Chapter 2

As it turned out, my birthday ended up sucking even more than I thought it would. Not only did Danny completely forget that Tuesday, January twenty-third, held any special significance, but Nina came down with a nasty cold that was making the rounds and couldn't possibly have been expected to go anywhere, except maybe the local drugstore to pick up more tissues and NyQuil.

"Sorry," she told me. I winced as a particularly piercing sneeze came through the earpiece of the hands-free unit on my cell phone. "I've been sucking zinc lozenges like there's no tomorrow, but I haven't noticed much of a difference."

"It's all right," I said miserably. Someone behind me honked, and I realized the light I'd been sitting at had finally turned green. I took my foot off the brake and slowly moved forward. "I'll figure out something."

"What about Jennifer or Micaela?" Nina asked, naming the only two from our group of friends at UCLA that we'd continued to hang out with after graduation.

"Jennifer's up skiing in Mammoth, and Micaela's production schedule just got bumped ten days. She'll be lucky if she gets home before midnight." A film major, Micaela was actually doing what so many people only dreamed of — she was a production assistant at Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, her dream job meant her schedule was beyond screwy. I repressed the urge to heave a world- weary sigh and said, "It's all right. My dad sent me a huge check — guilt money for being in Hawaii on my birthday, I guess — so I'm going shopping."

"Good girl." Nina sneezed again. "Don't spend it all in one place."

"I won't," I promised. "You go lie down. You sound terrible."

"You should see how I look. It's even worse."

Somehow I doubted that, since even with a head cold, Nina always managed to look fabulous, but I didn't argue. I just made some more sympathetic noises into the phone, assured her I was fine, and hung up.

My father really had sent me a birthday card with a check for five hundred dollars in it. While I had no intention of blowing even a third of the money that particular night, I thought a little shopping at The Grove might make me feel better about being completely abandoned on my birthday. Oh, I supposed if I had really wanted to, I could have driven down to Orange County to see my mother, but the traffic was so bad that by the time I got off work at five, it would have taken me at least two hours to get there. Besides, my mother and I already had plans to get together on Saturday. No doubt she'd take me to some "fabulous" new organic place she'd found in Laguna Beach, and I'd have to pretend I was happy eating something covered in sprouts and suspiciously lacking in meat. But if it made her happy, I'd survive. I figured I could always get a burger on the way home if I felt particularly starved afterward. The Grove was located near the Farmer's Market at the corner of Third and Fairfax. Although my company's offices were a scant mile and a half from the shopping center, it took me almost fifteen minutes to get there, crawl up to the top level of the parking structure, and finally drag myself out of my Mercedes C-class, feeling vaguely homicidal. I reflected it was a good thing I didn't have to do much driving. For some reason, being in a car really brought home to me how overpopulated Southern California actually was. When you started to sympathize with serial killers because at least they were reducing the surplus population, you probably had a problem.

By the way, the car was a graduation present from my father. I sure as hell couldn't have afforded it on my salary. I had to give him that — he definitely wasn't stingy. And in L.A., where what you drove was almost as important as what you did for a living, having something better than the tired Honda Accord I'd been piloting since tenth grade was a definite relief.

Intellectually, I knew that I shouldn't have my identity wrapped up in my car, and I didn't...mostly...but the change in people's attitudes after I started driving the Mercedes told me there was a very good reason why people in this town were so car-obsessed. Besides, I felt safe in the car, the gas mileage was fairly decent, and it hadn't given me a moment's trouble in the almost four years that I'd been driving it. I couldn't say that much for my Honda, which by the end was making piteous groaning noises and leaking oil. It had practically been begging to be taken out behind the barn and shot. Not knowing what else to do with it, I'd donated it to charity. The tax write-off was helpful at least, although I came out of the transaction feeling as if I'd done something vaguely illegal.

I pulled my coat more closely around me as I hurried over to the elevator and pushed the button. Some people might have tried to claim that Southern California didn't have seasons, but they must not have ever lived there. Sure, it didn't snow in L.A., but it could get pretty darn cold during the winter. Okay, maybe not cold compared to say, Quebec or something, but certainly cold enough to require a warm coat if you were going to spend any more time outdoors than simply walking to your car.

It had rained the night before, but at least by the time I got to The Grove, the weather was dry. Shoving my chilled fingers into my pockets, I stepped out of the elevator and moved into the open plaza in the center of the mall. The Grove was always fairly crowded, but that night it was more maneuverable than usual. January was sort of a dead season for retail sales, and the cold weather probably wasn't helping much.

I didn't have a real game plan; I just wandered in and out of several stores, thinking something would catch my eye. Having that much spare money burning a hole in my pocket certainly wasn't my normal experience. Usually I had to budget and figure out if I'd really have enough extra cash to buy that great pair of shoes I'd been lusting after, or whether it would be better to put it away in case of any real financial emergencies. I'd say my better nature won out only about half the time, but at least I had some killer shoes. Eventually, I came to Victoria's Secret. Part of my brain tried to instruct me in the futility of buying fancy underwear when I didn't have anyone around to give a damn about how I looked in it, but I'd always had a weakness for girly stuff. Besides, they were having a sale, and damn it, it was my birthday.

It was probably my musing over the matching red satin bra and panties I'd just purchased that made me a little absentminded. Then again, maybe that was just what he wanted me to think.

Whatever the reason, I was peering into the bag as I left the store — I tended to get paranoid about dropping a store receipt and having someone somehow steal my identity from the four digits of my Visa number printed on it — and I walked right into him.

"Sorry!" I said automatically. Then I looked up to see who I had collided with.

It was him.

He smiled at me.

"Hello, Christa," he said.