Love Spell (3 page)

The machine beeped, and Daryl’s unfortunately familiar voice blared from the speaker. “Yo, Lindz! Ya get my card? Yeah, I heard about your surgery. Figured you’d like it.”

“It was a regular dental checkup, moron,” Lindsay muttered to herself.

“I made it myself,” the man added. “Well, Mom helped with the spelling, but I put the whole thing together. I even used that recycled stuff you’re always talking about.

“Anyway, I’ll be there in a bit. You stiffed me for our last two dates. I’m still takin’ you to dinner. Tomorrow. My place. Mom’s making her lasagna. I’ll have her come getcha sometime. Love ya, hot stuff! Ciao!”

Lindsay nursed a new headache. Daryl Duncan was quite possibly the stupidest man on the planet. She wondered what stroke of bad karma had earned her his affection. It was one thing to have the wealthy, handsome John Francis offer to take you to dinner—that was at least flattering, even if he was an obvious liar and a two-timer. But Daryl? Lindsay was uncertain whether she could have penetrated his skull with a diamond-bit drill. Oh, she’d tried turning him down nicely the first five times he’d asked her out. After that, she’d grown increasingly blunt. That failed too. Ignoring him sometimes worked, but Daryl had this disturbing habit of showing up at the most unexpected of places and times. Lindsay grabbed her pad of sticky notes and jotted a reminder to increase her counter-stalking defenses.

Why wouldn’t men leave her alone? Except as clients, of course. She could handle men—especially rich, handsome ones—paying her to do their snooping for them. But why did they all keep
asking her out
? She had vowed she wouldn’t bother
them
. Couldn’t they extend her the same courtesy? Was it really that hard to avoid commenting on her eyes or her legs or her… never mind. She was a professional doing professional work. She was not some piece of meat to be ogled, thank you very much.

She deleted the voicemail as soon as it ended, and then went back to perusing her e-mails. Spam. More reminders. E-mail from Mom about how worried she was about her daughter. Message from an old high school girlfriend. Something about the Nevada State Fair. She looked askance at that, but then remembered she’d been browsing sites about Las Vegas for someone who almost pretended to become a client. Nothing of real note. She deleted the spam, read the message from the girlfriend, opened the one from Mom just to trigger the “message read” receipt on Mom’s e-mail, and kept the one about the fair for no real reason at all. When she finished she flipped through her list of past “almost clients.” If no one would come to her, she would have to go to them.

“Ashworth, Beverly,” the first card read. Mrs. Ashworth had called her three months back, inquiring whether Lindsay would help find her lost dog. At the time, it seemed like a silly request—Lindsay was
not
some low-class pet detective. The older woman had accepted Lindsay’s courteous explanation as to why she couldn’t take the case, but seemed disappointed all the same. Unbidden, the stack of bills from the morning’s mail came to mind. Maybe Old Lady Ashworth’s prize Pomeranian was still alone and afraid somewhere? She dialed the number, and waited until a kind, elderly voice came on the line.

“Hello, Mrs. Ashworth? This is Lindsay Sullivan of Sullivan and Self Private Investigators. I was wondering…”

A half hour, and seven, short phone calls later, Lindsay had come up blank. She checked to see if the free, local ad she’d put out last week had received any hits. The page’s view count was dismal, and there had been no click-throughs. Then again, she had a hunch about what to expect when resorting to one of the painfully few “no-cost” options. When she had checked them out, her detective sense smelled something fishy about all but one of them, and even that ad firm didn’t look encouraging. She supposed she could go door to door, but that was hardly professional.

An image popped into her mind of a hulking man with the word “Bills” tattooed across his chest. He was beating on a little nerdy guy wearing a t-shirt with the logo “Lindsay’s Bank Account” on it. She felt sorry for the nerd.

“God,” she whispered, looking up at the sky, “I know I don’t pray much, and I’m probably not a top priority for you, what with world hunger and all those other problems, but would you mind helping me out a bit? Maybe, send me a case? Or two?”

