But on the positive side, if everything turned out well with this con and I found that blackmail evidence, I might be willing to reveal myself, for the first time in my life. If I could stop hiding from Bea and didn't alienate Alejandro too severely, I might be able to return to New York and live openly. Imagine a world where I didn't have to run from New York Times reporters and No Moss parties. It seemed like a dream.

In the meantime, such a world didn't exist. So given that Wanda's good visitor wasn't very good in my book, I asked her with trepidation, "Who was the bad visitor?"

"This strange guy came into the shop and asked all about you. Something about him set off my cop-alarm, so I clammed up. Told him I hardly know anything about you." She giggled. "He got the message and left."

A cop or just an investigator? Dee Frank hadn't done anything illegal, so it probably wasn't a policeman. Could the investigation of my birth parents have triggered some trouble? Or was this another of Bea's tricks, checking up on me so she could gather more dirt? Whatever was going on, it was annoying.

Wanda shifted to serious. "If you're doing something that you shouldn't, Dee, then maybe this is a good time to stop." She paused, trying to use the silence to draw me out. But I couldn't share my illegal exploits or my romantic ones, so I had nothing to say.

"Don't worry. I'll tell you all about it when I get back."

"Come home soon. I miss you! We'll go dancing and drinking. Ooh! I know! Let's throw a huge party at the shop and invite everyone, even that Times reporter. Put you even more on the map. Just pick a date, and I'll set it up."

I loved this woman's energy, her enthusiasm, and her insistence on grabbing life with both hands and giving it a shake. Perhaps she was right. If things worked out well, a party would be exactly what I needed when I got back home. I knew Wanda would be able to cheer me up-I felt better already. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. And I'm coming home soon-hopefully less than a week. We'll do all those things and more, I promise. Thanks for being there for me."

"I got you covered, Dee. And I'm glad you're nearly done out there. See you soon." I hung up, feeling much better.

Then it all got ruined. Bea called and started screaming at me from the moment the call went through. I had to hold the phone down at my waist to prevent damage to my eardrums. Thanks to Vance, she knew about my date with Alejandro and had many choice words to describe the foolishness of it. I tried to get her to admit that she'd hired him to follow me, but she refused to concede anything.




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