CHAPTER EIGHT
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want a woman. Not a ho, not a gold digger, and not a one-night stand. I can get all those on my own. I want a woman I can marry. My sister, Selena Bosch, said she hired you to fix her career, and two months later she met her husband. He’s a good guy. Doesn’t cheat at cards.”
I remembered Selena. She had a two-story bungalow near the San Fernando Valley. Her house had been a simple transformation—just a matter of Selena letting go of some outdated ideas and fears that had crept into her surroundings and bringing in some new energy. Max’s house wouldn’t be as easy to fix. It was a masculine cliché the polar opposite of his goal.
Knots tightened my neck muscles. I needed to be focusing all my energy on finding Jenny. A consultation was the last thing I should have been doing. For the first time in my career, I was anxious to get the job over with as fast as possible.
“Let’s get started.”
“I’ve got a good job. I work out. I’m not a troll. I’m don’t understand why I’m having such a hard time finding a good woman.” A duck with a cat’s head waddled at his feet. I didn’t attempt an interpretation.
Max ambled through the house in front of me, taking his time when I wanted to run through and rattle off a list of changes he need to make, starting with the painting of a camouflaged man sighting down a gun that was hanging at the end of the hallway, the barrel aimed straight at our chests.
“How long have you been on the hunt?” I asked, eyeing the painted face of the sniper.
“Eight miserable months. This is LA. A million women live right outside my doorstep, all of them psychos. And not the good kind.”
The master bedroom was spacious, even with the enormous bed centered on one wall. Max lingered, staring at the bed and sighing. Two more bedrooms filled out the top house, both much smaller than the master. One served as a catchall storage room of clutter in his creativity and children section.
“Not much to see in there,” Max said, dismissing the room that needed the most work.
The other bedroom, which comprised almost the entire relationship section of the house, was converted into a workout room. Mirrors covered one wall; antique weapons lined the others.
Max’s house exhibited a dozen big-picture problems combating his goal for a wife. I was mentally organizing how to fix each when I realized that for the first time since Jenny latched on to my arm the day before, I felt normal. Confident. In control. The tight spring of fear and frustration that had coiled in my gut since Jenny handcuffed me had unwound. As always, feng shui stabilized me.
“Let me see if I get this right,” I said, stepping into the workout room. I discarded my “chi-voodoo” lessons about energy movement and intentions behind decor placement and delivered my advice with blunt brutality. “All the women you date, they start out or become combative. Either they’re fighting with you or they’re throwing up walls. Everything starts out hot and intense, but you both get tired of the relationship too quick. When you bring up children, it becomes a clusterfuck.”
He pointed at me. “That’s exactly right. The nice ones dump me without explanations. The sassy ones want to fight all the time. I don’t get it.”
I pulled out my bagua flyer and handed it to him. “Every house has nine baguas, according to feng shui. You align the bagua like this.” I turned us so the skills and knowledge, career, and helpful people and travel sections were aligned with the front of the house. “If you divide your house into nine equal squares, you can see roughly the nine sections of your life. We’re standing in the relationship and love section.”
We both examined the stacked weights and Bowflex machine, then the guns and swords.
“Does this room remind you of your experiences with women?”
“It’s uncanny,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m always doing all the heavy lifting.”
“If you want to change that, we need to change a few things here.”
“But I can’t stop working out.” He flexed an arm and winked at me. He was right: He was far from a troll. A little rough around the edges, but that was part of his charm.
“I doubt your future wife wants you to stop working out, either. But there are ways to make this room, and other parts of the house, more woman friendly.”
I left Max an hour later with a list of changes, big and small. Move his weapons collection to his skills section and replace it with art representing the life he wanted. Organize the storage bedroom into a home office and bring in elements that made him either feel like a kid or think of children. Add a second nightstand in the master bedroom with a matching lamp. Rearrange his closet to make room for another person. Consider adding a couch or love seat to make a place where two people could snuggle together in the front room. Move the sniper artwork from the hall—his fame section. Women didn’t like to feel hunted, and they definitely didn’t like to feel stalked, which was the painting’s vibe. That instruction took the most convincing, being the most “chi-voodoo” sounding.
