Whole Lotta Trouble

by Stephanie Bond

  Phil Dannon was a powerful figure standing in her doorway wearing jeans, western boots, and a cream-colored turtleneck under his trademark suede jacket. His eyes looked a little bloodshot, as if he’d been drinking, and his thick hair looked hand-ruffled. In one hand he held a blue file folder. He straightened as he took in Felicia’s robe. “It’s late, I know. I’m sorry to bother you, Felicia.”

  “No, Phil, it’s fine,” Felicia assured him, then stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”

  He stepped inside. “I won’t keep you long.”

  “Let’s sit down,” she suggested, then led the way to the living room. She sat on the gray couch while Phil paced restlessly around the room.

  “Nice place.”

  “Thanks.” She sat with her hands folded as he walked around the room, picking up small items and setting them down. “Is something wrong, Phil?”

  He turned and laughed lightly. “Only everything.” Then he stopped in front of her. His gaze dropped, and she realized that her robe had parted below her knees.

  Felicia shifted and discreetly closed the opening. “Do you want to talk? How about a cup of coffee?”

  He pulled his hand down his face. “Do you have any made?”

  She knew bleak when she saw it. “No, but it’ll only take a few minutes. Come with me.” She stood and headed toward the kitchen, wondering if he’d had another run-in with Suze. She flipped a light switch, illuminating the spotless, gleaming kitchen. “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the table. She pulled out the coffeemaker. “Decaf?”

  He shook his head. “Full-strength, if you don’t mind. I’m heading back home when I leave here.”

  She nodded and pulled out the good stuff—Island Lava Java. “Have you spoken to Suze?” she asked over her shoulder.

  He sighed. “No. She won’t return any of my calls.”

  Too wrapped up in her lover, Felicia mused, then smirked to herself. No doubt Suze would feel differently toward Jerry after he lost some of his powerful footing.

  Phil placed the blue folder he’d been holding on the table in front of him.

  “What’s that?” Felicia asked.

  He looked sheepish. “Just an idea I’ve been tossing around…I don’t know if it’s any good.”

  She sat down in the adjacent chair and reached for the folder. “Let me be the judge.”

  He put his hand over hers. “Later. I’d be a nervous wreck if you read it while I was sitting here.”

  Felicia glanced down at Phil’s large hand over hers, and desire stirred in her belly…an extension of the tension that had been fermenting all evening. She looked up and realized the bewildered expression on Phil’s face mirrored what she was feeling. He had been betrayed…she had been betrayed. The loneliness they felt was a tangible entity in the room. His hand tightened over hers, and Felicia felt her mouth open, felt herself lean forward until their lips touched. His were warm and firm and comforting. Then he curled his hand behind her neck, and the kiss intensified.

  Dusty Springfield’s “Just a Little Lovin’ ” sounded in Felicia’s head. She and Phil were grown-ups…they deserved this indulgence. She opened her mouth and let him in.

  Chapter 17

  Tallie slept with the telephone…when she slept. Mostly she tossed and turned, freezing, and stared at the clock radio ticking by agonizing minute after minute. After Keith had left, she’d finally broken down and called Felicia to see if she’d seen her bag and if not, to confess that she might have left it at the hotel. But when Felicia hadn’t answered, Tallie had set down the phone and told herself that Felicia didn’t need to be burdened; if Jerry found the bag and traced the incident back to her, so be it. Meanwhile, she hoped against hope that she’d left the bag in the cab and that it would be turned in.

  Except now that she had time to think about what they’d done to Jerry, she was starting to have some serious misgivings, which, admittedly, probably had something to do with her worry that she’d be fingered.

  They hadn’t really done anything illegal…had they? Jerry had left the hotel room door ajar and had donned a blindfold voluntarily. He’d even gone so far as to fasten restraints around his own ankles, presumably to save time when his mystery dominatrix arrived. The photo couldn’t be considered slanderous because it wasn’t a misrepresentation. Besides, Jerry would probably be willing to forgo any legal charges in hopes of quieting the situation as quickly as possible.

