Lure of Song and Magic (22 page)

He chuckled. “But I made you think about it. And kept you from remembering the Librarian and that your mother found us rather than the other way around. But maybe if you're thinking of me, you won't be thinking about Bakersfield.”

“That's not happening. Better that you give me a picture of your son so I can keep his image in my mind while you're torturing me.”

His smile disappeared. “I've already given posters with his photo to the Bakersfield police. Go read to the kids. I'll be here when you're done.”

She nodded and walked away even though every cell in her body cried out for sweaty naked skin contact.

She'd learned to separate need, want, and reality. More than ever, she had to practice what she'd learned so she could move forward.

Chapter 28

Wearily, Pippa ran her fingers through her hair, knowing that she had it standing straight up after working all afternoon with Oz's crew. At least they all seemed to take her at face value as no more than a children's book author.

In the growing dusk, Oz lit her citronella candles while his director made notes in a hastily scribbled script they'd patched together.

Some of his crew had already returned to the city for the evening. Gloria had retreated to the house hours ago. Only the scriptwriters, the director, and a few flunkies remained, although Oz spent half his time on the phone with the missing members of his staff, arranging this impromptu rehearsal
.
Or show. Marketing wanted to tape with a live audience.

It seemed ridiculous to go to this much trouble for what was essentially no more than a reading—something she did every day. But this was Oz's job—producing a marketable production. With a live audience to test it on, he couldn't scorn the opportunity, even if not knowing whether it would lead to his son was killing him.

Pippa watched the tired lines on his face as he returned to the lounge he'd claimed as his. She knew he simply wanted to go to Bakersfield and let her loose, but if they didn't use her Syrene name, then they had to drum up publicity or she'd have no audience. So they had to plot and plan—without telling his crew what he hoped to accomplish with this rushed production.

She wanted to help, but she was relatively useless at this end of the business. So she'd worked at rewriting the Ronan story with her new experience as a writer rather than with the heartbreak of a lonely teen. Passion needed grammar and structure.

Conan had just arrived a little while ago. She didn't know why he was here, but she kept an uneasy eye on him while he worked the tiny keyboard of his netbook.

Boxes of Lizzy's pizza were scattered everywhere. Gloria had prepared raw vegetables and a salad. Half-eaten bowls of lettuce were still strewn about. Oz grabbed a handful of carrot sticks and scooped out the last of a veggie dip, but Pippa figured he was ready for a steak.

She wished she knew what she was doing. He'd handed her a framed photograph of his smiling toddler when she'd returned to the house at noon. This one was better than the one she'd seen in his condo. The boy had huge heartbreakingly cinnamon-colored eyes just like his father's.

Oz dropped down on his chair and gestured toward her with his carrots. “Your turn, Pip. Let us hear what you've got.” He crunched off the ends of the handful of carrots as if he were biting off someone's ear.

He was as nervous about this as she was.

“It's a children's story,” she warned when every head turned in her direction. She'd tried to remain unobtrusive, but she knew they had been studying her, wondering if Oz was going to all this work for some bimbo he wanted to boff. If any of them had recognized her as Syrene, they showed no sign of it, which gave her a small measure of confidence. “The book Oz wants me to do hasn't been edited or published yet, and we have no illustrations.”

She was stalling. They all waited patiently. With a sigh, she scrolled to the opening of the document and began to read about Ronan the Lonely Seal who imitated everyone he knew in hopes of making friends with them, but no one loved him—until he barked. Ronan had the best, the loudest, the most musical bark in the entire Pacific.

She read as she did to the children, with only a fraction of her Voice, just enough to hold them still and enraptured with the story.

A production assistant was wiping her eyes and sniffling by the time Pippa stopped reading. The men looked a little stunned—sitting silently, as if in deep meditative thought about a stupid story.

Oz crunched his carrots and watched his crew's reaction. Looking up from his computer, Conan stared at them, mystified.

She'd mesmerized everyone but the Oswin brothers—who had Malcolms in their family tree. Interesting.

Enthusiastic applause finally broke out, and Pippa blushed. It had been a long, long time since she'd last heard applause. She still wasn't ready for a theater audience, but at least her recitation hadn't harmed anyone. She hoped.

