He kept on blinking rapidly. “Aren't you dating the lawyer with the beard? The one who dresses like a hipster urban lumberjack?”
I batted my eyelashes. “He hasn't put a ring on my finger,” I said breathily. “And I see you've taken off your wedding band, which must mean you're up for grabs again.”
Now his jaw dropped. While Colt was distracted, I looked down at his hand. Colt was left-handed, so I'd grabbed his left hand, which was where the lipstick he'd rubbed off his mouth had transferred. With my free hand, I grabbed a cloth handkerchief from my pocket. I used the crisp white cotton to quickly scrub the top of his hand.
Then I dropped his hand, took a step back, and held up the white handkerchief as though performing a magic trick. A telltale pink mark stained the center of the square.
“Ta-da,” I said. “Samantha's lipstick, from her mouth to yours, and then onto your hand, and now on my hankie. Which confirms you lied to me.”
Colt frowned. He straightened up, and a dark look flashed across his face. A monstrous look. That of a person caught up in their own lies. And then, just as quickly, he hung his head in shame, gazing down on the floor.
Without looking up, Colt said. “I take it back.” He shuffled his feet so the toes of his western-style boots pointed away from me. “You're not as mean as you were in high school. You're meaner.”
I put my hands on my hips. “She's got little kids,” I hissed. “I know Mikey was a jerk to you back in the day, but we're all adults now. Let it go.”
He glanced up, his dark brown eyes darker than ever. “Michael Sweet wasn't just a jerk,” he spat out tersely. “He was a bully. He made my life a living hell.”
“I remember,” I said softly. “He called you Tonto, and he used to make all those insensitive jokes.” I shook my head. “We grew up in different times. That racial bullying wouldn't cut it today.”
“You'd be surprised,” he said, moving his head stiffly. “Things are not as progressive as some folks would like to believe. Not even here in Oregon.” He tilted his head to the side. “It's a small town, and no matter what I do with my life, some people will always dislike me for the family I was born into.”
I broke eye contact, looking down at the handkerchief. I tucked it in my pocket and deliberately softened my posture. “Colt, I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have invaded your privacy like this.” I remembered a phrase I'd read a number of times in my investigation training manuals. “A person has a reasonable right to privacy.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “I don't know what got into me.”
“You're a force of nature, Stormy.” He took a step back and rolled his shoulders forward, slouching the way he had as a scrawny teen. “And I'm sorry I called you mean. That wasn't fair. You're not mean. You're...” He gave me a blank look. “Well, you're just Stormy.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. It wasn't the first time someone had used my name to describe me. It always stung, no matter how many times I made the same self-deprecating cracks about myself.
Colt glanced over at the stairs. Samantha's voice was getting louder as she herded the lookie-loo couple and more visitors toward the access for the upper floor.
He said without looking at me, “For the record, I'm glad you're here. You always did know how to talk sense into me. I still remember that day in the cafeteria, and I owe you one.”
That day in the cafeteria? A memory started to surface, albeit slowly. I felt the emotions first. The fire inside me. The desire for justice. The details of who did what to whom and who started it were jumbled.
“And another thing,” he said, his luminous grin gradually coming back. “That kiss I stole from Samantha was the first one ever. I swear.”
I met his gaze. “First and last?”
He nodded once. “First and last. I've got a new crush now.” He looked me up and down. “Technically, it's an old crush, but it's back with a vengeance.”
I said nothing. He knew very well that I was dating “the lawyer with the beard,” also known as Logan Sanderson. My boyfriend really did dress like a hipster urban lumberjack, with his smart suits and his neatly trimmed beard. Despite a few minor quibbles, I was quite happy to be dating Logan. It didn't hurt that he lived under my roof, renting the other side of my duplex. A girl couldn't ask for more convenience than that. Our situation was comfortable. Convenient and comfortable.
Colt Canuso turned toward the stairs and started down. “See you around, Stormy Day. Let's share a root beer real soon.”
