“If there’s a justification for my actions right now, it’s this: I have gone completely crazy.”
—Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars (2007)
Without thinking, I jumped back and hid behind the fortune-teller machine. Why, oh why, had I made the mistake of walking over here?
Don’t panic, I told myself. He probably didn’t recognize you.
So why were people suddenly exiting the store? Was the magic demonstration over?
What were my options here? I could run, but I’d already done that once with him, and look where it got me: working in the same hotel. I considered taking refuge in the bookstore, but they’d shut off their lights already and were flipping over the closed sign.
Crap! Daniel was exiting the magic shop, looking around. No time to escape. How could I look . . . less obvious? Maybe I should get my fortune told by the animatronic machine? Yes. Okay. That was a good reason to be standing here. I rummaged around the bottom of my purse for coins. Oh God, he’s coming over here. . . .
“Is this a stakeout?”
I glanced up from my purse and tried to act surprised. His dark hair hung loose around his shoulders like it had when I’d first met him in the diner. Since when was I into guys with long hair? Since when did I know any guys with long hair? The only one I could think of was Chippy Jones, the old bearded hippie who owned the kite store on Bainbridge Island and rode a two-person bike everywhere. Daniel was no old hippie.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said, sounding a little touched in the head.
“Hello, Birdie.”
I started to reply, but my tongue felt thick in my mouth. A sickly sweat broke over my skin, as if I’d contracted the flu. Or food poisoning. Maybe the dropsy or some sort of milk fever—one of those vague, old-timey conditions.
“I made the joke about stakeouts because of your mystery-book obsession,” he explained. “Detectives. Sleuthing. Stakeouts.”
He remembered what I’d told him in the diner. Wait. Did he think I was stalking him?
“Not here for a stakeout.” I removed my hand from my purse to show him . . . three pennies and some fuzzy lint, which stuck to my palm when I tried to let go of it. “I’m looking for quarters. For this . . . thing,” I said, shifting my eyes to the machine.
“Really.” He didn’t sound convinced. Amused, but not convinced.
“I’m wasting time before the staff meeting. I was in there”—I used my lint-covered, sweaty hand to gesture toward the mystery bookstore—“only they’re closing, and I decided . . . I didn’t know you were here. I mean, I know you do magic, but I wasn’t stalking you. I’m just here for the Great Swami.”
“Oh, he’s not great. He’s just Swami.”
“Whatever. I’m not stalking you.”
He squinted. “You said that already.”
“GD,” I swore under my breath.
“GD?”
“Goddammit.”
He arched a brow.
“There was a no-swearing rule in my house,” I explained, thoroughly embarrassed. “It’s just an old habit.”
“Ah.
“And I have a perfectly logical reason for being here.”
“Me too,” he said. “I know the magic store’s owners, and they let me do tricks for customers. Sometimes I perform outside the market entrance, next to Rachel the Piggy Bank.”
Now I had to look out for Daniel whenever I wanted to come down here to buy a book? Terrific.
“I’m good with misdirection.”
“Excuse me?”
“In my street magic. Misdirection,” he repeated, holding out a hand and showing me his open palm. “You’re looking here, which is why you don’t see me taking this.” He held up a ring of keys on one finger.
My house keys.
“Hey!” I glanced down at my purse. The front pocket gaped open. “How . . . ?”
“Misdirection,” he said with a satisfied smile, offering me my keys back, which I carefully took, not touching his finger.
“Are you a pickpocket or a magician?” I asked.
“A skill is a skill,” he said, mouth quirking up on one side. “I like to keep my options open.”
I laughed nervously.
“Anyway, I need to practice with bigger groups. That’s why I like performing outside the market. My mom would kill me if she knew, so let’s keep that our little secret,” he said before rethinking his words. “Or, I guess, add it to our ongoing list of secrets.”
We looked at each other for a moment, and the air seemed to crackle between us. My chest grew hot. Surely he wouldn’t bring up what happened between us here, in public.
I dropped my keys back into my purse and tried to think of a way to escape without looking like a coward. Maybe I could say I was sick. Not a total lie. I sure felt sick at the moment.
“You’re shedding,” Daniel said.
