She looked up and caught him watching her. "Anything else?" she asked him, her voice polite and professional. At least she was obedient. That was something.
"Good coffee," Gabe said and closed the street door behind him.
Nell went back to her desk and sat down, disliking Gabe McKenna intensely. She watched him through the big plate-glass window as he put on sunglasses and got into a vintage black sports car. He looked the epitome of retro cool-big guy, sharp suit, dark glasses, snazzy car-as he pulled out into the street and drove away.
Well, looks could be deceiving. After all, he'd hired a secretary who'd embezzled a thousand dollars and left the place looking like a hellhole. How smart could he be? And then he'd dismissed her with those dark eyes as if she were just…a secretary. Well, the bell with you, Mr. McKenna. Frustrated beyond measure, Nell picked up her paper towels and spray cleaner and attacked the reception room, grateful that his good-looking younger partner wasn't as annoying as he was. She wasn't impressed with Riley's intellect or energy so far, but he was big, blond, and blue-eyed, so at least he was fun to look at.
An hour later, the phone still hadn't rung, but the room was clean, right down to the big window in front that said in ancient, worn gold lettering, MCKENNA INVESTIGATIONS: DISCREET ANSWERS TO DIFFICULT QUESTIONS.
Nell had scrubbed it with enthusiasm until she realized that she was taking some of the flaking paint off and slowed down. Not that it would have hurt if she'd taken it all off; the lettering must have been on there for fifty years or at least as long as they'd had those ugly business cards.
When she went back inside, the window let in enough light that the deficiencies in the rest of the decor were plain. Nell's desk was a scarred mess, the couch where clients presumably waited was a brown plastic-upholstered nightmare on its last spindly motel-Mediterranean legs, and the Oriental rug on the floor was so threadbare it was transparent in places. The bookcases and wood filing cabinets were good quality and had probably been original to the office, but the middle cabinet had an unfortunate black statuette of a bird perched on it, brooding over the place like something out of Poe. She gave one despairing thought to the office she'd lost in the divorce-the pale gold walls and gold-framed prints, the light wood desks and soft gray couches-and then she sank back into the battered wood swivel chair-her chair at the insurance agency had been ergonomic-and thought, At least it's only for six weeks.
Except maybe it wasn't. She straightened slowly. He was going to have to fire Lynnie. Which meant she might end up permanently employed here. She looked around the office again. If she were permanent, she could make some changes. Like get the place painted. And lose the couch and the bird. And
Her eyes fell on the business card on her desk. "McKenna Investigations" it read in plain black sans-serif type on plain white card. It looked like something somebody had done with a kid's printing set. But the boss didn't want them changed. He didn't want anything changed, the dummy.
She went back to the computer, wondering if he was going to do anything about Lynnie or if that would be too much change, too. He hadn't even told her to check the rest of the finances. Nell stopped typing and opened the drawer that held the canceled checks. There was a gray metal box tucked in behind the check folders, and she pulled it out and opened it to find a stack of papers, each marked "Petty Cash" followed by a dollar amount. They were all signed "Riley McKenna" in writing that wanted to be spiky but kept rounding off at the end.
Nell leafed through the reports she was typing until she found one Riley had signed in a strong, dark, jagged scrawl. Nothing round anywhere, much like Riley. She went back to the petty cash slips and totaled them: $1,675. You had to admire Lynnie; the woman was thorough.
She spent the next hour compiling a stack of forged checks. The breadth of Lynnie's perfidy was astounding; she'd managed to cheat the McKennas and their creditors out of almost five thousand dollars. Just making good on the forged endorsement checks was going to cost the agency over three thousand. If Gabe McKenna didn't go after this woman
Somebody tried to open the heavy street door, and the glass in it rattled. Nell jammed the slips back into the cash box as a sharp-faced redhead popped the door open and came in frowning, dressed in a good business suit and wearing even better shoes. Money, Nell thought, shoving everything back in the bottom drawer. "Can I help you?" she said, smiling her best we're-the-people-you-need smile.
