“You must be Makenna Whitt, also known as Kenny. We spoke on the phone.” Felisha shook Kenny’s hand, perusing her shape, height, and posture.
Unlike Felisha, who was dressed in a form-fitting Gucci polka-dot wool-blend blazer and Capri pants, Kenny was wearing a Razorback t-shirt, her two-thousand-dollar tattered blue jeans, and alligator boots.
Felisha walked around Kenny, inspecting her backside; the square of her shoulders, V-shaped waist, and rock-hard butt. When her eyes came to rest on Kenny’s hair she almost gasped. “We haven’t a moment to waste,” she proclaimed as she returned to stand in front of her.
“I just need a rinse for my hair. I’ve got a suit already.” She put her hand on Chelsey’s shoulder. “This is Chelsey Kendrick, my date, and she needs a special dress for the evening. Plus shoes, jewelry, hair, nails, the works.”
“Damn. Am I that ugly?” Chelsey joked to mask her excitement.
“Of course not, Chels,” Kenny groveled. “I think you’re perfect the way you are now.”
Felisha looked at Chelsey’s hair and sighed. “Perfect,” she decreed, walking behind Chelsey, inspecting her as she had Kenny. “Absolutely perfect.”
Kenny nodded. “See, told you so.”
The doorbell rang again and Felisha threw up her hands. “That will be my seamstress. Do you have a room where she can measure the lovely Ms. Chelsey?”
“Sure, we can do it in my room,” Chelsey offered.
“She may need more room than in a bedroom,” Felisha replied.
“That’s all right. We have several empty rooms upstairs that should have plenty of space,” Kenny stated.
“Very good,” Felisha said as Sophie escorted a middle-aged woman into the kitchen.
The seamstress was wearing a utility apron with tailor's scissors, thread, measuring tape, and white vanishing fabric-marker pens. Plus, she was wearing two magnetic pin cushions, one on each wrist. There were no pins in either one, at the moment, but in ten minutes time, she would have them full and ready to go. But what made Kenny silently gasp was the woman’s beauty. Her face was pale, like a Greek goddess, and like a goddess, she had a voluptuous body that curved in all the right places.
“This is Yvette Baillairgé,” Felisha said, introducing the seamstress.
Kenny wiped her sweaty palm on her jeans and then offered her hand. “Uh… it’s nice to meet you, Yvette.”
“Je vous remercie. C'est un plaisir de vous rencontrer aussi,” Yvette replied.
They looked at her in confusion.
“Pardon. I said thank you. It's nice to meet you, as well,” Yvette translated.
Kenny nodded. “Ah, you’re French. Beautiful language. Yvette, Felisha, this is Sophie. She’s my house manager also known as my boss.”
Sophie chuckled and nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“And this is Chelsey Kendrick, my… um…”
“Hi. I’m her date for the party,” Chelsey translated. “I’m afraid you’ve got your work cut out for you, Yvette.”
“Au contraire, Madame. How you say, this will be a breeze.”
Chelsey laughed and looked at Kenny. “I like her.”
A twang of jealous surged in Kenny’s heart, but she tamped it down before it could reach her mouth. “Good. You guys have fun.”
“Does anyone need anything?” Sophie asked. “Coffee, soda, tea?”
When no one asked for anything, Kenny turned to Sophie. “Sophie, would you mind showing our guests to one of the empty rooms upstairs?”
Sophie stepped toward the door. “Right this way, ladies.”
Kenny watched them go and thought that Chelsey had a lighter step than before. Chelsey turned back to her and grinned, framing her face with her hands. Kenny’s stomach fluttered watching Chelsey’s excitement. She gave her the okay sign as she thought of how Chelsey had looked when she first met her. Wearing a pair of grimy, smelly coveralls with specks of dirt in her hair and under her nails, she was still the most beautiful creature Kenny had ever laid eyes on. Pride welled up in her heart, and she made a promise to herself that Chelsey would be spoiled at every opportunity.
