Absolutely Captivated

by Grayson, Kristine

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Zoe asked.

  The blond smiled. “Finally, some recognition.”

  “We were beginning to think we looked too normal,” the redhead said.

  “Yes,” said the brunette, “like Real People.”

  She said that with just enough of a mixture of contempt and amusement that Zoe felt the sense of recognition grow even more. Still, she held her breath.

  “I think,” said the blond.

  “We were all worried,” continued the redhead.

  “That you had forgotten us,” finished the brunette.

  Zoe shook her head. No one forgot the Fates. Especially not when the Fates had treated that person with a mixture of fondness (Really, darling, you are such an iconoclast—even for a mage) and fury (We make rules for a reason, child. Order must be kept).

  “It’s not possible,” Zoe said.

  “What’s not?” Kinneally asked. She met that startling blue gaze. He truly seemed confused—not just by her, but by everything. She hadn’t noticed before how he hung back, stayed away from the three women, and simply observed.

  And what had he said? You’re not the one we’re looking for. She’s a detective. Has to be in her—gosh, I don’t know—eighties by now.

  He had come into his magic within the last few years, judging by the look of him. How could he not know that mages were long-lived?

  Zoe crossed her arms and looked away from him, studying the three women. Zoe wasn’t going to say whom she thought they were. They would have to admit it. If this was some sort of magical scam, she wanted them to get it underway.

  She wasn’t going to be an easy mark, someone who gave away too much information just by making assumptions.

  “Ma’am?” The little boy stepped forward.

  His fair skin was sunburned on the right side only—obviously he’d been in a car too long, under the sun—and his round glasses had slid to the edge of his nose, making him look much more bookish than his athletic brother.

  “I know you don’t trust us,” the boy said, “but these ladies, they need your help. My dad doesn’t know how much trouble they’re in. They haven’t told any of us except my Aunt Vivian, who never told us either, but I know. This is pretty serious, and these ladies, they’re scared.”

  All three women turned in unison and stared at the child. If they had stared at Zoe like that, she would have been afraid of turning into stone.

  But the child seemed unfazed.

  Then Zoe realized that she wasn’t unfazed. She was fazed. That kid had called the man next to him his dad.

  “You’re this boy’s father?” Zoe asked Kinneally.

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Is that a problem?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. “No. I mean, I thought you were brothers.”

  Kinneally smiled. It was a devastating, brighten-the-room-with-a-thousand-suns kind of smile, and Zoe felt herself melt.

  “He’s my son,” Kinneally said. “His name is Kyle, and I’m Travers.”

  Zoe had to concentrate again to hear his words. She’d often read about women who were so overwhelmed by the men they met that they couldn’t concentrate, but she’d never had it happen to her. She’d always believed it to be a fictional contrivance, just like she felt love at first sight was the same thing, and happily-ever-after came from children’s stories.

  “Travers,” Zoe found herself saying before she could stop herself. The name was unusual, just like he was, and it suited him. “Travers Kinneally.”

  He nodded. “You know it?”

  She had to shake her head, which made her feel like a dork. And she hadn’t felt like a dork since she had gone through puberty too many years ago to count. She wasn’t even sure if there had been such a word back then. Dork. Imbecile, maybe, but not dork.

  “Ma’am?” the boy said again in that tentative voice. “I know you think my dad’s cute and all, but can we focus on the problem here?”

  Zoe blushed. Her cheeks grew so hot she was sure steam was rising from the top of her head.

  She hadn’t blushed since she was a child—at least that she could remember.

  “Kyle!” Travers said. He sounded shocked and embarrassed.

  “Yes, dear,” said the blond, turning around in her chair so that she faced Zoe.

  The redhead turned too. “We have a problem.”

  The brunette’s turn was perfectly orchestrated to make the entire maneuver look like a shtick from a Broadway musical. “And we believe you’re the only one who can solve it.”

