Fast Women (14 page)

"The rules-" Gabe said, and Nell waved her fork at him and said, "I've got it. I'll never break another one, I swear." When he looked skeptical, she said, "No, really. I do understand. I like this job and I want to keep it. If anything like the dog comes up again, I'll bring it to you and then nag you until you do something about it."

"Oh, yeah, that'll be better," Gabe said, but he picked up his beer, so the yelling was probably over. "Eat," he said, and Nell stabbed a piece of chicken and ate, surprised at herself.

It had been years since anybody had told her to do anything, yelled at her about anything. Maybe never. She and Tim had settled into a life where she'd run everything and he'd gone with the flow. And then one day he'd found somebody else, somebody who wouldn't run his life so he could have the illusion he was in control. Only now, from all reports, Whitney was running his life. Which must mean Tim wanted a woman to boss him around, he just didn't want to admit he wanted a woman to boss him around. He wanted to be Gabe without the responsibility.

Her fork hit the bottom of her bowl and she looked down. The salad was gone.

"Good." Gabe shoved her french fry plate closer. "Start on those. And say something. When you're not talking, you're thinking, and when you think, my life goes to hell. Eat and tell me what happened with Lynnie."

Nell took a deep breath. "Well, I went to her apartment and I told her that we were going to the police if she didn't give back the money. And then we talked."

"What did she say?"

Nell closed her eyes and put herself back in Lynnie's living room. "She said she'd been sick." She recited the conversation as best as she could remember, deleting the part where Lynnie had accused her of falling for Gabe. When she finished and opened her eyes, he was regarding her thoughtfully.

"How much of that did you make up?"

"None of it," Nell said, outraged. "I may have forgotten some of it, but everything I told you happened."

"Good memory. I'm 'my way or the highway,' huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Nell said and picked up a fry.

"Okay." Gabe took a fry, too. "What aren't you telling me?"

Nell thought about saying, "Nothing," and then decided that lying to Gabe McKenna was not a good idea. "She got personal. I don't want to talk about it."

"There might be something in it I can use."

"Nope "

Gabe dipped a fry in ketchup and handed it to her. "Eat."

"I like vinegar better," she said. He motioned for the waitress and asked for vinegar and the check, and then he went back to his own lunch, deep in thought. Nell relaxed, and when the vinegar came, she sprinkled it on the second order of fries, inhaling the sharp, sweet cider. Heaven.

"So she was putting the screws to somebody," Gabe said. "I don't suppose you got a name?"

"I got exactly what I told you," Nell said, and he nodded and finished his sandwich.

When the waitress brought the check, Gabe looked at it for a minute before putting a few bills on the tray. When she was gone, he said, "How serious are you about this job?"

Nell stopped chewing. They were back to her. That couldn't be good. "Well…"

How serious was she? She liked Riley, and Gabe was growing on her. She'd felt good rescuing SugarPie, good about getting the money back even though she liked Lynnie. Even finding out that night as a decoy that Ben was a cheater was something; it would help his wife out. People should know when they were being lied to, it was wrong that they didn't know. You couldn't fix your life if you didn't know what was wrong with it.

"I'm very serious," she said.

"You have not demonstrated that you're a good risk," he said, not accusing her.

"I know," Nell said. "I've had a very rough week, but it was educational, too. I'm going to be all right now."

"What happened?" Gabe took one of her fries and winced when he bit into it.

"Vinegar," Nell said.

"What happened this week? Prove to me you're not insane."

Nell swallowed. "Okay." Where did she start? "I've been divorced for a while. Over a year." Gabe nodded.

"It was hard. My marriage and my job were pretty much the same, so I lost everything all at once. I kept thinking I was all right, but I wasn't. I mean, he just left me, Christmas afternoon, just stopped right there, in the middle of all the wrapping paper, and said, 'I'm sorry, I don't love you anymore,' and left me to clean up the rest of it. It didn't make sense. I couldn't make the world make sense if that happened."

Gabe nodded again.

"Why do you do that?" Nell said. "Nod and not say anything. Those silences are killers."

"If I say something, you're not talking," Cube said. "Tricky."

"What happened?"

"Well," Nell said. "I tried to cope and be understanding and figure it out so it made sense, and then he met Whitney and married her and put her in my old job, and I ended up falling asleep a lot. And then Suze and Margie found out that he…" She put down the french fry she'd been holding as she remembered the way the world had rocked that day. Only two days ago. A lifetime ago.

"That there was another woman after all," Gabe said. "Whitney all along?"

Nell straightened. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess. When did they tell you?"

"Wednesday," Nell said.

Gabe nodded. "Which would explain going upstairs with the guy on the decoy and sleeping with Riley and smashing your ex's office. I'm not sure how you ended up with the dog and Lynnie-"

"People kept doing lousy things and getting away with it," Nell said. "I was mad."

"You can't do that anymore," Gabe said. "I know," Nell said.

"As part of this firm, your actions reflect on all of us."

"I'm part of the firm?"

"That depends."

He looked into her eyes, and she gazed back, trying to look steady and trustworthy. I want to be part of this, she thought. Let me in.

"I have an assignment for you," Gabe said. "You are hardworking and efficient and smart as hell, and I don't want to fire you. But you have to promise to keep your mouth shut and not avenge any wrongs you see. Can you do that?"

Nell nodded.

"This particular assignment is about someone you know," Gabe said, "which is why you can help."

"Will I have to betray anybody?" Nell said. "Because I won't."

Gabe shrugged and picked up another fry. "Depends on what you mean by 'betray.' I want the answers to some questions. I don't think the person you'll be asking is guilty."