“Brilliant,” Oz declared, kissing the back of her hand—the first intimate gesture he'd made since she'd returned from the day care. “We're gonna do this, folks. We've got a winner.”

Taking that as a signal, the remaining crew began packing up.

Conan ambled over, removed her laptop, and replaced it with his netbook. “I hacked the genealogy site. I've left open the page from the early nineteen-hundreds where your California Malcolms divided from our East Coast Ives branch. Looks like our umpteen-great grandpappy Ives had wanderlust and took off with his California Malcolm wife for the Far East. Since then, his descendants have scattered around the world, leaving them relatively unscathed. Your branch stayed here, to disastrous effect, since the late fifties.”

“The fifties, when people began moving to California in droves?” Oz asked, forgetting to crunch his carrots.

“When Disneyland opened,” Pippa suggested.

“When Elvis was king,” Conan added dryly. “All probably irrelevant.”

“So, why Donal?” Oz demanded. “Different century, different family tree.”

“My guess, as far-fetched as it sounds, is that we're dealing with a computer-oriented generation of California geeks who know Malcolms are different and are trying to tap into their differences.” Conan leaned against the wall, sipping his water and watching the sun set.

Did that mean Conan actually
believed
Malcolms were different, or was he humoring her?

“California Malcolms are more likely to learn about the website by word of mouth as Pippa did,” he continued. “The site has gone viral. Until Alys—someone who lived here all her life and heard about the site—our branch has been mostly too scattered to know of the website's existence. The East Coast lot probably doesn't even know about the Malcolm connection and have never ventured near the family tree. Yet. That website is one sticky web. Who hasn't tried to look up their ancestry just once? And once someone visits, the site's bug crawls into their computer and checks them out.”

“This is all ridiculous speculation, you realize,” Oz said, removing the netbook from Pippa's hands to study it. He waved his farewell to the last of the departing crew without lifting his gaze from the screen. He snorted in amusement. “Looking at these biographies, you'll notice no one on our side of the family has an iota of talent. No singers, dancers, or artists. Our grandfather, the senator, is listed with the name of his wife and children, but Aunt Bessie's marriage isn't listed because she married a grocer and never makes the news. Our father owned a chain of hotels, but we grew up in half a dozen cities so the site doesn't record where we live. Magnus lies low, so they only have his name. Someone may have used a clipping service in the past to follow Dad and found our names that way but not birthdates or other vitals.”

“It's kind of fascinating,” Pippa said. “I had no idea I was related to so many people.”

“Damn good thing we're distant relations,” Oz muttered, scrolling back to their shared ancestry. “What does this make us, cousins eight times removed? This screen is too small to get the whole picture.”

Conan took back his fancy toy. “Reading through the bios on Pippa's extended family, they're mostly teachers. They're talented in many ways, they have fascinating if not wealthy careers, and then they settle down in California, near their families, produce children, and teach. Until or unless they meet untimely ends. You have cousins with birth dates listed, no deaths recorded, and no bios. They've simply disappeared.”

Gloria arrived bearing a tray of drinks. She set it on the table between Pippa and Oz and held out her hand for Conan's toy. “We're educators because of the empathic factor,” she explained in the tone of the teacher she must once have been. She studied the list of her ancestors. “It's difficult to become rich and powerful if we're more interested in improving the lives of others than in acquiring material things. That's where Pippa was led astray. Had I raised her, she would no doubt be a music teacher, singing in local repertory musicals.”

“And much happier,” Pippa agreed. “No offense, but wealth and power don't ring my chimes.”

“Whereas that's what Oswins live for—ringing other people's chimes.” Conan chortled. “It takes all kinds. But if we have a killer on the family tree, he's an idiot for taking out harmless teachers instead of some of the power mongers on the East Coast.”

Gloria smacked the netbook back into his hands. “Teachers are the most powerful tools we have for steering the future and the minds of entire generations. Don't ever underestimate the power of education.”

“Want us to throw him in the pool for you?” Oz asked helpfully.

“Power has its uses, when wielded wisely,” Gloria conceded. “I'll hope your mother taught you well. I assume my grandmother escaped unscathed because she moved to Texas, so as much as I hate to admit it, you may be onto something. Are there any California Malcolms left who could be selling our family secrets?”