Chapter 4
Colt Canuso left immediately, without saying goodbye to Samantha.
Jessica and I both stuck around for the open house. We did the duties we'd promised to perform for Samantha—pretending to be interested in the house, saying positive things whenever prospective buyers were within earshot.
I played up the positive investment angles of the house, since anyone who knew of me and my history in venture capital would know I was good with money. And I wasn't lying. The surrounding neighborhood had been increasing in value lately, as more and more young families turned away from new homes on the outskirts of town in favor of fixing up older homes in walkable neighborhoods near amenities. In fact, the more I listed off the home's potential, the more I wondered if it might make a good addition to my own portfolio. If only I could get past the strange upstairs bathroom with its awkward sidesaddle toilet.
Jessica wasn't nearly as positive. She struggled to talk up the house while staying true to her beliefs. She wanted to help our friend, who'd been struggling for months to make a sale, but Jessica was a terrible shill due to her unflinching honesty. I heard her tell one couple the house was “perfect for embracing minimalism,” due to its lack of closets. The couple, in their early twenties and expecting a baby any minute, hadn't noticed the lack of storage space until Jessica mentioned it. The young woman's eyes bugged out as she glanced around, noting the size of the bedroom. It held a single bed because there wasn't room for anything bigger.
The husband said, “But it's in our budget.”
She replied, “I'd rather live with your mother than live without closets.”
His eyes bugged out to match hers. “That bad, huh?”
She grabbed the features sheet from his hand and discarded it on a dresser.
As they exited, I overheard the man telling his wife, “We really dodged a bullet, thanks to the chatty redhead.”
Samantha must have overheard this as well, as she called us over for a private meeting in the walled-off kitchen and politely dismissed us from our shill duties.
Jessica stuck out her lower lip. “But we're barely twenty minutes into the open house.”
“You've done more than enough,” Samantha said through a tight smile.
Jessica turned her pout in my direction. “But what else are we supposed to do for Roomies' Day Out? We can't go home without doing something fun.”
“Movie matinee? Shopping?”
She scrunched her lightly freckled face. “Until my next payday, I can afford a non-fancy coffee and a leisurely stroll in the dog park. But only if you buy my coffee.”
“I'll buy you a coffee, silly. In fact, I think I've got a—”
Jessica cut me off with a raised hand. “No, Stormy. Don't you dare tell me you have a two-for-one coupon for coffee. I won't be your charity case. I'm on to your little tricks.”
“Tricks? Me?” I shrugged and tried to look innocent.
Samantha interjected, “If you're looking for something free to do, I have the perfect thing.” She opened her brown leather briefcase, pulled out a newspaper, and handed it to Jessica. “They're doing an open casting call at the casino.”
Jessica asked, “Is that what you and Colt were talking about?”
Samantha's cheeks flushed pink. “Sure, along with other things. He's really excited about it. They're casting actors for the new House of Hallows series on HBO.”
“That's still happening?” I shook my head in amazement. I had fallen behind on my entertainment news.
The last I'd heard, the epic fantasy series had seemed as good as canceled following the death of its creator. Samantha and Jessica, who were both fans of the books, quickly caught me up. According to them, a young woman named Piper Chen had taken over the writing of the series. Rumor was, she was being aided by the ghost of author George Morrison. Either that or she was a prodigy. Regardless of the implausible paranormal details, all the House of Hallows franchise plans were moving ahead.
Samantha excitedly told us how the Sweets' eldest child, Sophie, was trying out for the role of Kinley, the precocious young dragon master in training.
“Sophie's been practicing all of Kinley's lines for weeks,” Samantha said. She glanced over her shoulder at the new group who'd entered the open house and gave them a friendly wave.
Jessica frowned and gave Samantha a sidelong look. “You don't let Sophie read the books, do you? They're not exactly family friendly.”
I chuckled at her understatement. “But the royal family in the series sure is friendly. Maybe the wrong kind of friendly.”
