by Sherry Lewis
“Wait a minute—I’m supposed to live with them?”
“I thought you said you were paying attention.”
“I am,” Adam lied. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Until Ms. Prescott feels her daughter’s safe, I guess. Or until we have Larry Galloway behind bars again.”
Wonderful. An open-ended assignment.
“Dodge wants you to move on this right away,” Chuck said. “You start first thing in the morning. Go straight to Ms. Woodward’s house. She’ll be expecting you. Oh—I’ll be sending a laptop computer with the courier, too.”
Adam shook his head, slowly at first, then faster as Chuck went on. “I’ll do it, but not tomorrow. I’ve got the weekend off, remember? I’m going to Boise with my brother.”
“Not this weekend,” Chuck said. “Your leave’s been canceled, courtesy of Thomas Dodge.”
At first, Adam thought maybe he hadn’t heard Chuck right. This was his first weekend leave in six months, and he had plans for every minute of the time.
Irritation tightened his stomach and tensed his shoulders, but he tried to keep his voice reasonably calm. “I cleared this weekend with you more than three weeks ago.”
“I know, but Dodge insists on you for this assignment.”
“Somebody else can do it until I get back.”
“He ordered me to put you on this detail.” Chuck clipped out the words, a warning that his patience was wearing thin. “It’s important, Adam. You’re the only man we’ve got with the background to do the job right.” Adam could hear Chuck breathing on the other end of the line. He didn’t sound like someone who cared much about Adam’s plans.
“Assign somebody else to the case for the first few days,” Adam said. “I’ll take over first thing Monday when I get back.”
Chuck huffed out a deep breath. “I wish I could, but this assignment’s different from what we usually do. We’re sending you in under cover.”
Adam leaned back in his seat and stared at the receiver. “Under cover? Why?”
“Because Ms. Prescott doesn’t want DJ to know who you are and why you’re there. She wants you to pose as a friend of hers—you’re a writer, and you’re doing research on a new book.”
Adam barked an angry laugh. “A writer? That will never work. I don’t know the first thing about writing. Hell, I don’t even read”
“You’ll have to find a way to make it work.”
“Easy for you to say,” Adam grumbled.
Chuck drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, Adam, the bottom line is this: Dodge expects you to take the assignment and make it work.” When Adam didn’t speak, he continued. “I’ll have the courier drop off everything by ten in the morning. Do yourself a favor—make sure you’re there.” He disconnected without giving Adam a chance to respond.
Adam closed his eyes and struggled to control his exasperation. He’d been backed into a corner and left with no options.
He flicked off the telephone and dropped it to the table, then spent another minute or two glaring at it as if it were responsible for his disappointment. Shaking his head in self-disgust, he drained the last of his soda and lobbed the empty can toward the trash container in the corner.
After tugging his shirt over his head, he pulled off his shoes. He grabbed the cordless phone from the table and punched in Seth’s home telephone number as he walked down the hall toward the bedroom.
Clinging to resentment wouldn’t accomplish anything. Traveling to Boise with Seth would have been a pleasant change of pace, but the trip wasn’t important or necessary to Adam. It wasn’t worth the price he’d have to pay. Any further argument would only jeopardize future promotions.
Adam had lost everything in his divorce—his house, his wife, his security. His new career with Dodge Detective was the only thing he had left—he couldn’t risk losing that, too.
DJ WOODWARD pushed back her hair from her eyes and scowled at the mock-up of the ad she hoped to finish in time to run in the Sunday newspapers. She’d been fussing with the layout since well before closing, but she still couldn’t get it the way she wanted.
Sighing, she tried once more to focus, but worry over the store’s financial picture had kept her awake the past few nights, and for days, she’d been having trouble concentrating. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. One dim lamp at her desk provided enough light for her to work in the earlyautumn dusk, but heavy shadows reached eerie fingers out from the corners of the store and laid a dark blanket over everything else inside.
