A Risky Proposition (20 page)

Ophelia glanced at Sunny and me sharply, as if she was just noticing our presence.  “What are they still doing here?” she asked in annoyance.

“We were just leaving,” I assured her.  “Thank you for your hospitality, Ophelia.  The tea was lovely and the scones were delicious.”

“Oh.  Yes, they were good, weren’t they?” she said, humming as she poured herself another cup of tea.

“And thank you, Emily—for everything,” I whispered as Sunny and I rose to leave.

My throat ached from holding back tears as we got on the elevator.  “That was horrible,” I said shakily.

“It was certainly no Sunday afternoon chat with Angelica.”  Sunny dropped a sympathetic arm around my shoulders.  “I’m glad I came with you, though.”

“Me too.”  We rode the rest of the way in silence.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” I mumbled when we reached the penthouse.  I excused myself to my bedroom.  Nothing so far had brought home the severity of my situation the way meeting Ophelia and Emily had.  I had to
do
something.  I couldn’t let myself—or Lorien—end up that way. 

I drifted by the gauzy curtains of my neatly made bed, stopping short when it dawned on me that I hadn’t made my bed.  Upon closer inspection of my pillow, I discovered what appeared to be a thin, oblong figurine depicting two frogs in an intimate embrace.  It was made of a soft, rubbery material and was smooth except for the slightly raised curves of the embracing frogs.  I noted the round plastic knob on the bottom and suddenly realized what it was. 

I turned the knob for confirmation, and the figurine came to buzzing life in my hand.

I turned it back off and stared at it for a moment, torn between shock and amusement.  I did love frogs, but it was rather more of a platonic love. 
Gee, thanks Angelica,
I muttered, having no doubt that she was the one responsible for leaving me the erotic device.  I shrugged and dropped it into the drawer of my night stand. 

Who was I to turn down a gift?  These were desperate times, after all.

Chapter 11 – Faerie Tale

“Syd, will you please talk to me?  I know you’re angry, but you can’t avoid me forever.  We have a house together; we had a life together.  I’m still your husband.  I understand your need to punish me, but I love you Sydney.  I didn’t mean to… Please—just talk to me, okay?  Call me on my cell.  I’ll pick up.  Bye.”

I jammed my finger into the button that would erase Jeremy’s message and hung up, staring out past my bedroom’s balcony toward the rhythmically rolling ocean.  Jeremy’s tone was calm and rational throughout the message, but somehow that only served to piss me off more. 

Let’s see, it was 10:30 on a Monday morning.  He’d definitely be at work now.  I called the house and got the answering machine, as hoped. 

I waited, tight-lipped, for the beep as I listened to my recorded voice cheerily proclaim that I’d reached Sydney and Jeremy.

“Hi Jeremy—it’s Sydney.  I got your message.  I am not trying to punish you; I simply don’t want to talk to you, seeing as the only relevant topics of conversation that come to mind are divorce and selling the house, neither of which I am currently prepared to deal with.  If you’re in more of a rush than I am to go ahead with either of those things, let me know and I’ll do my part.  But other than that, I have nothing to say to you right now.  I’ll let you know when I do.”

I hung up. 
I wasn’t trying to punish him,
I fumed.  I really didn’t want to talk to him.  If it felt like punishment to him…well, too bad.  I had more important things to deal with.  Besides, he should have known that before noon on a Monday was the absolute worst time to throw some emotionally coercive psychobabble at me. 

Although, I supposed it was partly my fault for listening to his message during that particular time frame…

“Ouch.”  Sunny’s comment interrupted my musings.

I turned to find her leaning in the doorway of my room, cradling a steaming mug of coffee in her hands.  Apparently she’d been there long enough to hear my message.

I sighed.  “Too harsh?”

“Well, that depends on what you were trying to accomplish.  If, for instance, you were hoping to scare the man off calling you back for a while, I’d say it was probably a pretty good bet.  Succinct, to the point—I liked it.  But yes, I’m afraid it was rather harsh.  Effective though—harsh, but effective.  Personally, I like this side of your personality.”  Sunny grinned.

