Shauna heard the slapping sound. It wasn’t slappy-on-the-wrist at all. More like a high-five.
“How long has it been?”
“’Bout—uh…ten years, probably?” Her manager’s voice brightened.
She popped back up. The look on her face must have read like toddlerhood injustice. That’s about the effect it had on the two men. None. What. So. Ever.
She interrupted their high school, glory-day discussion with the loudest
ahem
she could muster. “We have our own store security. We don’t need you here.”
Both men straightened with offense. “Actually, you do,” the squid replied. “Because I’m a customer. No. I mean, really.” He started again, looking to the manager for sympathy, then back to Shauna. “Can you make it look like I’ve been making out with the hottest girl here?” He tugged his collar off-kilter, and mussed his greasy hair for added effect. “It’s for the guys back at the office. I can’t really afford to lose this bet, ya’ see?”
Shauna’s arms slumped. How much more off the wall would this life get?
Her boss gave her that golden-moment brow lift, and finished it off with a you-dang-well-better-take-it jab of his finger. “Sure thing. Give him a hand, Shauna.” He turned. “Nice seeing you.” He laughed. “And no more bets.”
Shauna stared helplessly for a moment, but the manager had already moved on.
She closed her eyes. “So would that be frosted pink or…”
“Whatever you’re wearing.”
“Of course,” she said in defeat. She snatched the lipstick from his hand.
Shauna leaned in, forcing breaths in and out her mouth so as not to smell him. She did her best to make the make-up look as fabricated as possible. Like grease paint lined with stubble.
Pretty sure she’d never wear
that
shade again.
Fine way to ruin a perfectly good color scheme. Forever.
“Interesting thing happened last night in the historic district,” he said. “You know, after our little conversation.”
“Yeah?” Shauna’s heart rate kicked up, but she kept her gaze lowered on the tube of lipstick.
“Fire broke out in the basement of a rather unassuming bird shop. So, I gotta ask…Since it sounds like your handiwork…”
She blotted the edge of his mouth with a cotton ball. “Smudged? Like this?”
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?”
“If you were a better tail, you’d know.” Leaving in Adrian’s car must have totally thrown him off. Shauna had become a pretty good shake when it came to the feds. With this guy on her trail, all the old tricks became new again. Suddenly it had become easier and easier. Which seemed odd. “Why is that exactly?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you better at your job?”
His voice hardened. “Doesn’t matter. All you need to know now is that I’m your shadow from here on out.” He took the mirror she dealt him and leaned in close. “You left behind a
live
one this time. Did you know that? The man you set on fire last night actually survived. Burns over half his body. He isn’t talking yet, but
when he does
…I’ll be right here to take you down.”
He looked into the glass. “No. This is all wrong. It’s more like…” He tossed the mirror. “Aww, what the hell—” He grabbed Shauna’s shoulders and jerked her forward. He mashed his lips against hers.
He jerked back faster than she could push him.
“You ass!” She whipped the slime from her mouth with the back of her hand.
No satisfaction gleamed on his face. Only shock, then pain. “Oh. Ouch.” He touched his lip. “What was that?” He looked to his fingers. “What
the hell
was that?” he demanded again. “Did you shock me?”
“You deserved that. You deserve more than that.” She took a menacing step forward.
His brows drew together with disbelief and his voice lowered as though speaking more to himself than anyone. “You burned me.”
Her next sentence got cut off by heavy, hurried steps. “Struck him? Did he just say
you struck him
?” her manager demanded.
“Uh, no.” Shauna frowned. “
Shocked
him.”
Good enough excuse for now, right?
“And it wasn’t on purpose.”
“We were going for the full effect,” Squid added with a grin.
The manager’s lips pursed with rage. “That’s it. Mike, please leave my store. And you—” He turned on Shauna. “Interesting marketing scheme and all, but you’re making a spectacle. No more male clients.” He paused. “Except for Halloween, that’s different.” He spun on his heel to leave but paused again. “And until Halloween, that whole,” he waved his palm in front of her face, “thing you’ve got going is against dress code. Wash it off and get back to work.”
