Jinx

  From what I could recall, I hadn’t thought of it as a date. Just a dinner between two acquaintances. We’d been working late, chairing the art auction, and had stopped by Quicke’s heading to our respective homes. I wondered why Devlin thought it had been a date. And whether he actually wanted to see me now or was just hanging around because he knew he could get lucky—

  My cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my purse and checked the caller ID. Hannah Harmon.

  I frowned. What could she want? Despite working on the benefit, we weren’t exactly friends. We were just associates and barely that. Hannah had made noises after my father died about making a bid for Bulluci Industries. She’s retracted her offer after Grandfather made it clear Bulluci was and always would be a family affair. Family was everything to Grandfather—and to me.

  “Hello, Hannah. How are you?” I asked in my best business voice.

  Family might be everything, but you should never burn bridges.

  “I just wanted to call and see how you were doing.” Hannah’s voice was just as smooth and professional as mine. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I heard about what happened at the museum. What a terrible tragedy.”

  “Yes, yes it was.”

  “But thank goodness you’re all right. I heard the Fearless Five rescued you from Debonair.”

  “Yes, they did. They also recovered the Star Sapphire, from what I remember.” I was purposefully vague on the details. Jasper was right. Sometimes, it was just easier to play dumb.

  “From what you remember?”

  “I took a rather nasty fall in the museum and hit my head quite hard. I don’t really remember much of what happened.” It was all part of the cover story the superheroes and I had come up with.

  “But you’re feeling better now?” Hannah asked.

  “Oh yes. Much.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful.”

  Her expressionless voice didn’t quite match the good wishes coming out of her mouth. Then again, Hannah had never been overly charming to me. She wasn’t one for blowing smoke up people’s asses—unless she wanted something.

  “Tell me, just out of curiosity, do you know what the Fearless Five are going to do with the sapphire? I imagine Berkley’s rather anxious to get it back.”

  “Actually, I just talked with Arthur about that,” I replied. “The superheroes are going to return it to the museum so it can go back on display. They really didn’t include me in their plans. You know how the Fearless Five are. They just show up, rescue you, and leave.”

  “I see.” Hannah paused. “Well, I know you must be busy. I’ll let you go.”

  “Thanks for calling and for your concern—”

  She hung up before I finished. I frowned at the phone, puzzled by the call. Was Hannah hoping another death in the family would convince my grandfather to sell out? It wasn’t happening, not unless Grandfather, Johnny, Fiona, and I all died in some terrible, fiery accident at the exact same time. Even then, our wills would ensure we left the company in the proper hands—Sam Sloane’s.

  I didn’t have time to think about Hannah Harmon and her strange call. Not a moment after Hannah hung up, my phone rang again. Devlin Dash, the caller ID informed me.

  My hands tightened around the phone. I thought about not answering it. For about half a second. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Bella. It’s Devlin Dash.” His voice sounded cool and smooth over the phone. He seemed much more sure of himself when we weren’t actually talking face-to-face. Or when he was wearing a leather mask.

  “Devlin. It’s nice to hear from you.” I tried to remain as calm as possible.

  “I just wanted to call and say that Grams and I had a wonderful time last night. I’m sorry we had to cut it short.”

  I hung on to his every word, looking for hidden meanings in each and every syllable. “I’m glad the two of you enjoyed yourselves. Did Grace take care of Kelly?”

  “Oh yes,” Devlin said. “It turned out to be something rather minor, actually.”

  “Like what?” I asked, pressing for details, hoping he’d slip up and expose himself.

  “Oh, nothing important. Kelly was just feeling a little tired, that’s all.”

  “I see.”

  Silence hung between us. I dug through my purse, snagging a pencil and a stray sheet of paper I’d tucked into one of the side pockets. I sat down on a nearby bench and started sketching another portrait of Debonair. Except this time, I put Devlin Dash’s face on the body of the handsome thief. It fit perfectly, further convincing me of the superhero’s true identity.

  Devlin cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was also calling to . . . I was wondering . . . maybe . . . if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight? For the auction?” His voice wavered with every word.