Jessica pretended to gag.
Samantha pushed us toward the door. “Michael tore out the chapters with Kinley and made the girls a mini booklet. Sophie and her best friend Q have been rehearsing like professionals. Q is so confident. She says she'll get the role of Kinley for sure, but has graciously offered Sophie the role of stunt double.”
“Aww,” Jessica said. “Kids are so cute. With all their naive hopes and dreams.” She looked down at the newspaper. “Why are they doing a casting call all the way up here in Misty Falls?”
“Publicity, I guess,” Samantha said with a shrug. “They're doing a whole national talent search. Plus, you know, there's the whole neutral accent thing for child actors.”
I did know what she meant. A number of child actors had come from our area, because their natural accent was close to what some call General American, the neutral style favored by news anchors.
“Sounds like it might be crowded,” Jessica said.
“The casino's huge,” Samantha said. “You'll have fun. You might even bump into Michael.”
I asked, “How is Michael?”
Her face reddened. “You know Michael,” she said vaguely, herding us toward the front door. “Busy, busy.”
As I stared at her, fascinated by the depth of her blushing, I noticed something was wrong with one of her eyes. Her left eye was swollen, puffier than the right, and she seemed to have the telltale purple of a bruise peeking through underneath yellow-tinted concealer.
“Is that a black eye?” I leaned in to look closely.
She turned away. “It's nothing. I wasn't paying attention, and he bumped me with his head.”
“Who bumped you?”
“Michael.” One of the visitors asked another person where the agent on duty was. Samantha jerked her chin up and called out, “I'll be there in a minute!”
I wanted to ask more questions about her black eye, but the woman was practically shoving us out the freshly painted door. I could take a hint. She didn't want me staring at her, trying to figure out if her husband had hit her on purpose or what she and Colt Canuso had been up to in the bedroom. And she sure didn't want Jessica talking about the lack of closet space and scaring away buyers.
We both wished her luck with the house, complimented her on the work she'd done sprucing up the porch, and walked over to my car.
Jessica was still barefoot due to loaning her shoes to Samantha. I popped the trunk of my car and sorted through my EDC—Everyday Carry Kit. Before becoming a private investigator, I hadn't given much thought to the assortment of items I kept in my purse and car. Now that I was a professional, though, I'd stepped up my game. The newest addition to my EDC was a can of Crisco. Shortening is useful for so much more than creamy frosting. It's a great source of emergency calories, a lotion for chapped skin, and with the addition of a simple twist of paper, can be burned like a candle for several hours, serving as a source of light and heat.
I unzipped my clothing bag and offered Jessica her choice of two types of footwear.
“Gee, I don't know,” she said flatly. “Tough choice.”
“Let me guess. You want the sandals?” I snorted and tossed the army surplus combat boots back into the bag. “You're such a girly girl, Jess.”
“You are getting to be so weird,” she said with a laugh as she pulled on the sandals.
She opened her purse, took out Samantha's broken shoes, and looked back at the open house. “Do you think Sam wants these back?”
I glanced at the shoes. “You could put them in the mailbox, but she's right about them being cheap. The soles may be red, but those are not Christian Louboutins. They're probably not worth fixing.”
“Are you a shoe expert now?”
I smiled. “At Fairchild Capital we did a few rounds of funding for a company that was designing a new kind of stiletto heel. The heels are slim and exposed metal, like actual stiletto knives.”
Jessica grinned. “If I ever see your ex Christopher again, I'm going to hit him up for free samples. Or volunteer as a shoe tester.” She tossed the broken shoes into my trunk. “I'll keep them at the house in case Samantha wants them back for sentimental reasons.”
I closed the trunk and dusted off my hands. My car was dirty, which shouldn't have been surprising, since I couldn't remember the last time I washed it.
“Jessica, are you sure you want to go to a crowded casting call at a casino?”
