Kiss Of The Blue Dragon. Julie Beard

When he pulled up in front of my two-flat and turned off his engine, I reached for the car door.

      “Hey.” He grabbed my left arm. “I owe you a beer, remember? I can run to a store and come back.”

      “No.” I was quick to answer and forced a bright smile. “No, it’s okay. I won’t hold you to that. I have to go.”

      “But I want to.”

      He still held my arm. His strong fingers felt like kindling catching fire on my skin. Amazed, I looked at his hand, then into his eyes, not even pretending to be tough. “Detective, I know that when you face danger with someone, there is a sense of…closeness. But it’s a false sense of comfort. You don’t like me, remember? Besides, I’m bad luck. Someone wants to kill me and they almost took you down in the attempt. So let’s just call it a night.”

      I whisked out of the car and shut the door before he could protest. I waved through the passenger window and almost changed my mind when he simply stared back, disappointment unabashedly simmering beneath his thick, dark lashes. Turn and walk away, Angel, I ordered myself. You know the routine. Yes, I certainly did. So I did just that.

      I took a long, soothing bath and stretched out on my couch. It was too hot in my bedroom to sleep. Like Marco’s radio, my air conditioning was an off-and-on proposition at best. Right now it was off. So I opted for the ceiling fan in the living room.

      Though I was exhausted, sleep eluded me. I watched the fan rotate around and around, my head spinning with the crazy turn of events. I kept thinking about that poor woman in Lola’s apartment. And when I finally succeeded in pushing aside those gruesome images, I thought about my visions of Lola in the crystal ball.

      Is that really what they were? Please, God, let it be anything but that. Perhaps I just had a wild imagination. That would explain everything. But the lame notion died before I could even begin to convince myself. Marco was right. I’d known exactly what was going to happen tonight.

      Had this ability, or curse, always existed? I thought back to the many times I’d escaped danger—always dodging bullets at the last minute, always changing plans when my instincts told me I was in too deep. Was intuition the same as psychic ability? I refused to even think of myself in those terms. I was not a quack or a fraud like Lola. I was just lucky.

      Yeah, right.

      I rolled to my other side and tried to think of something else. Someone wanted me dead. But who and why? Who in the R.M.O. syndicate could benefit from my death? Maybe somebody wanted to kidnap Lola without having to worry that a pesky daughter might come in search of her. I could think of no other explanation. But why kidnap Lola in the first place?

      And then there was Marco. He really believed he could change the world. It had to be killing him that he was wrong. One of Chicago’s finest, a member of his own force, had betrayed him tonight. It almost made me sorry I was right. Almost.

      I rolled onto my back and sweat pooled between my breasts. Tonight, just before I got out of his car, he wasn’t looking at me like a professional. For a moment, under his dark gaze, I felt like a real woman in the presence of a real man. And for a brief moment, it had been exciting. Just before excitement had turned to panic. Circle the wagons, Angel. Don’t let him in.

      I sat up, tired of pretending things were normal. Tired of pretending I was satisfied with this cleverly crafted life of mine. I rose up on my knees, leaned against the back of the couch and craned my head out the window for a breath of fresh air.

      I saw a couple walking by after a night at Rick’s Café Americain. Perfect timing. They giggled and smooched, obviously in love. Then my gaze wandered until I found something that floored me—Marco’s SUV. He was still here?

      It looked like he was sleeping in his car. He was leaning his head against the headrest and his forearm hung out the window.

      I listened to distant traffic noise, and the sound of someone’s music blaring from an apartment a block away, and wondered why. Why the hell had he stayed?

      As if he heard my silent question, Marco raised his head and caught me staring. He got out of his car, and crossed the deserted street, heading toward my door. I walked down the stairs ready to tell him I could take care of myself. I reached the ground level entrance and paused when my hand grasped the doorknob. I pushed back the short sprigs of hair that clung to my moist forehead, then smoothed over my loose, long cotton pajama pants and spaghetti-string top. How silly to worry about how I looked.

      I opened the door and found Marco standing in midnight’s shadow. He exuded masculinity like an aura, and I wondered how taught his muscles were beneath his crisp and fashionable linen shirt. I could reach out and find out myself, if I had the guts.

      He thrust his hands into his pants’ pockets and squinted at me through a sliver of moonlight. “You change your mind about that beer?”

      “No, I need you to get the hell—”

      He closed the distance and the words died in my throat as one of his strong, tanned hands moved around my narrow waist, massaging the tight muscles in my back. He pressed me against him.

      “Marco,” I whispered, stunned by his gentleness, “you’re very good at this.”

      “Shut up, Baker, and try to relax for two seconds.” He pulled me closer against him in a bear hug. For one pure second I felt at peace.

      And just like that, the moment passed. We slowly parted. At least he had the decency to look as disturbed as I felt. It was time for that beer.

      We sat out on my second-floor garden balcony, silent for a long time. The embrace notwithstanding, I felt amazingly comfortable in his presence and began to relax. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I trusted Marco. Besides, we’d almost died together.

      Part of the multilayered wooden deck nestled like a big tree house in the giant elm shooting up past my roof. Now and then the leaves around us rustled in a desultory breeze. Marco rested against the railing and drank from the bottle of beer gripped in his big fist. I sat in a wicker chair, occasionally pressing my cold, brown-glass bottle to my temples, occasionally sipping. When you’re really wiped out, nothing beats a beer in an old-style glass bottle.