Lizzie walked over, picked up Marina’s sweater and handed it to her. “I don’t know why I act so dumb sometimes.”
“You’re not dumb,” Marina said gently. “I’m oversensitive at the moment. I guess I’m still cut up about Adele. I’m sorry if I hurt your wrist, I don’t know what came over me.”
“Are you okay, Marina? Your eyes went all glassy. I’ve noticed it happening before. You didn’t look well when we did Peta last week. Is it one of your headaches?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” She patted Lizzie on her arm.
“You seem edgy,” Lizzie said, clearly unconvinced. “Maybe you should have a checkup. See my acupuncturist. Did you know that people who visit an acupuncturist are more relaxed than those who don’t?”
“Maybe I should,” Marina said to appease Lizzie. “You’re a good friend, Lizzie.”
Lizzie gave her a smile and walked out of Marina’s cubicle, but stopped at the doorway. “I’ll let you know when I’ve found out more from Fabio.”
Marina nodded, but she was distracted. A woman had been murdered. If she were psychic, surely she’d know who it was? She’d heard a scream when she’d waxed Peta. Could the killer have mistaken him for a woman? Perhaps she was going crazy and wasn’t psychic. But what about what had happened with James? She’d read his mind and he hadn’t denied it. She frowned. There were too many questions and not enough answers.
“Don’t worry,” Lizzie said as if sensing her worried state. “I’m sure everything will be fine. It’s not likely to be anyone we know this time.”
But it wasn’t fine. Marina knew it wasn’t. She looked at her watch, picked up her schedule of appointments for the day and glanced at the printout. Mrs. Saxon was due, though she was ten minutes late. Mrs. Saxon had said she was going to start online dating. Marina bit her lip concerned. Mrs. Saxon was as punctual as she was neat about her appearance. She decided to walk down to reception and check up on Mrs. Saxon.
Marina passed Michael on the narrow stairs down to reception. He wore his tool belt and carried a long piece of wood, but he stepped back to let her pass, so that she didn’t brush against him. “Morning, Marina.”
Marina wondered how she’d ever thought he’d looked rough and unapproachable, when actually he was always pleasant.
He gave her his nice, friendly smile. “Did you talk to Lizzie?”
“Hey, Michael.” Propelled by her sense of urgency, she didn’t want to talk, but Michael was always polite to her. “Lizzie is happy to train with me. We can stay late tonight if that is okay.”
“Great. I’ll give you the spare key, so you can lock up when you’ve finished. Natalia’s got an appointment with her obstetrician on Macquarie Street and I’m going to drive her. I don’t want her dealing with rush hour traffic. All those stress hormones wouldn’t be good for her or the baby.”
“Okay,” Marina nodded, amused at how Michael fussed over his wife, who was an extremely capable woman.
Michael nodded back then looked up the stairs toward Lizzie who was standing outside Marina’s cubicle.
Lizzie glared at him, turned her back, walked into her cubicle and closed the door without saying anything.
Michael’s smile dropped from his face and he looked as if Lizzie had slapped him.
Marina felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment at Lizzie’s rudeness. “I’ll come and get the key later. One of my clients is late, so I want to ring and see if everything is all right. If one is late it throws all the appointments off for the day.” She hurried down the stairs to reception to dial Mrs. Saxon.
Just as she looked up the phone number Mrs. Saxon walked in.
“You’re here,” she said with relief. Mrs. Saxon was safe and Marina was overreacting. Perhaps she had some sort of panic disorder, always fearing the worst? “I was just going to give you a call.”
“I’m sorry, dear. I know I’m late,” she announced. Mrs. Saxon was wearing low hipster jeans and a tight top, which sat just above her belly button. It was a terrific look on a younger woman, but not on Mrs. Saxon who was in her forties and normally covered her generous curves with a suit.
Marina looked closer and groaned inwardly. Mrs. Saxon had a five o’clock shadow across her abdomen where her hair was growing back from her last wax.
She limped into the salon and sat in Natalia’s ornate chair. “I’ve bought new shoes. The trouble is I can’t walk in them.”
