Quick Fix (2 page)

He looked at me, his mouth opening and closing like a beached bass. The hand that had recently groped my ass now clutched at my shoulder.

“Tiiim-berr,” Billy said under his breath.

Sure enough, Leo came crashing down—onto me, his face landing square in the middle of Thelma’s matronly bosom.

“Damn it, Billy,” I said, reeling under the weight, “how in the hell am I supposed to finish the job now?”

Chapter 2

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Billy’s mouth sculpted a large mound of raspberry sherbet into a smaller mound, his tongue flicking over the frozen pink confection, lapping at drips along the side of the cone as necessary.

Damn.
I swallowed hard.

“Ciel?” I felt a yank on my sleeve. “Hey, are you listening?”

Looking to my other side, I was pulled back to reality by Molly’s eager face.

I was myself again, all external traces of my client safely stowed in the large handbag beside me on the bench. Lascivious Leo had been dispatched by ambulance to the nearest hospital after the EMTs assured us it was likely only heat exhaustion and not a heart attack. I’d call later to make sure he was okay—and that he followed through with the board offer for Thelma. I was pretty sure he’d expedite the matter.

“Um, sure thing, Moll. Only I didn’t quite get that last part.” I glanced back at Billy, who was plowing a groove through the center of what was left of his scoop, transforming it into something that looked disturbingly like a—

Molly tugged my sleeve again. “Ciel!” she said, and sneezed. Her cold hadn’t affected her energy at all.

I ripped my eyes away from Billy’s lips, back to safer ground, to find Molly staring at me as if I were a somewhat slow two-year-old. “I
said
your ice cream is melting all over your hand.”

Crap.
It was. I dug a wad of napkins out of my pocket. Before I could wipe off the sticky mess, Billy grabbed my cone-holding hand and licked the chocolate runnels from my fingers, the innocent shine back in his eyes. A shiver ran up my spine and down my … never mind. He knew, damn him.

“Shame to let it go to waste,” he said, and something told me he wasn’t talking about the ice cream. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you hungry? Maybe you should’ve tried the raspberry. It’s my new favorite.”
Bingo
.

My nipples contracted and I hunched my shoulders to hide the obvious. I knew exactly which raspberries he was referring to and the allusion was … unsettling. Yanking my hand away, I stumbled through the first excuse I could think of. “Uh, no, it’s not that. Brain freeze, that’s all. I’m better now.” I jammed the cone into my mouth and took a huge bite, wincing as I turned my little lie into a big truth. Ouch.

Billy laughed, but Molly dropped her adult demeanor in a flash of sympathy. “I hate it when that happens. How can something so good blast you with that kind of pain? It’s not fair, is it? It’s downright treacherous is what I think!”

“It’s treacherous, all right,” I said, giving her brother a dirty look.

Billy had brought his baby sister down from New York ostensibly to visit me but really to get her out of our mothers’ collective hair. Auntie Mo and my mother (aka Auntie Ro to Billy and his sisters, short for Aurora) were BFFs as well as sorority sisters—Tri Delts—and considered themselves honorary aunts to each other’s offspring. They were deep into preparations for this year’s annual Come As You Aren’t masquerade party, and believe me, no one wanted to be anywhere near ground zero right now. When they were in full-on party mode for the adaptor event of the season—one of the few big social gatherings each year where adaptors could relax and let it all hang out—they steamrolled over anything and anybody in their way. Smart relations learned early on it was get lost or get squashed.

Molly was always a bubbly little thing, but her joy at escaping the forced labor of party prep had her even more effervescent than usual. You could practically see the energy fizzing out of her ears. Granted, the cotton candy, popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, and ice cream I’d seen Billy feeding her with abandon all morning while they were following me around probably hadn’t helped.

“Did Billy tell you what I can do yet?” she whispered, barely containing herself, like a bubble on the edge of bursting.

Billy shot her a warning look. “Sis, maybe this should wait until we’re back at Ciel’s.”

My antennae sprang to life. Wait? Ha. That would entail patience, not exactly my strong suit.

“Noooo, Moll—what can you do?” I said, ignoring her brother’s threatening brow. “Hey, he’s not teaching you to drive his car, is he?” I added, just to watch him blanch. Billy’s cherry red ’57 Chevy Bel Air was the love of his life, and the thought of anybody else behind the wheel usually gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“Let’s not give the munchkin any ideas, Ciel,” he said, glancing warily at his sibling.