  Around 3:00 A.M., she decided she couldn’t lie there any longer. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, promptly tripping over a pile of dirty clothes. Mr. Emory had offered space heaters to residents, but she had passed, fearful of sparking an inferno. After she turned on the light, she glanced around at the disarray and, shivering, conceded that 3:00 A.M. was probably a good time to have the laundry room all to herself. She pulled on a pair of jeans, slipped her feet into tennis shoes, and proceeded to stuff as many clothes and towels as would fit into the laundry basket. She gathered quarters for the machines, soap powder and fabric softener dryer sheets, and, distrustful of the range of her cordless phone, tucked her cell phone into the pocket of her flannel nightshirt in case the cab company called at this ungodly hour. She unlocked the dead bolts and scooted the basket into the hallway, looking over her shoulder at the vent in the ceiling with a scrap of police tape dangling down.

  If possible, it was even colder in the hallway. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, and her pulse picked up. It was deadly quiet. Her gaze darted to the dark corners of the dingy, poorly lit space, knowing her fear that someone was skulking around was unreasonable but unable to stop the dark possibilities from entering her head. The dead man hadn’t been after her personally, she reminded herself, and if he’d managed to enter her apartment, he probably would have been so appalled by the mess that he would have moved on to cleaner fare.

  Tallie hurriedly locked the dead bolts, scuttled to the elevator with laundry in tow, and stabbed the button for the basement. But the elevator’s normal thumping and bumping sounded like tolling bells in the still night. By the time she reached the bottom floor, she was starting to rethink her witching hour urge. The doors opened and she was relieved to see the glow of a night-light leading to the gaping, black-hole doorway into the moldy laundry room. She lowered the basket to the floor and approached the darkness with trepidation, then held her breath, reached around the corner, and slapped at the wall until she found the light switch. The three rows of overhead lights came on one by one, sending six- and eight-legged creatures running for cover. Tallie winced and looked away until all was clear. The room held four mismatched washers and seven hodgepodge dryers, three of the machines highlighted with Out of Order signs. But no boogeymen. She shook her head at her silly fears…she was letting the events of the week get to her.

  She retraced her steps to get her laundry and set about sorting the items into separate machines. She made a return trip upstairs to get another basketful and to strip her bed linens, figuring she might as well take advantage of all of the machines being free. The scent of bleach and soap powder tickled her nose, reminding her of home. Merrilyn Blankenship was most happy when everyone’s eyes stung from antiseptics in the air.

  After Tallie had the washers chugging along, she traipsed back to her apartment. Fully awake now, she decided to get a jump on straightening up for the cleaners so they could concentrate on the heavy-duty jobs. She sorted junk mail, tossed disposable food boxes, and threw away empty toiletry containers. Before long, five bulging garbage bags sat next to the door. Once she began to see floor and furniture surfaces again, her energy level kicked higher. Keeping busy meant keeping warm. If she dusted, she reasoned, the cleaners could concentrate on the floors. And if she cleaned the bathroom sink, they could spend more time on the bathtub. If she washed the dirty dishes, they could put real elbow grease into the furry appliances. At various times during the dish-washing, Keith Wages came to mind, and she could almost feel his hands fondling hers in the
water. Okay, the man was sexy as hell with his big…everything (one could assume). And if she were inclined to have a hot fling, she’d pick him out of a lineup. But did she really want to risk that the man would report back to his mother that Tallie was a “fun” girl?

  Nooo.

  She pushed Keith Wages from her mind and ran back to the basement to transfer wet clothes to the dryers. Later she folded shirt after shirt, towel after towel. All the while, she kept her ear angled toward the phone, which refused to ring. She hummed and kept moving to take her mind off her burgeoning panic. She vacuumed the shag carpet until the nap stood up, cleaned the refrigerator until it didn’t reek, and scrubbed the stove until her triceps objected. Suddenly she realized that dawn was peeking through her living room windows—which were quite dirty.

