Bedroom Eyes (23 page)

Never in her life had she done such a thing! To have forgotten her blouse was to have paraded naked in the streets.

So let an insufferable egotist like Tony Olano stand her up for dinner. She’d show him!

Not that she had any idea exactly how she’d do that, but she had a sense growing within her, like a flame taking shape from a pile of kindling, that she’d sure figure something out.

A soft knock sounded at her office door.

Burying the turmoil within, Penelope called, “Come in.”

Jewel pushed open the door, most of her hidden behind a bouquet of pinkish yellow longstem roses.

Penelope’s heart leaped, then settled hollowly. Any man who canceled dinner didn’t send flowers.

Did he?

“So, is this Mr. Right?” Jewel carried the vase to Penelope’s desk and settled it beside the framed picture of Penelope’s mother. The other junior partners at LaCour, Richardson, Zeringue, Ray, Wellman and Klees had photos of children, dogs, cats, fishing trips, and Mardi Gras costumes littering their desks. Penelope had one picture, that of her mother, taken at her law school graduation.

Staring at the roses, Penelope shook her head.

“You know, for someone who claims to work twenty-four hours a day, you sure are developing a horde of admirers.” Jewel settled the vase.

“What do you mean?” Penelope reached for the florist’s card in her assistant’s hand as she asked the question.

“ ‘Can’t do dinner’—that implies a date was planned. And somehow my instincts—purely female, you understand—tell me that these flowers didn’t come from the same guy.”

That interpretation intrigued Penelope. “Why do you say that?” She flicked open the envelope containing the card.

“The wording. ‘Can’t do dinner’—now, that’s a real he-man sort of message. Prissy pink roses, these have got to be from a different sort of man.”

“Hmmm. What sort of flowers would the first guy send?”

Jewel tipped her head to one side. Her braided hair swayed softly, giving off a melodic tinkling as the fasteners swayed one against the other. “I don’t think he would. Flowers would die far too soon to suit him.”

Penelope stared at the note:
I’LL DIE IF YOU DON’T SAY YES.
Glancing quickly at the half-dozen roses in the vase, she shivered. They might as well have been blood red.

“Ooh, an evil admirer.” Jewel folded her arms, clearly settling in for a complete confessional.

Penelope laughed. How glad she was she’d hired Jewel, despite the warnings of the three-piece-suited mannequin who ran the law firm’s personnel office. True, she was irreverent, had quite a mouth on her, and always spoke her mind. But her research, computer, and people skills surpassed that of any other assistant Penelope had seen strolling down the halls of the firm.

Not only that, Jewel was the closest thing Penelope had found to a friend in this exotic but somewhat overwhelming new city.

“He may be,” Penelope said slowly, thinking of her earlier conversation with Hubert. “You know a lot of people in this city.” Her assistant had worked in various law firms, as well as at federal court. “Can you tell me anything about a lawyer named David Hinson?”

She thought she’d asked the question in a casual enough fashion, but the drop of Jewel’s jaw told Penelope she hadn’t fooled her one bit.

“Tell me no,” Jewel said, sinking into one of the two leather armchairs in front of Penelope’s desk. “Tell me these roses aren’t from David Hinson.”

Penelope nodded, wondering whether her old law school mentor would criticize her for fraternizing with the help at the firm. Always keep your business to yourself, Mrs. Rosen had said, time and time again, to the charges she’d been sending out to the shark-infested waters of some of the nation’s top law firms.

“Whew!” Jewel glanced over her shoulder.

“The door’s shut,” Penelope said, “so cough up whatever it is I ought to know.”

“Well, I know you’re new to the city,” Jewel began slowly, pleating the lap of her skirt, “but it doesn’t take long before you figure out there are certain forces at work here.”

“And Hinson is allied with one of those forces?”

Jewel nodded. “Bad blood, Penelope, very bad blood. Not only does he do all the legal work for the guy everybody who’s anybody knows is the old geezer who controls the New Orleans mob element, he’s a creep. And I mean big time.”

“We’re talking about David Hinson?” Penelope studied her secretary closely. “About six-foot-two, blond hair, blue eyes—”

“Yep.” Jewel nodded. “For fun he beats up his girlfriends, or prostitutes, whoever he happens to find at the right moment.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about the same man.” Could she be such a bad judge of character?

