Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One (10 page)

Chapter Twenty

It was three in the morning when I walked through
the front door of Seth’s house. I intended to grab a peanut butter
sandwich and a soda and head upstairs to bed. But when I stepped
into the living room to find Seth curled in a corner of the sofa, I
had a feeling my plans were about to change. His hair was damp from
the shower, and that along with his gloomy expression made him look
like a little black rain cloud. He held a tumbler of dark liquid in
one hand, and a tattered paperback lay face down on the arm of the
sofa beside him. Not good.

“Hey,” I said as I approached him with the care most
people reserve for skittish animals— or dangerous ones.

He looked up at me, his expression carefully blank.
“You missed a good show,” he said.

I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to
figure out what to say that wouldn’t make a bad situation worse. I
decided to go with the truth, sans any apology. I moved Seth’s book
a little and half-leaned on the arm of the couch. He let his head
loll back so that he was more or less looking up at me.

“I got a lead on the case I’m working on. I thought
I could take care of that and still make the show. I was
wrong.”

Seth studied my face a moment and then nodded, the
simple gesture impeded by his awkward posture. He sat up, and I
heard the sound of his glass clinking against the coffee table.

“I thought maybe you skipped out because you were
pissed at me,” he admitted.

I turned to glance at him, but all I could see was
the back of his head. He was sitting forward with his forearms
resting on his knees and his head tilted down. I shifted until I
could reach him and gave the back of his neck a friendly
squeeze.

“I’m not pissed at you. We were both drunk. We were
both assholes.” I paused for a beat. “Me more than you,
really.”

“Bullshit.”

“I fucking hit you, Seth.”

He shook his head. “You slapped me. I’m familiar
enough with both to know the difference. And I deserved it.”

“For what? Hitting a little too close to the
truth?”

Seth turned to look at me then, and I felt my cheeks
suffuse with heat.

“I admit that I...have some seriously inappropriate
feelings for London.”

“I know,” Seth said.

I heard him move, and then he was standing in front
of me, pulling me up and into his arms. I rested my head against
his shoulder and drew in deep breaths of the warm, woody scent of
whatever he’d used in the shower. It was comforting. Soothing.

“And I know you can’t help how you feel,” he added.
“And I know you’re only going to get hurt. I don’t want that for
you, Angel.”

If anyone could understand, it was definitely Seth.
I knew he had his own seriously inappropriate feelings to deal
with. He was at least half in love with Elizabeth, if not more.

“Shit happens,” I said. “What can you do?”

He leaned back to smile at me.
“My
vast
experience has taught me there isn’t much you can do but just
keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the
other.”

“And hope that something better comes along.”

“Ah jeez,” Seth said with a little wince. “Now I’m
having Muppet flashbacks.”

I let out a surprised laugh that sounded
suspiciously like a giggle. Then Seth started singing in his best
Kermit the Frog voice (which was pretty darn good), and I burst out
laughing. Undeterred, he kept up the song, reducing me to a mass of
almost hysterically giggling female. It was embarrassing, really.
Or it would have been if anyone besides Seth had been around to
witness it.

Once he was done torturing me with the song, Seth
gave me a little smile. “Friends?”

“Duh.”

He pulled me into a hug. “Cool,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-One

Seth left before I woke the next morning, heading to
who-knows-where with his band. He’d left another note on my mirror.
This one was a letter-size sheet of paper bearing a passable
caricature of me (with a little too much emphasis on my boobs)
beaming at a paper cup with little heat squiggles rising from the
top. What might be a refrigerator or might be a doorway to a very
scary place gaped open behind me. I chose to believe it was the
fridge and that the cartoon meant there was another mocha waiting
for me downstairs.

I hurried downstairs, and sure
enough, there was another delicious cinnamon mocha in the fridge.
This time, there was no burrito of awesome, but there was a paper
bag containing a chocolate chocolate-chip muffin the size of a
softball. On the bag Seth had scribbled a smiley face and a few
words in black permanent marker:
Miss me
yet?

