Finder's Keeper (15 page)

“We didn’t order delivery,” the black-haired one said, earning an elbow in her side from the colorful blonde who’d initially greeted him.

“Yes, we did!” the blonde gushed. “Lots of delivery.”

“Steph, someone will complain when their lunch doesn’t arrive—”

“Who
cares
?”

“I’m not a delivery man,” Chase cut in.

“Are you a volunteer? Please tell me you haven’t fallen in love yet,” the blonde, Steph, said.

Chase blinked, startled by the unusual thought sequence.

“We don’t scan volunteers on Tuesday,” the dark one insisted.

“We do now.” Steph beamed at him. “Ignore her. You can totally volunteer.”

“Is Mia here?” Chase interrupted again, before they could come to blows over whether or not he could volunteer.

“Mia?” they asked in unison. There was a long moment of silence as they both studied him.

At length, the dark one frowned. “Mia never orders delivery.”

They knew Mia. So at least he was at the right lab. “Can you tell her Chase is here?”

Both jaws dropped. “Mia knows
you
?” Steph gasped.

“How does Mia know you?” the dark one asked suspiciously.

Chase whipped out his most endearing smile and lifted the Zorba’s bag, determined to get these two on his side. “She never remembers to eat so I thought I’d bring her lunch. Is she in?”

Steph craned her neck without moving from her spot blocking the door and yelled, “Dr. C!” over her shoulder.

The dark one rolled her eyes. “Since when does that ever work?”

Steph tried again. “Dr. C! Chase, the Super Hottie, is here!”

There was a thud from the depths of the lab and then a door opened at the end of the hall and Mia emerged. Glowering.

“What are you doing here? How did you get past security?”

“Einstein’s ass,” Steph gasped, “she does know him.”

Chase slipped past the gaping girls and transferred his most endearing smile to Mia.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. God forbid anyone should ever say no to you. This is
supposed
to be a secure building.”

“I’m charming.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“I come bearing food.” He lifted the Zorba’s bag again.

Mia looked at the bag, at the women he could only assume were her assistants—both of whom were tracking the conversation with avid eyes—and back at his face where he was still wearing his trust-me-love-me-give-me-my-way smile.

“Oh for the love of… Fine.” She waved him back toward the door she’d come through. “You might as well feed me since you’ve already hopelessly disrupted my lab. Come on.”

She led the way back down the hall as the pair of lab-coated girls called, “
Very
nice meeting you, Chase!” after him.

Mia rolled her eyes and opened the door to a snug little office, barely big enough to turn around in, but the view was killer. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a man-made pond.

“I see you’ve hit it off with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.” She slipped around the edge of the desk and flipped her laptop closed as she sat.

“They’re smart girls. Clearly they have excellent taste.” Chase began setting out the take-out, noting the way Mia eyed the Greek feast hungrily. He’d have to make a point to bring her lunch again. “Why aren’t you wearing a lab coat?”

“We don’t wear lab coats here except on volunteer days—so the subjects know to whom they can direct questions. They were just showing off for you. They probably looked through the hallway’s security feed and got a good look at you before they opened the door and wanted to look scientific.”

The words were caustic, but there was an underlying softness when she talked about them. “You love them. Don’t try to deny it.”

She shrugged, reaching for the dolmades and heaping several onto her plate. “They’re two of the best research assistants I’ve ever had, but they do get a little overly preoccupied with the romantic aspects of our science.”

He handed her the moussaka, taking some dolmades for himself. “What exactly is your science, Mia?”

“I told you.”

“Something about love and the brain?”

She dug into her food, shaking her head to dismiss his question. “You aren’t here to talk about my work.”

“But I’m interested, and you’re eating my food, so you should be nice to me and answer my questions.” And he was stalling. He’d come here to talk about his history, but now that she was sitting there across from him, gulping down moussaka, now that the spark was back, he didn’t want to talk about anything dark and heavy and real. “Is it about dopamine and why chocolate is like an orgasm and all that?”

