Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [45]
The foot man sucked my baby toe into his mouth and I moaned. The bell rang again. Probably summoning the dessert-bearer. But perhaps I would forgo dessert this once. At least until the pedi-masseur was finished …
“Hello,” crooned a voice. I smiled and snuggled a little deeper into my pillows. “Yes,” he said, but the voice had morphed from the sexy rumble of a good man-slave to the high, jittery tone of a nerd.
Damnit! I had been dreaming. Or maybe I was dreaming now. If memory served, and history was repeating itself, I had gone to bed alone.
But the voice spoke again. I reached out, groggy, hair in my eyes. And sure enough, my hand met the body of another human being.
Unusual. I slipped my hand over what felt like a shirt.
“What? Oh.” There was relief in the voice, which, now that I was marginally coherent, sounded a full octave higher than that of any self-respecting sex slave. I scowled and slipped my hand down my visitor’s spine. It was conspicuously devoid of heaving muscle. And his ass …
“You’re going to want to wake up now, Mac,” Laney said.
I opened one immediately paranoid eye.
Solberg turned toward me, his Woody Allen face illuminated by the diffused light of the hallway.
I jerked upright. Harlequin lifted his head, offended that I had yanked my foot out of his tongue’s reach.
Laney was staring at me from beside the door. “The man-slave dream?” she asked.
I snapped my gaze from her to Solberg. “What’s going on?”
“Phone. I thought it might be important,” Elaine said. moving nearer.
Solberg nodded and handed over the receiver. “It’s for you.”
I scowled, still hoping I could chalk up this late night interruption to just another good dream gone bad. “Is it a mass murderer?”
“Don’t think so,” Solberg said. “But it’s probably not a sex slave, either.”
I shot a jaundiced glare toward Laney, reminding her that best friends keep secrets, but she just shrugged. “Would you rather have him believe you were coming on to him?”
I said something suitably nasty and took the receiver.
“Hello?” My voice sounded like a cross between a rusty hinge and a water buffalo.
“Ms. McMullen?”
I glanced around the dimly lit room. There were four articles of clothing on the floor, six half-read novels beside the bed, and a dehydrated philodendron wilting by the window. Probably my house. “I believe so,” I said.
“This is Renee Edwards.”
I patted the top of my head. The snarl quotient felt about the same as mine usually does at this time of night. Evidence was rising that I was, indeed, Christina McMullen. “Who?”
“I’m a handwriting expert,” said Edwards. She had a tough, impatient voice. “I work for the Los Angeles Police Department.”
“Oh, yes.” I shot my gaze to the twosome near my bed and tightened my grip on the phone.
“I’m told your case is of an extremely urgent nature.”
I bit my lip, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. After some soul-bending deliberation, I had called Rivera Senior. Subsequently, the senator had worked his usual magic. But as with any genie’s lamp, there were always repercussions. I was still waiting to discover what they would be.
“Yes,” I said again.
“Ergo, I’ve reviewed the letters in my free time,” she continued.
Ergo, she sounded a little miffed about it. “All of them?”
The affirmative seemed to be implied. “And worked up a preliminary analysis.”
I was trying to get my ducks in a row, but there were a couple little buggers that kept popping out of line. “What time is it?”
“Four hundred hours.”
My mind worked dizzily on that for a while only to realize it was an ungodly time of the night when no one in her right mind should be conscious. What on earth did this gal owe the senator?
“I’ll send you a written transcript of my findings, as well, of course, but thought you might like to hear an expedited opinion of my conclusions immediately.