Change of Heart Read online

  Chelsea put her hand over his. Eli had always had the softest heart in the world, but then he’d had to watch his mother being misused. “Déjà vu?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She reminds me of my mom and how my dad used to con her out of money. He did it just to see if he could. One time he told me that the only thing that really mattered in life was winning.”

  “You think that’s what this guy Orin is doing?”

  He looked at her. “Why doesn’t he sell the watch and briefcase to pay his bills?”

  “I wonder if they belong to him,” Chelsea said. She lowered her voice. “Or maybe he’s saving them to sell to pay his wife’s funeral expenses. What do you think the husband, Gil, did?”

  “Sounds like he embezzled company funds.”

  They looked up as the waitress returned. With a wink at Eli, she put two big slices of lemon meringue pie on the table, then left.

  “Why did she bring these?” Chelsea asked, frowning.

  “I asked for one. Guess she misheard and delivered two slices. She said they were homemade by a local widow who has two kids in college.”

  Chelsea knew that story would get Eli’s attention. She took a bite. “Not bad.” She took another one. “Is that guy back at the table yet?”

  Eli leaned around the end of the booth, and when he turned back, his face showed disbelief. “He stole the tip. When I left I saw three dollars and change by the tab, but it’s gone now. I’ll be back.” He left the table.

  It was about ten minutes before he returned and by that time Chelsea had finished her pie and started on Eli’s. “He’s in there shaving—and smiling. He looks like he won the lottery. He told me I was with a really hot chick and asked if we were having a good time in bed.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

  “All you have to do with men like him is smirk.” He looked at her. When they were kids, they often understood each other’s mind without words.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  That’s all Eli needed. He put money on the table—leaving a twenty-dollar tip—and they hurried out to the car. They were just inside when they saw the man Orin leave the diner and go to the ratty old clunker. For a moment he stood there looking around the parking lot.

  Eli and Chelsea slid down in their seats so he couldn’t see them. Their heads were close together.

  “This is like when we were kids, always hiding from the adults,” she said.

  Eli was looking at her. “Except that I never used to have an almost overwhelming urge to kiss you.” He lifted up to look out the window. “He’s looking at the trunk as though he’s trying to decide whether or not to open it.”

  Chelsea was still down on the seat. “What did you say?”

  Eli slid back down. “He didn’t open it.” He looked back up. “He’s driving away. Mind if I follow him?”

  Chelsea sat back up. “Of course not. What did you mean that you want to kiss me?”

  Eli was looking in his mirror and backing the car out. “Just that. Primal instinct. Once I find out where he’s going, I’ll take you to back to Edilean.”

  “I want to know more about the kissing.”

  “No one taught you how?”

  “Stop it! You know exactly what I mean.”

  Eli gave a little one-sided grin. “You’re beautiful, but you know that. Truthfully, beauty in a woman has never been a serious turn-on to me. My cousins make fools of themselves over—”

  “Eli!” she said.

  “Right. You want to know about you and me. What’s to say? Your interest in whatever is going on with ol’ smiling Orin and generous Grace and her daughter, Abby, has sparked something in me. Made me want to kiss you.”

  “Oh,” she said. They were back on the highway and Eli was easily moving from one lane to another as he followed the ratty old car. Sometimes Eli let it pass them, then he slowed and moved back behind him.

  “Learn this technique from another spy?”

  “No, from a cousin. My stepfather is part of the most extraordinary family. When a child is found to have a talent, they all work to cultivate that ability.”

  “They worked on you and numbers?”

  “Not personally, but they got me into any schools I wanted. What I was good at was absorbing what the others could do. Uncle Adam taught me to row a boat, and Uncle Kit showed me how to appear invisible. Aunt Cale gave me lessons on plotting novels. A new branch of the family has been found on Nantucket and I look forward to learning from them—but Aunt Cale said they mostly seem to know about ghosts, which I don’t believe in.”

  “And someone taught you how to follow cars?”

  “Ranleigh. He’s had some experience in evading the authorities and he taught me his technique. However, in retrospect, his first lesson was a bit harrowing. At the time, I didn’t understand that it was real and that we were in an actual car chase trying to escape some drug dealers.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened. “I assume you two got away.”

  “We did. Look. He’s turning off the highway.” Eli slowed and allowed two other cars to get in front of him, then he followed the old car down the off-ramp.

  They ended up in a neighborhood that was very run-down. Small houses with falling gutters, peeling paint, and yards full of weeds surrounding them. As Eli slowly drove down the street, some young men wearing black leather jackets and looking under the hood of a car stopped to frown at the silver-blue BMW.

  “I think we’re in the wrong car,” Chelsea said and instinctively leaned away from the window. “Did you, by chance, learn self-defense moves from any of your cousins?”

  “I took years of classes with them. And Todd taught me about firearms.”

  When she looked at him in alarm, Eli shrugged. As he drove down the streets, she stared at him. He had on a T-shirt that clung to his muscular body. His dark hair curled about the back of his neck. This is not what she’d thought Eli would grow up to look like—or that he’d know the things he did. Dancing, car chases, firearms. When they were kids and they’d talked of their futures, she’d imagined him emaciatedly thin, living alone on delivered pizza, and sitting in front of eight computer screens.

  “There,” Eli said and slowed the car. They saw Orin pull into a driveway of one of the worst weed-infested houses. The windows were dirty and two of them were cracked. The old car fit perfectly with the shoddy house.

  Eli parked across the road under a big tree that looked to have been struck by lightning. A heavy branch hung dangerously low over the crumbling sidewalk, but it hid Eli’s car.

  They saw Orin get out of the car and go into the house.

  “Wow!” Chelsea said. “If that’s where he lives, he was telling the truth about being broke. Think his invalid wife is in there?”

  “Only one way to find out. Stay here while I—”

  “Like hell I will!” She had her hand on the door handle when he stopped her.

  “If you so much as step out of this car, you’ll create a crowd. Look at you! Hair, clothes, all that makeup. You look ready to be on the cover of Vogue.”

  “Thanks. Maybe. You have a baseball cap?”

  “In the bag in the back.”

  Chelsea got onto her knees and bent over to reach through the bucket seats to the back. She knew that doing so put her derriere close to Eli and she couldn’t resist checking to see if he was looking. He was.

  Smiling, she unzipped his duffel bag, rummaged inside, and pulled out a dirty T-shirt, an old baseball cap, and a package of wet wipes. She’d had a lot of experience in quickly making up for photo shoots so she could just as quickly unmake herself.

  She sat back in the seat and quickly removed all her carefully applied cosmetics.

  Eli was watching her. “Why did you go to all that trouble when it’s just you and me?”

&nbs