7
“W hat?” Fisher frowned .
“You heard me,” she said. “End it.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You know I can’t do that.”
“No, I don’t,” she argued. “I know you won’t do it.”
“You’re right. I won’t!” he said. “Someone is using you, Annie. They’re using you to launder money probably to sell drugs. How the hell can I walk away from that? Every time I see a kid hooked on drugs, I’m going to wonder is that one I could have saved? And you should be wondering the same damn thing.”
Her vibrant blue eyes went dim and her face crumpled. “Drugs? I just can’t believe that someone I know would do that,” she whispered. “And would use me to make it happen. I just can’t believe it.”
“Believe it, honey,” he said. “The world is full of scumbags, and the ones who get away with it are usually the ones you’d least suspect.”
“Is that why you suspected me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, unwilling to lie to her again.
She turned away from him and wiped at her face with a balled up fist. She was crying. Fisher felt as if a vice were squeezing his chest. He’d do anything he could to spare her this pain, but he knew he couldn’t and the unusual feeling of helplessness left him frustrated and angry.
“There has to be a reason,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa. “I know people do terrible things, but there’s always a reason.”
“Greed comes to mind,” he said, taking the seat beside her.
“No, there has to be something more,” she argued.
Fisher sighed. She was going to cling to her rose-colored glasses until he pried them off. Damn it. He didn’t want to do that to her, but she left him no choice. For her own safety, he had to be brutally honest with her.
“No, there isn’t always a reason,” he said. “Some people are just mean and vicious and cruel. And it’s not because they were abused as children and it’s not because they’re mentally ill. They’re just rotten to the core and there is no explaining it.”
“What makes you like that?” she asked, studying him from behind a hank of red hair. Her blue eyes were narrowed as if he were something she’d found stuck on the bottom of her shoe.
“Like what?” he asked.
“Cold. Hard. Cynical,” she spat each word. “You see everything in terms of black and white or right and wrong. There’s no gray in your world. Why is that?”
“Am I really that rigid?” he asked, surprised by the vehemence in her tone.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know why I’m like that,” he said. “It’s just who I am.”
“Baloney,” she retorted. “What makes you view the world the way you do? There must be a reason or do you just have a big old stick shoved up your – ”
“Now wait just a minute,” he snapped, feeling his temper begin to give. “Just because I believe in right and wrong, does not mean I’m a tight ass. I spent my life tagging along behind parents whose idea of personal responsibility was seeing how many times they could get arrested. In between scientific expeditions, they practiced politics with rallies and protests. If they weren’t fighting something, they weren’t happy. God forbid, they should use conventional means to dispute legislation they didn’t like. Oh no, that wasn’t for Swift and Lark. If they weren’t going limp and being shoved in a paddy wagon, well hell, they hadn’t done a good day’s work.”
“Swift and Lark?” she asked.
“They named themselves after birds. I don’t even know their given names. We didn’t even call them Mom and Dad while we were growing up. My father is Swift and my mother is Lark.”
Annie pushed the hair away from her face and her eyes widened as she listened. Fisher was oblivious. Long denied frustration with his parents and his childhood bubbled to the surface and he began to rant.
“Do you know what I remember? I remember putting my sisters to bed and sitting up waiting for the squad car from the local police, from wherever we happened to be that week, to bring the folks home. If I was really lucky, the car came for me, so I could go down and pay their bail.”
“Sounds rough,” she observed.
“It was and it wasn’t.” He sighed. “My parents loved us very much, but they were committed to their causes. I hated our life. I hated going to school, knowing that every kid with a scanner knew that my parents had been arrested again. So yeah, I suppose I do crave order and discipline and the simple truth of right and wrong.”
“But life isn’t that simple,” she said.
Their eyes met, and it was all Fisher could do not to look away. Her eyes were as clear and honest as any he’d ever seen. She made him doubt his harsher view of the world. It was a doubt he couldn’t afford to have in his line of work.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “It is that simple, but most people don’t want to accept that.”
Fisher’s cell phone chimed in his pocket, interrupting whatever Annie would have said. Fisher excused himself, and Annie sank back on her sofa, mulling over what he had just told her.
They were as opposite as hot and cold, night and day, or peanut butter and jelly, although admittedly those two paired really well together. Wasn’t it interesting how opposites seemed to complement one another?
