It was packed, but as we had already decided that we were just going into the bar, I knew I didn’t have to resign myself to a forty-five-minute wait. Even so, there weren’t any seats available, and we had to grab a precarious spot at the end of the bar and hope that someone would leave soon. At least there it was easy enough for the bartender to see us, and we had mojitos in our hands before I had a chance to complain about the crowd.
Maybe the bartender had taken pity on us and our unfortunate perch, because the drinks were definitely stronger than the norm. I sipped and let the cool flavors of mint and rum run over my tongue. A tension I hadn’t even realized was there began to leave my neck and shoulders, and I let out a little sigh.
“Better?” Ginger asked, and I nodded.
“Much.”
“I never thought I’d be telling a psychic she works too hard, but you do work too hard, ’Seph.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Not really.”
“Yeah, really.” She opened her mouth as if she meant to say more, but then her eyes narrowed, even as she raised her brows. “Mmmm…what have we here?”
“Huh?”
“Look — but don’t look like you’re looking.”
Right. Easy for her to say, since she was facing the entrance to the bar and my back was squarely to it. Still, I’d spent enough time in bars and clubs that I wasn’t completely unpracticed at the surreptitious glance over my shoulder. So I shifted my position a fraction and then took a sneak peek in the direction she’d indicated.
El Churro had its usual crowd, which generally consisted of a mixture of well-dressed gay couples, singles stopping by after work, some industry executives in suits, and a sprinkling of tourists. I could tell at once the man I was looking at didn’t fit into any of those groups.
He might have been my age, or maybe a few years older, and he wore a rumpled sports jacket over a white shirt and some khakis. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, because he was a few yards away and the lighting in the bar wasn’t that good, and he carried an honest-to-God hard-sided briefcase in one hand. I didn’t think anyone used briefcases like that anymore. Despite all that — or maybe because of it — I thought he was definitely worth the crick I was getting in my neck. Tanned, but not the fake kind, and his hair was an indeterminate light brown and in need of a trim. In short, he stuck out in El Churro the way I, with my pale skin and curly dark hair, would have stood out at a Miss Sweden competition.
All of which was great — until his eyes locked on mine, and he headed straight for me.
“Shit, he saw me staring,” I hissed at Ginger.
She grinned. “Good.”
Then I heard him say, “Excuse me.”
I’d never been very good at the whole sophisticated and blasé thing, but I did my best. Cool, be cool, I told myself. Turning slowly, not lifting my eyes from my drink, I replied, “Yes?”
“Do you know the way to the Sheraton Universal hotel? It appears that the GPS in my rental car is malfunctioning, and the cellular reception around here is extremely poor.”
Oh, boy. I should have known. No one was going to approach me in a bar on purpose. I really needed to stop kidding myself.
Still, he looked more than a little stressed-out, and it wasn’t his fault my dating life was in the crapper. I managed a smile and said, “Sheraton Universal? Your GPS must really have died. That’s all the way across the city from here.”
He glanced at his watch, one of those big black jobs that hikers and other outdoorsy types tended to sport. It clashed terribly with his tweedy jacket and wrinkled khakis. “I have to be at the Sheraton no later than seven.”
That didn’t give him much time, but luckily I knew my way around L.A. as well as I knew my way around my apartment. “It’ll be tight, but you should make it. Just head east on Santa Monica until you get to Highland. Hang a left, and take Highland until it merges with the 101. Get off at Lankershim and follow the signs. Ignore the stuff for Universal Studios — the hotel backs up to the lot, but you can’t get to the hotel parking structure from Barham unless you go the long way around.”
The stranger nodded, brow furrowed. Most people would have asked me to repeat at least part of the directions, but he seemed to have absorbed them immediately. “Thank you — ” And then he hesitated, as if expecting me to provide my name.
I didn’t bother to sigh anymore. It wasn’t usually until the second date that I explained my Greek mother and my father’s minor in Classics. Until then, people could think whatever they wanted of my name. “Persephone,” I told him.
He didn’t even blink. “Thank you very much, Persephone.” And then he turned and headed out back through the foyer, and presumably to the parking lot. I found myself hoping he hadn’t popped for the valet.
“You just let him go?” Ginger demanded. She drank down the last of her mojito and signaled the bartender for another one.
“What was I supposed to do — tie him to the bar? All he needed was directions.”
“And yet he asked you, out of everyone in the bar.”
“I’m closest to the door,” I pointed out.
Since that was the simple truth, she didn’t have much of a rejoinder. “Still…”
“Still nothing. Yeah, he was good-looking. I got my quota of eye candy for the night.” I couldn’t help smiling to myself. There was something about the way the stranger talked, and the way he dressed, that told me he’d probably be horrified to be referred to as “eye candy.” I guessed he didn’t move in the sorts of circles that used those sorts of terms. I took a long pull on my straw, thus finishing my own mojito just in time for the bartender to come over and take our order for another round.
Ginger waited until the bartender had gone, then said, “Think he might have been a college professor?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Mmm…not sure. Just something about him. He definitely wasn’t the West Hollywood type.”
I chuckled. “That’s for sure!”
