After Hello (2 page)

Approaching the corner, he hesitated. She was close. Turn left and he could duck into Scoops Ice Cream Shoppe and out the back door and be gone. Or he could head straight, linger at the row of concert posters and ads on the makeshift construction wall, and let her catch up.

No. That was a bad idea. He had a job to do.

Paul was waiting for him back at the Plaza, and the sooner he dropped off the book, the sooner his afternoon would be his again. He had no time to spare for the strange girl with the green eyes.

But instead of quickening his step and turning left, he hesitated at the curb, deciding to wait for the official walk sign to flash before he crossed the street. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually obeyed the crosswalk signs.

The prickling between his shoulder blades intensified, and he shifted the strap of his messenger bag across his chest. Bad idea or not, he lingered at the plywood wall, studying the colorful signs and flyers that had been tacked up there despite the clear instructions prohibiting such postings.

His brain screamed at him to keep going, to move. He hated standing still. Questions bubbled up inside him the longer he stood there: Why was he waiting? For the girl?

Yes. He could admit that now. Just as he could admit that the whole idea was crazy. Crazy, but he didn’t care. It wouldn’t be the first crazy thing he’d ever done.

His eyes roamed over the posters, the names and addresses and numbers blending together into a steady stream of data.

Buy one lesson, get one free at Moosmuller Music.

The Fall of Night—now playing at Glass and Coasters. Tuesday night is ladies’ night.

Missing dog. Black with white paws. Very friendly. Answers to the name of Nedra. Please call—we miss our baby girl. Reward!

She stepped up next to him, pretending to study the posters as carefully as he was. He could feel the nervousness sliding off her body.

He flicked his eyes in her direction. “You stole something from me.”

She blinked, almost taking a step back. “What? I did no such thing.”

Nervous, yes. But also brave. An interesting combination.

He pivoted on his heel, walking away from her. Fast enough to quiet his inner demand for motion, but not so fast that she couldn’t catch up if she wanted to.

“Hey!” she shouted at his back. “I said I didn’t steal anything from you.” In a flash, she had matched his pace, step for step. She gripped her bag and frowned. “You owe me an apology.”

“And you owe me my soul.” He stopped, allowing her to outpace him by a step.

She turned, her mouth open in a small, silent protest, confusion in her eyes.

He held her gaze—the green irises were the darkest green he’d ever seen—and gestured toward the small silver camera looped around her wrist. “You took my picture without my permission. That’s stealing.” He lifted the shoulder not burdened with the strap of his bag. “And in some cultures, taking a man’s picture is the same as taking his soul.”

“How—?” She clutched the camera close to her chest and shut her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

He read the lie in the bones of her face as she adjusted her expression. But it was an innocent lie, if such a thing were possible. “Yes, you did. And you’re not sorry about it.”

She shifted her weight, one hip jutting out just enough to knock her body out of alignment. She looked better that way—more curves, more dimension.

She looked him up and down, then matched his determined gaze with her own. Her eyes were the green of the jungle, of camouflage. “So what if I’m not?” she challenged.

He grinned as though she had passed some sort of test, and held out his hand. “Sam.” She looked at him warily, but the nervousness he’d sensed before was gone. “For the caption.”

“Sara,” she declared, touching his hand quickly, coolly.

“Without the
h,
” he murmured. Her palm was smooth and soft against the rough-worn touch of his fingers.

“How did you know that?” she asked, her hand dropping to her hip, her elbow forming a triangle.

“Because you didn’t say it.” Yes, she definitely looked better with some angles to her.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Sam, but—”

“I don’t play games,” he interrupted quietly but firmly.

“Then what do you call this?” She gestured with her free hand to the space between them.

Sam shrugged. “A conversation. You should try it sometime. They can be quite enlightening.”

A flash of a smile played across her lips, just a spark of amusement before it was squirreled away.

Ah, so she was a girl who was careful with her smiles. He liked that.

