Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  “Yes,” I said. “But he’s actually behind me, on the left side.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “You see?” Otto demanded. “At least someone appreciates me.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t know you the way I do. Anyway, don’t you have better things you could be doing?”

  “Yes, but I thought I should warn you that you were followed here.”

  “Followed?” I squeaked.

  “Do keep your voice down. Yes, followed. If you look out toward the main lobby area, you’ll see a suspicious individual loitering near the elevators.”

  I did as Otto suggested, and stared over Paul’s shoulder and in the direction of the bank of elevators that led to the tower rooms. People milled about, going this way and that, but I saw at once that one man wearing a dark suit and an entirely unnecessary black overcoat never moved, but only stood in one spot, apparently engrossed in some sort of brochure. I say “apparently” because his gaze kept flickering in the direction of the lobby lounge…straight at me.

  Immediately, I looked down.

  “What’s he saying?” Paul asked. “Did I hear you say you were followed? By whom?”

  “How the hell would I know? I’ve never seen the guy before.”

  “What does he look like?”

  I sneaked a quick peek and then lifted my glass of pinot and took a sip with what I hoped was an air of complete unconcern. “I can’t really see his face too clearly. Tallish. Dark suit and a black overcoat.”

  “A black overcoat,” Paul repeated in flat tones.

  “Yes.” A sudden thought hit me, and I said, “You’re not telling me that this guy is a — a man in black, are you? Come on!”

  “What else? Maybe there’s more to this client of yours and his possessed girlfriend than you realized. At any rate, I think it’s a good idea if we can find a discreet way to get out of here.”

  Otto said, “Very sensible. I think you should listen to him.”

  “What, and not your sterling advice?”

  “Go!”

  There were very few times in my life when Otto had outright commanded me — one being the time his shout of warning had kept me from getting hit by a car just as I stepped out into an intersection during my senior year of high school.

  I stood and wrestled a couple of twenties out of my wallet. “Otto thinks we’d better leave.”

  Paul rose as well, and began reaching for his own wallet.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “We can settle up later.”

  “He’s moving!” Otto hissed.

  Sure enough, when I looked over toward the elevators, I saw the black-coated individual coming in our direction, not running, not moving so quickly that he would attract any undue attention, but it was clear to me we were his intended destination.

  Paul didn’t miss a beat. “Not that way. Let’s go out through the service entrance.”

  And he began to move as well, striding purposefully toward the bar. As I trotted along behind him, I realized he was actually headed toward a door to the right and a few yards behind the bar itself, which must lead to the kitchens. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a waiter emerge through the door carrying a plate of sliders and one of the biggest orders of nachos I’d ever seen.

  I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. “He’s following us!”

  Sure enough, the man in black had increased his stride and had now entered the lounge area.

  “Excuse us,” said Paul, and pushed past the waiter and on through the swinging door.

  “Hey!” the waiter shouted. “You’re not supposed to go in there!”

  “So sorry,” I mumbled as I slipped by. Then I had to pick up the pace, because Paul had begun to run as soon as we were out of the public eye.

  The scent of hot grease and grilling meat hit my nostrils. It appeared that the lounge and the café shared the same kitchen space — at the end of a short hallway, we entered the kitchen proper.

  Someone else shouted at us, but since they were yelling in Spanish, I had no idea what they were saying. However, I guessed they weren’t exactly welcoming us to the hotel.

  “You have a car?” Paul asked, after glancing backward to make sure I was still behind him.

  “Yes. What about yours?”

  “Valet parking. It’d take too long to get the keys.”

  I nodded. “How do we get there?”

  He pointed toward a glowing green “Exit” sign in the far wall of the kitchen. Just as well, because a group of kitchen workers was converging on us. None of them looked too thrilled to see us there. Well, I was less than thrilled to be there myself.

  At least we had a lead on the mob, and so we hit the door running and came out in a dark alley that smelled as if they’d dumped about two months’ worth of rotten broccoli back there. I wrinkled my nose. “Now what?”

  He looked around, then pointed off to the left. “There’s the parking structure. We’ll have to see if there’s a way in from this side.”

  And he took off running. I cursed my heeled boots under my breath and pounded after him, thinking that if Otto had had the prescience to tell me I needed to come to the Sheraton Universal, he at least could have told me to switch into some athletic shoes. After that, I didn’t have much time to think about anything at all, because I heard the door bang against the wall behind us, followed by the sound of running feet.

  “Stop!” an unknown voice bellowed at me. “Federal agent!”

  Oh, shit. I didn’t want to think what the penalties might be for resisting arrest or fleeing a government agent. Then again, it wasn’t as if I’d been charged with anything. Hell, I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong. Besides, Otto had told me to go.

  So I was going.

  The parking structure loomed ahead of us, its interior dimly glowing with the strange pinkish light that sodium vapor bulbs gave off. I didn’t see any entrance, but the structure wasn’t really enclosed — it had concrete pillars separated by stretches with dual rows of metal railings. As I watched, Paul reached out and grasped the top railing, and hauled himself up and over as gracefully as an Olympic gymnast propelling himself over a sawhorse. Easy for him — he had almost a foot on me and a much longer reach. Still, it was kind of amazing what you could do with fear motivating you.

