria Orange. Molly’s head started to thump in anticipation of a hangover on top of a hangover. But she didn’t decline the Bailey’s in her coffee when they were finally in her kitchen, the air tantalizingly scented with rich, aromatic coffee. She would have served him in her mother’s vintage Waterford stemmed coffee mugs, but those had been shattered and swept into the garbage along with her tolerance for Magnus’s affliction.

  Likewise, she made no move to take him into the sitting room. They sat in her kitchen, like they had sat in his the night before. When they had mutely gulped their way through the first cup of Irish coffee and were more restrainedly sipping the second, she broke the silence.

  “What do we do now, Cary?”

  He swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “We trace the magic to the magician.”

  “How can we possibly do that? In this day and age, we could be tracing the Augury Group from dummy corporation to dummy corporation for years and never find the true source. Add to that the fact that there are thirteen months’ worth of information locked in the computer systems of the world, we’d dead-end there and never find them.”

  “We read. We finish the books, and we’ll find the truth.”

  “But how can you be sure?”

  “I can’t. It just feels right.” His phone signaled an incoming text. He read it silently, tapped out a response, and put it away.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “No. The kids are with Harvey and Dottie for a few days. Dottie goes through some dark periods, and having the kids there seems to make it better. I e-mailed my dean that I’d be out tomorrow. That was her confirming.”

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “We are going to find the people that run that online rag. I want to know what led them to write that article. And when they wrote it; there’s no date stamp.”

  She raised her mug to her lips but didn’t drink, reveling in the heat she held between her hands, breathing in the steam that curled upward out of the cup. “Cary, I think I’m the. . . What did they call it? The epicenter of the magic.”

  “I think you are, too.”

  His eyes held hers, hypnotic, enthralling. Molly’s vision tunneled down to just him: his strong-jawed face, dark with stubble; his straight, almost aristocratic nose; his faintly flushed cheeks and smooth, broad forehead. And those kaleidoscope eyes that seemed to strip away everything but her inexplicable, consuming, heart-racing desire for him.

  “Molly.” His voice purred through her, making her quiver inside. “You’re spilling.”

  He pried the coffee mug out of her hands and set it aside. Molly stared down in dismay at the dark stain spreading over her breasts and down toward her belly.

  “Oh, hell. I just bought this two weeks ago.”

  “Go change and rinse it out. I’ll pour us a glass of sangria.”

  “I think I’ve probably had enough to drink.”

  “Don’t be silly. There no such thing as enough when it comes to sangria.”

  “I’ll be right back, then.”

  With great reluctance, she tore her gaze from his. It seemed easier to leave his presence after breaking eye contact. By the time she gained the stairs, her heart had resumed its normal pace. When she closed her bathroom door behind her, the impassioned fog paralyzing her mind dissipated. Her cheeks burned with humiliation as she stripped off her soiled sweater and rinsed the stain under the sink faucet. Good Lord, he must think her an inexperienced, infatuation-addled fool.

  The coffee had soaked through her sweater to her pants. She peeled them off and rinsed them under the faucet, draping both garments over the shower-curtain bar. She’d take them to the cleaners tomorrow. For now, she’d simply find something conservative in her closet that would convey to him that she had control over her libido.

  She pulled her silk dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door, slid it on and tied it loosely, and slipped out of the bathroom and into her capacious closet. There had to be something in here that didn’t shriek SEX! But everything her eyes landed on had too little fabric or was see-through or possessed only one button.

  Get a grip, Molly. Her lounge drawer, as she called it, held casual clothes fit for sprawling and not seducing. She selected a chocolate-brown fleece outfit. No way could he misconstrue the shirt’s boat neckline and the baggy, shapeless pants as objects of seduction. Three steps from the bed, Cary’s voice stopped her abruptly.

  “I thought perhaps you’d succumbed to the Irish whiskey and fell asleep.”

  Molly gasped, whirling around to the door. He lounged against the frame, each hand holding a rocks glass of sangria. Her feet froze in place as he strolled toward her. Her mind fuzzed to a blissful blank when he reached around her with both arms to set the glasses on the night table behind her. The brush of his chest against her breasts set her heart galloping again.

  “I . . . I . . .” She swallowed hard. “I was just finding something suitable to wear.”

  He took half a step backward, his eyes sweeping over the saffron silk robe sheathing her body. “I wholeheartedly approve.”

  Her breath shuddered in, shivered out. Shuddered, shivered. Stopped altogether. He crooked his finger under her chin, bringing her head up, tantalizingly close to his. She could feel his words against her lips as he spoke them, although they weren’t touching.

  “Breathe, Molly.”

  She heaved in a breath just in time. He lowered his head, his lips claiming hers, his tongue coaxing her mouth open. His hands moved restlessly over her back, inching down until he cupped her backside, pressing her against him. Her heart stopped for a beat, then thundered in her chest. A tremor started at her center and radiated outward. Jesus.

