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“What kind of constraints?”

  “You’ll have to sign an NDA and take her secrets to the grave.”

  My brows lifted. “Say what?”

  “Nothing gets out of the office. From the kind of shoes she wears, who visits her, to who, or what, she may or may not be sleeping with. She’s paying for tight lips, which shouldn’t be a problem for you. Never seen anyone hold on to a confidence as tightly as you. You up for it?”

  “A week could be a long time.”

  “Oh, it’s going to feel a lot longer than a week. I won’t paint you a rosy picture.”

  “You could try.”

  “Nope. I’ve got my pride.”

  I snapped on my helmet, slipped back into my shoes, eased my fingers back into my gloves, then tucked my towel back in the bag. I reached for Ben’s empty cup and took it with me as I trotted, at last, across the path for water. I ditched the cup in the trash can, filled my bottle, took a long drag, and then trotted back.

  “One week,” I said. “And only because it’s you asking. But why do I get the feeling you’re luring me into a viper’s nest?”

  Ben glanced up at me, smiled. “Because you’re a suspicious pineapple. Now git along, little dogie. Word of advice? Stop pedaling when you hit the Des Plaines River.”

  Chapter 2

  Vonda Allen held sway from a pricey office suite in the John Hancock building, a sleek, tapered one-hundred-story behemoth sitting smack-dab in the center of the Mag Mile, right next to high-end retail shops that charged forty dollars for a pair of socks and to review-worthy restaurants with too-cool-for-school decor and clientele.

  I’d dressed for business in a single-breasted navy suit, the hem of my skirt hitting my leg mid-thigh, a silk tee, nylons, and Italian sling-backs. Ben rose from the couch in Allen’s reception area when I walked in, and if his shirt and pants weren’t a different color, I’d swear he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday.

  My introduction to Allen was scheduled for ten, and I was early. I was always early. I liked getting a feel for a place. I glanced around at the glass and chrome and high-end paintings, breathing in deep, catching a hint of sandalwood mingled with what I could describe only as unmitigated ego. Allen had a reputation for being haughty, and it showed. I had gone back and looked her up after my bench meeting with Ben and had found several interviews where she talked nonstop about her brand, whatever that meant. As I looked around at all the pretentious trappings, it was obvious to me that whatever her brand was, she was as serious as a heart attack about it.

  The receptionist was a young black woman with a flat face and a forced smile. After I gave her my name and stated my purpose, she picked up the phone on her desk and called back to announce me, then hung up. “Ms. Chandler will be right with you,” she said before turning back to her computer.

  Ben sidled up next to me. “Nice digs, huh?”

  “It’s a little much.”

  “You should feel the leather on that couch. It’s as smooth as a baby’s butt cheeks.”

  I slid him a look. “What’re you doing feeling babies’ butt cheeks?”

  He frowned. “Cute. You should really think about putting a couch like that in your office in place of that hobo pullout you’ve got now. Class it up a bit.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my office.”

  Ben grinned and then did that Groucho Marx thing with his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

  I turned away from him. He was clowning, and if I didn’t stop it, it would go on indefinitely. The best thing to do was just ignore him until he reined himself in. I eyed the copies of all the glossy magazines fanned out on one of the tables, the faces of Chicago celebrities and political VIPs staring up at me with megawatt smiles. Ben caught me looking.

  “The police superintendent’s in that one,” he offered in a stage whisper. “He’s no pretty boy, but he’s photogenic in a plain sort of way. I wouldn’t tell him that to his face, of course. I don’t think he’d take it as a compliment.”

  I slid him a look. “Will you knock it off?”

  He glanced past me and his smile disappeared. I turned to see what had prompted the shift, and saw a tall black woman rush into the reception area, a woman I assumed was Kaye Chandler, Allen’s right-hand. She moved like she had a purpose, fast, all steam and propulsion, her Louboutins regally kissing the carpet. She headed straight for Ben, zooming right past me.

  “Detective Mickerson,” she said.

  “Ms. Chandler.” He glanced over at me. “This is Cassandra Raines, the private investigator I recommended.”

