RAZZLE DAZZLE

by Lisa Hendrix

  “Figures out? He didn’t actually see you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Please, Paul. I’m not suited for life on the run.”

  He pushed the first aid kit back onto the shelf and shut the door, then leaned on the counter with both hands, his back to her. Her stomach roiled with tension, until finally he shook his head and turned around. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, I will cover for you. I’ll tell Mr. Alexander that you went out early in the evening, but that you came home sometime around—let’s see, three hours would make it about eight-thirty. The rest of the lie is yours to create.” He glanced at her bandaged arm. “However, may I suggest that you wear long sleeves tomorrow?”

  “What, this? Magus scratched me,” Miranda said lightly, waving off his concern. Her smile faded. “I’ve got to talk to Mother.”

  “She went out. Don’t tell me she’s in on this insanity, as well. What is going on? Why are you so obsessed with Mr. Alexander’s—”

  “This will have to wait.” Miranda cut him off. “Mason will be here any second. Thanks, Paul. You’re a gem.” She ducked out the side door, and three minutes later she’d washed her face, de-leafed her hair, slipped into pajamas, and was reading in bed, as though she’d spent a long, quiet evening at home.

  *

  What to do with Miranda.

  The thought plagued Mason all the way home. For all his talk about bodily harm, he loved his sister and wouldn’t harm a hair on her ditzy head. To be honest, there really wasn’t much he could do while still maintaining the fiction that he was in love with Raine and pretending he had no idea why Miranda would care one way or the other. However, he wanted to warn her off. This was no mere flakiness or peccadillo, after all, but outright vandalism. He doubted Miranda had meant to break the window, but Raine could have been hurt anyway.

  The first step, of course, would be to confirm that it really had been Miranda, easy enough considering that Paul always knew who was out in which vehicle. And anyway, the exhaust manifold on Miranda’s car would still be hot. All he had to do was lift the hood and he’d have some hard evidence that she’d just gotten home.

  His cockiness vanished as he approached the carriage house. The garage doors stood wide open, the Explorer was running with the hood up, and Paul was behind the wheel. So much for a simple hand to the engine.

  Paul shut off the engine and stood up as Mason got out of the car. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Paul.” Mason circled so he could look under the hood. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Just the weekly maintenance.” Paul reached for the oil dipstick and wiped it on a cloth he pulled from his back pocket.

  “Awfully late hours for maintenance work.”

  “I would have gotten to it when Miss Alexander first came home, but I was fighting my way through a monograph on Sino-Japanese relations and didn’t want to stop.”

  “How’s your dissertation going?”

  “Fine, sir. Another six months or so.”

  “Good. What time did my sister get in?” Mason tried to make the question casual, but it sounded nosy, even to his ears.

  Paul glanced at his watch. “Oh, eight or eight-thirty, I’d say.”

  “Mmm.” Damn, it hadn’t been her. Or perhaps that was good—it would mean it was just kids after all. “Well, good. I’d hate to think Miranda was making you work this late.”

  “Oh, no, sir. Entirely my choice. I needed to relax before bed. Let my brain decompress.” He checked the oil level and slipped the stick back into place. “If you’re in for the evening, I’ll see to your car tonight, too.”

  “That will be fine.”

  “Usual time in the morning, sir?”

  “Yes. Good night.”

  Mason strolled toward the house, suffering from a certain degree of disappointment.

  He’d always gotten a certain thrill from uncovering Miranda’s stunts when they were kids, one which hadn’t diminished much over the years, even when he’d moved back into the house after Elizabeth had left him. As far as he was concerned, snickering at Miranda and his mother and their New Age experiments fell under the same heading as holding his sister in thrall for a month after he’d discovered her substituting Mogen David for Dad’s best Cabernet: juvenile, but entertaining. Tonight might be different in some aspects, but it had brought out many of the same instincts.

  He let himself in through the side door and took the stairs to the main floor, where his suite took up the far end of the library wing. He was just stripping out of his shirt when he heard a car pull up out front. Curiosity got the best of him, and although he hated to join his mother and Mrs. Perlmutter in their annoying habit, he went to the window.

  A black stretch Cadillac sat before the front door, engine idling, the driver standing by the near-side passenger door, from which Angus Wickersham emerged. Mason’s ruminations on what Angus Wickersham would be doing visiting at midnight were cut short when Angus reached into the car and helped out a lady.

  Good God. Angus and Mother. Out together. Mason dropped the drape like a hot coal. That’s what he got for spying. Angus and Mother. Good God.

  *

  Tish hummed some light Viennese waltz as she climbed the stairs—one of those Strauss tunes, she never could sort out the titles. It suited her mood, though she couldn’t articulate why.

  A band of lavender light underlined Miranda’s door, and Tish knocked lightly.

  “Come.”

  “It’s just me, darling,” Tish said, poking her head through the door. “You look disappointed. Were you expecting someone else?”

  “I thought it would be Mason. He came home a few minutes ago. Close the door and come sit down.” Miranda patted the side of her bed, slipped a marker into her book, and scooted over a few inches to make room.

  Tish kissed Miranda on the cheek before she settled on the edge of the bed. “What happened to your hand?”

