Sandman (5 page)

That explained the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and her increased anxiety that had her leaning as far away from him as she could. It wasn’t her imagination.

Jerome hit her with an invitation to a Chargers game that Sunday. Keeping it light, Meagan told him she wasn’t much of a sports fan.

Glancing quickly at her watch, she stood up so fast she nearly knocked the table over. She caught her glass before it toppled to the floor. “I should be going,” she told him. “I’ve got an early client.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.” Jerome stood alongside her.

Damn.
“That isn’t necessary. You should stay and finish your beer.” She feigned a smile.

“Don’t worry about it.” He put his arm around her waist and hugged her snug against his side.

Meagan decided to keep her mouth shut as she made her way across the parking lot. A few minutes from now she would be out of there and never have to see the guy again. As she unlocked the car door, she felt Jerome’s hot breath on her neck.
Can you say awkward?

She pretended not to notice and swung the door wide, pushing him back with her butt. “Well, have a good night. Maybe we’ll work together again sometime,” she said, the words flying out of her mouth as she readied herself to slide into the driver’s seat.

Jerome grabbed Meagan’s arm, spun her around and planted a big fat kiss on her mouth. She tried to hold her lips together, but his tongue was insistent. He clamped one hand on her butt, while the other grabbed onto a breast like it was a door handle.

She flashed on her earlier fantasy and cringed. What the hell had she been thinking? Her hands pushed firmly on his chest until she was finally able to end the kiss, if that’s what you wanted to call it, and pried herself from his grasp.

“Look, I’m really sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but I don’t date married men.”
On purpose, that is.

“Oh, playing hard to get, are we?” He dislodged her hands, grabbed her butt with both hands and pulled her tight against his large erection. She was going to have to get serious on this guy’s ass.

“Nope, not playing here.” She reached around and started prying his fingers from her derrière one by one.

“Come on, I saw you undressing me with your eyes.”

“My mistake.” She pulled back on his pinky. He yelped and grabbed his hand.

“What the fuck, bitch!”

Meagan jumped in her car, locked the doors and hightailed it out of there. Her tires screeched as she made her escape. He was right, and she knew it. The entire mess was her fault. She had been openly drooling over the guy.
Restless hormones can be dangerous things. Chalk it up to stupidity and just move on.

Luckily for her, they didn’t cross paths again for another two years. Then one morning she noticed Jerome shampooing some woman in
her
salon. His gaze locked on hers, a wicked smile curved his lips.
Dammit!
Suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath.

Running to the front of the salon, she found Lilah cashing out a customer. When she was through, Meagan pulled her aside. “What’s
he
doing here?” she said in a mock whisper.

“Who, Jerome?” Lilah looked to the back of the salon, where he was drying his client’s hair with a towel, his eyes glued to them as they talked. His smile never faltered. Lilah’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Isn’t he a hunk?” Then she finished in a normal tone. “He’s going to be working here every Tuesday from now on. Sandy asked if he would help out since we’re short-handed. Are you all right? You look white as a sheet!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she answered distractedly.

As the day wore on, Meagan found him hard to ignore. His station was directly behind hers. She could see his reflection in her mirror. The more she tried, the harder it became because every time she looked up, he was staring right at her with that shit-eating grin. She prayed people didn’t think they had slept together.

It unnerved her, made it difficult to concentrate on anything else. If she cut herself one more time, she was going to need a blood transfusion.

Meagan called her last client of the night, Stan. As they headed to the back of the salon, she felt someone brush a hand across her butt. She flicked her head back with the dirtiest look she could muster. Stan stared at her in shock, shook his head and put his hands out in front of him in surrender. Then nodded his head to her right. She turned in time to see Jerome pass by with a wink.
Oh, no, he did not just do that.

They reached the shampoo bowls and Stan lay down in the chair. She wet his head and began the shampoo process. She was leaning over him, rinsing his hair, his head cradled in her hand when Jerome walked out on the floor from the back. He leaned in and whispered, “That’s my favorite position.”

