Seducing Celestine

by Amarinda Jones

  “Is the money really worth it, Julia?” Who needed this much aggravation for a couple of bucks?

  Julia snorted in the most unladylike way at her question.

  “You ask me that after I took everything you had? How do you feel when you have no money, Celestine?” Julia knew full well the frustration Celestine had to feel.

  Celestine decided to try another tack with Julia. She would appeal to her greed.

  “What about Lester? Can you trust him? After all, he killed his partner.” She hoped Julia would give some thought to Lester as a threat. Lester was not with them. He had gone to what he called the little boy’s room. If he was inside her house using her bathroom Celestine knew she would never be able to use that room again.

  “I can handle Lester.”

  “Can you? What if he does to you what he did to his partner? All the money in the world can’t help you if you’re dead, Julia.” Celestine looked at her significantly. “Besides, where is he now? It doesn’t take that long to go to the bathroom. I hope the car is safely locked otherwise you’ll be saying goodbye to that money.”

  Julia laughed harshly at her words.

  “I know what you are trying to do, Celestine. You’re trying to divide and conquer. The car is under my control and Lester is as dumb of box of rocks. But I’m not. There is no way I’d be stupid enough to either trust him or be sucked in with your words.”

  Celestine wasn’t surprised by Julia’s response. Julia was a selfish manipulative survivor. She made no excuses for it. She knew what she wanted and she took it. You had to admire that in anyone. However, you did not have to like it.

  “I take it you’re going to cheat him out of the money from the car?” It was a statement not a question and both women knew it.

  “You’re not dumb, Celestine. What do you think?” Julia said, looking down at the bedraggled creature before her.

  “So Lester is going to get screwed over by you and he’s too dumb to realize it. Nice work, Julia.” Celestine wondered when the cosmic wheel of karma would come around and strike Julia onto her ass.

  The sound of the tin door opening stopped any further conversation between the two women. Lester stepped inside the shed, the gun in his hand.

  “It’s nearly time,” he told Julia, as he yanked Celestine to her feet. The pain in her wrists and ankles cut through Celestine like a knife. She bit back on the cry that sprang to her lips. She would not show any weakness with this pair.

  “I’ll ring Swan and tell him where to meet us.” Julia punched in the now-familiar numbers of Nick’s cell phone, into her own phone. “Okay, Swan, here’s the deal,” began Julia in a hard, controlled voice.

  “I agree to nothing until I speak to Celestine,” returned Nick, his voice as cool and as in command as hers.

  Julia sighed and put the phone to Celestine’s ear. “Prince Charming wants to speak to you. Don’t say anything stupid, Celestine.”

  “Are you hurt, baby?”

  “I’m fine,” Celestine lied, knowing she was in pain and felt anything other than fine. But there was no point worrying Nick any further than she had to. She had put him through so much since she had come into his life. Celestine had to wonder whether she was worth it. Why would he go to so much trouble for her?

  “I love you,” Nick told her, his voice true and firm, answering her unspoken thoughts.

  “Nick, I…” A loud bang and a howl of pain interrupted anything Celestine was going to say. “Oh my God,” she gasped, as she realized the gun had gone off in the shed.

  Nick heard the shot and was frantic with worry.

  “What was that? Celestine! Celestine!” he cried out in alarm.

  Celestine looked to where Lester was lying on the floor of the shed, screaming in agony.

  “What the hell happened?” she yelled, as Julia yanked the phone away from Celestine’s ear.

  “Bloody Lester saw a blue-tongue lizard and decided to shoot at it,” cursed Julia, looking at Lester with intense dislike. “The idiot appears to have shot his big toe off.” Both women looked down at the blood pooling on the ground near Lester’s foot. The canvas shoe on his right foot had the front blown out of it, blood was pouring out.

  “I thought it was a snake!” Lester howled in pain.

  Even though Lester was a lowlife creep who had caused her nothing but trouble, Celestine could not leave him bleeding. However, having her hands tightly bound together did not allow her to help him. She looked at Julia to give him aid. Julia looked like she would rather kill him than help him.