  Six

  Travers put his hands on Kyle’s shoulders and pulled his son back toward the door. Travers was going to tell Kyle that this was no longer their concern, that his son was getting too personal, and that it was time to leave, but the shock on Zoe Sinclair’s face was too much.

  Travers couldn’t tell if the shock came from Kyle’s comment about Zoe’s attraction to Travers or if it came from the weird way the Wyrd Sisters were speaking to her.

  Kyle dipped his knees and slipped out of Travers’ grasp. That kid always seemed to know what Travers was going to do. Kyle moved far enough along the unpainted wall that Travers would have to leave the door to reach him. And for some reason, Travers wanted to keep the door at his back.

  Part of that reason was Zoe Sinclair herself. She was stunning. She had chocolate brown hair, stylishly cut so that it brushed her cheeks. Her skin was ivory, but those cheeks had a reddish tinge even when she wasn’t blushing.

  She had kissable lips (he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them since he walked into the room), and the most startling eyes he had ever seen. They were large, with heavily fringed lashes that made them seem even more dramatic than they already were. Her brows, arched along the perfect bone above her stunning eyes, also added to the drama.

  But the thing about her eyes that he liked best was that their color perfectly matched her hair. Right down to the highlights. Her hair had golden highlights and her chocolate brown eyes had golden flecks.

  Flecks he couldn’t stop staring at.

  Good thing Kyle hadn’t mentioned Travers’ attraction to Zoe. Although hearing that Zoe was attracted to Travers did make his heart rise, just a little. It rose even more when Zoe blushed.

  She didn’t look like the kind of woman who blushed. Although she had a blusher’s skin—that soft, luminescent color—her body language, her black skirt and t-shirt (worn despite the day’s heat), and that hard glint in her eyes made it obvious that she didn’t like the softer emotions in herself or in anyone else.

  He wondered about her past. Obviously, she came from a long line of female detectives. Had her grandmother opened this place? Then had her mother followed or had the Sinclair Detective Agency skipped a generation?

  And why did he care? He wasn’t ever going to see her again, no matter how beautiful she was.

  “We should go,” Travers said to Kyle.

  Kyle looked at Travers as if Travers had committed the social gaffe of the century. It took a moment for Travers to realize he had interrupted one of the Wyrd Sisters.

  “I mean,” Travers said to his son, “we’ve done what we came to do. We should let them get on to their private business.”

  “Da-ad,” Kyle said, stretching the word out. “We can’t leave. Not now.”

  “I’m confused,” Zoe said. Her voice was husky and low, a smoky alto—the kind that always sent a shiver down Travers’ spine. Like a blues’ singer, only richer, with a little less cigarette-and-alcohol rasp and a bit more warmth. “Aren’t you part of this group?”

  “I’m just the delivery boy,” Travers said.

  “Daaad!” Kyle stepped farther away from Travers’ grasp.

  “Come on, Kyle,” Travers said. “Meetings with private detectives are confidential.”

  Travers didn’t know that for certain, but he assumed it. Besides, in his own business, he didn’t let strangers in the same room as his clients. Certified Public Accounting wasn’t psychotherapy, bu
t it did have its own sets of rules. He was sure detecting was the same.

  Zoe’s gaze met his. There was a question in those interesting eyes, and a challenge. He wasn’t sure what the question or the challenge was, and he doubted he would ever get the chance to find out.

  His fingers found the doorknob. He needed to leave before his interest in this woman got the better of him.

  “You must stay, Travers,” said Clotho.

  “This concerns you, young man,” said Lachesis.

  “After all, you’re years behind in your studies,” said Atropos in a voice that sounded so much like his mother’s that Travers actually let go of the doorknob before he realized what he had done.

  “I have no studies,” Travers said, “and all I’m behind in is a few days’ work. Kyle and I have to find a hotel room, so we’ll leave you to your business. It’s been a pleasure, ladies.”

  “Stop him!” Clotho said to Zoe.

  “Use a spell, something,” Lachesis said.

  “He cannot leave this room!” Atropos said.

  Zoe’s face had gone ashen. In fact, it changed color the moment Lachesis said the word “spell.”

