I waited until we were both inside and fastening our seat belts before I replied, “Well enough. One of my college roommates lives in Burbank, so I come out to visit every once in awhile when our schedules mesh.” Those meet-ups depended more on Jess’s schedule than mine, since she worked in merchandising for Disney and had a lifestyle that was a lot more high-powered than mine, but I guessed Paul didn’t really need to know that.
“Good. Where’s the closest electronics store? And would it be open?”
The clock on the radio told me it was 8:45. Scary to think that I’d met up with Paul Oliver only a little over an hour earlier. “There’s a Best Buy up on Burbank Boulevard that we might make before it closes.”
He didn’t say anything, but merely guided the car out of the parking lot and in the direction I’d indicated. From there, it was only a mile or so to the shopping center where the store was located, but we still cut it close because of some extremely bad luck at a couple of lights. Despite that, we made it with five minutes to spare. I waited in the car while Paul carried out whatever transaction he’d planned. A few minutes later, he came back carrying a shopping bag, out of which he pulled a plastic clamshell case that contained one of those prepaid cell phones, the kind where you didn’t need a contract.
“Let me guess,” I said, as he pulled a Swiss Army knife off his keychain and began to slice the packaging open. “Not traceable.”
“Precisely.” And he extricated the phone, then set it on the console between the front seats and proceeded to open a second package, this one holding a car charger. “I’m not entirely certain that they’re surveilling my phone, but it never hurts to be safe.”
I probably didn’t want to know, but decided to go ahead and ask anyway. “And exactly who are ‘they’?”
He didn’t answer immediately, instead plugging the charger into the cigarette lighter and connecting it to the phone. After a long pause, he said, “People you really don’t want after you…or finding you.”
Wonderful. “So what next?”
“How much cash do you have on hand?”
Ha. He was in for a bit of a surprise. “About fourteen hundred dollars, give or take.”
That reply did seem to flap the imperturbable Dr. Oliver. His head swiveled in my direction, and he said, “What?”
“My clients prefer to pay me in cash, for reasons that should be obvious enough. Although Mr. Jimenez does keep trying to persuade the IRS that my services should be a tax deduction, so he pays me by check.” I grinned; that particular stratagem hadn’t been working so well. At least, the last few times I’d finally gone on record and informed Mr. Jimenez that his creative bookkeeping would result in a terse letter from the Internal Revenue Service, which of course only proved to him that I really was able to see the future. Then again, it didn’t take a psychic to know that playing fast and loose with the tax code the way he did was a surefire recipe for an audit. “Anyway, I’d meant to go to the bank, but what with everything going on, I just didn’t. Good for us, though, right?”
“Very good for us,” he agreed, and started up the car. “I have some cash, but nothing like that.”
“And what do we need the cash for?”
“That should be obvious enough.”
I waited for him to enlighten me.
He pulled back onto Burbank Boulevard, heading toward the freeway. “You can’t go home, of course. I’m sure someone will be waiting for you. So the best solution is to find an inexpensive hotel or motel where we can regroup and I can attempt to make contact.”
“Contact with whom?” Under other circumstances, I might have been a bit more anxious about spending a night in a hotel room with a man I’d just met, especially since I’d never been much of one for one-night stands. However, I knew Paul Oliver wasn’t doing this as a convoluted way of trying to get me in the sack. If that was all he’d wanted, I was pretty sure he had a much nicer room back at the Sheraton Universal than wherever we were going to end up.
“An…acquaintance. Someone who might be able to help.”
I didn’t see how this mysterious acquaintance could get us out of the mess in which we were currently embroiled, but since I didn’t have any better options to offer, I figured I might as well let Paul try.
“I know a place out in Pomona. They take cash and don’t ask questions — at least, they didn’t used to,” I told him. “We need to head east.”
Even though he was maneuvering us onto the on-ramp, he still managed to shoot a startled glance in my direction. I guess I didn’t really give the impression of someone who knew all the cash-only, pay-by-the-hour dives.
I grinned. “Not what you’re thinking, Dr. Oliver. I’m from Claremont — Pomona is the town next door. When I was in high school, the kids used to rent rooms at a couple of these motels when they wanted to party without anyone asking too many questions. Besides, I’m guessing Pomona is probably the last place anyone’s going to be looking for us.”
“Good strategy,” he said. “I will admit to being something at a loss here in Southern California.”
“Oh?” After all, I knew next to nothing about him, except that he was a double Ph.D., chased UFOs, and drove a mean getaway car. “So where are you from?”
“New Mexico.”
If he was unfamiliar with Southern California, ditto for me and New Mexico. I’d always had a vague impression of the place as being overrun with New Age types and UFO hunters. Well, I supposed I’d been right on one count, anyway. Despite my profession, I didn’t really buy into a lot of the whole New Age philosophy. I knew Otto existed because he’d shown up in an extremely inconvenient way the day I turned twelve, but as for the crystals and the Reiki and all the rest of it went, well, I could definitely leave it.
“Right,” I said. “Roswell and all that.”
“Actually, my parents owned a ranch about fifty miles outside of Santa Fe.”
