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  “Crime fighting career? That sounds so Cat Woman.”

  “Doesn’t it? I’m just too modest to admit it.”

  Tootsie ignored that. “Actually, the expertise I’m really interested in is that of Bobby Baroni.”

  “He can’t help you. He works Homicide, and your friend isn’t dead.”

  “How astute of you. I would like to keep it that way.”

  “Aha. It is a dangerous kind of important. Is someone trying to kill him? Did he murder someone? Is he about to murder someone? Is it all of the above?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t need you to tell me anything. If you’re talking to Bobby, then it has to have something to do with murder.”

  “You really are annoying, darling.”

  She nodded sympathetically. “I know. It’s one of my many talents.”

  Tootsie stood up and pushed his chair toward her. “I’ll use the phone in the back office. Sit down and answer these phone lines, please.”

  “I’ll find out, you know. I always do.”

  “Heaven forbid. Here. This is a message pad. This is a pen. This is the phone console. When it lights up, punch the button and say, ‘Memphis Tour Tyme. May I help you visit the real Memphis?’”

  “That is so hokey,” she said as she plopped down in the chair. “And I hope it isn’t a reference to the real Memphis they’d see in Orange Mound. That’s hardly a tourist stop. Unless they’re into street drugs, of course.”

  “It’s no worse than any city of this size. Besides, the police have done a great job cleaning up the streets. All they need is more time and manpower.”

  “Good luck on the last. And you only say that because your alleged significant other is a cop. I say alleged because no one has ever seen him, but you claim he exists.”

  “You haven’t met him because there are some things even an experienced officer shouldn’t have to encounter. Steve deals with enough on the streets.”

  “So why aren’t you calling him to help you instead of Bobby?”

  “He isn’t in Homicide.”

  “Or he doesn’t exist. I rest my case. A button just lit up. Should I answer it?”

  “Please. Don’t touch anything else.” He paused just beyond the desk and turned to look sternly at her. “Do not touch the computer.”

  Tootsie disappeared down the hallway. Harley slipped the phone headset over her still-damp blonde hair and punched the lit button. Really. He acted as if she’d blow up the computer. It wasn’t as if she’d never worked on a computer before. In her past life in corporate America that was almost all she had done all day. Another reason why driving a tourist bus was a lot more fun. She took the call and a message for Mr. Penney, and when the phone went silent again she stared blankly into space. It was too quiet. The bank of fluorescent lights overhead flickered dimly. The only sound in the office was rain against the windows, and she began to get drowsy.

  Since nature abhors a vacuum, she told herself, she reached for her backpack and rummaged inside to find her MP3 player. She found it, set it on the desk, thumbed it to play random songs, then reached for a magazine. It was PC World, and she immediately closed it and tossed it back to the top of the desk. Way out of her element. Cosmo or even People would have worked, but technical stuff was boring.

  For the next few minutes she answered calls and listened to music in between. It was her opinion that it’d be a lot more efficient to have voicemail, but Mr. Penney—referred to as The Ogre when he was out of earshot—thought it was more personal for prospective clients to talk to a real person.

  Really, Tootsie underestimated her. This wasn’t difficult at all. Punch a line, rattle off that hokey greeting, take a message, then wait for the next one. This wasn’t exactly the busiest time of year for tourism. Elvis mania was over until his birthday in January, and the Memphis in May BBQ competition was still seven months away. The Oktoberfest downtown was mostly for locals. Thanksgiving and Christmas tourism hadn’t started yet. She yawned. Good thing she could do this in her sleep.

  Another button lit up, and she stopped yawning to answer. “Memphis Tour Tyme. May I help you visit the real Memphis?”

  A woman with a distinctive accent said, “Hello? Memphis Tour Tyme?”

  Why was it that no matter what was asked or said, the English always sounded so cultured and intelligent, she wondered.

  “Yes, this is Memphis Tour Tyme. May I help you?”

