Cursed (8 page)

“Yeah,” Carl agreed reluctantly, “but you should let me check him out, anyway. I know a good investigator, or I did, if I could get the asshole to call me back, but even if he doesn't, I know some cops.”

“All of you seem to be pretty intimate with the cops,” Lille muttered.

Carl shrugged. “John's dad worked as a police mechanic. You wouldn't believe the shit he used to find out working there.”

“I'm sure,” Lille said. “So what time are we meeting to go to the party tomorrow?” she asked as she walked back into the closet to strip out of the costume and back into her jeans and T-shirt. There were no customers to impress and Kim wasn't around, so she wanted to be comfortable.

Carl still hadn't answered her when she came back out of the closet.

“Carl?”

“What? Sorry.” He looked up from his phone and seemed to shake himself. “One of my deliveries has gone astray. I'll meet you at the gallery,” he told her, sitting on her desk while he scrolled through his phone messages. “The party starts at eight, so if you want to come by around seven . . . ”

Mary was looking at the plywood that John had nailed over the broken window. “I think we have the number of a window guy who likes to come in and buy naughty outfits for his wife. He left his card after the last hurricane.”

Lille remembered seeing it next to the register. “I'll get it.” She walked back out to the main floor just as the doorbell chimed and Kim, Jordan, and John entered. Kim was weaving a little as she made her way through the store back to the office.

Lille narrowed her eyes.
Was the girl drunk at two o'clock?

“Hey, Lille,” Jordan greeted her, his eyes happy but tired.

“Jordan.” She reached across the counter and patted his cheek. “Have you gotten any sleep?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“And he's not going to get any,” Kim informed her, coming back out of the office with her big camera bag and taking Jordan's hand.

“Oh, no?” Lille raised an eyebrow.

Kim was tugging Jordan back toward the door. “We're going to fuck in the apartment.”

John had given Jordan his apartment above the Box since John was more or less living with Mary at her house and Jordan had been working double shifts.

“Okay.” Lille looked questioningly at Jordan, who shrugged and grinned happily.

Lille wondered what had changed Kim's mind about getting involved with Jordan. Lille hadn't noticed anything momentous or earth-shattering; she made a mental note to talk to him about it this evening.

“Lille, honey, I've got to go; my delivery isn't misplaced—someone's stolen one of my shipments.”

“Stolen?”

“Yeah, apparently that's what the thief wanted the other night with my keys. With everything going on, I forgot to have the locks changed at the gallery.

“Carl!” Lille was appalled. “How could you forget something like that?”

He looked down. “I didn't think anyone would steal from me. Everyone knows me.”

John looked pissed. “Need my help?”

Carl waved a hand. “No, I've got it. I'll talk to you guys later.”

Lille looked at John and Mary, who were holding hands. “Should we call Max?”

“Why don't you call Max?” Mary smiled. “John and I will go with Carl to see if we can help.” Mary took John's hand and tugged him back toward the door.

“You have cell phones,” Lille pointed out.

“Call him,” Mary ordered, shouting back at Lille on her way out the door.

The bell jingled as they left, and Lille heard the sound of the key in the lock. She was alone. It seemed quieter than it used to—to be alone.

She wandered back into her office, taking a seat in the white chair. Her cell phone with Max's number was in her purse.

The phone on her desk rang before she could dig it out. She picked it up before the loud, demanding ring could give her a headache.

“The Fetish Box.”

“Is this Lille?”

Lille hesitated; after yesterday, she wasn't so sure it was a good idea to let people know she was here, but the guard, Harlan, was in the parking lot, and Jordan and Kim were upstairs.

“Yes.”

“This is Gordon Blake, the man representing your father.”

Lille's grip tightened on the receiver. “I'm not interested in—”

He cut her off. “Just hear me out.”

Lille waited.

He continued, “We're aware that you've been in contact with your mother, and we wanted to tell you that she's being well cared for.”

Lille didn't know quite what to make of that; it didn't sound like a threat, and yet . . .

“Your father would like to meet with you.”

“I'm not interested.” Lille hung up the phone quickly.

She curled her legs onto her chair.

Her phone chirped, making her jump. She pulled it out of her purse. There was a message notification—a video from Kim.

Lille frowned. Kim was supposed to be upstairs having sex with Jordan.