I couldn’t help my answering smile.  “So you don’t think I’m a bad person for wanting to use a certain detective to distract myself from thinking about my husband?”

Sunny cocked her head at me and gave me an appraising look.  Then she shrugged and offered, “Hey—Jeremy was the one who opened the door on the whole affair thing.  He really can’t claim to be too shocked if you happen to wander in after him.  Besides, how could you be expected to resist Patrick Sparrow?” she teased.  

“With that muscular body, and those sexy tattoos, and that whole trying to save you thing—I get hot just thinking about it.”  She stretched languorously, reaching upward with one arm until her back popped, carefully holding her coffee stationary with the other hand as a relaxed smile spread across her face.

I narrowed my eyes and studied her more closely.  She was practically glowing with satisfaction.  “You wouldn’t happen to have received a visit from an incubus last night, would you?” I asked suspiciously.

Her smile widened and she breathed a little sigh of pleasure.  “Two, as a matter of fact.  They were twins.  Beautiful twins, with long, dark hair and lean, muscular bodies, and huge, hard…”

The phone rang, interrupting Sunny’s fulsome description of her nocturnal callers.

“How the hell did I sleep through all that?  I am so jealous!”  I shot her a look of disgust as I glanced down at the caller ID, noting with surprise that it was Hannah.  Hannah always waited until she saw me to ask questions about her paperwork.  There was only one reason she ever called me.  I groaned.

“Good morning, Hannah!  How are you?” I asked, feigning cheerfulness.

The call waiting beeped.  It was Cindy.  I ignored her, wondering if her ears were about to start burning.

“Sydney—so nice to hear your voice!  I am doing fine, thank you.  How are you?  Did you have a good weekend?” Hannah asked.

Now there was a loaded question.  “Uh, I kept busy.  And you?”

“Very nice, very nice.  An old flame flew in from Paris for the weekend—we had quite a lovely time together,” she said, her voice filled with smiling innuendo. 

Great.  Apparently I was the only one who wasn’t getting any.

“It would have been nice if he could have stayed longer,
toutefois c’est la vie,
yes?”

“I suppose so,” I chuckled.

“
Oui,
” Hannah sighed dramatically.  “Well, perhaps you know why I am calling, Sydney.  Cindy is now three weeks behind on her payments.  I hate to bother you at home, but she does not take my calls, and I know you speak with her often.  Will you please mention it to her?  Even a partial payment would be helpful, with business such as it is.”

“I’ll mention it to her, Hannah, but you know D.J.D.—they never seem to have enough money to go around.”

“Yes, I know,” she said with a sigh.  “Well, thank you, Sydney.  I will see you later this afternoon?”

“Yes, I’ll be by before you close,” I answered.

“Very good.  I have a gift for you,” Hannah said, her voice perking up.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Hannah,” I argued.

“
Oui,
but I want to.  So I will see you later then.
 Au revoir!”

She hung up before I could say another word, leaving me with an uncomfortable feeling closely approaching guilt.  I knew it wasn’t my fault that D.J.D. wasn’t paying her, but whenever she asked me to talk to Cindy about it, I felt like it was.  The fact that she was nice enough to get me a present just made me feel worse. 

“What doesn’t Hannah have to do?” asked Sunny, interrupting my disgruntled musings.

I looked up to find her still lounging in the doorway, with a smile that wouldn’t quite disappear, and the boneless fluidity of someone who’d just had a really good, really long massage.  I shook my head and repressed a wave of longing and jealousy.  Maybe turning those incubi down hadn’t been such a brilliant move after all.  Oh, well—at least I still had my frog vibrator.  Joy.

“She says she has a gift for me when I come by this afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s nice.  I wonder what it is.  I hope it’s not a bottle of her perfume.”  She grimaced, but a sip of coffee quickly renewed her contented smile.

“I don’t know.  I wi…I mean, I’d prefer it if she wouldn’t do stuff like that, though.”