  She turned to face me and took a moment to check me out. She looked to be in her fifties, dressed neatly in a paisley dress, her dark face well made up, short black hair layered in waves. My first thought was that Allen paid very well, but after taking in Chandler’s dull eyes, pursed lips, and the stern set of her prominent jawline, I had a feeling that despite the flash, I was looking into the face of a woman who hadn’t had a good time in forever and likely spent her days dancing at the end of puppet strings. For that, I decided, whatever Allen paid, it wasn’t nearly enough at all.

  “Yes, the private investigator.” The way she said it sounded like she was slightly amused, as though Ben had said I was a kiddie magician or circus juggler. “Follow me. Vonda’s just about ready for you.” She turned to the receptionist. “Pamela, Vonda would like you to hold all calls for twenty minutes. Twenty, not twenty-one or twenty-two.” She didn’t wait for Pamela’s acknowledgment. She’d apparently given the young woman all she felt she needed to know.

  Down the hall we went, passing boxlike offices on both sides, each box fronted floor to ceiling by glass. Most of the offices were empty, but not just empty. Vacant. Only a handful of staff occupied the others, men and women sitting glumly at small desks, tapping computer keys or cradling phone receivers between chin and clavicle. As we passed, each of them glanced up to look but then quickly lost interest and went back to what they were doing. None of the offices had privacy drapes or blinds. I felt exposed for them. It was like passing displays in a Museum for the Clinically Morose.

  “You’re punctual,” Chandler said as we moved along. “Vonda insists on punctuality.”

  I flicked a look at Ben, but he acted like he didn’t see me. “Uh-huh.” I was a little curious about what else Allen insisted upon, but let it go. “Does the staff know what’s been going on?” I asked. It would explain why half the offices were cleared out. Who wanted to work in close proximity to a woman with a target on her back?

  “Vonda hasn’t authorized me to make a formal announcement. Besides, it’s Vonda who’s on the receiving end of all this nastiness, not staff.”

  I let a beat pass, considered my words carefully. “If there’s a threat, the office, and those in it, could be at risk. They should at least be made aware, so they can be on alert.”

  Chandler stopped abruptly, turned, and her eyes held mine. “You’re here for Vonda. She’ll inform the staff when she feels it’s the appropriate time. Security. Protection. That’s what she needs. Detective Mickerson has explained this to you?”

  I watched her, mesmerized by the intensity, wondering about its source. “He did. But security doesn’t get at the source of the problem, does it?”

  Ben cleared his throat. His signal to me to shut it. “Anything new since last time I was here?”

  Chandler’s eyes shifted from mine to Ben’s. “Nothing that needs to concern you.”

  Chandler then shot Ben a cold, off-putting look, which Ben returned in kind. He was a cop, not one to shrink under a withering glare. I smiled slightly, watching the face-off, though I had little doubt who’d win it. And, as I suspected, Chandler blinked first. I waited for Ben to follow up with another question or Chandler to volunteer more information. Neither did, so I jumped in.

  “So, no more flowers or letters?”

  Chandler gave me the same stare she’d just given Ben. It was obviously her go-to move, but she got the same from me as
she’d gotten from him. Her sculpted eyebrows flicked upward, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she turned on her heels and walked on. Ben and I shot each other a “What the hell?” look, then quietly followed.

  I wondered about the threats, though. Ben had told me Allen and Chandler had thrown evidence of them away, the flowers, the letters, all except the copy Ben had been given on the sneak. It was an opportunity missed. The flowers could have been traced; maybe the letters had had prints on them. Why destroy everything? Chandler was definitely Team Allen, though. Not much evidence of concern, or none at all, for the people around her. That was telling. Maybe it was a disgruntled staffer who was tormenting the boss, or a fan who thought he hadn’t gotten enough attention. Or maybe the heat was coming from someone a little closer to home. As for the flowers, flowers weren’t threatening, unless they were anonymous, unless they kept coming, unless they were unwanted.

