Chrysalis

"Forty-four... forty-five... forty-six." I extinguish the last one with a heavy sigh, then drop onto the couch with my head in my hands, pissed off and winded.

What a waste. Forty-six candles, three perfectly good books of restaurant matches, two finger burns, and four hours slaving over an industrial-size pot of steaming, savory, to-die-for chicken cacciatore, all for nothing.

It's a damn shame, and I don't understand it. How do I keep attracting these losers? What does a good looking, intelligent girl have to do to get some action in this worn-out city?

After a few hours and half a dozen I Dream of Jeannie reruns — TV Land is doing the marathon thing again, God bless ‘em — the phone rings. My hand quivers over the receiver for a nanosecond, then I unplug the whole damn thing and throw it ever so gently against the wall.

Whatever excuse he's concocted, I'm in no mood to hear it. I didn't really even like this guy. I was doing him a favor.

There's gratitude for you.

The lukewarm chicken is just moments away from meeting its date with the garbage disposal when the other phone, the cell that I never turn off, starts jangling. I check the caller ID, then flip the top with a groan.

"These late-night calls are getting too frequent, Aiden," I hiss. "This is not a good time."

"You'd better make it a good time," he purrs in his maddeningly calm all-business tone. "You don't get compensated for PMS."

With a small sigh, I defer to his authority. "What's the job?" I ask, switching over to my own professional voice and hoping it's clear that while I'm ready to go wherever he sends me, I'll be silently resenting the holy hell out of him on the way.

I think it's time I start seriously considering another line of work.

"Stakeout," Aiden mutters shortly, distracted. "See you in ten minutes."

He always sounds paranoid when he's on the phone with me, like maybe the line is tapped and it's only a matter of moments until some technologically advanced terrorists break down his door and shoot him in the head.

Not likely, but that's the kind of guy he is. Before I have a chance to ask for more information, I hear a click, and the line goes dead.

Eight minutes later I'm rushing to open the door with one arm in my black trenchcoat, purse in one hand and a tupperware container of lukewarm chicken cacciatore in the other.

"What's that?" Aiden asks with pointed distaste, hurriedly pulling me out into the dark hallway as I struggle to get the other arm in my coat.

"Dinner," I reply brightly. "If I have to choke down one more mealy sub sandwich, I swear I'll hork it all over your precious leather interior."

Ignoring me, he glances furtively down both sides of the hall, then motions me along at a breathless pace. At the bottom of the third flight of stairs (Aiden thinks elevators are a government conspiracy), he finally makes eye contact and mutters, apparently as an afterthought, "I'm afraid you'll miss that horking opportunity; we're not taking my car."

"Why not?"

"Security."

A new car? How exciting. "Does this one have a CD player?" I ask eagerly. Tunes for the road would be just the thing to make an uncomfortable night of Aiden's tantalizing scent and agitating paranoia more bearable.

He rolls his silvery-green eyes heavenward and exhales heavily. "Please stop talking, Summer. You're bothering me."

Well, this is shaping up to be a riotously fun-filled evening.

The new car turns out to be a very old sedan, definitely no CD player. No FM radio, even. Super.

We ride in silence to our destination, a damp alley across the street from a dilapidated motel on the south side of town. Aiden cuts the engine, and I timidly offer him some chicken, which he predictably refuses.

"So who's the bad guy tonight?" I ask, my falsely cheerful voice sounding particularly jarring as it breaks the cold silence.

"Sean McFadden. Local police chief. If we don't listen to the rumors, then we just want him for tax evasion and tampering with evidence."

"And if we do listen to the rumors?"

"Then we want him for a whole lot more. I've heard rumblings of everything from drug trafficking to child slavery, and it seems he has more than idle interest in that double homicide you were asking me about last week."

I let out a low whistle, and glance at Aiden from the corner of my eye. As I expected, his teeth and fists are clenched. Aiden is a cop of sorts, I suppose you could say. If there's one thing he seems to truly hate, it's a dirty cop.

"McFadden is supposed to be meeting a source sometime tonight," he explains. "The boss wants hard evidence. That's why you're here."

The way our arrangement works, I've never met the boss. It's very Charlie's Angels, very cool. Sometimes I really wish, though, that he hadn't chosen Aiden as our intermediary.

Aiden is six foot two, pale but dark, long arms and fingers, graceful as a dancer, sexy as hell. He's also warm as a frozen margarita, soft as a cactus, and funny as a paper clip. He has one of those bewitching smiles, but he never smiles.

Well, except that one night in Genoa, but that involved some serious extenuating circumstances and far too much homemade limoncello from the very generous priest who stayed with us in the hostel.