The evening matched her mood—dark, melancholy, pathetic. As she forced herself upright again, she caught a glimpse of the sunset over the Great Salt Lake through her office window. She allowed herself a minute to watch the sky glowing pink, yellow and lavender where the sun still touched the clouds, finally darkening into a solid base of indigo at the edge of the horizon.
Her inventory of shrubs and trees stretched toward the skyline. Backed by the fading sunlight, everything looked new and clean and beautiful, and for half a second, hope filled her. But it faded again just as quickly.
The store’s financial demands had almost drained her bank accounts. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a full staff, and if this week’s ad didn’t generate business, she didn’t know how she’d pay for the shipment of snowblowers scheduled to arrive at the end of the month. She was floundering, and staring at sunsets wouldn’t do any good.
Turning away from the window, she scowled at the ad again and pushed aside a sudden urge to quit for the day and rush home to Marissa. She couldn’t allow herself that luxury—not until she had everything under control.
With a sigh, she pulled off the pictures and type one more time and started all over again. She reached across the desk for a cutout of a daffodil bulb just as the telephone rang. Startled, she knocked a stack of bills onto the floor.
Laughing at herself, she scooped up the mess and reached for the receiver, expecting to hear Marissa’s tiny voice or Brittany, her baby-sitter’s, bored teenage one. Instead, her mother’s slightly husky voice reached across the miles from London. “Brittany and Marissa told me you were still are work. What on earth are you doing there?”
“What on earth are you doing?” DJ asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be conducting workshops at your seminar?” She wedged the receiver against her shoulder and tucked her feet beneath her on the chair.
“Not until tomorrow. But you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing there at this hour? It must be…” Christina paused for a second, then sighed. “What time is it there?”
DJ could almost visualize her mother standing in a hotel room, staring at her watch and struggling to calculate the time in her head. Give Christina Prescott something creative to do and she’d run circles around everyone else, but figuring international time zones still threw her for a loop. “It’s a little after seven—in the evening. And yes, unfortunately, I’m still working.”
“That’s what I thought.” Christina’s voice sounded faintly accusing. “You should be home with Marissa. It isn’t good to leave her alone so long with the baby-sitter.”
DJ held back a sigh of annoyance. Of all the people she knew, she’d expect her mother to understand how difficult being a single mother could be. DJ’s father had died when DJ was two and her sister, Laura, fourteen, and Christina had never remarried. Until she’d sold her first novel eight years ago, she’d worked at demanding jobs with long hours. DJ had spent her share of time with a baby-sitter, and Laura had turned surrogate mother—a role she’d never completely surrendered.
“Brittany’s responsible, and I can’t go home until I finish my ad. But enough about that. What’s up?”
“I didn’t know something had to be ‘up’ for me to call.” To DJ’s surprise, Christina sounded slightly offended.
“Only when you’re overseas, Mom. Actually, this is a wonderful surprise. I really didn’t expect to hear from you until you got back to New York.
”
“I know,” her mother admitted. “But I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And after the conference is over, I’ll still be gone another two weeks. It’s a long time to be away from home. I just needed to make sure everything’s all right—”
“Everything’s fine,” DJ lied.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Christina let a short silence fall between them, and DJ expected her to laugh, apologize for being an alarmist and hang up before the bill grew too large. Instead, she cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Then I need to ask a big favor. I know this is going to be an intrusion, but I really don’t know where else to turn.”
“What’s wrong?” DJ asked. “What do you need?”
Christina laughed the way she always did in uncomfortable situations. “I have a friend who needs to spend some time in Utah. He’s researching a book set along the Wasatch Front, and he needs a place to stay. I told him about the extra room in your basement.”
“What about the room in my basement?”
“I told him he could probably stay there with you.”
“You’re kidding.”
Christina didn’t respond. She wasn’t kidding.