Was this another misdirection? I quickly glanced down at the black slacks I had to wear for work and was startled to feel Daniel’s fingers on my hair. His touch sent tingles across my scalp. Then his hand moved back, and he showed me what he’d captured on his palm. “You lost a petal.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed, touching the lily in my hair.
He tilted his hand, and the petal floated to the floor, only to be trampled by a passing blind man and his guide dog.
After an awkward moment, Daniel tapped the glass of the machine. “So, you’re in the market for a fortune, are you? Honestly, this guy kind of sucks and is bordering on offensive. Definitely an insult to actual religious gurus. If you want a penny fortune, the Elvis machine inside is way better. Come on. They’ll let us in before they close.”
He herded me inside the store before I could think of a good excuse to turn him down. The owner was behind the counter, counting bills inside his register till while the last remaining customers dawdled—a father and his young son, who couldn’t decide which silly gag to buy.
“We’ll only be a second,” Daniel called out to the owner as he jogged across the floor toward the Elvis fortune-teller machine. “I’ve got two quarters, but it takes three.”
“I thought you said it was a penny?”
“That’s just what they’re called, Birdie. Penny fortunes. Like a penny arcade—ever hear of that? Back in ancient times, they were a penny. Got another quarter?”
I wanted to protest, to tell him that I didn’t need him to be the old-fashioned, gallant knight who pays for all my stuff. But in the end I gave in—mainly because the indecisive kid behind us had finally settled on fake dog poop, and I didn’t want Daniel and me to be the last customers left in the store.
Daniel fed quarters into the coin slot, and Automaton Elvis came to life. He was dressed in white with a red scarf around his neck, and he sang a couple of lines about hound dogs; being built from the waist up, he had no gyrating hips, so you had to suspend your disbelief. After singing, the King informed us that he could see into the future, and I was trying to concentrate on that, and not on Daniel’s face—which I could see in the reflection of the glass—because he was watching my reaction. And then it was over, and Elvis was spitting out a preprinted fortune card.
Daniel grabbed the card and read it out loud while we looked at it. “ ‘I see that you will have a chance meeting with a dark stranger who will reveal great secrets to you.’ ” He waggled his brows and said, “I think Elvis means me.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, hoping I sounded more sarcastic than flustered.
“ ‘If you collaborate, a bold and dashing adventure will be in your future,’ ” he continued reading, flicking the card’s edge with his fingers. “It’s right here in black and white, Birdie. I told you. Good old GD fate. Can’t escape it.”
Was he making fun of me? I couldn’t tell. When he offered me the card, I took it from him and pointed at the text. “It also says, ‘But beware of perilous pitfalls that lead to ruin.’ ”
He read the last lines, “ ‘It takes a level head and determination to survive a run through the gauntlet. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail, because in conflict you will find common ground together.’ See that? Together. Elvis is giving us his blessing to seek adventure.”
“Didn’t Elvis die on the toilet?”
“Touché, Birdie,” he said, amused.
Behind us at the counter, I spied the little boy standing on tiptoes to pay for his fake dog poop. “Guess they’re closing up, so I better take off,” I told Daniel. “I have to go . . .” Where? Think, think. But all I could say was, “Home.”
“Wait, don’t you live on Bainbridge? You have time to take the ferry and then come back before the meeting?”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Melinda. I tried to catch up with you after work, to see if you needed a lift home or something.” He paused, squinting. “I mean, not that I was trying to lure you into my car again. And not that I lured you the first time. I’m not some kind of creepy car pervert. I’ve never done that before. That was—”
I glanced at the people in the store and whispered, “Let’s not discuss that now, please?”
“Sorry.”
I cleared my throat and said a little louder, “So, thanks for the, uh, not-a-penny fortune. See you at work.”
“Hey, wait! The night’s still young,” he said, walking backward in front of me as I headed toward the door. “Are you really going back on the ferry? We still have two hours before the staff meeting. Want to go grab dinner? What do you like? Mexican? Chinese? There’s an awesome French bistro a couple of blocks away with these amazing hot sandwiches with melted cheese and a poached egg on top—they’re super cheap.”
“I can’t,” I said, scrambling for an excuse. “I misspoke earlier. I meant to say that someone is meeting me outside the market, to, um, take me to dinner. You know, before the staff meeting.”
“Oh,” Daniel said, looking vaguely wounded.
