by Beth Yarnall
A vein along his jaw throbbed and he stared at me as though he was rethinking his entire moral philosophy. I closed the bedroom door, feeling slightly guilty and a little turned-on. Yup, he was definitely growing on me, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
I woke up freezing, to the sound of rain through the open window and a gun pointed between my eyes. Thai Dinh stood over me, his pretty face half lit by the streetlight that beamed into the room every night as though we were being invaded by aliens. I opened my mouth, but my lungs seized and no sound came out. I’d always imagined how I’d react in a situation like this, and lying there in a frozen lump of fear wasn’t it.
“Scream and I’ll drop you right here.” His lightly accented voice was unusually high-pitched but aggressive, like Mickey Mouse with a grudge to settle.
He produced a gag that smelled like feet, stuffed it in my mouth and strapped it around my head. He made me roll over so he could bind my hands behind my back. His motions were quick and efficient as though he tied people up everyday. Maybe he did. I shuddered at the thought.
All I could think about was how had he gotten in? This place was supposed to be secure. I was supposed to be safe. And where the hell was Super Agent and the mother-lovin’ FBI?
He yanked on my arm. “Get up.”
I complied. What else could I do?
He pushed me toward the door that led to the living room. I dug in my heels. Super Agent was asleep on the other side. He wouldn’t know what was happening until it was too late.
“Get moving!” Dinh whispered, sounding like an angry balloon with a slow leak.
I shook my head. He was going to have to shoot me here. Super Agent would come in, guns blazing, at the sound. I might be dead, but at least he’d be all right.
Dinh leaned his bony frame into my back. “Move it!”
The thing was, I weighed more than he did. I was taller too. His pushing me was like a child trying to move my Pontiac. It wasn’t going to happen.
I shook my head again.
“I should just shoot you here.”
I nodded.
A befuddled frown settled between his brows. “You want me to shoot you?”
I swiveled my head back and forth.
“Then get a move on.” He gave me another shove.
“Mmm.”
“What?”
“Mmm mm mm mhh m mm mhh.”
“I can’t understand you.” He nudged me again. “Let’s go.”
I shook my head and stomped my foot. Or really, his foot. He bent forward and I turned to apologize and accidentally clocked him under the jaw. He dropped like a sack of wet sand at my feet, the gun clattering against the cheap linoleum floor.
I stared down at him for a second, then my common sense finally decided to make an appearance, and I started kicking at the closed bedroom door. Super Agent burst into the room, sending me backwards. My legs caught on the edge of the bed, and I sat down, nearly tipping over sideways.
“What the—” Super Agent flipped the light on and took in the scene. He pointed his gun at Thai Dinh. “You did this?”
I nodded. “Mmm mhh mm mmm mhhh!”
He bent down and checked Dinh’s pulse, then lifted Dinh’s eyelid and blew on it. Nothing. “He’s out.” Super Agent glanced up at me. “Are you all right?”
I bobbed my head again. “Mmm mh mm.”
“Hold on.” He disappeared and came right back with a pair of handcuffs. He locked them around Dinh’s wrists, then patted him down. He pulled out his cell phone and called the other agents.
“Mh mm mmm mm mmh mmmmh mm mh?” I showed him my tied-up hands.
“Oh, sorry.”
He went to work on my hands, then my gag. When I was finally free, I launched myself at him.
“He-came-into-the-room-pointed-a-gun-at-me-tied-me-up-threatened-to-kill-me-all-I-could-think-was-that-you-were-in-the-next-room-and-that—”
“Hey, take it easy.” He gave me a hard hug, then pushed me back to look at me, smoothing the hair back from my face. “You’re all right. I’ve got you now.”
I sucked in some air, huge gulps of it. Then I spotted Thai Dinh just coming around. Anger roared through me, and all I could think was that he’d killed Chuck Puckett. I shoved out of Super Agent’s embrace, marched over to Thai Dinh, and kicked him square in the nuts. He jerked, curling over, but I wasn’t done. I got in one more kick before Super Agent grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back.
“That’s enough.”
I struggled, all arms and legs, flailing like a two-year-old at a toy store. “Let me…at…him…”
“He’s disarmed and handcuffed. How is that a fair fight?”
“How fair of a fight did Chuck Puckett get?” I countered.
“I let you get in that second kick for me for tying you up, but I can’t let you beat the hell out of him. That’d be very hard to explain.”
I shook him off. “Fine.”
He looked down at the man who’d caused so much heartache, then back up at me. “This is better than the plan we’d come up with.”
“Hell, yeah. One down, one to go. And I think I know just how to get him.”
The thing about plans is that they never go according to plan. The FBI finally came through and used their superpowers for good the old-fashioned way…they tracked Quinn, AKA Julius Clemmons, through Thai Dinh’s cell phone. He’d been holed up with Thug from Chuck Puckett’s funeral, AKA Garvis Beets, in a swanky hotel on some unsuspecting person’s credit card. Quinn had been waiting for Dinh to contact him to tell him that he’d completed the job. The wuss.
