Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic Read online

  “Thank you.” She looked to Conan. “May I speak with you privately before you show Mr. Liu around?”

  Not easy in this cubicle farm. Conan took Fred to the front office and left him there, out of hearing, before returning to Dorrie. He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

  “Fred has an ax to grind,” she said without inflection, as if she’d just said his security expert had black hair. “I need to check his personal references with my family before we show him anything important. He may just dislike my father or the foundation or you, for all I know, but he may not be the best person for this job.”

  Conan opened his mouth to object, but the words wouldn’t come out. He’d seen his sister-in-law accomplish inexplicable weirdnesses with her voice. He would keep an open mind to Dorothea’s nutty arguments. Instead of protesting, he asked, “How do you know?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t. It’s just what I feel. I could be interpreting that arrow of hostility completely wrong. It’s not strong. It’s just there. I’d say he resents something, but that’s a little too specific.”

  At least she was honest and straightforward about her craziness. He appreciated that she didn’t try to conceal it. He refrained from rolling his eyes. “All right, I’ll put him to work on physically securing the entrances. You said your father owns this building. May I speak with him about hiring guards?”

  “No,” she said curtly. “My father is not to be disturbed. He uses a rental management company. We can call them on Monday.”

  Irritated that she shot down his every suggestion to protect her—with unreasonable explanations—he growled, “If you really want to run this place, you’d better start practicing standing up to your old man.”

  He walked out, satisfied that he’d left her with her mouth hanging open. If he had to put up with her idiosyncrasies, she’d have to learn to put up with his.

  Chapter 6

  “My gratitude, Aunt Li,” Dorrie said, holding the phone receiver with one hand and flipping through Fred Liu’s folder of references. “I miss the family, too. Perhaps, by the new year, Dad will be ready for guests. You must visit.”

  Provided the house hadn’t fallen off the cliff, but Dorrie refused to relate her troubles to her San Francisco relatives. Her mother’s family was large, ambitious, and clannish. They would be down here on the first flight to order the contractors to work faster buttressing the cliff and harass the city to better care for their hills and to flutter around her insurance agent’s office until the man went mad.

  Well-meaning but impossible—which was why she hadn’t mentioned that she hadn’t felt Bo’s death. Given their family history, they would believe her without doubt. They would tear apart his military base looking for answers and quite possibly destroy all their careers in the process. She didn’t have enough confidence in her instinct to allow that.

  But having a cadre of relatives infiltrating every layer of society was like having a private detective agency at her fingertips. She was ready when Conan returned after leaving Fred Liu checking out the exits. Toto sniffed his shoes, then wagged his tail hopefully.

  “We’re wasting Fred’s time and your money if I can’t give him access to personnel files,” Conan said, settling into the uncomfortable folding chair to scratch Toto’s head.

  She was getting used to Conan’s bluntness. She wasn’t quite as used to his blatant masculinity. He looked good in that blazer, but the black knit polo stretching across his chest looked better. Even clothes couldn’t stifle all the male pheromones bouncing off the walls of her father’s office.

  How the devil was she supposed to explain how she knew things to a man who clearly only understood computers? She was pretty amazed that he hadn’t laughed in her face about Fred’s arrow of hostility, which was the only reason she was still speaking to him.

  “Without going into all the annoying details of which high school he attended, who he married, and where his sister lives,” she continued, not showing her irritation, “my aunt says Fred used to work for one of my father’s realty firms. He was fired because he talked too much, which probably means Fred told one of his family about a good deal my father was after and they got there first. My father always got his Irish up when my mother’s family knew all his business, but at least they were family. Fred isn’t.” She shoved the annotated reference file across the desk at him.

  Looking properly puzzled, Conan donned his black-rimmed glasses to scan her hieroglyphic scribbling. Really, her family was as difficult to explain as her semi-psychic abilities—and that was just their normal professional knowledge. If she enlightened them on Ling paranormal powers, he’d walk out laughing. She hadn’t been oblivious to his amusement yesterday.