  Tallie frowned. She couldn’t do anything about the outside glass, but she hadn’t washed the inside of the windows since…never. She found a trigger bottle of blue liquid cleaner under the sink whose label was so faded that she had no idea what it was, but it smelled like ammonia and seemed to cut through the smoky grime on the windows well enough. She stood back and gazed upon the blackened cloth and the sparkling glass, impressed with the results.

  Her mother would be so proud.

  The thought stopped her in her tracks, and she glanced around her clean apartment, realizing that she’d left very little for the maid service to do. But the cleaning had taken her mind off the trouble at hand, and the realization opened the way for a question to worm its way into her head: Did her mother clean to avoid unpleasantries?

  Tallie’s mouth quirked sideways. If so, and if she’d inherited that pathological tendency, and if the Whole Lotta Trouble manuscript was truly lost, she’d be cleaning until her fingerprints wore off.

  She remade her bed, cleaned her closet, organized her dresser drawers, and even matched all the odd earrings in the Tupperware container that doubled for a jewelry box.

  By 7:30 A.M., she couldn’t take the suspense any longer. She phoned the cab company, told her story to two different people, and was on hold for twenty minutes before being told that yes, they had her claim on file, but since found items were turned in at various terminals across the city, processing could take a while and she shouldn’t expect to hear anything for oh, maybe a day or two.

  Tallie disconnected the call and grasped the clean kitchen counter for support. A day or two? How could she put off Kara for a day or two? Hot, choking tears materialized, and she felt light-headed. She slid down the cabinets to sit on the floor and put her head on her knees. This was payback for delighting in the humiliation she’d doled out to Jerry Key last night. Other people did terrible things all the time and got away with it. The first time she did something truly vindictive, it came back to hit her in the face like a big, spiky boomerang.

  Jerry Key would probably find some way to turn the picture into a publicity stunt. Meanwhile, she’d be on the street looking for a job. And if Parkbench Publishing or Gaylord Cooper decided to hold her responsible for the lost manuscript, her grandchildren would be working off the $1.1 million advance.

  She concentrated on breathing deeply and telling herself not to jump to conclusions—chances were, the bag had been found and was at this moment working its way through the claim system. She lifted her head and pressed against her temples. She’d simply tell Kara that something came up and she’d get the manuscript to her later…on Monday. That should be plenty of time to recover the manuscript from the cab company. Tallie stood up and gave herself a mental shake. She simply refused to consider that the manuscript was elsewhere.

  Until she had to.

  A glance at the clock told her she had an hour before the cleaners arrived, and a whiff of herself told her that she could benefit from a shower. She wiped the remnants of her tears with the heels of her hands, then pushed to her feet carefully. Lack of sleep combined with lack of food made for a shaky stance, but she downed a glass of water to give her a push toward the bathroom. She stripped her nightshirt and jeans and, while the water ran warm, gave the ancient bathtub a good scrubbing. She then gave herself a good scrubbing, and turned her thoughts toward a plausible excuse for not delivering the manuscript to Kara.

  She could be sick, she decided—which, considering the knots in her stomach, wouldn’t be a lie. She hadn’t used a sick day in…never, so she probably had a stack of them coming to her. She had no meetings scheduled today, and Ron wasn’t there to call on her. She could stay near the phone and be ready to go to the cab company at a moment’s notice. She had plenty of reading she could do at home. Tallie turned off the water and frowned.

  The only thing she’d miss would be the hoopla over the Jerry Key photo, and she had been looking forward to that…of course now she was having mixed feelings.

  After drying off and wrapping her hair in a towel, she dressed in clean, comfy sweats. She moved toward the phone to call Norah at the office but was interrupted by the doorbell. The peephole revealed two women on the other side of the door carrying cleaning supplies. Tallie unlocked the dead bolts and ushered them inside. “Hello,” she said, introducing herself.

  The women stood holding brooms, mops, and buckets, looking around. The one that smelled like cigarette smoke said, “Looks pretty clean to me—what did you want us to do?”

