Mirror, Mirror

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  The shadows he’d seen in Dana’s eyes that morning were gone. Her hair was damp with sweat and any makeup she wore was gone. He’d bet everything, she was dying to get home and take a shower. That’s why he took her to one of his favorite Mexican food joints instead.

  It was small, Mexican music blared from a radio in the steam-filled kitchen and there were no menus other than a chalkboard listing two choices of what the cook had decided to whip up for that day.

  Dana looked around with fascination. She leaned across the tiny round table. “No offense, but are you sure the Board of Health hasn’t condemned this place?” she whispered.

  “They quit cooking rats years ago. Hey, I’m just kidding,” he said swiftly. “You won’t find better food anywhere in the city. They make their own tortillas, guacamole, and a salsa guaranteed to burn your stomach from the inside out.”

  A dark-skinned waitress smiled warmly at them and greeted Mac by name. She left a bowl of taco chips and salsa on their table, and left to get their drinks. Mac accepted his beer and tipped the bottle upward, drinking half before putting it down.

  Dana dipped a tiny corner of a chip in the salsa and brought it to her lips. Her eyes widened and teared up as she quickly ate the chip then drank her water in hopes of cooling the volcano in her mouth. She agreed with Mac’s suggestion that they eat the carnitas.

  “How do you find these places?” she asked.

  “This was my beat when I was in uniform,” he replied, using a chip as a scoop for the fiery salsa. “The partner I had then was the owner’s son.”

  “Was?”

  He nodded jerkily. “Manny and I caught a kid breaking into a video store a couple blocks from here. The kid spooked, tried to fight back, and before we knew it he’d buried a knife in Manny’s heart.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “I can still see the look of shock on Manny’s face as he realized he was dying.” He rolled the beer bottle between his palms, a characteristic gesture. “His was the first cop funeral I attended. And, unfortunately, not the last.”

  “And you refused to forget his family,” she said.

  “More like they refused to let me crawl off in a corner,” he admitted. “The day after Manny’s funeral, his mom showed up with a plate of enchiladas and ordered me to eat every one of them. The next day, his dad and two brothers showed up with a couple bottles of tequila and we drank to Manny’s memory.” A faint smile touched his lips. “I’d never been so sick in my life. If it hadn’t been for them keeping at me, I probably would have quit the force then and there. Not because I was afraid of getting killed, but because I was afraid of losing another partner. Manny’s mother, Lydia, told me it was up to me to go on. To do what I’d planned to do, which was work my way up to detective. Subsequent promotions meant I left the neighborhood, but I never forgot them.” He looked around. “I come here a couple times a month for dinner. Lydia fusses over me and scolds me for not eating right.”

  “And you do not eat right!” A heavily accented voice interrupted.

  Dana guessed the woman setting the plates before them could be anywhere between forty and sixty. She had the ageless beauty many women try to obtain with expensive creams and surgery. But the sorrow reflected in her expressive dark eyes said her life wasn’t an easy one.

  “Finally you bring a woman for me to feed.” She wrapped her hand around Mac’s neck as she dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I am glad to see you have chosen one who is not only lovely but looks as if she has intelligence.” She smiled at Dana.

  To Dana’s surprise, a dark red color circled Mac’s neck and moved up his face.

  “Lydia, this is Dana Madison. A client,” he muttered.

  Lydia’s laughter was clear and musical. “Of course she is, mi hijo.” She pinched his cheek. “Now you will eat everything on this plate,” she told him. She turned to Dana. “And so will you.” She stepped closer. Her smile was gentle as she tipped Dana’s chin up to better study her. “Mac will make things right for you. When that happens, your eyes will light up like the stars in the sky. And smiles will be easier for you. Mac is a good boy. A little stubborn, perhaps.” She waved her hand back and forth. “But I think you can deal with that. Now eat before it gets cold. If you eat all your food, I will bring you flan.”

  “Best damn flan in the country,” Mac complimented. “Ow!” He rubbed the back of his head where Lydia had smacked him.

  “What have I told you about your language?” she scolded before walking back to the kitchen.

  Dana ducked her head as she picked up one of the carnitas. Her lips tipped upward as she pretended to concentrate on her food.

  “Do not laugh,” Mac ordered under his breath.

  His scowl did nothing to intimidate her. Her shoulders trembled with suppressed giggles.

  “First I get beat up, then I get laughed at,” he muttered.

  “Big tough private detective.”

  At least, that was what he thought she said. He wasn’t about to ask her to repeat it. He settled for spooning fiery salsa on one of the carnitas and crunching down on the spicy food.

  Lydia was right. He’d never brought a woman here. Maybe because he felt the Esteban family was the family he never had. If he’d brought a woman to the restaurant before, Lydia would have been ready to plan a wedding. Why he’d brought Dana here, he wasn’t sure. Part of him said he was proving that when this was all over he wouldn’t be able to just walk away from her. He wouldn’t be able to leave her.

  Just as Manny’s family hadn’t walked away from him or blamed him for Manny’s death. As he’d blamed himself.

