Player & the Game

by Shelly Ellis

  “Then when I found Isaac,” she continued, “I’d beat him until he begged for mercy. Believe me!”

  “Huh?”

  “He stole my money!” she shouted, throwing up her hands. “He took almost all my savings! You think if I knew where he was I’d be here, drowning myself in a bottle of pinot noir, crying my eyes out?”

  He looked at her more carefully. Her eyes were red and slightly puffy. Her nose was a little swollen. She did look like she had been crying.

  “And the cops won’t do anything! Not a goddamn thing! No one believes me! They act like I did something wrong!”

  She sniffed and her eyes started to get misty again. Keith frowned as he watched her walk across the living room with hips swaying. She gathered a wad of tissues from a Kleenex box sitting on one of the end tables, blew her nose, and dabbed at the corner of her eyes with the tissue.

  “So why are you so interested in Isaac?” She sniffed again. “What did he do to you?”

  Keith cleared his throat. “It’s not what he did to me. It’s what he did to my client.”

  “Your client?” Now it was her turn to look confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a private investigator. A woman in Maryland—a nice retiree—hired me to find Isaac . . . though when she knew him, he wasn’t calling himself that. His name was Reggie Butler. He claimed to be a lawyer based in Virginia. He stole more than thirty thousand dollars worth of jewels from her by sweet-talking his way into her good graces and into her bed. I tracked him down here in Chesterton, but now I’ve lost him again.”

  Stephanie gaped. “So that’s why you were following me around? Because of Isaac? He’s who you wanted.”

  Keith nodded.

  “Wait.” She paused. “So you knew this whole time that Isaac was a conman? You knew what he planned to do to me? You knew he had planned to steal my money?”

  Keith shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”

  “But you had an idea though, right?” she argued, taking a step toward him, filling his nose with her alluring perfume. “You knew what he did to that woman in Maryland!” She clenched her fists at her sides. “Instead of following me around, why the hell didn’t you warn me? Who lets someone walk into a trap like that?”

  Keith was at a loss for words. He didn’t want to tell her that he hadn’t revealed the truth about Isaac to her because he had suspected that she and Isaac may be working together. She had an unsavory reputation, after all. What was he supposed to think?

  “I’m a private investigator . . . the operative word being ‘private,’ ” he said feebly. “I watch and document. I don’t interfere.”

  “You don’t interfere? You don’t interfere?” She glared up at him. “Well, sorry, Mr. PI, but what the hell’s the point of tracking him down if you’re only going to let him commit a crime all over again? Thanks for all your hard work!”

  Keith ignored her jab. He looked around the room, absently scratching his chin. Too engrossed with the case, he hadn’t shaved in four days and his newly grown beard was starting to itch. He had been wearing the same two pairs of jeans for almost a week now too.

  I’d love to put on a set of clean clothes, he thought.

  It was obvious he was at a dead end. He should probably go back home and get some sleep. In the morning, he’d take a shower, have a badly needed shave, go to his office, and talk to his partner, Mike Stokowski. He would show Mike all his files and notes. He desperately needed Mike’s opinion on this. Maybe Mike had an idea of what to do next.

  “Look, it’s obvious you don’t know where Isaac is,” Keith said, returning his gaze to Stephanie. “I didn’t mean to barge in like this, but I had to follow any possible lead. Here.” He reached into one of the back pockets of his jeans and took out his wallet. “Take my card.”

  He pulled one of his business cards from the wallet’s pocket and handed it to her. She hesitated before taking it from him.

  “Stokowski and Hendricks Private Investigators,” she said, furrowing her brows as she read the embossed letters.

  “Yeah, my office number and more importantly, my cell number is on there. If anything comes to mind about Isaac, give me a call. Doesn’t matter what time of day it is. Call me whenever.” He turned to head back toward her front door. “I’ll leave you now. Remember to call me.”

  “Wait!”

  He didn’t respond, but continued his long strides.

