Taste for Trouble (19 page)

The
woman gave each of their hands a brisk shake and said, “I’m Jemma Halliday,
Educational Director here at County Correctional School for Girls. You’ll want
to see the kitchens first, I imagine?”

The
animal inside her head whispered
hide
and Bel obeyed. She scraped every
trace of emotion off her face, deadened her eyes and pulled her real self back
as far as she could manage. “Fine,” she murmured.

Ms.
Halliday nodded firmly, then set off down the hall. The familiar scent of
commercial disinfectant had memory snarling and snapping against the locks Bel
had buried it under years ago, but her body moved automatically, falling in
behind the woman.

Beside
her, James tucked his hands into his pockets and tackled the hall at his usual
loose-limbed amble, his running shoes a merry squeak against the dull gray tile.
His shaggy head swiveled around, taking in the sights with his typical delighted
curiosity.
It’s reform school
, Bel thought, bitterness a vile pressure
in her throat.
Not fucking Disney
.

They
followed Ms. Halliday down the winding, windowless hall. Funny, Bel thought. If
somebody had asked her even yesterday to name all the little tricks she’d used
to get through those two hellish months she’d spent in juvenile hall at thirteen,
she’d have come up empty. Genuinely empty. But those plots and charms and
stratagems hadn’t been lost. No, indeed. Only hiding.

Because
she suddenly found herself walking lightly, her hands held loose and empty, her
balance constant, her shoulders tense. She found herself failing to focus on any
one object, sacrificing detail for a more acute awareness of movement and
change in the entire picture. Her skin tingled with the vicious awareness of
each current of air, her entire system on red alert for the tell-tale shock and
crackle in the atmosphere that always preceded random violence.

“Hey.
Bel.” She turned and found James’ eyes on her. “You all right?”

She
shored up her
whatever
face. “Of course,” she said.

He frowned
at her but she refocused on pacing the warden. Because Educational Director, her
ass. Bel didn’t care what the woman called herself. She knew a warden when she
saw one.

Inside
her, the animal chanted.
Focus. Smell. Sense. Be aware. Be prepared. Be
swift and merciless
.

Survive
.

“These
are our culinary arts stations,” the warden said. She swiped her name badge
across an infrared reader and the knob gave way with a shrill beep. She pushed
open the metal door and waved Bel and James inside. Bel smiled politely and put
a hand on the door behind Warden Halliday’s back.

“Go
ahead,” she said.

The
warden’s smile didn’t budge but something flickered in her eyes. Awareness. Recognition.

Good
, the animal whispered.
She knows what you are now
.

James
sailed into the classroom without hesitation. The warden inclined her head at
Bel—perhaps in thanks, but more likely in acknowledgment—and followed him.

Bel
followed them both and pulled the door shut behind her.

James
surveyed the neat kitchenette. It could have been lifted right out of the
little rambler where he’d grown up in West Texas, all the way down to the
sparkly Formica counters. Little bitty four-top electric range, oven just big
enough for a twelve pound turkey. Any bigger and Dad had to do the drumsticks
on the grill in the yard.

Harvest
gold sink, laminate cabinets, dorm-style fridge under the counter. Four
identical set ups in each corner, connected by a big old octopus of duct work
overhead. To satisfy code, he assumed, though barely. He and his brothers had
built sturdier go-karts.

He
turned to grin at Bel. “Hey, check this out! We used to have this exact same—”

Bel
was gone.

Oh,
physically, she was standing right next to him. He could have nudged her with
his elbow if he’d wanted to. If he’d thought it would do the trick. But her
attention hadn’t wandered. She was simply
gone
. The spirit or energy or
whatever you wanted to call the thing that inhabited a person’s body and made
them, well,
them
? Bel’s had vacated the premises.

His
breath caught in his throat and an exquisite sense of loss gripped him. Which
was stupid. Because he’d gone nearly thirty years without knowing Bel even
existed and had gotten along just fine. And suddenly, the girl tunes out for a
spell and he’s panicking?

