Beefy grunted and I tried to draw the dog walker’s attention by pasting an “I’m-being-held-at-gunpoint-by-a-psychotic-maniac” look on my face. To my dismay, the guy didn’t seem to notice. Instead he smiled sheepishly as his dog did wee-wee near Beefy’s foot and then he sauntered away with the dog trailing, neither knowing just how close they had come to meeting their Maker.
As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Beefy returned his attention to me. “The papers,” he growled, the gun still pressed against me menacingly. “Where are they?”
I shook my head, really confused now. I usually saw Basia every other week or so, depending on what was happening in our lives. Why in the world would she mail me anything when she could just drive them over and give them to me?
“Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up three fingers. “I don’t have any papers from Basia.”
He looked at me for a long moment as if trying to decide if I were telling the truth. I cringed as he put his hand into his pocket, reaching for God knows what kind of torture device. Instead he pulled out a business card and handed it to me. It was blank except for a phone number. No name, no logo, no address.
“If you get those papers, you call this number before you do anything else,” he instructed, patting the gun beneath his blazer. “If you don’t and I find those papers have fallen into other hands, I’ll hold you personally responsible, Lexi.”
Oh, God, he knew my name. In this day and age, it probably meant he knew my address, phone number, sexual preference and weight. I nodded and stepped back, rubbing my ribs where he had poked me with the gun. I was going to have a wicked bruise there for sure, but at least I was alive. For now.
“So, what’s the big deal about these papers?” I asked, trying to keep myself steady.
“Nothing,” he snapped. “And don’t get too nosy. I’m protecting them for a client. And I’m gonna see he gets them back safely or else...”
I didn’t want to know how I figured in the rest of that sentence, so I backed away, holding up my hands in front of me. “Well, it’s been fun, but I’ve got to go now,” I said brightly.
“You tell anybody we had this little meeting and I’ll be unhappy,” Beefy warned. Then he made a little pistol with his fingers and fired it at me. “Bang.”
Jeez, he was a psycho and stand-up comic wannabe. “What meeting?” I said innocently, lifting my hands.
He narrowed his eyes. “Want a useful piece of advice, little girl?”
I didn’t, but I’d never say that to a man with a gun. “Okay.”
“Lose the shirt. Purple isn’t your color.”
With that, he walked across the street and down the sidewalk. I watched until he took a hard left and disappeared behind a row of townhouses. I needed desperately to sit down, but was afraid he might come back. Bending over, I removed my pumps and ran the rest of the way to my parents’ house in bare feet with the cobblestones cutting painfully into my soles.
I was out of breath and nearly crying when I reached the front door. Frantically I twisted the knob, but it was locked. After all, this is Washington. Decent citizens lock themselves in their homes and put bars on their windows. I dropped my pumps and fumbled in my purse for the key when the door magically opened. My mom stood in the doorway, dressed in a stunning peach dress with glittering diamonds at her neck and ears. She took one look at me and nearly fainted.
“Lexi, what happened to you? Where are your shoes?” she gasped.
I scooped my shoes off the porch and darted inside barefoot, yanking the door from my mom’s hand and slamming it shut. My heart was pounding so loud, my ears hurt.
“I’m sorry I’m late but there was this guy and he stopped me on the street, asking about some papers and...”
My sentence trailed off as I realized she was no longer looking at me, but behind me. I got this horrible sinking feeling as I turned around and saw the entranceway to the dining room was filled with people staring at me curiously. My dad stood there looking cool and collected in a pressed suit and tie, and I recognized Senator and Mrs. Marshall. Beside them stood a young blond-haired man I didn’t know.
My eyes swung back to my mom’s. “You didn’t tell me it was a dinner party,” I said under my breath. I had been set up, and I was angry.
“You’re late,” she whispered. “Wherever did you get that horrid purple blouse? Have you been shopping at Wal-Mart again?”
