Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8

by Jordan Castillo Price

  What a bunch of babies.

  I sashayed out and looked the pissy woman right in the eye. “Are you being helped?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  First impression: what a bitch. But that morning’s car talk was so fresh in my mind, I immediately adjusted my attitude and told myself she was merely being honest. Unless she was in the market for drama queen histrionics, at that very moment, technically no one was helping her.

  “Let’s see what I can do.” I parked myself primly in the receptionist’s chair, cranked down the ergonomic seat a couple of pumps to stop my knees from whacking up against the underside of the desk, then squinted at the schedule. It had been a while since I’d trained on it, but come on. A spreadsheet’s a spreadsheet. “Did you need an appointment?”

  “I need a trim. And I have an appointment. Right now.”

  “Name?”

  “Brinkman. Carolyn.”

  Chapter 9

  A search for the name Brinkman got me nowhere. It wasn’t as if appointments never fell through the cracks, but I’d get farther faster if I knew which stylist’s column I was looking for. “And who were you scheduled with?”

  “I don’t know.” Not bitchy, I reminded myself. Just phenomenally blunt. “Doesn’t the computer say?”

  It would. If I knew where to look.

  “One of the cheaper stylists. I just wanted a trim, it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Ah, but it does. Different stylists have different fees depending on their level of experience and expertise.”

  “But it’s a trim. How involved can that be?”

  I met her eye. She gave off some pretty hardcore eye contact. Maybe the receptionist quailed under this woman’s unvarnished bluntness, but the contrarian in me was starting to find its rhythm. I levered myself across the stretch of the desk, leaned toward her, dropped my voice, and poured on twice the charm I would use in an actual seduction. “If a trim was just a trim, you’d have it seen to by the minimum wage staff at ClipLand. No, you come to Luscious for a reason. To pamper yourself? Imbibe the free wine? Or to make sure you drop a big enough chunk of change on your ‘trim’ to make sure you feel important?”

  “I come here because one of those franchises gave me really a weird haircut,” she said stiffly. Dang. I’d gone too far. Oh well, wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last. I settled back in the seat, looked at the screen and spotted her name—basically under my nose—but it wasn’t color coded by stylist like the ones around it. And there was a little pencil icon beside it. A note? I clicked.

  Problem customer. Trevor - NO. Matthew - NO. Who???

  So, the Juniors weren’t any fonder of her than the weeping receptionist was. “Look, I’m not a junior stylist, but I just had a cancellation.” I slipped her the fee schedule and pointed at my tier. My rate was only twelve dollars more—but on Mondays, twelve bucks will get you a wash, cut and blow dry at ClipLand. “It would be my absolute pleasure to show your hair some TLC.”

  She didn’t even glance at the price list. Instead, she was staring at me. Puzzled. And all the annoyance had gone out of her. “Yes…I’d like that.”

  I indicated the way to the shampoo station with a flourish. “Then step this way, Miss Brinkman. Or is it Mrs?”

  The rhythm of the conversation faltered briefly, then she answered, “I’m married. But technically, it’s Detective.”

  Huh. As I lathered her up, I studied the faint line between her brows. I spotted a glimpse of a heavy badge on her belt, too. And…a gun. No big surprise that at mere sight of her, the Juniors had tinkle running down their legs. I twisted a towel around her wet hair, walked her back to my chair and suggested, “Wine?”

  “I’m on duty.”

  “Tea, then.” I signaled the receptionist to hop to it. The phone-faker, not the crybaby. Miss Weepy was still in hiding. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Plain.”

  Just like her hair. I combed through and considered the unprocessed color, the previous cut. Everything about it was utilitarian, and frankly, she should have gotten a good enough result from ClipLand if her needs were that basic.

  “So you just want a trim,” I reiterated. “How much?”

  “To my shoulder.”

  I walked around her, studying. It was tempting to encourage her to “frame her face.” A little softness can work wonders. And yet….

  Maybe she didn’t want to be soft. Maybe severity was her thing.

  Who really knows themselves? I saw plenty of women wearing hair that served them well in their twenties and thirties, but they were forty-something now and starting to look like they were overcompensating. On the other hand, I encountered plenty of folks hopping on the latest trend whether or not it flattered them.

  There was something about this gun-toting woman who made people cry, something that had me wondering if maybe there was a story in her that she needed to revisit. If she ever fantasized about the wind in her hair. I positioned myself in front of her, combed through, and checked the current length. “Are you sure you just want a trim?”

  “That’s all. I need to be able to pull it back.”

  I watched her as she spoke in case her body language told me another story. Hard to say. “I can texturize it, give it more movement, and still leave plenty of length.”

  “I don’t want stray hairs getting in my eyes.”

  “Gotcha. No fringe.” It really did seem like the only thing she needed was a trim. But was that just wishful thinking on my part? The feeding of some impulse to play it safe? I glanced at Red, writing in his little notebook with his profile to me. From that angle, the curve of his ass was breathtaking. Jerk.

  I turned back to my new client, ran my fingers through her wet hair and sought out the angles of her last cut. “Just a trim…” I said under my breath, and then on impulse, added, “but how about some color?”

