Dashing Through the Snow (4 page)

“So, Mrs. Benson. What can I help you with
today?”

Mrs. Benson took a picture frame out of her
voluminous purse and slapped it face up on the desk. “That’s my
husband Roy. I think the son of a bitch is cheating on me.”

Lily sat in the relative warm comfort of her
cousin Tom’s old Chevy Chevette -- relative both in warmth and
comfort. The car was more than twenty years old and a hideous green
color that really offended her sense of taste, but she wasn’t
complaining because at least now she didn’t have to worry about
renting a car while her Fusion was in the shop.

She fiddled with the radio dial until she
found a station that played hits from the nineties. Singing under
her breath to the Beastie Boys, she tried not to wish too hard for
her iPod.

She was parked in the lot of Barclay’s
because that was where her first client wanted her to be.
My
first client
. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten a client on her
very first day on the job. “I guess the advertising must have paid
off,” she said. Because she’d gotten her license long after
telephone books had gone to print, she was too late to be listed,
so she’d invested in some advertising. She’d bought a fifteen
second spot on late night cable television and fifteen seconds on
the all news radio station. She’d also set up a website, a Facebook
page and a Twitter account. She’d have to ask Mrs. Benson where
she’d heard about her the next time she saw her.

“I’ll have a questionnaire printed up for the
office and I’ll put it on the website,” she murmured and grabbing
her pad and pen, added that task to the growing list of things she
had to do. She hummed as she did it, happier than she’d been in
quite a long time. Her life finally seemed to be on track.

Lily closed her eyes, and for maybe the
thousandth time, silently thanked her grandmother for her
generosity. Lily was her only grandchild, and when Candace had
decided three months before to pull up stakes and move to Chicago
to live with Amelia Watley, she’d also decided to help Lily.
Telling Lily that she’d rather see her happy while she was still
alive, Candace had given her an early deposit on her inheritance.
With it, Lily had been able to come home with a nice little nest
egg after having spent all those years in Chicago working towards
getting the license. Her grandmother’s gift had gone towards her
license, an office in a decent part of downtown and her new
car.

Candace was also allowing Lily to live in her
house on Rowe Street, saying that it worked out perfectly because
she’d be getting a free caretaker while Lily would have a place to
stay. Though her grandmother had yet to cash it, Lily had sent her
a monthly check for rent. She also managed the upkeep of the
property and paid the utility bills. Her grandmother had always
spoiled her, but as her only child’s only child, Lily was the light
of Candace’s life.

Lily sighed. She was bored, but afraid to do
anything but sit there and listen to her music. Reading was out and
so was talking on her cell. She meant to do this right and didn’t
want any screw-ups for her sake and the client’s. Mrs. Lenora
Benson was the wife of an investment banker. Thrilled with getting
an assignment, Lily hadn’t even taken offense when Mrs. Benson had
condescendingly told her that the job was a simple one: follow Roy
Benson, find out what he was doing when he wasn’t working or
playing racquet ball, take plenty of pictures, report, report,
report. She was to start immediately, and of course she’d be well
compensated for her work.

“Just bring me proof that he’s cheating on
me,” Mrs. Benson had said, “I do not plan to leave this marriage
empty-handed.” Lily had dutifully taken notes and asked for more
recent pictures than their ten-year old wedding photo.

And taking Mrs. Benson’s driver’s license,
Lily had excused herself to go into the outer office where she’d
given Quincy the password to a background service site she’d
purchased a subscription to and told him to run a check on Mrs.
Benson just so she could be sure the woman would be able to pay her
bill. That taken care of, she’d handed Mrs. Benson a contract to
sign. A fifteen hundred dollar retainer in the form of a cashier’s
check or from a credit card was due up front, thank you very much,
and have yourself a good day.

Right after her new client had left, Lily had
pushed a nosy Quincy out of her office, throwing subtlety and
cunning to the wind and telling him to “get lost.” She’d strapped
on her stun gun and her pepper spray, hot-tailed it by taxi to her
cousin’s house to borrow the car and then had made her way over to
Sheffield-Chatham’s only country club where she’d waited two and a
half hours for Benson to come out. He’d left the club and had come
to work, where she’d dutifully followed him.

