Shit. It had been nearly six weeks since she and Brian had first talked about her plan. Just when was he going to get the fucking job done? Brian’s cell phone service had recently been cut off because he hadn’t paid his bills, so Jolene dialed her old office on the car phone and got her former secretary on the line.
“Donna? It’s Jolene.”
“Jolene. How are you?”
“I’ve been better. Is Brian Watson there?”
“I haven’t seen him, but I saw his supervisor Ricardo painting an office down the hall. Want me to ask him if he’s seen Brian?”
“Yes, please. And call me right back on my car phone the minute you hear something.”
“Dammit!” she yelled as she pressed the button to hang up the phone. Bastard never got to work on time. And what the hell was taking him so long to find someone to do the job?
She tapped the steering wheel impatiently and pulled her Bentley onto the beltway. She was doing eighty miles an hour by the time the phone rang, and she slowed down to fifty-five as she pressed the button and answered.
“Jolene Brown here,” she said into the speakers.
“Hi,” Donna said. “Brian just got in. I told him to call you. He said he would as soon as he can get to a phone.”
“Good,” Jolene said and hung up. She hated having to go through other people to contact Brian. No doubt Donna was wondering why the hell she was calling the office painter when she no longer worked at HUD. But when she wanted something done she expected it to get done promptly.
The phone rang again and she pushed the button to answer.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, you looking for me?”
“What the hell is taking you so damn long?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, people who do this shit don’t exactly grow on fucking trees.”
“Very funny, Brian. How much longer will you need?”
“I talked to several people. I think I’m getting close.”
“Why don’t you just place an ad on the fucking Internet. Exactly how many people did you talk to?”
“Maybe four, five.”
Jolene gasped. “Are you mentioning my name?”
“ ’Course not. I’m not stupid.”
Jolene didn’t say anything. She knew better than to push Brian too far. “Well, call me as soon as you get someone. And Brian . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Can we get this going sometime this year?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Jolene hung up and gritted her teeth. She knew that a job like this took careful planning, and she was trying to be patient, but she couldn’t stand the sight of that salon much longer. She would give Brian another week, and if he couldn’t get the job done she would start looking for someone else. Pearl Jackson had completely ruined her life with Patrick, and that fat bitch was going to pay for it.
She pointed the Bentley toward the fast lane and pressed the accelerator.
PEARL BUTTONED HER wool jacket against the night air as she left Jasper’s and headed back toward her salon. She and Veronique had eaten a late leisurely dinner after she finished working on the baroness’s hair. Veronique was fun to talk to, and Pearl loved hearing stories about her life in Europe during the private Monday afternoon sessions. She even got a chance to ride in the Rolls-Royce on the way to the restaurant. It was her first time riding in such a fancy car with a chauffeur. She smiled. She could get used to living like that in a hurry.
She was just going to stop back at the salon briefly to straighten up, then she was going to go home and rest to get ready for the upcoming workweek. Barbara Bentley would be visiting tomorrow as soon as she finished her workout at the club, and two women were coming to interview for a position as a stylist.
As she walked by the picture window of the salon, she noticed that the light in the storeroom was on. That was odd, she thought. She could have sworn that she had turned off all the lights before leaving for dinner with Veronique.
She approached the door and rummaged through her purse for the keys. She kept them on a separate key chain since there were so many of them—one for the main entrance, one for the back entrance, which she rarely used, one for the storeroom, and another for a small safe she kept to store cash in until she could get to the bank to deposit it.
She opened the front door and immediately sensed that something was amiss. She stepped inside, flipped the main light switch, and gasped in horror. The place was a mess. All three sinks had been ripped out leaving gaping holes in the wall, and water was everywhere. Jars of hair and nail products had been flung about in piles on the floor. The cushions to her precious velvet couch and leather salon chairs had been ripped to shreds. And the big beautiful mirrors that covered one wall of the room had been smashed to smithereens. Pieces of shattered glass lay everywhere.
Pearl nearly screamed at the sight. For a second, she thought she was in the wrong salon. Then she heard a noise from the back storeroom. Her heart told her to flee but her head held her in place. She had spent a lifetime and fortune building her dream salon. She had to know who was trying to destroy it.
She stepped gingerly through the glass and water on the floor and peeked into the storeroom. Shelves had been knocked over, boxes and bags of supplies were strewn about, and a window had been smashed. She paused, trying to decide whether to go farther or pick up the phone and call the police, when a man holding a crowbar appeared in the doorway.
Pearl stared in horror. “Oh, my God. What are you doing?”
The man sprang toward Pearl, and she jumped aside as he dashed past her and flew out the front door. She chased after him, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Help! Help! Somebody stop him.”
He ran down the block and jumped into an old sedan with chipped blue paint. Pearl tried to get close enough to read the numbers on the Maryland tags, but he flew around the corner before she could make them out.
She sank down to the curb and several people stopped to see what the ruckus was about. An older man ran up to her. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Pearl put her head in her hands and sobbed. “I’m ruined,” she said over and over again. “I’m ruined.”
