Absolutely, Positively (17 page)

She waved the carrot at me. “I hear what you’re saying, Lucy. And the truth is, I don’t know. But right now, this minute, it doesn’t matter. And if I’m okay with it, then you should be, too.”

I didn’t think it was that easy.

She added, “This may last one week, two. One year, two. Who knows? Life is about living, not about constant worrying.”

Ha! She didn’t know my life very well. I sat on a stool. “But how, when you know there may be pain in the end?”

“Life is not without pain. You ache and you move on. And you do it all again.”

And again and again in my parents’ case.

“This go-round happens to come with the added benefit of a lifestyle change. Your father’s so fit that he’s inspired me. I’ve also joined a gym.”

A diet, Zumba, and now a gym as well. This current fling was pretty serious. “You’re perfect as is.”

She smiled broadly. “Thank you, LucyD. I knew you were my favorite child.”

“I’m your only child, unless you have something you want to tell me.”

“Such sass. I need to do this.” She swept her hands over the salad. “I’m not getting any younger. I need to start thinking about my health.”

“You know Dad has a gym downstairs.”

“You’ve clearly lost your mind if you think I’m going to exercise where he might see me.”

I laughed. “Those who exercise together stay together?”

She threw a cherry tomato at me. The rubies on her finger glistened.

I took hold of her hand, felt my heart tug. “The ring looks great.”

Holding it up, she admired it. “It needs a good cleaning, but it’s really quite beautiful. I’m not sure why I ever thought it was a hunk of junk.”

“I think it had something to do with your feelings for Dad at the time.”

“Hmm. You may be right.”

Murmured voices came from the hallway. As Dad and Preston appeared, her gaze pleaded with me.

I took mercy on her—I had experience with my father’s tutorials. “We should be going, Preston.”

“Right.” She hurried over to me. “Going.”

As I gathered up my purse, I spotted the suitcases. “Are you going out of town?” I asked my father.

He stood behind my mother, his arm around her waist. “In a way.”

She smiled. “Dad is moving in with me.”

Preston slid a look my way as she said, “That’s wonderful.”

“Absolutely.” I meant it, but my stomach ached nonetheless.

“We want to have a big dinner to celebrate. This Saturday. Everyone’s invited.”

“Me?” Preston asked as though she were the gawky, unathletic kid who’d just been picked first for a game of dodgeball.

“Of course!”

“But I’m supposed to have dinner with Cutter on Saturday,” I protested weakly.

“Bring him! It wouldn’t be a party without him.”

Cutter and Preston in the same room. Great.

As I rung for the elevator Preston said, “So just
when
is Cutter getting back?”

19

Medford Millinery was appropriately located in Medford. Medford Square to be exact, about fifteen minutes north of the city.

Preston said, “Next time I’m driving. You drive like a granny.”

“Are you insulting Dovie?” I clicked my key fob and my car beeped twice, locking the doors. I slipped on my gloves and looked around, immediately drawn to the coffee shop across the street. Feeling the pull, I started toward it, only to be suddenly jerked backward.

Preston held firm to the strap of my purse. “The hat shop is this way.” She started down the sidewalk.

“Can’t I meet you?”

“You’re not going to be able to focus until you get a latte, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Let’s hurry up then.”

Ten minutes later, we stood inside the millinery shop, surrounded by some of the fanciest hats I’d ever seen. The man behind the counter didn’t look too pleased to see us.

Preston marched up to the counter (she really needed to work on her finesse) and placed the Lone Ranger’s hat next to the cash register. “Hello. We found this hat, and were hoping you could help us reunite it with its proper owner.” She tried batting her eyelashes, but her direct manner of speaking overruled any kind of flirtatiousness.

Thank goodness, because that would have been too much for me to handle. The shopkeeper looked to already have one foot in the grave. He was small and skeletal, his paper-thin skin stretched across his drooping features. Dark splotches covered his neck and face, rising onto his forehead and creeping across his shiny bald spot until disappearing into his receding dull gray hairline. Tufts of white hair shot from his ears, reveling in freedom by twisting and curling along the veiny skin covering protruding cartilage.