"I want to see somebody who can handle a sensitive matter," the woman said.
"I can make an appointment for you," Nell said brightly. "Unfortunately both our-" Our what? What the hell did they call themselves? Detectives? Operatives? "-partners are out. They could see you on-" She turned to the antique computer on her desk as she spoke and opened the file labeled "Appointments." It was blank. They were both out on jobs right now and the damn page was blank. Who ran this place, anyway? "If I could have your number," Nell finished, even more brightly, "I'll call you when they get in and set up an appointment."
"It's sort of an emergency." The woman looked doubtfully at the couch and then sat gingerly on the edge of it. "I'm getting a divorce, and my husband is mistreating my dog."
"What?" Nell leaned forward, propelled by outrage. "That's terrible. Call Animal Control and get-"
"It's not like that." The woman leaned forward, too, and Nell held her breath that the couch wouldn't tip or break or just give up and fold. "He yells at her all the time and she's very nervous anyway, she's a dachshund, a longhair, and I'm afraid she's going to have a nervous breakdown."
Nell pictured a longhaired dachshund having a psychotic episode. Just like a man to pick on something that couldn't fight back. "Have you tried Animal Control-"
"He's not hitting her. There aren't any marks. He just yells all the time, and she's a mess." The woman leaned closer. "Her eyes are just tortured, she's so unhappy. So I want you to rescue her. Get her away from that bastard before he kills her. He lets her out every night at eleven. Somebody could take her then. It would be easy in the dark."
Nell tried to imagine Gabriel McKenna rescuing a dachshund. Not likely. Riley might, though. He looked as though he'd be up for anything.
"Let me take your name and number," she told the woman. "One of our partners might be able to help."
And if they wouldn't, maybe she would. Maybe she'd just go out there and rescue the poor trapped dog from the man who'd promised to take care of it and then just changed his mind. She tried to picture herself creeping into somebody's backyard to steal a dog. It didn't seem like something she'd do.
"I'll have Riley call you," she said when she'd taken down the woman's name-Deborah Farnsworth-her expensive Dublin address, and her dog-abusing husband's even more expensive New Albany address.
"Thank you," Deborah Farnsworth said, casting one last dubious glance around the office before she left. "You've been very helpful."
Gotta get this office fixed. Nell found 3-in-1 oil in the bathroom and oiled the front door, hoping to stop it from sticking, and then did the partners' office doors, too, because the creaks were driving her crazy. Then to distract herself from the neglect and the dog, she went into Gabe McKenna's office and began to clean, dusting off the black-and-white photos on the walls and wiping down dark wood and old leather until the place gleamed from the power of her frustration. She noticed an odd striped pattern to the dust on the bookcases, as if somebody had pulled books off some of the shelves and then shoved them back again. Maybe Gabe McKenna had lost something and had gone looking for it behind his books. God knew, he could have lost damn near anything in that mess.
Near the wall on the last bookcase, she found an old cassette player and punched Play to hear what he listened to. Bouncy horns blared out followed by an easy, deep voice singing, "You're nobody till somebody loves you." She hit Stop and popped the cassette out. Dean Martin. That figured. That might also explain why his office looked like a set for the Rat Pack. There was even a blue pinstriped jacket hanging on a brass coat rack that also held a slouch hat covered in dust. She dusted off the hat and shook out the coat with an angry snap and then put them both back where they'd been.
She heard somebody call out, "Hello?" and went back to her desk to find the little blonde from the teashop standing there.
"I'm sorry," Nell said. "I didn't hear you come in. The door usually rattles-"
"Different door." The blonde jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "That door leads into my storeroom. I'm Chloe. I run The Star-Struck Cup. So I was wondering. You seem very efficient."
"Thank you," Nell said, not quite following.
"Do you know anybody who'd like to run The Cup for a while? Until Christmas? We're only open in the afternoons, so it's not hard."