The only problem was she hadn’t planned her
little stake out at all well. She hadn’t eaten and her bladder was
fast approaching the point of no return. Lily looked around,
wishing she had the guts to make use of the bushes to her right.
Besides her car, there was Mr. Benson’s Mercedes S10 and an old
clunker that she assumed belonged to another employee from the
building. She knew it didn’t belong to the lone security guard
because he was her fifth cousin -- something like fifty times
removed -- and he rode the bus or had his mom drive him wherever he
wanted to go.

She also knew that he was lazy, a bully and
mad with perceived power. Hence the reason she didn’t simply go in
and ask if she could use the facilities to empty her bladder and
stay warm. Her cousin would see that as a breech of protocol and
would use a long, drawn out lecture to say no. Adding to that, he’d
blab it to the family and by the time she got to her parents for
Sunday dinner, she and her “nutty” career choice would be skewered
over rack of lamb.

She frowned. She loved her family but they
were over-protective, raucous and more than a little intrusive. Her
conversation with her father that afternoon was a prime example.
He’d actually tried to make her hire Quincy, insisting that he’d
pay the teenager’s salary. She’d refused, knowing that they’d use
him to spy on her. While her refusal hadn’t fallen on deaf ears, it
had been talked over in favor of another suggestion. “Hire one of
John’s retired cop friends to work with me? The very idea gives me
shudders,” Lily muttered in disgust as she thought of her cousin
and all of his macho fellow cops. “I really should have stayed in
Chicago.”

But as much as she loved the windy city on
the lake, she had really missed Sheffield-Chatham, and if she were
honest, her family even more.

Another car pulled into a slot next to her,
and Lily turned to look. It was a black BMW.
Nice
, she
thought,
very nice
. The sky was already an inky winter dark,
but the overhead lights helped her to make out the other driver’s
features. His face would never be considered handsome, but it was
interesting with its high forehead, dark eyes, square jaw and full
lips. The scar that curved from his hairline to end beneath his
right brow only served to make his face look more interesting. She
studied the black hair that was too long to be considered
fashionable, and then lifted a brow inquiringly when he looked over
at her.

Taking a page from Santa’s book, Lily stuck
both her middle fingers straight up in the air and wanting the new
arrival to see them clearly, shoved them toward her passenger side
window.

Chapter Four

All doubt that Lily Carstairs was sitting in
a car two spaces over fled Smith’s mind when she gave him the
finger. “That little hell cat will never change,” he muttered with
a shake of his head as he fixed his old cowboy hat on his head. He
took off his seat belt and prepared to leave his car. When his foot
hit the pavement, he heard the definite snick of locking car doors
and frowned. She did it to irritate him, he knew, but he was more
annoyed that they hadn’t already
been
locked. “Little fool,”
he said aloud and kept his determined stride to her car.

He knocked on the passenger side window. “Are
you going to open this door willingly, or am I going to have to
make you?”

Lily didn’t even bother to look at him.
“Sorry, do I know you?”

Smith laughed, appreciating her mean streak.
“Oh, yeah, sweetness,” he told her, “better than most.”

The innuendo in that statement had her
whipping her head around and scowling at him. She stared at him in
disbelief for a moment and then seemed to pull herself together.
“Fuck off, Smith,” she said calmly before turning away again.

“Jesus, you can hold a grudge,” he muttered
as he tried to see what was so damned interesting in her lap. All
he could tell was that she was writing something. He knocked on the
window again and was ignored.

“All right, Lily,” he continued to speak in a
voice loud enough for her to hear through the window. “I tried to
do this the easy, adult way, but we’ll just have to try it your
way. If you don’t open this door right now, I’m going to put in a
call to the police about a suspicious vehicle that’s been sitting
in this parking lot for hours. Your cover will be blown, and that
will be all she wrote for your little stakeout.”

Again, she whipped her head around to look at
him with a scowl on her face. He grinned and she scowled harder
before slowly reaching over to unlock the passenger side door for
him.

