Mad, Bad and Blonde (8 page)

“I thought you enjoyed working here.”

“I did. But it’s time for me to move on. Today. Right now. I’m sorry.” She placed her official letter of resignation on Maria’s desk before turning and heading down the hallway for her own cubicle. She grabbed an empty cardboard box along the way and started quickly packing up her things—her Jane Austen action figure and her What Would Jane Do? coffee mug. Her Fancy Nancy tiara and glitter sunglasses. Her personal collection of favorite children’s books including
Scaredy Squirrel
and the classic
Harold and the Purple Crayon
. Her poster of the cover of
Little Polar Bear
by Hans de Beer. The READ poster of Jeffrey Dean Morgan she bought at the ALA store. Her props for story time. So much jumbled together. She was thinking in fragmented sentences, but her decision remained firm. She had to leave.

Faith walked out of the library without looking back, clutching the box to her chest while two tote bags filled with the rest of her stuff hung from her arms. This condition made flagging a cab more of a challenge than usual during lunch rush, but she managed.

During the ride from the library to her Streeterville condo, she turned to her iPod and played Madonna’s “Jump” repeatedly. Faith was ready to jump—to jump from the life she’d known before to a new one. She was ready, willing and able.

Able . . . which got her thinking of Cain and Abel. Caine . . .

No, that thought pattern had to stop immediately. To help herself along with that goal, Faith touched the screen of her iPod, skipping ahead to “I Hate Everything About You” by Three Days Grace, her most recent musical download.

She didn’t realize she was mouthing the lyrics “I hate, you hate” until she caught the nervous look the cabbie gave her in the rearview mirror.

She felt the need to apologize. “Sorry. I was just singing along with a song . . . never mind.” Removing the buds from her ears, she safely stowed her iPod away. If only she could stow away her thoughts of Caine as efficiently.

“I quit my job at the library today,” Faith told her father as she sat in his corner office with a great view of the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza. “I’m taking you up on your standing offer to come work here.” She was pleased with how confident and forceful that came out.

Her father jumped up and came around his desk to hug her. “Hey, that’s great! You know I’ve always wanted you to join the family business.” He beamed at her. “You’re the best researcher we’ve ever had. No one does background checks as thoroughly and efficiently as you.” He headed back to the Aeron ergonomically designed chair behind his desk, the one she’d picked out for him his last birthday, and turned his attention to a file on his desk. “Go see my assistant, Gloria, and she’ll set you up.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to just sit in front of a computer all day. I want to work real cases. In the field.”

“Sure. Eventually you can work up to that.” He transferred his attention from the file to her. “Hey, have you done something to your hair?”

“Yes.” Her boring hair of the past was a distant memory now. She still loved the new look, the way her hair moved when she did, swinging against her neck. The multilayered, sophisticated style continued to be a huge confidence boost. “I used to be a mousy brunette, and now I’m a tough blonde. But don’t change the subject. Are we agreed?”

“On what? That you’re a tough blonde?”

“No, that I get assigned to a real case by the end of next week.” She made a note of the date on her BlackBerry. “I’ve got my PI license, and it’s still valid.”

“I know.”

It was just now occurring to Faith that the last time her BlackBerry and her father were in the same room together had been on her wedding day.

“Have you heard from Alan?”

She blinked. “No. Why? What have you heard?”

“About Alan, nothing. But I’ve heard plenty about Caine. What happened over there in Italy? You still haven’t told me.”

“Caine tried to tail me, but I successfully evaded him. Why does he think that his father is innocent? Does he have any grounds for such an assumption?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“You talked to him about the case?”

“Only briefly. He was making accusations, and I was defending you.”

“That’s my girl.” He flashed her a smile.

“He seems very determined about clearing his dad’s name.”

“He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Did you review the case?”

“I didn’t have to.”

Her father sounded a bit defensive, which was unusual for him. The confidence was still there, as it always was. But there was a new underlying tension she hadn’t picked up on before.

“Don’t bother your pretty head about this,” he continued. “You stay focused on your new job here in the family business.”

“This is what the library was paying me.” She wrote an amount on a piece of paper. “I’d need to make at least that much here.”

Her father just smiled. “Honey, you’d make nearly twice that much here.”

“Really?” she squeaked.

“Really.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Because I’m your daughter?”

“Because that’s what we pay our top talented investigators. I told you that you should have left that job a long time ago.”

The door opened, and her Uncle Dave entered the office. He was taller than her father by two inches and younger by two years. He was in charge of the accounting side of the business, a role that suited his mathematician self-proclaimed nerdy side. A fan of Thurber’s short stories, he readily admitted that he was often in his own world. His love for mathematics explained his quirky tie filled with rows of gold and silver pi symbols on a red background. He had another tie with the same design on a blue background. They were the only two ties he owned.