  “Listen up, Swan,” said Julia, into the phone, ignoring Lester’s cry of pain. “Meet me at that park beside the Everton Park library on South Pine Road and there had better be no police.”

  “Who was shot?” Nick demanded to know, praying it was anyone but Celestine.

  “Just shut up and listen.” Julia was not interested in anything but her own cause.

  “Not until you tell me,” snapped Nick angrily, knowing that he had never before contemplated hitting a woman until Julia came on the scene.

  Julia sighed out a loud, aggravated sigh.

  “Celestine is alive and if you want to keep her that way you have fifteen minutes to get to the park with the money.” Julia snapped off the phone and reached down to the gun that Lester had dropped after he accidentally shot himself.

  Celestine did not like the look in Julia’s eyes. Surely Julia did not contemplate killing him.

  “We’ve got to help him, Julia. He could bleed to death,” Celestine implored her. Lester was a pig but he was also a human being…sort of.

  “Who cares?” Julia yelled, grabbing Celestine by the arm and dragging her out of the shed. “He’s an idiot trying to shoot a lizard in the middle on the day on a Sunday when a gunshot can be heard everywhere. We have to get out of here now.” She half pulled, half dragged the still-bound out Celestine out of the shed, leaving Lester to rot.

  Chapter Ten

  Julia swore angrily fifteen minutes later as they drove past the small park beside the Everton Park library, in Celestine’s old white car.

  “I can see police!” Julia slammed her hands down angrily on the steering wheel. “I told your boyfriend not to bring the police into this!” They circled the block and pulled up in a side street behind the library. Julia yanked up the handbrake and swore loudly. “This is not part of the plan!”

  Celestine looked at her cynically. She, personally, had never known a time when a plan had come together as expected. Had Julia really expected kidnapping and robbery was something that would be easy to pull off? Was she living in some fantasy world where people said and did everything they were promised to do?

  “Gee, Julia, fancy someone not honoring your dishonorable demands.” Celestine barely felt the quick, hard slap that Julia delivered to her bruised face. That the woman was pissed off was only too evident. However, Celestine’s face, hands and feet were so numb from the pain that she had already endured that the slap meant nothing. “What now?” Celestine pressed her head back wearily into the seat headrest. Lord, she was exhausted. She just wanted this all over and done with. She wanted to go back to her normal boring life where the only thing she had to think about was the pursuit of money. And then there was sex with Nick…she wanted to be able to do that again.

  “Will you shut up! I’m trying to think.” There was a definite edge of hysteria to Julia’s voice.

  Celestine was encouraged by the slight sound of defeat in ex-roommate’s tone. She decided to utilize it to her own advantage and maybe get herself out of this mess a lot quicker.

  “If it was me, Julia, I would just dump me and cut your losses.” Celestine turned her head to look at the blonde woman who was deep in thought. Lester’s gun rested on her lap. Celestine knew for a fact that Julia was a manipulative, cold-hearted cow but she wasn’t a career criminal. She was clearly out of her depth when it came to successfully handling a robbery and kidnapping. It was completely different from ripping off the perso
n you lived with. Celestine had every intention of trying to influence Julia’s decision-making process any way she could even if it meant another slap on the face. “Take the money from my crappy car and scarper, Julia. You already have a guaranteed fifty thousand dollars hidden in the backseat. There is no guarantee that you are going to get any money for kidnapping me. Is it really worth the risk of getting caught? Let’s just end this now.”

  Julia snorted at her as if she believed Celestine did not have a clue what she was talking about.

  “What do you know, Celestine? You’re such a smart-mouthed, goody two-shoes. Why the hell would I want to listen to the likes of you?”

  Celestine did not care to be thought of as a goody two-shoes. Okay, smart-mouthed she would accept and she would even admit to being a pain in the ass. However, she was not a goody two-shoes. It was strange that Julia thought of her so but then Julia held the gun and Celestine didn’t so Julia had the edge when it came to name-calling.

