Allegra Fairweather_ Paranormal Investigator - Janni Nell [65]
Outside the moonlight made the loch look like black glass. As I stared at it, I heard my door reopen.
“What did you forget, Casper?” I asked without turning around.
“It’s not Casper.” Douglas sounded peeved. I guess he didn’t like being mistaken for his rival.
Fixing a smile on my face, I turned to him.
“What’s up, Douglas?”
“It’s only eight p.m.,” he said. “Much too early to go to bed. Are you feeling ill?”
This wasn’t the moment to tell him I’d been playing dress up with Casper. But I had to tell him something. He knew Casper had been in my room. Think quick, Allegra.
“We were discussing the case,” I said. “We didn’t want anyone to overhear.”
Douglas bought it. “Did Casper come up with anything new?”
When I shook my head, Douglas seemed pleased.
I sighed inwardly. Men are so competitive.
Douglas took a step toward me. “I’m sorry the case isn’t going well.”
“Me too. But it’s often like this. Everything seems hopeless, then suddenly—” I snapped my fingers, “—there’s a breakthrough.”
“For your sake I hope the breakthrough comes quickly,” he said. “For mine I hope it doesn’t.” He was looking at me with an expression that could only be described as lustful.
I knew what was coming next even before he slipped his arms around me. Gently he pressed his lips against mine. I didn’t move away. If my feelings for Casper were simply an itch for sex, it shouldn’t matter whether he or Douglas did the scratching. I put my arms around Douglas.
Unlike the last time I’d kissed him, this time I felt something. Sadly, it had little to do with the erotic feelings I’d anticipated. What I felt was an itch in my back, right where his hand was trying to sneak under my sweater. It made me think of the itch I got in my big toe when I was in the presence of the paranormal. I’d got that itch at Scarlett Gordon’s house. Maybe it was because she was a witch. Or maybe it had something to do with her houseguest.
As Douglas’s tongue explored my oral cavity, I thought, I have to get a look at that houseguest. Eager to do it as soon as possible, I wriggled impatiently in his embrace.
He stopped kissing me. “Is something wrong?”
“No, but there’s something I have to do. The case…”
“Is that what you were thinking about while I was kissing you?”
“Sorry, Douglas, sometimes my brain works in a funny way. But your kiss helped me think. That’s some powerful kiss you’ve got there.”
“I suppose.” He sounded unconvinced.
“Maybe we should take a rain check on this.” I removed his hands from my waist.
As I headed for the door, he asked, “Where’re you going?”
“Scarlett Gordon’s.”
Chapter Sixteen
I parked my car some distance from Scarlett’s house and went the rest of the way on foot. There was a light on in a room at the back of the house. Good, she was home.
I had no plans to announce my arrival by knocking on the door. That wouldn’t get me a look at the houseguest. Instead I planned to creep around the house and peep in the window.
During my earlier visit I had noticed the curtains in the sitting room at the back of the house were open. Hoping they were still open, I crept along the paved path that ran down one side of the house.
Luck was with me. Light streamed from an uncurtained window. Standing on a couple of planter pots, I hoisted myself up to look inside. It looked much as it had when I’d been there earlier, except now there were two wine glasses and an open bottle on the coffee table. Scarlett and the houseguest were nowhere in sight. Had they already gone to bed?
I had moved around to the back door and was planning to go inside when I heard something in the garden.
Scarlett’s garden was a series of three terraces that descended to the shore of the loch. What I heard had come from one of the lower terraces. It had sounded like a little gasp.
Keeping out of sight behind various shrubs, I made my way down the garden