  She stiffened. “I tried going blonde once. My hair turned orange.”

  “At a salon? Or at home?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “All the difference in the world. If you think I get this platinum by bleaching the crap out of it, think again. All that would get me is a fried head of hair. It’s all about the toner and the maintenance.”

  I sectioned her hair without any chitchat, telling myself it made no difference to me whether she considered my suggestion or not. I’d stand nothing to gain from it if she went blonde, not even the satisfaction of referring a tough customer to Red, since he was even more unflappable than me.

  Whoever had done this client’s last cut—Trevor, or maybe Matthew—had done well by her, even if they’d been shaking in their boots the whole time. It galled me that I couldn’t show up Red by talking her into a choppy pixie or an edgy, asymmetrical bob. Something that extreme would make a big splash, all right. But in all the wrong ways.

  In the end, I gave her exactly what she wanted. A trim.

  I passed her the hand mirror and spun her so she could check the back, then turned her to face it head-on. The crease between her brows deepened. I stood behind her and ran my fingers through to demo that she was welcome to scrutinize as hard as she wanted—both sides were precisely the same length. She met my eyes in the mirror. It seemed we had an understanding.

  I was expecting a curt thank-you when she surprised me with, “I wouldn’t end up with a big head of orange clown hair?”

  “With our colorist? Absolutely not.” In fact, I’d bet my week’s tips that whenever Red left his customers in tears, they were tears of joy. I stepped around and leaned my butt on my station, crossed my arms, and gave her a long look. “You’d totally rock the right blonde.”

  She frowned, but her body language suggested she was just flashing her particular brand of perma-bitchface.

  No two ways about it, she’d be hot. “And the hubster…I’ll bet he’d get a charge out of it too.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched. The cape rose and fell as she shrugged. “He probably would.”

&
nbsp; “Not that I’m recommending you should sacrifice your own preferences to cater to someone else. I sure as hell wouldn’t. But knowing you can light someone up by simply walking into a room is a heady thing.” I took up position behind her again, worked through some smoothing serum and blowdried while she sat and scowled. It was a companionable enough silence. Once her hair was dry, I primped it into place and gave it a light hairspray mist. “Well, Detective? What’s the verdict?”

  “It’s fine.”

  Geez. Don’t spare my feelings.

  Her frown deepened. She met my eyes in the mirror. “I never saw myself that way—the way you do when you think of blonde. I was never ‘the pretty one.’ Only ‘the smart one.’ I’m not sure I’m ready for a change that big.”

  I gave the cut another primp. “It’s just hair. It grows out.”

  We stared each other down in the mirror, both knowing full well that hair was oh so much more—but now I’d given her permission to start daydreaming about what it might be like to no longer be ‘the smart one.’

  Red had parked his customer in the lounge to wait for her color to process, and was currently topping off her merlot. Even though there was still a tender bruise in my ego where he’d jabbed me with his accusation of half-assery, I gave him the come-hither crook of the finger, and he joined us.

  “I was just telling Detective Brinkman she’d make a knockout blonde. What’s your professional opinion?”

  God only knows whether I was daring him to contradict me, or if I was secretly hoping he’d agree. Bless me with his validation. Which I absolutely did not want or need. But he zeroed in on her like she was the only other person in the world, and he considered her a long moment before he asked her, “What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure.” She frowned. “No, that’s not true. I’m afraid.”

  I bit back a scoff—everyone knows the best way to deal with a fear is to plow straight through it. But not Red Turner. He was the picture of finesse. He pitched his voice low and gentle. “It’s okay, baby. Thoughts are just thoughts. What do you see?”

  “I see…I see myself watching the kitchen timer tick down. I’m so excited, thinking about how I’d get this boy in my geometry class to like me, if only I looked like the model on the box.”

  “Shh.” Red stroked her hair way more intimately than he had any right to. “That’s the past. It was painful, I know. But you keep on re-living that? That’s your choice. You’re choosing to keep suffering.”

  The detective looked like she was gearing up to contradict him, but the argument never materialized. “I suppose.” She thought about it some more, then gave a small, brittle laugh. “Actually, I can’t even remember that kid’s name.”

  “Because it’s not about him,” Red murmured. “It’s about you. So tell me, now that you’ve got that out of your system. What do you see?”

  She totally humored him, closed her eyes and thought hard. “I see myself looking like…a bitch. Which sounds crazy, I know, since I already do. Except I get away with it. As a blonde.”

  God damn. I saw it too.

  She opened her eyes, and Red smiled at her without a lick of condescension. “Here’s what I see. Cool beige tones. A hint of pearly silver. Oyster blonde. Very natural. Maybe even a little imposing.”

  I added, “Not an orange clown hair in sight.”

  She nodded cautiously.

  “There’d be some commitment involved,” Red warned her. “Conditioning. Special toning shampoos. Touch ups.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well then.” He passed his business card to her. “Right now I need to get back to my client. If you decide on some new color, I’d be honored to be the one to make it happen.”

  Aaand…apparently that’s how you make your nemesis look like some major hot shit, while you come off as merely “fine.” And not in the way the Juniors say it when they’re looking at someone’s package, either.

