Weird Girl (27 page)

As soon as she spotted Marco, sipping juice from a chair on
the terrace, she walked right up to him, put her hands on her hips, and
demanded, “Where are the tunnels?”

He nearly choked on his drink. As he leaned forward to
cough, Cleo pounded his back three or four times, possibly a little harder than
necessary. She was excited about learning from him, but she was also still
pissed about last night.

“What tunnels?” he croaked, as one of his staff silently
handed him a linen napkin to wipe the juice from his chin. Jackson strolled up,
hands in pockets, and scowled at everyone in general.

Cleo jerked a thumb in Jackson’s direction. “He said you
knew I would snoop last night, and that you guys followed me to the library. I
would have noticed if someone was actually behind me,” she said, shooting a
glance in Jackson’s direction, “so the only other way is if you guys were behind
the walls.” This announcement was met with silence, so she added, “You can tell
me now, or I’ll look for them later, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t end up
jumping out of your closet at some inopportune moment.”

Marco shot a withering look at Jackson, who was trying not
to laugh. “I respect a woman who isn’t afraid to demand what she wants,” said
Marco, sighing as he stood up from his lounge chair. “I also admire a woman
with intelligence. Together, it is a dangerous combination. However, I think
his could be an excellent training exercise.” He looked at Cleo. “Find them
yourself,” he said, and then he walked away.

Cleo narrowed her eyes at Jackson, who still seemed like he
was on the verge of laughing. “What’s so funny?” she demanded, putting her
hands on her hips.

“You,” he said, walking past her to the breakfast buffet
that had been set up under a white canopy. She resisted the urge to slap him in
the back of the head as he went by, instead choosing to fall in behind him. She
was starving. She also didn’t want to seem too eager about finding those
tunnels, even though Marco had basically just given her permission to plunder
through his entire house. Permission made it slightly less fun, especially when
she had the suspicion that she was still the butt of a joke between Marco and
Jackson.

They carried their plates to a glass-topped table and sat
down to eat together. After four of five bites, Jackson said, “So, who’s
Santo?” as casually as possible.

“A friend,” she said cautiously as she pulled a croissant
into bite sized pieces. “How do you know about Santo?”

He took another bite before replying, “You said you were
saving some money for him. Two hundred grand is a lot of money.” He shrugged as
if he didn’t care (although he did). “I had just never heard of him until the
other day, which is strange since I’ve been keeping up with you for so long.”
He wouldn’t look at her.

She hesitated. Santo was a secret that she had never told
anyone about (except for the one time, and look where that had gotten her). She
tried to figure out the best way to describe Santo, but finally decided to go
with the truth, just to see how Jackson would react. Shrugging slightly as she
took a bite of eggs, she said, “He kidnapped me when I was nine.”

Jackson froze, every muscle in his body tense. The only
thing that moved was his eyes as he looked up at Cleo. There was the steel that
she had seen only a handful of times since they had met. He stared at her while
she chewed. Finally, he said, “Tell me about it,” in a low voice.

Cleo was suddenly fidgety, but she tried her best to hide
it. “Oh, it was nothing,” she said, suddenly very interested in her croissant
pieces. “I spent the night at his house, and then he dropped me off in the
woods behind my parents’ house. We’ve been best friends ever since—well,
mostly.” She found it impossible to look Jackson in the eye.

He tried to keep his voice level when he asked his next
question. “Cleo, did he do anything to you? Hurt you? Anything?”

She couldn’t help but squirm under the new intensity in his
gaze. “Umm…no. I mean, he tied me up for a little while, and he hit me pretty
hard, but just the one time, and he locked me in a shed with rotting meat, but
other than that, it was really fun.”

Jackson reached into his pocket and withdrew his cell phone.
“What prison is he in?” he asked sharply, dialing a number. Cleo’s hand shot
out and snatched his phone, surprising them both.

“You will not hurt Santo,” she said fiercely. “We had some
ups and downs, but he’s the only friend I had growing up, other than you.” Blushing
slightly and feeling awkward, she leaned back and added, “Besides, Santo’s the
one who taught me how to pick locks. In fact, he gave me my lock picks and
taught me how to be sneaky. And, you tied me to a chair once, too, if I
remember correctly.”

Jackson was still scowling, but he rolled his eyes
nonetheless. “Cleo, you were born sneaky.” Then he reached for his phone. “Come
on, give it back.”

She clutched it tightly to her chest. “Not if you’re going
to hurt Santo.”

“Just give me the phone, Cleo,” he said.

“You promise me, Jackson Temple, that you will not hurt
Santo. Or do anything bad to him. Or make some sort of “accident” happen to
him,” she said, looking him in the eye.

