Sprayed Stiff (21 page)

And spit the Zambian across the room.

The hall was full of roses. Orange roses, with petals going pink at the tips, at least six dozen in various vases lining the hall. My heart caught somewhere near my throat. I’d gotten flowers before, but not multiple dozens of flowers at one time.

“You’re popular.” Bettina, in full womanhood today with water bra and tight-fitting gold sheath, grinned from the other end of the hall. Alejandra stuck her head out of her room and winked. Daisy Dawn put her three-inch nails out of her room and gave a thumbs-up sign.

Enrique jumped out of his room and cocked a hip. “You must be damned good, Reyn.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that.”

Everyone at once, including the customers already in their chairs, chanted, “Sure it’s not.”

I snorted and waved them off, marching down the hall officiously to see the appointment book, since I could hardly remember my own name in the face of this surprise, much less who wanted their hair done today.

I glanced at Bettina, who was grinning ear to ear. It was a rare sight, since she tried not to smile for fear of gouging wrinkles into her seamless Asian complexion.

“I’m shocked to see you here. I thought you were going to Hollywood to be discovered.”

“Are you kidding? This little salon is more exciting than la-la land ever hoped to be. I’d hate to miss anything.”

I grinned. “Thanks for staying.”

“Just keep me interested.” Bettina swept an arm toward the roses. “Aren’t you going to see who they’re from?”

“Maybe later.” I hated to spoil my fantasy. I wanted them to be from my charming Texas Ranger. They were probably from my grandmother, who watched my antics long-distance with great glee. Or, with my poor luck, the roses were from the killer.

Bettina raised her eyebrows. “I find that very strange for someone as curious and as impatient as you are.”

“What did I do with my birthday presents?”

She sulked. “You let them pile up until your exact birthday before you opened them.”

I nodded righteously. “Willpower and patience are two different things. I have willpower. I don’t have patience.”

She sat down at the reception desk and reviewed the phone messages. “You’re popular. Mostly among journalists. I’m assuming that you’ve talked to the one you wanted to talk to, that Roy Gene character. By the way, did you hear he had to be hospitalized last night for a concussion? Speculation is that it was a jealous colleague, angry at him for getting to you first.”

“Hmm, I guess everything comes with a price.”

Bettina raised her eyebrows again. She glanced at the flowers. “Was this
your
price?”

“No!” I looked at her sneaky face. “And you are not going to get me mad enough to show you the card. Good try, though.” I glanced down at her notepad. No call from Trudy. She hadn’t called my cell phone either. She’d acted weird last night, not letting me come over. It was one of two things: Either she knew where Lexa was, or she was mad at me for putting her precious Mario in harm’s way at Bangers. Forget her. I scanned the message pad again and forced a casual tone. “Scythe didn’t call?”

I knew he must be furious that my interview had summoned the Texas Rangers. Cops hated nothing more than having their control taken away. The feds were bad enough. At least they were semi-nerdy in their dark Brooks Brothers suits and wraparound shades. The state cops, dressed up like the law of the Old West, with their requisite Stetsons and all-encompassing power, had to be a worse blow to the Texas law enforcers’ machismo.

Bettina shook her head as my nine o’clock pulled up out front. “No call from the lieutenant.”

Well, nothing like a little suspense. I tapped my ocher caimans on the hardwood floor and resisted calling him. Like I’d told Bettina, I wasn’t patient, but I had willpower. Let him make the next move. Problem was, Scythe
was
patient. No telling how long I’d have to wait for the other boot to drop.

The salon hit its usual midafternoon lull about three or four o’clock. Since I was a night person, my brain usually lulled about then, too, but why the rhythm of the whole world lags, I wasn’t really sure. At any rate, I was yawning my way through a perm when a head popped around the edge of my door.

A unibrow troll.

The garlic wafted in as an afterthought.

I yanked a little too hard on Aimee Vokel’s roots in surprise. She sucked in air for a scream and I shoved the roller into her mouth, which left her gagging instead.

Apologizing profusely, I led her around Percy Barrister, who looked goofier than normal in a silver and black windsuit I was sure he’d worn to be incognito. It just made him look like an extra in
Star Wars.
I settled Aimee in our customer lounge with a Sprite, pretending not to notice the flask she produced from under her smock. It was a good thing she’d nipped into that a couple of times during her appointment or she might have recognized Percy and been on the phone to every news station in town.

Thank goodness for small favors.

I hurried back into my room. Percy popped out from behind the barber chair. I jumped and almost screamed myself. “Mr. Barrister. What are you doing here?”

“I want my daughter.” He leaned into my personal space.

I had to step away as my eyes watered from being garlicked. “I don’t have your daughter.”

“You know where she is, however.”

