Dark Sins and Desert Sands Read Free Page A

hiding her emotions as well as she hoped. “What’s the occasion?”
    “Feliz cumpleaños!” Isabel crowed, and just like magic, she produced a lone muffin with a lopsided birthday candle on top. “Happy birthday, Dr. Bahset!”
    Was it her birthday? Layla fought the urge to check her driver’s license, which was the only way she could have known for sure. Layla hadn’t celebrated her birthday last year and her confusion must have been obvious, because Isabel added, “And don’t fuss at me that you don’t like sweets. It’s a low-fat bran muffin. Bland and tasteless, just how you like it!” Layla did prefer bland. Food was just fuel, after all. “Thank you, Isabel. It was so nice of you to remember.”
    Isabel clucked as she lit the candle atop Layla’s bran muffin. “Who else would remember?”
    That wasn’t quite fair. Over the past two years—the only two years of her life she could remember—Layla had made friends. Well, colleagues really. And she occasionally dated. There were other people in her life, but admittedly, probably none of them knew whether or not it was her birthday. After all, she’d become a master at deflection, always turning conversations away from herself and away from her past.
    “Let’s celebrate tonight!” Isabel said. “Come out with me and the girls.”
    Layla was tempted. After reading that threatening note, she didn’t want to be alone tonight. But Isabel wasthe very definition of a social butterfly with a swarm of adoring fans always in her wake. Layla wasn’t sure she could handle quite so much company. “I’m really tired lately.”
    “Don’t be loco. Come with us to amateur hour. I’ll teach you to dance up on stage.” Isabel, who was studying to be a sex therapist, managed to say this as if it weren’t scandalous at all.
    “No, thank you. I prefer not to be paid for my skills in dollar bills.”
    “Ha! I think you got other plans. Is Dr. Jaffe taking you out tonight?”
    “Boundaries, Isabel. Boundaries,” Layla warned, picking up her pen. She always did crosswords in pen. “ Chica, you’d have more fun if you didn’t have all those boundaries.”
    Layla didn’t dare reprimand Isabel for her sass. After all, Isabel not only helped Layla keep track of her day-to-day life, but stood as a living reminder of all the lies she’d spun to cover the things she didn’t know. Isabel was the first person Layla had fooled into thinking that she wasn’t an amnesiac, and because of Isabel, it was easier to fool the rest. On the other hand, sometimes it seemed as if Isabel wasn’t fooled at all. “You’re sure not dressed for a hot date tonight, Dr. Bahset…”
    Layla wouldn’t have the first idea how to dress for a hot date. She owned a closet full of dark skirts and high-necked blouses. Isabel, by contrast, was always dressed as if she had a hot date. Today Isabel was wearing a curve-hugging suit and leopard print heels that weren’t entirely office-appropriate but made her look like some kind of sex goddess.
    Isabel handed Layla a lovely box from a fashionableLas Vegas boutique. “Here. A present for you. Open it, then I’m gonna sing.”
    “You didn’t have to get me anything,” Layla started to say.
    But Isabel held up her hand. “Trust me, I did. You need somebody to put a little sexy in your step!”
    Neatly folded beneath sparkling tissue paper was a siren-red dress. Layla pulled it out, laying it over her knees. “It’s lovely, thank you.” And it was. Given Isabel’s own taste in clothing, it was a remarkably restrained choice: a knee-length, sleeveless sheath with delicate shirring at the neckline. Layla didn’t own anything like it.
    Isabel grinned. “Wear that on your date with Dr. Jaffe and he’ll want to give you birthday spankings.”
    “Isabel!”
    Isabel laughed and in spite of everything, Layla couldn’t help but laugh with her. Her incorrigible assistant had that effect on everyone, so as far as Layla was concerned, Isabel