“Don’t change the subject,” I growled, but my mother shut me up by air-kissing both my cheeks. She put a hand on my shoulder, turning me around.
“Tom, Diane,” she said, “I believe you’ve already met my daughter, Lexi.” They smiled weakly at me, no doubt scandalized by my attire, the flushed condition of my face and wild hair.
“What a delight to see you again, Lexi,” Diane said politely.
My mom then turned to the young man, dazzling him with her thousand-watt smile. “Lexi, I don’t think you’ve yet had the pleasure of meeting their son Thomas Marshall III,” she said. “He’s a CPA at Price, Waterson and Morris over on Connecticut Avenue.”
I looked over my shoulder at my mother with a raised eyebrow. Her typical set-ups for me involved lawyers or politicians in the making. A CPA was a real departure for her and I suspected there was more here than met the eye. To my ever-annoyed chagrin, she was completely convinced I would never get married without her help and had made it her life’s mission to take charge of my love life. I should have smelled a set-up when she called. I just hadn’t expected it to happen on a Tuesday, which is undoubtedly why she’d planned it that way.
I glanced back at Thomas and saw he was not quite able to hide the disappointment in his eyes. I was used to it by now. Guys took one look at my mother and thought they were in for a treat with her daughter. Instead they got me—brown-haired, flat-chested and geeky.
Sighing, I bent down and slipped on my pumps, my appetite having long ago fled. I was angry at my mother and still shaken from my bizarre encounter with Beefy. This day was going to hell in a handbasket faster than I could blink.
After a moment, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Once inside, I splashed cold water on my face and combed my hair, hoping I looked reasonably presentable. My first instinct was to tell my parents what had just transpired on the street, but I wasn’t sure I even understood it myself. What I did know for certain is that my parents would freak out if they knew I’d been accosted by gunpoint, forcing me to stay at the house with them for protection. I was pretty sure I’d rather face down a gold-toothed homicidal maniac than be maneuvered into that.
I returned to the table and sat down at a seat that had conveniently been left open beside Thomas. He was probably about twenty-five and was well-built, impeccably groomed and dressed in a navy blue coat and tie. He had good skin, good teeth and wavy brown hair that looked like it had been strategically highlighted. Handsome, if you liked the preppy, gleaming, I’m-the-son-of-an-important-politician kind of guy.
I snatched a hot roll and put it on my plate, figuring him for having attended a private boy’s academy, Ivy League for an undergraduate degree and an MBA. You know, the typical rich-kid routine.
Thomas, apparently trying to be polite and engage me in some kind of conversation, leaned toward me while our fathers argued politics. “Nice shirt,” he said in a low voice.
Jeez, who knew one shirt could elicit so much conversation? “Nice tie,” I countered.
He laughed. “Touché,” he said, taking a bite of his stew. “So, Lexi, where do you work?”
“In Maryland,” I answered. “For the Department of Defense.” It was my standard song and dance, seeing as how I wasn’t allowed to mention the words “I work” and “NSA” in the same sentence—not even to my gynecologist, who knew more about me than I did.
“DOD?” Thomas said. “Are you a secretary?” Then before I could reply, he added hastily, “I mea
n, administrative assistant. We can’t be too politically correct these days, can we?” He laughed, looking around the table, his gleaming white teeth nearly dazzling me.
Disappointment swept through me because, for a nanosecond, I’d thought he might have potential. I tried to swallow my annoyance at his condescending tone, but it kind of stuck in my throat.
“Actually, I’m into computers,” I said.
He looked surprised. “Oh, really? Programming and stuff?”
He was so totally not a tech-head. “Um, something like that.”
“I see. Well it sounds...quite unusual.”
I didn’t know what he found so unusual about me working with computers, unless my mom had led him to believe I was a lingerie model—something I wouldn’t put past her. She always chose guys like Thomas who put a heck of a lot of stock in appearance and big hair. Frankly, those just weren’t my strong suits.
“Are you the lone woman in your office working on computer stuff?” Thomas asked.