PATRICK HELD PEARL’S hand as they stood outside the salon and she answered the police officer’s questions. Three police cars were parked in front of the salon, lights flashing, and a small crowd of curiosity seekers had gathered nearby.
“So he was a light-complexioned black male, average height, and probably about thirty-five to forty,” the officer said as he wrote on a notepad. “You said he had a crowbar. Anything else you can remember about him?”
“The car. I’m not sure of the make, a Ford maybe. Blue, with the paint peeling off. I know I’ve seen that car around here before. I just can’t remember where now.”
“Think about it and call us if it comes back to you. Anything else?”
Pearl shook her head. “No, it all happened so fast.”
“I understand.”
“What about some of the people here,” Patrick said to the officer. “Maybe some of them saw him or the car.”
“We have an officer questioning potential witnesses now. A couple of them claim to have gotten a good look at him as he ran off. We’ll catch this guy. He doesn’t seem too smart.”
Pearl choked back a sob at the memory of the man appearing in the doorway of her storeroom wielding a crowbar. Patrick squeezed her fingers in support as the officer handed her a business card. “Take this. And if you think of anything else, give me a call.”
Pearl’s son, Kenyatta, drove up just as the officer walked toward the crowd of people. He jumped out of his car and hugged his mother. “What happened, Ma?”
“Some dude broke in and trashed everything,” Patrick said.
Pearl sniffed and leaned on Patrick’s shoulder. “It’s terrible. Everything I ever worked for. Gone.”
“At least
you’re safe,” Patrick said.
“And you have insurance, Ma,” Kenyatta said. “We’ll just start over.”
Pearl reached out and took Kenyatta’s hand. “Oh, baby. It’s not that easy. I won’t be earning a dime until I open up again.”
“I’m just sorry you came back in the middle of it,” Patrick said. “He could have harmed you.”
“You saw him?” Kenyatta asked, eyes wide with surprise.
Pearl nodded. “Maybe it’s a good thing I did. At least I was able to call the police right away and give a description of him and the car. Whoever is responsible for this, I hope to God they catch him and put him away for a long time to come.”
JOLENE PEDDLED THE exercise bike faster as she lifted one end of the white towel draped around her neck and dabbed the sweat off her forehead. Brian had called yesterday afternoon and said the job was going down that night. He would call her on her cell phone Tuesday morning and utter the word “done,” if it was successful or “no go” if not, then hang up.
“Just remember, no one gets hurt,” she had reminded him. If anyone was injured this would escalate into a whole different game and a very ugly one at that. Her ass was on the line here and she had to be sure they were all on the same page—she, Brian, and whoever he had found to do the job. “Just vandalism. That’s all. Understand?”
“I understand. You don’t have to worry about a thing. Just sit your ass tight until you hear from me. Later now.”
“Later.”
Since Jolene’s request, the conversations between her and Brian had gotten shorter and shorter. The thinner the trail between them, the better all around.
For a while it had looked like it was never going to happen. Then suddenly last night someone had popped up. Brian refused to divulge the guy’s name in order to protect Jolene if something went wrong, and that was fine with her. She didn’t care who did it as long as it wasn’t Brian.
Just thinking that they might actually pull this off excited her. This was power and it was exhilarating. Patrick thought Pearl was so damn special because she had her own beauty salon. And Pearl probably thought she was Miss Thang since the baroness had become a regular customer. Well, presto! Not anymore. Not if Jolene had anything to do with it.
She smiled and glanced around the exercise room. She needed to wipe this smirk off her face or people would think she was nuts. But she hadn’t felt this good since she had won the lottery. She was even back to exercising three times a week.
She had slacked off with her exercise routine long enough. She was a millionaire and she was going to get back into shape and put her life back together. As soon as Brian’s accomplice finished the job on Pearl, she was going to pay Brian his finder’s fee and get him out of her life. She deserved a better man than that ignorant jerk.
She was also going to throw the biggest damn party Silver Lake had ever seen, bigger than the one she had two summers ago when she moved into her house, bigger than any of Barbara Bentley’s affairs, bigger even than the baroness’s.
She reached for the towel and mopped the back of her neck. She glanced at her watch. It was already close to ten o’clock. Why hadn’t Brian called yet? Maybe the guy who was supposed to do the job had backed out at the last minute. Or maybe something had gone wrong and the guy got caught. No, no. She wasn’t going to think that way. She was going to think positive thoughts. The job had gone down without a hitch, and Pearl’s beauty salon had been smashed beyond repair.
Jolene’s thoughts were diverted when she noticed Veronique entering the exercise room wearing snugly fitting black workout pants with a bold red stripe down the side and a matching top. Jolene was surprised. Since she had starting coming back to the club she had never seen the baroness. She figured a woman as wealthy as Veronique would have a private workout room in her mansion.
