She rolled her eyes and yawned.
Under all that flannel and whining Beauty was quite . . . well, beautiful. Her long, curly hair shone like golden rays of sun and her eyes sparkled with either insanity or intelligence. I couldn’t quite tell which, but the effect was all the same. She wasn’t hard on the eyes by any means.
Heaving a heavy sigh, the king said as if admitting a state secret, “She’s annoying.”
“Oh. That.” I nodded. “Yeah, she’s pretty annoying. No offense.”
“None taken from a guy who smells faintly like my dinner,” Beauty replied with a sneer.
“I was talking to Pretty.”
“Oh.”
“But you’re mistaken, sir,” I said to the king. While she was annoying, she was also my annoying arm-floatie-wearing One. I wasn’t about to let her stepfather disparage her in front of a room full of people and cameras. That was a husband’s job.
I rose from my seat and came around the table until I was standing over my annoying almost bride. “A man will and does love her enough to marry her.” Hundreds of flashbulbs lit the restaurant. I pictured our photo in the front page of the New Never News and sighed, hoping they’d get my good side. Not that I had a bad side per se.
“Who? Who loves Beauty?” the king screeched, his eyes darting around the room, a frown on his once handsome, now grizzled face. His jowls sagged nearly to his chest, as did his bushy eyebrows.
“Me.” I jabbed my thumb into my chest and winced. “As long as there is breath in my body, I will not break our engagement. Ever.”
Leaning down to face my bride, I repeated my statement. Flashbulbs exploded again. Beauty drew in a harsh breath, her face turning a shade of lime I hadn’t seen since leaving the pond all those years ago. “Are you demented or just stupid?” she shouted in a harsh whisper.
With a deep breath and the whirl of camera shutters in my ears, I moved closer to my bride. I prayed she wouldn’t bite me before I’d made my point. Our lips touched, softly at first. Rather than smack me in the face as I expected, Beauty sat frozen under my kiss. My whole body began to tingle, and not in a normal lusty way.
The tingle grew bigger as a warning bell rang in my head. She’s the One. Denial was no longer a luxury. This was the girl from the pond. My soul mate.
The drool sealed it.
Did she remember me?
Remember our brief encounter?
Remember trying to eat me?!
Angrily, I pulled away to stare into Beauty’s grape eyes. Damn her. Damn this curse!
Beauty blinked, as if startled. Her mouth opened and closed. Then with a snort, she dropped headfirst into her half-eaten plate of frog legs and let out a small snore.
I sure had a way with the ladies.
Chapter 11
Two hours later, I sat on the end of my luxurious hotel room bed with its twelve-hundred-dollar pillows and kicked off my highly polished loafers. Dinner had not gone as expected. But I was still engaged.
For the moment.
Karl’s voice whispered in the back of my head, “Tell Beauty the truth.” Generally, I ignored all advice given by any servant, especially the short, balding ones with a much-too-creepy interest in my sex life.
This time proved no exception.
Telling Beauty the truth would ruin my best-laid plans.
Since my plan included staying in shape, my human shape to be precise, as well as getting laid, telling Beauty anything, especially the truth, ranked up there with getting a magic bean enema by the sadistic chick from this afternoon.
Speaking of sadistic women, I rubbed at a small greasy frog-leg stain on my shirt left by my future wife after her face-plant into her dinner.
Luckily—or not so luckily, depending on your point of view—I’d rescued Beauty before she managed to drown in the congealed frog juice. My soon-to-be father-in-law, the king, seemed properly appreciative, in that he stuck me with the dinner bill.
How I couldn’t wait to say “I do”!
My ringing phone interrupted my dire musing. I glanced at my watch. 10:20 P.M. Then I checked the caller ID on my p-Phone. Restricted. I debated not answering, but in the end, cat-murdering curiosity won out, and I said hello.
“Jean-Michel,” the voice on the other end huffed. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“Georgie?” I said. “Why are you so out of breath? Are you taking a late-night jog?” Weird, since it was after midnight in New Never City, where Georgie lived, but even odder, Georgie’s Jell-O like form wasn’t built for running of any kind, let alone the exercise variety.
