She saw the flare in his eyes and knew she’d pissed him off. Good, she told herself, but a flicker of fear lapped at her belly, and she was relieved when he let it pass and smirked at her. “Oh. That report. He liked it. He congratulated me on it.” He turned and started to the security door that separated the customers from the tellers. “Good job, by the way,” he called out loudly enough for most of the bank’s employees to hear.
It was all Leah could do to keep her voice down as she pursued him, though it cost her her pride to do it. “Wait a minute,” she said, anger shaking her incredulous voice. “Are you saying you took credit for my report?”
At the desk a few feet away, Greer watched the exchange. She couldn’t hear all the hushed words, but she could see the auras around the two of them as colored clashing energy, and she could sense Leah’s frustration and fury. She shifted uncomfortably and tried to create an appropriate boundary between herself and the hostility.
“Of course not,” Vince oozed, pretending to be deeply offended. “Your name is right there in big capital letters, on the cover, where you put it. Desperate for someone to notice,” he finished with a nasty dig.
“Then . . .” Leah was thrown, and she hated being off balance, especially in front of this bastard. When would he stop having this effect on her? Hadn’t she had just seen Kenner admonish Vince? Yet he was behaving as though the man had given him a gold star. Suddenly shaky and unsure, she asked, “Why would he congratulate you?”
Vince smiled and shrugged his shoulders in an infuriating mockery of disinterest. “Oh,” he said, inspecting his perfect manicure, “he understands that a good manager inspires his employees to do outstanding work. Delegating is a great talent.” Then he dropped his hand and the polite pretense, and leaning forward, hissed under his breath, “So get the fuck back to work.” Spittle had formed in the corners of his mouth, and Leah recognized the edgy fear in his irises. She knew better than to touch that.
He began to turn away again; then he spotted Greer. “Hello,” he said, mostly to himself, taking in the full breasts and lips. “What have we here?” He crossed the three yards to Leah’s desk and said with his most disarming boyish charm, “I’m Vince Slater, the bank manager. Could I be of service?”
Greer looked up at the mid-forties man and thought what a sad little boy he seemed to be, but she shook the hand offered to her, though it sent a frosty tingling up her arm that she quickly blocked before it reached her heart. “No, thank you. I’m being very well taken care of by an extremely competent individual.” She leaned forward and looked into his handsome eyes without being impressed in the least. “And this part is important.” She fixed him with a hard eye and said in a friendly but pointed way, “I prefer to work with someone I can trust.”
“I’d be glad to help you personally.” He stressed the last word as though this would be a huge and rare favor.
“No, thank you,” Greer said very clearly, and turned to Leah, who was watching the exchange, shell-shocked. “Leah, I’m sorry to rush you, but I do need to get back to the salon. So if we could get my paperwork done . . .”
“Of course,” Leah said, collecting her wits and grabbing the advantage that Greer was offering her. “If you’d excuse us, Vince, I’ve got some new business accounts to open.” Both women dismissed him utterly.
He didn’t leave immediately; instead he stood looking down at the two of them for a few seconds, thinking with bitter arrogance that it would snow in the Sahara before he’d let a fucking woman get the better of him. Then he looked Greer up and down and thought about what he’d like to do to her and how he’d make her like it. He knew just what he’d use on her, too.
Fingering his belt and imagining the snapping sound of thick leather on flesh and the red welt it would leave, he turned away with a satisfied smile and retreated to sulk in his den.
Chapter 6
Thursday
Each blow dryer had its own resonant vibrato, and together with the animated chatter of the stylists and clientele, they filled the salon with a syncopated rhythm that rose and fell with the sweet unpredictability of a fusion jazz ensemble.
Lulled by the sound, Dario fell into a meditation on Greer. She’d been alone for too long, and, Dario decided, she needed a romance. He was so deeply into his musings that it took him a moment to notice that Celia, the receptionist, was standing beside him, wearing a shiny silver jacket on her toothpick frame and occasionally waving a nervous scrawny hand to get his attention. He shut off the dryer and turned to her.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but the plumber is here.”
