Rules of Attraction

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She smiled. “Maybe.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Winston.”

“Claire.”

“I hope you can sleep now.” He pulled her front door shut behind him and didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see her standing in the window, watching him. Claire, with the bright blue eyes that weren’t as innocent as they had been yesterday.

He wished he hadn’t been part of that loss of innocence.

Four

For the first time since Claire was sixteen years old, she didn’t have a summer job. She planned to redecorate the house more to her taste, strip and refinish furniture, sand and paint kitchen cabinets, and make a bedspread for her bedroom. She might even try her hand at writing a book geared toward first-through third-graders, something about life in a big city, a backdrop with which children in her community could identify.

Jenn had been gone a week. None of Claire’s clothes were missing, nor had she found a hair-color box or anything else in the trash to give hints as to where Jenn had gone. Claire had gotten past her anger. She figured Jenn intended for Claire to feel guilty about issuing the ultimatum to move out, and would stay out of touch long enough to make Claire worry, and possibly relent about living together.

Not this time, Claire decided, putting a little more effort into sanding the last kitchen cabinet before she started painting. She would assume that Jenn had landed on her feet, as she always did. Claire never had been able to figure out why her sister wanted to live with her. She’d never catered to her, never done her laundry or fixed her meals. Certainly Jenn could afford her own place.

Rase barked then ran out of the kitchen. The doorbell rang. Every time someone had dropped by in the past week, she’d hoped it was Quinn. Silly of her to hope for that, she knew. He’d had a job to do, and that was all. Still, she’d felt a connection with him and thought perhaps he had with her, too.

He’d given her his phone number. She’d dialed six of the digits several times, then hung up at the last minute. What could she say— “You make my heart stand still”? He believed her sister was guilty. How could Claire be with someone who thought that? Yet another way Jenn had disrupted her life.

Claire reached her front door and looked through the peephole, then smiled as she opened the door to Jenn’s mother, Marie, who, while she didn’t have any official title, like “stepmother,” had become like a second mother to Claire through the years.

“Hi, baby— Oh, Claire! Goodness. You’re blond. I thought you were Jenny.” She stepped into the house. Rase circled her.

“Stop,” Claire ordered the dog in a serious voice. As usual he ignored her.

“How’s my favorite doggy?” Marie crooned, not helping matters, as Rase danced on his hind legs, his front paws on her thighs.

“Down,” Claire ordered again. This time he bounded onto all fours. “Sit.” He grinned. She sighed.

Marie hugged Claire. “You look cute, honey.”

“Thanks, Marie.” Claire adored the tall, buxom, fiftyish woman with the bright red, long, curly hair, dramatic makeup and tinkling jewelry. “How have you been?”

“Better than most, I think.” Her sparkling smile reminded Claire of why her father had been drawn to Marie once upon a time, even if her New Age personality had contrasted sharply with his rational-physicist nature—a major reason why they’d never married, although he’d offered when he found out she was pregnant. It was Marie who’d turned him down. A year later he’d married the woman who became Claire’s mother.

“Business is good,” Marie added. “Lots of stressed-out people out there. I’ve been turning away new customers.”

“You give great massages.”

“I do, don’t I?” She flexed her hands. “Hope the instruments stay healthy. Listen, honey, I’ve been leaving messages for Jenny on her cell all week and she hasn’t returned any. Nothin’ new there, of course, but I tried again a little while ago, and the line’s been disconnected. What’s going on?”

Claire would’ve invited her to sit down but Marie wouldn’t stay long. She never did. “Jenn’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“She moved out. Beyond that, I don’t know anything.”

“Did you two have a fight?”

“No. Not really. Well, sort of, I guess. I mean, I asked her to move out. I thought it was time she go out on her own again.”

“You know I agree with you. We talked about it before. Why didn’t she call me?”

“I assumed she had.”

Marie shook her head. “Did she leave me a check?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Marie paced, her velour pants hugging her ample behind. Lime-green high heels clicked against the hardwood floor. “She was supposed to give me a check.”

“You can look in her bedroom, if you want.”

Marie laughed, the sound musical. “Like anyone could unearth anything there.” Her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her big cloth purse and said hello. “Baby, where are you?” She glanced at Claire and mouthed, “Jenn.”

