Windfall

power wasn’t completely gone, but it was definitely operating at such a low voltage that he wasn’t drawing a spark from it anymore.

Lewis, who’d always drawn fire and power out of me, couldn’t even feel a tingle anymore.

That wasn’t seduction in his eyes. It was pity.

“Jo—” He let go of my hand and moved damp hair back from my face. “Go to work. I don’t want you here in case things get ugly. You’d get hurt.”

“Sarah—Eamon—”

“I can keep them safe; nobody’s gunning for them. You, however, don’t have enough sense to stay out of the line of fire, and you’ll be a target. Go. Do whatever it is you do.” He winked at me. Winked. “And besides, I love watching you on TV.”

Mona was running a little rough. In-town driving really didn’t agree with her, of course; she needed open road and high RPMs and curves to conquer. Her heart just wasn’t in the few miles to the studio. I patted her console and promised her a weekend in the country soon, not to mention a nice detailing.

Cherise’s convertible was parked in its accustomed space when I arrived. Top up.

I scanned the horizon. Yep, the clouds were crawling closer. Rain later today, for certain.

I checked in with Genevieve, who laconically pointed out my costume hanging on the rack. I did a double take.

“What… ?”

Genevieve, who had for some reason added some white streaks to her hair during the night, as well as a raspberry stripe from front to back, sucked on her cigarette and shrugged. She had a new tattoo as well. I’d never actually seen a woman with a naked woman tattoo before. It seemed recursive.

“You’ve got a new gig, sweetheart,” she said in that tobacco-stained voice.

“Want my advice? Avoid the Fruit.” She meant Cherise, whom Genevieve had nicknamed Cherry back in the early days. Hence, the Fruit.

The costume hanging on the rack was an aqua-blue bikini.

I gulped and held it up. Not enough fabric to it to make a blindfold. It would be different if I was strutting it on the beach, or—better yet—wearing it for David, but for an audience in the hundreds of thousands… I felt faintly violated.

“Um, do I have a—”

“Choice?” Genevieve’s laugh sawed the air. “You’re funny, kiddo.”

I tried a smile, went behind the screen, and changed.

It was worse than I’d thought. I’d had the perfect bikini—in fact, I still had it in a drawer at home—and this wasn’t it. It was way too Penthouse for public view, and it was designed for someone of Cherise’s build, not mine. I felt like I was modeling fabric swatches. The thick bathrobe was a relief. I came out to give Genevieve a miserable look, and she raised one overplucked eyebrow in commiseration.

And then proceeded to torture my hair with hot irons until she was satisfied.

Thirty minutes later, I was walking onto the set, feeling like I was on my way to the electric chair. Clutching my bathrobe in a death grip. Cherise was sitting in a chair over to the side, looking like a thundercloud. I don’t mean frowning, although she was doing that, of course. No, she looked like a thundercloud. As in, blue foam cloud suit, with little drops of silvery rain glittering all over it and hanging by wires. Her legs were covered in thick black tights.

I clapped my hands over my mouth in outright horror. She frowned harder.

“I did not ask for this,” I blurted. “God, Cher—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “It’s not your fault.”

“This is awful.”

“Are you wearing my bikini under there?”

“We can quit.”

Cherise managed to look mutinous and defeated at the same time. “And do what? Flip burgers? Internet modeling? I’ve got my pride, you know. I’m a professional.”

Her little, silver suspended raindrops were shivering with indignation.

I swallowed a bubble of laughter and nodded. “Let’s just get through this, okay?”

“I will if you will,” she said, and looked around at the stagehands, who were all staring at us. Probably waiting for me to drop the bathrobe. “You! Assholes! Nobody drops water on me today unless you want to cash in on that pension, you got me?”

For a little thing, she was ferocious. Nobody answered.

Marvelous Marvin strolled onto the set, toothy as a land shark, and patted his stiff hair. “How do I look, girls?”

“Clark Gable and Valentino all rolled into one,” Cherise said. He beamed at her and moved into his camera position. She glared after him. “They’re dead, asshole.”

“Let me guess. Marvin’s behind this?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Marvin wants to ogle your ass for a while. And besides, he’s pissed at me because I wouldn’t put out.”

Usually, that would have been a joke, but the way she said it… “Seriously?”

She just looked at me.

“You’re going to report him, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Like Bikini Girl is going to get any traction on a sexual-harassment issue. Plus, there’s the whole issue of me having tormented the hell out of every HR person to the point where they run when they see me coming.” She eyed me speculatively. “But you, on the other hand…”

“Me?”

“If he snaps your bikini, you’d report him, right?”

“No,” I said flatly. “I’d kill him.” Especially today. So not in the mood for this. I wanted to do this, grab my paycheck—which would be the last one, as I planned to be fleeing soon—and get the hell out.

Whatever Cherise was about to say was cut off by the command for silence on the set, and we stood in silence, waiting for our cues.

Hers came first. I watched her lumber out into public view in her thick, lumpy cloud costume. Watched Marvin deliver his lame-ass jokes at her expense. I’d never really looked at it from this side of the camera before. Damn, I had a really pathetic job.

Marvin had set up a water-drop joke. The stagehand didn’t pull the bucket.

Cherise was just that scary, and besides, the stagehands were union. They didn’t give a shit. When Marvin gave the signal, the stagehand up there just grinned, shrugged, and chomped gum.

Cherise gave him a behind-the-back thumbs-up.

Commercial break. The anchors sniped at each other over who had stepped on whose leads. One of them was rewriting an intro for the next piece. Badly.

Marvin speared me with a look and gave me the toothy grin of death.

“Joanne,” he said. “Let’s flash some skin. You’re up.”

I took a deep breath and slid the bathrobe off of my shoulders, then folded it neatly on a chair. The air felt ice-cold on my all-too-exposed skin. I walked over onto the tiny ocean set, which had glittering white sand, a blue- sky backdrop, and an oversized beach ball. Marvin came over to join me. Close up, his tan looked a shade of orange that earthly sun didn’t produce, and the professionally even smile didn’t really disguise the ruthlessness in his eyes.

“Okay, this is the standard beach setup, right? So look pretty and nod.” He gave me an analytical once-over. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around.”

I didn’t want to, but I did it, a fast circle. When I was halfway around, he reached out and stopped me.

“Your tag’s showing,” he said, and slipped his fingers into the back of my bikini bottom.

And snapped it.

And burst out laughing.