Gabby watched the front door, occupying herself by looking through the binoculars, though there was far too much going on. People came and went every few minutes from the building, and Gabby tried to capture them all on her fancy camera. She doubted she would ever need the photos, but it couldn’t hurt.
Around noon, Michael Steele finally emerged. His pictures didn’t do him justice. Michael Steele was a man who seemed to have been chiseled in stone. He wore a suit like a panther wears its fur, and he filled it out just as impressively. His shoulders were broad and straight, his chest thick, and his hair perfect. A few days of thick black stubble lent shadows to an already sharp jawline. Piercing blue eyes swept across the street.
Gabby ducked down in her seat, sure that he had looked right at her.
When she dared a peek over the dashboard, he had disappeared into a waiting limo, which began slowly moving west. She noted the Escalade that pulled out of the parking garage and followed.
Careful to keep a safe distance, she followed them through the city to an upscale restaurant. Gabby had seen enough movies to know how to successfully tail someone. When they parked, she found a spot not too far away from which to spy.
Michael Steele went into the restaurant, followed by two beefcakes who looked to have the agility of a refrigerator.
Gabby waited for five minutes, then ten, but soon became restless. She knew she wasn’t going to find anything out by following the guy around for a week.
What would Maggy do?
Gabby laughed. Maggy would walk right in there and introduce herself.
Before she lost her resolve, Gabby bravely got out of the car, grabbed her little white purse, adjusted her white dress, and strode across the road with an air of confidence she had seldom known.
Chapter 16
What would Maggy do? She said to herself over and over as she walked toward the restaurant.
The doorman nodded and let her in. She ignored him, playing the part of a person of power. At the reception desk, she blew past the hostess with a fake British accent and found Mr. Steele sitting at a table with a Chinese man. The two beefcakes and the other man’s two guards stood off in the distance, facing each other with unyielding stares.
Michael Steele saw her coming. He looked to her just as she was approaching. Gabby strode forth with confidence, sticking out her large bosom and holding her head high . . . and crashed into a passing waiter.
Gabby went down hard, spun around by the collision. She landed on her ass right between two tables. The tray the waiter was carrying went up into the air slowly, tilted, and came crashing down, covering her in champagne.
A gasp escaped her, and a hand took hers. Someone strong pulled her to her feet and offered her a white napkin. Gabby tossed back her hair and found her chivalrous hero—Michael Steele, who stood there staring at her.
His face was expressionless.
She met his bright eyes and began to speak, but found that she could not find the words.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a voice with a hypnotic timbre.
“I . . . uh, I’m . . .”
“I’m so sorry, miss,” said the waiter once he had righted himself.
“We do not need apologies. We need seltzer water and reimbursement for the dress,” said Michael, never taking his eyes off her.
The Chinese man whom Steele had been sitting with was on his feet, offering her quick bows and an apologetic smile.
“If you would come with me, miss,” the waiter began, “you can freshen up in the—”
“I’m quite all right. The seltzer water please,” said Gabby, pulling herself together.
The waiter disappeared to the back, and Gabby dabbed the wet parts of her hair.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Steele asked.
“Actually, before that clumsy waiter ran into me, I was coming over here to introduce myself,” she said, extending her hand. “My name is Sarah Shepard, I work for . . . I’m a blogger. I have a blog . . . I am very interested in interviewing you for my blog.”
Michael seemed amused. His lunch partner did nothing to hide his irritation.
“Very well, Miss Shepard. How is noon tomorrow?”
Gabby was taken aback. She had expected him to dodge her.
“Um, great. I mean, great. I’ll see you then.”
Michael smiled faintly and returned to speaking with his guest as though nothing had happened.
Slightly flummoxed, Gabby left the men to their scheming, not exactly sure how she should feel about Michael Steele.
***
Gabby returned to her sister’s house . . . her house—it was hard for her to think of it as really hers—and made herself a big steak dinner. She felt powerful, like she had done something for once, rather than rolling over like a coward.
What would Maggy do? She laughed at the memory. If she hadn’t slammed into the waiter, it would have been perfect. The look on Michael Steele’s face when he first saw her was priceless regardless. He had seemed surprised; indeed, everyone around was startled by the ruckus. But the surprise that he had expressed was not due to the collision, but upon seeing Gabby’s face.
Gabby began uncorking a bottle of wine but then thought better of the idea. If she was going to find Maggy’s killer, she would need a clear head. She had her dinner with water instead and considered that strange look from Michael Steele. He seemed to act as if he knew her.
You’re being paranoid, she told herself. Though she thought that she was a liar.
And what had her father been talking about at the nursing home? His strange riddle about wolves at the door had more than unsettled her. He had seemed so lucid—more than she had seen him in years.
After she finished her meal, she set the dishes in the sink and began habitually rinsing them for the dishwasher. Through the window she spotted a black sedan parked at the end of the road. She looked closer, thinking that she could make out two figures sitting in the front seat.
Gabby instinctively scanned the street and found an identical black sedan parked at the other end of the road as well. A shiver passed through her spine.