I nibble at my little container of leftovers as quietly as possible for an hour or so, until a sleek black car with no headlights appears across the street and a shadowy figure emerges.

Aiden quickly consults a photo from his pocket, then nods decisively. "That's him. Go do your thing." He pauses, scrutinizes me, and adds, "You might want to hike up your skirt a bit."

"That won't be necessary," I answer coolly as I step out of the car.

"My thing" takes all of five minutes. I cross the street to get my first look at Chief McFadden. His blue eyes are cloudy and his silver hair is thinning, but his Armani suit is brand new. He must be nearing retirement, but he was clearly handsome in his prime.

Suddenly he sees me. Startled, he signals to his driver. I don't have much time.

"Hey there, stranger," I call, dropping my voice to its sultriest pitch. "What's a fine-looking gentleman like yourself doing in a place like this?"

In his half-second pause of stunned silence, I close my eyes and reach out to his mind with two little words. Trust me.

Half a second is all it takes. When I open my eyes, my sweet smile is returned.

"Hello, my dear," McFadden says warmly, taking my hand. "It's a bit distasteful, to tell you the truth, but I'm here to purchase some sensitive evidence in a homicide case. There are illegal drugs involved, you see, and I hope to make a sizeable profit by selling them to the highest bidder." He laughs a bit, as though he has just made a polite joke.

All I have to do is keep smiling.

"I have the information right here in my car," he goes on, suddenly excited. "Would you like to see it?"

A few minutes later, Aiden and I are speeding away from the scene, with a folder on the dashboard containing more than enough hard evidence to put Chief McFadden away for two lifetimes, at least. A decent night's work.

Back at my apartment, I invite Aiden up for a nightcap. He hesitates, but finally agrees to anything but limoncello. He doesn't even crack a smile, saying that.

"How do you do it?" he asks a few drinks later. "Your thing, I mean."

No one's ever really asked before. I find myself answering slowly, unsure exactly what words I'll hear coming out of my mouth. "I don't know. The sisters mostly said I was demon-possessed. That was what they said about most things they didn't understand."

"The boss seems to think you're telepathic." The distinct scent of bourbon-laced cynicism floats on his words.

I shrug. "I guess I tend to think people are just more impressionable than anybody realizes. I mean, I can't make anyone think a certain thing just by telling them to. All I can do is encourage an emotion. They decide where to take it, and usually it's someplace they wanted to go anyway. I just give them an excuse."

"Like alcohol."

"Yeah."

The ensuing silence is more peaceful than any I've ever felt in Aiden's presence. I suck on the ice in my glass, close my eyes, and listen to the rhythmic ticking of the ancient wall clock that never shows the right time no matter how often I reset it.

I'd like to fall asleep right now and never think again.

"When did you first know you could do it?"

I open my eyes, return to time, and reach for the decanter on the coffee table to refill my glass. "I was fourteen, still living at the convent, just before they politely asked me to leave." My mouth twists into a wry smile, remembering.

"There was a wild strawberry patch near the field where we sometimes played tag, and this boy from the farm up the road came sometimes to pick them. The strawberries. Whenever I saw him, I wished so hard that he would want me that I... well, I made it happen. I actually felt my mind pulling him into the feelings I wanted him to feel. It was exhilarating, and terrifying."

"What happened?"

I take a long, slow sip of my drink. "It worked too well, I guess. He became totally obsessed with me, wouldn't leave me alone. When I couldn't take it anymore, I decided to see what would happen if I wished that he would forget about me. When that worked, I knew for sure."

I look up hesitantly. Aiden is carefully looking at anything but me with the expression of someone realizing too late that he has asked a question he would find more attractive unanswered.

Finally noticing the pot on the stove, the bowl of wilting salad, the forty-six unlit candles and the broken telephone, he says carefully, "Did I interrupt something earlier?"

"Just my humiliation. The entertainment was ready, but the audience was a no-show." He looks quizzically at the floor and I clarify, "I got stood up."

He seems to be considering that, trying to choose the right words. Finally he begins to construct a halting sentence. "If you have... I mean, if you can make people love you, then why —"

"I can't make anyone love," I interrupt quickly. "Love's not an emotion."

His brow furrows skeptically, his gaze still locked on the pale blue carpet. In his glass, the shrinking ice cubes rattle as he drains the pale, swirling liquid for the fourth time. "What is it, then?"

"I don't know. A shell, maybe. Like caterpillars make when they're ready to turn into butterflies. Not the beauty itself, but the thing that protects it."

I know what he's going to ask next. When he looks at me for the second time tonight, I see it in his eyes — flashing with sudden radiance as they sometimes do — the question he has almost asked so many times.

"That night in Genoa," he begins softly, "did you..."

"No."

"Okay." He smiles.