While Chelsey was being fitted for a dress upstairs, Sophie and Kenny gave Felisha a tour of the house that did not include the game room. Kenny declared that the game room was to be locked and off limits during the party. She didn’t give an explanation and Felisha didn’t ask for one. She wasn’t paid to be intrusive and her reputation attested to that.
“May I be frank with you, Kenny?” Felisha asked as she stood in the great room, which was practically bare by high society standards.
“Sure, go ahead,” Kenny replied.
“You have a beautiful home, but it’s lacking a certain…”
“Je ne sais quoi? That’s about all the French I know,” Kenny admitted.
Felisha laughed and shook her head. “It lacks… everything.”
“Oh, yeah. My grandmother plans to work with a decorator after she gets back.” Kenny glanced at Sophie, before looking back at Felisha. “She’s been ill and is away on sabbatical.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Felisha exclaimed. “Will she be able to come for the party?”
“Sadly, no. So we are at your mercy, Felisha. Whatever you need to make an impression, please rent it. Sophie will work with you on the particulars. All I ask is that you don’t permanently change the look. That’s for my grandmother to do.”
Felisha nodded. “Completely understandable. I’ll take care of everything. If you’ll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make.”
“Of course,” Kenny replied.
As soon as Felisha was out of the room, Sophie glared at Kenny.
“What?”
“That woman will rent you out of house and home.”
“Uh, hello. That’s why I said you would work with her. You’re my house manager, remember? Listen, I’m going to the plant today and talk with Ted. Text me a list of what you need and I’ll swing by the store and pick it up.”
“Why are you talking with Ted? Did something change?” Sophie asked.
“No, he’s still going to the same places. He either knows the tracker is on his car or he’s done with his part of it. Either way, I want to ask him to his face who put him up to it.”
What Kenny left out was the part where she was also meeting a guy she knew, to buy a gun, no questions asked. Could she shoot her mother? Absolutely, if it meant saving her grandmother. Her mother meant nothing to her other than she got knocked up and popped Kenny out nine months later.
When she was growing up, Deidre had tried to explain to Kenny that her mother was a good person caught up in a bad situation. She never talked bad about her, but Kenny watched her grandmother cry on more than one occasion and that, more than anything, turned Kenny’s heart against the woman who gave birth to her. She knew her mother didn’t love her, didn’t care about her no matter what her grandmother said. If her mother had cared, she would have stayed, or at the very least, sent a card on her birthday.
“What about Felisha?” Sophie asked.
“I have complete faith in you, Soph. You can handle everything.”
“Pray your faith is enough.”
“Yes, you are more than enough. You’ve been taking care of me and your fellow coworkers for years. Listen, we’re all just playing this by ear. If I could, I would hire a damn army and chase my mother’s ass to hell and back. But I have to play by her rules.” Kenny cleared her throat. “Anyway, Sophie, I know you can handle this. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and if you get in a bind, call me.”
Sophie locked eyes with Kenny. “Why do I feel the need to tell you to be careful?”
“Because you are a very wise woman. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful, Mamá.”
Sophie watched her leave and shook her head. Something doesn’t feel right to me.
***
“It holds six rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber,” Jack Martin said, showing Kenny the magazine before sliding i
t into place. He showed her that the safety latch was on before handing her the small, semi-automatic pistol with the imitation pearl handgrip. Then he looked around the trunk lid of his old, beaten up 1990 Pontiac, to see if they were being watched.
Jack, who had worked with Kenny at the truck stop, was in his fifties, with salt and pepper hair, a hooked nose, and over-tanned skin that suggested he worked outside a lot, but Kenny doubted that was the case. She was sure those were the same greasy clothes he wore as a short-order cook at the truck stop. Life had not been kind to him since it was discovered that he had been adding rat meat to the food. He explained that it was his special recipe but the health inspector wasn’t impressed and barred him from ever working in the food services again.
