A few minutes later Bartoli had paid for their admission and they all sported half-dollar-sized red hearts with the day’s date stamped on the back of their hands.

Just as Julie Mead had described it, Charlie thought, looking down at hers, but of course she couldn’t say that.

“I still don’t see how you could know the perp had a heart stamped on the back of his hand,” Kaminsky muttered in her direction as a tuxedoed waiter led them through a side door, across the verandah, and down into a patio area. There, dozens of glass-topped tables were set up in concentric rings centered on small circular flower gardens that were interspersed at regular intervals along the trio of descending brick terraces. They overlooked an emerald green expanse of marsh grass and, beyond that, the dark blue water of Albemarle Sound. A slight breeze blew in off the water, and that, coupled with the encroaching twilight, lifted the humidity and mitigated the heat to the point where it had become pleasant rather than enervating. The smell of slowly roasting meat hung in the air, courtesy of a couple of black iron roasters smoking away near a long line of buffet tables. In a gazebo near a wooden dance floor that had been laid down atop a swimming pool, a live band was tuning up.

“What can I tell you? I’m good like that,” Charlie answered back. As the hostess seated them at one of the upper tables, waiters roamed the terraces lighting small votive candles in glass jars in the center of the tables. Charlie was just accepting her menu from their waiter when the tall bronze ibis sculpture in the center of the circular garden in front of them started shooting water from its beak.

“It’s a fountain,” she remarked in delight as the others looked at it, too.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than, on the other side of the garden, Garland materialized.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It took Charlie just a second to make sure she was really, truly seeing what she thought she was seeing. Yes, there he stood, dressed in jeans and a white tee, exactly as she had last seen him, still gorgeous enough that under any other circumstances just setting eyes on someone who looked like him would have made her heart go pitty-pat, seemingly solid as a stone wall, his booted feet planted apart, his fists clenched and his shoulders tensed as if, maybe, he was expecting to be attacked. Positioned between two tables of four almost directly opposite from where she was seated, with the lushly colored, perfumed garden between them, he glanced around, his movements edgy. He seemed to be a little disoriented, a little confused. The occupants of the tables closest to him laughed and sipped their drinks and looked at the menus they were holding, clearly oblivious to his sudden arrival. He was maybe thirty feet away, and it was getting dark and the fountain shot fine drops of silvery spray into the air between him and her, but that in no way interfered with Charlie’s view. There was no mistaking Garland for anyone else.

He doesn’t know I’m here.

But even as Charlie had the thought Garland’s head whipped around in her direction as if—horror of horrors!—drawn by the power of her gaze.

Their eyes locked before she could gather her wits enough to try to duck behind the menu, or hide beneath the table, or something.

After that it was too late to do anything at all but sit there like a rabbit frozen in place by the proximity of a hound.

Of course he saw her.

Garland’s eyes widened as he obviously registered her presence, his whereabouts, the whole nine yards, in an instant. Then they narrowed. His face hardened. His lips thinned. In short, he looked pissed.

Then he vanished.

Poof! Like he’d never been there.

Charlie couldn’t believe it. It was the most unexpected of reprieves.

But her jittery heart didn’t seem to have caught on to the fact that he was gone, because it just kept right on pounding.

Charlie only realized that she must have caught her breath and stiffened in her chair upon spotting Garland when she became aware that the others were looking at her curiously.

“Is something wrong?” Bartoli asked. He was seated beside her, as handsome and desirable a dinner companion as any sane woman could ask for, his black hair waving back from his high forehead, his well-formed features bronzed by nature and candlelight, his strong jaw showing just the beginnings of five o’clock shadow, his warm brown eyes filled with concern for her. Yet here she was, having a hard time bringing him into focus. Why? Because every atom of her being was focused on the whereabouts—or not—of Garland.

Spirit, spirit, go away. Don’t come again another day.

She realized she was breathing way too fast, and tried to consciously dial down what she recognized as her body’s instinctive fight-or-flight response.

Oh, God, please God, let my sighting of Garland have been an illusion, the product, maybe, of too much stress and too little sleep and food, or something similar. Then she gave an inner grimace. How sad was it that she would be thrilled to learn that she had just experienced a brief psychotic break in which she had conjured up an unwanted vision out of her imagination?

“I thought I saw a hummingbird,” Charlie managed, feeling like a fool even as she uttered the lie. Her voice sounded almost normal as she made a vague gesture in the direction of a cluster of hot-pink hibiscus on the other side of the garden, in the general area in which Garland had—or had not—appeared. “It’s gone now.”

“You into bird-watching?” Crane looked at her with interest. “A lot of people are.”

“I like hummingbirds.” That much was true, so Charlie found saying it somewhat easier. Her nerves were jumping like a thousand tiny grasshoppers under her skin as she tried, and failed, by means of discreet, darting little glances all over the place, to spot any further sign of Garland. If she hadn’t caught herself and consciously relaxed her hands, she would have been gripping the arms of her thickly cushioned, wrought-iron chair tightly.

“You see anything else interesting? Like our unsub?” Kaminsky’s tone was caustic.

“N-no.” Okay, stuttering wasn’t going to cut it. Neither was looking around every which way like a thief hiding from the cops. Whatever was going on with her sighting of Garland—and there was no way that she should have seen him, because there was no way he should have been able to return from the Great Beyond, or wherever the hell (probably literally) she’d sent him—he was gone now. She needed to focus on the here and now or risk having her companions think there was something seriously wrong with her. “Of course, I haven’t really had much time to look at anyone yet.”

“The unsub’s more likely to be an employee than a guest,” Bartoli said. “After we eat, we’ll walk around, take a look at the staff.”

“Think we should circulate his picture?” Crane asked.

Bartoli shook his head. “Not yet. If word gets out that we’re looking for someone, we’ll scare him off if he is somewhere on the premises—and maybe even scare him into killing the girl prematurely. We need to be real careful here.”

“This seems like a pretty good place for a predator like our unsub to hang out.” Kaminsky was glancing over the tables, which were now almost full. “Lots of families.”

“He’s an ephebophile, remember.” Charlie was glad to concentrate again on the reason they were there instead of worrying about the possible presence of Garland. “His primary purpose in frequenting a place like this is to find and evaluate teenage girls for how well they fit his criteria. The families are just collateral damage.”

“Ephebophile?” Crane looked at her over his menu.

“An ephebophile is someone who is attracted to post-pubescent children—teenagers,” Kaminsky replied before Charlie could. “Come on, Crane. Keep up.”