Fisher returned looking like the dark side of the moon. Annie knew it was bad news.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There’s been more activity in those accounts,” he said.
“What?”
“That was Brian,” he said, sitting next to her. “Apparently, a large deposit – about ten thousand dollars – was made into the account held by The Coffee Break at the Arizona Savings and Loan.”
“But that’s impossible,” she said. “I don’t even have an account with that bank.”
“What?!”
“All of my banking, both personal and business, is done at First Arizona Credit Union.”
“I need to see your books, Annie,” he said.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, feeling her stomach turn. Someone was trying to destroy her. But who?
“Oh, I believe you,” he said. “But I need all of your records to see exactly what is going on.”
“It’s all on the computer in my office,” she said.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The Coffee Break was eerily quiet when they went downstairs. Streetlights shone through the front window, illuminating their path. Annie led the way to her office. She flicked on the light switch and went to her desk. She booted up her computer and waited for it to run through all of its antivirus software.
Fisher took a seat at her computer and began to sift through her accounts.
Annie paced around the office, straightening her collection of cookbooks and thumbing through the photos of the more extraordinary pastries she had concocted. She paused at a snapshot of a huge cream filled swan. It had been her swan song, appropriately enough, as a pastry chef at the Lemon Grove Resort. She’d thought owning her own business would be a simple, happy venture. Now she was beginning to wonder.
“What’s in the Wedding file?” he asked from the computer.
“The accounts for the catering side of the business,” she explained. “Most of my commissions are for wedding cakes.”
“Like Eve’s?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“That was a spectacular cake,” he said. “Did I ever tell you how much I enjoyed that wedding?”
“Did you really?” she asked.
“Very much,” he said. His chocolate-brown eyes darkened to black, and Annie felt her face grow hot under his scrutiny. “Come here.”
Fearing that he’d found something, Annie stepped toward him with her eyes on the computer’s monitor. A spreadsheet of her deposits was on the screen. That was all she saw before Fisher pulled her into his lap, taking her completely by surprise.
Before she could even open her mouth to question him, he planted a kiss on her that singed her all the way to the bottom of her feet. The kiss was long and slow and deep and left Annie breathless.
“What was that for?” she gasped.
“Your pacing was making me nervous,” he said, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
“That’s how you react to pacing?”
“Well, that and the fact that I’ve wanted to kiss you all day,” he said. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I thought you found something,” she said, half-heartedly slugging him on the shoulder.
“I did,” he said.
“You did?” She sat up straight and tried to scramble off of his lap. Fisher wouldn’t let her go.
“What I found is a perfectly meticulous set of accounts,” he explained. “Whoever is using your shop as a cover has a whole other set of books at work. I suspect someone has made off with your corporate identity.”
Annie relaxed against him. She was feeling like the unpopular kid on the playground and she couldn’t resist the comfort of Fisher’s embrace. “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”
“What do you know about laundering money?” he asked.
“Whenever I hear that term, I think of a huge washing machine full of dollar bills.”
“I’m guessing not much?” he asked with a smile.
She tipped her head and said, “I don’t even balance my personal checkbook.”
“So who does the accounts here?” he asked.
“Me with help from Denise and her husband Edmund. He’s a CPA,” she said. “And Sonia, the quiet waitress, is an accounting major so she always double-checks everything.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, my father has been known to poke around but he’s not an accountant. He hasn’t touched my computer since he crashed it during my audit.”
“Does anyone else have access?”
“Well, I don’t generally keep the office locked. So anyone could wander in whenever they felt like it.”
“And get your account information?”
“What do you mean?”
“Here’s a quick lesson on laundering money,” he said. “The whole purpose behind laundering money is to hide vast sums of money from the federal government. Now why would you want to do this?”
“Because you don’t want to pay taxes on it,” she said.
“True, but also, because it was probably gotten illegally.”
“Now what you need to hide the money is a cover for the illicit funds. Restaurants, casinos, any business that operates in high turnover gives the launderer a variety of ways to hide their money.”
“But how?”
“They create fake invoices, fictitious businesses, or layer their transactions through multiple accounts,” he said. “They claim to have spent more on a service or supply than they actually have. They even create ghost employees. They also underreport, they claim the money came from a nonexistent source.”