“If we go home now, I'll just bake things and eat them.”
“Doesn't sound so bad to me.”
“Let's go to the casino,” she said with a swing of her arm. “Come on, it'll be fun.”
“Nothing fun has ever started with the phrase come on, it'll be fun.”
Jessica made a puzzled face and then an ah-ha face. “That explains why my mother said it all the time before family road trips with my brothers.”
Chapter 5
While we drove away from town and toward the casino, I told Jessica about the lipstick-stained handkerchief and my exchange with Colt Canuso.
Jessica's first question was, “Are you going to tell Logan?”
“Tell him what? This has got nothing to do with Logan.”
“Colt was kissing Samantha, but told you it was over, because he's got his eyes on you now. I may be unlucky in the love department, but that doesn't sound like nothing to me.”
“Nothing happened,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “You know how Colt is.”
“Exactly. He comes on pretty strong, and when he looks at you, those eyes are like tractor beams. It can make your knees weak.”
“No kidding.” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I can imagine. But those big brown eyes have no effect on me.” I swallowed. “None whatsoever.”
She snorted. “The flirting was mutual. I saw you looking up at him while you twirled your hair. And you really don't have much hair to twirl, so it took some serious effort on your part.”
“I've never twirled my hair in my life!”
“Hah!” She held her hand out toward me, directly over the center console of the car. “We'll discuss your hair twirling another time. Show me the smoking gun, please. By which I mean the stained handkerchief.”
“I was thinking we could dig into your love life. What happened on your date with Mitch, the fireman?”
“His name is Mitch. It's not Mitch the Fireman. You make him sound like a character in a children's book.”
He actually looked like a character in a children's book. He was tall and enormous, like an oak tree, or Vin Diesel, or a cross between an oak tree and Vin Diesel.
I bit my tongue on describing him back to her and asked, “How did it go?”
“Not great. I don't want to talk about it.” She wriggled her fingers. “The handkerchief, please?”
“Is he still calling you chipmunk? Or was it squirrel?”
“I don't want to talk about it,” she said tersely.
Jessica was easygoing a
s a roommate, but she did have rigid boundaries about a few things. Talking about her dating life was one of those things.
She had a deep fear about guys calling her “weird” or making sweeping generalizations about redheads. She got along with Logan easily and had plenty of male friends, but they were all firmly in the friend camp. As soon as someone crossed over into being a potential boyfriend, her behavior changed. She became the thing she feared the most—weird. I'd seen it myself, and I couldn't explain it, except as a self-protective behavior. By never letting a man in close, she'd never have to worry about being rejected. It would be simple to blame her father, a con man who'd abandoned her family, for her condition, but I sensed there was more to it.
Or maybe not.
Occam's razor states that the simpler explanation is often the true one. Her father was unreliable, so she perhaps feared all other men would abandon her as well.
“Don't make me dig into your pocket myself,” she threatened.
I gripped the steering wheel with one hand while I pulled the white square of cotton from my pocket and handed it to Jessica. The handkerchief was part of my personal everyday carry. I always kept one freshly laundered cotton square in my pocket as well as another two in my purse, along with paper towels, zipper-seal bags, self-defense spray, and a whole array of goodies, including items for stabbing or crushing.
Jessica examined the lipstick evidence on the white cotton. “Good job swabbing Colt's luscious lips. That was a really clever trick. I don't know why I'm surprised. You were always the smart one.”
“Growing up with a cop for a dad means you pick things up by osmosis.”
“Sure, but you've been learning so much more lately. If you don't watch out, you're going to be famous some day.” She waved one hand at my windshield as though gesturing to a brightly lit marquee containing my name. “Stormy Day,” she intoned. “The world's sneakiest private eye.”
I chortled. “I'm sure you meant that as a compliment, but forgive me if I'm not flattered by praise for being sneaky, or devious, or crafty.” I gave her an exaggerated stern look. “Word choice, Jessica. Word choice matters.”
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