Paul hadn’t struck me as the ranching type. Then again, a ranch might explain the calluses on his hands. But he had said “owned” — past tense.
As smoothly as if he’d done it a hundred times, he maneuvered the Camry over to the right and onto the long curving ramp to the 134 freeway, taking us east toward Pasadena and points beyond. After a brief silence, he went on, “We sold most of the land when my father died. I kept the house, but my mother moved into a retirement community in Santa Fe. Said she wanted to live someplace where someone would do for her for once.” A corner of his mouth quirked, just a little. If I hadn’t shifted in my seat so I was turned more toward him, I would have missed it altogether.
I didn’t know exactly what to say. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“It’s all right. It was eight years ago. He was out driving fence posts, and he just went. Heart attack. At least he was outside, doing something he loved.”
True enough, I supposed. Even though I didn’t have any earthly idea of exactly what driving a fence post entailed, I thought it would be better to go that way, in the wind and the sun, and not in some hospital bed. Death didn’t frighten me at all; I knew too much about what waited on the other side, knew that death was a transition and nothing more.
Pain, on the other hand….
“So is that how you got into astronomy?” I asked. The question probably sounded like what it was, an obvious attempt to change the subject, but I didn’t see any point in dwelling on painful memories. “Big sky country and all that?”
“Technically, I think Montana is the real big sky country, but yes. Not much light interference out where we were. Where I am, that is.”
I pictured him then, in some lonely farmhouse stuck out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by telescopes and star charts and whatever else it was that astronomers used. No wonder he wasn’t used to Los Angeles.
“You said you were from Claremont,” he commented. “Good colleges there.”
His turn to change the subject, but I knew I was fair game as well. Maybe I should have been pleased that he wanted t
o learn a little more about me. Or maybe he just wanted to talk about me so we wouldn’t have to talk about him.
“Actually, my father’s a professor at Harvey Mudd,” I replied. “Mechanical engineering.”
“Really?” He sounded almost surprised, as if he couldn’t believe a psychic could be connected to someone so…scientific. “We had a few graduate students come to the university from HMC.”
“Is that where you teach?” I asked. “At the University of New Mexico?”
At once, his face went still, as if I had touched a nerve. “I used to teach there.”
From his tone, I gathered that he really didn’t want to discuss it. If I’d had Otto around, I might have been able to pick his brain — spiritually speaking, of course — but since Otto was still MIA, I decided to let it go. If we spent enough time together, maybe Paul would feel more comfortable discussing his past. In the meantime….
I glanced at the dashboard clock. Nine-twenty. We might be able to make it.
“When you get to La Verne, pull off at Fruit Street,” I told him. “If we’re going to be on the lam and hiding from the bad guys, I at least want to be able to do it with a change of clothes.”
Paul watched in some bemusement as I met him at the cash register at the Kohl’s in La Verne. “How did you even know this place would be open?”
“My mother never met a sale she didn’t like. I’ve been dragged here more often than I’d like to say.” And thank God for the store’s late hours, and their perpetual discounts. I’d picked up a couple of pairs of jeans and a few tops, as well as a week’s worth of underwear and a pair of flats. No more running from the feds in heels, that was for sure.
I noticed that Paul had done the same — that is, I spied some Levi’s and shirts and a couple of packages of underwear and socks in the pile he was carrying. No shoes, but as he was already wearing some sturdy-looking lace-ups, he probably didn’t need new ones.
He smiled then. “You are proving to be a valuable resource, Persephone O’Brien.”
Valuable at getting you into trouble, I thought, but I only returned his smile. “And after this a stop at the drugstore for some toothbrushes and some other odds and ends, and then we should be set.”
A nod, but he didn’t say anything else, because it was his turn to go up to the register. I watched him count his money carefully as he pulled it out of his wallet, and wondered how much cash on hand he really had. The prepaid Visa was probably tied up with the deposit for the rental car, so I guessed he didn’t have enough money to be throwing it around. I hoped he wouldn’t put up too much argument when I tried to pay for the motel. It was the least I could do, considering he wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for me. That is, I assumed it was because of me, and my connection with Alex Hathaway, the guy with the alien-possessed girlfriend. If the feds really had been after Paul and not me, they could have grabbed him at the Sheraton Universal any time they wanted
Luckily, he didn’t protest when I paid for two days in advance. The motel was pretty much as I had remembered it, even though more than fifteen years had passed since the last time I’d set foot in the place. Maybe they’d swapped out the ugly brown and orange bedspreads for marginally better-looking blue and green ones, but the muddy close-pile carpet appeared to be the same, as was the lingering ghost-scent of old cigarettes, even though the room was supposed to be nonsmoking. I’d also made a half-hearted attempt to get us separate rooms, but Paul had only said tersely, “It’s better if we don’t separate,” and I’d sighed and laid down the money for the one room.
When the clerk asked for our names, I’d briefly considered putting us down as Mulder and Scully, then decided that was a bit too obvious. So Harry and LeAnne Smith occupied Room 52, which was luckily at the back of the building and not facing out on Foothill Boulevard, which could get pretty noisy.
