Fast Women (29 page)

"Oh, yeah, sure I am." Suze took the photos from her to leaf through them, and it was almost like a flip book, watching Suze-at-eighteen take off first her skirt, and then her sweater, and then her virginal cotton white bra and underpants until she stood there naked, flaunting a high, tight body that would have brought a stronger man than Jack Dysart to his knees.

"I may never take off my clothes again," Nell said, looking at the last picture in disbelief.

"Who took these?" Suze said.

"Riley," Nell said. "It was one of his first assignments. Gabe said it scarred him for life."

"Damn good thing I'm not sleeping with Riley," Suze said. "I'd never be able to compete with myself."

"Oh, please," Nell said. "Riley slept with me."

Suze jammed the photos back in the folder. "Don't ever let Jack see those."

"Listen, sweetie, you didn't see them. Just because I'm doing the boss doesn't mean he won't fire me." Nell filed the folder back in the box and put the lid back on. "Forget you ever saw these."

"I'd love to," Suze said. "But I don't think I'm going to."

January turned into February. Nell continued to fix the agency behind Gabe's back and then fight with him about it, Margie stalled Budge about the wedding and the insurance, Suze stayed with Jack and pretended she wasn't miserable, and Gabe remained fixated on the diamonds. He'd gone to see Trevor about Chloe's earrings and had the riot act read to him: Patrick had bought the earrings for Lia at the same time Trevor had bought the entire suite for Helena, and that kind of generous husband did not deserve a posthumously suspicious ingrate for a son. Gabe had come back even more determined that something was wrong"If he bought those for my mother, I'd have seen them on her; that woman liked jewelry"-and now he was driving everybody crazy, mumbling about it. It really wasn't healthy for him to obsess on the past, Nell thought, and she did everything she could to distract him, including badgering him about the reception room couch, which was only getting more slovenly as the weeks passed. All they needed was for one really heavy client to drop down on the damn thing and they'd be picking splinters out of a lawsuit.

And it wasn't as though they didn't have enough to think about without some phantom diamonds. The agency was swamped with work, including a new wrinkle on an old client when Riley got a phone call and came out of his office to say, "Gina wants us to follow Harold tonight. I'm calling it the Hot Dinner."

"Gina thinks Harold is cheating?" Nell said.

"I think he owes her a couple," Riley said. "But I don't think she feels that way."

"Yeah," Nell said. "People get so sensitive about adultery."

The following Monday, Nell was typing the Hot Dinner report-Harold was definitely cheating-when Suze came in. "Hey," Nell said. "You're too early if you want lunch."

"Not lunch," Suze said, and Nell looked at her closer and went cold.

"What's wrong?"

"I need to hire the McKennas," she said. "Family tradition."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, I think so." Suze nodded toward Gabe's office.

"Can it be him? I don't think I can face-"

Riley opened the door to his office and stood in the doorway. "Thought I heard your voice."

Nell looked from him to Suze. "Suze just dropped by." Suze took a deep breath. "I need a detective."

"Okay," Riley said. "Stay home tonight until I call you." Suze nodded and opened her purse. "How much retainer-"

"This one's on the house. Just be home." He went back inside and closed the door, and Suze turned to Nell and swallowed.

"He didn't even ask me what I wanted."

"I noticed that. Are you okay?"

"No," Suze said and sank down on the couch, tears spilling from her eyes. "We had a big fight last night about me working at The Cup. I refused to quit and he walked out. And he didn't come back at all last night."

"Hang on," Nell said, and ran to Gabe's office to get his Glenlivet. "Here," she said to Suze, splashing some into a Susie Cooper cup. "Drink this."

Suze gulped some of the whiskey and then inhaled sharply.

"Take it easy," Nell said. "Gabe only drinks the good stuff."

"I really thought I'd be different. Not like Abby and Vicki."

"You are different." Nell patted her shoulder and hated

Jack. "Maybe he's not cheating. You don't know."

"I know," Suze said. "I just want to know for sure." When Suze had gone, Nell banged on the door of Riley's office and went in. "What the hell is going on?"

"Jack Dysart Is Cheating on His Wife, Part Three," Riley said. "Sequels suck."

"Don't get cute with me," Nell leaned over his desk. "How long have you known?"

"A couple of months."

"And Gabe?"

"A couple of months."

"And you didn't tell me."

"Do we look stupid?"

"Yes," Nell said. "More than stupid. Why the hell-"

"Because you would have told Suze. Remember the first rule?"

"Don't pull that junior high crap on me," Nell said. "This is my best friend. "

"Which is why we didn't tell you." Riley sat behind his desk, impassive and calm. "You couldn't have done a damn thing for her, anyway."

"I could have let her know-"

"She knew," Riley said. "She just didn't want to know. You knew before that Christmas that your husband was screwing around."

"I did not."

"You knew the whole time you were explaining to people that he hadn't cheated. You just didn't want to know." Riley sighed. "It's a coping device. I can show photos of a spouse cheating and if the client doesn't want to believe it, she won't. Or he. Denial goes both ways." He stood up and came around the desk. "Except by the time they hire us, they're usually ready to face the truth. That's why Suze didn't show up until now. So tonight I'll show her the truth. On the house." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Trust me."

Nell stepped away from him. "Never again." She turned to see Gabe standing in the doorway.

"You know," he said, "I'm not the jealous type, but-"

"Go to hell," she said and walked past him to get her purse.

Riley said, "Jack Dysart."

"Oh, hell," Gabe said and came after her. "Wait a minute."

