The waitress brought a bowl of sliced lemons. Instead of dropping one in her tea, Pippa squeezed one with her teeth, as if it were an orange slice. Oz suffered an erotic vision of what else she might do with that lovely wide mouth and pink lips.
She didn’t seem aware of the implication of her action. She stared over his shoulder, fondling a second lemon slice. “I come with a high price,” she conceded. “I doubt that you can meet it.”
He was actually anticipating her reply. He hoped she wouldn’t disappoint by naming something trifling like a Ferrari. “You’re a very clever woman, Miss James. I’m interested in hearing what you want, since you claim it isn’t fame or fortune.”
Dot returned with their orders. “I talked with Brother Frank. He said the auditorium is available,” the waitress said, apropos of nothing. “The church has a better sound system than the school. And Henry said he can operate it. He’s been out of work since the radio station shut down.”
She hurried to her next customer, apparently not expecting a reply to her enigmatic declaration.
Oz bit into his toast and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Miss Pippa’s serenity didn’t seem to be disturbed by Dot’s announcement. He wondered if she had drifted to another planet.
He admired the flawless skin and distinctive high cheekbones she tried to disguise with the abominable pink glasses. Even the frames were pink. With seashells on the corners. Where in hell did she find rose-colored glasses?
Which was when Oz realized she was the perfect person to read her damned books. She was the characters she wrote about. He didn’t know if she’d help him find Donal, but she was about to make him a shitload of money.
“I want you to find my family, Mr. Oswin,” she said, without any inflection to indicate whether this was as impossible as joining her on whatever planet she was currently inhabiting.
“Your family?” He halted with his toast halfway to his mouth.
Her smile was beatific. “Exactly. I’m an orphan. I have no idea who my parents are. If you cannot accomplish that, then you’ll have to hire an actress. Either way, I’ll only agree to the show if it’s filmed here. Are we clear?”
She’d just kneed him in the groin and knew it. But he had an ace named Conan up his sleeve that she didn’t know about. Oz loved negotiating, especially when his opponent was tall and gorgeous. Here was the jaded, bottom-line woman he’d originally expected.
“I already have this project approved. The network is desperate to fill this time slot,” he warned her. “I work with them regularly, so they’re willing to slot me in without a pilot. They trust me, which means I have to deliver, which requires filming now. I’ll send my engineers up here to check the feasibility of using your auditorium and start hiring set decorators and script writers. But you won’t get paid until the film is in the can.”
“You can’t put me on television until I’m paid,” she insisted.
“We’ll do your bit on green screen and substitute someone else if the deal falls through. Can I go back to town and call your agent?”
Whoops, he could see her eyes glaze over at that. He’d moved too fast. And brought up a topic she hadn’t considered. So, she wasn’t as experienced at this kind of negotiating as he’d hoped.
“I’ll call him. We’ll work out a deal,” she decided. “I’ll have him call you when he’s ready. But you can’t just foist off anybody as my parents. It has to be the real deal. I want documentation.”
“Even if you won’t like the result?” he asked warily. “What if they’re druggies living in squalor in Hicksville, Alabama?”
“Even if they’re dead and in a cemetery. But in that case, I want to know who their families are so I can try to talk with them.”
“That’s pathetic, you know.” He took another swig of his coffee, but it was lukewarm. “You are who you made yourself. The sperm that created you only explains your eye color.”
She removed her glasses and forced him to meet her eyes.
“These aren’t contacts, Mr. Oswin. How many people have you ever met with eyes this color?”
***
No one had turquoise eyes, Pippa already knew. And she knew of no one who had a Voice that could kill and maim, either, but she wasn’t about to reveal that nasty little bit of information. She needed to know if she was a true freak or if she had family out there who were just like her.
When she’d been little, she’d hoped people would notice her eyes and say they knew someone with eyes just that color, but it had never happened. When she’d agreed to go on stage and television, she’d done so in hopes of a phone call claiming she looked just like someone’s niece or daughter. That hadn’t happened, either, but she still hoped that was because of technology and not because her family was in a graveyard.
Some producers had said her eyes were freaky and told her to wear contacts. Most people didn’t even notice the weirdness. They thought her eyes were green or blue and didn’t see how the colors blended together.
Oz saw it, though. She watched his nonchalant expression sharpen with interest. She had his full attention now. She didn’t even need to mention her Voice as another means of identifying potential family.
“I thought they were contacts,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean the color breeds true. The color could just be some genetic fluke.”
She nodded acknowledgment. “I was three when I was left at a fire station. Someone might still remember me. The color doesn’t come through on film, but if you can get me close enough to a place where my family lived, I can go from door to door if I have to.”
“I’ll admit I’m intrigued. Why haven’t you paid someone to do the research for you before this?”
Pippa allowed herself a smile. “I have. They’ve all failed.”
Finishing her last swallow of fresh orange juice, she rose from the booth and walked off, leaving him to chew on Dot’s tough bacon.
Outside, she almost came apart at the seams, but she held herself together long enough to walk back to her sanctuary. She waved at people as if she were registering their presence, but she wasn’t. She was shivering so hard she was barely functioning.
