License to Love (An Agent Ex Novel) Read Free

laughing Lani. A hypnotic video Rock had studied until he felt as if his eyes were going to fall out.
    Lani, two years older? Different hairstyle. Wearing up-to-date trendy fashions and makeup. A newspaper in the background with a current date. But then anyone could print one of those up, right? Her fabulously rich laugh. He couldn’t get enough of hearing it over and over again. When was the last time he’d laughed like that, really laughed from the heart? The night he’d married Lani.
    The way her shiny, straight, nearly black hair fell over her face as she moved. The distinctive gesture she used to sweep it back and tuck it behind her ears, out of her dancing, barely perceptibly almond-shaped eyes. The curve of her full lips as she smiled.
    There was only one way to describe Lani—exotic. One quarter white, one quarter African-American, one quarter Japanese, one quarter Hispanic, Lani called herself the great all-American mutt. Everyone else found her looks arresting.
    A picture could have been Photoshopped, altered in any number of ways. A video? That was a trickier deal. Then he spotted the unique silver ring on the pointer finger of her right hand and his heart stopped. He noticed every detail, as he was trained to do. She wasn’t wearing the huge diamond-and-platinum wedding ring he’d given her.
    Whether that was really Lani, or a very convincing double in the video, whoever had made it knew something about Lani’s disappearance. Nutcase contact aside, desperation drove Rock to look into it. No rock unturned. Only himself, Rock Powers, completely upended.
    Tell no one about this missive or the deal’s off.
    The note gave the instructions he was now following. He’d spent two days in silent hell, thinking of nothing but this meeting.
    Two days in hell were nothing in comparison to his years of torment. He’d been looking for Lani for two horrifically long years, enduring all the humiliation and frustration that came with her disappearance and the never-ending search. Offering a standing hundred-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who provided a tip that led to her. Or her body. Checking up on crackpot leads and greedy individuals who sought to trick him out of the reward. Being offered tips by supposed psychics. Didn’t these people pay attention? He was Rock Powers, debunker of psychic phenomenon.
    There were two camps of magicians, both of which performed “psychic” tricks or mentalism. One camp practiced, claiming they had authentic supernatural abilities. The second camp performed just as convincingly, but let people know they were being tricked, duped by lies and modern magic. Rock was in the second camp. He could bend spoons with the best of them, but he never claimed it was anything other than sleight of hand.
    For two years, the rumors had flown, mocking him, making fun, and hurling ridiculous accusations as he tried to contain his grief and worry and just find Lani.
    “Great illusionist’s wife dumps him before the honeymoon even began. Magician Rock Powers can’t keep the magic in his marriage for even a day; claims he’s brokenhearted.”
    “Drunk, Rock Powers marries on a whim without a prenup. Millions of little motives for murder? Where are you, Lani Powers?”
    “Has illusionist Rock Powers performed the perfect crime and disappeared his beautiful bride for good without a clue? Stumped police demand he reappear her.”
    “Rock Powers initiates a brilliant publicity stunt. Audiences pack his show, waiting for the ultimate prestige, the reappearance of beautiful Lani Torres Powers. Bring her back, Rock.”
    For Rock it was no publicity stunt and he obviously hadn’t murdered her. That left only a few options. Either someone had abducted or murdered her. Or she’d decided she’d made a mistake by marrying him and disappeared as a way of rectifying it.
    Running out on him neither made logical sense, nor jibed with what he knew of Lani. Logically, she would have stood to make a pile of