A Perfect Stranger. Jenna Ryan
to become a complicated tangle of red tape, blurred lines and emotions he had no desire to awaken? Why wasn’t he putting as much distance as possible between himself and a beautiful blue-eyed blonde who was bound to screw up the structure, the fabric and the dubious integrity of his not yet unscrewed life?
Because those questions were far too heavy to think about, let alone deal with, he spent another night at another bar with Val, a long one that ended with him collapsed on the sofa while Val snored and muttered on a cot across the room.
He let his friend sleep the next morning, made a stale pretzel and coffee work as breakfast and, ignoring a hangover the size of Texas, headed out to purge his mind of the few loose ends he’d neglected to mention to the police.
On the drive back from the Declaration Inn, Darcy had told him about a man named John Hancock. He’d recently taken a room at her neighbor’s boardinghouse. Probably nothing to it, but the cop in him couldn’t let it go without a cursory look.
Only a look, though, he promised himself as he worked his way through the vaguely seedy streets of Val’s neighborhood to Darcy’s southwest Philly home. A look, a chat, an unimpassioned goodbye. End of case.
As he parked, Marlowe took note of a sunburned man pushing a hand mower around the front lawn of Hannah Brewster’s boardinghouse.
A woman and a somewhat older man sat on the shaded front porch. The woman, in an odd flowered muumuu, used her foot to rock the hanging swing while she waved a folding fan in front of her face.
Her eyes brightened when Marlowe took the stairs two at a time. “My goodness, someone has more energy than me this fine August morning.” Elbowing her companion, she stood.
Marlowe kept his smile easy and leaned a hip against the railing.
Beside her, the forty-something man with the receding hairline offered a rather feral smile. “Glad to know you. I’m Hancock from Houston.”
By way of northern England, unless Marlowe had his accents wrong. And he doubted that, since his mother came from southern Scotland.
“Hannah Brewster.” The woman smiled broadly. “My husband Eddie’s inside watching a ball game.” Shielding her eyes, she peered through the bushes. “And that’s Cristian, mowing the lawn. He’s my cousin Arden from Oklahoma’s middle boy.” She patted her chest. “Arden died, oh, it must be fifteen years ago now. I feel terrible we couldn’t make it to the funeral, but Eddie was laid off at the time, and we didn’t dare borrow against our properties. As it is, we’re down to three from four, two on this street and a much older one on Faldo Road.” She used her fan to slap at a wasp. “Would you like some iced tea, Mr…?”
“Marlowe. No, thanks. This is a very nice house, Mrs. Brewster.”
“Nice and expensive,” she agreed. “And it’s Hannah. If you’re looking to rent a room, I have one left. Second floor, faces the garden. Oh, here he is, Arden’s boy. Come out of the sun, Cristian. This is Marlowe. He might be taking our last room.”
Cristian’s mop of blond curls, his eager expression and his lanky build reminded Marlowe of Val. But then Val reminded him of pretty much every college quarterback he’d played against at Michigan State.
“My last name’s Turner.” The twenty-something man cast an uncertain glance at Hancock, whose garish smile was starting to distort his mouth. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Hannah beamed. “Cristian’s a painter. He came to Philadelphia because of our thriving artistic community.”
Cristian rubbed at a bump on his neck. “I think something bit me, Aunt Hannah.”
“Well, you march right inside and put some ice on it.” Moving his hair, she tutted. “Will you look at that ear. Today it was a mosquito. Ten years ago it was— What was it again, dear? A schnauzer?”
“Rottweiler.” Cristian tugged on his ragged left earlobe. “Owner figured he was going for my earring. I think he was going for my throat.”
“You should have kicked him.” Hancock raised a leg, but lowered it at a stern look from Hannah. “Gotta show it who’s boss,” he finished with a nasty grin.
“Yeah, right. Uh, where’s the ointment, Aunt Hannah?”
“In the downstairs bathroom, dear. Oh, and would you mind calling for Eddie to open up the garden room as you go past the study?”
Hancock smirked at Marlowe. “Don’t know how long you’re planning to stay, but if you get wind of any openings for a short-order cook, you let me know. My specialty’s a burger… Whoa there, Silver.” He broke off mid-sentence to leer. “Who would that pretty little darlin’ be?”
Hannah rapped him again with her fan. “You put your eyes straight back in their sockets, Mr. Hancock. That’s Darcy. Now, she’s sweet as can be, but the two of you would simply not be compatible.”
Both Cristian, riveted on the threshold, and Hancock, whose mouth had curled back into that Grinch-like smile, watched her bend and stretch as she extracted three bags of groceries from her trunk.
Exasperated, Hannah shooed both men along, then smiled at Marlowe. “Do say the garden room will suit you. It’s on the cool side of the house.”
Annoyed that he’d wanted to do a great deal more than move John Hancock along, Marlowe returned his attention to the woman in front of him.
“Darcy’s a reporter,” Hannah revealed with a sly expression. “Sadly, she had some trouble a few days ago. Poor dear was mugged right outside her front door. I feel somewhat responsible since I’d talked to her not five minutes earlier.”
“You didn’t see anyone?”
Catching his arm, Hannah brought him down to her level. “See those hedges? A body could be murdered on the far side, and no one would ever know about it. If only she’d screamed.”
“Guess she didn’t think of it.”
“Fortunately, the man ran away, no real harm done. Cristian will be trimming those bushes down to waist height as soon as he gets his second wind. I’d ask Eddie to do it, but it’s difficult to schedule outdoor chores between sporting events.” She dismissed the matter and straightened. “Now about that room. Seeing as it’s my last, and Eddie scored on one of his long-shot bets this past week, we might be able to negotiate the price down a tad. Say forty-five dollars a night from fifty?”
Marlowe glanced at Darcy’s hedge. “Does that include breakfast?”
“Lunch, as well, if you want it.” She held out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Big mistake, Marlowe’s instincts warned. He felt the darkness rolling through him. But in the end, it was Darcy he saw, and Darcy he continued to see even as the carousel of his mind revolved.
And with the darkness still slithering through his head, he accepted her hand.
“THANK YOU, THANK YOU, thank you.” On the threshold of Darcy’s office, Elaine hugged an eleven-page printout to her chest. “You not only made deadline, but you also made the moon chocolate readable.”
“Well, hey, what are sleepless nights for if not to draft and redraft feature articles?”
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Removing thick reading glasses, her editor, a tall, narrow-chested woman in her early fifties, came in to perch on the arm of the sofa. “Some pervert jumps you outside your front door, and I hear about it from a cop? Really, kiddo, there’s such a thing as a telephone.”
Keys and sunglasses in hand, Darcy checked her e-mail. “There was more to it than I could tell you.”
“Like a dead man in a sleazy motel room?”
“I can’t give you details, Elaine. You know how the system works.”
“I also know how much attention you usually pay to that system.” Elaine