I left Derek’s suite shortly after MacLeod took off.
Mom and Dad had decided to go to the Witchery restaurant for a romantic anniversary meal, and Derek had some business dinner thing to attend, so I blew off my scheduled cocktail party to hang out with Robin and catch up on all the news.
“Angus kissed you?” I asked as I laid out my clothes for the evening.
“Yes,” Robin said. “We’d walked about a block from the hotel and he stopped and apologized. I asked him why and he goes, ‘Because I’m going to do this.’ And then he kissed me.”
“Wow. I’ve got goose bumps.”
“I know,” Robin said. “So then he says he took one look at me and felt like he’d been struck by lightning, and if I didn’t marry him, he’d spend the rest of his days tracking me down until I relented.”
“Wow,” I said again. “Good lines.”
“I know.”
“I need a shower.”
“I need a drink.”
While I took a shower to wash off the day’s craziness, Robin popped open a half bottle of red wine from the minibar and poured us each a glass. After the shower, I felt wide-awake and about two hundred times better than before. More relaxed and less achy. The wine might’ve helped a little, too.
What was I thinking? Of course the wine helped.
We decided to get out and explore Edinburgh. About time, too. I loved this city and hadn’t had a single minute to enjoy it.
I pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a pink long-sleeved knit top; then Robin filled me in on the news from home while I blew my hair dry. The big news from Dharma, our hometown, was that another store was about to open on Shakespeare Lane, the town’s main drag. Well, “main drag” was a bit of an overstatement. Shakespeare Lane, or “the Lane,” as we locals called it, was a quaint, narrow two-lane street of charming shops, cafés and restaurants.
Barely two blocks long, the Lane had become something of a wine country mecca, thanks to the small luxury hotel and spa that capped one end of the street. It also helped that two world-class restaurants had moved in over the past year. Our commune’s excellent winery now had a tasting room on the Lane. There were clothing shops, a baby store, an antique shop. My sister China owned Warped, a high-end yarn and weaving shop next door to the town bookstore.
“Who’s opening the new shop?” I asked after I turned off the hair dryer and grabbed my brush.
“Annie.”
Startled, I dropped the hair dryer and the brush flew out of my hand. I scrambled to catch the hair dryer, but it was attached to the wall by a curly cord, so it just bounced up and down instead of crashing to the floor.
Robin stood in the doorway, laughing at me. “I knew that would get your attention.”
Annie, or Anandalla, as her mother had named her, was Abraham’s long-lost daughter. The week before Abraham died, Annie showed up to meet the father she’d never known. Then he died and left me his entire estate, along with a boatload of guilt I’d been dealing with ever since. Once paternity was established, I asked the lawyers to change the title deed to Abraham’s home in the hills from my sole ownership to joint tenancy with Annie.
Annie moved to Dharma and the community took her under its wing, especially my mother. Annie was quickly becoming the third sister I’d never known I needed.
As I slipped on my walking boots, I frowned at Robin. “Wonder why Mom didn’t say anything about it.”
Robin shook her head. “She’s too worried about you to think of anything else.”
“Yeah, I guess she gets distracted.”
“Your mom? Really?” She smiled. “You think so?”
“No, of course not. What was I thinking?” I grinned. “So what kind of store is it?”
“Kitchen stuff.”
I thought about that as I finished my wine and grabbed my gloves from the drawer. “Not a bad idea. We don’t have anything like that in the area.”
“Yeah, and did you know she cooks?”
“I had no idea.”
“She’s going to give cooking classes and mix it up with wine pairings from the winery.”
“Smart.” I wrapped my ankle with an elastic bandage Derek had given me, then slipped on my sturdy boots. Most of the pain was gone, but I didn’t want to take any chances of twisting it again on the cobblestone sidewalks. I zipped up my fleece hoodie, then checked that the windows were still secured before grabbing my purse and jacket and leading the way out the door. “I’ve only been gone a few days. Why didn’t I hear about this before?”
“You’ve been involved with this trip for weeks. Guess it didn’t register.”
“So how do you know so much about it?”
“Hey, it’s my town, too. I do get up there every so often.”
“Especially recently,” I said, studying her. “You’ve been talking to Austin.”
“No,” she said a little too quickly. “Well, of course. I mean, no more than usual, which is rarely.”
“Liar,” I said, grinning.
“I’m rubber, you’re glue.”
“And you’re so mature.”
“Just don’t be blabbing to him about Angus,” she said darkly.
“Hey, a little competition might do him some good.”