“The old one or the new one?” Dario asked her.
“I think it’s the new one?” She winced as though she expected that to be the wrong answer. “He said he’d never met you before?” She raised her voice at the end of every sentence so that it sounded like a question.
“The new one.” Dario set the dryer down and said to his client in his deep baritone, “I’ll be right back, gorgeous. Don’t you dare leave until I’ve had a chance to revel in how fabulous you look.” Leaning down, he asked the older woman’s reflection in the mirror, “Do you love it?”
“Oh, yes,” she gushed, and then giggled. “My husband is going to be surprised.”
Dario straightened up and said in a loud, not-so-secret whisper, “He won’t let you out of bed for a week!”
The woman laughed outright with scandalized delight, and Dario spun on his heel and marched to the front with the pencil-thin Celia in her retro disco jacket trailing closely behind.
He spotted two men standing at the front who would be hard to confuse with anyone who might have come in for a pedicure. They were obviously brothers and shared the sun-leathered good looks of the working class. The elder brother’s age was hard to guess—maybe forty, Dario estimated—his long hair hanging in a straggly blond braid down his back. His clothes, which were none too stylish but certainly appropriate for a foray into a dank crawl space, were splattered with goodness knew what, but Dario noted with approval that the man’s fingernails were clean and his face was unguardedly friendly as he shook Dario’s hand. He was the only one of the two who made eye contact, even if it was somewhat tentative. The younger brother, who seemed to wear a permanent defensive scowl, glanced in Dario’s general direction and nodded. Dario did not offer his hand, but he noticed the rough tattoos on the younger man’s forearms and hands. “Hello, I’m Dario,” he addressed the elder. “Can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m Paul,” said the plumber with friendly pale blue eyes. His words were simple and slow, as though his mouth relished making the sounds and refused to hurry through such an enjoyable sensation.
Celia had caught up to them, and she contributed, “Paul Newman.”
“What about him, other than the fact that he makes a surprisingly good spaghetti sauce?” asked Dario, slightly annoyed. He had three appointments in various stages and didn’t like keeping anyone waiting.
But it was the older plumber who replied. “That’s my name,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh that seemed to bubble up as though it were always on simmer, ready to move into a rolling boil with the slightest pinch of salt. “Paul Newman.”
Dario looked back at the man and decided not to make the obvious blue-eyes comparison and opted for, “Well, won’t the ladies be all excited to hear that Paul Newman is going to work on their plumbing.”
Paul’s face reddened slightly, but he seemed pleased with the association. “Yeah. And this is my brother, Army.” The surly youth with the prison tattoos nodded again, then resumed scowling at the floor.
“Delighted, I’m sure,” Dario said drolly. “Let me show you where the last plumber was working when he vanished into thin air.”
They started to walk through the long, open salon toward the back. Paul walked the same way he spoke, like a lazy two-foot surf on a sunny day in Malibu, and Dario found himself breaking his decisive stride to match the other
man’s comfortable way of moving through the space and life. Army followed stiffly, holding his thick arms rigidly at his sides.
“Nice place,” commented Paul with a rhythmic, smiling nod that continued far beyond the simple compliment.
“Thank you. And thanks again for actually showing up. The old plumber just stopped returning calls and disappeared.”
Paul nodded, his sky blues twinkling, and said, “Yeah, that happens,” with the laugh rolling up from underneath the words again, but not quite boiling over. He was an ever-simmering Crock-Pot of self-amusement.
“Does it happen to you?” asked Dario pointedly.
“Sometimes,” came the easy confession. “If people have emergencies I have to get to them first. Otherwise somebody’s house might float away.” He did it again—carried the end of his statement away on a rising current of glee. Dario found himself liking the man. His brother, Army, on the other hand, continued giving the rebellious impression of having seceded from the human race.
