Chapter One
Lindy Knight stared at the mountain of feathers and cotton batting that used to be her couch and tried not to cry. “Melba?” she called, hoping the desperation she felt wasn’t evident in her voice.
“Yes, dear?” Melba rounded the corner from the kitchen, sauce-covered wooden spoon still in hand. She stopped in her tracks. “Holy Toledo, it’s snowing in here! Is there a hole in the roof?” She trained her milky blue gaze toward the ceiling.
Lindy sucked a breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth, like that lady in the yoga video. “That’s not snow. That’s the couch.”
The old woman shuffled closer and bent low, peering into the mess, dripping globs of marinara onto the crème colored carpet. “Huh. Well, I’ll be. Looks like snow.” She straightened and shrugged. “Thought we had a hole in the roof. That’s good at least.”
That was good, since a new couch cost less than a new roof. But when one’s life savings amounted to—she spared a glance to the account statement she’d been reading when she’d walked into the house—two hundred sixty-three dollars and eleven cents, neither scenario was exactly ideal.
“Where are the puppies?”
“In the kitchen with me. We were making gnocchi.” A delighted grin spread across Melba’s heavily-lined face, and Lindy couldn’t help but return it. There was no question she meant well and wanted to earn her keep. It wasn’t her fault that the attempts invariably backfired.
“We’ve got to make sure we keep the door shut, okay, Melbs? No puppies in the living room unless I’m home,” Lindy said gently. “I’m going to go through the mail and clean this mess up. I’ll be in to help with dinner as soon as I’m done.”
“No problemo. We’re finished anyway. I’m on my way out to St. Mike’s, and don’t worry, Fanny’s driving. I’ll put the sauce on warm for you. See you later tonight,” Melba chirped, ambling back to the kitchen.
Since the last house fire, she wasn’t supposed to be cooking when no one was home, but Lindy needed to pick her battles. At least their neighbor had been kind enough to offer Melba a ride to the church for Friday night bingo. She didn’t have the strength to argue about her elderly charge getting behind the wheel. It had been a doozy of a week, and she wanted it over with. Maybe after dinner she’d curl up with a good book and call it a day.
She was flipping through the mail, mostly bills, when her cell blared the opening lines of “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa. Usually, the song cheered her. She was hard-pressed to recall a time that it hadn’t resulted in some serious booty shaking, but today she wanted to pitch the phone into the garbage disposal. She rummaged through her purse and yanked it out just as it went to voice mail.
One missed call.
Whoopty-doo. Probably Mal with another one of his cockamamie ideas. She jammed the phone back into her bag without a second look and tackled the onerous task of cleaning up the remains of her couch.
It took nearly an hour, three vacuum bags, and four trips to the trashcans out front, but by the time she was done, the room looked passably clean. And extremely empty, she noted with a twinge of despair. She cut off that train of thought before it became a real locomotive, and floundered for a silver lining. Now she had an excuse to redecorate, and she did love Indian-inspired designs. It would be the perfect time to find some bright fabric at the thrift store and sew four gorgeous seating pillows to go around the coffee table. She’d get some patterns and ideas online before bed.
A sharp rap on the door jarred her from her thoughts. She peeked through the peephole and gasped. The man on her porch was the most gorgeous she’d ever laid eyes on. Even distorted by the curved glass, his face was a work of art. Full, firm lips perched above a square jaw, capped off by angular cheekbones and a slash of a nose that kept him from looking too feminine. Close-cropped, raven black hair set off dark gray eyes that were currently locked with her one that was fixed on the peephole, and became filled with exasperation.
“Hello?” he called.
“Hello?” she parroted dumbly.
“Can…I come in, or?” The tone seemed like one reserved for either children or imbeciles and was at odds with the lilting, almost song-like Irish brogue. She bristled despite the delicious accent, pushing thoughts of his stunning good looks to the back burner.
“I’m not sure. Who are you?” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She uncrossed them when she realized he couldn’t see her combative gesture. Instead, she narrowed her peeping eye suspiciously, in case he leaned in to look.
Tall, dark and handsome sighed heavily. “Owen Phipps. We had an appointment.”
She did a mental rundown of her schedule and winced. They did have an appointment. For a job, no less, and this clearly wasn’t the best foot to start off on. If it hadn’t been for the damned…well, everything today, she would’ve remembered for sure. Compared to all the other wanted ads she’d responded to, this one was the definite oddball and stood out like a gangrenous thumb. She’d found it on Craigslist when she happened upon the “gigs” section entirely by accident. There, at the top of the page, was Mr. Phipps’s strange little advertisement.
Wanted: Attractive woman, age 25-35, with some acting experience needed for three week position beginning January 25th. Recognizable television and/or movie personalities need not apply. Pay is a flat rate of $20,000 for three continuous weeks of 24/7 availability. Must be willing to travel. Email [email protected] /* */ to set up an interview.
She’d actually snorted a laugh when she first saw it, but for some reason she kept coming back to it, re-reading and, more to the point, recalculating. It would take her—she did the math quickly on her fingers—a million shifts at the restaurant to make twenty grand. That amount of money could get her out of the hole and pay her mortgage for a year. With a little old lady and seven puppies counting on her, credit cards bursting at the seams, and everything of value already in hock, she was plum out of brilliant ideas. They had eight weeks before the bank came a-calling. If desperation actually had a smell, she’d reek right now.
