Page 6 of Cruel Malady: A Necrosis of the Mind

“You’re far too pretty to be so sullen all the time.” Rochelle sighs and shakes her head. Silky gray-white layers shimmer in the florescent lighting as she passes me on her way to a bank of laptops.

“That’s sexist,” I say. “Besides, this is a sullen kind of career. I doubt you’d want a smiley, bubbly blonde with rainbows and happy faces all over her business card to exact retribution for you.”

Hunched over a laptop screen, she pauses her task to look up. Her skin is like wax. Any wrinkles her fifty-five years may have produced have been ironed away with repeated face lifts. “Good point, killer.” With a wink, she returns her focus to the screen.

“I’m not a killer.” This job comes with a list of rules—rules I made up, of course—but ones I felt needed to be established for my clients’ sake to make things perfectly clear.No killingis rule number one. I’m not a hitman, or hitperson, whatever the politically correct term may be.

While Rochelle is jacked into her work, I glance around the room, taking in the upgrades. All new sheetrock and stainless steel. White Mac computers line a workstation central to the room like a kitchen island. As cold as Rochelle herself. She’s the Martha of the fashion world.

She owns this renovated, three-story building on a prime real-estate corner of the city. It’s sleek and industrial. She’s only been in the business for three years, yet she’s climbed the ranks to be one of the top labels in the industry—Dirty Laundry—a new trend that didn’t go out of style.

And she did so with her ex-husband’s money and a work ethic that rivals my own. Oh, and also smiting anyone who dares to compete against her. She might also have a slight god complex.

Rochelle waves me over. “Come here, honey. Come look at this little bitch.” She points to a young, trendy woman on the screen. “How does she think she’ll get away with this?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to notice something?”

She clucks her tongue. “Really, Blakely. After all these years together, you’ve learned nothing from me. Such a disappointment to your own gender.”

“Rochelle…”

“All right.” She clicks another image and enlarges it. “This little twat, who was just a no-name artist on a corner a month ago, just went into collab with one of my distributors. Her simple-minded black-and-white artwork all over denim! It’s disgraceful, and cutting into my own print denim line.”

I rub my forehead. High fashion gives me a nausea-inducing headache. I like nice things. I don’t carewhythey’re nice. “What is it that you want, Rochelle?”

She glances over her shoulder at her team, then tics her chin toward her glass office. Once she has us sealed inside, she says, “Katy Dee built her career on Instagram. An Instamodel—” she scoffs “—so tacky. I want her account taken down. Her thousands of followers gone, and for good measure…oh, I don’t know. Maybe her line’s latest shipment gets lost upon delivery. Like say, in Indonesia?”

I smile. Rochelle would be good at my job. I rarely have to investigate to come up with a good scheme. “Oh, isthatall you want?”

“The usual fee? Or are your prices inflating like everyone else’s in this blood-sucking world?”

I hold up a hand. “The usual is fine. But maybe it’s time for a hormone check?”

She sighs heavily, blowing her fringe of thin bangs away from her forehead. “Seriously. That bastard took all the good parts of me. My youth. My patience. And what am I left with? Menopause and a dried-up vagina.”

And fifteen million dollars in the settlement and alimony.

“I’ll have an update for you tomorrow,” I say, as I head toward the office door. “Try not to murder anyone, and get some hormones, for fuck’s sake.”

Her laugh is loud and throaty.

“Oh,” I say, paused in the doorway. “I will need one other thing this time.”

One of her pencil-thin eyebrows arches.

“Who does your hair?” I ask.

She digs out her phone and punches in a contact. “Lyric, I need a favor. I’m sending her to you in ten.” She hangs up.

“Damn. Must be nice to be the queen.”

She smiles as she scrawls an address on a Post-It and hands it to me. “So what’s the occasion? Are you finally tired of looking like an emo nut from the nineties, or is it a request from Mommy Dearest?”

Besides Lomax, Rochelle is the only other client who knows my real name. It was impossible to keep it from her, seeing as she runs in the same exclusive socialite circle as my mother and her friends.

Rochelle is baiting me. She knows very well Vanessa has no say over my life, more so my hair. I took that power away when I denied any claim to family money.

“Vanessa has nothing to do with this.” I give her a knowing glare. “I need a new look for a special client. He likes blondes.”

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