Me, Myself and Why? (13 page)

Shocked, I forgot all about my palms as I snapped my head up.
“What?”

“Is that a request for more information, or—”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Sure I am. Anywhere you want to go.”

“Have you learned nothing in the past fifteen minutes?”

“Sure I have. Pick you up at eight?”

“Which one of us?” I could actually feel my blood pressure climb. My eyes were all but bugging out of my head.

“Any of you, of course. All of you. You know why I’m still single at the ripe old age of thirty-four? Ice cream.”

“Ice cream,” I repeated robotically.

“Sure. That’s why Baskin-Robbins has thirty-one flavors. I don’t
want
vanilla or daiquiri ice or peach or rocky road all the time.” He grinned and knuckled away a tear of syrup. “You just might be the perfect girl—girls—for me. So, eight o’clock?”

Ugh. Socializing. Patrick was not in danger—except from his own stupidity—and neither was I. I had overstayed my welcome. Thus it was something of a relief to get the hell out of—

Chapter Thirty-three

“Good gosh! What happened to your suit?”

Patrick was—oh, yech! He was a disaster! (Who smelled terrific; suddenly I was craving French toast in the worst way.) His dark hair was shiny with syrup. His lapels shone stickily. He smelled like a sugaring party. He was smiling at me.

Smiling!

“Ah. You’re back. Shiro seemed a little uptight. She didn’t stay long. Was it something I said?”

“Oh God.” I covered my eyes. “You saw Shiro? Sorry. She’s not very sociable. I—”

“She’s a little tense,” he agreed, “but then, she’s got a lot to be tense about. Also, Adrienne felt my suit was missing that syrup touch that means so much.”

My hands went numb to the wrist (I evince stress in odd ways); then they fell into my lap, and I realized there were eight little nail marks imprinted on my palms.
Her
bad habit that
I
had to pay for.

I just about shrieked. Oh my God! I’d left the table and
Adrienne
had shown up? And thrown a pitcher of syrup on him? And—well, okay, to be fair, that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But still.
So
embarrassing. I was pretty sure Patrick’s first visit to Minneapolis was also going to be his last.

“You—you saw all of us?”

“If ‘all’ means three, then yeppers.”

I glanced at my watch. I’d been gone for just under five minutes. We were still in the booth. Adrienne hadn’t done any real damage. Neither had Shiro.

Outside of therapy sessions, and the occasional late night with Cathie, I couldn’t remember a time when someone had dealt with the three of us in fewer than five minutes. Certainly not a layman, like the baker.

I had no idea what to say to Patrick.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. He did the talking. And before I knew it, I had a date for later.

Which made me wonder: which of us, exactly, was clinically insane?

Chapter Thirty-four

By the time Patrick picked me up (in a different suit, this time with no tie and a bit of chest hair peeking out), I came to a conclusion: I was the insane one. Or more insane, anyway. Why did I think this date was going to work? Jeepers, who puts a guy in danger and then exposes him again less than twenty-four hours later?

It didn’t matter whether the guy liked Baskin-Robbins or not. I wasn’t an ice-cream chain (though Adrienne, I strongly suspected after waking up one morning with my butt covered in melted mint chocolate chip, frequented them). I was a trained federal agent who could barely restrain herself from causing severe personal injury!

“Date’s off,” I told him, slamming the door in his face.

He stuck his foot out in time—nice shoes!—and jammed the door open. “Which one of the three of you has cold feet?”

“It doesn’t matter. You probably shouldn’t force yourself into the house; the next sister who shows up will probably go beyond syrup in wrecking your ass. And you’ve already had one suit ruined.”

“Okay, I’ll stay out here in my super-duper SUV. But I’m going to be honking the entire evening.”

My eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? It’ll make a fantastic noise throughout the neighborhood, which’ll embarrass Cadence. Shiro will be freshly annoyed and agree to anything to make it stop. And yet, none of the three of you will be in any real danger . . . so I don’t think I’ll be seeing Adrienne at all. See you in the car.” And with that, he closed the door on me.

On me!