  I didn’t respond. I wanted more information before I saw Devlin—or Debonair—again. I wanted to be ready to confront him with the truth. I didn’t want our relationship to continue based on sex alone. Actually, I didn’t know if I wanted it to continue at all. In short, I needed Carmen Cole’s help before I saw him again.

  “I’m sorry, Devlin. I can’t tonight. I’m having dinner with Carmen Cole and some other friends.”

  “Oh.”

  Disappointment tinged in his voice. In a weird way, it made me happy he wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see him.

  I drew in a deep breath. “But how about tomorrow night?”

  “That would be fantastic!” Devlin exclaimed. “Quicke’s at eight o’clock?”

  “I’ll see you there,” I promised.

  “Great! I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

  I thought of our encounter in the bathroom last night. The way he touched me. Held me. Made me cry out his name.

  “Me too,” I replied. “More than you know.”

  I left the museum and headed out to Sublime, Sam Sloane’s mansion on the outskirts of the city. I pulled my Benz up to the front of the house and rang the buzzer. No one answered. I wasn’t surprised. Sam didn’t believe in having a housekeeping staff around. He thought it would be too easy for them to figure out his and the rest of the Fearless Five’s secret identities. The door was locked, but I punched in the 555 access code, and it buzzed open.

  I stepped inside and made my way through the enormous halls. More antiques and paintings and statues clustered in the rooms than in all of the Bigtime Museum of Modern Art. Every nook, every cranny, held another treasure. It was a wonder Debonair hadn’t broken in here already. Then again, Sam’s security system was extra tight—and supposedly included rockets buried in the lawn. Although the billionaire did let ordinary folks and even some school groups tour Sublime a couple of times a year. Closely supervised, of course.

  I called out, but no one answered me. Again, not surprising. For all the finery and bells and whistles in his house, Sam and the others spent most of their time underground. Superheroes. They were so silly sometimes.

  I made my way to the wine cellar, striding past the racks of bottled spirits. In the back corner, hidden behind a panel, was an elevator that went deep beneath Sublime. Fiona had shown me the entrance to the Fearless Five’s secret headquarters a few months ago, just in case of an emergency. I’d never thought I’d use the knowledge, though. Superheroes weren’t my favorite people in the world, and most of the time, I was perfectly happy pretending I didn’t know any of them.

  But desperate, confused people did desperate, confusing things. Like me falling for Debonair. And now asking superheroes for help in confirming his real identity.

  Five minutes and a couple hundred feet later, I pulled open the door to the library. Carmen Cole and Lulu Lo waited for me inside, just as I’d asked them to when I’d called from the car. They looked like they had been or were going to be busy. Carmen wore a black crepe dress with a modest neckline and flat, ballet-style shoes. She bent over her desk in the corner, working on an enormous jigsaw puzzle—the one I’d spilled all over the
place.

  Lulu sat at the round table and typed away on her high-powered laptop. A cobalt blue pullover—one of my designs—covered her slim body. The fabric matched the bright streaks in her ebony hair.

  Both of them looked up as I stepped inside.

  Carmen smiled. “You slept with him again, didn’t you?”

  How did she do that? And what could I do to make her stop?

  “Not exactly,” I mumbled.

  It was the truth, more or less. We hadn’t slept together. Debonair had just wreaked wicked, wanton havoc upon my willing, eager body.

  “Uh-oh, Bella got lucky again.” Lulu snickered.

  For once, I was in total agreement with Fiona. Somebody really needed to set Lulu’s hair on fire so she’d quit making those awful puns. Fiona kept threatening to use her fiery superpowers to do just that to the computer hacker.

  “Spill it,” Carmen said. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

  I sat down at the massive wooden table and told them everything that had happened—editing the scene in the bathroom—and who I thought Debonair really was under all that leather.

  “You’re telling me that Devlin Dash, who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if she drew him a picture and climbed onto his lap to demonstrate, is actually Debonair, one of the most sought-after men in Bigtime?” Lulu asked. “The Romeo of Romeos? The Casanova of Casanovas?”

