“That would be an excellent story, Trish. Real magic? That would be a story worth sucking up to Flores for. But that’s not what this is. This is just a strange virus, probably some mutated form of meningitis or something similar. Scary, yes. Newsworthy, yes. But it’s not the ratings spike required to get picked up. Shame.” She smacked her lips like she’d just applied lipstick. “I’m having an excellent face day. Eat your heart out, Ron Lapahie.”
I left my stall as the restroom door closed behind them, feeling like the top had come off my head and my brain was about to float out into space. My ears buzzed faintly and my fingers tingled.
A spell.
How much of an idiot was I that I hadn’t thought of that? Sure, I’d only been a fairy godmother for eighteen hours or something, but seriously. Two hours ago, I couldn’t think of anything else. How could I possibly not have thought of that? Of course this was a spell. What the hell else could it be?
“Dude, Jolene Jepson is here! She’s even hotter in person.” I walked past Mueller to the elevator and pushed the lobby button. He chuckled at the roof of the elevator car. “She wants me.”
I ignored him, my brain too full of magic and wands and things I had no idea how to use to pay much attention to him. Once outside the no-phone zone, I flipped open my dumb phone and dialed the number I didn’t expect to call, ever.
“Sabine Shinewell’s office,” a sweet male voice greeted me after two rings. “How may we brighten your day?”
“My name is Tessa Hargitay. I have information for Sabine.”
“Miss Sabine is out of the office at the moment. May I take a message?”
I paused. What the hell did I say? “Um, there’s this sleeping sickness here, and I’m pretty sure it’s a spell. I need her help to end it.”
“I’m sorry, but Miss Sabine isn’t taking new clients. Where are you located? I can find you a godmother who is free in your area.”
“Trapperstown, Colorado. It’s outside of Denver.”
A long pause. Then, “I’m sorry, Miss Hargitay. Your area appears to be serviced by free agents. You will have to call one of them to solve your problem.”
“Is there a number I can call or something? I’m kind of new to this…”
“Unfortunately, union rules prohibit me from assisting in non-union regions. For what it’s worth, I really hope you find one of them, sweetie. Oh, and a little advice?”
My heart leapt. Any advice at this point was better than none. “Yes?”
“Wear a thick skin. Those free agents can be mean. Have a shiny-happy day!” And he hung up on me.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket and fought the urge to collapse on the pavement and cry. “Now what?”
“Hey,” Mueller said, puffing on a cigarette. “Just because they didn’t answer now doesn’t mean you won’t get them next time. Call back.”
“I can’t. They’re not allowed to talk to me. And if he really cared if about my problem, he wouldn’t have hung up on me.” I glared at the exterior brick of the hospital for lack of a face to go with that syrupy voice.
Mueller stared at me. “He would have had to pick up to hang up.”
My hangover headache was coming back. “What are you talking about? I had a whole conversation.”
“Where? In your head? You’ve been standing there totally silent for five minutes. I thought you’d caught that sleeping thing for a minute, but you didn’t collapse and take out my coffee, so…” He grinned at me.
I stared at him, my brain whirring. “I can’t deal with all of this on my own.” I pulled my phone back out and pushed the number I had entered that morning, just in case. “If you couldn’t hear that conversation, my first step has to be to break the spell on you.”
“Now who are you calling? More recordings?”
“Your mom,” I said, listening to tinny ring of the phone.
Mueller’s face blanked. “Not funny.”
“Not trying to be. If you’re not going to tell me about your true love, I have to ask your mom.”
“Put the phone down, Tessa.”
“Then tell me the truth, because there’s no one else who could possibly break the stupid spell on the factory.”
“You haven’t even tried that wand thing yet. You gotta try that before you do something dumb and desperate.”
The ringing changed to a standard ‘no answer’ message and then beeped. I blinked at Mueller and found words tumbling out of my mouth. “Uh, hi. My name is Tessa. I’m a friend of your son’s. I had a question or two about his back—” Before I could finish, Mueller threw himself at me. He grappled with the phone and managed to close it even though I hadn’t let go. It snapped down hard on my thumb, making me whimper.