Being the wonderful person I am, I
couldn’t let that go unanswered. I immediately texted Seth with a
response:
Thanks for breakfast. And no, I
don’t miss you.
I was at least nice enough
to tack on a winky-face to soften the barb.

Maybe karma missed the winky-face, because I swear
it turned around and kicked me in butt. I spent the next several
days spinning my wheels as far as Paul’s case was concerned, and
when I wasn’t doing that, I was bored and lonely. Everyone seemed
to be too busy to have any fun, and I found myself missing Seth
after all.

About a week after Seth left, my string of crap luck
got a little better. I picked up an easy second case that put some
cash in my pocket while I kept my fingers crossed hoping for some
clues to point me toward the missing Sarah Matthews. Lori and I
went out to a kickass piano bar she’d heard about down in Fullerton
and the pretty, pretty entertainer was nice enough to call a cab
for us when we were too stupid-drunk to do it ourselves.

And Parker called to ask me out on a date.

It had been a while since I’d been out on a date, so
even though Parker and I were friends, I was a little nervous. I
fussed with my hair, sorted through everything I owned trying to
figure out what to wear, and even put on make-up. Then, since
Parker had insisted on picking me up, I paced until the doorbell
rang.

The second I heard that long-awaited
chime, I all but ran for the front door. I took a moment to inhale
and exhale, opened the door…and forgot to breathe for a second.
Parker looked
hot
.

Don’t get me wrong — I hadn’t been lying to Parker
when I’d filled his head with pretty compliments. I knew he was
good-looking, and I knew he had moments when he was downright sexy.
But this was different.

I was used to seeing Parker dressed in baggy jeans
and oversized band t-shirts. I wasn’t used to him in black slacks
that hugged his thighs and a form-fitting long-sleeved henley. I’d
known Parker had a pretty face, but I had no idea he had an amazing
body to go with it. Why the hell had he been hiding it all this
time?

“You look amazing,” he told me, his eyes a little
wide.

“So do you.”

Parker gave me a shy smile, and I remembered just
how young he was and how bad of an idea it would be to get involved
with him. I tried to tell my hormones that, but they weren’t
interested.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, giving myself a mental shake. “Just
let me lock up.”

I set the alarm and locked the door, and then Parker
walked me to his aging pickup and opened my door for me. I gave him
an incredulous look, and he just smirked. As I climbed into the
truck, I found myself grinning in spite of myself. Yeah, opening
the car door might be an archaic, out-dated, pointless bit of
chivalry, but at least he was aware of that fact.

As he drove us to the restaurant he’d chosen for our
date, Parker asked me questions about my business, and we fell into
easy conversation. I forgot, at least for a little while, that I
was going out on a date —my first date in more years than I cared
to consider— with a guy who had a gorgeous face and a to-die-for
body…a guy who just happened to be damned near young enough to be
my son, had I been dumb enough or unlucky enough to have a kid
while I was in high school. A guy, I realized on further
reflection, who would have been about the right age to date my
first-born niece, April, if she hadn’t died when she was still a
toddler.

That was a sobering thought.

Dinner was nice, the conversation and company
pleasant and familiar, but my brain and my hormones kept up their
argument the entire time, and it was a bit distracting. Parker
could tell that something was making me uncomfortable, too, and I
felt bad about that. After dinner, he drove me home and we sat in
the car for a few minutes, out there in the deep dark on the very
outer edge of suburbia.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked after a
while.

“Not really.”

“Tell me anyway?”

I gave him a sad little smile and took his hand in
mine. “It’ll just piss you off, Parker. And tonight’s been too good
to end it on that kind of note.”

He ducked his head a little and looked up at me
through his fringe, managing to look both adorably shy and sexy all
at once. “So you had fun tonight?”

“Yeah, I did. When I wasn’t letting my brain get in
the way.”

“I get that,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “If
you ever need to talk, you know I’ll listen.”