  “Oh, yes, please. This is Audrey Thornton, agent with London Town Tours. We are in a bit of a twist here. I wish to book my clients on tours of Graceland, Tupelo, Sun Studios, all the Elvis sights. They are due to arrive in Memphis Friday next. Would you have accommodations for a group of twenty-two during the following week?”

  Not quite willing to disappoint or dismay the agent, who already sounded stressed enough, Harley hesitated. “Our scheduler is away from his desk,” she said, “but I’ll be glad to give him a message when he returns.”

  “Oh, dear. This must sound dreadfully cheeky, but will he be long?” Dismay in her voice had altered to an unmistakable tone of desperation. Harley was pretty familiar with desperation.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so.”

  There was a hesitation on the other end, then a sigh. “I must give my clients an immediate answer. We had already booked, you see, but the other tour company in your area has gone out of business, so we now have no transport available. My clients are due to depart Gatwick in only five days. Any delay may prove quite unfortunate.”

  Harley considered calling Tootsie in the back office, but the light to that phone still glowed. He’d be irritable if she interrupted him. She glanced at the computer.

  As luck would have it, the program for booking tours and for checking the availability of buses and vans glowed at her from the monitor. The cursor winked an open invitation. Surely he wouldn’t be angry if she booked this group. It wasn’t as if it was all that difficult. She’d watched him do it often enough. Harley took the chance. She tapped a few keys, and the information popped up.

  “We have a large enough vehicle. I just have to see if it’s already reserved . . . ah, it’s available. Shall I take your information and make the reservations?”

  Relief hummed on phone lines all the way from London. Gratitude fairly gushed from the agent, so that Harley basked in its warm glow. She entered all the information, reserved their mini-bus, gave the woman not only a confirmation number but a promise to fax that confirmation immediately, and when they finally “rang off,” she was quite pleased with herself. Tootsie would be so amazed. And it was always nice to be able to accomplish something he didn’t believe she could do.

  “Piece of cake,” she said aloud.

  Smiling, Harley hit the Print button. A box popped up. It gave her the option of faxing, which seemed much more efficient than printing off a hard copy and taking it to the fax machine on the other desk. A phone line lit up, then two. She clicked on the link to fax right before she hit the top button for the phone line. Or maybe right as. Afterward, she could never quite remember the sequence of events.

  Lights flickered. The phone went dead. A strange howling noise permeated the office. Horrified, Harley watched the monitor screen go dark. Very dark.

  Frozen, she just stared at it. One hand still hovered over the phone console, her forefinger still poised over the formerly flashing button. The only things left blinking were her eyes. What happened? The MP3 player suddenly sounded way too loud, a song by Rihanna wailing into the silent office. No, no!

  She stood up. Wheels clacked loudly as the chair rolled away. Down the hall a door banged, and Birkenstocks slapped against cheap linoleum. Survival instinct took over. She made a leap for freedom, only to be jerked back by something tethered to her head. Panic rose in her throat, but then she remembered the headset. It had probably stuck to her hair gel. She clawed it free just as Tootsie rounded the corner and came to a sudden stop.


  He looked at the dark computer, the dead phone console, then at her. His mouth formed an O, his arms rose slowly, and he pressed a palm to each side of his head. No sound came from his mouth. He looked very much like the guy in the famous painting of The Scream.

  “I was just coming to get you,” she lied. “Something happened.”

  Still silent, he stared at the computer. His expression didn’t change from horror. Complete horror. What should she say? Should she say anything at all? Should she leave? Yes. She took a furtive step toward the other chair. It held her backpack. And her car keys.

  “Don’t move.” His voice sounded odd. That made her a little nervous. So did the way he kept staring at the computer with a hand to each side of his face. How long was he going to do that?

  On her MP3 Rihanna sang “I love the way you lie” as Harley tried to think what to say next. When Tootsie still stared at her, she said, “I’ll be right back. Really. I just thought of something I forgot to do.”

