Kitabı oku: «All About Evie», sayfa 4

Chapter Six

LIFE WAS CRUEL.

I watched Arch inhale a deluxe burger and fries while I picked at my salad. I didn’t even like salad. He also swilled beer while I sipped calorie-free, flavor-free water.

The waiter had forgotten my wedge of lemon.

“Do you always eat like that?” I asked.

He aimed a ketchup-drenched fry at my boring rabbit food. “Do you?”

“I’m watching my weight.”

“Why?”

“You’re kidding. Are you or are you not in entertainment?”

“I’m a man,” he said by way of an answer. “Men like curves.” He chewed the fry, swilled more beer. “Let’s go over it one more time, yeah?”

Considering my generous hips, I think he just complimented me, but I couldn’t be sure, and I wasn’t going to ask. Bad boy was all business now. Michael’s call had dampened his playful mood. I wasn’t happy about the call, either, although I felt better since the cry in the shower. I couldn’t wash away the hurt, but I did manage to rejuvenate my body. Swapping Sugar’s tight clothes for drawstring pants and an oversize Betty Boop T-shirt also helped. Ah, comfort.

I’d taken longer in the bathroom than I’d intended, but no way, no how was I going to face Mr. Manly Man on our first night together sans beauty products.

After drying my hair, I slathered my skin with French Vanilla lotion then applied mascara and sheer pink lip balm. Anything more would have been ridiculous considering we were going to turn in after dinner.

“Would it help if I gave you the written profile?” Arch asked, offering me a sheet of paper from his notebook. “Gave you more time to absorb? I know it’s a bit of information.”

I ignored the profile, stabbed a tomato wishing it were a meatball. Michael would have ordered me the burger without asking. Even though the salad held the appeal of grass, I decided it was kind of nice being in the company of a man who didn’t know me any better than I knew him. I decided now was a good time to dazzle Arch with one of my special skills.

“My name is Sugar Louise Dupont, maiden name Jones. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.” Something he’d revised since I’d adopted the accent on my own. “I’m a singer. Was a singer. A Vegas lounge lizard to be exact.” Another revision since I was too short to be a showgirl. “I bounced from stage to stage, man to man, looking for the perfect fit.” I batted my lashes. “Then I met you. It was love at first sight, well, for you, anyway. No wonder. You had a front-row seat at the midnight show as I performed “Fever” in a skintight gown—red—cut down to my navel and slit up to my thigh.”

I ignored his knee-melting grin and plowed on. “You sent a bottle of champagne backstage. Attached was a romantic note. An original poem that won my heart. I adored you before we even met. Later that night you took me out to dinner, swept me off my acrylic stilettos. One week later we were married in Gabriel’s Chapel of Love. All told we’ve only known each other for one month, hence we’re still learning the details of one another’s lives. Convenient,” I said, ditching the tomato for a cucumber. “In case you screw up.”

Arch leaned forward, picked at the label of his bottle. “I willnae screw up.”

“Neither will I.” I leaned in, as well. “I’m a quick study.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“My improvisational skills rock.”

“Witnessed that on the plane, yeah?”

The plane. “About that. I just want you to know, I’m not much of a drinker.”

“I gathered.”

“I mean, I’m not a lush. I’ve just had…It’s been a rough…day.”

“Want to talk aboot it?”

“No, thanks.” I nibbled on a cucumber.

He took a long pull of his beer, settled back in his chair. “Right then. Tell me aboot Charles Dupont.”

Every now and then I was ultraconscious of his accent and I found myself smiling because, gosh, it was sexy. About sounded like aboot and will not came out willnae. We won’t talk about what his tongue did to Rs. A nimble tongue like that could probably—well, we won’t go there.

He quirked a brow as if to say, what’s the holdup? I didn’t want to explain that I was aroused by his accent. So, I repeated everything he’d told me, down to the year his first wife died and the names of his deceased pets and estranged children. Not that I was trying to impress him.

Well, yeah, I guess I was.