Kenny had dressed down for their meeting. She had left all her jewelry at home, including her diamond nose stud, and wore plain jeans and a t-shirt. Her hair still had the streaks of green, but that only added to her youthful look. They had agreed to meet at a popular grocery store, and she had parked her Jaguar a block away so as not to draw attention to herself. If Jack knew she had won the lottery, he gave no indication of it.
“Can it be traced?” Kenny asked, examining the pistol. She had handled a Glock 23 semi-automatic pistol at Quantico, and even got to fire a couple of rounds, but she wasn’t formally trained. The gun had a few dings and scrapes and was obviously used but still looked in good shape.
“Do you think I’m stupid? No, it can’t be traced,” he replied. “Street value is four hundred but since we’re old friends, I’ll give it to you for three hundred.”
Now she was positive that he didn’t know she was a multi-millionaire. “Throw in some bullets, and I’ll give you five hundred,” Kenny replied. If he was willing to go so low on the pistol, Kenny figured it was worth even less than two hundred, but she wanted to help him out, though she didn’t know why. She’d never liked Jack.
“Done,” Jack agreed, reaching into the trunk and pulling out a small box of cartridges.
Kenny turned away from him and pulled out her wallet, counting out five hundred dollars. “Pleasure doing business with you, Jack,” she said as she handed him the money.
“How about a sawed-off shotgun or a—”
“This is all I need for now, but I’ll send business your way if I hear of anything.” Kenny could almost hear the sound of cha-ching in his head.
Kenny cleared the chamber and dropped the bullet into the coin pocket of her jeans. Then she removed the magazine and slid it in her back pocket. Finally, she hid the gun in the front of her jeans and covered it with her shirt. She shook hands with Jack and walked back to her car.
In Arkansas, you don’t have to have a permit to carry a concealed, unloaded handgun, but Kenny may have been skirting the law by having the ammo so close to the weapon.
With that chore done, it was time to drive to the plant and talk with Ted.
*
“I told you, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Ted snapped.
Kenny rested her hand on the pistol peeking out above her jeans zipper fly. It gave her a different sense of empowerment than her money did. It made her feel strong, cocky, and invincible. “And I told you that I know it was you. Last chance, either you tell me who put you up to it, or I’ll shoot you in each foot until you do.”
He looked at her hand tapping the grip on her gun, then he looked back at her. “What’s it worth to you?”
She had a feeling it would come around to money. She was a bit disappointed that she didn’t get to shoot him. “What are your feet worth to you?”
“Come on, damn it. I’m trying to work with you here,” he shot back.
“Fine, but if you keep stringing me along, I’m going to shoot you, one toe at a time.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said, trying to sound tough, but the fear in his eyes betrayed him. “Ten thousand dollars and I’ll sing like a canary.”
Kenny crossed her arms and cocked her hip toward him. “Two thousand and you tell me the truth.” He started to argue but Kenny pulled her gun out and covered it with her other hand. He had no way of knowing it wasn’t loaded.
“All right, damn it. Some guy came up to me while I was on a break and said he’d pay me a couple of hundred to slip the tracker onto your car the next time I saw you. Fastest two hundred bucks I’d ever made, because you showed up an hour later.”
“Who was the guy?” Someone my mother was shacking up with?
“Haven’t a clue. We didn’t introduce ourselves.”
“Describe him, then.”
“I’m not one of those people, Whitt. I only look closely at women.”
“Well, there’s something we have in common. Now tell me, was the guy white, black, Hispanic—”
“He was white.”
“Tall, short, fat, or thin?”
He raised his hand over his head. “About my height, I guess. Thin, sort of sickly looking. He seemed kind of nervous and sweated a lot.”
“Did he have any scars, or maybe walked with a limp?”
“Now that you mention it, he did have a scar on his chin, just here.” Ted ran his finger vertically over his right chin.
Kenny racked her brain trying to remember seeing anyone like that, but nothing came to mind. Maybe she could do a search for a man matching that description, that is, if the commissioner lets her into the database.
“Scar aside, he was a wuss.”
