Windfall (13 page)

That was an oddly cheering thought, actually.

I took a deep breath, practiced a smile in the mirror, and went back out into the restaurant. As I weaved around tables and kicking children and a man who just
happened
to have his hand at butt level, waiting for me to squeeze by, I saw that Eamon and Sarah were deep in conversation. I slowed down to study the body language, and liked what I saw; he was leaning forward across the table, taking in every word, eyes fixed on her face. She was animated and vivid and luminous in the morning light.

The silent language of attraction.

As I watched, she dropped her hand down on the table, leaning forward into him, and his long, elegant fingers moved to cover hers. Just a brush, but enough that I saw the tremor go through her.

I almost hated to interrupt. Almost. But then, that was a younger sister's place, to screw up the good times.

I slid back into my chair and they immediately sat back, aside from giving each other little secret smiles. “So,” I said to Eamon. “What are your plans for the day?”

“Actually, I'm at loose ends.” He was still watching Sarah, eyes half-closed. “I was thinking of taking in the sights. I'm not well acquainted with Fort Lauderdale. What can you recommend?”

He was including me, but not really; I got the clue memo. I politely bowed out. “Wow, that would be great, but I've got a thing today. To do. So why don't you and Sarah go have some fun? It looks like it's going to be—” Without even thinking about it, I felt for the weather.

And fumbled the effort.

I froze, blank, coffee cup half to my lips, and concentrated harder. I felt horribly clumsy. The delicate sensitivity I'd always had to the balance of things, the breathing of the world, it felt . . . muffled. Indistinct.

“Jo?” Sarah asked, and looked over her shoulder, toward the wall I was staring a hole in.

I blinked, forced a smile. “—it's going to be beautiful,” I finished. “Warm and sunny. Or so says Marvelous Marvin, anyway. So you might want to take in the beach. I think Sarah picked up a killer swimsuit yesterday, right, Sarah?”

My sister turned a rapt smile back to Eamon, who was watching me with a little frown grooved between his eyebrows. I sent him a silent
I'm okay,
and Sarah distracted him with a question about England, and they went back to living in a two-person world.

I closed my eyes for a second, concentrated, and drifted up toward the aetheric. Moving between dimensions was something so automatic that it was like breathing for me; I lived half my life there, connected to the world, seeing its layers and levels.

It felt like swimming through syrup, today. And once I was there, the colors looked dim and indistinct, the patterns muddy and confusing. There was something happening to me, but I couldn't think what; I didn't
feel
bad. I just felt . . . disconnected.

“Jo?”

Sarah was saying something, and from her tone of voice, she'd been saying it more than once. I opened my eyes and looked at her, saw her impatient frown. Eamon was measuring me again.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Sure. A bit of a headache, I guess. Listen, I'm really—I'm just really tired. I think I'm going to go home and lie down for a while before I have to do—the thing I have to do. Why don't you guys go have fun?”

They didn't seem too unhappy about that, although Eamon insisted on paying for breakfast and taking me back to the studio for my car, and tailing me home, and even went so far as to escort me upstairs and do a quick tour of the apartment. (I wished I'd cleaned up better.) When he was satisfied that I wasn't going to be jumped on by a crazed stalker hiding in the overstuffed closet, he and Sarah took off. I waved at them from the patio balcony, and stood outside for a few minutes, watching as his car made its way out onto the street again, heading for a glorious day of sun and fun.

A white van turned a corner, glided into the lot, and parked. I could see a shadow in the driver's seat.

“Hope you're comfy,” I said grimly, and looked up at the sky. It was clearing. The humidity was down, and the cool ocean breeze whispered over my skin and rustled palm trees down at ground level.

There was absolutely nothing I could think of to do that would make a damn bit of difference, except wait and pretend to be completely comfortable with Detective Rodriguez's continuing campaign of intimidation.

I went back inside the apartment, changed into a turquoise blue bikini, grabbed a towel and a folding chaise lounge, and made myself a pitcher of margaritas. My arm still throbbed, but it didn't look as if it was badly damaged. I had shadowy bruises forming on my wrists to match the far-sweeter marks of David's lovemaking from earlier in the morning.