  “Julia, I know that as strong as your greed is for money, you really don’t want to get caught and go to jail.” Greed was good but prison just sucked. All those prison movies alone indicated that. And who wanted to be stuck with an unwanted girlfriend in prison? That alone should be enough to make you walk the straight and narrow. “You already have enough money hidden in this car for your needs.”

  “I need more.”

  “We all need more money, Julia! You think you’re alone in that? Snap out of it!” Celestine had to remember that Julia had the gun and picking a fight with her was not the smartest thing she could do at the moment.

  “It’s another fifty thousand, Celestine.” Julia looked at Celestine as if she was speaking some strange language she could not understand. “With the money I already have from the car, I’ll be rich.”

  Then what? How much was too much? What did you risk for more than enough? Hell, Celestine loved and adored money. But there was a price for everything and the game Julia was playing did not seem worth it. And what if she got caught and got nothing? Did Julia ever think beyond her greed? Or did she live for the greed of the moment and to hell with the consequences?

  “Nick and the cops may even not have the money with them, Julia.” Celestine pointed out the obvious to her. Not everyone could come up with a huge sum of money just like that. Though even as she said it, Celestine knew instinctively Nick Swan had that money with him. How? She just did. The man could entice her to have sex by a mere look and have her begging for more. Nick was wild and crazy yet despite this he was solid and dependable and one of the good guys. Some guys just did not walk around with a white hat on their head to prove it. In the short time she had known him, Celestine realized she knew Nick better than anyone else in her life. Yeah, she was in love with the guy. And she may just have the guts to admit to him that if she ever got out of this thing with Julia. “It may be a bluff.”

  “It’s an expensive bluff with your life, Celestine.”

  Celestine wondered if Julia remembered when they had first met and what she had been like. Julia had been shy, quiet and wounded both physically and mentally. Had her treatment at the hands of so vicious an ex-boyfriend killed any spark of decency in her? Or was she so hardened to everything that the battered, desperate woman she had once been was now looking for payback any way and on anyone she could?

  “I don’t believe you really want to kill me, Julia.” Celestine was ninety-five percent certain she was right. But there was always that five percent that was the wild card.

  Julia sighed loudly, a tired, thin smile creased her lips.

  “Do you ever shut up, Celestine?” she asked, in a wry, strained voice.

  “Rarely ever. You know that, you lived with me for almost six months.” Celestine could almost feel the other woman rethinking her plans. “Come on, Julia. You know the fifty thousand under the backseat would set you up nicely somewhere. Hell, I’ll even throw my car for you to drive off into the sunset in.” Realistically Celestine knew the car would probably only get her twenty miles away before it threw a hissy fit and refused to budge. Celestine could see the corners of Julia’s mouth turn up at her less than gallant offer.

  “Your car is a time bomb on four wheels, Holt.”

  “Yeah but it’s a classic. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.” Celestine thumped the dashboard with her bound hands and a split formed under the tacky gray vinyl. “A piece of tape will fix that nicely.” She could see by the look in Julia’s eye she was so close to giving in on the kidnap idea. “Take the money, junk the car if you want and just let me go.” Julia was greedy but she was never dumb. “They’ll catch Lester and all the blame will be placed on him.” Poor, dumb, smelly Lester.

  Julia sat quietly for a moment, her expression indicated that she was weighing her options.

  “If I do let you go, you’ll tell them about me.”

  Celestine felt her heart leap with hope. Woo hoo! The end was near!

  “Come on, what do I really know about you, Julia, other than you’re greedy and a manipulative bitch that I would be happy never to see the back end of again?” That was all she wanted to know of Julia Bailey. Possibly she had a good side and displayed finer, nobler feelings but Celestine doubted it. “To be honest, Julia, I do not give a rat’s ass what happens to you once we part.”

  Julia smiled at her words as if what Celestine had said had struck a chord with her. She turned the ignition on in the car. The car rolled forward, heading back toward South Pine Road and the front of the library.