“Yeah, I do. And I appreciate it. But there are some
things I just have to work out for myself.”

He nodded, and then we lapsed back into silence,
though it was a comfortable silence this time.

After a minute or two, I said, “I should go.”

“Yeah. I have work early tomorrow.” He smiled at me.
“Thanks for tonight.”

“Thank you for asking.”

My hormones and my brain escalated their argument to
a full-scale war for a minute, and then I settled the whole thing
by leaning across the truck bench to press a soft, chase kiss to
his lips.

“Good night, Parker.”

“Good night. Sweet dreams.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

A couple of days later, I found myself sitting in my
office pretending to work while I thought about Parker, wondering
if I could live with myself if I dated him— or even just slept with
him. I was so lost in thought that the phone scared the bejezus out
of me when it rang.

“Jenny Marshall,” I answered, hoping my terror
didn’t show through in my voice.

“Ms. Marshall?” a nervous voice responded. “It’s
Tina McClure. From Claree’s Couturier?”

“How can I help you, Miss McClure?”

“I...I’m hoping I can help you,” she said. “Sarah
was my friend. She was nice to me. And if she’s in trouble, I want
to help.”

“You told me you didn’t know anything about her
leaving.”

“I don’t. But I thought there might be something in
her file you could use? I mean, maybe not. I don’t know anything
about detective stuff, but—”

“You have Sarah’s employment file?”

“Um. Yeah.”

I thought for a second. I had no idea how Tina had
gotten her hands on that file, and I didn’t want her to get into
any trouble, but I knew there were things in Sarah’s records that
could help the investigation. Paul hadn’t even been able to give me
any basic info, like Sarah’s driver’s license number. An employment
file would be a goldmine for that sort of data. I wanted that
file.

“Where are you right now?” I asked.

“I’m down the street from the store. I just left
there, and I wanted to call you right away.”

“Find a restaurant or something close to there,” I
told her. “Somewhere you can wait comfortably. I’m on my way.”

Once again, I found myself crossing L.A. on my
Harley, dodging cars and hoping I’d live to fight another day. I
said a little prayer of thanks when I made it safely to the
restaurant where Tina was waiting. I also reminded myself to keep
the bike out of downtown Los Angeles in the future. I was way too
young to die, especially from a traffic-induced heart attack.

Once the adrenaline had died down to an acceptable
level, I slung off my helmet, snatched up my backpack, and hurried
into the restaurant. The second Tina saw me, she bounded up from
her table and all but threw the file at me. She was scared out of
her mind.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Everything’s going to be
okay.”

“I’m going to lose my job,” she said, wringing her
hands. “Or go to jail!”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to sit down and have a
nice, calming cup of hot chocolate while I look at this file. Then
you’re going to sneak it back in the way you snuck it out, and no
one will ever know it was gone.”

Some of the terror seeped out of Tina’s eyes and she
melted back into her seat. I slid onto the booth bench across from
her and flipped open the file folder. A server appeared a moment
later, and Tina ordered the hot chocolate. I opted for coffee. Once
the server left, I turned back to the file.

As I surveyed the info in the folder, I pulled a
notepad and pen from my backpack so I could frantically scribble
notes: social security number, driver’s license number, etc. Then I
stopped scribbling and started using my brain. I pulled up the
camera controls on my cell phone and snapped shots of any
information that might prove useful.

I was done with the file before Tina finished her
hot chocolate. I closed the cover and slid the folder across the
table to her.

“Will it help?” she asked.

“It will,” I told her. “Thank you.”

She bobbed a nod.

“And Tina,” I waited until she looked up at me and
then said, “If you get into any trouble, I’ll get you back out of
it, okay?”

She nodded again, looking relieved. I dropped enough
cash on the table for our drinks and a sizable tip and then stood
up and offered Tina my hand. She shook it without standing, and I
took the opportunity to read her. It made me feel a lot better; the
probability of her getting into trouble for snatching the file was
the next best thing to nonexistent.