Stan’s eyes shot open, noticed Meagan’s breasts only inches from his face, then quickly shut them. Obviously embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Meagan said through clenched teeth. She felt bad for the poor guy to be stuck in the middle of this ...
thing
. Whatever this
thing
was. She would put a stop to it the moment she got him alone.

“You shouldn’t have to apologize for the asshole. You’ve done nothing wrong. Hasn’t he ever heard of sexual harassment?” Stan shook his head.

Meagan led him back to her chair. “You read my mind.”

They had been quiet through most of his haircut. Her mind reeled. She didn’t know she had been projecting her anger until Stan’s voice broke into her thoughts.

“Would you like me to punch him in the nose for you?”

Meagan laughed, her shoulders relaxed. “And deprive me of the privilege?” She schooled her temper after that and kept things light.

She hadn’t seen the manager all day. She didn’t think Jerome would have the balls to carry on this way if the manager were around. After she had finished cashing out Stan, she said goodbye and turned to Lilah. “Where’s Vicki?”

“Oh,” Lilah had been writing something, stopped, then looked up. “I thought I told you, Jerome is acting manager on Tuesdays from now on. Vicki can’t get a babysitter to cover that day so she’s asked for it off.”

The day from hell just keeps getting better and better.

At the end of her shift, Meagan was in the back retrieving the broom and dustpan when Jerome came in through the back door, reeking of cigarette smoke. “Hey, hot stuff.” He leered at her.

Meagan grabbed his arm and pulled him into the dispensary and she shut the door. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Oooh, you’re sexy when you get angry, Red. You give me a hard-on just looking at you.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Stop it.” She slapped his hand away. “And don’t call me Red, I hate that!”

“Sure, Red, whatever you say.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of sexual harassment? My, God, you’ve broken about a million laws today. Sandy won’t put up with this. She’ll fire you the moment I tell her.”

Suddenly he snatched her by the arms and pulled her to within an inch from his face. “No, she won’t. I already told her how you came onto me one night when I was too drunk to say no, and I fucked your brains out. Obviously I was the best you ever had, because you wouldn’t take no for an answer after that. Kept hounding me, waiting for me outside the salon. She thinks you’re pathetic, a real sore loser.” He ground the words out through his teeth.

“But—” Meagan’s arms were starting to hurt.

“She said she’d rather fire
your
ass, than
miss
mine.” His grin was lecherous.

Meagan was struck dumb. This couldn’t be happening. He let go of her and she stumbled back a couple of feet, her hands rubbed her sore arms. “So, you can cry sexual harassment all you want, doll. But Sandy already has the paperwork filled out, dated and signed by yours truly. No one is going to believe a word you say.”

Meagan backed away, turned and fled. She cleaned her station as quickly as she could and raced home. After her second glass of wine, and an hour on the phone with her best friend, Katy, she’d decided to take Tuesdays off from then on. It would hurt her paycheck, but at that point she didn’t care.

***

A year and a half later, Sandy called a staff meeting. Meagan couldn’t help but notice Jerome. If he stood any closer to Sandy, he would be in her lap. She tried to ignore him, and look only at her boss, but it was hard. His eyes never left Meagan’s face, and his smile unusually wide and toothy.

She tried to focus on Sandy’s words. “As you all know, Vicki has left to have her baby. What you may not know is that she has decided to quit and become a stay-at-home mom.” A round of groans went around and people looked expectantly at each other to see who would take her position. “Fortunately for us, Jerome has graciously agreed to move to this location and take Vicki’s place as manager full-time. He might lose some clients—”

Some, make that at least half.
Meagan realized her mouth had become unhinged, and quickly shut it.

“—but he’s willing to make that sacrifice to do me this huge favor. So let’s all give Jerome a nice warm welcome—”
Applause filled the room.

Double crap!
Meagan began to sweat, her mind raced. Sandy must be paying him awfully well because a move that far is career suicide in this business. She felt his eyes boring a hole through her and looked at him pointedly. He greeted her with a big ugly smirk.

