Looking for You (16 page)

He held her
arms gently but securely. "Are you in trouble?"

"No."
But there was a hint of hesitation to the answer.

"Okay,"
he agreed reluctantly. "I'll wait, but not long."

"I'll
tell you," she promised with a whisper.

He wasn't
sure what it said about him that he believed her. He took her hand, so there
wouldn't be any distance between them. She relaxed, a wondrous look lighting
her face, and kissed his fingers.

"Gwen!"

They both
turned.

A gangly
girl came bounding at them from the backroom. She was all legs and teeth, smiling
happily at Gwendolyn. Her hair was in a bouncy ponytail and she wore a plaid
shirt and skinny jeans.

"Hey
there!" the teenager called out, charging them. She threw her arms so
enthusiastically around Gwendolyn that he let go of her and put his hand at her
back to brace her.

Gwendolyn
returned the girl's tight hug. "Why the enthusiasm?"

"Because
I finished the volunteer signup calendar on the website and it
rocks
. You can even color-code it by
type of class. I've got skills." The girl looked at him like an interested
puppy dog. "Who are you?"

He reached
out his hand. "Rick, a friend of Gwendolyn's."

He didn't
miss the inquiring way look the girl gave Gwendolyn. He expected her to shy
away or dismiss him—the way teenagers usually acted. So he was impressed
when she took his hand, looked him in the eye, and said, "I'm Laurel. I
work here."

"You
don't work here," Gwendolyn corrected. "You're a student."

The girl
snorted. "Only in my dad's mind."

Shaking her
head, Gwendolyn faced him. "Her dad thinks that she's taking art
classes."

"I
failed art last year," the girl said proudly.

"She's
abysmal at drawing, but she's excellent at anything technical. She built our
website and runs everything around it. It's an amazing thing, but her dad
doesn't know." Gwen shook her head. "Tell her she should tell him.
He's going to be as proud of her as we are."

Laurel
snorted again.

"You're
better off telling him. It's no good keeping secrets." He glanced at
Gwendolyn. "They end up coming out in the end, and it's always harder."

Her narrowed
gaze promised him retribution.

The
teenager looked between them. "You guys are talking to each other but you
aren't saying anything." Then she gasped. "Are you Gwen's
boyfriend?"

Before he
could say anything, Gwendolyn said, "We don't like to label things."

Laurel
nodded knowingly. "Kind of like how losers don't like to be called
losers."

"Something
like that," Gwen said, trying to hide a smile.

The girl
turned to him. "If you were an animal, what would you be?"

Rick arched
a brow at Gwendolyn, who just shrugged. Turning back to Laurel, he said,
"A panther."

"Huh."
The girl's nose wrinkled as she studied him. "I'd have pegged you for a
giraffe."

Gwendolyn
snickered. He silently promised her retribution.

Laurel continued,
oblivious. "Rick, if you were a crayon color, what would you be
called?"

He looked
straight at Gwen. "Shocking orange."

"I
don't think that's a color," the girl said, frowning.

Obviously
also remembering their poolside interlude, Gwendolyn's face was bright red.
"That's enough, Laurel," she said in a reasonably decent adult voice.

"I'm
just trying to determine if he's a good fit for you." She shrugged.
"But whatev. Live your own life."

She
shrugged and flounced off. Then she whirled around. "But if you want my
opinion, he's perfect." She grinned and then skipped off.

Gwen faced
him, lowering her voice again. "We're building a closet to lock her
in."

"She
can't be all that bad. She thinks I'm good for you."

Gwendolyn
rolled her eyes in a perfect imitation of the teenager.

He took her
hand again. "We're good when we decide we're on the same side."

"Are
we on the same side?" She looked up at him.

"Yes."
Then because there was a moment of doubt and because he wanted to be honest,
especially with her, he said, "At the moment."

"Yes."
She nodded. "At the moment,
this
moment is great."

He brushed
her hair from face. "I can't argue with that."

"You're brooding into your
coffee, Camille," Elizabeth said as she breezed into the kitchen.
"You know it disrupts my chi when you brood."