  Zoe looked from him to the women and back to him again. “Tell me what’s going on here,” she said to him, “and this time, don’t hold anything back.”

  Seven

  Zoe had no idea why she had commanded Travers Kinneally to tell her what was going on. After all, he seemed almost as confused as she felt. He looked from his son (son! Travers must have been a child himself when he fathered that boy) to the possible Fates and, when it was clear none of them were going to say anything, he looked at Zoe.

  And shrugged.

  The movement was elegant, boyish, and somehow charming. She had to resist the urge to smile.

  “All I can do is tell you why I’m here,” he said.

  “Shoot.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, her chair squeaking as she did so.

  But the blond spoke first. “I do believe it would be better if we told you—”

  “Shh!” the redhead said.

  “Have you, of all people, forgotten the main objective?” the brunette asked.

  The blond put a hand over her mouth. “The situation is getting serious. We are losing touch.”

  “Shh!” the redhead said again.

  “Let the boy answer her,” the brunette said.

  “Me?” Kyle squeaked.

  “No, child,” the blond said. “The other boy.”

  “Your father,” the redhead said.

  “After all,” the brunette said without a trace of sarcasm, “he’s the one who wants to abandon us.”

  “I do not!” Travers said, looking surprised. Then he shrugged again, and Zoe found that she liked that boyish mannerism. “I mean, I do want to leave, but you’re adults. You’re not my responsibility. Kyle is, and we have to get home.”

  Zoe frowned. She looked from the man to the boy. Kyle’s cheeks had reddened, and it seemed like he was angry.

  “You promised, Dad,” Kyle said

  “I promised you I would bring them here,” Travers said. “I’ve done that.”

  “But you don’t know if she’s the right Zoe Sinclair!” Kyle said.

  “What’s this about the right Zoe Sinclair?” Zoe asked.

  “She is,” said the blond.

  Zoe shook her head. “Someone please tell me what’s going on.”

  And again, she looked at Travers.

  He held out his hands in a helpless, who-knows gesture. “My sister, at her wedding, asked me to drive these three women down to Los Angeles. I did that. Then it turns out that they want to find a woman who used to work there named Zoe Sinclair. My kindhearted son—”

  Kyle’s flush grew even deeper.

  “—begged me to help them find this woman, saying that these three ladies shouldn’t be on their own. Kyle’s pretty astute for a kid his age, so I agreed.”

  Zoe folded her hands on the desktop, not wanting Travers to see how unnerved she was. These women had to have something to do with the Fates. This was some sort of complicated scam. Zoe wondered if the real Fates knew about it—non-magical women doing a fairly excellent impersonation of the most powerful beings in mage history (excepting the Powers that Be, of course).

  Travers sighed and shook his head. “Long story short, there hasn’t been a detective named Zoe Sinclair in Los Angeles since—”

  “The 1950s,” Zoe said. “You can stop pretending you don’t understand this now. You found me. What do you all want?”

  Her voice was harsher than she had intended but she was getting annoyed. She was finally able to see past Travers’ beauty, which had stunned her for a while. She hadn’t thought clearly.

  If she had, she would have realized that the magical always knew other mages. And they knew about long life spans and the way that the magical aged slowly.

  So Travers, for all his protestations, knew that she was who she said she was. And the women, who should have been magical and were not, did not, apparently, know that Zoe could suss out their lack of magical abilities.

  The only real mystery here was Kyle. The kid seemed sincere. But Zoe had seen a lot of Vegas scams built on children. Children could be the absolute best at sincerity, partly because they didn’t have to try as hard.

  “Excuse me?” Travers said. He looked like she had thrown cold water on him. “You can’t be that Zoe Sinclair.”

  “And why not?” Zoe asked.

  “Because you’re—what? Thirty? And to be that woman, you’d have to be eighty, like I said.”