Dario showed Paul the shampoo area and the three sinks that were still in boxes with capped plumbing jutting out from the walls. Paul looked the situation over and proclaimed that he and Army could finish it up tomorrow.
“How much do you think it will be?” asked Dario as he signaled to his assistant, Jonathan, to get a pretty young pregnant woman shampooed and into his chair.
“Oh . . .” Paul’s eyes glanced around as he calculated and considered the price of the job before he pronounced his verdict with an amused shrug. “Not much.” The low laugh played in his throat.
Dario smiled. “That was exactly the price I was thinking. See you tomorrow at . . . ?”
The eyes roved around again and then fixed on Dario with an amused twinkle. The top of Paul’s head swung from left to right in a playful arc, as though any answer he was going to give was more or less just hopeful speculation. “Mm . . . probably about maybe . . . ten?”
Dario laughed. Usually a stickler for punctuality, he couldn’t help forgiving this man even before he was late for work. “Okay. We’ll just say that you’ll be here sometime after the sun is warm, if it’s not raining again, of course.”
Paul nodded in a funny, chin-jutting way, with a knowing smile that showed he was pleased that Dario was so intuitive, and sauntered out with his loping downbeat of a gait, his brother following in a sulking, silent, heavy walk. But as Dario watched Paul go, he said to Jonathan, “There’s a rare creature—a happy man.”
Jonathan’s thick brown lashes, the envy of all who saw them, followed Dario’s gaze; then he said, “I’m happy.”
“Not like him.”
“Why not?”
“You want to be my assistant for the rest of your life?”
“I want to own a chain of salons named after me, become the stylist to the stars, and die rich and famous in a suspicious boating accident on my extravagant yacht.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” Dario said. He was watching Paul, who was half out the door, saying something to Celia.
Greer emerged from her treatment room and followed Dario’s glance to the figure in the doorway.
Dario turned to her. “What’s your feeling about our new plumber?”
Greer raised one eyebrow. “You know I don’t read men very well,” she reminded him. “I mean, with women I seem to just know things. With men it’s sketchy and always more of a guess, if I get any sense at all. I suppose it’s because I have something to go on, being a woman.”
The tall, perfectly groomed Dario turned his sharp, dark goatee to face her and whispered, “Bullshit.” And then he proclaimed in full volume, “You know men as well as I do.”
Greer laughed. “Dario, darling, I don’t think anybody knows men as well as you do.”
He narrowed his handsome black eyes at her. “I’m just more interested in men than you are; that’s all,” he quipped. Then he added sotto voce, “And we need to work on that.”
Greer waved him off and turned again to see the plumber going out the door at the end of the long salon. She saw his good-looking, boyish face for a moment, and then, as the sunlight hit him, the color of his aura. It was a lovely bluish gold. The joy of it warmed her. But just then another man joined him, a younger version of the plumber himself, also nice-enough-looking, but there was no boyishness in his tough countenance. The murky rust color of his energy jarred Greer, blocking the bright day behind him. And then the door swung closed and the snapshot of a vision was over.
A rusty brown. A man with trouble in his past and more trouble up ahead.
Chapter 7
Friday
Joshua had hiked about an hour up the trail and then back. The water was still raging fast, and the trail ran through a narrow canyon for almost three miles at one point, crossing back and forth across the swollen creek. He had tried to find ways over it, but eventually had to make the iffy choice of plunging in. It was tricky, and probably not too smart, he had thought on the last crossing as he felt the water throw its shoulder against his calves and shove in an effort to knock him off his feet and send him rushing downstream. His hiking shoes and jeans were wet up past his knees.
He sat down on a boulder in the shade of some cottonwood trees and took off one boot and then the sock. He rubbed his numb toes to revive his circulation and then squeezed the water out of the sock before putting it back on. It was as he was repeating the motion with the second sock that he saw her.