My brother Austin had been Robin’s secret crush since we were in fifth grade. I’d seen them together at Mom and Dad’s anniversary party and they looked perfect. I just hoped Austin didn’t blow it. Because if he broke Robin’s heart, whether he was my brother or not, I would have to kill him. And that would play hell with my karma.
As we turned the corner to the elevator banks, Robin changed the subject. “I stopped by your place before I left town and talked to Suzie and Vinnie.”
My neighbors had been indispensable to me when Abraham’s killer made a shambles of my studio and apartment. Suzie and Vinnie were wood artists, specializing in redwood burl. Burl was a growth or deformation of a trunk or root of a tree. I hadn’t known this, of course, until Vinnie had taken a long night and two bottles of wine to tell me all about it. Anyway, depending on the tree, the hunk of burl could be huge, weighing hundreds of pounds. The girls worked only on trees that had fallen by nature’s hand, as they liked to put it. They billed themselves as the all-natural chain-saw-wielding lesbian artists, and it seemed to be paying off for them.
“How are they doing?”
She smiled. “They insisted on feeding me, so I totally get your devotion to them.”
“Aren’t they great?” Suzie and Vinnie didn’t cook, so they were always eating out and always bringing me their leftovers. They knew I would eat anything. Really, anything. Apparently, I had been malnourished as a child.
“Yeah, they are,” she said, grinning. “I’m supposed to tell you that Pookie’s fine but Splinters hurt his front leg and had to get four stitches.”
“Poor Splinters! What happened?” Pookie and Splinters were the girls’ beloved cats. I was proud to be their designated cat sitter, a fact that had brought Robin to near fits of laughter when she first heard. Not that it was my fault, but despite my love of animals, I’d never been very good with pets. I hadn’t mentioned that to Suzie and Vinnie, and I didn’t want them finding out the hard way.
Robin grimaced. “He lost the battle trying to take down the vacuum cleaner.”
“Ouch, I thought Splinters was the smart cat.”
“I guess not. And Suzie said you received some certified letter from France.”
“It’s probably my contract,” I said. “I’m scheduled to teach another class at Lyon this summer.”
Lyon, France, was considered by many to be the heart and soul of bookbinding and all things book related. The city had an entire museum dedicated to book art, and the Institut d’Histoire du Livre in Lyon was a top school for advanced study in book history, conservation and restoration. It was the same place I’d last spent any time with Helen.
“Cool,” Robin said as we rode the elevator down. “You’ll get to see Ariel and Pascal again.”
Years ago, Ariel Hodges had come to Sonoma to work with Abraham on some big book restoration projects, and we all became her surrogate family. Then she moved to Lyon to run the institute, where she met Pascal, a curator at the Musée de l’Imprimerie, the printing museum.
“I can’t wait,” I said. “Maybe you should plan a trip while I’m there.”
“I’ll do it,” Robin said. “I suppose Pascal is still as sexy and annoyingly French as ever.”
“I imagine so.” I laughed. Pascal was totally hot but completely in love with our friend Ariel, which naturally made him even more adorable in our eyes.
We walked outside and I breathed in the crisp, clean Scottish air and admired the odd shadows of the Old Town rooftops as the sun set behind the castle. Was it silly to think that air and light were different depending on the part of the world you were in? If so, call me silly, but the northern lights and the arctic air that passed over Scotland seemed to transform me. Everything was different here. I loved San Francisco, but as I took in the sights and sounds and views from the top of the Royal Mile, I knew I could be happy living here for the next few years.
As we passed St. Giles’ Cathedral, Robin pointed across the street at Mary King’s Close. “Isn’t that where you found Kyle’s body?”
At the unwelcome memory, I felt a chill and tugged my jacket tighter. “Yeah. In one of the tenement rooms.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa.” She stopped to stare at a store window filled with every kind of tartan pattern imaginable. It was dizzying.
“Looks like Brigadoon on acid,” Robin muttered.
I snickered. Not that either of us had ever dropped acid before. Looking at this place now, I was assured we never would.
Dozens of people passed us on the street, their conversations rising and falling around us like music. There was something spectacular about a rolling Scottish burr. And speaking of rolling, the sidewalks were a little uneven, so we had to watch our step or that was what we would be doing. The cold wind kept pushing at us, as if determined to drive us back to the hotel.
We continued walking, but stopped again to look at another wondrous storefront filled with lace items: doll clothes, a wedding gown, a little girl’s starched, high-collared dress that looked horribly uncomfortable, napkins and doilies and petticoats and curtains and all sorts of table runners strewn like crepe-paper ribbons across the ceiling.