She was always doing something that
disrupted her mother's chi. Her mother had missed the free love era of Northern
California—British punk rock had formed her early years. She'd never been
so much about going with the flow as she'd been about screw the establishment.
But a couple years ago she'd interviewed the Dalai Lama and ever since she'd
been all about her chi. Unfortunately, she wasn't so much about her chi that
she meditated. Elizabeth thought it'd ruin her edge.

Camille had always wished Elizabeth
was more a mother and less edgy. She sighed and returned her attention to her
computer. Not that staring at the screen any longer would produce a miracle.

Her mother gestured toward her.
"Why are you dressed that way?"

"This?" She looked down at
the dress she'd bought specially for her first date with Dylan. It was a splash
of color, a pink so bright Gwendolyn Pierce would have been proud. Camille
wouldn't have chosen it but the saleslady assured her it looked great on her.
It felt great. And Dylan hated her in black.

"It's hideous." Elizabeth
took a cereal bowl out of the sink and tapped ashes from her cigarette into it.
"Since when do you get dressed up to work from home?"

She hadn't been planning on working,
but she'd gotten ready early—it was this or get worked up and nervous
about the date. "I'm not dressed up," she said, moving her feet
further under the table so her mother wouldn't see the whimsical lacy pink
shoes she'd splurged on to match.

"If you weren't so focused on
your computer, I'd say it was that outfit that was causing you such
consternation." Her mother arched her brow at the laptop as she took a
puff. "What are you doing that's causing you trouble?"

"It's nothing." Elizabeth
would only laugh if Camille told her she was researching a missing Grape
Princess out of a hunch that the woman was underground as a gourd artist in
Laurel Heights.

But then why had Gwendolyn reacted
the way she had when she'd seen the article on Yvette de la Roche? Camille kept
coming back to that—and the coincidence between the similarity between Geneviève
and Gwendolyn.

"It's not nothing," her
mother said, putting out the cigarette. "You have that constipated look on
your face."

She touched her cheeks.
"What?"

Elizabeth waved at her. "You've
always gotten that look when something was vexing you. Tell me what it
is."

"It's really nothing."
Because that was what she'd yielded so far. There wasn't anything to
definitively connect Gwendolyn to the wine heiress, despite the feeling she'd
had.

"Just tell me, for God's
sake." Her mother sat down across from her. "I'm not going to burst
your little bubble."

Elizabeth said that now, but she
always managed to do it regardless. But Camille had nothing to lose. What could
it hurt? "I was interviewing this woman for an article, and during the
session I got the sense that she wasn't all she seemed."

Her mother leaned forward, suddenly
interested. "How do you mean?"

"I had a feeling she was hiding
something." Camille shrugged, trying to downplay. It sounded ridiculous.

"Always listen to your gut,
Camille. It's the first rule of journalism. What set off your instincts?"

"I had this newspaper in my
hand"—she picked up the now-ratty paper and handed it to her
mother—"and she got really upset when she saw the article on Yvette
de la Roche."

Her mother snatched the paper out of
her hand and scanned it. "I remember when Yvette de la Roche's
granddaughter went missing. It was the biggest news of the year."

"I don't know why I thought
there might be a connection," she said to downplay her guess. "It
just seemed like her reaction to the article was severe."

"What does this woman look
like?"

She thought about wacky, colorful
Gwendolyn Pierce and shook her head. "Not anything like the photos of Geneviève
de la Roche I've seen."

"Are they close to the same
age?"

"I don't know how old Gwendolyn
is."

Her mother's laser stare focused on
her. "Gwendolyn?"

"Yes."

"Gwendolyn. Geneviève." She
arched her brows meaningfully. "Coincidence?"

"There's no such thing as
coincidence," Camille parroted automatically. "It's what set off my
trigger to begin with."

"Exactly." Her mother
slapped the paper on the table, stood up, and began to pace. "Do you
realize the potential here? You'd have the biggest story of the year if you've
found the missing Grape Princess."

"But I can't find conclusive
information."