Claire crossed her arms.

“You promised me a check, you know, for—” She turned away slightly. “You know…. No, I can’t wait! Jennifer Marie, you promised…. I gotta have it, baby…. Okay, okay. Thanks.”

Claire held out her hand, asking for the phone.

“Listen,” Marie said. “I’m at your sister’s house. She wants to talk to you…. ’Cause I was worried about you. What’s your new cell number?…Well, when you do get one, call me. Stay in touch, okay, baby?”

Marie passed Claire the phone.

“What’s going on, Jenn?” she asked.

“I’m moving on, just like you said.”

“I didn’t mean you had to move out the same day. Where are you?”

“What do you care?”

Jenn’s casual way of putting Claire on the defensive riled her. She’d had it with her self-centered sister. “Well, for one, your car’s taking up my garage space. If you don’t get it out of there, I’m going to have it towed. You can pay the fines when you pick it up from impound.”

“Ooh, kid sister’s got fangs all of a sudden.”

Marie leaned toward the phone’s mouthpiece. “Can I use your car until you get back, baby?” she asked loudly, then whispered to Claire, “I’m gonna use your restroom.”

“Tell Mom no. She would crash it, just like all the others she owned.”

“Tell her yourself.” She waited for Marie to shut the bathroom door down the hall, then walked into the living room and let her frustration spill out. “You didn’t tell me the cops were looking for you.”

“The D.A., not the cops. They followed me for weeks. So what? No big deal.”

“Is that why you left?”

“I left because you told me to.”

Claire gritted her teeth. She didn’t believe her. “I’ll ask you again, Jenn. Do you have the money Craig Beecham embezzled?”

“And I’ll answer you again. No, I do not.”

“Then why did you run?”

“Who says I ran?”

“You left me a note, which is a cowardly way to leave, and you know it. You left your car and your clothes behind. Now you’ve changed your cell phone number. You ran,” she said again.

“I’m starting the life I always wanted, that’s all. Listen, I gotta go. Later, okay?”

Claire punched the off button and banged the phone down on the bottom stair. She blew off some steam by walking into the foyer then back into the living room again until Marie joined her.

A movement outside caught her attention—a gray sedan pulling up across the street. Recognizing Quinn Gerard, she closed her eyes and groaned. Great. Just great. She’d been sanding kitchen cabinets all morning and hadn’t even showered yet. She’d twisted her hair up off her neck with a big clip. Of all days for him to show up.

She resisted the temptation to pat her hair and smooth her clothes.

He got out of the car, his expression serious as he stood for a moment and stared at her house. He looked like a bearer of bad news.

Quinn should’ve done the polite thing and called before dropping in on Claire. In fact, he could have given her the information over the phone. Yet he was here, outside her house, feeling more hesitant than when he’d asked Melanie Davison to the homecoming dance eighteen years ago. Why did this fresh-faced, seemingly harmless woman have the ability to intimidate him?

He climbed her stairs, eight of them, then stood under the portico for several seconds. Hell. He should just get in his car and drive away. Call her from his cell phone. Tell her what he’d found out. And keep on driving.

He blew out a breath. Big, fearless Quinn Gerard, who’d earned a reputation for uncovering secrets others couldn’t, for clinging unnoticed to the shadows of the city, for hacking into other people’s computers without remorse for violating their privacy—that Quinn Gerard was quaking in his boots at facing a first-grade teacher with philanthropic tendencies?

Idiot.

He started to knock but the door opened. A tall redhead was chattering and smiling. “I only crashed two cars,” she was saying. “And that was years ago.” Her smile changed, as did her body language, when she almost bumped into Quinn.

“Well, hi, there,” she said, not quite à la Mae West, but in a definitely flirtatious way.

“Good morning.”

Rase charged out of the house, right at him. “Sit,” he said. Rase’s rump hit the ground but his body was in motion. Quinn had never seen a dog grin like that. He scratched the dog’s ears.

“Traitor,” he heard Claire say.

The redheaded woman put out a hand. Her wrist jangled with at least ten silver bracelets. “I’m Marie DiSanto.”

He shook her hand. “Quinn Gerard.”