  Tootsie moved at last. His arms slowly lowered, and he lurched forward in a gait quite similar to that of a three-legged rhinoceros. Or so she imagined. For a moment she didn’t know whether to stand her ground or run. She hated it when people yelled at her.

  “What did you do?” he asked calmly.

  Not trusting him to be as calm as he sounded, she eyed him warily. “Do when?”

  “Before the phones and computer died. Tell me your every action, Harley.”

  Despite his patient tone, she still didn’t quite trust him to remain calm. It wouldn’t hurt to keep a few feet between them in case he had a meltdown and started yelling. She really hated yelling.

  As he wobbled toward the computer desk, she circled behind him. Just out of reach lay her backpack. The four foot expanse seemed to stretch a city block.

  “Harley?”

  “My actions? Let me think . . . uh, I took some messages. There they are on that little pink pad. People are already starting to book limos for Christmas parties. See?”

  He nodded, put both hands on his hips and pursed his lips. “And after that?”

  “Let’s see . . . well, an agent from London called about a group coming in ‘Friday next.’ Don’t you love the way the English talk? I do. They always sound so aristocratic no matter who they are, even if they’re garbage men. Or politicians.”

  “Harley?”

  “First, promise you won’t be mad. You know how I hate it when you’re mad at me.”

  “All right. I won’t be mad.”

  “You’ll yell at me. I don’t like yelling.”

  Tootsie rolled his eyes. “No, I won’t.”

  “If only I knew that for sure.”

  “I won’t be mad at you. I won’t yell. I promise. Just tell me what you did.”

  “I have no idea.”

  He rolled his eyes again and sighed. She kept the desk chair between them in case he went ballistic, but he only sat down in it and wheeled up to the desk. Rihanna stopped singing, and Nicki Minaj started a new song. It sounded way too loud.

  Tootsie didn’t even seem to hear the music. For a long moment he just stared at the computer with his hands on his knees. His fingers twitched like he was pecking on the keyboard with his long, hot pink painted fingernails.

  A door opened down the hall. Rhett Sandler. The accountant rarely left his office except to go home. If he did go home. For all she knew he hung like a bat from his office ceiling every night. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  Sandler appeared at the front desk. A small man, he had curly dark hair that was receding from his forehead, a thin nose, and non-existent lips. There was usually just a slit where his lips should be. He also talked in a monotone. “My phone isn’t working.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Tootsie said. “None of them are working.”

  Sandler looked at Harley as if expecting her to claim responsibility. She narrowed her eyes at him, and his gaze went back to Tootsie. “My computer isn’t working.”

  Tootsie lifted his hands from his knees and reached for a wire that led from the computer to a big box. “Neither is mine. And why is it so dark in here?”

  “Turn Me On” blared from Harley’s MP3 player. It seemed very inappropriate.

  “It’s always dark in here,” said Harley. “The new bulbs don’t put out any light.”

  As Tootsie unplugged the computer from the power source, Sandler stood there a moment longer. When it became clear to him that he’d gained all the information he could for the moment, he pivoted and walked back down the hallway. Harley stared after him thoughtfully.

  “Ever notice that Sandler walks like a penguin?” she mused aloud.

  “You’ve said that before.” Tootsie was under the desk now. The thick soles of his Birkenstocks stared up at her. She squatted down just behind him and peered over his left shoulder.

  “Are you opening the computer box?” she asked.

  “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

  “Not yet. Besides, I want you to know I’m here for you.”

  “Try being over there for me. Way over there.”

  It was a bit too soon yet to be sarcastic, so she stood up and moved to the chair that held her backpack.

  Tootsie hauled the bulky computer brain out from its cubby hole and to the desk top. It had lots of slots in the front for flash drives to save information. If she was lucky, he had already saved all valuable information. Oh, no. What about the reservations she’d just taken? Would the English tourists be disappointed once more?

