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When She Was Bad... Chapter One | page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | excerpts
Pepper scanned Escapade Island’s small airport, but the miracle she’d been praying for didn’t occur. There was no sign of her Aunt Irene or the Monet. As per usual, her plan to become Pepper Rossi, super sleuth, was not going well. This time she couldn’t in all conscience lay the blame at Cole Buchanan’s feet. If she’d been distracted during the past few days because she couldn’t pry him loose from her thoughts, she had no one to blame but herself. She’d started what had happened in the penthouse suite. She’d acted, as usual, on impulse and gotten in way over her head. Acting without thinking things through was a flaw that her grandmother Pendleton had pointed out to her initially when she was about four. And Pepper knew the accompanying lecture by heart. Trouble was, she mostly ignored it, so she’d been a constant disappointment to her grandmother. The end result was that she’d left Chicago. Moving to San Francisco was a golden opportunity to start fresh and to finally fit in with a family. But now the same thing was threatening to happen with the Rossis. She was screwing up, and she couldn’t seem to fit in with them either. And kissing Cole Buchanan hadn’t been her only impulsive act two nights ago. She’d also helped her aunt steal a priceless Monet. And now she’d lost track of both.“Please, God.” She repeated the prayer that she’d been sending up on a regular basis during the commuter flight to Escapade Island. “I promise – if you’ll just let me find Irene and recover the Monet, I’ll never do another impulsive thing in my life. Really.” Quickening her pace, she threaded her way through her fellow deplaning passengers, trying to ignore the headache which pounded at full throttle behind her eyes. Tailing people had been one of her strengths in the PI course she’d taken. Still, she’d lost Irene in the crowd at the Miami airport. She hadn’t panicked because she figured that her aunt would eventually board the connecting flight to Escapade Island. But it was a tall man, speaking with a French accent, wearing a beret and sporting a goatee, who’d taken the final empty seat just before take off. Pepper skidded to a stop and barely missed crashing into the couple in front of her. They’d stopped to embrace. She wasn’t sure if it was the clinch or the fact that they were wearing long trench coats, but several other couples had slowed down or stopped to watch them. This close, she could see that they were older than they’d seemed at a distance – in their seventies, she figured. Well, more power to them, she thought as she dodged to her left and sped around the small crowd that was gathering. She had to figure out why Irene had missed the flight. Her first thought was that her aunt had spotted her in the Miami airport and changed her plans. But that didn’t make sense. First of all, she’d disguised herself in a blond wig and jeans. Irene had never seen her in either. Ladies never wore jeans. Grandmother Pendleton had drilled that into her at a very early age. And jeans had been forbidden at the exclusive boarding school she’d been sent to for high school. It had been part of her grandmother’s attempt to turn her into a lady like her mother, but it hadn’t exactly paid off. Pepper wished that she could remember her mother. All she really had to go on were the stories that her grandmother had told her of how perfectly her mother always acted in any situation. So far, she hadn’t had the courage to pump her brothers or her father about her mother. She would – once she felt more comfortable around them. Once she fit in. Glancing up, Pepper caught her reflection in the glass wall that ran the length of the airport. Except for the strappy red high-heeled sandals, she barely recognized herself. The fall of thin gold circles at her ears had been a last minute addition to the disguise. According to her grandmother, a true lady wore studs. The Jackie O sunglasses and a small black duffel she’d slung over her shoulder completed the outfit. She barely recognized herself, so there was no way that Irene had “made” her. But even if she had, her aunt wouldn’t have changed her plans. In the letters that her aunt had sent her over the years, Pepper had come to know her pretty well. And she’d come to admire the fact that once Irene had a goal, she went after it full throttle. That was how Irene had gotten her own TV show. And when the ratings had dropped during the first season, Irene had broken into the mayor’s mansion to prove that even the “best” security system had its flaws. If Irene was hell-bent on giving the Monet to Butch Castellano on Valentine’s Day which was tomorrow, she’d let nothing and no one stand in her way. Pepper was holding onto that thought. On the bright side, Evan Atwell’s mother had decided not to report the theft to the authorities. That would have meant canceling the charity auction, and she didn’t want to do that until she had to. Too much time and planning had gone into it, she’d claimed. Instead, Althea Atwell was going to give Rossi Investigations until Sunday, the night of the charity auction, to recover the painting. She wanted the Monet back, and she expected the team at RI to get it. There’d been the threat of a law suit if they weren’t able to produce the Monet by Sunday. But even without a law suit, if the news was made public that the painting had been stolen while Rossi Investigations was on the job, the bad publicity might ruin her brothers’ fledgling business. Luke and Matt hadn’t spoken one word of reproach to her, but they’d been clearly disappointed. They’d encouraged her to take a few days off. The subtext was that they didn’t want her help, and she could hardly blame them. She hadn’t told anyone – not the police and not her brothers – about Irene’s involvement. If Luke and Matt had known about it, they would have stopped her aunt from flying to Escapade Island to give the painting to Butch. As much as Pepper loved her brothers, she hadn’t been able to betray her aunt. But she hadn’t told Irene she was following her to the island either. She wasn’t as sold on Butch Castellano’s born-again honesty as her aunt was, and one way or another she was going to make sure that the painting got back to San Francisco by Sunday night. And then – she shot a glance heavenward – she was definitely going to mend her impulsive ways. (continued...) |
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