"You knew and you didn't tell me," Nell said, purse in hand, trying to push past him to get the door.

"Yeah," Gabe said, blocking her. "Would you just listen, please?"

"No," Nell said, and Gabe grabbed her arm and dragged her into his office, slamming the door behind him.

"Listen to me," he said when she turned on him, ready to yell. "We found out doing the Quarterly Report for Trevor back in November."

"It wasn't in the report I typed," Nell said. "We gave you a dummy."

"I am a dummy," Nell said. "I thought we-"

Gabe pointed his finger at her and said, "Don't even start on that. What we are has nothing to do with the agency."

"What are you talking about? We are the agency. The agency and sex. You lied to me and you betrayed Suze."

"No." Gabe said. "We lied to you so you wouldn't betray the agency."

Nell felt cold. "So you and Riley are the agency and I'm not?"

Gabe closed his eyes. "Look, it's simple. We didn't tell you because you'd tell her. You know the rules."

"I know the rules, and I know you break them all the time," Nell said. "This wasn't about the rules. This was about you keeping me out, you not trusting me. Well, the hell with you."

"You would have told Suze," Gabe said, but she'd already detoured around him and was heading out the door to Suze.

Riley called Suze that night at ten and picked her up fifteen minutes later. He took her up High Street to the campus and then parked in front of a bar off a side street.

"Here?" she said when they were inside. The place was a typical undergrad hangout, dirty, noisy, and cramped.

"Here," Riley said and went to the bar while Suze looked around and thought, So this is what I missed by not being single as an undergraduate. It didn't cause much of a pang, but then her stomach was already tied in knots so pangs were probably not physically possible. She found a booth and slid into it, taking care not to snag her sweater sleeve on the splintered tabletop.

My husband is cheating on me.

Riley came back with two mugs of beer in one hand and a bowl of unshelled peanuts in the other. He slid one of the mugs across to her and sat down.

"I don't see why we're here," Suze said, and Riley said, "Wait," so she shut up and sipped her beer. After a long silence broken only by the crack of peanut shells, she said, "Do you have to be this quiet?"

"Yes," Riley said, his jaw tight.

"Are you mad at me? Is it because I made a pass at you on New Year's Eve?"

"No."

She looked around the bar and thought, I will not cry. "You're not quiet with Nell."

"Nell is different."

"Because you slept with her."

"No," Riley said, pretty much ignoring her to look at the crowd, and Suze felt her temper rise.

"I can't believe you took advantage of her," she said, watching him to see if he'd flinch. By God, he was going to pay attention to her tonight or she'd know the reason why.

"I didn't take advantage of her."

"You seduced her," Suze said, and Riley turned to her with great and obvious patience and said, "Shut up."

"She said you were a really gentle lover," Suze said, trying to get some kind of reaction, any kind of reaction. "I find that hard to believe, considering the way you treat me."

"Nell was fragile. You're not." Riley cracked another peanut.

"I'm fragile. You wouldn't believe how fragile I am right now." She watched him crack another peanut, and added, "But since it's me, you're not inspired like you were with Nell. I'm not the type you'd be gentle with."

"No, you're the type I'd fuck against a wall," Riley said, and she slung her beer in his face.

He turned to her, the beer dripping onto his shirt. "Feel better now?"

"That was a lousy thing to say," Suze said, her heart racing.

He picked up a napkin and wiped some of the beer from his face. "You wanted a fight."

"Not like that." Suze handed him another napkin. "Is my husband cheating on me?"

"Yes."

"How old is she?"

Riley looked at her with sympathy, and that was worse than anything.

Suze closed her eyes in pain. "Oh, God, call me a whore again, just don't look at me like that."

"I didn't call you a whore. She's twenty-two."

Twenty- two. "Well, that explains it, I guess." She looked down at herself, remembering the photos Riley had taken fifteen years before. "Nothing on me looks twenty-two." She reached for her beer and realized she'd thrown it all at Riley, but before she could sit back, he'd shoved his mug in front of her. "Thank you."

She stole a look at him while she drank and found him still watching the room. Even in a beer-splashed shirt, he looked dependable. Big and dependable. Great hands, Nell had said. Maybe she could get him to beat up Jack. Of course, what she really wanted was to beat up a twenty-two-year-old. "Could I take her?"

Riley turned back to her. "What? In a fight?" He surveyed her. "Probably. You'd have rage on your side."

"How long?"

"For you to take her?"

Suze shook her head. "How long has he been seeing her?"

"End of November is the first we knew."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"No."

"And Nell didn't tell me."

"Nell didn't know until today."

"Why not? If-"

"Because we knew she'd tell you." Riley took the mug back. "We found out about it working another job. We do not go causing trouble, so we did not tell either of you."

He drank, and Suze felt betrayed.

"I worked for you," she said finally.

"You quit because your husband threw a temper tantrum," Riley said. "Not that we're not grateful. He called the night before you quit and threatened to pull business from us if we didn't fire you, so you saved us having to compromise our ethics."

"But you would have."

"Suze, you'd worked for us for a couple of months.

Ogilvie and Dysart have been giving us work for years. It wasn't much of a choice."

"You dumped me just like he's dumping me." Riley shoved the mug back to her. "Drink up."

She reached for the mug and then froze as Jack came through a door in the back marked "Game Room." There was another woman with him, and she was young and she had dark hair, but it wasn't until they were farther into the room that Suze recognized her. "That's Olivia. That's his partner's daughter."

"Yeah, Jack goes for what's close and easy," Riley said, and Suze glared at him. "Not you, dummy. Olivia Ogilvie."