“God, that’s bizarre,” Robin said, but she couldn’t look away. The store window was practically hypnotic.
“Come on, sweetie, let’s keep walking,” I said, nudging her out of her stupor.
She blinked and nodded. “Thanks.”
“That was close,” I muttered, knowing that if Robin actually went into one of these stores, she’d leave with her credit card sizzling.
Back to her old self, she said, “Would you mind if I take your mom and dad on a ghost tour this week?”
“Oh, they’d love it. You should do it.”
“But you won’t be joining us.”
I shuddered. “No way.”
“I could contact a different tour than the one you used.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.” I would never be able to take a ghost tour again without half expecting Kyle to be one of the ghosts.
We stopped at a corner and Robin looked around. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Dinner. There’s a good restaurant another block or two from here.”
“Great.” She shoved her hands in her pockets as we maneuvered along the cobblestone sidewalk. Robin’s heels were wobbling over the ancient stones, and she looked almost drunk as she walked. “I was reading about Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. It’s supposed to be good.”
“Sort of touristy,” I said. “It’s back toward the castle a few blocks.”
She turned to look up the street. “Do you want to go there?”
I shook my head and winced. “I made the mistake of reading about it. Brodie was this upstanding citizen-a deacon, as you might’ve figured-who took up burglary at night. So they hanged him-or maybe he escaped. Since this is Scotland, the legends go both ways, depending on the day of the week. But he was supposedly Robert Louis Stevenson’s inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“You know way too much history for someone who never liked high school.”
“It’s a curse.”
“Maybe I’ll take your parents there tomorrow.”
“Don’t tell them about the icky Mr. Hyde part.”
“I think they might like that aspect.”
I chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
We passed through the long shadow of the Tron Kirk spire and crossed the High Street.
I’d heard that many people in Scotland considered Glasgow, not Edinburgh, to be the garden spot to visit, because Edinburgh was rife with counterculture, drugs,
AIDS and crime. But the public perception outside Britain was that Edinburgh was the jewel in the crown of the British Isles. In that regard, it reminded me a lot of San Francisco, and maybe that was why I loved it so much. It was the scruffiness around the edges that appealed to me, as well as the fact that, to my mind, the view from every direction was picture-perfect.
I pointed out a cheery, wide-windowed pub with flowerpots hanging from the tops of each of the tall columns. “That’s where we’re going.”
“The Mitre. Looks nice, but what about that place?” She pointed to another pub two doors down.
“Do you really want to eat at a place called Clever Dick’s?”
“Depends,” she said with a grin.
Do I know how to pick a best friend or what?
“I’m stuffed,” Robin groaned as we walked out of the Mitre. “Let’s walk for a while.”
“You didn’t have to order dessert,” I said, as we walked east along the Royal Mile, in the opposite direction of the hotel. It was cold, but the air felt good. The sky was studded with stars and the sidewalks were crowded with people out looking for a good time.
“It’s not every day you get to eat spotted dick.”
“You can say that again,” I said, as we passed the aged, turreted Tolbooth. It had been a wretched prison in the sixteenth century, with public hangings and all that fun stuff, but now it was a museum, with its ten-foot-high fancy clock hanging five stories up above the street. “And I guess you could say the same for tatties and neeps.”
“Oh, my God, don’t remind me. That waitress was trying to terrify me on purpose.”
I laughed at the memory of Robin’s expression when the waitress suggested tatties and neeps on the side, then gave her a break and explained that it was the local name for potatoes and parsnips. We figured she did that to all the tourists. At the end of the meal, Robin asked for the recipe and the chef himself came out to recite it, basically mashed root veggies with a touch of this and that-and tarragon, the secret ingredient.
When Robin invited him to move to San Francisco to cook for her, I knew it was time to leave.
“Look, puppets!” Robin cried, and hurried over to a storefront display of numerous stringed puppets in intricate costumes, all standing and ready to perform. There was a bagpiper, a ballerina, a golfer, three soldiers, all in different uniforms, a harlequin clown and a pirate. Their oversize faces were carved from wood and their cheeks were splotched with bits of red paint-to make them appear happy and healthy, I supposed.
“Kind of creepy, huh?” I said, struggling to keep a steady foot on the wily cobblestones after having shared a bottle of wine with Robin.
“I think they’re pretty,” Robin said.
“Oh, sure, until they come alive in the middle of the night and try to kill you.”
She frowned. “I hate when that happens.”
“Should we start back?”
