Spellbound Page 7

  Then you hold on to me, because I won’t let go.

  Rory abruptly opened his eyes. Why would Kenzie have said something like that? What did it mean? He rubbed his fingertips together, like he could still feel the rare sensation of warm skin against his own. What else had happened last night?

  A small head suddenly poked around the door frame, black curls tumbling into curious black eyes. Rory had to smile. “Buongiorno, passerotto.”

  The toddler broke into an impish grin of tiny teeth and took the greeting as invitation to waddle into the office—

  “Benito!” The little boy was promptly scooped up into the air. “Vieni qui,” he heard the mother say, as she whisked the child back into the shop. Rory caught the gist of her rapid-fire Italian: the light of her eyes had given her another gray hair, apparently. Rory’s smile turned wistful.

  He was no closer to decoding what had happened with Kenzie when the bell jangled behind the departing mother and son and Mrs. Brodigan looked into the office. “You’re in sooner than I expected.”

  Resigned, he put aside the mystery of the previous night. “I didn’t mean to be late in the first place.”

  But she waved it off. “Mr. Kenzie explained everything.”

  Rory’s eyebrows flew up. “He did?”

  “Said he came by just before closing last night and ended up whisking you off for a wholesome boys’ night out.” Wholesome. Rory tried to keep the guilt off his face as Mrs. Brodigan clasped her hands in delight. “It’s about time you made some friends. Where did he take you?”

  To a Harlem juice joint to try my first illegal hooch. “Upper East Side. Upper, upper east.”

  “Did you have a nice time?”

  Got zozzled till I blacked out so I really couldn’t say. “Yeah, uh. Great.”

  “What did you do?”

  Came on to him like the desperate, sex-starved tart I am. “Talked.”

  “Now that sounds lovely. Half the ladies in Manhattan are mad with jealousy, I’m sure.”

  Rory wrinkled his nose.

  “Don’t make that face at me,” said Mrs. Brodigan. “I was a married woman once. I still have eyes and that Arthur Kenzie is a looker.”

  “Mrs. B.”

  “I’m not taking it back, dearie. He’s divine.”

  Rory scowled, but she wasn’t wrong. “Did he say anything about the ring?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “He said that was why he dropped by last night, to pick it up. Said he’s got to sort a few things out before we discuss the job.”

  Rory’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

  “I was hoping you knew.”

  “Who knows anything when it comes to Mr. Kenzie,” he muttered.

  She patted his arm. “I’m sure it will all come clear in time. Come look at this clock Mrs. Bianchi just brought. I think you’ll like this one; it’s from Milan.”

  Back to work, then. As he stepped out from the office, he glanced at the wooden cuckoo clock on the cash register counter; the counter where he’d opened the ring box last night, the counter where he’d dropped his glasses—

  His glasses.

  His hand flew to his frames. Hell, he’d forgotten all about his broken glasses, he’d have to get them fixed—

  Except his fingers found the earpiece fully attached. He’d forgotten all about his broken glasses because somehow, someone had fixed them for him.

  * * *

  Only a couple more customers came in during the afternoon, and soon enough Rory was back to his boarding house, climbing the cramped, threadbare steps to the third floor. The good feeling had stuck around all day, and as he walked down the narrow hallway, he actually thought about grabbing some warmer clothes, if he had any, and maybe going back out. Maybe try a new deli or something for dinner instead of opening a tin in his room.

  He was so deep in the unfamiliar pleasure of making personal plans that he’d only registered his key had turned too easily in the lock when his door was thrown open, a strong hand closed around his wrist, and he was tugged right into his own room.

  “Good evening.”

  Aw, shit.

  “I assume you planned to avoid me forever?”

  “Worth a shot.” Rory went for the open door.

  But the bigger Kenzie leaned against it, closing it with his weight and barring it with his broad shoulders like a portcullis. “Good luck with that.”

