Bayou Heat (22 page)

He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket, and she remembered it was Friday. He was
often late on Fridays, no doubt because he stopped at the newsstand to buy himself
some end-of-the-week chocolate.

The thought caught her up short.

Shit, did she really know the habits of the train station regulars that well? She
did a quick survey of the sparsely populated platform. Emo Boy was wearing his favorite
pair of skinny jeans this morning, and Princess had gotten her roots touched up.

Sadly, yes, she did.

“The next person who comes up the steps will be an older lady carrying a purse the
size of a bus and a bakery bag with a croissant in it,” Cath said.

“What?”

“It’s a prediction.”

“You’re clairvoyant now?” Amanda asked, her pert nose in the air.

“Sure.” Cath was beginning to see how her pathetic store of knowledge might come in
handy. “I know who’s coming up the stairs next, and I know you’re going to do the
right thing and give me that straitjacket for the exhibit.”

Thinking of the exhibit reminded her that she and her boss, Judith, would be pawing
through sweaters from storage this morning. Cath rummaged through her bag for her
antihistamines, freed two from their hermetic blisters, and swallowed them with a
sip of water.
Curatorial work could be sneezy. She’d learned to arrive prepared.

As she slipped her water bottle back into her bag, Bus Purse came into view, right
on schedule.

Amanda frowned and straightened up, trying to get a better view of the steps. “You
can see down to the high street. That’s how you knew she was coming.”

“You’re closer than I am. Can you see down there?”

The frown deepened. “Well, you must be using a mirror or something. It’s not as if
you’re capable of magic.”

“Wanna bet?” Cath answered, warming to the challenge.

Magic had never been her specialty, but she wanted that straitjacket. It had been
featured in a widely covered protest demonstration Amanda and her buddies had staged
outside the prime
minister’s residence a few years ago, and it would look fabulous on display, the perfect
visual complement to the story the museum’s exhibit would tell.

Unfortunately, Amanda had a stranglehold on the thing, and Cath had known her long
enough to understand she got a kick out of stringing people along.

On the other hand, she was also competitive and narcissistic, which made her the sort
of woman who rarely turned down a bet.

“How about this?” Cath asked. “If I correctly predict the next two people up those
steps, you give me the jacket.” It was possible. Just. Greenwich was way out in Zone
Four on the London transport map, far enough from the city center to avoid being a
true commuter suburb. The station platform never got too crowded, even during rush
hour.
Most of the regulars for this particular train had already arrived. The question was,
Who was missing?

Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “What do I get if you’re wrong?”

“I’ll stop bugging you about the straitjacket.”

This was a lie, but no lapsed Catholic from Chicago’s South Side was above lying for
a good cause, and Cath considered her career a good cause.

Amanda leaned forward, all excitement now, and said, “Make it three and you’re on.”

The first one was easy. Cath heard the musical clang of the ticket machine dispensing
change down at street level and knew it had to be the dog guy from the park, because
he always took the 7:09 from Greenwich to Bank on Fridays, and he bought his single
ticket from the vending machine with cash.

“Old guy in a fedora,” she said.

He came up the steps and made his way to the empty bench next to them.

Amanda inclined her head, acknowledging one down.

Next up was tricky. Normally, it would be the girl with the two-tone hair, but it
was late summer, and people took vacations. The girl had been missing all week. Cath
imagined her on a beach in Spain, soaking up the sun in a red bikini. What if she
was back, though?

The booming laugh of Bill at the ticket window carried up the stairs. The Merry Widow,
then. Bill was a friendly guy, but he pulled out all the stops for the Widow.

“Redhead with three inches of cleavage,” Cath said.

The Merry Widow rose into view, proud bosom bobbing.

Amanda gave a low whistle of appreciation.

Cath glanced at the station’s clock and repressed a smile. She only needed one more
to complete the hat trick, and you could set your watch by the next guy.

“Tall blond man in an expensive suit,
Financial Times
under his arm,” she said, then added, “Possibly a cyborg.”

Thirty seconds ticked by, and City rose into view, punctual as ever and way too good
looking to be human.

