Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) (4 page)

“Okay, Steele. You’re on, but I have to run by Zee’s house first and drop off … um … a package.”

“Can’t you do that after lunch? I have a meeting in two hours. Meet me in ten minutes at Morton’s.”

I studied Lily. She was starting to look tired. No doubt she would conk out right after she ate. And I really should give her lunch before depositing her with Zee, not to mention lunch with Steele might be interesting with a tiny third party.

“How about in fifteen minutes?” I said into the phone, my mind made up. I rooted around in my brain for a nearby restaurant with a kiddie menu. “And not Morton’s. How about Red Robin?”

“Are you joking?”

“Hey,” I protested. “They make great burgers, and they’re reasonable. Greg and I eat at Red Robin all the time.”

“I rest my case.”

“It’s that or nothing, Steele.”

There was a pause.

“Steele, you still there?”

“I’m thinking.”

My office phone rang. The display said it was Carl Yates.

“Take it or leave it, Steele,” I said again, this time with urgency.

“Okay, but make it ten minutes.”

I looked at Lily’s dirty face. “I’ll need at least fifteen.”

My office phone rang again, and again it was Carl. I ignored it and grabbed my bag and Lily. As we exited the ladies’ room with empty bladders and clean faces and hands, I heard my name announced over the PA system, asking me to call Carl’s extension. Instead, I punched the down button on the elevator, hoping our receptionist didn’t see me making a getaway and try to stop me. There would be enough time after lunch for Carl to kill my legal career. No sense him killing my appetite, too.

four

Steele was waiting just
inside the front door of the restaurant, looking handsome and spiffy in his usual combination of designer suit and impeccable grooming. He and Erica shared that trait. I’d seldom seen either with a hair out of place. I had driven the two blocks to the restaurant, ready to take off immediately for Zee’s after we ate, and had called her to let her know when to expect us.

When Lily and I came through the front door hand in hand, Steele did a double take on Lily. “I take it that’s the reason we’re eating here?”

Instead of answering him, I told the waitress seating us we’d need a booster seat.

Once settled, I introduced my former boss to my new boss’s niece. “Steele, this is Lily Holt, Erica Mayfield’s niece.”

“Whoa!” Steele leaned back in his chair, a wide grin plastered on his face. “And you thought I saddled you with wild demands.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “Who knew I’d wind up with someone who makes you look sane.”

The waitress brought over a kiddie place mat and a couple of crayons for Lily. She immediately went to work coloring the cartoon forest creatures on the mat while we looked over the menu. When the waitress returned, Steele and I both ordered salads and iced tea. When it came to Lily, I was stumped.

I looked up at Steele. “What should I order for her?”

Steele held up his hands, palms out, as if the question came with a disease. “Don’t look at me.”

The waitress came to my rescue. “I have a kid her age. He loves the chicken fingers.”

I looked at her with relief. “Then chicken fingers it is.”

“Milk to drink and apple slices for dessert?” the waitress suggested.

“Sounds good to me. Thanks.”

She returned a minute later with our teas and Lily’s milk. Until then Steele had remained silent.

“So,” he said after taking his first swig of tea, “seems Hamlin-Hawke is already putting you to work as a sleuth. Has a body turned up yet?”

My attention was on Lily. She was determined to drink her milk while holding crayons in both fists, and I was just as determined not to wear the milk. In the middle of coaxing her to drop the crayons, my head snapped up to stare at Steele. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Careful of the profanity, Grey.” With his chin, he indicated my charge.

I took a deep breath while I guided the milk to Lily’s eager mouth and helped her put down the cup again. I wanted to give Steele my full attention, but it was impossible. As soon as Lily was back to coloring, I tried to focus on his comment. “I repeat, what are you talking about?”

“You don’t know?”

“All I know is that Erica Mayfield dumped her niece on me. She didn’t say why.”

Steele studied me. I knew that look all too well. He had some juicy details about something and was weighing how much to tell me. His eyes settled on Lily briefly before returning to me.

“Mayfield’s sister is missing.”

That got my attention. “You mean Lily’s—” I cut my comment off at the knees before I said the M word in front of the kid. “You mean Connie?” I whispered after making sure Lily was still occupied with her coloring. Even though I’d heard something similar from Alyce, it was the last bit of news I’d expected from Steele.

Steele started to speak, but the waitress arrived with our food. He simply nodded in my direction.

As soon as the waitress left, I asked, “How do you know this?”