A million possibilities ran through her mind, but the only one that mattered was that Michael Steele had his goons keeping tabs on the place, and at any minute, they would burst in and finish her off. She ducked down behind the sink and frantically thought of what she should do. Keeping low, she turned off the kitchen and living room lights and even slapped off the computer monitor. She then crept to the window very cautiously.
They were still there.
Gabby could just feel their eyes on her, watching, waiting.
Quickly she ran to the bedroom, retrieved her .38 Special, and returned to the living room window. The cars hadn’t moved, but Gabby thought that she saw only one figure in the original car, rather than two. That gave her pause. Where had the other mysterious man gone? What if he was even now closing in on the house? Gabby could just imagine him screwing on a silencer to a pistol.
She rushed through the house, closing and locking all the windows and doors. Phantoms leaped and snuck in the corner of her eye when she scanned the outdoors. At any moment, she thought a face would spring out at her from the shadows.
Returning to the couch, she peeled back the curtain slowly, just enough to ensure that the cars were still there—and no one else was missing. Though the cars were parked on opposite ends of the road, when Gabby situated the curtains just right, she could keep an eye on both of them at the same time.
Chapter 17
In the morning, Gabby awoke on the couch with an awful kink in her neck. Remembering the cars, she quickly peeked out of the window.
They were gone.
Relieved, she tried to get some mobility worked into her neck as she dragged herself off the couch to prepare for her big interview with Michael Steele. She showered and stood before the mirror, staring sideways at her too-big belly.
A trip to the gym is way overdue, she thought with a sigh.
Looking through the closet, she quickly determined that it was useless. She would never in a million years fit into Maggy’s clothes. That left only one option—Gabby had to go shopping.
She left the house in a pair of sweatpants and didn’t even bother doing her hair, aside from putting it up in a ponytail. The pistol went with her, in a small white leather purse, along with some of Maggy’s money. Gabby felt reluctant to use it, but it was hers after all, and she might as well put it to good use.
As she walked to the Nova, she scanned the street. It was seven in the morning, and a few kids were at the moment lined up and down the street waiting for the bus.
No one would make a move now, Gabby surmised. If Steele’s men were going to make a move on her, they would have done it in the dark of night. Assuming that they had been Steele’s men.
But who else could they have been?
***
Gabby skipped out on the mall altogether and went right to the hair salon outside the city. It was a place that Maggy had told her about, and since she wasn’t familiar with any of her own, Gabby thought it was as good a bet as any.
The outside of the Inner Goddess stood in stark contrast to the rest of the shops along the street. While they were made of brick with the intricate workmanship found in decades past when people cared for such things, the Inner Goddess was sleek and shiny. It looked brand-new and promised clients the same.
When she walked in, the door chimed, but rather than the normal chirp of a shop door, this one must have been hooked up with the sound system, for it cut out the bellowing of Katy Perry and replaced the music with a soft female voice that said, “Welcome, goddess. You’ve come to the right place.”
Gabby glanced around. The salon was so modern that she didn’t know if the term quite fit. It was more like stepping into a spaceship, all shiny walls and layered ceilings, with chrome everything: chairs, tables, stands, reception desks, lamps, mirrors, and even picture frames with chrome question marks in them. The only color in the place was that of the actual workers. They wore the loudest skirts—and hairdos—that Gabby had ever seen.
“Hello, goddess, how can we serve you today?” the receptionist asked.
“Uh . . . I . . .” Gabby began. But soon a colorful stylist buzzed over to her.
“This one is mine!” he said, gliding toward Gabby with the grace of a gazelle. “Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm,” he hummed as he walked a circle around her. His light brown skin was radiant against his vanilla skirt, and his long eyelashes and shoulder-length dreads sparkled with glitter.
“Come with Queen Princess, my goddess. I’ll get you ready for this sucka. When I’m done with you, he won’t even know what hit him.”
“Mmm-hmm,” one of the stylists hummed as she foiled a perm, gesturing to slap Queen Princess a high five as he passed by.
Naturally, Queen Princess pulled away just before contact, reached back and touched his ass, made the motion of pulling the pin from a grenade, and tossed the imaginary object. The other stylist waited a playfully tense moment and gave a “Boom!” Simultaneously, Queen Princess popped it and dropped it all the way to the floor—like it was hot.
Gabby was surprised to find herself jealous—the queen’s ass was so perky that Gabby could have set her purse on it.
In a flash, she was whirled around like a dancer by Queen Princess and set smoothly into a sleek barber chair. Four pumps of the lifting mechanism had Gabby’s toes dangling off the floor.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Gabby . . . Gabriella Cross . . . your highness,” she said playfully.
“You can call me Quip,” he said, smacking his gum and nearly pulling Gabby’s hair out as he considered her in the tall mirror. “You’ve got beautiful hair, Gabs.”
“Thank—”
“But it’s in horrible condition. Look at these split ends! I haven’t seen a split end like that since . . . well, shit, since last weekend,” said Quip, this time actually high-fiving the Latino stylist behind him.
“I haven’t had much time for myself,” said Gabby.
