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“What wady? Is she one of the ones who came to our tea party?”
“Nooo.”
“No? She’s a real lady?”
“Yesss.”
“Where is she?”
“Down there.” Charlotte pointed toward the foyer below them. He reached the stairway and peered down into the first floor but saw no one. Maybe the child was confused between imaginary and real… and maybe he shouldn’t have spent the past fifteen minutes locked in the bathroom.
Red lipstick on the carpet equaled lesson learned.
When Lucas reached the landing, no lady stood in the foyer. And his keys weren’t on the table. He patted his pockets and looked back at the staircase. Had he left them upstairs? He was a man of habit. Keys by the front door. Always.
“I don’t have time for games, Charlotte. I have to find my keys so we can go get Chris and Michael. Did you put them somewhere?”
“Hey, you the uncle?” a voice over his shoulder asked.
He spun to find a woman standing between the dining room and kitchen. She wore a tight sweater that came to her knees, some legging or tight things and high heeled boots. Her hair resembled something in the skunk family and her skin was the color of crunchy toast. Earrings brushed her shoulders and the skinny dude behind her looked like the caricature in the old Atlas Gym commercials… the “before” shot.
“Yeah, I’m the uncle. Who the hell are you?”
“That’s cussin,’” Charlotte observed as wryly as only a near four-year-old could.
Lucas ignored Charlotte and concentrated on the couple standing next to the table stacked with textbooks and a basket of crayons. He’d meant to clean if off, but such messiness didn’t seem important at the moment.
“I’m DeeAnn. Courtney’s cousin. This is Joe, my boyfriend.”
“Fiancée,” the guy said.
“Yeah, fiancée,” she said, giving the man a look that made Lucas uncomfortable. “I almost forgot, baby.”
Joe pinched DeeAnn on the ass, earning a little shriek, and then he grinned good-naturedly at Lucas. “Women.”
Normally Lucas might have agreed with Joe. “You don’t know how to use the doorbell?”
“We knocked,” DeeAnn said, with a shrug. “Little… What’s her name again?”
“Charlotte,” Lucas said.
“Oh, yeah, Charlotte. She let us in.”
“You’re two days early.”
DeeAnn broke away from Joe, turning to him with a smile. “Courtney sounded desperate so I took the rest of the week off and got over here on the double.”
Lucas didn’t like the looks of DeeAnn… much less Joe, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. They didn’t look depraved. Maybe challenged in the fashion department, but not dangerous. “So Courtney’s paying you by the day?”
“Look, I’m not doing this for the money, but I gotta have something to offset the fact I’m taking vacation from the tanning salon where I work.”
He couldn’t necessarily fault her that. He could work from here. A tanning salon? Not so much.
“Where are we sleeping?” She jerked her head toward the bags sitting in the doorway. Lucas had missed them earlier but that was because they sat behind a laundry basket full of towels.
Joe picked up the two bags and cocked an eyebrow.
“We?” Lucas crossed his arms. “Don’t you mean you?”