He lived on an estate in Connecticut—Charles, not Arch. Came from old money. I, Sugar, didn’t know where it originated exactly, only that he had tons of it. Yup, Charlie was loaded. He was also a writer. Published under a pseudonym. Unlike Sugar, the man shunned the spotlight.

He also shunned women his own age.

He’d sprained his ankle, hence the cane, after tripping while chasing me around the room in the midst of playful sex.

Too bad that was only part of the profile. Sounds like fun.

Arch leaned back in his chair, considered me with those lightning eyes.

Zap.

Yeah, boy, I felt that. Interest.

“You’re good.”

“Thanks.” If those casino execs would’ve paid attention when I’d delivered that copy, they, too, might have been impressed with my memory skills. It felt good to be appreciated. “You’re not so bad yourself.” It wasn’t my style to gloat—even though I was sort of needy in the compliment department just now—so I turned the attention on him. Besides, I truly was impressed with Arch Reece the Actor. “When I first saw you, I thought you were, like, I don’t know, sixty.”

“Prosthetics.”

“I get that, and I’m in awe. I’ve never explored anything outside of traditional theatrical makeup. But it’s more than that. Your body language, the costume. You came off like a foppish tycoon with the hots for a brainless bimbo. Just like in Some Like It Hot. Although, Tony Curtis?” I snorted. “Try Truman Capote.”

Actually, he’d more closely resembled a bespectacled Sean Connery, post-James Bond. Like Arch, Connery possessed a timeless charisma. No way was I confessing a bad case of thigh-sweats for either man.

One side of his mouth kicked up. “If you recall, I did say Curtis with a twist, yeah?”

“Yeah.” That was another thing about his accent. Three-quarters of his statements sounded like questions, even when he didn’t finish with his signature, yeah? I remember I used to think the same thing about the dude in The Highlander TV series. Why does everything sound like a question, and why do I find that so sexy? Of course, the whole package was sexy…like Arch.

Zing. Zap.

I squeezed my legs together. Best not to think about Arch’s package.

“By the way,” I added, while pushing aside my salad, “if this weren’t a slapstick murder mystery, I’d be totally offended by Sugar’s stereotypical personality. I know lots of casino lounge singers—hello, I’m one—and none of them—” I paused “—well, ninety-eight percent of them are not brainless bimbos.”

“If you remember, Sugar was originally a showgirl, and who said anything aboot a murder mystery?”

I opened my mouth to defend dancers who just happened to be comfortable wearing pasties on their nips and balancing extravagant headpieces on their pretty noggins, but I got sidetracked by that murder mystery part. “I just assumed, I mean, we are acting in an interactive production of some sort, right?”

“Is that what Stone told you?”

“No. He said that I’d be playing a ditzy character and that I needed to participate in passenger activities.”

“That’s the sum of it.”

“There’s no show?”

“It’s more of an illusion.”

“Like magic?”

“Like smoke and mirrors.”

“For what purpose?”

“For the greater good.”

What did that mean? “Is there a production manager, director, someone in charge?”

He spread his hands wide. “You’re looking at him, love.”

“You’re the whole enchilada? Cast, crew, management?”

“Is that a problem?”

I didn’t know. I’d heard of a one-man or -woman show, but those generally took place in a theater. I thought back to something he’d said earlier today. The world is our stage. I guess he meant that literally. Needing to work off the anxiety sparking along my spine, I pushed away from our makeshift dining table, stood and paced. “Can you be more specific about our purpose? That greater good thing?”

“No.”

Huh. Well, okay, this was just weird.

He shifted in his seat, rested his forearms on his thighs. His sleeves rode up and I got another glimpse of those defined biceps. That Celtic tattoo sensitized my body like foreplay. Tribal. Hot. Yowza.

“Here’s the deal, Evie. I need you to play Sugar, my attentive wife. I need you to be the life of the party, yeah? A social butterfly. I want you to have a fantastic time on the ship.”

“Do I look like I just fell off of a turnip truck?”

“What do you mean?”

