by JB Lynn
“How did you know they were bad?” I asked, glancing in my rearview mirror, trying to determine whether the silver SUV a few cars behind was tailing me.
“Stole, stole, stole,” the mouse said.
“Stole what?” I asked. After another glance in the mirror, I changed lanes and made a sudden left turn.
“Toys, toys, toys.”
“They stole toys?” God asked incredulously. “What? Are they like evil elves or something?”
I barely listened to their conversation as the SUV also made the turn. I was pretty sure I was being followed. I didn’t know whether it was by the bad men or someone else, but I wasn’t about to lead them to my home and endanger my family.
“Hold on,” I warned the animals, pulling a tight u-turn in the street.
God screamed as he slid across the dashboard and Benny, who was curled up in the cup holder, let out a startled shriek.
Ignoring their alarm, I gunned the engine and drove straight at the SUV.
“What are you doing?” God yelled.
The SUV slammed to a halt, but I kept my foot on the gas.
“Turn!” God screamed in panic. “Turn the wheel.”
“Okay,” I muttered, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. Simultaneously stamping on the brakes and turning the wheel, the car ended up at a ninety-degree angle from the SUV. A pump of the gas pedal and I’d crash into the driver’s seat.
The SUV’s tinted window lowered, revealing the driver.
Patrick sat there, giving me a slow clap.
I lowered my window, too.
“Congratulations,” he said sarcastically. “It seems you’ve mastered spotting a tail.”
“Why are you following me?”
“I was worried about you.”
“So you thought you’d scare me?”
He winced. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Something happened to you on my watch and I wanted to make sure you got home okay.”
I frowned at him. “Have you figured out your drug bust yet?”
He blinked, surprised by the change of topic. “Uh, no, not yet.”
“I think I have.”
A car pulled up and honked at me for blocking the street. Sighing, I pulled out of the way. Patrick parked behind me and got out of his car. He strode over and hopped into my passenger seat.
“What do you mean, you think you have?”
“What’s the point of the rumbler?” I asked him.
“It distributes the toys in “the box”. Mixes them up or something. What’s that have to do with anything?”
“You ever pan for gold?” I asked him.
He stared at me. “Did you hit your head earlier? Did you lose consciousness?”
“No and no.”
“Are you sick?” He felt my forehead as though searching for a fever.
I pushed him away. “My dad took us to pan for gold once. There was this amusement park that was supposed to be a town in the Old West. One of the things was they’d give you a bucket of sludge.”
“Sounds lovely,” God murmured.
Startled, Patrick noticed the squeaking reptile on the dashboard. He shook his head and returned his gaze to mine.
I ignored the lizard. “The idea was you had to pour it through a sieve that looked like a pan and you were left with nuggets of gold.”
“Real gold?” God asked.
“They weren’t real gold. They were just bigger, heavier rocks painted gold.”
Patrick squinted at me. “I’m not following.”
I sighed heavily. “What if the rumbler is the pan and certain toys are the gold.”
“Filled with drugs instead of stuffing,” Patrick said, beginning to nod. “The rumbler would make them fall to the bottom. And someone could empty them out in the basement, unseen by the cameras.”
“Bad men, bad men, bad men!” Benny supplied helpfully.
Patrick drew back when he spotted the mouse in the cupholder. “How sure of this are you?”
I shrugged. “I can’t do all your work. I know there are some boxes of toys that are way heavier than others and I know there’s a rumbler, but you’re going to have to figure out who’s in on it and catch them in the act. Though, I’d start with Dale.”
Patrick stared into space for a long moment, lost in thought.
“Is that it?” I asked him. “I’ve got other things to do today.”
“You’ve basically solved my case for me. Can I help you with yours?”
I shook my head.
“If you change your mind…”
“I’ll call,” I promised.
“Do that.” He leaned across the car and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Thanks for your help, Mags.”
I offered him a half-hearted smile as he got out of the car. “Be careful. There’re some pretty rough guys involved.” I pointed to my face.
“I have done this before,” he said with a scowl, closed the door, and marched back to his car.
“Bravo,” God said. “That was some impressive deductive reasoning.”
I waited for a sarcastic comment, but none came.
“Thanks,” I murmured sheepishly. “I couldn’t have done it without Benny.”
“Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork!” Benny shouted.
Sometimes teamwork is empowering. Sometimes it’s just a drag.
It takes a village to raise an idiot, and it took my entire family to get me ready for a date.
As soon as I got out of my car when I got home, Aunt Loretta stumbled toward me on her stilettos. “Hurry! Hurry!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, afraid that something had happened to Katie.
“Griswald told us all about your big night,” Loretta revealed.
“He did?” I found it hard to believe that he’d have told her about my undercover work.
“We’ve got to get you ready.”
“We?” I asked weakly.
“Just think of us as your fairy godmothers.” She grabbed my arm and started propelling me toward the house.
I dug my heels in. “I need to check on Katie.”
“Katie’s fine. She’s painting with Leslie and Lorraine.” Lorretta leaned in close and sniffed me. “You need a shower.”