“You could say that,” Georgie said through the static. In the background footsteps pounded hard, as if Georgie was being chased by a pack of boys. “Anyway,” Georgie yelled over the noise, “I probably won’t be around for . . . a while. I have some . . . business to take care of . . .”—he panted—“ but I wanted to get in touch regarding that certain matter Karl e-mailed me about this afternoon.”
Right. Lollie Bliss. “And?”
“Keep your distance.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“She’s bad news.” As Georgie finished his statement, shouts erupted through the phone line. The pounding of feet grew louder, as did a string of swear words from Georgie’s mouth.
“Georgie?” I called. “You still there?”
A few seconds later he returned to the line. “Yeah, sorry about that. I don’t have much time,” he huffed out, “but this can’t wait.”
“All right,” I said slowly.
“Lollie Bliss doesn’t exist.”
I shook my head, stopping when I realized Georgie couldn’t see me through the phone. “Not true. I met her. This afternoon, in fact. Karl saw her too.”
Georgie giggled, which quickly turned into a wheezing cough. “I meant she doesn’t exist in the figurative sense.”
“Oh.”
“There’s no record of Lollie Bliss until two years ago, when she suddenly appeared in Cin City.”
Hell, if one did a search for Jean-Michel La Grenouille they’d find much the same. Until the age of eight, I hadn’t officially existed, not in the human sense. Since then I’d sure made up for it. A bunch. “That doesn’t necessarily make her bad news.”
“Hang on,” Georgie said as the rattle of chain link echoed through the line. A loud rip followed. “Fudge.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Tore my favorite pants on a fence post.” Georgie let out a sigh. “Damn girls. They never just let things go. I mean, you kiss one little . . .”
“Um . . . Georgie? Can we get back to my problem now?”
“Right.” Georgie sucked in a deep breath. “So, this Lollie chick. Is she hot?”
I stopped, considering Ms. Bliss. “Hot” wasn’t quite a strong enough word to describe the woman. “Smoking hot” came closer, but still didn’t do her plump lips and the smart slant of her mouth justice. “She’s all right,” I answered quietly, unwilling to share anything about Ms. Bliss with a pervert like Georgie. The guy had a collection of pornography as high as the top of old spaghetti, even with the mountain of cheese.
“That’s what I thought.” He exhaled again, his voice wheezy and weak. “Just be careful. She runs with a bad crowd.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that the cops have her under surveillance.”
“Really?” I bit my lip. “For what?”
“Murder for hire.”
I swallowed hard. “Lollie’s a hit man . . . I mean, woman?”
“No. No. Not her.” Georgie paused. “From what I heard, her boyfriend’s the killer. The cops think he’s murdered at least seven people.”
Well, that answered that question. Lollie had lied to me in order to protect her lover. A noble gesture, one I could even appreciate given different circumstances, but Beauty’s life was at stake. How did her boyfriend get away with seven murders without arrest? I asked as much.
“Lack of evidence, I guess.
” He let out a long wheeze. “All the murders looked like accidents.”
“Accidents?”
“Yeah,” Georgie said, his voice raspy like the soles of a glass-slippered princess. “The cops might’ve never caught on, but he likes to leave a small memento of his crimes.”
“What kind of memento?”
“A single long-stem rose.”
My mind flashed to the article in yesterday’s newspaper, the one about the Cin City assassin with a flower fetish. The assassin called Spindle. A shiver ran up my spine.
“No one knows why he leaves a rose,” Georgie said. “But in every case the cops found one somewhere at the scene.”
I had a pretty good idea why, and she was brunette, beautiful, and covered in ink. The roses were some sort of sick “I love you” note left by a crazed assassin. One I’d hired to kill my future wife. Shit.
Georgie wasn’t finished. “The guy is good. He ran one victim over with a pumpkin.”
“A pumpkin?”
“A really big pumpkin.” Georgie gave a wet laugh and then quickly sobered.
A man’s voice crackled through the phone, sounding highly annoyed. “Stop right there, Georgie.”
“She was asking for it!” Georgie screamed. “I swear.”