I stopped in front of him, hands on hips. “You’re paying me a lot of money to have fun?”

“I’m paying you to create a unique deception.”

My pulse fluttered at the word deception. “Is it illegal?”

“No.” He looked me dead in the eye, his expression serene as a monk. “We good?”

It took me a second to catch my breath. Those eyes of his were…I don’t know. Mesmerizing, I guess. They made you want to say yes, to anything. This guy was flipping dangerous.

So, why wasn’t I backing away?

“Just so I have this straight. The goal is to deceive someone. Someone bad, I guess, since we’re doing this for the greater good. That would also explain Michael’s mention of risk. That bad person, I guess he’s dangerous.”

So much for serene. The flash of annoyance was brief, but I caught it before he broke eye contact and nabbed the beer bottle. “You’re safe with me.”

I believed him. It wasn’t the fact that he looked as though he could pound the hell out of “The Rock,” it was more the sense that he could talk himself out of a pact with the devil.

Oh, yeah, I was curious about this man. I was curious about a lot of things, but he’d made it clear that we were operating on a need-to-know basis. And, hey now, there was a thought—maybe the less I knew, the better off I’d be.

“Michael doesn’t think I’m up for this job,” I said more to myself than Arch.

He stood, putting us toe-to-toe and warping my brain cells with a heady dose of machismo. “What do you think?”

I peered up at him, wet my lips. “I think I love a challenge.”

He grinned. “My kind of girl.”

Blood thundered in my ears like a rocker’s bass drum—louder, harder. Oh, crap, my heart was going to pull an Alien and burst through my chest. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

I waited for him to touch me. My hair was in my eyes. Why didn’t he reach up and tuck those rebel locks behind my ears like they do in romance novels? Yes, I read them—what’s not to like about happily-ever-afters? Someday, I fully expected mine.

Arch was not following the script in my head, so I revised it. I brushed my own hair out of my eyes, held his gaze. Talk about a challenge. “I’m crazy about you. Can’t keep my hands off of you.”

No expression. No response.

“Sugar,” I clarified, trying to get a bead on him and failing. “That’s what you said, right?”

“Right.”

“So I guess that means hugging and kissing and stuff.”

“When in public, aye.”

What about behind closed doors? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. “As an actor I’m sure you know how uncomfortable it can be doing it with a stranger. Kissing, that is. For the first time, I mean.” I willed my voice not to warble. Blushing was another matter. “So I’m thinking our first time shouldn’t be in front of an audience.”

“You think we should kiss. Now.”

For once his response sounded like a statement instead of a question. My blood pumped. The spirit of my friend Nicole cheered in my ear. You go, girl!

“As a professional, I take my job seriously. I know this is an improvisational gig, but a certain amount of rehearsal seems wise. After all, we’ve been doing it, getting it on, Sugar and Charles that is, for a month. If you want people to believe we’re in lust—um, love—we should look like we’ve been around. Each other, that is. Intimately.”

He scraped his teeth over his lower lip. Nice teeth. Nice mouth. “Appreciate your dedication, Sunshine.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or sarcastic, and right now I didn’t care. I wanted him to kiss me, dammit. I wanted something in this miserable day to go right. Was that so wrong?

“Let’s just get it out of the way,” I plowed on. “The awkwardness—misaligned mouths, bumping noses and all that.”

Except there was no awkwardness. He swooped in without warning, framed my face, ravished my mouth. He kissed the ever-lovin’ daylights out of me.

His beard scratched and ignited my skin. Rough. Hot. Primal.

His tongue…Oh sweet, Lord, my panties were damp and all he was doing was kissing me!

It seemed like forever. It seemed like a blip. Next thing I knew, he was standing six inches back, draining the last of his beer.

I fought a dizzy spell and resisted the urge to glance down to see if JT had roared to life. I was, after all, a professional. Those superior acting skills kept my knees and voice from quaking. “I guess we’re good then.” We were better than good. We were Bogie and Bacall, sizzling hot!