I allowed her to lead me inside.
“Quick, quick,” she ordered. “Shower and then we’ll try to do something with that hair of yours.”
I patted my head. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Everything!” She shoved me toward the bathroom. “Go. Clean up!”
I put Benny and God in their respective dwellings before I headed into the bath.
Armani caught me in the hallway. “Hey, chica. Heard you’ve got a big date.”
I frowned. “Hang on a sec.” I dove back into my bedroom, grabbed the Soulful and Sinful business card, and brought it out to her. “Here!” I shoved it at her.
“Oooh, gold,” she cooed, taking it. “You know I keep having a vision of you wearing a crown. Do you think this has anything to do with that?”
I shrugged helplessly. “How should I know?”
“The crown’s a perfect fit,” she confided.
I sighed, needing to bring her back on track. “I think you should interview them about performing at The Corset.”
My friend squinted at me suspiciously. “Did Susan put you up to this?”
“To Soulful and Sinful? Hardly.”
“Okay, I’ll call.” She looked even more closely. “What happened to your face?”
“Kid clocked me with a toy,” I lied smoothly.
“Yeah, well, that’s gonna require some serious shellacking of foundation,” she muttered.
“Great,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I’ll see you in a bit.” She limped away, pulling out her phone.
Piss followed me into the bathroom. “Benny seems happy.”
“He is. He did a great job. Solved Patrick’s case for him,” I told her as I stripped off the offensive orange t-shirt and started running
the water for the shower.
“There’s been…activity here,” she said carefully.
I frowned, something in her tone warning me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “What kind of activity?”
“Brian Griswald visited his uncle.”
“And that’s bad?” I took off the rest of my clothing, dumping it in a pile on the floor.
“Apparently, he’s investigating the disappearance of the guy who worked for the Concords.”
“Elvis,” I supplied, even though that wasn’t his real name. We both knew that Brian Griswald wouldn’t find him since Patrick had run the guy over with his car.
“Yeah, him,” she agreed. “He seems to be stuck on the idea that his car was found near here.”
I frowned, wondering, not for the first time, how Patrick could have left the car to be found.
“He said that Jack floated the opinion that maybe your friend RV did it.”
I flinched at the mention of the crime reporter dating Armani. “I don’t understand why he has it out for her.”
“That’s really not the problem,” Piss said crossly. “The problem is that Brian Griswald is investigating. What if he discovers the connection between you and the Concords?”
“Hold that thought,” I said, stepping into the shower. “Loretta thinks I stink.”
“You do,” she meowed. “You smell like fear.”
I took a moment to savor the hot water beating on me.
“What happened that scared you today?” the curious cat asked.
While I took a quick shower, I filled her in on the events of the day, trying to gloss over the attack in the basement. Turning off the water, I wrapped a towel around my hair and another around my body and sat on the closed toilet so I could look her in her good eye.
“What do you think will happen if Brian finds out about my dealings with the Concords?” I whispered, not wanting anyone to overhear.
She flicked her tail. “It won’t be good. You’ll either get caught between them and Patrick, or, if he finds out about the woman you busted out of prison, between them and Ms. Whitehat.”
“I didn’t break her out of prison,” I corrected automatically. “I just ensured she wouldn’t return there and was reunited with her son, Boyd.”
“Whatever,” she huffed with exasperation as only a cat can. “The point is you’re in trouble.”
I rubbed my head vigorously, trying to dry my hair. “What do you think I should do about it?”
“Be careful, sugar,” she purred.
“I’m always careful,” I retorted.
A knock on my bedroom door interrupted our conversation. “Maggie? Maggie, are you in there?” Loretta called.
“Of course I’m in here,” I shouted. Sighing, I got up, tossed the hair towel over the top of the shower enclosure and stalked over to throw open the door. “You told me to take—” My mouth stopped working when I realized it wasn’t Loretta hovering there, but Angel Delveccio.
His eyebrows rose and an appreciative grin was flashed as he took in that all I was wearing was a towel. I’m pretty sure I spotted his well-defined pectoral muscles shake with repressed laughter.
“Um, uh, hi,” I spluttered uncomfortably. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting an eyeful,” he replied with a wink. “It’s a nice view.”
I’m pretty sure the heat that was already rising in my cheeks flooded through my entire body.
“I need a sec.” I dashed across the hall to my bedroom and slammed the door in his face. Not in a mean way, but the kind of slam designed to prevent me from dying of embarrassment on the spot.
“What’s he doing here?” God asked from his enclosure.
I shrugged. “Don’t know. Complicating my life?” I hurriedly threw on clothes. “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a date with Phillip, a Skee-Ball to steal from a mousetrap, and a police detective breathing down my neck.”
“Not to mention the cop, the bodyguard, and Mr. Perfect, who are all hot for you,” Piss mocked. “Poor you.”
“Do not have sex with that man,” God ordered.
“Which one?” Piss asked.
I didn’t hear the lizard’s answer because I yanked open the bedroom door, jumped outside, and slammed the door shut, leaving all the animals behind.