“You’re not doing this alone. But you will be if you ever try to call my mom again.”
Part of me wanted to call her just to find out what he was hiding so desperately. But his words made me feel bad. He was right; he’d been here with me all day, being helpful. He’d even taken me to the bar because he thought it would help. Even if all it really did was give me a nasty headache and a dream about a pretty suit. A pretty suit on a pretty man who might actually know what was going on. Maybe he had no idea, but he was there on Friday, before everything went insane. Besides, it wasn’t like I was overflowing with options.
“There is one other person I can call. I need a phone book.” I started to go inside.
Mueller pulled out his phone, poked at it a couple of times, and handed it to me. “Like this one? On this nice thing we call a smart phone, which is connected to a little piece of technology we call the internet?”
I gave him a dirty look and snatched the phone out of his hand. Somehow, I doubted Mueller would appreciate it if I used his phone to make the call, so I dialed it into my own. For some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath as I listened to the phone dial.
Almost immediately, a faintly English voice answered, “Coisreacan Group. How may I direct your call?”
Crap. I didn’t actually know his real name. “Yes, I’m trying to speak with one of your employees with whom we did business on Friday.”
“Name?”
“I’m not sure…”
“I can’t direct your call without knowing the party’s name, Miss.”
My dream couldn’t have been right, could it? What the hell else could I say? “Um, Mr. Windchase?”
“Hold, please.”
“Who’s Windchase?” Mueller asked. I held his phone out to him. When he saw the company name, he practically shouted, “No friggin’ way!” Which was word-for-word what I was thinking, but for a totally different reason. “I’m not talking to the Chisel, man. You haven’t heard the stories but—”
I didn’t hear the rest of his rant because a soft, feminine voice said into my ear, “Mr. Windchase’s office.”
A shock burst through my midsection like a glowball exploding. Ignoring the feeling, I said, “Yes, um, Mr. Windchase performed an appraisal of my company last week and I was wondering if I might ask him a few questions?” What those questions were going to be, I had no idea. I also had no idea if he would call the police to arrest me on suspicion of insanity once I asked them, but again—out of options. A sleeping spell affecting the whole town was a big deal. Someone casting it and catching my mom in it was even bigger, as far as I was concerned. I was going to do everything I could to fix it, even if that meant risking a mental institution.
“He’s in a meeting at the moment. Would you like to make an appointment for later in the day?”
“Could he maybe just call me back? I am at the hospital and can’t really leave…”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Windchase doesn’t believe in doing business over the phone. He prefers to speak in person.” Of course he did. Because that was my luck. “You can either make an appointment or call back another time and hope he’s in a generous mood.” I sincerely doubted someone called ‘The Chisel’ would ever be in a generous mood.
&nbs
p; “Ummm…” I said, doing a wizzbang job of stalling so I could think.
It must have been the end of a lunch period or the beginning of a shift change, because a group of women in scrubs approached the hospital chatting and laughing together. All but one. She lagged behind, just a little. Enough to see she wasn’t with the rest. I tugged on Mueller’s shirt and waved toward them, mouthing, stall them!
To the receptionist on the phone, I said, “A meeting would be wonderful, thank you.”
I hung up and wrote the information on my hand with a pen from my purse. Then I joined Mueller and the group of women he held in thrall. How he managed that with the wild beard and the intense, half-crazy eyes, I had no idea. But it happened. Five professional women were practically giggling over him. I blinked at them in astonishment, but the moment passed quickly. I caught up to my brother’s ex-girlfriend as she stepped through the automatic sliding door.
“Hey, Gigi, do you have a second?”
She appeared as astonished to see me as I was with Mueller’s hidden superpower. “Tessa. What are you doing here?”
“My mom…” I couldn’t manage to say it. Thankfully, she understood immediately.