“But in my case they’ve made a whole new business account,” she said.
“Allowing them to launder a lot more,” he said.
“How can we stop them?”
“We’re going to catch them in the act,” he promised.
He sounded so sure, so positive. Annie wished she felt the same. What if they didn’t catch the bad guy and she was forced to close up her business? What if the bad guy ruined her reputation and she could never open up another business. She fretted her lower lip. Good thing she was a mature, reasonable businesswoman or she might have thrown a screaming temper tantrum on the floor. As it was, she just wanted to cry.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said.
Annie turned to find Fisher watching her. One of his hands stroked up and down her back, offering comfort. She didn’t feel comforted, however. She felt angry and hurt. Someone she trusted was out to get her and she didn’t like it one damn bit.
“How do you know?” she asked. Her fingers strayed to his tie and she began to loosen the knot.
Fisher sucked in a breath and his hand stilled on her back. Annie pulled his tie free and tossed it onto the desk. Then she began to unbutton his shirt. He’d wanted to kiss her? Well, she wanted more than that from him. She felt used and abused and she wanted to be comforted. And not with kisses on the forehead or pats on the back. This man had been wreaking havoc with her sanity from the moment he’d moved in. Annie placed her lips on the pulse at the base of his throat.
“I just know,” he ground out from between his teeth. “Annie? What are you thinking, Annie?”
She pulled back and gazed at him. They’d known each other such a short time, but she felt safe with him. When everyone else in her life was suspect, she trusted him. He would make things right.
“I’m not thinking,” she whispered and kissed him.
Annie did no more than place her mouth against his. That was all she needed to do. With a heartfelt groan, he buried one hand in her hair and held her head still while he kissed her until they were both gasping for breath.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
She thought about it for a second and nodded. She’d never been more sure of anything.
“Okay, but we’re not doing this here,” he said, pushing her off of his lap. “I’ll race you up the stairs.”
It wasn’t much of a race. Annie got as far as the door when he made a grab for her. With his hands on her hips, he backed her up against the wall. She giggled when he ran his lips down her neck. He wouldn’t let her leave the room, until she left behind her shoes.
Annie had her revenge when he stopped him at the bottom of the stairs. She unbuttoned his shirt and traced his chest with butterfly kisses that left him sagging against the rail. She thought his shirt looked just right hanging on the banister.
Annie hadn’t cleared the stairs when Fisher grabbed her by the back of her jeans. He held her still as he kissed the back of her neck, unzipped her pants and drew them down her legs. Annie doubted they’d make it to her apartment at this rate.
At the door to her place, she stepped on the back of his heel. He looked at her in surprise, but obligingly kicked off his shoes. Any other demand she might have made was halted when he scooped her up in his arms and shut her up with a kiss.
The trail of clothing continued on the way to her bedroom. Harpy sat perched on the TV, hanging over the screen and watching the nightly news, oblivious to the clothing flying around her.
The October evening was chilly and Annie hurried under the covers, pulling the comforter up to her chin.
“Oh, no,” he said, tugging the blanket out of her grasp. “I’ve been thinking too much about this to let you hide now.”
Annie gasped when he tossed the blanket aside moved to lie on top of her. His weight pressed her deep into the mattress, and his mouth locked on to hers with a hunger that left her shaking from the inside out.
His kiss was long and slow and wet, a deliberate possession of her senses. Annie arched up to press against him. She was restless, wanting to feel all of him. He pressed her more firmly into the mattress, running his hands along her body and kissing her until she was dizzy with desire.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her fingers in his hair, longing to have him closer. She felt his skin sizzle against hers and still it wasn’t enough. She felt an insatiable, vacuous need so deep inside of her that it left her writhing beneath him.
Fisher pulled away and Annie heard the sound of a foil package ripping open. Leave it to her Boy Scout to always be prepared. She felt her heart swell. Fisher was everything she’d ever looked for in a man. He was honest, kind, dependable, smart, funny and sexy. Heavens, was he sexy! And right now, in this moment, he was hers.
Fisher reached for her and Annie slid into his arms. The need to be one was all consuming. Fisher must have felt it, too. With just a shift of his hips, he joined them.