“No I don’t.”
Although I have a guess or two.
“Why do you want her, anyway?”

“I want…” He paused, his unibrow caterpillared across his forehead, and his face crumpled. “To apologize. To tell her I’m sorry. For everything.”

He was sobbing now. I shut the door. “For what everything?”

Sniff, sniff. Wet garlic scent. “For her finding out I cheated on her mother. For using her little scumbag boyfriend to find a conduit for the drugs my associates needed to market in the U.S. so I could pay for the women I was seeing behind Wilma’s back. You see, Wilma noticed the odd charges at Tiffany’s and the like, and it just got unworkable without the extra cash—”

“You want a tip or two?” I interrupted before I got sick all over the floor. He nodded eagerly, and I continued, “If you want to apologize, I’d recommend not referring to Asphalt as ‘little scumbag boyfriend.’ ”

“Really?”

I nodded. “And I notice you didn’t say you were sorry for cheating, just for Lexa finding out about it.”

He nodded. Lots of nodding going around.

“Well, I might fudge that a little if I were you and act a little sorry you cheated to begin with, not just sorry you were caught. You could probably imply regret. Hmm?”

“That’s satisfactory.” He sniffed once more. The tears dried.

“Good. Now, is that the only reason you want to find Lexa?”

“Well, no. She has to help me talk her grandmother out of burning Wilma on a funeral pyre in the middle of the Rockies.”

I didn’t think that sounded like such a bad idea. It could be a perfect send-off for Wilma the Hun. “So, you didn’t kill your wife, Mr. Barrister?”

The unibrow humped grumpily. “You certainly are nosy about all this.”

“Since your daughter made me culpable by dragging me into this, I don’t think I’m being anything but responsible.”

“I suppose you have a point. No, I didn’t kill my wife. I loved her.”

There were all kinds of love, I was finding out. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t kill her. You probably loved your girlfriend, Shauna, too.”

“Maybe. But I didn’t kill her either. In fact, I have an alibi. I was with my associates from south of the border, making distribution plans. I’ve agreed to testify against them once the police find them, which will probably keep me out of prison. Or at least I’d go into a federal prison, which is more desirable. So there.”

I guess Percy was so pleased with himself that he didn’t wonder how the cops were going to find the bad guys from Mexico. My guess was that they’d set him loose as bait. Stupid minnow didn’t even know it.

“I’d lie low for a couple of days if I were you, Mr. Barrister.”

“I think I’ve taken just about enough advice from you, young lady.” He turned his shiny, rotund body toward the door.

I shrugged. Maybe the Indians and Grandma ought to build a double pyre.

“One more thing, Mr. Barrister. Do you think any of your old girlfriends might have gone after Wilma as revenge for you dumping them?”

He narrowed his porcine eyes at me. “What do you know about old girlfriends?”

“No man has ever cheated just once on his wife. Besides you mentioned seeing ‘women,’ plural.”

“Well, I might have had women clients enamored of me over the years. Some of them got a little overzealous and I had to call the IRS to distract them. So you might want to check IRS records. Anyone who was audited might have been fighting mad.”

I shook my head. “Not everything is about money.”

He opened the door and threw back as he walked out, “Silly girl. Money is everything. Which is why I’d never kill Wilma. Wilma
was
money.”

On that happy note, he waddled his silver butt out of Transformations. I leaned against the doorjamb and gazed at my array of roses. I supposed it was time to look at the card. Gran would want a thank-you and an update on the goings-on anyway. If it was the murderer, I was going to have to call the cops. After my fantasies had taken me and the Randy Ranger to a deserted island for eternity, snowed us into a cabin in the mountains for months, and gotten us married with three perfect kids living happily ever after, I was back to reality.

Leaning down, I stroked one of the petals. Orange roses were so unusual. I plucked the envelope off its plastic holder, eased it open, and opened the simple orange card.

It was worse than being a note from the killer. It was from Scythe.

I
WAS WASHING OUT
Mrs. Reinmeyer’s foil highlights when I heard the bells at the door tinkle. Bettina had already left for her dance gig at Illusions. So I called down the hall, “Be right with you.”

No reporters had shown up all day, thank goodness, now that they had the famous Clint Calhoun to dog. It was probably a walk-in customer whom I’d agree to do just to keep busy. Scythe’s note had left me as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The setting sun slanting through the blinds was only making it worse.

Cameron waved as she locked her door. “What’s the deal, Reyn?”

Innocent enough slang, but her coincidental choice of words gave me a start. Before I could answer, Enrique walked an armful of towels past to the washing machine. “Yeah, is tonight the night?”

Daisy Dawn waltzed down the hall. “Time to pay up.”

“Y’all read my card!” I stormed. Mrs. Reinmeyer started gurgling.

