It was my turn to suck in a breath. ‘‘Oh, Dave,’’ I said as I set down my coffee. ‘‘How could you forget? Don’t you men realize that women take stuff like that seriously?’’
Dave’s eyebrows lowered. ‘‘Of course I didn’t!’’ he snapped. ‘‘If I did, I would have planned better!’’
‘‘Well, have you been in touch with her? I mean, have you tried to find out where she is?’’
‘‘She’s at her sister’s house in Gaylord,’’ he said more calmly. ‘‘Her brother-in-law called me a few days later and said that he’d been sworn to secrecy but he thought a brother should know.’’
‘‘So she won’t talk to you,’’ I said.
‘‘Nope.’’
‘‘You need to buy a ring, Dave!’’ I said to him excitedly. ‘‘You need to buy a gigantic honker of a diamond, run up there to Gaylord, get down on bended knee, and tell that woman you love her once and for all!’’
‘‘Sure, Abby. Let me just go down to the bank and withdraw the thousand dollars I’ve got stashed away in my bank account and buy a diamond just larger than a grain of sand.’’
‘‘A thousand dollars?’’ I said to him, my eyes large. ‘‘Why would you have only a thousand dollars, Dave? You’ve been working steadily since fixing Fern.’’
Dave squirmed in his chair and fiddled with his spoon. ‘‘I bought a flat-screen TV the weekend before she left,’’ he said very softly.
‘‘You what?’’ I shouted at him. ‘‘Are you kidding me?’’
‘‘It was a great deal!’’ he argued. ‘‘I couldn’t pass it up.’’
‘‘How much could a flat screen possibly cost?’’ I asked him, completely exasperated.
‘‘Seven grand after the rebate.’’ I shook my head back and forth wondering how men could be so incredibly stupid. ‘‘And the rest of the money is tied up in all the building supplies that went into Fern. Plus, I might have needed a new tile saw for Milo and Noel’s place.’’
‘‘Call the Realtor, Dave, and after you tell her that we accept the offer you and I are going to make a trip into town.’’
‘‘I gotta get over to Milo’s,’’ Dave said.
‘‘No, what you’ve got to do before that is come up with a plan to make up for being an idiot. I’m going to introduce you to a friend of mine, Bobby Miller. He’s a client, and he owns a wholesale jewelry business. We’re going to have him start work on a ring that’s got enough bling to be seen from outer space.’’
Two hours and several arguments later, I was back home, waving to Dave as he peeled out of the driveway and headed down the street at a good clip. He’d failed to thank me for spending ten thousand of his hard-earned dollars from Fern, once it closed. I was in too good a mood to hold it against him, though. Someday, he would see that getting his girl back meant making sure she knew she was worth more than a flat-screen TV.
I headed inside just as my cell phone rang. I figured it was Dave thinking better of peeling out. ‘‘Abby Cooper,’’ I said into the phone.
‘‘Hey, there,’’ Candice said. ‘‘I need you to come to the office. I’ve found something interesting about that case you wanted me to look into.’’
‘‘I’ve got physical therapy in an hour,’’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘‘Can it wait until after that or would you like me to come down now?’’
‘‘Now.’’
My eyebrows lifted. ‘‘Okay, be there in a flash.’’ I clicked off and hurried to my car. Candice’s now had been filled with urgency, and I’d known her long enough to understand that she didn’t toss that tone around lightly.
I arrived at the office just a few minutes later and rushed up to the suite. Candice was finishing up a phone call and pointed to a chair in front of her when I walked in. I sat and took a look around the office that had sat empty for the past year.
Since her arrival this morning, she’d already moved in most of her office furniture. Her taste matched well with mine, but had a little more chrome and art deco in the mix. Her desk had a glass surface with chrome legs and a black metal hutch. A white Macintosh laptop was in front of her and she typed on it while she was on the phone.
The matching chair to the one I was sitting in was smoke-colored crushed velvet, with a short, circular back and spiked wooden legs. Two paintings were propped against the wall, both swirls of earth-toned colors that complemented each other and the room. A framed PI certificate of license already hung on the wall over Candice’s desk.
Candice said good-bye to the caller and focused her attention on me. ‘‘You’ll never guess who that was,’’ she said.