  I wrapped my hands around the cold metal and pulled myself upward. As I dangled there, Paul grabbed me by the biceps and yanked me the rest of the way. I stumbled against him but didn’t have much time to think about how nicely solid he felt.

  “Which level?” he demanded.

  “The bottom.”

  “Figures.”

  The stairs were a few yards away. We rushed to the door and began hustling down the steps, which clattered so loudly under our footfalls that I thought the occupants of the entire hotel should be able to know where we were. Sure enough, less than a minute later, I heard the door above us clang open, and then footsteps began pounding down after Paul and me.

  “Here,” I said, as we reached the door at the lowest level.

  He yanked it open and then waited for me to move ahead of him — made sense, since obviously he had no idea what my car looked like.

  Somehow, it seemed much farther away than it had been when I parked it here less than a half hour earlier. But there it was, my shiny red Volvo sedan. I pushed the button on the remote to unlock the car.

  “Inconspicuous,” he commented.

  “Well, I didn’t know I was going to be using it to evade federal agents.”

  “Better give me the keys.”

  “Like hell!”

  A door banged open, and feet began tramping their way toward us.

  “Have you taken a course in defensive driving from ex-Secret Service agents?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then give me the keys.”

  Delaying any longer would get us caught. I bit back a retort and tossed him the keys. He caught them neatly in midair, and then opened the driver-side door and slid
into the seat. I jumped into the passenger side and fastened the seatbelt.

  I looked up from the seatbelt to see the man in black bearing down on us. I couldn’t help letting out a frightened little squeak.

  “Hold on,” Paul said.

  His foot went down on the accelerator, and the Volvo bolted out of the parking stall as if it had been goosed. The agent swerved to follow us. His hand reached for my door handle.

  A clunk, and Paul engaged the door locks. I heard a muffled shout and saw the agent wince as he dropped back behind us. Maybe he’d just lost a few fingernails.

  That wasn’t enough to stop him, apparently, because I saw him reaching toward his shoulder. Reaching, and pulling out a deadly-looking firearm.

  “He’s got a gun!”

  No response from Paul, except that the car surged forward, and then whipped around the turn up to the next level with a scream of brakes and a cloud of smoke worthy of any Hollywood street chase. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the agent dropping back before he disappeared from sight.

  “Taking the stairs,” Paul said as he piloted the Volvo through another one of those rubber-burning turns. “Probably hopes he can head us off at one of the upper levels.”

  “Can he?”

  A flicker of a smile. “He can try.”

  We hurtled upward as I prayed all the while that we wouldn’t run into anyone else coming down the ramps, since Paul was taking the turns pretty wide in order to maintain our headlong momentum. On the last one, he swung out a little too far, and I heard a slight crunch and a tinkle of glass as the left rear bumper made contact with an Escalade that was sticking too far out of its parking space. Ouch. There went my good driver discount.

  “Shouldn’t we leave a note?”

  Paul didn’t bother to dignify the question with a response. Instead, he pointed the car toward the exit, which of course was blocked by one of those remote-controlled gates and watched over by an attendant in a kiosk. I didn’t even have time to wonder where my ticket had gone — a blur of black came out of the stairwell, blocking our way. Jesus, had that agent flown up the damn stairs?

  I thought I heard Paul mutter a curse under his breath, but he didn’t slow down. Not even as the agent raised his gun and pointed it straight at us.

  How the hell had I managed to fall in with the UFO community’s answer to Dirty Harry?

  Fear paralyzed me, kept me silent as we barreled down on the man. I clenched my jaw, waiting for the inevitable bullet to shatter the windshield. At the last second, though, he jumped out of the way, and we crashed through the slender arm of the gate as if it were made of Popsicle sticks. A few flying bits of debris hit the roof of the car and bounced off as Paul shot down the driveway, then onto the street. Luckily, the only real traffic there was either headed to the Sheraton or the Hilton a little farther up the hill, so it wasn’t much work for him to maneuver around a few tour buses and SUVs.

  “Which street is that?” he asked, as we barreled down on an intersection.

  “Lankershim,” I replied immediately.

  “Is there an airport close to here?”

  What, were we about to run off to South America together? But I didn’t have my passport. “Burbank,” I told him. “A couple of miles away. Turn right.”

  The light turned green just as we got to the intersection, and Paul swung the car around and began heading east. “What now?”

  “Don’t stay on Lankershim. After this next curve, it’ll split off onto Cahuenga. Take that.”

  He nodded and did as instructed. I turned and looked behind us, but I couldn’t see any signs of pursuit.

  “Why the airport?” I asked.

  “He knows what the car looks like. We’ll leave it in long-term parking and get a rental.”

  These words were delivered so calmly and matter-of-factly that it took a second or two for them to sink in. What with the adrenaline-laced rush of pursuit and escape, I hadn’t really stopped to think about what was happening. But now Paul Oliver, a man I barely knew, was talking as if this was just the beginning, as if from now on our fates were linked.