Turns out Super Agent and I had overheard Quinn arguing with Beets at Chuck Puckett’s funeral. On the rare occasion I’d actually spoken to Quinn, he didn’t have an accent. The sneaky, fake bastard. If it hadn’t been for that damn on-again off-again Boston accent I might’ve recognized his voice and the whole sordid business of me being shot at, my apartment being burned, and my near abduction, would’ve been avoided.
I had begged Super Agent for two minutes alone with Quinn. All of this was Quinn’s fault. Super Agent had twisted sideways, instinctually protecting his family jewels and told me in no uncertain terms, “No.”
We were finally alone in one of those hotel rooms with kitchenettes in downtown Scottsdale that would be my home until I could find other, less-blackened accommodations.
“You can stay here as long as you need to,” Super Agent told me. “Until you’re back on your feet.”
“Thanks. I guess. I’m not really sure how long that will be. I have some savings, enough to cover the deposit on a new place but not enough to replace everything I lost.”
“There was a reward on an old case involving Thai Dinh. About 50K. I can see if I can get it expedited for you. You earned it.”
“Hot damn. I won’t have to borrow my brother’s DNA-filled futon from college.”
“I did what I could, but you might have to face the reduced charge of disturbing a crime scene. For, ah, kicking the senator.”
“I’ll deal with it. Can I ask you a favor?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Can you make sure that the press doesn’t get wind of Chuck Puckett’s…you know…proclivities?”
“That’s important to you?”
“Yes. I feel like I owe him. I got so much wrong with him. I want to try and put things right somehow.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
He shifted back and forth, jingling his pockets. He was nervous. That was so not like him. But then I was nervous too. The time had come to say goodbye. There was no reason to spend any more time together…unless we wanted to.
“I have something for you,” he said, reaching into the satchel he’d brought with him from the car.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the fat accordion file he plopped down in front of me was not even close.
“It’s a copy of my FBI personnel file. Everything you�
��d ever need to know about me is in there. I’m not even supposed to have it. I pulled in a favor from a friend. It’s classified, so you should burn it when you’re done.” He nudged it toward me.
I touched a finger to it, tracing invisible circles over its blandness. He already knew everything there was to know about me. If I read this file, there’d be nothing left for me to learn about him. We’d be even.
He laid down his business card on the table next to the file with some extra phone numbers and email addresses scrawled on it. “Here’s my contact info. All of it. My home address is in the file.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Will you go out with me this Friday night?” he asked. “There’s a new restaurant off Main that serves cheeseburgers twenty-three different ways, including a bacon cheeseburger with peanut butter and jelly. I checked.”
I looked up at him and I knew there was no way I could walk away from what he was offering. Cheeseburger or no.
“I’ll go out with you on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
I handed the file back. “Burn this yourself.”
WAKE UP, MAGGIE
Beth Yarnall
Copyright © 2014, 2017 Elizabeth A. Yarnall
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference.
Digital ISBN: 978-1940811789
Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations
YOU’RE MINE, MAGGIE
Maggie Mae Castro is sure she’s either losing her mind or she’s fallen in love. She’s not sure which would be worse. Lately she can’t find anything, not her lipstick nor her grandma’s pill case. All she wants is an aspirin and the ability to fire Shasta, the most useless beauty consultant to ever breathe air.
When Shasta winds up dead, crushed by steel shelves full of Shy Kitty cosmetics, Maggie doesn’t believe it’s an accident. Things get even stranger when anonymous gifts arrive, each with the same message: “You’re mine, Maggie.”
FBI Special Agent Clive Poole doesn’t like strange men sending his girlfriend flowers and presents. He especially doesn’t like the possibility that the creep might also be responsible for Shasta’s death. He’s sticking to Maggie day and night. Maggie is his and only his.
Maggie isn’t thrilled about this, especially since their last full-frontal encounter ended with her dropping her reservations and her panties. But Clive will stop at nothing to keep Maggie safe from a madman who would do anything to have her.
Anything.
Dedication
To my Super Agent, my husband, Mr. Y. for buying in to and supporting every single one of my crazy Lucy and Ethel schemes…including the one where I thought I could write a book.
And to my editor, Jennifer Miller, for falling in love with Maggie’s crazy and Clive’s dry wit every bit as much as I have. I hope we have many more misadventures together.
“Remind me again why I can’t help her do a face plant into the tester unit?”
“Now, Maggie, you know Stratford’s Department Store is a harassment-free workplace,” Daryl Jenks, the cosmetics department manager, reminded me as he smoothed back the wispy hairs of his comb-over. He was in blue today because it was Monday—blue slacks, shirt, and sweater vest. If I ever forgot what day of the week it was, all I had to do was check to see what color Daryl was wearing.
We were watching the newest beauty consultant for Estelle Landers Cosmetics, Shasta Devereaux—don’t even get me started on what a stupid name that was—use the counter tester unit as her own private vanity. She alternated between squealing into her cell phone at one of her inane friends about some party they’d attended last night and dipping her fingers into the powders and creams and smearing them on her face.
