Death, Taxes, and a Sequined Clutch

by Diane Kelly

  “Not bad,” he said after he’d swallowed the mouthful. “Though I might suggest adding a dash of Tabasco.”

  “I’ll pass that on to my dad.”

  I gathered up my things and turned to go. Before I could take a step, a hand whipped around me and grabbed my wrist, holding me in place. Nick’s fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist, a manacle of flesh and bone holding me as a willing prisoner. Nick stood close behind me now. I could feel his body heat on my wrist and back. The killer chili seemed tepid by comparison.

  We stood there, neither of us moving, neither of us saying anything. I could feel my pulse pounding against his tight grip, could feel his pulse pounding in return, the beats rapid and forceful though both of us stood immobile. Our hearts beat as if beating for each other, as if each of us gave the other life. Ironically, the gesture was nearly killing me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I whispered.

  “Maybe it’s because I’m a sadistic son of a bitch,” he said, his voice soft and low in my ear, his breath feathering across my lobe. “Or maybe it’s because you wanted me to touch you. You know it and I know it.”

  There was no sense denying it. Nick couldn’t just read me like an open book; he seemed to have also studied the CliffsNotes and watched the movie version. We were a lot alike, Nick and me. We understood each other in an almost primal, extrasensory way.

  But did that necessarily mean we belonged together?

  I had no idea how the situation would have resolved itself had Viola, our boss’s secretary, not come to Nick’s door at that moment with a fax in her hand. Her gray brows drew together as she took in Nick and me over the top of her bifocals.

  Nick dropped my wrist and stepped back. I forced a smile and bade Viola good morning, hoping she didn’t notice the tightness in my voice.

  Her eyes scanned me, her lips pursing in disapproval. “Did you forget to get dressed today?”

  “I’m behind on laundry,” I said, recycling the excuse I’d offered Nick earlier. “This was all I had to wear.”

  She emitted a tsk as she dropped the fax in Nick’s in-box.

  I stepped past her, rushing down the hall as if I could run away from my feelings.

  If only.

  Chapter Seven

  For Whom the Bill Tells

  The skies were overcast that morning and the temperatures had dropped at least ten degrees from the previous day, Mother Nature giving North Texans a hint of things to come.

  I walked up the block to find Alicia and Daniel standing in front of the bank building. While I had to fight rush hour gridlock on my commute, their downtown loft was only a few blocks away, allowing them to walk to work. When the two exchanged a quick kiss, I couldn’t help myself. “Get a room!” I called down the sidewalk.

  The two looked my way. Alicia waved to me while Daniel waved me away like a pesky fly. Talk about mixed signals.

  A few more steps and I joined up with them. “Hey, you two.”

  “Hey, yourself,” Daniel said, my smart-assery already forgiven.

  “How are things at Gertz, Gertz, and Schwartz?” I asked. “Still fighting for truth, justice, and the American way?”

  “Make that truth, justice, and billable hours,” he replied, anxiously grabbing the back of his neck with one hand. “There’s rumors the firm might be downsizing.”

  Alicia frowned. “The partners probably started the rumors to scare the associates into working harder.”

  “Well, it’s working,” Daniel said. “I put in sixty-eight hours last week.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Alicia said, offering Daniel an irritated look.

  Uh-oh. Did I detect trouble in paradise?

  Daniel checked his watch. “I better get moving. It’s nearly nine.”

  Alicia and I bade our farewells to Daniel and headed inside.

  “Sixty-eight hours?” I asked as we made our way across the lobby. “That’s nuts.”

  She glanced my way. “What’s nuts is shooting a man in the nuts. That’s what’s nuts.”

  “I only did that once,” I said. “Sheez. You do realize I’m trying to be supportive here?”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little edgy. Daniel doesn’t seem to make time for me anymore. I had to beg and plead with him to agree to go to the art show.” She sighed. “I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts he backs out at the last minute.”

