Kara Lennox - Downtown Debutante

“Your mother sent me to find you, Sonya,” McPhee began. “You’re supposed to be at Elizabeth Arden.”

Sonya sank onto her bed and folded her arms. “I’m not a child. I can come and go as I please.”

“Not when your mom’s footing the bill, you can’t. She got the Visa statement. There were charges from all over Texas and Louisiana. She was afraid you’d been kidnapped.”

“That does not explain why you broke into my hotel room.”

Brenna pointed at Heath. “And it doesn’t explain what he’s doing here.” She fastened her icy blue eyes on him. “I bet you’re not even FBI.”

Heath quickly produced his Bureau identification, which Brenna inspected thoroughly, as if she would know real credentials from fake ones. “I saw this guy coming into your room,” he improvised. “At first I thought he was your runaway fiancé. I came in thinking I would make an arrest.”

He glanced over at the other man, who amazingly did not contradict him.

“So you’ve been following me,” Brenna said on a rising note.

Heath saw no way out of this. “Yes, I was following you. I thought you might be protecting your fiancé. It’s a perfectly natural assumption. Romeo con men often inspire loyalty in their victims.”

“So you feel you were perfectly justified entering our room without our permission,” Brenna said, looking at first one man, then the other. “We could have you arrested,” she said, jabbing her finger into McPhee’s chest. Then she turned back to Heath. She almost jabbed him, too, then stopped at the last minute, as if she’d thought better of it. “And you. Unless you have a search warrant, I could have your badge.”

The last thing Heath needed was someone trying to get him fired. After his troubles in Baltimore, he was already skating on thin ice. Supervisory Special Agent Fleming Ketcher would have kittens if he knew Heath had been caught in an iffy search.

McPhee, obviously not intimidated by Brenna’s bravado, ignored her and sat on the bed next to Sonya. “I was worried about you, that’s all,” he said, his voice soft. “I really did believe someone might have kidnapped you.”

Sonya was unaffected by his attempt to mollify. “The only person you care about is yourself. If anything happened to me, you’d look pretty bad.”

“Sonya, you know that’s not true. Tell me what’s going on.”

She considered her reply for several long seconds. “Brenna’s an old friend, a sorority sister.” Brenna’s eyebrows flew up, but she said nothing. “Pretty soon I’m going to be an old stodgy married woman,” Sonya continued. “Mother had the wedding under control. I just wanted to have some fun, get it out of my system.”

Sonya was lying through her teeth. It sounded like she hadn’t admitted to anyone she’d been snookered by a con man. In fact, it appeared as if this John-Michael McPhee—a family friend?—and Sonya’s mother believed she was still engaged to Marvin.

Heath wasn’t going to rain on her parade. That was for her to sort out with her family. His concern was Brenna, the depth of whose involvement in Marvin’s various schemes was yet to be determined.

McPhee seemed to be evaluating Sonya’s explanation. But it was hard to tell whether he believed her or not. Finally he said, “Sonya, you need to come home. Your mother’s not well.”

Sonya rolled her eyes. “Mother’s never well. She’s the biggest hypochondriac I’ve ever known.”

“She’s not kidding around this time. She’s in the hospital. She’s…she’s had a heart attack.”

Brenna’s hand went to her mouth in alarm, while Sonya went white as a marble statue. “Oh, my God,” she murmured. “Is she okay? John-Michael, tell me the truth.”

“She’s stable. But you need to come home. Now.”

She nodded. “I’ll get packed. Would you wait for me outside, please? I’ll only be a minute.”

McPhee hesitated, then nodded. He stood, gave Heath a skeptical look, then held out his hand. “John-Michael McPhee. Thanks for not shooting me.”

Heath took the proffered hand. “Heath Packer. I usually ask questions first, then shoot.”

As Sonya threw clothes into her suitcase, McPhee headed for the exit. Brenna opened the door for him, giving him an unmistakable warning look. Then she transferred her attention to Heath. “You, too.”

“I need to talk—”

“Get a warrant.”

“Oooookay.” At least she wasn’t on the phone to his boss. Yet. Fleming Ketcher would not find this situation amusing.

ONCE THE INTERLOPING MEN were safely outside and the door closed, Brenna turned to Sonya. “Who is that gorgeous guy?”

Sonya continued packing without looking at Brenna, her movements sharp and ultraefficient. “He’s my bodyguard.”

Brenna couldn’t help it. She laughed. “You have a bodyguard?”

“It’s my mother’s idea. I’ve told you she’s a bit over-protective. After what happened to my father, can you blame her?”

Brenna sobered at the reminder. “So your mother doesn’t know about Marvin being a con man?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. All this time she thought I was chilling out at a spa. I didn’t think she’d worry. I mean, she never looks at her Visa bill. She has a financial manager who pays her bills.”

“You’ll have to tell her now.”

“I suppose.” Sonya looked up, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Brenna, she was so happy. Planning this wedding was the high point of her life. Since I became engaged, she’s talked of nothing but creating the perfect ceremony for the perfect princess bride. I couldn’t take that away from her.”

As flawed as Sonya’s logic was, Brenna understood. After all, she hadn’t told her own parents that her wealthy, suave art-agent fiancé was a big phony. It was a very tough thing, admitting not just that you were a fool, but a destitute one. But at least Brenna’s family hadn’t gotten to the wedding-plan stage.

“I’m sorry to leave you like this,” Sonya said. “I think you should give up the hunt for now. It’s not safe, and Marvin could be dangerous. Or…you could hook up with the FBI agent.”

Brenna snorted. “Yeah, right. He thinks I’m protecting Marvin. Of all the stupid assumptions.”

“He had to make sure,” Sonya said. “He was probably going by the statistics. After all, it would be easy for a naive woman to convince herself there’d been some mistake, that the love of her life hadn’t really stolen from her, that the FBI was in error. Agent Packer has no way of knowing you aren’t one of those women.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him. He sneaked into our room! He was probably looking through our underwear.”

Sonya’s face hardened. “John-Michael is the one who broke in. Agent Packer was just trying to protect us.”

Brenna supposed that was marginally true, at least if she could believe Packer’s story.

“Promise me you won’t try to catch Marvin on your own,” Sonya said. “I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

Under the circumstances, Brenna had no choice. “I promise. Don’t give me another thought. You just go home and take care of your mother.”

Sonya zipped up her last suitcase. “I feel so guilty, making her worry.” She bit her lip. “I probably caused her heart attack.”

“You didn’t know she was ill. Don’t do this to yourself, Sonya.” Brenna went to Sonya and hugged her. Other than coming from wealthy families, the two women didn’t have a lot in common. They never would have sought each other out as friends under ordinary circumstances. But over the past few weeks, they’d shared a lot.

“With Cindy on her honeymoon and me going home,” Sonya said, “I guess The Blond Posse is officially disbanded.”