“Oh, Tess. I’m so sorry. You know, I’ve heard the doctors expect full recoveries…eventually.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Thanks. Listen, I have this really important meeting that I have to make. Like, the whole world will fall apart if I miss it. But I don’t want to leave my mom alone.”
She nodded quickly. “I can absolutely check on her for you. Of course.”
I smiled. “Thank you. But there’s something else.” Before she could object, I grabbed her hand and wrote a number on her palm. “Would you call my brother and let him know? I don’t know if our step-dad called him before he…before it got him, too. Danny should be here.”
“Of course he should,” she said. “But shouldn’t you…I mean, I don’t think I should be the one to tell him.”
“Yes,” I said with a strange level of confidence. Probably born out of desperation, but there it was. “You should be. Tell him to get on a plane ASAP and we’ll figure everything else out later. I’m sorry. I’m in a hurry. I have to go take care of all this in about five minutes flat.” I waved my hand in front of myself to indicate the massive mess I had become.
Some of the color had left her face, but she nodded slowly. “Okay. I can do that. Good luck. With your meeting, I mean, not…” She grimaced.
“Thanks. I’m going to need it. For everything.” I squeezed her arm in gratitude and then darted back out the door.
As we trotted back to the car, Mueller asked, “What was that about?”
“Honestly? I’m not really sure.” Because I wasn’t. I had some vague idea that having my brother in town would allow me to do whatever I needed to do without worrying about my mom being left alone. But why it had been so important that Gigi call him, I couldn’t say. I just knew it was the right thing to do.
He accepted my answer with as much nonchalance as he had everything else on this insane day. When we got in the car, he asked, “Where to?”
“My house. I have to grab a new shirt.”
“And then?”
I squirmed into the seat as I clicked my belt into place. “You’re not gonna like it.”
He stared at the parking lot ahead of us for a long moment, unmoving. I thought he was going to object until he said, “Then you should grab something better than jeans and a t-shirt. Dude like that doesn’t respect bottom-dwellers like us. You gotta look the part. And letting the girls out a little wouldn’t hurt.”
I glared at him with my best impression of being annoyed. I could fake that, but I couldn’t fake out myself. The butterflies in my stomach agreed with him way too much for comfort.
Too important to screw up, that’s all. If I wanted the Chisel to respect me and answer my questions, I needed to dress accordingly. Nothing strange or untoward about that.
Except I only had one dress in my wardrobe, and one pair of slightly nubbly slacks…
How the hell could I be a fairy godmother when I was pretty much two evil step-sisters away from being Cinderella?
Chapter 18
The Denver offices of the Coisreacan Group looked exactly how I expected: spotless, utilitarian, and with a slightly modern feel to the building’s architectural lines. Lots of negative space with a potted plant here and there for a human touch. Well, ‘human’ wasn’t exactly the right word. I knew as soon as I walked in the door that my chance for getting answers here was pretty high. The central receptionist had extra-pointy ears and a face that seemed too long for a normal person. Her eyes had an Eastern European look, larger than average with a darkness that seemed to go on forever. My grandmother had that look. The eyes, not the stuff that suggested she wasn’t human. I had inherited a little of it, myself.
With the go-ahead from her extra-long fingers while she took a call on a bluetooth earpiece, Mueller and I headed for the elevators at the end of the main hall. A security guard with shoulders that suggested ogres were as real as elves and fairy godmothers handed us a pair of visitor’s passes and recorded our names. Then he opened the elevator with a snap of his fingers and waved us in.
The elevator left my stomach on the ground as it carried us up to the twenty-ninth floor. I was busy checking my reflection in the polished brass wall when Mueller muttered, “He probably spends all day practicing.”