“My aunt Mona,” I explained. “She’s not really my aunt. She’s just a friend of the family. Well, not that my family is big. It’s just me and my grandfather now.”
“You live with your grandfather?” Daniel shifted to my side and walked with me toward the upstairs ramp.
“He’s a retired Coast Guard detective. My mom died when I was ten. My grandmother died this past Christmas.”
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry.”
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “My grandma and I had a complicated relationship.”
“What about your dad?”
“No idea. Some punk kid she met on a high school field trip to the Pacific Science Center when she was seventeen. I don’t think he ever knew he’d knocked up my mom.”
“That’s something we sort of have in common,” he said as we hiked up the ramp. “My dad didn’t want to have anything to do with me, so he basically gave my mom a big hunk of cash for an abortion, washed his hands, and said adios. My mom used the money to buy a Subaru.”
My eyes flicked toward his.
“Yep, that Subaru. I inherited it when she got a new car a couple of years ago. Driving it is my private revenge. My father sucks. But whatever. His loss.”
We walked together in silence through the dwindling crowds in the main arcade until Daniel tapped my bag. “What did you get at the bookstore? Another mystery book?”
“At a mystery bookstore? Imagine that.”
“Who’s your favorite detective?” he asked before quickly adding, “I like Jessica Fletcher. I’ve streamed every episode of Murder, She Wrote. Angela Lansbury is the best. When I was a kid, I had a crush on her.”
“On Angela Lansbury?” I said, incredulous.
He struggled to hide a smile. “So hot.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m totally serious. I like old shows. Anyway, who’s your favorite detective?”
He seemed genuinely interested, so I answered. “From fiction, probably Miss Marple or Amelia Peabody. In movies, Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man.”
“The Thin Man? That sounds familiar.”
“It should. It’s just one of the best movies of all time.”
“Is that so?” Daniel chuckled, but not in a mean way, so I continued.
“And my favorite TV detective is Columbo,” I said. “Hands down.”
“The cop in the trench coat? What’s the actor’s name?”
“Peter Falk. People underestimate him. They think he’s just a bumbling idiot, so they let their guard down, and that’s how he outsmarts them. He’s the kind of detective I’d want to be.”
I’d been drawn to mysteries since I was a kid, but I’d be drawn to detectives in particular since my mom died. Detectives were cool, calm, and capable. They were usually loners, helping people from a distance. Because the crime had already been committed, a detective could take the time to be careful and deliberate. They were underdogs that people miscalculated.
“You want to be a cop?” Daniel asked.
“No. I want to be a private investigator, not a police detective. For sure not a Coast Guard detective, like my grandfather. Their investigations are boring, mostly fishery violations and some minor smuggling. I prefer more scandal in my cases.”
“A gumshoe, eh?”
“It’s one of the reasons I was excited about working at the Cascadia. You know, that Agatha Christie stayed there, and the whole unsolved crime of that actress back in the 1930s, Tippie Talbot. So disappointing that they remodeled her room. If I were the owners, I would have decorated it with her Hollywood memorabilia. I bet old movie buffs would stay there if they played it up. Or crime aficionados. Maybe someone could have found a new clue and solved her murder.”
“Like you?”
I laughed, a little flustered. “The thought did cross mind. My grandpa wants me to find a good mystery to solve there, but so far I haven’t stumbled upon any dead bodies.”
“Birdie Lindberg, private eye,” he said, grinning at me. “You should be in security at the hotel, not a desk clerk.”
Now I was embarrassed that I’d said too much. I glanced around, scouting for an escape route. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of a bobbing yellow beehive. “So . . . anyway. You don’t have to stay. I’ll just—”
“I know a real-life mystery going on at the hotel.”
I stared at him.
“A real one.” His eyes were bright and wide. He sniffled, rubbed his nose, and then leaned closer and said, “Have you ever heard of a writer named Raymond Darke?”
Of course I had. Raymond Darke was the most successful thriller writer from Seattle—as in, number one New York Times bestselling author, millions of copies sold. Grandpa used to read his books. “I don’t really care for legal thrillers,” I said. “And his characters are boring.”
Daniel’s mouth curved into a smile. “But you do know who I’m talking about.”
