Windfall (9 page)

“She's on the rebound.”

“Well, get her ass off the court and let me play!” All of this delivered in a fast, rapid-fire hiss that wouldn't carry even as far as Sarah's ears, much less those of Cute British Guy, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable as Sarah continued to stare at him.

“Oh, you get enough court time, believe me. Go order,” I said, and nudged Cherise toward the tired-looking order-taker at the register, who mumbled something about being welcome to McDonald's. Cherise gave me a theatrically harassed look and made a production of ordering a salad, interrogating the pedigree of every tomato and carrot while she was at it.

Cherise's performance was distracting enough that I missed the historic moment of détente, when Sarah overcame her bitter hatred of men. When I looked back, she was extending her hand to Cute British Guy. “Sarah Dubois,” she said, and I saw a tremor go right through her. I could just hear her thinking,
Oh, Jesus, not Dubois, you idiot, that's Chrêtien's name, your name is
Baldwin! Unfortunately, it was a little late to backtrack on the surname. At best, it would sound loopy. She covered with an especially glittering smile, greatly enhanced by the new Clinique lipstick we'd bought for her earlier.

Cute British Guy folded his fingers over hers in a friendly grip, and wow, those were some long fingers. About twice as long as my own. Concert pianist hands, well manicured and soft and graceful. “Eamon,” he said, and gave her a slightly shy smile and an inclined head that was like a hint of a bow. “Lovely to meet you, Sarah.”

She glowed like a sun at the attention. I mean, honestly. This, from a woman who was bitching half an hour before about how she'd rip the liver out of any man who tried to buy her a drink. She might have just set a new land speed record for rebounding.

Cherise grabbed my shoulder and yanked me off balance. I tottered on my high heels, caught my balance, and turned as she shoved me up to the order window. “Get something fattening,” she said. “If you're forcing me to eat here, I want to see you suffer.”

Just for sheer perversity, I went with the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And fries.

Sarah, locked deep in conversation with Eamon, ended up snacking on a side salad and bottled water at another table, and forgot all about us.

 

I half expected Sarah to run off into the sunset, drop me a postcard from London thanking me for the use of my now-devastated Fairy Godmother Card, and live happily ever after until her next marital emergency, but no. The nice lunch with Eamon ended on a handshake parting that looked like no handshake
I
ever got from a lunch date, all eyes and smiles and long, beautiful fingers wrapping all the way to her wrist.

And then she was back with us. Glowing and smiling like the Madonna after a visitation.

“I'm done here,” she announced. Cherise, who was clearly not enjoying her salad, glared, but hell, at least she'd bought herself some nice hiphugger capri pants and matching shoes. Except for coffee and Mickey D's, I hadn't spent a dime on myself.

But then, my shopping enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the dark, relaxed figure of Armando Rodriguez, who had taken up a seat at a table about twenty feet away, sipping even more coffee. Apparently, he intended to never, ever sleep again. Or leave me alone.

“Fine. Let's go home,” I said, and piled trash on my tray. The place was giving me a headache, anyway. Too many people, too much noise, too many flashing, blinking, spinning lights.

By the time we were out of the mall, the rain was over, but the parking lot shone in slick black puddles that rippled and shuddered in the wake of passing cars. Humidity was murder, closing warmly around me like a saturated, microwaved blanket. I herded Cherise and Sarah and the profusion of bags to the car; by the time we were getting inside, our preferred, close-in space was being scouted by an eagle-eyed old vulture in a shiny Mercedes and a determined-looking teenybopper with the ink still wet on her learner's permit. I pulled out and fled before the combat could get up to ramming speed. A few sullen raindrops spattered the windshield. Overhead, the sky was lead gray and utterly wrong; the patterns were definitely wonky. There was wobbling all up and down the aetheric, and little sparks of power as some other Warden made slight corrections. Nobody seemed too exercised about it, at least not yet; it was obviously not developing into the storm of the century. What was worrying to me about it was that I was supposed to be the only free-range talent out here. And
somebody
had messed with the weather to make this happen.

Thunder rumbled on cue. Resentfully.

