She sat in Market Square like a cat laying in a ray of sunlight filtered through a farmhouse window. The blue oxford shirt she wore to work every day was tied into a knot, exposing her pale stomach. She'd changed out of the khaki pants and into a white cotton skirt. Her left knee was pulled into her chest and her right leg stretched out on top of the short brick wall that surrounded one of the trees. Her sunglasses drooped down her nose and were faded with age. It was brutal day in mid July, kids splashed in the fountain as their mothers sipped margaritas at the cantina on the corner.
Lazy Daisy, they had called her in undergrad, because she moved with all the lethargy of a house cat. But it was a graceful lethargy, every bit as graceful as a predator slowly stalking prey. And that is how most boys felt about her, that she was the predator and they were the prey. She had cool eyes and a near permanent scowl. Many wondered what had jumped up and bit her in the ass and what kind of creature it had to be that her entire life would be marked by her bad attitude.
She dropped her left leg and let it dangle, slowly swinging it as she read. What she was reading Indiana could hardly tell. He lowered his newspaper, trying to decide how to approach her. He wasn't worried about her throwing a fist or slapping him like most women who he'd crossed. She was too calm and refined. He did know, from second hand experience, that her words could cut like knives and that her mouth sometimes dripped with venom. Physical fortitude, he had. He wasn't sure his mental strength could hold up.
Well, I've got to do it sooner of later. He decided and he got up from his patio seat at the coffee shop and slowly approached her from the front. "Daisy." He greeted her. She lowered her book. It was Spenser. Her ice blue eyes narrowed into slits, her mouth, which you may have been able to confuse for a slight smirk earlier, dropped into an annoyed frown. She didn't speak and he held the silence, waiting to give her the opportunity. She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head, signaling that he was to speak or get lost.
He cleared his throat. "I'm in trouble." She inhaled slowly, closing her eyes to conceal the fact that she was rolling them, and closed her book in her lap. She exhaled, and signaled him to keep going. "I gave you a necklace when we were in Barcelona and, well, the long and the short of it is some treasure thieves are hunting for it and they got onto my trail, because I was the last person anyone can remember having it...and so, if you could give me the necklace, assuming you still have it, I can be well on my way to tricking them and throwing them off my trail. But its really important that I get the necklace because if they find out I don't have it, well, they will find out who does have it and they're really dangerous. Real...not great guys, not good guys, Daisy."
Daisy huffed. "And here I thought the worst thing Dr. Jones could do to me was drag me all across Europe and the Middle East just to abandon me, concussed and in a coma, at a Red Cross Hospital in Israel with no money and none of my belongings. But here you are, dropping in on my life to remind me that yes, demons exist, and no, time doesn't kill them."
"Okay, I know you're angry-"
"Dr. Jones." She put her book under her arm and stood up, he'd forgotten how tall she was. She was a near match for his height. "The necklace was the one thing I had when I arrived at JFK. I held onto to it for four years out of that single source of sentimentality. But four years came and went and the man who gave it to me didn't give me further reason to hold onto it. I sold it to a cut-rate Pawn Shop for the cost of a bottle of Barefoot Riesling."
She walked past him toward the street crossing. "Daisy, Daisy!" He ran after her. "You've got to tell me which Pawn Shop, I promise you, that necklace will bring bad fortune to anyone who has it."
"Broadway and East Jackson St, Dr. Jones." She called over her shoulder. She stopped on the other side of the street and turned to face him. "The clerk was named Harry." She fell into step with the bustling Saturday crowd and disappeared.