Daisy Dawn grabbed my right arm and redirected the stream away from the octogenarian’s face. Enrique handed her a towel. They all started laughing, except Mrs. Reinmeyer, who was sputtering.

“I consider this a violation of my privacy,” I continued, affronted.

“Girl, get real. A violation of your privacy is if we go to Rick and Tessa’s with binoculars tonight.” Daisy Dawn winked at her coworkers.

“Oh, can I come?” Mrs. Reinmeyer asked.

“Enough, all of you!” I turned to Cameron and said, “Go see who’s come in.”

I led Mrs. Reinmeyer to my chair and finished her style. Cameron never came back to tell me who’d come in, so I guessed it wasn’t too serious. In fact, the whole place had gone quiet. I must’ve scared them all off, to leave without good-byes. I finished Mrs. Reinmeyer’s flip-out style. I’d accidentally given her a Mohawk a while back, and it had changed everything. Once a blue-rinse-only customer, the old gal had gone hip on me. Remember the thing I said about timing? Now Mrs. Reinmeyer got the latest look off the World Wide Web the morning before her appointment. We both smiled in satisfaction at the latest result. She tipped me, advised me to “take the proper precautions,” and left with a wink.

Taking out the broom, I began cleaning up the hair on the floor. Then I heard a board in the hallway creak. I plastered myself against the wall and waited, listening. As soon as I saw a shadow cross the room, I spun out, knocking the intruder into the washing chair, straddling him and pinning him down with the broomstick to his throat.

It was Scythe. He had a beribboned bottle of Moët & Chandon in his hand.

“This is a little quick and a little rough for what I had in mind, but I’m sure I could get up for it.”

From what I could feel, he was already up for it.

“What are you doing, sneaking around, scaring me?” I demanded, dropping the broomstick and trying to wiggle off his lap. His hands came to my hips to still me.

It just made me want to wiggle more.

“Weren’t you expecting me? You called down the hall that you’d be right there. You never came.”

“But Cameron, Daisy Dawn…Mrs. Reinmeyer?”

“They all tiptoed by with their fingers to their lips. I thought you were taking a nap or had a migraine or something.”

“A headache. Yes, that’s what I have. Too bad.” I tried to get my caiman boots to the ground, but that just put certain parts of my anatomy closer to his. I pushed off the chair handles but my hands slipped off, and I just bounced.

Scythe groaned and grinned. His laser blues burned. I jumped back like I’d been scalded, not caring that I had to ricochet off the wall. He chuckled. “This is going to be fun.”

“In your dreams,” I countered bravely.

“I’ve already had those,” he admitted wryly.

I threw a glance back as I walked into my styling room.
Him, too?

I resorted to desperation tactics. “I would’ve thought you’d be a little mad at me.”

He’d crouched down to study his roses, brushing the pad of his finger across the soft petals. “A little mad at you?” he asked carefully. Too carefully.

“Yes, for my interview drawing the Texas Rangers here.”

I watched his jaw ripple as he flexed it. Hmm. “I don’t know,” he finally said quietly. “We probably need all the help we can get at this point.”

Sure.

“I did my part to get them off your backs. I told them everything I know.”

“Him,” Scythe corrected tightly.

“Clint Calhoun,” I clarified.

“I wish you hadn’t let him in.” More jaw flexing. He took a step toward me. “I told you to go home and lock your doors. Then you’ve got a Texas Ranger and two of your buddies paying midnight visits. At least, I hope they were buddies, otherwise you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to let them in. Who were they?”

“You were watching me?” I asked, aghast.

“I didn’t say that.” He took another step toward me.

“You had someone watching me?” I jammed my hands on my hips.

“I don’t now.” His hand cupped my chin and brought my lips to his. This kiss was better than his last one, and that one was damned good. The best I’d ever been kissed. His other hand teased the hair at the nape of my neck. It sent pulses of energy places I had no idea were connected to my hair follicles. Somehow my hands ended up around his shoulders.

What was that I said about willpower?

His lips moved across my cheek and he breathed into my ear, “It’s time to pay up on your deal, before you have to make another one to get me to keep you out of trouble.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to demand whether the only way he could get a girl was with threats. Then I heard the words of Gore of Wretched Roadkill: “You shouldn’t argue so much with your copper boyfriend. Guys don’t like a chick with a mouth and an attitude.” I hated to take advice from a half-stoned member of a headbanger band who sang about squashed armadillos, but heck, maybe he was right. Maybe I was coming across as Katherine in
The Taming of the Shrew.
Of course, I always kind of liked her. I imagined men didn’t, though. I couldn’t stay celibate forever.

“Okay.”

His eyebrows lifted in stunned surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

“But maybe I’ll like it so much that I’ll stay in trouble just so we can keep making deals to get me out.” I smiled sweetly. I didn’t say I’d be a total pushover.

