I leaned back against a pear tree and shut my eyes against the bright glow of the noon sun. Birds twittered in the branches above, while a few bugs droned in the distance. The cool air smelled of damp leaves and turned earth.
Something crawled across my hand, and I brushed away an ant without even opening my eyes. Determined to have a nice, normal, peaceful lunch, I’d brought a blanket, my sketch pad, and some picnic goodies outside to the orchard. But, of course, my luck decided to assert itself. The plastic plates shattered, splattering me, the blanket, and the surrounding grass with low-fat, sugar-free fruit salad. It really was amazing how far strawberries could bounce, especially considering the fact they weren’t exactly round. My pulverized food had attracted the attention of a colony of ants. But since they seemed content to carry off pulpy bits of orange and pineapple and not swarm all over me, I left them alone.
My fingers traced over the soft, fleecy blanket. The fabric reminded me of Debonair’s skin—only it wasn’t as smooth and warm. For the last hour, I’d tried to concentrate on my sketches, tried to draw the beauty around me, but I kept thinking about the sexy thief and what he’d said last night. His fear that I wouldn’t like the real him as much as I did Debonair.
His confession had surprised me. Most superhero and ubervillain types were cocky to the extreme, especially the villains. They thought just because they could walk on water or stride through fire or scale skyscrapers that nothing could ever hurt or touch or bother them.
But Debonair seemed to have more of a split personality than the other heroes and villains I’d encountered. On more than one occasion, he’d seemed almost unsure of himself, hesitant even. I didn’t understand why. He was charming and witty, and women of all ages threw themselves at him. I didn’t understand his insecurities, whatever they were.
Maybe he thought the idea of Debonair, the memory of our night together, would cloud things between us if he told me who he really was. Maybe it would. I didn’t know.
But I really wanted to find out.
I checked my watch. Later. I was going to have to find out later, because I had things to do right now. I got to my feet and picked up the bits of fruit the ants hadn’t carried off. While I worked, another breeze blew through the orchard, bringing something along with it this time—the umbrella I’d tossed out the door this morning. Mouth open, I watched as the umbrella bobbed up and down on the breeze like an oddly shaped kite. But that wasn’t the weirdest thing. The umbrella was still open—and filled with apples. I narrowed my eyes. Apples that looked suspiciously like the ones I’d lost during the trick-or-treat incident a few days ago.
The breeze died down, and the umbrella floated to a stop at my feet, its point sticking into the ground just so.
“Well, call me Mary freaking Poppins,” I muttered.
For dinner with Bobby and Grace Caleb, I chose a short, simple, emerald-colored dress that set off my caramel-colored hair and eyes, and I fastened my silver angel necklace around my throat. Jasper’s bombastic bracelet hung off my right wrist. I hadn’t taken it off since the bomber had given it to me. Not even when I took a shower.
There’d been no sign of Hangman or Prism, and I didn’t think I was in any real danger anymore. Everyone knew the Fearless Five had the Star Sapphire and were going to return it to the museum. SNN had run a special report on the latest developments, with Kelly Caleb reading a press release from the superheroes on the evening broadcast. But the way my luck went, the second I decided I didn’t need the bracelet would be the exact moment the ubervillains came after me. So I kept it on.
The doorbell rang promptly at eight. Grandfather answered it and led Grace Caleb into the downstairs living room, where I waited. Grace looked elegant in a pale lilac flowered dress that highlighted her silver hair and blue eyes. For once, she wasn’t wearing a sweater. Instead, a lavender shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders, while an egg-sized amethyst hung from her throat. A matching purple handbag dangled from her arm, which was rather well muscled for a woman in her seventies.
But Grace wasn’t alone.
Devlin Dash trailed into the room behind her. He wore a classic tuxedo just like Grandfather, although he kept tugging at his tie as if it was strangling him. The gleam from his round glasses made it look like there were two silver coins where his eyes should be.