No answer. She wasn’t sure she had expected it. But who knew? Maybe God had an answering machine as well, and had to sort through billions of prayers one at a time. No, He would have a proper staff to handle His secretarial work. He probably didn’t have a lease either. Maybe she should have gone to school to be a goddess. Did they even
have
schools for such a thing? Either way, being a supernatural being would certainly be an adventure.

The urge to use the ladies’ room brought her back to earth. Lindsay made her way around her desk. In a rare, clumsy moment, her foot snagged a teetering pile of boxes. She yelped as a half dozen of them crashed down, spilling their contents all over the floor. She groaned.

“Well, it’s not as though I was doing anything else right now.” She excused herself to freshen up. She’d deal with the mess in a moment.

9:30 rolled around before Lindsay declared the disaster “conquered.”  She looked at the rearranged stack with satisfaction before turning back to her desk. An unexpected upshot of her little accident was that she had unearthed some of her old high school paraphernalia. Maybe a little mental break would help clear her mind and bring in some fresh ideas. She put her old notebooks aside and went straight for the yearbooks.

Freshman year. The picture above her name made her shudder. Had her hair really been
that
ratty? And those freckles? Ugh. As if being strawberry blond hadn’t been bad enough. Then there was the acne. She slammed the book shut.

Sophomore year. Her family had moved to a different town and gave her a fresh start. The acne was mostly gone by then, but she wasn’t sure if braces made such a good replacement. She’d straightened her hair, but what was with the little poof of bangs on the right side of her head? Why had she been so hideous back when guys were still worth thinking about? She wondered if there was some sort of “reverse plastic surgery” to make a girl look a tad disgusting to keep them away now. No, she still had her dignity, and Mom would never pop to cover a nose job designed to make her look like a toucan.

She looked through the yearbook signatures she’d gotten from various friends; she was surprised at how few there were. She slightly regretted her plan to skip her ten-year reunion when it came up, but she had her reasons. As she started to close the book, the pages flopped down to reveal the seniors. A face stopped her cold. That lazy, blond hair over those gray-blue eyes that she used to think shined for her. There was that familiar, half grin that never quite left his lips, and seemed to get wider when he saw her. It was almost a shame that she’d scribbled a big, black X over his picture; it was the only one of him she had. No amount of scribbling would ever erase her mental picture of him.

I’d almost forgotten about him.
The lie was comforting. She thoroughly despised Clint Christopherson. She could have forgiven him if he’d merely been a dolt like Daryl. The way Clint had pulled out her heart with a surgeon’s care, so much that she was blinded to its absence, was another thing altogether. It wasn’t until her breakup with her first serious boyfriend—and she didn’t shed one tear over it—did she realize just how much Clint affected her. Granted, that made it easier to be dumped by boyfriends two and three, back in college. Maybe she should be grateful? No. Clint was scum. He deserved a long, slow death after a life of celibacy. At least she had finally woken up to the fact that she could be her own woman.

Still, she took a long, last look at that markered face before gently closing the yearbook and filing it back in its box. After a moment’s thought, however, she fished it back out, and set it on her desk; it would be fun to look through it tonight while on the phone with Jen.

This has nothing to do with Clint
, she told herself.

What
had
happened to him, anyway? A moment of hesitation, and then she turned to her computer. No sin in a little curious searching, now, was there? Ten minutes was all she needed to find out that he was still single and still in the Bay Area. Would he even remember her? Would she
want
him to remember her? No, no. He was a liar; he didn’t deserve her. He’d missed his chance back when she was young and stupid. His loss. She was a big girl now. A big girl with big girl responsibilities.

She closed the web browser and looked out her window at the street below. Of all those people down there, surely someone needed her services. A case would come her way sooner or later, she was sure. It had to. Otherwise, Mom and Dad would, once again, be right. Lindsay could afford no more Mrs. Ashworths: Lindsay would take whatever case she could get.

THREE

Clint emerged from Contra Costa grateful to still have all his internal organs. Fate had assigned him to an overly curious resident who had quickly diagnosed Clint as “damaged goods but in good health,” and then proceeded to express unearthly interest in Clint’s interior anatomy. He resorted to creative answers and, in the end, simply demanding to leave without further testing.