Annie gasped at the feel of him. He felt so good, so right. She watched him move his mouth over her skin. His tan face and hands moving against the fair skin of her breasts and belly was a remarkable contrast that left her awed. She felt pure joy wash through her.
Fisher gritted his teeth when he felt her tighten around him. He didn’t want this intimacy to end. He wanted to feel this close to Annie always. She made him feel happy in a way he had never felt before. Like an unexpected gift, he cherished her. He tried to hold back, but it was no use. When she whispered his name and clung to him, he felt a thundering rush of pleasure course through him, leaving him weak and dazed. He collapsed on top of her and kissed her hair.
Their heartbeats thumped together as they were pressed chest to breast. Fisher rolled onto his back and hauled Annie with him, not yet ready to break their connection. She sighed against his chest and he watched her eyelids droop. She was innocence personified. Fisher felt his heart turn over. Annie. His Annie.
He pressed a kiss against her springy, red curls and whispered, “I love you, Annie-girl.”
A snore was her only response.
Annie blinked awake. The red glow of the alarm clock read 5:15 a.m. Henry would be appearing in fifteen minutes. She supposed she might as well get up. She tried to push out of the bed, but the weight of an arm and a leg held her down.
Fisher! A flash of heat hit her low in the belly. He was curled up around her, spooning her against his chest. She took a moment to appreciate how truly safe and secure she felt. A woman could get used to feeling cherished like this. She barely remembered falling asleep in his arms last night. He’d whispered something to her. What had he said? I love you, Annie-girl.
Annie went rigid. No, she must have imagined that. He wouldn’t...he couldn’t... She turned over in his arms. His thick brown hair had fallen over his forehead. His long dark lashes rested against his cheeks. His face was slack with sleep, softening his features. He was gorgeous. Annie resisted the urge to trace his mouth with her forefinger. She didn’t want to wake him.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her into his chest. She went willingly, resting her cheek against his warm bare skin. She couldn’t resist being this close to him for just a moment. She would treasure the feel of him, the scent of him, the warmth of him always.
“What are you thinking, Annie-girl?” his voice was gravel deep and sleepy. Annie was glad it was still dark, this way she didn’t have to meet his gaze when she lied.
“That Henry is going to start singing any moment,” she said.
“Better him than Harpy,” he said.
“Harpy?” She tried to sit up but he held her still. “Where is Harpy?”
“Look over my shoulder,” he said.
Harpy was sitting on the corner of Fisher’s pillow. Her head drooped as if in sleep.
“Does she do that often?” she asked.
“When we’re in a strange place, she likes to sleep on my pillow,” he said.
“I’ve never slept with a bird before,” she said.
“What do you think?”
“Not too fowl,” she joked. “Of course I’ve never slept with an FBI guy before, either.”
“And what do you think of that?”
“I can see why they call you ‘special’ agents,” she teased.
He growled and kissed her.
“I’ve never slept with a chef,” he said.
“What do you think?”
“That I’m ready for a second course,” he whispered against her ear.
Her toes curled into the blanket. How did he do that? How did this man reduce her to mush with a few words?
He started to kiss the side of her neck and she felt her body arch against his, craving the feel of him. She felt as if she could never get enough of this man.
Their intimacy was broken by a loud voice singing outside.
She rolled away from him with a groan. “Henry. Duty calls.”
“Let duty feed himself today,” he said, reaching for her.
“I can’t,” she said, dodging his hands while planting a swift kiss on his lips. “He might disturb the neighbors.”
“Who cares?” he asked, cupping the back of her head and holding her still while he kissed her so thoroughly he left her breathless.
“Behave and I’ll save you a muffin,” she teased him as she rolled out of the bed.
“Apple spice?”
“Of course.”
“Well, what’s taking you so long? Get down there and start baking,” he ordered.
“I might have known,” she said, shrugging into her bathrobe. “You’ve been after my muffins all along.”
He tugged the belt of her robe loose. His hands ran the length of her body, pausing to cup her breasts. “Best muffins in town,” he said, his words muffled against her skin.
She laughed and jumped away from him. Knotting the belt on her robe, she tried to frown at him, but couldn’t stop the smile that parted her lips. He looked wonderfully unshaven and sleepy amidst the pillows with Harpy still snoozing beside him.
It hit her like a flash. A glaring moment of rightness. Fisher belonged here with her. She knew it as surely as she knew that she loved him. Oh dear!