She hit play anyway and sucked in a surprised breath when she recognized Max's bar. He was talking in the background, but the video showed some of the mess left behind after Paul went crazy. Lille realized that Kim must've been at the bar this morning, along with John and Jordan.

The camera swiveled around until it was recording Max. He was arguing with John—arguing about her, she realized.

She watched till the end, when he described how he wanted to love her, and then she hit play again. And again.

CHAPTER
Twenty-seven

The next morning dawned cool and windy, with just enough bite in the air to make Lille feel as if it really was fall and not just a less-humid version of summer.

Wearing a casual pair of white cotton pants and a deep green sweater, with a scarf tying her hair back from her face, Lille stood and watched the waves.
He doesn't love me,
she argued in her head, as she had since she'd watched the video yesterday.

“Good morning.” John approached her. He was wearing running gear, sunglasses firmly covering his eyes.

“Good morning, John.”

“Ready for the party?”

“Honestly, I've never felt less like partying.”

John nodded. “Kim said she sent you a video from the bar yesterday.”

Lille said, “I got that message and a call from my father in the space of ten minutes.”

“What did your father want?”

“I don't know. I hung up.” Lille shook her head. “My father doesn't deserve anything else from me.”

“What about Max?”

Lille closed her eyes, letting the wind blow in her face. “Max is a different story. I'm afraid what will happen to us if I do stay. He'll hate me eventually.”

“Why do you say that?”

Lille shrugged. “They all do. I used to watch it happen to my mom. Some new guy would come around and fall in love and promise her the world. She'd believe him, and for a few weeks I'd barely see her, but then she'd come home covered in bruises with her lip split.”

“Max is hardly like those men.”

“Paul wasn't like those men,” she argued. “He's a dentist.”

“Being a dentist doesn't mean you're not crazy.”

Lille rubbed her arms. “I tried so hard with Paul. I wore conservative clothes; I went to church. I stayed home and cooked meals with him.”

“Did you enjoy those things?”

Lille's lips quirked. “Not with Paul. He expected them. He didn't like it when I was too loud or flashy, or when I wanted to dance or do shots of tequila.”

“Max would never mind that.”

Lille nodded. “But then there's my father, and all the other craziness that seems to follow me. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just change my name again and start over in some new place.”

“You'd be giving up Mary, too. She tells me you've been friends for a long time.”

Lille nodded. “Yeah. She's my best friend. My oldest friend, too.”

“You want to know something her mother—a very wise woman—once told me?”

“What's that?”

“You can pretend you're someone you're not for one night, but in the morning, you always wake up with yourself.”

Lille shook her head in protest. “That's wrong. I've been pretending since I was a kid.”

“Or maybe you were just forging the person you were meant to be,” he argued, and gave her a hug. “I'll see you inside.” He nodded at her and jogged away.

Lille fought
with herself, but she was no
closer to making a decision when she went inside for breakfast. Nor was she certain three hours later when she was sitting at her desk in the Box, going through the books, making sure everything was all caught up for the month—with the exception of the day's sales, which had been steady. A bridal party had come in looking for naughty accessories for the bachelorette party, and they'd been getting a steady amount of Halloween traffic.

If Lille left, the odds of the Web series continuing were slim; Lille hadn't thought about that before, nor did she want to think about what it would mean for the business—they were doing well at the moment.

Even as the thought occurred to her, a crew of sorority girls came in to buy Halloween costumes—slutty ones, of course—and Lille was happy to help.

Kim recorded the whole thing, asking if they wanted to be on video—explaining that they weren't part of
Girls Gone Wild
—and the girls were excited to be a part of it, though one requested that she not be filmed with any huge dildos because her boyfriend would get upset.

Lille, grateful for the distraction, helped them pick out and try on costumes until more customers came along.

By five p.m., the costume section was nearly cleaned out, and Lille had barely enough time to get ready for Carl's party.

“Come on, Lille,” Jordan called to her. “Kim, man the front counter.”

Lille allowed Jordan to pull her into the office. “Jordan, I can get ready by myself.”

“Fine—let me help you into the body suit, and then I'll go.”

“Fine,” Lille muttered.

In the closet, she stripped down to her lingerie, which was nude and lightly padded, and then told Jordan to come in and help her put on the delicate body suit.

He whistled, of course, but didn't do anything else, so she didn't feel the need to punch him—much.

Once the suit was in place, he left, and Lille went to the bathroom with a picture of Pris from
Blade Runner
in hand and a ton of gray eye shadow.