Stupid.

But
his lungs refused to receive that message. They stayed hot and tight, enough
that he had to really reach for a normal tone when he said, “Bel?”

She
turned to him, her face a polite question. But her eyes—those deep, warm eyes
that never failed to entertain, to challenge, to engage—were empty and blank. “Yes?”

James
flicked a concerned glance at the principal lady who’d led them in. She stood
watching Bel, her face stoic, her eyes full of compassion.

“It’s
a little dated, I know,” Jemma Halliday said. “But we’re mainly concerned with
domestic functionality. Many of our girls come in here having, literally, never
boiled water. When they leave, most of them can manage a chicken breast and
some frozen peas. The sort of level you’re operating at is going to be
something of a stretch for our girls, I’m afraid.”

Bel
turned that awful plastic face on her. “That’s fine,” she said. “We’re not
asking anybody to produce a state dinner. What I have in mind, however, is
going to require a more commercial set up.”

“Commercial?”
The principal’s silvery brows drew together but she looked more wary than
puzzled. “I thought you were teaching the girls how to cook?”

“I
am. But not for themselves.” Bel waved a hand at the kitchenette James had
enjoyed so much a minute ago. “I have a client who’s expecting two hundred mini
cakes—one for each place setting at her wedding—by the weekend. Your girls will
be helping to fulfill that contract.”

“I
see.” Ms. Halliday put a hand to her throat, as if she habitually wore pearls. But
there was no moonlight or magnolia in her voice when she said, “I’m afraid I
misunderstood. When I spoke to Ms. Davis, she implied you would be covering
life skills for the girls, not using them as cheap labor.”

“I
will
be teaching them life skills,” Bel said.

“I
fail to see how producing hundreds of tiny cakes is going to help my girls
budget for groceries or prepare balanced meals for themselves and whoever else
they find themselves responsible for down the road.”

James
had to give the woman credit. She might look soft but she had backbone. And she
was not pleased at the idea that Bel might be taking advantage of an already abused
population.

“Ms.
Halliday,” Bel said, “
your girls
don’t give a crap about balanced
meals.”

James
gave a snort of startled laughter. The principal lifted a brow his direction
and he said, “I’m sorry. But she said...” He petered off. “Nothing. Excuse me. Please
go on.”

He
shook his head. Bel West, saying
crap
to perfect strangers. Good lord,
what next? Rivers running bloody? Plagues of locusts? Thunderstorms of frogs?

Bel
went on as if James hadn’t just suffered a minor seizure. “What your girls care
about is a) getting out of here, and b) getting paid. You want to play Holly
Homemaker with them, fine. I’ll leave defrosting peas to you. But I’m here to
give them some experience that could open doors for them that don’t lead to
jail, the morgue or welfare.” The smile she gave the woman was the barest curve
of her lips. No dimples at all. James hated that smile. “And to do that, I’ll
need your kitchen. The real one.”

James
turned to the principal to see what the estimable Ms. Halliday thought of the bite
in Bel’s voice and the ice in her smile but Ms. Halliday didn’t look offended
so much as thoughtful. She returned Bel’s flat gaze with measured
consideration.

“Fine,”
she said finally. She snapped off the fluorescent lights and led them back into
the hallway. “The kitchen isn’t a secure location, though. You’ll require
supervision.”

“Will
I?”

The
principal gave Bel that look again, all neutral features and sad eyes. “It’s
for everybody’s safety, Miss West.”

“Of
course,” Bel murmured.

James
wondered what the hell they were talking about.

James
was no amateur when it came to sexually aggressive women. He’d survived a dozen
years on the pro football tour of England and Europe. He’d been groped,
propositioned, flashed and stalked by hundreds of determined women over the
years.

He
hadn’t always said no. But despite what the tabloids printed and what Kate
Davis clearly thought, he hadn’t said yes nearly as often as people assumed,
either.