“Grace,” Bobby said, kissing her hand. “You are truly a vision.”
Grace’s eyes slid down my grandfather’s body in a frank, rather hungry way that startled me. “So are you, Bobby.”
He leaned in and whispered something in her ear. Grace giggled in response. I looked at Devlin, who kept yanking at his tie. He avoided my eyes. Bobby cooed more sweet nothings into Grace’s eager ear.
“Ahem.”
I cleared my throat, reminding them that there were other people in the room. I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s couch incident. That image, unfortunately, would be seared into my brain for many, many days to come.
“Hello, Bella,” Grace said. “You look wonderful tonight.”
“Grace. So do you. It’s so nice to see you again.” I wanted to add wearing clothes, but decided not to.
“And of course you know my grandson, Devlin,” Grace said, stepping aside.
Devlin held out his hand, which I took. He started to raise it to his lips for a chaste kiss but decided against it in midflight. Devlin settled for covering my hand with his other one and squeezing it. His fingers bit into my skin, and I winced at his firm grip.
“Oh! Sorry,” Devlin said in a sheepish tone. He dropped my hand as if it had burned him. “I don’t know my own strength sometimes.”
I grimaced and tried not to wring out my hand in front of him. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have such a strong grip. Devlin didn’t strike me as the athletic type. Strange. Very strange.
I didn’t have time to wonder at Devlin’s sudden show of machismo. Bobby offered Grace his arm and escorted her into the dining room. Devlin did the same for me.
“You look lovely, Bella,” he said in a low voice. “That color really suits you.”
“Thank you, Devlin. You look very handsome as well.”
He surprised me again by not stuttering or stammering. For a change. And then there was the fact he complimented me at all. I’d never known Devlin to pay too much attention to women or what they were wearing. Or for women to pay much attention to him. Most of the ladies on the society circuit fawned and drooled over the suave playboys. Devlin wasn’t one of them. Oh, he was handsome enough in his own right, but he didn’t have the polish of a Sam Sloane or Nate Norris, or the obscene wealth of a Berkley Brighton. In Bigtime, there was rich and handsome, and then there was superrich and superhandsome. Devlin fell into the first two categories.
We entered the dining room, and Devlin pulled out my chair. I flashed back to my time with Debonair and how he’d done the exact same thing. I sat down on the seat.
And then, Devlin shoved me into the table.
It wasn’t completely his fault. My luck decided to pulse at that exact moment, and the chair slid forward a foot more than it should have, pinning me against the table. The heavy wood dug into my breasts, knocking the air out of my lungs.
“Oh! Sorry!” Devlin said.
I scooted my chair back so I could actually breathe. “Don’t worry about it,” I wheezed.
Devlin sat across from me, his cheeks red from his latest social fiasco. Grace settled in a chair next to him, while Bobby took the one beside me.
Bobby wanted to impress Grace, so he’d had dinner catered in from Quicke’s. Several elegant warming platters perched on the table, along with candles encased in hurricane lanterns and a cornucopia stuffed full of fresh fruit and fall leaves.
Bobby removed the tops from the dishes, and I stared at the exposed food in alarm. Chicken Marsala topped with a boat-load of Parmesan cheese, toasted garlic bread, a Caesar salad, fried eggplant and zucchini, broiled tomatoes, three bottles of red wine, and an angel food cake topped
with strawberries and chocolate frosting. It was a heart attack waiting to happen, especially for Bobby.
“Grandfather,” I said in a warning tone. “You know what the doctor says about your cholesterol and blood pressure. They’re both far too high for you to eat like this.”
“Bah! Doctors, what do they know?” Bobby waved his hand. “Besides, we’re having guests tonight, Bella. We must make a good impression on them.”