  Tallie followed the woman’s gaze and realized that indeed, her apartment was cleaner than the day she’d moved in. “Well…there are a few spots on the carpet—can you take care of those? And maybe some air freshener?”

  Smoker looked at her with thin eyebrows raised. “That’s it? You ain’t going to get your money’s worth.”

  Tallie glanced at the bags of garbage lined up by the door. “And take the trash to the Dumpster?”

  The women looked at each other, then nodded and set to work on the food stains that had matted areas of the shag carpet—stuffed manicotti here, shrimp chop suey there. The women were fast and efficient. Thirty minutes later they were on their way out the door, laden with the overflowing garbage bags she had accumulated. Tallie waved good-bye and turned to inhale the air freshener—“new car” wasn’t her first choice, but it beat “dead man.”

  The heat suddenly kicked on, and she took that as a good omen. She picked up the phone and dialed Norah’s number. After a few rings, she was prepared to leave a message, but Norah picked up.

  “Tallie Blankenship’s office, Norah Mennon.” She sounded breathless.

  “Norah, hi. It’s Tallie. Listen, the heat to my building was turned off last night and I woke up not feeling good, so if anyone asks, I’m taking a sick day.”

  “Okay,” Norah said. “Jane Glass called.”

  Tallie frowned. “This morning?”

  “Yes. She said she needed to talk to you right away.”

  Tallie’s chest tightened. “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Well,” Norah’s voice lowered, “have you heard the news about Jerry Key?”

  This was important…she had to act completely surprised. Tallie wet her lips. “Jerry Key? No…what happened?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Everything in the room tilted. Tallie’s lungs compressed painfully. Her vision dimmed.

  “Tallie, are you there?”

  Tallie gasped for air. “What…what did you say?”

  “Jerry Key is dead. He was murdered last night in a hotel room.”

  The phone slipped from Tallie’s hand and crashed to the floor.

  Chapter 18

  Felicia stepped off the elevator and rushed through the reception area, incredibly late for work. Her neck was raw from whisker burn, and her leg muscles were tight. Parting with Phil this morning had been so awkward, she couldn’t bear to think about it…what had she been thinking last night?

  Heads turned when she walked in, and she noticed that everyone was standing around computers in clumps, heads together.

  The photo, she realized with a rush of adrenaline, was making the rounds. But the hushed whispers were a far c
ry from the raucous laughter she’d expected. In fact, no one was laughing.

  Tamara glanced up from her desk. Two interns standing behind her scampered on their way.

  “What’s going on?” Felicia asked carefully.

  “Um, well,” Tamara stammered, “a friend of mine forwarded this note to me this morning.” She rotated her monitor, and Felicia blinked.

  Seeing the photo she’d taken of Jerry on a two-inch-by-two-inch cell phone screen was one thing, but seeing it on a seventeen-inch, high-resolution monitor was something else altogether. It was a glossy page out of an S&M magazine—from the strip of black leather tied around his eyes to the chains and buckles crisscrossing his torso. Below the note read the words, “Jerry, Jerry quite contrary”—Jané’s idea and handiwork. The man looked like a complete idiot.

  “It’s Jerry Key,” Tamara whispered, her eyes wide.

  “I gathered as much,” Felicia said. Triumph zigzagged through her, and she tried to hold back a smile. “Well, he’s certainly coming out of the closet in a big way.” She gave a little laugh.

  Tamara stared. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Felicia frowned. “Know what?”

  “Felicia…Jerry’s…well, he’s…dead.”

  Disbelief hit Felicia like a gong. Her mouth twitched down, then up in an incredulous smile. “No…you’re joking.”

  But Tamara shook her head, her eyes pained. “I’m not. He was found murdered in a room at the Hills Hotel.”

  Felicia’s knees buckled, and she leaned into Tamara’s desk. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. “Murdered?”

  Her assistant nodded. “Stabbed…or so that’s the rumor going around.” Tamara pointed to the computer screen. “Apparently the murderer took this picture and sent it to a bunch of people before he killed Jerry. How godawful creepy is that?”