  The hall opened up into a small oval sitting area, with a large corner office on the far side. Allen’s name was on the door. This office, too, was fronted by glass, but unlike the others, Allen had drapes, which were now drawn. Across the hall sat a similar office with Chandler’s name on it. Ben and I stood patiently at Allen’s door and listened to a woman’s voice, Allen’s presumably, escalate in anger. It sounded like she was giving someone a lot to think about. Chandler’s face showed little emotion as she rapped lightly on the door, and then melted quietly away. She’d obviously become inured to these kinds of exchanges. Inside, a man fought to get a word in edgewise but was quickly shouted down.

  “Wow. She’s got some lungs on her,” I said.

  Ben grinned. “Yep.”

  I strained to get the gist of what she was saying, but couldn’t make out much; the door was too thick. “Does it sound like we’ll be standing here awhile?”

  “Hope not,” he said. “I feel like a frickin’ idiot. You?”

  “Friend of a frickin’ idiot.”

  Allen yelled the word bastard loud enough for us to hear it distinctly. The meeting didn’t sound like it was winding down, so we continued to wait.

  “Maybe all this is freaking her out,” I said.

  “Vonda Allen doesn’t freak out. Wait. You’ll see. Bright spot in all this is building security’s more than decent. I had to practically give up a kidney to get up here, and I’m police.”

  “That stops the invader at the gate, maybe.” I kept my voice low. “But it doesn’t do much for someone who badges their way up here and then sits in one of those zoo-cage offices, waiting for a chance to go to town on her with a stapler or a letter opener.”

  Ben slid me a look, shook his head. “Zoo-cage offices? Stapler?”

  “Yeah, I said it. You were thinking it, don’t lie, and yeah, a stapler, or something worse. What kind of flowers, anyway? Roses?”

  “You’d think, but nah. Last ones, the way Chandler described them, sounded like marigolds. Lovesick fan, likely.”

  I pulled a face. “Dear Bitch? Nuh-uh.” But it got me thinking about the flowers. Marigolds. Who sends a rich, prominent woman used to the finer things a bunch of marigolds? Go big or go home, right?

  We’d both had cases in which flowers and words of love had given way to bruises, fat lips, and shots fired. Frustration levels escalated when someone thought they hadn’t gotten the response they felt they deserved. I love you. Why don’t you love me? If I can’t have you, nobody can. She made me kill her! I told her I loved her! A lot of pain and agony had been meted out in the name of love, or whatever.

  “Letters, flowers, calls. That’s a campaign,” I said. “An assault.”

  “Just protection,” Ben said. “If she wants more, she knows where to go to get it. Till then, simple, easy, low key.”

  “Dumb, shortsighted, dangerous. They could have tried tracking the flowers. Was there a florist’s name on any of the deliveries? The name of a delivery service? We’ll never know. Why? Because they tossed the flowers away. I know this is bothering you, too. We weren’t trained to just shoo people away like flies.”

  Ben inhaled deep, then let the air hiss out slow. “I’m committed to maintaining the safety bubble.”

  “Safety bubble? Jeez. You are literally killing me by degrees here.”

  “Less Wonder Woman, more statue, all right?”

  I sneered at him, but stood there quietly, waiting on the door. I peered down the now empty hall, as if the one who had sent the flowers, the one who had written the notes, would be standing there, waving his hands, waiting to be apprehended.

  “This is stupid.”

  “Breathe,” Ben said.

  “I’m breathing, but you knew who I was when you asked me to do this. And Wonder Woman, my ass.”

  He smiled. “I figured you could rein it in.”

  “Oh, I can rein it in, but it’s still stupid.” I pulled in a calm breath. Statue. Safety bubble. Fine. “You’re familiar with marigolds, are you?”

  He cleared his throat. “I took up gardening. Wanna make something of it?”

  “It’s just you never mentioned it.”

  He fiddled nervously with his tie. “Didn’t think it needed a news flash . . . It’s a legit hobby.”

  I kept my eyes straight ahead, on the glossy wood door with Vonda Allen’s name written on it in gold letters. “I know.”

  Ben checked his watch, getting antsy. “Guys garden.”

  “They certainly do.”

  “A lot of cops, too.”

  “And why wouldn’t they? I do a little bit of it myself.”