  “I won’t have a stomach lining after all this.” She waved her hand in front of her open mouth. “There’s steam coming out, isn’t there?”

  Mac grinned. “More like fire.”

  “Augh!” she groaned, then laughed, looking more relaxed than she had all day. “First you try to turn me into Stallone, then you succeed in turning my stomach into a volcano. You don’t do anything in half measures, do you.”

  He gingerly rubbed his midsection. “Next time, I’m wearing body armor.”

  “That wasn’t a gym you took me to. That was a room filled with major testosterone. Were they all boxers?” she asked, picking up one of her carnitas and taking a bite.

  “Some are. A lot of cops also go there. It’s not a place you’d find written up in a local magazine. Mainly because the owner prefers to keep his place low-key.”

  “I don’t think he has anything to worry about.” She brushed an unruly strand of hair away from her face. “I’m not trying to be a snob, but I can’t imagine women rushing in to use the equipment.”

  “Their loss.”

  When Mac looked at Dana now with her hair tousled, no makeup, and even a little smelly from her workout, she looked more beautiful than she did when wearing her designer clothing and made up to the max.

  Oh yeah, he was really keeping his distance with this client.

  “Don’t you ever think about taking a day off to play?” Mac asked when they later left the restaurant. Lydia appeared again with two large brown bags, which she pushed into Mac’s hands after instructing him one of them was for Dana. She hugged the younger woman and told her to return any time, and that she didn’t need to bring Mac with her. Mac grumbled a bit about how he wasn’t appreciated, but he smiled when he kissed Lydia on the cheek.

  “I have too much work to do to even think about taking a day off,” Dana explained

  He unlocked the truck and placed the bags carefully in the storage area.

  “But you took today off and nothing happened. The sky didn’t fall and you didn’t turn to dust.” He helped her into the passenger seat and walked around to the driver’s side.

  Dana secured her seat belt. “You forget that I’ve basically stepped into my father’s shoes. And it hasn’t proven to be all that easy. Our established clients still tend to think of me as Jeremy’s daughter, not as the owner. I’ve had to work hard to gain their trust in me. Then when my
mother had her stroke, I spent any remaining time at the hospital with her.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure for one person,” he murmured.

  “You should talk. Look at all you do. You have more integrity than a hundred men,” she pointed out. “Yet underneath that bad-boy exterior you’re pure marshmallow.”

  Mac winced at her description. “If you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate it if that piece of news didn’t get out.” He climbed behind the wheel.

  “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” she assured him.

  The moment Dana entered her house, she felt the tension knotting up between her shoulder blades. Reality struck a hard blow as she recalled why she’d wanted to leave the house that morning.

  Duffy pawed at the patio door, woofing a demand to be let inside. She walked over and slid back the door. He paused long enough to lick a thank-you kiss across the back of her hand before bounding over to Mac.

  “No matter what you do, it isn’t easy to forget, is it?” he commented as he put down the brown paper bag Lydia had given him.

  Dana unloaded the containers and placed them in the refrigerator. Then she pulled out a pitcher of iced tea and filled two glasses, pushing one toward Mac. She filled a bowl with water and set it down on the floor for Duffy.

  “Did Abby think your dream had a meaning?” Mac asked, following her into the family room. He chose the couch while she curled up in a chair.

  Why did he have to bring that up? Dana didn’t want to remember her nightmare. She’d been able to push the memory to the back of her mind for the past couple of hours. She wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened and that she and Mac had spent the day together.

  Except that their “day out” had been spent at a psychiatrist’s office, a gym where she tried to punch the stuffing out of Mac, then a restaurant where the owner treated him like a beloved son.

  She circled the rim of her glass with her fingertip. “Dr. Moore said the dream could have a hidden meaning or it could be nothing more than a nasty nightmare due to eating dill pickles before bed,” she replied.

  “You ate dill pickles before you went to bed?”

  “No, I was just using it as an example. You know how some say if you eat certain foods before you go to bed it can cause nightmares?” Encouraged by his nod, she continued. “Or maybe watch a scary movie or read something in a book.”

  “Is that what you were told when you were a little girl?” he asked.

  “Actually, I was told if I ate chocolate cake before I went to sleep I’d dream about the land where chocolate was made. I used to wake up feeling so disappointed that I didn’t dream about Chocolate Land.”

  “It sounds as if your parents wanted you to have nothing but good dreams,” Mac said quietly.

  “Yes, I guess they did.” She set her glass on the nearby table. “Since I was the beloved only daughter of doting parents, I should have been a spoiled-rotten child who cared for no one but herself.”

  “So what happened?” he asked, curious to find out more about her.

  One shoulder raised in a careless shrug. “Perhaps it had to do with my father insisting I do chores to earn my allowance. I had to keep my room clean, make my bed, and as I got older I was given a few more chores. My father loved to say you had to earn your own way.”

  “No getting any toy you wanted? Private schools? Trips to Europe every summer?”

  “I’m sure I had more toys than I knew what to do with. I attended a private school, but that was because my mother seemed to be afraid I wouldn’t be safe in a public school. The trip to Europe was a surprise after I graduated from college,” she replied. “My parents tended to be overprotective when I was little. When I got older, I once asked my father if he ran a background check on each of my friends and their families. I was honestly afraid he was going to say yes.”