Henry’s voice broke through the quiet morning air and Annie jumped.
“I have to go,” she said grabbing her clothes before running from the room.
Downstairs she dumped three of yesterday’s muffins on a plate and filled a glass with milk. Henry’s singing was loud enough to drown out a flock of birds. She opened the door and shoved the plate into Henry’s hands without so much as a good morning.
She slammed the back door and hurried to the front of the shop. They’d be opening in just an hour and she had a million things to do. She raced around the shop firing up the coffee machine and then went back to the kitchen to preheat the oven. She dumped ingredients into a bowl, turned on the mixer and then rushed to get the morning’s newspapers for her old school customers from the front stoop. Then she raced back to the kitchen to get the muffins in the oven. She spooned the dough into the muffin pan with a scoop, listening to the splat as the dough landed in each cup.
“I am not in love with him,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t be. I haven’t known him that long. And we’re total opposites. We could never live together. I’d drive him crazy in a week. What was I thinking? I knew I shouldn’t get involved with my tenant. I knew it, and what did I do? I went right ahead and did it anyway. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”
“Do you always insult your baked goods before you put them in the oven?”
Annie yelped and dropped her scoop. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Fisher stood in the doorway watching her.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough,” he said. “Isn’t it bad karma to insult your food? I mean I know muffins aren’t the smartest of food groups, but should you really call them stupid to their faces?”
“They have faces?” she asked. This conversation was absurd, but it beat the alternative. She watched as he walked toward her. He picked the scoop up out of the bowl and plopped some dough into an empty muffin cup.
“I thought you could use some help,” he said and turned to face her. When she didn’t say anything, he pulled her close with one arm and lightly kissed the end of her nose. “It’s going to be all right.”
She let herself lean against him. Oh boy, in the love department, she wasn’t a muffin – she was toast. Burnt toast.
She tried to be professional and maintain her distance. Really, she did. But every time she turned around there he was, working the counter, clearing tables, chatting it up with her customers. She couldn’t get away from him.
Three times she caught herself staring at him and the third time he turned and winked at her, letting her know that he knew she was watching him. Annie was mortified.
She knew she was being paranoid, but she felt as if everyone knew that she had spent the night with him last night. When she saw the waitresses talking, she was sure they were gossiping about her. If a customer studied her too closely, she feared they were speculating about her and Fisher. She was giddy and embarrassed and couldn’t concentrate worth a damn. It was completely irrational.
She dumped a glass of ice water on a businessman’s lap, put salt in someone’s coffee and managed to ring up a three dollar tab as three hundred dollars. By mid-morning she was ready to call it quits for the day. She opted to go hide in her office instead.
The fact that Denise hadn’t shown up for work again was not helping her nerves. Annie didn’t know what to do. There was no answer at her house and Annie didn’t know her husband’s work number. She was going to have to go over there before Fisher became too suspicious.
She sat in her high-backed desk chair and put her feet up on the corner of her desk. This was her contemplative position. It was how she usually sat when pondering a new recipe. Today she pondered her love life. The fact that it involved Fisher left her stunned.
“Annie?” There was a knock on the door just before it opened. Fisher poked his head around. “I need to talk to you.”
“Right now?” she asked, feeling unprepared to discuss last night.
“I’m afraid so,” he said and strode into the room. A shorter man with round glasses and a receding hairline followed him. “Annie, this is my partner Brian Phillips. Brian, this is Annie.”
Annie dropped her feet to the floor and rose. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” Brian shook her hand and grinned at her.
What? Did he know, too? Annie gave herself a mental shake. She really was being paranoid.
“Annie, Brian’s been monitoring the bogus account,” Fisher said. “There’s been an awful lot of activity lately.”
“What kind of activity?” she asked.
“The kind we see just before they flee the country,” Brian said. “Here’s the problem, we need you to sell your business.”
“But— “ Annie protested.
Brian interrupted her, “Now, it wouldn’t be for real. We just need you to sign over ownership to someone else – an agent – so that they could go to the Arizona Savings and Loan and put their name on the bogus account, thus forcing our bad guy to make a move to reclaim it. Then we nail him.”