Not
that he was some kind of throw-back caveman who didn’t think women should have
their shot at the driver’s seat. Maybe James preferred, in general, to do his
own driving, but there was definitely something to be said for a woman who knew
exactly what she wanted and had the brass to go after it, balls out. James had
nothing against headstrong women. Turned out he liked ‘em stubborn. Challenging.
And, lately, extremely well-pressed.

But
even James didn’t know quite what to do with the six sets of hungry eyes fixed
directly on him. Particularly since at least four of them—and possibly more—were
well under the legal age limit.

Ms.
Halliday had marched the girls in and lined them up across the wide, stainless
steel island in the center of the concrete dungeon that passed for a commercial
kitchen according to the state of Virginia. She’d rattled off their names but James
hadn’t caught them. He’d been too busy trying to decide if the lingering aroma
was more powdered eggs or boiled hot dogs.

Then
he was distracted by the perfect racial equity of the group. Two white girls,
two black, one Hispanic, one Asian. Two were visibly pregnant, maybe three. Or
maybe the little Hispanic girl just ran toward chunky. Hard to tell at this age.
Damn shame if she was. Kid couldn’t be more than—

He
broke off in blank surprise when the girl caught his eye and trailed her tongue
over her bottom lip.

What
the hell? Had a chubby twelve-year-old just come on to him? He glanced over at
Bel for a reality check.

“Mrs.
Break will escort the girls back to their dormitory when you’ve finished,” Ms.
Halliday was saying to Bel. She indicated a hatchet-faced matron standing near
the door. Bel flicked a glance at the woman, nodded once. James gave Mrs. Break
a cheerful wave, grateful for the distraction from the heat of all those
lustful gazes.

“Thank
you, Ms. Halliday,” Bel said. “I can manage from here.”

“I’m
sure you can, Ms. West.” She gave the girls a stern look. “Do not make me sorry
I extended you all this privilege,” she said.

“No,
ma’am,” they all chorused as Ms. Halliday left.

Bel
laid a stack of aprons and a box of hair nets on the counter. “Suit up, girls,”
she said.

The
girls lined up for aprons in deference to some internal pecking order James
couldn’t begin to fathom. The fine-boned Asian girl was first and she dropped
the apron over her head but sneered at the box. “I ain’t wearing no hair net,”
she said to Bel.

“Fine,”
Bel said. “Mrs. Break? Will you please take Kira to Ms. Halliday? She’s chosen
not to participate.”

Kira’s
dark eyes went wide and innocent. “Damn, girl, I didn’t say that!”

“No?”
Bel gave her a bland smile. “I must have misunderstood.”

“Straight
up.” The girl gingerly pulled the hair net over her glossy black head. “Clear
the wax out, heard?”

“Heard,”
Bel said solemnly. She pointed Kira toward a terrifying contraption with a bowl
the size of a kettle drum on the floor against the wall. “Stand there.”

Kira
crossed the kitchen, her stride the jaunty hitch-skip James had only ever seen
on MTV. She slowed as she passed him, dropped one lid in an exaggerated wink
and blew him a moist little air kiss.

“Ah,”
James said, utterly at sea. What the hell? These girls were, what, about
fifteen on average? What had he been doing at fifteen? Playing soccer six hours
a day, twelve on weekends? He wouldn’t get anywhere near a pucker that perfect in
real life for years. Where the hell had a kid—because he didn’t care what she’d
done to land herself in juvie, fifteen was still a kid—learned that kind of
sexual self-possession?

Bel joined
Kira at the huge thing against the wall—turned out it was an industrial-sized
mixer—and the rest of the girls followed her in a casual pack.

“I’m
Belinda West,” Bel said to the group when they’d given her their attention. “This
is James Blake.” Those eyes swung James’ way again and he gave them a little
wave.

“Hey,”
he said.

“Hey,
baby,” said one of the white girls, a hand propped on a skinny hip. Caren? Cara?
Something like that. Bel would know. “Saw some of your moves on the computer
last night.”