  “You know something, Celestine Holt, you are a pain in the backside,” Julia told her, her eyes alight with a sudden spark of decision. “But you are also right. Get ready to jump.”

  “What?” Jump? Jump where? And how? Her hands and her feet were once again bound.

  “I’m going to let you go but I’m not going to stop long enough for the cops to get me. So you’ll have to jump from the car.” Julia looked at Celestine critically. “You look like you’d have a lot of cellulite. If you land on that you will be fine.”

  Celestine looked at the woman disbelievingly. Was it that obvious she had cellulite?

  “I retain water really easily.” That was her defense and she was sticking to it. Frigging bitch.

  Julia laughed out loud.

  “You’re more pissed off that I called you fat than by jumping out of a moving car. You are weird, Celestine Holt.”

  “So speaks the woman with the fake boobs…” Celestine muttered tiredly. She had to get back on track. Name-calling was all well and good but she had to convince Julia to let her go without the dramatics. “You want me to jump, or more likely fall, from a moving car?” Celestine was no daredevil or even the slightest bit athletic. She knew falling out of a moving car onto the road would hurt like hell. “I was hoping you would undo me and let me walk away. You know, be nice to me, for old times’ sake.”

  “Nah, I don’t do nice.” Julia grinned as if she was enjoying Celestine’s predicament. Julia had solved the problem of what she was going to do. It was now Celestine’s problem to stop herself from getting too badly hurt when she fell. “I will slow the car and you can fall out. That’s the best I can promise, Celestine.”

  “God, you are a selfish cow!” Jeez, Celestine just knew she was going to have some serious gravel rash.

  Julia slowed the car enough so she could to reach over, one hand on the steering wheel as she undid Celestine’s door. Once undone, she grabbed Celestine’s arm.

  “I hope they catch you!” Celestine snarled as she felt the door fly open beside her. The ground sped by at an alarming rate. This was what Julia called slowing down?

  “See you around, Celestine,” Julia said in careless farewell. She pushed her out of the car, not bothering to either shut the passenger door or look back to see how Celestine fared as she gunned the car and sped off.

  Celestine fell hard onto the asphalt, rolling and swearing loudly as she went. The momentum of her body finally flung her to slam hard into a gut
ter. She felt like every bone in her body had been broken as she lay in an undignified lump. She was in agony. At least it proven she did not have enough fat to break her fall.

  “Yay. A bright side,” Celestine groaned as she rolled into a ball as the pain hit her. She was not numb anymore. Celestine could see people running toward her. Her head started to swim dizzily. Just as Nick reached her and she knew she was safe, she gave in to the urge to faint.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You are not checking out of this hospital, Celestine Holt.” Nick’s voice was most definite on that score.

  Celestine arched her eyebrows at Nick’s commanding tone. She did not do orders. It was a genetic quirk of hers to instantly do the opposite of what everyone expected. Besides, she felt fine. Well, maybe not fine. More like passably okay. The painkillers that the doctor had prescribed were mighty fine and they were kicking in nicely. Other than the odd twinge she was good to go. Granted, she looked like crap but no one could be picture perfect all the time. However, bruises faded and cuts healed. The important thing was that Celestine was still standing, albeit in a wobbly fashion and there was no reason for her to stay in hospital.

  “I am perfectly okay and as I am no longer in danger, I just want to go home.” Well, as much of a home as her rathole of a house was. But more importantly, she needed to get out of hospital. She had lain awake the previous night listening to the soft voices of the nurses and the whining of patient call buttons, thinking about Nick and what to do about him and her feelings. The fact that she could not stop thinking about how they had had sex in this very hospital did not help. It only made her horny and confused. Was sex all they really had between them? Was she mistaking lust for love? The answer came to her at four o’clock that morning. It was she did not frigging know and lying in an uncomfortable hospital bed was not helping her. It was a less than definitive but that was the best she could come up with.