Unscrewed (25 page)

I watched him for a moment. “You never really thought he was guilty.”

He raised his brows, managing to look surprised and amused all at once. “I did not say I did.”

“But you implied it…subtly, but absolutely.”

He shrugged. “You are an extremely intuitive young woman. I cannot control your thoughts.”

“You wanted me to think you doubted him. To feel that I had to prove you wrong.”

He laughed. “Perhaps I should have—”

“You sorry, fucking son of a bitch!” Rivera was all but spitting, fists clenched as he leaned across my bed. “You put her up to this?”

They faced off, the senator regally affronted. “I did no such thing. She was concerned. As was I. We—”

“You think she’s a damn pawn? Someone—”

“You underestimate both her abilities and her intellect.”

“She could have gotten herself killed.”

Rivera Senior shrugged. “It was your task to prevent such a thing, was it not?”

“Shame on you, Miguel!” Rosita hissed. He spared her a glance. Perhaps there was some guilt in it.

“I should slap your sorry ass in jail.”

“For what?” the senator scoffed. “Trying to save your job, ridiculous as it might be?”

“Ridiculous!” The word was a growl.

“You could have been anything you wanted. I have given you every opportunity.”

“You gave me the determination to be nothing like you.”

“Gerald, please,” Rosita murmured.

“Well, that is good, then, for you do not measure—”

It was then that I put my hand to my throat and pulled in a loud, ragged-assed breath.

The three of them turned to me in terror.

“McMullen!” Rivera was leaning over me, gripping my hand. “Jesus, McMullen, are you all right?”

“Breathe slowly.” The senator’s face was taut with concern. “Try to relax.”

I dragged in another dramatic breath, holding my throat and motioning them closer.

They leaned in, listening hard.

“You’re acting like children,” I said.

They straightened in unison, identical expressions of surprise blooming into anger.

“Fuck it, McMullen, don’t ever—”

“You,” I said, rounding on Rivera. “You wanted to believe your father was guilty. While he believed in you enough—”

The accused made a sound of denial, but I went on, louder now.

“And
cared
enough to try to prove your innocence, all the while knowing you would never appreciate his efforts.”

“It is true,” said Miguel. “You have forever disregarded—”

“And you,” I said, spearing the elder Rivera with my glare. “You need to reevaluate your life. You’re not a young man anymore. The clock’s ticking, buddy. If there are people you truly care about, you sure as shit better figure out a way to prove it.”

He straightened with regal aplomb. His lips tightened and then he turned and walked out.

The room was silent. I felt a spear of regret and guilt, but in a second he reappeared.

“Rosita.” His voice was low, his expression solemn. “I have not yet eaten. Would you, perhaps, wish to join me for lunch?”

She raised her chin and her brows in haughty unison. “I’m meeting Manny in but a few—”

I cleared my throat, loud and authoritative. She glanced at me. I shifted my gaze from one man to the other, then settled it back on her.

“I suppose I can spare a few minutes,” she said.

They left together. Not arm in arm, not singing love tunes, but not spitting at each other, either.

“I suppose you think you’re clever,” Rivera said.

“Hardly.” I scowled. “He took my tiramisu.”

“Serves you right.”

“You two are idiots,” I said.

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you have a perfect relationship with your mother.”

“Well…” I said, and snorted out a breath. Truth be told, I
was
feeling pretty clever, and kind of powerful. “At least we manage to conduct ourselves with a modicum of maturity.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve learned through the years that one cannot—”

“Chrissy!”

I jerked my eyeballs front and center, but my mother was already rushing toward me.

I made some kind of noise, like
“Ackk.”

“Chrissy. What have you done? I called your house. No answer. Elaine said you were in the hospital. I caught the first plane out here. There were two kids yelling in my ear the whole way. Some people don’t have any idea how to raise—”

“You must be Mrs. McMullen,” Rivera said. There was a smirk in his tone.

“You knew she was coming,” I said, but my voice was almost inaudible, drowned out by screaming acne and the
oompaa
ing huff of a tuba.

“Who are you?” Mom asked, eyes narrowed, and Rivera laughed.

Unconsciousness never looked better.

About the Author

LOIS GREIMAN lives in Minnesota, where she rides horses, embarrasses her teenage daughter, and forces her multiple personalities into indentured servitude by making them characters in her novels. Write to her at
[email protected]
. One of her alter egos will probably write back.

