American Quest (5 page)

Jamie raised her hand to the place where Gloria was looking—and found a tag standing at attention.

“Your dress is on inside out!” Candace exclaimed. And none too quietly. Folks from the other tables turned and gaped. Jamie felt the color rise to her cheeks.

“Aw, you can’t tell,” Bruce said, smoothing Jamie’s hair and patting her cheek.

Gloria’s eyes traveled from Jamie up the length of Bruce’s arm to his face. Jamie took a step back. As brilliant as Bruce was, he seemed particularly dense about things like understanding that women didn’t want
their fiancés caressing other women—even women they’d known from infancy.

Candace leaped to her feet and took Jamie’s elbow, moving quickly as if grateful for an excuse to get away. “Come on, let’s find the ladies’ room.”

Jamie walked with Candace along the back wall as the MC addressed the crowd from below. “I’ll make it quick,” Jamie said as they entered the ladies’ room and she ducked into a stall. But the wrongside-out zipper proved tricky to disengage.

“Take your time. I don’t really want to be here, anyway.”

And with that, Jamie had enough. She swung the stall door open and glared at Candace, dress still hiked to her hips. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”

Candace looked taken aback and ducked her chin like a pouty child. “I just don’t like—”

“Don’t hand me that. You’ve been nervous all night! Unzip me!”

Jamie turned her back to Candace sharply, hand on hip.

Candace blew out a breath. “It’s just that I don’t know why I have to tag along to Bruce’s stuff, too. I’m here for Gloria.”

The zipper slid awkwardly down under Candace’s fingers and Jamie yanked the dress over her head and gave it a flip without bothering to close the stall door again.

“It’s a package deal now, Candie. The fact that they’re together is all the more reason why we gotta be around as much as possible.”

Candace pinned her eyes on the door. “Jamie, aren’t you ever . . . doesn’t it scare you?”

Jamie pulled the dress back down over her head and around her hips and turned around again. She sighed. “Of course I get scared. But that isn’t going to help any.”

Candace’s lower lip began to tremble. “When I think about what may come, what’s probably going to happen now that they’re together, it’s like I can’t breathe. I’m so terrified I don’t even want to leave my apartment.”

“Don’t be,” Jamie said. She put a hand to Candace’s hair. “Believe me, I know how you feel. But it’s up to us to help them find a way. Some very important people have put a lot of faith in us.”

Candace steered Jamie around and pulled the zipper up her back. “I
know,” Candace said softly. “I don’t want to let them down. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

Jamie turned back to her. “Look, I know it’s hard. The second Bruce met Gloria I could tell things were about to change. Knowing what you and I know, it’s very scary. But you’re brave, Candace, and you can face this.”

Jamie put a hand to her neck. Mercifully, that pinch was now gone. It must have been the inward-facing zipper. She put a hand to Candace’s elbow and stepped toward the door. “We’d better get back so we don’t miss Bruce’s piece. Thanks for the—” She waved at her back. “You know.”

“Yeah, well, thank you, Jamie. For the—” Candace fluttered her hand ambiguously. “You know. Setting me straight.”

“Hey, we’re practically family now, right?”

Jamie saw Candace take a deep breath and blow it out slowly through her lips. “Yes. Family.”

THE REACH OUT AND READ fundraiser wasn’t one of hers, but Gloria’s boss asked her to go anyway in the hopes that she might meet new benefactors. They were always on the lookout. Gloria felt as though she was pitching potential Woven Hillside donors in her dreams.

A table bearing flowers, hors d’oeuvres, and a champagne fountain stood at the center of the room. Above it, a grand chandelier hung so low that Gloria could reach up and touch the luminous crystals. She thought about her coming wedding and imagined how nice it would be to offer such a sparkling display to the guests.

Not exactly in the budget, though.

This event showed up on her calendar at the last minute. Ordinarily, either Bruce or Candace would tag along. But she hadn’t had a chance to speak to Candace and Bruce was busy with the show.

Still, she scanned the crowd expecting to find Bruce. He said he was staying at the theater, but with Bruce, you never knew. Perhaps he was planning to surprise her.