I gritted my teeth, wondering for what earthly purpose he had decided to drag out this conversation.
“No,” I said, shoveling in a mouthful of stew and wondering how he would react if he discovered I actually worked at the NSA as an anti-hacker. I bet his next question would then be to ask how many women dabbled in that kind of profession. I considered offering him a statistical essay on the number of women involved in the technology field when my mother shot me one of her warning looks.
“So what is it exactly that you do?” Thomas persisted. “I mean you don’t actually fix stuff, do you?”
If he said “stuff” one more time, I was pretty sure I’d have to clock him with my water goblet. I held my breath and counted silently to ten before plastering a perky smile on my face.
“Actually, Thomas, I try not to do anything too technical since I’m a female and it’s a miracle I can even read.”
Thomas looked taken aback for a minute, and then he laughed. “Hey, that’s a good one, Lexi. You’re funny.”
My mother intensified her glare and I smiled back sweetly, dipping my spoon in Sasha’s delicious stew.
“So, Thomas,” my mother said, apparently deciding she had better take control of the conversation. “Why did you decide to pursue a career as a CPA?”
Thomas dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “Well, I majored in business at Yale and then went on to graduate school at Dartmouth to get an MBA,” he said. “I graduated top of my class with full honors, passed the CPA exam and pretty much had my pick of accounting firms at which to work here in Washington. My ultimate goal, however, is the Senate, just like Father.”
I choked on my stew and gagged until Thomas thumped me hard on the back. I knew my mother had something up her sleeve. Thomas Marshall III was a politician in the making, and my mother hadn’t been able to resist trying to set me up. She knew I had a personal rule to never, ever, date anyone wanting to be in politics, which, of course, made Thomas irresistible to her.
I mumbled something and excused myself from the table. If I didn’t get out of there now, I would certainly say something to ruin the evening. I slipped into the kitchen and saw Sasha, a slight, blond-haired man with a big, Slavic nose, working at the counter.
“Lexi,” he said, holding out his arms and hugging me. “How’s the food? Is there a problem with dinner?”
I liked the fact he greeted me with questions about dinner. He didn’t waste time asking me about my health or my fashion sense. He went straight to what mattered—food. I love a man with a one-track mind, especially one who can cook. Too bad Sasha was already happily married.
“Dinner is perfect, as usual,” I said, patting his arm. To prove my point, I tore a piece off a loaf on the counter and took a bite before he could snatch it back.
“You little thief,” he scolded, but in an affectionate way.
“Look, Sasha, there’s something I want to ask you,” I said, my mouth half-full. “Have you seen Basia around lately?”
“Basia?” Sasha said, puzzled. “I haven’t seen her in a month. She no like my bread anymore?”
“Perish the thought,” I said, appalled by the very idea. “She loves your bread. I guess she’s just been busy.”
“Finding you another job?” he quipped.
I laughed it off, but actually he had a point. It was Basia who had got me hooked up with the NSA in the first place. She dragged me to the job fair when the agency was recruiting at Georgetown because she had always dreamed of working as a linguist for them.
The problem was that after the Cold War ended, no one needed linguists with Slavic or Romance languages anymore. If you wanted to get hired by the NSA these days, you needed to speak Arabic, Farsi or Somali. Since those were like the only three languages in the entire world she didn’t speak, she hadn’t been hired. And in an ironic twist, I had.
But that hadn’t dampened Basia’s spirit at all. She started her own freelance translation business and worked part-time at Berlitz—those guys who make those nifty little phrasebooks. It wasn’t a bad living and she got to be her own boss. It was good for me, too, since I get a new phrasebook every Christmas. I’d racked up Spanish, French, Russian, Italian and German so far. I was hoping to get Romanian this year—if I lived that long.
“What’s wrong with my job?” I asked. “You used to think being a techie was a cool job.”