  “Wait!”

  She raced ahead of him and held up her hands, pressing firmly against his chest, catching him by surprise.

  Suddenly, the stirring Keith had been trying to keep at bay the whole time, came on full throttle. She hesitated and took a step back. He gazed at her, taking her in completely now.

  Once again, she was wearing an impossibly short dress. She seemed to be fond of them. The dress revealed the long legs that were as familiar to him now as his home address thanks to the hours he had spent watching her. The imprint of pert nipples was visible through its silk fabric. It didn’t look like she was wearing a bra. Her moist pink lips were parted. She looked like she was begging to be kissed.

  Stephanie frowned, as if feeling the radiating heat of his charged gaze. She took another uncertain step back from him.

  “You can’t . . . You can’t walk out like this,” she murmured. “Do you realize the bomb you just dropped on me? You’re following Isaac because he’s done this before. If you’re still looking for him, I want updates. I want to know where he is so I can deal with the bastard myself!”

  Keith pursed his lips. “Look, when I find him, I’ll contact the police and tell them that he stole from you as well. But I can’t—”

  “I’ll hire you,” she said hurriedly. “If you’re tracking him down for that woman in Maryland, why can’t you track him down for me too?” She tilted her head. “I could get the money together. What’s your fee?”

  Keith wavered. They could use a new client, but he wasn’t too keen on the idea of working for Stephanie. The woman in Maryland had been in her early sixties. She was comely for her age, but matronly. In fact, Keith could see how a younger, suave guy like Isaac had won her over and conned her. She hadn’t stood a chance. But Stephanie didn’t look like the woman in Maryland. There was nothing matronly about her. She was dangerously attractive and she knew it. She was a gold digger who seemed well attuned to the powers of seduction. Now that Isaac had moved on from Chesterton, Keith planned to put as much distance between himself and Stephanie Gibbons as possible. A woman like her could cause him to do irrational things and get him into a lot of trouble.

  “You can’t . . . You can’t hire me,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “I work for one client at a time,” he lied.

  Her face fell. “But—”

  “Look, I gotta get going.” He started backing toward her foyer. “I’ll tell the police. Don’t worry. I’ll give them all my supporting documents.” He opened the front door. “When they arrest Isaac, I’ll give you a call. You can give them your written statement.”

  He stepped through the doorway and shut the front door behind him, not giving her the chance to ask him to take on her case again. As he walked back to his SUV in the rain, the overpowering heat inside him slowly began to dissipate. He felt like an unbearable weight had been lifted.

  Chapter 8

  Stephanie took the steaming hot cup of coffee in her hands and blew on it to cool it down.

  “Wait. Back up,” Lauren said, making her glance up from her coffee cup. Her little sister pulled up a stool to the granite kitchen island and sat beside her. “Are you telling me Isaac was being followed by a detective?”

  Stephanie sighed and nodded, gazing out her sister’s kitchen window at the tennis court in Lauren’s backyard. She then began the story about yesterday’s encounter with Keith Hendricks, PI.

  Today was a beautiful Saturday morning, but last night had been anything but beautiful. It had been long and restless for Stephanie. Each time she closed her
eyes, she replayed the events of the past few days and tossed and turned in bed, unable to get any sleep.

  She needed to talk to her family to help sort through this mess. But she didn’t want to confide in her mother.

  “You know the rules, Steph,” she knew her mother, Yolanda, would say. “Never let a man hold the reins, and certainly never let a man hold all the keys to your financial future. All of this could have been avoided if you had simply followed the rules!”

  No, I don’t need a lecture, Stephanie thought. I need advice.

  Lauren was a bit of a know-it-all. She had been since they were kids. Stephanie could remember pint-size Lauren lecturing Stephanie and the rest of the sisters in her high squeaky voice even back when she was five years old. But Stephanie had to admit that Lauren was also the most practical and resourceful of all her sisters, so she seemed like the best choice to talk to about something like this. Stephanie knew Lauren had a few hours before she had to be at her restaurant, so maybe she could spare some time to talk to Stephanie. After taking a quick shower, throwing on some makeup and clothes, Stephanie drove straight to the Weaver mansion to seek her little sister’s advice.