“You can’t tell me that out of all the applicants she was the most qualified. She can’t complete a sentence that doesn’t have a thousand likes in it and doesn’t end in a question. And look at her—” I gestured toward Shasta, who was now spraying herself head to toe with a perfume tester, “—she looks like she just rolled out of bed after an all-night party. Not exactly Estelle Landers beauty consultant material.”
Daryl reached up and hesitantly patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure you can teach her.” He did a sliding step toward his office. “I’m counting on you to bring her around.” I gave him a death glare, and he clutched his clipboard tighter, slinking closer to safety. “If anyone can do it, you can.” He was in his doorway now.
“I’m not even going to disinfect that tester unit before I shove it sideways up your—”
“Harassment-free workplace!” Bam! He closed the door before I could fully deploy my threat. The rat bastard.
As counter manager I was Shasta’s immediate supervisor, so it was up to me to bring frat girl up to Estelle Landers standards. I had half an hour before the store opened to wipe some of that black crap off her eyes and get her looking more like a human and less like a zombie. If I could get her face out of her phone.
I’d sat in on all of the interviews for a new beauty consultant…all except Shasta’s. I narrowed my eyes at Daryl’s closed door. He was so going to pay for doing this to me.
“She looks like you about seven years ago. Except you had a better rack,” Xavier, my friend and Shy Kitty Cosmetics beauty consultant, said, his gaze dropping to my chest. He leaned across the counter as if he needed a closer look. “Still do.”
“Gee, thanks. I’ll hug that to me late tonight while I’m trying to sleep off the drunk caused by Lindsay Lohan over there. What the hell was Daryl thinking hiring her?”
He shrugged. “Better you than me, chica.”
“If Skankarella makes me late for my date tonight, I’m going to have Clive put Daryl on the No Fly List.” Clive as in Clive Poole, Special Agent for the FBI. A.k.a. Super Agent, my boyfriend and all-around hot-assed badass.
Xavier glanced over at Shasta who had her ear buds in and was grooving to something that made her bend over and grind her ass against the life-sized cardboard cutout of Estelle Landers herself. “Twenty bucks says she goes to lunch and doesn’t come back, and then shows up late tomorrow like nothing happened.”
“If only I was that lucky. The problem is we start our gift with purchase tomorrow. We really need the help. If Shasta—” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes every time I said her name, “—doesn’t get it together, I’m putting Daryl in an Estelle Landers uniform and making him work the counter in her place.” His pear-shaped body would look ri-di-culous in the navy pinstriped A-line dress all E.L. beauty consultants had to wear.
Xavier chuckled, his amazing mouth forming the smile that got women to open their wallets, making him the highest seller in the department. “I’d pay money to see that.”
“See what?” Lance sidled up next to Xavier’s counter and leaned an elbow on the backrest of a barstool like he was posing for an ad of the men’s fragrance, Gent, which he represented at the perfume bar. He was always butting in between Xavier and me. I couldn’t tell if his interest was in Xav or me. Either way, he was barking up the wrong tree. Xavier didn’t do guys and I didn’t do poser, loser assholes.
“Daryl in an Estelle Landers uniform,” Xav answer
ed, giving me a wink.
“Ha! Too right.” Honestly, Lance’s British accent was faker than Shasta’s job qualifications. “Wouldn’t that be a sight?”
Tabitha, counter manager for Enchanté Cosmetics and my best friend, joined our group. “Who’s the Maggie lookalike? And why is she trying to eat a makeup sponge?”
“Oh, jeez. I gotta go. If she chokes, Daryl’s going to make me take that management training class again. Fill her in, will you, Xav?”
Their laughter followed me as I made my way toward the twit who did look a depressingly lot like me. I snatched the bitten sponge out of her fingers and held my hand out, palm up.
“Spit it out before you choke and I have to decide whether or not to give you the Heimlich before I’ve had my coffee. The odds wouldn’t be in your favor.”
She gave me a funny look, then spat out the chewed bits of sponge along with a big wad of saliva. Gross. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my hand, then pumped out a bunch of hand sanitizer. Who knew what diseases this girl carried? She was like a two-year-old.
“I thought it was like, you know, candy?” Her voice was as high as she was. If her pupils were any wider, her eyes would be as black as her hair.
I sighed. It was amazing this girl had made it this far in life with natural selection breathing down so hard on her. “There’s nothing edible here.” She kicked her head to the side, her eyebrows pinching together. “Nothing here is food,” I clarified. “No eating. No using the makeup and perfume testers. They’re for the customers. No talking on the phone. No ear buds.” I pointed to the cardboard cutout of Estelle Landers. “No grinding, twerking or otherwise molesting the founder of Estelle Landers Cosmetics.”
She nodded slowly, absorbing the rules I’d laid down. God, she really did remind me of myself at eighteen. If I could go back in time, I’d punch myself in the face and make sure know-it-all me didn’t hook up with the tattooed idiot I thought was gonna change my world.
He had. And I had the rap sheet and tats to prove it.