  Rory scowled and sat on the bed, on top of the bright quilt, a handmade gift from Mrs. Brodigan and the only thing in the room that wasn’t gray and dirty and ugly. Well, at least until Kenzie had shown up. He was wearing a gray pinstripe vest and a blue tie the same shade as his eyes, which popped like jewels against that shiny black hair.

  He was too big and too fine to be in a small, shabby place like Rory’s room. Or Rory’s life.

  “What do you want?”

  “Civilized conversation. Are you capable of it?”

  “Are you?” Rory snapped. “Or are you gonna keep throwing me around?”

  “Would you like me to?” Kenzie said, with saccharine sweetness. “I can throw you much harder than that.”

  Rory tried not to cringe. If Kenzie had come for a fight, Rory didn’t have a prayer. “How’d you get in my room?”

  “I thought it’d be more private to talk here than your shop. So I picked your lock.”

  He’d what?

  “Funny thing, actually,” Kenzie continued blithely, like he hadn’t just shifted Rory’s entire view of him. “The lock on the outside was laughable. But then I saw your locks inside.” He rapped the door behind him with his knuckles. “Two extra chains, both with expensive and complicated padlocks. Both a homemade installation job, by the look of it.”

  Rory’s stomach rolled over. He tried to keep his face still. “What of it?”

  Kenzie pointed to his window, a narrow slice of dirty glass that faced another boarding house across the alley. “That window isn’t wide enough for a child and you’re on the third floor with no fire escape. No one’s climbing in that window, but someone has still shoved a board in the top so that it can’t be opened. It must be sweltering in here in the summer.”

  Rory shrugged as insolently as he could, like his pulse wasn’t creeping up. “Hell’s Kitchen ain’t Central Park West. What’s your point?”

  “That I see barely anything keeping people out,” said Kenzie, “and a hell of a lot of effort made to keep some poor soul in.”

  Rory’s heart skipped a beat, but it wasn’t like Kenzie would ever guess his reasons. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “No, of course you don’t. Why would you explain anything like a reasonable person?” He ignored Rory’s dirty look. “I spoke with your dear auntie today.”

  “She thinks you whisked me off for a—” Rory cleared his throat “—‘wholesome boys’ night out.’”

  “What could two men possibly get up to together that isn’t wholesome?” Kenzie said dryly, and Rory’s skin suddenly felt too hot. “I did leave out the part where I took you to a speakeasy and you nearly took me to an early grave. The hell you’re ever having a drink in my presence again.”

  Rory winced. Here it was. “If you’re gonna clock me, just do it.”

  “You think I came to hit you?” Kenzie looked genuinely affronted. “Do you have a single thought about me that doesn’t assume I’m an asshole?”

  Rory’s gaze stole, unbidden, to Kenzie’s lips again. But what he said, churlishly, was, “You make that impossible.”

  “Perhaps.” Kenzie smiled his dangerous smile. “But surely, if anyone would know about making the impossible possible, it would be you.” He paused, and added, clearly and unmistakably, “Theodore.”

  Chapter Ten

  Rory blanched pale as a ghost. He scrambled as far away as he could, until his back w
as against the wall at the head of the bed. “Why do you know that name?”

  “It’s yours, isn’t it? Theodore Antonio Giovacchini-Westbrook. Named for your father, Theo Westbrook, a pastor of English descent at a well-known church near Ithaca. And for your maternal grandfather, Antonio Giovacchini, because your Italian mother passed down more than just those eyes.”

  Rory swallowed. He drew his knees to his chest. Behind the glasses, the eyes in question were wide. “What else do you know?”

  Arthur leaned against the door. “That your parents met during one of your father’s visits to the city. And that your prosaic father thought his reputation as a man of the cloth couldn’t bear the scandal of a bastard, let alone a half-Italian one, so he went back to Ithaca and left Teddy Giovacchini and his mother to fend for themselves.”