She smoothed her little black dress. Even if his back were turned, she’d know the posture. No, no Bruce here.

However, something did catch her attention. In a shard of crystal from the chandelier, she saw the reflection of a pale golden eye in a luminous face. The white lady! She gasped and spun around.

Partygoers milled about, laughing and plucking dainty bites from
the buffet table, but no one or no thing seemed to resemble the image she’d just seen in the crystal.

She cast furtive glances into the throng. No way would Gloria allow that strange glimpse to evaporate into crowds and tricks of light again. This time she was determined to find the origin of that haunting face.

Canteshrikes. The man in the subway had said “canteshrikes.” What was a canteshrike? Gloria shivered at the odd sound of the word.

But as she scanned the revelers, saying hello and pressing forward, she found no one dressed in white. No pale golden eye.

It must have been some form of suggestion, similar to how a hypnotist plants an idea into someone’s head. Maybe the vagrant in the denim shirt had caused her subconscious to conjure images of strange people with yellow eyes. Yes. A likely explanation.

A good one, even. Except for one thing: she and Bruce had both caught that first glimpse before the vagrant ever spoke of yellow eyes.

She scrutinized the crowd. Hands balanced cocktail napkins and glimmering stemware, and people clamored their gossip with shoulder pads hunched. Lots of suits, lots of dresses; most in black. None in white.

She reminded herself that she should be socializing. After all, she had come with the intention of nurturing contacts. Nevertheless, she scanned the room once more.

No use.

And yet she still felt its eyes. As if a voyeur were watching from the darkness. But when she looked toward that darkness, all she found was her own reflection staring back.

She fixed her gaze inward, looking into the room instead of around it, and let her eyes fall again on the chandelier. She stared for a long moment.

And saw the briefest flash of white.

And with it, a whispering rush.

It sounded almost as if someone had caught her breath in surprise. That lone gasp rang with such musical strangeness, it could not be a human voice.

Gloria stared, knowing better than to look away from the crystal. She waited for one more glimpse. Just one. If she could only . . .

And in the farthest reaches of her awareness, she felt a shift. It began in the crowd itself. Bodies turned. Chins lifted. She saw their collective reactions echoed in the glass. And then she herself felt it. A kind of heat.

She refused to be distracted. She sharpened her gaze on the chandelier, studying and searching among each bend of light that relayed from one crystal to the next.

The heat washed over her. Came from all around. And with it, a quickening in her pulse.

She dared not tear her eyes from the glass, knowing that in another moment, just one more stir of time, she would catch another glimpse. One more and she would know for certain what was happening around her.

She focused.

“You could get lost in there.”

Gloria stiffened. The voice, rich and deep, came from just over her shoulder. Gloria hesitated, but she’d lost her delicate moment.

She turned toward the person who had interrupted her. “I beg your pardon?”

The man nodded at the chandelier. “Lost in the hall of mirrors.”

His soot-colored eyes rested on hers briefly before he turned away. A simple comment to a stranger. For him, an off-hand remark; and yet for her, a broken spell. Already his attention had moved on. A bug-eyed fellow in a tweed suit engaged him, attempting to draw him away.

“Mr. Vance,” the other man said. “A word if I may.”

Gloria eyed the chandelier again, feeling a bit foolish now for chasing yellow-eyed phantoms. She looked back at the two men. Then she realized that this man standing next to her—this Mr. Vance—embodied the shift in the room moments ago. The glances from the crowd. The heat.

She studied his face, noting the precision of bone structure that squared his cheekbones and angled sharply at the chin. Older than she was by about twenty years. He seemed impatient with the one wearing the tweed, and stood in such a way that rejected any advancing steps from the onlookers. And then—right there—he glanced her way again. His eye color repeated in the charcoals of his hair and brows. And in that heartbeat when he’d looked at her, his air of impatience lifted.

He was definitely attractive, but the crowd’s reaction to him truly set him apart. Even as she stood by, they began to form around him,
practically lining up to bask in his aura though he exuded a vibe that somehow blocked them. And though she’d been there first, she began to feel self-conscious about where she stood, as though she were lining up along with them.