Guests. My grandfather used this same excuse whenever we had company, no matter who it was. He’d once served the cable guy a three-course meal just for installing a new soccer channel. The next day, when the plumber came, he’d gotten similar treatment. The gardener, the pool guy, the electrician. Every time the doorbell rang, Bobby was waiting with food for everyone—and a substantial serving set aside for himself. Grandfather even insisted that Fiona was still company. He knew it was the only way he could get away with eating all the things he wanted to—none of which were good for him.
I was tempted to use my power to make Bobby drop his fork or even his plate on the floor, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of Grace and Devlin. Besides, whenever I tried to use my power like that, I always ended up with egg on my face—literally. So I resisted the urge. But just barely.
Bobby clapped his hands together. “Come! Let’s eat before it gets cold!”
We dug in to the hearty spread. Everything was just as wonderful as it looked. The chicken was fork-tender, the bread seasoned just so, and every bite of the cake was a little bit of heaven in my mouth. I’d have to spend two hours on the elliptical trainer tomorrow to burn off all the fat and calories, but it was worth a little sin tonight. I thought of Debonair. He would have approved of all this. Reveled in it.
Dinner was quite pleasant, especially since I didn’t have to worry about floating wineglasses or other superpowered displays. Grace was as witty and charming as ever, in addition to being a good sport. She responded to my grandfather’s bawdy jokes with some of her own that were even more risqué. Maybe there was a little bit of steel underneath that soft, flowery façade after all.
Devlin stayed quiet for most of the meal, as was his way, I supposed. I tried to engage him in conversation a couple of times, asking about DCQ, his business. He answered my questions in monosyllables and stared at the half-eaten food on his plate. Every once in a while, I thought I saw him sneaking glances at me, but I couldn’t be sure. Besides, it wasn’t like there were a lot of people around the table to look at.
An hour later, we pushed back our chairs. Grace tucked her arm into Bobby’s and whispered something into his ear. It might have been a trick of the light, but I thought my grandfather blushed. And he never did that. If one of them blushed, it should have been Grace. She was the sweet old lady in the relationship. My grandfather was the former hellion.
“If you’ll excuse us, children, I’m going to take Grace on a tour of the house,” Bobby said. “We’ll be back in ten—”
Grace put her heel into his instep.
“Make that twenty minutes,” Bobby corrected. “Give or take a few. These old bones aren’t quite as quick as they used to be. Arthritis, you know.”
I narrowed my eyes. My grandfather hadn’t looked like he was suffering from arthritis yesterday.
Grace gave me an angelic smile, as though she hadn’t just crushed my grandfather’s foot—and wasn’t about to give him a coronary episode with her sexual skills. Maybe the older woman had a little more hellion in her than I’d given her credit for. Maybe a lot more.
The two of them moved down the hall and rounded a corner. A second later, feet pounded away, as though they were running. Probably racing toward Bobby’s bedroom, I thought in a petulant mood. At least someone was going to get lucky tonight. I’d been hoping Debonair would pop! into the house again today, but I hadn’t seen—or smelled—the sexy thief.
“They’re quite a pair, aren’t they?” Devlin murmured.
“Yes, they are.”
“It’s good to see Grams so happy.”
“Grams?” I asked.
“It’s my nickname for her.”
“The two of you seem very close.”
Devlin nodded. “My parents died in a boating accident when I was a kid. Grams took me in and raised me.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “That must have been rough. My mother died when I was a child too. But I still had my father and grandfather, although my dad passed away earlier this year.”
The pain of my mother’s loss was a familiar, small, dull ache. But it hurt to think about my father. I was still so angry with him for leaving us. For trying to be a hero. For putting that before everything else, including his family.
“I remember,” Devlin said. “I came to the funeral.”
“Did you? I’m sorry, but I don’t really remember that day.”
It had passed in a painful, hazy blur of tears and sobs and sniffles.
“You never called me after that,” he said in a soft voice.
“Excuse me?”
“You never called me, after the funeral.”
I frowned, confused. “Was I supposed to?”
Devlin tugged at his tie. “We went to dinner a couple of days before your father died. You, um, said you’d call me later in the week.”
