The Love Scam - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,12
about having a daughter but not having money or an ID?”
“Hey, you’re right!” At once, he was irritated all over again. “So you just let me do all that stupid stuff? Agh, shit, sorry. You’re not my babysitter.”
Wrong. “Right.”
“I’m normally way more charming than this.”
“I don’t doubt it.” And she didn’t. Even drunk off his ass, Rake had something that pulled people in. “Anyway, as the song says, you were once lost but now you are found. In Venice.”
He frowned. “You saw me in Lake Como as well as here? Quite a coincidence.”
“Yes,” she agreed, straight-faced. “Americans never go to Lake Como and Venice.”
“No, I mean … how’d you even know where to look?”
“Well…”
“Are you a private detective or something?”
“Um…”
Seven
“Y’know what city fuck—fuckin’ rules? Fucking Venice! Okay, it’s just like a regular city with roads, but see, the thing is—it’s old! And no roads! Just water! All of it! Goddamned place is drowning, and they even have water buses, y’know, the vaporettos? Cuz, again: water! C’est merveilleux! No, wait, wrong language—è meravigliosa! That’s it, right? So Venice, and all the water—I’m gonna—I’m gonna go there. I mean—I’m not s’pose to. There’s kind of a ban, but who keeps track of that stuff? Cuz I like Venice, though it’s weird. Maybe ’cause it’s weird an’ I wanna go back, I think. I like the water streets. And the guys who drive the boats! They always have the best stories. S’different, y’know? Venice! Fucking Venice, here I come!”
Eight
“Oh my God.”
She had to give it to him, he sounded pretty appalled.
“Well,” Lillith said, “you weren’t wrong. Venice is great!”
“I hope you picked up on the irony of loving ‘fucking Venice’ because of the water—”
“I know.”
“—and then when you got here—”
“I get the irony!”
“Plop! Into the drink with you.”
“Just stop now. God, this, this is why vermouth is the devil’s urine.”
“Don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen you barf.”
From Lillith: “Twice!”
She glanced at her watch. Putting Rake at ease in a nice restaurant on a beautiful spring day while she picked up the bill was not on the itinerary. Her employer needed him foundering, lost, broke, and laden with child. She needed him (and the forthcoming payoff) safe.
And speaking of, the same pair of “tourists”
(fanny pack and I ♥ ROME T-shirt? this is what happens when the bad guys watch too many movies)
were coming up on them for the third time.
Delaney got to her feet, and Rake was so busy glugging his fourth fizzy water that it took him a few seconds to notice. She cleared her throat with a delicate bark. “So g’bye, then.”
“Wait!”
Delaney, already leaving, turned back and raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“You can’t just—” He made an all-encompassing gesture that indicated the table, the restaurant, the child, the city of Venice, the country of Italy, the planet of Earth. “Y’know. Leave me in the middle of all this.”
“Don’t worry,” Lillith said. “I have money.”
She figured she had another forty seconds before Frick and Frack were on them, and gave him her card. “I’m at the Best Western Olimpia if you want to get a drink sometime. They make a terrific Negroni,” she teased.
“Not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” To Lillith, who was the way she always was, calm and quiet and noticing everything while the adults talked over her. And who had probably deduced Delaney’s sudden need to depart. “So you two are all set. Gotta go.”
“Thanks for helping me,” she replied. She put a small hand on Rake’s. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Good to know.” She left, and this time he didn’t call her back, which was just as well, because she was about to have her hands full.
Nine
He definitely didn’t watch Delaney hurry away until he couldn’t see her anymore. Well, maybe he did, but it didn’t mean anything. He had to look somewhere, right? While he figured out his next move? He didn’t want to freak out the kid. And staring after the shapely weirdo who walked into his life, wove a tale of vermouth-fueled shenanigans, dropped a child in his lap, then trotted out (almost sprinted out, TBH) was something to do while he pondered.
But! To business. First things first, he’d check his phone. Call his bank, have them wire money, and maybe FedEx new credit cards. He’d promise a four-figure check to whoever could get funds to him the quickest. Then he’d—
He’d—
No. No-no-no.
No.
“Fuck!” he roared, then felt himself flush as Lillith jumped. “Sorry. I’m not that guy. Well, maybe sometimes.”
“Lost your phone?”
“Are you a witch?” he asked with