“Wha… I didn’t do anything!”
“Besides, the world’s a better place when it’s pretty. Now take my phone,” she said, handing it to him. “Go download an app, and kill a pig with a bird or something.”
“Kill a pig with a…?” But he never finished the sentence. Instead he shook his head and left without another word.
“Sorry about him,” Kit said, whirling to Bridget when the door had shut behind him. “He’s very intense. Tries to hide his soft side.”
Bridget just motioned to the nail station farthest from the door.
“I really do like your place,” Kit said brightly, as she sat. Bridget looked at her sharply, relaxing when she saw Kit was sincere.
“Bought it with all my own money. And, yeah, I paid in cash.”
“Wise,” Kit said lightly.
Pulling in tight across from her, Bridget picked up one of Kit’s hands. She gave her a hard double-take when she saw they were perfectly manicured, then shrugged and picked up a nail file. A client was a client. “When I’m able, I’m gonna expand to the empty space next door. Add beauticians. Someone who can do facials.”
“Sounds real nice.”
Bridget nodded, not looking at Kit again until she’d placed that hand to soak, and picked up the other. “Look, I read about your friend in the paper. I’m real sorry. But I ain’t been to that shitbox motel since I was busted. I’m clean. I washed my hands of all that shit.”
“So you didn’t contact Nic?”
“Nope. Don’t know who might have, either. I don’t run with those girls anymore. They can’t be trusted. Most will sell you to the devil as soon as they feel the flame.”
Kit lifted her eyes from her hands. “What about Lance Schmidt?”
Bridget didn’t look up, didn’t hesitate as she removed Kit’s old color, but her fingertips tightened over Kit’s. “Who?”
“C’mon, Bridget,” Kit said softly. “The cop who busted you at the Wayfarer… and back when you were nineteen.”
Bridget did look at her now, and naked fear warred with anger in the gaze. “I make a point of staying out of Detective Schmidt’s way.”
“Is he dirty?”
Bridget kept filing.
“Does he blackmail the girls?” Kit persisted. “Make them do things for him in return for not busting them?”
“I know nothing about him,” Bridget said stubbornly, buffing harder, then added quickly, “Except that he’s mean.”
“Mean enough to kill?”
“Mean enough that you don’t want to find out,” Bridget warned. Her tone also said she wasn’t going to risk her own skin-and salon, livelihood,
Besides, she might be lying. As Marin said, he’d bookended her career, and could be holding something over her still. He could have used her to contact Nic. She might have him on the phone as soon as Kit left the salon. So as Bridget cleaned and trimmed, Kit tried to think of another angle.
But Bridget surprised her by raising her own question. “That charity ball you’re going to this weekend. That wouldn’t happen to be the Caleb Chambers event, would it?”
Kit tilted her head. “Why?”
Bridget shrugged, but the movement was stiff. “Is he on that list of yours?”
“Chambers?” Kit nodded. “At the bottom, though. Alibied for the night in question.”
And yet, she suddenly realized, his name kept coming up again and again.
“Makes sense. He’s a bottom-feeder.”
Kit leaned forward on her elbows, staring closely at Bridget, now studiously looking down. A former prostitute who claimed no ties to the political crowd thought the most powerful of them was scum? “Look, if you can tell me anything about Chambers, about what happens at the Wayfarer, anything at all, I’d be grateful.”
Bridget’s mouth firmed into a thin line. “I can’t.”
“Not even anonymously? Off the record?”
Huffing, she shook her head. “Who’d believe me?”
“I would,” Kit said sincerely.
“I know. I’ve heard you protect your sources. You got a good rep on the street.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Bridget stilled and looked at her. “No one even believes you.”
Kit drew back but realized Bridget was right. Marin was helping, but Marin was blood, and always on her side. But Paul had dismissed her claims outright. Even Dennis hadn’t yet returned the calls she’d put in to the police station, though maybe he would have if she’d told him her suspicions regarding Schmidt. She’d have to talk to Grif about that later, but for now nobody was asking questions about what happened at the Wayfarer. Nobody but Grif.
“You know,” Bridget said, seeing from Kit’s silence that she finally understood, “I worked at another salon when I first got my cosmetology license. On the Strip, catering to bachelorette parties and all the bored wives of men who come here to gamble. It was real pricey, real exclusive…”
Kit ventured a guess. “Fifth Avenue?”
“You’ve been there?”
She nodded. “My girlfriends sprang for it when I got married.”
“How’d you like it?”
“The manicure lasted nearly as long as my marriage.”
That garnered a wry smile. “Well, I saw a lot of women come through those doors, some splurging like you, though most were simply wealthy. They wanted perfect nails to match their perfect husbands and perfect children and cars and homes.
“Thing is, once I started filing away?” Bridget shook her head. “The truth came up quicker than tequila on an empty stomach. Husbands were straying, the women were in denial, all the old cliches and a few new ones as well. But as they talked, and I filed and listened, they all had one thing in common. See, fake nails-acrylics, overlays, gels, tips-all they do is mask imperfection. There’s always something else going on underneath a perfect, pristine, glossy facade.”
She wasn’t talking about nails. “And what’s that?”
“Rot,” Bridget said shortly. “I scrape under a nail and I pull out dirt. I pull off an overlay and I smell urine. It’s the rot of their lives seeping into their nailbeds, you see? They can fix their hair and paint their nails and run on a treadmill until they’re anorexia’s poster child, but they can’t fix their lives… lives of rotting perfection.”
Kit frowned. “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re bad, or not deserving of good things.”
Bridget shook her head. “I know that. I’m just saying that when something looks perfect, all you have to do is dig down a couple of layers. That’s where to find the truth.”
A smile began to grow over Kit’s face. So Chambers wasn’t the perfect businessman. The perfect family man. The perfect Mormon. Pursing her lips, she thought about prodding for more, but if Bridget had wanted to speak openly, she would have. Instead, Kit tilted her head. “So why’d you leave Fifth Avenue?”
The woman smiled tightly, pausing as she pulled the brush from the nail polish. “It seems someone dug down a couple of layers on me as well. Decided that my past made me unfit to render services to such perfect people.”
“I’m sorry,” Kit said, meaning it, and understood better why it was so important that Bridget work for herself. And why she was so unwilling to talk about Schmidt. After all, who else had the power and authority and
“And I’m really sorry about your friend.” Bridget’s fingers tightened on hers again, but this time it was a consoling squeeze. “I’m sorry I can’t help you either.”
Kit smiled at her, then looked down at her right hand. “These look beautiful.”