“Not quite.” Mia gave a put-upon sigh and obliged him. “We’re doing neural mapping on a range of subjects to determine how the emotion we like to term
love
actually alters our neural pathways and decision-making processes, at times even circumventing the logical or instinctive responses that are in our personal best interest.”

“So why people are stupid for love.”

A smile flickered in the vicinity of her lips. “Essentially, yes. We’re taking it beyond the chemistry of pleasure because love is not always pleasurable.”

He took a bite of moussaka, the smooth flavors of eggplant and lamb blending on his tongue. “I could help you,” he offered.

Mia didn’t even glance up from her food. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“Finding doesn’t have to be something tactile. I could help you find your best results.”

“Results aren’t about good or bad.” She was using her uptight professor voice. The one that made him want to be the bad student so she would make him stay after class. “Just because a result isn’t the one we expect or perhaps even desire does not meant the data is not valuable. Even disappointing experiments have merit.”

“But don’t you ever want to find the missing variable?”

“There is no substitute for hard work and brainpower.”

“Sure there is. There’s me.”

“Look, no offense,” she said, a classic gear-up to a majorly offense-giving statement, “but your magical skills haven’t exactly been foolproof.”

“Because you’re conflicted about whether or not you really want the watch.”

She glared at him. “For whatever reason. But even if you can find missing keys and lost pacifiers, so can anyone who disengages their panic over having lost something long enough to think calmly and rationally about where they would have left the lost item.”

“You’re forgetting that you called me.”

“This situation is unique. I didn’t lose the watch. I’ve already done several thorough searches of my home, car and office to confirm that I did not, in fact, move it without remembering. It was taken from me—which is a unique variable. But under any other circumstances, cool heads and clear thinking would prevail where magic is unreliable at best.”

“Wanna bet?”

She puckered her lips in that prissy little frown. “I told you, I don’t gamble.”

“Just think of it as a challenge with stakes attached. A friendly wager. Magic versus science. My instinct against your logic.”

“What stakes?”

Chase thought fast. He had to have something she wanted. “Wanna scan my brain?”

“Yes.” She said the word before he even finished speaking.

He laughed. “That isn’t how you negotiate, Mia. You’re tipping your hand too early.”

“But I
do
want to scan your brain.”

“Yeah, but if you get me to think that letting you scan my brain is doing me a favor, I’ll give you what you want for free. Now you’ll have to win it.”

“Not that I’ll lose, but what do you get if you win?”

He wouldn’t. The challenge would be set up for her to win because people liked winning and she would associate that endorphin high with him. And he got to spend more time with her while she scanned his brain, keep that spark. “Gotta love that confidence. How about if I win, you play my fake date at this belated birthday thing Brody’s throwing for me in a couple weeks?” There was no party, but it was plausible and that’s all that mattered when he was spinning shit to get his way.

Mia pursed her lips and tapped them with her fork. “I would want to run a full series of scans, testing both the accuracy of your ability and the neural network that enables it. It could take several days.”

Perfect. “Sounds like a prize worth winning. Now we just need a challenge.”

“This is ludicrous. I’m not betting on this, Chase.”

“Then you must not really want those brain scans. Pity.”

“Can’t we just do another bargain? My scans for your fake date?”

“Nope.”

She scowled. “Why not?”

Because deals could be broken but she would never walk away from a debt, whichever of them won. “I only do one deal a week. Today the offer is a bet or nothing.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re evil?”

“Charming. Similar to evil, but more insidious.”

She snorted, then looked at him between her lashes. “Are you sure you don’t just want to give me the scans?”

“Seduction! Well done, young padawan. I’ll make a master manipulator out of you yet. But nope. No dice. It’s a friendly wager or nothing.”

She glared at him. It was a testament to how much she wanted to run tests on him that she hadn’t already told him to take a hike. “Fine.” He thrust out his hand and she shook it firmly. “What’s the challenge?”

She started packing up the leftover Zorba’s and Chase rose to help.

