LITMIR.BIZ

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grumbled.

      “Good,” Lucas said, pushing to his feet so triumphantly that Wesley immediately wanted to take it back. “We’ll be in touch, Ms. Fischer.”

      After the pair left the room, Liz touched Wesley’s shaking hand. “You made the right decision. Do this, and you’ll come out debt free on the other side.”

      Wesley stared at the white powder stain on the carpet in despair and nodded numbly. Debt free—or dead.

      3

      Carlotta swallowed the last Percocet capsule from the bottle and returned her purse to her locker. She glanced in the mirror mounted on the door and smoothed her finger over the frown line between her brows that had become more pronounced recently. Leaning close, she noticed wryly that the furrow bore a distinct resemblance to the letter W—for Wesley.

      Her brother was going to be the death of her youth.

      She slammed the door closed and returned to the sales floor where the crowd waiting for the Eva McCoy appearance had swelled. Carlotta joined Patricia, who was back and passing out tickets.

      “Did you get your charm bracelet?” Carlotta asked.

      Patricia nodded and pulled back her jacket sleeve to display the silver bracelet and dangling charms. “But I’m confused. These charms have absolutely no correlation to anything in my life. There’s a little dog charm, and I have two cats. And a baseball glove, when I’ve never played any sport except tennis. A lion, which might stand for Leo, but I’m an Aries. A Texas steer head, and I don’t eat meat. And a broom. How weird is that?”

      Carlotta pursed her mouth to keep from making a comment about the broom as a mode of transportation. “I thought the idea was that the charms are random, a way of challenging you to try something new.”

      Patricia frowned. “So I’m supposed to try sweeping? And baseball? Right.” She sighed. “My bracelet is a bust.” Then she held up a brown box. “But I bought one for you.”

      Carlotta gave a little gurgle of surprise. “You shouldn’t have.”

      “I know you said you had an old one, but maybe it’s time you replaced it.” Patricia shrugged. “You know—start some new memories.”

      Carlotta sighed. She really didn’t want to have to like the woman, dammit. But she accepted the box and murmured, “Thanks.” She opened the box and pulled out the tray that held the silver charm bracelet.

      “What did you get?”

      Carlotta squinted as she fingered the tiny dangling charms. “This one looks like a puzzle piece.”

      “Ooh, that’s intriguing—as if you need to figure out something.”

      Carlotta pursed her mouth again. As if. “And this one says aloha.” She shrugged. “I certainly wouldn’t mind visiting Hawaii someday. And this one … it’s hearts.”

      Patricia frowned. “There’s something wrong. There are three hearts instead of two.”

      “Uh-hmm,” Carlotta murmured. “Strange, huh?” But her pulse quickened in spite of her skepticism. Three hearts, three men in her life.

      “Oh, look!” Patricia said with a squeal. “It’s two champagne glasses. That must mean you’re going to have something to celebrate. Oh, you’re so lucky!”

      Carlotta scoffed. “It doesn’t mean anything—it’s just a charm. This is like opening a box of Cracker Jacks. Don’t take it seriously.”

      “What’s that one?” Patricia asked, pointing to the last charm, a long, slender piece of shaped metal.

      “It looks like … a woman. Just a woman.”

      “Her arms are crossed over her chest—maybe she’s a cheerleader.”

      Carlotta’s eyebrows went up. “Uh, yeah.”

      “Were you a cheerleader?”

      “A lifetime ago.” Actually, high school seemed like another century. On another planet.

      “Well, that must be it then,” Patricia said eagerly.

      Carlotta nodded and allowed Patricia to help her fasten the catch on the bracelet. She didn’t want to say what the last charm looked like to her—a woman in corpse pose. And she wasn’t talking yoga.

      Pushing the eerie charm from her mind, she craned her neck, trying to get a three-hundred-sixty-degree glance around, wondering where the dynamic detective duo had disappeared to. Maybe they’d found an empty dressing room to inspect.

      She wrestled with the unreasonable stab of jealousy. She and Jack had had a nice time in the sack when he’d stayed at her house once doing surveillance, but that episode had ended disastrously. They were on opposite sides of too many issues, including her father. Besides, since the reckless bout of bone-jarring sex with Jack, she’d flirted with a fling with Cooper Craft, and now … she’d made promises to Peter. In fact, she had a dinner date with Peter after work.

      Which left no time for worrying about who—er, make that what—Jack was in to.

      “I think that lady is trying to get your attention,” Patricia said, nodding to someone in the crowd.

      Carlotta turned to look and was pleased to see June Moody, the owner of Moody’s cigar lounge, waving. Carlotta threaded through the horde of bodies to clasp the woman’s hands. June was dressed elegantly, as always, in a slim skirt and starched white shirt. Her hair and heels were high, and her smile, wide.

      “I was hoping you’d be working today,” June said, then touched the arm of a broad-shouldered man next to her. “Carlotta Wren, meet my son, Sergeant Mitchell Moody.”

      Remembering that June had once hinted that she and her military son weren’t close, Carlotta was able to mask her surprise by the time he turned in her direction.

      The first thing that struck her about Mitchell Moody was his sheer physical authority—the man was the size of a small mountain, with lots of impressive hills on the upward climb. The second thing she noticed were his eyes—they were the palest blue and laser-intense. Even in jeans, a red polo-style shirt and athletic shoes, the man screamed military. His head was shaved and tanned, his cheekbones sharp, his posture rifle straight. It wasn’t hard to imagine him dressed in fatigues and combat boots, wielding a weapon and defending the American way.

      A little shiver traveled up her spine. The man was rather … what was the word?

       Hot.

      “Hi, Carlotta,” he said with a smile that seemed rusty. He swept an appreciative glance over her, and she flushed with … patriotism.

      “Nice to meet you, Mitchell.”

      “Call me Mitch.” His voice was low and clear, with the rumbling undertone of a well-tuned engine.

      “Mitch is visiting for a couple of weeks,” June supplied, sounding almost giddy.

      “I understand you’re a career army man,” Carlotta said.

      “That’s right. Thought I’d be retiring in a few months, but with everything going on in the world, that’s up in the air for the moment.”

      If he’d put twenty years into the army, that made him around thirty-eight years old, she estimated, although he seemed much more mature. More worldly.

      “How do you two know each other?” he asked.

      Carlotta met June a few months ago when she’d walked into Moody’s cigar bar, asking about a stogie she’d found in the pocket of a men’s jacket that Peter Ashford’s wife had returned to Neiman’s before she’d subsequently been murdered. But Carlotta tried to put a more philosophical spin on it. “I walked into the cigar lounge looking for answers, and your mother had them.”

      “I’ve

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