The sound of fist meeting flesh followed and then the phone clicked once and went dead.
“Georgie?” I ventured.
Nothing but static greeted me. I hung up my p-Phone and stared at the desert landscape painted on the wall. Why a hotel in the middle of the sandpit went with a desert motif was beyond me. It was like a princess buying a glass slipper factory.
Speaking of princesses . . . I needed to stop Lollie’s boy toy from murdering my lazy bride and soon. But how? A well-placed bribe? And if that didn’t work, I could buy a gun and force Lollie to take me to her boyfriend, Clint Easterbunny style.
A good way to get shot, but what other options did I have? I needed to find this Spindle guy and fast.
I wondered if Ms. Bliss, like her boyfriend, packed heat. Probably not. It was hard to hide panty lines in black leather pants. Imagine trying to disguise a pistol.
Unfortunately, a few hours later I learned that, like princesses, weapons came in many varieties.
Chapter 12
Following my phone call with Georgie, I did what any man facing the possible murder of his future wife would do. I squeezed a fair amount of hand sanitizer on my hands and then plopped down on my bed and fell fast asleep.
In my defense, Beauty was probably fast asleep too.
Or not.
The ringing of my p-Phone woke me ten minutes later. “What?” I grumbled at whoever was rude enough to disrupt my slumber.
“Jean-Michel?” Beauty’s sleepy voice echoed through the phone. “Did I wake you?”
I stifled a yawn. “Not at all. Is something wrong, my lady?”
Beauty inhaled deeply. “I . . . ah . . . about tonight,” she began. “I wanted to say . . .”
“Say what, my lady?” I prompted when the silence lengthened. My mind raced with possible scenarios, most of which left me with olive-colored legs. Damn it, I didn’t want to turn back into a frog. Not now. Not when a French restaurant recently opened up on my block.
“Thank you,” she whispered as if the words tasted unpleasant.
“No problem.”
“No, I mean it,” she added, as if the words tasted unpleasant in her mouth. “Thank you.”
Damn, I’d only bought her dinner. What sort of appreciation would I get for a full six-course meal? Oddly, I found myself very much wanting to find out. “You are quite welcome, my lady. I’d be happy to buy you dinner again tomorrow evening.”
She let out a snort. “I wasn’t thanking you for dinner, idiot.”
“Oh,” I said with a frown. “What exactly did you thank me for, then?” I pictured our kiss. It wasn’t the best. Maybe a six on the hotness scale. Maybe the poor dear wasn’t as experienced with men, twenty-eight former fianc és aside. She did wear a lot of flannel....
“Not that,” she said, reading my mind. “I wanted to thank you for standing up for me. Not many men would argue with their future father-in-law, let alone embarrass a king in public eight days before a marriage the king orchestrated.”
When she put it like that . . .
“I mean, my stepfather wanted to boil you in oil after we left.” Beauty let out a half yawn, half laugh, and then sneered, “You’ll be happy to know Pretty managed to talk him out of ending our engagement.”
“Not you, madam? You didn’t stand up for your man?”
This time her snort of laughter rang through loud and clear. “Not bloody likely.”
Her words slammed into me, shaking the tendrils of sleep instantly from my mind. Did my future bride hate me? What’d I do to her? Well, besides the whole hiring a killer to smother her with a pillow. “Excuse me?”
“What?”
“You said, not bloody likely.”
“Did I?” Her yawn traveled through the phone line.
“Yes, madam, you did. Are you averse to marriage in general or just marriage to me?” Twenty-eight other fianc ées suggested the latter to be true. Damn.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with another yawn. “I can’t wait to become Mrs. Jean-Michel La Gray . . . La Gro . . . Mrs. Frog Prince. Isn’t that every girl’s dream?”
My eyes narrowed. Was my intended being a wee bit sarcastic or did she truly mean what she said? I couldn’t tell, and neither reaction boded well.
But before I could question her further, my bride’s soft snores echoed through the phone line.