“How about we use your lab assistants? One of them hides something that belongs to the other one and we both try to find it—me using my magic, you using your logic. The first one to recover it, wins. Sound good?”

“I would say that I don’t want to disturb their work, but they’re probably lurking outside the door waiting for another glimpse of you rather than getting anything productive done anyway.” Then she frowned. “Did you rig this with them?”

“I’d be offended if it wasn’t something I would have done, but no. In this case there was no cheating. Scout’s honor.”

“I’m pretty sure you weren’t a scout and I
know
you don’t know the meaning of honor.”

“It’s just a chance you’re going to have to take. Don’t you think your clean, virtuous science can beat my dirty, cheating magic anyway?”

Her eyes narrowed as she considered it. “You do realize they’ve worked with me in this office for two years. I know them and I know the building. I know everywhere they’re likely to stash things. You’re at a distinct disadvantage.”

Which was exactly where he wanted to be. “Magic doesn’t need any foreknowledge. Does that make it better than science? Are you scared to test it?”

“Not scared. Just wondering when I’ll manage to fit your brain scans into my schedule.”

Chase laughed. “Trash talk. I love it. All right, Dr. C. Let’s do this.”

She led the way out of her office and down the hall to the open office area where her assistants were oh-so-casually typing away at the computers.

“Nasrin, Stephanie, this is Chase Hunter. You are not required to do anything this man tells you. Ever,” Mia announced before he could say a word. She launched into a quick explanation of the challenge, Stephanie’s eyes widening with excitement at each word while Nasrin’s narrowed suspiciously. When she was finished, both girls consented to participate in the experiment and Mia and Chase retreated back to her office so Nasrin could steal something of Stephanie’s and stash it.

Mia paced in her office, clenching and releasing her fists.

“Nervous?”

“Of course not. I have absolute faith in the powers of logic.”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other, you know. Magic and science can coexist.”

She shot him a Look. “They do coexist—in that they are the same thing. What you call
magic
is science interpreted by someone who sees the wonder and doesn’t look beyond it to the facts.”

“The wonder is pretty awesome. Why ask for more?”

“It never ceases to baffle me how many people in the world would rather be blind than see.”

“So seeing wonder rather than jaded science is blindness?”

“Seeing magic rather than reason. Seeing fate rather than choice. Seeing things just
happening
rather than cause and effect. How can you live like that?”

“You’d be surprised how easy it is to go through life without questioning every little thing. Relaxing. You should try it.”

“No, thank you.”

Chase leaned back against the door, folding his arms. “You know why I love to surf?”

“You like to be surrounded by women in bikinis?”

He grinned. “Not a bad guess, but no. It’s because it’s unpredictable. You can’t plan a wave. Oh, you can try—pick the best beach, the best set, the best wave—but you’re wrong more than you’re right, and then you’re just reacting. Trying to stay up, trying to get inside the barrel, moving, shifting,
being
. You don’t think. You just are. It’s all instinct.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“God, I’d love to see you surf.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Could be fun. You might learn something.”

“I’ll stick to learning in environments where I can control the variables.”

“You can’t control life. Fate will just bitch-slap you if you try.”

“Fate.” She snorted. “Figures you would believe in pre-destination.”

“What’s wrong with the idea that there’s some kind of plan to the universe? I bet you’d believe in fate if I told you your fate was to win the Nobel Prize.”

“If that was my fate, that would be fine, but if I lived my life with the
belief
that it was my fate and my own actions had no bearing on the realization of my fate, then I would never be able to win the Nobel Prize because I wouldn’t bother studying—I would just wait for life to hand me my acclaim on a silver platter.
That’s
what’s wrong with fate.”

“So it’s not fate you have a problem with, it’s the fact that people believe in it? Is that your issue with magic too? Not that I can do it, but that people believe I can?”

“They
rely
on the fact of magic,” she said. “They don’t look for their own keys because they know you can find them. They don’t make their own choices because magic will take care of everything.”