I didn’t bother with the small details, like each bagua’s element, shape, or color. Max was a bold-strokes kind of guy. I left him energized to get to work. Everything I’d told Max fell in the “common-sense feng shui” category. Everyone was more comfortable in a clean, organized house where they had adequate space to relax. Ari would do a follow-up call with him in a few weeks, and we’d see if he wanted a second consultation. Sometimes when people saw their lives start to change in response to their initial alterations, they were willing to embrace feng shui on a deeper level.
I left energized, too. The highly productive session had restored my optimism, and I looked forward to hearing what Ari and Hudson had learned about Jenny. For all I knew, Hudson had already found Jenny and she was on her way to pick up Kyoko. We could be free of this bizarre entanglement by nightfall. Then Hudson and I could have our promised date, complications-free, and I could devote the appropriate attention to the raw attraction between us.
Grinning, I strolled around the corner of the block, out of sight of Max’s house, then pulled out my metro map. Clients were seldom pleased to know I traveled by bus. Some believed it meant I wasn’t good enough at my job to afford a car. Others thought it made me a hippy out to save the planet, and therefore my feng shui ideas were New Age bullshit dreamed up while high. One client had thought I’d feng shuied myself out of a car and had been terrified my suggestions would cause all three of her cars to be stolen. Now I made sure none of my clients knew about my nefarious means of travel.
A green Tercel screeched to a stop at the corner. A slender, light-skinned black man jumped out. Apparitions flashed around him faster than lightning strikes, mesmerizing me. In the three steps it took him to reach the sidewalk, watches stacked up his forearm, the faces winking from gold to black to platinum and back to gold. Diamond studs sparkled in his ears, replaced by sapphires, replaced again by larger diamonds. A gigantic pink terrazzo star splayed across his chest, complete with writing: Atlas Grant.
Enthralled, I failed to notice the hulking driver until he grabbed my arm. Cold metal snapped around my left wrist, then my right. For a half second, I froze; then I shrieked and kicked him. My foot bounced off a calf of steel. A meaty hand clamped over my mouth, smelling like mustard. One thick arm pinned both of mine to my side and hoisted me off the ground. The skinny man opened the back door of the Tercel and my captor tossed me inside. I lunged for the opposite door, yanking on the handle, but the child locks were on, and the door didn’t budge.
“Help! Let me go! Someone—”
The skinny guy hopped into the front seat and snatched his door shut. The driver hustled around the car and squeezed behind the wheel. The whole car rocked with his weight. When he shut his door, I stopped screaming. No one was going to hear me through the windows. I flopped to my side and flailed to get my feet up to the window, cursing the confines of my pencil skirt. One kick in these heels, and I thought I could shatter the glass.
“Eva! Eva, it’s okay,” the skinny guy said. “We’re not going to harm you.”
I stilled. “How do you know my name?”
“We’re friends.”
The driver popped the car into gear and we were rolling. My odds of escape took a nosedive.
“What do you want?”
“To talk. That’s all.” The skinny guy twisted in his seat to face me. He’d pulled his seat belt on, as had the driver. The normal gesture inexplicably cut through my panic.
“Talk,” I demanded. I sat up and tugged my bag to the seat beside me. Miraculously, nothing had fallen out.
The skinny guy exchanged a look with the driver. I made myself ignore the flash of a halo around the skinny guy’s head and the flickering watch images and really look at him. Whenever I escaped, I wanted to give the police an accurate description.
The hair on his head was trimmed the same short length as the thin mustache outlining his full lips and trailing down to a sculpted goatee. Thick lashes framed dark brown eyes. Even his eyebrows looked shaped. His clothes were hipster chic, complete with a butter-soft fawn-colored leather jacket. In a cocky, I-know-I-look-good, ladies’ man sort of way, he was handsome.