Her mother lunged into the seat next
to her and shifted the laptop to face her. Scrunching her forehead, she leaned
forward. "Go get my glasses, Camille."

She glanced at the time. Elizabeth,
when she got focused, could suck up hours in the blink of an eye. Camille
didn't have hours—she was supposed to meet Dylan in forty-five minutes
for their first date. "Can we do this another time? I have someplace I'm
supposed to be."

Her mother glared. "What could
be more important than the biggest story of the year?"

She opened her mouth to say Dylan,
but she couldn't. Her mother would ridicule her for putting her social life
before her profession.

Elizabeth arched her brow.
"Well?"

Camille knew better than to say
anything when her mother took that tone, so she got up and went to the study.
It took a few minutes until she found them in the chaos of the workspace.

Before she returned to the kitchen,
she pulled out her cell and called Dylan.

"Camille," he said, simply,
when he answered the phone. "I'm impatient to see you."

She shivered at the pleasure and
promise in his voice. For a second, she was tempted to just walk out and leave
her mother hanging.

"
Camille
," Elizabeth called from the kitchen. "Did you get
lost?"

"Camille?" Dylan said.

She drooped and kicked off her shoes.
They were uncomfortable anyway. "That's why I was calling. I need to
cancel our date."

The silence from his end was jarring.

"I'm sorry," she said
quickly. "Something came up, and I can't make it."

"I see."

The disappointment in his voice broke
her heart. "Dylan—"

"It's okay. I really do
understand, Camille. I'm not happy about it, but I understand."

"Maybe we can set up another
time?" she asked tentatively.

There was a long silence on the other
end. She was positive he was going to say
No
.
She began to feel a black hole of despair in the pit of her stomach just as he
finally said, "Another time. We'll talk when you're not busy with your
mother."

"
Camille
," her mother yelled.

Practically collapsing in relief,
Camille nodded, not caring that he couldn't see. "Okay, good. I'll talk to
you later?"

"Yes," he said. "You
better go before Elizabeth turns into a dragon."

Hanging up, feeling a little better,
she padded to the kitchen.

Her mother was hunched over the
keyboard, an unlit cigarette in her mouth, fingers tapping furiously.
"About time you found them."

Camille held out the glasses.
"Here you go."

Elizabeth grunted, making no move to
take them. "Have you checked Gwendolyn Pierce with any sources at the
FBI?"

What sources? "Not yet."

"Think like a bloody journalist,
Camille." Her mother scowled. "Have you run her fingerprints?"

"I don't have any."

"Well perhaps you should get
some." Elizabeth snapped the laptop shut. "I'd swear you were
switched at birth if I hadn't had you at home."

Ouch. She winced as her mother walked
out of the kitchen.

But Elizabeth was right—she
wasn't stepping up and thinking like a journalist. She was acting like a sullen
teenager who wanted to go out with the boy. Her career was more
important—Dylan cared about her and understood.

She stared at the photo of Geneviève
de la Roche on her computer screen. How was she going to get fingerprints?

The gourd
.

She had to go pick up the gourd she'd
made with Gwendolyn—it'd have the woman's fingerprints. So she'd just
need to find a way to compare it to Geneviève de la Roche's fingerprints.

That was where it helped to have a
friend who was a thriller writer.

A friend who also wanted to take her
on a date.

She smiled slowly, feeling more
positive than she had in a long time. Everything was going to work out. She
could feel it.

~

Camille was waiting outside Outta My
Gourd for Gwen when she arrived Friday morning.

The artist arched her brow as she rolled
up to the front door. "I'm experiencing déjà vu."

Clearing the nerves from her throat,
Camille said, "I came to pick up the gourd I made."

"Ah." Gwendolyn unlocked
the door and waved her in. "Make yourself at home. I'll be right
out."

She murmured something and tried not
to fidget too much. She had so much riding on this, it was hard to sit still.
What if there wasn't a good fingerprint? What if Dylan wouldn't help her? What
if his contact at the CIA didn't glean anything?

What if she was right and had found
the Grape Princess?