  “You don’t believe me?” I asked. “I brought a copy of the check and the drawing along as proof.”

  I laid the two items out on the table. Carmen and Lulu clustered around for a closer look.

  “Well, they certainly look the same,” Carmen admitted. “Lulu?”

  The petite Asian woman took the drawing and the check, and put them both in a large scanner tucked away in a corner of the library. She hit a few buttons, and the machine sputtered to life. A white light appeared between the cracks on the cover.

  Lulu punched more buttons, bringing up images of the signatures on the check and drawing on her computer. Then, she overlapped them.

  A perfect match. Just like I’d thought.

  “Bella’s right. The signatures confirm it. Devlin Dash is, in fact, Debonair.” Lulu shook her head. “I don’t know what this town is coming to.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “First, I find out who the Fearless Five really are, then Johnny Angel, now Debonair. Pretty soon I’ll know who everybody is. And what’s the fun in that?” Lulu asked, her dark eyes serious. “Half the mystique of superheroes is the whole secret-identity thing.”

  “Well, get Henry to put on his mask the next time the two of you are together,” I sniped. “Right now, we’ve got work to do. I need your help, both of you. I want to know everything there is to know about Devlin Dash and Debonair.”

  Carmen arched an eyebrow. “Why the sudden interest, Bella? Or do I even have to ask?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “If you must know, I have a date with Devlin tomorrow night.”

  “Let me guess. You’re going to confront him about his real identity.” Lulu shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why not? It will be so much simpler once everything’s out in the open.”

  Carmen and Lulu exchanged a look, and the brunette reporter gave me a sad smile.

  “I’m afraid that’s just when it gets that much more complicated,” Carmen said.

  But I persisted until they agreed to help me. Carmen and Lulu tried to make me promise not to say anything to Devlin, to let him tell me that he was Debonair in his own time, but I refused. I was going to confront him whether it was the smart thing to do or not. I was tired of being sensible and calm and rational. I wanted Devlin to know I knew about his secret identity—and I wanted to find out if there was something real between us.

  An hour later, Carmen and I pored through reams of paper, while Lulu pulled up file after file on her computer. I read through the bio Carmen had compiled. Devlin Dash. Age 35. Hair black, eyes a light blue. Graduated from Bigtime University with an MBA. Lots of academic and business honors. A Friend of the Bigtime Museum of Modern Art—

  Lulu let out a low whistle. “I’m afraid it’s not looking too good for your boy, Bella.”

  “Oh really? Why’s that?” I asked, distracted by a photo spread of Debonair and his Lair of Seduction. I doubted there was a camera made yet that could do him justice.

  “His company, DCQ Enterprises, is in deep financial trouble. According to a story in the business section of the Exposé, the company’s chief financial officer, Nathan Nichols, was accused of embezzling several million dollars from the company coffers.”

  A photo of Nathan Nichols flashed up on the screen. He was a normal-looking guy with big hands and thinning hair who was confined to a wheelchair. I vaguely recalled seeing him at some of the regular society events. Like Devlin, he didn’t seem to talk much.

  “But nothing was ever proven, and no charges were filed against Nathan,” Lulu continued. “Over the last year, Devlin’s sold cars, yachts, family jewels, just about all the assets he has to keep the company afloat. His net worth barely tops two million now. Definitely subpar by Bigtime society standards. Poor guy.” Lulu snickered at her bad joke.

  “I remember hearing about that,” I said. “That happened around the time my father died. It was the talk of the society circuit for about a week.”

  Most people had short attention spans in Bigtime.

  “What does Devlin actually do?” Carmen asked. “What does DCQ deal in?”

  Lulu scanned through more information. “Lots of real estate, restaurants, media and PR firms, art restoration—”

  “Wait a minute. Art restoration?” I asked, thinking back to the room of paintings at the Lair of Seduction.