Afterward Ginger seemed to abandon the topic, thank God. I really didn’t see the point in discussing the stranger anymore.
After all, it wasn’t as if I was ever going to see him again.
I said my goodnights to Ginger and climbed the stairs to my apartment. After two mojitos and just enough bar snacks to dilute them a little, I was ready to kick off my heels and call it a night. Maybe I’d finally get that delayed session with my DVR.
When I stepped into my living room, however, I found myself confronted by Otto, who was floating a yard off the floor in the center of my Persian rug. His eyes were shut, but they snapped open immediately as I entered.
Staring straight at me, he intoned, “You must go to the Sheraton Universal hotel.”
“What?” I shot him an irritated look. “You channeling Obi-Wan Kenobi or something?”
“I do not know this Obi-Wan. I do know that you must go to the Sheraton Universal hotel. Immediately.”
Of all the — “What happened to not interfering in my life?”
“I never said I wouldn’t interfere. I have merely stated that I could not give you direct information pertaining to your future.”
Talk about splitting semantic hairs. “And what precisely am I supposed to do at the Sheraton Universal hotel?”
“That I cannot say. Only that the consequences will be dire if you do not.”
It didn’t take a genius to make the connection. Mystery Man had been going to the Sheraton Universal; therefore, it must be that my business with him wasn’t quite as finished as I had thought. “Any other hints? Like a name?”
“You’ll know when you get there.”
By now I was fairly used to Otto’s penchant for cryptic remarks, but that didn’t make me any less crabby about the situation. Never mind that I was tired and cross and just wanted to call it a day. How bad would it look for me to show up at the hotel in pursuit of this man whose name I didn’t even know? I’d come off as a crazy stalker.
“T
ick-tock, Persephone.”
“I just had two mojitos,” I pointed out. “I shouldn’t be driving anywhere.”
“Take some bottled water with you.”
I knew it was pointless to argue when Otto got like this. Despite his fondness for making himself scarce when I needed him, he also could hang around interminably when I wanted him to be gone. As spirit guides went, actually, he was sort of a pain in the ass. I supposed I should be glad he was my one and only guide; some psychics tended to boast of being visited by numerous entities from different planes, and I could never quite figure out why that was supposed to be a good thing.
Arms crossed, I demanded, “You going to bail me out if I get a DUI?”
“You will not get a DUI.”
That didn’t reassure me as much as it probably should have. His predictions, when he finally got around to making them, were almost always correct. But since I also knew he would hang around like the ghost of that one annoying relative who would never leave a family party at the end of the evening unless I did as he said, I shrugged and went to retrieve my black leather jacket and throw it on over my silk top. Despite the warmth of the day, it had started to get fairly chilly as soon as the sun went down.
“Anything else?” I inquired as I dug around in my purse for my car keys. “Do I need to know a secret word or something?”
“Just go.”
This time I didn’t bother to repress the sigh. I just let it out, complete with raised eyebrow, but Otto appeared supremely unimpressed. He continued to float in the middle of my living room, doing a fairly good Buddha impression. Well, a Turkish Buddha, anyway.
“If you’re going to hang around, you could water my plants. The African violets are looking a little droopy.”
Otto didn’t deign to reply, but only shut his eyes. Since there was no point in putting off the inevitable, I let myself out and headed down the stairs to the carport.
By that time the sky was lit by only the haziest remains of sunset. The fluorescent glare overhead in the carport more than made up for the lack of light, though. I squinted and pushed the button on my remote to disengage the alarm and unlock the car. After depositing my purse on the passenger seat, I slid behind the wheel and fastened the seatbelt in grim silence. The stereo blared the second I turned the key; I’d forgotten to turn it off the last time I’d driven the car, which had been during a run out to my parents’ house in Claremont the previous weekend.
I wanted silence now, though. Music sometimes helped to soothe my jangled nerves, but I knew this wasn’t one of those times. I maneuvered out of the carport, waited at the light, and then headed east on Sunset.
Even though rush hour had technically been over for almost an hour at that point, the streets in West Hollywood were still clogged. I tried to ignore the traffic, since I knew I couldn’t do anything to change it. That strategy was only partly successful — some of Otto’s urgency seemed to have rubbed off on me. I found myself drumming my fingers on the steering wheel every time I missed a light, muttering curses at the drivers who swung into my lane at the very last minute for reasons that seemed to be obvious only to them. Not very mature behavior, I’ll admit. Mentally I berated myself for letting Otto bully me into this fool’s errand. Why couldn’t I have just stood up for myself for once?
That wasn’t completely true. There had been or two instances in the past when I had put my foot down over one of Otto’s more, shall we say, inspired suggestions, but annoying as he could be, he’d been part of my life for the greater part of twenty years. He hadn’t been fooling around. For whatever reason, he truly did believe that it was of the utmost importance that I go haring off to the Sheraton Universal hotel.
At least it wasn’t raining. Earlier in the week, a late-season rainstorm had scrubbed L.A. all clean and shiny. I appreciated what the weather had done for the city’s aesthetics, but I hated driving in the rain. Especially when I was tired and (if we’re going to be completely truthful here) not entirely sober. Oh, I knew I wasn’t horrendously impaired, or anything close to it, or I would have told Otto to stuff it, no matter what the stakes. However, I could tell I wasn’t at the top of my game.