“Mmm-hmm, well that’s about to change, now ain’t it . . . say, you say your name’s Cross?” He considered her and bit on his long thumbnail. “You related to Maggy?”
Gabby bowed her head and sighed. “She’s my sister.”
Quip missed nothing of her mannerisms. A shadow crossed his beautiful face, and he knelt down before her. “What is it? What’s happened to my Maggy?”
My Maggy . . .
At the mention of her father’s pet name for her sister, Gabby burst into tears.
“Oh, no, say it ain’t so,” he said, hugging her.
He was a stranger to her, but Gabby hadn’t yet had a proper shoulder to cry on during the entire ordeal. She gladly sunk into his strong arms and balled her eyes out on his shoulder.
He let her get it out, but as soon as the final sniffle escaped her, he looked her in the eye and said, “You’re scaring me, child.”
“I’m sorry. My sister . . . Maggy was killed.”
All of the stylists in the place stopped what they were doing, all thirteen of them, and regarded Gabby with concerned looks. Quip clutched his chest and sat on the floor, regardless of his vanilla skirt. “Say it ain’t so, child.”
“I’m sorry. Were you good friends?” Gabby asked Quip while eyeing the other stylists. They turned from her attention as one and went about their work. Still, a quiet permeated the place.
Quip shot to his feet without answering. “Who was it?”
The others didn’t turn and watch, but Gabby could feel their attention on her.
“I . . . I don’t know. How do you know it was a who? I didn’t say that she was murdered.”
“You said she was killed. Was it an accident?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Do they know who done it?”
“The police have no leads,” said Gabby.
“Mmm-hmm, well they wouldn’t, now would they? But you do, don’t you?”
Gabby hesitated, and it was enough confirmation for Quip.
“Coming up in here to get dolled up. You planning something crazy?”
“I—”
“Child, if you think you know something, you’ve gots to tell the popo,” said Quip.
Gabby began to get up. “I should go.”
“I’m sorry, Gabby. Please, don’t leave. Your sister was a good friend of mine. You’ve got to tell me what happened.”
Gabby glanced around again. The stylists and many of the customers were seemingly minding their business.
Against her better judgment, Gabby told Quip almost everything that had happened, including her suspicions of a certain high-rolling billionaire, though she left out the name.
Quip studied her when she was done. “And what? You gonna go infiltrate the John? See if you can’t get yourself killed as well?”
Gabby thought of the black sedans. Was she getting in over her head?
“I can handle myself,” she said.
“Child, your sister could handle herself against the best of them, and she dead. You need to go be telling the poe-lease what you think you know, not dolling up to enter the lion’s den.”
Quip was right, and Gabby knew it, but she couldn’t just do nothing.
Finally, Quip sighed. “Must be your sister’s damned stubborn side. Fine then. If you’re going into the lion’s den, then you ain’t going in looking like a lamb.”
When Quip was done with her, she didn’t even recognize herself in the mirror. Her once-snarly hair hung in perfect ringlets, having been cut just below the shoulder. He had given her a streak of blonde in one of them and did her makeup in such a way that it complemented her olive skin beautifully. She was given a manicure and pedicure as well. Quip even placed his own black glasses on her face, which she found out were not prescription.
“Perfect,” he said, admiring her in the mirror.
“Oh. My. God,” said Gabby, marveling at how smart, sophisticated, and powerful she looked. And felt.
She looked at the chrome clock on the wall and nearly gasped when she saw the time.
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry, but I’m going to be late. The appointment is at noon in the city.”
“But what will you wear?” asked Quip, eyeing her.
Gabby glanced down at her sweatpants and back at the clock. “Uh, I don’t know. I’ll find something.”
“You’ll find something? In the next hour? Without knowing where to look?” Quip shook his head and strode over to the door before turning to a confused and flummoxed Gabby. “Come on then, child. The clock is ticking.”
Chapter 18
“You know how to drive this thing?” Quip asked when Gabby moved to the driver side of the Nova.
“I’m getting used to it,” said Gabby.
“Ain’t nobody got time for that. You’s late, girl. Gimme the keys. I’ll show ya how to pet this pretty kitty.”
Reluctantly, Gabby handed over the keys and got in the passenger seat.
“Buckle up, bitch,” said Quip, starting the engine.
He peeled out of the parking lot and tore onto the highway without so much as signaling. Gabby hurried to buckle her seat belt. She held on for dear life as Quip screeched around another corner, took the on-ramp to the freeway at sixty miles an hour, and blasted into traffic like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. He changed gears so smoothly that Gabby hardly even noticed. Soon they were rocketing down the road at a hundred miles per hour.
“Are you out of your mind?” Gabby screamed.
Quip, however, speed-dialed a number and shushed her.
“I’m late for an interview, not surgery!” she said, gripping the door handle tight as Quip effortlessly weaved in and out of traffic.
“Heeey! This is Quip. I’ve got a fashion emergency. I need a smart-looking skirt that says my brain is bigger than my tits.” He overtook a big rig and barely made it around a minivan and turned to Gabby. “What size are you?”
A Cross to Bear Page 6
