Coalescence - SF3 (36 page)

Ryan laughed and agreed. "It was kinda funny. Here was this big, buff, white gay kid, totally into Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Al Green. I’m not sure how he was first exposed to those artists, but it clicked with him."

"I’m sure you realize this, Honey, but your tastes are the same as his," Jamie gently pointed out.

Ryan laughed a bit at this. "I know, Babe. I’m just a female clone. If Michael liked it, I liked it. Who knows, if he had been alive when I was developing my sexuality I might have been into guys!"

"That’s a stretch!" the blonde laughed, confident that Ryan’s sexual orientation was the narrowest part of her expansive personality.

"Yeah, you’re right there," Ryan agreed. "Hero worship could only go so far!"

A happy little smile covered Ryan’s face, and Jamie gave her hand a squeeze. "Thanks for talking about him a little bit, Babe. This was helpful for me."

Ryan nodded her dark head, looking pensive. "It was for me too," she agreed. "We’ll have to do this again."

"I’ll hold you to that promise," Jamie assured her, leaning over to kiss the smiling lips.

After the chairs were returned to their rightful spot, the twosome walked back to the house, hand in hand. They were nearing the house when Ryan said, "I think I have a pretty good idea on how to solve the security camera issue."

"WHAT!! And you’re just telling me this now?!"

"Uhh…yeah," Ryan laughed. "I’m not certain of the details, so I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I think my expert might call soon, though, so I thought I’d warn you."

"Your expert?" Jamie blocked the entry to the house, standing with her hands placed firmly on her hips. "Ryan, what is going on?"

The phone rang in the middle of this exchange, and Jamie dropped her hands and led the way into the kitchen, where they heard Conor’s voice over the answering machine, "Hey, Secret Agent, pick up," he demanded.

Ryan gave Jamie a crooked grin and trotted over to grab the receiver. "Hi, Conor, it’s me," she said. She rolled her eyes at Jamie as she added, "Yes, it’s really me." Another pause and a second bout of eye rolling had her providing further identifying information. "Siobhán Ryan O’Flaherty. October 30, 1975." Jamie giggled as Ryan shook her head at her brother’s playfulness.

Ryan listened attentively for a few moments as a big smile spread across her face. "I owe you big time, Bro." Mere seconds later she shook her head violently, "I don’t owe you that much, and it’s kinda sick to even ask." She pursed her lips as she said sarcastically; "It wouldn’t have the same impact if you cut me out, Dummy." Her smile returned as she said, "I love you, Conor. You’re the best."

She hung up the phone and sat on her stool with a self-satisfied grin on her face. She crossed her arms and grinned at Jamie, waiting for her to ask about the phone call. The blonde tried to wait her out, but was totally unsuccessful. She finally jumped at her and tried to tickle the information out of her. Ryan fought her off pretty well, finally grasping her around the waist and picking her up until she had her comfortably placed in her lap. Jamie wrapped her arms around Ryan’s neck and kissed her a few times, pulling away with a big grin on her face. "Well, I can’t tickle or kiss it out of you, how do I get you to tell me what that phone call was about?"

Ryan smiled down at her partner and batted her big blue eyes. "You could just ask, Sweetheart."

"Where’s the fun in that?" Jamie asked incredulously. "But if that’s all it takes, I give. What was that call about?"

"I called Conor this morning before I went for my run. I told him the manufacturer of the cameras and gave him a description of the room and where they were located. Then I told him about the door and gave him the manufacturer of the lock. When he got to work, he made a few calls and found the company that makes the system. They gave him the name of the local distributor, and he talked to them, too. "

Jamie was jumping up and down with delight. She couldn’t bear the tedious recitation of facts, but she knew that she had to bear with Ryan’s thorough style.

"Now, don’t get too excited, Cupcake." Ryan’s face grew serious as she tossed a major problem into the mix. "Not surprisingly, the local alarm company wasn’t willing to give out too much information to a complete stranger. They wouldn’t even confirm to Conor that they had done the work here."