  “The official story is that I was playing with Magus and he got carried away.”

  “And the real story?”

  “Raine’s cat has bipolar disease. It’s nothing.” She quickly ran through the evening’s events for her mother.

  “You broke her window?” Tish exclaimed.

  “Shhh.” Miranda held a finger to her lips. “He could be listening, you know.”

  “Mason is not the sort to lurk about eavesdropping, unlike you. I knew this was a terrible idea. He’s going to absolutely explode when he finds out.”

  “He won’t. He didn’t see me, and I’ve arranged for Paul to cover and say I was here most of the evening.”

  “Paul? Miranda, you cannot draw him into our private affairs.”

  “We don’t have any choice. He’s already in. He’s agreed to say that I got home at eight-thirty or so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that puts me in well before the window got broken.”

  “No, I mean why would Paul agree to cover for you? He’s Mason’s driver. Mason will very likely fire him if he finds out. So why would he help you?”

  “I don’t know.” Miranda shrugged. “Because I’m cute?”

  “You’re being flippant. This is something you should think about. There might be hidden costs to his cooperation.” Frowning, Tish drummed her fingers on her knee. “The Goddess knows I like Paul, but he must have some motive to risk his job.”

  “He certainly didn’t ask for anything.” Miranda stared at her lap and fiddled with the ribbon bookmark. “At any rate, my story is that I got a massage and went for a little walk in the Arboretum, then got home sometime between eight and eight-thirty. I’ve been reading ever since. Fortunately, no one besides Paul saw me come in, so they won’t have any idea what time I got home. And of course, you won’t be able to say one way or the other, since you were out.” She perked up. “Speaking of which, where were you?”

  “Peeg Flaherty called and said they needed a fourth for bridge. I had Paul drive me over, but then it turned out I was partne
red with Angus Wickersham, and he offered to bring me home so Paul didn’t have to stay.”

  “Which turns out to be a good thing for me. So, you ran into Angus again. This is becoming a regular occurrence.”

  “I know. I wish I’d never promised Mason I’d stop driving. It leaves me at the mercy of others.”

  “Be grateful it was Angus instead of that son of Peeg’s. He wrapped his car around a tree last week.”

  “Actually, I think Angus did it mostly to finagle his way into an invitation to join us Saturday night.”

  “For the Wilmott Foundation dance? I didn’t think he did those charity things. It’s usually Caro who shows up to get her picture taken.”

  “I know, but with Caro out of town, I think he feels obligated. The Wilmott Foundation is one of Wick’s pet corporate projects, you know. He dropped so many hints, I wound up asking him. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not. The more the merrier.”

  Tish plucked a single, pale hair off Miranda’s pajama sleeve and let it float to the floor. “Do you think Mason will mind if I take a couple of spins around the dance floor with his future father-in-law?”

  “I don’t see why. He’s not planning to go…”

  They looked at each other in sudden, awful comprehension.

  “Oh, Great Lord of the Night,” said Tish.

  Miranda groaned. “That means he’s going to have another whole evening alone, unsupervised—with her.”

  *

  It occurred to Mason, in the middle of the long, restless night that followed his discovery of his mother’s outing with Angus, that he and Raine hadn’t made arrangements for their next rendezvous. The end of last evening had just gotten too complicated. Distracting. So the next morning, as soon as he thought she’d be up, he dialed her number.

  “What, Zoe?”

  He laughed. “You sound cranky. I’m glad I’m not Zoe, whoever she is.”

  “Mason.” Her voice softened immediately, a fact that sent a surge of warmth through Mason’s veins. “I’m sorry. Zoe’s a very good friend, but she woke me up at five o’clock this morning to ask my opinion about what to wear to work to impress a physics professor. I thought she was calling back. So, what happened with Miranda?”

  As quickly as that, she was cheery again. Mason smiled. There was no chance Caroline would be that good-natured if she’d been phoned twice before seven A.M.

  “Nothing. Paul was working on her car when I got home, and he claimed she’d been back for several hours. Unless she got him to roll over, she couldn’t have broken your window.”

  “Roll over. You mean lie for her? Would he do that?”

  “I hope not. I’d have to fire him.”

  “Oh, Mason, no.” Concern tightened her voice. “Don’t let this thing get out of hand. You can’t fire people over something that isn’t even real.”

  “This ‘thing,’ real or not, is not the issue. At times, I do serious business in that car. I need a driver I can trust absolutely, even when it involves my own family.”

  There was a long, disapproving silence over the line, and then she sighed. “I’m sorry. I have no business critiquing your personnel policies. He just seems so polished and efficient.”

  “He is. I’d hate to lose him, especially over something my mother and sister should have stayed out of to begin with.” Mason carried the cordless phone into his closet and selected a fresh white shirt, heavy starch. “But that’s not why I called. We neglected to make arrangements for the next couple of days. What are you doing Saturday?”

  “I have a booth at the Redmond farmers’ market all day, remember? I can’t skip it. I already missed last week.”

  “I meant the evening,” he said.

  “I’m all yours, boss.”

  “There’s a charity dinner dance I’d like to take you to.”

  “I thought you said we had to stay out of the public eye.”