Party on the patio, Detective. Intimidate
this.

I slid on my sunglasses, oiled up, and saluted him with a drink as I soaked in the morning rays.

 

What's the cardinal rule of sunbathing? Oh, yeah. Don't fall asleep.

Well, I did. I was lying on my stomach, sun massaging all the tension out of me, and I was thinking about David and hot-bronze eyes and golden skin, and getting that pleasant liquid ache that made me want to call his name, and somewhere around there I slipped into dreamland. It was a nice place. I stayed.

When I woke up, I knew immediately that I was as burned as if I'd stuck myself under the oven broiler. My back felt puffy and numb, and I'd sweated so much I'd soaked through the bikini
and
the towel. I sat bolt upright, grabbed the rest of my warm margarita and bolted it down, and hastily decamped from the patio into the apartment.

The white van was still downstairs, sitting innocently in a legal parking space. No sign of Rodriguez. I couldn't tell if there was still a shadow in the driver's seat or not, but right at the moment, I had another problem.

I dumped the chair, oil, pitcher and towel, and hurried into the bathroom. My front looked fine. I bit my lip and began to turn, very slowly. Tan . . . tan . . . redder . . . red . . . scarlet . . .

Oh
man
. I peeled down the back of my bikini bottoms and found the contrast to be just a little bit more than a barber pole's stripes. This was
really
going to hurt.

I stripped off the bikini and got in the shower; that was a mistake. The numbness wore off fast, replaced by a nice selection of agony and pain, depending on where I directed the spray; I gingerly patted myself dry and slathered as much of myself with burn cream as I could reach. And suffered.

When the phone rang, I was in a high temper, ready to bite a telemarketer's head right off. “What?” I barked, and clutched the towel looser around my aching back.

“Damn, girlfriend, I knew you'd be in a bitchy mood after the Sunny costume,” Cherise giggled on the other end of the line. “But you looked so
cute
and cheerful!”

“Oh, please, Cherise. At my age,
cute
? Not really what I'm going for.” I tried sitting down. My thighs and back lodged a violent protest. I paced instead, went to the patio doors and pulled the curtains shut, then dropped the towel on the pile of Things I Had To Pick Up Later and continued pacing around naked. “That was Marvin's little joke, right? Because I one-upped him yesterday?”

“Sorta,” she agreed. I could practically see her checking her fingernail polish. “Hey, there's been somebody asking questions about you down at the station. Tall guy, Hispanic, real polite? Sound familiar?”

Except for the polite part, it matched the description of Mr. White Van downstairs. “What does he want to know?”

“How long you've been here, where you were before, past history, how long we've known you, shit like that. Hey, are you in trouble? And is it, you know, serious?” She didn't sound worried. She sounded breathless with excitement.

“No, and no.”

“Is he your stalker-guy? Because usually they don't interrogate your close personal friends. They're more of the scary watching-from-a-distance kind of weirdos. Oooh, is he from the FBI?”

“No. Cher—”

“Did you see the UFO over the ocean last night?”

“Did I—what?”

“The UFO.” She sounded triumphant. “I'll bet they're tracking down everybody who saw it. There was a thing on the 'net about it; the IT guys told me over breakfast. Don't open the door if guys in black suits and buzz cuts show up.”

“Cherise.”

“Call me if Mulder drops by. Oh, speaking of that, look, could you do me a favor? I, ah, lost Cute British Guy's phone number . . .”

“You never
had
his phone number.”

“Yeah, but your sister had it and she was going to give it to me only—”

“I'm not giving you Eamon's phone number.”

“Oh, so now it's
Eamon,
” she said. “Fine. Be that way. Break my heart, since you won't share Hot Boy David either.”

“Bye, Cherise.”

“See you at three?” We had some promo commercial thing. I checked the clock. Still four hours to go. “I'll pick you up.”

“Yeah. See you then.”

I hung up and kept walking. The air-conditioning kicked on and felt like ice on my back, which was good. Maybe I could find something light to wear—gauze would be just barely acceptable. Anything heavier would be torture.