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“Now, Ms. Talbot, you don’t understand,” Brian said. “We need to make the perp think you’re undergoing a power change that might reveal him. It will force him out of hiding.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said. “Anyone who has been watching the business closely has seen me fight with Martin Delgado over this very issue. Everyone knows I would never, ever sell.”
“She’s right,” Fisher said. “If our perp is as tied in as we think, he would never believe that she would sell. He’ll know it’s a setup.”
“Damn,” Brian said. “We need to do something to shake him up. Something that will make him fear losing the phoney account.”
“I’m happy to help, but what can I do?” Annie asked.
“Marry me,” Fisher said.
“What?!” she shouted.
“That’s brilliant!” Brian exclaimed. “Then the business will become yours.”
“What?!” Annie shouted again.
“And then I’ll put my name on the bogus account,” Fisher laughed.
“Hey?!” she snapped.
“The perp will be forced to make a move. You’ve still got it, partner,” Brian said with a nod.
“Excuse me!” Annie hollered.
“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” Fisher asked, looking proud of himself.
Exasperated Annie slammed her hands down on her desk and yelled, “Hello! Remember me?”
Both Fisher and Brian turned to gape at her.
“Something wrong, Annie?”
“You bet there’s something wrong. I will not, and I do mean ever in this life, marry you,” she said.
“I think I’ll let you two discuss this amongst yourselves,” Brian said, backing slowly toward the door.
When the door shut behind him, Fisher turned to Annie. “What’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem? What’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is: I am not getting married to anyone ever!”
“Not even me?” Fisher asked, watching her from beneath his lashes.
“No, not even to you,” she said, refusing to believe he could possibly be hurt by this. They’d spent one glorious night together. She wasn’t even sure she could call him her boyfriend yet, never mind marry him.
“Ouch!” Fisher winced, leaning against her desk. “Talk about rejection.”
“It’s not rejection,” she said. “It’s not personal. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never marry.”
“Well, it’s not as if this would be a real marriage,” he reasoned. “It’s merely a ploy to draw the bad guy out.”
“Would it be legal?” she asked.
“Well, yeah. We can’t risk having him check it out and find out it’s phony. Then he’d be on to us.”
“If it’s legal then it’s real. I’m not doing it,” she said. “It goes against everything I believe in.”
“More accurately everything you don’t believe in,” he chided her. “Fine. Then the bad guy wins because without this we won’t be able to catch him.”
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?” he asked, studying her.
“Don’t make me feel like I let you down,” she said.
“Do you feel that way?” he asked.
“No...yes...maybe, a little,” she stammered.
“Good,” he said. “Because you did.”
Annie watched in silence as he strode from the room, slamming the door behind him. He couldn’t be angry with her. He had no right. What he was asking of her was unreasonable.
She sank back into her chair and leaned forward to rest her head on the desk. When she had leased the apartment across the hall to that man she’d had no idea that her life was to become this complicated. In two weeks, she’d been robbed, proposed to – sort of – and fallen desperately in love.
When Fisher had uttered those two stupid words – marry me – she had actually felt an answer inside of her that she had never anticipated. The answer was yes.
It was late afternoon when Annie pulled her mini-van – used for hauling wedding cakes – onto Denise’s street. Denise and her husband lived in a new housing development on the outskirts of the West Valley. Stucco houses with tile roofs, spaced exactly ten feet apart, went as far as the eye could see. Living this close to your neighbors had to have some perks, but Annie was damned if she could think of any. These houses were so close together that if you asked someone to pass the salt, your neighbor’s arm would probably appear in your window. No thanks.
Annie rang the bell and waited, not really expecting an answer.
Denise opened the door without bothering to ask who it was. She was wearing a ratty old sweat suit, no makeup and her hair was sporting a day-old case of bed head.
“Denise? Are you all right?” Annie gasped. “I’ve been so worried. Are you sick?”
“No...I...yes,” Denise stuttered then burst into tears. “I...he...left...for...her...”
Annie opened her arms and Denise stepped into them. When Denise’s sobs receded, they stepped into the house. Annie went straight to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee while Denise went to wash her face. Annie made a couple of sandwiches to go with the coffee. Denise looked as if she could use some sustenance.
They curled up on the sofa in the living room. Annie had to coax Denise to eat. Between mouthfuls, Denise confided to Annie what had happened.
“Edmund left me for a nail girl,” she said.