“My dad taught me never to talk to strangers,” she said lightly.

“We’re all strangers in the beginning.”

“Then what are we in the end?”

“We’ll have to see when we get there. Walk with me.” He’d been stationary too long. It was time to move.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Where do you want to go?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t believe that. A smart girl like you knows exactly where she wants to go.”

“How do you know I’m smart? You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’ve never been to New York before. I know you appreciate beauty when you see it. And I know you’re equal parts stubborn and brave.”

His lips twitched upward when her mouth dropped open.

“Before you ask,” he continued, “I’m observant. I look. And I see. And, yes, keeping people guessing is one of my specialties.”

“I’ll say. On all counts.” She fell silent for a moment as they reached another intersection.

Luckily, the light was green so he didn’t have to wait. He’d never been late on a delivery yet, and today was not the day to start. He stuttered his steps so his pace was in sync with Sara’s. Right, left. Right, left. It kept their arms from bumping into each other. It kept the distance manageable.

“You keep looking up like you’re afraid the buildings are going to fall on you. That’s how I know you’re new to the city. And the camera is an obvious clue that you want to remember your visit here, but it’s also how I know you appreciate beauty. A camera of that quality means you are serious about your pictures; you have an artist’s eye. And the fact that you followed me—and talked to me—and are still walking with me—means that you’re stubborn.”

“And brave,” she reminded him. “Or crazy,” she muttered under her breath.

He didn’t think he was supposed to hear that.

“So can you teach me?” she asked, tilting her head up at him. She wasn’t short by any means, but she still wasn’t as tall as he was. “To look? And see?”

“You already know how.”

“No, I don’t. Not like that.”

He raised an eyebrow, a half question, half challenge. “Then why did you take my picture?”

Chapter 3

Sara

Good question. Why
had
I taken his picture? I paused, my hand cradling the camera again. “Because it felt like the right thing to do,” I admitted in an unexpectedly soft voice.

“And do you always do what
feels
right—or what is
actually
right?”

“What does that mean?” I bristled. I had been raised to believe that when your feelings led you toward something good, then it was best to follow them. And although taking Sam’s picture might have been impulsive, I didn’t think it was a bad thing.

Sam fidgeted with the strap of his bag while he walked. “I’m sorry if that sounded confrontational. All I meant was that sometimes it’s hard to tell what the right thing to do is. Take this situation, for example. You tagging along with me while I do my job probably isn’t the smartest thing either one of us has done, yet—” He hesitated, his eyes focused forward. “Yet it feels
right.
”

I matched my pace to his. I knew how he felt. This moment, this meeting, did feel right. Somehow just knowing the name of another person in this big city had made me feel a part of it. And Sam seemed nice enough. He hadn’t tried to kidnap me or steal from me. He hadn’t demanded I leave him alone. In fact, he’d invited me along, and I felt like he’d attempted to make me feel comfortable walking next to him by allowing me some space and keeping our pace even.

“So what’s your job?” I asked.

His hand drifted down to the body of his messenger bag. “I find things for people.”

“You look a little young to be a PI. And a little scrawny to work in repo.”

He shook his head. “I’m freelance.”

“So who do you work for now?”

“Right now I’m finding something for my brother. His boss is . . . specific about certain things, and when Paul can’t find them on his own, he asks me to help.”

“He makes you work on Saturday?”

“I work when there’s work to do.”

“You don’t go to school?”

“Graduated early,” he said, his words clipped.

“Lucky.” I blew out my breath, ruffling the hair above my eyes. “I still have one more year.”

We crossed a street, angling past a newsstand. “So the book in your bag is for his boss?” I asked.

“How did you know—?” he started, the faintest sound of panic in his voice.

“I saw you with it.” He wasn’t the only one who could be observant. I lifted my arm, my camera dangling from the wrist strap. “I stole your soul outside the bookstore, remember? I love books; which one did you buy? Maybe I’ve read it.”

He glanced at me. “I can’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Won’t.” Sam didn’t look at me.

