Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [40]
“An ice-cream cone? An ice-cream cone?” My voice had risen into the range where only gerbils and cockroaches can hear it. “I don’t want a damned ice-cream cone. I want to be able to walk into a parking lot without having the bejeezus scared out of me by some hulking—”
“You don’t want it?”
“No, I don’t … Oh, give me that,” I said, and yanked it from his hand. It was starting to drip.
I licked the perimeter. Chocolate vanilla swirl.
“So I scared you?” he asked.
I gave him a glare. “What the hell were you doing lurking like a …” I searched for the proper words. “… gargoyle between the damned—”
He laughed. Golden-haired and beautiful, he looked like a happy angel. “I didn’t think you got scared, Chrissy.”
The ice cream was beginning to chill my nerves and restore the usual munificence I reserve for all mankind. “I didn’t think you were an idiot.”
“Really?” When he smiled his dimples popped out. It was like trying to stay mad at Buddha.
“But I was obviously wrong,” I said.
He put a palm to his chest. It looked broad and capable. “That’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Yeah, well …” I opened my car door. “Stick around,” I said, and he laughed.
“I was hoping for an invitation.”
I scowled over the driver’s door at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” He could look as innocent as a choirboy when he wanted to.
I gave him a look. He dimpled again.
“I came in for the premiere of the new Jonas Brothers movie.”
I stared, waiting for him to crack a smile. Nothing. “You’re a Jonas Brothers fan?”
“Don’t you think they’re dreamy?” I canted my head at him.
“I have two nieces living in Covina,” he explained finally. “They assure me the Jonas Brothers are, in fact, dreamy.”
“You came all this way to see a boy band?” I was going to have to readjust everything I knew about this man … which, admittedly, wasn’t much. But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was, after all, California. Half the population was invited to red carpet shindigs. Westwood Village was always shining with starlets.
“Well, for that,” he said, “and to ask you to have sex with me.”
I shook my head and put my foot inside the Saturn.
“Chrissy?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you’ll have sex with me?”
I snorted and lowered myself toward the seat. I had almost quit shaking.
“Don’t you even check your backseat?” he asked.
Sometimes I truly hate men. “Thing is,” I said, “I find that the real crazies are in the parking lots.”
“Hey,” he said, and stepping forward, crouched in my open doorway. “I have a question for you.”
“No sex in the backseat!” I snapped.
A woman walked past holding a little girl’s hand. She scowled through the windshield at me. We watched them go by in silent tandem.
“Wow,” Tavis said as they disappeared from sight. “That was embarrassing. Anyway, I was wondering if you’ve heard anything about something called Intensity.”
I scowled, licked off my cone, and watched him. “Is this some sort of lead-in to more sex talk?”
“Do you want it to be?”
I put my key in the ignition, but he put a hand on my arm, and even that little touch did something odd to me. Fear sometimes heightens my libido. I know it’s weird. But so are emu.
“I’m serious as a heartache, here, Chrissy. Intensity … you heard anything about it?”
I lowered my hand and stared at him. He did, in fact, look serious. And ridiculously handsome. “What is it? A new form of Russian roulette or something?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
I shook my head and he sighed.
“Meth’s a problem in Kern County, but I think there’s some new shit hitting the fan.”
“How do you mean?”
“We had two kids die in the past month.”
“Teenagers?”
“Yeah.”
“From overdose?”
He shook his head. “Nothing showed up in the tox reports.”
“And there were no other signs of trauma.”
“Coroner says they died of asphyxiation.”
“Some weird sex thing?”
“There was no sign of anything sexual.”
“So you thought of me?”
He laughed. “I was wondering, you being a psychiatrist—”
“Psychologist.”
He grinned. “Thought maybe you’d heard something.”