“Same way I did, I guess. Go to artist-and- writer.com. Her screen name is GossipQueen. If you do make contact, don’t tell her anything personal about me, okay? We’re not supposed to know anything about each other until we meet in front of a camera on national TV.”
“Pht! Weird bunch, you artists.” He stood, stretched and wandered away. “I’ll be in touch,” he said to no one in particular.
Was that police jargon for “Don’t leave town?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s funny how Smith’s hands kept appearing in my doodles that day. The memory persisted of his enlarged knuckles, the awful distortion in those twisted fingers. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, or his obvious pain, which troubled my overactive imagination.
Maybe the pain was what made him so disagreeable, so intent upon convicting me without a trial.
While I worked my way through the stack of ads, many only needing to be updated, a nosebleed turned a perfectly crummy day into a really bad one. First, one bright red drop splattered on a finished panel. I looked down and discovered streams of blood staining my favorite tee shirt.
I clamped the hem of my shirt to my nose and raced the short distance to the bathroom. Smith, who hadn’t witnessed the reason for my mad dash to the ladies, barged into the room as I whipped off my shirt. He froze when I whooped and danced away from the icy spray of tap water on my bare tummy.
I looked up at his reflection in the mirror and the shock on his face matched mine. I was pretty scary with blood smeared on my chin and dripping down my cleavage.
Outraged at his intrusion, I pinched my nostrils to stem the blood flow and whirled, demanding, “Do you bind?”
He quietly spun on his heel and left me alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I washed my shirt the best I could, then wandered across the studio in search of a clean smock to cover the revealing outline of my black lace bra through the wet tee. Smith wasn’t around so I ducked into Twitchell’s office. I could sneak a look at my email while borrowing the smock I knew the Twitch kept on a hook behind the door.
With the Twerp in the hospital, who’d mind if I used the computer in his office? It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Did you know that you could access your email from any computer? I was beginning to see the big attraction for these gizmos!
He had a password.
That impossible man actually had a password and he’d locked me out of his computer. I dropped into his chair and tried to think like a Twitwit and guess the secret word. Before long, I snorted and pawed through the untidy stack of files balanced precariously on the corner of the desk and on half-open drawers. It takes a special talent to think like a Twit. I decided I’d rather be deficient in that department.
A dark blue file at the bottom of a stack literally screamed for my attention; all the others were a uniform pale manila. I carefully pulled it out. A quick glance showed computer printouts, receipts and handwritten notes among other documents.
Smith suddenly slammed the office door open, catching me flatfooted. He didn’t look very happy with me.
I jumped up, dropping the file on the floor at my feet. “Uh, I guess you want to know what I’m doing in Twit-uh-chells office.” I gulped, taking his silence to mean I was on target. “Um, well, you see — I was looking for a smock.” I indicated my wet tee shirt rendered transparent and revealing my matronly shape in black lace.
“This file fell off the desk — and I picked it up.” In my haste to pick up the file, I bumped the stack teetering on the corner of the desk and sent them all cascading to the floor. I picked up a folder advertising some space age lipstick. It was the wrong one, but by then I was so flustered that I shoved it into his hand anyway.
“Then I had to look at it to be sure the pages were in order,” I babbled. “You have no idea how upset that kid gets when things are out of order — I was just saving him from having a coronary — because I brushed up against the desk — really, it was an accident —”
I didn’t think Smith was buying my tale, but you know what my husband always used to say. “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, then baffle them with your bull.”
I was in so much trouble by then I chose to interpret his continued silence as permission to don the smock. When I flapped my hand at him and started pulling the wet shirt over my head, he turned his back to allow me some remnant of my tattered modesty.
I kept up the senseless monologue. “I certainly hope Conrad recovers so he can continue to make my life miserable.” I said a silent prayer that my cracking voice covered the other noises I made.
The folder I was stealing slipped repeatedly from my haste-numbed fingers. I don’t know how he failed to hear the rustle of fumbled papers. To me they sounded like a combination of exploding bombs and crashing surf. After several attempts, I stuffed the file into the waistband of my jeans and when Smith turned back to face me, I was casually buttoning the front of the smock.
“Anyhow, I need to put this in my locker.” I concluded, winding down the chatter and twirled the soggy shirt on the end of my finger. “Are you going to escort me to the women’s locker room?” I challenged, with an inviting simper. He refused so I hurried to stow the folder and shirt before he changed his mind.
My efforts at the drafting board were a complete waste of time after that. Smith must have told Twitchell’s assistant about my bedside vigil because Sheryl hovered nearby, watching me lose my muse. She moved closer as I discarded one idea after another.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” she finally declared. “Go home, Mia. You’re in no shape to work today. Get some sleep so you can do a decent job tomorrow.”
I protested, but my heart wasn’t in it, so when she nudged me from my stool and ordered, “Go!” I got.
By then Smith had returned to the station, so I retrieved my shirt and the file and slunk out to my truck.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My email that afternoon was full of messages from GQ — not my pal and partner in prose, but her evil alter.
“Are you next?” she wrote in the first one.
“You won’t see me coming. :-)” Came up next.
Then “That was just a practice run.”
And another one read, “Thanks for the idea, hon.”
The last one said, “I’ll be sure to give you full credit. ;-)”
I opened a new letter and wrote, “Why are you doing this to me? Do I know you?” I waited for several minutes and had just decided to log offline when another email popped onto my screen.
“What? You think you’re famous or something? You mean as much to me as I do to my family! All they want me for is to slave for them! Ungrateful, lazy and selfish! You are nothing. I
