One Hot Mess (23 page)

“I thought you weren't coming 'til tomorrow.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to make sure I made good on my vow.”

I managed to tilt my head.

“To arrive before the next attempt on your life.”

Feeling was beginning to return to my fingertips. “Everything okay between you and …” Sometimes if I say Solberg's name out loud, I get a little sick to my stomach. If I think of him with Brainy Laney Butterfield, I have to take a Dramamine.

“Jeen,” she supplied.

“Yeah, him.” I rubbed Harley's ears. He grinned like a drunken freshman. I've never particularly liked drunken freshmen, even when I was one.

“Everything's fine.” Picking up her tie-dyed, organic, llama-friendly bag made by Bolivian indigents, she pulled out a lemon. A heart had been carved into the rind. “He gave me this.”

I blinked. “Because he's a certified nut-job?”

“Because I'm three hundred sixty-five times sweeter than sugar and can balance the acidity.”

I nodded. “I feel a little like I'm going to hurl. Do you happen to have an antacid or possibly the root of a something-berry in there?”

She laughed and dropped the lemon back into her bag. “How did it go with the senator?”

I shook my head and found my feet, or perhaps the other way around. Going to the fridge, I opened it up and peered inside. A tumbleweed blew by. I closed it.

“His water is fizzy,” I said.

There was a moment of silence, then, “Have you been drinking?”

“The most enlightening part of the evening,” I said, “is that water can fizz.”

“I take it you didn't learn much.”

“Well…” I sat down again, stretched out my legs. Harlequin had abandoned me for Laney. I couldn't blame
him. If I could do the same, I would. “I mean, it's not as if I'm taking this very seriously or anything. Just looking into a few things as a favor.”

“So you didn't cash his check.”

I hesitated, searching for a likely lie, but the truth burst on me like the crack of dawn. I glanced up, suspicious. “You know I cashed his check, don't you?”

She didn't answer directly. “I saw the tagboard on your office wall.”

“I was bored,” I said.

She shook her head. “Why can't you just play Scrabble like other sexually frustrated geniuses with Ph.D.s?”

“I beat Harley three out of four games,” I said. “He didn't want to play anymore.”

“I was thinking you might try it with someone from genus
Homo sapiens.”

“I don't know anybody.”

“Is the good lieutenant giving you that much trouble?”

“The good lieutenant, as you very well know,
is
trouble.”

She smiled. “Otherwise you would have been bored a long time ago.”

I shrugged.

She watched me, eyes narrowed a little. “How's the other guy?”

“I know a lot of other guys. Most of them are certifiable.”

“You want normal, try Iowa. What's his name?”

“There is no one,” I said.

“Strange name. What does he do?”

I gave her a look. “He's a cop.”

“The guy who asked about casual sex?”

I cleared my throat. “Maybe.”

She sighed. “You seemed so intelligent in fifth grade,” she said.

I refrained from sticking out my tongue.

“Why policemen?” she asked.

“There are only so many geek gods.” I remained mute on the
thank heaven
part, but she laughed and the world seemed brighter.

“You all right, Mac? Really?”

“I'm fine. How about you?”

“The schedules crazy and I miss you something terrible,” she said, and suddenly I felt a little weepy. “Are you
sure
you're okay?”

“Just tired.”

“You're going to cry, aren't you?”

“Oh, please,” I said, and she laughed again.

“Put on your jammies. I'm staying the night.”

“I'm not that easy.”

“Yes, you are,” she said, and the world felt right.

We slept in the same bed, like little kids hiding from their parents, and talked about everything under the moon. I told her that Rivera wasn't speaking to me, that Officer Tavis's smile was too pretty for words, and that Mrs. Al-Sadr had cried about her sister with whom she wanted to share a mouthwatering ambrosia called halvah. I told her about my conversation in a bar called Happy Daze. That I'd missed the fact that Kathy Baltimore was a lesbian even though I have a Ph.D. And that there had been nothing but a few seemingly insignificant problems within the senator's campaign.

She told me that her props master was a lovely, soft-spoken gentleman from Saudi Arabia. That she worked
fourteen-hour days and had received thirty-two letters from a single fan in one week.

I lay in the darkness listening to her talk and wondered with dusky surprise if I would trade places with her.

“If I ever get out of the entertainment business, I think I'd like to buy a farm,” she said.

“A farm?”

“Keep a few chickens.”

Harlequin was lying between us. “Are we speaking in metaphors?”

“Do you know how the big coops treat chickens? It's despicable. I'd let mine roam.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I'd have a goat.”

“Because…”

“The milk is homogenized naturally. Better for your digestive system.”

“Of course.” I felt sleepy and as content as a cuddled kitten.

“If I got a couple of horses, would you ride with me?”

“If I could wrestle Solberg out of the way.”

“Can you imagine Jeen on a horse?” she asked, and we giggled like schoolgirls, or like idiots.

The room went quiet, soft with camaraderie and contentment.

“How much danger are you in?” Harlequin was snoring like a drunken sailor and took up a tremendous amount of room. Laney was playing with his paw. I rubbed an ear. The moonlight slanted across the bed, shining on Laney's hair and Harley's ribby thorax.

“I don't even know if the deaths are connected.”

“Coincidences are just spiritual puns,” she said.

“I don't know what that means.”

“What a coincidence.”

I rolled my eyes. “The police have determined them accidental,” I said.

“All three of them?”

I nodded. Maybe she couldn't see me, but it didn't matter. She could read my mind. Sometimes it's spooky. Just then it was almost soothing.

“What does Rivera think?”

“It's out of his jurisdiction.”

“That hasn't necessarily stopped him in the past.”

“I think he's given up on me.”

