“What can I get you two?” she asked.
“We need a favor,” Chester said. “We need to borrow your office for about a half hour to make a top-secret phone call.”
Her eyes creased. “Ohhh, that sounds sexy.”
“I have to call a loser from my past,” Ronnie explained.
Cherry’s smile flipped into a grimace. “That’s not very sexy at all.” She dug into her cleavage and pulled out a key, holding it toward Chester. “You’re welcome to it. I’m covering here today. My bartender takes Sundays off.”
He palmed the key, ogling Cherry’s chest. “What else you storing in there?”
She blew him a kiss. “Take me to dinner sometime and maybe I’ll whisper the answer in your ear afterward.”
Chester’s cheeks darkened as he watched her walk away.
“Are you going to take her up on that?” Ronnie asked, sliding off the bar stool.
“Probably not.”
“Why not?”
He grimaced. “That’s a lot of woman there for one man to handle.”
Ronnie waved for Mississippi to join them and followed Chester down the hallway past the restrooms and payphone to Cherry’s office.
“Wow!” she said after Chester hit the lights.
Cherry’s office was a mass of primary colors, from the custom red leather couch to the blue carpet and yellow plush office chair behind an all-glass desk. Silver stars swirled together with loops of golden rope to decorate the cream-colored walls.
“Cherry is a Wonder Woman nut,” Chester explained.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Behind Cherry’s desk was a painting of Wonder Woman looking more sexy than badass. A fitting tribute to the brunette bombshell being they were in a strip club.
Mississippi stepped into the room, dressed in his usual black shirt, jeans, and boots attire, and closed the door behind him. He turned around, his eyes widening as he took in the décor. When his gaze snagged on the painting behind Cherry’s chair, he let out a low whistle. “Holy golden lasso!” He skirted the glass desk and gaped at Wonder Woman. “Damn.”
Chester plopped down on the leather couch, making himself comfortable. “She’s something, ain’t she?”
“Are we talking about Cherry or Wonder Woman?” Ronnie asked, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket. Katie had drawn an unhappy face with an arrow through its forehead above the phone number Lyle’s lawyer had rattled off on the voice message.
“Both,” Chester said and let out a husky laugh. “What’d ya think of Cinnamin the Cowgirl’s pole-dancing act, Mr. FBI?”
“A pretty girl dancing half-naked in chaps and cowboy boots?” Mississippi sat on the edge of the glass desk. “What’s not to like?” He handed a small cell phone to Ronnie. “One anonymous burner phone, as requested.”
Ronnie took it and dropped into Cherry’s office chair, her knees wobbly all of a sudden.
“Are you ready?” she asked her two witnesses. Her hand trembled as she punched in the phone number, screwing up twice in the process.
It had been months since she’d talked to Lyle, and that last time had been through a Plexiglas window with holes. After all of his grand fuckeries that she’d learned about since then, not including the first wife he’d never divorced, she was a tad concerned that the mere sound of his voice alone would make her head explode.
She took a calming breath—in through her nose, out through her mouth—drawing on all of her yoga and namaste meditation hocus-pocus.
“You sure you want to do this?” Mississippi asked. His forehead had developed a series of horizontal lines since entering the office.
“She’s sure,” Chester answered for her. “And before you ask, she doesn’t want her sheriff boyfriend to know about it either. Trust me on this before trying to talk her into it. I’m still walking bowlegged from the ass-reaming she gave me out in my pickup.”
Ronnie wrinkled her nose at the bowlegged blowhard. “Could you refrain from using words like ‘ass’ and ‘reaming’ while we’re in the back office of a strip club?”
He waved her off. “Cherry doesn’t allow any of that S&M fun stuff here.”
Ronnie took another breath and then hit the call button. Before it started ringing, she put it on speakerphone for Mississippi and Chester to hear.
One ring.
The cell phone slipped from her clammy hands and clattered onto the desk.
Two rings.
Mississippi picked it up and handed it back to her, his green eyes searching her face.
Three rings.
She took the phone back and attempted a smile.
He winced at her expression.
“Veronica?” said a smooth voice from her sordid past through the phone.
“Hello, Lyle.” Her words came out creaky sounding, like she was choking on a frog. Or maybe it was the wrecking ball of rage clogging her throat.
“It’s wonderful to hear your voice again, darling.”
She cringed at the intimacy inferred in that one word. She opened her mouth to tell the prick where he could shove his smarmy endearment but Mississippi held out his hand to stop her. He mimed taking another breath.
She followed suit before saying, “Don’t bore me with pleasantries, Lyle.”
“Oh, feeling feisty are we?” He lowered his voice. “Are you wearing any panties?”
She gasped, her cheeks catching fire at Mississippi’s frown. Jeez, what was it with everyone’s interest in her damned underwear lately? “Wh— I— You— Why?”
“I think about you often, darling, especially at night in the dark.” His breathing grew louder in the phone. “Remember that trip we took to London and France when you didn’t wear any underpants?”
A muffled snort came from the bristle-topped jackass sitting on Cherry’s couch.
Ronnie squeezed her temples. Yes, she did remember that trip. What Lyle was forgetting to mention was that in her excitement to travel to Europe for the first time in her life she’d forgotten to pack any extra bras or underwear. The horny idiot on the other end of the line had thrown away the only panties she’d had while she slept that first night. He’d refused to let her go shopping for more until they’d reached Paris because he got off on her going commando through the streets of London.
And this underwear mention was one of the reasons why she hadn’t wanted Grady here. It was bad enough to