  Rory’s mother had run away to an uncle upstate; small towns had long memories, and Arthur had found the restaurant that had once employed the beautiful Italian waitress with the bespectacled little boy. He could imagine what the townsfolk had whispered about her, raising a mixed son on her own. But the restaurateur was adamant that Teddy had been his mother’s pride and joy, which made the next part of Arthur’s carefully pieced-together history suddenly stick in his throat.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Rory’s jaw tightened and he looked away. “Isn’t everyone.”

  The attempt at sarcasm was ruined by the rawness of his voice, the hitch in his words that twisted something in Arthur’s chest. Christ, he was an asshole, making Rory dredge up the past. Some wounds never close.

  “She would be proud of you.” The words were unplanned, and felt paltry and inadequate, but he had to say something.

  Rory only scoffed with a jagged bitterness. “There’s nothing to be proud of.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Arthur said lightly. “It’s not everyone who can touch an object and see a vision of its history.”

  “You—” Rory had gone rigid. “How do you—”

  “You know, I was so certain it was Mrs. Brodigan who was psychometric, with her shop the perfect cover. Imagine my surprise when I met you. When did the ability start?”

  Rory’s eyes narrowed. “Sometime between screw off and go fuck yourself.”

  Arthur probably deserved that. “My guess is age sixteen. You’d been living at your father’s church a couple years at that point.” He suspected Pastor Westbrook had grudgingly given Rory a roof after his mother passed, since a church taking an orphan in would hardly raise questions. But he doubted the man was willing to keep a paranormal bastard around, especially his own dirty secret. “I assume your father was the one who sent you to the asylum where you met Mrs. Brodigan’s dying sister?”

  Rory folded his arms and stared at Arthur stonily.

  Arthur sighed. “Asylum records show that two months after Theodore Giovacchini was admitted, the terminally ill Lorna McCaffrey checked out to stay with her recently widowed sister, Leena Brodigan, in Vermont. The following night, Teddy disappeared. The window in his empty bedroom was found open and a note in his handwriting implicated the nearby Ausable Chasm. It was ruled a suicide.” He leaned against the door. “Miss McCaffrey passed away three weeks after Teddy. Two months later, Mrs. Brodigan came back to Hell’s Kitchen and reopened Brodigan’s Appraisals with the help of her nephew, one Rory Brodigan.”

  Rory’s eyes suddenly blazed. “If you even think of laying a finger on Mrs. B.—”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “I will do everything in my power to stop you—”

  Arthur held up his hands in instant surrender. He didn’t know exactly what all was in Rory’s power and this was not how he wanted to find out. “Jade is telekinetic.”

  The non sequitur sent Rory into a tailspin, just like Arthur had hoped. He stared blankly at Arthur, his words frozen.

  “You met her this morning at my place,” Arthur went on. “The lovely woman with impeccable fashion sense and the ability to move objects with her mind. Within limits, of course—she can’t move people and she can’t lift something as big as a car. But it’s impressive nonetheless.”

  Rory was still staring. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Rory,” Arthur said, deliberately using that name. “If I planned to report you or Mrs. Brodigan to the authorities, or, God forbid, your wretched excuse for a father, I would have already done it.” He cocked his head. “Could Lorna McCaffrey really see the future?”

  He’d chalk it up to how thrown Rory was that he actually answered, “Um, yes, she could.”

  “Marvelous,” Arthur muttered.

  “Not really,” Rory said flatly. “The visions were taking over her mind. She committed herself for protection.”

  “Protection.” Arthur tugged carelessly at one of the chains on the door behind him, like it didn’t bother him, like it didn’t make his stomach hurt to think of Rory sealing himself in this tiny, filthy space like a prisoner. “And what are you protecting against?”

  Rory narrowed his eyes. “Rich dicks who think they can break in where they want. Clearly I need better locks.”

  Arthur deserved that jab too. “You don’t have to protect yourself against me.”

  “Yeah I do,” Rory said tightly. “You haven’t even said what special power you got.”

  “Because I haven’t one.” Arthur spread his hands. “I’m as mundane as they come. All I’ve got are my fortune, my brains, and my good looks, although you’d be surprised how often those can work magic.”