  She preferred admiring the scholarly expression on this steaming hunk of male. The combination devastated her libido. She almost voiced her disappointment when he returned his glasses to his pocket.

  He tossed the file back to her desk. “So you’re saying you can’t hire Fred because your father fired him, and now Fred resents you or the foundation or some other shit?”

  She wondered if he’d quit if she agreed, but she didn’t intend to find out. Much as she hated to admit it, Conan was her only hope.

  “I’m saying Fred’s anger is an honest reaction,” she said, “and if he ever did anything to harm me or mine, he knows my family and knows he’s a dead man, so hire him.”

  Conan ran a callus-roughened hand through his shaggy hair, scratched his head, then stretched his long legs across her carpet as if he were settling in to pick her brains. She did admire his curiosity.

  “Your family is some kind of Mafia?”

  Dorrie smiled at the idea of Grandmother Ling as Mafia. “Something like that, except they’re so honest they’d make Abe Lincoln cringe. My mother’s family is a matriarchy of legendary power. They know everything, sometimes even before the person involved knows it.”

  “You’re saying they’re psychic?” he asked warily.

  He was remarkably willing to expect oddities. Interesting. And promising. Could she tell him about Bo’s GPS abilities?

  “Not precisely,” she hedged, unwilling to reveal the full extent of her family’s weirdnesses until she could trust him. “My mother was a feng shui expert. I have an aunt who is a phenomenal success as a chef, another who makes perfumes, one of my cousins is a dedicated county prosecutor, and my family pretty much swears that my grandmother can read minds. She’s pretty spooky, but her wide network of friends is probably a better explanation. When we want to be, we are our own Internet.”

  “What do food and perfume have to do with the Internet?” he asked in genuine puzzlement.

  She knew he’d never believe her, so she told him the truth. “The Internet can only communicate words. My family can make you weep with broccoli, fall in love with scent, and drag the truth from you with a look. Trust me, you want to stay off their radar if you value your privacy.”

  And then there was Cho, who could visualize a target. Or Francesca, who was a psychic pilot. Or her other cousins, Jack and Tom, who more or less communicated with objects and smells. Try explaining that to a man of logic. And then explain why she didn’t dare call on them until she was certain Bo was alive. Their family history was perilous. Her mother’s murder was just the tip of the iceberg.

  Conan steepled his fingers under his chin, and his brown eyes lit with fascination. “Did your brother have any of these magical talents?”

  That was not the reaction she expected. Dorrie eyed him with suspicion. “He’s an excellent navigator, which is why he was the pilot in that experimental helicopter test.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any Malcolms on your family tree?” he asked.

  “Malcolms?” Dorrie suddenly felt like an insect under a microscope, and she thoroughly disliked the feeling. “I’d ask who they were, but I really don’t think our family history factors into this.” That was a lie. Mostly, she was praying it had nothing to do with family history. �
�Hire Fred Liu, if you want, but don’t let my staff know he’s working on their files.”

  Conan shrugged. “If by any chance you have a Malcolm in your family, don’t check the genealogy on the Internet. The site is dangerous, and I’m trying to shut it down.”

  “If there were any Malcolms in my ancestry, it would more likely be on my father’s Irish side,” she scoffed.

  “I’ve found Malcolms in Hong Kong and China, but so far, none in Ireland. I could look if your father exhibits any flaky tendencies. Right now, I’m siccing Fred on your personnel files.”

  He walked off without further explanation. Talk about flaky! The damned man was freakier than she was. She needed a security expert, not her grandmother. She couldn’t tell if he was taking her concern about Bo seriously or just playing her for reasons beyond her understanding. That was her sagging confidence speaking.

  Struggling with the grief that hit her when she least expected it, Dorrie pinched the bridge of her nose, let the pain wash over her, and dragged back to business.