“Right.” Arch tugged on a ball cap and denim jacket, snatched a cigarette from the pack on the desk and announced he needed a smoke. “Dinnae open the door for anyone. I have a key, yeah?”

I watched as he left and shut the door behind him.

Yeah. That went well.

Not.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, as the song goes, I weaved across the room, drunk on the headiness of that kiss. Hands trembling, I rooted through Big Red for my most current diary, a girlie-pink-and-white journal entitled Secrets of a Diva. Knowing I tended to bottle up my feelings, my dad had bought me my first diary when I was ten, telling me when my brain and heart were all jammed up, I should pour my thoughts onto the pages. My brain and heart were definitely jammed. Today had been a total freak-fest. And that kiss…

I unlocked the diary using the key I kept hidden in my wallet then grabbed my purple pen. The familiarity of the process provided me with a small dose of comfort. At this point, I’d take what I could get.

Dear Diary, Why are men such asses?

Chapter Seven

Atlantic City, New Jersey

The Chameleon Club

MILO BECKETT STOOD at the living room window of his second-floor apartment, hands braced on the scarred sash. Jaw set, he stared out at the Atlantic Ocean. Not that he could see it. He’d invest in a bottle of glass cleaner, but it would ruin the desired effect. His apartment was directly above his place of business—The Chameleon Club.

Seedy was the objective. He didn’t want the Inlet Tavern to attract a large clientele. The club was a front. The government operative’s goal was to blend in.

Like a chameleon.

Milo was good at fooling the masses. He’d learned from the best. His mentor, his nemesis, his partner in crime. Right now he was pissed as hell at the man.

Ocean gazing usually lowered his blood pressure, but he couldn’t see the damned ocean. A grainy film of sand and dirt streaked the outer pane, compliments of a nor’easter. The quarter moon skulked behind ominous clouds. An occasional flash of lightning illuminated choppy seas and the driving rain battering the Inlet’s boardwalk. One working streetlamp flickered on and off. Mostly off. The scene was dark and dangerous.

Like Milo’s mood.

Downstairs, a cheap audio system dished jazz classics, his music of choice. Jazz soothed his soul and kept the twentysomething customers at bay. John Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things” floated up through the heating ducts along with patron chatter. A couple of local seniors nursed drinks and swapped stories with Samuel Vine, The Chameleon Club’s primary bartender, the man who ran the tavern when Milo was in the field. Pushing seventy, the dark-skinned ex-boxer was still formidable, but also dependable as the rising sun. Honesty in Milo’s line of work was as rare as a thirty-year-old virgin. He’d learned long ago not to trust anyone.

Especially Arch Duvall.

He smelled more than heard Woody, the newest member of the unconventional dream team, enter the room through the secret stairwell. Dumped by his girlfriend, the twenty-five-year-old techno-geek had been trying to win her back for weeks. New haircut, new clothes. This week: new cologne.

It reeked. Aside from flies, all he’d attract with that flowery stench were curious looks.

Milo didn’t figure it was worth mentioning since they weren’t on a case. Woody, nicknamed The Kid, was a sensitive bastard. He was also brilliant. He’d been holed up in the basement for the past few hours doing what he did best—cracking and tracking.

“Did you find him?” Milo asked without turning.

“How’d you know it was me and not Vine?”

“I’m psychic.”

Woody snorted. “You saw my reflection in the window, right?”

Milo couldn’t see shit in that window. “You got me.” Another thing he’d learned from Arch. The art of lying. He turned, folded his arms over his chest. “So?”

“It wasn’t easy, sir.”

“Milo,” he prompted, although it was wasted breath. Woody had been on the team for three months. He’d yet to drop formalities where his boss was concerned. Respect had been ingrained in the Midwestern boy by the grandparents who’d raised him. He twanged ma’am and sir without thought. Sir made Milo’s balls twitch. Aside from making him feel old, it reminded him of the bureaucratic bullshit that had resulted in him overstepping and his wife stepping out.

