Quick Fix (29 page)

“Hooray!” Molly bounced out of the room on James’s heels. “Wait, I have to pee first—I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t forget to wash your hands,” James’s voice floated after her.

And there Billy and I were, together on the bed where we first—

I jumped up and ran even faster than Molly had, leaving Billy laughing in my wake.

James was gathering the ingredients in his small but cheerful kitchen. “By the way, it’s nice to see you, too,” I said. “And I do mean that literally. Any more difficulties on the visibility front?”

“Nope. Maintaining complete opaqueness. I don’t expect any further problems, either.”

“You sure about that? I’d hate to be walking with you in public and suddenly have to explain the empty clothes walking beside me,” I kidded.

“I’m sure, but I can outline my scientific reasoning if it’ll make you feel better.”

Billy came up behind me and laid his hands on my shoulders, massaging lightly. “For God’s sake, no. Not before second breakfast.”

“Second breakfast? Are you guys hobbits now?” Molly asked as she whizzed by us to grab the eggs from James. “Hey, I get to crack them, right? Billy, your feet might be big enough to be a hobbit, but you’re too tall. Ciel, you’re short enough, but your feet are too small. When did you have first breakfast, anyway?”

I mumbled something about Billy and Pop-Tarts (perhaps
implying
he had them with him when he arrived at James’s earlier, but not outright lying about it) while James took the egg carton back from Molly and held it over her head. That seemed to distract her from questioning my earlier whereabouts.

“Your adding the eggs depends entirely on whether you’ll listen to instructions this time,” James said. “Crashing two eggs together over the bowl is not proper culinary technique, nor is eggshell an ingredient I appreciate in my waffles.”

Molly tried to look contrite. Not having as much practice at it as her brother, she wasn’t especially successful, I thought. But James bought it. “I promise. I know how to do it now. Sinead told me,” she said, referring to her older sister.

James handed her the eggs and turned to get the butter from the fridge. Molly maneuvered the step stool closer to the counter, stepped up, held an egg high over the bowl, and lopped off one end of it with a butter knife. “Bombs away!” she said as the goo slid from the shell.

James really should have remembered Sinead is the Doyle sister who can’t cook.

Later, when we had finished eating and James was speaking to me again (What? Anyone would have laughed—flour flying everywhere is intrinsically hilarious), we drew straws to see who would be the one to deliver Molly back to her mother. James thought it should be Billy because he was, after all, her brother. Billy thought it should be James because the whole orangutan thing happened due to a mishap at his lab. I didn’t really care, as long as it wasn’t me. I was still trying to live down my postparty encounter with Auntie Mo and the wastebasket.

“Hey, no fair,” I said after holding up my piece of the broom next to the others. “You guys cheated somehow.”

“Impossible,” James said. “Molly held them while we drew. Now, if you want to accuse
her
…”

The innocent look on my youngest cousin’s face was the same one I’d seen on her brother a thousand times before. Of course she’d cheated. She wanted her girl time.

“Fine,” I said. “But just so you know, when Auntie Mo goes off on a rampage about why we didn’t tell her about Molly as soon as it happened, I’m throwing you guys under the bus.”

Chapter 24

Auntie Mo took the whole thing better than I thought she would. And by “better,” I mean I was still alive. My ears would take a while to recover, and Molly might not see the outside of her room this side of thirty, but all things considered it wasn’t too bad. I’d be concerned about what Mo said she was going to do to Billy when she saw him again, but, as Molly so eloquently put it in the taxi on the way over, “Billy can get away with anything with Mom. He’s a
boy
.”

Uncle Liam was a whole ’nother ball of wax, though. I’d like to have a glass against the door when he found out what had happened to his baby girl on Billy’s watch. The legendary Doyle charm Billy had inherited from his father didn’t work nearly as well when it was directed back at its source. It’s tough to charm a charmer.

But I suspected Billy wasn’t fretting about it at the moment. He was more concerned with finding out Harvey’s part in whatever was going on. He thought there might be a connection between Harvey and Suze—that Suze might even be a spook sent to find out if Brian was an adaptor, the same way Billy feared he himself might be Laura’s assignment.