As I’d told Mystery Man, I knew most of Los Angeles like the back of my hand, so I didn’t have any trouble negotiating the sometimes tricky entrance onto the Hollywood Freeway from Highland Avenue, and I pointed my Volvo toward the Lankershim offramp as if I took that route every day. Actually, I hadn’t been there for at least five years. My college roommate Jess had her wedding reception at the hotel. Now her marriage was on the rocks. I hoped that wasn’t an omen of what I might encounter at the Sheraton myself.
I pulled into the parking garage, winced a little at the prices, then grimly pulled the ticket from the machine and headed down into the structure. Something had to be going on at the hotel, because the garage was packed. I had to wind all the way down to the lowest level before I found a spot at the far end near one of the utility elevators. Lovely. Just the perfect spot to get mugged.
Clutching my purse a little more closely to myself, I speed-walked over to the elevator — thank God I’d worn shoes with kitten heels instead of the ankle-breaking stilettos Ginger had talked me into at one of last summer’s end-of-season sales. On my way to the elevator, I couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a good number of somewhat shabby-looking vehicles in the structure, some of them emblazoned with bumper stickers that read “I want to believe” or “MUFON”…whatever that meant.
Maybe the hotel was hosting an X-Files convention. But weren’t they about ten years too late for that?
I was the only person in the elevator, and was profoundly grateful for that. I took advantage of the solitude to adjust my hair as best I could, using the polished steel of the elevator doors as a makeshift mirror. My lipstick was mostly gone; I scrounged a tube out of my purse and did a hasty reapplication just before the doors opened and deposited me in the lobby.
Okay, time for some recon. I guessed that Mystery Man must be here for some sort of conference or convention — he certainly didn’t have the air of a casual tourist. So most likely my best chance of finding him would be to go to the meeting room and conference section of the hotel. If, of course, he was even the reason Otto had sent me on this fool’s errand.
A quick scan of the floor plan map by the elevators told me that the meeting room space was all downstairs, on the Terrace Level. I followed the signs to the escalator and headed down, all the while telling myself this really wasn’t as crazy as it seemed, that there had to be a perfectly logical explanation as to why I was here.
When I got off the escalator, I found myself facing a large banner that said “Mutual UFO Network Symposium — Welcome!”
UFOs? Seriously?
And then I remembered space-boy, and how he believed his girlfriend was possessed by an alien. A sick feeling rose in my stomach that had very little to do with the two mojitos I had downed earlier.
I was beginning to understand just why Otto might have sent me here.
CHAPTER THREE
A pasty individual rose from the table situated directly beneath the banner. “Help you?” he inquired.
Oh, you can help me, all right…help me right into a straitjacket. I cleared my throat, “Um…actually, I’m looking for someone.”
“Are you attending the conference?”
“No.” The last thing I needed was to have to pay even more to find out where Mystery Man might be hiding. Then inspiration struck. “That is — I think one of your guests left his cell phone at the bar where he stopped for directions.” I fished my iPhone out of my purse and flashed it at the conference worker. “I couldn’t call him, though, because he has the phone locked down. Tall guy, mid-thirties…tweed jacket and khakis?”
“That sounds like Dr. Oliver.” The other man, who could have been anything between thirty-five and forty-five, pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned. “He’s giving the keynote address right now.” Another frown, as if my bad
timing were a personal affront. “It’s almost over, but there’s a cocktail reception afterward — ”
“It’ll only take a minute,” I said. “Really, all I have to do is slip in and give him the phone.”
“You could give it to me.”
Crap. As I flailed mentally for a reply to the man’s remark, I heard a wave of applause through the doors to the ballroom immediately to the left of us. A few seconds later, people began to stream out through those same doors.
“Looks like it’s over!” I chirped, flashing a smile that I hoped looked friendly and not at all stalker-ish. “I’ll just pop in there and give the phone to Mr. Oliver myself.”
“That’s Doctor Oliver — and — wait!”
But I didn’t wait. I turned at once and began pushing my way through the crowd, feeling a definite affinity with all those salmon who had to spend their lives swimming upstream. Luckily, there was such a crush that if anyone had been checking for membership badges at the door, there was no way they could have seen me clearly enough to know whether or not I was wearing one.
After a breathless minute, I found myself in a mostly empty ballroom. What if this Dr. Oliver had left, too? But the few conferences I had attended generally had the speakers and other guests leaving by way of the backstage area, not going out with the rest of the general attendees. I had to hope that was the case here as well.
Then I spotted him, standing at the far end of the stage and chatting with an older woman with improbably platinum blonde hair. His back was toward me. Thank God. That way I could take a second or two to catch my breath and steel myself to move forward. I just knew I didn’t dare wait too long in case the guy from the information table was in hot pursuit.
I dodged a couple of stragglers and paused a few feet away from the stage. “Dr. Oliver?”
He turned and stared down at me in incomprehension, and then an expression of astonishment flitted over his features. “Persephone?”
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