In a moment, Marina could see why her client was late. Mrs. Saxon bent forward to shuck off her platform shoes, showing Marina the blisters on the soft sides of her feet. As she did so, she pulled at the back of her hipsters in an effort not to show her white, cotton underpants, which were riding above her jeans.
Mrs. Saxon grimaced in pain. “I last wore platform shoes in the seventies when I was at school. They were uncomfortable then and they haven’t improved. My feet are ripped apart.”
While she massaged her feet, Marina could see the black, spiky hair on Mrs. Saxon’s lower back, which the low-slung jeans failed to hide. “I’ll get you some sticking plasters,” she said and hurried over to the first aid box. If ever there was a client in need of a wax, it was Mrs. Saxon. Perhaps she was trying out a younger look to win back her husband’s attention. Poor Mrs. Saxon.
Five minutes later with Mrs. Saxon’s feet attended to, Marina ushered her client to her cubicle.
“I see you have a new look,” Marina said, laying out her cloth strips for easy access.
Mrs. Saxon brightened. “Yes, and guess what? It’s working. My husband’s starting to notice me again.”
“Why wouldn’t he? You’re so pretty.” Marina bit her lower lip when she realized her outburst had been emotional. It sounded to her like Mr. Saxon needed a smack around the head with a cold fish to wake him up to what he had. Still, it was not her place to sound like she was criticizing someone’s husband.
Mrs. Saxon smiled. “You’re very sweet, young lady. The trouble is things change when you get married, dear.”
She was right on that one.
“At least he’s not spending all night on the internet anymore. He actually talks to me in the evening instead of gluing himself to the television or the computer. I think he’s stopped surfing the online dating sites at last.”
“That’s good. A definite improvement.” Marina started by putting the thicker pink wax on Mrs. Saxon’s eyebrows, tested it with her fingers and ripped.
“Yes, and that’s not all. He wants me to put the kids in summer camp and take me on an extended trip to Paris in a fortnight. I’m thrilled. That’s where we went on our honeymoon fifteen years ago.”
“Wow! Things have changed in a week.” Marina worked over Mrs. Saxon, noticing she had lost weight. “You’re looking trim too.”
“I’ve barely eaten for a week. Just fluids and raw vegetables. I nearly fainted on the way here, but I’m determined to get my figure back. I’m so busy organizing our holiday I don’t sit at home and comfort eat anymore. I want to be a size ten by the time I get to Paris. You wouldn’t believe how much there is to organize when you’re going on vacation. I’ve had to stop my volunteer work with the aged. Let everyone know I’ll be away for some time. My elderly folk will miss me, but I want my marriage to work.”
Marina lightly smoothed over the skin on Mrs. Saxon’s stomach before she applied a thinner wax. She could feel Mrs. Saxon’s happy mood as if butterflies danced in the air, then inexplicably her fingers trembled. Danger. There was danger around Mrs. Saxon. She looked up at her client, but she was smiling.
“My husband says he wants to start over again,” she said happily. “A new beginning.”
“That’s nice. It must have been hard on you thinking he was looking for someone else on the net.” She applied the strips and waxed the hair on Mrs. Saxon’s lower stomach, working her way downward.
“Yes, it was. I thought our marriage was over, but he’s had a change of heart. I don’t know why.” Mrs. Saxon frowned. “I really don’t
. Maybe he thinks divorce will hurt the children.” Mrs. Saxon’s lower lip trembled. “Or maybe he still cares.”
“He’s trying, isn’t he?” Marina felt she had to say something.
Mrs. Saxon gave her a smile. “Yes, he is. I wish I knew the future. I put so much effort into my marriage. Sometimes I long for a crystal ball. Then I’d know if all this effort was worth the trouble.”
“I think we’d all like that.”
“A friend of mind gave me the number of a clairvoyant. She said she’s very good. I’ll give it to you if you like.”
Marina shook her head. “I don’t know that I believe in such things. I don’t think that our destinies can be plotted out so easily.”