“Darn it all to hippy-skip!” I checked myself in the foyer mirror. I had gotten dressed and fixed my hair before resolving to end the date, so the blond-locks-on-straps-of-short-black-dress thing was already working for me. But I had no makeup on.

The horn started blaring. It was a fierce tenor

Three Tenors

that made me jump and grit my teeth.

MENH. MENH. MENH. MENNNNNNNNH.

“Okay, I’m—”

MENH-MENH-MENNH. MENNNNH. MENH. MENH.

“I’m—”

MEAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNH.

I whipped the door open and screamed, “Holy buckets on a Popsicle stick, will you let me get a makeup bag and my shoes!?”

He leaned and grinned through the passenger-side window. His hands stayed on the wheel.

MENH.

Within thirty seconds, I was barefoot in the passenger seat, slipping my feet into strappy black heels while trying not to drop the finger-poppin’ makeup bag.

“You’d better have a vanity mirror in this chariot, fella.”

He flipped the visor down and another flap up. “With lights. We’ve got plenty of time before we—”

I slapped him. Not too hard.

Surprised, he bit his lip. “Okay. Sorry. Honking was obnoxious.”

“Buster, let me share a lesson in dating with you: you don’t rush a girl. Ever. When she’s doing her best to look good, you just let her work. You’re serious about this date?”

“Very serious.”

“Take your eyes off my chest and say that again.”

He did.

“Well then, you shouldn’t have nearly ruined everything by being an ashtray about it.”

“But you said you didn’t even want to—”

“Have you ever dated? Like, anyone?”

He gestured to the suit and the car.
What do you think?

“Fine. Somewhere along the way, you must have met a girl who said something she didn’t mean.”

“One or two.”

“Well, now you’ve met three. At once. Drive, monkey-flapper.”

He turned the key in the ignition, paused, and turned to me. “So you’ve never sworn even once . . . ?”

I didn’t look away from the mirror as I flipped open my compact. “Not once. But, buster, you keep talking and I’ll bet I get there.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Located along Grand Avenue in St. Paul, Ottavio’s was the sort of mysterious upscale place I’d drive past on my way to worse neighborhoods (not very far away, to be sure) when solving a crime. It was a refurbished mansion with a hand-painted black-and-gold sign. When Patrick turned into the tiny parking lot, I forgave him a little bit.

“You been here before?” he asked.

“Yeah, don’t ya know, all us federal-agent girls like to hang out here after work. Get drunk like fish and score with the men.”

“I thought Shiro was the sarcastic one.”

“Shiro didn’t have to apply her own makeup in a moving vehicle on Interstate 94.”

“Hey, okay.” The ignition turned off, and he put both hands on me. Fortunately for him, he chose my shoulders. “I am really sorry. If you want me to take you home and leave you alone, I’ll do that right now. But I hope you’ll tell me you’d still like to have dinner with me. I really want you to have a good time tonight.”

My eyes rolled up and took in the moonroof. “Well. I’d hate to cancel a reservation here. Good restaurants can be hard to come by in the Twin Cities. I hear this one’s struggling with the recession and all, and it could probably use the business.”

He bit the inside of his cheek as he grinned. “For poor Ottavio’s sake, then.”

“For Ottavio.”

Dinner was delightful. I learned how to pronounce “gnocchi” and discovered that “Super Tuscans” were not a group of Italian crime-fighting crusaders with genetically modified powers. I also picked up a few baking tips from my date, made him laugh a few times with my tales of Cathie and me at MIMH, and felt his foot slide up my calf more than once.

When I felt it without a shoe, I knew we had to talk.

“So anyhow,” I told him as I reached under, grabbed his sock, yanked it off his startled foot, and threw it across the table at him, “I’m a virgin.”

“That’s a hell of a pickup line. Can I have my foot back?”

I let go. “I’m not trying to pick you up. I’m trying to finish my crème brûlée. After we’re done, you’re going to pick up the check and drive me home. I’m going to repay you with a chaste kiss on the cheek. And you’re going to drive home and take a cold shower.”

“I really blew it with the honking, didn’t I?”

“Not at all. That was always your best scenario. I’m saving myself for true love.”

“What if you’ve found it?”