Cath had a soft spot for City. From the moment she’d spotted him waiting for the train
to Bank last winter, he’d intrigued her. She’d given him the nickname as a nod to
his profession, because everything about him announced he worked in the City of London,
the square-mile financial district at the center of the metropolis: the dignified
wool
overcoat and scarf he’d worn all winter, the shined shoes, the ever-present newspaper.
Aristocratically remote, he was Prince Charming in a suit.

Amanda applauded, whether for her or for City, Cath couldn’t tell. She suppressed
a triumphant grin and allowed herself a moment to watch him pass. He gave her his
usual stiff nod, the greeting they’d long since settled on for their semi-regular
encounters.

She’d never heard City talk or seen him crack a smile. He didn’t even fidget, just
stood stoically in place until the train pulled up, then stared straight ahead once
seated in the car. Cool as a cucumber and veddy, veddy English. At least, that’s how
she imagined him when she wrote about him in her journal. She’d bet her next paltry
paycheck he had a posh accent, an expensive education, and a boring job moving
piles of money around. He was her polar opposite.

Still, she always kept an eye out for him. She saw City two or three mornings a week,
either here or at Greenwich Park, where both of them liked to run. In motion, he was
a beautiful thing, a Scandinavian god with flushed cheeks. She loved that flash of
pink on his face—such an endearing crack in his cool perfection. It made her want
to muss his hair and tie his shoelaces together when he wasn’t looking, just to see
what would happen.

And now he’d helped her win access to the piece she so badly wanted for the exhibit.
You really had to love him.

“When can I pick that jacket up?” she asked Amanda, turning back to face her.

“Hmm?” Amanda was still staring at City. “Oh, right.” Her mouth tightened,
her eyes growing cagey. “That was a good trick. How long have you been practicing?”

“First time,” she answered honestly. Far from impressive, her ability to predict who’d
arrive next on the train platform was evidence of how sad her life had become. She
was a people-watcher by nature, and now that she’d cleaned up her act, she had nothing
better to do than make up stories about the strangers who shared her morning commute.

The saddest part was, she didn’t always take this train. If she’d run into Amanda
while waiting for the 6:43 or the 7:43 instead of the 7:09, Cath still would have
stood a good chance of pulling off the trick, predicting the arrival of an entirely
different set of familiar strangers.

She didn’t have to tell Amanda that, though.

“You really want that jacket,” Amanda said. “It’s important to you.”

Cath stared at City’s broad shoulders beneath his suit coat and shrugged, feigning
a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever is
.

“We’re friends, right?” Amanda asked, throwing an arm across the back of the bench.

They weren’t friends. They’d had a handful of mutual acquaintances a few years ago.
These days, Cath pantomimed familiarity when they ran into each other around Greenwich
so that she could legitimately harass Amanda for the straitjacket.

Cath didn’t have any friends. She had a roommate who didn’t like her, a socially awkward
boss who did, and an
empty life that revolved around her job.

“Sure,” she said, because it was what she was supposed to say.

“And you need a favor.”

Just smile and nod, Talarico
.

She tamped down her temper, refrained from pointing out that she’d just won her favor
fair and square, and did as her good sense instructed.

“We’ll do a trade.” Amanda grinned, a smile that announced,
This is the best idea anyone’s ever had
. “Eric and I are going to a concert tonight at a club with his cousin. He’s in town
from Newcastle for the weekend. We could really use a fourth.”

A garbled announcement of the train’s approach came over the loudspeaker, and Cath
kept her expression neutral as she stood and shouldered her bag.

Christ on a crutch. She’d walked into a blind date.

For any normal woman, this wouldn’t be a problem. No one wanted to be set up with
some random warm body from Newcastle, of course, but spending an evening being hit
on, ignored, or bored out of her skull ought to have been a fair exchange for getting
her way.

For Cath, though, Amanda’s proposal was worse than a problem. It was a disaster waiting
to happen.

She hadn’t been on a date in two years. No concerts, no bars, no men. These were the
rules that set New Cath apart from her irresponsible predecessor—the restrictions
that kept her from making the kind of mistakes that had necessitated the creation
of New Cath in the first place.