Personally, I was trying hard not to worry about Brian. If Suze
was
a spook, and had the kind of training I knew Mark and Laura did, Brian wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

Walking over to a bigger street to catch another cab, I dialed Thomas, hoping not only to find out more about Laura, but also to see if he’d had a chance to question Monica. Billy had, of course, told James that Monica was still alive, which relieved my brother greatly, but we were all still concerned about her involvement in the whole mess. Who had asked her to refer Thelma Parker (if that was even my client’s real name) to me?

It went straight to voice mail.
Fuck,
I thought. Or perhaps I left it on his voice mail. Whatever. Maybe he’d return my call sooner.

Next, I tried Brian. Same thing. No answer. I hung up without leaving a similarly pithy message, since he was still recovering from the shock about Suze and all.

My phone vibrated as I was stuffing it back into my pocket. Sure it was Thomas responding to my less-than-ladylike language, I answered fast, without looking to see who it was. Big mistake.

“Ciel Colleen Halligan, you better be on your way home right this instant. I just talked to Mo, and she told me what happened to sweet little Molly. I want to hear
everything
. You can tell me on the way to the photo shoot.”

Gaaah!
“Mom, I can’t work for you today. I’m busy.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you can. You’re here in town, and I know you don’t have a job of your own scheduled until next week.”

“Who told you that?” I was going to kill the rat bastard, whoever it was.

“Molly mentioned to Mo that you girls had plans for the day. And since Molly has now been grounded, I know you’re free.”

Damn.
Back in D.C., I’d promised Molly plenty of girl time after the party, since I’d had to work while she was there visiting. Cursed by my own kindness. “What about Auntie Mo? She’s your partner. Shouldn’t she be working with you?”

“Well, she was
going
to, but now she isn’t going to let Molly out of her sight for the foreseeable future,” she said, skipping the usual filial-duty spiel and heading straight for guilt. There is no good argument against maternal guilt. Trust me, I’ve tried them all.

“
Fine.
I’m on my way.”

As soon as I disconnected I redialed Brian to remind him of our bargain. Recovering from heartbreak or not, he owed me. Besides, it might help take his mind off Suze. When you really thought about it, it was the nice thing to do.

Only he still didn’t pick up. This time I left the pithy comment.

*   *   *

Central Park on a nice day is spectacular. You can see why so many Manhattan-based photographers choose it as a backdrop. Well, that and the fact that it’s a damn handy outdoor space. The clock
is
the clock, and paying models by the hour is expensive enough without adding travel time.

Mom was in her element as a tall, willowy black model who was a dead ringer for Iman in her younger days. (Mom had made it a point to collect celebrity energy whenever she had the opportunity, going back years.) She always added a few differences other than the age, of course, so no one would get suspicious. For her “Immie,” they were green eyes instead of brown, a slightly larger bust, and a generic American accent instead of an exotic Somali one. But all the charisma was there for the camera, and that’s what counted.

I was “Krissie,” the Christie Brinkley knockoff aura. Mom thought her Krissie was wholesome, like me. A way taller, immensely curvier, tons more gorgeous wholesome than me (my opinion, not Mom’s; she thought I was the prettiest thing ever to grace the earth—moms are deluded like that), but wholesome nonetheless. Krissie’s main difference from the real thing was her sherry-colored eyes.

After two hours in the back of the photographer’s van I practically jumped out of my seat when the makeup artist released me. My claustrophobia was kicking in, and pit stains on a ten-thousand-dollar designer dress would not make Mom’s client happy. Besides, I was in a hurry to get somewhere I could answer the umpteen messages that had vibrated against my thigh while I’d been painted, polished, and poufed. (Seriously, what was with the sixties hair and makeup? It wasn’t pretty the first time around.)

Hiding the phone had been necessary—Mom didn’t allow personal cell phones along on her jobs. She wanted everyone to stay on task.

“Daaarling, that’s perfect!”
Crap.
Waylaid by the photographer as soon as I stepped out onto the street. “
You’re
perfect! The
day
is perfect! And
I
am going to improve upon that perfection!” He was tall (half a head taller than model-me in heels, which was saying something), lightning-rod thin, and humming with creative energy. Dressed in black from beret to wingtip ankle boots, he was flanked by two (short, nondescript) assistants, each yoked with three cameras, ready to anticipate his every photographic need.