‘‘I’m a pretty good guesser,’’ I said. ‘‘How many chances do I get?’’
Candice smiled. ‘‘Don’t bother. That was Darren Cox.’’
My brow furrowed. The name sounded familiar, but where had I heard it? ‘‘That would not have been one of my guesses,’’ I admitted.
‘‘You remember,’’ she said, realizing I was trying to place the name. ‘‘The PI who worked on that case where Wolfe was involved—the one who cleared out of town without notice?’’
‘‘Ah,’’ I said, nodding vigorously. ‘‘I remember. So that was him?’’
‘‘Yes. And you will never believe where he works,’’ she said excitedly.
My radar buzzed. ‘‘He works with houses, but he’s not a real estate agent,’’ I said, following the thought. ‘‘It’s more like accounting... oh! He’s in the mortgage business!’’
Candice shook her head back and forth. ‘‘You never cease to amaze me,’’ she said. ‘‘Yes, he’s a loan officer at a mortgage company. You’ll never guess who he works for.’’
An ugly black beast appeared in my mind’s eye. ‘‘He’s working for Wolfe,’’ I said with a scowl.
‘‘Remind me never to throw you a surprise party,’’ she said, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.
‘‘Sorry. When someone says, ‘You’ll never guess,’ I take it as a personal challenge. So tell me how Cox ended up working for the very guy who ran him out of town.’’
‘‘Not sure yet,’’ she said. ‘‘But I have a plan.’’
My left side felt a little thick, and I knew I wasn’t going to like Candice’s plan. ‘‘Uh-oh,’’ I said.
‘‘What’s uh-oh?’’ she asked. ‘‘You haven’t even heard it yet.’’
‘‘Fair enough. What’s the plan?’’
‘‘You have a date with him tonight, and on said date you can ask him. Indirectly, of course.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, what?’’ I asked, cocking my head and cupping my ear. ‘‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’’
‘‘You can ask him on the date.’’
I threw my head back and laughed. Granted, it was a rather forced laugh, but I wanted Candice to appreciate how hilarious I found her. ‘‘That’s a good one, girlfriend! Man, you had me going for a minute there.’’
‘‘I’m serious, Abby. We need to pump him for information, and I certainly can’t go out with him.’’
‘‘Why not?’’ I demanded.
‘‘Because I may have slept with him. Once. A long time ago. When I was very, very drunk.’’
‘‘Again, you’re hilarious,’’ I said to her. ‘‘Truly, you need to take this act on the road.’’
‘‘Plus I’m seeing Simon now,’’ Candice added.
‘‘Really? Gee, I thought you’d just met. Didn’t realize the wedding invitations were going out already.’’
Candice rolled her eyes at me. ‘‘I’m a one-man girl, Abby. When I say yes to a date with someone, I don’t like to complicate things by having other distractions.’’
‘‘You don’t say? Gee, have I introduced you to my other distraction? Special Agent Dutch Rivers? That tall drink of water I’ve been seeing for a year—you remember, the guy with the gun?’’
Candice waved her hand airily at me. ‘‘It’s just a pretend date,’’ she said. ‘‘And if it will make y
ou feel any better, I’ll call Simon and see if we can switch our drink to tonight and we’ll double with you. That way I can keep an eye on you.’’
‘‘Yeah, ’cuz I’m totally worried about Darren lighting my world on fire and me losing control,’’ I deadpanned.‘‘This is ridiculous. Candice, call him back and tell him the date’s off.’’
‘‘Fine,’’ she said and picked up the receiver. Her finger hovered over the number pad. ‘‘But just remember, I was doing this for you.’’
I stared at her without blinking.
‘‘This was your big case,’’ she added. My expression didn’t change. ‘‘And this was our only good lead into finding out about Wolfe.’’
‘‘You’re not going to call it off, are you?’’ I said to her.
‘‘No,’’ she said and put the phone down. ‘‘Abby, I’ve known you long enough to know that when you get a hunch about someone, it’s right on. And if this Lutz guy didn’t kill Walter, then I think we owe it to Walter’s family—and Milo—to uncover the truth of it.’’
