When She Dreams (Burning Cove #6)(8)

Maybe the problem was his imagination, not hers. He knew exactly what had happened to the coatrack, and the memories were deeply unpleasant. It was conceivable he had misinterpreted her advice. It was possible she had simply given him a decorating tip. A lot of people were passionate about interior design. He was not one of those people, but she looked like the type who cared about that sort of thing—a woman who had been raised in a house that had been furnished by a professional interior designer. He knew about houses like that. He and Elizabeth had lived in one, courtesy of his father-in-law, for a few months.

It was just a coatrack. It was functional. That was the only thing that mattered.

Forget the coatrack.

He had more important things to deal with. He had an actual client and an actual case, his first since he had opened for business a week earlier.

He stripped off his coat, draped it over the back of his chair, and loosened his tie. He sat down, opened a drawer, and took out his notebook.

There was more good news—evidently the client could afford him. Or, rather, she had access to the account of her employer, who could afford him. That worked just as well.

He glanced at the card Margaret Lodge had given him. There wasn’t much information on it, just a phone number and the address of her employer’s house. Sunset Lane was a quietly expensive neighborhood on the bluffs overlooking the bay. He uncapped the fountain pen and jotted down the details on the card. Then he sat back to consider his impressions.

He had been a good cop because he had good intuition. He could usually get a fast read on people—the living and the dead—but not always. His failed marriage was proof of that.

Lodge was a problem. She did not fit neatly into any of the standard categories. He had, in fact, been blindsided when she walked through the door. Stunned, maybe. Whatever he had expected in the way of his first client, she wasn’t it.

She was attractive, but not in the Hollywood way. There were too many strong features and sharp edges. Compelling was a more accurate description. She looked like a lady who could take care of herself, one who had been doing exactly that for a while. She didn’t need a hero, not the way Elizabeth had. Lodge needed a man who could keep up with her.

The rakish little hat had been tilted at just the right angle to allow the elegantly waved brim to partially veil fascinating eyes, eyes that gave a man the unsettling sensation she could see beneath the surface. That made her both dangerous and interesting.

When she had come through the door he had been afraid she would ask him to tail her husband to get incriminating photographs in preparation for a divorce. He had been dreading divorce work, but he knew he couldn’t afford to turn it down, not at the start of his new career. It would take time to build up the insurance, fraud, and missing persons side of the business. When he was established he would be able to turn down divorce work.

But Lodge had not asked him to follow a cheating husband. That should have been a huge relief. And it was. But it didn’t explain his reaction to her.

She was obviously intelligent and well-educated, but she did not display the arrogance he often encountered when he had occasion to interview witnesses and suspects in the academic and scientific worlds. Many women her age were married, but she wore no ring and she was working.

Lodge conducted herself with self-confidence, and there was an air of fierce determination about her that told him it would be a very bad idea to get between her and whatever she wanted. She had not tried to flirt with him or make him feel sorry for her. She had been all business.

All in all, Lodge was the ideal client—except for the lucid dreaming stuff. That was an unfortunate twist. The fact that she was interested enough in the subject to be familiar with weird stuff such as astral projection and a legend about a supernatural assassin called the Traveler was definitely cause for serious concern.

None of those observations and considerations answered the big question: Why had it felt as if he had been struck by lightning when Margaret Lodge opened the door and walked into his office? Sure, it had been a while since the divorce, and things had not been good between Elizabeth and him for a long time before she went to Reno. And yes, afterward he had been too numbed by the overwhelming weight of his failure to recognize impending disaster until it was too late. Still, nothing explained why he couldn’t fit Margaret Lodge into a pigeonhole and slap a label on her. She was a mystery. And she made him aware that he was no longer numb.

He made a few more notes and then picked up the phone. The Adelina Beach operator came on the line immediately, her voice calm and professional and somehow cheerful and optimistic.

“Number, please,” she said.

He asked for the long-distance operator.

“Please hold while I connect you.”

He contemplated the coatrack while he waited. It was a solid, substantial piece of furniture. Every office needed a coatrack. His was impressive. It added a classy note to the place. There was no reason to get rid of it just because Margaret Lodge didn’t think it looked right in his office.

So he had a client who was interested in lucid dreaming—so what? Occasionally he did read something in the papers besides the comics and the sports pages. The study of dreams was all the rage these days. Yes, there was a seemingly unlimited number of quacks, frauds, and delusional people who were making a lot of money selling fake psychic dream readings and the secrets to astral projection, but there had never been a shortage of swindlers, hucksters, and con artists in the world.