She didn't say anything for a second, then reached across Harley's boxy head and pushed some hair back from my face. “Maybe he's trying to.”

“I think he's succeeded.”

“Would it help if I told you about the extremely well-accepted fish-in-the-sea theory?”

“It's worth a try.”

I could sense her smile. “Apparently there are a lot of them.”

“Do they try to kill you?”

“The mercury levels are disturbingly high.”

I smiled and rolled onto my back. “Are you going to marry Solberg?”

“Ask some other time,” she said. “When you're not so despondent.”

“I'm not despondent.”

“Please don't get yourself killed, Mac,” she said. Her voice felt soft and foggy in the darkness. It was no secret why every living being adored her.

“Okay.”

“Who do you think killed them?”

“I take it you don't believe in that accident gibberish.”

“If I said yes, that I feel it in every organ of my body including my appendix, that all three of them died of unsuspicious if rather unlucky circumstances, would you drop it?”

“How
does
your appendix feel?”

“A little queasy,” she said, and sighed. “I have to tell you something, but I don't want you to read more into this than necessary.”

“Into what?”

“Promise me you'll think things through before you react.”

I tilted my head toward her. She was no less beautiful in the moonlight. “You're really a man?”

“Try not to be an idiot.”

“If only.”

“They died on three consecutive days of the week,” she said. “Starting on Monday.”

The world went quiet. “What?” I said, but my voice barely made a ripple in the darkness.

“I checked your timeline,” she said. “It's mathematically improbable.”

FELT A LITTLE EDGY on Friday. I'd stayed up until two in the morning staring at my office wall with Laney She was right. They
had
died on consecutive days. But then, of course, she could do algebraic equations on her pinky finger. Days of the week were fairly elementary.

Between clients, I sat in silence, letting my mind wander. Not that it had much of a choice. It was something of a nomad these days.

My intercom rang. I pushed the appropriate button. “What's up?”

“Ms. McMullen?”

I was still amazed that I had a secretary who could use something as complicated as the phone system. After
Laney had left my office to become the Amazon Queen, I had begun to despair.

“Yes?”

“I made an appointment for a new client.”

“I thought my schedule was packed.”

“Your four o'clock, a Mr. Hassler—probably not the author—needed to cancel. I found a spot for him tomorrow. Then I slipped Mr. Donald Archer into his slot.”

“Shirley?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“What happened to the Magnificent Mandy?”

“Truth to tell, I'm not exactly sure.”

“I didn't really want you to kill her, you know.”

She chuckled a little and hung up. I did the same, minus the chuckle. Clients came and went.

My four o'clock arrived. Shirley buzzed to announce my newbie. I stood up to greet him. The man who stepped through the doorway had a familiar face. He also had curly hair, green eyes, and twenty pounds more than recommended by the healthy-heart people. It took me a while to place him, but finally the memories congealed. I had spoken to him in Sespe over a vodka cranberry. I'd introduced myself as Mac. He'd introduced himself as the same.

“Ms. McMullen, this is Donald Archer,” Shirley said.

I blinked, mind ticking, and took the carefully printed record she offered. “Thank you, Shirley,” I said. She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

I waited in silence for an instant, not sure where to go from here. Was this another coincidence? A spiritual pun? A…

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” I was buying time as if I had the cash.

“I didn't lie to you in the bar. At least, I didn't mean to.”

Pieces of the puzzle were floating around my brain like dollar bills in one of those money phone booths you see on game shows. “Donald Archer,” I said. “You own Ironwear Incorporated.”

He smiled. The expression was a little sheepish. “My father,” he said. “My father owns Ironwear.”

I motioned vaguely toward the furniture and took a seat in my chair. “Why'd you want me to believe you were an employee there?”

“It wasn't intentional. I mean, I
am
an employee, sort of.” He wobbled his head. “It just happened. Things were said. Then I didn't know how to get out of it.”

In my world, things don't just happen. For example, when someone tries to kill me, it's intentional. “Listen, Mr. Archer—”

“I didn't want to be Mr. Archer.”

I gave him the cock-headed expression Harlequin had taught me. “What?”

“Not to you.”

“What are you talking about? How did you find me?”

He winced, looking apologetic. “I'm really rich.”

I cleared my throat and tugged on my blouse. Ongoing problems with the Super Septic guys and my lack of a convenient washing machine had caused me to take casual Friday to a new low. I was wearing too-short slacks and an ivory shell. The wrinkles in the slacks and the boxy demeanor of the shirt might have pushed it a little past casual and into the vague borders of “ick.” “This is very unorthodox, Mr. Archer. I don't believe—”

“See. That's why I just wanted to be Mac.”

I gave him a look.

“People treat you different when you're just Mac.”

Another look.

“You know, you weren't exactly the Gandhi of honesty either,” he said.

I felt a little uncomfortable with that idea, but I kept my voice steady. “A woman would have to either be dangerously optimistic or ridiculously stupid to give her name out at every two-bit bar in California.”

“Well, you're not stupid,” he said, then hurried to add, “but I'm not, either. I mean, I'm no Einstein, but I'm all right.”

“Why are you here?”

He actually blushed—actually, literally, physically blushed. It was kind of endearing. I mean, Officer Tavis hadn't colored while talking about multiple partners, and I was quite sure Rivera had no blood vessels in his face whatsoever. “I just… I found you interesting.”

“Interesting.”

“I was hoping you'd go out with me.” It was blunt and quick and a little painful.

“Are you serious?”

He winced, face twitching a little. “Ouch?”

“I didn't mean it like that,” I said, but maybe I did a little; the man had tracked me down like a Pinkerton. “I mean… you're rich. You said so yourself. Why me?”