The phone rang again before I could put it down. It was Cherise again. “I forgot to tell you: Marvin said you were supposed to wear the Sunny costume for the promo. Don't worry, I stuck it in the car. I'll bring it.” She hung up fast.

Before I could scream.

 

“Wow,” Cherise said, when she saw me in the halter top and shorts and flip-flops. “You've really mastered this business casual thing.”

I threw her a dirty look and tried to ease myself gently into the passenger side of her convertible. Gasped when my burned back touched the leather. Cherise exclaimed and grabbed me by the shoulder to inspect the damage.

“Oh, man, that's bad,” she said, and clucked her tongue, just like my grandmother. “You can't wear the Sunny suit like that. I mean, jeez, you'll die. Foam rubber on a burn?”

Like I had a choice. I sent her a miserable look.

“You're
so
gonna owe me, girlfriend.” She slammed the convertible into reverse, peeled out, and shifted like a Grand Prix champion on her way out of the parking lot. The white van flashed by in a blur. I saw tail lights flare as it started up. “I may have to blow Marvin to get you out of this, you know. Hell, we may both have to blow Marvin. Oh, don't worry, we'll figure it out. He can't ask you to put on the damn suit like this; it's got to be against some government OSHA rule or cruel-and-unusual punishment or something.”

I groaned. “Yeah, that Marvin, he's all about the work rules.”

She knew I had a point, and frowned at the traffic as she merged onto the street. A Lincoln Continental seemed to have personally offended her, from the scowl she threw the driver. “So maybe you had an accident. I could drop you off somewhere. Like the hospital. You could even have a bill to back it up.”

“Much though I'd like to pay a thousand dollars to have some teenage barely-out-of-medical-school intern diagnose a sunburn . . .”

She was already moving on from the idea. She looked at me with the utmost gravity, the kind of look you'd get from a close personal friend if they'd decided to donate a life-saving organ to you. “I'll wear the Sunny costume. You be Beach Girl today.”

Which was quite a sacrifice. Cherise was
always
Beach Girl; that was her thing. Tiny bikinis and a perfect smile. Except for being too short, she was a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit model. And she
never
did costumes. I think it might have been against her religion. She'd have to say ten Donna Karans and one Tommy Hilfiger to make up for it later.

Tempting as it was, I honestly couldn't see Marvin going for it, not when he had such a golden opportunity to make my life miserable. “He'll never agree,” I said morosely. “And besides, Burned Beach Girl? What kind of message does that send? This is supposed to be a spot
talking about
the dangers of the sun, remember?”

“Oh, come on, they'll only shoot your front, anyway. And hey, baby, if your back isn't a cautionary tale, I don't know what is . . .”

I gave her a wan smile and held back my hair as I turned to look over my shoulder. I wasn't all that shocked to see the white van turning out of the parking lot in pursuit—well, not really pursuit. He wasn't in any big hurry to catch me.

“Something wrong?” Cherise asked, and checked the rearview. “Oh, shit, you've got to be kidding me. Is that the same guy from the mall?”

“Yeah.” I turned back to face front, slid on sunglasses, and leaned my head against the seat. “Don't worry about him. He's just—”

“Obsessed?” Cherise put in, when I didn't. “Yeah. I totally get that. You know, I've got at least three fanboys who send me letters every week wanting me to—well, you don't really need to know that. Anyway, it comes with the territory. We come into people's lives, and they want to keep us.”

Cherise merged onto the freeway, blew her horn at a trucker who made a kissy face, and whipped around traffic with a speed and ease that would have impressed a NASCAR crew chief. Her Mustang—which I coveted, badly—was a new model, gorgeously maintained, and Cherise had never been one to keep her light under a bushel, so to speak. She was dolled up in a denim miniskirt that rode three-quarters up her tanned, toned thighs, a tight, midriff-baring little top, and a Victoria's Secret bra that gave the top a little lifting and smooshing action. Her hair streamed out like a silk flag in the wind. She was one of those women who would arrive at her destination, after thirty minutes of sixty-mile-per-hour hair abuse, and look salon-fresh with a pass of her brush and a quick, careless flick of her head.