DJ sighed. “You want me to entertain a guest? A strange male guest?” She shook her head quickly. “No.” She couldn’t afford it, either financially or emotionally.
“Now, sweetheart.” DJ recognized Christina’s mother-soothing-child voice immediately. As an adult, it left her irritated. “Don’t get upset. He’s really a very nice man.”
“Whether or not he’s nice isn’t the issue.”
Christina didn’t seem to hear her. “His name’s Adam McAllister. He’ll only stay for a few weeks.”
“And you want him to move into my house? Why can’t he stay with Laura and Bob? Or at your place—it’s empty.”
He needs to stay in Salt Lake, not forty or fifty miles away. Besides…” Her mother hedged a little.
DJ’s stomach knotted. “You didn’t already tell him he could, did you?”
“I told him I’d ask.”
DJ laughed without humor. “I don’t believe it.”
“Is it okay?”
“No!” she almost shouted, then reined in her temper and lowered her voice. “It’s my busiest season at the store. I don’t have time to cook and clean up after anyone, and I don’t want some strange man prowling around my house.”
“He’s not a strange man,” Christina insisted. “And you won’t have to cook for him. He can take care of himself—if you don’t mind him using your kitchen….”
She let her voice drift away, and DJ could picture her shrugging on the other end.
Lifting the mouthpiece to her forehead, DJ stared at her desktop. It did no good to argue with her mother when she was in this mood. Once Christina Prescott decided something, she moved ahead at full steam, and nothing could change her mind.
But DJ knew only too well what having a writer underfoot meant, and she didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with Adam McAllister and his book right now. She didn’t have time to remind him to eat when he lost himself in a story. She didn’t have the patience to listen to him agonize over endless plot twists and story lines. She didn’t have the energy to put up with some strange old man hogging the bathroom and kitchen.
“It won’t work,” she said again.
“He won’t be any trouble.”
DJ shook her head. “There are plenty of other houses in Salt Lake—”
“Not where Adam could stay.”
“You want me to let some strange man into my house—” she said again.
“No,” Christina argued. “I want you to let a friend of mine stay there—a perfectly harmless man who needs a place to stay. The best part is, Adam can get his book done and I won’t have to worry about you being there alone.”
DJ slumped a little farther in her chair. Surely her mother wouldn’t waste expensive transatlantic minutes to rehash that argument. “I’m not alone, Mom. I’ve got Marissa.”
“Marissa’s a child. She’s too young to offer any protection. Don’t argue with me. You’re alone on that street every night after your employees go home. It’s all but deserted. It’s not safe for a woman and child to live alone like you do. I’ve never been comfortable with the whole setup.”
And she told DJ about it at every opportunity. “The neighborhood’s fine,” DJ said.
“It’s not fine. Not anymore. It’s changing—and not for the better.”
“It’s fine,” DJ said again. “I’m not afraid.” She’d never been nervous like her mother and older sister. She didn’t prowl in the dark, checking the doors and windows. She didn’t stare into the night as if she expected something to appear out of the shadows, or jump at every sound.
Christina sighed heavily, a clear signal that the real argument was about to begin. “You know I don’t ask for favors often. And I wouldn’t ask this time if I had any other choice. Besides, I know you’ve been strapped for cash lately, and Adam’s willing to pay rent for the chance to sleep in your basement for a while.”
DJ dropped her head to her desk and cursed silently. “I’m not ‘strapped.’”
“No? Then why isn’t Marissa taking her dance classes anymore? Why did you sell the Cherokee and keep that old Toyota? Why did you change your mind about taking Marissa to Disneyland?”
“Okay,” DJ snapped. “So things are a little tight.”
“Have you done anything to collect the back child support Jeff owes you?”
“No. And I don’t intend to. He didn’t want Marissa in the first place, remember? I wouldn’t be doing her any favors by dragging him back into her life.”
“Then let me help out a little.”
“No, Mom.”
“We could consider it a business loan.”