Following my phone conversation with Beauty, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Guilt tickled in the back of my throat like leftover puddin’ and pie. The poor chit seemed to think I was some sort of hero for standing up to her father, but the opposite was true. I was a coward, too afraid of turning back into a frog to warn her of her impending death by an assassin I’d “accidentally” hired. Her snide face floated in my mind’s eye as the light faded from her grape-lollipop eyes. Dead, unfocused eyes stared back. I swallowed hard.
I’d make this up to her, somehow.
Maybe buy her a nice fluffy pillow or new Prada pj’s.
Since sleep had deserted me, I decided to start my campaign to force Ms. Bliss to take me to her boyfriend. Jumping out of bed, I tossed on a pair of jeans, a baseball cap, and a sweatshirt.
Once I was properly disguised as a commoner slash peasant, I dialed Karl’s hotel room. The phone rang once, twice, and a third time. The mechanical voice of the hotel messaging center whirled to life. “The guest you have dialed is unable to answer. Please leave a message at the beep.”
I scowled at the receiver. Where the hell was Karl? Normally, my faithful manservant answered on the first ring, no matter what the time. Was he still pouting from our earlier argument? I’d said I was sorry . . . well, I’d said something to the effect of he’d be sorry, but really it was close enough.
At the time, our argument hadn’t seemed like much of one, just two friends disagreeing over my lack of moral fiber. Karl insisted, even after my disaster of a dinner with Beauty’s family, that I tell her the truth. I, on the other hand, insisted Karl keep his big, bald mouth shut. In the end, after threatening Karl with a pair of shears, I’d won the argument. Beauty would never know the truth.
Unless Spindle killed her.
Then she might suspect something was amiss.
Or not.
Beauty didn’t strike me as the sharpest princess in the kingdom. With a sigh, I hung up and dialed Karl’s room again; this time when the recorder kicked on I left a rambling message about honor, loyalty, and my need of a ride to the Rose. Then I sat on the edge of the bed to wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Three and a half minutes later Karl still hadn’t called back. Frog it. And frog him. I didn’t need him or anyone, for that matter. I had the number for Higgl
ety Pigglety Cab Company on speed dial. Of course I had to wait, sometimes nine, and sometimes ten minutes for someone to answer. When someone answered with a squawk, I ordered a taxi to meet me downstairs.
With one last glance around my hotel room I closed the door and headed into Cin City, searching for a killer, or at the very least, his tattooed girlfriend, in order to save the life of a woman who, I suspected, would prefer to have me boiled in oil.
Probably not the smartest move.
Apparently Beauty and I were meant for each other after all.
Chapter 13
Cin City was a different place at night. Not literally, of course. It was still crammed full of cheesy theme hotels and casinos. It still sported a million blazing, retina-burning lights. Greed and lust still oozed from the sidewalks and into even the noblest of hearts. But after midnight the air turned a bit cooler, the people a bit shadier, and the risk a bit greater. Not to mention the increased odds of taking a glass slipper to the forehead from an annoyed prince in drag.
God how I loved Cin City after midnight.
My cab sped down the strip, a dreadlocked hen in a Rastafarian cap at the wheel. I waved away a cloud of questionable smoke hovering around me and grinned as we passed a gaggle of Cinderella impersonators and the occasional fairy dust–addicted princess selling her wares on the street corner. Millions of multicolored lights reflected off the taxi’s windows.
The deeper we went into the city, the more dangerous the streets became. Casinos and motels still filled the avenue, but the themes had changed. Gone were the fairytale wonder worlds of New Never City, France, and Egypt, replaced by phallic skyscrapers and cheesy circus tents.
Here, the storefronts offered ten-dollar T-shirts and barred windows. Paint peeled off the sides of the sunbaked buildings, leaving exposed cement and brick. Rundown motels with no vacancy signs blinked: “No can.”
Fitting somehow.
At Eighth and Fairily Way, the cab slowed, finally stopping in front of the brick-and-mortar storefront of the Rose. Lights blazed inside the tattoo shop. Once again, my mind flashed to the image of a rose covered in blood and barbed wire. The petals faded slowly, replaced with a picture of Lollie Bliss, her blue-black hair and nose ring shimmering in the fluorescent light, her onyx eyes mirroring my own intense blue ones.
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