He looked surprised. “How do you know my last name is Temple?” Then he shook his head. “Oh, right. You read my file a billion years ago.” He
sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Fine. I won’t do anything to this guy if he’s
important to you.” He couldn’t help the jealousy that welled up inside him.
“Besides, you saved my life once. If I tried every single day, I couldn’t
possibly repay that. So this’ll be today’s good deed.” He grabbed his phone and
put it back in his pocket.

“Technically, I saved you twice,” she said, taking another
bite of food. “So, is this why you’re so stuck up my butt all of a sudden?
Guilt for an unpaid debt?”

“What do you mean, twice?” he said, trying his best to
change the subject. He was unsure of his own motivations for being with Cleo,
so he really didn’t want to talk about them with her right now.

She started rolling a grape back and forth on the table.
“After you left. Adams was on a rampage to find you, and little old
administration intern Cleo was given the task of compiling addresses of places
you might be, from a list of cities that Virginia thought were probable
candidates.”

She had his undivided attention. “You helped her look for
me,” he said flatly.

His anger made her smile. “Not really,” she said, rolling
the grape in a slow arc around her plate. “I figured the last place you’d go
would be Chicago, so I gave her tons of places there. It was so funny—she’d
call Blue and bitch at her on speakerphone every time she hit a dead end. Then
I did San Diego, Sacramento, L.A….” She laughed suddenly. “Adams demanded an
address for everyone with the last name Temple, so I gave her a list of every
synagogue in southern California. She was so pissed!” Taking a sip of juice,
she tried to gauge Jackson’s emotions, but he was stone-faced. “So, anyway, I
knew you’d be in San Francisco, so I saved that one for last to give you time,
and then I gave her the most incorrect and inaccurate information that I
possibly could.”

He just blinked at her. “And she didn’t figure that out?” he
asked. “Once she had been to all these places that couldn’t possibly be right,
she didn’t wonder if little Cleo was up to something?”

Cleo smiled smugly. “Oh, yes, she did. She hauled me into
her office to interrogate me about you. I, in turn, basically told her to fuck
herself, and blackmailed her into giving me early graduation. She’s a stone-hearted
bitch, but what could she really do to a ten-year old girl with super rich
parents? I promised not to tell anybody about the school, and she decided not
to worry about me anymore. Well, except later, I guess. She must have finally
realized about the missing money.” She beamed at him, waiting for showers of
praise.

With a clatter of falling silverware, Jackson abruptly stood
up and walked away, leaving Cleo alone and very, very confused. The ass.
Feeling a little hurt, she got up to start her search for the secrets of
Marco’s home.

34

Jackson was almost shaking. He had absolutely no idea how to
deal with what Cleo had just told him—the stupidity of a cocky ten-year old
going up against a woman with the means and motivation to cause trouble for a
lot of people....She was lucky that Virginia didn’t see her as a threat, even
now. The woman was ruthless when it came to her business. And on top of that,
he was dealing with the new knowledge that Cleo had tried to help him get away,
even though he’d left her. Jackson was now in a very bad mood, and unable to
quite put a finger on why. He went to find Marco’s driver. He was getting away
from this house for a while.

Cleo watched from her window as Jackson got in the car and
pulled away. Then she went straight to the library, figuring that the secret
room she had already discovered was the best possible starting place for
finding the tunnel network. Marco was sitting in a chair right in front of the
hidden door, reading a book. He looked up as Cleo approached and shook a finger
at her. “Tsk. This would be cheating, dear. Try elsewhere.” Then he was once
again buried in his novel. She let out an angry rush of air and stormed off to
start her search in another part of the house.

It was totally based on logic, she told herself a few
minutes later as she let herself into Jackson’s room, the only one that
preceded hers on the second floor landing. Start with the first one, and then
work your way around. Logic. Pawing through his belongings, however, was not
the best way to look for secret rooms in a house, but she did it anyway. Girl
logic is often not logical.

His clothing had already been unpacked. The closet held a
neat line of perfectly pressed dress shirts, pants, and jackets on wooden
hangers. The slate blue fedora that he had worn on the plane was sitting on the
closet shelf, so she put it on. There was a pile of peppermint candy in a
crystal dish on the nightstand, and she crammed a handful into the pocket of
her jeans for later. Cleo then went into the bathroom, where his toothbrush,
toothpaste, razor, shaving soap, and cologne were neatly lined up beside the sink.
She spritzed a cloud of cologne in the air and leaned forward to sniff it,
before also smelling his shampoo. Finding his suitcase tucked out of sight
behind a piece of furniture, she opened it, not really expecting to find
anything. All of the pockets were empty, save one. She slipped two fingers in
to pull out the only item within—a photograph. Of her. It was black and white,
and she was wearing a fitted black coat, buttoned down the bodice, but flapping
open across her skirt with a rogue breeze. Her hair was a mass of tangles from
that same breeze, and she wore a melancholy expression. Jackson, or someone in
his employ, had gone to her parents’ funeral.