  “That’s what it says. One of DCQ’s companies is called Amazing Art. They specialize in restoring and preserving paintings by the likes of Monet, Picasso, and others. Devlin seems to be the most heavily involved with that company. Grace Caleb runs everything else. Kelly Caleb and Kyle Quicke are the other major stockholders in DCQ, but they’re not really involved in the day-to-day business decisions.”

  “So, Devlin really is an art lover,” I murmured.

  Maybe all his talk about how good my work was hadn’t been just to get me into bed. The thought made me happier than I could have imagined.

  Carmen flipped through the papers in her hands. “Well, he’s managed to hang on to the family mansion out in Bigtime Bay at least.” She looked at me. “It’s about three miles east of where we picked you up in the boat. But that shouldn’t come as a shock to you.”

  I thought of all the empty rooms I’d seen with their missing furniture. Carmen was right. It didn’t surprise me. I didn’t think I could be any more shocked than I had the moment I’d realized who Debonair really was.

  “There’s more,” Lulu added. “Devlin is currently fending off a hostile takeover bid from Hannah Harmon. He’s hanging on by the width of a spandex suit. And in another interesting twist, Nathan Nichols now works for Hannah as her chief financial officer.”

  I frowned. Hannah Harmon. That was the second time I’d heard her name today. That in and of itself wasn’t unusual. Hannah loved to take over floundering businesses. If Devlin was having as much trouble as Lulu claimed, it was only natural Hannah would come sniffing around looking to make more millions. Joanne had told me the same thing at the museum benefit. Still, I didn’t like coincidences.

  “You don’t think Hannah could be an ubervillain, do you?” I asked, thinking out loud.

  “Why do you ask?” Carmen said.

  I told her about Hannah’s strange phone call.

  Carmen’s eyes glowed for half a second. They always did that whenever she was feeling psychic vibrations. Or listening to the voices in her head, as Fiona called it. “She’s rich and ambitious, so she meets the basic ubervillain requirements, even if she’s not on my list.”

  Lulu and I looked at the reporter. br />
  “What list?” I asked.

  A guilty blush spotted Carmen’s cheeks, and she mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  “My list of all the superheroes and ubervillains in Bigtime,” Carmen said in a defensive tone. “I’ve been trying to figure out who’s who in my spare time. It’s sort of a hobby.”

  “You didn’t tell me that, Sister Carmen,” Lulu accused.

  Carmen fiddled with one of her Rubik’s Cubes. “Yeah, well, I figured the information could be useful someday. But I didn’t want to tell Sam and the others what I was doing. You know they’re all a little touchy about the secret-identity thing.”

  “Well, they did get stuffed into glass tubes and almost died because you inadvertently revealed their secret identities to the Terrible Triad,” Lulu pointed out.

  Carmen slouched farther down into her seat. Before she met Sam and became a superhero herself, Carmen used to expose the secret identities of heroes and villains for the newspaper the Exposé—until her boss turned out to be Malefica, the biggest, baddest ubervillain in Bigtime.

  I looked through more files, stopping when I spotted a picture of Devlin standing with Grace Caleb at some society event last year.

  “I want you to check up on Grace Caleb too,” I said, changing the subject.

  Carmen shot me a grateful look.

  “Why?” Lulu asked. “She’s just another old society lady. Sneeze and you’ll hit half a dozen in this town.”

  “She’s Devlin’s grandmother—and she just happened to have a family emergency while we were having dinner last night.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Family emergency? That’s such a dead giveaway.”

  We sifted through the information on Grace Caleb, but couldn’t come up with anything conclusive. She seemed far too interested in her afternoon teas and bridge clubs to be a superhero. Then again, I never would have dreamed Devlin Dash was Debonair.

  Two hours later, I stretched my arms over my head. The motion made the charms on my silver bracelet jangle together. The three of us froze. I hadn’t taken off the chain since Jasper had given it to me. I hadn’t needed to use it, so, for the most part, I was able to forget I was wearing something that could obliterate me in twenty seconds. Not now, though. I slowly lowered my arm and set it on the table. Nothing happened. We all let out a breath.