Nell swallowed. "I can promise not to say anything to anybody about anything you tell me. I can't promise anything else until you tell me what this is about."

"Fair enough," Gabe said. "Somebody is blackmailing people at OD. Trevor Ogilvie, Jack Dysart, and Budge Jenkins."

"Oh." Nell felt relieved. She didn't care what happened to any of them. She picked up another french fry. "You think it's Lynnie?"

"It's a guess."

"What is she accusing them of?"

"Budge of embezzling."

Nell laughed out loud. "Budge? She doesn't know him at all."

"Really?" Gabe said. "What would you accuse him of? If you wanted to scare him?"

Nell leaned back and looked at the ceiling as she thought. Nothing bothered Budge, except…"Something that would take Margie from him," she said. "He worships the carpet she walks on, has for years."

"What would do that?"

"If he broke a piece of her Franciscan Desert Rose earthenware," Nell said, only half joking. "Margie is pretty easygoing. She put up with Stewart for fifteen years, and I'd have killed him on the honeymoon."

"Stewart," Gabe said.

"Stewart Dysart," Nell said. "Jack and Tim's brother. Jack's the oldest and the big success, and Tim's the baby and the sweet one everybody loves, and Stewart would have been just pathetic in the middle except he was so obnoxious about everything."

He frowned at her. "Why does his name sound familiar? Did they divorce?"

"No. He went south with almost a million of OD assets seven years ago."

"Got it," Gabe said, nodding. "OD hushed it up. Why didn't she divorce him?"

"If she gets divorced," Nell said, "she'll end up marrying Budge, and she doesn't want to marry Budge."

Gabe looked at her in disbelief. "She can't say no?"

"No," Nell said. "Margie cannot say no. But she can say, 'Not yet, I'm married,' so she's covered. What did the blackmailer accuse Jack of?"

"Adultery. Trevor, too."

"I don't think so," Nell said. "Jack's bananas about Suze. Almost to the point of pathology. And Margie's dad cheated once before, but it was over twenty years ago, so I don't think that counts. Besides, that ended so badly, so much scandal when her mother killed herself, that I don't think he'd take the chance again."

Gabe nodded. "I need you to ask Margie some questions about her mother."

"Oh." Nell's good humor faded. "No."

"Somebody has to ask her," Gabe said, looking the way he had the first day she'd met him, dark and hard. "You don't want it to be me."

"Don't threaten me," Nell said. "And don't threaten her. I don't even know what this is about, and you want me to go asking horrible questions."

"I told you what it's about," Gabe said with exaggerated patience. "Blackmail."

"What does Margie's mother who died over twenty years ago have to do with Margie's dad being blackmailed now?"

"You'll just have to trust me on that."

"No, I won't," Nell said. "Look, if I have to promise to question Margie or you'll fire me, I'm fired."

Gabe sighed and stood up. "Come on. It's time to get back to work."

Nell stood, too, and looked down to take one last fry for the road.

There weren't any. She'd eaten a huge salad and two orders of fries.

"You ready?" Gabe said.

"Am I fired?"

"No," Gabe said.

"I'm ready," Nell said.

"Still employed?" Riley said to Nell when they got back to the office.

"Of course," Nell said. "How's SugarPie?"

At the sound of her name, the dog crept out of Riley's office, quivering and limping, a cashmere-clad basket case.

"What did you do to her?" Nell said, appalled.

"Absolutely nothing," Riley said. "I left her to go check on Lynnie, and when I got back, she was doing this. I ignored her and she snapped out of it. She does it for the effect."

"She does not. She's been abused." Nell crouched down to gather SugarPie into her arms, but she moaned and rolled over on the Oriental, her stubby little legs pointing off to one side, looking pathetic in their white cuffs. "SugarPie? What's wrong?"

"If this dog was human, she'd be leaping in front of buses, claiming whiplash." Riley looked down at her. "I won't play the sap for you, sweetheart. But the redhead will. Work it for all the dog biscuits you can get."

"That's not-"

"Give her a dog biscuit," Riley said.

"Biscuit?" Nell said to the dog, and SugarPie rolled her head to look at her pitifully. Nell reached up to the desk and got a biscuit. "Here, baby. It's okay."

SugarPie looked at her for a long dramatic moment. Then she took the biscuit carefully in her mouth, looked yearningly up at Nell one last time, and rolled over and devoured it with savage relish.

"You stole an unabused dog," Gabe said.

"He called her a little bitch," Nell said from the floor, indignant.

"Well, technically, she is," Riley said.

"And she looked awful." Nell looked down at SugarPie, now licking the rug to get the last of the biscuit crumbs. "She was traumatized."

SugarPie looked up at all of them, dropped her head between her shoulders, and moaned.

"Now what?" Gabe said, and she fluttered her eyelashes at him, quivering at his feet.

"Marlene Dietrich used to do that eyelash thing in the movies, right before she took a guy for everything he had," Riley said. "All this dog needs is a garter belt and a top hat."

"You've been had, kid," Gabe said to Nell. "It's an occupational hazard around here. Take the dog back." He looked down at SugarPie and added, "Preferably in the dead of night."

"That would be a good idea," Riley said. "Except she shaved it, dyed it black, and dressed it in Ralph Lauren. Its own mother wouldn't recognize it now."

"You shaved it?" Gabe sighed. "Don't tell me why. Just get it out of here."

"Before I forget," Riley said to Nell, "Suze Campbell called. I told her the dog was fine." He looked down at SugarPie. "I lied, of course."

"Suze who?" Nell said, surprised.

"Dysart," Gabe said, shooting an exasperated look at Riley, and went into his office.

SugarPie picked up her head and looked after him with interest and then, evidently realizing all remaining eyes were on her, collapsed again.