Page 14 of The Love Scam
“Don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen you barf.”
From Lillith: “Twice!”
She glanced at her watch. Putting Rake at ease in a nice restaurant on a beautiful spring day while she picked up the bill was not on the itinerary. Her employer needed him foundering, lost, broke, and laden with child.Sheneeded him (and the forthcoming payoff) safe.
And speaking of, the same pair of “tourists”
(fanny packandI ♥ROMET-shirt? this is what happens when the bad guys watch too many movies)
were coming up on them for the third time.
Delaney got to her feet, and Rake was so busy glugging his fourth fizzy water that it took him a few seconds to notice. She cleared her throat with a delicate bark. “So g’bye, then.”
“Wait!”
Delaney, already leaving, turned back and raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“You can’t just—” He made an all-encompassing gesture that indicated the table, the restaurant, the child, the city of Venice, the country of Italy, the planet of Earth. “Y’know. Leave me in the middle of all this.”
“Don’t worry,” Lillith said. “I have money.”
She figured she had another forty seconds before Frick and Frack were on them, and gave him her card. “I’m at the Best Western Olimpia if you want to get a drink sometime. They make a terrific Negroni,” she teased.
“Not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” To Lillith, who was the way she always was, calm and quiet and noticing everything while the adults talked over her. And who had probably deduced Delaney’s sudden need to depart. “So you two are all set. Gotta go.”
“Thanks for helping me,” she replied. She put a small hand on Rake’s. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Good to know.” She left, and this time he didn’t call her back, which was just as well, because she was about to have her hands full.
Nine
He definitely didn’t watch Delaney hurry away until he couldn’t see her anymore. Well, maybe he did, but it didn’tmeananything. He had to look somewhere, right? While he figured out his next move? He didn’t want to freak out the kid. And staring after the shapely weirdo who walked into his life, wove a tale of vermouth-fueled shenanigans, dropped a child in his lap, then trotted out (almost sprinted out, TBH) was something to do while he pondered.
But! To business. First things first, he’d check his phone. Call his bank, have them wire money, and maybe FedEx new credit cards. He’d promise a four-figure check to whoever could get funds to him the quickest. Then he’d—
He’d—
No. No-no-no.
No.
“Fuck!” he roared, then felt himself flush as Lillith jumped. “Sorry. I’m not that guy. Well, maybe sometimes.”
“Lost your phone?”
“Are you a witch?” he asked with honest curiosity. “That’s totally fine, by the way. I’m just curious.”
Lillith giggled, dark eyes squinching almost shut in her mirth. They were her most noticeable feature, followed by her short, straight black hair, the bangs cut ruler-straight just above dark brows, with dark blue streaks running through the strands. She was pale and slender except for the swell of her tiny tummy beneath the yellow T-shirt (I’M MY OWN SAFE SPACE!). The same message was on her backpack, and blue jeans and battered sneakers completed the look. “No,” she replied. “Not a witch.”
“Then how’d you know?”
“You’re lost in a strange city with no money and no wallet, which you already knew. Whatelsewould you freak out over so hard?”
Witch or not, she’d put her finger on the problem: He’d lost his phone. No. That wasn’t right. He knew where it was: the bottom of the Grand Canal. He’d had it on him from the moment he slipped it back into his shorts. And it would have taken some real flailing to dislodge it from the secure side pockets designed by the good people at—Cargo? Was that the name of the company, or just what they called pants and shorts with those nifty side pockets that, normally, cradled his belongings (and his balls) in secure comfort?
Focus, moron.