  “What about you?” Carolyn asked me. “Can I have your card?”

  I handed one over. “Of course. I’d be delighted to give you another perfectly adequate cut.”

  She frowned at my card and mouthed my name as she read it, then looked back at me and said, “You’re angry.”

  “Nothing so dramatic.” I spun her chair to face the reception area and made a courtly gesture toward the desk. She didn’t budge, just looked at me and waited for me to explain. I figured if there was a total stranger I could level with, it would be her. “The thing is, I’ve never aspired to mediocrity.”

  “Everyone has an agenda, that’s just the way things are. All I needed today was a trim, and you gave me exactly what I asked for, without being fake about it. And to me, that’s a pretty big deal.”

  * * *

  I was just about done swabbing down my station at the end of the day when a text from the busboy rolled in. Can I see U?

  I wasn’t surprised. No matter how hard someone might carry on to the contrary, there’s no mistaking the Vibe. The big question was whether he wanted drinks and small talk first, or if it was just a booty call. Me, I could go either way. I texted my address and told him I’d be home by eight, then got busy wrapping things up at work to make sure that timetable actually happened.

  Ralph was coming around with the tip envelopes. He chatted briefly with everyone but Pilar. After her storming off on Square Days, she got the silent treatment. Apparently we were in Middle School now.

  Some people just aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. I hated to take a cue from Red, who was floating around his corner of the shop in his own personal nirvana, but I really had no stomach for their melodramatic angst. Not tonight, with a hot Italian busboy en route from Arlington Heights.

  The boss man approached me last. “Mr. Ash, could I have a moment?”

  I was so busy ignoring the simmering tension between him and Pilar, he managed to catch me by surprise. Vibe? Hard to say. He was already heading toward his office. I followed and left the door open in hopes of getting home on time. Ralph strolled over to his credenza and began casually sorting mail. “Close that, would you?”

  Fabulous. I nudged the door shut with my heel.

  Once we were nice and private, he said, “Square Days.”

  Okay. Where was he was going with that? I waited for a beat—evidently nowhere. Although I really wanted him to spit out whatever he had to say so I could leave, I couldn’t really dredge up much of a reply. “Yeah?”

  He spun around in a turn that was only subtly dramatic, and tapped a fan of envelopes on his desk. His expression was set in the same intense semi-smirk that was usually laden with Vibe. Except tonight, it wasn’t. “You stayed later than me on Saturday so I didn’t get a chance to give you your tips. They feel pretty sparse.”

  “Figures. Can’t say I’ve ever walked away from Square Days with enough cash to cover both cab fare and my first round of drinks.”

  “And so you started here.”

  “Started what?”

  “Drinking.”

  “What,” I said, “you’re monitoring the wine now?”

  “Just happened to notice an open bottle this morning that wasn’t there when I left.”

  “I offered the customer a glass. Like I always do—like we’re supposed to. I’m not a big wine drinker anyway.”

  Ralph looked me up and down as if he didn’t quite believe me.

  That didn’t sit well. I’m no liar. “Plus, I drove.”

  “Did you?” He tamped together the carefully arrayed tip envelopes, all the while smiling that tiny, odd smile. Remembering Pilar showing up separately, her face the color of a candy apple from her mile-long sprint? Or thinking he’d caught me in a lie?

  “Ask Red, I took him home.”

  Ralph’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly I realized why he’d been pissy with me for taking that final customer and encouraging him to leave. Not because I was stealing his thunder, but because he’d been hoping to stick around and get me to polish his rod.

 
Ralph Maldonado, jealous? Wonders never cease. I’m under no illusions, however, that he’s particularly attached to me. It’s more like him threatening Pilar over leaving the salon. He’d wanted me to help him blow off some steam after Square Days, but I didn’t go home with him. And if he can’t have me, no one can.

  On principle, I wasn’t about to tell him nothing had happened between his fancy colorist and me. I neither confirm nor deny my conquests. Period. But having my character questioned was insulting. I don’t boink my fellow stylists inside the shop. And if I want to get my buzz on, I wouldn’t sneak wine at Luscious like a teenager lurking around mommy and daddy’s liquor cabinet. I’d pony up to the bar and start a tab, like a grownup.

  “I didn’t drink the wine. It’s for clients—you told me that on day one. No need to say it again.”

  “And Red?”

  “Unless he stood by the fridge and chugged it while I wasn’t looking, neither did he.”

  “You didn’t smell it on his breath?”

  As if I’d fall for a transparent ploy to get me to admit I’d tasted it on his mouth. “I hardly know the guy, but if you think he’s the one raiding the fridge, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If anyone goes by the book, it’s him.” I held out my hand. “So are you holding my tips ransom, or can I get going?”

  Ralph gave me a cold smile that never reached his eyes, and forked over my thin envelopes. “Of course.”

  Chapter 10

  A taste like furniture polish was heavy on my sandpaper tongue when I pried open my eyes the next morning. I really needed to get a better handle on how to make a Limoncello Collins myself. That, or choose my company more carefully. The busboy had thrown a fit when I suggested we head out for a nightcap, even though I reassured him my normal watering hole was not technically a gay bar. Because he insisted he wasn’t gay.