Molly laughed out loud at her brother’s discomfort. “No way. He won’t even let me
ride
in it without plastic bags and paper towels.” She was long since resigned to her tendency to get motion sick and determined to make the best of it. “But, anyway, watch—”

She grabbed my hand (the one not holding the increasingly sticky ice-cream cone) and looked intently into my eyes.

“Molly—no,” Billy said. Too late. Her eyes shifted from their deep blue into a light spring green—the same color as mine.
Exactly
the same.

My jaw dropped, which I realized only after Billy reached over and shut it for me. I batted his hand away. “Molly! This is so great. When did you start? Aren’t you a little young?”

She hopped up and down and giggled, a sound so infectious I couldn’t help adding my own to it. (Okay, I might have hopped a little, too. But at least I didn’t squeal. I draw the line at squealing.)

“Yeah. I’m precocious! Isn’t it cool?”

Billy stood and blocked her from the view of a group of passing tourists. “That’s enough, Moll. Change them back—and no more showing off in public places. Remember our talk?”

She closed her eyes demurely, and when she opened them they were blue again. “Sorry,” she said, looking anything but.

“She says she only noticed after we were down here, but I have my doubts.”

“You
know
Mom wouldn’t have let me come if she knew. She’d make me stay inside, and I’d never get to see my friends or go anyplace or do anything! It’s going to be awful enough when I have to tell her. I just wanted one little vacation before my prison sentence starts.” Molly looked so glum you’d have thought she was headed off to solitary confinement for a year.

“Cry me a river, Paris Hilton.” Billy laid the sarcasm on with a trowel, but I could tell he was proud of her. Whether for her accomplishment or for bending the rules so she wouldn’t get her trip yanked out from under her was harder to say. He wasn’t much of one for following rules.

“Come on, Molls,” I said. “It’s not that bad. In a few months you’ll have enough control, and your mom will let you off the leash. We all go through it.”

“I can control it now,” she said, determination molding her features.

Just like her brother,
I thought. Poor Auntie Mo was in for it.

“Come on—let’s go to the Think Tank. I want to be a primatologist,” she said, grabbing her brother’s hand and pulling. The Think Tank was an open laboratory at the zoo where the public was invited to watch dedicated professionals teach primates language symbols to test their higher reasoning skills.

Billy held her back. “You can control it, huh? Is that why you’re sprouting a five o’clock shadow?” He kept his voice low enough that only Molly and I could hear him.

Her hands flew to her chin, which
was
suddenly looking a bit bristly. “Huh? How’d that happen?”

Alarmed, I took the spot on the other side of her, helping Billy block her from the meandering public.

“Concentrate, sis.” He paused while Molly squinted. “There, that’s right. It’s gone.” He rubbed his chin and grinned. “Guess I should’ve shaved this morning. Just to be on the safe side, maybe you better not touch anyone until we’re back at Ciel’s, okay?”

Molly’s wholehearted pride in her new ability was shaken, and she looked like she could use a hug. I didn’t dare give her one, though. No telling which of my features she might randomly project. If my strawberry blond hair appeared abruptly on her head, folks might notice.

“Maybe we better head back to my place,” I suggested, and watched her face fall into gloomy resignation. I hated to disappoint her, but it wasn’t worth the risk of discovery. Besides, it was sweltering, and it was a long trudge to the apes.

Billy put the kibosh on that right away. “Forget it. She’ll be fine. Right, kiddo?”

Molly’s eyes lit up. “Thanks, Billy. You’re the best,” she said, and took off at a clip altogether too fast for the heat.

I slugged Billy’s arm as I scrambled to keep up. “Yeah, Billy. You’re the best.”

Laughing, he took my gooshy cone and tossed it into a nearby trash can. “Buck up, cuz. If you get too hot, I’m sure I can figure out some way to cool you off. Maybe we can take a cold shower when we get back to your place.”

“We?”

“Always willing to lend a helping hand. I keep telling you, I’m wonderful with a loofah.”

Chapter 3

Orangutans have the sweetest eyes. Only not so much when you see them peering at you from the face of a ten-year-old girl.