  “It sounds like he’s under a lot of pressure at work.” I could relate. When one of my cases heated up, my personal life had to be put on the back burner. Brett wasn’t exactly happy when that happened, though he did his best to be understanding. “Maybe you should cut Daniel some slack.”

  Alicia frowned at me. “Some BFF you are, taking my boyfriend’s side.”

  “I’m not taking his side,” I said. We climbed into the elevator. Once the doors closed, I continued. “Look. Your relationship might not be everything you want it to be, but he’s a great guy and it’s clear how much he cares about you. You’re lucky. You should learn to be happy with what you have.”

  What I’d said made perfect sense. But was I trying to convince Alicia? Or was I trying to convince myself?

  “You’re right,” she said. “No more whining.” She turned to me again. “Why are you dressed like some type of corporate whore?”

  “Nathan,” I said by way of explanation. “I’m going to make him eat his heart out.”

  “Good,” she said. “It’s about time that womanizer got what’s coming to him.”

  “So you don’t think I’m being immature and petty and small by planning revenge?”

  “Well, it might be immature and petty and small,” she said, “but so is Nathan’s penis.”

  “You got that right. Did you know the ass didn’t even bother to give me an orgasm?”

  “Seriously?” She huffed in disgust. “Maybe you should shoot one of his nuts off, too.”

  I made a point of stopping by Nathan’s office that morning, standing in his doorway in what I hoped was a provocative pose, one hand on the doorjamb and the other resting lightly on my cocked hip. The crystals on my holster refracted the sunlight streaming through the window behind him, painting the room in polka dots of bright light.

  Nathan looked up from his desk, blinking when the reflection from my holster met his eyes, burning his pupils. So much for impressing him with my sexy attire. The guy had likely been rendered blind.

  “Quick question,” I said, stepping farther into his office and taking my hand off my hip, letting my blazer fall back into place over the shiny holster. I put my hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward, knowing the neckline of my low-cut top would droop even lower to reveal my lace bra. I pushed my breasts together with my upper arms to force my 32A’s into an imitation of real cleavage. As expected, Nathan’s eyes went straight to my boobs.

  Men. Sheesh. So easy, huh?

  “What would you like to know?” he asked my chest.

  “Have any of the staff who worked on the audit left the firm?” It sounded like a legitimate question. I hadn’t actually planned to interview each member of the audit team, but he didn’t need to know that. Besides, if I found something questionable in the files, I might need to interrogate the auditors, after all. Nothing had caught my eye yet—dang it!—but who knew what tomorrow might bring?

  His eyes left my chest, moving to the ceiling as he appeared to be mentally checking off names on a list. After a second, he looked back at me. “One of the women is out on maternity leave, but everyone else is still around.”

  “Good to know,” I said, letting a hint of implication sneak into my voice.

  “Do you need to speak with anyone?” he asked. “I’d be happy to call in the staff and let you use my office if you need some privacy.”

  He was being awfully cooperative. Maybe he was doing it to get on our good side. Or maybe he was doing it because he knew that he’d dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s as far as the audit was
concerned. Though auditors were required to analyze and confirm a representative sample of data, they were not expected to review each and every transaction. While an audit could sometimes uncover a client’s financial shenanigans, it did not guarantee there’d been no criminal behavior, especially if the client had taken pains to hide their malfeasance from the auditors. If Nathan and his audit team had done their job right, which I suspected they had, we’d have a hard time getting a criminal indictment or civil disciplinary action to stick against them, even if we discovered the Hildebrands had engaged in shady behavior.

  I stood up and removed my hands from Nathan’s desk. “I’ll let you know if we decide it’s necessary to conduct interviews.” Coy, huh? I turned to go, putting a hand on his doorjamb and looking back over my shoulder, squeezing my gluteus maximus for maximum effect. As expected, I found his eyes locked on my ass now. Oh, so easy. “We should be done with our review by the end of the day, Thursday.”

  “Great,” he said. “It will be nice to put this ugly business behind us.”

  I turned again to leave, flipping my wild hair as I whipped my head back to look at him one last time. “Will you be at the art showing?” I asked, tilting my head flirtatiously.

