PAULA GRAVES
FORBIDDEN TOUCH

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

For Gayle Wilson, whose wonderful stories made me

want to be a Harlequin Intrigue author in the first place.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Pain snaked up Iris Browning’s spine and squeezed, stealing her breath. She stumbled to a halt, her sudden stop earning a French epithet from a blonde walking on the sidewalk behind her. The woman swung her head around as she passed, glaring and gesturing.

“Sorry,” Iris murmured, moving off the sun-baked sidewalk and leaning against the warm stucco facade of a dive shop. She breathed deeply, the tangy sea air filling her lungs and beginning to clear her pain-fuzzed brain.

“Are you okay, sugar?” A man’s drawl, molasses-slow and unmistakably Southern, rumbled from somewhere to her right. She opened her eyes, squinting against the tropical sun, and found a pair of slate-blue eyes fixed on her.

The speaker was not a local, though his sun-bronzed skin suggested he’d been in the tropics awhile. He sat at a small wooden table near the front of an open-air café. His long, muscular legs stretched out in front of him, clad in a pair of denim cutoffs that had seen better days. His cotton T-shirt, though worn loose and untucked, did little to hide his broad shoulders or muscular chest.

Iris raised her eyes to meet his curious gaze. “I’m fine.”

He pushed back from the table, his chair scraping the concrete floor, and stood to face her. “You don’t look fine.”

“Gee, thanks.” She tried for sardonic but didn’t quite achieve it. Annoyed at her weakness, she pushed away from the wall. Her knees wobbled but she managed to stay upright.

Remember why you’re here, Iris.

Ignoring her instinct to run, she crossed to him and pulled a photo from her pocket. It was becoming dog-eared, thanks to her morning’s efforts. “Have you seen this woman?”

The stranger’s brow wrinkled as he studied the face. “Can’t say I have.” He looked up. “Friend of yours?”

“She was supposed to meet me yesterday afternoon. She didn’t show.” The anxiety writhing in her stomach had been building since she’d arrived by cab at the hotel to discover Sandrine missing. The concierge had told her Sandrine hadn’t checked out, but none of her friend’s things were in the room she and Iris were supposed to share. Iris didn’t want to think the worst, but the alternatives didn’t make much sense.

As the blue-eyed stranger handed the photo back to her, his fingers brushed hers. A dark sensation roiled through her, pulling her attention back to the present. It wasn’t physical pain, like the earlier sensation, but an emotional one, black and bitter like strong coffee.

She jerked her hand back, losing her grip on the photo. It fluttered to the floor, faceup.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he picked up the photo and handed it to her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to invade your personal space.”

She realized how he must have interpreted her quick retreat from his touch. “You didn’t,” she assured him, her voice more gruff than she intended. The blackness swirling through her thickened, slowed to a poisonous crawl.

“You’re not used to this heat. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll buy you something to drink.”

She looked up at him, intending to refuse. But the wariness in his eyes struck a nerve. Her earlier reaction to his touch had wounded him, somehow. She found herself unable to compound the insult by rebuffing his offer.

Besides, she was tired and thirsty.

Relenting, she sat in the chair he held out for her. The stranger disappeared for a moment, returning with a chilled bottle of water, already uncapped. He set it in front of her and took the chair on the opposite side of the table.

“Name’s Maddox.” His gaze followed the bottle to her lips.

Iris began to take a sip, then stopped. How many rules of traveling alone had she just broken? She set the bottle back on the table and looked nervously at her companion.

A wry smile curved his lips, carving dimples in his bronzed cheeks. She felt a bubble of unexpected attraction pop and spread through her chest. “Sorry. Guess I should have left it unopened. I’ll get you another one.”

She shook her head. “I’m okay.” She started to stand, but fresh pain assaulted her, driving her back to her seat.

“I’ll get you another one,” he repeated firmly.

She watched him cross to the bar and order another water. He paid in cash and brought the unopened bottle back to her. She opened the bottle and took a sip.

“Had any sleep?” he asked.

She eyed him warily. “How bad do I look?”

Maddox grabbed the other bottle of water and took a swig before he spoke. “You look tired. A little pale. Not bad.”

“I just want to find Sandrine.”

“That’s a pretty name.” He gestured at the photo on the table. “Pretty girl. Maybe she met somebody here—”

Iris shook her head. “She’d have left a message.”

He leaned toward her, flashing a grin just this side of naughty. “Love makes you forget your own name, sugar.”

“She would have left a message,” she repeated firmly, forcing her gaze away from those dimples.

“Give her time. Maybe she will.” He sat back again, slouching low in his seat. One sandy lock of hair flopped into his eyes; he shook it away from his face and leveled his gaze with hers. “You have somewhere to stay, don’t you?”

She nodded quickly. “She’d already checked in for us.”

“Well, that’s good.” His voice softened, almost as if he were speaking to a child. “Maybe you should head on back to your room until later in the day. The sun down here in the islands isn’t like what you’re used to in the States.”

“I live in Alabama. I know about heat.” She immediately felt foolish for giving him even that much personal information.

“I’m from Georgia, myself,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Bet you couldn’t tell, huh? Been working on losing my accent.”

She couldn’t hold back a soft chuckle.

He smiled at her, flashing that dimple again. It had a similar effect, twisting her stomach into a knot. “That’s better. Laughter’s the best medicine, they say.”

“I’m Iris.” She managed a tight smile.

“Nice to meet you, Iris. That’s another pretty name.”

She ignored the compliment. “Are you here on vacation?”

“No, ma’am, I live here year-round.”

“Because Georgia just wasn’t hot enough for you?”

“In the summer Georgia’s hotter than here.” He slumped deeper in the tiny café chair. “It’s nice year-round here in Mariposa. Never so hot that a sea breeze can’t perk you up and never so cool that you need to wear socks with your flip-flops.”

“How does one support oneself on a tropical island?” she asked, giving in to a twinge of curiosity.

“One lives off one’s trust fund, sugar.” He laughed. “Or odd jobs. Whichever is available.”

“What odd jobs do you do?”

“Don’t think I look like the trust fund type?”

She flushed, embarrassed by her assumption. “I’m sorry—”

“I do security work. Here and there.”

Mysterious, she thought, her wariness returning. She’d grown too relaxed over the past few minutes. Not smart, dropping her guard all alone in a strange place.

“Have you talked to the police about your friend?” Maddox asked after another long swig of water.

The question disarmed her a bit. “They didn’t seem terribly concerned. They said she’s a grown-up, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet—”

“Blah blah blah,” he finished with a sympathetic nod. “How about family and other friends? Did you check with them?”

“She doesn’t have a family, and I don’t know that much about her life or who her other friends are.” She could tell her answer confused him, so she continued. “Sandrine is a friend from college. We live in different states now. We do talk on the phone now and then, but I don’t know much about her life and she doesn’t know about mine. That’s part of what this weekend was going to be about—catching up.”

“Well, maybe it still will be,” Maddox said. “In fact, I bet when you get back to the hotel, your friend’ll be waitin’ for you with some crazy story about how she got waylaid.”

Iris wished she could believe him. But the sense of unease that had hit her the second she stepped from the plane in Sebastian had grown to full-blown foreboding, as palpable as the pain still pulsing up and down her spine.

“You don’t buy that, do you?” Maddox murmured.

“Sandrine’s levelheaded. She wouldn’t go off with someone she’d just met, and she wouldn’t have blown off meeting me at the airport when she worked so hard to talk me into this trip.” Iris looked down at Sandrine’s face in the photo, the ever-present smile and the sparkle of mischief in her green eyes. “And then I think about that missing girl over in—”

“Don’t go there yet.” Maddox reached across the table and brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips. Once again she experienced a strange, dark sensation spiral up her arm from the point of contact. The emotion it evoked inside her remained frustratingly nebulous—dark, painful but undefined.

She forced herself not to pull her hand away this time.

“How about the U.S. consulate?” he asked, sliding his hand away. “Have you checked with anybody there?”

“They suggested I call the police.” She picked up Sandrine’s photo and put it in the front pocket of her purse. “What do I owe you for the water, Mr. Maddox?”

“Just Maddox. No mister. And the water’s on me.”

“Thank you.” When she stood, he stood with her, the polite gesture at odds with his scruffy appearance.

“I hope you find your friend.” He sounded sincere. “Tell you what—when she turns up, bring her down here and I’ll buy you both a drink. Just ask for Mad Dog. Everybody knows me.”

She inclined her head toward him and headed out of the café. The sun slammed into her head like a ninety-degree sledgehammer, sapping her remaining energy as she trudged toward the beach, where the Hotel St. George hovered like a pale pink jewel over the cobalt-blue waters of Cutler’s Bay.