Well, all except DeeDee and Matilda, who were flanking the guy in the Navy t-shirt who was scratching them both behind the ear.
“I like your new addition,” Angel said with a smile. “What’s his name?”
“Her,” I replied distractedly. “Matilda.”
“Hello, Matilda.” He turned his megawatt grin on the pig.
She snuffled contentedly.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, a tad impatiently.
He straightened, giving me his full attention. “I thought we should talk.”
“You do know they’ve invented phones for that kind of thing, don’t you? This guy Bell. They’ve been around for a while now.”
He scowled at my sarcasm.
“So talk.” I made a rolling motion with my hand, indicating he needed to pick up the pace.
He blinked. “Are you mad I’m here?”
“I’m not thrilled that you dropped by unannounced after having pretty much ignored me,” I replied honestly.
He frowned. “I’m sorry about that.”
I pressed my lips together, trying to remain quiet until he stated why he had shown up on my doorstep.
He was silent.
I counted to ten in my head. Then I blurted out, “What is it you need to talk about?”
“Us.”
It was my turn to blink my surprise. “There’s really not an us,” I tried to tell him gently.
“There could be.” His tone was deep, seductive almost.
The words hung in the air between us, a promise of better things, but words are mirages. Anyone can say the right thing in a moment, but it’s the follow-through action that actually means something. It’s been my experience that people say the right thing a lot more often than they do the right thing.
Part of me desperately wanted to believe him. The other part of me had not gotten over the fact that he’d let his old Navy buddy tie me up and leave me in a scummy motel room so they could go steal a human heart.
Then I remembered what Gino had said about Angel straddling the line between working for his crime syndicate family and leading a legit life. I knew in my heart that, despite some questionable choices, Angel was a good guy. The proof of which was he’d done so much to aid Katie’s recovery. I had to try to save him.
I offered him an apologetic smile. “I’d love to talk, but I have plans for tonight.”
I saw a flash of something in his eyes. Surprise? Jealousy?
“Could I take a raincheck?” I did my best to be as sweet as possible. “Preferably for a time when I’m prepared…and dressed?”
“You’re dressed now,” he said with a chuckle. “And you looked just fine before, too.”
Heat again flooded through my body. “How about tomorrow night? No, wait,” I said, remembering that’s when the Skee-Ball heist was scheduled for. “I’ve got plans for then, too.”
“Busy lady,” he murmured.
“How about Saturday?” I suggested.
“Date night?” he teased.
“We could go to breakfast,” I quickly threw out, not wanting him to think we were meeting for any kind of romantic date.
His mouth twitched. “Sure. Saturday for breakfast.” He didn’t sound particularly enthused.
Behind him, Loretta peered around the corner and tapped her wrist, reminding me we were on a schedule.
“Great,” I said with the widest smile I could muster. “Let me walk you out.”
His gaze narrowed suspiciously as he picked up on the fact I was trying to get rid of him. “In a rush?”
“Plans,” I reminded him.
He shook his head. “I don’t need to be told twice, and I don’t need
you to show me the door.” He spun on his heel, ready to make a proud exit, but Loretta had managed to silently approach, quite the feat considering she was wearing stilettos. I wondered if I should recruit her for the cat burglary adventure.
Instead of walking away with his head held high, Angel plowed into Loretta and had to hold her up as she crumpled beneath the impact.
“Oh,” she cooed. “What big muscles you have.”
“Better to catch damsels in distress,” he joked back, making sure she was steady on her feet before planting a kiss on her cheek and heading out.
Loretta fanned herself. “That man, that man. Why, if I wasn’t with Templeton…”
Shaking my head, choosing not to point out the age difference between them, I asked, “Ready for me?”
“Prepare for a makeover!” Loretta trilled excitedly.
I surreptitiously opened the bedroom door, hoping Piss would offer moral support during my beautifying ordeal.
22
I had to hand it to my fairy godmothers; they’d worked some pretty impressive magic on me.
Loretta had been in charge of my makeup (though she wasn’t thrilled that Aunt Susan had declared my body a glitter-free zone), Armani, the woman who, herself, had shampoo commercial-worthy tresses, had transformed my tresses into a shiny, bouncy sheet of silk, and Susan had chosen a great little black dress for me.
“Sexy, not slutty,” Susan had muttered every time Loretta had attempted to lower the neckline or hitch up the hemline.
I’d made the mistake of trying to explain that slutty is a derogative term and she’d given me one of those looks that had made my blood run cold when I was a teenager. Even now it had the desired effect of getting me to shut up.
The end result was that I looked good for my date with Phillip.
Griswald drove me to the restaurant, since I’d told Phillip that I prefer to take a car service to first dates.
“Nervous?” my new boss asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Just remember you’re not alone.”
I bit back a smile. He had no idea how right he was. God was ensconced in the push-up bra Loretta had insisted I wear, and Benny was stowed away in the little handbag Susan had so thoughtfully provided. Of course, Griswald was referring to the fact that in addition to having a lizard between my breasts, Aunt Susan had used medical tape to attach a microphone to my sternum.
