The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes Read online

  Danny looked around. ‘Yeah. I can see that.’

  ‘No, no,’ the waitress said as she bustled over. ‘It’s your lucky day. We got a liquor license. I know how much you like a good martini, Dee. How ‘bout it?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Dee said faintly. ‘Thanks, Maxine.’

  Without taking her eyes off Danny, Maxine dug into her pocket, where she usually kept her order pad. ‘And you, sir?’

  ‘I’ll just have a longneck,’ Danny said with another one of those killer smiles as he settled across from her.

  Every person within a four-booth radius turned their way. Maxine headed off to get their drinks, making it a point to wait until she was out of Danny’s line of sight before vigorously fanning herself for Dee’s benefit. Yeah, Dee thought. He’s all that and more. She just wished she knew what that more was.

  He looked like a yuppie exec on casual day, his oxford shirt open and rolled up to his elbows, his hair just that much disordered, his shoes tasseled. He smelled like the male animal. Dee recognized the scent from her times as a fox. Musk and power and salt. The clean hint of soap, and something that was particularly Danny James. Something deadly she couldn’t quite identify. Probably the uncut scent of pheromones. And she was sitting across from him in hundred-weight wool and a pool of sweat. Very attractive.

  She was feeling flushed again. Just who’d thought this would be a good idea? Across from her, Danny pulled a tape recorder from his jacket pocket and set it on the booth.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Dee said, stone-faced.

  He gave a wry shrug and put it away. ‘You can only say no.’

  ‘I could beat you into insensibility with your own equipment.’

  She could change into a wolverine and chew his face off. But it was too nice a face.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to do that,’ he said without looking up. ‘I have such a nice face.’

  Dee went very still. Just which bit of vitriol had he been responding to? And if he was letting her know that he’d heard her thoughts, why wasn’t he flashing her an ‘I know what you are’ smile?

  She surreptitiously took another sniff. Again, she caught the man scent, the soap. And… ah, hell. She should have known. That mystery scent hadn’t just been pheromones. It held the tang of ozone before a storm. The crackle of electricity. Whatever else this guy was or wasn’t, he was one of them. He smelled like psychic power.

  Dee fought to keep from sweating like a suspect. What did it mean? Why was he really here? And damn it, how could just smelling the power on him make her so darned itchy? No, that was the wool against her ass, which she suddenly couldn’t seem to hold still, as if rubbing it against Naugahyde would relieve her distress.

  Danny James replaced the tape recorder with a notebook and a Third Virginia Bank pen. ‘You don’t like talking about your parents?’

  She looked around for that Martini, suddenly grateful the Greasy Fork had sold out. ‘What are you researching?’

  Smooth, Dee. Very smooth.

  He didn’t seem in the least disconcerted. ‘A book for Mark Delaney.’

  She scowled. ‘Yes, I got that part. What could my parents have to do with alternative history?’ Except the alternative history she used to imagine for herself. Clair and Cliff Huxtable as her parents and a house in the suburbs where the silverware stayed silverware and stress caused nothing more than headaches.

  ‘Mark wants to do a non-fiction work on psychics,’ he said. ‘Since your parents were the most famous ones, he thought we should start there. I’m sure you know that they were sometimes referred to as-’

  ‘The Jim and Tammy Faye of psychics. Yes, Mr James, I know all the pejoratives.’ Like ‘charlatan.’ She wondered when that one would come up. And keep it down, please. I’m happier if no one in Salem’s Fork thinks I know anybody famous.’

  ‘I was sure you’d rather I got my information from the source, which would be you.’

  ‘Not really,’ Dee said, seeing Maxine set a full Martini glass on a tray and salivating. ‘There’s plenty of video on them. I doubt I could add anything.’

  ‘I’ve seen the video,’ he said. ‘No offense, but it all struck me as a cross between Ed Sullivan and Elmer Gantry.’

  ‘With just a soupçon of the Partridge Family. They did know how to put on a show.’

  I’m sure that accounts for some of it,’ he said. ‘Their rise to fame was pretty meteoric. From neighborhood psychics to international stars in a matter of three years.’

  Dee tried to see where Maxine was with that Martini. ‘The neighborhood they worked was West Hollywood,’ she said. ‘They numbered quite a few producers and agents among their clients.’

  It had been Xan who’d spotted the opportunity. The producers had never known it wasn’t their idea.

  Danny James consulted something in his notebook. ‘Well, it certainly was a winning formula. Especially when they added you girls to the show. You were naturals for the bright lights, all ruffled and sweet and singing those cute songs. You did a hell of an “I’m a Little Teapot.”‘

  Dee scowled. ‘If you’re trying to butter me up, Mr James, that probably isn’t the way you want to do it.’

  His eyebrows headed north. ‘You didn’t find it as charming as the rest of us.’

  Being blinded by those hot, hard lights? Hundreds of hands on her; people bending so close she could smell fetid breath, smiling and smiling and lying? And her parents always standing apart on the other side of the stage like benevolent deities while she waited for just one word of praise? What more could a girl want?

  ‘I guess I must lack that showbiz gene.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t be more buttoned down if you were a nun.’

  Dee went rigid. ‘Well, thank God you’ve come along and shown me the error of my ways, Mr James. Now you have the length of one Martini to talk.’

  Right on cue, Maxine stopped at their table, drinks in hand. ‘Thatta girl,’ she said with a sharp nod as she set the longneck down. ‘Even if he does have a point, a gentleman has no business being rude when he’s courting.’

  Mortified, Dee shut her eyes and held out her hand. ‘Can I order my second Martini now?’

  Maxine laughed and settled Dee’s first Martini right into it. ‘You bet.’ Balancing her tray against her hip, she turned to Danny James. ‘So, it was like love at first sight, huh? You just met, right?’

  That got Dee’s eyes open fast. What the hell? Maxine was spacey, but even for her that was a bizarre question. On the other hand, it might be a better line of inquiry than the real one. Especially since the other waitresses were standing back by the kitchen door waiting for Maxine’s report on the new man in town.

  ‘No,’ Danny said, picking up his longneck. ‘We met in college. I haven’t seen Dee since junior year, have I?’

  Dee almost couldn’t get her mouth closed enough to form consonants. ‘Um, yeah.’

  Was he really covering for her? Hell, he was here to expose them. Wasn’t he?

  ‘Really?’ Maxine said, sounding confused. ‘College?’

  ‘Loyola,’ he said.

  ‘Butler,’ Dee said at the same time, and damn near winced.

  ‘For senior year,’ he retorted easily. ‘She left before I could ask her to the fraternity formal, and I never got over it. So I’m using this research project as an excuse to see her again.’

  Dee felt as confused as Maxine. Did Danny really mean to protect her? Maybe she could at least listen to what he had to say.

  ‘Well, that’s just great,’ Maxine said, still sounding bewildered. ‘So you’re like in love and everything?’

  Dee damn near spilled her Martini. ‘We’re in what?’

  Danny gave her a conspiratorial look. ‘Give us time, Maxine.’

  ‘Give me another Martini, Maxine,’ Dee said, in a tone that said, Get out of here, Maxine, and Maxine, evidently realizing her tip was in jeopardy, made tracks back to where the rest of the waitresses waited.