He had to be ninety if a day.

“Did you not see the sign?” he asked in a heavy Italian accent.

“What sign?” Preston asked. “No returns? This isn’t a return; it’s—”

He slammed his hand on the countertop. “No food or drink!” he bellowed, his voice shaking the windows.

“Cripes!” Preston jumped back, splashing her coffee onto her winter white wool coat.

The man placed both hands on the glass countertop, leaned forward, and huffed, much like a bull before he charged.

I backed slowly toward the door.

“Do you happen to have a paper towel?” Preston asked the man in a dulcet tone.

He let out a hearty, “Arrrrgh!” that had those windowpanes shivering in fear.

I confess to a shudder as well.

“No need to be surly,” Preston growled in return, only mildly fazed by the outburst. I, on the other hand, was ready to run away. Far, far away.

Preston spun, removed my coffee from my hand, and set both our cups outside the door. When she passed by, she said, “You just had to have your coffee first, didn’t you?”

“We should go,” I whispered.

“The Lone Ranger,” she forced through clenched teeth. She turned back to the shopkeeper, a broad smile stretching the limits of her face. “Better?”

He smiled, a closed-lip affair sure to give me nightmares. He hooked his thumbs on his vest and drummed his bony fingers on his hollow chest. “I am Dominic Pagano. How may I help you lovely ladies?”

“The hat?” Preston said, pushing it his way.

“Ah yes.” He picked it up, ran a hand lovingly along the edges. He handed it back to her. “I can’t help you.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“My clientele is confidential. I absolutely cannot divulge who purchased the hat.”

“But you do know
who
purchased the hat?” Preston asked, digging for information. Her fists were clenched at her sides.

I stepped up beside her, just in case I had to hold her back from leaping the counter and strangling the old man.

“My memory is limitless.” Dominic tapped his temple. “I never forget a hat, a face, or a name. I made this hat in 1989. July. An unusually hot summer, as I recall.” He ran a hand over the hat as though it were a pet.

I rummaged around my satchel, pushing aside the files I’d shoved in there, a bottle of water, a hair pick, lip gloss, my overstuffed wallet, and finally found my card case and pulled out a business card. “Could you please contact its owner and tell him we found the hat and would like to speak with him? He can call anytime.”

Spindly fingers clamped onto the card. “Valentine?” His bushy eyebrows rose. “As in ‘Oscar Valentine’?”

“He’s my father.”

Preston smiled triumphantly.

The man flushed with pleasure. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Oscar is one of my favorite clients. He’s quite fond of the fedora, is he not?”

“Not for long,” Preston snapped. “I doubt he’ll ever come in again once he finds out how you treated his
daughter.
His
only
daughter.”

I sighed dramatically. I might as well play it up. If it helped track down the owner of the Lone Ranger hat, why not?

“And her
closest friend,
” Preston added, linking elbows with me.

Okay. That was pushing it.

The shopkeeper hurriedly pulled a slip of paper from beneath the counter. In spidery penmanship he scribbled a name. He checked an old-fashioned Rolodex and jotted down an address as well. He slid the paper across the counter.

Jeffrey Denham-Foster with a Randolph address.

With a brittle smile, the shopkeeper said, “I don’t know how much good it will do.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Mr. Denham-Foster passed away a year ago.”

That news certainly changed the direction of our investigation.

Preston glanced at me, then back to the man. “Was he married?”

“Why, yes. Lovely woman. Eva. They had three children together. Arnold, Matthias, and Linda.”

I had the feeling, if asked, Pagano could provide birthdates. He wasn’t kidding when he claimed a great memory.

“I’m quite sorry I can’t be of more help. But please do give your father my best. Have a lovely day. And…”

“Yes?” Preston asked.

“If you come back,” his smile turned to a snarl and he banged his hand on the counter, “remember no food or drink!”

The glass shook again as Preston grabbed the hat and my arm and steered me to the door. Outside the shop, she bent and picked up our coffees. She handed me mine, and I tossed it in a trash can.

“He’s pleasant,” I said, smiling.

She tipped her head. “I kind of liked him. I have a soft spot for crankypusses.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Sipping her coffee, she frowned. “It’s cold.”

