Page 138 of Family Jewels

“What happened?”

“Usually when I’m in a person’s head, I can getsomethoughts, but mostly I sense their emotions. This time I knew exactly what you were thinking.”

The look on his face told me he wasn’t too happy about that. “What did you see?”

“Everything was in slow motion from the beginning. You were sitting at this table.”

“Were you and Jed with me?”

“You never looked to the side for me to know. I know I was there because you didn’t like the way Buck was looking at me.”

His face remained a blank slate, but I heard a hitch in his voice when he asked, “Did we have the necklace?”

“I don’t know. You never thought of it, and I didn’t see it. But you were totally focused on the men who were present. You were ranking their threat level.”

“Who was there?”

“Tim Dermot was with Buck, and Hugh Wagner was with Kip.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that the Lady in Black legend wasn’t dying down?”

He stood and looked frustrated. “Because I’ve been trying my damnedest to keep you as far away from this world as possible. The less you knew, the better.”

“Five minutes,” Brett, James’ man, called out from the front door.

James reached for my hand and pulled me to my feet. “We have to go out back.”

“I need to have another vision. I thought if I forced a vision of the meeting, I’d know if Jed showed up with the necklace. So now I need to have one focused on the necklace.”

He started leading me to the back door. “No. I don’t want to risk it. If your visions are changing, we need to be careful until we figure out what’s going on.”

“Who said my visions are changing?”

“You had the crossed visions at the pawn shop. Now this.”

I stopped. “Why wouldn’t youreallylet me have a vision of Raddy?”

Frustration filled his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you know what I respect about you, James Malcolm?” I asked. “You’re the only man in my life who doesn’t baby me, so I’m not buying this ‘I’m protecting you’ bullcrap. Please give me the respect I deserve and quit lying to me. Why wouldn’t you let me have a vision of Raddy Dyer?”

His gaze held mine. He looked guarded as he said, “I was worried about what you’d see if you had one.”

“So you were plannin’ to kill him after all?” I asked in a small voice.

“No.”

What else would he not want me to know about? Then it hit me. How had I been so stupid? “You wanted the necklace too.”

He didn’t deny it.

“So when you were questioning Raddy in the barn, you were trying to get information from him. You planned to get it for yourself.”

He reached a hand toward my arm. “Rose . . .”

My anger rose up like an erupting volcano, and I batted him away. “Did you get a good laugh out of me and Neely Kate chasin’ our tails?”

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