  Lauren now slowly shook her head and nibbled on crackers. She said they helped with her morning sickness.

  “That is so crazy, Steph!” Lauren said between munches after Stephanie finished her story.

  “I know.” Stephanie’s shoulders slumped. “The worst part is the detective has no idea where Isaac’s gone. He thought I knew.”

  Lauren looked taken aback. “Why would you know?”

  “That’s what I said! Isaac stole from me just like he stole from that other woman. He wouldn’t exactly give me a heads-up if he planned to skip town!”

  Lauren pushed her box of crackers aside on the kitchen island, wiped the crumbs from her hands, and cleared her throat. “Well, if the detective found Isaac once, I don’t see why he can’t find him again. Don’t worry. He said he would give you a call when he found him and let you know, right?”

  “Yeah,” Stephanie answered, “but how do I know he isn’t just blowing me off like Ted and that other detective did? I mean . . . I thought they were going to help me and they were absolutely useless.”

  “Steph, you know damn well why they blew you off! There was no way in hell they were going to help you! The cops didn’t help me when I needed them either. Need I remind you of what happened with my ex?”

  Lauren was of course referring to her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, James Sayers, who once had been the richest and most powerful man in Chesterton. Lauren had agreed to be James’s trophy girlfriend for a few years . . . that is until he became both mentally and physically abusive. One night after James had beaten her badly, she had run from his house with just her car keys, purse, and nothing but the clothes on her back. She drove straight to the local Sheriff’s Office to try to press charges against James. But she said the sheriff had urged her not to do it. He said her family could face some serious consequences if she chose to go toe-to-toe with an influential man like James.

  For months after that, James stalked her and tried to intimidate her and her family in order to get her to come back to him, but she had refused to allow him to bully her. Lauren said the threats only stopped when James and her then-boyfriend and now-husband, Crisanto Weaver, finally had it out one night. After that, James never bothered her again.

  James had since pulled up stakes. He moved out of Chesterton soon after Lauren and Cris married. Stephanie had heard that he had taken up permanent residence at his brownstone in New York. His mansion in Chesterton on Great Oak Drive had been up for sale for months. Rumor had it among local real estate agents that James may have to sell it at a loss.

  Lauren was happy to see James gone for good, but she said that she would never forgive how she had been treated by the local police and many of the people in Chesterton during her whole ordeal. Being the wife of a former Dallas Cowboy had caused many people in their small town to act nice to her again to try to get in Cris’s good graces, but Lauren said she would never be fooled. She knew deep down how some of them really felt about her.

  “As far as a lot of people in this town are concerned, we’re all the same and all of us are just getting what we deserve,” Lauren now said, her old bitterness rising to the surface.

  Lauren paused when her husband, Cris, entered the kitchen. Cris had returned from his morning jog around his property and was covered with a fine layer of sweat. His white tank top was nearly glued to his nutmeg brown skin. His numerous tattoos were on full display.

  “Who thinks you’re all the same?” Cris asked as he walked across the kitchen toward Lauren and Stephanie. He leaned down and kissed his wife. He then smiled and waved at his sister-in-law.

  “The people in town, honey,” Lauren said to Cris with a chuckle. “You know they think we’re all the same.”

  Cris stared quizzically at them as he walked around the kitchen island and opened one of the double doors of their industrial-sized stainless steel refrigerator. He then pulled out a bottle of Gatorade.

  Watching him, Stephanie wondered if when Lauren had her baby, whether he or she would look more like Lauren or Cris. Maybe the baby would inherit Cris’s Asian features: the dark, almond-shaped eyes and the high cheekbones that came from the Filipino side of his family. Or would the baby get Lauren’s big doe eyes and small button nose and mouth? Whatever the baby looked like, any combination from such attractive parents Stephanie was sure would be beautiful.

