I almost hated to interrupt. Almost. But then, that was a younger sister’s place, to screw up the good times.
I slid back into my chair and they immediately sat back, aside from giving each other little secret smiles. “So,” I said to Eamon. “What are your plans for the day?”
“Actually, I’m at loose ends.” He was still watching Sarah, eyes half-closed. “I was thinking of taking in the sights. I’m not well acquainted with Fort Lauderdale. What can you recommend?”
He was including me, but not really; I got the clue memo. I politely bowed out.
“Wow, that would be great, but I’ve got a thing today. To do. So why don’t you and Sarah go have some fun? It looks like it’s going to be—” Without even thinking about it, I felt for the weather.
And fumbled the effort.
I froze, blank, coffee cup half to my lips, and concentrated harder. I felt horribly clumsy. The delicate sensitivity I’d always had to the balance of things, the breathing of the world, it felt… muffled. Indistinct.
“Jo?” Sarah asked, and looked over her shoulder, toward the wall I was staring a hole in.
I blinked, forced a smile. “—it’s going to be beautiful,” I finished. “Warm and sunny. Or so says Marvelous Marvin, anyway. So you might want to take in the beach. I think Sarah picked up a killer swimsuit yesterday, right, Sarah?”
My sister turned a rapt smile back to Eamon, who was watching me with a little frown grooved between his eyebrows. I sent him a silent I’m okay, and Sarah distracted him with a question about England, and they went back to living in a two-person world.
I closed my eyes for a second, concentrated, and drifted up toward the aetheric.
Moving between dimensions was something so automatic that it was like breathing for me; I lived half my life there, connected to the world, seeing its layers and levels.
It felt like swimming through syrup, today. And once I was there, the colors looked dim and indistinct, the patterns muddy and confusing. There was something happening to me, but I couldn’t think what; I didn’t feel bad. I just felt… disconnected.
“Jo?”
Sarah was saying something, and from her tone of voice, she’d been saying it more than once. I opened my eyes and looked at her, saw her impatient frown.
Eamon was measuring me again.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Sure. A bit of a headache, I guess. Listen, I’m really—I’m just really tired. I think I’m going to go home and lie down for a while before I have to do—the thing I have to do. Why don’t you guys go have fun?”
They didn’t seem too unhappy about that, although Eamon insisted on paying for breakfast and taking me back to the studio for my car, and tailing me home, and even went so far as to escort me upstairs and do a quick tour of the apartment.
(I wished I’d cleaned up better.) When he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to be jumped on by a crazed stalker hiding in the overstuffed closet, he and Sarah took off. I waved at them from the patio balcony, and stood outside for a few minutes, watching as his car made its way out onto the street again, heading for a glorious day of sun and fun.
A white van turned a corner, glided into the lot, and parked. I could see a shadow in the driver’s seat.
“Hope you’re comfy,” I said grimly, and looked up at the sky. It was clearing.
The humidity was down, and the cool ocean breeze whispered over my skin and rustled palm trees down at ground level.
There was absolutely nothing I could think of to do that would make a damn bit of difference, except wait and pretend to be completely comfortable with Detective Rodriguez’s continuing campaign of intimidation.
I went back inside the apartment, changed into a turquoise blue bikini, grabbed a towel and a folding chaise lounge, and made myself a pitcher of margaritas. My arm still throbbed, but it didn’t look as if it was badly damaged. I had shadowy bruises forming on my wrists to match the far-sweeter marks of David’s lovemaking from earlier in the morning.
Party on the patio, Detective. Intimidate this.
I slid on my sunglasses, oiled up, and saluted him with a drink as I soaked in the morning rays.
What’s the cardinal rule of sunbathing? Oh, yeah. Don’t fall asleep.
Well, I did. I was lying on my stomach, sun massaging all the tension out of me, and I was thinking about David and hot-bronze eyes and golden skin, and getting that pleasant liquid ache that made me want to call his name, and somewhere around there I slipped into dreamland. It was a nice place. I stayed.
When I woke up, I knew immediately that I was as burned as if I’d stuck myself under the oven broiler. My back felt puffy and numb, and I’d sweated so much I’d soaked through the bikini and the towel. I sat bolt upright, grabbed the rest of my warm margarita and bolted it down, and hastily decamped from the patio into the apartment.
The white van was still downstairs, sitting innocently in a legal parking space.
No sign of Rodriguez. I couldn’t tell if there was still a shadow in the driver’s seat or not, but right at the moment, I had another problem.
I dumped the chair, oil, pitcher and towel, and hurried into the bathroom. My front looked fine. I bit my lip and began to turn, very slowly. Tan… tan .
. . redder… red… scarlet…
Oh man. I peeled down the back of my bikini bottoms and found the contrast to be just a little bit more than a barber pole’s stripes. This was really going to hurt.
I stripped off the bikini and got in the shower; that was a mistake. The numbness wore off fast, replaced by a nice selection of agony and pain, depending on where I directed the spray; I gingerly patted myself dry and slathered as much of myself with burn cream as I could reach. And suffered.
When the phone rang, I was in a high temper, ready to bite a telemarketer’s head right off. “What?” I barked, and clutched the towel looser around my aching back.
“Damn, girlfriend, I knew you’d be in a bitchy mood after the Sunny costume,” Cherise giggled on the other end of the line. “But you looked so cute and cheerful!”
“Oh, please, Cherise. At my age, cute? Not really what I’m going for.” I tried sitting down. My thighs and back lodged a violent protest. I paced instead, went to the patio doors and pulled the curtains shut, then dropped the towel on the pile of Things I Had To Pick Up Later and continued pacing around naked. “That was Marvin’s little joke, right? Because I one-upped him yesterday?”
“Sorta,” she agreed. I could practically see her checking her fingernail polish.
“Hey, there’s been somebody asking questions about you down at the station. Tall guy, Hispanic, real polite? Sound familiar?”
Except for the polite part, it matched the description of Mr. White Van downstairs. “What does he want to know?”
“How long you’ve been here, where you were before, past history, how long we’ve known you, shit like that. Hey, are you in trouble? And is it, you know, serious?” She didn’t sound worried. She sounded breathless with excitement.
“No, and no.”
“Is he your stalker-guy? Because usually they don’t interrogate your close personal friends. They’re more of the scary watching-from-a-distance kind of weirdos. Oooh, is he from the FBI?”
“No. Cher—”
“Did you see the UFO over the ocean last night?”
“Did I—what?”
“The UFO.” She sounded triumphant. “I’ll bet they’re tracking down everybody who saw it. There was a thing on the ’net about it; the IT guys told me over breakfast. Don’t open the door if guys in black suits and buzz cuts show up.”
“Cherise.”
“Call me if Mulder drops by. Oh, speaking of that, look, could you do me a favor? I, ah, lost Cute British Guy’s phone number…”
“You never had his phone number.”