Chapter Two
Chapter
Two
“What dish is best served cold?” My best friend, Jemma Ghosh, asked the question from across the small table in the busy coffee shop.
“Gazpacho?” I guessed.
Jemma rolled her eyes before removing a box from her oversize handbag and plunking it down in the middle of the table. “Revenge.”
I took a sip of my caffè mocha—Jemma insisted on treating me—and eyed the box with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. “I thought you were getting me ready for another job as a restaurant server.”
“I’m not sure that’s the industry for you.”
I nearly shuddered at the parade of memories marching through my head: broken dishes, annoyed customers, an exasperated Chad.
“You might be right,” I conceded. “But I need a job of some sort. And soon.”
“Let’s get back to my plan first,” Jemma said, tapping the box with a perfectly manicured magenta fingernail. “After all, it’s only partly about revenge and mostly about getting your money back.”
That got my attention. “From Hoffman?” Hoffman Fisher, aka my ex-boyfriend, the snake who’d stolen my life savings.
Actually, it wasn’t nice to call him a snake. There was no reason for me to go around insulting reptiles like that.
“You’re going to scare him into returning every penny.”
“I’m intrigued,” I admitted. Then I eyed the box again, lowering my voice to a whisper. “But please tell me there’s not a gun in there.” The last thing I needed was someone calling the cops on us.
“Damn,” my friend said. “I should’ve brought one of those too.”
“Jemma,” I said without humor.
“Just kidding. Sort of.” She removed the lid from the box with a flourish. “Check it out.”
I peered into the box, half expecting something with sharp teeth to leap out at me. Luckily, nothing stirred inside. The box held several stacks of identical business cards. Completely harmless, from what I could tell. I removed one from the box, running my thumb over the embossed lettering.
Wyatt Investigations.
Discretion, Expertise, Results.
Below those words was a phone number.
“You hired a private investigator?” My gaze returned to the stacks of cards in the box. “And they gave you this many business cards?” Something wasn’t adding up.
“It’s not a real agency,” Jemma said. “I made it up. Did you notice the name?”
“You used my favorite hot cowboy name.” I had, on more than one occasion, described my dream man as a hot cowboy named Wyatt. I could picture him as clear as day. Dark hair, dark eyes, broad shoulders, washboard abs, a killer smile, and calloused hands that—
“Do I need to douse you with ice water?” Jemma interrupted my daydream.
“I was in the zone,” I lamented, my fantasy cowboy fading into the ether.
“I know, hon,” Jemma said. “But that zone is not PG, and we’re in a public place.
You were practically drooling.” She rummaged around in her handbag and came up with a cell phone that she plunked down on the table next to the box.
“Burner phone. So, if Hoffman wants to call the number on the card to see if it’s the real deal, he’ll get a legit-sounding voicemail message. ”
“Wow. You really thought this through.” I was impressed, if not yet entirely sold on the plan.
“The phone and business cards are the perfect touches, right?”
I was thinking overkill—at least when it came to the number of cards. “How many are in there, anyway?”
“One hundred.”
I fingered the card I still held in my hand. “I’m grateful and all, Jem, but you couldn’t have just printed one on card stock?”
“Do I look like a stationery store? Besides, I had a fifteen-percent-off coupon.” She paused for a sip of her latte.
“All you have to do is give Hoffman one of the cards and tell him you’ve hired a private detective to gather enough evidence to take to the police and have him charged with theft.
He’ll be so scared that he’ll be throwing your money at you. ”
“I don’t know, Jemma.” The thought of confronting Hoffman nearly had me breaking out in hives. Confrontation was not my strong suit.
Unless the confrontee was a sleazy man and I was armed with a cocktail glass. Hmm. Maybe I wasn’t as anti-confrontation as I’d thought.
“The plan is foolproof, Em.” Jemma shoved the box and burner phone toward me. “Not to mention it’s the only one you’ve got.”
She had me there.
Getting my money back from Hoffman wouldn’t solve all my problems, but it would buy me time.
Time to find a decent job so I wouldn’t have to scrimp and save and take advantage of my neighbors’ generosity.
That’s why I accepted the burner phone and box of business cards against my better judgment.
How much stock could I put in my judgment, anyway?
Jemma dropped me off in front of the Mirage before speeding away in her red Camaro.
I might have had a hint of car envy since I couldn’t even afford an old clunker.
Not that I needed a car in the city or wanted to deal with the constant street sweeping.
I certainly couldn’t afford to pay for a parking space, but I imagined that owning a vehicle came with a sense of freedom.
With the box of business cards in my arms, I started up the front steps to the Mirage, going over Jemma’s plan in my mind.
“Afternoon, Emersyn!”
When I looked up to see who’d called out the greeting, I tripped and fell forward, landing on my knees on the steps.
The box flew from my arms, and the business cards burst up into the air as the lid shot off, creating a cloud of white before fluttering down like a kaleidoscope of butterflies that had all simultaneously died mid-flight.
“I’m so sorry!” the same voice cried out. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I looked up to see Agnes Gao, a bespectacled, sixty-something Mirage resident, leaning out the window of her third-floor apartment, her short and graying black bob tucked behind her ears.
She and her daughter owned a bakery two blocks away.
She was a sweet lady, and occasionally brought Livy day-old treats that hadn’t sold.
“No harm done,” I assured her with a wave. Luckily, she was too far away to see me blinking away tears of pain. My knees throbbed, and I thought I felt blood trickle down my leg beneath my jeans.