“It is...but not for you. You need to start living life outside your comfort zone,” Sasha said, stirring something that smelled like hot fudge in a pot on the stove. “A girl like you doesn’t need to sit around in front of a computer all day. You need to experience real life. Find someone outside the internet, and have actual, sweaty sex.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he was right. My life was boring, predictable and utterly lackluster. Unless you counted the time I won Redskins tickets for answering a trivia question on the radio. Other than that, nothing exciting ever happened to me, including the one and only time I’d ever had sex. It had definitely not been sweaty. In fact, it hadn’t even been interesting.
“I think you’re made for adventure,” Sasha continued. “But you need to go for it in a big way. Basia will help you.”
Maybe Sasha had a point. I wasn’t going to meet a guy by sitting in front of the computer all day. I needed to pay more attention to pesky little details like my wardrobe and grooming. If anyone could help in these areas of my life, it was Basia.
In all truth, she had already made a tremendous impact on me. First of all, because she was the only close girlfriend I had ever had. She’d befriended me at Georgetown when we were randomly selected to be roommates. Basia was the antithesis of me—a real girl’s girl who liked dating, fashion, the social scene and expensive haircuts. My mom adored her and so did my brothers. But I soon learned that Basia was as smart as a whip beneath that feminine exterior, speaking several languages and having a flair for architecture and biology.
Compared to me, exciting was Basia’s middle name. But I certainly didn’t want the kind of excitement that came with a guy like Beefy.
I sighed. “If you happen to run into Basia, you tell her to call me right away, okay?”
Actually I considered calling her right now from my parents’ house, but after thinking about it some more, I decided it was too risky. I refused to own a cell phone, so that meant I’d have to use my parents’ phone. My mom was a top-rate eavesdropper and I had decided I didn’t want them to know about my encounter with Beefy. I wasn’t sure what was going on yet and needed more input.
I heard the murmur of voices coming from the dining room, and then another one of Tom’s annoying laughs. I decided I really didn’t want to go back in there.
“Look, I’ve got to get out of here,” I said to Sasha. “Do you think you could retrieve my purse from the sofa in the living room and bring it here?”
“Why don’t you get it yourse
lf?”
“Long story, but I’m afraid I’ll be trapped. Then I’d have to be horribly impolite to ensure my escape. And you know how my mother hates it when I’m impolite.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I think this means you don’t like the young man in there. Truthfully, me neither. He’s too full of himself.”
Sasha wasn’t a nuclear scientist for nothing. “My thoughts exactly.”
He nodded and went out the side door to the living room to retrieve my purse. I snatched an entire loaf of his bread from the counter, rolled it in a dishtowel and shoved it under my blouse just as my father walked into the kitchen. He saw the guilty look on my face and I knew I’d been busted.
“Making a break for it?” he asked calmly.
I exhaled a breath. “Do I really have to stay and talk to Mr. Preppy?”
Despite his attempt to look stern, his lips twitched. “Your mother will be disappointed.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “But I was ambushed. And trust me, Thomas isn’t going to call even if I stay for dessert. And honestly, I don’t want him to.”
To my surprise, my dad came over and ruffled my hair. “All right, go. I’ll tell everyone you weren’t feeling well.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, standing on tiptoe and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I owe you big.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. He looked down at me, worry lines creasing the corner of his eyes. “You’re looking a bit pale. Are you sure everything is all right?”
“Never been better,” I lied.
At that moment, Sasha darted back into the room with my purse. He saw my dad and stopped in horror. “Mr. Carmichael,” he said in a breathless rush. “Lexi wanted me to get her purse and...”
“It’s all right,” my dad said, sighing. “I know what Lexi talked you into doing.”
“Can I borrow him for a few minutes more?” I asked since my dad seemed so accommodating. “I’d like him to walk me to my car.”
He frowned. I’d never asked for an escort to my car before and I could sense more questions hovered on his lips. But he nodded. “Of course.”
No Stone Unturned: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Eleven Page 36
