04 - Shock and Awesome (12 page)

 
   
"
Lexi
, how nice to see you." Blake stepped forward and air kissed me from approximately four inches away on both cheeks. Gone was her plain clothes uniform; replaced by a cocktail dress in deep purple with a flared skirt and cinched waist. Her glossy hair was pulled into a neat chignon. She kept her jewelry to simple gold studs in her lobes. I couldn't fault her. Annoying.

 
   
"So nice!" I faux-gleefully exclaimed. "Are you enjoying the exhibit?"

 
   
"Oh yes." Blake nodded, waving her full glass around. "So much to see."

 
   
"Adam," said Maddox, holding his hand out to David. He took it and gave it a firm shake. "And Rebecca. Are you a friend of
Lexi's
?" As if he didn't know.

 
   
"We're on a date," said David with a grin at me. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Poor guy just seemed too pleased. Really, I should have been flattered, and if he were my type, I would have been, but sometimes, being too grateful just isn't sexy. Compounding the problem, since Maddox and I broke up, I hadn’t been on a date. If I had wanted him to see me on a date, it would have been with someone who could have at least made him jealous. Someone the male equivalent of Blake: glam, sexy, confident. Not licorice blob-haired David Markham, even if he was a millionaire. Damn it. What were Maddox and Blake doing here anyway?

 
   
"David, why don't you show Bl... er... Rebecca the painting you just bought?" I said, unlinking my arm and nodding towards the canvas. "I'm sure she'd love to see it. Huge fan."

 
   
David's eyes widened. "Would you really?" he asked. It was probably the first time two
hotties
showed any interest in him, or something to do with him. His chest puffed out. I'm fairly certain he would later tell his friends what a "player" he’d become. I hoped he would take a shine to Blake.

 
   
"Please," said Blake, stepping forward.

 
   
"What are you doing here?" I hissed to Maddox, after turning to watch David and Blake step away, and out of earshot.

 
   
"Same as you. Suspect surveillance."

 
   
"No. That's what I'm doing. You guys are supposed to back off so the thief doesn't get spooked. That was the plan. MPD stays in the background. If he's the thief and he guesses you're PD, the jig's up."

 
   
Maddox raised both eyebrows. "The jig's up?"

 
   
"You told Solomon that you needed someone on the outside to get close." I pointed to my chest and Maddox's eyes lingered on it.
Men
. I raised my finger to my chin. "Me. Outside."

 
   
"You really think this guy could be the one?"

 
   
"The one?" I was momentarily confused. Like hell did I think he was The One.

 
   
"The thief," Maddox stage-whispered. Inexplicably, he added jazz hands.

 
   
"I don't get that vibe," I told him, relieved that the conversation was still on track. "I've only known him an hour-and-a-half and the few minutes it took to read his file. He doesn't have any motive, and I don't think he's the kind of man who could get under a woman's skin, make her totally trust him, then betray her."

 
   
"We're still talking about this case?"

 
   
"Of course," I huffed. Like, what else? A professional such as myself wouldn't dare comment on the kind of men I dated. "Thing is, David likes David a whole lot. He's more interested in what he's got to say than what I have to say, so I don't see him getting a lot of second dates; and I figure the thief needs to go on a few dates with the women he targets. He must build up a profile so he knows who to rob and what to steal and when to do it."

 
   
"I agree. And David doesn't fit that bill?"

 
   
"Not unless he's confident enough to wheedle the details on the first date, then simply watch his dates after that, but that's pretty time-consuming. I guess he would have the skills..." I thought about how David made his money and pursed my lips.

 
   
"They're coming back. What skills?"

 
   
"David's a software expert. Maybe he simply gets enough details to hack his date's computer and discovers the assets that way."

 
   
"Smart. Keep at it,
Lex
."

 
   
"I will and don't crash anymore of my dates."

 
   
"How do you know I'm not actually here on a date that happened to coincide with work?"

 
   
I glanced at Blake, my heart sinking as a tear threatened to drop from my left eye. Rubbing his affair in my face was just mean. "With her?"

 
   
Maddox opened his mouth to say something, but David and Blake returned. David was talking about the kind of art he invested in and how he loved adding to his collection. He said he hoped his passion would turn into philanthropy one day while Blake just nodded and agreed with everything he uttered. She was exactly the kind of woman he liked and it showed. Shame he didn't see the eye roll she gave me as she stepped away to take Maddox's hand. The bitch.

 
   
"Let's go to dinner, David?" I suggested, sidling away from Maddox towards my target. I gave him a brilliant smile. What did I care if Maddox wanted to schmooze with Blake? I had a date! A millionaire! With hair like nasty candy! Woo!