As Agnes ducked back into her apartment, I scrambled around, collecting the fallen cards and dropping them into the box.
After I’d picked up all the ones around me, I dusted off my hands and slid the lid back on.
I didn’t know if I’d retrieved all the cards, but I figured it didn’t matter.
With one hundred of them, I had ninety-nine spares, and I was pretty sure that card stock was compostable.
Once safely in my apartment, I cleaned up my bruised and scraped knees, using one of Livy’s dinosaur bandages to cover a small cut that was oozing blood.
Then I spent an hour online, hunting for jobs.
None of the listings struck me as promising, but I bookmarked a couple to apply for anyway.
It’s not like I had the luxury of being picky.
When my eyes threatened to glaze over, I allowed my attention to stray. Even though it made me cringe, I brought up Hoffman’s social media profiles. Just looking at the guy’s selfies turned my stomach, but I needed to track his movements if I was going to put Jemma’s plan into action.
When I saw his most recent post, from mere minutes ago, I jumped up from the couch.
He’d posted yet another selfie—featuring his typical self-satisfied smile—with a caption stating that he’d just arrived at the Hickory Hill Country Club to play some tennis with his new girlfriend.
She was the country club member, not Hoffman.
Even the money he’d stolen from me wouldn’t have covered the fees to get him into that exclusive club.
No doubt he’d had dollar signs in his eyes when he met this woman and realized how loaded she was.
Would he try to steal from her or keep the relationship going and milk it for all it was worth?
I felt sorry for her. Maybe I should warn her about Hoffman?
If I ran into her at the country club, I would, because that’s where I was heading.
I still had a few hours before Livy got out of school. If I hurried, I could reach the club before Hoffman was done playing tennis.
On the train to Connecticut, I texted Jemma, telling her where I was going and why. She responded right away, demanding to know what I was wearing. Cringing, I took a quick selfie and sent it to her. Judging by her response, my worn jeans and V-neck T-shirt didn’t qualify as country club attire.
I’ll meet you at the club, she wrote back. DO NOT GO IN BEFORE I GET THERE.
I felt relieved. I’d much rather have Jemma at my side than go it alone when confronting Hoffman. And the fact that she was willing to drive all the way up to Connecticut from her place in the West Bronx made my heart swell.
After the train ride, I had to hop on a bus to get closer to my destination.
It dropped me off a short distance from the country club, and I figured I was lucky I didn’t have to walk for miles.
After all, how many members of the Hickory Hill Country Club would ever bus there?
None, probably. If I had money to throw around, I would have been willing to bet that the only people who didn’t use valet parking there were the employees.
I took my time getting to the club, not wanting to loiter awkwardly for long while I waited for Jemma. Even though I walked at the speed of a tortoise, there was no sign of her familiar red Camaro when I arrived.
I paced up and down in front of the semicircular driveway for a couple of minutes before Jemma’s Camaro pulled up to the curb, windows down.
“Take the dress,” she said, pointing at a blue garment on the passenger seat. “There’s no way you can trick anyone into thinking you’re a member looking like that.”
I glanced down at my clothes. I knew she was right.
“Where am I supposed to change?” I asked. “In the car?”
I didn’t see any other option. As much as I wanted to get revenge on Hoffman and get my money back, I wasn’t about to strip down on the side of the road.
“Sorry, hon. I’m working at the salon this afternoon, and I’m cutting it close as it is.” She leaned over and stuffed the dress out the window at me.
“You’re not coming with me?” I asked in dismay. So much for backup.
“You’ve got this, Em,” she said.
I jumped back just in time. She stepped on the gas and careened away from the curb. I watched her car disappear down the street and then turned to face the country club again.
If I wasn’t going to change clothes out in the open, I really had only one option.
I hurried around the side of the ostentatious two-story clubhouse, where bushes and rhododendrons lined the stone wall that blocked most of the property from public view.
I glanced about to make sure no one was watching and then ducked in among the foliage.
Branches snagged at my hair, and I nearly screamed when I came face-to-legs with a spider dangling from a silken thread.
I dodged the spider and worked my way deeper into the bushes.
When I reached the wall, I leaned against it so I could unzip and kick off my ankle boots.
I wriggled out of my jeans and stripped off my T-shirt before pulling the blue dress on.
I worked one arm into a sleeve before my hair snagged on a rhododendron branch.
When I tried to turn around to untangle myself, more branches grabbed at my hair.
I twisted and wrestled until I was hopelessly ensnared.
The shrub now had a firm grip on both my hair and the empty sleeve of the dress.
With the zipper undone, my entire back was exposed to the breeze, which sent unpleasant chills over my bare skin.
And was that something crawling up my back? With a gasp, I tried to whirl around. Pain shot along my scalp as my hair got pulled harder. I flailed—as much as I could under the circumstances—trying to swipe at my back.
“Get off! Get off! Get off!”
When I could no longer feel creepy-crawlies on my skin, I stopped struggling, out of breath.
Working or not, I needed Jemma to come back and help me.
But my phone was in the pocket of my jeans, which were on the ground at my feet.
When I tried to reach down, the rhododendron yanked at my hair again, the pain making my eyes water.
“Okay, don’t panic.”
Despite my own advice, panic settled in to stay a while. My heart raced, and my thoughts spun in dizzying circles.
I couldn’t believe this was my fate.
I was probably going to die here, trapped in the Rhododendron of Doom.
“You okay in there?” a male voice asked.
Yes, I was indeed going to die here. Of utter mortification.