The closer she got to the beach, the stronger the smell of the sea, sharp and salty in the breeze that lifted her hair and dried the perspiration beading on her forehead and arms. But mingled with the sea air, an undercurrent of misery lingered. It weighted on Iris as she neared the palm-studded beach stretching for a mile around the bay.

Someone was out there. Someone in agony. Physical pain, sharp and specific, etched phantom slashes along the skin of Iris’s wrists and ankles. A throbbing pain bloomed in the back of her skull, blinding in its intensity.

Her vision blurred, the world around her beginning to spin out of control. She groped for something to hold on to, something to keep her from pitching forward into the street, but there was nothing. Nothing but the blare of car horns and a muted cacophony of voices.

And pain. Knee-buckling, back-bending pain.

She crumpled to her knees, the sting of the rough pavement on her bare flesh little more than a twinge against the onslaught of agony racing circles around her nervous system.

She tried to lift her head, tried to regain her bearings, but nothing around her looked real or recognizable. It was as if the pain itself had become tangible, a red mist surrounding her, blinding her to everything else around her.

In the heart of that mist, a man’s voice called her name.

MADDOX HELLER kept his distance behind the pale wraith of a woman who’d interrupted his morning, trying not to think too long or hard about why he was venturing out into the mid-morning heat to follow a tourist to her hotel. Sure, she was pretty enough—or would be if she didn’t look like death walking—but Mariposa was full of pretty women, more than a few of whom wouldn’t kick him out of bed for snoring. So why was he so interested in Iris the Jet-lagged Tourist and her woeful little tale?

Hell, Mad Dog, maybe you’re just bored.

Two years in paradise might seem like heaven to some folks, but there was only so much sunshine and sea air a man could take before he needed something different to occupy his thoughts.

After Kaziristan—

He stopped short. No revisiting Kaziristan. That was rule number one of Maddox’s new life. He’d wasted a year wallowing in what-ifs after Kaziristan. Damn near drove him insane.

A block ahead, Iris the Jet-lagged Tourist suddenly pitched forward, hitting the pavement hard, knees first. Maddox’s heart lurched into double time and he sprinted toward her, splitting his attention between Iris and the crowd around her. Like any tourist mecca, Mariposa had its share of thieves and pickpockets. A likely suspect was already lurking, a wiry boy in his late teens on a bicycle.

“Iris!” he called, closing the distance between them.

He saw Iris groping on the ground as if blind. She found her purse and snatched it up, hugging it tight to her chest, turning her head toward his voice.

He pushed through the small crowd of people gathering around her and crouched by her side. “Iris?”

Her head jerked up, her gaze sliding toward him without quite meeting his. He touched her arm and she jumped like a frightened animal, jerking her arm away from him.

“It’s Maddox. From the café, remember?” He took her hand, holding on when she started to pull away. “You fell.”

Her eyes focused on his face, her pupils dilated. Perspiration sparkled on her forehead. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. Let me call an ambulance.”

She released his hand. “I just need to get to my hotel.”

Maddox bit back further protest, glancing at the gathered crowd around him. “Then let me help you do that, at least.” He held out his hand to her one more time.

She looked around her, color creeping up her throat and settling in the center of her pale cheeks. She let him help her up, her body swaying toward his. She smelled of heat and honeysuckle, taking him to a time and place he hadn’t revisited in years. Twin phantoms of loss and longing danced in his head.

Iris gasped softly, her steps faltering. She tugged her hand away, her face lifting to his. “It’s too much.”

He stared at her, not following.

A neutral mask settled over her face. She squared her shoulders and started walking forward at a faster pace.

It lasted only a few feet before she stumbled again. Maddox caught her up as she started to fall.

“Someone’s hurt,” Iris whispered.

Maddox frowned, even more confused. “Who’s hurt?”

“Help! Somebody call 911!” A woman’s voice, high and frantic, drew his attention. He spotted a woman in a bathing suit waving her arms as she jogged awkwardly up the beach.

The woman in the bathing suit caught sight of Maddox and Iris. “There’s a woman on the beach. She’s injured.” The woman staggered to a stop and tried to catch her breath.

Maddox looked down at Iris, the hair on his arms rising. Her coffee-brown eyes met his briefly before she dropped her gaze and lowered her chin almost to her chest.

He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and gave a terse report when the emergency operator answered. By now, several people had responded to the woman’s cries for help. Tourists and locals alike followed as she jogged back down the beach out of sight. Iris lifted her head and started walking toward the beach, obviously intent on following.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Maddox caught up with her. “You can barely stand.”

“I can help her—”

He grabbed her elbow. “I’ve called for help. They’ll be here in a couple of minutes. You need to get out of the sun and get some bandages on those cuts.” He gestured at her legs.

Her gaze dropped to where blood from her injured knees ran down her shins in slow rivulets. Her brow wrinkled as if she hadn’t realized she was hurt. “They’re just scrapes.”

“Scrapes can get infected if they’re not cleaned.”

Her expression tightened. “I know what I’m doing.” She pulled away and headed for the wooden steps leading from the street to the beach, leaving him little option but to follow her or walk away.

Every instinct he had screamed at him to walk away.

But his legs chose to follow.

Maybe it was adrenaline or sheer female stubbornness, but Iris seemed to find a second wind, moving through the sand with long, steady strides. Maddox caught up with her, sidling a glance at her. She still looked pale, dark circles under her eyes and lines of weariness etched in her forehead, but she didn’t falter as she reached the circle of onlookers ringing a woman lying near the water’s edge.

“I need to get to her,” she murmured, looking up at Maddox.

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a doctor or something?”

“Just get me to her,” she said more firmly.

He edged through the crowd, bringing Iris with him. While she crouched by the woman, taking her hand, Maddox made a quick visual assessment of the woman’s injuries. Definitely not a local; her tan was the chemical variety, and not even the crusted sand and seawater could hide the fact that her crumpled linen suit was designer quality. Her feet were bare, with angry red ligature welts circling both narrow ankles. Similar marks marred her slender wrists.

Her face was pale beneath the tan, smeared vestiges of makeup faintly visible around her eyes and lips. Though her eyes were closed, she was making low moaning sounds, confirming that she was at least partially conscious.

The woman who’d called for help sat by the injured woman’s head, gently stroking matted hair away from her face. “Did anyone call paramedics?” she asked.

“They’re on the way,” Maddox assured her. Since it looked as if Iris was going to do nothing but hold the injured woman’s hand, he knelt and checked the woman’s pulse. Slow but strong. That was a good sign. But her skin was cool to the touch, suggesting she might be slipping toward shock. “Does anyone have a beach towel or something we can use to cover her?”

A man from the crowd offered a multicolored beach blanket. Maddox dusted off the loose sand and folded it over the woman.

She gave a swift gasp, her eyes snapping open to meet Iris’s gaze. The sudden movement caught Maddox by surprise, sending him rocking onto his backside in the soft sand.

A groan rumbled from Iris’s throat and she let go of the woman’s hand. Her face glistened with perspiration and deeper shadows bruised the delicate flesh around her eyes. Trying to rise from her crouch, she ended up on her rear in the sand.

She lifted her eyes to Maddox. “She has a concussion. The back of her head. I don’t think she has any other serious injuries.” Her voice was thin. Breathless.

He forced his attention back to the injured woman, who was trying to sit up. Maddox gently held her still. “The medics’ll be here any minute, darlin’. Hear the sirens? Just lie still.”

Her blue eyes locked with his. “I don’t remember….”

He patted her shoulder. “You may have a bump on your head.” He glanced at Iris. She was staring at the woman.

The sound of sirens died. In seconds, two Sebastian paramedics pushed through the crowd to flank the victim.

Maddox moved out of their way, heading for Iris’s side. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the hand he offered to help her up, and turned her gaze toward the pink facade of Hotel St. George a hundred yards down the beach. Her shoulders slumped.

“Just a few yards,” Maddox coaxed, wrapping his arm around her waist. Her body vibrated like a tuning fork where he touched her. He tightened his hold on her, and half carried her down the beach toward the hotel. As they neared the back entrance, her stumbling gait faltered, her legs giving out.

Maddox lifted her into his arms. She was lighter than she looked, her loose cotton dress hiding the fact that she was almost painfully thin. She made a soft sound of protest that he ignored, then settled her head against his shoulder, her breath shallow and rapid against his throat.

He carried her to one of the cedar benches flanking the walkway. She slumped in the corner of the bench and looked up at him, her gaze unfocused.

He crouched beside her, his heart pounding more from concern than exertion. “Iris? Do you have your room key?”