  His eyes flashed with interest. “Yes. You?”

  I nodded. “Alicia Shenkman invited me.”

  He sat up straighter in his chair, leaned forward over his desk, and dropped his voice. “I’ll look forward to seeing you there.”

  I gave him a seductive smile.

  He’d taken the bait. Project Payback was in action.

  Sheila and I spent three full days examining the audit files, to no avail. In the late afternoon on Thursday, I plunked the last file onto the stack in Sheila’s cubicle.

  “All done,” I told her. “I didn’t find anything suspicious.”

  “Me, neither.” She closed the file she was reviewing and checked her watch. It was nearly five o’clock. “Let’s go speak with Jamison and set up an appointment with the Hildebrand brothers.”

  We went to Nathan’s office to let him know we’d finished our review.

  “Everything looks clean,” Sheila told Nathan.

  His smile was equal parts smug and relieved. “As expected. I run a tight ship.”

  “Can you call Jerry Macklin?” Sheila asked. “I’d like to set up a meeting here in the morning to discuss a plea deal.” No sense spending the taxpayers’ hard-earned money on a trial if the twins would agree to some type of civil penalty and to be good, law-abiding boys from now on.

  Nathan flipped through his Rolodex, stopping when he reached the number he was looking for. He punched the number into his phone and in short order made arrangements for us to meet with the Hildebrand brothers and their attorney at 11 A.M. the following morning in Nathan’s office.

  Given that we’d found no evidence of fraud, the Hildebrands would likely pay a fine and be on their merry way. I suppose I should’ve been glad their failure to file the required insider trading disclosure form appeared to be only an oversight, but it’s much more satisfying to put a bad guy out of business.

  And Tara Holloway wanted some satisfaction.

  Chapter Eight

  I’ve Got Their Number

  Back at home, I took a quick shower and dressed in my red sequined gown. The dress fit me like a second skin and had a slit that ran up to the middle of my thigh. Sophisticated, sexy, seductive. The perfect dress for luring in a lecherous jerk like Nathan Jamison.

  I pulled my hair up into a claw clip, allowing a tendril to escape on each side, framing my face. I loaded on the cosmetics, following it up with a musky jasmine body spray. I tucked the sequined clutch my mother had made for me under my arm and eyed myself in the mirror.

  I might not be the type of voluptuous knockout that would stop traffic, but I could hold my own. And heck, it’s not like it took much to turn on a perpetually horny sex hound like Nathan Jamison. The guy had probably been born with a boner.

  Yep, Nathan would be eating his heart out tonight.

  I left my car in the parking garage at Alicia’s downtown loft, and the two of us walked the three blocks to the art gallery, our beautiful new clutches tucked under our arms. While I’d seen Alicia slip only her house key, a lipstick, and a pressed powder compact into her sequined clutch, mine was nearly bursting at the seams with my handcuffs and Glock packed inside.

  The art showing had started at seven o’clock and it was now eight. The two of us would arrive fashionably late. Daniel planned to meet us at the gallery as soon as he wrapped things up at his office.

  “I wonder if they’ll have the caramelized ostrich testicles again,” I said.

  “God, I hope not.” Alicia shuddered. “That’s so disgusting.”

  “You eat caviar and escargot and calamari,” I said. “Fish eggs and snails and squid are just as disgusting as ostrich parts.” I hadn’t actually tried the “ostrich oysters” last time. Though the caterer had assured me they were delicious, I had a hard time believing a testicle could be delectable. Still, it was fun to gross Alicia out. She tended to be a bit squeamish, and what were friends for if not to razz each other a little?

  Three uniformed valets stood at a temporary podium that had been placed on the sidewalk in front of the art gallery. Men in tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses streamed in and out of the gallery’s front doors. As Alicia and I walked up, Nathan pulled up to the curb in his two-seater black Pontiac Solstice, the same car in which he’d first groped me all those years ago after buying me dinner at a fancy Italian place. He was more committed to his cars than to his women. Figured he’d be fashionably late, too.

