Jillian Cade by Jen Klein Page A

receipts held together with a paper clip. She started to flip through them. “Sorry, this is Wednesday’s pile, but there’s nothing here from Todd Harmon.”
    â€œMaybe it wasn’t Wednesday,” I said.
    â€œMaybe he paid cash,” said Sky.
    I showed Susan the photo of Todd that Corabelle had given me.
    â€œDoes he look familiar?”
    â€œYep,” said Susan. “I remember him.”
    â€œYou do?” Sky and I said in unison.
    Susan went back to the nose-wrinkling thing for a moment before reopening the vinyl bag. She pulled out another wad of flimsy papers. “It wasn’t Wednesday,” she said.
    Of course I couldn’t restrain myself from giving Sky a smug look.
    â€œIt was Thursday morning. I remember because Wednesday night I had a blind date with this douchey actor guy who was my cousin Monica’s friend from grad school,” Susan said. “He brought three sheets filled with teeny-tiny photos of himself. Head-shot proofs. Our entire date was spent drinking gasoline prairie fires and looking at those damn pictures of him.”
    I blinked at her. “And Todd Harmon was—”
    â€œThere were so many pictures. So many. I’m telling you, it was the worst blind date in the history of bad blind dates.”
    â€œSuck,” I said.
    â€œBig suck,” Susan agreed. “And to make it worse, I forgot to set my cell phone alarm, so I woke up late, and then didn’t know where I was. Did I mention he lived in Manhattan Beach?”
    I needed to take control of the conversation, but it was difficult. “You spent the night with him?” I found myself asking.
    â€œI had a lot of gasoline prairie fires. Anyway, I lucked out because Thursday morning traffic wasn’t too bad. I got to work only fifteen minutes late, but there were already a couple customers waiting at the door. One of them was Todd Harmon.”
    â€œAre you sure?” I asked.
    Susan slipped a receipt out of Thursday’s bundle and fluttered it at me. “Look.”
    Sure enough, there was Todd Harmon’s autograph, along with proof that he had paid way too much for a dozen red roses.
    I forced myself to smile at Susan. “You have a great memory.”
    â€œActually, I don’t. It’s just that he was kinda chatty. He told me all about his girlfriend. He was supposed to see her the night before—when I was on my awful blind date—but he had to cancel at the last minute because he had a migraine.”
    Sky elbowed me. “A migraine?” he asked.
    â€œYeah. I bet it was more fun than my date. He bought the flowers because he was meeting his girlfriend for breakfast and wanted to apologize for blowing her off. After my crappy-ass night, it was kinda nice to hear a guy talk about how much he likes his girl. I bet he never made her sit through a zillion pictures of himself.”
    â€œDid he smell funny?” asked Sky.
    I shot him a look, but Susan seemed to think that this was a perfectly reasonable question. Maybe lots of funky-smelling people came in there. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I didn’t sniff him, but he looked like the kind of guy who would smell good.”
    I held my phone over the pile of receipts. Click.
    â€œThanks for your time,” I told Susan, grabbing Sky’s arm and hauling him toward the door.
    If he thought we were going to question Susan about the scent of brimstone, he was very wrong. Once outside, I let go of him so I could fire of f a quick text update to Norbert before checking my watch. Just enough time to get to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power service center to pay my electric bill in cash—if there was zero traffic. Or if I suddenly learned how to fly.
    It was shaping up to be another candlelit evening.
    When I reached my car, Sky was no longer at my side. He was standing on the sidewalk, looking up and down Ventura Boulevard.
    â€œHey!”