Lure of Song and Magic (8 page)

“A three-year-old who can enunciate three unwieldy names wouldn't have much problem with
Hollow
,” Oz mused. “Did they ask her in what city? Maybe she wasn't from Bakersfield.”

“She didn't know the city. I verified all this with the local police. They said their reports go out across the country. There are no guarantees that all of them get cross-checked with missing persons reports, but no one reported a match. No Hollow Roads. No missing Malcolms. The name is distinctive enough that someone should have recognized it. Nothing.”

“Just like she said. She doesn't exist.” Oz tapped his pen against the desk. “Social Services tried too?”

“They
really
tried. The state hates paying for abandoned kids. And she was cute and precocious, and even hardened caseworkers stayed awake at night, trying to think of new angles to try.”

“Shit,” Oz muttered. “She may as well have been dropped from another planet. No wonder she feels alienated. What next?”

“I'm running databases under all three of her names. I'm focusing on Malcolm as her original family name. Did you read the whole report I sent you earlier?”

The warning in Conan's voice said Oz should have caught something that he obviously hadn't. He flipped open the file, stumbled over the photo of Syrene with mascara-stained cheeks, and almost shut it again. “I skimmed it. How much do I really need to know about teenage singing sensations?”

“Read the police report on how her husband died.”

Conan hung up.

Chapter 11

Not finding Oz waiting at the pool after she was done at the day care, Pippa scowled, fixed a tofu taco, and carried it down to the studio.

She hated to admit that her heart beat a little faster in anticipation of seeing Oz's broad shoulders filling one of her boring lounge chairs. Whatever she was, she was female, and she appreciated a good-looking man, especially one with active brain cells.

But she darned well didn't need his accusations and implications and demands. She didn't need anyone.

That didn't mean she didn't enjoy his company. Unhappy with that acknowledgment, she unlocked the studio, reset the alarm system, and settled into her desk chair.

She'd set up new firewalls and kept the computer shut down since Oz had told her someone knew about the seal song. She was no computer expert. She had no way of knowing if her privacy had been hacked. She didn't even know where to go to find out.

Booting the computer up, she located the file labeled “Ronan.” It hadn't been touched since she'd written it after Robbie's death over nine years ago.

At the time, she'd just turned eighteen and never written a book, never even thought about it. The story had simply appeared in her head, about the lonely seal with no family. She'd scribbled the words, sobbing all the way through the process, thinking she'd make a song of them one day.

She had written “The Silly Seal Song” later, just as she had for her other books. But this story had been too painful and personal to sell. She could swear she'd never told anyone about it, not even her agent. Ronan the Lonely Seal was her secret alone.

As were all the songs she'd written since Robbie died. She'd only sold the books—pages of text that the Voice couldn't ruin. Rubbing her forehead to smooth the wrinkles, Pippa stared at the silly words of the song. She supposed if there was a market for children's songs, she could sell these. She didn't have to sing them. Was that what Oz's weird messenger wanted?

Ronan
wants
to
come
home too.
And the message had arrived after she'd brought Tommy home. The coincidence was too spooky. Was someone here in El Padre sending the messages?

Could one of her friends have broken into the studio and found the files? Maybe it was possible to copy them without actually opening them?

That made her even sicker as she perused the list of songs she'd recorded over the years. No one was ever intended to see or hear these files. They were her personal diary—her anguish and fears and sorrows. No one should be allowed to see inside her heart like that.

Much less blackmail Oz with them.

Because if it was someone here in town, that's what they were doing. They were teasing Oz with the impossibility of finding his son in order to get him up here and spend his money. And they were using Syrene to do it. If that theory worked, then someone knew who she was—someone besides Oz.

Angry now instead of sick, she shut down the computer and carried the server across the room to the safe containing everything that remained of her past. She'd shed most of the material things, but she had so very little from her childhood that there were some things she couldn't let go. Opening the heavy safe door, she moved aside the worn-out stuffed seal that had inspired her song and settled the machine on top of old grade-school papers. Silly to keep them locked in a safe, but the box was fireproof, and she didn't want them lost.