So she’d emailed him. To her shock, he hadn’t responded asking her to send her social security number or a check to secure the position. Nor had he asked her to send a picture of her boobs. No, instead, he’d asked her for a list of qualifications and references, which she supplied. Still, when he contacted her asking if they could meet in his home for an interview, she hesitated. Although there weren’t any obvious indications of psychosis in his email correspondence, odds still had to be pretty good that he was either a whack job or a scammer.
Right as she had been about to delete his request unanswered, her brother Mal phoned from the vet’s office where he’d gone to pick up Melba. Melba had tried to call Lindy’s cell phone earlier because Sneezy had swallowed the top half of a plastic spork, but Lindy was in the middle of a shift. When no one answered, Melba had taken a cab to the emergency veterinary clinic out in Mount Vernon, since the regular vet was closed.
By the time Mal brought her home, Melba was armed with the same squirming puppy and a four hundred dollar note advising them to keep an eye out for spork shrapnel coming from Sneezy’s back end. Lindy later found the hunk of plastic on the floor where it had likely been the whole time. She was proud of herself, though. She didn’t have a mental breakdown. Instead, she emailed Mr. Phipps and explained that she understood his desire for privacy, but, as a young woman alone, she would feel more comfortable at her own house, perhaps with her brother in the adjacent room. His response was almost instantaneous. He agreed and commended her vigilance.
They set an appointment for the following week since he was out of town on business, and she’d gone on with her life. She was fairly certain whatever he was trying to pull had been derailed once she’d refused to go to his house, so she hadn’t really given it another thought. His little game had come to its conclusion, and he’d shop for an easier mark.
But here he was.
And here she was.
Alone.
She steeled herself and laid a hand on the knob. No point in putting it off. If he kidnapped her, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about the mortgage anymore. She ran a hand through her disheveled hair and pasted what she hoped was a capable-looking smile on her face. After a quick breath check, she opened the door, letting in a frigid blast of air.
“Hello, Mr. Phipps. Do come in.”
“Please, my da was Mr. Phipps. Call me Owen.” He pronounced it “Ooh-un” and she suppressed a swoon.
“Owen, then. I apologize for making you wait in the cold. It’s been a hectic day, and I’m afraid I lost track of time.” In her nervousness, she’d adopted some sort of weird, transcontinental accent like the actresses in one of those 1950s caper films she watched on Sunday afternoons. Her cheeks burned at his puzzled look and she slung the door wider to let him in.
“Where are you from?” he asked, brows raised. He was even taller than he looked through the peephole and seemed to take up an awful lot of space as he pressed by her, into the foyer.
“Here. I mean, Westchester.”
He inclined his head but narrowed his eyes. “Your accent sounds like…somewhere else.”
She forced a laugh. “Sorry, I have an audition for an upcoming community theater production and I try to kind of live in the character.” The falsehood rolled off her tongue before she could stop it, and she cringed. She hated lying, but this guy had her totally off her game. Plus, on the miniscule chance this was a real job opportunity, the last thing she wanted was to be stuck talking like Myrna Loy for the next month.
“That so? What production?”
Caught off guard by the question, she wracked her brain for a response.
“The Va**na Monologues.”
He pinned her with a blank stare. She didn’t blame him. What was there to say? He was obviously in the company of a blathering idiot. She fought the inane urge to find a mirror and see if her face was literally on fire.
He cleared his throat before speaking again. “Shall we sit down then, maybe discuss the position and your qualifications?”
Now it was her turn to stare. What kind of man would still consider hiring a person like her when their limited interaction had been nothing but weird? The thought sent the butterflies in her stomach a-flapping, and she took a few hesitant steps toward the living room. This was it, the pivotal point in every horror movie, the one that always had her shouting, “Don’t let him in, you idiot!” at the screen. And still, she kept walking. Surely a guy that handsome could get a girl to live in his basement cage just by asking, right? No need to go hunting for one. Plus, twenty thousand dollars was a lot of money. She wasn’t backing down until she knew for sure there was no real job. Maybe they could put that on her tombstone. Wouldn’t back down…and paid the ultimate price
Resisting the urge to genuflect, she blew out a martyr’s sigh. “Please, have a seat,” she said, motioning to the couch that was no longer there. Squeezing her eyes closed, she swallowed a groan. Had she really thought the day couldn’t get worse? How droll. “I forgot. My couch got eaten. Maybe we should go in the kitchen.”
She scurried by him, surreptitiously grabbing her purse as she passed it. If worse came to worst, maybe she’d have a shot at her cell phone, or at the very least, be able to get a good swing in with the bag. If she did hit him, though, she’d aim for the solar plexus. His face was far too pretty to ruin.
Where had that come from? He hadn’t even kidnapped her yet and already she was succumbing to Stockholm syndrome. That didn’t bode well for her. If Mr. Owen Phipps was for real, and by some miracle she landed this mysterious job, how was she going to stop herself from falling madly, completely in lust?