  His fingers pulled at the silk beneath them, inching the hem of the robe ever higher, finally slipping underneath, encountering the wholly inadequate barrier of her panties. One hand withdrew, sliding between them to untie her robe.

  She grabbed his hand, trapping his fingers. “No.”

  He went still, barely even seeming to breathe. “Why?”

  If his tone had held challenge or arrogance, she would have backed away and sent him home, and in the future deflected his invitations until he got the hint. But the encouragement to confide, the genuine interest conveyed in both his voice and his eyes, was her undoing.

  “My scars.”

  “Molly—”

  “They’
re hideous.”

  “Nothing about you is hideous.”

  “You haven’t seen them.”

  “Nor do I appear to be about to.” His mouth curved into a tiny smile. “Life brings all kinds of circumstances. Some leave psychological scars. Some leave physical ones. Yours . . .” He broke free of her grip, smoothing his hand over her silk-draped stomach. “Yours are a testament of your will to live. You lived, Molly, when others died.”

  The tremor of desire had turned to a tremor of fear. Not fear of him but of his rejection. “They’re from my shoulders to my knees. They’re not sexy. They’re ugly.”

  He let her go, slowly withdrawing his embrace, stepping back three paces. Molly’s soul shriveled. The price of honesty was to instill in him revulsion for her deformity, and she fiercely regretted having to do it.

  “Show me.”

  It took her an age to move her shaking fingers to the robe tie, to fumble the ends loose, to let the silk garment to fall from her shoulders. Her black bra and matching panties provided a startling contrast for the unsightly wounds that disfigured her skin.

  His eyes held hers until the robe whispered to the floor, then dropped lower, studying each gnarled flaw with meticulous intensity. He lowered himself to his knees before her, his fingertips tracing the lines, his lips following their trail. Molly shuddered, her breath catching in her throat. His fingers moved to her shoulders, where his lips couldn’t reach, and skimmed down her arms, twining with hers. He tugged her down until she was on her knees with him. His grip on her hands tightened, grinding the fine bones together, and eased up when she finally looked at him.

  “What scars?” he whispered.

  Her whole body trembled in relief. Her fingers rose to the buttons of his shirt. His covered hers, stopping them.

  “We don’t have to do this, Molly. It’s not why I’m here.”

  “I want to.”

  It occurred to her then that perhaps he didn’t. There were many facets to involvement for him that she didn’t have to worry about herself. Magnus was her only concern, and she was pretty certain her brother would handle her relationship with Cary by simply ignoring it.

  Cary, on the other hand, not only had a missing wife but children and in-laws to consider, not to mention his status in the community as a well-respected professor.

  He pulled her hand down and pressed it against his groin. “I believe that answers your question.”

  “I didn’t ask a question.”

  “You rarely have to. Your every thought shows on your face. What’s troubling you, Molly?”

  The hard length of him against her hand with just the thin barrier of his clothes between them, for one. He didn’t grind her hand against him, but somehow she knew he wouldn’t let her pull away.

  “You have . . . obligations.”

  “So do you.”

  “My crazy brother is hardly the same as a wife and children. And your in-laws—what would Harvey Cohen think about this?”

  “If Lee were coming back to me, she’d have already done so. I think a thirteen-month absence speaks for itself—she’s either unwilling or unable to return. I’ll probably never know which. Harvey and I are in agreement that my life can’t be held in limbo forever, waiting for something that will most likely never happen. Over the last few months, my children have been trying—in vain—to set me up with various women: the librarian at school, the checker at the grocery store, their Sunday school teacher. I don’t think anyone will begrudge me moving on.”

  All she could think to say was, “You go to church?”

  “They attend with their grandparents. I stopped going after Lee vanished. I . . .” He trailed off. His hand released hers, and she let it drift down to rest on his thigh. “I couldn’t bear the hope everyone had, when I knew, deep inside, that she wouldn’t be returning.”

  “Have you . . .” She swallowed to wet a suddenly dry patch in her throat. “Have you checked the cemeteries?”

  “That was the first thing we did after the solar storm, when we realized she was gone. It’s the first thing everyone did who came up missing a loved one.” He picked up her hand again, this time bringing it to his lips. “If this is too much for you, we can dial it back.”

  “Just like that?” Men were infuriating sometimes, how they could turn desire off and on like a faucet. How they could stop and hold a serious discussion right in the middle of a seduction. How they wanted you, then didn’t, then did, then didn’t.

  He laughed softly. “Not ‘just like that.’ But being sexually frustrated is pretty much a permanent state of being for the male of the species. I can wait. You’re worth waiting for, Molly.”

