Unscripted (23 page)

“Look, Faith,” he said, “you really can’t stay at that motel. Are you sure there isn’t any other—”

“Not a one. Believe me, I checked.”

“Riverside? That’s within a decent driving distance.”

“Nope, not there either.”

“I can’t allow you to be put in danger.”

“How chivalrous.”

He let slip one of his wry smiles, and it seemed we silently agreed that our argument from the other day was behind us. “Imagine my bad advice being the cause of the famous Faith Sinclair’s untimely demise, her body discovered in a seedy hotel room.”

“Without any of the hotel-room fun first.”

Oops. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks as I watched Mason’s color rise as well. Note to self: No allusions to sex in front of Mr. Professor Mason Mitchell.

I rushed on, “I’ve already phoned a real estate agent to find me a house to rent. There’s gotta be something with a short-term lease around here, right?”

“Plenty,” he agreed quickly, apparently glad to be on less sexy grounds. We stepped up to the counter, and he gestured for me to go first. “We’re still dealing with underemployment, even with the Air Force base in our backyard. A lot of places have been left empty.”

I ordered a latte and a muffin, then asked Mason, “Do you live around here?” I realized I didn’t know anything about his personal life, but I wanted to.

“I do. I’ve been here for about six years—”

But the barista interrupted. “Ma’am? Your card’s been declined.”

I blinked, uncomprehending. “What? Try it again, please. It’s fine.”

He swiped the card again and waited. “Um, nope. Still declined. And it says here I’m supposed to confiscate the card. I’m sorry—”

“What do you mean, ‘confiscate the card’?”

“I’m supposed to keep it and call the service number—”

“I know what it
means!
I mean . . . why?”

“I don’t know that, ma’am. It doesn’t say.”

“Can I just have my card back?” I glanced around, embarrassed. Mason was staring, and I was backing up the line.

“I can’t, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“Can you stop calling me ma’am, at least?”

“Sorry, ma’am—er, I mean—”

“Never mind.” I sighed and handed him my MasterCard.

“Uh . . .”

“What now?”

“Same thing?”

“You have got to be kidding me.” My MasterCard disappeared under the counter along with my Visa, as the barista looked sheepish. “American Express?”

“We don’t accept that one.”

“This is crazy—”

To make me feel even worse, Mason handed the guy some money. “Please get Ms. Sinclair her order, add it to mine.”

I kept my eyes down as Mason ordered a coffee and we shuffled over to the end of the counter. “Thanks,” I muttered. “I—I don’t know what just happened—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He collected my drink and muffin and handed them to me. “Weird, glitchy things happen with credit cards all the time.”

“Yeah, but—”
But not to me,
I wanted to say. My credit was impeccable, my security doubly so. I wondered if all this was somehow related to my motel adventure. There were some highly suspect individuals there last night. Could someone have gotten hold of my information when I wasn’t looking? But wouldn’t they have stolen my cards, not just the numbers? And besides, I kept everything with me, every minute . . . didn’t I? I couldn’t remember. “Looks like I’m going to have to start making some phone calls, straighten all this out.”

“Any way I can help?”

“Nope. This is just between me and the credit card companies, I think,” I said, trying to sound brave as I put my muffin and coffee down on a nearby table and dug my phone out of my bag.

“I’d better let you get to it, then. But . . . may I?” Mason held out his hand. Curious, I turned my phone over to him and he started typing. “My cell number. I want you to call me if there’s anything I can do, all right?” He gave me back my phone and pulled his out of his pocket. “Would you mind—may I have yours too?” I nodded and rattled it off. After he put my number into his contact list, he said, “
Promise
you’ll call if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks, Mason,” I murmured.

Then my phone rang. It was the real estate company I had contacted. As I answered, I looked up, but Mason was gone.

“Ms. Sinclair? Madeleine Chao. I understand you’re looking for a rental.”

I scooted out of the packed student center so I could hear her better. “I am. A house, month-to-month lease, for about four months. Oh—and furnished.”

“Well, I think I can find you a few things to look at. What’s your budget for this? I mean, renting a house can be expensive.”

I smirked. “I think I’ll be all right.”

“We’re talking about fifteen hundred a month, maybe more for furnished.”

Oh, how cute. Rentals in my neighborhood could be nearly ten times that. “That’d be fine.”

“Well then,” Ms. Chao said brightly, pleased that she had a live one with cash to spend, “are you free now?”

* * *

“Hm.”

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“It is . . . something.”

I was staring up at the fourth house Ms. Chao—Madeleine, by this time—offered up for my perusal. It looked exactly like the previous three, which were all so indistinguishable from one another they’d all blended together in my memory already. Exterior: a shade of brown or tan, tile roof, several gables, no character. Interior: vaulted ceilings, white walls, no character. Furnishings: brown and tan, generic, no character. And each one was crammed into housing developments made up of hundreds of identical houses with about six inches of space between them. I sure hoped I liked the neighbors of the house I eventually chose, because I was going to be pretty darn intimate with them, whether I wanted to be or not. I really missed my funky ranch house at this point.

“Shall we go inside?”

I tried to muster some enthusiasm while Madeleine chattered on about the home’s amenities. But after dutifully poking my nose into the various rooms, I decided to end this exercise in futility. I just wanted to pick one and be done with it.

“This is fine. I’ll take it.”