If you enjoyed Lois Greiman’s
Unscrewed,
don’t miss the next mystery from this “dangerously funny”
^*1
author.

Look for

U
nmanned

Available from Dell Books in Fall 2007

Read on for an exclusive sneak peek!

M
CMULLEN,” RIVERA SAID. I was juggling a stiff slice of pizza, a cell phone, and ten million irate commuters when he called—an average Tuesday morning in L.A.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry about last night.” He had said he would drop over after work, but he hadn’t shown up. Still, he didn’t sound sorry so much as angry…and borderline psychotic. If I had a nugget of sense the size of a germ cell I would have drop-kicked our so-called relationship into the distant memory bin long ago, but Rivera’s got an inexplicable appeal. And a really great ass.

“No big deal,” I said.

There was a moment of impatient silence, then, “You’re pissed.”

I gnawed off a chunk of coagulated mozzarella and glared through the blob on my borrowed windshield. The weatherman had failed to predict an early-morning bird poop deluge. “I don’t get pissed.”

“It couldn’t be helped.” He sounded irritable and a little distracted, but I wasn’t too thrilled, either. This was the third date he’d missed in as many weeks.

“Yeah? An emergency with another ex-fiancée?” I asked, and immediately knew I should have kept my mouth shut. Intelligent silence isn’t a new idea…just a good one.

“You jealous, McMullen?” he asked.

“Please,” I said, but it’s difficult to sound haughty while masticating.

He laughed.

I bit my tongue. Literally and figuratively. “Listen, Rivera,” I said. “It’s good of you to call, but I have to get to work by—”

“I’ll come over tonight.”

I balanced the pizza on my purse and gunned the snappy little Porsche past a late-model Caddy. “I’m afraid I’m otherwise engaged this evening. I’ll—”

“Be right there!” he yelled, ineffectively covering the receiver, then said to me, “Around eight.”

My smile was beatific. A shame it was wasted. “As previously stated, I’m afraid I’ll be unable to—”

“I’ll bring Chinese.”

I felt my salivary glands tingle at the thought of Asian delights, but I infused my spine with pride and the memory of a half dozen broken dates. “That’s very considerate of you but—”

“Don’t bother dressing for dinner,” he said. His voice was low and smoky.

“Listen…” I began, but he had already hung up. I stared blankly at my phone until the blare of a car horn yanked me back to reality. Jerking the Porsche back into my chosen lane, I classily resisted returning my fellow commuter’s early-morning salute and snapped the phone shut.

“Don’t dress for dinner,” I snorted. Like he could just sweep me off my feet with a little white sauce and testosterone. Like I had nothing better to do than wait panting by my door for him to show up with those sexy little take-out boxes from Chin Yung. Like I was desperate!

By the time the low-fuel light clicked on, I had inhaled the pizza and worked up a full head of steam. I swiveled into the nearest gas station, selected a fuel choice that wouldn’t require a third mortgage, and dragged a windshield scraper from its receptacle near the paper towels.

Standing there in my silk suit and classy but secondhand sling backs, I scraped ineffectively at the Porsche’s windshield. The car wasn’t mine. It had been loaned to me by a height-sensitive little myope who was dating my best friend and former secretary, Elaine Butterfield. Laney had recently morphed into the Amazon queen—long story—and left to film a pilot in some remote area of the Calapooya Mountains. Thus I was left with her rightfully insecure beau and a long string of secretarial applicants who could neither type nor, apparently, think. I dared not be late to work, but there was one particularly large blob directly in front of the driver’s seat. It was the color of ripe eggplant, and I was out of washer fluid. Murphy’s Law had struck again.

“Here. Let me help.”

I turned toward the gentleman who had appeared near my left elbow. He was six feet tall in his scuffed work boots and held a windshield scraper in his right hand. Blue fluid dripped from the netted sponge.

“Unless you need to prove your independence or something,” he added. He wore round, gold-framed glasses over aquamarine, heavily lashed eyes. I have four eyelashes. Two on each side. Men always have superior lashes, despite a butt load of Maybelline and feminine insecurity. Coincidence or Murphy’s Law? You be the judge.

“I have a strangulation hernia from carrying salt down to my water softener,” I said.