“Scattered, but yes. Shall I send them invitations for a family reunion?” Conan suggested.

“I doubt that a kidnapper would take Donal to a family reunion,” Pippa pointed out. “Catching an imaginary villain is secondary to finding Donal.”

“And secondary to keeping Pippa safe,” Oz added. “Have you got a plan for that?”

“I will once you give me the details,” Conan said. “The Adam Technology lead is taking me nowhere. The computer store is irrelevant. Some geeks bought it from one of the many, many divisions of Adam. I've checked, and they are genuinely repairing old computers for charities. If they know your Librarian, all she had to do was tell them a charity needed Pippa's old hard drive, and they would hand it over, no questions asked.”

“With my data still on it?” Pippa asked in disbelief.

Conan shrugged. “So maybe she planted an employee who copied it. Things happen. I doubt we'll ever know. But if all the Librarian did with the drive contents was send them to your mother, I can't call that evil.”

“She did something for the Librarian, so the Librarian returned the favor. Balance. Very Zen.” Pippa crossed her legs and pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes to ease the ache. “Let's just do this.”

She didn't see Oz rise, but she felt him looming over her. Before she could uncover her eyes, he'd scooped her off the lounge. And she was grateful he was carrying her away from all this. Her arms circled his neck, and she buried her face in the enticing male scent of his hard chest and hoped he could make the world go away.

“Get your crew lined up, bro,” Oz ordered. “We've got the largest auditorium we could find in Bakersfield signed up for a week from today, after school. The PR people are already on it. The six o'clock news will have carried it.”

Pippa wished she could cover her ears as well as her eyes.

A week. He wasn't giving her much time to rethink this.

***

Restlessly awake at dawn on Saturday, Oz tried to stretch in the narrow RV bed but succeeded only in crushing Pippa into a corner. She'd slept with him out here all week. He would not attempt to delve into her psyche to determine why it was okay to sleep with him in an RV and not in her bed.

He simply wasn't letting her too far out of his reach, even if it meant living in a tin can. He had no idea where this relationship was going, but he was grateful she wasn't shutting him out until they worked it out. He needed her with a hunger he'd never known, a passion that made him come alive again.

He rolled over and covered her with his body as the birds began their dawn chorus. Naked, she circled his back and accepted his stubbly kiss with as much eagerness as he applied it.

Sixty hours and counting until the live rehearsal. Hours until he learned if all their planning and scheming would produce results.

She had to be as terrified as he was, but they'd spent these past nights learning the best ways of distracting each other. He'd discovered it was possible not to think at all while he had Pippa in his arms. He cuddled her closer and explored her perfect breasts. She responded by kissing his throat and wiggling into his arousal.

Once these next few days were over, once he'd played his hand and won or lost, he would have to figure out how to keep his elusive elf in his life. She was too good to throw away like the other women who crossed his path.

She grasped his butt and urged him on without any fuss about morning breath or needing a shower or coffee. Oz obliged, loving the hum of arousal she emitted.

Pippa's warbling cries of ecstasy brought him to climax before he was ready. He didn't want her to leave his bed today.

Donal needed them.

“You're doing everything you can,” she whispered near his ear, apparently sensing his tension. “Not hearing from the Librarian is
good
. It means we're doing the right thing.”

“For whom?” he asked bitterly, rolling back to the narrow mattress. “I want to lock you up in a bulletproof box.”

She giggled. “Clear glass. I can paint my face white and mime trying to escape. The kids will love it, but mimes don't sing.”

Disgruntled, he rolled off the bed. “I like that. I'll call a set designer and have him order it up.”

She flung a pillow at his departing back. “You're ridiculous. I'm going to the house. Come down when you're ready.”

Despite her prickly exterior, Pippa was too trusting. For all she knew, her damned mother was the Librarian. And Pippa was leaving Gloria in complete possession of her household while she spent the nights in the RV and half her days at the day care.

Which was why Pippa would never use her wealth for control and power. For her, it was natural to trust and share. The defensive shield she'd built over these past years was as unnatural as it was necessary.