Aw, crap. She had to play the sympathy card. ‘‘How the hell am I going to explain to Dutch that I’m going on a pretend date tonight?’’ I said, starting to give in.
‘‘The same way you explained to him that you’re looking into Walter’s murder—you don’t.’’
I sighed heavily. ‘‘Fine. But the ground rules are that we have one drink while I pump him for info before I remember I have to be somewhere, and I am outta there. Then, you can tell him later that I thought he was cute, but I’m still not over my old boyfriend, ’kay?’’
Candice held up two fingers. ‘‘Scout’s honor,’’ she said.
You’d think I’d know better than to take that two-finger salute seriously, but Mama always did peg me for a slow learner.
Chapter Four
Later that afternoon I stopped off at my place, a cozy little ranch-style house that Dave had fixed up before he’d started on the Fern project. I’d barely been here since returning from being shot in Denver three months earlier. Feeling eerily like a stranger in my own home, I walked through my front door, then paused in the living room and looked around.
The place felt smaller. My new furniture had arrived just after Christmas, and it was nice enough, but truthfully, this house really hadn’t grown on me like I’d expected it to. Granted, I’d spent very little time here since moving in. Usually I was over at Dutch’s, and I genuinely liked his place, even though we were really cramped for personal space. But since I was now on this whole ‘‘taking my life back’’ crusade, perhaps the next logical step was to move back home and settle in.
I resolved to talk to Dutch about my living situation later. Right now I had a half hour to change and get back downtown to go on my pretend date. I boogied into the bedroom and headed for my walk-in closet.
As I was looking at my choices my cell phone rang. ‘‘Abby Cooper,’’ I said, after flipping it open.
‘‘Abby? This is Lori. Are you on your way?’’
‘‘Ach!’’ I sputtered. ‘‘Oh, crap, crap! Lori, I completely forgot about calling you to cancel our session today!’’ I said, slapping my forehead.
‘‘I was wondering,’’ she replied. ‘‘You’re usually right on time.’’
I leaned my head on the wall of the closet. ‘‘You must hate me,’’ I said, silently cursing myself. There was nothing worse than having someone skip out on an appointment—trust me, as a psychic who used to live her life around her appointment book, I put clients who skipped out on their appointments without even bothering to call right up there on my list of super-loathsome people.
‘‘No,’’ she laughed. ‘‘It’s fine. When would you like to reschedule?’’
‘‘Uh...’’ I said, considering the commitments I’d already made. ‘‘Tomorrow?’’
‘‘Three o’clock?’’
‘‘Yeah, that should be good—and I swear to you, I will be there, and on time.’’
‘‘It’s no sweat, Abby. Really. It happens to everyone.’’
‘‘Thanks for understanding. Lori, while I have you on the phone, can I ask you something?’’
‘‘Sure?’’
‘‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be doing weight training at the gym? Like maybe I’ll pull something and this might not be such a great idea for at least another year?’’ Even though I’d only walked at a brisk pace for twenty minutes that morning, my ass was sore as all get out, and I was hoping to weasel out of another training session.
‘‘No reason at all,’’ she said easily. ‘‘In fact, I think it’s an excellent idea. You need to stretch out that scar tissue, and some resistance training would be great for it.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ I said with a scowl. ‘‘Okay, that’s great, ’cuz I really want to get back in the swing of things and all.’’
‘‘Glad to hear it. I’ll see you tomorrow at three.’’
I clicked the phone off and shoved it into my back pocket. Then I pulled a blouse off a hanger and walked over to my full-length mirror. Holding it up under my chin, I looked at my reflection. ‘‘This’ll do,’’ I said and ducked back into the closet for a clean pair of jeans.
Forty-five minutes later I had showered, dried my hair, and put on only a hint of makeup. I really didn’t want to appear interested in Darren, but I also didn’t want to seem like a slob. I locked up the house and a minute later was back in my car and headed toward town.
I was meeting Candice and Darren at Tom’s Oyster Bar on Main Street for happy hour. I was kind of nervous about how I was going to get information out of him on Wolfe, but Candice had assured me that she would do most of the talking. Her instructions to me had been to look sexy, but not too sexy. I hoped the blue cotton button-up and jeans were what she’d pictured when she handed out the instructions.