"What do we do now?" Her frustrated plea was accompanied by a frightened look that caused Ryan’s heart to clench.

"Worry not, Babe. We have other avenues. Conor’s gonna work on finding out who put the lock on the door. If he can’t find that out, he’s gonna buy a new lock and replace the one on the door after he cuts it off. Then we can have the new lock re-keyed tomorrow to match your parents’ original keys, but we do have to find those keys if we can’t find the lock installer."

Jamie leaned back and gazed at Ryan with open-mouthed surprise. "I can’t believe you two got all that done and it’s only eight o’clock."

"Yep. Actually, the best time to reach a lot of these guys is between seven and eight. Most of them are in their shops during that time, so it worked out great. Plus, the alarm manufacturer is on the east coast, so it was normal business hours there."

The frightened look was beginning to disappear from Jamie’s face, but she still didn’t have any idea about what their next step should be. "What can we do on this end, Honey?"

"Do you have any idea where your parents keep documentation on work they’ve had done?"

"I looked around pretty carefully yesterday, but I didn’t think to look for receipts for the work. Daddy is a real neat freak when it comes to paperwork, and my guess is that they would keep all the bills and stuff for this property in the library. Let’s look through it all and see if we can find the original paperwork from when the lock was installed."

They walked hand in hand to the library, both relieved that Conor was on the job. Ryan sat perched on the edge of the desk while Jamie sat in the big leather chair and sorted through the neatly labeled file folders. "Bingo!" she cried after just a few minutes. "Here’s the work order for the alarm company, and here’s the receipt from Pebble Beach Lock and Key."

Ryan took the papers and quickly decided on her course of action. "Let’s pursue the lock issue first." Her brow was furrowed with concentration as she slapped the receipts against her open palm. "I think it will be easier to get a duplicate key made than to have to call the alarm company and admit we don’t know a thing about the darned system. Let’s get that door open and hope for the best."

"What will we do if that isn’t where the system is set up?"

"Conor thinks it’s the most likely place, and he’s quite knowledgeable about systems like this. The worst thing that will happen is that we have to stay here until Monday and come up with some ruse to get the alarm company out here." Sliding her fingers through Jamie’s soft hair, Ryan added, "Staying here through the weekend isn’t the worst thing in the world, is it?"

Jamie finally smiled at that question. "No, Honey. It wouldn’t be bad at all."

Ryan’s eyes held a hint of playfulness as she dialed the lock company. She explained that she was Catherine Evans and that she had lost the key for the door to her security camera room. After a few more minutes of discussion, the locksmith agreed to bring over a spare key later in the day. She thanked him profusely but remembered to ask," What will the charge be for the key?" After a pause she said, "That’s quite generous of you, Michael. So there will be no bill or statement that comes to the house?" She paused again, then said in a conspiratorial tone, "My husband gets so angry when I lose things. I really don’t want him to find out about this." Another pause. "You’re a dear! Thanks so much." She hung up with yet another satisfied smile on her handsome face. "Mission accomplished!" she said happily.

"My hero!" Jamie said, pulling her from the desk and enveloped her in a firm hug. "Hey," she said as she sat up. "How did you learn to lie so well?"

"All those years of Catholic school have to come in handy for something," Ryan said with a grin. Standing up, she looked around the room and asked the question that had been in the back of her mind since the previous day. "Are there any other cameras in the house, or are they just in the gym?"

Jamie looked up with a shocked expression on her face. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" she fumed as she furiously stomped her feet on the floor. "They’re in all of the public areas, like the foyer and the living room, and the main staircase. There might be one in the kitchen, too. And I’m sure there’s one outside the front and side doors. And probably one in the pool house."

Ryan slid around her to pick up the paperwork from the alarm company, carefully reading the work order, since she knew plenty about contractor jargon. "This clearly says that the controls for everything are in the gym, so we should be able to figure out how the system works once we get that key." She fell back into the big chair and let out a heavy sigh, "Jeez, Jamie, why did we have to be naked, or touching, or kissing, in every imaginable square inch of this house?"