  Think of all those coeds he teaches every day who’d be more than willing to ease that sexual frustration for him. Or the librarian or the checker or the Sunday school teacher. A man like him won’t stay available for long. Make your move, Molly.

  She freed her fingers from his hand and began dislodging his buttons from their moorings. “I don’t want to wait.”

  Piece by piece, his clothes joined her robe on the floor. When he pulled her against him, bare flesh to bare flesh, she melted into him as though molten, and under the skill of his hands, his lips, his sensual colloquy, Molly forgot all about obligations and scars.

  What scars, indeed.

  ∞2∞

  She found it disconcerting that he had a tattoo on the back of his right shoulder, first because she thought it was identical to Magnus’s, and then because tattooing seemed incongruous with her mental image of both anthropology professors and psychiatrists.

  But his tat was a beautifully rendered vision of a burning planet Earth, with only a sliver of blue Pacific Ocean and green North America to identify what was otherwise a glorious ball of orange and yellow flames. Magnus’s—she heaved a mental sigh—was the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings.

  And Cary Welch was so much more than just a highly educated man. Likewise, he wasn’t built like her preconception of a scholar or a doctor. Sprawled on her bed on his stomach, completely at ease among the rumpled flowered bedspread, arm clutching the lower end of the ruffled pillow on which he lay his head, he presented as a work of art that might have been carved by Michelangelo himself: broad smooth back, graceful neck, strong legs, and delectable backside, all formed of hard muscle and smooth skin.

  “Molly,” he murmured, making her jump. She’d thought him asleep. “I think we should go have a sinfully rich breakfast full of carbohydrates.”

  “So do I.”

  He rolled onto his back and turned his head to look at her. The dark waves of his hair were disheveled from her fingers and sleep. “Let’s get showered and go, then.”

  Their shower lasted long enough that breakfast became brunch, and was satisfying enough that Molly offered no complaint at the late hour or location of her first meal of the day, even though International House of Pancakes wasn’t her favorite eatery.

  While they ate, Cary searched the Internet on his phone, looking for the address for the online tabloid, which went under the somewhat trite title of Conspiracy Theory, “because,” Cary quipped, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to get you.”

  The website didn’t list an address anywhere. He was undaunted. “Once you’ve researched and written a dissertation, you feel like there’s no subject you can’t crack wide open.”

  He tapped and swiped on his phone while Molly contentedly ate pancakes and wondered if anyone could tell they were lovers.

  “Aha.” He grinned and held up his phone, screen toward her. “I ran the author’s byline. There’s a Kevin Kincaid who’s a private investigator. He’s in Tacoma.”

  “Could it be the same guy? A lot of people write for tabloids under pseudonyms.”

  He shrugged, shutting off the display and going back to his French toast. “It’s worth a try, mostly because while the article has a bit of sensationalism to it, it’s a lot more pragmatic and sensible than most tabloids
are.”

  On the drive to Tacoma, she sat sideways in her seat, chatting with him and occasionally calling out directions to the private investigator’s office. His hand frequently rested on her knee, his thumb rubbing an affectionate circle, his fingers squeezing every now and then. Despite their intimacy of the previous night and this morning, Molly still found herself tongue-tied when those eyes turned her way or when that smile speared her. It was almost a relief when he pulled to the curb in front of a stately Cape Cod, complete with a captain’s walk and faux lighthouse. The driftwood-grey shingle siding and dark-slate roof seemed an unlikely sanctuary for a conspiracy theorist.

  “Are you sure this is the right address?”

  “Pretty sure.” Cary leaned over her, peering out her window. “This is the address listed. I guess he has a home office.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “I wouldn’t want my clients knowing where I lived, but some people don’t seem to care. Shall we? The worst than can happen is we have the wrong place.”

  A herringbone-brick walk led the way beneath a pergola twined with the just-budding branches of a climbing rose. A weathered wooden sign pointed the way to Kinkaid Investigations, tastefully mounted to the pergola. Cary veered off the main brick walk to a narrower, slightly less spectacular one that wound around to the rear of the house. A gardener’s cottage at the back of the property, set apart from the rest of the grounds by a meticulously trimmed laurel hedge, appeared to be their target. It was hard to say, since the brackets that usually held a sign were empty. The sign itself lay on a tarp-covered picnic table, being ministered to by an older man with fuzzy, flyaway white hair. He puffed on a churchwarden as he painted, squinting against the smoke that billowed up into his face.

  Cary stopped a respectful distance away, his fingers loosely around Molly’s wrist preventing her from approaching any closer.

  “Are you Kevin Kincaid?”

  The man grunted.

  “This is Kincaid Investigations?”

  A paint-stained hand removed the pipe. “Most people call ahead. Had you called ahead, I could have set a time to see when you when the sign was all painted and put back up, and that would answer your question.”