This Wicked Game Read Online Free PDF

listening, trying to catch snippets of the conversation between Eugenia, the man who’d arrived with her, and the third person she couldn’t see.
    A moment later, Eugenia and the silver-haired man resumed their progress toward the house, and a younger man stepped onto the sidewalk. Dressed in slim trousers and a fitted T-shirt, he walked right past Claire and Xander. His shoes, some kind of modern loafer, were quiet on the pavement. Claire tried to get a look at his face, but all she caught was a glimpse of pale skin, dark hair, and thin, angular features.
    “That’s it,” Xander said when he was gone. “We’re leaving.”
    Claire gazed over the bushes, eyeing the stucco building. “Maybe we should just—”
    “No. We’re leaving, Claire.”
    “You didn’t even let me finish,” she said angrily.
    Xander crossed his hands over his chest. “You don’t have to finish. I already know what you were going to say.”
    “How could you know when I didn’t say it?”
    “You were going to say we should have a look inside the courtyard.”
    Claire tried to cover her surprise. “Well . . . okay. That’s what I was going to say. But so what? What harm will it do? Maybe we’ll even get more information for the Guild.”
    Xander took her arm and began leading her away from the house. “I think the Guild can take it from here.”
    “Xander, just . . .” She tried to pull her arm from his grip, but he held tightly. She finally wrenched it free with an almost-painful tug. “Stop!”
    He stopped walking. “What?”
    “What’s the matter with you?” she asked him, rubbing her arm. No one would ever accuse Xander Toussaint of being a wimp, but he wasn’t a bully either. Especially not with her. “Why are you acting like this?”
    He took a deep breath. “Claire . . . you’re just going to have to trust me. I don’t know who these people are or what they’re up to, but it’s not good.”
    “How do you know that?” she asked. “You don’t know any more than I do.”
    He shook his head. “I’m not doing this now. Let’s go.”
    “You know something.” She leaned against the trunk of an enormous oak. “And I’m not leaving until you tell me what it is.”
    Xander paced away from her before he turned back, defeat on his face. “You won’t believe me anyway.”
    She thought about it. “Why? Because it has to do with voodoo?”
    He hesitated before nodding.
    “I promise I’ll try to keep an open mind, okay? Now, spill.”
    He crossed the distance between them. “I had a dream last night. About you.”
    “Okay . . .”
    “You were here, Claire,” he said softly.
    “What do you mean ‘here’?”
    “I mean, you were
here.
On this street. In front of this house.”
    She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Neither of us knew the woman lived here until now.”
    Xander’s eyes didn’t leave her face.
    She sighed. “Lots of houses in the city look like this, Xander. You know that. And lots of streets look like this one, too. You could have been dreaming about anywhere.”
    His gaze still didn’t waver. “It was
this
street. This house.” He looked across the street at a red house with balconies on two levels. “That house was right where it is now. I even saw that beat-up car.”
    Claire’s eyes settled on the old Chevy parked in front of the red house.
    “Okay, so you dreamed about this. Maybe you have some kind of psychic ability or something.”
    “You believe in psychic ability but not in the craft?” he asked skeptically.
    “They’re totally different. One is based on superstition and the other . . .” She stopped. “Look, forget about it. Dreaming about us coming here doesn’t mean something bad’s going to happen.”
    “I didn’t tell you the rest,” he said softly.
    She didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to check out the house. See what they could find out about the woman and her friends. Most of all, she wanted to know how Eugenia knew her name