  “I did, but I’ve reconsidered. We have to crank up the pressure on Mother and Miranda.”

  “But at a society function?”

  “I had been planning to skip this thing and spend the evening alone with you,” he said. “However, that doesn’t seem to have gotten us anywhere, so I reconsidered and concluded that this dance is a perfect opportunity. Picture you and me doing the tango out in public. Mother and Miranda will be in knots so tight, it will take a Boy Scout to untie them.”

  “Me, too,” muttered Raine. “I don’t tango. Look, you don’t want to trot me out in front of all your friends. All Caroline’s friends.”

  “None of them will be there. Laura Cobb is getting married and that whole bunch will be at her reception. I did a little calling around to check. Besides, the Wilmott Foundation dances usually attract an older crowd anyway. You and I will cause a stir, no question, but I doubt it gets back to Caro very quickly. Not before I have a chance to explain, at least.”

  “What about her father? He’s older. Won’t he be there?”

  Mason dismissed the thought with a flick of his hand. “I can’t remember the last time I saw Angus at one of these affairs. What do you say?”

  “Oh, Mason. This isn’t my kind of event. I’ll probably embarrass you, ruin your reputation, screw things up with Caroline, and make your mother hate us both, all at the same time.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re one of those rare people with natural social grace.”

  “Thank you, but whatever grace I have came from sitting through my mom’s Ladies’ Guild luncheons back in Bemidji—the most unnatural social situation you can imagine. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nobody’s going to notice my manners or lack of them when I show up in my standby pink dress. It’s the best I’ve got, and even I know people don’t wear hot pink minidresses to charity benefits.”

  “Maybe they should,” said Mason. He cut in over her groan of frustration. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you shopping tonight, and by the time we’re done, you’ll look like you’ve been running with the Highlands pack your whole life.”

  “Do I have any choice at all?”

  “Not really, no. And I’d like you to plan on staying here at the house afterward.”

  “My first impression was right,” said Raine. “You’re a lunatic.”

  “I come by it legitimately,” he said. “Look at my family. Raine, staying here makes perfect sense. You’ll have a good time, and it will really crank up the heat on my moonstruck relatives. So how about it?”

  “Oooh, all right. It’s your furnace. Look, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

  “All right. We’ll work out the details tonight. I’ll see you at the usual time.”

  *

  “You’re early,” Raine called out in response to the knock at the door that evening. “Hang on a minute.” She finished the last course of a French braid and secured it with a covered elastic, then quickly put on her lipstick. Grabbing for her favorite tortoiseshell barrette, she bumped the bathroom door open with her hip and headed for the front door. “Hi.”

  Her smile faded as she saw Mason’s driver standing on the porch, his cap tucked under his arm. “Paul. Hello.” Flushing, she turned under the end of her braid, pushed the barrette into place, and slipped into the shoes she had set by the door earlier. “Where’s Mason?”

  Paul held out a small, perfect bouquet of bright pink baby roses. “Mr. Alexander sends his apologies, but he has been tied up at the office by business.”

  Raine accepted the flowers with a smile: they matched her dress within a shade or two. “Thank you. Tell him he certainly knows how to stand a girl up with style.”

  Paul smiled, too. “Actually, you haven’t quite been stood up. Mr. Alexander will explain, himself. He’s on the phone in the car.”

  “I thought you said he was at the office.”

  “Let me rephrase that. He is at the office, but he has phoned the car and is waiting to speak to you. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready now, I guess,” Raine said, a bit disconcerted. As Paul opene
d the screen door, she reached for her purse and a lightweight cardigan for later, since it had clouded over again this afternoon. A quick flip of the door lock and they were on their way.

  At the front curb, Paul held the door open and helped her into the car, then leaned in, lifted a handset from a recess on the console, and handed it to her. “Just press the red button.”

  She waited until he shut the door before she touched the button. “Mason?”

  “Good evening.” Mason’s voice sounded warm over the cellular hiss. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. Our Everett production line went down in the middle of a critical run. I shot most of the afternoon up there, and now I have to spend my evening soothing an anxious client.”

  “All that just to get out of shopping.”

  He laughed. “Let me assure you, I would much rather shop with you and any ten of your friends than deal with this.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Worse.”

  “You have my sympathy. I guess that means tomorrow night is off, then.” She couldn’t keep the hopeful sound out of her voice.

  “No. I’ll have this under control within a few hours. Besides, I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” he added in a tone that sent a tremor of anticipation up the back of Raine’s neck.

  “But we’re back to the problem of me not having anything to wear,” she said.

  “Not at all. I made a few calls. The store is expecting you. There will be someone available to help you choose an appropriate gown and whatever else you need.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “They also have instructions to help you pick out a couple of new outfits to get you through next week,” he went on, ignoring her. “I do like that pink dress, but I can’t expect you to live in it.”

  “I don’t mind. It’s just a few more days, and it doesn’t make sense for you to spend that much money just to—”

  “The arrangements are already made.”

  “But—”

  “No arguments,” he said in a tone that would brook none, then added more gently, “This is my treat, Raine. I can’t be there, but at least let me have a little fun with it.”