  “I’m just supposed to leave my car there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You run from the law much?”

  A grim smile, although he never took his eyes off the traffic around us. “First time. But I know a few people who are pretty good at hiding themselves.”

  “Great,” I said with a notable lack of enthusiasm. “Turn right on Verdugo, then left on Hollywood Way. That’ll take us straight to the airport.”

  “Got it.”

  I slumped back in my seat and watched the businesses outside the window slide by. Whether it was circumstance, or fate, or just plain old rotten luck, it appeared I was now a fugitive.

  Chapter Four

  We pulled into the entrance to the airport — affectionately named after the late Bob Hope — without further incident. I remained silent as Paul guided the car around the perimeter of the parking lots and brought us into one of the long-term areas. No baggage to unload, of course. We simply got out, and he came around and handed me the keys.

  “Good car,” he said.

  I nodded. For some reason, my throat was a little tight. It was dark outside, but not so dark that I couldn’t see the ding in the rear bumper from my Volvo’s encounter with the Escalade. I didn’t even want to walk around the front to see what breaking through that security gate had done to the bumper and the headlights.

  Possibly sensing my mood, Paul didn’t say anything as we walked over to the terminal and then followed the signs to the area where the car rental agencies were located. Otto was conspicuously absent, although I could have used some of his advice right about then. Maybe that frenzied dash out of the parking structure back at the Sheraton Universal had scared my spirit guide right out of this dimension. Whatever the reason, he obviously had decamped, and I was left to follow my own instincts, muddled as they were at the moment.

  Some part of me thought the smart thing to do would be to walk away from Paul and call the police to turn myself in. How bad could the penalties be? No one had been hurt, after all. Yes, there had been some property damage, but I was ready to pay for that. Chalk it up to temporary insanity or something. Besides, all I’d really done was run when some random guy yelled at me that he was a federal agent. He hadn’t even flashed a badge. How was I supposed to know he was legit?

  However, my gut told me that going to the police would be a spectacularly bad idea. True, being a fugitive from the law was not something I’d envisioned when I left my house earlier this evening, but the pricking of my thumbs or my spider sense or whatever else you wanted to call it told me I needed to stick with Paul, that we really had stumbled onto something I couldn’t walk away from.

  So I nodded when he told me to hang back as he headed to the Alamo counter. It made sense; rental car places tended to get twitchy when unmarried couples tried to rent cars together. At least, that was what I’d heard. None of my relationships had ever lasted long enough for us to get to the “renting a car together” stage.

  I loitered by a kiosk of brochures and pretended to be interested in horseback riding in Griffith Park. Actually, that sounded as if it could be a lot of fun, but I somehow doubted I’d be riding a horse any time soon — unless Paul couldn’t manage to rent a car, and we’d have to try getting away from the feds on horseback.

  He went out the door with the car rental agent, and I stiffened. Was he ditching me? Then I told myself to relax. They had probably just gone out to perform the inspection of the car, the one where they walk you around the vehicle and then try to up-sell you on the insurance. No doubt, he’d be back inside as soon as he could.

  A few yards away, there was a small newsstand cum snack shop, and I spotted a refrigerated case with sodas and bottled water. I’d never been much of a soda drinker, but the water looked awfully good. Running away from federal agents was a good way to work up a thirst. Besides, getting something to drink would
kill some time.

  I’d just paid for two bottles of water when Paul returned. “Here,” I said, and thrust one at him.

  He appeared somewhat surprised that I’d thought of him, but he took the bottle and replied, “Thanks. Well, we’re set. I got a beige Camry — I thought that would be inconspicuous enough.”

  “I’ll say.” It was the type of car that every other person in Southern California seemed to drive. Something struck me, though. “What about the credit card?”

  “What credit card?”

  “The one you had to use to rent the car. Can’t they — I don’t know, trace you through that or something?”

  A somewhat surprised smile. “Yes, ‘they’ probably could…except that I used a prepaid Visa card. It’s not directly linked to my bank account, so it’s much more difficult to trace.”

  “You in the habit of carrying those sorts of things around?”

  He shrugged, then pointed at a door farther down the hall, out of line of sight for the rental car counter. “We can go out that way. As to your question, well, an acquaintance once told me those sorts of things could be invaluable in certain situations, so I’ve taken to carrying one for emergencies.”

  “An acquaintance.”

  “Yes. One I’ll need to contact soon. But first things first.”

  I followed Paul through the door and out into the parking lot, where a beige Camry did in fact await us. Whatever was going on, I hoped it wouldn’t involve my poor Volvo being left in that parking lot for more than a day or so. Yes, it was a long-term lot, so the car wouldn’t attract any attention for awhile, but….

  This would have been a lot easier if I’d known Paul better. Or at all, actually. With someone else, I might have been comfortable enough to express some of my misgivings, but as he was being almost preternaturally calm, cool, and collected in the face of adversity, I thought I should do the same. Even if I did feel like a bowl of Jell-O inside.

  “How well do you know this area?” he asked as he clicked the remote to unlock the doors.