Jolene watched out of the corner of her eye as Veronique strode across the room in her direction. Should she speak? Jolene hadn’t been in touch with Veronique since the baroness had called at the last minute to decline the invitation to her luncheon last spring. Jolene smacked her lips at the memory. That had been so rude, but it had happened months ago. Besides, Veronique had replaced Barbara Bentley as the queen bee of Silver Lake, and Jolene would love to have the baroness at her party.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to try speaking to her. “Hello,” Jolene said, smiling and slowing the bike down as the baroness walked by. “How are you, Veronique?”
To Jolene’s delight, Veronique stopped and smiled broadly.
“Jolene, how nice to see you. I’m doing well. And you?”
Jolene nodded and marveled with envy at how slim and fit the baroness looked. She seemed to have not one ounce of fat anywhere on her body. “I’m just fine,” Jolene said. “You look fantastic. Have you been coming here to exercise very long?”
“This is my first time.”
“Oh, well, if you need me to show you anything at all, just ask.”
“I’ll do that, Jolene. Thank you.”
“And if you have the time, maybe we could grab a bite to eat at the restaurant here a little later?”
“That sounds fine.”
Jolene glanced at her watch. “In say an hour and a half?”
Veronique nodded. “I’ll meet you there. I need to run now, though. My aerobics class is starting. See you soon.”
“Hell, yeah,” Jolene muttered under her breath as the baroness walked off. She was tempted to jump off the exercise bike and dance around the room. But she had to stay calm. After all she was now a wealthy woman like the baroness. A lady of leisure who worked out, dined, and shopped during the day while all the little people went to work.
Jolene’s cell phone rang and she grabbed it from the tray near the handlebars and put it to her ear.
“Done.”
Jolene sucked her breath in at the word coming from her phone. For a moment she was speechless. She had pulled it off? Just like that? It was scary how easy it was.
“Thanks,” she muttered when she found her voice. She was about to hang up when she heard Brian say something else and she hastily put the receiver back to her ear. Dammit, this was not the time to chat.
“What did you say?” she snapped. They had agreed—one word each, no conversation.
“I said there was a problem. Trashed the place like you wanted, even pulled the sinks out of the walls. But . . .” He paused.
Jolene stopped the bike and her heart flipped. “Well, what?”
“The bitch showed up right at the end. She saw me.”
Holy crap. Pearl saw Brian? “You went with him? You weren’t even supposed to be there,” Jolene whispered.
“There was no ‘him.’ I decided to do it my damn self. I need the money.”
“Shit, Brian,” she hissed into the phone. Shit, shit, shit. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“What the hell do you care who did it as long as it got done?”
“You were supposed to find someone who has no connection to me. What the hell is wrong with you?” It was all she could do to keep her voice down. She wanted to scream. She wanted to reach through the phone and grab this idiot by the throat.
“I couldn’t find anybody I could trust.”
She jumped down off the bike and walked to a corner of the room. “Why was she even there? The salon is closed on Mondays.”
“Fuck if I know, but she damn sure showed up for some reason.”
“You didn’t hurt her, did you?”
“Nah, but that bitch saw me, and I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I, dammit. You have screwed up royally.” A woman walked by and stared at Jolene strangely. “I have to go. We’ll talk later.”
“When do I get my money?”
“When and where we planned,” she said. They had agreed to meet briefly at the Holiday Inn the following Tuesday evening so she could pay him the finder’s fee. “Or did you fucking forget that, too?”
“Fine. See you later. And be sure to bring th
e the finder’s fee and the dough for doing the job.”
Jolene snapped the antenna back into place and closed the phone. She had no intention of meeting that fool anywhere anytime soon. If Pearl or anyone else recognized him during the break-in and an investigation led to him, she had no doubt it would lead straight to her.
How could he be so stupid? How could she have been so stupid to trust that fool to do this right? Jolene was tempted to jump up and run out. She needed to get away and think. But she was meeting the baroness for lunch and couldn’t possibly miss out on that. She took a deep breath. She would meet Veronique as planned and then go home and think things through carefully. She had to be sure she had covered her tracks.
BARBARA SMILED AT Noah from across her hot tub and sipped her ginger ale. He looked so sexy under the light of the moon, with the ends of his dreadlocks dangling in the water. But he also looked uneasy.
“You look uncomfortable,” she said, touching his leg with her toe.
“Do I?”
“A little, yes.”
He smiled slightly. “Maybe I’m not used to lounging around in Bradford Bentley’s hot tub with his wife while he’s away on business.”
So that was it. He was worried about her husband. Bradford had a hold on her life even when he was twenty-seven hundred miles away. She rubbed Noah’s leg with her foot. “Relax. I told you he won’t be back for three more days at least.”
Noah laughed. “I’m usually the one telling you to relax. Now look at you. Miss Chilling Out.”
“That’s because I know there’s no way Bradford will be back anytime soon.”
“You’re sure about that? He won’t come back early?” Noah grabbed his chest and feigned a heart attack.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. Bradford has never returned early from a trip in more than thirty years of marriage. I think I know my husband.”
Noah grabbed her foot under the warm water and cupped her toes in his hand. “Hmm. Well, it’s worth the risk to spend some time in this hot tub with you.”
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