Cleo was stunned. Staring at the picture, she didn’t know
whether to be furious that someone had lurked in the shadows to spy on her in
that moment, or touched that Jackson had, as he had told her, been keeping tabs
on her to make sure she was okay. Either way, she didn’t know what to make of
the fact that he had not only kept the picture for two years, he had brought it
with him in his suitcase.

Now was not the moment for this, she decided, standing up
with the photo in her hand. Right now, she was supposed to be looking for
tunnels. This would have to wait until she had had enough time to process it.
She detoured to her own room to hide the picture under her pillow before
continuing her scouting mission of the premises. There was a secret panel that
led from Jackson’s room to hers, and a small panic room behind the pop diva’s
closet, but other than that, no tunnels upstairs. Using the assumption that at
least one part of the tunnel must come out near an exterior exit (because what
is the purpose of a secret tunnel if you can’t use it to get away from
somebody?), Cleo decided to check those rooms first. She jogged down the steps
and went from room to room around the perimeter of the house, eventually
finding a panel in the rear of the pantry that led to a narrow passageway. By
following the corridor, she was able to discover the locations of all of the other
doorways, finally ending up in the room with Marilyn Monroe. She took great
satisfaction in knocking Marco’s chair over when she gave the panel a shove to
emerge into the library itself. Unfortunately, Marco wasn’t in it.

“Hahaha, well done, dear. Very well done!” He clapped
enthusiastically from behind her. In response to her raised eyebrow, he added,
“I’ve been following your progress from the kitchen. Brilliant to work from the
outside in!” Marco clapped a hand on her back hard enough to shake her. The man
was stronger than he looked. “Now, I want to see what else you can do,” he
added, using the hand on her back to escort her out of the library and into the
dining room, which was suddenly full of people that Cleo had never seen before,
as well as the guests from last night. “Show me,” he whispered before walking
into the crowd to play the entertaining host. Cleo took a moment to scan the
room, and then she went to work.

Two hours later, the guests took their leave, including the
diva, diplomat, and drug lord. As soon as the last car had pulled down the
drive, Marco turned to her, his expression all business. “So, Miss St. James,
it is time for show and tell.”

Cleo presented him with the wristwatch, wallet, passport,
and various items of jewelry that she had removed from the pockets of unknowing
strangers. He smiled and nodded proudly. “Yes, I suspected you could do this.
You have very elegant fingers, and someone taught you well. I believe that with
my help, you could do great things,” he said, leading her to the terrace. His
staff were busy setting a table for dinner. Marco gestured for Cleo to take a
seat beside him and then leaned forward conspiratorially. “First, I want you to
discover your limits. Strangers are easy targets, as they are often trying not
to pay attention to other strangers, which would include you. But the people we
know, the people who know us—those are the true challenges. I have another test
for you,” he leaned back and smiled as Diego brought them each a cocktail. Once
the man had returned to the kitchen, Marco looked at her again, sipping his
cocktail with a twinkle in his eye.

Cleo was tired and annoyed by this point. “Quit playing
puppeteer,” she snapped. “Just tell me what I have to do before we get to
security systems.”

Clearly enjoying himself, and not at all offended by her
temper, Marco took another sip of his drink before replying. “I want you to do
what you do—pick pockets. But very specific pockets.” He paused and looked over
her shoulder, causing her to turn slightly. Jackson was strolling up the stone
path with a turbulent expression. Marco touched Cleo lightly on the hand to
regain her attention. “I want you to lift something from Jackson without him
noticing,” he said, leaning back in his chair with an enigmatic smile.

Cleo once again looked at Jackson. He looked troubled. She
was reminded of the picture that was currently hidden in her room, an example
of when Jackson had taken something from her—that moment of private grief by
her parents’ graves. Turning back to Marco, she simply said, “Consider it
done.”  

A few seconds later, Jackson sat down across from her,
looking very tired. He spoke very little during the meal, and most of what he
did say was to Marco—vague dialogue about whatever it was that Marco had
acquired for him. He never once looked Cleo in the eye, which she found very
unsettling. Occasionally, Marco would glance her way and wink.

When they all stood up to peruse the dessert table, Cleo
stood at Jackson’s side and very slightly brushed against the sleeve of his
jacket, causing him to look at her. “You seem…off,” she said. “Something
wrong?”

He shook his head and looked away. “Just a lot on my mind
right now,” he said, turning to walk back to the table.

She caught his sleeve to stop his progress. “Aren’t you
having any dessert?” she asked, jerking her head slightly in the direction of a
chocolate torte.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t really see
anything that appeals to me right now.”