DJ shook her head and kicked her feet back to the floor. “I’d send it straight back to you. I can make it on my own.”
Christina sighed again. “Honey, I know you want to do this. I know you’re trying to build yourself back up after the divorce—”
“It’s not that, Mom.” But they both knew it was. DJ’s house and store represented hard-won independence, and she had no intention of leaving either. The figures in her bank balance danced in front of her eyes and urged her to reconsider letting Adam McAllister stay. She wanted to refuse—she certainly ought to refuse—but reality forced her to admit that having a boarder might be the only way she could stay afloat through the winter months.
“How much rent?” she asked at last.
Christina named a ridiculously high figure, and DJ could almost hear her gloating on the other end of the line.
DJ argued with herself for a few seconds longer, but it was a losing battle and she knew it. She needed the money too much to let her pride stand in the way. “I’m not going to have a lot of time to socialize with him,” she warned.
“You won’t need to socialize,” Christina assured her. “Just be fairly pleasant—or at least, don’t be overtly rude. You probably won’t even notice he’s there.”
DJ didn’t believe that for an instant. The layout of her small house wouldn’t allow for a lot of privacy. But she didn’t want to discuss it anymore; she didn’t want the conversation to disintegrate into a fullfledged argument.
She drew in a deep breath and made an effort to steer her mother to a less touchy subject. “Did you get a chance to talk to Laura before she and Bob left for Lake Powell?”
Christina hesitated long enough to make DJ wonder if she’d try to keep the argument going. But her mother finally sighed softly and said, “Yes. I talked to her for a few minutes right before they left. Has she called you?”
“No. But they’ll be on the houseboat for two weeks, so I’m not expecting to hear from them.”
“You see?” Christina demanded. “That’s another reason I’ll feel better about having Adam stay with you.”
DJ groaned aloud. “Mom—
”
Christina sighed softly. “Humor me, sweetheart. I’m nervous about you being there alone. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Of course I will. But I’m the one who should worry—you’re the one who’s half the world away.”
“I know.” Christina sounded almost sad, but when she spoke again, she sounded more like herself. “All right, sweetheart. I won’t keep you any longer. I know you’re busy and this is costing me a fortune. Give Marissa a kiss for me when you get home, and be nice to Mr. McAllister.”
“I’m always nice,” DJ joked, then sobered again. “So, when will my houseguest be arriving?”
Christina hesitated a second before she answered. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” DJ rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Couldn’t you have given me a couple of days’ notice?”
“I just found out about it myself.”
“Well, he’ll just have to take what he gets. I’m not even sure I’ll have time to put clean sheets on the bed.”
“I’m sure you’ll make everything lovely,” Christina said. “I wouldn’t worry about it for a minute. Now, tell me, do you have my itinerary handy in case you need to reach me?”
“Yes, I do,” DJ said for probably the hundredth time since her mother had started planning the trip. But that note of sadness had touched her mother’s voice again, and DJ couldn’t help but ask, “Are you all right, Mom?”
“Yes, of course. Just a little tired, that’s all.” Christina laughed, but it sounded forced. Unnatural. “You know how emotional I get when I’m tired.”
DJ’s annoyance faded. “Then get some rest. And don’t forget to eat.”
“I won’t forget.” Her mother paused for another long second. “I love you, DJ.”
Before DJ could respond, the line was disconnected. She stared at the receiver until the dial tone filled the empty room. She tried to tell herself she’d imagined the dejection in her mother’s voice, but she knew before she replaced the receiver that she wouldn’t rest until she’d talked with her again.
Leaning her forehead on the heel of one hand, she made a mental note to call her mother in a day or two, then reached for her ad and tried not to think about how much a telephone call to Europe would cost. Everything would work out fine. Somehow, she and Marissa would get by. With the help of Adam McAllister’s rent, DJ would make ends meet and she’d keep the store going another month or two. She believed it. She had to. She wouldn’t even consider the alternative.
