The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

Except Elizabeth’s soft little hands could never feel like this. These hands were large and hard, the fingers strong. Despite my own lecture, I felt myself react to his touch. Then, because there didn’t seem to be a damned thing I could do about it, I decided to just let myself feel. He started at my shoulders, finding and rubbing free the knots that I didn’t even know were there. I could feel the strength of the man, but also the gentleness within the power. I felt the slickness of the oil, warm and penetrating, the lovely friction….

“Anything I can get you two?”

I startled and tensed beneath Dylan’s touch. How much time had passed? How many minutes had I allowed myself to fall under the spell of his hands. Oh my God! What was I thinking? This wasn’t what I’d come here for!

Dylan’s hands left me for a second, and when they returned to my back, his touch was much more clinical. More buddy-buddy than … whatever that other thing was. I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. If I concentrated hard — baseball, baseball — surely it would abate in other places.

I cleared my throat. “Elizabeth, thank you for sticking around. You know, now that you mention it, my friend Jennifer told me about a particular incense that she always liked when she came here. I think it was….”

“Jasmine! Mrs. Weatherby loved it. Whenever she was here, I made sure it was readied in the burner for her.”

“Yes, Jennifer was a creature of habit.” I forced a knowing chuckle.

Elizabeth smiled. “She liked room 102 always. She wanted the towels warmed, but not too warm. Sweet almond massage oil. She never wanted a glass of wine before or during the massage, but she always enjoyed a coffee afterward. She loved her Columbian dark roast. Then she’d have a seaweed body wrap just before lunch.”

“Same routine every time?”

“Oh, yes. We had a standing appointment for her every Monday for the full day. She tipped well. Even the times she didn’t make it, she made sure to send a cheque along.”

Dylan’s hands stilled. He’d caught the same thing I did. Not only the words, but the teasing little rise in Elizabeth’s voice as she said the latter.

I tried to match it. “Yes,” I said. “She was sometimes … otherwise occupied.”

“You know?”

I shrugged my shoulders, watching Elizabeth as she shot a look at Dylan. Whatever look he gave her back must have been encouraging, because she started talking.

“Oh, thank God! I thought I was the only one and that maybe I should go to the police with the information.”

“Yes, well that was my instinct too.”

“So you know about the affair.”

Holy shit! “Oh, she told you, too?”

Elizabeth nodded vigorously. “She came in one day and I could tell she was very upset. And she … she just broke down crying, you know? Said she just didn’t fit in this society, and as much as Ned tried, she still felt so out of place. And she felt so horrible about the affair, but didn’t know how to make it stop.”

Apparently, someone did.

“It must have been so hard on her,” I said, “to know that her husband was cheating on her.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Cheating on her? No, that’s not right. She was cheating on him.”

My eyes shot wide, and I forced myself to blink.

“With whom?”

“She never said his name. Only that she didn’t know how to break it off. Actually, I think she was scared to break it off. But over the last month or so, she started keeping her spa appointments again, so I guess she finally dumped the asshole. She seemed kind of sad after that. Guilt, maybe. Worry. But she never said anything more about the guy.”

I wet my lips. Things were falling into and out of place in my mind. “Elizabeth,” I asked, nervously, “did Jennifer have an appointment here last Monday?”

“Yes, she did.”

I prayed she’d say she hadn’t kept it, but my prayer went unanswered.

“She kept it.”

I wrapped the sheet around myself and sat up, turned to Dylan. “We’re out of here.”

He grabbed a towel and started wiping the oil from his hands while I headed for the change room.

“Oh!” Elizabeth looked startled. “Is … is something wrong?”

“No, you did everything right. Perfect, in fact.” I stopped long enough to tip her the fifty I’d promised. Dylan flashed her a smile. “Tell Ms. Pipps that Mr. Pulse and I hit it off extremely well,” I called over my shoulder. “So well, in fact, I’m taking him with me.” I shut the door behind me, but not before I turned and took a look at the dropped jaw, wide-eyed look from Elizabeth.

Chapter 8

So, I blew off the pedicure and manicure and everything else I’d booked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly so easy to brush off the memory of that massage. Dylan’s hands on me, firm and soft at the same time. Commanding yet gentle. Powerful yet….

Shit.

It had been awhile since I’d been touched that personally. That deeply. And I just hoped that young Mr. Foreman couldn’t see through me as easily as he seemed to see through most everyone else, considering how utterly aroused I’d been. Feelings had stirred that had not been stirred in a long, long time. And as every woman knows, there’s danger in that. And now it was driving me crazy. But I knew I had to put such thoughts aside. I had more important things on my plate, like saving my backside before Dickhead’s deadline expired.

I’d shot out of the Bombay spa, waving a goodbye to Ms. Pipps, calling out a wonderful recommendation of Elizabeth’s services over my shoulder.

“Say hello to Mr. Damon!” Ms. Pipps called after me. “Please be sure to put in a good word for the Bombay Spa.”

Right, good ol’ Matt. “Absolutely!”

And if I ever had the good fortune to meet Matt Damon, I surely would.

So according to my well-tipped source, Ned Weatherby wasn’t having an affair, but Jennifer Weatherby was. Or, maybe Elizabeth was lying to me in order to get the good tips? She could obviously tell I was a gossip hound. Maybe she lied to me. Or maybe Jennifer had lied to her?

Yet one thing seemed certain: Jennifer Weatherby had been at the Bombay Spa on Monday. Elizabeth backed up the information that Ned had given Dickhead, and which he’d been so delighted to give to me.

Double damn.

So who the hell had that been in my office that day? And why?

And that was just the beginning of the questions rolling through my mind.

Dylan and I agreed to meet at my apartment. Was I hiding out? Not yet. But I didn’t want any interruptions. Dylan volunteered to go by the office before we met at the house. He’d pick up all the notes, all the pictures and recordings, and we’d start from scratch. While I changed from Rich Chick to Dix, he would check on the mail and the messages, and bring along only what needed my immediate attention.

You’d never guess what immediately needed my attention.