She struggled to sit up, reaching for her handbag. Suddenly, she pitched forward, her forehead slamming into his mouth. Pain rocketed through his lip, eliciting a soft curse as he caught her to keep her from toppling to the concrete walk.

“Iris?” He eased her head back, brushing her hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed. Her head was a dead weight in his hand.

She was unconscious.

Chapter Two

“Welcome back.”

Iris blinked, her vision slowly clearing. Over her head, rattan ceiling fan blades slowly circled, stirring the air around her. The light was off, but muted sunlight filtering through the curtains cast a saffron glow over the white walls.

She was in her hotel room. In her bed.

And sitting next to her, his elbows propped on his knees, was the sandy-haired stranger she’d met at the open-air café.

She bolted upright, scooting back toward the wicker headboard of the hotel bed. “What are you doing here?”

He sat back, his expression shuttering. “Just sittin’ here wonderin’ if you were ever going to wake up. I was about to call a doctor.”

Memory seeped into her foggy brain. The woman at the beach. Her missing friend. “Sandrine,” she murmured.

“Sorry, sugar. She’s still not here.”

She leaned back. “How long was I asleep?”

Maddox lifted one dark eyebrow. “You weren’t sleepin’. You were out for the count.”

“How long?” she repeated, fear blooming in her chest. It was getting worse. Discomfort had always been part of her gift, but in recent years, the intensity of pain had increased, her recovery periods extending from minutes to hours to days.

“About ten minutes. I got your room key out of your purse. Hope you don’t mind.” Maddox handed her the slim card key. “You got a first aid kit around here? We should check your temperature, make sure you’re not hyperthermic.”

Hyperthermic? She slanted a look at him, surprised he’d use such a fancy word for sunstroke. He didn’t look the type. “I’m not overheated,” she said.

“You sure?” He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, frowning. “You still look awfully pale. Maybe I should call that doctor after all.”

Iris shook her head. “There’s nothing a doctor can do.”

He stared at her, his expression queasy as he apparently jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

“No—no. It’s not fatal,” she assured him quickly.

Just crippling, she added silently.

“Glad to hear it.” A smile dimpled his cheeks, but his gaze remained wary, and she could feel him retreating from her.

She quelled a sense of disappointment and tucked the bedcovers more snugly around her. “I’m okay now. Really,” she added, not missing the skepticism in his expression. “I’m going to rest a little and get something to eat.”

“Then what?”

“Then I guess I’ll call the police again and see if I can get them interested in Sandrine’s disappearance.”

He nodded slowly, watching her through narrowed eyes. For the first time, she noticed his lower lip looked red and puffy.

“What happened to your lip?” she asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything else.

“You’re a hardheaded woman.”

That explained the pain in her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged off her apology. “No worries, sugar. The bleeding didn’t even last that long.”

“You don’t have to babysit me. I’m all right now.”

“At the beach—do you remember—?” He paused and started again. “You told me someone was hurt. And then a few seconds later, a woman ran up the beach calling for help because another woman was hurt. How did you know?”

The answer would only lead to more questions she didn’t want to answer. Not now. Not to a stranger. “I guess I heard the woman calling before you did.”

He pressed his lips together but didn’t ask anything else. He stood up, towering over her bedside. The light from outside cast him in shadow, hiding all but outlines of his strong, square features. He touched her shoulder. “It was interesting meetin’ you, Iris. I hope you find your friend.”

Fire licked her skin where his fingers lay, spreading heat over her collarbone and into her chest. Pain, thick and black, trembled under the surface of his touch, a reminder of the sensation she’d felt when Maddox first touched her at the café. He was as much in pain as the woman at the beach, though his pain came from somewhere inside him.

If she were stronger, she might risk what she called a drawing, a deliberate attempt to ease the distress she could feel festering inside him. But whatever was eating at him was big and strong and old. She didn’t know if she could bear it.

“The offer stands. You find your friend, bring her to town and I’ll buy you both a drink.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, almost sagging with relief when he removed his hand from her shoulder and walked to the door. The tightness in her chest receded, the blackness ebbing from the edges of her vision.

He turned in the open doorway, his head slanting as he gazed back at her. “If the police don’t help you, let me know.”

“What can you do?”

He smiled. “I know people who know people.”

“Are any of those people private detectives?”

His only answer was a widening of his smile as he closed the door behind him.

“MAN COME lookin’ for you, Mad Dog.” Claudell Savoy looked up from behind the bar when Maddox entered the Beachcomber, a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive that catered more to locals than the tourist crowd. “Seem real interested in where you at.”

Maddox shot the grizzled Creole bartender a wary look. “You tell him anything?”

“Not me, man.” Claudell didn’t sound convincing.

“For enough cash, you’d sell out your mama. What’d you tell him?” Maddox slid onto a bar stool in front of Claudell. He was the only one around; the bar wouldn’t open for another hour, but Claudell never minded the company.

“I jus’ say I see you around here sometime.” Claudell grinned, looking proud of himself. “He give me twenty dollars.”

Maddox frowned. “Thanks, buddy.”

“You ain’t nobody’s buddy, man. We both know that.” Claudell set a tumbler in front of him and pulled out a bottle of rye whiskey. “Here. On the house.”

Maddox put his hand over the glass. “Rain check.” The temptation to drown his chronic dissatisfaction in liquor was getting a little too strong these days.

Claudell shrugged and put the glass back in a rack behind the bar. “Say, I remember somethin’ else ’bout that man.”

Maddox met the bartender’s expectant gaze. “I ain’t givin’ you twenty bucks, Claudell. Good try, though.”

Claudell shrugged, smiling. “Bah, I tell you for nothin’. He say someone name Celia lookin’ for you.”

“I don’t know any Celia.”

“He say she wanna talk to you. Real important.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’d he look like?”

Claudell grimaced. “You know. Tourist.”

Great, that narrowed it down. “Did he say where I could find him if I happened to want to talk to this Celia?”

“Didn’t say. Give me this, though.” Claudell reached into the chest pocket of his stained white uniform shirt and retrieved a business card.

Maddox took it from him. “Charles Kipler Management,” he read aloud. An address in Beverly Hills, California. The cell phone number listed might be a place to start.

He pulled out his own cell phone and started to dial the number, then stopped, remembering why he’d come here in the first place. While looking for Iris’s hotel room key, he’d come across the photo of her friend in the front pocket of her purse. He’d snapped a shot with his phone, figuring he could show it around, help her out.

Not as if he had much else to do these days.

He showed Claudell the image. “Ever seen this woman?”

Claudell peered at the photo. “Not me. Pretty, though. You meet you a girl, Mad Dog?”

Maddox ignored the bartender’s salacious grin. “She’s gone missing from the Hotel St. George.”

“St. George?” Claudell’s smile faded. “No good. I hear bad thing about St. George.”

Maddox pocketed his phone. “What bad thing?”

“People gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

“What do you mean?”

Claudell picked up another glass and started polishing. “A man go into the Tremaine yesterday. Say his friend missing from St. George. Gone, nobody know where.”

Maddox hadn’t heard about it. “Did he talk to the police?”

Claudell made a face. “They want it go away.” He lowered his voice, as if imparting a deep, dark secret. “There more.”

“More disappearances?”

Claudell nodded. “Bad thing happen at St. George. You smart, you stay away.” The telephone sitting at the end of the bar began ringing. Claudell went to answer it.

Maddox looked down at Sandrine’s image on his cell phone. Where’d you go, darlin’?

The bartender wasn’t what he’d call a reliable source; his integrity was questionable, and he was a sucker for a spooky story. But if Iris’s friend Sandrine wasn’t the only person to go missing from St. George—

His cell phone vibrated against his palm. The display panel popped up, showing an unfamiliar number. Maddox slid off the bar stool and headed outside, pushing the connect button on the phone. “Yeah?”

“Is this Mr. Heller?”

Well, hell. “Who’s askin’?”

“My name is Charles Kipler. My client Celia Shore wants to thank you for your aid to her this morning.”

“I think you must have the wrong guy.”

“You weren’t the man who gave aid to an injured woman on the beach earlier this afternoon?”

He ought to deny it. Save himself the headache. But there were a lot of unanswered questions about the woman on the beach, or more specifically, Iris’s connection with her, that piqued his curiosity. “That was me. How did you get my number?”

“I’ll explain later. Ms. Shore wants to see you. She’s at St. Ignacio Hospital. I’ll meet you in the lobby and take you to her room. How soon can you get here?”

“You expect me to drop everything and come visit your client, and you won’t even tell me how you got my number?”

“Yes.”

Frowning, Maddox tightened his grip on the cell phone. “Isn’t she a little busy undergoing treatment or something?”