“A friend of mine knows Erica quite well. Since she took my old job, my friend finds it amusing to tell me stuff. Seems Connie dropped…,” he paused, amending his words for present little ears. “Dropped a valuable package off with Erica and disappeared. Until now, I had no idea you had the package in question.”

“I take it this friend of yours is a bed buddy?”

He gave me a sly grin over the rim of his tea glass.

I coaxed Lily into dropping the crayons long enough to start on her chicken fingers. The chunks of deep-fried bird were the perfect size to wrap a small fist around. The eagerness with which Lily tackled them told me it wasn’t a new culinary experience for her.

When I spoke, I kept one eye on Lily and one on Steele, both my brain and eyes feeling cross-eyed.

“I thought maybe they had you on the hunt,” Steele continued, “considering your colorful past.”

Steele took a bite of his grilled chicken salad as he watched me guide Lily through her lunch. “Seems the sis might be into something shady,” he said after swallowing.

That got my attention again. “You mean drugs or something like that?”

He shrugged. “Not sure, but I’ve heard Erica’s been worried about her for a long time and doesn’t want to involve the police.”
He speared a piece of chicken with his fork. “That’s all I know.”

“Well, it’s more than I know. I’d heard about Connie missing but not about the other stuff.”

“Connie’s disappearance isn’t the entire reason why I called you, Grey, though it does add a bit of spice to your situation.”

I swallowed the bite of salad I’d managed to stuff into my mouth in between babysitting duties. If I had Lily full-time, I’d probably drop a few pounds. “There’s more?”

Before I could hear what else Steele had to say, a little hand to my right started pawing at me. I turned to look at Lily, who was holding out a disgusting, half-chewed spear of fried chicken. She’d been tapping me on the arm with it, leaving greasy spots on the sleeve of my blouse. I wanted to scream but held my tongue. I took the gummy crap from her hands and started wiping them with a napkin. With her free hand, Lily pointed to one of the animals she’d been coloring.

“Squirrel,” she said, her little digit jabbing at a rodent of some kind. I looked closer. It was indeed a squirrel, or maybe a chipmunk.

“That’s right, Lily. Squirrel. What a smart girl.”

She pointed her finger at me. “Squirrel.”

Steele laughed.

“No, Lily,” I told her with a smile. I pointed at myself. “Odelia.” Then I pointed at her art project. “That’s a squirrel.”

She shook her head with determination, setting her blond curls to wiggling. “No,” she insisted, pointing at me. “You squirrel. Cheesehead squirrel.” She squealed with delight.

Steele laughed again, this time with more gusto. I looked at him, my mind a blank. “How did she come up with that?” He only smirked in response.

I pointed at Steele. “He’s a cheesehead squirrel. I’m Odelia.”

“Nooooooo,” Lily insisted. She jabbed her pudgy finger into one of the grease stains on my sleeve with great accuracy. “You cheesehead squirrel.”

“Gotta admit, Grey,” Steele said with amusement. “It’s better than being called Corpse Magnet.”

“Humph, I’m not so sure about that.” I reached over and wiped Lily’s nose with a napkin.

When I was done, Lily picked up an apple slice and bit into it. She munched with glee, her head bobbing in time to some imagined tune. The child was definitely musical. Between chews, she mumbled a ditty about a cheesehead squirrel.

Steele dissolved into full-blown hysterics. “Oh my God, this is so much better than a stuffy lunch at Morton’s.”

I tossed him my best scowl. “So glad you’re amused. Were you about to tell me something else? You know, like the real reason you asked me to lunch?”

Steele took a drink of tea to compose himself. “Yes, there was something else.” He paused. Except for Lily’s babble about a squirrel with a cheese problem, the table was quiet.

“There’s no easy way to put this, Grey.” He paused for effect. “Get ready to be fired.”

“You’re too late with that, Steele.”

He seemed surprised by my lack of surprise. “You mean you’ve already been fired?”

“No, but the bloodletting has already begun. So far, Hope and Kelsey have been let go. And Erica is making it easy for management to pick me off along with the others.”

I fingered Lily’s hair while she colored, and pondered the darkness overtaking Woobie. “Did your friend tell you specifically my head was on the chopping block?”

He nodded but said nothing.

“Erica has disliked me from day one,” I told him, “and I’m not sure why, except that she brought her own paralegal with her and wants to protect him.”

“Makes sense,” he said, giving me a small, pained look. “I tried to protect you when I left. I asked you to come along with me.”

Anger bubbled up in me like prehistoric tar. “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you, Steele?”