“You mean, what if it’s found me and can’t wait longer than twenty-four hours? Then it’s probably a reckless, thoughtless, horn-honking asteroid that ought to go flip itself over.”

“For someone who doesn’t ever swear, you sure have a suspiciously ready supply of insults.”

“Put your sock back on and ask for the bill.”

“As the lady commands.”

Don’t judge me! I’m a girl with high standards in a man. Besides, this isn’t why I’m telling you this part of the story.

On the way out of the restaurant, we noticed three husky teenagers prowling the parking lot. They were huddled near a Cadillac about three spaces away from Patrick’s SUV. One of them hid something shiny when they saw us.

My plan was to get in the car quietly and drive off, but Patrick . . . darn it all . . .

“You boys drop something in the parking lot?”

The largest one bit his lower lip and tilted his head. “No, man. In fact we just got here. Got a reservation and everything.”

“Enjoy your dinner,” I said hurriedly, and then to Patrick: “Let’s go.”

“Because it looks to me like you’re trying to break into that car.”

This was true, but I didn’t see how antagonizing them was going to stop them. In fact, the one with the shiny metal object—skinnier than the first but with a crazy-looking dirty blond mullet—raised it like a weapon. Why, in fact, it
was
a weapon: a crowbar.
Super.

“You the police, big man?”

“What if I am?”

“Then you better call for backup,” the largest one said. “And while you wait, we may show your girlfriend a good time.”

“You should know that she’s a virgin—”

“Patrick!”

He grinned at me. Clearly he wasn’t worried. He hadn’t seen much of my sisters, to be sure—but was he being intentionally provocative?

I had very little time to think about that. Mullet with Crowbar was rounding the SUV’s hood and coming at Patrick, and the other two were headed for me, trapping me on the passenger side between the SUV and the next car. Somebody would have to do some—

Chapter Thirty-six

—Thing NOW.

A spinning back roundhouse kick is mostly for show in martial arts movies and stuff like
The Matrix
. It often does not work in real life because most criminals we deal with are either trained in martial arts themselves, or are hopped up on so many drugs that a kick like that tickles. For those it does work on—aka the nerds—a simple punch will do.

But to escape two opponents coming from either side, slide over the hood of an SUV, and launch yourself at a tall guy coming at your date with a crowbar—
that
is a good time for a spinning back roundhouse kick.

He spit blood as he fell, spraying it all over the businessman’s suit. (Served Mr. Provocative right.) The crowbar clattered to the pavement. I motioned to the other two.

“Come pick it up.”

The grisly looking one with the mullet took a step back. “Look, lady, we didn’t mean nothin’. You’re a virgin. Got it. We’ll just go now.”

“Actually, I have been in several consecutive committed relationships, and am not a virgin at all.” I picked up the crowbar.

They ran. So I let the crowbar drop again.

“Wow, that was—”

“Shut up and get in the car. No, the passenger side. I will take those keys.”

As I got into the car, I checked myself reflexively in the rearview mirror. My dark, straight bob had barely moved out of place. Not that I normally cared about such things, but it was nice to know that this had been an easy fight. Good training, I supposed.

Which did not excuse
his
behavior.

“You manipulated them.” I shot the SUV backward before he even got to close his door, startling him into slamming it shut. He was still clawing for the seat belt when I gunned the vehicle forward out of the parking lot and onto Grand Avenue. “You manipulated my sister.”

“That’s not—”

“You knew she would hide. You knew I would come out. Why did you want me out there?”

When he did not answer, my mood darkened. “Please do not tell me you were switching girls, hoping for action.”

“Not action. Just variety. I told you: I like it when things change.”

“So you endangered yourself and your date—”

“Looks like we’re both fine.”

“—to satisfy your impatience and immaturity. You know, I think I
can
find you a sister who will give you exactly what you are looking for. . . .”

“What do you . . . oh . . . you mean . . .”

I could feel her coming, as if she knew it was her time. She was never very far

Chapter Thirty-seven

awaaaay we go

oh yea I’m driving and it’s a good car a fast car

make it go faster

wheels on the bus go round and

make it go faster

wheels go round and round and round and