Cat In A Topaz Tango

The blond girl pushed forward into EK. “Can we hurry up? My dad’s standing by the door. He can sign right now.”

“But I won!” EK wailed.

The blonde couldn’t quite disguise a smirk as a sympathetic smile.

“I’ll sign.”

Temple and Molina, and even Midnight Louie, stared at Rafi Nadir after he spoke.

The man behind the desk frowned. “You’re not a relative—”

“Temporary guardian.”

“You can’t do this,” Molina whispered impatiently.

“The girl’s grandmother will okay it.” Rafi was already pulling the form on bright yellow paper forward and bending over it, ballpoint pen in hand. Mariah grabbed EK’s hand and swung it up and down in childish, energetic joy.

“I’ll need employment info as well as personal,” the guy was saying, still frowning. “If the grandmother takes exception, it’s your responsibility.” He looked at the sheet Rafi spun to show him the filled out sections. “Oh. Assistant security chief at the Oasis Hotel. I guess that makes you a ‘responsible adult.’”

Molina snorted.

“And you’re with the exact right hotel, so that’s even better. Be at the Oasis in Vegas at 8:00 A.M. tomorrow,” he instructed EK, handing her a sheaf of papers.

The infuriated blond girl was about to knock hard into EK’s back as she turned away to leave, but Temple jerked the girl’s arm and pulled her out of contact.

“Bitch,” the girl mouthed, mistaking Temple as Zoe for a peer.

Temple lifted Louie’s big black paw and waved goodbye while he added a parting hiss, perhaps resenting his paw being appropriated, but more likely responding to one catty word with another, in actual feline.

They walked away as the sign-up table was turned sideways, folded, and toted away.

EK and Mariah brought up the rear, huddling and giggling like ten-year-olds. Temple had nothing to do but lug Louie and trail the wordless Molina and Rafi to the hotel entrance. Before they left the lobby, Rafi stopped and turned to the girls.

“You two have been sitting in line overnight?”

They nodded. “Everybody did,” Mariah said.

“What’d you eat?”

She shrugged. “There are snack dispensers on all the hotel floors. We didn’t have a lot of change after bus money, but got a couple candy bars.”

Molina sighed heavily.

“EK needed energy for dancing,” Mariah said, justifying necessity.

“We want to get something to eat before we leave, or en route?” Rafi asked Molina.

“‘We’ want to get the . . . heck back to Vegas and get these children settled at their respective homes.”

“EK’s grandma doesn’t have a car,” Mariah said, “and EK has to be at the Oasis by eight tomorrow morning. She’ll have roommates there but can stay overnight with me.”

“Mariah.” Molina’s voice was low, logical, and furious. “You ran away from home without leaving word on where you were going and why. You are grounded. You are not entertaining partners in crime overnight.”

“But EK has to be—”

“I’m sorry, but EK has to be no such thing. She has to answer to her poor worried grandmother.”

“My grandmother knows what I am doing,” EK answered, panic rising in her voice. “And I have won—”

“This is a stupid dance contest. That permission this . . . stupid man you don’t even know signed is worthless. You can’t compete. You two are children, and acted like very irresponsible children, and you’ll be treated like children. And that includes not getting what you wanted, or expected. Or even won.”

The silence was, well, Temple thought, impressive.

Then EK’s thin shoulders started shaking with swallowed sobs.

Molina rolled her eyes and looked around the lobby at the spreading silence as people nearby stopped to watch them. Mariah comforted her friend but still managed to glare at her mother.

“You’re such a . . . policeman,” Mariah accused.

“Quite a compliment,” Rafi said to Molina with a quiet smile.

To the two girls and the gathering crowd he added, “Let’s adjourn to a roadside restaurant down the highway. You girls must be starving. And your mother, Mariah, has been seriously ill while you were busing on down the road without permission or notice. We could all use some peace and quiet and food.”

He turned the two girls to the door and guided them out, leaving Temple to deal with Molina. Who was shaking ever so slightly.

“The dude is right, dammit,” Zoe Chloe said cheerily. “I hate it when they do that. Men, I mean. We can dis ’em all good on the way back to Vegas, and he’ll have to hear every word.”

“Can we dis magicians?” Molina’s voice was still shaky.

“No,” Zoe said seriously. “Never did, never will.” Temple met Molina’s ice-blue eyes. “Us undercover girls are loyal.”

Molina bit her bloodless-looking lip. She had been sick.

“Good for you,” she said brusquely, surprising the heck out of both of Temple’s current personas. “Let’s eat.”

“Jeez,” Zoe Chloe confided to Louie’s left ear, which twitched either from her soft caress or her breath. “Nobody’s acting in character on this cheesy road trip but us.”

Rafi was just slamming the Tahoe’s front door shut on Molina in the passenger seat when Temple/Zoe and Louie arrived.