"Oh," Nell said, taken aback. "Well…" Suze wanted a job, but Jack would talk her out of it the way he had a hundred times before. And Margie…"Would the person who ran the shop for you get your cookie recipe, too?"
Chloe looked surprised. "She'd have to, wouldn't she? To make the cookies?"
"I might know somebody," Nell said. "She's not really the business type, but she'd probably love to run a teashop in the afternoons. You sure about this?"
"I just decided today," Chloe said. "Really, when all the signs say it's time for a change, there's no point in waiting, is there?"
"Uh, no," Nell said.
"Do you know what time of day you were born?"
"No," Nell said.
"It doesn't really matter. Virgos handle everything beautifully." Chloe smiled. "What sign is your friend?"
"My friend? Oh, Margie. Uh, February 27. I don't know-"
"Pisces. Not as good." She frowned. "Of course, I'm a Pisces and I'm doing okay. Have her call me."
"Right," Nell said. "What-"
The doorbell clinked from the depths of the teashop, signaling a customer, and Chloe turned back to the storeroom door.
"Chloe?" Nell said, on an impulse. "Is there a reason everything here looks like something from a Dean Martin movie?"
"Gabe's dad," Chloe said from the doorway. "Patrick raised both Gabe and Riley. They have father issues. Unresolved."
"It's a little…outdated."
Chloe snorted. "Are you kidding? Gabe's still driving his dad's car."
"That car's from the fifties?" Nell said, dumbfounded. "No, from the seventies. Of course, it's a Porsche, but still."
"Somebody needs to bring this guy into the twenty-first century," Nell said, and Chloe beamed at her.
"The stars never lie," she said and went back into the storeroom.
"Oh- kay," Nell said, not following, and called Margie, getting her machine. "I think I can get you that cookie recipe," she told the machine, "but you're going to have to work for it. Give me a call." Then she hung up and went to finish her cleaning.
Riley's much smaller office had the same leather furniture, but the resemblance stopped there. His desk was empty except for his computer and a plastic Wile E. Coyote mug full of pens, his bookshelf held computer manuals and detective novels next to the same directories she'd found in the big office, and his wall had two huge framed movie posters featuring a scowling Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and a sultry Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. That was like Riley, romantic and bigger than life. Gabe McKenna obviously ran a business while his partner played the game.
She cleaned Riley's office, noticing the same dust patterns on his bookcases, and then she went into the grimy green bathroom to wash the coffee cups and saucers she'd collected, hating the cracked linoleum and dingy plaster. A good coat of paint would do wonders, but Gabe McKenna's father had probably picked out the color while listening to "In the Misty Moonlight" in 1955. Honestly. She washed the cups and then, with a last impromptu swipe at the age-speckled mirror, she caught a glimpse of herself that froze her in place.
She looked like death.
Her hair was dull and so was her skin, but more than that, she was dull, her cheekbones protruding like elbows, her mouth tight and thin. She dropped the paper towel in the sink and leaned closer, horrified at herself. How had this happened, how could she look this bad? It must be the light, horrible fluorescent light bouncing off ugly green walls, nobody could look good in this light…
It wasn't the light.
She realized now why her son Jase was so sad and careful when he hugged her good-bye, and why Suze and Margie kept doing their cheerleading routine. She must have looked like a corpse for the past year and a half, must have sat like a ghost in other people's lives. She'd looked in the familiar mirrors in her apartment a million times since the divorce to comb her hair and brush her teeth, but she hadn't looked at herself once until now.
I have to eat, she thought. I have to get some weight back on. And do something about my skin. And my hair. And-
She heard the front door rattle and thought, Later. I'll do all of that later. My God.
Driving a vintage sports car through a beautiful city on a September morning would cheer anybody up, and Gabe was no exception. Unfortunately, fifteen minutes of listening to Trevor Ogilvie, Jack Dysart, and the head of their accounting department, Budge Jenkins, pretty much took him back to ground zero.