Gloria looked away. In fact, she stepped away. She had no business sizing up a stranger as though he was some finely tailored suit in a shop window. What would Bruce think?

Actually, Bruce would be gawking, too. It was only natural when in the presence of a powerful person. And this Mr. Vance, whoever he was, seemed a definite power player.

Gloria backed from the thickening circle and the bug-eyed man in the tweed suit grew more animated as he spoke. His gestures flourished suddenly and he knocked Gloria sideways. She stumbled and Vance grabbed her arm.

The bug-eyed man lurched. “I’m so sorry, Miss! I didn’t see you there!”

He reached for Gloria, but Vance maintained his grip on her, shifting with subtlety to block the other man’s touch.

She felt too embarrassed even to look at Vance’s face. Instead, her eyes traveled the vast breadth of his shoulders as they narrowed to a steep angle at the taper of his waistband. Her eyes flickered upward and again she found herself fixed within Vance’s ashy gaze.

“Are you quite all right?” Vance asked.

She shrugged with a discomfited smile. “I’m fine. Except . . .”

She touched the hem of her dress and turned her leg, looking down at what was now a fractured black high-heeled pump.

The bug-eyed man gasped and seemed about to launch into another barrage of apologies, but Vance blocked him once more. This time, verbally. “Please excuse us.”

Vance turned his back to him and the gawkers who’d gathered around. Supporting Gloria with one hand, he steered her away from the throng, leading her to a quiet alcove and seating her on a plush armchair while he settled opposite her.

“I’m Aaron Vance, by the way. Please call me Aaron.”

“I’m Gloria.”

He shook her hand and the simple gesture sent a wave of sensation from her palm to her shoulder.

“It’s a pleasure, Gloria. Now let’s have a look.” He removed the injured shoe before she even realized what he was doing.

Gloria gaped, lifting her eyes to the larger room beyond the archway where people continued to steal glimpses. Somehow, though, this Mr. Vance had managed to assume ownership of the little nook in such a way that no one dared cross the barrier of the arch.

Earlier she had hoped to find Bruce among the crowd, showing up unexpectedly to surprise her. Her eyes moved from her naked foot up to Vance as he flexed the broken heel and she suddenly thought it better, after all, that Bruce was not here at this precise moment.

“It’ll be all right,” Gloria said. “I’ll just walk with extra care.”

Vance peered inside the shoe. “Let’s see, our Gloria wears a ladies’ size seven. There’s bound to be a shoe store somewhere nearby. I’ll send someone out to pick you up a fresh pair.”

“What? Oh, no! That’s not necessary, really.”

Vance tilted his head. “What were you peering at, anyway?”

“I’m sorry? Peering?”

“Before I was ambushed by the tweed fellow. You were peering into the chandelier as if looking for something.”

“Oh, that!” She felt a blush at the full, bald-headed foolishness of her phantom hunt. She shook her head. “That was nothing. I just . . . thought I . . . saw something. A reflection, some beautiful woman, very pale, with eyes the color of—I could swear I even heard her catch her breath. But she wasn’t really there.”

Vance studied her. It seemed as though he knew precisely what she’d been doing. Gloria’s blush deepened and she dropped her gaze.

“Looking for angels?” he said.

She looked up at him again. What an interesting choice of words. What she’d glimpsed had been no angel. But then again, perhaps that stemmed from the subway vagrant’s warning. She remembered the strangely musical inhalation she’d heard along with a flutter of wings. Could it have been the voice of an angel? A few moments with this stranger Aaron Vance and her entire perspective was changing.

Gloria shook her head. “I don’t know much about angels.”

Vance smiled at that, something at once disturbing and enticing. It was as though he owned a secret that he might be persuaded to share if she behaved according to his bidding.

He rested back on the chair, her shoe still in hand. “I have studied a thing or two about angels and their counterparts.”

Her brows lifted. “Oh?”

He nodded with a shrug. “Historically, the demons and angels maintain a balance. In the texts of ancient Zoroastrianism, they call it
asha
, truth and order, at odds with
druj
, falsehood and disorder.”