  She needed an outside accountant to determine if client checks were being diverted. Should the media discover the foundation was throwing away money, their donors would vanish like rats from a sinking ship.

  She might as well brand FAIL on her forehead. She desperately needed Bo to come home. Maybe that was why she refused to believe he was dead. And another reason why she couldn’t drag family into this. She really might be delusional.

  She’d already left the tow truck driver downstairs, replacing her tires for a sum she couldn’t afford. Her insurance agent had said that with her deductible, it wouldn’t even be worth filing a claim. If she couldn’t stay at her father’s, she’d have to find a place to rent in L.A.’s abominably high housing market. Her salary really couldn’t cover rent and car payments, and she didn’t have the nerve to give herself a raise under the circumstances.

  While pounding her head on the desk might be cathartic, she couldn’t solve her problems that way. Fine, she was pathetic but practical.

  She packed up her briefcase and Toto and prepared to leave as soon as the tow driver told her that her car was ready. By the time she’d reached the elevator, Conan had joined her. She shot him an irritated glance. “You’re supposed to be hunting hackers in the computers.”

  “You’re supposed to be waiting for me to find them.” The door opened, and he appropriated her elbow, leading her in. Toto the Traitor yipped a friendly greeting.

  She didn’t like admitting that she kind of enjoyed his high-handed decision to protect her. She wanted to stand on her own, had done so most of her life. But he’d caught her in a weak moment. “I can’t walk out on my life,” she argued. “I have responsibilities.”

  “You won’t have a life if someone wants you dead,” he said tersely. “Where are you headed?”

  Wanted her dead? That was taking vandalism to extremes. She wasn’t adding a ridiculous new worry to her long list of very valid concerns. “To my ex-sister-in-law’s. Bo shared custody of their kids. She’s overwhelmed trying to work and keep up the house and take care of the kids all by herself.”

  “Your father is worth millions. She could hire nannies.” He punched the elevator button to the garage.

  “My father believes in the work ethic. He kept enough money for his old age, established the realty corporation in which he’s primary stockowner, and poured everything else into his charitable foundation. Bo and I have to work for a living. That’s why he went into the military instead of straight into Dad’s business. He wanted to be his own man.”

  Dorrie kept her voice neutral. She couldn’t argue with the choices of either man. Bo might have succeeded at business where she could not, had he been interested in working for their father. Which he hadn’t. All the wealth in the world couldn’t fix Fate.

  Feeling no negativity when the doors opened, she marched into the garage to her newly restored Prius. She tucked Toto into his blankets on the backseat and scowled as Conan folded his lanky frame into her passenger seat.

  “This is ridiculous. I don’t need a babysitter,” she huffed, settling into her seat and donning the seatbelt. Wow, Conan not only physically filled the small front seat, he filled the entire space with raw masculinity. She could barely think to find the ignition.

  “Don’t know where we’re going, so I can’t follow you,” Conan said without inflection, sliding on dark shades as she pulled out of the garage.

  “Am I paying you to irritate me?” She steered into a gloriously sunny day. After three days of rain and the destruction of her father’s yard, the sun had finally returned. Her life didn’t look noticeably brighter.

  “I usually charge a daily consulting fee, whether I work two hours or twenty-four, but for this case, you’re off the hook. No worries.” He folded his arms. His eyes hidden behind wrap-around shades, he did his best imitation of a sphinx.

  “Bird Island,” she muttered, maneuvering into the narrow suburban streets far from the glitter of Hollywood and Santa Monica. Back here, shabby palm trees collected McDonald’s trash, and the only paint on bus stop benches was the gang graffiti. Amy’s secretarial job and Bo’s benefits barely covered the high cost of L.A. living and three kids.

  “Guano is a useful fertilizer,” Conan countered, “and without granite, the earth’s surface would collapse into a molten inferno. Everything has a purpose.”

  She snorted at his pragmatic response to her insult. “You are a very strange man. Did you say you have brothers?”