The driver was too big for the car. He would have been too big for the Suburban. His skin was two shades paler than ebony, his head bald, and his shoulders double the width of the seat. He would make a great bouncer—he would fill a doorway. He had peanut brittle in his hands. It was so realistic that I didn’t recognize it as a divination the first three times I looked at it.
“I’m Atlas,” the skinny guy said. “This is Edmond.” The terrazzo star reappeared, hanging on a gold chain against Atlas’s chest. It was his own freakin’ name on the star. Talk about an ego.
“Why am I handcuffed?”
“Good question.” Atlas turned to Edmond. “Why’d you handcuff her?”
“That’s what we always do.” Edmond’s voice matched his body: deep and full.
“What we always do?”
“It’s safer this way. Haven’t you seen Cops? They don’t let hostile people ride in their cars without handcuffs, and they have the cage divider.”
“Does she look hostile?”
“Downright scary.”
Atlas turned back to me. “Okay, she looks hostile now, but she didn’t earlier. Before you put the cuffs on her.”
“Precautious.” Edmond tapped his head.
“The only problem is,” Atlas said with deliberate enunciation, his voice escalating, “we weren’t supposed to grab her! We were supposed to deliver a message.”
“Exactly. And she’s getting the message right now.”
“No, you dolt, it’s not code. We’re supposed to give her a message. Like talk to her. That’s all. No scare tactics. We’re not working for the mob. You got to stop watching those Scorsese films.”
“Oh.” The peanut brittle disappeared. A delicate ceramic ballerina figurine spun on his shoulder. “In my defense, that could have been more clearly communicated.”
“Look, why don’t you just take the cuffs off now, and we’ll pretend it didn’t happen,” I said.
Edmond glanced at me in the rearview mirror and shook his head. “Not yet. Your eyes are all squinty. You shouldn’t hold on to anger. It’s not good for you. It eats you up from the inside.”
“You guys just kidnapped me!”
“How about a cupcake? No one can be angry while eating a cupcake.”
“Good idea,” Atlas said. He reached for a Tupperware on the floorboard at his feet and popped the top. Chocolate and carrot cake aromas swirled through the car.
I choked on a dozen protests and finally spit out, “I don’t want a cupcake! I want to know why you kidnapped me. How do you know my name?”
“You really should try a cupcake. They’re delicious.” Atlas selected a carrot cake cupcake with thick frosting. When I continued to glare at him, he closed the lid, then placed the Tupperware on my lap. “In case you change your mind. Ed’s cupcakes are the bomb.”
I checked our location. We were on West Pico Boulevard, headed deeper into the city. So far so good. We were still in public. Public was way better than somewhere secluded.
Atlas bit into the cupcake and made a moaning sound of delight. “You’re a genius with flour and sugar, Ed. When I land my first big gig, I’m going to invest it all in you and Muffin Top Bakery.” Atlas ran his hand through the air in front of him like he envisioned the name in lights. Edmond beamed.
I considered using the Tupperware to bash their heads, but I didn’t think I could do enough damage to make them pull over. Fortunately, getting them to stop wasn’t going to require effort on my part. All I had to do was keep them talking; my curse would do the rest for me.
“Shoot, if this job runs a few more days, Jenny might be my final investor,” Edmond said.
“Jenny? Jenny Winters?” They knew my name and Jenny’s.
This was about Kyoko.
“One and the same,” Atlas said. “She’s hired us to keep an eye on things. Mainly you. All this over a cocktail recipe. The elephantini. I guess it’ll be big.” Atlas chuckled at his pun and Edmond rolled his eyes at me in the rearview mirror. “I never thought she’d become a mixologist, but Cousin Jenny’s always been a little, you know, out there. Or more like in here.” Atlas tapped his forehead. “Who knows what they did to her in Japan.”
“Why are you watching me? Why did you kidnap me? Why am I still handcuffed?”