 
   
"Okay, I know a great French place just around the corner. They do an amazing steak that you must try..." With that, David babbled on about food and how he
aced
a Cordon Bleu class in Paris. He also said something about wine tasting in the Italian countryside. I had just enough time to narrow my eyes at Maddox before David whisked me away to the cloakroom to retrieve our coats.

 
   
David insisted on walking to the restaurant and I refused to moan about the height of my heels — though internally, I let that whine unleash. By the time we were seated, I knew he loved to cook, eat, drink wine and had a wine cellar in his home, a newly built house in Bedford Hills. I discovered he put a lot of pride in the restaurants he frequented and how many chefs knew him by name. Oh yeah… he always got the best tables and often ordered off-menu. Honestly, I knew he wanted to impress me by the way he waited for my reactions occasionally, but it all just made him sound desperately annoying.

 
   
"Are you nervous?" I asked him after he spoke in broken French to the waiter. He managed to order another bottle of champagne and call himself something rude that the waiter politely ignored.

 
   
David's cheeks pinked. "Maybe a little," he admitted. "It's not often I get to go on a date with a beautiful woman who really knows how to listen. Some women are so self-absorbed. I really want a selfless mother for my future children."

 
   
Holy crap. Was that ever not going to happen. I wondered what Flaherty, on the other end of the wire, thought of that. Maybe he was thinking about going home to a beautiful woman. Maybe Maddox was thinking about going home with Blake on his maybe/maybe not date. Maybe Solomon was on a date with the gorgeous younger woman. All of a sudden, I wanted to go home, kick off my heels, pull on my pajamas and crawl into bed. Dating suspected criminals was hard work.

 
   
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked as David paused, waiting expectantly.

 
   
"I asked if you were happy to be a stay-at-home mom? Are you still fertile? You don't want to wait too long." he said with a silly grin.

 
   
"Oh, well, I uh... oh the candle blew out. Let me light it. The table needs some ambiance, don't you think? Uh, romantic..." I babbled, trying not to think about being a stay-at-home mom. It wasn't that I didn't want to be a mother one day, but it was way too soon to discuss my fertility and potential motherhood with a first date. Also: it was kind of crazy. And: no. Just no.

 
   
"Good idea," agreed David, momentarily distracted from the thought of impregnating me by the wisp of smoke winding its way upwards from the blown-out tea light on our table.

 
   
I don't know what happened next, but it was a disaster. Somehow, as I reached over for the gently flickering tea light on the empty table next to us, intending to bring it to ours, the waiter approached with the ice bucket, and David leaned forward, causing all three of us to collide. Instead of lighting the candle, the flame caught the essence of David's volatile hair product and I watched in horror as his sideburns ignited, the flames licking upwards.

 
   
A most unholy wail emanated from someone, and pretty soon, the three of us were also shrieking in cacophonous protests.

 
   
~

 
   
Lily had one look at me standing on her welcome mat, water dripping from my hem, a bottle of champagne in hand, and raised her eyebrows. "Good date?"

 
   
"Interesting."

 
   
She sniffed the air suspiciously as Eau de Singe wafted from me. "Go on."

 
   
"The gallery was nice, and we bumped into Maddox and Blake, so I suggested we go to dinner. David and me, that is. Not me, Maddox and Blake, because that would be really weird, then he got all nervous and..."

 
   
"Who got nervous? Maddox?"

 
   
"No. David. He started talking about my declining fertility and I thought maybe a little candlelight would put him at ease, so I went to light a candle, only he leaned forward and I kind of set fire to him..." I took a deep breath as Lily mashed her lips together and her eyes widened. "He had so much pomade in his hair, it kind of caught fire."

 
   
"Kind of?" asked Lily, opening the door wider so I could step into the safety and serenity of her apartment. I did, but my legs didn't seem to want to move any further so I just stood there, inside the door, whimpering.

 
   
"At first, it was just the sides, then the whole lot went.
Woomph
!" I threw one hand in the air dramatically and waggled my fingers. "It was like a Christmas plum pudding with flames dancing all around."

 
   
"Don't stop now. This is even better than I expected. This has to be a first." Lily paused and gave me a suspicious questioning look. "
Lexi
... it was a first, right?"

 
   
I gave her a shocked look. Seriously? "Absolutely. Never set a date's head on fire before."

 
   
"Oh, well, good. So..." She prompted.

 
   
"So I grabbed the champagne and threw the ice bucket over his head to put him out."

 
   
"Good thinking. Very brave."