“Everyone knows Darke. His books, at least. No one knows the actual writer. The mystery of his true identity is far more interesting than any of the plots in his books.”
The official author photos on Darke’s book jackets were silhouettes of a fedora-wearing man who never faced the camera. He didn’t make public appearances or do anything other than e-mail interviews. No book signings. No nothing. All his books took place in Seattle, and his biography claimed that he lived here, but who really knew?
I paused and gave Daniel a hard look. “What’s this got to do with the hotel?”
“What if I told you that Raymond Darke comes into the Cascadia every Tuesday night at seven? He has no luggage. He just goes upstairs for a few minutes, then comes back down and leaves without anyone realizing who he really is or why he’s there.”
“I’d say that sounds . . . sensational.”
“As in tabloid fodder.”
“But what if it’s true?” Daniel’s face was open and honest. He seemed to believe what he was saying. Excitement flashed behind his dark eyes.
“That would be a national headline. Every magazine and newspaper in the country would jump at a chance to investigate Darke’s identity if it were true.”
“It is.”
“How do you know it’s Raymond Darke?”
He shoved both hands into his pockets and gave me a slow shrug. “I have my methods. And I can prove it to you. I’ve been trying to figure out why he comes to the hotel for a couple of weeks now. But if you’re interested, maybe we can team up.”
“Team up?”
“Just as friends,” he cautioned. “Less than friends—coworkers.”
What did he mean by that? My emotions were all over the place. A real mystery in the hotel? Involving a famous writer? It was almost too good to be true.
“Forget everything I said before. There’s no need to talk about what happened between us,” he said. “You were right. We’ll leave the past in the past, as you suggested. Onward and upward.”
“Um . . .” I didn’t know what to say. Shouldn’t I be happier about this? It’s what I told him I wanted. I should be relieved.
He was doing that walking-backward thing again, heading outside and leaving me at the market entrance. “Just think about it. If you want to know more, hit me up at work tonight. Maybe we can investigate together and figure out what he’s doing at the hotel every week. Maybe it’s something nefarious and scintillating,” he said, waggling his brows comically.
Before I could answer, a female Oscar Wilde stepped to my side. “Nefarious and scintillating? My favorite subjects.”
Daniel blinked.
“Uh, this is my aunt Mona,” I said.
“The aunt who’s not an aunt?” Daniel said.
“More like fairy godmother,” Aunt Mona said, extending a gloved hand. “Ramona Rivera. You can call me Mona. And you are . . . ?”
“Daniel Aoki,” he said, shaking her hand vigorously. “I work with Birdie at the Cascadia.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, practically purring. “I’ve heard about you.”
If there were an all-powerful being that ruled the universe, it would have surely heard my desperate prayer to please, oh please, have mercy and strike me down. I needed a natural disaster and pronto—earthquake, tornado, tsunami. Anything.
Unfortunately, no one answered my prayers. I was still standing and deeply mortified.
Daniel, however, was elated by this revelation. I mean, he completely lit up. Just for one lightning flash of a second. Then he almost looked embarrassed. Then . . . nothing. He scratched his chin absently and darted a glance at me under the cover of dark lashes.
Right. I got snippy with him about telling Joseph at work about us. Guess I told someone too. Yikes. Was he mad? I couldn’t tell.
He told Mona, “I really dig your entire Mad Hatter look.”
She primped her green hair, pleased. “Why, thank you. I created it myself.”
“Well,” I said, overloud, squelching any further conversation. “We’d better be on our way.”
“Pshaw!” she said. “We have all the time in the—”
“We’d better be on our way,” I repeated, elbowing her in the ribs.
“It’s cool,” Daniel said. “I probably should go too. It was nice to meet you, though.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” she said dramatically.
He walked backward and called out to me, “Think about what I said and let me know. Remember what Elvis told you.”
“Right. Fate.” I tried for a casual laugh, but it came out sounding nervous.
“Maybe I was wrong about fate. See you at work,” he said as he jogged away, leaving me alone with Aunt Mona.
“Oh, my,” she murmured, watching him go. “And just what did the boy say that you are supposed to be thinking about, hmm?”
I shook my head. “Not a date, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“My hopes are always up, darling,” she said. “And by the way . . .” She made a sign in the air and set a reverent hand on my head. “Blessing conferred.”