  “And you can stop playing dumb, Mr. Kinneally,” Zoe said. “I’m not some wilting mortal woman who is unwilling to admit her piddly age. I’m going to be one-hundred-and-seventy-four in August, more than old enough to be your Miss Sinclair from Los Angeles and from Vegas fifty years ago. I’m not a grandmother, I never will be, and I’m not about to start now.”

  He stared at her. She could have sworn that the shock he was pretending to have was real. It felt real. It resounded through her as if she were the one who was shocked.

  “I’m not a fool, Ms. Sinclair,” he said.

  “Good,” she snapped. “Then let’s get down to business.”

  “I mean,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “no one lives one-hundred-and-seventy-four years. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but this isn’t working.”

  “Me?” Zoe’s voice rose. “You’re the one who comes marching in here, decides that I can’t be who I say I am, pretends not to have magic when it’s clear you do, tries to pass off three non-magical women as the Fates, and somehow managed to rope your poor son into all of this.”

  “What?” Travers pushed off the door. His blue eyes seemed even brighter than they had a minute before. “I’m not conducting a scam.”

  Zoe silently cursed herself for using the word “Fate” before anyone else had, but she was committed now.

  “You clearly are. Anyone with a hint of magic could tell that you and your boy are about as magical as they come. That kid’s going to be something, with the abilities he already has. I sure hope his training is better than yours, because it’s clear that you’re not smart enough to scam anyone. First of all, you have to know that—”

  “Wait a minute.” Travers’ voice got lower when he was angry. And softer. Which made it seem more menacing, somehow, than a yell. “I am not involving my son in anything illegal.”

  “Not by human laws, no,” Zoe said, “although I haven’t heard the pitch yet. Is it to steal something?”

  All three women nodded their heads.

  “Well, then, I’m not your man, metaphorically speaking,” Zoe said. “Because I don’t break laws—mortal or mage. It’s just not good for me, my reputation, or my business.”

  “We haven’t asked you to break any laws,” Travers said.

  “Um, Dad,” Kyle said, so softly that he might have hoped Zoe couldn’t hear him. “The Fates just did.”

  “T
he Fates.” Travers put his hands on his hips. “I believe that they’re the Fates as much as I believe that you, Ms. Sinclair, are one-hundred-and-seventy-four years old. I have had enough of this craziness. Kyle, we’re leaving.”

  “No.” The boy flopped onto Zoe’s couch. A cloud of dust rose off the cushions, and Zoe almost smiled despite her annoyance. Her housekeeping skills did leave something to be desired. “We’re not leaving until someone promises to take care of the Fates.”

  Now the boy was calling them the Fates, but Zoe didn’t know if that was because she had done so first. She silently cursed herself again for making that mistake, and made a mental promise that she would never again berate clients who made the same one. It was startlingly easy to fall into that kind of trap.

  “Travers,” said the redhead. “You really must stay.”

  “We will need you on this mission,” said the brunette.

  “Mission?” Now his voice went up. And it moved from baritone to Irish tenor. Which Zoe still found attractive, even though she was annoyed. And the fact that she found him attractive when she was annoyed annoyed her even further.

  “Look, ladies,” he said, “I’ve done all I’m going to do. Get Miss Sinclair to baby-sit you for a few days. Maybe she can find someone new to pass you off on. I’m outta here.”

  He took steps toward the couch, looking forever like an angry father about to grab his son and take him out of a dangerous place. Kyle ran to Zoe and hid behind her chair.

  “You’ve got to hear this out,” Kyle said, all in a rush. “Because we’re not scamming you and no one’s lying to you and my dad really is clueless—he has been since I was a baby. He always says it’s coincidence that I know stuff, not that I’m psychic, even though my Aunt Viv is psychic and my new Uncle Dexter used to be Superman.”

  That last caught Zoe by surprise. “Dexter?” She turned toward the boy, and saw him only partially out of her left eye. He had ducked behind the chair, and was holding its back with his hands, as if it were a shield that he could move to block his father.

  “We’re leaving, Kyle,” Travers said. “Enough games.”

  “Superman?” Zoe asked, a memory playing in her mind. Something about Canada and—