She'd just finished when Mary knocked twice and came into the bathroom.

“You ready for the last piece of your costume?” She was already dressed like Miss Hannigan; she even had a curly red wig and a bottle of gin strapped to her thigh with a garter. “Hey, you look great.”

Lille narrowed her eyes at Mary. “What do you mean, the last piece of my costume?”

Mary pulled the snake wig out from behind her back and held it up for Lille.

Lille couldn't help but reach out and touch it; it was so beautiful, curling and glittering and writhing wildly. She wanted to wear it the way she wanted to wear the Christian Louboutins and pretty dresses that turned Max on.

She took it from Mary gently, like a mother taking a baby from the arms of another woman. “Wow. This thing is fantastic.”

“What's fantastic?” Kim asked, pushing her way past Mary to film Lille holding the snake wig. “Shit. That
is
fantastic.” She zoomed in on it, and Lille held it up to help her get a clearer shot.

“We'll need to pin up your hair,” Mary noted, looking at the riot of blond curls that floated over Lille's shoulders.

“I'll do it. Take this back or find one of the wig stands while I get some bobby pins.”

“There should be some in the drawer,” Mary told her, taking the snakes back with infinite care, as if they were actual snakes that might bite.

Lille pinned up her hair and Mary helped her put the headpiece on, with Kim filming the whole process, her body vibrating with an excitement Lille hadn't seen since the night Paul attacked them.

When everything was in place, Lille glanced at the mirror and saw a goddess, a powerful dangerous woman. Suddenly, all she wanted was for Max to see her.

She was looking at a woman who wouldn't flee out of fear; she was looking at someone who could slay people with a glance, someone strong . . . someone cursed, she realized, and she glanced at Mary, who was watching her carefully.

“This is what you think of me? That I'm cursed?” Lille asked carefully.

Mary shook her head. “I think it's a part of you. The thing about curses, my beautiful friend, is that they're often of our own making.”

“Lille,” Jordan called down the hallway, “your date's here.”

“Okay,” Lille called back, suddenly sick at the idea of going out with anyone else, at seeing anyone else.

Benson was in the store when Lille walked into the room. He was dressed as an old-school private investigator, a Pinkerton agent, complete with a Burt Reynolds–style 'stache. Lille smiled at him because he was handsome and seemed kind. He didn't know she was having a small life crisis involving a large Irishman and the looming threat of an ailing, yet psychotic, father.

“Benson.” She smiled and held out her hand. “So sorry to keep you waiting.”

He looked a little stunned; his gaze fastened on her headpiece, which was already getting a bit heavy. “Damn,” he said, then seemed to gather himself. “You look amazing.” He smiled at her. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, of course.” Lille turned and glanced back at Mary.

“Kim, John, and I will follow.” Mary waved at her.

Lille nodded and took Benson's arm when he offered it to her.

He led her out to the parking lot, where a gray BMW waited. He opened the passenger-side door, helping her as she eased her way inside, careful of the headpiece bumping against the roof of the car.

Once she was safely inside, he got in as well, and chuckled. “I didn't factor in the hair when I chose this car.”

Lille assumed that he meant when he rented it, and she just smiled. “It's lovely.”

“So,” he said, putting his hands on the steering wheel, “you told me this was a costume party, but not where.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Lille laughed lightly. “I've been distracted lately. It's at a friend's art gallery. He's displaying some artwork by my friend, Mary Deupree, and a new artist from Argentina.”

“Sounds good. Is it in Fort Lauderdale or . . . ?”

“Miami,” she supplied. “Hang on, let me get the address off my phone.” She reached for the small wristlet she'd brought to carry her phone and a few essentials.

“What's the name?” he asked, his voice taut.

“Pièce de Résistance, I think,” Lille muttered. “Carl gave me the address.”

“I know where it is.”

Lille looked at him askance—that was pretty much the only way she could look, considering the headpiece and the height of the roof. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He started the car and pulled out of the drive.

Lille was starting to get a bad feeling, and it had nothing to do with the weight of the snakes on her head. “I didn't think you came to Fort Lauderdale often enough to know the Miami art galleries.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror, as if looking for someone, then did an abrupt U-turn and headed down another road altogether.

“Well, Lille, I hate to tell you this, but I'm not a JetBlue pilot.”

“Yeah, I was starting to suspect that might be the case.”