For his troubles, he was given a sling for his left arm, and a prescription to “take it easy for a few days.” Visits like that always made him wonder why art couldn’t be more like medicine. He would love to be able to stare at a painting with a client, ask a few generic questions, and then state the obvious for a nice chunk of cash. Alas, life didn’t play that tune. At least his upcoming job interview presented a chance to break out of his post-collegiate rut.

His injuries addressed, the morning seemed a little brighter. The sunlight mingled with a hinted scent of the bay, and a stronger hint of Molly’s perfume as she walked close beside him on the trip back to the car, content to let the silence linger. He was grateful she wasn’t one of those “gotta talk all the time” kind of girls. He’d dated too many of those, in his time; he’d never forget that wonderful two hours he spent dumping his crazy ex, Michelle, over text messaging. He’d never have escaped her if they’d been face to face instead.

Back at the car, Molly looked at him expectantly. He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “Well, I’ve got neither shirt nor shoes, so that rules out visiting any fast food joints this morning. Unless we do drive-thru.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“A guy’s gotta eat, right? Breakfast is the most important meal, and all that. Of course, my wallet’s still back at my place, so even if I were fully dressed… Run me back to my place quick, please? So I can pick that stuff up?”

She frowned. “Jane won’t leave your apartment unmonitored. Going back there is asking for trouble.”

Clint shrugged. “I know. I’ll find another place to stay for a day or two. Maybe some roach motel. Funny thing, though, they kind of expect payment even if you share the bed with the rats. Let’s just go back, run in, grab my stuff, and run out. Deal?”

Her frown deepened. “Clint, I’ll foot the bill. You can pay me back when it’s safe to get your wallet.”

He sighed. “When do you think it’ll be ‘safe’?”

She thought for a moment. “I’ll get back to you. For now, let’s book you at a hotel. I’ll run surveillance on your apartment later tonight.”

“How you getting in?” he asked.

Wordlessly, Molly climbed into her car. Clint sighed again, and got in as well. In a moment, they were off.

“Look, Molly,” he said as they pulled onto Alhambra Street, “this hasn’t been the best Monday I’ve ever had. Frankly, it’s been a bit freaky. And you? I know we haven’t really seen each other much in the last six years, but this isn’t the Molly I remember. Since I answered your questions—”

“Partially.”

“—I think I’m due a few answers myself.”

Without taking her eyes from the road, she asked, “What do you want to know?”

“Well, let’s think about it. You come out of nowhere to save me; you drive better than Jeff Gordon; you don’t even
flinch
when your best friend fills your car full of lead. Mysteriously, despite the hail of gunfire, you escape without even a single flat tire. Heck, for all I know, this Beemer’s probably sporting tailpipe smokescreen emitters, rocket launchers, and machine guns in the headlights.”

“There are no machine guns.”

Clint threw his hands up. “What’s
that
supposed to mean? I feel like I woke up trapped inside a James Bond movie.”

“Bond is fiction. I’m not.”

He exhaled. “How about you just tell me what brings you back to town? Aside from Holly’s reunion party. Last I heard from you, you were headed east for school. I barely even got to say goodbye.”

“Virginia,” she replied. “Lovely place. I came back for business.”

He arched an eyebrow. “What do you do these days?”

She stopped for a red light and locked eyes with him. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

He laughed. “No, seriously.”

No answer. The light changed and they moved on.

A half an hour later they were standing in the lobby of the first reasonably decent hotel they could find, wrapping up the check-in process. The place was mid-range—not the Ritz Carlton by any stretch, but thankfully uninfested. Clint leaned casually on the check-in desk, scanning the breakfast buffet in the room annexed to the lobby. A few, older patrons spared him some scowls, but each looked away when he responded with a smirk and a wave.

“Here’s your room key, sir,” the girl behind the desk said with an awkward smile. Her eyes traveled quickly down the length of his torso and she blushed. Suddenly, her computer seemed to become very interesting to her. Clint gave the girl the once over. Probably second-year college kid; he’d been there only a few years back. Almost attractive, but there was something not quite right with her nose. No temptation at all. He took the key card with a nod, and turned to Molly.