She dialed the lock and hoped that would prevent any more theft. She didn't know what she could do to counteract what was already out there. Who would most benefit from bringing Oz to town?

Who among her friends might break into her studio?

She couldn't bear to believe it of any of them. They all needed money. Lizzy was constantly bugging her about bringing Oz to the bar. She'd be the most obvious suspect. Park was the one who had suggested talking to Oz. His family was large, and many of them were poor. Even Bertha had a son who wanted to go to college and a day care roof that needed repair.

The only alternative to believing her friends guilty was to believe someone had remotely hacked her files by some weird magic.

Magic.
Oz had called her magical. Little did he know how close he had come, although her own personal word for it was
evil
.

Dammit all, she would have to reveal the existence of the files and deal with all his inquisitive questions just so she could ask about hackers. To ask anyone else would raise even more questions than Oz would ask. At least he knew her identity already.

She hated depending on others even more than she hated being responsible for anyone besides herself. She needed her independence. Scowling, she let herself out of the studio, reset the alarms, and jogged up to the house.

By the time she opened the back gate, she'd reluctantly accepted that maybe, just
maybe
, she needed to talk to Oz and see if they could puzzle this out together.

***

Responding to the message Pippa had left at the B&B, Oz found the Blue Bayou Tavern on a side street later that evening and sauntered in. He hadn't been inside a bar like this since college. He wasn't entirely certain the ones he'd visited then were quite this seedy.

The walnut bar looked as if it had been there since the gold rush. Battered, carved with initials, and worn in all the places where arms might rest, it needed a good restoration. The hard wooden stools pulled up to it looked damned uncomfortable, not to mention scratched by boots and tottering on lopsided legs.

The red and black vinyl on the booth seats was cracked, torn, and spilling stuffing. He kind of admired the oak separating the booths as opposed to the aluminum and chrome seen in all the new places, but decades of wear required a good sanding and polish. He'd probably find bullet holes if he looked hard enough.

Why the devil would Pippa want to meet him here? He didn't think she even drank alcohol. Or ate meat. He'd had to buy Gardenburgers just for her when they were grilling last night. And she hadn't been happy with sharing the grill with red meat.

The tavern was nearly empty, even though it was prime happy hour on a Friday night. A grizzled rancher soaked up a mug of beer at the bar. A couple of motorcycle jockeys occupied one of the booths. No one paid much attention when Oz took a booth near a front window covered by black curtains.

A buxom woman with hair an unnatural shade of auburn emerged from behind the bar to take his order. Her smirk revealed she knew who he was, but she merely nodded at his request and retreated to the bar to pour it. At least he would get a drink out of this.

He needed it after reading the police report on the death of Rob Henderson, Pippa's young husband.

The kid hadn't even been twenty-one, but he'd had an alcohol level three times the legal limit when he'd crashed his Lotus off a cliff near Malibu. He'd also been pumped full of steroids and flying on coke.

According to witnesses, Pippa had jumped out of the car when it slowed down for a stoplight five minutes before it had gone off the cliff. Slowed. Not stopped.

The police had found her walking alongside the Pacific Coast Highway, stumbling over a rockslide in the pouring rain with one high heel on, one off. The other shoe had been in the car when they'd pulled it off the rocks.

She hadn't even been eighteen at the time.

Oz didn't read the newspaper accounts Conan had included in the file. He didn't even want to know what kind of breakdown Pippa had suffered after that. That she'd suffered was all too visible even now, nine years later.

He sipped the beer the bartender handed him and checked his watch. Even though he faced the bar and not the door, he knew by some instinctive radar the moment Pippa entered on the dot of six. Timely—he liked that in a woman.

He did a double take when he turned and got a full view.

She was wearing a spaghetti-strapped baby doll tunic in turquoise and gold that actually complemented her red-gold hair for a change. She'd completed the outfit with skintight gold leggings cropped at the knee and sandals that wrapped and tied halfway up her shapely calves. She looked sexy as hell even dressed as an adolescent. He wondered if she'd bought any normal clothes in the years since her departure from the entertainment scene.