“Now, that’s more civilized,” he said as he
settled his long frame into the seat and shut the door. “It’s good
to see you, Lily-bud. How have you been?” He studied her. It had
been four years since he’d seen her, but she still looked good
enough to eat. He’d always loved that long, skinny body of hers,
which she covered in nothing but stylish clothes that flattered it.
Now she wore slim black pants, a red, cable knit turtleneck sweater
and a black leather jacket. He took in her hair. The long dark
locks still looked thick and lush. It was definitely hair a man
could bury his hands in while burying his -- Smith hurriedly put
the brakes on that particular thought. Now was
not
the time
for that. Lily would likely spit in his face if she knew he was
even thinking about making love to her.

She wouldn’t look at him, but Smith knew
those tawny brown eyes of hers were flashing fire and anger was
adding a bit of muted pink to her light brown cheeks. “It’s been a
mighty long time, but you’re still looking as good as ever, Lily.”
He grinned again. “What? No hug for your old friend?” he asked
pleasantly.

“Sometimes I just want to punch your face
in.”

Throwing his head back, Smith laughed. “Still
got that not-so realized violent streak, I see.”

Lily’s gust of a sigh filled the car. “What
do you want, Smith?”

“I’m just checking up on you, is all. Your
mom told me about this latest wild hare of yours and I was
curious.” Her decision to become a private detective had come out
of nowhere and seemed to have surprised everyone except him. She’d
always had a certain wildness that she’d tried to tamp down, but
needed to channel instead. He’d been out of touch with things for
several years, but he’d always expected that he’d someday hear
about some wild thing Lily had done when she finally broke out of
those self-imposed constraints.

She’d apparently kept her plan to become a
private detective a secret from everyone except her grandmother
until it was time for her to sit for the exam. Given the
overprotective and interfering quality of her family he didn’t
blame her. His problem with her choice was that he didn’t know if
she’d be any good at it, and therefore, safe. He’d been a P.I. for
five years and it wasn’t an easy career.

“How did you know where to find me?” she
asked and he heard the resentment in her tone.

“I had dinner with your folks and they told
me, and if you’re wondering how they knew, your cousin Bill told
them. He called them when he noticed you sitting out here for so
long. He watched you pull up.”

He smiled when she put her head on the
steering wheel with a strangled sound of frustration. “What? You
should be glad to have a family that loves you so much.”

“Go away, Smith. I don’t want to deal with
you right now.”

“Aw, come on, sweetness. It’s been four whole
years after all.”

“Four years away from you weren’t enough. Do
me a favor and make it four more, huh?”

“Okay, clearly, you don’t know how to let go
of old issues.”

“Oh, please,” she muttered derisively. “Don’t
try to minimize what you did. You seduced me and then you
disappeared -- never to be heard from again. Well, that’s what I
wanted the most anyway. But here you are, turning up like a bad
smell, proving once again that Jagger and his boys were right.”

Smith scowled even as he had to struggle not
to laugh. Lily had always been a wise ass. It was one of his
favorite things about her. Her stubbornness and her ability to make
him feel guilty, however, were not. The scowl won out. “If you’d
get over your resentment for five fucking minutes, you’d see that
I’m here to help you,” he snapped quietly, hating to be reminded of
his bad behavior.

Lily smirked and he could tell that she’d
gotten exactly the reaction she’d wanted. “I don’t need your help,
Smith, so take your offer and get lost.”

“Look, Lily -- ”

“No, you look! I don’t want you anywhere near
me, understand? I don’t care that my parents or your parents asked
you to look out for me. I can take care of myself.”

Smith cringed. She sounded like she was on
the verge of tears, and he’d never been able to withstand her
tears. “Lily, I --”

“Get out, get out, get out!” she suddenly
said in a panicked whisper that got louder with each successive
command, and she was pushing at him now. He was shocked when she
reached across his chest to actually open the door, all while
pushing at his shoulder with her other hand. Smith grabbed at her,
but astonishment and his awkward position hampered his reflexes and
he couldn’t quite catch hold. Before he knew it, he found himself
hanging out of the opened door and if he hadn’t caught himself and
hurriedly stood, he’d have found his ass hitting the pavement.