My Life as the Ugly Stepsister

I climbed the stairs to the bonus room over the garage. With a grin, I thought about the guys down below trying to play their music while my drum beats permeated into the space. Their practice was not going to go well.

I’d worked up a sweat by the time the clock on the digital receiver read 7:00. I definitely felt much more mellow. Setting my drumsticks on the table, I took another sip of orange juice.

Well, Leo. Let’s see what you have to say.

I took the stairs two at a time and rushed out the front door. After glancing around to see that the guys were already leaving, I ignored them and walked around the other side of the house to the back yard.

Through the dim landscaping lighting, I saw Leo sitting in our tree house, his legs dangling over the side. He looked much bigger than he had in the garage.

“Make yourself right at home, why don’t you?” I snapped.

He shrugged. “It looked like a good place to talk.”

Ian and I had begged for that tree house for years. Maybe I hadn’t been up there lately but I didn’t like this intrusion. I climbed the rungs of the ladder and crawled through the hatch. Standing in front of this rare creature with arms crossed, I said, “What do you think you’re doing? Why did you show up here? At my house?”

He nodded toward the house. “Your mother isn’t home yet, is she?”

“Any minute now. Why? What do you know about my mother?”

“I know she works for the U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E., and I know she’d recognize me for what I am.”

I tapped my foot impatiently. “What are you doing here? What do you want with my mother?”

“Not your mother. You. My dad’s in trouble, and I need your help.” His deep voice made my brother’s seem prepubescent.

“I don’t even know your dad. How could I possibly help?” Not that I wanted to.

“Would you sit down, please? And listen?”

With a grunt, I folded my legs and sat on the wooden slats. “I’m listening.” The cold from the wood immediately permeated my jeans and made me wish I’d grabbed a coat.

Better prepared in his leather jacket, Leo turned to face me. “My father is on trial with the Oversight Committee. In two weeks, he’ll be banished to the other realm for crimes he didn’t commit.”

Banishment to the other realm was irreversible. Leo would never be able to communicate with his father again. From what I knew about the trials, his father didn’t have much chance of being found not guilty. My dad could rant for weeks about the lack of civil rights for genies. “What crimes?”

“The last five people my father granted wishes to have all had their lottery tickets cloned. Half the winnings went to someone else.”

I nodded. When people asked for a million bucks, or more frequently, a billion, we delivered winning lottery tickets to them. My mother’s office handled most of the deliveries. In the past we’d used a lot of inheritances or forgotten stock certificates, but with a lottery in every state, we’d started going with the lottery angle.

“You’ve heard about the thefts?” he asked.

“No. Nobody tells me anything.” Mom shared just enough information to allow me to do my job. “Was it only the tickets delivered to his clients?”

Leo nodded. “Just his. And he didn’t do it.”

“He’s your father.” I tugged my sleeves over my hands. The thin sheen of sweat had turned icy. “Would you really admit it if he had stolen the tickets?”

The glow in Leo’s eyes flared with his intensity. “Yes. My father isn’t an angel. But he’s not a thief. He’s been framed.”

God, he was beautiful. I know it was partly that whole genie animal magnetism thing, but he was more than eye candy. He was like soul candy. Just sitting there with him made me feel good. Focus, Jen. Focus.

“Why would anybody frame him?”

“I don’t know. The people who claimed the winnings, the ones with the cloned tickets, all had ties to my father's past. None of them remember claiming the money, and none of them have the money now.”

“How in the world do you think I can help?” I braced myself because he could only be here for one thing—access to my mother’s office.

“I need to know who’s framing my father. I need to find out who had access to the information about those deliveries.”

“I don’t have that information.”

“No.” He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them. “But your mother does. You could slip into her office and tap into those files.”

I stared at him like he was nuts. My mother would see that as the worst sort of betrayal. “You think I’ll do that for a complete stranger? Just because you’re an older, sexy guy?”

A hint of color rose in his cheeks at my inadvertent compliment.

“I don’t even go for the bad boy type.” I’d had a minor crush on Derek, but he just wanted to be a bad boy. Leo was the real deal, from the wrong side of the tracks. Forbidden. And smokin’ hot.

“All I’m asking is that you think about it. Don’t bust me to Ian. Let me hang around and do the Armpit Hostages thing until you’re ready to help.”

“And if I’m never ready?”

He glanced down at his hands. “At least I tried.”

He wouldn’t just let it drop. We both knew it.

“Think about it, Jen. If someone is dirty, your mother could be the next one he targets. Or you. Wouldn’t it be better to know what’s going on?” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. “At least ask your mother who has access. What could that hurt?”

“I don’t know.” I was curious about who was monitoring me. I could probably find a way to ask.

“What are you doing after school tomorrow?” Leo asked.

“Why?” Now, I was starting to shiver from the cold.

“I want to show you something.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. I may as well let him plead his case. I’d already agreed to let him hang around, and that alone could get me in huge trouble.

“Thanks,” Leo said. Then he stood, and squeezed his large form through the hatch.

I watched him walk to the front of the house and then slipped down the ladder.

I’d never kept anything important from my mother. Helping Leo would be a really bad idea. So why was I thinking about doing it anyway?

Chapter One of The Pointe of No Return

Book Two in the Dani Spevak Mystery Series

by Amanda Brice

CHAPTER 1

Normally it would be pervy for a middle-aged man to touch a teenager’s rear. But there hasn’t been anything normal about my life ever since I moved to Arizona earlier this fall.

“Miss Spevak, your lines are a disgrace.”

“Point your toes!”

“Posture, Miss Spevak! Lift your carriage and lengthen your body!”

“You ladies dance like apes!”

“How many times do I have to tell you to tuck your buttocks?”

That last one might be cause for sexual harassment complaints anywhere else, but not here. I’m a student at Mountain Shadows Academy of the Arts, majoring in dance. I divide my days between ballet and Biology, tap and Trigonometry, hip hop and History, latin and Latin.

“Well, Miss Spevak?” Grigor Dmilov, the legendary principal dancer from the Phoenix Ballet, towered over my five-foot-three frame. His dark eyes bored into me as he pretended to wait for an answer that didn’t really matter since the question was rhetorical anyway – dancers aren’t allowed to talk in class. He used to intimidate me when I first came here.

Oh, who am I kidding? He still intimidates me. I just don’t cry in the shower after class anymore.

Much.

The difference now is that I know corrections are an important part of the process. We spend six hours every day in the studio, striving for perfection. Sometimes it felt like our teachers loved to torture us, but they were just trying to get us to live up to our potential and beyond. Getting corrections was a compliment because

it showed that the teachers wanted to nurture your talent.

Not being noticed at all was far more damaging to your career. Nobody wanted to be invisible.

I stood straighter, lifting my rib cage and tucking my derriere under as I prepared to bend my knees and lower myself to the ground in a grand plié. I have a natural tendency to slouch, so even though I’ve been dancing for years, I still have to consciously remind myself not to. It may be more comfortable, but it definitely doesn’t look very nice. Monsieur Dmilov pushed on the back of my thigh to verify that I’d engaged my gluts, then satisfied that I had readjusted my alignment, moved on to his next victim.

The class raced through the positions – first, second, fourth, fifth – skipping third since it was useless, finally finishing with a grand port de bras to stretch our bodies. As I leaned forward, dropping to the ground with a graceful sweeping motion before straightening back up again, I caught the accompanist’s eye and smiled.