  He hesitated, responding reluctantly. “Before Magnus died, two, both older. And yes, they have threatened to throw me against a wall every time we got together. And no, they couldn’t. I’m not just another pretty face.”

  He said that so solemnly that she couldn’t help laughing. The man was beyond irritating, but he was an original. “I’m betting your parents escaped to another country and left no forwarding address after the three of you moved out.”

  He shrugged. “My mother died when I was six. We spent a lot of time moving around the country with my father’s business while we were growing up, until his plane crashed. Oz raised us after that.”

  Hunting for a parking place amid the clutter of vans and trucks lining the street, Dorrie shot him a glance. “You’re sympathizing with Bo’s kids, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe, a little. We were never poor though. There’s an empty house. Just park in their drive.” He nodded at a bungalow with a For Sale sign in the yard.

  To Dorrie, that was trespassing, but she needed out of this tiny car brimming with too much attractive male and too many unanswered questions. They’d both suffered tragedies in their lives. Were they simply fighting the fact that they’d shared another?

  She parked and checked to see that Toto was sleeping as she climbed out. The day was cool. If she left her windows open a bit, he’d be fine for a few minutes.

  Conan unfolded his tall frame from her tiny car and strode beside her like a badly-dressed security guard.

  If she had the time, she’d like to learn more about a man who lived in a luxury mansion but who seemed equally comfortable in suburbia, one who’d lost his mother young and his father too soon. But she didn’t have time. Her list of responsibilities was too daunting.

  Before she could knock on the aluminum screen door, it flew open, and a colt-legged young girl raced out, followed by two shaggy-haired younger boys. Dorrie jumped backward to avoid collision. The kids didn’t appear to notice. They flew like a flock of panicked birds into a neighbor’s yard and behind the house, out of sight.

  “I could catch them,” Conan said, taking off his sunglasses and following their flight, “but do I want to?”

  Looking harried, Amy Franklin appeared in the doorway in time to catch his words. In exasperation, she swept a straying golden-brown curl from her face and shook her head. “No, they will go to ground like rabbits. Take them. They’re all yours.”

  She slammed the door in their faces.

  Chapter 7


  “Foxes go to ground,” Conan ruminated, following Dorrie around the house to the back. It was easier to ponder semantics than what the hell they were doing here. “Rabbits freeze like possums. That bunch strikes me as wilier than stupid rabbits.”

  “Shut up, Oswin,” his companion muttered, peering over a battered wooden fence. “They think spies stole their father and you might be one of them.”

  “Do I look like a spy?” he asked indignantly, glancing down at the designer jeans some girlfriend had persuaded him to pay a few hundred bucks for. Had to be the stupid blazer. Or maybe the shades.

  “Yup. They’re kids. You’re an adult and a stranger. That’s all it takes. Don’t you remember what it was like to lose a parent and have your whole life turned upside down?”

  Conan supposed he might, if he thought about it, but ancient history was irrelevant. He considered all kids little better than gerbils that belonged in a cage—cute to watch but useless. He’d accompanied dotty Dorothea because he didn’t want her tires slashed again, and he really needed to keep an eye on her until he figured her out. And probably because he was hoping to get into her pants. He had not hired on to talk to kids. He had no magic wand to produce them from hiding.

  But he did speak their language. “McDonalds,” he shouted over the fence. “Big Macs all around.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and raised his eyebrows when Dorrie shot him a sharp look. What was there to say? Even Oz’s pipsqueak adored Big Macs, much to the dismay of his vegetarian stepmother. Conan knew how food worked.

  While Dorrie reassured the kids that he wasn’t a big bad meanie, Conan moved on to the next problem—they wouldn’t easily fit three kids and a dog in the backseat of a Prius if he meant to keep his promise about Big Macs.

  Heeding instinct, he left Dorrie persuading the kids out of hiding while he jogged back to the street, just in time to catch some junior car thief testing his limited skills. “Amscray!” Conan shouted, figuring that sounded assertive enough not to need translation.