Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

yuppie and far too American. It was more an aura of reassuring rakishness and maybe something in the way he moved.

“Sneaking up on me.” I tried to stay miffed, but it wasn’t easy when he looked at me as if he liked what he saw.

“What did your sister say?”

I stepped off and turned to look at him, hands on my hips.

“That a man who hits on women in the Lingerie department is probably wearing it.”

He chuckled. “Only one way I know for you to find out.” He took my arm and steered me toward the food court. “Did she tell you I started to pick her up? You could be twins.”

“We are twins.”

“That would explain it.” He stopped by a table under a red and white striped umbrella, pulled out a chair and eased me into it. “Gave me quite a jolt when she turned around. Thought I was having a flashback from dog drugs.”

“You knew she wasn’t me?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

I shrugged, obscurely pleased. “Most people have trouble telling us apart. Even her ex-husband claimed he couldn’t.”

“He was probably just trying to get a little on the side.” His eyes seemed to say, they understood why. “What’ll you have?”

I told him, he started to turn away, then stopped. “Wait here?”

It sounded like an order, but his gaze holding mine, made it a request I couldn’t refuse. I nodded. I had nothing to lose but my pride.

7

The table was barely big enough to hold two cold drinks and our knees rubbed together when Kel edged his chair in and rested his arm on the back of my chair. Back in his personal space, I couldn’t breathe or look away as his intense gaze drew me into a place that was both safe and terrifying. I remembered feeling like this the first time I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The camera zoomed in for our first good look into Robert Redford’s blue eyes and I turned into a puddle in the plush seat. To a lesser degree I also felt it the first time I saw Dudley Henderson, the star quarterback of my high school football team.

Neither of them had noticed me, but that hadn’t stopped me from feeling so alive, I thought I’d die. I knew now people didn’t die from a crush, but that didn’t mitigate the dizzying sensation of rushing headlong into a terrifying unknown. It also didn’t blunt the memory of how it felt when the object of desire didn’t return the longing. Just because Kel had been all over me last night, didn’t mean he wanted me. He was drugged to the eyeballs, so last night couldn’t be entered into evidence.

Today his gaze was a laser pinning me in place, but I still didn’t know what it meant. I decided to ask. “What?”

If he hadn’t been so close, I wouldn’t have felt the start, or seen the edge of his mouth twitch. He cleared his throat, but his voice still had a husky edge when he said, “I need the purse.”

This was so not what I’d expected him to say. I bit my lip. “I know about Mrs. Carter.”

I’ll bet he didn’t expect me to say that.

After a short, tense silence, he said, “I didn’t kill her.”

He didn't flinch or look away. Instead he pushed a strand of hair back from my cheek. The shiver I felt at his touch caught me by surprise.

“There was something she wanted me to have, something she was trying to give me when she was killed.”

I felt a kick of horror. “You were with her when she was killed?”

He nodded, his face grim. “I’ve known Elspeth Carter for a long time. She was my math teacher at one time, and she was a friend of my mother's. When I was in town, I'd help her out. She was a nice old bird.” He hesitated. “When I left her house, when I sun roof dived into your car, I had her purse.”

The urgency underpinning his voice was a chilling reminder of how we’d come to meet. I opened my mouth to explain I didn’t have his purse—and realized I did. Or Rosemary did. “There was a purse in the car—”

“That’s it.” He leaned forward, his lean face tense. “Where is it?”

“It’s still under the seat.”

He stood up, bringing me with him. “Let’s go.”

He had his arm around my waist, steering me toward the exit.

“I have to get the keys from Rosemary—”

Without missing a beat he shifted toward the escalator. He had to let go when we got on, which helped clear my thinking some. I studied Kel through a lashes screen. Was he an undercover cop? Or a private detective? If he was either of those things, he was going to be disappointed.

“You know, I looked through that purse last night. There wasn’t anything special in it.”

He helped me off the escalator, saying with a touch of condescension, “Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

Okay, if that’s the way he wanted to play it. Let him try to make a clue out of an adult diaper coupon. I opened my eyes really wide and said, “Oh?” His gaze narrowed in on me. I held it for two long beats, then smiled. “I’ll just get those keys for you.”

I could feel him watch me walk away, but this time I didn’t feel self-conscious. I felt good. I felt sassy.

I felt dangerous.

“Where did she say she parked?” Kel surveyed the parking lot like he could will Rosemary’s Mercedes to step out of the pack. If cars had hearts, it would have worked.

“She said it was next to a purple van on this side of Macy’s.”

He looked at me. “A purple van?”

I shrugged. “It works for her.”

“Bel—”

“Why do you call me that?” I looked down the row of cars instead of at him.

“Because Stan doesn’t suit you and Isabel seems too formal—after last night.”

Color burned into my cheeks. “Nothing happened last night.” That was my story and I was