  Rory rolled his eyes. He was still taut with suspicion. “So if you’re not here to drag me back, why are you here?”

  “To hire you, of course.”

  Rory’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Hire me?”

  “I have a very talented cabal of associates, all of whom bring a little something special to the table. I think you’d be an excellent fit.”

  “I have a job,” Rory said, a little helplessly.

  “My associates are all respectfully employed in other careers.” Arthur paused. “Well, Jade’s a bootlegger for her family’s speakeasy, so respectful might be relative, but my point is, I’m more of contractor.”

  Rory’s mouth opened, then closed. Then he said, “I’m not touching your horrible ring again.”

  “You’re the one who broke into my locked briefcase after I explicitly said to keep it closed.” Arthur was gratified to see Rory’s cheeks go pink. “My instructions were for your benefit, not mine. I do know a thing or two about relics.”

  “Relics?”

  “Come to my apartment in the morning. I’ll make your excuses to Mrs. Brodigan. Come at, say, nine o’clock?”

  “Like hell I will.”

  Arthur would see that stubbornness and raise him. “There’s a lot in it for you.”

  Rory snorted. “Money, I suppose.”

  “Lots of money—and not just for you. Do you know the size of Mrs. Brodigan’s debts for her late husband’s medical bills? I do. And I know to whom she owes the money, and they’re not very nice people. They’re—oh, what’s the colloquial term?—mobsters.”

  Rory sucked in a breath.

  “You didn’t know?” Arthur said dryly. “Of course you didn’t. That dear woman has no one else left in the world and she’ll shelter you like you’re her real blood.” He leaned forward. “Five years she’s been paying on those loans. You come to my home tomorrow for one single meeting and I will make them disappear. Because, Rory, I do want your help, but I can help you back.”

  Conflicting emotions danced over Rory’s face. “One meeting and you’ll free her?” He bit his lip. “You promise, Mr. Kenzie?”

  “I give you my word.” Rory would never know what an easy promise that was to make; Arthur had wiped out the debt that afternoon. “And there are enough Mr. Kenzies in my family already. Call me Ace. Or Ar
thur, if you absolutely must, but Ace is what my friends and associates call me.”

  “I’m not your associate,” Rory said tightly. “And I’m sure as hell not your friend.”

  Ouch.

  Rory was still curled up on the bed, as far from him as he could get in the dilapidated room hardly bigger than Arthur’s closet. A boy with one of the most extraordinary abilities Arthur had ever heard of lived in this claustrophobic gray, his walls and furnishings uniformly barren and shabby save for the bright quilt on the bed. There was a mousehole in the wall, and Arthur would gamble there were roaches hiding in every cranny, ready to come out when the lights went off.

  Just last night, he’d caught Rory in his arms, helped him up to his flat, tucked him into his own bed—

  Arthur ruthlessly stamped down the threatening ache in his chest. The urge to rescue was overpowering and he had to leave before he did something rash, like throw Rory over his shoulder and carry him out of this dump.

  “Sleep on it,” he said, more brusquely than he meant to, and slipped out, closing the boarding room door behind him.

  * * *

  Arthur Kenzie knows.

  Rory lay on his back on his quilt, staring at the dirty ceiling. For four years he’d kept his secret from everyone but Mrs. Brodigan, and he was unprepared for how naked he now felt, his magic revealed to Kenzie—Arthur.

  But Arthur’s reaction hadn’t been what Rory expected. He hadn’t called Rory a freak, hadn’t threatened him, hadn’t acted afraid. He’d seemed—interested, like he’d thought Rory was interesting.

  And that was—interesting.

  Rory huffed in frustration. The man was wealthy, charming, and now he’d brazenly admitted that he had a cabal of paranormals contracted for mysterious purposes. The last thing Rory had needed was to find out the most handsome man he’d ever met was also the most fascinating, but apparently Arthur was planning to disrupt everything about Rory’s carefully hidden life.