There were nine houses total on Silver Line Creek. Five, including Joshua’s, were grouped together near the parking area, and four beyond the locked gate. Two of those required turning off the fire road and crossing the creek bed, which was impassable now, and two more lay farther up the narrow drivable track. As Joshua watched the girl, she reached the last house, which sat at the end of the road where it became the trailhead, and went up the path to a gate in a wooden fence. She stood on tiptoe to try to look over. A vicious barking that sounded to Joshua as if it could come only from the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of hell broke out, and the girl backed away quickly. Then she took what seemed to be a white envelope from her pocket and, approaching cautiously, slipped it into the mail slot.
Since Joshua was sitting about twenty yards up the trail, in the shelter of a grove, she still hadn’t noticed him. She walked quickly, fearfully, back to the road and then stood there, looking despondent.
The girl wore an affected slouch, a Goth look, too much heavy eye makeup, purple streaks in her hair, and grungy clothes. Yet, even at this distance, Joshua could see that she was pretty.
She stooped and picked up a good-size rock, weighing it in her hand. Then suddenly she let it fly with a vicious force. “Shut up, you fucking nasty, piece-of-shit dog!” she howled. The rock crashed against the wooden fencing, sending the unseen mythological monster into a fresh frenzy of verbal attack.
Witnessing the outburst, Joshua felt that he’d crossed the line into spying. He didn’t want to frighten her, or become the object of that wrath and the well-hurled rock that might second that emotion. So he laced his boots up quickly and then, pretending to be just coming along, he started out, whistling.
He didn’t make eye contact until he was about ten feet away; then he stopped and said, “Hi.”
She didn’t bother to return the greeting. Instead she snorted slightly and said, under her breath but loud enough for him to hear it, “Fucking day hikers.”
Joshua could imagine her fear of meeting a stranger in an isolated spot, but he smiled. “You must be Joy.”
She shot a look at him, her eyes wary as those of a sly wild thing. “How do you know my name? What are you, fucking psychic?”
“No.” He shrugged and said conversationally, “That would be my mom, Greer. I’m just your new fucking neighbor.”
That made her smile—not the neighbor part. “Yeah?” she asked, looking at him with a slight challenging smile. “You got a name, fucking neighbor?”
“Fucking Joshua.” He nodded.
She laughed, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. They started to walk together down the strip of road. As they walked in and out of the speckled light from the oak trees overhanging it, Joshua noticed that her hair looked streaked with purple only in direct sunlight. In the shade it looked uniformly dark brown. He noticed quite a bit more without seeming to. Her face was heart shaped, and her nose was long and sharpish, but it suited her overall look and the shape of her eyes. She was obviously wearing contacts that made her eyes a fake, flat light brown. He wondered what color they really were. Her body was slim, and though she tried to conceal them, her chest was thrusting out breasts, small but full. He looked quickly away from them and all the thoughts that they sent flooding into him. Her mouth was best; it looked fresh, pink, and inviting, like it would taste good. Every time she raised the cigarette to her lips and sucked he winced slightly. It was as though someone were painting graffiti on a Botticelli; it just shouldn’t be allowed.
“So who lives in the house? Friend of yours?” Joshua asked to make conversation.
A small smile twisted her pretty mouth. “More a friend of my dad’s. We accidentally got one of his letters delivered to our house. I feed his monster dog when he goes out of town. I won’t go in there. I just slide the food through the space under the gate.”
“Wise move,” Joshua agreed. “Sounds like a nice animal. Do you have to feed all of its heads?”
She smiled again in a less twisted way, letting her lips part to show her amusement and a row of nice teeth, slightly buck in a sexy way. “How’d you get stuck out in this godforsaken backwater?” she asked him.
“My mom opened a shop up here. We were both tired of living in Hollywood.”
“You lived in Hollywood?” Her eyes had come to life, even veiled by the lenses that shielded them. “What was it like?”
“Oh, traffic and anger, and people all desperately wanting to be something that somebody else made up.”
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