Her face lacked painted smiles or tears, but she'd bothered to darken her lashes and wear a shiny lipstick that had his mouth watering.

He couldn't tear his gaze from her wide lips when she sat down across from him. There was just something about her mouth that turned him on…

He dropped his gaze to her tunic top. She had breasts. Real ones, if he was any expert. Not huge, but plump and firm and high with just the right amount of cleavage. A pearl wrapped in a gold cage dangled there.

“Up here, Wizard,” she said wryly.

Caught. Damn. He'd not been struck with lust like this since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, as his grandma used to say. Oz pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and reopened them. She smiled like a mocking fairy. She'd put gold glitter across her nose and cheeks.

“Why here, why now?” he asked without filtering his words.

“Because Lizzy is a friend of mine, and because I thought you'd need a drink, and maybe because I thought you deserved a reward.”

He nodded as if that made sense. “Lizzy, the smug-looking chick behind the bar?”

“That's her.” Pippa leaned around the wooden bench and waved at the buxom bartender, who waved back and filled a glass from the soft drink dispenser.

“Why do I need a drink? And is that getup my reward?” Oz rested his shoulders against the high seat back, glad he hadn't worn anything fancier than jeans and a white shirt. He rolled up his cuffs now that he saw dress casual was the order of the day.

She waited until Lizzy placed the soft drink in front of her and departed to greet a new arrival.

“You need a reward because I'm going to tell you things you won't want to hear, and because the bar is about to fill with people looking for jobs. And yes, this is as real as it gets. I go back to being Dorabelle tomorrow.” She sipped the Coke and waited.

“Can we do this over an order of wings and fries? I need protein to take bad news.”

“Wings and fries aren't good for you.” She signaled Lizzy again. The bartender held up a finger, and Pippa held up two.

Oz had to admire the efficiency of communication, if not the ambiance. “Are you going to tell me what I don't want to hear before or after the bar fills with job seekers?”

“It won't take long.” She sipped her drink before launching into her story. “I wrote a book about Ronan the Lonely Seal when I was eighteen. Sometime after that, I wrote music for the words, sang them onto a CD, and uploaded ‘The Silly Seal Song' to my computer. I backed up all my files to cyberspace storage before transferring them to a new computer, but they have not been opened since they were created.” She watched him expectantly.

The dim light from an overhead bulb glittered on her nose and illuminated her damnable turquoise eyes, and for a moment, Oz thought that she almost looked eighteen: hopeful, eager, anxious, and worried. Very worried.

He considered the improbability of what she'd just said.
Nine
years
in
a
computer.
No one had ever actually seen “The Silly Seal Song” or a book about Ronan. It wasn't anything Donal would have known. Or anyone else—except Pippa.

Oz bit his tongue on a curse as the bartender returned and placed two vegetable pizzas in front of them. He glared at zucchinis and spinach and neatly sliced tomato rings.

“Cheese isn't protein,” he grumbled, using his fingers to rip a slice from its mates and watch the cheese drip off the thin crust.

“Yes, it is. And Lizzy hides bean sprouts in it.” She hummed in anticipation as she neatly sliced a bite-size piece with her knife and fork.

Instead of staring at the soggy mess in his hand, Oz watched as Pippa slipped the tiny bite between her expressive lips. Her eyes narrowed with pleasure, and Oz wondered if she made that purring sound in bed.

He was losing his frigging mind. He took a big bite of his slice and nearly burned the roof off his mouth.

He grabbed his beer, chilled his mouth, and sat back to let the rest of the pizza cool.

“Someone hacked your computer,” he concluded.

She dipped her head in apparent agreement. Finished chewing, she added, “Or broke into my studio and copied the files. Is that possible without changing the date?”

“Probably. I'll ask Conan. He's the geek in the family. To what purpose?”

“To send you messages and lure you up here?”

She looked as if she feared he'd reach across the table and hit her.

She had a low opinion of human nature.

Oz glared at the pizza and thought about her suggestion. She was saying the messages were all about her and had nothing to do with Donal.

He didn't want to believe that.