Sunny’s smoky green eyes sparkled with laughter.  “Good save, Syd.  And why?  I think you should accept a gift when it’s offered, and simply enjoy it.”

“I’m sure you do,” I smirked.

Sunny blew me a kiss.

The phone rang and I saw that it was Cindy again.  Better answer it or she’d start to get frantic.  “Okay, time to go back to work,” I said, rising from the bed and shooing Sunny ahead of me as I jogged toward my dining room/office.  Our habitual morning Salsa pulsed softly from the flat-screen’s speakers as I passed.

“Hello?” I said, answering the phone just before it rang to voicemail as I dropped into the chair in front of my laptop.  We’d already been through the morning banking, so I waited with baited breath to see what other delights Cindy had in store for me today.

“Oh, Sydney!  Good—you finally picked up.  I need you to go online and check Mickey’s bank account to see if a deposit’s come in,” Cindy rattled off, sounding panicked.

As I typed in the bank site, Leslie’s hateful voice pierced the waiting silence.

“THAT MONEY BETTER BE IN THAT ACCOUNT.  THE CUT-OFF TIME FOR BETTING ON THE RACE IS NOON.”

“Did you find it yet?” Cindy asked me anxiously.

“It’s coming up now,” I assured her.  “Let’s see.  The balance is…$50,000.00.” 

Wow—where had that come from?  On second thought; I didn’t want to know. 

“Oh, good!”  Her relief was palpable.  “IT’S THERE, MR. HOROWITZ,” she reported cheerfully.  A grunt of response sounded from somewhere nearby.

“There’s this new sports betting site—maybe you could check it out for me,” she suggested.  “Let me see…where did I put that web address?”  I heard her rustling through papers in the background.

I made a face, and then said in a pleasant tone, “While you’re looking, I have a few things to go over with you.  Hannah has been asking me about her payments.  She says they’re three weeks overdue now, but that anything you can give her would help.  I also wanted to remind you that the electric bill has to be paid this week or they’ll turn the lights off.  And we got another ‘Final Notice’ from the IRS…” 

“Never mind, I’ll just look the site up later,” Cindy interrupted.  “Maybe we’ll hit it big at the track today!” she added, presumably in response to my concerns.  “Just remind me about the electric bill again before the end of the week.  Gotta go!”

Ah, Cindy.  So predictable, it almost wasn’t even fun anymore.

I looked up to find Sunny sitting on the couch, absorbed in whatever her laptop screen had to offer, as she blew on steaming mug of black jet fuel number three.

“I need to talk to Lorien about the stuff we found out yesterday,” I announced.

“I thought we were going back to work,” she said distractedly.

“Well, what’s the fun of working from home if you don’t play hooky every once in a while?  Besides, I’m reasonably caught up at the moment, so my time will be better spent figuring out how to save my soul.  If I lose that, somehow I don’t see myself keeping my job.”

“Good point,” she agreed, taking one last look at her screen and then relegating her computer to the coffee table.  “Studying ancient terms was getting tedious anyway.  I can seize the day without Latin.”  She pulled Jasper into her lap, who complained at first, but then nestled in and began purring in response to her stroking.  “So, how do we call Lorien?”

“Not entirely sure, but I have an idea,” I grinned.  “I WISH…” I began loudly.  I immediately erupted into a sneeze, and then held my breath as I waved away a warning cloud of red faerie dust.

“Sydney!  You know you’re not supposed to say that!” Lorien chided.

“Impressive.  It’s like you have your very own faerie doorbell,” Sunny chuckled.

Lorien’s tilted violet eyes narrowed.  “Meaning you tricked me?”

My wince of guilt answered her question.

“Of all the sneaky, underhanded…what if I’d been in the middle of something important?” she demanded.  “Haven’t you ever heard of the girl who cried ‘troll’?”

Sunny snickered.

“I’m sorry, Lorien,” I said, instantly contrite.  “But I had to talk to you and I didn’t know how else to reach you.  I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t important.”