She returned the favor with the hardest look she could muster. Clint Eastwood would be envious. When she tore her gaze away, she looked around and noticed the other girls following the exchange between them. They glanced at each other, shock registering on some faces. The faces of others gave knowing looks, with giggles and whispers.

Triple crap.
Meagan felt the heat in her face. This was a nightmare. She had spent too much time building her clientele. She couldn’t just leave. Odds were no matter
how
good you were, or how close the other salon was, you were sure to lose up to fifty percent of your clientele. And there was no way Meagan could afford to start over. When she’d moved there years earlier, right after the divorce, she had the money from the sale of the house. That money was long gone, spent on furniture, moving expenses and simply living, until she’d built her clientele. She no longer had that cushion.

That night she barely slept. The next day she dragged herself into work, arriving ten minutes late. Jerome’s voice bellowed across the salon, “Red, you’re late!”
He threw his comb and shears down then pointed,
“Get in my office. Now!” Spittle flew from his mouth, the veins in his neck stuck out.

Reluctantly she obliged. Once in the office Meagan turned to Jerome, “You know I have a client waiting out there.”

“Let them wait! From what I hear, your clients are used to that.”

“Well, if that’s all, I have to go.” Meagan turned toward the door.

Jerome grabbed Meagan’s wrist, yanking her back into the office. With his foot, he slammed the door.

“I’m not through with you yet,” he growled and pulled her closer. Meagan’s heart raced. His pupils were the size of dimes. He kept sniffling, and rubbing his nose. He had to be high on something. Her wrist ached from his grasp, but she kept her mouth shut. He wasn’t in his right mind, she knew better than to try to reason with someone under the influence. Her alcoholic husband had taught her that.

Meagan swallowed hard, her breathing quickened.

“Just remember this, Red. I’m watching you. You do
anything
wrong, I’ll be on you like flies on shit. I’m going to make your life a living hell if you don’t follow my rules. That means not one fucking minute late. You got that?”

Meagan nodded. He pushed her away as he released her arm, and stormed out of the office. Stunned, she sat down and rubbed her wrist.

From that day forward, Jerome kept his word. His harassment of her continued on the sly. He found any excuse to berate her. He blamed her for anything that went wrong in the salon. His drug use was now a constant. All she could do was pray that he screwed up a client’s hair bad enough that they sued the salon. Surely Sandy would be forced to fire him then.

Meagan knew the other hairdressers. They reveled in his treatment of her, some secretly, some less so. Waiting like a bunch of vultures for her to quit so they could pounce on her remaining customers. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

EIGHT

Thomas sat at his computer and scanned the last few weeks of Missing Persons reports. If this guy ran true to form, he’d kept her awhile. He’d received the crime scene photos, but it wasn’t exactly like looking at a live shot of a victim.

Until he got a lead from forensics, the guys canvassing, or Cheryl called him regarding the autopsy, he might as well get a start on the photos. He had the dimensions of her face, general age, and he’d use blonde with blue eyes to narrow the field.

There was no telling what this guy’s MO was at this point, so he’d go with blond and blue for now. Normally he’d pass the job off to someone else, but he didn’t like sitting around with his thumb up his ass. Waiting was never Thomas’s strong suit.

Orange County turned up nothing, so he broadened his search to the surrounding counties. He’d flagged a few reports to come back to later: one in San Diego, another in Riverside and a couple in Los Angeles County.

Her prints weren’t in AFIS, the automated fingerprint identification system. Not that he was holding his breath on that one. He didn’t think the woman was a criminal or working girl. She was well-nourished, no track marks, and her fingernails were too nice. She could have been a high-priced call girl or in the military at some point, but again, those were long shots. In his experience victims were just that, victims.

The house-to-house search on the cliffs above the dump site yielded nothing. A few residents weren’t home at the time, however, so it was still possible they’d find a witness. Again, Thomas wasn’t holding his breath, but he had to admit to a tiny glimmer of hope. Cooper and James would resume their canvas around dinnertime.