“She’s been released to a room to recover. She’s doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”

Maddox quelled the urge to ask just what those circumstances might be. This guy might be a jerk, but he’d known just what buttons to push to make Maddox too curious to resist the request. He could poke around for answers once he was face-to-face with this Celia Shore. “I need to change clothes. I can be there around two-thirty.”

“I’ll be in the lobby waiting.”

“How will you know it’s me?”

“I have a photo of you.” The man hung up before Maddox could respond.

He snapped his phone closed and rubbed his forehead, where the day’s tension was beginning to form a painful knot right between his eyes.

Where had the man found a photo of him? He didn’t make a habit of posing for snapshots. Although it was possible, he supposed, that someone on the beach had used a photo phone just as he had in Iris’s hotel room.

The more important question was, who was Celia Shore and why did she want to talk to him?

THE PHONE on the hotel bedside table rang while Iris was dressing after a long shower. She grabbed the receiver, hoping Sandrine would be on the other end of the line with a crazy explanation for where she’d been.

But it was the hotel front desk. “There’s a letter at the front desk for Miss Beck,” the concierge explained in his crisp British accent. “Shall I send a porter with it?”

“Please.” Iris finished dressing in a hurry and dug in her handbag for money to tip the porter. He arrived within five minutes and traded a creamy linen envelope for the cash. Iris locked the door behind him and opened the envelope, hoping the contents would give her a clue to Sandrine’s whereabouts.

A rectangular card with embossed edges lay inside the envelope. “You and a friend are invited to a cocktail party in the Paradise Room at Hotel St. George,” she read. The date listed in shiny silver ink was today’s date. Eight o’clock.

The invitation requested an RSVP and listed a cell phone number. Iris picked up the phone and dialed the number.

A woman with a Midwestern accent answered on the first ring. “Cassandra Society.”

Iris paused. Cassandra Society? What was the Cassandra Society?

“Hello?” the voice repeated.

Iris cleared her throat. “Hi. I received this invitation to a cocktail party tonight in the Paradise Room.”

“Will you be able to attend?”

“Do you mind telling me how many people you expect to attend?” Crowds in close quarters were a nightmare for her these days.

“Sixteen invitations went out. We’ve had twelve people confirm so far.”

A maximum of thirty-two people. In a private hotel meeting room, a number that size should be bearable, she decided. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

“Your name?”

“I’m calling for my friend. Sandrine Beck.”

There was a brief pause on the line, punctuated by the sound of papers rustling. “You must be Iris Browning.”

Iris dropped onto the edge of the bed, surprised. How did this woman know her name? “Yes.”

“Sandrine mentioned you’d be here today. I hope we’ll see you at the seminar tomorrow, as well?”

Seminar? What in the world had Sandrine gotten her into? She licked her lips and took a plunge. “I’ll be there.”

Wherever there was.

She hung up the phone and stared at the balcony door across from the bed, her mind racing to catch up with the chaos of clues she’d just received about her friend’s whereabouts.

Seminars meant a conference of some sort. That would be easy enough to establish. She picked up the phone and called the front desk. The concierge answered.

“This is room two-twelve. I believe the Cassandra Society is holding a conference of some sort in this hotel, correct?”

“That is correct. Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem. Can you tell me anything about the Cassandra Society? What’s its focus?”

The concierge hesitated before answering. “I believe that information is covered in their conference brochure, madam. Shall I have someone bring you a copy?”

“Yes, thank you. That would be very helpful.”

“You are most welcome. I’ll send someone presently.”

She thanked the concierge again and rang off. Within a couple of minutes, there was a knock on the door, and a bellman handed over a tri-fold brochure printed on dove-gray paper. The title was printed in clean black type: Expanding Horizons: The Third Annual Conference of the Cassandra Society.

Iris opened the brochure and scanned the contents. Most of the language was carefully chosen to portray the Cassandra Society conference as scientific inquiry, but the bottom line was, the conference catered to people interested in psychic phenomena. That made sense, given the organization’s name. Cassandra obviously referred to the heroine of Greek mythology whose prophecies were fated never to be believed.

The conference was exactly the sort of thing that would interest Sandrine. She was a medium herself and liked to study paranormal phenomena. It also explained why she’d have signed Iris up without giving her any forewarning. Sandrine knew Iris’s ambivalence about going public with her abilities. She’d probably guessed—correctly—that Iris would’ve refused to come had she known about the conference.

She read through the brochure, looking for more information about the organization, but most of the text inside outlined the conference schedule and speaker bios. There was almost nothing about the Cassandra Society itself.

She sat on the edge of the bed, wishing she’d brought her laptop computer from home. If there’d ever been a time for a Web search, it was now. There had to be more detailed information about the Cassandra Society on the Internet than she was finding in this oh-so-uninformative brochure.

She finger-combed her damp hair away from her face and crossed to the closet where she’d deposited her luggage without unpacking yesterday afternoon. The second luggage rack in the closet sat conspicuously empty, reminding her that wherever Sandrine had gone, she’d taken her bags with her.

Pushing away a wave of despair, Iris unzipped the garment bag that contained the two dressy outfits she’d brought with her. The cinnamon-red silk dress was a little longer than the natural linen sheath and would hide her skinned knees. She pulled it from the bag and smoothed the sleek skirt. It would work for the cocktail party.

Meanwhile, she had just a few hours to research the Cassandra Society before the party.

MADDOX STARTED undressing as soon as he stepped inside his squat little bungalow nestled at the outer edge of the rain forest north of Sebastian. The house wasn’t much to look at, but the view from his back veranda was worth every penny he’d spent on the place. Mount Stanley, the dormant volcano that had formed the island of Mariposa centuries ago, had long since transformed to a lush, blue-green peak towering over the tiny Caribbean island. Its southwestern face filled his panoramic view of the rain forest that spread, thick and teeming with wildlife, as far as he could see.

He didn’t let many people in town know about this place. It would raise too many questions about where he got the money to buy a decent-sized house with a spectacular view on an island where land and housing were at a premium. Even inland places such as his cost a small fortune, a fortune a jack-of-all-trades beach bum like Mad Dog Heller shouldn’t have at his disposal.

He’d created his life from scratch on the island. Well, from scratch and occasional dips into a massive trust fund that had sat in a bank accruing interest from when his father had died and left him his fortune eight years ago.

The old man hadn’t bothered to acknowledge him before that. Married, rich and successful, he probably would never have admitted paternity if he hadn’t gotten sick of his legitimate kids and their profligate spending and left Maddox half his fortune to spite them.

The money was still there, for the most part. Maddox had spent some of it, early on, taking care of his mother. But she’d died two years after his father, and he’d left the money mostly untouched since then.

When he decided to make the move to Mariposa, he’d brought nothing but the clothes on his back and the ancient Steinway upright piano that had been his mother’s.

He showered quickly, taking time to shave the shadowy thatch of beard darkening his jawline. Toweling dry his hair, he booted up his laptop computer and typed in a search for “Celia Shore.”

Scores of hits came up immediately. The first link read Celia Shore—Official Web site. He clicked it and the Web site loaded a splash of vibrant pinks and teals. Across the top of the page was a photo of a beautiful blonde in her thirties. A radiant glow of pearl pink edged the image. To her right, her name was written in looping cursive, with a line of narrow, straight type below: Psychic Healer.

Well, hell.

Chapter Three

“Are you calling from Mariposa? Is something wrong?”

Tears stung Iris’s eyes at the sound of her sister’s concern. “Yeah, Lily, there is.” She told her older sister, Lily McBride, what she knew about Sandrine’s disappearance, including the Cassandra Society. “Ever heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I need to find out more about who they are and if they’re somehow connected to what’s happened to Sandrine. You got a minute to do an Internet search for me?”

“Don’t start playing Nancy Drew with this, Iris. Take the next flight home and let the police handle it.”

“They’re not handling it, and I don’t think they will unless there’s someone here to push them into it. I have to stay, at least a few more days. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“No, you won’t. You never are.”

Iris couldn’t blame Lily for thinking so; she’d always had an impetuous streak to go along with her insatiable curiosity. But the last couple of years had taken a toll on her impulsive tendencies. She couldn’t afford to take too many chances; her body wouldn’t hold up.

But Lily didn’t know that. Iris hadn’t told either of her sisters just how bad the pain had become. Her younger sister, Rose, was still a newlywed who deserved a little uninterrupted happiness, and Lily was eight and a half months pregnant with her first child and didn’t need any added stress.

Iris couldn’t burden either of them yet. Not until she figured out how to stop the pain from rendering her an invalid.

“Lily, please. I just need you to do a quick Web search.”

Lily exhaled audibly. “Cassandra Society, you said?”

