Page 37 of The Lady Has a Past

He shook his head. “No. You find people genuinely interesting. That’s why they talk to you.”

“Here’s a news flash for you, Simon. Most people are interesting for at least a few minutes. Everyone has a story. It does not follow that I want to listen to that story for hours and hours. But for a few minutes? Yes. I’m curious. People never fail to surprise me. You can learn something from everyone.”

“Is that right? What did you learn from Gerald, aside from the fact that he’s depressed because his girlfriend ditched him?”

Lyra raised her brows. “Weren’t you paying attention? Among other things, I learned that we shouldn’t order the fish tonight.”

“Damn. You’re right.” Simon raised his martini glass in a small salute. “Like I said, you have a talent.”

Her eyes suddenly filled with shadows. The breezy, sophisticated, glamorous veneer vanished in a heartbeat. For a brief moment he caught a glimpse of the hidden side of the woman.

“Got news for you,” she said quietly. “My terrific talent for making conversation didn’t do me any good at the Adlington residence.”

He knew he needed to say something helpful, but he wasn’t any good at this kind of conversation, either. “You wouldn’t be a decent person if killing a man didn’t shock you to the core, even if that man was trying to murder you.”

She watched him with her haunted eyes. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

I’m a lousy psychic. Should have seen this coming.

The most expedient thing to do was lie. He was pretty good at lying. The ability was an essential tool for someone in his business. They said that telling the truth was the easiest thing to do, because you didn’t have to remember the details of a story and keep them straight. But in his experience, telling the truth about his past usually led to disaster. If he hadn’t told his fiancée the truth he might have been a happily married man with two kids and a lawn to mow every Saturday by now.

Or maybe not.

On the other side of the table Lyra sat quietly. Waiting.

He got that small, nerve-jarring shock of awareness that crackled across his senses when he picked up an object that was saturated in hot energy. In that flash of dazzling clarity he realized he did not want to lie to Lyra Brazier. He was not sure why it was important to tell her the truth, but it was.

“Yes,” he said. “I did kill a man.”

“Does the memory still disturb you?”

“He still shows up in my nightmares, yes.”

“Did it happen in the course of one of your investigations?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Simon said. “Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

Chapter 17

What the hell had gotten into him? He had never meant to tell her about his time as a stage psychic, and he never brought up the subject of the McGruder case. True, she hadn’t pried all the details of the latter out of him, but it was probably only a matter of time. He wondered if Lyra was a hypnotist. Maybe that was how she got people to talk to her.

Simon pondered that possibility as he stood in the shadows of the hotel hallway and watched Lyra lure the night clerk out from behind the front desk.

“It’s a lovely evening for a swim, isn’t it?” she said, breezing through the lobby. She was dressed in a fluffy terry cloth robe and slippers. Her words were slightly slurred. She sounded and acted happily intoxicated. “I can’t wait to enjoy a dip in one of the hot pools.”

It was three o’clock in the morning. The last of the guests had gone to their rooms nearly an hour earlier. The night clerk had been dozing in the inner office. When he heard Lyra announce her intended swim he woke up and shot out the doorway. His name tag readhiram.

“Madam, please, you can’t go swimming,” he yelped. “Not at this time of night. The bathhouse is closed.”

Lyra waggled her fingers at him and winked. “Don’t worry, Hiram, I’m sure I’ll find a way in. I’ll bet you have a key.”

She opened the lobby doors and went outside into the moonlit gardens.

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