“My friend said she was right about a lot of things. I’ll give you the number and you can tell me what you think when I’m back from Paris.”
“Okay. I’ll get it from you at the end of the appointment.” Marina surveyed Mrs. Saxon’s Brazilian. “Do you want the full Brazilian again? Did Mr. Saxon appreciate it?”
Mrs. Saxon’s face fell. “He didn’t notice. He’s been doing long hours at work. Do you think you can shape a love heart for Paris? I’m sure he’ll notice it there. This is the last wax I’ll have here, so make sure you get all the stray hairs.”
A chill passed over Marina. Danger. Every hair on her forearms rose like a terrified cat. “You’ll be coming back, won’t you?”
“Oh yes. I mean I won’t be here for a while because I’ll be in Paris, so I need to cancel my appointments. I’ll call when I come back.”
Marina nodded and continued her work. Her fingers continued to tremble. Danger. She heard the persistent word like a whisper on the wind. She looked up at Mrs. Saxon but her face was relaxed as if all her marital problems were in the past. In fact, Mrs. Saxon was the happiest she’d ever seen her. So why did she feel she’d never see Mrs. Saxon again?
Chapter 10
“Waxing me is really going to shock you,” Lizzie said later that evening in the salon as Marina tidied her cubicle for their training session. Lizzie leaned against the wall, looking at Marina with a challenging grin on her face.
“I doubt it,” Marina said matter-of-factly. “I’ve seen every skunk, squirrel and badger possible. And to top that off, today a client asked me if her boyfriend could watch while I waxed her.”
“One of the magazines I read said that forty-five percent of men would like to watch their girlfriend having sex with another woman. I bet that’s what he’s really thinking of. Did you let him watch?”
“As if. Anyway, you can’t shock me because nothing shocks me anymore. I’m immune to shock. Do you want get into a paper G-string?” She knew Lizzie was teasing her and normally she played along, but today was different. A woman had been murdered. Her stomach ached with tension. The first thing Lizzie had told her was that there was no more news. The waiting was torture.
“No thanks,” Lizzie said, “I’m going to strip down to my new underwear, for which I paid three hundred dollars.”
“What!” Marina dropped the spatula in the wax. “That’s half your entire weekly earnings. What are they made of? Gold?”
“Nope. I’m saving up for that set.” Lizzie giggled. “And I’m still going to shock you.”
“You just did. Three hundred dollars is a fortune. I can’t believe you spent so much on panties.”
“Fabio won’t be able to look at anything but me, when he sees me in these,” she said joyfully as she unbuttoned her shirt.
Marina bit her tongue because she thought Fabio didn’t appreciate Lizzie. She didn’t want to get into a fight about Fabio and what he was doing to Lizzie’s self-esteem. While Lizzie was disrobing, Marina walked over to the window and pulled the drapes aside. Outside she could see the street lights glowing, and hear the busy hum of the traffic on Darlinghurst Road that signaled the approach of night. She shivered. On edge, every minute seemed like an hour. She was afraid. Waiting for news that didn’t come. “It’s a pity Fabio didn’t know more about the murder. Did he say who told him?”
“One of his body building clients is a cop, who mentioned it in passing. The police are trying to keep it quiet because they think they’ve got a serial killer on their hands. The cop said there’s something really kinky about this case.”
Marina shuddered and turned to Lizzie who was unzipping her pants. “What do you mean?”
Lizzie shrugged. “The cop wouldn’t say. The mention of kinky got Fabio interested.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Marina asked dryly. She pulled her hair from its clip so that it fell about her face. She massaged her scalp. Her neck felt stiff with tension and she couldn’t seem to get release.
“Ta da! What do you think? Do you like this or what?” Lizzie paraded up and down in Marina’s cubicle wearing a barely-there crimson G-string and matching bra threaded with silver diamantes, which shone when they struck the light.
“You look like you should be in Moulin Rouge.”
“Check out this matching padded bra. Makes me look like a B cup. I’ve even got cleavage.” She thrust out her breasts, strutted around the cubicle, her face proud.