She’d just agreed to step on a stage again.
In the church, she reminded herself. The church was safe.
She would be Out There, in public. People might recognize her. Maybe remember the psychotic Syrene who had destroyed her husband and lives untold. The gossip sheets would have a field day. The paparazzi would be camped on her doorstep—
No, Oz would never succeed. He was no wizard. But he’d have to come up here, spend money, help people until he realized that he would have to walk away without her. She was doing the right thing. Surely.
She bolted the gate behind her and settled on her meditation bench.
She hadn’t hurt the kids at the day care with her Voice. That was her mantra. She hadn’t hurt them. She wouldn’t hurt them. She couldn’t hurt them.
She wouldn’t sing. She would just read. Calmly, carefully. She’d practiced. She’d be fine.
If she didn’t fall apart. It all depended on whether she could tame the virago who lured men to destruction and keep her cool under stress.
Knowing nothing would come of her performance, she should be safe.
Safe, please, O Powers that Be. Don’t let her kill again.
Chapter 5
Oz ran his hand through his hair, signed the Nathan contract, and shoved the papers over the desk to the lawyer. “We’ll start scheduling the production next week. You have my assistant’s number. Keep in touch.”
Wearing Hollywood casual, the lawyer rose from the pedestal swivel recliner Oz provided for his guests. “I’m taking the client out for drinks this evening. Want to join us? He has some intriguing ideas.”
Normally, Oz would have done just that. He liked kno
wing the people whose money he took.
But turquoise eyes and rose-colored glasses haunted his curiosity, and he needed to talk to pragmatic Conan before weird ideas of magical genies took root. “Another time. I’ve got a hot project almost in my hands. When that’s settled, we’ll talk.”
The lawyer nodded and departed, leaving Oz free of accountants and lawyers and nagging Ritas. After a barrage of Rita’s irate phone calls, his secretary had blocked her number from the office phone. The woman would probably come after him with a pickax shortly, but he still had time to call his brother.
Conan strode in before Oz could punch the call button. Tall and more lanky than muscled, wearing black-framed glasses, he still managed to fill a room when he entered. Oswins did not do meek well, no matter how techie they might be.
Conan threw a folder on Oz’s empty desk. “Your girl could fill a filing cabinet. I reduced the file to her more dramatic moments.”
Oz flipped open the folder, saw the first page was Syrene’s very public meltdown, and closed it again. The photo of her grief and rage expressed in the twisted cry of her wide mouth, with rivers of mascara running down her cheeks, churned his stomach. “Do you have anything on her parents, where she’s from originally?”
“What in hell does that have to do with anything? She’s a big girl now. She doesn’t need anyone’s signature but her own. Did she agree to the show?” Conan took the chair just vacated by the lawyer and swung around, admiring Oz’s trophies and the bank of fog covering the city view out the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“She’s an orphan.” Oz riffled through the folder. She was right. The startling color of her eyes didn’t really come through on film. Interesting. She was still gorgeous, even as a teen angel with costume wings and long silver hair. “She wants to know who her family is.”
“She was in foster care. Social Services can’t tell her?” Conan grabbed the file and flipped the pages he’d obviously memorized. His whiskey-colored hair fell over his wide brow, and he shoved it out of his eyes. He produced a document and flung it across the desk.
Conan was thorough. He had a copy of the papers giving Philippa Seraphina Malcolm into the care of Patsy and George James for a nominal sum per month, which were dated over twenty years ago.
“They know nothing about her, not even her date of birth. She was found wandering around a fire station in Bakersfield.”
“If they didn’t know who she was, where did she get all the names?” Oz flipped through the next few pages, but they were mostly school records. She’d been a straight-A student while she attended public school. Hitting the stage at age twelve had required private tutors, and the grade reports stopped. The file included a copy of her GED diploma and transcripts from two years at a community college—both obtained after her public breakdown.
“Don’t know. I didn’t realize you were interested in toddler Pippa. I’ll have to drive out to Bakersfield to research. This is just what I dug out online.”
“Impressive.” Oz pulled out a paparazzi shot showing a platinum-haired teen with an uncertain smile. “The eyes are wrong. She’s wearing blue contacts in this. Her eyes are a weird turquoise. Her hair is red now. I didn’t ask if that was natural.”
Conan flipped through the file and produced an official-looking document probably hacked from a government agency. “Red hair, blue eyes. Some flippin’ producer probably had her bleach the hair platinum to increase sales.”
Since Oz was a flippin’ producer and paying Conan’s bill, his brother restrained his opinion of the entertainment industry.
Perfectly aware of what greedy money men could do to a child star, Oz hesitated before ordering Conan to dig deeper into her career. As these few photos showed, Pippa was damaged goods, so fragile that even he debated the wisdom of carrying through with this.
But then he thought of Donal, and he set his jaw. “Dig into everyone she ever came into contact with if you need to. There ought to be enough collateral damage willing to talk for a price. Try not to get too greedy on my dime, but I need to know who she is, or I’m out a lot more money than you’ll cost me.”