Cath didn’t want to break the rules. She
needed
the rules.

But she needed that straitjacket more. It would be a coup for the exhibit, which meant
it would win Judith’s gratitude, and Judith’s gratitude was Cath’s ticket into a permanent
curatorial position.

She had to do it.

“Sounds like fun,” she said, her cheerful tone the first of many frauds the evening
would no doubt entail.

Surely she could spend one night with a guy in a club without doing anything she’d
regret.

Read on for an excerpt from Elisabeth Barrett’s

Blaze of Winter

Of all the possible pranks a person could pull in the Star Harbor Library, putting
a dead fish in the heating vent ranked high on the list of ones to try. And Theodore
Grayson would know. He’d played that very trick twenty years ago, with his brothers
Cole and Seb as his partners-in-crime. Still, the risk—considerable, given that every
wall vent in the main room was visible from the circulation desk—had been worth the
payout. His large frame tucked into a carrel at the very scene of his youthful misconduct,
Theo smiled at the memory.

They had done the deed in the middle of one of Star Harbor’s coldest winters, and
with the heat on full blast, it had taken precisely thirty-seven hours for the smell
to become overpowering. Even better, he and his brothers had all been present to witness
the prank’s outcome—the unholy stench, a furious search for the source, and finally,
a full evacuation of the library. And as any good trickster—Theo himself included—would
acknowledge, a key component of every good prank was the payout.

The payout. The completion. The end. If only he could achieve the same with this damned
book he should be writing. His smile faded fast.

“What the hell am I doing back in Star Harbor?” he groaned, shoving his chair back
from the desk and abruptly standing up. An octogenarian seated on a nearby love seat
flipped down Wednesday’s edition of the Boston
Globe
and gave him a disapproving look from beneath her tightly curled blue-tinted locks.
In return, he gave her a dirty grin, and she let out a small gasp as her head disappeared
in a rustle behind the Arts section.

Glancing around the library, he noted that nothing much had changed in twenty years.
Same taupe walls, same signs over the reference desk, same green-shaded banker’s lamps
on each long table. Only the posters displaying the covers of the latest bestselling
books were different. Wryly, he noted that his own book wasn’t represented. Theodore
Grayson, better known as T. R. Grayson—Star Harbor’s native son, bad boy made good.

But perhaps not good enough to warrant a place on the hallowed walls of the library.

No one met his eyes as he glanced around, so he sighed and slouched back down into
his seat, pulling it forward until his fingers were once again aligned with the keyboard
of his laptop. Then he took off his glasses—the stylish frames had been a gift from
his publicist—and rubbed his eyes, willing the thoughts, phrases, and sentences to
come.

They didn’t.

What the hell was wrong with him? In a few short months he’d gone from literary darling
to feeling like a hack. He was in a funk, unable to make the stubborn words emerge
from wherever they were hiding in his brain. A change of scenery—more accurately,
a change of coast—hadn’t made a whit of difference. Trying to plot and write his latest
book was just as slow-going here as it had been in San Francisco.

Worse yet, it wasn’t just the writing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the problem,
but it was obvious he was in some sort of a slump.

Over Labor Day weekend, Cole had mentioned that he might be able to find renewed inspiration
in Star Harbor. At the time, he’d thought his brother’s idea was brilliant. Ditch
his bohemian, intellectual lifestyle in San Francisco and reconnect with his roots
by spending the fall in Star Harbor. It was the most beautiful time of year in his
hometown, and he’d been certain it would give him the fuel he needed to write his
book. Plenty of stimulation, ideas, and solitude.

But he hadn’t made it to town until just before Thanksgiving. Now it was December,
Star Harbor was freezing, he hadn’t written a word, and the quiet was beginning to
weigh on him like a millstone around his neck. Plus, he was bunking down with his
brothers Val and Cole on Val’s small houseboat, which didn’t help matters at all.
He’d known it would be a far cry from his spacious artist’s loft in San Francisco’s
Mission district, but he hadn’t realized quite how bad it would be. How was he supposed
to think, let alone write, when he couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep in that tiny
berth? The two months he’d planned to stay in town suddenly seemed like a life sentence.