my stepmother so? Maybe I should have thrown in the strawberry cream cheese for backup. It was hard being such an utter disappointment to the woman who’d raised me, but gosh darn it, I gave it my all. I could have invented the wheel and she would have been disappointed. Or Post-it notes. Or bone marrow.
My dad unfolded from his chair for a kiss and gasped softly when he noticed my jaw. I was fairly certain Denise had noticed, too — I saw her lids widen a fraction of an inch before she caught herself — but since she chose to ignore it, I chose to ignore it as well.
I lowered my glasses quickly and shook my head at Dad. He paused, drew his brows together in displeasure that I didn’t want to explain anything in front of my wicked stepmother, then kissed my forehead.
“I’ll be upstairs in a bit.” He was letting me know he expected an explanation nonetheless.
“That’s where I’ll be,” I said, opening the cage to the elevator, “if you’re lucky.”
He chuckled.
Denise sighed.
My stepmother was never big on the whole nurturing thing. I think she used up all the good stuff on my older sister, and by the time she got to me, she was fresh out of nurture. She did, however, give me one pertinent bit of 411. She was the one who informed me that I had the attention span of a gnat; only, she said I had the attention span of a gnat with selective listening. At least I think that’s what she said. I wasn’t listening. Oh, and she told me that men want only one thing.
And on that note, I must give praise and thanks to the powers that be. I don’t want much else from them either.
But truly, in my stepmom’s defense, who could blame her? I mean, she had Gemma. Gemma Vi Davidson.
It was hard to compete. Especially since Gemma and I were total opposites. Gemma had blond hair and blue eyes. I did not.
Gemma was always an A student. I was more of a B-all-you-can-be kind of gal.
When Gemma was into science, I was into skipping.
When Gemma was into foreign languages, I was into the hot Italian guy down the street.
And when Gemma went to college and graduated magna cum laude in three and a half years with a bachelor’s in psychology, I went to college and graduated in three and a half years with a bachelor’s in sociology, only I did it summa cum laude.
Gemma’s never forgiven me for showing her up. But it did push her to continue her education as part of our never-ending struggle of one-upmanship, which is kind of like the struggle for survival, only not so noble. And she didn’t stop at her master’s either. She went all the way with a Ph.D. A married professor named Dr. Roland. Then she got her own Ph.D. and did it by the time she was thirty.
Clearly she needed to hit it with the professor more.
Denise has never forgiven me either. When Gemma graduated, Denise’s eyes shimmered with tears of joy. When I graduated, Denise’s eyes rolled more often than a heroin addict with a trust fund. I think she was annoyed that she had to miss her Saturday garden club to attend the ceremony. Or it could have been the T-shirt I was wearing underneath my shiny graduation gown that said JENIUS.
Dad was proud of me, though. For a long time, I pretended that was enough. I kept thinking that someday Denise would realize she had the superhuman ability to be proud of more than one person at the same time.
That day never came. So, in an act of utter defiance, I did exactly what Denise would expect me to do: I disappointed her. Again. Because Denise felt like a woman’s place was in front of a classroom, I trotted down to a recruiting event on the university’s campus and joined the Peace Corps. Disappointing her was so much easier than working my ass off trying not to. And those little sideways glances and sighs of dismay didn’t hurt so much when they were clearly deserved. Not to mention the fact that I got to work with the military on several projects, and surprisingly, the military is chock-full of men in uniform. Truly, its cup runneth over. Hoo-yah!
The elevator finally reached the second floor, and I waved down to Dad before stepping into the hall that led to the back entrance of my office. The front outside entrance, the one I usually took, led directly to my reception area, with my office past that.
Then there was a third entrance that was a little trickier to maneuver and involved the fire escape out back. So when I saw Garrett in the hall, leaning against my office door, waiting for me, I realized he must have jumped to the fire escape and climbed in through the window.
Show-off.
“Do you remember the part about my dad being an ex-cop? What are you doing here?” I asked, annoyance hardening my voice. He was wearing a white T-shirt, dark jacket, and a nice-fitting pair of jeans.
He straightened and raised a questioning brow. “Any reason you took an elevator that travels at the speed of molasses in January instead of the stairs?”
Garrett was a looker, damn him, with his dark skin and smoldering gray eyes, but that was as far as it went for me. Any minute amount of attraction I may previously have harbored was now buried beneath a thick layer of resentment and animosity. And as far as I was concerned, that was exactly where it would stay.
I let my irritated facial expression answer for me, unlocked the heavy wooden door to my office, then looked past Garrett to the three departed visitors who’d also been waiting for me.
“Glad you could join us,” I said to Barber. “You’re much taller vertically.”
Sussman elbowed him in a teasing gesture while Garrett strode into my office, apparently refusing to watch me talk to wallpaper.
“Sorry about my earlier behavior,” Barber said. “I guess I kind of lost it.”
His apology left me feeling guilty for not being more … I don’t know, supportive. Maybe I needed sensitivity training. I once signed up for an anger management class, but the instructor pissed me off.
“I have no room to judge you,” I said, patting Barber on the shoulder. “I’ve never died. Not officially.”
“Officially?” Sussman asked.
“Long story.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Elizabeth said. “Can we get inside? I figure I don’t have much time left, and I want to get in all the ogling at tall, dark, and skeptic that I can. Why couldn’t I have met him yesterday? I could’ve died happy.”
I knew how she felt. I had similar feelings about Reyes.
We stepped inside my office, which doubled as an art gallery for a friend of mine named Pari. Dark abstract paintings of life on Central lined my walls. One was a disturbing rendition of a Goth girl doing laundry, washing blood off her sleeves. The girl looked like me, a little joke, since I loathed laundry day. Thankfully, my image was difficult to make out in the frenzy of grays swirling around the scene.
Pari was also a tattoo artist and had a shop nearby. She designed the tattoo I had on my left shoulder blade. The one of a little grim reaper enshrouded in a flowing cloak with large, innocent eyes peeping out of it. Pari was chock-full of inside jokes.
Garrett turned toward me. I refused to acknowledge him with eye contact. Instead, I hung up my bag and started a pot of coffee just as Cookie came in the front door.
“You in here, sweetheart?”
“Back here,” I called to her. “I’ve started the coffee.” I kept the coffeepot in my office on the pretense of monitoring Cookie’s caffeine intake. Actually, it was my answer to potpourri.
“Coffee. Thank the gods,” Cookie said as she opened the door between her office and mine. “Oh.” She saw Garrett. “Mr. Swopes, I didn’t realize—”
“He was just leaving,” I told her.
Garrett smiled at me, then placed the full power of his lopsided grin on Cookie.
The bastard.
“My, my, my,” Elizabeth said a tad too breathlessly. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Suppressing a helpless sigh, I watched as Cookie started to speak, stuttered something about paperwork, then waved and closed the door to give us our privacy.
“I know exactly how she feels,” Elizabeth purred.
I plopped into the chair behind my desk as Garrett folded himself into the seat across from me.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well?” he mimicked.
“You’re not here for a social call, Swopes. What do you want? I have three murders to solve.”