“His name is
Eamon
!” Sarah said, leaning forward over the seats as I made my way toward the road. “Did you hear his
accent
? Isn't it adorable?” Sarah always had been a sucker for a foreign accent. Hence, the whole French Kiss-Off debacle.

“Yeah. That's Manchester, by the way, not West End London,” Cherise said, and inspected her fingernails in the sunlight to admire the glitter effect. “Probably hasn't got a dime, Sarah.” Never mind that she was tripping all over herself to get his attention before Sarah had captured the English flag. “I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. He's pretty, but he's probably . . . you know.”

“What? Gay?”

“Nah, didn't feel gay to me. Kinky. Most English guys are.”

“You think so?” She sounded interested, not alarmed, but then Sarah, I remembered belatedly, had stories about Spider-Man costumes and Velcro sheets. Oh dear God. Top of the list of things I didn't need to know about my sister . . .

I felt compelled to run the train off the tracks. “Oh, c'mon, he was just being friendly,” I said.

“Who are you kidding? He was jaw-droppingly cute,” Cherise said. “Cute guys are
never
just being friendly when they throw out pickups in the fast-food line.”

True. Cherise was heartless, gorgeous, and
very
perceptive. “It wasn't like he
kissed
her or anything. It was a handshake.” I shrugged. “I'll bet he didn't even give her his phone number.”

“Actually . . .” Sarah said. I looked in the rearview mirror. She was dangling what looked like a crisp, white business card.

“Oh, kill me now,” Cherise sighed, and slumped down in the passenger seat. “I schlepped around the mall all day carrying another woman's packages and what do I get? Dissed by a Brit. Man, I may just have to go seduce Kurt to restore my self-image.”

“Set yourself a challenge, at least,” I said. “Go for Marvin.”

“Ewwwww. Please. I need to
have
a self-image at the end of it. That's just gross.
You
go for Marvin. He's hot for you, you know.”

Sarah was reading over the business card. I distracted myself with that, to drive away the image of Marvin in his skivvies, leering at me. “So what does he do, your knight in shining tweed?”

“And don't tell us he's got some kind of title and a castle, or I really will commit suicide by Marvin,” Cherise said.

“He's a venture capitalist. He's got his own company. Drake, Willoughby and Smythe.” Sarah ran her newly manicured finger over the card type. “Raised printing. He didn't just run it off on a laser printer or anything.” She frowned. “Although I guess he
could
be broke. Did he seem broke to you, Jo?”

“Hey, he could have lifted the card off of some guy he murdered at the airport,” Cherise said. “And then he stashed his body in a steamer trunk and checked it through to Istanbul. He's probably a serial killer.”

We gave a moment of silent homage to the fact that Cherise's mind actually worked that way. At least she'd steered away from any explanation involving aliens and body-switching.

I felt duty-bound to try a defense, even though I barely knew the guy. “First, Cherise? Way too many scary movies; second, Sarah, it might be a little early in the relationship to run a full Dun and Bradstreet on the poor man,” I said. “So? Are you going to call him?”

“Maybe.” That secret little smile again. “Probably.”

I couldn't be too unhappy with that. If Sarah was dating, she wouldn't be looking to hang with me quite so much, and her stay in my guest room would be very limited. Nothing like potential romance to get a woman motivated to be independent.

“Hey, Jo? That van's still following you,” Sarah said. She was looking out the back window again, frowning. “I thought you said it was no big deal.”

“It's not.”

Cherise piped up, “Then why's he following you? Don't tell me you have a stalker. You already have a boyfriend; it's not fair you have a stalker, too. You're not
that
cute.”

I eyed the van in the rearview. It was weaving in and out of traffic fluidly, not drawing attention but staying glued to my tail. Detective Rodriguez wasn't worried about anonymity; he wanted me to know he was watching. A little psychological warfare.

He'd have to step up some to equal the stress of squiring around both Cherise and my sister.

“He's not a stalker,” I said grimly. “He's a cop.”

There was a short silence, and then Cherise said, “Cool. You're two-timing the cute boy with a cop? Man, Jo, that beats Cute English Serial Killer Guy. I didn't know you had it in you.”

