“Um, well…I’m out.”
“You’re what?” Abby was startled. Shy, homebody Elaine was never out on a Wednesday night. Or any other night, for that matter.
“Out. Actually, I’m sort of, ah…involved, right now.”
Abby’s mouth worked for a moment, but she rallied swiftly. “Really? Whoo hoo! Good for you, girlfriend! I had no idea.”
Elaine’s giggle sounded nervous. “It’s been a secret. I just met him recently. But later for that. Are your keys to my house locked in, too?”
“Yup.” Abby recoiled as Edgar kissed her neck. His sour breath made her gag. She swatted him away. “Edgar, do you mind?”
“Abby, are you in trouble? Do you want me to call someone? Like the police?” Elaine’s voice sharpened.
“I can handle the situation,” she assured her friend. “Could you grab the Yellow Pages and find me a locksmith?”
“Coming right up.”
Edgar chortled as Abby batted his hand away. He seemed to think they were playing a game, like an unruly dog hanging on to a stick.
“Abby? You still there?” Elaine asked anxiously.
“Hanging in there,” Abby said grimly, rummaging through her bag. “Edgar, do you have a pen?” Edgar pulled a gold pen out of his pocket. Abby snatched it out of his hand. “Go ahead, Elaine.”
“Let’s see, let’s see…oh, perfect. Night Owl Lock and Safe. It says, ‘nighttime lockouts are my specialty.’”
“Great.” She wrote the number Elaine recited on her thumb.
“Call me when you get inside,” Elaine said. “If you don’t call within twenty minutes, I’m calling the police.”
“I’ll call,” Abby soothed. “Be ready to spill juicy details tomorrow.”
She broke the connection and eyed Edgar with trepidation.
It was going to take some serious, hardcore rudeness to pierce his protective layer of self-absorption.
She sighed to herself. How squalid and depressing.
Zan was perched on the fence on Lookout Drive, wondering if that high, fast-moving cloud was going to hit the moon, when his phone vibrated. He checked the display. Unknown number. Lockout job.
Not tonight. He was in one of his moods. He was better off focusing on neutral things, like the moon on the ocean.
The vibration of the phone tickled his thigh. He didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like hauling his ass back down to the world of people. Their problems, their opinions. His family, for instance. Granddad and his brothers were constantly in his face, which was one of the reasons he was in this funk to begin with. Everybody telling him to change his coping mechanisms, his career, his whole goddamn personality.
Just thinking about it was getting him all wound up again. He focused on that smudge of stars on the horizon to chill himself out.
Hard to do, when the damn phone kept ringing.
Maybe he should phase out locksmithing altogether. He certainly didn’t need the money. His computer consulting kept him busy. He kept his locksmith license current only because he enjoyed pitting himself against locks now and then. Besides, he didn’t sleep at night. Nights could get long and boring. Sometimes he welcomed something to do.
But not tonight.
The caller gave up; the phone went still. He let out a sigh of relief and tried to get back into his groove, blissing out on the pulsing surge of the surf. Moonlit foam, in gleaming swaths over the beach. Full moon, clear night. Rare for the Oregon coast. He’d stay till dawn. The view was better than his computer screen, or the ceiling over his bed.
The phone buzzed against his thigh again. He resisted the urge to hurl the thing over the cliff, if only because he despised littering.
It kept ringing. He counted the number of rings stored in his short-term memory. Twelve. Curiosity started to poke at him. Sixteen, seventeen. Wow, someone was desperate. Or just stubborn. Nineteen, twenty. Aw, what the hell. He clicked TALK. “Night Owl Lock and Safe.”
“Oh, thank God. Finally. I thought I’d misdialed.”
A woman’s voice. Low, husky. Sexy Southern accent. He was intrigued, in spite of himself. “Nope,” he said.
He offered no explanation. After a puzzled silence she pushed on. “I’m locked out of my apartment. It’s 2465 Tremont. Are you nearby?”
Tremont was just down the hill. He was about to say he’d be there in a few when a male voice said something loud but unintelligible.
“Stop it, Edgar.” The sexy voice was muffled, no longer directed at the mouthpiece. “Keep your hands off—hey! Back off! I’m not—”
Thunk. The phone went dead.
Zan stared at it, hit the caller redial. Let it ring, eight times.
He felt jarred. Prodded by urgency. Like it was his responsibility to gallop off and solve this girl’s problems with this dickhead Edgar.
Not my problem. Repeat after me. Not. My. Fucking. Problem.
The litany didn’t do any good. Something was revving up inside him, part knee-jerk chivalry, part curiosity. If he didn’t make sure the Southern belle was OK, he would worry all night. If he then found out that something bad had happened to some girl on Tremont, he would blame himself and feel like shit. He had to make sure she was safe.
And find out if her face and body matched that soft, sexy voice.
He laughed at himself as he headed for his van. Maybe this was all about his poor neglected libido. His self-imposed celibacy was biting his ass particularly hard lately.
No point in analyzing it, though. A guy had to do what a guy had to do.
Chapter
2
Abby’s shove knocked Edgar almost off his feet.
He caught himself against the porch railing and glared at her. “So that’s the way you’re going to be.”
“You forced me to be rude to you, Edgar. I tried to avoid it.”
“Try harder,” Edgar said. “And give me back my goddamn pen.”
His eyes had turned to glittering slits in his flushed face. Abby wedged herself into the corner of the porch and held out his pen. He jerked it out of her hand. Her phone, which had dropped to the floor in the scuffle, started to ring. She made a move to pick it up.
Edgar kicked it out of reach. “Go ahead,” he jeered. “Bend over, sweet cheeks. It’s my favorite position.”
Her insides went icy cold. The phone kept ringing, but she barely heard it, with his crude words and ugly tone ringing in her ears.
Oh dear. She’d taken Edgar for a harmless jerk. He’d just mutated into something nastier. Her belly cramped. Elaine had said, what, twenty minutes before she called the cops?
A lot could happen in twenty minutes.
One last shot at pseudo-politeness while she psyched herself up to scratch and gouge. “The locksmith is on his way, Edgar. There’s no reason to wait. Bye-bye.”
He sensed her nervousness, and liked it. He oozed closer, until her back was pressed against the wall. “Scared, Abby?”
She forced herself to smile. “Nothing to be scared of, is there? Look, we’re going to wake up my landlord if we keep