A silky voice appeared at her side. “He’s right, you know.” Heartley scrunched her nose. “It was subtle before; you should have stopped there. Now it looks like you’re kinda mocking your job.”
“What?” Her eyes might be still a little raccoony—a little swollen—whether from crying last night, or setting herself on fire. Or both.
But it couldn’t be that bad…
Her friend widened her eyes and looked away as if trying to escape before the horror unfurled.
“What?” She snatched the mirror and stared back in horror. The lipstick smudge across her upper lip—that was least of it.
Her complexion was fine when she left for work.
She looked again. Her mouth framed the words in silent whisper. “Oh my God.”
She hadn’t even bothered with primer, foundation, or blush this morning. But now, her entire face looked like she’d powdered it with cotton candy.
And her arms! The mirror clattered onto the table as she looked from one to the next.
She tugged her shirt down several inches to reveal a pair of petal-pink breasts.
“This wasn’t intentional.” She blurted to no one in particular.
“Well, hun, next time, don’t put your bronzer on in the dark.” Heartley up-ended a bottle of make-up remover onto a cotton ball and handed it to Shauna.
Shauna lifted the hair from her forehead, and scrubbed her brow feverishly with the other. Up and down, side-to-side. The color only deepened. Her voice rose to a shrill note. “What if it doesn’t come off?”
“Let’s just hope it does…It usually does…maybe you should see a doctor.”
****
Shauna’s grip tightened on her phone. Its rhinestone-encrusted casing scored her palm and released a plastic
creak
of protest.
Words rattled off her tongue fast as her mind could form them. “Hey, it’s Shauna. I know you said you’d do your best to be here, but I need you to do better than that. Something’s come up—I think something went wrong—and I need your help. Call me.”
She pulled a breath into her starving lungs and touched on the end button.
She dropped the phone into the center console. It clattered around in the shallow cup holder and nearly bounced free as Shauna veered a quick right around the corner on squealing tires.
She pulled in another sharp lungful of air as she entered the dim alley and forced her foot on the brake.
The car jerked to a stop.
Her gaze pinned to the cross-traffic in her rearview mirror.
One vehicle. Then another.
No white SUV.
Frustration percolated along her nerve endings. She could just imagine the Squidster idling quietly on the other side of the alley. Humming to himself along with the radio’s twangy tune. His index fingers tapping gleefully on the steering wheel. Just…waiting.
Erratic driving would only encourage him to follow more aggressively. This wasn’t big city traffic. It was small town traffic. On a late Friday morning of all things.
The hidden drive next to the pasta shop hadn’t worked.
Neither had the graveyard.
She never used the graveyard. Too many winding turns in the open. It made her an easy target, but to the average newcomer, the snaggle-toothed maze had no detectable exit.
Yet he navigated through that place like a funeral director on caffeine.
Suddenly, the worst detecti—agent in the business was excelling at his job. As though a flag somewhere had just lifted.
Or the flag holder.
Cold realization hit Shauna square in the face like a mop-bucket of dirty water. Richard said he had connections. He stalked her all the way to the nightclub and blended in like nobody’s business. And now that he was gone…
Had he been influenced by the feds somehow?
Wedding night rehearsal…pifft.
Richard didn’t want her. She shook her head. Which explained her rather obvious reaction toward him.
Or lack thereof.
Her temperature hadn’t soared nearly as high with him. The very reaction he wanted to witness the most.
She erected her spine. “Good…
jerk
.”
She accelerated through the alley and veered right, cutting it close for a stray dog that had been bustling across the street at an awkward angle. She splashed through a waterlogged ditch.
Adrian better not have changed his number already. A pang of loss hit her chest.
How could she hide her condition now? With her face stained an unnatural shade of freak? And what’s worse, she’d burned the agent. That’s more than enough proof to haul her butt back to the observation room.
Anyone she associated with could be labeled a plausible connection.
Adrian had lived in secret for the better part of his adult life. Whether the squid knew Adrian’s story or not, he would start taking notes the moment he caught them together.