“Do you want to walk up to the castle?” Robin asked as we headed west. “I still need to walk off dinner.”
“Sure.” It was a beautiful night, cold but not unbearable, and I didn’t want to go back to the hotel just yet.
“We can stop at a few pubs for a nightcap or two,” she added.
“That’s why I love you,” I said, weaving our arms together and pulling us to a stop at the red light.
“Well, we are in Scotland, after all,” Robin said. “Home of the best pubs in the world, filled with hardy, handsome hunks in kilts who drink Scotch all night and play rugby all day. That takes balls, you know. Big ones, made of leather.”
“And we’re back to our theme of the night,” I said with a laugh, then shivered from a cold waft of air that swept up South Bridge.
Robin continued singing the praises of hunky Scotsmen, but I tuned out as a sudden stinging awareness told me that someone was watching us. I’d felt that same eerie sensation once before, in San Francisco after Abraham was murdered. I’d brushed it off then, to my detriment. Now, after another murder and a day of near misses, I wasn’t quite ready to dismiss it.
I glanced around but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. People walked the streets, going from here to there, minding their own business. A group of college boys whooped it up outside a record store across the street. None of them cast a menacing scowl my way.
But there were shadows and dark alleyways everywhere along the Royal Mile. Was someone hiding, waiting, planning?
Beside me, Robin was humming and swaying to some internal groove, daydreaming of men in kilts, oblivious to any danger lurking nearby.
So okay, maybe it was my imagination. Let’s face it, I was slightly tanked and still on edge from the attack at the library earlier. And these narrow, cobbled streets of Old Town naturally conjured up ghosts and spirits and evildoers where there was really nothing, nothing but the whispers and sighs of the soft winds that wafted up the myriad lanes and passageways leading to the High Street.
Uh-oh. I was waxing poetic, and that was never a good sign. I shivered again, grabbed my gloves and put them on, then rubbed my hands together to warm up.
When the light turned green, I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped off the curb. A black car came screeching toward me.
“No!” Robin screamed, and yanked my arm. I fell backward and landed right on my ass. Again. Pain shot up my spine and I groaned as I lay back on the sidewalk.
The car roared away down North Bridge toward the New Town and disappeared. He never even slowed down.
“Damn, that hurt,” I muttered, staring up at the sky, trying to figure out why this kind of thing kept happening to me.
“ Brooklyn?” Robin called out. Seconds later, her face appeared in my line of vision. “Are you okay? Did you see that? The guy didn’t even stop. Are you hurt? Can you talk? Oh, my God, please say something.”
“I’ll live,” I managed to say. But my butt was going to be bruised.
I heard footsteps running toward me. “Are ye all right, miss?”
I tried to focus as another pair of eyes stared down at me.
“Tommy?”
“Aye, it’s me,” said my cute, would-be kidnapper from this afternoon. “And the slightest bit too late coming, I see.”
“Excuse me, but who’re you?” Robin demanded, then looked back at me. “Who is he?”
“Long story,” I muttered.
“Are ye all right then, love?” Tommy repeated.
“Have you been following us?”
He ignored my question as he crouched down and slipped his warm hand behind my neck. “Let me help you up, miss.”
“We haven’t met,” Robin interrupted, holding out her hand to the handsome gunman.
Tommy, always polite, pulled his hand out from under my neck and stood to shake Robin’s. That was okay; my head barely bounced more than once on the hard cobbled surface.
“Tommy, meet Robin,” I said, waving in the air to introduce them. “Robin, Tommy.” It was about all I could manage between moans, what with my head reverberating from hitting the pavement.
“Pleasure to meet you, Robin,” he said with enthusiasm, then remembered his duty and knelt down on one knee, attentive once more. “Did you happen to get a good look at the car, miss?”
“My name’s Brooklyn, by the way.”
He smiled and took my hand in his. “’Tis a lovely name.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“The car, dear,” he reminded me gently. “Did you see it?”
“It was big and black, with tinted windows. Looked like a Mercedes.”
“No particular markings?”
“You mean, besides the creep driving it?” Robin pointed out, fiercely protective.
I had to think. Focus. I’d been in this position before, unfortunately. I should’ve been getting better at it. “No. In fact, it was conspicuously free of markings. I don’t think there was a front license plate. It was very plain, dark, almost somber. Then I fell, so I didn’t see a back license plate when it took off.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
Good? How was that good?
A dim lightbulb in my brain flickered on. “It was like one of the cars they use at the hotel to chauffeur people around.” Like the one Kyle had described when he was almost run down. My shoulders bunched up as I shivered. “I’m cold.”
