Lucy had such a breezy, sweet smile. If Mayburn did have a crush, I could see why.

When I looked down, Kaitlyn was starting to put wood chips in her mouth.

“Kaitlyn, no!” I grabbed her, and she fell crying into my arms.

“I want to go home!” she wailed.

Thank God. The thought of the dark guy watching me from behind a tree was freaking me out.

I crouched, swooped up the juice box and stuck it in her hands. The pink backpack still on my shoulder, I started backing away, calling, “Nice to meet you!”

Kaitlyn sobbed the rest of the way home. I kept searching in my rearview mirror for the Honda or blue SUV, or the black-haired guy in another car, but I saw nothing.

The minute we got in Kaitlyn’s driveway, she shut up, and by the time I’d gotten her in the house, much to the chagrin of Mary, who was on her couch with a stack of celeb magazines and what looked like a Bloody Mary, Kaitlyn was a smiling little princess again.

I promised Mary I’d try to babysit again soon, and got in the car, praying that Mayburn wouldn’t force me to make good on that promise.

42

I’d barely been able to shower and recover from my eighth circle of hell with Kaitlyn when Mayburn arrived to pick me up. Downstairs, I found him idling in a small, silver muscle car with shiny rims.

“What is this thing?” I slid into the low, low passenger seat, glad I was wearing the black pants and jacket that Mayburn had recommended and not a skirt.

“Nineteen sixty-nine Aston Martin DBS coupe.” There was pride in his voice.

“I thought the plan was for you to hide when we got to Forester’s and let me drive up to the house.”

“It is.”

“Where are you going to hide in this thing?” I looked in the backseat. There was none.

“We’ll swap seats. I can get on the floor.”

“Do you conduct surveillance in this thing?”

“Quit calling it a ‘thing.’ And no, I have an Acura for surveillance.”

“So why didn’t you drive that?”

He turned in his seat and gave me an annoyed look. “I like taking this baby on the open road, okay? And we’ve got a forty-five-minute drive to Lake Forest. I don’t have many pleasures in my life, so forgive me.”

He put the car into gear and floored it down my street.

I couldn’t help myself. “I hope you don’t take women for dates in this thing.”

He gave me a concerned look. “Why?”

“Because the seats are low and hard to get out of and, inevitably, somebody’s going to pull a Britney and flash their delicates.”

“Their delicates? Where do you live? Victorian England?”

“Hey, I’m trying to be a lady.”

He guffawed.

“What’s that for? I am a lady.”

“Yeah, a lady who talks like a fucking truck driver, excuse my French.”

“I do not talk like a fucking truck diver.” I held on to the door as he veered around a few corners and shot up North Avenue, heading west. “I say ‘God bless you’ instead of ‘Goddammit.’”

“What nationality are you?” Mayburn said, throwing an inquisitive face at my hair.

“A bunch of stuff-Scottish and Italian on my dad’s side, Welsh and English on my mother’s.”

“That explains it. The Scottish and the Italians both swear like truck drivers.”

“So if you don’t like the word delicates,” I said to Mayburn, “what do you want me to call it? Coochy? Crotch?”

“We don’t know each other well enough for this discussion. Besides, don’t worry about girls in my car. I don’t date girls who don’t wear underwear.” He stopped laughing and grunted. “Actually, I wish I dated girls who didn’t wear underwear.”

“Who do you take out?”

“Anyone who will say yes.”

“C’mon, seriously. Do you have a girlfriend?”

I was curious now that I’d gotten to know Mayburn a little better. Today, he had on dark-blue jeans that were almost black, a black sweater jacket that zipped up the front and a black baseball cap. He looked tough and, I had to say it, kind of hot. I also liked the no-bullshit way he had about him. I liked that he drove this oddball little car, and I kind of even liked that he broke into places in order to break a case. He was tenacious, ambitious, confident. None of this made me like him in a romantic sense, but he was simply not the dreary private investigator I once thought I knew.

“I’m getting over a girlfriend.” He slipped on a pair of sunglasses and continued to power down North Avenue toward the expressway.

“How long ago did you break up?”

“Ten months. I know. Time to move on and all that, but if you knew this girl, you’d know how hard it is to move on from her.”

“What’s her name?”

We got onto the Edens Expressway, which was blessedly wide open on a Sunday afternoon. Mayburn kept frowning and looking in the rearview mirror.

“See anybody following us?” I asked.

“Nope. And if they are there, I’m about to lose them.” Mayburn went through each gear quickly until he was going well over seventy. He zigged and zagged from lane to lane. I could tell he wanted to go faster by the way he drummed his fingers on the leather steering wheel.

“Her name was Madeline,” he continued. “It is Madeline. Madeline Saga. And God, was it a saga.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“She owns an art gallery.”

“She got in trouble, right? Because she had nude guys handing out flyers?”

He laughed. “That’s her.”

“Wow.” I had even more respect for Mayburn now. He was a book whose cover I shouldn’t have prejudged. “How long did you date?”

“A year and a half. She was the most incredible person I’d ever met. She didn’t believe in anything but art. Well, that and sex.” He threw me a look, seeing if I was okay with the topic.

I nodded for him to continue. Having been unexpectedly celibate for a week, after a few years of frequent sex, I was jonesing, even if it was just for the stories of other people.

“Seriously,” he continued, “she didn’t believe in food or wine or drugs. She ate so that she didn’t fall down, and she had a glass of wine occasionally just to be social, but her whole world was art.” Mayburn paused and punched the gas a little higher. “When I met her, she made me part of that world for a while.”

“What happened?”

“Dumped me. In a nice way. I just wasn’t passionate enough for her. And to me that seemed crazy, because I was more passionate with her than I’d ever been. I hardly knew myself, but in a good way.” He changed lanes again. “Anyway, enough about The Saga. Tell me how it went with Lucy.”

I laughed. “My kid was a train wreck, but it gave me the opportunity to walk up to Lucy and ask for her help.”

“Right away? Like you didn’t collect any intel at all?”

“No, and I don’t feel bad about it.” I told Mayburn about it.

He gave me a grudging nod. “It’s not the way I wanted, but it’s better than anything I’ve gotten in two months. And you’re on the list for the party at Prada Tuesday night. Got a date?”

I thought of Grady. “I’ll figure something out.” I could take my brother, but he was too much like a curious puppy dog. He’d talk to everyone about everything. He’d never be able to pretend we were married.

Soon we were pulling down Forester’s long gravel driveway lined with pine trees. It wound and curled until the house was revealed, like a wedding cake, looming in the distance.

“Quite the place.” Mayburn pulled over. “Let’s switch before we get close enough for anyone to see us. You drive stick, right?”

“Sort of.”

He froze and glared. “You better drive stick well. This car is my baby.”

“Let me at her.” I got out of the car and swapped places with Mayburn. He crouched on the floor of the passenger seat, looking foolish as he curled up in a ball and tucked his head down.

“Ease into the clutch really, really lightly,” he said. He began spouting off a bunch of other instructions, which I let fly past me. Too much coaching tended to leave me confused rather than focused.