  Our gazes met through his windshield and he raised his fingers from the steering wheel in greeting. I tilted my head and offered what I hoped was a come-hither look. It was a bit hard to pull off when I’d really rather he go-thither.

  Alicia and I entered the gallery, weaving through the tight crowd inside and greeting the others as we made a beeline for the bar. I ordered a merlot, while Alicia went for a cabernet. Having skipped dinner, both of us were starving, so we aimed for the hors d’oeuvres next.

  While there were no big bird balls among the offerings today, there was a cheese ball and some type of spherical appetizer that appeared to contain mushrooms and spinach. I loaded up my plate, including triangular pieces of pita bread with hummus and a square of vegetable lasagna. I wasn’t sure whether I’d hit all the food groups, but the various shapes were well represented.

  Six-foot partitions divided the gallery into roomlike spaces, each of which housed pieces by a particular artist. Alicia and I nibbled our food and sipped our wine as we meandered among the pieces on display.

  The first section contained an eclectic mix of drawings, paintings, and sculptures. One painting depicted two cups of peach-colored ice cream situated side by side, each of the rounded scoops topped with a large red cherry. A charcoal drawing by the same artist featured two pointy pyramids, the stones at the very top of the pyramids colored darker than those that appeared below. A colorful fish sculpture was also on display. The pupils had been colored pink, and they bulged outward as if the fish suffered from a bad case of pop eye.

  “Do you notice anything odd about these pieces?” I asked Alicia, keeping my voice low so that we wouldn’t be overheard.

  “You mean the fact that they all look like breasts?”

  So it wasn’t just me. “I think the artist has mommy issues.”

  As if to prove our point, an older woman pushed past us, a heaping plate of food in her hands. “You must eat,” she said, forcing the plate into the hands of a balding, thirtyish man wearing a white dress shirt, a blue bow tie, and an angry blush. Glaring at her, he snatched a stuffed mushroom from the plate and shoved it into his mouth. As soon as the woman turned her back, he dropped the plate onto a nearby tray.

  Alicia and I eased past him. “Love your work,” Alicia offered.

  “Very original,” I added.

  He smiled, his
blush now one of humility rather than anger. “Thanks!”

  The next section contained a series of nine separate paintings displayed in rows of three. Together, they depicted the face of a gray elephant.

  The following section contained soft sculpture calico cats made from real calico fabric stuffed with cotton batting and sewn by hand. Each piece was marked with a place card giving the cat’s name. They all began with the letter C. Catrina. Corinne. Conner.

  The artist, a long-haired Indian woman in a floor-length calico dress, wandered among her creations, speaking with the attendees about her techniques and vision.

  “These are adorable,” I said to Alicia, discreetly checking a price tag on one of the smaller cats. Only sixty bucks. That was reasonable for an original piece of art.

  I caught the artist’s eye and pointed to the cat. She walked over. “You’re interested in Calvin the Conniving Calico?”

  “Yes. I’d like to add him to my art collection.” So far, the only art in my collection had been made by my young nieces and nephews, and consisted of wildly disproportionate drawings of family members and farm animals. Frankly, it was often difficult to distinguish between the two. What I’d once interpreted as a nanny goat turned out to be a portrait of Great-Aunt Ida. Given that both nanny goats and Aunt Ida have chin whiskers and lopsided udders, the confusion was understandable.

  I set my plate and wine on a table while I dug through my clutch for the cash I’d stashed there. “Hold these,” I said to Alicia, pulling out my handcuffs and gun and handing them to her. Alicia didn’t bat an eye, but the artist’s face flashed in alarm. I held up a palm. “Don’t worry. I’m in law enforcement.”

  I handed her three twenties and she handed Calvin over.

  “I trust you’ll take good care of him?”

  “Square meals every day.” Just like I fed my other cats, though their square meals ironically came out of a round can.

  Alicia looked around, her expression miffed. “Still no sign of Daniel.” She checked her phone. “No text either.”