Page 19 of Guilty as Sin
“Probably not,” she said, tossing her bag behind the counter and stashing the half-drunk smoothie. “It would help if you told me why you were waiting for me, though.” She was winging it here. Why hadn’t Lily told her how many good-looking men she had hanging around? Probably because that was Lily’s life story, so she hadn’t thought to mention it. It was seriously disconcerting Paige.
It wasn’t that there weren’t any good-looking cops on the SFPD. It was just that you were more likely to see them eating a taco than looking suave.
Her new buddy said, “Same old thing, I’m afraid. Still hoping to get under your defenses. You’ve given me another week to think about how. Always dangerous.”
The lean woman was approaching from the back of the store with Hailey behind her. Hailey was looking a little apprehensive as the woman stopped in front of Paige and asked, “Does this mean you’ve finally decided to sign?”
“Excuse me?” Paige asked. “And no, it doesn’t. I won’t be signing.” She took a step back, keeping her hands up where she could use them. She saw “threat,” however unlikely a source it was coming from. But this was also her chance to draw Lily’s line in the sand, and to take the consequences.
“I don’t understand what your problem is,” the woman said, one step too close to Paige’s face and nowhere close to buying the underwear she had in a death grip, “or why you won’t explain it. Why you won’tlisten.Don’t you realize that you’re holding this whole town hostage? You’ve been here, what? Two years? Maybe? Some of us werebornhere. Some of usneedthis. You’re getting a good deal. Everybody knows that, and we can see that you don’t even need the money, either. You could live anywhere you want. We can’t. So why won’t you help?”
“Whoa,” Mr. Silver Fox said. “Ms. Hollander isn’t obligated.”
The woman rounded on him. “Then why are you here?”
He smiled. Too charming again. “Well, you know, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“Meaning,” Paige said, her suspicions confirmed, “what? Are we moving on from bribery? What could possibly come next?” This had to be Brett Hunter. Behind her, a trio of teenaged girls whirled into the store like a tropical storm, all long legs, long hair, and chattering voices, and she thought,What is this, the candy store?
“That sounds so sordid, though,” Hunter said with barely a glance for the girls. He was still so casual, still so amused, and Paige’s hackles were rising even more. “I’m here because I wanted to invite you out to look at a parcel. I think you’re going to love it. It’s a little remote, a little lakeside, and a whole lot charming. I saw it and thought, now, who would go for this? And I had my answer.”
Paige wasn’t listening, for two reasons. One, that the thin woman was all but bouncing up and down on her toes. Too intense, too focused. Two, that the Milker had just stepped into the shop with a jingle of bells, bringing all his calm certainty with him, as if he walked in a cone of stillness. And three, that the teenage girls had drifted apart, and one of them had dropped her purse. The contents spilled out onto the floor and scattered, the girl shrieked, and everybody looked.
Paige stepped back, and then she stepped back again. She ignored the girl on the floor, both men, and everybody else. A quick pivot to the left, and she was saying to the blonde girl standing next to the Natori rack, “Excuse me, miss. Would you please open your bag and show me what’s inside?”
She got wide blue eyes, a lipsticked mouth in a perfectO,and a white-knuckled hand on a slouchy leather tote. Innocent and shocked from her face, and the opposite from her body. “What?”
Paige took a step closer and beckoned. “Right now, please.” The girl’s eyes slid away, and Paige said, “I saidnow.”
A long moment. Silence. A shuffle of feet from the girl, as if she wanted to run. And then, as Paige continued to hold her gaze, an achingly slow movement of her hand toward her bag. Until she stopped.
“That’s right,” Paige said. “Now.”
The girl thrust the bag open in one quick movement and said, all in a rush, “I was going to buy them. I was just about to. You didn’t give me a chance.”
Paige kept her voice level. “Would you give them to me, then, please? We can ring them up for you.” The girl, sullen now, handed over the teal-colored bra and thong, and Paige glanced at the tags. A hundred dollars’ worth of distraction, and a coordinated effort with her friend. Some girls needed better hobbies. Unless this girl had shoplifted all her clothes, she could afford to pay. Paige said, “Thank you,” and handed the garments to Hailey, who took them without a word. “Would you like to purchase these now, or have you changed your mind?”
“We weren’t even out of the store,” the blonde said. “You can’t do that. I’ll tell my dad you accused me and humiliated me in front of everybody for no reason. Just because we’re teenagers.”
“Sounds like you’ve read up on your petty larceny statutes,” Paige said pleasantly. “Could be you’re right. Maybe you’d like me to call the police, and we can see what they say.”
“I didn’tdoanything,” the brunette who’d dropped her purse was saying now.“Ididn’t take anything. It wasn’t even my idea!”
“Chelsea. Shutup,”the blonde said, and Chelsea did.
The third girl, the bystander, was all but wringing her hands. Paige went behind the counter, picked up the phone, and said, “What would you like to do?”
“We’re going,” the blonde said. “I would’ve bought something, but forget it. You don’t have any right to keep us here, and I wouldn’t buy anything from you now anyway. You rip people off, and everybody knows it. You can buy everything in here a whole lot cheaper online.”
“Fine,” Paige said. “Then you won’t be upset that all of you are banned from the store from now on.”
If it weren’t for Brett Hunter, Paige was pretty sure, she would have been hearing a whole lot about that. Instead, the blonde glanced around, then muttered, “Fuck you,” almost but not quite under her breath. Like saying it got her last-word points, but also like it didn’t count against her with a good-looking man if she didn’t scream it. When Paige didn’t react, because it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it, or the thousandth time, for that matter, the girl tossed her hair, said, “Come on, you guys. We’re leaving,” and marched for the door.
That was when Paige registered that the Milker was still standing in front of it, arms folded, six foot three and two hundred pounds of not-moving. For a long moment, it was a standoff. Then he stepped aside, held the door for the girls, and let it swing shut behind them.
“What were you going to do if they’d run for it?” Paige asked him. She had some adrenaline, she realized with wonder. For something this minor? Like a rookie, like somebody who’d been out of it for way more than a few weeks. Like she truly was in Lily’s body.
Oh.Lily would have been upset. The adrenaline was good, then. Part of the twin-meld.