I set down my Kohl’s bag and the bag from the drugstore, which held toothbrushes and toothpaste and deodorant and all the other things I knew I couldn’t live without. My beloved Clinique facial products were out of the question, but I knew I could get by with Olay in a pinch. At least the room had two double beds. I didn’t think I was quite up to lying down next to Paul.
He immediately sat at the table by the window, and, after taking a quick peek outside and then drawing the curtains as tightly as he could, brought out the cell phone he’d bought. It must have been charged enough by then, because I saw him pull out the manual, enter a few codes, and then wait.
“Is it working?” I asked.
“Looks like it. I’m going to try texting my contact now.”
“Can’t you just call?”
“He doesn’t believe in phone calls.”
Lacking any kind of reply to that, I watched as Paul began tapping out a message with the kind of speed I’d previously only witnessed in preteens at bus stops. Those kids could text. I sidled up behind him and looked over his shoulder so I could see what he was typing.
Lunch tomorrow? What about Pad Thai — I know you liked #2.
What the hell?
“You’re making a lunch date?” I demanded. “That’s what all the secrecy is about?”
“No,” he replied, his tone brusque. “We’ve set up a series of codes. This message lets him know which key to use to decrypt any future ones.”
“Oh,” I said. What was this, the Bourne Identity?
Then again, Paul obviously knew a thing or two about flying under the radar, and if he and his “contact” wanted to play spy with their decoder rings, then God bless ’em. “I thought you said this phone couldn’t be traced.”
“Yes, but we don’t know anything about what kind if surveillance might be happening on his end.”
Once again, I couldn’t come up with a coherent response to that sort of comment, so I just shrugged and went on into the bathroom, taking the bag of drugstore goodies with me. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about retiring for the night in front of Paul with no makeup on, but I knew my skin would give me grief if I didn’t properly moisturize, so that was that. Reassuring myself that a man who spent his time chasing after little green men probably wouldn’t notice whether I had mascara on or not helped a little.
By the time I emerged from the bathroom, he’d apparently gotten another message. Since he didn’t even bother to look up at me, I felt a little more comfortable about leaning over his shoulder to read the text.
I shouldn’t have bothered. Yes, the letters were familiar, but that was about it. They certainly didn’t form any recognizable words. I saw a few numbers interspersed with the letters, again, in no discernible order.
“You know what that says,” I said, my tone flat.
“Yes, of course.”
“But how are you decrypting it without the key?”
“I do have the key.” Paul closed the phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then rose from his chair. His gaze didn’t flicker as he looked down at me, shiny face and all. I’d bought an oversized T-shirt off the clearance rack to sleep in, guessing that lingerie wasn’t really the order of the day.
At least he didn’t appear dismayed by my complete lack of cosmetics. “So where is it?” I asked, glancing down at the table. Its surface was noticeably clear of notebooks, cocktail napkins, or anything else that could have held such a code key.
“Here.” He tapped his temple.
I realized my mouth was hanging open and quickly shut it. Sure, my toothbrushing had made me minty fresh, but that was no reason for me to stand there and look like a fish dangling from a hook. “You memorized it?”
“Yes. Memorized them, actually. We have five different systems set up, just in case.”
Now, I had never thought of myself as anything less than intelligent. My entire school career had consisted of honors courses, and I’d finished my master’s in eighteen months instead of the standard two years. At the moment, however, I couldn’t help feeling more like one of the kids who always sat in the back of class and ended up taking sum
mer school in order to graduate on time.
However, since making a comment about his intellect seemed as if it would be grossly inappropriate, I settled for remarking, “You two must have a lot of spare time on your hands.”
Another one of those half-smiles. “Enough.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it on the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. “Are you done with the bathroom?”
“Yes.” Maybe it was just my mind playing with me, but I got the distinct impression that he’d been a little dismayed by the length of time I’d spent attending to my nightly ablutions. That was nothing. He’d be in for a real shock if I decided to straighten my hair during any of our tenure together. “So what did it say? Your contact’s message, that is.”
“He’s agreed to meet us tomorrow at eleven. I got the impression that’s early for him.”
“Where?” I had visions of going to some hermit’s basement apartment, but somehow I doubted he’d be all that keen to have us over if he was as paranoid as all his actions so far seemed to suggest.
“Griffith Observatory.”
“Huh?” I crossed my arms and frowned, trying to see the logic in the plan. “Isn’t that awfully public?”
“Precisely.”
Common wisdom did seem to dictate that people were less likely to start shooting up public places. Then again, you’d think with all the cloak-and-dagger behavior, there wouldn’t be much chance of anyone even knowing we were meeting at Griffith Observatory in the first place.
“You do know how to get there, don’t you?” Paul asked, for the first time looking a little worried.
“Oh, sure,” I responded. Thank God his suspicious friend had set our meeting time for eleven; that way we might be able to avoid the worst of the inbound L.A. traffic. “Piece of cake.”
“Good.”
And he went off to the bathroom, while I decided it was probably a good idea to climb into bed. I took the one farthest away from the window. If anyone did try to invade our room in the middle of the night, I figured Paul was better equipped to fend them off than I.
Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest Page 58