The smaller woman climbed onto Ryan’s lap again, sitting sideways with her head resting against the leather chair back. "Do you regret being adventuresome?"

Ryan slid her arms around her and squeezed her tight. "Not in the least, Honey. I think we’ve had one of the most memorable honeymoons on record. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of starting a journal, and writing down all of the fun we’ve had here. I thought it would be nice to have a keepsake that we could look at in future years."

"Beat you to it, Baby," Jamie said with a smile. "I’ve been keeping a journal since I was in high school. I haven’t had a lot of free time since we’ve been here, but I wrote the other morning when you were running, and I made a few notes when you were jogging on the beach. It would be cool to start a new book just on our honeymoon, though. We could do it together if you wanted to."

"I would love that, Sweetie. When you go for your golf lesson, we can stop at a bookstore and buy a new journal. Then we can spend some time this afternoon reflecting on the week."

"Hey, that reminds me, what was Conor giving you a hard time about?"

"You couldn’t figure that out?"

"Well, I guess it was about the surveillance system. Did you have to tell him what we were doing?" She looked a little cross, and Ryan sought to defend herself.

"All I said was that there were closed circuit cameras that we didn’t know were on. He asked why that was a big deal, and I said that your parents didn’t know about us, and we didn’t want them to see us being affectionate. I certainly didn’t tell him how affectionate we had been," she said, "but he’s a sharp boy, and he knows me pretty well…"

"So he knows," she stated flatly.

"He knows we were doing things that we don’t want your parents to see. But I’m sure he doesn’t have any idea exactly
how
important it is to prevent them knowing what we have been doing."

Jamie nodded briefly, her worry ameliorated by Ryan’s explanation. "I just don’t want Conor to think less of me," she explained with a shy smile.

Ryan began to laugh so hard that Jamie had to throw her arms around her to stay on her lap. "Oh, Jamie!" she said, after she caught her breath. "That is priceless!"

"What?" she asked, slightly embarrassed.

"He might change his opinion of you, but it wouldn’t be in a downward direction!"

"What do you mean?"

"If he had any idea of how totally hot, and sexy, and wild you are, he’d hang himself!"

"But why?" Jamie asked, rather incredulously.

"He’s not kidding when he teases you about having a crush on you, Babe. He really likes you, and I guarantee he would have made a very big play for you if I hadn’t asked him not to."

"Are you serious?"

"About which part?" Ryan’s brow twitched in question.

"Start with you telling him not to make a play for me. Why did you do that?"

"Why?" she asked with a puzzled grin. "Would you rather he had made claim on you before I did?"

Jamie laughed heartily at the very idea. "Hardly. I love Conor, but even if I were straight, I wouldn’t have gone for him. I’ve never been attracted to bad boys, and he is their poster child."

"But you seem to like bad girls," Ryan purred as she nuzzled up against Jamie’s ear.

"Uh--uh," she disagreed, shaking her head. "I thought you were a bad girl for exactly one day. When we met in class I thought you were a total bad girl, but when we went for our drive the next day, I immediately changed my opinion of you, and you’ve never given me a reason to go back to my original impression."

"That’s fascinating," Ryan mused. "So you really don’t think of me as bad?"

"Not at all!" Jamie cried. "You’re so sweet and thoughtful and kind. You care so much for other people’s feelings, and you’re so upstanding and moral. You seemed to use that bad girl aura like a shield, but for some reason you took the shield down really quickly with me."

"The truth is that Conor does the same thing. He’s easily as sweet as I am," she admitted.

"He could be Mother Teresa with testosterone and I’m still glad that I got you. Now what was that other little thing you were trying to convince me of?" she teased.

"I was pointing out the obvious, Jamie. You’re one gorgeous example of womanhood, but I don’t think you’re even conscious of how attractive you are."