I found a parking space on Fifth Street and pumped the meter full of quarters, then hoofed it down to Tom’s. Candice had gotten a table right out front and waved at me when she spotted me. ‘‘Hey,’’ I said as I took a seat at the table. ‘‘You the first one here?’’
‘‘Yep. Simon doesn’t get off work ’til six, so it may just be you, me, and Darren for a while.’’
‘‘Fine by me,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m not planning on staying long.’’ Just then, my cell rang and I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the caller ID. ‘‘Ugh,’’ I said, showing her the display. ‘‘It’s Dutch.’’
‘‘So answer it,’’ she said as she picked up her martini and took a sip.
‘‘He’ll want to know where I am,’’ I said, looking around nervously.
‘‘So tell him you’re out with me,’’ she said simply.
‘‘Good call.’’ I flipped the phone open. ‘‘Hey, guy!’’ I sang. ‘‘What’s movin’ and shakin’? What’s rockin’ and rollin’? What’s happening?’’
‘‘You’re in a good mood,’’ he said.
‘‘You betcha! I am a happy, happy girl!’’
Dutch paused, then said, ‘‘So, I’m at home.’’
‘‘That’s great! Good for you. Home is good. Home is where the heart is. Home on the range. Home sweet home.’’
‘‘Where are you?’’
‘‘Er... I’m out with Candice. You know, hanging out. Just us girls. Nothing special. Just talking. And hanging. Her and me. She and I. Gabbing it up...’’ Did I mention I’m not good on the phone when I have to lie to my boyfriend?
‘‘Edgar, how many drinks have you had?’’
‘‘Oh, ha, ha! No, I’m fine,’’ I said. ‘‘Really. We’re just hanging, and talking. Mostly just gabbing, not a lot of drinking, ’cuz that’s not safe, and I’m a safety girl. Which is why we’re just talking. About girl stuff. You know... like PMS.’’
I was rewarded with another pause. ‘‘Okay, then. Have a good time—and call me if you feel you’ve had too much and I’ll come pick you up, okay?’’
‘‘Sure, sure. No worries, cowboy. I’ll probably just
hang with her for a bit and be home later. In a little while. After we finish our conversation. About girl stuff.’’
I noticed Candice making a slashing motion across her throat. I said a quick good-bye and hung up. ‘‘Jeez, Abby. Don’t ever think about having an affair on him. You are the worst liar I ever met.’’
‘‘Ohmigod!’’ I said as I tucked my phone back in my pocket. ‘‘Why did you make me answer that?!’’
‘‘Relax,’’ she said, looking over my shoulder. ‘‘Here comes Darren. Try and get it together until we find out how he managed to get a job with Wolfe and then you can bail.’’
I shook my head a little, trying to clear all the blubbery thoughts racing through my mind. When I get nervous I tend to chatter, and I needed to play it cool for this pumping session with Darren. ‘‘Hello, ladies,’’ a strikingly handsome man said as he came to our table. ‘‘I’m Darren,’’ he added, offering his hand to me.
‘‘Abby,’’ I said as I shook his hand and discreetly gave him the once-over before he turned toward Candice and gave her a big hug. I guessed that he was a little shorter than Dutch, with curly dark hair and a nice square jaw. His nose was thin and delicate, and he had really nice green eyes.
‘‘Man, it is so good to see you!’’ he said to Candice as he stepped back and took his seat. ‘‘What’s it been, like three years?’’
‘‘Just about,’’ she said, and motioned to our waiter.
We all ordered drinks, and Darren leveled his gaze at me. ‘‘Candice tells me you two work together.’’
I nodded. ‘‘Yeah. We just started. Working together, that is.’’ God, I was awful at this.
‘‘Only officially,’’ Candice said easily. ‘‘Abby and I have had an informal working relationship for years.’’
‘‘So you’re a PI too?’’ Darren asked me.
My eyes darted over to Candice. I didn’t know how to do this. Should I lie? Should I tell the truth? Should I pretend my contact had just popped out of my eye and dive under the table? ‘‘No. She’s a professional psychic,’’ Candice said. ‘‘Careful, Darren. She’ll be reading your mind in a minute.’’
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