Love Spell by Stan Crowe Page A

much-needed funds in her coffers.
    The client choked, and then stood swiftly, but stiffly. Lindsay felt a flicker of concern to think he may have injured himself.
    No, girl , she told herself, it’s his turn to hurt. He’ll get over it, too.
    “You know,” he said, as he turned to the door, “I guess I forgot my coupon book for P.I.s. I think I’ll run on home and find one that actually has a good price.”
    Lindsay leapt to her feet. “Look, Mister Clint. I understand that people have varying needs. I’m willing to consider any unfortunate circumstances you may be in. Four thousand.”
    He didn’t stop. “Thanks for your time, Self.” And he was out the door.
    No, Lindsay. No! Don’t lose this!
    “ Three thousand! ” The words rushed out and hit the back of her office door as it clicked shut. Her heart sank as the closest thing to actual business she’d ever had disappeared into the hallway. She slumped back into her chair, and let out a long, sad breath.
    And then the door cracked opened again.
    “Three thousand?” the client asked, peeking in.
    She hopped up like a bunny on steroids and nodded with inhuman vigor. The client returned. He began sniffing the air, and Lindsay found herself doing the same without conscious thought. When she realized what she was doing, she blushed again, and stopped.
    “Maybe it’s just me,” he said slowly, “but is that the scent of… desperate I detect?”
    That was nearly enough to get her to kick him back through the door, but she knew he was right, whether she liked it or not.
    He was silent for a moment, and then fished something out of his pocket before tossing it to her. Lindsay managed to not quite drop it in her surprise, and then looked at the offending item. A car key on a small, leather fob.
    “She Blue Books for about twenty-five hundred. I got her out of the shop right before coming here. Runs great. She’s parked downstairs on the curb. I’ll bring the title by in a few days and we’ll take care of any other paperwork.” He wheeled around to leave again, but paused at the door. “Oh, and feed the meter.”
    And with the click of the closing door, Lindsay was officially Clint Christopherson’s personal slave.
     

EIGHT
     
    Lindsay was unstoppable.
    Her first case was moving forward at lightning’s pace. Flawless. Not only would she finally have something that would shut up Mom and Dad, but she’d also have that louse, er, client out of her hair before he could lay eggs in her scalp.
    And he’d better not have lied about the value of his car. She’d know the moment she bothered to go downstairs and look for it.
    As soon as the client had left her office, she had run searches on every possible instance of “Fey” she could find. Not surprisingly, the hit count was in the millions. Generous application of appropriate filters brought the options into the thousands—still too many to readily handle, but far better. A quick study of gypsy groups turned up potential clues, and she made a “to-call” list. The best lead turned out to be a fluke. It must have been; it came from… him.
    His e-mail flopped rudely into her inbox about two hours after his departure. The missive was simple (she tried not to use the word “stupid”), and added details that were far too helpful to have been intentional. The client had encountered Fey in the north parking lot of the AT&T Park roughly four months earlier.
    Within minutes, Lindsay had Uncle Tom on the line, and he had promised to look into whether he could find any security camera footage of that parking lot. Barely a half an hour later, he rang her line; he had access, and would she like to come down and look through the footage, even though she’d have to do it herself?
    So it was that she spent four hours in a small, dark room, letting a computer monitor burn hundreds of vehicle images into her retinas. Undeterred, she carried on until at last, she had found an RV that was hideously painted, and