Page 12 of Shattering Dawn
Irene looked effortlessly glamorous, as usual, in Katharine Hepburn trousers, a white silk shirt, and designer sunglasses. An ambitious, up-and-coming marketing firm consultant, she spent a lot of time meeting with high-profile clients. She had explained to Amelia on several occasions that she planned to open her own business sometime in the next couple of years. Amelia did not doubt that she would be successful. Irene was a driven woman. A classic overachiever. It was a species Amelia was very familiar with, having grown up in a family of overachievers.
The bond between the two of them had been established quickly because they were both in the process of trying to reinvent their badly shattered lives. Irene had been raised with money—a lot of it. And it had all vanished overnight a few years ago when her father, a high-flying hedge fund manager, had been arrested for fraud. He had taken his own life while awaiting trial.
“He always thought he was the smartest one in the room,” Irene had explained one night over a second glass of wine. “And he was. Right up until he wasn’t.”
Her mother having died years earlier, Irene had found herself alone in the world and broke. But she’d had a plan, a strategy, and she was in the process of executing it.Unlike, say, me, Amelia thought.
She was barely scraping by as a photographer. She knew she was competent but she also knew that unless she found the right niche she was never going to make a comfortable living with a camera. There just wasn’t enough money in real estate shoots, pet portraits, and CEO headshots.
She valued her friendship with Irene so she had taken care not to destroy it by claiming a psychic talent. Few things could screw up a relationship of any kind faster than telling a normal, intelligent person that you took the paranormal thing seriously. As far as Irene was concerned, theLost Night Filespodcast wasentertainment. Fiction. A side hustle that Amelia and the others were producing with the hope of hitting it big in the potentially lucrative podcast world.
Irene sipped some of her cappuccino and lowered the cup. “Any luck attracting a new sponsor?”
Irene was all about the podcast’s efforts to increase revenues.
“No, unfortunately,” Amelia said, sliding easily into herof-course-I-don’t-take-the-possibility-of-murder-by-psychic-means-seriouslypersona. “Lots of competition out there. We’re trying to up our game with better production values.”
That much was true. Phoebe Hatch, the new producer, was very big on production values.
Irene shook her head. “You and your friends need to get more aggressive with your marketing strategy. Like I tell my clients, you canhave cutting-edge tech and a brilliant concept, but if you want to make money you’ve got to generate sales, and that requires—”
“Marketing. I know. But I’ve told you a million times we can’t afford a lot of high-end advertising.”
“You need to think of marketing as an investment.”
“Trust me, we know that,” Amelia said. “None of us has quit our day jobs. Speaking of which, I need to hustle up some more corporate headshots and real estate work. The problem is that these days anyone with a cell phone and a photo-enhancing program thinks they can do good photography. And they are right.”
“Not true,” Irene said. “You, my friend, are an artist. You always manage to capture something unique and individual about your subjects—human, pet, or real estate. Just look what you did with your portraits of Daisy and Dahlia.”
“I hate to tell you this, Irene, but your goldfish look like a million other goldfish. I could have wandered into any pet store in town and photographed two other goldfish for that portrait. You would never have known the difference.”
“I disagree. You brought out Daisy’s glamourous side and Dahlia’s shy nature.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, I’m teasing you. My point is, like everything else in life, success in marketing is ninety percent attitude. You need to develop some in order to sell yourself and the podcast.”
“Thanks, I appreciate the support and advice.” Amelia drank some coffee to give herself time to come up with a nonthreatening way to ease into what promised to be a difficult conversation. When she was ready she lowered the cup. “So, got another date lined up with Mr. Amazing-In-Bed?”
Irene smiled a very feline smile. “Falcon? Yes, as a matter of fact.Tomorrow night. He insists on wasting time with cocktails and dinner at some new trattoria he’s discovered but after that we’re going to check in to a hotel for the main course.”
Amelia cleared her throat. “Think things might be getting serious for the two of you?”
“Never in a million years. Falcon has a lot going for him in the bedroom but, trust me, aside from the sex we don’t have a thing in common. Sooner or later he’ll move on or I will.”
“How much do you know about him, Irene?”
Irene frowned more in surprise than concern. “Why all the questions about Falcon? Do you have a problem with me dating him?”
Amelia struggled to find a way to explain what she thought she had seen in the splashes of hot energy on the sidewalk at the foot of the stairs three nights earlier. She had been up late, as usual, working in her darkroom, when she heard Falcon leave Irene’s apartment.
She had glimpsed his tough-looking SUV in the parking lot a few times when he had arrived to pick up Irene or drop her off, but thanks to the vehicle’s heavily tinted windows she had not gotten a look at his face or his aura. To the best of her knowledge he had never visited Irene in her apartment—until three nights ago.
She had waited until Falcon was pulling out of the parking lot before she gathered her nerve, left her apartment, and hurried down the stairs. The disturbing energy that seethed in his still-hot prints sent her intuition into the red zone.
“You always call him Falcon,” she said. “I assume he’s got a first name?”
“Yes, of course he does. He prefers to be called Falcon, and I think it suits him. What’s your problem with him?”