Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

Although relatively well behaved, the waiting fans shouted back and forth to each other, swapping red lipsticks and comparing outfits. Since, at Jake’s direction, stoops were off-limits for seating, many of the fans were using the barricades as makeshift benches. Most, however, had simply plopped on the concrete sidewalk, their young bones apparently impervious to the late September chill that still seeped from the ground. At regular intervals, the hubbub would be split by one of those distinctive high-pitched shrieks characteristic of pubescent girls, causing nearby window glass to practically vibrate and Darla to fear her ears would spontaneously start bleeding.

Standing guard a few yards down the line was Jake’s off-duty cop friend, Reese. He was a tall guy with curly blond hair who looked like he spent a lot of time in the gym. Darla guessed he was a few years younger than she, probably no more than thirty. No doubt when he was in his twenties, he’d been considered a pretty boy.

Still would be, in Darla’s opinion, had his nose not been broken in the past and apparently never properly reset, maybe for that very reason. Like Jake and everyone else in line, he was dressed all in black: long-sleeved black denim shirt with sleeves rolled to expose a hint of oversized biceps, black jeans, and black motorcycle boots. Darla figured the attire was less an homage to Valerie Baylor and more a nod to the boys in S.W.A.T. back at the office. His expression, or what she could see of it behind the wraparound sunglasses, reminded her of the blank mien cultivated by the Buckingham Palace guards. She noticed, too, that the older girls in line were shooting him appreciative looks in between arguing over Haunted High trivia with their friends.

Darla had met Reese earlier but there hadn’t been time for any chitchat, since the barricades were being delivered as he’d showed up. By then the crowd had begun to take on a girlishly moblike air. After a quick hello, he’d swiftly gotten to work, unloading the bright blue sawhorses from the truck and setting them up. Jake, a small electronic megaphone in hand, had begun organizing the waiting fans into a fair semblance of a line behind the ever-lengthening barrier.

“Hey, only about ten more hours of this. Think you can handle it?” Darla called to Reese now, over the sound of the crowd.

The palace guard cracked a smile. “Yeah, what every cop dreams of, spending a day riding herd on hundreds of teenage girls. How about you?”

“I’ll tell you that tomorrow, when I know if this day is going to go on the books as a fond memory to savor, or a nightmare to relive again and again.”

“As far as crowd control goes, this one’s a piece of cake,” he assured her. “I could tell you about some genuine nightmares, but this ain’t one of them. Don’t worry . . . Jake and I have it under control.”

His accent was a toned-down version of Jake’s, and amusingly at odds with his corn-fed, midwestern looks. His smile revealed a chipped front tooth, possibly a result of the same blow that had done the deed on his nose. Though Darla had always preferred dark-haired, dark-eyed men, she was finding herself more than mildly attracted to this cop. Unfortunately, now was neither the time nor the place to indulge in it.

A tug at her shirtsleeve dispelled any lingering doubt that today was all about business. She looked down to see a familiar pair of large black-framed glasses set on a heart-shaped face staring up at her in concern. The pigtails were absent this day. Instead, the girl’s wavy blond hair streamed over the shoulders of her scaled-down black cape, the effect only slightly spoiled by her pink backpack. A crooked application of red lipstick made her look less a vamp, however, and more like she’d just chowed down on one of those big red candied apples from the Texas State Fair.

“Hi, Callie,” Darla said with a smile, refraining from commenting on how cute the girl looked dressed as a mini-Valerie. Callie, she suspected, would not appreciate it. “Are you here for the autographing?”

The girl extended one thin wrist to display the bloodred band she wore. “I’m number 137. My sister is number 138. My mom made her and her friends take me with them, but they’re pretending they’re not with me. That’s okay, though, because I brought stuff to read.”

Callie’s serious expression morphed into one of preteen disdain. “Susanna says I’m too young for the Haunted High books, but I read at a college-freshman level. She only reads at grade ten. I think she’s only ever read about five books in her whole life.”

“So long as your mom says it’s okay for you to be here, you’re fine,” Darla replied, feeling a sudden kinship with this über-solemn girl.

She hoped that Susanna was responsible enough to keep an eye on her little sister all day long, as Darla could not. Indicating the man beside her, she added, “I have to get back inside the store now, but if you need anything, this is Reese. He and my friend, Ms. Martelli”—she pointed at Jake, who was heading down the walk toward them, her limp less noticeable because of the stacked boots she wore—“they’re in charge of security. If you need help for any reason, you go to them, okay?”

Reese gave the girl a noncommittal nod, obviously wavering between wanting to look accessible yet needing to keep up his tough-guy image. Callie, however, appeared suitably impressed.

“I will.” Then, turning to Darla again, she said, “But what about Hamlet? That’s what I came to ask. I’m worried he’d be scared by all the people.”

“Don’t worry about Hamlet. He’s been lounging around the store happy as a clam despite the noise. I’ll run him back upstairs to my apartment in a little bit. He’ll probably sleep the rest of the day and not bother anyone.”

Or so she hoped. The last thing this event needed was Mr. Hell on Paws racing about, no matter that he was properly dressed for it. And if he escaped out the front door . . . well, she wasn’t sure who she feared for more, Hamlet or the outside world.

Mollified, Callie trudged back to her spot in line.

“Cute kid,” Reese commented after her. “But I sure hope for her sake she lightens up by the time she gets to high school. That bookworm thing doesn’t go over much with the guys.”

“What’s wrong with being a bookworm?” Darla demanded, bristling on the girl’s behalf. She had been a bookworm herself and had managed to get a few dates despite that.

Reese seemed to realize he’d stepped in it, for he raised both hands in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I’m just not much on wasting my time on books . . . not that there’s anything wrong with selling them or anything . . .” He trailed off as he obviously recalled that books were the livelihood of the woman paying his check this day. “Uh, no offense.”

“None taken,” Darla replied with a brilliantly fake smile.

Barbarian , she inwardly groused, recalling why she never had been attracted to corn-fed blond musclemen. Most of them looked upon a book as nothing more than a handy item to prop up the leg of an uneven couch.

“I’ll send Lizzie out with some sandwiches and drinks for you and Jake in a few minutes. In the meantime, keep up the good work, and let me know if any spontaneous outbursts of reading occur, okay?”

Still smiling, she drew aside Jake, who had joined them in time to overhear the last exchange, and muttered in her ear, “So where did you say you found Mr. Literary Guild, here?”

“Hey, he’s a good guy,” Jake protested mildly as they headed toward the store entrance. “He might not settle in with a book every night like some people, but he has a photographic memory and better street smarts than most cops I know. Not only that, he was the guy who jumped out from behind a squad car and pulled me out of the line of fire the day I was shot. I owe him my life.”