“What?” I asked, not really listening. My bun might not be perfect, but my makeup was low-key and smudged almost sexily around my eyes. I couldn’t see it in the brass, but I could tell by the gritty, puffy feeling that those eyes were red and swollen. Four minutes of crying in the shower, and I had overplayed my hand. Somehow, I doubted the Chisel would be any more lenient with a crying woman than a normal one. In fact, he would probably be annoyed by it. Chisels weren’t exactly soft and cuddly implements.
“The security guard,” Mueller answered. “Gotta be a boring job. Probably practices snapping as the elevator opens. Shift of gears or something…”
He was pondering pretty hard, no doubt figuring out how he could utilize the same tactic with his machines at the factory, so I simply said, “Sure, why not.” He wouldn’t believe me if I told him the truth. Hell, part of my brain was still laughing like a hysterical thing at the notion that magic was real, and I didn’t have a spell working against my mental faculties. Well, not that spell. Not yet. There were too many things I didn’t know about this new world blending seamlessly with the one I’d grown up in to know anything for certain. But that’s why we were here. I tugged the flared jacket of my mom’s suit over my hips. The skirt was a little too tight on me—Mom was built like a willow, and I…wasn’t. The jacket barely buttoned and squished me in not wholly unpleasant ways. I had opted not to “let the girls out,” choosing instead a teal blouse to pull color into the cream suit. Still, the difference in my figure and Mom’s figure meant my breasts were more obvious than I intended.
“Stop fidgeting,” Mueller ordered. “Makes you look nervous.”
“I am nervous. And your hissy fit about needing to stay in the car didn’t help.”
He shrugged, disaffected. “I still think keeping the motor running was a good idea. That’s what you’re supposed to do with mobsters.”
“He’s not a mobster,” I said as my stomach lurched. The elevator came to a stop with a soft ding. “He’s just a businessman.”
“Then why is he called ‘the Chisel?’ Non-mafia don’t generally get nicknames like that.” He followed me out of the elevator, possibly being a gentleman, but more likely hoping to use me as a human shield in the event of a mob hit. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I would have had something to say about that, but my attention was caught and entranced by the view. The entire western wall was a window of glass so thin it was barely visible, making it look as if a person could walk straight out onto the sunbeams spearing across the city skyline. Peeking between bu
ildings, the Rockies stood like familiar sentries basking in the glow of summer. The light made all the colors glow—the purple shadows of the mountain valleys, the yellow of the foothills yielding to the July heat, the pure blue of a sky so quintessentially Colorado.
“Where’s my camera when I need it?” I murmured.
Mueller’s elbow to my ribs made me jerk and focus on more immediate surroundings. There, standing at the reception desk across from a young woman with blonde ringlets in a Jane Austen style, was the Chisel. Was it my imagination, or was the blue of his eyes enhanced by the light streaming in from the window-wall? Or maybe they were actually glowing, like his receptionist’s pale skin? His tall, slender frame knew how to wear a suit, that was for damn sure. The lines of his face knew how to wear a scowl equally well.
“Miss Hargitay, I presume?” His voice was as melodic as I had dreamt it to be, and filled with just as much irritation as it had been that day on the loading dock.
Fighting a wince, I crossed the room and extended a hand. “Mr. Windchase. Thank you for seeing me.” At the last second, the tread on my pumps skidded on the smooth floor, making me trip. I hopped to keep my balance and kept going. My cheeks burned as I said, “New shoes. Or not used to walking yet…which is possible.”
The sensitive part of my fingertips slid against his palm an instant later, hot against cool, rough from handling paper all day against smooth—and possibly manicured. Electricity arced through me from that point of contact, banking in my brain with a sizzle so strong I thought I could hear it. His grip was firm and yet inexplicably gentle, exactly the kind I imagined would feel incredible on my—
“My office is just through here,” he said, and for a split second my insides filled with delicious heat as I imagined what might happen were that a proposition entirely unbusinesslike. And then Mueller cleared his throat and reminded me of reality.
“I’ll just wait out here, keep Sara company,” he said, indicating the receptionist with a nod.
I gave him a look over my shoulder. Chicken.
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