“Can we get you up off the walk, then?” he asked, again wedging his hand under my neck to support my head.
“Um, ow, not just yet,” I said, trying not to groan as my lower back sent a spasm of pain up my spine.
“Jeez, Brooklyn,” Robin said, leaning over me. “Should we call an ambulance?”
“No, I just need a minute.” And a pillow. And an aspirin. Or twenty.
“Take your time, Brooklyn, love.”
“Robin,” I said feebly, trying to make conversation, “Tommy was one of the men I was telling you about in the cab this afternoon.”
“Ah, you’re a Freemason,” she said, and demurely touched his shoulder. “I’d love to discuss some of your secret handshakes sometime. I find them oddly arousing.”
Ah, jeez. Was there anyone she wouldn’t flirt with?
Tommy whipped his head around to assure himself that no one had overheard her utter the name of the esoteric society. Then he frowned down at me. “Did you tell her, then?”
“She’s my friend,” I explained, giving Robin a warning glance. “She won’t say a word.”
“I swear I won’t,” Robin said, holding up her gloved hand in promise. “Although I don’t see why we can’t-”
Heavy footsteps pounded across the intersection.
“Oh, look, it’s Derek,” Robin announced gaily.
I groaned again. Of course it was Derek. Didn’t he always show up when I looked my absolute worst? I wondered idly if the cobblestones couldn’t just swallow me whole.
“What the hell happened?” Derek said, and quickly knelt down on my other side and grabbed my hand. “Are you hurt, darling?”
I smiled. It was hard not to when looking at Derek. “I’ll be fine, just a little tumble.”
“I’m handling things here,” Tommy said gruffly as he moved to kneel on my other side.
Derek cast a suspicious glower at Tommy, then looked at me. “Who is this guy?”
“A car almost ran her down, mate,” Tommy said, his tone defensive. “Damn good thing I was here to take care of matters.”
“Derek, meet Tommy,” I said, fluttering my hand in the air again. “Tommy, Derek.”
“Pleasure,” Tommy muttered.
I stared up at Derek. “What are you doing here?”
He continued eyeing Tommy as he said, “I got a phone call.”
“A phone call?” I was confused for a second; then it sank in. “You had me followed?”
“Of course I had you followed,” he said, also striking a defensive chord. “Someone already tried once to-”
More footsteps approached and Robin laughed. “It’s Angus! Whoa, he’s wearing a kilt.”
“A kilt?” I said, and struggled to sit up and see him.
“I think my heart just stopped,” Robin said, pounding her chest as she watched Angus’s kilt swing in the wind. “Medic!”
“You’re partial to a man in a kilt then, darling?” Tommy asked as he stood and brushed the sidewalk grit off his pants.
“What’s not to like?” Robin said, her voice breathy.
“Are you after wondering what a man wears underneath?” Tommy asked, grinning.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Derek asked me.
Oh, sweet baby James. What next? I fell back against the cobblestones, closed my eyes and prayed for divine intervention. And that aspirin.
“Figures it would be her,” some woman whined as she stopped to watch the activity. “What a drama queen.”
I stiffened in revulsion.
Shit. All this and Minka, too?
I finally forced myself to stand. My lower back ached, but I managed to keep from complaining as long as Derek kept his arm securely around me the entire two blocks back to the hotel.
Tommy refused to leave the party despite Derek’s best attempts to get rid of him, so we were quite the jolly crowd as we pulled several small tables together in the hotel pub, where I’d insisted we go for a nightcap, rather than heading straight to my room. For all I knew, I’d be attacked again. Best to be prepared. And I figured a wee dram was as good a remedy as a couple of ibuprofen any day.
When I realized that Minka and her new best friend, Serena, were still hanging with our group, I stared Minka down until she bared her teeth at me like a deranged hyena and flounced off to find her own damn table. Serena’s gaze lingered on Angus, Derek and Tommy, clearly the three best-looking men in the place. Her bottom lip formed a pout as Minka beckoned her away and she reluctantly followed after her new BFF.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out that relationship. And I still didn’t know if Serena really had been married to Kyle or if it was just some twisted scheme of Minka’s. I made a mental note to track down Kyle’s cousin Royce tomorrow and see if he’d learned anything new.
We all sat down and ordered drinks. Angus and Tommy bookended Robin, who flirted outrageously with both men, neither of whom seemed to mind that they were competing for the attentions of the same woman. In fact, they seemed rather chummy for two guys who’d just met a few minutes ago out on the street.