“Thanks. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

TEN MINUTES LATER, Lily told Iris all she’d found, which was next to nothing. “It’s mentioned on a few paranormal Web sites, but none of them really say much about the society and what it’s about. Do you want me to read what the pages say?”

“No, thanks,” Iris said, hearing weariness in Lily’s voice. “How’s McBride Junior?” The baby Lily was carrying was a boy.

“Playing soccer with my bladder as we speak.”

The joy in her sister’s voice brought tears to Iris’s eyes. She didn’t begrudge Lily a minute’s happiness—God knew, she’d earned it—but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself at the same time. Her sisters had found something she’d begun to fear she could never have in her own life.

She cleared her throat. “Lily, I’d better go—”

“Please reconsider catching the next flight out of there.”

“Just a few more days, Lil.”

Lily sighed. “All right. I’ll see if McBride has ever heard of the Cassandra Society. Okay?”

“Okay.” Her brother-in-law was a policeman. If the Cassandra Society wasn’t legit, he might know about it.

“Just stay safe, okay?” Lily said. “It’s bad enough that Rose has gone all crime fighter on us—”

“Love you, Lily. Talk to you soon.” Iris rang off, tucked her phone in her purse and slumped on her bed, glancing at her travel alarm clock. Almost two. Still plenty of daylight left if she felt like venturing out for another round of “Have you seen this woman?”

Or maybe she could start looking for an Internet café and look up more on the Cassandra Society herself.

MADDOX SLUMPED BACK against his desk chair, his eyes narrowing as he read through Celia Shore’s bio and a rundown of her claim to psychic fame. She listed several mid-tier actors as satisfied clients, and her photo page included images from television and red carpet appearances.

What the hell did a woman like that want from him?

He glanced at the clock over the piano. Just after two. He’d been in Mariposa long enough to adjust to living on island time, but somehow, he didn’t think the same could be said of Mr. Charles Kipler. If he wanted to reach the hospital by two-thirty, he had to get moving.

He was tempted to call back and blow it off. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that meeting Celia Shore was important.

He’d learned long ago not to ignore his instincts.

IRIS NEVER IMAGINED she’d have reason to contact “Mad Dog” again. But her search for an Internet café with computer terminals for rent was proving fruitless. Half the people she asked gave her blank stares, and the others had no clue where she could find such a place.

At her next stop, a chocolate-skinned waitress with a Dutch accent couldn’t help with her search for an Internet café, but her interest perked up at the mention of Maddox’s name. “You want to find Mad Dog, go talk to that crazy Claudell at the Beachcomber. He knows everything. But don’t fall for his lines. Mad Dog’s, either.” The waitress gave Iris directions to the bar.

Outside, the sun had dropped lower, shadows lengthening across the busy streets of Sebastian’s commercial district. The day’s heat was fading, cooled by the fragrant ocean breeze.

A sudden gnawing sensation fluttered through Iris’s chest. Emptiness, as if someone had scooped out her insides and left her body hollow. She tried to sense what direction the feeling was coming from, but it was faint and fleeting.

She looked around her, keeping her movements slow and calm. There were pedestrians moving all around her, tourists and locals alike, alone or in pairs or groups. Black faces, brown faces, people with tropical tans, people with bright pink sunburns and people with milky-white skin dotted with freckles.

A tall redhead wearing a straw hat to hide her pale complexion approached, deep in conversation with a shorter woman with mousy brown hair tucked up under a baseball cap. They passed Iris, leaving a cloud of jasmine in their wake. A broad-shouldered man with sandy hair and a Vandyke goatee lounged against a building nearby, talking on a cell phone. The emptiness nibbling at her insides could be from any of them.

She ignored the sensation and headed for the Beachcomber, where the waitress said she could find Claudell.

By the time she reached the Beachcomber, her feet were beginning to hurt and the sunscreen she’d applied before leaving the hotel was nearly melted off by perspiration. Her head was pounding, her knees stinging beneath the Band-Aids, and the full spectrum of human misery surrounding her here in the throbbing heart of paradise had weighted down her aching shoulders with an invisible rucksack.

The bartender looked up when she entered the mostly empty bar. He started to look back down at the shot of whiskey he was pouring but did a comical double take at her approach.

Without looking, he slid the shot glass down the bar to a dreadlocked man sitting at the end and wiped his hands on his apron. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“A bottle of water and some information,” she answered.

FOR HIS TRIP to the hospital, Maddox had donned a pair of khaki chinos and a navy golf shirt picked up on his last trip to Miami, his concession to civilization, and tied his shoulder-length mop of sandy hair into a ponytail at the base of his neck.

It had taken him five minutes to reach St. Ignacio Hospital and another five to find a parking space within sight of the tiny security kiosk. The Harley-Davidson Road King was his baby, and he didn’t like leaving it out in a public parking lot where anyone could jack it. But a twenty passed to the guard in the kiosk would ensure the Harley would be sitting there waiting for him when he got back.

Money well spent.

A dark-haired man in an Italian silk suit far too heavy for the tropics stood in the hospital lobby when Maddox entered, his arm lifted in the act of checking his watch. Had to be Charles Kipler, Maddox thought. He had lackey written all over him.

He stepped forward as Maddox approached. “Maddox Heller?”

“Charles Kipler?” Maddox mimicked Kipler’s imperious tone.

Kipler’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Follow me.”

“You might want to add a pretty please to that.”

Kipler, who’d already moved toward the elevators, turned to look at Maddox. “Do you have an issue with me?”

An issue? Maddox stared at the man. Did people really talk like that? “I’m here for me. Not for you or for your psychic friend.”

Kipler’s expression shifted at his use of the word psychic. “I suppose this is your way of saying you want some sort of compensation.”

Maddox bit back a laugh. “No. This is my way of saying I’d like to know what your client wants with me.”

Kipler sighed. “I don’t know. She asked me to track you down and bring you here, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“Don’t worry, Chuck. I’m sure you’ll get some sort of compensation.” Maddox clapped the agent on his shoulder and crossed to the elevators.

Kipler joined him as he waited for the car to reach the lobby. Maddox slanted a look toward the manager, whose face had reddened. Most of Maddox’s irritation faded into pity for the man. It was hard, catering to the whims of someone who held your livelihood in her hands. He’d seen a lot of men and women play that role in his so-called father’s life—including his mother. There were always people willing to linger around the perimeter, waiting for crumbs to drop.

But it wore on a fellow.

“How’s she doing?” Maddox asked as they stepped into the elevator and began the ascent.

“Well enough. She has a concussion and some abrasions.”

Maddox could tell by Kipler’s tone that something else was wrong. “Did she tell you what happened to her?”

Kipler eyed him warily. “That’s still being investigated.”

The elevator stopped on the third floor. The door opened and Kipler stepped out, turning right.

Maddox caught up with him, falling into step. “What aren’t you telling me, Chuck?”

“The name is Charles.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Charles?”

Kipler stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to look at him. “She doesn’t remember what happened. She doesn’t even remember arriving here on Mariposa. Her last memory is of the airport in Miami.”

“Because of the bump on her head?”

Kipler didn’t answer right away, gazing down the hall. “The doctor doesn’t think the injury should have been enough to cause amnesia,” he finally admitted in a hushed voice.

“Which means what?”

Kipler’s gaze swung around to clash with his. “Are you a reporter?”

Maddox frowned. “No.”

“You certainly ask a lot of questions.”

“I like to be prepared.” Maddox lowered his voice as well. “I’m here out of the kindness of my heart, because your client wants to talk to me. And because right now, I don’t have a good reason to say no. But it won’t take much to change that.”

Kipler glanced down the hall again. “Promise me you won’t upset her.”

“I don’t plan to.”

Kipler’s mouth tightened again, but he didn’t respond except to motion Maddox to follow him down the corridor. They stopped in front of a closed door with a brass plaque engraved with the number 312. “She said to send you in alone.” Kipler looked queasy, obviously not happy about that directive.

Maddox entered the hospital room. It was a semiprivate room, all the hospital offered, but the bed nearest the door was empty. He crossed to the second bed, where Celia Shore lay propped on pillows, bandages wrapped around her head and wrists. The bed sheets hid her ankles but he guessed they were probably bandaged, as well. Her eyes were closed, her expression placid, but Maddox was pretty sure she wasn’t asleep.

“Tryin’ to read my mind?” he murmured.

Her eyes opened slowly. “Just resting.”

And trying to present a pretty picture to the grubby islander, Maddox added silently. He hid his cynicism and pulled up the armchair stashed in the corner of the room. “Your cabana boy said you wanted to see me.”

Her lips quirked. “I take it Charles didn’t make a good impression?”