His right eyebrow dropped, leaving the amused left one half-hitched. “Wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have?”

“Do I get to spiff up with a shower, or do we go after it right here?”

“How about both?”

“Nope. You have to choose.”

“Shower.” He sniffed the air as we left my styling room. “Especially since it smells like you had some of that old kimchee in your refrigerator for lunch.”

“That wasn’t me. Percy came to visit.”

Scythe stopped in his tracks. “Why?”

“He said he wanted to find Lexa to apologize for her finding out about him cheating on her mother and for betraying her scumbag boyfriend.”

“Thoughtful of him. You tell him where she is?”

I met his penetrating gaze. “I don’t know.”

He looked away, disappointed. “Your one saving grace is you can’t lie.”

“My one?” I asked as I locked the salon’s front door.

“I might be able to think of another one. Maybe
lots
more, after tonight.”

You know, I shouldn’t drink champagne. Not four glasses in an hour, anyway. Not expensive champagne either, because it goes down way too smoothly. Of course, I didn’t know I was drinking four glasses until much, much later when I realized that Sleazeball Scythe had been slipping into the bathroom, refilling my glass as I steamed myself in the shower, then into the bedroom, refilling the glass again as I searched the closet for the right ensemble. No telling what peeks he snagged while he was at it. Pervert.

Anyhow, I was still ignorant of his deception when I emerged from my bedroom, scented with Ralph Lauren’s Glamourous, made up with eyeliner (sienna to highlight the gold in my hazel eyes), and wearing a dress (black denim, but still a dress). Knee-high ostrich boots finished the look. I even had pretty undies on, dragged out of mothballs from three Christmases ago.

I thought Scythe was having a heart attack when he saw me. He started hyperventilating. He grabbed at his chest. It was probably my bare legs. I knew I shouldn’t have worn the minidress. I ran to the couch, ready to administer CPR. He pulled me on top of him and started kissing me. Everywhere. My nose, my ear, my neck, my cleavage (I was wearing a push-up bra, so there was a little there). His hands started roving. Everywhere. My waist, my hips, the skin on the backs of my thighs, my…

“Whoa.” I pushed away and sat up. I don’t think the last glass of champagne had hit yet or I’d still be rolling around on the couch with him. “I came over here to give you mouth-to-mouth.”

“And you did. I feel much better now.”

“So is this the deal? Making out on my couch all night?”

“No. I had a private caterer setting up a gourmet dinner at my house.” He looked almost regretful. “With wine, turtle cheesecake, the works.”

I might’ve argued, but the turtle cheesecake convinced me. Plus, I was dying to see his bachelor pad. Maybe Zena’s toothbrush was in the bathroom. “Let’s go. Grab the champagne.”

“Oh.” Surprise, surprise. “It looks like I finished it all. Too bad.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and hoped I wasn’t swaying. He didn’t look a bit tipsy for having three glasses to my one. Maybe he was a closet alcoholic, but I didn’t think so.

Furthermore, I should’ve been suspicious when I saw Rick come out of his house and walk toward the Labs, see us just pulling out of the driveway, then turn around and run back in. No, of course not. I was under the influence of Moët and testosterone.

Scythe lived in a log cabin on a ten-acre hill overlooking Cibolo Creek south of town in a little country village called Floresville. It was remote but beautiful, with the moonlight reflecting off the water. Surrounded by rolling hills and lush pastures, it seemed wild and calm at the same time. I could see why a man who dealt with the worst of civilization during the workday might want his home to be away from it at night, and I told him so.

He seemed a bit discomfited by my insight.

“You haven’t cornered the market on figuring everyone out, you know,” I teased as we picked through the tenderloin dinner.

“Oh, Reyn,” he began, then stopped himself. He stood and gathered my wineglass with his, ushering me out the door to the back porch. The moonlight danced off the water below us. He gathered me in his arms. “You don’t make it easy to care about you.”

Huh? And here I thought I was being easy to get along with tonight. I’d let him cop a feel, kiss me places he’d never kissed me before, even take me to his home, and who knew what else….

Men were hard to figure out, especially on multiple glasses of vino.

Scythe pressed his lips to my temple, and I shifted to face his chest so I could breathe in the mesquitey scent of him. Tipping up my face, I kissed him again, and then the spark that had been there for months ignited. My hands were all over him and his were all over me; we were bumping and grinding and pushing and pulling and…panting.

Somehow we ended up in the bedroom. I’d lost my dress somewhere along the way. He’d lost his shirt.

Then a man jumped out from behind the closet door.

He looked familiar.

I opened my mouth to scream, but before the sound could emerge, Scythe had pulled his gun from his ankle holster and aimed.