  “By the way, I went ahead and reserved the mini-bus for the group from London. Twenty-two people. I promised we’d fax them a confirmation,” she said.

  “How premature of you. Wait. You touched the computer?”

  “Just a little. The program was open. It was easy. I tried to fax the confirmation, but it all went dark on me.”

  “I’m speechless. No, I’m not. What have I told you about touching my computer? I have frightening memories of the last time you touched it. I never did fix one of the software programs you corrupted.”

  “Sorry. Really. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

  He pressed a hand against his forehead and closed his eyes. “Which time? There are so many incidents to choose from I hardly know where to begin.”

  She was still sighing over that when the outer office door opened. Bracing herself for a Q&A from The Ogre, she was pleasantly surprised to see Mike Morgan. He had a way of making stomachs flutter. If stomachs could flutter. Hers usually just got all warm and squishy.

  Wet, dark hair clung to his head. On some men it would look awful. On Morgan it looked delicious. So did the way his wet tee shirt clung to his chest, outlining hard pecs and washboard abs. Harley envisioned Mike without a tee shirt. Really, she should avoid that direction of thought. She might lose control and assault him on the cheap flooring of the reception area. Nicki Minaj singing, “Turn Me On” suddenly sounded appropriate.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked.

  “That’s a loaded question,” Harley said with a glance at Tootsie. “There are many definitions of okay.”

  Morgan grinned. Her stomach did that warm and squishy thing.

  “I take it there’s a problem?”

  Since he said it as a question, Tootsie answered before Harley could. He sounded quite peevish. “That would be putting it mildly. It’s more than a problem. I should have known better than to leave Miss Disaster in charge for even a minute.”

  “Don’t be bitchy,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.”

  “It becomes me very well, and you know it.”

  “I’d ask what she did, but I’m not at all sure I want to hear the answer.” Morgan raked a hand through his wet hair to keep it from dripping into his eyes. “I just dropped by to see if the tornado did any damage.”

  Harley sat up straight. “Tornado? There was a tornado?”

  “Yeah, it touched down not far from here, tore up some trees and knocked down power lines. That�
�s why your lights are out.”

  Harley glanced up at the ceiling light fixtures. The new bulbs in the fluorescent lighting usually flickered so much it was never very bright anyway, but the light on the desk was out, too. She should have noticed. Tootsie should have noticed.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she tapped her foot on the floor and stared at Tootsie. “I expect an apology,” she said when he remained silent.

  “Don’t hold your breath. You must have done something. The battery back-up should keep the computer up for at least forty-five minutes.”

  “Well, it didn’t this time.”

  “So you must have done something to it,” said Tootsie.

  “You have such faith in my super-powers. I’m going to check on my parents. If everything’s okay, I can be back in time to pick up the group at the Marriott for their tour to Beale Street and the Ornamental Metal Museum.”

  “They cancelled earlier this morning. Take the day off. I can’t do anything until I have the computer up anyway.”

  “I didn’t do it. It’s not my fault this time.”

  Tootsie peered at her over the desk. “It usually is, so forgive me for jumping to the obvious conclusion.”

  “Girls, girls, no need to quarrel.” Morgan looked from Tootsie to Harley. “I just happen to have some free time if you want me to go with you.”

  “That’d be great. I can see my presence here is no longer needed.”

  Tootsie muttered something she couldn’t hear, and since it was probably best she didn’t, she picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She reached over the top of the desk and snagged her MP3 player as Adele sang about setting fire to the rain. “I’m ready. And if all is well with my parents, we can have lunch somewhere.”

  “Not with your parents,” said Mike. “Or at Taco Bell.”

  “Okay. Somewhere private and cozy.”

  “Good. We have to talk.”

  Uh oh. She hated that phrase. It usually presaged a break-up or some other kind of disaster. “Is this about me and you?”

  He opened the office door to the corridor. “Why would you think that?”