He ignored the question. “I hear you can’t remember how you ended up on the beach.”

“I remember nothing since transferring planes in Miami.”

“Mr. Kipler traveled with you?” He tried not to imply anything with the question.

“We had business to discuss.”

And a phone conference just wouldn’t do, Maddox supposed, getting a little clearer picture of the kind of woman he was dealing with. “What would you have done if Chuck out there hadn’t been able to make it?” Maddox asked.

“That wasn’t a possibility.”

Maddox felt sorry for Charles Kipler all over again.

“What I came here to do was business-related. I wanted Charles nearby if I needed him. That’s what he’s paid for.” Celia gave him a pointed look. “You don’t have to approve.”

The woman might or might not be psychic, but she was perceptive. He’d been trying hard not to show his distaste for her attitude. “Fair enough. Unlike Chuck, I don’t have to be here, though. So tell me what you wanted to tell me and we can be done.”

“I saw you leaving with a woman this morning at the beach. I need to know how to contact her.”

Maddox sat back in the chair, surprised. “Why?”

“I wanted to thank her for her aid this morning.”

Maddox wasn’t quite buying that excuse, but he played along. “I don’t know her that well. She’s a tourist.”

“You normally put your arm around tourists you don’t know well?” Celia arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“The heat got to her. I helped her get somewhere cool.”

“Aren’t you the Good Samaritan?” The other well-shaped eyebrow rose to join the first. “Where’d you take her?”

“I’m not at liberty to supply you with that information.”

“I can make it worth your while.”

He chuckled. “Lady, I’m not for sale. Tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll try to find her for you and tell her you want to see her. Then it’ll be up to her. That work for you?”

He could tell she wasn’t entirely pleased. Probably wasn’t used to being at the mercy of other people’s whims. But she finally nodded her assent. “I’ll be released from the hospital tomorrow. If I don’t hear from you or your tourist friend by then, I’ll have Charles contact you with our location.”

“So you’re staying on the island?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes. I came here for business. I intend to keep to my schedule as much as possible.”

Maddox stood. “Well, I really am glad you’re feelin’ better. I hope the police can find out what happened to you.”

“Thank you. And despite what you seem to think, I am grateful for your help this morning.” She turned her head toward the window and closed her eyes, ending the conversation. He took the hint and left the hospital room.

Outside, Charles Kipler was pacing in front of the door. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s spiffy, Chuck.” Maddox gave a polite nod and headed for the elevators.

Out in the parking lot, the Harley was where he’d left it. The guard in the kiosk gave a wave, and Maddox waved back before straddling the bike and strapping on his helmet.

He headed south toward the St. George, trying to figure out how to approach Iris the Jet-lagged Tourist with Celia Shore’s request. From what little he knew of Iris, she’d probably volunteer to camp out in the woman’s room just in case she needed help. Fortunately, he could assure her that Celia had Chuck the Cabana Boy to fetch and carry.

Maybe he was wrong about Iris. Maybe her friend had finally turned up and Iris was out on the beach right this minute catching some sun. Maybe she wouldn’t give a damn that Celia Shore wanted to talk to her.

But his gut told him he wasn’t wrong. Iris had Goody Two-shoes written all over her.

As he slowed at a crosswalk on Seville Street near the club district, he heard someone call his name. He turned and saw Claudell standing in the doorway of the Beachcomber.

“Mad Dog!” Claudell flapped a bar towel at him to get his attention.

Maddox drew the Harley to the curb. “What now, Claudell?”

“Woman come lookin’ for you. Name Iris.”

Anticipation fluttered through Maddox’s chest, catching him by surprise. Ignoring it, he pulled off his helmet. “You didn’t take any of her money, did you?”

“No, sir. I figure you wanna see a pretty girl like that. I tell her you probably at the Tropico.”

“Damn it, Claudell, you sent that girl to the Tropico?” Anxiety washed into Maddox’s gut on a wave of acid.

“You know them guys not gonna give her no trouble. She safer down there than up at the Tremaine.”

Claudell was wrong. Iris wasn’t safe alone anywhere, not in her fragile condition. “If she gets hurt, I’m comin’ after you, Claudell.”

Stomach clenching, Maddox whipped back onto the street, weaving through the haphazard traffic congesting Seville. A couple of blocks down, he took a left, heading into a seedier part of the club district.

FROM THE OUTSIDE, the Tropico looked like a dive. Flaking paint on the clapboard facade suggested that at some point, the place had been painted a lively mango-yellow, but the color had long since faded under the tropical sun. A single wood door sagged off-kilter in the storefront, about as uninviting an entryway as Iris had ever seen.

Figured a guy like Maddox would frequent a place like this.

The street was dark and growing darker, a dilapidated two-story building across the street casting shadows on the scene. A glance at her watch told her it was nearly four. She was running out of time before the cocktail party. Taking a deep breath, she opened the sagging door and stepped inside the bar.

The bar’s interior looked as disreputable as the outside. A scuffed wooden bar took up the far end. Rickety shelves lining the walls behind the serving area were laden with dusty, half-full bottles that looked to be on the verge of tumbling off the shelves and shattering on the grungy concrete floor.

Several customers—all men—turned at the sound of the door opening. Most of them wore jeans and faded T-shirts stretched over bulging muscles or bulging bellies. Tattoos darkened their arms and necks and even faces.

It was a biker bar, Iris realized with a combination of fascination and dismay. Who knew there were biker bars in the Caribbean?

A large black man with a snake tattoo coiled around his neck stepped away from the billiard table wedged into a cramped space on the left side of the bar. “You lost, missy?”

She debated asking for Maddox, but he clearly wasn’t here, and she didn’t need to be here, either. “Must have taken a wrong turn,” she murmured and backed out of the bar.

The empty feeling that had begun to fade as she approached the Tropico slammed into her chest the moment she stepped into the street. Reeling from the sensation, she groped for the wall, the rough clapboard scraping her palms. She slumped against the bar front, trying to regain her equilibrium.

“Miss?” The raspy masculine voice was tinged with a foreign accent.

She jerked upright, opening her eyes.

A pair of hazel eyes stared back at her from a craggy face only inches away. It took a second to realize she’d seen the man before. He was the sandy-haired man with the Vandyke beard she’d seen earlier outside the café, talking on a cell phone.

“What do you want?” she asked, apprehension clenching her heart.

The man bent closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I may know something about your missing friend.”

Iris stared at him, suspiciously. Had he been following her? “What are you talking about?” she asked, feigning ignorance.

“My friend Hana Kuipers was at the St. George for the conference, too,” he said. “She disappeared yesterday, just like your friend Miss Beck.”

Iris couldn’t tamp down a flutter of hope. But before she could speak, the door of the Tropico opened, and an enormous Mariposan biker emerged, his gaze moving immediately to the bearded man.

“You botherin’ the lady?” The biker towered over the man.

The bearded man shook his head. “I’m just talking to her.”

The biker stepped forward menacingly. “Go back to fancy town, Dutchman.”

Iris slumped against the wall of the bar, overcome by the fierce anger coming from the biker. The bearded man looked her way, his eyes darkening. For the first time, the sense of emptiness around the bearded man disappeared, filled in by a flutter of emotion she thought might be concern.

She looked up at him, releasing a small hiss of surprise.

The emotion cut off immediately, as if she’d suddenly run headfirst into a brick wall. The bearded man’s gaze shifted.

The biker lunged suddenly, driving the bearded man against the front wall of the bar. The impact made the clapboard rattle. As the biker reared back to deliver a punch, the bearded man rolled to the side in one nimble movement. The biker’s hand slammed into the clapboard, splintering the wood. He yelped in pain.

Iris gasped as shattering pain sped through her hand. She pressed her fist into her belly, trying not to cry out.

The bearded man delivered a pair of vicious jabs to the biker’s kidney, grunting with satisfaction at the man’s howl of pain. The biker slid face-first down the wall, landing on his knees. Iris fell with him, her back aching in sympathy.

The bearded man knelt by Iris. She stared at him, realizing he was no ordinary tourist. “Who are you?”

He didn’t answer. The door to the Tropico was opening, about to spill a dozen of the Creole biker’s comrades to join the fray. Somewhere down the street, a feral growl of a motorcycle approached, getting louder.

The bearded man gave Iris one last look and took off running.

Chapter Four

Maddox wasn’t sure what he’d find when he reached the Tropico. Iris playing Florence Nightingale certainly wasn’t it.

Yet there she was, kneeling next to Jacob Massier’s crumpled body on the street in front of the biker bar, her hands moving over the biker’s back while a small crowd of bar regulars gathered in a restive semicircle behind her. She didn’t look up as Maddox pulled the Harley to a stop nearby.