“Ever seen that twitch below his right eye?”

Penelope froze. “Twitch?”

Jewel nodded. “Comes out when he doesn’t get his way. Then—bam! Watch out!”

Penelope pictured him at Primo’s, awaiting her answer as he held out the gaudy ring.

When she’d hesitated, the twitch had been very much in evidence.

“How do you know so much about him?” She had to ask. Jewel always seemed to know the skinny on everyone, but Penelope had never figured out her sources. Actually, Penelope had never questioned her fallibility before today. But now she felt she had to know.

Jewel shrugged. “My brother’s a cop. My great-niece is a prostitute. Go figure.”

Penelope shivered. “So you know of what you speak.”

“Fancy way to say it, but yeah, my dope’s straight.”

Penelope considered the information. A thought spiraled up within her, and she decided to risk the question. “And Tony Olano, ever heard of him?”

Again her assistant nodded. “Who hasn’t?”

Penelope wanted to scream. Did she have to prompt, or was that all she was going to get?

“Stay away from him, too,” Jewel said, rising from the chair. “Not for the same reason as Hinson, of course, but that guy breaks even the toughest hearts. And he got into trouble for taking a bribe.” She shook her head. “I always thought that was too fishy to be true. Had to be someone’s idea of revenge. Whatever happened there I don’t know for sure, but I do know Mr. Love ’Em and Leave ’Em Olano would eat you up and spit you out. But he is gorgeous. Those eyes!”

Ah, yes, those eyes. “Thanks for the scoop, and the advice.”

Jewel rose. “Anytime,” she said. “Anything else?”

“Hmmm. Why don’t you take these roses out to the reception desk?” Penelope tore the card into bits even smaller than what she’d done to the message slip.

Lifting the vase, Jewel said, “And I know there’s no need to mention where these came from.”

Penelope smiled. “Thanks.”

With one hand, her assistant saluted and backed from the office, flowers in tow.

Penelope twirled around in her chair, then reached for her phone.

Chewing on the stub of a pencil, she dialed information.

“New Orleans. Primo’s,” she said.

Mrs. Merlin was discovering that being short and flat was a hundred times worse than only being six and a quarter inches tall and her usual round self.

Five times now she’d called out for help, but either no one could hear her or the heartless souls inhabiting what looked like a very stuffy sort of library would not deviate from their schedules to involve themselves with her plight.

From what she could figure out, she’d become a one-dimensional human bookmark. She could see in one direction and as far as her line of sight extended there were books lined neatly on shelves in a pretty classy-looking room done in dark wood. Men and women wandered in, collected a book or two, then either disappeared or sat down at one of two tables.

Whatever their particular progression, they uniformly ignored her.

Mrs. Merlin sighed and remembered Mr. Gotho warning her that she hadn’t traveled far enough down the path of enlightenment to attempt the type of magick she so wished to conduct. He’d lectured her as to the inappropriateness of candle magick for her overwhelming desire to help out in other people’s lives.

Of course, Mrs. Merlin recollected with what would have been a sniff if her nose hadn’t been as flat as the rest of her, he hadn’t used the word
desire.
He’d called her a busybody who didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Mr. Gotho believed strongly that people should handle their own affairs, something Mrs. Merlin had learned by observation of human nature was quite impossible for many.

He’d even suggested that she consider college with a major in social work.

Mrs. Merlin had laughed at the very idea!

Why, before she could go to college, she’d have to finish high school.

A door opened and Mrs. Merlin tried to wiggle. “Over here,” she called, but even to her ears the words seemed to disappear in a puff of air.

If only she’d stuck to a simpler spell last night. But no, she’d been determined not only to put her body back to rights, but also to throw in a smidgen of help for Penelope, who’d been so kind as to rescue her from that basket of napkin rings.

If only Penelope were here now!

Mrs. Merlin wriggled and tried to edge herself higher between the pages of the book, to no avail. Only her neck and head showed. She’d have to hope that someone walked straight up to the shelf where she’d been stranded or she might live out the rest of her days as a bookmark.

She sighed, thinking how she’d grown tired of oatmeal. Why, she’d never complain about eating the same thing ever again, not when she faced sure starvation, inch by inch.

Footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting approached. Miraculously, they stopped in front of Mrs. Merlin, but far enough to her other side she couldn’t see the person. That made her nervous because not everyone would handle a summons by a human bookmark as neatly as Penelope had fielded her plea only last weekend.

She was about to call out again when she found herself—within the book she marked, of course—lifted and carried through the air. Thank the stars! She blinked and held her breath as the book dropped to the table with a teeny thud.

“Ouch! Be a little bit careful, why can’t you?” Mrs. Merlin couldn’t help herself. Her tongue got her into trouble a lot, but her bones were a bit too brittle to be bounced around, particularly when they’d already been flattened.

“Mrs. Merlin?”

When Mrs. Merlin heard Penelope’s voice, she promised the goddess, the stars, and Mr. Gotho she’d never misuse candle magick ever again. Aloud, she said, “Who do I look like? Yul Brynner?”

Penelope laughed and opened the heavy book.

“Ah.” Taking a long breath, the first decent one in hours, Mrs. Merlin blinked, then blinked again. All she could see was black type dancing before her eyes above the glossy wood of the table. “You might turn me over,” she said.

“I might.”

Oh-oh. Mrs. Merlin detected a note of grim determination, bordering on a ruthlessness she’d not gotten from the lawyer before. Most of the time Penelope struck Mrs. Merlin as a little girl playing dress-up, but that voice belonged to a woman made of sterner stuff.

What else had last night’s spell wrought?

“Do you want something from me?” Mrs. Merlin asked the question in a cautious tone.

“The truth. Did you throw in any bonus in your spell?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Even to Mrs. Merlin’s ears, her own voice sounded less than innocent.

Penelope must have leaned over the table, because her voice sounded right behind Mrs. Merlin’s flattened head. “I overslept, I practically flirted—flirted!—with my client at breakfast, and to top it off, I came to work without a blouse on under my suit.”

“Well . . .”

“The truth.”

She found herself flipped over, about as elegantly as one would flip a flounder. Staring into Penelope’s blazing eyes, Mrs. Merlin couldn’t help but smile. The girl looked much better with a fire lit within her. “I did scrape just a bit of that cherry-red candle into my own flame.”

“And?”

Mrs. Merlin shrugged one squared-off shoulder. “I was only trying to help you get in touch with your passionate self, stimulate a few chakras, show you what you’ve been missing.”

“Gee, thanks.” Penelope pointed to Mrs. Merlin. “Please don’t take this wrong, but it looks as if you’re the one who needs help.”

Her finger strayed to the page facing where Mrs. Merlin lay. “Hey, look at this,” she said, sounding pretty excited. “I thought I knew every exception to this rule by heart, but . . .”

Penelope wheeled around. “I’ve got to tell Hubert. I think I’ve found the solution to Fitzsimmon’s tax problem!”

“You can’t leave me here!”

“Oh, right.”

Mrs. Merlin found herself shut into the book again, this time with only the top thatch of her hair poking free. She mumbled and moaned and thankfully Penelope had the presence of mind to raise her so at least her neck and face were free.

“Sorry, I just got carried away,” Penelope said as she walked rapidly down the hall. “I had this vague idea to recheck the exceptions, which is why I pulled this particular volume off the shelf, and then, voilà! Problem solved, almost magically.”

Mrs. Merlin felt Penelope stop dead in her tracks. Aha! About time the smarty-pants lawyer learned a lesson about magick.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Penelope said in a low voice.

“Yep.”

“You didn’t—no, what you did last night had to do with passion, not taxation.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Merlin couldn’t keep from sounding pretty superior. “Think again.”

Penelope lowered the book and stared into Mrs. Merlin’s face, or rather the representation of her face. “You had me put the Opinion Letter on the altar.”

“Morning, Penelope.”

“G-good morning, Mr. LaCour, Mr. Richardson.”

“Talking to ourself, are we? Guess that breakfast with old Clarke must have been a tough one?”

Mrs. Merlin couldn’t tell who was speaking. She heard two different male voices and assumed they had to be bigwigs because Penelope flipped the book over so Mrs. Merlin stared down at the floor. Penelope also stammered a bit as she responded.

Then the men passed on by and Mrs. Merlin found herself flipped face up again.

“Nah,” Penelope said, “I would’ve thought to recheck the exceptions whether you threw in a spell or not. It’s simply coincidence.”