He was blocking me!
He’d done that trick before, but it took a concentrated effort on his part. The sting stemming from the fact that he was doing so while a gorgeous woman flirted with him hit me hard and quick, and he visibly sucked in a lungful of air when it did. He’d felt my reaction to his reaction to my reaction at having a hussy put her hands on my man. But still he stood with his back to me, barring me from the conversation.
Fine. I grabbed a pretzel out of a bowl on the bar and turned my back to him as well. If he wanted to block his emotions from me, I would do the same to him.
Except I didn’t know how. Damn it, I needed The Idiot’s Guide to Grim Reaperism.
I took another quick peek from over my shoulder as I headed back to our table. The woman’s hand was resting on his arm again, her fingers curling over his biceps clearly visible in the outlines of his tee, and I nearly tripped.
Well, okay, I did trip, but I caught myself quickly, grabbed my plate and fork, and said, “I’m eating in my office. I have some work to do.”
“Charley,” Gemma said, her tone scolding, “we need to make some decisions.”
“I have complete faith in you,” I said before taking off for my hidey-hole.
As far as I was concerned, if he was going to flirt so openly with a skank who wore enough hair spray to thin the ozone a good two inches, then he could have at it. I had better things to do with my time than watch him. For example, I needed to put the song “Jolene” on repeat and listen to it about a thousand times. It was the song where Dolly Parton begs Jolene not to take her man. But I wouldn’t beg. I would never beg. It would be really bizarre if her name were Jolene, though.
I took the interior stairs back to my office, refusing to spare another glance his way. Just as I put my plate on my desk, I noticed a priest waiting in Cookie’s office. He was wearing a jacket and jeans, but the collar gave it away every time. We’d apparently forgotten to lock the door, but in all my years as a PI, a priest was new. I felt like I should do the sign of the cross as I walked forward, but I could never remember if it was up-down-left-right or up-down-right-left. I was so bad with directions.
“I’m sorry,” I said, going over and holding out my hand. It was shaking even more now than it had been that morning. Shaking from too much coffee was one thing, but shaking from none at all? Utter agony. Torturous. Inhumane. Of course, Reyes and his new gal pal could have had something to do with my trembling. “I didn’t mean to leave anyone waiting here,” I continued. “I’m Charley.”
He stood and took my hand into his. He looked like one of those jolly priests who preached about hellfire and damnation but then qualified his sermon with an assurance that if his parishioners strayed, they need only repent to be washed of their sin. I’d tried to be washed of my sin once, but I ran out of Dial. Tricky business, that.
“I’m Father Glenn,” he said, his voice and manner full of exuberance. He had sandy hair, thinning up top, and wire-framed glasses fitted over chubby cheeks. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch.” He gestured toward the lunch he could see through the adjoining door. It sat on my desk, calling my name. Metaphorically.
My stomach growled on cue. I offered a sheepish grin, then said, “Oh, no, I’m saving it for later. I’m not the least bit hungry.”
“Gutsy,” he said as I sat in the chair next to the one he’d been sitting in.
“Gutsy?”
He followed suit, crossing his legs to get comfortable. “Fibbing to a priest,” he explained.
“Oh, that.” I laughed and waved it off. “I do that kind of crap all the time. Except to my clients,” I assured him. “I don’t lie to my clients.”
“Then I hope to become one.”
I liked him. “What can I help you with?”
“Well, I’d like to think we could help each other.”
“Works for me.”
He settled back into his seat and then looked at me pointedly. “What do you know about possession?”
Ah, a supernatural gig. Interesting. “More than I’d like, sadly.”
“Do you know what the three kinds of possession are?”
“There are three? I just thought possession was, you know, possession. An entity takes over a body, and that body is then possessed.”
The scent of New Mexico–grown red chile infiltrated every air molecule around me. I had no choice but to inhale as my mouth flooded in response and my stomach growled again.
“You’re not entirely wrong,” he said, taking an envelope out from a pocket inside his jacket, “but that’s only one kind, and despite the fact that it’s the least common, thanks to Hollywood, it’s the most well known. I just thought with your… background, you’d know more.”
“My background?”
He took the envelope into both hands and held it while we spoke. “Yes. Your experience.”
I shifted in my chair. “And what do you know about my experience?” It wasn’t a defensive question at all. Just a curious one.
“Well, let’s just say when I discovered what I discovered —” He tapped the envelope. “I did some research on you.”
Wonderful. I suddenly felt the need to explain that night with the chess club. It was all a blur, but I was certain of one thing: Chad Ackerman’s tattoo of a female impersonator was not my fault. Not entirely. “So you went down to the local library?” I teased him.