He took his helmet off and started to ask what the hell she thought she was doing when he realized he’d seen the glassy-eyed look on her face once before, on the beach when she’d held Celia Shore’s hand while they waited for the EMTs to arrive.

Jacob Massier stirred suddenly, pushing up on one elbow. Iris dropped her hands away from his back and fell sideways, slumping against the front wall of the bar. A murmur of confusion broke out among the gathered bikers, as if they weren’t sure if they should go to her aid or leave her alone to recover from whatever was ailing her.

Maddox pushed past them and crouched by Iris, lifting her chin to check her eyes. They focused slowly on him, a soft breath escaping her lips. “I was looking for you,” she said.

“So I hear,” he responded, lifting his fingers to her throat to check her pulse. She flinched at his touch, as if it hurt her. He dropped his hand away, satisfied that her pulse was strong and steady, and rocked back on his heels. “I thought you were going to take a long nap and let yourself recover.”

“I was feeling better,” she answered.

“Obviously not better enough.” He offered her his hand.

She eyed it warily.

“I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

She rewarded the hoary joke with a lopsided grin that went a long way toward easing the knot that had settled in his belly seconds after Claudell had told him where she’d gone. She took his hand, trembling as he closed his fingers over hers.

“Is he okay?” Her gaze slid past him to settle on Jacob, who’d made it to a sitting position.

“You okay, Jake?” Maddox asked the biker.

“I’m good,” he answered gruffly, his expression betraying a hint of embarrassment. “Lady got the mojo.”

Considering the way his stomach was fluttering just from the feel of her soft hand in his, Maddox couldn’t argue.

“ARE YOU SURE you shouldn’t be back in bed, resting?” Maddox scooted his chair closer to Iris, the spicy smell of him mingling with the chicory aroma of the coffee at her elbow. As she’d figured, he’d known where to find the only place in Sebastian with Internet-wired computers for rent.

“I want to know more about this Cassandra Society.” Iris typed the name into the search engine, hoping she’d have better luck than Lily had.

“I want to know more about the guy with the beard,” Maddox muttered. “Tell me what he looked like.”

She looked away from the computer. “Sandy blond hair and hazel-green eyes. His beard was trimmed Vandyke style, and a little darker than his hair.”

“How old?”

“Late thirties, maybe older.”

The Internet café was nearly empty, though with the dinner hour approaching, a few more people were beginning to filter in. Iris was glad they were mostly alone. The relative isolation had helped her recover from her experience at the Tropico. Only a twinge remained in the general vicinity of her kidneys, and the stinging sensation in her right knuckles was nearly gone.

“You said he had an accent?”

“Yes. Dutch, maybe. Or German.” She turned back to the computer, glancing over the listings. As Lily had indicated on the phone, the Cassandra Society didn’t appear to have a Web site, but the search engine had come back with a few links. She tried the first one and found herself on a self-help page full of paranormal psychobabble.

Great.

“When I showed Claudell a photo of your friend—”

“Where’d you get a photo of Sandrine?” she interrupted, looking up at him.

He pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket, aimed and pushed the button. A bright flash made her blink. “I took a picture of her photo while you were unconscious.” He scooted closer, showing her the photo he’d just snapped of her.

She grimaced at the deer-in-the-headlights look on her face in the photo, not liking the idea of him going through her things while she was unconscious.

“The picture was sticking out of your purse. I just grabbed it, took a quick snap with the phone and put it back in your purse.”

“Why?”

“I figured I could show it around, see if anyone had seen her.”

“I just don’t understand your interest.”

His silence drew her gaze again. This time, he was looking at the computer screen.

“You didn’t finish what you were saying,” she murmured. “Did your friend recognize Sandrine?”

He looked up at her slowly, his eyes narrowing. “No. But he’d heard about people going missing from the St. George.”

Dread curled inside her. With growing alarm, she realized that at least some of the cold, clammy sensation she was experiencing was coming from Maddox.

How bad did a situation need to be to scare a man called Mad Dog?

“How many people?” She tried to read his expression, see if she could discern any more of what he was feeling, but his expression was shuttered. And she wasn’t a mind reader.

“Claudell said more than one. And the man who approached you at the Tropico mentioned a missing friend.”

“If he was telling the truth.” She couldn’t shake the memory of the empty sensation emanating from the bearded man. He’d given off nothing. No fear, no pain—except for one brief moment when he’d looked at her with a quiver of concern that had quickly fled.

“Why do you think he wasn’t? Because he ran?”

She shook her head, unable to explain her instincts without going into details about her gift. “I just got the sense he was hiding something.”

Another wave of darkness washed through her, as if her words had opened a floodgate of anxiety inside him. She forced herself not to move away, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to reach out to him, either.

She’d always felt it was her duty to relieve pain where she could. Otherwise, what meaning was there in having a gift that took such a toll on her body and her spirit?

All she had to do was take his hand and the darkness of his fear would flow out of him and into her. But she couldn’t do it. She felt too fragile right now. All her energy had to be focused on finding Sandrine.

“I’ll see what I hear at the party tonight,” she said. “Surely if other people have missing friends, there’ll be talk.” She looked back at the computer and tried another link.

“I’ll come by tonight, hang out and talk to some of the hotel staff, see if they have any stories to tell about the conference,” Maddox suggested. “If you need me at the party, I’ll be around. Just holler.”

To her surprise, the familiar cadence of his Georgia accent seemed to have a soothing effect on her rattled nerves. For the past twenty-four hours, she’d felt as if she were navigating an alien world. Hearing the inflections of home in Maddox’s slow drawl eased her growing sense of isolation.

But letting herself become too accustomed to having Maddox around was its own kind of folly, she knew.

She sneaked a quick glance at him. He’d cleaned up better than expected, she had to admit, the khaki slacks and crisp navy shirt a definite upgrade from the faded T-shirt and denim shorts he’d been wearing when she first met him at the café that morning. His overlong hair was pulled back neatly, revealing the full impact of his masculine features and the dimples that appeared whenever he smiled.

But she knew enough about bad boys to know that Maddox was a lousy bet. He might be a fun fling—she’d put money on it—but he’d end up breaking her heart.

She didn’t have much heart left to spare these days.

“I almost forgot why I was lookin’ for you in the first place,” he murmured, leaning closer to her. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at her temple. “I went to the hospital to check on that lady on the beach.”

She gave a small start of surprise. She should have checked on the woman herself, she thought, dismayed that it hadn’t even crossed her mind. “How is she?”

“Doing well. You called it—mild concussion.”

“Did you talk to her? Did she know what happened to her?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t remember anything after gettin’ on the plane in Miami.”

Iris shuddered at the thought. How horrible, to wake up in such a state and remember nothing about how it happened. “What’s her name?”

He pointed to the computer screen. There, on the list of hits from her computer search, was a link to the official Celia Shore Web site. “Celia Shore, psychic healer,” he intoned, obviously not impressed. “She wants to see you.”

Iris frowned. “Why?”

He shrugged. “To say thanks, I guess.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“She seems to think you did.”

A phantom memory of the injured woman’s pain buzzed through Iris’s nerves. “How long will she be in the hospital?”

“They’ll probably let her go tomorrow if there aren’t any changes in her condition.”

Then maybe I won’t have to see her, she thought, and immediately felt guilty. No matter what else Celia Shore might be, she was a woman who’d been assaulted and left on the beach to die. She was in pain, both physical and emotional, and Iris didn’t have the right to judge whether she was worthy of comfort and relief.

But she didn’t for a moment think the woman was actually a psychic. Iris knew what a real psychic looked like, how she behaved and the toll her special gift took on her. She’d seen it in her sister Lily’s retreat from the world and the migraines she’d endured just to fight the visions that tortured her. In Rose’s despair when the death veils had foretold the death of a friend. In her own ever-worsening pain whenever she tried to use her empathic healing gift to ease the suffering of others.

Real psychics didn’t go to Hollywood and make a fortune holding the hands of overpaid, emotionally immature celebrities.

She forced her attention back to the Web search, clicking through several of the links. As Lily had mentioned, the references to the Cassandra Society were generally in passing, but clearly the Cassandra Society was an organization dedicated to paranormal research. Of the self-consciously serious type.

Lovely.

“Guess that’s why Celia Shore was in town,” Maddox murmured, reading over her shoulder.

“Must be.”

“Your friend too, huh?” He sounded almost apologetic, as if he pitied her for finding out her friend was involved with “those” kind of people.

“Sandrine is interested in the paranormal,” she said noncommittally.

“So.” He looked at her, trapping his lower lip between his teeth for a brief moment. “You goin’ to the seminars tomorrow?”