He studied me, head tilted, hair thinning a little on the top. “Screw independence?” he guessed.

I nodded toward the windshield. “Knock yourself out.”

He did so, not literally, leaning over the hood and sawing with vigor. His blue jeans rode low on narrow hips and there seemed to be zero fat molecules hanging around his waistband.

Turning the scraper, he squeegeed off the excess water and moved around to the other side. His T-shirt had been washed to a soft, olive green that set off the tight flex of his triceps.

“Thank you.” I was trying to put the irritating memory of Rivera’s Asian bribery behind me, but I was still feeling fidgety and a little flushed. “You can leave the rest.”

But he was already applying the sponge to the passenger side. “I’d rather commit murder.”

My nerves cranked up a little. Maybe it was the fact that I was late for work. Or maybe it was the mention of murder. Murder makes me kind of jumpy lately. “What’s that?” I asked.

“Leaving a car like this dirty,” he said, and grinned at me over the sparkling windshield. “It’d be a heinous crime.”

I studied him more closely. “Are you an attorney?”

“No.” He laughed. He had an intelligent aura about him, so I suppose I should have known better. “You?”

“A psychologist.”

He nodded. “If I had a Porsche I’d swaddle it in bubble wrap and stow it in a climate-controlled garage.”

Maybe I should have informed him then and there that the car wasn’t mine, that my own vehicle was just above lumber wagon status, and that I had made more per annum as a cocktail waitress than I did as a licensed therapist, but my vanity was feeling a little bruised. “I’m fresh out of bubble wrap,” I said, and checked my watch. It was 9:52. My first client was due to arrive in eight minutes, and leaving Mr. Patterson with my current receptionist, the Magnificent Mandy—her choice of sobriquets, not mine—would be tantamount to cutting my psychological throat. “And functioning garages.”

“Tell me you don’t leave it out in the elements,” he said, stroking the cobalt hood as if it were a cherished pet. He was kind of cute in an honest, disarming sort of way.

“L.A. doesn’t have any decent elements,” I said.

Dumping the scraper back into its receptacle, he rounded the bumper. “You from Minnesota or something?” he asked.

“Chicago.”

“No kidding? I grew up in Oshkosh. Wisconsin,” he added.

I nodded. “Land of the Packers and baby overalls?”

“That’s right,” he said. Wiping his hand on his jeans, he stretched out his arm. “Will Swanson.” His grip was firm but gentle.

“Christina McMullen,” I said.

He gave me a smile. Little wrinkles radiated from the corners of his eyes. “You miss the cold?”

“Almost as much as I miss acne.”

“Yeah.” The smile fired up a notch. He nodded toward the interior of the gas station. “Me and my brother just moved down here a couple months ago.”

“Movie script in tow?”

He laughed at himself, ran his fingers through his hair. “Guess everyone has one, huh?”

“Not at all,” I lied. “I met a guy just the other day who doesn’t write anything but poetry.”

“Haiku?”

“Free verse.”

He grinned. “We’re doing carpentry work to pay for an overpriced apartment in Compton.”

Thus the nice forearms.

“Say…” He tilted his head again. His hair was straight and a little too long. “You’re short one garage. I’m short on cash, maybe we could help each other out.”

“I’m afraid my cash isn’t very long, either.”

“We work cheap.” He scowled as he glanced at the scrap of paper he’d just pulled from his back pocket. “Sorry. I guess Hank has our business cards, but I can write down my number if you’re interested.”

He
did
have nice arms. I’d spent money for worse reasons.

He was already scribbling with the nub of a pencil he’d pulled from his jeans. “Are you any good?” I asked.

He nodded, then grinned, hunching his shoulders a little. “Actually, we suck.”

Funny. Self-deprecating. Cute. Rivera was irritating, conceited, and dangerous. Hmmm.

My phone rang from inside the car. I opened the driver’s door.

“Call me sometime,” he said.

I gave him a smile as I slithered onto the Porsche’s buttery seats. And for a moment I almost felt sexy.

B
y two o’clock sexy was but a distant memory. By six-fifty, I couldn’t even remember what the word meant. I felt tired and kind of dirty…but not in a good way.

The phone rang in the reception area. I waited for the Magnificent Mandy to pick it up. She didn’t. I answered on the fifth ring.

“L.A. Counseling.”