“What?”

“The merger,” I accused. “These things don’t happen overnight, and you were an equity partner. You knew Woobie was going to merge with Hamlin-Hawke before you left.”

“Not exactly. I knew there were negotiations in place. It was one of the reasons I left. I’ve never liked the people at Hamlin-Hawke, so when the T and T opportunity arose, I saw it as both a viable way out and a good way to expand my career.”

“Why didn’t you warn me, dammit?” As soon as the swear word was out of my mouth, I regretted it. I looked down at Lily, then sighed with relief. She was totally engrossed in talking to the animals on her place mat. One was a skunk. On the bright side, I could have been dubbed cheesehead skunk instead of cheesehead squirrel.

“I’m sorry, Grey, but I couldn’t.” Steele looked across the table, and I saw his apology was genuine. Sincere or not, it didn’t make me feel better about my situation.

“As a partner, I was bound to very strict confidentiality. When I left, the merger was not definite, just in the negotiation stage, and it was rocky. It came close to not happening at all. If it had been a done deal, I might have tried to warn you somehow.”

Giving it some thought, I saw his point. Just because two companies talk merger doesn’t mean it will happen. I’d worked on many deals that had gone south at the last minute; so had Steele. Confidentiality or not, it still angered me that he didn’t at least drop a few veiled hints. If he had, would I have jumped from Woobie to T and T with Steele or stayed and taken my chances with the new situation? Guess I’ll never know, since that ship had sailed. Steele had given me an option, just not a fully informed one.

“So now, based on your bedtime espionage, you’re offering me that job again?”

Steele stared at me but made no comment. His jaw was set, his mouth firm, telling me there was no job offer coming. “I hired someone months ago for the spot I offered you. I’m sorry. I held it open as long as I could, hoping you would change your mind.”

He’d offered me a combined office manager/paralegal position. I would have been in charge of setting up the new office, including hiring. “And she’s stayed all this time?”

His jaw relaxed, and a slow grin emerged. “Amazing, isn’t it, but I think Jill has something to do with it.”

I fussed over Lily so Steele couldn’t see my disappointment in being replaced in his life. In all the years we worked together, I did nothing but bitch and moan about him and his behavior. Now I wanted nothing more than to work with him again. Guess it’s true—you don’t really know what you have until you’ve lost it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t an arrogant pain in my ass and seriously annoying, but I’d take that over working for Erica Mayfield any day.

Steele took another few bites of his salad before putting his fork down. “You know, Grey, we’ll probably have something for you in the fall—a straight paralegal position. The OC office is growing, and we’ll be adding a few more attorneys then.”

It was currently mid-March. I counted on my mental fingers—April, May, June, July, August, September. Fall was six months away. I did a few more calculations. As a severance, Kelsey said she’d received a week’s pay for every year she’d been with the firm. After Hope Spellman, I’ve been there the longest. A week’s pay for each year could hold me over well enough, providing they didn’t put a cap on how many weeks an employee could receive.

Or I could just go out and get another job.

My stomach clenched. I put down my fork and rubbed my middle. Whoever had said that change was good was a fool and someone I’d like to slap.

“You okay, Grey?”

“Yeah,” I told him, but I really wasn’t. I had been at Woobie so long I couldn’t imagine changing jobs. Ever since I’d heard about the possible layoffs this morning, I’d considered Steele’s new firm my safety net—a place I could go where I already knew folks. Now I’d be starting over from scratch, and being over fifty years old wasn’t going to help my employment chances in this dismal economy.

I concentrated on Lily, stroking her hair. Her presence was comforting, like that of my pets. Caressing the top of her little head felt as good as rubbing Wainwright behind his ears. Her soft breathing and babble was as calming as hearing Seamus and Muffin purr. She looked up from her coloring and grinned at me. Food particles were stuck to the milk ring around her mouth, but her nose looked less runny. Taking a clean napkin, I dipped it in my water glass and mopped her face and hands as best I could. I had some disinfectant gel in the car and made a mental note to put it to good use when we left the restaurant.

Lily giggled and jabbed a finger at the place mat she’d scribbled with bright colors and chattered away. She’d named the bird Baby Birdee, the rabbit was Hoppy, and so forth. For each she had a name and a sound or action to go with it. It was a regular Broadway production. She pointed at another creature and giggled again.

“Yes, Lily,” I said as I planted a soft, unconscious kiss on the top of her head. “That’s me, Cheesehead Squirrel.”