Silver Master Read Free Page B

demonstrating that he been brought up with good manners.
    â€œCelinda Ingram?” The woman offered an ID encased in a leather wallet instead of her hand. “Detective Martinez. I’m with the Cadence City Police Department. This is Davis Oakes of Oakes Security.”
    Security. That didn’t sound good.
    Celinda set the tote carefully on the floor behind her desk and then took her time examining the woman’s identification. She looked up and nodded once, cautiously polite. “Detective.” She switched her attention to Oakes. “Mr. Oakes.”
    â€œMiss Ingram.”
    His low voice rolled over her senses like a tropical ocean wave at night, darkly powerful and infinitely mysterious.
    She braced herself for his touch. She had a feeling it was going to thrill all her senses.
    It did. The skin-to-skin contact produced a strong resonating effect. Little tingles of excitement flickered up and down her spine. Yes, indeed, hormones on parade, just as she had anticipated.
    She freed her hand as quickly as possible. This was no time to get distracted. She made herself concentrate on Alice Martinez, who had sat down again.
    The detective was an attractive thirtysomething, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Her business suit was as severe as a uniform. The jacket of the suit was a tad lumpy on the left side. The bulge was a strong hint that there was a gun in a holster there.
    Alice Martinez wore no visible amber, but Celinda sensed a distinctive psi pattern that indicated that she possessed some sort of fairly strong talent.
    Mentally Celinda ticked off the reasons why a police detective and a man who worked in the security business might want to speak to her. It was a very short list. She suddenly went cold. The specter of fear that had become her constant companion during the past four months suddenly leaped from the shadows and wrapped icy fingers around her heart.
    â€œHas something happened to someone in my family?” she whispered, her pulse skittering wildly.
    â€œNo.” Alice Martinez gave her a quick, unexpectedly reassuring smile. “This doesn’t involve any of your relatives.”
    â€œThank heavens.” The relief was so overwhelming she sagged a little against the desk. “For a minute there I was afraid…” She let the sentence trail off.
    Davis’s eyes narrowed ever so faintly at the corners. She knew he had taken note of that brief moment of panic.
    â€œDetective Martinez and I are cooperating in an investigation,” he said quietly.
    She gave him a polite smile while she took stock. For years she’d known exactly what qualities she wanted in her dream man. She was a professional matchmaker, after all; she knew what to look for in a mate. The list was long and detailed: kindness, intelligence, loyalty, a strong sense of responsibility, the ability to make a commitment and stick to it, a capacity for love, the right attitudes toward money, children, and family obligations, etc., etc.
    But until now she had never had a visual image of Mr. Perfect.
    Her ideal man, it turned out, had hair as dark as a midnight sky and eyes of an unusual shade of silvery gray. His face was all hard edges and dangerously interesting planes and angles. He was of average height, but beneath the jacket of the dark business suit there was a lot of sleek muscle, especially in his shoulders.
    It dawned on her that he had not taken his seat again. Instead, he stood quietly in that centered, controlled manner that seemed to characterize everything about him.
    â€œAs Detective Martinez told you, I’m with Oakes Security.” He handed her a card.
    She glanced down and read the fine print. “It says here that you’re not exactly with Oakes Security. You’re the president and CEO.”
    His mouth curved faintly at one corner. “Yeah, that, too. Oakes is a private consulting firm. We specialize in corporate security.”
    â€œI see.” She was more