  “Any reason why he seemed paranoid? Was there a kidnapping threat when you were little? Maybe one of your friends was kidnapped?”

  Dana thought about it. “No, not that I remember. Yet, there was one afternoon I’d gone to a friend’s house. She only lived down the street from us. But I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. When I got home, Daddy was ready to call the police and my mother was having hysterics. That was the first time he’d ever yelled at me. By the time he finished, we were both crying.” Her brow furrowed. “Odd, I haven’t thought of that time in years. He later said that we lived in a neighborhood of wealth and he didn’t want anything to happen to me.”

  “You were very close to your father, weren’t you.”

  She nodded. “My mother said we were two of a kind. If I played with my dolls, I’d put them in an office setting. My mother’s health was fragile long before she had her stroke. Our time together was having tea parties, or I would help her with her flower arrangements. She was happiest when she looked after her flowers.”

  “No offense, but it sounds as if you had a pretty lonely childhood.” Mac finished his iced tea and put his glass on the floor.

  “I think it was more I was a loner,” she corrected him. “About every six weeks or so, my parents would go off somewhere for a long weekend. I didn’t see anything relaxing about those times for them, since they both usually came back quiet, almost distant. Harriet, our housekeeper, would make elaborate plans for us. We’d stay up all night eating popcorn and watching movies. Sometimes I was allowed to invite a couple friends over for a slumber party.”

  “But what about now?” Mac asked her. “Do you still stay up all night eating popcorn and watching videos, or have slumber parties?”

  She offered him a wry smile. “They’re not exactly high on my priority list.”

  “Maybe you should bump them up.”

  “I have a life, Mac,” she reminded him. “Maybe even a double life.”

  “Is that what Abby said?”

  “She hasn’t seen me enough to come to any decision.” She shifted, now sitting cross-legged in the deep cushioned chair.

  What was Dana going to admit? That with each passing day she was feeling more lonely? That these frightening episodes had left her looking over her shoulder?

  “Excuse me,” she mumbled, bolting out of her chair. She hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, then splashed cold water on her face and patted it dry. She stared at the mirror, but it only brought back memories of her nightmare.

  Had something happened to her as a small child that caused her parents to be overly protective? If so, could that have something to do with what was going on now?

  It wasn’t until she started to replace the hand towel on the rack that she noticed it. Her hand froze in mid-air, the towel slipping from her nerveless fingers.

  “Mac.” She spoke his name in a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat. “Mac! Mac!”

  “Dana?” A fist pounded against the door. “Let me in.”

  “It’s unlocked,” she said. She still hadn’t moved, and stepped aside just before the door flew open.

  Mac grabbed her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

  She jerked her head toward the bathroom counter.

  He moved around her and swept his gaze over the area. At first glance, nothing looked out of place. Until he realized, just as she had, that a figurine stood behind the frosted glass container that held hand cream.

  Mac pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and carefully wrapped it around the figurine as he picked it up.

  Dana looked ill as she stared at the figure fashioned in a blatant, erotic manner.

  “That is so sick,” she gasped.

  “‘Slut of the Year.”’ He read the words engraved along the base of the statue. “I’ll see if a friend of mine can get any prints off this.”

  She shook her head. “How could this have happened? I set the alarm before we left the house,” she insisted. “It wasn’t there this morning. I know it wasn’t!”

  Carrying the statue in one hand, he wrapped his other arm around her and steered her out of the ro
om.

  “Nothing matters,” she babbled. “No matter what I do, this won’t go away.”

  He set the statue down on a table and grabbed her shoulders. “Yes, it will,” he said fiercely. “There was a good reason why this happened now. Things have been too quiet lately. This was done to shake you up.”

  “Mission accomplished,” she said bitterly.

  “Only if you allow it to.” He looked torn. “I want to get this in. Are you going to be okay?”

  Dana was barely listening to him. “I’m always okay. Don’t you know that?” she murmured. She looked as if she was ready to cry.

  Mac wrapped his arms around her and seized her mouth in a kiss that literally took her breath away. He consumed her the way a dying man ate his last feast. As if there were no tomorrow.

  With a muffled curse, he pulled away. He spun around, hands on his hips as he filled his lungs with much-needed air. He reached for the statue and carefully picked it up so he wouldn’t accidentally smudge any fingerprints.

  Dana, not doing much better, held on to the nearby table as she tried to regain her senses.

  “You’ve got a good right hook and a potent mouth,” he muttered. He snapped his fingers at Duffy, who’d been dozing in the kitchen. “Set your alarm after I leave,” he ordered as he headed for the door.

  Dana made her way to the door and threw the dead bolt. It took her three times to get the code right before the green light flashed, silently announcing the alarm was set.

  For the next hour, she sat in a chair staring at the wall.

  She was still reeling from his kiss.

  She prided herself on being a rational human being. Yet, Mac McKenna only had to look at her and she went weak in the knees. If he’d suggested they move to her bedroom, she would have willingly gone.