It was a good thing the captain hadn’t let me see those photos before the Feds took Billy away because I wasn’t sure the rage I felt would’ve been quieted by my sense of right and wrong. I seethed at my desk for hours, ignoring everyone around me as I wandered how far Billy would’ve escalated his obsession of Josh. What had he planned to do the previous night when Josh was outside alone? I made myself physically sick as I turned the same thoughts and questions over in my mind.
Yet, something in the back of my mind nagged me when I looked at the photos, but I was too damn angry to focus. Then it hit me. There was a silver pair of scissors in the photos of evidence that were similar to the pair that Josh had given Georgia when she’d replaced his old pair with a pair of blue ones when he opened the new location of his salon.
Back when Georgia was killed, I assumed that stylists only had one pair of scissors they used, but I knew better after the recent haircut Josh gave me. Josh had a black leather case that unwrapped to reveal several sets of shiny blue scissors in various sizes, each of them with Jazz engraved on them.
“Adrian,” I said suddenly and loud enough to startle him.
“Yeah?” he asked, clutching his chest.
“Come look at this,” I told him.
Adrian came around to my desk and looked at the picture. I pointed to the scissors and said, “I can’t tell from this picture, but do those look engraved to you?”
He squinted then replied, “They sure do.”
I picked up my desk phone and dialed the salon because I knew Josh wouldn’t answer his cellphone if he was in the middle of a color, cut, or style. “Hi, Chaz, it’s Gabe.” He was happy to hear from me and wanted to chat but quickly realized, by the tone of my voice when I asked for Josh, that I was all business.
“Hey, babe,” Josh said into the phone. “What’s wrong?”
“How many pairs of scissors did you give Georgia when she gave you the blue set?” I asked, getting straight to business.
“Two,” he replied slowly, as if confused why I would ask. “The set she gave me was several steps up from my old ones.”
“That’s what I thought. Thank you, Sunshine.” I hung up the phone without saying goodbye and looked at Adrian. “I think we know who ransacked Georgia’s mansion.” It looked like Billy helped himself to a little souvenir in the process. “Now we just need to figure out why.”
Unfortunately, the only person who knew the truth had left with the DEA hours before and I worried that we’d never get another shot at talking to him.
ILOOKED AT MYcordless salon phone in disbelief when I heard a click followed by a dial tone. How dare he call me up, get me excited with the sound of his voice, call me by my special name, and then hang up without a goodbye? I wasn’t having any part of that rudeness and my mind began spinning a plan that would make him think twice before he hung up on me again. Hmmm… sexy music, my sexy beast handcuffed to a chair, and a seductive torture he’d never ever forget. Oh, the possibilities were endless.
I handed the phone to Chaz who raised a brow that I could only answer with a shrug because I had no idea what was going on, but he could bet his ass that I would find out. My ears picked up bits and pieces of the conversation going on between the four clients in the salon. I stopped what I was doing and stared in shock at what I heard.
“It’s more about the texture for me more than the actual taste,” Esther said sitting in Meredith’s chair.
“Yes, Esther,” Jessica said from Marci’s chair, “not to mention how thick it is no matter how much I whip it before I put it in my mouth.”
“I know! I swear, I gag on the thickness of it sometimes,” Missy said from Heather’s chair.
“I hate it when it’s chunky,” Alice said with a shudder from my chair.
Meredith looked up from straightening Esther’s hair and laughed when she saw my expression. “They’re talking about Greek yogurt, baby.”
“Oh,” I said in relief, “I thought you all were talking about cum.”
Seven sets of eyes widened in shock, make that eight because I couldn’t believe I said that out loud. I blamed Gabe for forgetting my filter and decided to add time to his torture before I let him come later that night. In the meantime, I had an apology to make for my crude words, “Ladies, I apologize…”
They all burst into laughter, some of them so hard they had to wipe their eyes. “Sweetheart, we hear the way your bird talks. We know he got it somewhere,” Alice said when I resumed my position at the back of her chair so I could continue cutting her hair.
“Don’t you blame me for that bird,” I told them. “He was like that when I got him. Hell, he makesmeblush.”
“Dirty Bird! Dirty Bird!” It was like he knew the exact time to chime in.
“See,” I said to my clients. “He’s confessing to corrupting me, not the other way around.”
I could tell they weren’t convinced, but that was fine by me. I was just happy I didn’t offend anyone with my bawdy talk about cum. I felt the little hum of anticipation throughout my body as I silently strategized exactly what I was going to do to Gabe. In fact, by the time it came time to put my plan into action, I felt like I was the one who’d been tortured all day. I feared that I’d embarrass myself by coming too soon. I went up to my attic studio and set everything up and waited for my man to come home.
“Sunshine, where are you?” I heard Gabe call when he got home.
“Up here,” I called out. “Lose some layers before you come up.”