There was a moment’s hesitation before the phone went dead. I put the receiver back in the cradle, at which time my so-called employee poked her head into my office. Her face was heart-shaped, her hair short and dyed the color of lightning bolts.

“Should I have answered that?” she asked.

I tightened my hand on the phone and refrained from lobbing it at her head. “That might have been nice.”

“Even if it’s after six?”

I gave her a serene smile. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Oh no.” Her eyes were bubble-bright behind glasses with little stars at the peaks of the black frames. I had hired her because of the glasses, thinking they made her look smart. I’ve made other, equally idiotic decisions, but not in recent memory. “No trouble. That’s what you’re paying me for, right?”

“I thought so.”

“You look tired. You have a hot date or—”

Her question was interrupted by the doorbell. She glanced toward it, thinking hard. Maybe it was easier with her mouth open.

“Perhaps you should see who that is?” I suggested.

She nodded snappily. “Good idea.” Her platform shoes tapped merrily across my carpet and onto the linoleum. Her tights were popsicle pink. “Hello.”

“Hi.” The voice sounded familiar.

There was a pause which Her Magnificence failed to fill.

“I have a seven o’clock appointment.”

No response, but I recognized the newcomer’s voice. Mrs. Trudeau. She’d been a client for some months now. I had a feeling she found me shallow and unprofessional. I’d spent a good deal of time trying to convince her otherwise.

“I called yesterday to reschedule, remember?” she said.

There was another pause, then, “Oh crapski,” Mandy said.

I plunked my head onto the desk and refrained from crying.

It was eight-fifteen when I turned onto the 210. Despite a good deal of self-loathing, I was nervous about Rivera’s impending visit. I needn’t have worried though, because when I pulled the Porsche up in front of my little fixer-upper, his Jeep was nowhere to be seen.

Harlequin met me at the door in a series of whines and wiggling spins, thwapping me with his tail at regular intervals. Harlequin is the approximate size of a minivan. He’s bi-colored and droopy-eyed. If I liked dogs, he would be at the top of my Facebook list.

“No Rivera,” I said.

He cocked his boxy head and grinned at me, showing crooked incisors as I kicked off my sling backs and hobbled into the bathroom.

“Probably best anyway,” I said, locking the dog in the hall as I used the toilet. He whined from the other side of the door. “I have a lot to do.” And exciting things they were too—carpet shampooing being the most titillating.

Straightening my skirt, I scowled at myself in the mirror above the sink and remembered that wisdom comes with age. I was looking pretty wise. Washing my hands, I sighed, then wandered into the hall to arm the security system.

The doorbell rang just as I was about to touch the key pad, and I jumped despite my placid nerves.

Harlequin barked and circled ecstatically. He loved Rivera almost as if the scowling lieutenant were human.

“Steady,” I said. Maybe I was talking to the dog.

Taking a few deep breaths, I put on my cool face and opened the door.

“Congratulations, Rivera. You’re hardly late at—” I began, but my words withered as I recognized the windshield man. He stood on my crumbling steps, hands shoved into his back pockets, eyes sincere behind his wire-rim glasses.

“Will Swanson,” he said and gave me an embarrassed grin. “From the gas station?”

“Oh. Yes.”

Strong as a bulldozer, Harlequin squeezed past my leg to slam his nose into Windshield Guy’s groin.

“Holy crap!” he said, backed against the stucco. “What is that?”

“Sorry. Harlequin, come!” I ordered. I might just as well have told him to dance the mambo. He paid me not the slightest attention. But after a couple more snuffles, he sneezed twice, then galloped loose-limbed down the steps and made a mad circle around my abbreviated yard.

Windshield Guy watched, eyes wide behind the wire-rims. “Is it…a dog?”

“Maybe,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh.” He looked surprised. “I’m sorry.” Embarrassment amped up a notch. “Weren’t you expecting me?”

I may have blinked. It was the most intelligent response I could come up with.

“I called your office.”

I waited.

“Asked if it would be okay to stop by. Your secretary gave me your address,” he added quickly.

I wished like hell I could believe he was lying, but I’d known Mandy for a couple of weeks now. The girl made Gatorade look like Einstein.

“Oh shit,” he said, and blushed, backing away. “She didn’t tell you I called. You probably have company. I can…I’ll come back later.”

“No.” No company. No Asian ambrosia. “How’d you get my phone number?”