Chapter Ten
I went back inside the apartment, changed into a turquoise blue bikini, grabbed a towel and a folding chaise lounge, and made myself a pitcher of margaritas. My arm still throbbed, but it didn't look as if it was badly damaged. I had shadowy bruises forming on my wrists to match the far-sweeter marks of David's lovemaking from earlier in the morning.
Party on the patio, Detective. Intimidate this.
I slid on my sunglasses, oiled up, and saluted him with a drink as I soaked in the morning rays.
What's the cardinal rule of sunbathing? Oh, yeah. Don't fall asleep.
Well, I did. I was lying on my stomach, sun massaging all the tension out of me, and I was thinking about David and hot-bronze eyes and golden skin, and getting that pleasant liquid ache that made me want to call his name, and somewhere around there I slipped into dreamland. It was a nice place. I stayed.
When I woke up, I knew immediately that I was as burned as if I'd stuck myself under the oven broiler. My back felt puffy and numb, and I'd sweated so much I'd soaked through the bikini and the towel. I sat bolt upright, grabbed the rest of my warm margarita and bolted it down, and hastily decamped from the patio into the apartment.
The white van was still downstairs, sitting innocently in a legal parking space.
No sign of Rodriguez. I couldn't tell if there was still a shadow in the driver's seat or not, but right at the moment, I had another problem.
I dumped the chair, oil, pitcher and towel, and hurried into the bathroom. My front looked fine. I bit my lip and began to turn, very slowly. Tan... tan .
. . redder... red... scarlet...
Oh man. I peeled down the back of my bikini bottoms and found the contrast to be just a little bit more than a barber pole's stripes. This was really going to hurt.
I stripped off the bikini and got in the shower; that was a mistake. The numbness wore off fast, replaced by a nice selection of agony and pain, depending on where I directed the spray; I gingerly patted myself dry and slathered as much of myself with burn cream as I could reach. And suffered.
When the phone rang, I was in a high temper, ready to bite a telemarketer's head right off. "What?" I barked, and clutched the towel looser around my aching back.
"Damn, girlfriend, I knew you'd be in a bitchy mood after the Sunny costume," Cherise giggled on the other end of the line. "But you looked so cute and cheerful!"
"Oh, please, Cherise. At my age, cute? Not really what I'm going for." I tried sitting down. My thighs and back lodged a violent protest. I paced instead, went to the patio doors and pulled the curtains shut, then dropped the towel on the pile of Things I Had To Pick Up Later and continued pacing around naked. "That was Marvin's little joke, right? Because I one-upped him yesterday?"
"Sorta," she agreed. I could practically see her checking her fingernail polish.
"Hey, there's been somebody asking questions about you down at the station. Tall guy, Hispanic, real polite? Sound familiar?"
Except for the polite part, it matched the description of Mr. White Van downstairs. "What does he want to know?"
"How long you've been here, where you were before, past history, how long we've known you, shit like that. Hey, are you in trouble? And is it, you know, serious?" She didn't sound worried. She sounded breathless with excitement.
"No, and no."
"Is he your stalker-guy? Because usually they don't interrogate your close personal friends. They're more of the scary watching-from-a-distance kind of weirdos. Oooh, is he from the FBI?"
"No. Cher-"
"Did you see the UFO over the ocean last night?"
"Did I-what?"
"The UFO." She sounded triumphant. "I'll bet they're tracking down everybody who saw it. There was a thing on the 'net about it; the IT guys told me over breakfast. Don't open the door if guys in black suits and buzz cuts show up."
"Cherise."
"Call me if Mulder drops by. Oh, speaking of that, look, could you do me a favor? I, ah, lost Cute British Guy's phone number..."
"You never had his phone number."
"Yeah, but your sister had it and she was going to give it to me only-"
"I'm not giving you Eamon's phone