“Imagine.” I started for my car and stopped short.

“What?” Preston asked, following my gaze.

My car sat at the curb, all four doors open wide. I quickly looked around.

“What are you looking for? Should we call the cops?”

“No use.” My pulse raced. “I’m sure Tristan Rourke is long gone.”

20

“How do you know it was Tristan?” Preston asked as Scarlett, my GPS, directed us from Medford to Roxbury. I’d lived in Boston and the South Shore my whole life, yet still couldn’t find my way around.

“I just do.”

“But how?” she pressed, tapping her fingernail on the console.

“I’m psychic, remember?”

“Not that kind. I’ve been reading up on psychics, you know.”

I slid a look her way. Where was she going with this? She was leading me somewhere. “You have?”

“I’m just fascinated, especially now that I know your powers are real. Did you know a lot of psychic ability is hereditary?”

“Really?” I asked. “Because it was the lightning strike and the surge of electricity that gave me my abilities to find lost objects.” I wasn’t technically lying. I just left out the part where the surge had robbed me of seeing auras. The auras I’d inherited from my father.

“Was anyone else there when the surge happened?” she asked as she changed the radio station.

Though there was nothing overt in her tone, I heard the investigator at work. “My mother,” I answered. “And I was on the phone with Marisol, who rushed right over from her house when the phone went dead.”

I remembered it all too clearly. How the surge had knocked me clear off my bed. Mum had rushed into the room to check on me, and I hadn’t been able to see her red aura. My colorful world had gone dark.

“I’m sure either of them would love to tell you all about that day.”

She stared out the window, a frown tugging on her lips. Mine hadn’t been the answer she had hoped for. It was obvious she suspected my father had powers. It was only a matter of time before she figured out he could see auras. Cutter, too. What would she do with the information?

When she didn’t respond, I gratefully let it drop. “Did your shady contacts have any other information about Tristan?”

“Most were reluctant to talk about him at all.”

“Yet they all knew who he was.”

“Without a doubt.” She shifted slightly to face me. “If it was Tristan who left your doors open, why would he do that? I don’t understand.”

I checked my rearview mirror. As far as I could tell, there was no one following us. I didn’t feel relief. I felt duped. This was twice now Tristan had caught me off-guard. “I don’t know.”

He had every opportunity to be malicious. It would have taken only seconds to slash my seats. Minutes to steal the radio or the GPS unit. Instead, he had simply unlocked the doors and left them open wide.

In a way, it was more violating. As if he was declaring that not only could he find me, but also locks wouldn’t keep him out. If it was a subtle threat, it worked. I was skeeved out.

I glanced in the mirror again. Still nothing.

Scarlett demanded I turn left in one hundred feet. She was bossy and demanding, that Scarlett, and woe to the driver who didn’t do as she said. We were on our way to the location Preston’s tipster had given her—the address for Tristan Rourke’s underground headquarters. We were scoping the place out, doing a quick drive-by to see if the tip held any merit.

“Do you know if this is a house or a warehouse?”

“Not a clue. Two hundred bucks will only buy so much.”

I suddenly thought of the homeless man on the bench on the Common and the money he’d slipped into his glove. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days and made a mental note to check on him, make sure he had enough to eat.

I knew I couldn’t save the whole world. And maybe I couldn’t even help the homeless man, but I could try. I certainly had more than enough money sitting in my trust fund to be a benefactor. But first, I should ask if he wanted my help. Some people wouldn’t—and I could respect that.

“About my expense report,” Preston said.

“Were we talking about your expense report?”

Scarlett told me to turn right in twenty feet.

Preston ignored my question. “I think I should be able to write off a new pair of boots. I was on the job when these broke.”

The superglue wasn’t holding. “But you weren’t on the job for Valentine, Inc. The Lone Ranger has nothing to do with Lost Loves.”

Raising an eyebrow, she said, “But if I weren’t working the Lost Love cases, I never would have been downtown, ergo I never would have known about the Lone Ranger in the first place.”

“Ergo? Did you go to law school when I wasn’t looking?”