Page 31 of Just My Luck

Finally, she’d done something that made sense. “Good call.”

She propped her elbows on her knees and looked up at him. “Why is that a good call? What’s this all about? If you’re not FBI, maybe CIA?”

“CIA?” This ought to be good.

“We get a lot of foreign tourists. Maybe some of them are part of secret trafficking rings, drugs or even worse. I started thinking about how much privacy our VIP guests get. Anything could be going on in those hales.”

He squinted at her. “You have a real imagination, don’t you?”

“Yes, it’s a blessing and a curse. I notice you didn’t say no to the CIA thing.”

He considered going along with that theory. It was better than some of her others. But he didn’t have the heart to lie to her anymore, not when she was now involved, whether he liked it or not. Someone had threatened her, and he needed to know who, what they were up to, and how they’d known about Zara.

“I’m not in the CIA.” He raised his hand like a boy scout. “I don’t work for any government agency.“

“Not even for another government, like a foreign one?” she asked hopefully.

“No. No government on planet Earth.”

“A-ha.” She pointed a finger at him. “You said it, not me.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s my last theory, and I didn’t want to go there. But certain things are starting to add up.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked warily. “What things?”

“Just little anomalies. Like how you didn’t know that some people work two jobs.”

Major gaffe, apparently. He stayed silent, and she went on.

“I watched when you started up my car. You seemed pretty unfamiliar with the whole concept of gears.”

Good lord. He knew all about gears, obviously. He’d driven high-performance race cars. But her Beetle was so much older than anything he’d ever driven, it had taken him a few moments to figure it out. “I can explain⁠—”

“It’s okay.” She flung up a hand. A gust of wind blew a spattering of rain through an open window over the kitchen sink. “Are you trying to distract me?” she asked as she dashed over to slide the window closed.

“Distract you? You think I control the weather?”

“It’s all right, you can play innocent until the end. But I’m onto you.” She padded barefoot back from the kitchen. Her toenails were covered with chipped iridescent violet enamel and he noticed a scar from her left ankle to halfway up her calf. He dragged his gaze away from her feet as she confronted him. “If you’re not an ex-con⁠—”

“I’m not an ex-con.” He really wanted to make sure that she knew that.

“And you’re not FBI or CIA or a spy from another country…oh shit.” She hit a hand to the side of her head. “There’s another possibility I didn’t think of. Are you a stalker? Is that why you’re at the resort? We have a lot of gorgeous girls working there. Is it Tina, the night hostess? Brenda the activities coordinator?”

“Good God.” He’d rather be an ex-con than a stalker. “Fuck no. I’m not stalking anyone and I don’t even know who you’re talking about. There’s an activities coordinator?” He waved his hands to shift the conversation back to the reason he’d come here. “None of this matters. The important thing is to find out who threatened you and why. What can you tell me about the couple in the car? Did you get the license plate number?”

“I did. But only the police can look up that kind of thing. So unless you’re in law enforcement…”

“I’m not in law enforcement,” he said wearily. If she’d figured out who he was, as she claimed, he wished she’d just get on with it.

“Private investigator?”

“Is that your big theory? The last one that explains all these alleged anomalies?”

“No, it’s not. Well, sort of. You are clearly investigating something. That’s the one thing I’m almost a hundred percent sure about.”

He had to give her credit. She was right about that, obviously, although her various fantastical explanations were all over the place. “I’m not a PI.”