Madeleine lit up. “Wonderful. I’m sure you’ll love it. Now, I’ll need a deposit—first, last, and another month’s rent as security—and if you could fill out this rental application, I’ll get the ball rolling.”

I whipped off a check.
Just a place to sleep,
I reminded myself.
Not the Super Duper Nine,
I reminded myself.
Just for a few months,
I reminded myself. And I signed the application.

After I said good-bye to Madeleine in the driveway, I pulled my phone out of my purse. I thought it had been ringing when we were looking at the house and, sure enough, there were several missed calls listed. As I tried to puzzle out who was calling me, it rang again—the same strange number.

“Yeah.”

“Ms. Sinclair?”

I didn’t say yes, just in case it was a reporter; I was still on tenterhooks waiting for one of them, or a blogger, to figure out where Alex had disappeared to. “Can I help you?”

“This is Beverly Banking calling. I’m glad we caught you. There’s been some unusual activity on your account.” A bolt of alarm shot through me, although it occurred to me that, really, I had been expecting something like this since this morning. “We’ve frozen your account,” the bank person went on, “but I’m afraid quite a bit of money was transferred out before we did.”

“Why didn’t you do it sooner?”

“Because it appears it’s being done legitimately, with your computer login, your password.”

“I’ve got news for you—it isn’t!”

My mind started racing. I had left my laptop at home. Maybe someone had broken into my house and stolen it. But Jamie was home.
Jamie?
No. Couldn’t be.

I asked carefully, “What kind of amounts are we talking about?”

“Thousands at a time.”

“Going where?”

“MasterCard . . .” He rattled off my credit card number, then my Visa and American Express numbers as well.

Jamie!
He must have been charging up a storm on my credit cards, paying them off, and charging some more. But why?

“It’s all right. Well, it’s
not
all right, but I know what’s going on. I can take care of it.” And kill the person who did it. “Please unfreeze the account.”

“That’s going to take at least forty-eight hours—”

“Why so long?” I cried.

“It’s standard procedure, Ms. Sinclair.”

“What about my auto-paid bills? Can you cover them with money from my savings account?”

“We
could
. . . but I’m afraid that’s been depleted as well. Your savings account has also been frozen pending—”

“Depleted?” I echoed. “Depleted?” The more I said it, the more foreign the word sounded. “
How
depleted?”

“Down to . . . let me see . . . three dollars and forty-three cents.”

“But—but . . .” I spluttered, “I had . . . thousands in there.” Many, many thousands.

“Yes, Ms. Sinclair. You did. Now you don’t. Of course we’ll be notifying the authorities—”

Oh, that would serve Jamie right. It really would. But—dammit—this was my stepbrother, the one person in my family I actually would walk over broken glass for. I didn’t know what his problem was—drugs? extortion? women? who knew?—but I couldn’t throw him under the bus without finding out first.

So, with difficulty, I said, “No, thank you. I’ll deal with it personally. Just please unfreeze the account as soon as you can.”

“We’ll phone you when we do.”

“Thank you.”

Too jacked up to even bother going somewhere else to take care of this, I leaned on the bumper of my SUV in the driveway of the rental house and dived into the murky waters of the credit card customer service departments. I got the same story from all three of them—a flurry of charges that maxed out the cards, big payments, more charges until the cards were maxed out again, including the cash advance option. Cards frozen, issuing new cards with new numbers, would take a while. Basically, I had no money and no gas—the little fuel light had been trying to get my attention all day—and I was an annoying distance from home, yet I needed to get back to L.A. as soon as possible to murder my stepbrother.

I called my house. No answer. I called Jamie’s cell. No answer.
Dammit!
I wracked my brain to think of the names of any of Jamie’s friends in L.A. but came up empty. I wasn’t sure who he was hanging with lately. Would Sean and Evan know—? Then I dismissed the idea. I hadn’t seen Jamie with them in ages—and I didn’t have the strength to contact the boys who had fired me. I was really hurt by all of this; Jamie was closer to me than my “real” family, and this was how he repaid me? When I would have helped him out of whatever jam he was in, if only he had asked?

I drove away, not really sure where I was headed. As Lumpy had impressed upon me the night before, I couldn’t even get a room at the Super Duper Nine Motor Court if I had no cash. My phone rang again, and I answered it as fast as I could. The bank? Jamie?

“Ms. Sinclair—Madeleine Chao here. I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem.”

“Let me guess. My check bounced and my credit application didn’t clear.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Look, there’s been a bit of a mix-up at the bank. Once I get it figured out, I’ll call you back, all right? Thanks.”

And I hung up without waiting for her response. I pulled up to a red light, and my phone rang again. Damn, it wasn’t this busy when I was heading up
Modern Women.
I punched the speakerphone button again. “Yeah,” I snapped.

“Faith? It’s Mason.”

Inexplicably, a wave of relief swept over me. “Hey.”

“Did you get everything straightened out?”

“S–sort of. I’m working on it.”

“Did you find a house?”

“Yes and no. It seems I can’t rent one at the moment, what with that pesky credit problem and all.”

“I’m really sorry to hear it.”

“Yeah, well . . .” I wanted to say that I was leaving anyway, going back to L.A. to hunt my stepbrother down, but I didn’t. Because I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get there without any gas. The kindness of strangers? Hey Mason, spot me sixty bucks? I would never do that.

“Listen, I had an idea. I was thinking about what Trina said—”

I actually laughed. “I am
not
sleeping on her couch.”