“They can’t put me on an involuntary psychiatric hold if there’s no evidence I’m mentally disturbed,” I told her. “I can’t believe they tried in the first place. I’m not a danger to anyone. I’ll tell you one thing: I am so not friends with Janet anymore.”
“The librarian?”
“Mm-hmm. Dead to me.”
“To be fair,” Evelyn said, “you do read a lot of books about murder.”
“It’s my job.”
“I suppose that depends on your definition of a job.”
“Hey,” I said sharply. “We can’t all be secret agents for a mysterious private contractor, can we?”
Evelyn groaned. Something crashed, causing a percussive sound of several tin cans tipping over. I set my knife on the cutting board, listening closely as the noise settled.
“Everything okay over there?”
“The beans took a dive.” Evelyn made another uncharacteristic moan of discomfort. “First of all, I’m a bodyguard, not a secret agent. Secondly, that’s kind of why I’m calling. I got into a spot of trouble at work.”
I checked the time. It was six o’clock at night in California, which meant it was eleven p.m. in London, where Evelyn lived. Now that I thought about it, she never called this late.
“You don’t get into trouble,” I said. “What happened?”
“Someone made an attempt on my charge.”
Throughout the course of her career, Evelyn had kept all sorts of people safe—politicians, members of witness protection programs, reporters with juicy stories—but most often, she was hired to babysit celebrities when they came through town. Normally, all she had to do was keep rabid fans from crying over their favorite actor or singer, but she’d never had to well and truly fight someone off before.
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked. Worry gnawed at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” she said, not convincingly enough. “But I’ve wrecked my shoulder. Dislocated it, big time. They had to do surgery and everything.”
“Who did it?” I demanded. “I’ll rip them to pieces.”
Evelyn’s laugh always drew pictures of baby-winged cupids as they shot magical arrows at unknowing passersby while someone plucked dulcet tones on a harp. “Easy there, little one. I don’t think you could take him.”
Since our teenaged years at boarding school, Evelyn and I had always been polar opposites in looks. I was short and skinny, able to squeeze into the tiniest places, which came in handy when ditching school involved a quick trip into a secret passageway to unlock a hidden door. I was also brown from head to toe—hair, eyes, and skin—a tribute to my mom’s Indian roots. If I wore dark colors, it was easy to fade into the shadows. I was built for sneaking and creeping.
Evelyn, on the contrary, resembled an Amazonian princess. The only delicate thing about her was her accent, a lilting combination of the Queen’s English and sporadic Americanized inflections. Like me, her parents were from two different continents, another reason we bonded so young. Unlike me, Evelyn was almost six feet tall, had thigh muscles that could crush a human head, and was paler than white rice.
“Hey, I’m small, but I’m mighty,” I said.
“I know,” she replied, chuckling. “But this guy was twice my size, and I didn’t see him coming until after he ripped my arm out of its socket.”
“Did he hurt your charge?”
“Nope,” Evelyn answered. “I got him in the temple with my good hand. He’s sitting pretty with MI5 while they try to figure out who he is.”
“Who were you protecting?”
“I’m afraid it’s—”
“Confidential,” I finished for her. “Of course. I’m glad you’re okay.”
I picked up my knife and finished chopping the carrots, which I slid off the cutting board and into a huge sauce pot. On the other line, Evelyn tonelessly hummed a tune. She was stalling.
“What is it?” I asked. “You only sing when you need something.”
“It’s a huge favor.”
“Lay it on me.”
“It pains my pride to admit this, but I’m having trouble getting around,” she said. I could practically hear her teeth clenching through the phone. “I can drive and pee and all that, but I haven’t showered in days because it’s too hard. I can’t cook—” As if to prove the point, another resounding crash echoed over the line. “Oh, bollocks! There goes the second can of beans. Jack, I’ve been eating takeaway curry for three nights straight. Do you know how constipated I am?”
I turned off the stove to give my full attention to Evelyn. “What can I do?”
“Will you come here? Look after me for a while?”
“To London?”
“I know it’s a big ask,” she continued hurriedly. “But I’ll pay for your plane ticket and whatever else you need while you’re here. I don’t want to hire some stranger to take care of me. I’d rather it be someone I know.”
“For how long?”
“A few weeks at least,” she answered. “It’s going to take a while for this shoulder to heal. You don’t have to do it. Forget I asked.”
“Ev, shut up,” I said. “I’ll totally do it.”
She squealed. “You will?”
Now that my worry had slightly worn off, I resumed cooking. “It’s a no-brainer. I get to spend quality time with my best friend and vacation in London? What a dream. When do you need me?”
“I checked flights already. There’s an open seat on a red-eye tomorrow night. Is that too soon?”
“Nope. All I have to do is pack.”
With no connections in San Diego to bid adieu to, my only duty before leaving was to pay the rent on my apartment for the rest of the month. The next night, I flew to Heathrow Airport with excitement building in my stomach the whole way there. I hadn’t seen Evelyn since last Christmas.
I arrived shortly before lunchtime, deplaned, and made my way out of the terminal. Luckily, Heathrow wasn’t a complete maze to me. Our old boarding school was a short drive from here, and I’d flown in and out of this airport, to and from the States, a hundred times. It