The clouds cut loose with a vengeance, torrential curtains of silver rain shimmering like silk and pounding like hail against the windshield. I flipped the wipers into grumpy motion and slowed down; Mona didn't like the rain, and I didn't like the idea of controlling a skid in these conditions. Or repairs to a Viper, perish the thought. Paying off Sarah's binge would take the rest of my working life as it was.

Behind me, the white van ghosted out of the rain and kept pace. I felt a snap of energy up in the aetheric, and a lightning bolt tore the sky with a sound like ripping silk, followed by vibrating thunder. I also felt the Wardens responding, this time with more force.
It's not me, not me . . .
How exactly was I supposed to make myself look innocent? Actually
being
innocent wasn't going to do it. I knew the Wardens far, far too well. They were already out for blood.

Cherise said, “I'm glad I put the top up on the car. You know, Marvin's percentage keeps holding. I mean, no doubt he's a total tool, and a real pervert, but he knows his weather.”

I bit my tongue. Hard.

I was going to have to look into Marvin, and the Percentage.

 

Cherise took off for parts unknown upon arrival at her car, walking the five steps to her convertible under the protection of an umbrella big enough to shelter an entire football team. No way was she going to get so much as a drop on her flawless shell. Sarah and I divided up the packages and ran for the apartment door, breathless and soaked to the skin in about five seconds flat. The rain was hard-driving and cold, and it stung with the force of tiny, hard pellets. Shimmering silver curtains of it flared and billowed in the glow of streetlights. It was dark enough to be twilight, but it was—I checked my watch—only a little after two in the afternoon.

There was nothing currently brewing up out in the open waters off the coast of Africa . . . even if I hadn't had a vested interest in the weather, as a Warden, I would still have known what was on the radar. Floridians follow hurricane season with at least as much attention as they give to professional sports. There weren't any tropical storms out there, at least none big enough to register at this point, though there was a low-pressure system hanging out there, waiting.

But this storm didn't make sense. It shouldn't have been here, and it didn't look like it had any intention of moving on. And I couldn't seem to really get a decent look at it, either. I was sluggish on the aetheric. Slow.

Maybe I really
was
tired. It had been kind of a full half day.

We made it to the apartment, dumped packages and wet shoes, and I squelched back to grab towels for us. Sarah's hair fluffed out to look gleaming and fabulous. Mine just looked frizzy. I glared at it in the bathroom mirror and decided on a hot bath and something tasty for dinner.

As I was laying out tomatoes and onions, the better to make some homemade Mexican food, the doorbell rang. I put the chopping knife down and tapped Sarah on the shoulder. She was sitting at the small kitchen table next to the water-rippled patio door, cutting tags off of her precious new acquisitions.

“Chop now,” I said. “Clothes maintenance later.”

She gave me an absolutely childish pout, but got to it. Sarah had taken culinary classes; it was one of those things you do in California when you're rich and bored. I paused on the way to the door to watch her take my knife and start a rapid-fire slice-and-dice of the tomato, as competent as any sushi chef.

The bell rang again. I sighed and pushed my curling hair back from my face. Still damp. I used a tiny spark of power to evaporate the moisture, was rewarded with dry hair and a white-blue static discharge from my fingers to the doorknob when I reached to touch it.

“Who is it?” I yelled, and pressed my eye to the peephole.

My heart did that funny little thumpy thing at the sight of the tall, brown-haired man standing out in the hall, hands jammed in the pockets of his blue jeans. I unzipped the chain and swung the door wide with a genuine smile. “Lewis!”

“Hi,” he said, and came forward to fold me in a hug. He had to stoop a little to do it, and I wasn't all that short; where he touched me I got that familiar sensation of vibration, of energy feeding and building up between us. Lewis was, without any doubt, the single most powerful Warden I'd ever known. A friend. More than a friend, that would be fair to say . . . if it hadn't been for David, probably a lot more. He fascinated me, and frightened me, too. He'd saved me and betrayed me and saved me again . . . complicated, that was my boy Lewis.