We’d worked together on a shoot the previous summer—and no telling how many more when I hadn’t been the one called into service as Krissie—so I suppose I should have remembered his name, but apparently I’d blocked it from my mind. Something Frenchified. Andre? Phillipe? No, wait … Lumière. Like the candlestick in
Beauty and the Beast
. Somebody had illusions of lighting up the world of fashion photography.

“Oh you!” I said, playfully batting my fake lashes at him. “You’re always such a flatterer.”

“Every word is true. You mark my words: After this job, demand for your services is going to skyrocket! You won’t be able to breathe for the attention, I promise. I’m probably shooting myself in the foot by giving you this kind of exposure. Why, I won’t be able to afford you myself!”

I demurred, as expected, and was spared from any more gushing by my mother’s exit from the van. Lumière and his bookends dropped me like yesterday’s gossip and hurried to the true star of the shoot.

“Immie! Daaaarling…”

While Mom soaked up their adulation (if only they knew how she laughed about it at the end of the day, imitating them to perfection for Dad), I wandered down the street a bit (under the watchful eye of yet another of the photographer’s assistants), and tried to sneak my phone out from under the dress.

“Can I help you with that?” a familiar fuck-me voice said, making me wince. I lifted my head to look straight into Devon Spencer’s violet eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked without thinking.

“Same thing you are,” he said with a lazy grin. Those pouty lips were definitely model material.

I bit back the urge to ask if James knew what he did for a living. How could I explain knowing James?

“Um, yeah. Duh. Silly me.” I shrugged it off, hoping he’d take it for dumb-blonde ditziness.

“It’s been a while,” he said.

Okay, so he must have worked with Krissie before, when either Mom or Auntie Mo was using the aura. “Yeah, it has,” I said, and then jumped as my phone vibrated again.

“You okay?”

“Sure. I’m fine—”
Bzzz!
“—really. Just a little, um—”
Bzzz!
“—you know…”

He cocked his head in a very attractive manner. I was sure he’d practiced it in front of a mirror. “Listen, if you need something…” he said casually, with just the slightest emphasis on “something.” What the fuck? Was he offering me drugs? Mom sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate that.

“No! I don’t need a thing. Well, except a … a ladies’ room.” Preferably one with a private stall. “You know how it is. Drinking all that vitaminwater for the glowing complexion…” I shrugged, keeping it casual. Just two models talking shop.

He nodded sympathetically, and my thigh buzzed again. I shook my leg surreptitiously—it was tickling the hell out of me—and my garter slipped. I grabbed for my phone. Too late. It hit the sidewalk faceup, displaying a picture of James.

Devon, playing the gentleman, reached down and picked it up for me before I could get to it. And, of course, immediately recognized my brother’s face.
Crap.

“Well, well. It seems we have an acquaintance in common,” he said, narrowing his eyes and holding on to my phone.

“Um, yeah. He’s … he’s just a guy my, um, sister is trying to fix me up with. He’s the TA in one of her classes. She’s in college. She’s the brainy one.…” I trailed off into a weak laugh.

“Is that a fact?” He still didn’t seem inclined to hand over the phone.

“Yeah. But he doesn’t seem all that interested, you know? I thought he’d be a nice change from photographers and male models…” Oops. “Er, not that there aren’t some very nice male models. It’s just that so many of them are…”
Crap!

“Gay?” he supplied helpfully.

I felt my cheeks blaze. “Look, just give me back my fucking phone, okay?” I grabbed it from him and stalked away.

*   *   *

The shoot went pretty much without incident, except for Devon looking at me curiously whenever he wasn’t obeying the photographer’s orders to make love to the camera (which he was really good at—I suspected he practiced that in front of a mirror, too). He and “Immie” got along very well. They’d obviously worked together before.

We’d been to several locations in the park, each time driven there by a hired stretch limo (the van being used for equipment and props), which disappeared when it wasn’t needed to transport us. Can’t just leave vehicles parked anywhere. The park police frown on that sort of thing.