“A who?”
“A nail girl, you know, from a beauty salon,” Denise said, waving her tissue in the air. “Some girl he met at a bar during happy hour.”
“Oh my...that jerk! That no good lying, cheating jerk!” Annie cursed.
“Yeah. She has long blond hair and boobs the size of Kansas.”
“How did you find out?” Annie asked.
“His secretary – who hates him – quit and sent me a letter with all of the details. I followed him the other night and found them...together.”
“Oh, Denise, I am so sorry.” Annie hugged her friend. “Is there anything I can do?”
“That depends. How do you feel about arson?”
“Excuse me?”
“I was thinking we could torch his precious sports car,” Denise said.
“If we did, I bet his little nail girl would drop him like a hangnail. How about we break into his new place and plant a doll collection in the bedroom? I bet the nail girl would just love to be with a man who collects baby dolls.”
Denise laughed. “I wonder what he’s taking to cure his flatulence problem. I can’t imagine she enjoys his usual morning symphony.”
“Maybe we could just replace his vitamins with plain old beans. Wouldn’t she just love a toot-toot serenade? Preferably when he’s meeting her parents,” Annie suggested, bursting into laughter. Denise laughed with her until they were both weak.
“How dumb am I that I didn’t see the signs?” Denise asked, suddenly serious. “The sports car, going out with the guys every night, joining a gym, all of it. What was I thinking? I thought it was a phase. I’m such an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. You loved him,” she said.
“Yeah, ‘loved’ being the operative word,” Denise grunted. “Annie, why is it that bad people always get away with hurting others? It’s not right.”
“No, it isn’t,” Annie agreed.
“All right,” she announced, storming into Fisher’s apartment without knocking. “I’ll do that wedding thing, but it’s in name only and as soon as this case is over, you’re out of here.”
Maybe Denise’s jerk of an ex-husband was going to get away with treating her badly, but whoever was using Annie’s business as a front for money laundering wasn’t going to get away with it. Not by a long shot.
Fisher rose from where he sat on the sofa.
“And another thing—” she began, but he interrupted her.
“Annie, I’d like you to meet my parents.”
“Your...who?”
“This is Swift and Lark,” Fisher gestured to the two people sitting across from him.
“Oh!” Annie clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Did I hear you right, my dear?” Lark rose from her seat. She was short and plump, her gray hair was loosely knotted at the top of her head. She wore a brightly patterned caftan that covered her from her chin to her ankles with several ropes of multi-colored beads looping her neck.
“Did you say marry?”
“That’s what I heard.” Swift rose to stand beside her. He was tall and thin, wearing an outrageously vivid tie-dyed T-shirt, jeans and sandals. His long white hair was combed back from his forehead and held in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Harpy sat perched on his shoulder looking quite at home.
“Fisher? Marriage?” Lark sighed. “How conventional.”
Fisher waved her forward, and Annie stepped cautiously into the room. Fisher hadn’t exaggerated when he’d described his parents. They were total hippie vibes.
“Lark, Swift, I want you to meet my landlord Annie,” Fisher said.
“Landlord? I thought she was your fiancée,” Lark said.
“She might be,” he said. “If you’ll excuse us?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but led Annie out into the hall, shutting the door behind them.
“So, you’ve changed your mind?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“But you’re kicking me out as soon as we catch our perp,” he said.
“Not kicking you out,” she corrected him. “I just think that once this case is over, it would be better if you moved.”
“Better for whom?” he asked, plucking a long strand of hair from her shoulder and twirling it between his fingers.
Annie felt the breath stall in her lungs. She tried to back away from his touch, but he didn’t let go of her hair.
“What’s the matter, Annie?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I just think we should keep it a marriage in name only.”
“Why?” he asked.
“To make it easier to annul,” she said.
“What if you decide you don’t want to?” he asked, taking a step closer to her.
“Don’t worry.” She took a step back. “I will.”
“Maybe you’ll change your mind.” He took another step toward her.
“I won’t.” She backed into the wall.
“What if I don’t want to annul it?” he asked, closing the space between them.
“Fisher, what are you doing?” she asked. He was leaning against her, pressing her into the wall. He’d dropped her hair and his hands rested on her waist.
“Kissing you,” he said just before his mouth met hers.