“Oh, so it’s one of
those
kinds of books,” I teased.

Red touched his cheeks. “No, it’s not.”

“Then why can’t—
won’t
—you tell me? It’s just a book.”

“No, it’s not,” he said again, more firmly this time.

With that, my curiosity was caught. A book that was more than a book? A secret pickup for a mysterious client? And we were en route to deliver it. The sweet burn of excitement filled my belly, and I grinned. Today was going to be a good day after all.

When Sam didn’t say anything else, I said breezily, “No, no, attorney-client privilege, I get it.”

He sighed. “I take my job very seriously. People need things; I find things. But
need
is something that is private—personal. If you knew what I’d found for this person, then you’d know something about them. You’d know something about what they
needed.
And what my brother’s boss needs more than anything at the moment is privacy.”

We walked a few more steps together.

“What kinds of things do you find?” I asked.

“I can find anything.” He said this rather matter-of-factly. Not a boast or a brag. Just the simple truth.

“Just books?” I asked.

Sam shook his head. “This was a rare request.”

The sky above us was a cloudless blue, bright and hot. “What was the strangest request you’ve had? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking. If it’s not
confidential.
”

He gave me a slow smile. “That’s easy. I once tracked down an honest-to-goodness pirate treasure map.”

“Like with ‘X marks the spot’ and everything?”

He nodded. “It even said ‘Here there be dragons’ in the margins of the oceans.”

“No. Way.”

“Way.”

“Where did you find it? Who wanted it? A
pirate
map—” My voice trailed off into the high-pitched squeak it hit whenever I was excited about something.

Sam laughed, but not to mock me. “Would you believe me if I said I found it at the pirate treasure map store and bought it for Long John Silver?”

I laughed back. “Not a chance.”

“Okay, okay. Here’s the story. I was in SoHo on a job for my brother when I stumbled onto a movie set.”

“Which movie?”

Sam waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I saw a former client of mine working as an extra in the scene. During a break, he came over and told me that Vanessa was finally ready to trade.”

“Who’s Vanessa?”

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

I didn’t apologize. “I like knowing the answers.”

Sam looked at me straight on, his dark brown eyes searching mine, searching
me.
The hairs on my arm shivered to attention. A warm wave shifted inside me under his scrutiny. He tilted his head so slightly I almost missed it—a gesture of acknowledgment and acceptance.

When he looked away, I felt like he had plucked an important bit of information out of my mind and filed it away for future reference.

Oddly enough, I didn’t mind.

“So who’s Vanessa?” I repeated when the silence between us had stretched almost to the point of being uncomfortable.

“Vanessa is a Creole voodoo priestess. She has an art studio in SoHo, where she lives.”

I stopped walking. “She’s a
what,
now?”

Sam didn’t stop with me. Instead he turned on his heel and walked backward. “She’s from New Orleans, originally, but she moved here four or five years ago. Tired of battling hurricanes, she said.”

I closed the distance, my mouth hanging open in surprise.

“A voodoo priestess,” I repeated. “Like in zombies and black magic and stuff?”

“No, actually, nothing like that at all.” Sam looked at me again as though reconsidering where to put me in the filing system in his head. “You really don’t get out much, do you?”

“You’re the one who noticed this is my first time in the city.”

“Where are you from, anyway?”

“Don’t change the subject. I want to hear the rest of the story.”

“And I want to hear about you,” he said. From anyone else, that might have sounded like a bad pickup line, but all I sensed from Sam was genuine interest. I couldn’t tell if the flutter I felt was flattery or disbelief.

“No, you don’t. Trust me, Vanessa the voodoo priestess is a lot more exciting than I am.”

“Trade you for it,” Sam said, a shaded gleam in his brown eyes. Even walking backwards, he managed to avoid bumping into people, exhibiting a natural grace and instinct.

“Trade me for what?”

“Your story for Vanessa’s story—and the story of the pirate map.”