“Believe me,” Julie insisted, “if you met some of the jerks I’ve cooked under, you’d probably think dealing with ex-cons was a day at the beach.”
“At least chefs don’t shoot you,” I said.
She looked me straight in the eye.
“I’ve got one word for you,” she said. “Cleavers.”
I laughed out loud.
“Okay.” I smiled. “I’ll stick with detecting.”
“It’s a deal,” she said. “You do the detecting and I’ll do the cooking.”
She slowly extended her hand. We shook. I looked down at our joined palms then up at her eyes. Her gaze was steady. I let go of her hand and leaned in, a little awkwardly. Our lips touched, and I felt hers curve into a smile under mine. A tingle of electricity vibrated through my body. She placed her hand over my heart, and the heat radiated into my core.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Indeed,” she said.
Next thing I knew, we had dispensed with the narrow sofa and were pressed tight together on the expansive beige ocean of carpet, my hands on the small of her back, hers around my neck, our mouths locked as we exchanged an extended series of hot, deep kisses.
When we came up for air, Julie leaned her forehead against mine. Her breath was warm and delicate.
“Morel mushrooms,” she whispered. “Who knew?”
My heart gave a little flip. I was enchanted by this woman.
You always are, at first.
I leaned in and brushed her lips with mine, a sweet, short, until-next-time kiss. I stood up and held out my hand. She took it, and I levered her to my side. I tried to ignore the sprinkling of freckles across her collar bone, a constellation of promise.
“It’s late,” I said. “How about we do some more of this soon, when I’m not quite so exhausted?” I waited. A great evening could easily implode right about now.
But Julie was cool. She nodded and stretched. “Good idea. Lovemaking is so much better when both people are awake.”
You’re leaving now? Are you crazy?
I soothed my inner Canis lupus by suggesting Julie and I get together on her next night off. She promised that would be soon. I offered to wash the dishes, but she wouldn’t hear of it. By then, my eyelids were starting to actually droop.
As I walked to my car, a corner of my mind nudged at me. I sensed I had forgotten to pursue something, something important, but my brain had thickened into one dense fog of fatigue, and nothing was going to penetrate until I gave it some sleep.
I got back to the house in record time and was greeted at the door by a grateful, if impatient, cat. Tank has access to dry food and a running-water cat-fountain when I’m gone all day, so he’s never likely to starve or go thirsty. However, his two favorite foods require someone with opposable thumbs. How else to open cans? In our small family, that honor falls to me. Sometimes I think it’s the main reason he loves me.
Late as it was, I popped open a can of Mixed Grill, and added a liberal squeeze of fragrant tuna water.
Even so, Tank gave me a long, suspicious look before he lowered his head to his dish. I wouldn’t be surprised if he smelled Julie’s jasmine kisses on me, and was trying to assess the extent of the disaster.
“Don’t worry,” I mumbled. “She’s nothing like Charlotte.”
I staggered into my bedroom and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
CHAPTER 15
I’m lying face down on a concrete floor. I look around. A man watches me from the shadows in the corner. My father. His face is stern, judgmental. What does he want from me?
I step outside. The ocean is right at my doorstep. Waves roll in, one after the other, crashing into foam at my feet. A pair of white seabirds, pelicans, with broad wingspans and long, sword-shaped bills, fly low over the sea. I want to body-surf, but I don’t know how to get out there, where the waves are breaking. Then I realize I can fly, like the birds. I open my arms and barely skim the water, then joyously ride a wave in. As I land, I see that the concrete building where my father still stands is shaped like an X. I turn to face the waves, and take off, flying low, when it dawns on me I cannot really fly. That I am dreaming. That this must be a lucid dream. I look at my hands, and they sprout green tendrils, which bud and blossom into pink blooms.
“Tell me what you want me to know,” I say. And I am standing at the base of a tall watchtower. It is dark inside. I know all my enemies are within. I look at the winding staircase leading upward. It wants me to climb the stairs.
“I can’t,” I say. “It is too soon,” and I am back laying on cold cement, my father scowling from the corner, my cheek pressed against the floor. A body lies down on top of mine, heavy but comforting. A low voice speaks into my ear. It is neutral, neither male nor female.
“Don’t you know that you can find freedom, just with your heart?” it says.
I feel afraid. I look at my wrists, and see that they are in shackles.
“Is this prison?” I ask.
The room fills with the gentle arpeggios of a distant harp.
“No,” the voice says. “This is paradise….”
Harp notes invaded my brain, rolling up and down in relentless repetition.
I grabbed for my phone, knocking a full glass of water sideways onto the floor. The glass shattered, creating a dripping mess of broken shards.
“Shit!”
Tank leapt from the base of the bed, landed on the floor with a thump, and sped out the door, my dream slithering away behind him.
The harp sounded another round of dulcet notes, making me want to smash something else, this time on purpose.
“Hello,” I croaked into the phone. I checked the time. I’d been asleep maybe five hours.
“Mr. Norbu?” The voice was high-pitched and panicky. “This is Wesley Harris, Freda’s husband. She’s in a coma. I didn’t know who else to call.”
I took the Mustang. Freda was in Glendale, at Providence Saint Joseph, and I didn’t want to waste any time.
As I sped along Pacific Coast Highway, the dawn sky scalloped with pinks and blues, I tried to retrieve my dream as best I could. Something about my father, and a tower.
A sentence floated up: Don’t you know that you can find freedom, just with your heart? I glanced at the ocean, and more came drifting back. Pelicans. I was close to knowing something, but not close enough.
A chorus of crickets erupted in my pocket-I had changed my ringtone from celestial strumming to nature’s jaunty fiddlers, much more my style-and I fumbled to attach the little white earbuds that would keep me legal. Mike’s goofball grin beamed from my screen.
“You’re up late,” I said to Mike.
“You’re up early,” he replied.
Then I swear I heard soft laughter. Female laughter.
“Are you with a girl?” I said.
“Not ‘a’ girl, ‘my’ girl,” he said. More giggles.
Well, that explained the ear-to-ear grin.
“I’ve got some answers for you, boss,” he went on.
“First things first,” I answered. “Your girl. I need some who, what, and when’s, please.”
“Tricia, a grad student studying cultural anthropology at UCLA, and we met at my rave the other night. She’s practically moved in.”
“To your house?” My voice was more of a bleat. Was he out of his mind? “Are you out of your mind?”
“Hey, it’s cool, Ten. With our crazy schedules, it’s the only way we’ll see each other. Anyway, what’s it to you?”
I felt like reaching through the phone and knocking Mike’s block off, but he had a point. What was it to me? Apparently, I didn’t like the ease, the warp-speed with which these two were moving ahead together. I filed that thought under “Later.”
“So Ten, I called because I found a few more policies with TFJ.”
“Go on.”
“I’ll send you the links, but basically I was able to find three more contracts, each one for two million bucks.”
“All old-time musicians?”