“Invested how?” I asked suspiciously.
Kenny had been eight when I married his father, his sister Krystal three years older, and they had both resented me from the moment we met. I was replacing their mother in David’s affections, and I was also taking their father away from them.
I, meanwhile, hadn’t had any idea how to be a mother at twenty-two, especially not to two children who were closer in age to me than I was to their father. They hated me, and made no secret of it. And in the end, they had both believed that I killed David, which hadn’t endeared me to them, or them to me, further.
“He put in his inheritance,” Rachel said brightly. “From David.”
When I stared at her, a defensive edge crept into her voice. “It’s a really good opportunity, Gina. The location is perfect, right in the heart of Five Points, and?—”
“Five Points?” I set down my pen. “The Five Points that’s right across the river from downtown Nashville? The one that has one of the highest rents in Nashville, and where half the bars fail in the first year? That Five Points?”
Rachel sniffed. “There’s only one Five Points in Nashville, Gina.”
After a moment she added, “And Daniel knows what he’s doing.”
That was debatable. Sure, he was familiar with bars. Intimately familiar. But that was from drinking in them, not running them.
Before I could say that, though, or figure out a way to express my concerns without sounding like a judgmental shrew, the front door opened.
I expected it to be UPS. Maybe FedEx, or a package of office supplies from Amazon. But certainly not a client. We’d had exactly two of those since I’d gotten my PI license, and both had been people I knew personally. The stalking I’d done for Diana Morton, my divorce attorney, had been pro bono—it seemed the least I could do after she had done all that work to represent me and then David just dropped dead before the divorce was final—and his acquaintances had mostly chosen him over me in the separation. After his death, only Heidi Newsome had come crawling back, and she, it turned out, had had ulterior motives.
And yes, even if I wasn’t about to admit it (to myself or anyone else), the thought crossed my mind that it might be Jaime Mendoza. The detective had been conspicuously absent since the end of the Newsome case, and I was starting to worry. He usually pops up every few weeks or so, and it had been longer than that now.
But it wasn’t Mendoza, nor was it UPS, FedEx, or the Amazon driver. It wasn’t even Diana. No, what I got instead was the last person I had expected to see: Jacquie Demetros.
My late almost-ex-husband’s mistress emerged through the door like she was stepping onto a stage, all tumbling dark hair and curves and a luxurious fur coat over a pair of designer jeans. At twenty-five, she looks like Salma Hayek’s younger sister—the one who’s gotten all the good genes but has had none of the wear and tear.
Edwina’s toy dropped from Zachary’s nerveless fingers and hit the floor with an aborted squeak. The dog ignored it, too busy growling at the intruder.
I knew exactly how he felt. Zach, I mean. The first time I’d seen Jacquie, after David told me he was leaving me for her, I’d had much the same reaction. I look pretty good for forty, but it’s been a long time since I was twenty-five.
Although that was the past, I reminded myself. I could afford to be gracious. David was dead, I had inherited half his fortune, along with the house in Hillwood and the love-nest in downtown, and Jacquie had been left with nothing.
Or nothing except this ostentatious fur coat, anyway. Arctic fox, hopefully faux.
“Gina.” She gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Jacquie.” The single word tasted like ashes in my mouth. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I would have called, but I wasn’t sure you’d agree to meet with me if I did.” She glanced around the reception area, taking in the knotty pine walls and the vintage photographs of country music legends. “I see you didn’t update the place.”
Rachel had gone very still behind her desk. Zachary was still staring, although he had managed to close his mouth.
“It looks this way for a reason,” I said. “David wasn’t stupid, you know.” Or at least he hadn’t been stupid in this sense. The nineteen-fifties kitsch made it look like we had a sixty- or seventy-year history, when we’d been in business for two months.
It had done the same for David and Farley, who had had a twenty-plus year run, but who didn’t mind adding a hypothetical forty or fifty to that.
Jacquie didn’t respond, and I added, “What can I do for you?”
She didn’t have a husband, so it wasn’t likely that she wanted to hire me. She might be looking for a job—I tried to imagine what that would look like, and winced—or (the most likely reason) she knew what had happened during the Newsome case, and because she and Heidi Newsome were friends, she wanted to talk about it.
She took a breath, and for just a moment, something almost vulnerable flickered across her face. “I need to hire you.”
“You can’t afford me,” I said automatically, and then I made a face when the toe of Rachel’s shoe connected with my shin under the desk. I moved my leg out of the way and cleared my throat. “Hire me for what?”
She shifted her weight, and I noticed she was clutching a designer purse—Hermès, probably—like it was a life preserver. “It’s my boyfriend. I think... I/m afraid he’s cheating.”
The irony was so thick I could have spread it on toast.