  “Look,” Lauren said, returning her attention to her sister, “you can’t judge everyone in the world based on those guys at the Sheriff’s Office or this town, Steph. This Hendricks guy isn’t from Chesterton. He’s from out of town so I’m sure his feelings toward you are more . . . more . . . unbiased.”

  Stephanie pursed her lips. She shook her head. “That’s not the vibe I was getting from him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know he just . . . he just . . .” Stephanie shrugged and placed her coffee cup back on the granite island. “He just made me feel . . . uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable? Uncomfortable in what way?” Stephanie shrugged again. “I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words, Laurie. When he was talking to me, it was like he . . . I felt like he was . . . well . . .”

  “You felt like he was attracted to you?” she asked, finishing Stephanie’s sentence for her.

  Stephanie’s gaze drifted to the kitchen’s tiled floor and she slowly nodded.

  Lauren laughed. “Well, what’s wrong with that? So what if he’s attracted to you? Many men are, Steph! He’s human. So what? You’ve never had a problem with men being attracted to you before. Hell, I thought you relished it!”

  “I do, but . . .”

  Stephanie paused. She glanced at Cris who was avidly watching them and listening to their conversation. She didn’t want to make this admission in front of him. There was still a strong part of her that believed in the family rules. One of those rules clearly stated that you didn’t show your true emotions in front of men.

  Yes, Cris was her brother-in-law, a member of the family—but he was still a man.

  Lauren followed Stephanie’s gaze. She found her husband leaning against the refrigerator, still drinking from his Gatorade bottle. She loudly cleared her throat and leaned her head toward the kitchen entryway. Then she gave him a wink.

  “Well, uh,” he announced, pushing himself away from the fridge after taking his wife’s hint, “I’ll . . . uh . . . go take a shower now. Gotta get out of these sweaty clothes. See you later, Steph.”

  “Bye, Cris,” she said to his back as he made a hasty retreat out of the cavernous kitchen.

  Lauren grinned. “You were saying?”

  Stephanie took a deep breath. “I don’t mind men being attracted to me, but this guy is different. Something feels off about it.”

  Lauren’s grin abruptly disappeared. “Why? Is he creepy? Are you picking up
serial-rapist vibes from him?”

  “No,” Stephanie said adamantly, shaking her head. “No, nothing like that! It’s just . . . I feel like . . . I feel like I’m . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m attracted to him too.”

  Her sister raised her eyebrows. “So?”

  “I mean really attracted to him, Laurie!” She whimpered. “I’ve never felt like this about a man before.”

  It was true.

  Stephanie wasn’t a lesbian by any stretch of the imagination ; she was attracted to men. But she had never ever experienced anything like what she felt when PI Keith Hendricks was in her living room last night. The moment had been so sexually charged it was almost electric. She felt her heartbeat accelerate and her palms sweat. When she pressed against him, her nipples started to swell and she started to feel a light tingle in her nether regions. She wanted to hop up, wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and kiss him senseless.

  She had always been taught that the goal was to make men tingle. The goal was to get their heartbeats to quicken. This wasn’t supposed to happen the other way around!

  Lauren regarded her sister. “So you like him, huh?”

  “I don’t know if I like him, but my vajayjay certainly does.”

  At that, Lauren burst into laughter.

  “I think I can handle it though.” Stephanie hesitated and contemplated those words. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can keep it under control. I’ll need to if I’m going to get him to take my case.”

  Lauren stopped laughing. “Wait, I thought you told me that he said you couldn’t hire him.”

  “He did . . . but I’m not giving up that easily! I want to find Isaac and nothing is going to stop me from doing that.”

  “So how exactly do you plan to win this Keith guy over?”

  “The way I usually do with most men,” Stephanie said with a shrug. “I’ve already established that he’s attracted to me. I’ll use that to my advantage.”