“Oh, sorry to interrupt,” he said.

Faith jumped up and gave her uncle a hug. She hadn’t seen him at the wedding, although she knew he’d been there. She also knew he liked to keep a low profile and avoided drama whenever possible.

“Faith is joining the company,” Jeff said proudly. “She finally saw the light and dumped that go-nowhere librarian job of hers.”

Her father never had been thrilled with her chosen profession.

“Now you just need to get Megan to do the same thing,” Jeff told his brother.

“Megan loves her job.” He looked at Faith. “I thought you loved your job too.”

“I needed a change,” Faith said.

“I can see that.” Dave frowned. “You’ve changed.”

Faith touched her hair. “Yes, I’m blonde now. Hair color and highlights can do amazing things.”

Dave slowly shook his head. “That’s not all.”

“You’re right. The stylist cut my hair as well.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s not just your change in appearance. It’s your change in attitude. The way you’re sitting in that chair with confidence.”

Instead of sitting in the anteroom of the Gold Coast church shredding her lace handkerchief. Not that her uncle had seen her in that sorry state.

“It’s a change for the better,” she said.

“Absolutely,” her father agreed.

Her uncle didn’t look as sure.

“Is there a reason Faith West took an earlier flight than you did?” Vince demanded when Caine showed up in his office straight from the airport.

“She was trying to aggravate me.”

“From the look on your face, it seems she succeeded. You want to know how she spent her day today?”

“Not really.”

“The mild-mannered children’s librarian just quit her day job and has gone to work for our mutual enemy, her father. I told you not to underestimate her.”

Caine couldn’t get over how much she’d messed up his mind. And in such a short time. Here he’d been feeling guilty for having slept with Faith in Italy when she was still vulnerable after being jilted by her ass of a fiancé. Caine hadn’t intended to take advantage of her. His attraction to her had taken him by surprise and continued to do so.

And there Faith was, sneaking out on him in Positano, evading his surveillance, making him feel and look like a total idiot.

Caine was not a man accustomed to making mistakes. Hell, he even owned the T-shirt—To Err Is Human. To Forgive Is Divine. Neither Is Marine Corps Policy.

Had Faith been leading him on the entire time? Did she have some kind of hidden agenda of her own?

It had been a long time since he’d been played the fool. She’d totally taken him in.

“Now you look aggravated and surprised,” Vince noted.

Caine immediately schooled his expression, putting his war face on.

“Better,” Vince said approvingly.

Caine had never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, and the fact that he’d shown them made him doubly angry. But he had his feelings under control now. And he’d keep them that way. Because he wasn’t about to be distracted by a sexy blonde with deception up her sleeve. She might have won their previous skirmish, but the war wasn’t over by any means. He was just getting started.

Faith kept walking along Michigan Avenue as she checked her incoming call. It was her mother.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Your father just told me you quit your job at the library!”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you speak to me before doing something so drastic?”

“Because I knew you’d try to talk me out of it.”

“Of course I’d talk you out of it. Why would you do a dumb thing like that?”

“Gee, Mom, tell me what you
really
think.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you loved your job.”

“I loved Alan too, and that didn’t work out so well either.”

“Did something happen at work? Did you have a disagreement with a coworker?”

“No.”

“With your boss?”

“No.”

“Jane Austen would never quit her job at the library.”

Faith had forgotten that her What would Jane Austen do? philosophy had originally come from her mom. “Probably not. But I did.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“It was time.” Faith entered the Crate and Barrel store.

“Time for what?”

“Time for a change. You know . . .” Faith looked around. “The beds look different in person.”

“Where are you?”

“Crate and Barrel. I’m buying a new bed.”

“What’s wrong with the old one?”

“Alan slept in it.”

“Oh.”

“Is that your daughter on the phone?” Aunt Lorraine bellowed in the background. “You tell her how selfish it was to leave you to handle the mess after her wedding. And then she didn’t even call you from Italy.”

“I’m sorry,” Faith’s mom murmured.

“Tell Aunt Lorraine she’s right,” Faith said. “It was selfish of me to dump everything in your lap that way.”

“I didn’t mind.”

“And I should have called you from Italy.”

“Megan explained about that. And you did e-mail me. But, honey, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“This leaving your job thing. It’s not like you.”

“Yeah, I’m different.” Faith held the phone away from her face and took a photo before e-mailing it to her mom. “What do you think?”

“Who’s the photo of?”

“Me, Mom.”

“The light must be funny in that store.” Her mother sounded confused. “You look blonde in this picture.”