Marina nodded appreciatively. “It’s stunning. Theatrical. Too nice to be worn under clothes. Maybe you should get a see-through top. One of those black sheer numbers.”
“So you like them?”
“Yes,” Marina said.
Whore.
Marina jumped. Her gaze darted around the room. There was no one. There never was.
“Why are you frowning?”
She massaged her temple. “Sorry, I’ve been on edge all day.” There was no way she wanted to scare Lizzie by telling her about the voice in her mind. “The murder... I can’t help thinking it will be another of my clients.”
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She climbed onto the massage bed and spread her legs.
“Don’t worry, it couldn’t possibly be. That’s too much of a coincidence.”
Slut.
Marina gasped.
“What’s the matter? You’ve gone all white.”
“Nothing. I don’t feel great.”
He was back. Searching. Looking for his next victim. It wouldn’t be long before he struck again. There had to be some way of stopping him. Some way of identifying a location. Something.
Desperate, Marina replayed the vision from Saturday night in her mind like a bad movie. The murderer had taken the woman to a dark place, making it difficult to see. All she knew was that the woman felt familiar and that the killer had used some sort of a cord to strangle the victim. Her shoulders slumped. She wanted to get this training over and done with so she could go home. It was only place she felt safe, especially when James was there.
She didn’t want to be in the salon. The very air around her dripped with malevolence. She felt like she was being watched. Even Lizzie’s dramatic show of her underwear couldn’t lighten her mood. But how could she explain something she sensed rather than understood. She forced herself to concentrate on the job at hand. “You haven’t done a Brazilian on a woman before, have you?”
“No. Just my own clit and slit.”
“Lizzie!” Marina smiled, despite how she was feeling, at Lizzie’s rude terminology.
“And Peta’s back, sack and crack if that counts.”
“It doesn’t. I realize she makes a beautiful woman, but she still has male bits. I know you’re experienced after doing Peta, but you can’t afford to make a mistake. Wax can burn a woman’s sensitive areas, so you have to be extremely careful.”
“And now to reveal my sensitive areas,” Lizzie sang, whipping off her G-string without the slightest bit of modesty. “What do you think?”
Marina felt her eyelids widen in shock. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Told you I’d shock you,” Lizzie crowed.
Lizzie had dyed her pubic hair flamingo pink so that it resembled fairy floss. She lay in a movie star pose on the massage bed dressed in n
othing but her crimson bra. “Did you know ten percent of women in Australia dye their pubic hair?”
Marina rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You are outrageous.”
“The way I see it, Fabio likes porn so I’m going to give him porn. If this doesn’t get his attention nothing will.”
“Just don’t let him make a video of you. I don’t want James finding it on the internet one day.”
Both girls burst out laughing.
“Could you imagine how shocked he’d be?”
“Horrified,” Marina agreed. She shook her head wondering how such a straight brother managed to be related to Lizzie. “So I gather you don’t want the full Brazilian?”
“Nope. I always leave a narrow strip at the front. I don’t want it all off or Fabio won’t get to make love to a pink pussycat. Purrr! Anyway, who needs extra pain?”
Marina stirred the wax. “My clients tell me it hurts the first time. I think it takes about three months before the hair follicles get weaker, though people are all different when it comes to tolerating pain.”
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, you’re ‘told’ it hurts?”
“I’ve never had a Brazilian.”
Lizzie’s blue eyes opened with surprise along with her pink mouth. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’ve never been bare down there,” Marina repeated to Lizzie’s disbelieving expression. “I don’t even do my bikini line if I can avoid it. I hate pain. I was wondering how long it would take for you to find out I’m a fraud.”
“You mean, you sit here day after day waxing women and you’ve never had one.” Lizzie shook her head. “I can’t believe that.”
“Believe it. Because you’re practicing on me next and I’m going to take longer than you do seeing as you wax regularly. You’re going to have to trim me down as I have a lot of hair down there.”
Dirty Sexy Murder Page 10