She should. She’d find out a lot more about Sandrine and the Cassandra Society that way. But right now, the thought of it was more than she could bear. “I don’t know.”

“I could take you to the hospital to see Celia before she’s checked out of there tomorrow. If you want.”

“Only if you have a second helmet.” The ride from the Tropico to the Sand Dollar Café had been one of the scariest experiences of her life.

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll drive the Jeep.”

Her cheek tingled where his fingers brushed her skin.

He dropped his hand and looked away, but not before she caught a hint of consternation on his face, as if he realized he’d overstepped some sort of line by touching her that way.

Good. That meant he knew there were lines in the first place. It made it easier to take him up on his offer of help.

She spent another fifteen minutes reading through the links without learning much more about the Cassandra Society. Sipping the last of her coffee, she turned to Maddox, who sat draped over the chair beside her, watching her with lazy blue eyes that made her breath catch.

She licked her lips. “Thanks for showing me this place. I should head back now. The party’s in a couple of hours.”

“Sure you don’t want a ride?” His cheeks dimpled with a slow smile.

“The walk will be good for me.”

“Okay.” He stood when she did. “I’ll walk you back.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“I’ll walk you back,” he repeated firmly. He put his hand between her shoulder blades, nodding toward the door. He stopped to say something to the guy at the cashier’s stand, handed him some cash and then led her outside.

“What about the Harley?”

“I paid that guy an extra ten to make sure it’s here when I get back. Let’s go.”

THE DAY WAS WANING, the sun already low on the western sky, gilding the Caribbean Sea as it stretched toward the horizon. The sun was warm on her cheeks, and the air was fragrant with the tang of the sea. For a moment, Iris could almost believe she was on a tropical vacation with nothing to worry about but where to go for dinner.

Almost.

“Hungry?” Maddox asked as they neared the main drag. “There’s a fish-and-chips stand just over there.”

She was hungry, she realized. She took him up on his offer, waiting while he dealt with the street vendor and returned with two cardboard boats full of fried fish and crispy French fries.

“Careful, it’s hot.” He handed her one of the boats.

She gingerly plucked off a piece of hot fish ad popped it in her mouth. The blend of spices on the breading and the delicate flavor of the fish made her hum with satisfaction.

“Good, huh?” He nudged her with his shoulder, motioning with a nod of his head for her to follow him. They set off down the main street toward the beach, mingling with the other tourists strolling the boulevard.

BY THE TIME THEY REACHED the beach road, Iris proclaimed herself stuffed and handed off the rest of her meal to Maddox. She’d eaten less than half, he noted with some consternation, but the meal and the exercise had seemed to do her some good. There was a little more color in her cheeks and she didn’t seem as weak as she’d been when he’d found her outside the Tropico.

“You must love living here in Mariposa.” Iris turned to look at him, her eyes alight. He felt a tug in the center of his chest, as if she’d pulled a string wrapped around his heart. “Do you ever get homesick?”

“I used to.” He tossed the remains of their dinner in one of the public trash bins lining the walkway. “I got over it.”

Iris laughed. Maddox found his gaze drawn by the low, throaty sound. Her eyes sparkled, lighting up her whole face from the inside. He found it hard to take a deep breath.

Why had he insisted on walking her home? Or hell, if he really wanted to ask a tough question, why had he followed her out of the café that morning in the first place?

A combination of curiosity and boredom could explain some of his interest. But not all of it.

“How’d you end up in Mariposa, anyway?” she asked.

“Took a right turn at St. Croix.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously. I was heading toward Trinidad for Carnival and took a detour on a whim. I liked it here and decided to stay.”

“How long ago?”

“A little over two years.”

She looked surprised. “I would have thought you’d been here longer. Everybody seems to know you, and you seem to know everything about this place.”

“I’m very adaptable. Who knows, I may decide next week to head on down to Trinidad after all.”

“A real rolling stone, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Never gathering any moss?”

“Nasty stuff, moss.” The words came out as a warning. One he hoped she’d heed.

Silence fell between them, not an entirely comfortable one, as they moved ever closer to the St. George’s pale pink facade.

He broke the silence. “What about you, sugar? What do you do up there in Alabama?”

“I own a plant nursery and I also do some botanical research on medicinal herbs.”

“Botanical research,” he echoed. Little Miss Jet-lagged Tourist had layers to her, didn’t she?

“I have a master’s degree in botany,” she explained. “Maybe one day I’ll finish my PhD. Too busy for it right now. What about you? What did you do before you took a right turn at St. Croix?”

“This and that. Nothing special.”

“It must be nice living in paradise year-round.”

“Mostly,” he agreed. “The weather’s great.”

As they reached the entrance of the St. George, Iris turned and looked up at him.

“Why are you doing this?”

He didn’t follow. “Doing what?”

“Helping me out.” Her dark-eyed gaze grew wary. “Do you expect something from me in return?”

He didn’t know whether to feel insulted or mortified. “I don’t expect anything from you, sugar. I’m just helpin’ out a tourist in need.”

“You make a habit of that?”

“You caught me on a good week. I’m between jobs.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips. “I don’t have a lot of money with me, but I can get some from my room—”

He grabbed her hand. She made a soft sound of surprise. “I don’t need your money. What do you think I am?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.” Her brow furrowed. “I just thought—”

“I know what you thought.” He released her hand, looking away from her.

“I really am sorry,” she said again, catching his hand with hers. He tried not to look at her, but the feel of her fingers, soft on his skin, drew him in. Her gaze was full of remorse. “You’ve been good to me today. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You just did. Don’t worry about it.” He withdrew his hand, wishing he were anywhere but here with this woman.

“I should attend the seminar tomorrow, shouldn’t I?” Iris asked.

“Maybe you’ll find your friend there.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don’t really think so.”

She released a shaky breath. “She would have left me a message if she knew she was going to be away overnight.”

“Are you sure she didn’t?” he asked, wanting to smooth the frown from her pretty forehead. “Maybe it got misplaced.”

Her expression shifted. “Maybe they sent the note to the wrong room. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Her sudden look of excitement made his stomach hurt. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just something to look into.”

“Maybe you’re right.” She started up the steps to the hotel entrance. “Thanks again for everything!”

He tamped down the urge to follow her inside. His good deed for the day was done, and then some. He’d told her about Celia Shore. He’d helped her find a computer so she could look up the Cassandra Society. Hell, he’d even tucked her into bed when she’d fainted on him.

And besides, he’d see her tonight at the cocktail party.

BY 7 P.M., Maddox had taken his second shower of the day, dressed in a pair of black trousers and a white dress shirt, and headed back to the Hotel St. George to put his plan for the evening in motion. And a big part of the plan had just pulled into the St. George’s employees’ parking lot.

“Milo!” Maddox pushed away from the wall and walked toward the barrel-chested waiter parking his scooter a few slots down from Maddox’s Harley.

Milo Maroulis looked up cautiously. “Mad Dog. What you up to?” He kept moving toward the kitchen entrance.

Blocking Milo’s path, Maddox pulled a pair of twenty-dollar bills from his pocket. “I need you to call in sick. I need inside the cocktail party going on tonight.”

“Why?” Milo asked, his voice wary.

Maddox flashed the waiter a sly grin. “Why do you think?”

Milo looked surprised. “You’re not gonna hit on one of them crazy people, are you?”

Maddox stood in the doorway to keep Milo from going inside. “I’ll make it sixty. You can use my cell phone to call in.”

Milo pursed his lips. Maddox could tell he wouldn’t put up a real fight; his eyes gleamed with unconcealed eagerness to take the money and run. Maddox added an extra twenty to the two bills in his hand and waved them in front of Milo.

Milo grabbed the bills from Maddox’s hand and stuffed them in his pants pocket. “Go talk to Thomas. He knows you. Tell him I’m home with a sore throat and I asked you to take my place.” Milo headed for the parking lot, a spring in his step.

Maddox entered through the kitchen, ignoring the curious looks from the staff already assembling appetizers for the party. He snagged a spiced shrimp off one platter, flashing a smile at the pretty Creole sous chef, and went to look for the wait staff manager to talk his way into the cocktail party.

THERE HAD BEEN no note waiting for Iris in her box when she returned to the hotel that afternoon. She’d asked the desk clerk about the possibility of a mix-up, but the clerk had told her that nobody had mentioned getting the wrong note, so far.

She hoped the Cassandra Society cocktail party would offer more information about her friend’s disappearance.

The Paradise Room didn’t quite live up to its name. Though live potted palms dotted the room and the walls were painted in a gradation of red, coral and saffron in an attempt to capture the colors of an island sunset, the room was small and windowless, rendering the attempt at setting a mood kitschy.

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