Kenny pulled up her shirt and took out her travel wallet. Before she went to Las Vegas, she had bought a travel wallet that hooked inside her jeans to keep her money safe. It didn’t do her any good at the orgy, but then she hadn’t been dressed for most of it.
“Here’s your two,” she handed him twenty one-hundred-dollar bills, “and I’ll give you another two if you call me the second you see that guy again. Do we have a deal?”
“Hell, yeah,” he said, counting the money.
“And if I hear of you screwing around like that again, I’ll come back and shoot your toes off.”
Ted stopped counting and looked at the determination in her eyes. “I actually believe you would.”
As she walked away, Kenny smiled. Damn straight I would.
Chapter Eleven
“Where is everyone?” Kenny asked as she walked into the kitchen and threw her keys on the table. She walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door.
Sophie looked up from the recipe book she was reading at the kitchen table and said, “Chelsey’s with the seamstress, Felisha went downtown to look at furniture, and Tobias is at school.”
Kenny pulled a soda out and opened it, taking a large gulp and belching her satisfaction.
Sophie studied her closely. “Kenny, you look tired. There’s dark shadows under your eyes.”
Kenny took another sip of soda and then another one. “By the way, did I ever thank you for the pillows you put in the game room? Sure does come in handy when you fall down.”
“Kenny, you can’t keep going on like this. It’s not healthy. You need your rest.”
“I’ll rest when Grandma’s back. Until then, I can’t waste a single minute. She’s looking pale, Sophie. Grandma’s keeping up a brave front but I can tell she’s in pain, and she’s losing weight. I have to find her.”
“And you will, cariño, but remember, you’re not doing this on your own. Have you noticed that Chelsey won’t sleep unless you do?
Kenny gazed at Sophie. “You know, I hadn’t notice. Damn, what a wonderful woman.”
“A wonderful woman who is exhausted, like you are.”
“No, she never said anything.” Kenny remembered waking up with one hand on Chelsey’s shoulder, the other entangled in her hair. It felt… natural.
“And she wouldn’t, would she?”
“Okay, I promise to get her to bed at a decent hour tonight.”
“And yourself as well, chica.”
Kenny rolled her eyes and took another sip of her soda.
“I must s
ay, you two really work well together.”
“She’s wonderful, Sophie.”
“Yes, you said that,” Sophie replied with a knowing smile.
“No, I mean she’s so smart, so supportive, adventurous, and a damn good kisser, too.”
Sophie cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, you don’t say.”
“Yeah. As soon as we get Grandma back, I’m taking her to the Caribbean for a month. Or any place else she wants to go.”
“Sounds romantic.”
Kenny looked at Sophie contemplatively. “Can I let you in on a secret, Soph?”
“Of course.”
“I think I’m falling for her,” Kenny stated breathlessly.
Sophie pretended to be shocked. She had seen the sparks fly between the two young women the moment they met. That they had bonded so fast hadn’t surprised her, given the emotional situation they were working in, but Sophie was a romantic at heart. She was hoping the two would find a lasting friendship based on mutual interest, not on dramatic need. “And when will you know for sure?” she teased.
Shaking her head, Kenny frowned. “I have to get Grandma back first before anything else can happen.”
“Then go take a shower and put on some clean clothes,” Sophie instructed, “You smell like the garbage plant. I’ll have lunch ready for you by the time you’re done.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m not really hungry.”
Sophie put on her stern mother’s face and pointed toward the door. “Haz lo que digo, jovencita.” Frustrated when Kenny shrugged, Sophie shook her head, remembering she wasn’t talking to her daughter, although they both could be as stubborn as a mule at times. “Do as I say, young lady. Go.”
Kenny stood up and shuffled out the door mumbling “Sí, Madre.”
Sophie prepared lunch like a conductor leading an orchestra, humming to the sound of hamburgers sizzling on the grill as she stirred the salad with her baton, better known as a wooden spoon.
Chelsey walked in and stopped at the doorway, smiling as Sophie swayed her hips to the song she was humming.
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