Not easily dismissed, Conan sprawled his legs across the pricey piece of modern art that Oz called his office carpet. “I know you, bro. You’re not telling me something. There are ten dozen has-been teen sensations on the market. Why the bitchy, crazy one?”
“She writes the books I’m basing the show on,” Oz said reasonably enough. “Now get out of here, so I can get some work done.”
Conan didn’t move. “You wanted Syrene before you knew she wrote books. Maybe it’s about time you start treating me like an adult with a brain in my head.”
“I trusted you enough to hire you and not some lame detective.” Oz flung a stress ball at him. “No one said that requires telling you everything.”
Conan caught the ball. Rising from the chair, he bounced it on the broad expanse of ebony desk. “It does if it affects the case. I hate puzzles with missing pieces.”
“Believe me, what I know has nothing to do with what she wants. This is the only way I can bribe her to take the job.” Oz knew he was being cryptic and probably driving Conan to bug his phones and intercept his email. That didn’t mean he had to tell him everything. “I’m trusting you. You’re going to have to trust me.”
Conan nodded, only half-mollified. “She’s a nutter. You’ll regret going after her.”
“Nutters do not write children’s books so lyrical they can be sung,” Oz retorted with conviction. “She’s going to make me a stack of green.”
“You’ll earn every penny,” Conan said cynically, heaving the ball across the desk.
Catching the spongy rubber toy and squeezing it as his brother walked out, Oz didn’t dispute that.
Pippa was big-time trouble. He became a producer so he could deal with money and contracts, not make nicey-nice with the creative neurotics he bought and sold. He didn’t like getting personally involved with the hired help.
But he was making an exception this time. He checked his BlackBerry for messages and then began his list of phone calls to find people willing to work in the outback of El Padre. While he waited on hold, he skimmed the file Conan had provided.
Until he learned why anyone would believe Pippa could help find Donal, he wasn’t leaving the lady alone.
***
“I will not unleash the Beast,” Pippa muttered her new mantra while carrying a tray of freshly baked cookies down the path to the day care. “I am a mature, responsible adult who does not need to have her own way, does not need to beat up annoying strangers, and does not shriek at imbeciles. I can handle this rationally.”
She still wanted to pound the tray over the head of the man sitting in his inconspicuous gray Ford in the day care parking lot, rattling away on a keyboard while watching her every move. She wasn’t stupid. Her manager had hired bodyguards when she was young and hormonal. She recognized a goon when she saw one.
She stopped at the Ford’s open window and leaned over to hold out the cookies. “I don’t poison them the first time. I wait until you seriously begin to annoy me.”
Wearing the lined, cynical face of a retired cop, the driver helped himself to a chocolate chip treat. “Some people are grateful for protection.”
“I have a black belt and a secret weapon. I don’t need protection, but you will if you don’t move on. Tell Mr. Oswin that if he really wants my help, he’ll leave me alone. I value my privacy.”
The ex-cop looked noncommittal. “I’ll pass on your message, but he’s the one footing the bill. It’s his call.”
Be one with the breeze, Pippa, she told herself. Take the anger where it belongs.
She smiled, baring the teeth she’d painted with gold stars. “You may also convey to Mr. Oswin that neither you nor he will see me again until you’re gone. Have a blessed day.”
She strolled off, comfortable in her baggy overalls. She let no man have a piece of her these days, not even an eyeful.
Entering the day care’s back door, she left the tray of cookies with the cartons of milk for the midday snack. She wouldn’t disappoint the kids because the cowardly Beast inside her felt like running far, far away.
So she gave them story time as usual. The day care was an excellent place to test out new story lines, and the one about the little green pig was going over well. Afterward, she helped distribute snacks and clear up spills. Then, waving to Bertha, timing her departure to the daily supply delivery, she climbed into the back of the UPS van when its doors were open and remained there as the truck rattled back to the road.
“Just drop me off at the trailhead, Jorge,” she told the driver.
He acknowledged her request with a wave of his hand. Half a mile down the road, he stopped long enough for Pippa to hop down, well out of sight of the day care and the hired goon in the Ford.
It had cost her a small fortune to have the studio built down the side of a mountain. At least there had been a road to the property at the time so the workers could drive their vehicles in and out. A small mudslide a few years ago had reduced the terrain to little more than a goat trail. It wasn’t her favorite access but a useful one when she wanted to avoid people who knew about the front path.
She slid down the rocky slope and then trotted through sage and cactus until she reached the geodesic dome designed specifically for her purposes. She could explode a bomb inside the walls, and no one would hear it.
Her Voice could be more devastating than a bomb. A bomb killed people and put them out of their misery. Her Voice could cripple and leave them suffering for a lifetime. Bombs required mechanical devices and deliberate detonation. The Bane of her Existence required only an emotional trigger to explode without warning.
She used the keypad to unlock the entrance and reset the alarm after she flipped on the lights. The temperature was set at a steady seventy degrees to protect the equipment.
Lure of Song and Magic Page 4