Before he could walk away, she held out her hand toward him.
“How about a peppermint?” she asked innocently.

His eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Been
searching my room while I was away?” he asked. She couldn’t tell if he was
angry.

But she batted her eyelashes anyway. “I learned it from
you,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, referring to the days when he
frequently ended up in her room, eating her secret stash of candy.

She leaned toward him slightly as he reached for the mint,
allowing him to take it from her hand. He looked into her eyes as he unwrapped
it and tossed it into his mouth, moving it to one side with his tongue. Then,
he turned and walked away. Cleo waited until he was beyond the bushes before
pulling Jackson’s cell phone out of her pocket and waving it at Marco. Then,
she went inside to her room.

It’s not that she had intended to look through his phone.
But what else was a girl to do when she had possession of such a thing? There
was no text history for her to read, but there were pictures. Of her. Actually,
a lot of pictures of her.

She was in the grocery store, looking at a fruit display.
She was in a dark bar, listening to jazz with her eyes closed. Walking down the
street. Feeding gulls. Hoisting a rope on a sailboat. Eating Chinese food. Jackson’s phone was a time capsule of her life in San Francisco, beginning around two
months after she had moved into her apartment.

Cleo turned off the lights and lay back on the bed to
attempt to sort out her thoughts. They distracted her enough that she didn’t hear
the whisper of sound as the connecting panel from Jackson’s room slid open.
Suddenly, a lamp came on, blinding her. When she had finished blinking in rapid
succession to keep her eyeballs from falling out, she realized that Jackson
was standing beside her bed. And he was furious.

“Give me my phone,” he demanded. “Now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she retorted.

Suddenly, he was looming above her, his arms braced on
either side of her head, his face inches from hers. “Do not make me take it
from you,” he said.

Cleo shivered slightly. This was a side of Jackson that she
had rarely seen, and it both thrilled and terrified her. Trying to regain lost
ground, she laughed in his face. “Or what, you’re going to take off your belt
and strap me down until I give you what you want?” she teased. It didn’t have
quite the effect that she had intended, for either of them.

Jackson became very still. So did she. He stood up quickly
and ran a hand over his head, pacing away from her. She sat up and pulled his
phone from beneath her pillow, laying it on the coverlet at the edge of the bed
as a peace offering. When he came to pick it up, he said, “Why did you steal
from me?”

Her chin shot up. Reaching under her pillow for the
photograph, she snapped, “How about you explain this first?” and threw it at
him. He let it drift to the floor at his feet. Looking from the photograph to
Cleo, Jackson carefully considered his response.

“I told you I’ve been checking up on you for years,” he
said. “Remember, I called your house when I heard about your parents, but the
housekeeper wouldn’t tell me anything? So, I sent someone to the funeral. I
wanted someone that I trust to tell me that you were okay. He took this picture
from the woods.” Jackson bent down to pick up the photo, looking at it for
several seconds before laying it on the end of the bed. He waited for Cleo to
respond, unsure if she would cry, or yell, or physically hurt him.

She just stared at him. “Why was it in your suitcase?” she
asked finally. “That was almost two years ago.”

His jaw was tense. “When I saw that picture, it—I don’t
know. You were just always so strong, so confident, even though you were just a
kid. To see that expression on your face was like a knife in my chest,” he said
quietly. “I know what it’s like to not have anybody. I never had a family who
paid attention. Nobody ever cared enough to check up on me.” With a wry smile,
he sat down in the nearest chair and propped an ankle on his knee. “I come from
an industry of very tough people, and you were still the one of the toughest I’d
ever met. When I saw that photograph, I decided to try my best to make sure you
never had a reason to look like that again. So, I started keeping tabs on you
for real.”

“But why was it in your suitcase?” she repeated softly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I don’t
know,” he said. “I just like to keep it there, I guess.”

The room was quiet for several minutes. “It was another test
for Marco,” she blurted out. When Jackson looked up at her questioningly, she
explained, “The cell phone. He instructed me to pick your pockets. Something
about learning my limits,” she added, yawning and falling back on the bed. She
rolled onto her side so that she could still see him.

He laughed softly and shook his head. “Well, that explains a
lot,” he said, rising to his feet and popping his neck. “Get some sleep. You
look tired,” he said as he turned to leave.

“No, please stay for a while,” she pleaded. “Just sit with
me. I like the smell of peppermint,” she yawned, smiling slightly as he sat
back down in the chair. Within two minutes, she was snoring softly. He stayed
for half an hour, just watching her sleep, trying to figure out if she was
angry about the photo or not. Unable to stop himself, he reached for the image
and slid it into his pocket. Finally, he returned to his own room and fell into
bed. It took him forever to fall asleep.