And I remembered. We’d been finishing up the details of an art auction we’d chaired together, and we’d gone to Quicke’s for dinner afterward. From what I remembered, the evening had been nice enough—until my cell phone rang. My dinner with Devlin hadn’t been a couple of days before my father had died—it had been the night he’d died. The night he’d been murdered.
I’d been out with Devlin when Grandfather called, worried he couldn’t find my father anywhere. For weeks after that, I’d beaten myself up—thinking I should have stayed home. Thinking I might have somehow saved my father or at least kept him from going out as Johnny Angel. That maybe even my luck would have kicked in and spared him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I completely forgot with everything that happened.”
“Forget it,” Devlin said. “It was silly of me to bring it up now.”
We stood there, not quite looking at each other. I glanced at the angel-shaped clock on the wall. We had another seventeen minutes before Grandfather and Grace were supposed to come back from their rendezvous. What were we supposed to talk about until then? Even though we’d had dinner together, I barely knew Devlin. And why would he remind me now that I was supposed to have called him months ago? That was just weird.
Thankfully, the businessman broke the silence.
“Actually, I wanted to give you this before I forgot.” Devlin pulled a check out of the inside of his tuxedo. “Since the one at the benefit fell to pieces.”
I took the piece of paper from him. Our fingers brushed, and a certain sort of warmth traveled up my fingertips that had nothing to do with static electricity or bad luck. At least, I didn’t think it did. I couldn’t be attracted to Devlin Dash, could I? Uncomfortable, I turned my gaze to the check, which had several zeroes on it.
My eyes locked on the signature. I froze, afraid my eyes were playing tricks on me. But they weren’t. Because no matter how many times I blinked, no matter how hard I squinted, it was still there. A big D with an illegible scrawl trailing along behind it. I’d seen that signature only once before. On a drawing I had smoothed out on the desk in my room.
The drawing I’d done of Debonair.
Debonair.
Who was really Devlin Dash.
21
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even form a coherent thought. I stared at the check, my eyes not really seeing it anymore.
“Is something wrong?” Devlin asked in a concerned tone. “You look pale. Do you need to sit down?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I lied, snapping out of my daze. “I was just a little surprised by the, ah, amount of your donation. It’s very generous.”
Devlin shrugged. “Not really. I’
m sure twenty-five thousand dollars is just pocket change compared to what you raised at the benefit.”
“Oh no. Not at all. Besides, the museum will need every penny since it was damaged by that awful ubervillain.”
Devlin fiddled with his glasses. “Of course. I read about that in the papers and saw it on SNN. It truly was a tragedy. I hope the police or the Fearless Five manage to catch the villain who’s responsible quickly.”
He’d done more than just read about it or watch it on TV. He’d been there, right alongside me. I opened my mouth to call him on it, to demand some sort of explanation, when a voice wafted down the hall.
“But why do you have to go now? I thought we were having a nice time,” Bobby said in a somewhat petulant tone.
Our grandparents appeared. Some of Grace’s hair had come loose from its sleek do, and Bobby’s tie and shirt looked rumpled. I peered at him. Was that pink lipstick on his collar? My grandfather, the seducer. He was getting as bad as Debonair in his old age.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Grace held up a small cell phone. “I’m afraid I have an emergency. I need to leave immediately.”
“What sort of emergency?” Devlin asked.
She looked at her grandson. “A family emergency. Kelly’s sick and needs someone to come get her from work.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “I just saw her on the news this afternoon. She looked fine.”
Kelly Caleb had also called me earlier in the day demanding an exclusive interview, along with the other newshounds. I’d refused them all.
“Nothing serious. Just a case of the flu,” Grace said, her blue eyes not quite meeting mine. “But I want to go make sure she’s okay. I’m a bit of a worrier, especially when it comes to Kelly. The station works her to death, and her immune system isn’t what it should be.”