  Ben turned to face me. “You’re going to give me shit about this, aren’t you?”

  I grinned back. “Oh, yeah.”

  Just then Allen’s door swung open, and an angry black man elbowed past us, his eyes wild with an outrage he’d obviously been forced to choke down.

  “Psychopathic witch,” he spat out as he barreled past. Ben and I turned to watch as he stomped down the hall and disappeared into one of the offices, then slammed the door behind him, rattling the glass. Whoever he was, he certainly looked angry enough to have written a threatening note.

  I looked at Ben.

  “Maintain the bubble,” he muttered. “And breathe.”

  “Enter!” the voice inside the office bellowed. “Shut the door behind you.”

  Chandler swung in from behind us and elbowed through. Where’d she come from?

  Ben stepped forward, whispered, “Keep an open mind.”

  “Open mind about . . .”

  And that was when I got my first glimpse of Allen’s inner sanctum and nearly gagged on astonishment. Everything—chairs, sofas, chaise lounge—was covered in butterscotch leather. Bold art hung in gilded frames from walls papered in artisan fabric the color of tomato bisque, and the carpet was so deep, the heels of my shoes nearly disappeared in the pile. I glanced around, looking for the other twenty people the space could easily accommodate, but Allen was all by her lonesome. There were plants everywhere: lush, green palm-looking things sprouting from terra-cotta urns the size of Humvee tires. I felt like I’d just walked into a desert oasis. This was opulence on steroids.

  Allen’s desk was a grand slab of tawny marble, but there was little on it, just a phone, an iPhone in a gold case, and one half stack of pink paper. Pink, from all reports, was her signature color. Framed photographs of Allen posing with important people—celebrities, the mayor, sports figures—sat on a credenza along the wall. Included in the array, one of a very well connected, very married senator, Robert Devin, with whom Allen was rumored to have had a relationship prior to his untimely death. I had got that tidbit from one of the gossip rags on display near the register at the CVS near my apartment at the time. In short, Allen was a woman with a lot of pull and a lot of juice, and she wasn’t a bit shy about letting everybody know it.

  She sat poised in a throne-like chair that swiveled without squeaking, her arms regally placed on the armrests. The woman’s picture had been taken easily a million times, and as we stood in front of her n
ow, she looked the same as if she’d primped all day for a Vogue photo shoot. She was slender but not overly so for a woman in her early fifties, her eyebrows were expertly arched, and her lipstick was flawless. The professional makeup job enhanced an average attractiveness, but the swish of auburn highlights in her dark hair added a little bit more. Allen literally looked like a million bucks.

  She didn’t bother to stand up. “Detective Mickerson. Come in. Have a seat.”

  Her smile revealed a mouthful of high-end dental work, but the smile felt oily, reptilian, as though it was something she tossed out there just because she was expected to, not because she felt it. She wore a lavender linen dress with three-quarter sleeves, and a double strand of flawless pearls hung from her neck. Her nail polish matched the dress, each long, tapered finger manicured within an inch of its life.

  “Kaye, I won’t need you for this. Touch base with Suzette about the hospital gala, and then print out my updated schedule and send it to my phone. I’ll take a cappuccino.”

  Chandler’s face fell, and she held herself there at the door for a moment, the sting of the rude dismissal, the orders, showing on her face. She and Allen exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher.

  “That’s all, Kaye.”

  Chandler quietly eased out of the room.

  Allen leaned forward to read from a piece of paper in front of her. “So, this is the private detective you have for me? Cassandra Raines.” She didn’t bother coming in for a welcoming handshake. I guessed queens didn’t do that sort of thing. “And you’re on time. Good. If you’d been late, even a minute, you wouldn’t be standing there now.” She glanced at her platinum watch—two thousand dollars, easy. Bling squared.

  Ben and I took seats in chairs angled in front of Allen’s desk. Our chairs were considerably lower than hers, though, and I found myself having to look up to make eye contact. In fact, it appeared as though her desk was actually sitting on a riser or something, which meant she had the added advantage of peering down at visitors from just above eye level.

  “Mind if I give you some free advice, Ms. Allen?” Ben asked.