“Whoa, chill, Eva,” Edmond said. “We’re not kidnappers.” Chocolate-drizzled éclairs lined up along the steering wheel column. Poppy seed bite-size muffins snaked across the dash. My stomach grumbled.
“We’re here to make sure the people she’s giving the runaround don’t find you. She said it’s more important than ever because the— What were her words, Ed?”
“‘The retrievalist was deployed.’”
All divinations disappeared from the car and from Atlas. A gigantic needle plunged into Edmond’s arm, and I flinched. Goose bumps rushed across my skin.
“What’s the retrievalist?”
“Some scary dude. Like a skip tracer, but he finds anything, she said. And she used that word. Deployed.” When Atlas turned to face me, a giant scar bisected his face, pulling his lip askew and drooping an eyelid. I jerked back in shock. The man had freakishly vivid emotional projections. “She was real nervous. She wanted you to have your guard up, too.”
“Great.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll protect you. That’s why we’re here.”
I had felt a good deal safer before I met them. I leaned forward and thrust my shackled hands between them. “This isn’t protection. It’s the opposite of protection. This is kidnapping. This is illegal. You put freakin’ handcuffs on me like I’m a criminal or a hostage!”
“She’s got a point,” Atlas said, looking at Edmond. “Maybe we should—”
“Uh-uh. She’s lookin’ all hostile again. Eva, I know you redheads have a harder time controlling your temper, but you really got to—”
“If you tell me to relax, I’m going to brain you,” I said. The terror of being kidnapped had morphed into adrenaline-fueled rage, and I fed it all my fear and confusion. I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my own skin with the emotional onslaught. Apparitions danced through the car’s interior—paper-clip chains the size of anacondas writhed at our feet through waist-high drifts of meringue; Oscar awards heaped in Atlas’s lap, partially obscured by soft white wings and a parade of tuxedos; a black tornado spun back and forth across the dash, sucking up éclairs and cupcakes and fist-size cows. I ignored it all, wallowing in my fury and fear. With every word, I willed the car to break down, and every second it didn’t pissed me off. “Jenny dumped this on me, and I’m done. I’m done playing her games. I don’t want to be a part of this. So tell me where she is, or so help me, I will—”
A high, long squeak pierced the upper range of my hearing, then dove to a loud concussion
. It didn’t sound like a car noise; it sounded like a released horse-size balloon exploding against a nail.
“Aw, Ed.” Atlas clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. “I told you not to get the club sandwich. You know what bacon does to you.”
A foul odor defiled my nostrils and caught at the back of my throat. Atlas rolled down his window, and a cyclone of stench whipped through the car, rivaling the worst-smelling semi of cows.
“But I love bacon,” Edmond whined. A blush stained his dark cheeks. “And she was making me nervous with all that yelling.”
“Bacon does not love you, man. You got to cut that shit out. It’s killing you, and it’s killing me. And it’s killing her.” Atlas tossed a thumb in my direction. “You smell like raw sewage.”
Yes, that was exactly the word I’d been looking for. I clamped my hands over my nose and mouth and breathed shallowly.
The Tercel moaned, backfired twice, and rattled to a stop. The stench settled around us.
“Damn it, Ed. Your fart’s killed the car.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Get out and push,” Edmond said.
“You’re the one who killed it. You push.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, yeah? It was working fine until you released that black cloud.”
“Let me out,” I said. “I’ll push.”
“You gonna let a woman push?” Edmond demanded.
We were on a two-lane street boxed in by blocks of stores. Edmond turned the key. The dash growled. Nothing happened under the hood. Cars horns bleated behind us.
Cussing, Atlas bounced out of the car and slammed the door shut, then stuck his head back in through the open window. “I’m not pushing your tub of lard.”
“Screw you,” Edmond said. He undid his seat belt and heaved himself out of the car, rocking it on its frame. After muted bickering, Atlas came around to the driver’s side and leaned on the door frame, one hand on the steering wheel. Edmond braced himself behind the vehicle.
Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance Page 11