“Molly,” I whispered beneath a cough, widening my own eyes, trying to convey the message to her without attracting unwelcome attention.

She cocked her head and her nose flattened. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the baby orang she’d just handed a grape to, brushing its gingery fur with her hand in passing. Billy caught wind of what was happening when he glanced indulgently at his baby sister. He’d been charming the pleasantly plump, totally smitten research assistant so Molly and I could sneak closer to the apes (a total no-no, but since when had that ever stopped a Doyle?). The look of alarm that came over his face was almost, but not quite, worth the panic I was feeling.

Pushing Molly ahead of me, and keeping my body between her and the others, I called back over my shoulder, “Um, Molly is feeling a bit queasy—must’ve been all that popcorn and soda. We’ll just run to the ladies’ room.”

Behind me, I heard Billy assuring the assistant that his sister would be quite all right, and then distracting her with some inane question about the mating habits of primates. As the door to the Think Tank shut behind me, Molly shrank and sprouted coppery hair all over her body.

And that wasn’t supposed to be possible.

I picked her up and ran, my mind somersaulting through how-the-hells and WTFs. The first restroom we came to was blessedly free of occupants. The entrance was made of glass, though, so I took cover in the nearest stall, latching the door behind me. I sat on the toilet and turned Molly to face me. Rich, dark-chocolate eyes full of the ancient wisdom of the forest stared up at me. She drew back her lips, showing me nubbly little baby teeth.

“Molly?” I said, keeping my voice low. “You have to change back. Now would be good.”

She whimpered.

“Seriously, Molly. Right now.”

She raised both hands and shrugged.

“Oh, my God. You can’t, can you? Can you even understand me?”

“Ciel? Are you in there?” Billy’s voice was followed by a pounding on the door.

“Yeah, we’re here,” I hollered back.

The door opened. “Are you alone?”

“I think so. For the time being.” I stood, moving Molly to my hip, and peeked out from the stall.

Billy quickly searched the other stalls before taking Molly from me. He held her away from him, examining her from top to bottom, and looked at me, eyebrows propping up his hairline.

“Don’t ask me.
I
don’t know how it happened—she barely touched the thing.”

“But we can’t … no one’s ever been able to … I mean, what the hell?” He gave the baby ape a small shake. “Molly, change back. Now.” He spoke firmly, sounding just like his dad. When Uncle Liam used that tone of voice, nobody disobeyed.

“I already tried that. I don’t think she can.”

“Molly, I said
now
.”

She whimpered, stretching her long arms back toward me.

“You’ve scared her.” I took her and felt her arms go up around my neck. “It’s okay, Moll. We’ll figure this out. You just relax.”

“Well, she better relax fast and change back into something resembling a human being, or we’re going to have a hell of a time getting her out of the zoo. I imagine ape-napping is frowned upon.”

A babble of feminine voices interrupted us. Billy pushed me back into the stall and followed, shutting the door just as the women entered. I fell backward onto the toilet with an
oomph,
accidentally squeezing a squeak out of Molly. The voices stopped. Billy bent over us, shielding Molly from view with his shoulders. I leaned to one side and saw an eyeball appear in the crack between the door and the stall.

The eyeball narrowed as it directed a laser beam of disapproval at me. “Ladies,” the woman attached to the eye said in a voice that bounced off the restroom walls like ice cubes against a glass, “this is not a good place for a rest stop. Apparently, some people think it appropriate to conduct
business transactions
in public restrooms. Surely there’s some authority nearby we can appeal to.”

A whole parade of eyeballs marched by, each more scandalized than the last, as Billy looked at the ceiling and shook his head. “Stay right here,” he said, and left, hot on the heels of the morals vigilantes. Huh. Like I was going anywhere with a baby orangutan dressed like a tween.

“Ladies,” he said, turning on the Doyle charm full blast. “This isn’t what you think. My wife had to rush in here with our little girl, who started feeling terribly ill after eating one of the hot dogs at the snack bar. Now, I’m not saying it’s food poisoning. But, really, who knows for sure? More likely just too much excitement, and maybe the heat. Anyway, I couldn’t just let her handle a puking child on her own, could I?
She has a sensitive stomach herself—
”