Word might get out, and the nation would return to Adrian’s doorstep. More than just clamoring for attention this time. Shauna remembered the anger and frustration of Adrian’s potential clients who took to the nine-o’clock news shortly after he disappeared.
The lives he could save. The pain they endured. Their anger turned venomous. Their actions, deadly.
Shauna couldn’t sacrifice him like that. She snatched up the phone again and scrolled through her list of contacts. Sammy. Maybe he could help.
Her attention flicked to the mirror again, as the hulking, white SUV turned the corner with all the ease of a Sunday afternoon drive.
Shauna clenched the wheel with her free hand.
When the phone connected, she heard Samuel’s voice in the distance. It seemed to drown under the whirring sound of machinery.
Shauna looked up as red stoplight glared toward her. She gasped and pressed the phone closer as she jammed on the brake again.
“Samuel? Hello.”
“Get another air mover over here. This one isn’t cutting it.” A crackle sounded over the phone. His voice drew closer. “Hello?”
“It’s Shauna Tamson.”
“Oh, the shortcake. Hi! Fancy hearing you again.”
“Where’s Adrian?”
“Not here.” His lightened tone dampened a little. “I’ve been cleaning up his mess for over an hour now.”
Her shoulders sunk under their own weight.
“You wanna reschedule or something?” he prompted.
“Kinda. We met up last night, but things didn’t go as expected.”
Shauna mentally prodded the vehicle in front of her as the light changed green. She eased forward. “Listen, how do I find him again?”
“You ate the chocolate. Without me,” he accused.
She stomped on the brake when the car didn’t move. Shauna hit the horn. Her attention shot to the vehicle’s license plate.
The driver reacted midway through the prolonged
hooooonk.
Red brake lights flickered off.
Shauna was moving again.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Yep. Still there. Two cars back. “Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“I really need to find him.”
Samuel cleared his throat. His next words came with all the speed and agility of a monotone tax advisor. “Any late night escapades between client and provider are strictly consensual unless otherwise indicated. No animals were harmed in the making of your evening. Residual substances are for external use only and should not be bottled, processed, or otherwise reused. No threat of pregnancy or infectious disease is probable or possible as a result of your evening. Spoken expletives and sentiments during intercourse are not a guarantee of claims—”
She scowled at the phone, then pressed it back to her ear. “What. Are. You doing?”
“Giving you the run-down. You can’t have his number. Your transaction’s closed…sorry.”
His last word. Sorry.
That
one sounded genuine.
And final.
Shauna paused. Searching for a loophole. “Well…what if I’m not happy with my service?”
“You mean sex? Or…”
“No,
my service
.”
“Again. You’re talking sex, right?”
“This is not funny.” She fought the shrill note that entered her tone. “I’m pink, Samuel. He turned me into a giant Easter egg.”
She could picture the way Samuel must have rocked back on his heels and scratched his head. “Oooooh. That.” He paused again. “That’s never happened before. Interesting. The prophylactic mist has been used for years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen.”
“Prophylactic?”
“Where are you?” His voice seemed a new mix of intrigue.
“Are you kidding me? You’re telling me we were fu—frolicking around in a goddamn, airborne condom!”
Samuel lowered his tone. “You know, you really need to watch that mouth.”
“I said frolicking!” Her voice came out thick with tears and desperation. “He didn’t help me at all. He used me. How could he do that?” Caught on the verge of painful sob, Shauna refused to let any more words tumble free.
Silence stretched across the phone, and Shauna took several hard swallows, working her throat into obedience.
Samuel expelled a deep sigh. His words eased in. “Oh-kay. Where are you?”
“I’m…” Her heart dipped a little. “I’m going home.” She dodged down a side street. “But don’t let him go there,” she rushed to clarify. “Have him call me.”
“Aye-aye, shortcake.”
Shauna couldn’t respond. She didn’t want words. Words gave her nothing. What she wanted was the protective warmth of Adrian’s arms wrapped around her like last night.
But at this point, why see Adrian at all? He’d betrayed her. She swiped at the warm moisture that rolled down her face. She had been right. It
was
easy to pin nobilities on a girl’s first crush. Too easy.