As I watched the barmaid pass out the drink orders, I cautiously stretched my spine. The old-fashioned captain’s chair was comfortable enough, but I didn’t think I’d be able to sit too long. God, it was hell getting old. And come on, I wasn’t even thirty-three. Pitiful. I took a slug of the single-malt Scotch to ease my pain.
Derek turned to Angus. “Your man was good enough to call me when Brooklyn was injured, but I never did get a chance to thank him for his work.”
Angus’s eyebrows dipped in surprise, and he jerked his thumb in Tommy’s direction. “You’re drinking with him as we speak.”
Derek did a double take and I choked on a laugh, which led to a minor coughing fit.
“Will you be needing a Heimlich?” Derek asked, one eyebrow raised in mock concern as he watched me make a fool of myself.
“No, but thanks,” I said when I got my breath back. “But let me get this straight. You hired Tommy the kidnapper to follow me?”
Tommy’s ears perked up, but Robin said something and his attention was diverted.
Derek was indignant. “Angus, I asked you to find a responsible private investigator. This is the same man who abducted Brooklyn this afternoon at gunpoint.”
“He’s usually quite responsible,” Angus said, then cocked his head. “And he doesn’t carry a gun, do you, Tommy?”
Tommy struggled to look away from Robin. “A gun? Me? I’m a lover, not a fighter. I don’t own a gun.”
“But you put a gun to my back,” I said in protest. “You forced me into the cab.”
“Och, I wouldna.” He pulled out a small, cylindrical cigar case and waved it for everyone to see. “I prefer to rely on my charms, but occasionally I employ my traveling humidor.”
I frowned, then grumbled, “Felt like a gun, anyway.”
Robin slapped Tommy’s knee. “You scared her half to death.”
“I’m sorry, love,” he said, his hands splayed in apology. “But all’s well that ends well, right?”
Derek gave Angus a pained look.
Angus shrugged. “The man does good work on the whole.”
It turned out that Tommy, the very man who’d snatched me off the street that afternoon, was a respected private eye who regularly worked in conjunction with the police department. In the end, Derek took the news rather philosophically, but I was still miffed that someone in law enforcement would seize me off the street and scare the crap out of me like that.
But yeah, all was well that ended well, I thought, after another two more healthy sips of Scotch. Thanks to that ride in the cab, I was pretty well convinced that Robert Burns and the English princess weren’t the secret lovers Kyle had sworn they were. If Kyle had manipulated me, I hated to admit it wouldn’t have been the first time.
As far as the unknown poems in the book were concerned, I would need to talk to an expert in that area. Not tonight, though. I was well on my way to being toasty-roasty and ready for beddie.
Uh-oh, waxing poetic again.
Robin leaned across Angus to whisper to me, “What’s with the cow bitch?” She jutted her chin in Minka’s direction.
I leaned my elbow on Angus’s convenient thigh-he didn’t seem to mind at all-and shook my finger at Robin. “Do you remember what I told you about her?”
“Yeah, she’s the beeyotch who stabbed you,” she hissed, referring to an incident in my past when Minka had tried to injure me as a means of getting me out of the way so she could move in on my boyfriend at the time. She’d been dogging me ever since.
“Yeah, and did you see how she tried to sit with us?” I said, suddenly feeling as if I’d been transported back to high school, to the times when we used to gossip and giggle with our pals.
“I saw it, my friend,” Robin said. “She’s, like, such a loser.” She grinned and added in a more hushed voice, “It’s because we’ve got the cute guys at our table.”
“You betcha.” I glanced at the three interesting men and was impressed despite myself. And maybe I had regressed to high school, because I suddenly felt like I might pass out. Whether it was from the Scotch, my aches and pains, or the men, I couldn’t say, but I had to take a few fortifying breaths to get myself back on track. Passing out would be tacky and a bad way to end a really fun day. Well, fun except for a murder attempt or two.
“Three cutie-patooties,” Robin said, slurring her words. So it wasn’t just me. She took a quick peek at the other table and rolled her eyes. “Minka keeps laughing too loud, then looking right at this table. It’s like she’s dying for attention.”
“That’s exactly what she wants,” I said. “Just don’t make eye contact.”
“Okay.” But Robin couldn’t help casting another glance Minka’s way, then flinched when the evil woman held up her claw and raked the air as she glared daggers back at Robin.
“Gah,” Robin said, staring wide-eyed at me. “Me scared.”
“I warned you,” I said, draining my glass. “Never underestimate the fearsome power of the cow bitch.”