The only time anyone referred to him as Sir or Agent Beckett was when he was at HQ, which, to their mutual relief, wasn’t often. He’d earned a reputation as a hot dog. If he weren’t so tight with the director, he’d be out on his forty-seven-year-old ass. As far as his team was concerned, the A.I.A.—Artful Intelligence Agency—operated on a “the-less-we-know-the-better” policy. He had a directive. Results, within blurred reason, were all that mattered.

Like the ones tucked away in Woody’s eccentric mind. Milo angled his head. “Where is he?”

“Fort Lauderdale. Traveled under the name of Charles Dupont.”

Arch was a pro at operating under the radar. Woody was good, but he shouldn’t have been able to track him this fast. Arch must have slipped.

Something was wrong.

“Tomorrow he’s sailing for San Juan on an adults-only cruise. The Fiesta line focuses on romance in the golden years. Caters mostly to second honeymooners, couples celebrating anniversaries. Kind of a geriatric Love Boat.”

The Benson file.

“Son of a bitch.” Milo strode to the hall closet, yanked a suitcase from the shelf.

The flowery stench followed him into his bedroom. “Do you think he’s up to his old tricks, sir?”

“I think he’s taking an unauthorized vacation.” Read: Defying team policy by acting solo. Worse, acting outside of A.I.A. jurisdiction. Chameleon’s license-to-shill wasn’t valid on foreign soil. They had domestic leeway, not international carte blanche.

And Arch knew it.

Milo crammed the case full of casual and formal wear, processing details. Vine and Woody could handle the bar. He’d have to keep A.I.A in the dark in order to keep Arch’s ass, and his own, out of a sling.

Woody scratched at his sparse goatee, also new. “Guess you’re going after him.” For a smart kid, he often stated the obvious.

“I need you to make travel arrangements.” This was the second time in eight months Arch had gone renegade. Milo’s patience was spent.

“Done.”

He glanced up.

The shaggy-haired boy, who presently resembled a modern-day beatnik, shrugged. “Figured it was the next logical move given your mood when you ordered me to track Ace.”

Aka Arch. Grifters referred to their underworld aliases as monikers. Thanks to Arch, every team member had one. Even Milo. Woody referred to everyone on the team by their monikers, except for Milo. Nope. Milo was Sir.

Ignoring his twitching balls, he clasped shut his case, pulled on a leather jacket and silently cursed Arch “Ace” Duvall. “I don’t know why I bother,” he muttered.

“Because it’s what friends do.”

He let that pass. His relationship with Arch was complicated. No one, aside from Milo and Arch, knew the particulars. He intended to keep it that way.

Woody handed him a stuffed envelope. “I made arrangements for two. It’s a couples’ cruise.”

Woody hadn’t been on the team for long but he knew Arch’s history. Knew he was up to something and that he’d just reeled in his friend. Whether he wanted in or not, Milo was now part of Arch’s game. He’d stick out like a sore thumb if he showed up single for a couples’ cruise.

“I called Hot Legs. She’s packing. You can pick her up on the way to A.C. International.”

Gina Valente, aka Hot Legs, was an ex-cop with a gift for grifting. A valuable asset, she often ensnared marks via her feminine wiles. He wasn’t keen on dragging her into this mess, but now, thanks to Arch, this was Chameleon business. “You’re two steps ahead of me, Kid.”

“Three.” He gestured to the envelope.

Milo thumbed through the contents. Travel documents. Passports. Character profiles…Aw, hell. “Why this guy?”

“You’ve played him before. You’re already prepped. We’ve got the wardrobe in stock and we’re on a tight schedule. He’s middle-aged, but he’s rich.”

“He’s annoying.”

“He gets on Ace’s nerves, that’s for sure.”

Milo cracked his first smile of the day. He shrugged out of the leather jacket, opened the suitcase to swap out the wardrobe.

Woody hovered nearby, rubbing the back of his neck—his nervous tell.

“What?”

“There’s something else, sir.”

“Spit it out.”

“Ace enlisted an unsanctioned player.”