J. Jance - Deadly Stakes

Even for June, it was ungodly hot as Gemma Ralston pulled into a nearly deserted parking lot and slid her Mercedes SLK into a spot just in front of the brick-and-mortar offices of Video-Glam. Despite the name, Video-Glam appeared to be anything but glamorous. The office was located in a mostly dead and partly repurposed strip mall at Indian School and Forty-third Avenue. Video-Glam occupied a single storefront at one end of the complex. At the other end, two units had been combined to serve as a Spanish-language Baptist church. In between were three empty units, their boarded-up windows a colorful catalog of three-foot-high graffiti.

For a moment, Gemma sat in her car with the engine running, wondering if she wanted to bother going inside. From the outside, it didn’t look the least bit promising, even though the membership consultant at Hearts Afire, a dating site for “mature singles,” had assured her that Video-Glam was the only place in Phoenix that they would recommend as a source for uploadable videos.

“It’s like Glamour Shots,” the young woman had told her, “only with, like you know, videos instead of just pictures.”

That comment had told Gemma a lot about the age and general qualifications of her membership consultant without engendering a whole lot of confidence in the process itself.

She was considering putting the SLK in reverse and backing out of the lot when a car pulled in beside her. It was a dusty green Subaru months beyond needing a complete detailing. A collection of doggy nose prints on the inside of the back side window obscured the interior of the car but let the world know that a large dog of some kind was often a backseat passenger.

The woman who hopped out of the driver’s seat, a bedraggled thirtysomething, matched the car in every way. She looked harried and overworked and, from the way she hotfooted it inside, most likely late for an appointment. She was dressed in a pair of faded black sweats topped by a worn football jersey from Glendale High School. The whole woebegone outfit was underscored by a pair of blue rubber flip-flops. Stringy dishwater-blond hair was pulled back with a scrunchy. As far as Gemma was concerned, the woman looked like crap.

Gemma’s first thought was that this was someone desperately in need of a little glamour. Her second thought was along the lines of “If that’s the competition, I’m home free.”

Based on that, Gemma couldn’t help being a little curious if anyone at Video-Glam would be able to wave a magic wand at the poor unfortunate creature who was standing in front of the reception desk just inside the front door. Without really thinking about it, Gemma switched off the ignition, grabbed a small suitcase with her changes of wardrobe off the passenger-side floor as well as her out-of-season mink from its place of honor on the passenger seat.

Once inside, Gemma saw that the woman from the dusty Subaru was still ahead of her at the reception counter and in a full-scale case of hysterics. “I know I have to move on,” she sobbed, dabbing at her tears. “But I just don’t know how to do it. I’ve been out of the dating scene for so long that the whole idea scares me to death.”

“You’ll be fine,” the much-pierced young woman behind the counter reassured her, passing along a box of tissues. This was evidently a situation she had dealt with on more than one occasion. As the weeping woman blew into one of the offered tissues, Gemma noticed the pale spot on the skin of the woman’s ring finger from which, most likely, a wedding band had been recently removed.

Gemma felt a tiny stirring of irritation. It made no sense that she’d be in remotely the same boat as this unfortunate creature. If Charles had simply manned up and done what she had expected him to do-which was live up to his potential-things never would have come to this pass. He had told her that he would one day be a surgeon, and that was what she had expected. Had he done so, Gemma would have gotten a reasonable return on her investment, and she wouldn’t have had to dump him. Instead, after one stupid mistake-and one lost patient who probably wouldn’t have survived anyway-he had backed away from surgery and become a raving do-gooder. The money he made looking after Alzheimer’s patients was far less than she had planned on. And since all these patients were going to die, too, what was the point?

Gemma had decided to cut her losses and look for greener pastures while she could. Fortunately, she was starting over with a lot more going for her than Ms. Flip-flops, standing as if frozen in front of the receptionist, who slid a credit card and a receipt across the counter. The woman signed it and stuffed her copy in her purse. At that moment, another young woman, this one dressed entirely in black, stepped through an interior door into the reception area.

“Oh, hi, Noelle,” the receptionist said. “Here’s your stylist, Rachel. She’s the one who’ll be helping you today. Just go with her and don’t worry about a thing.”

Looking more than a little lost, Rachel allowed herself to be led away while Gemma stepped up to the receptionist and tossed her fur on the counter in front of her.

“Is she here for Hearts Afire?” Gemma asked, nodding toward the door where Rachel and her stylist had disappeared.

“Oh, no.” The receptionist’s smile was one step short of a purr. “We do videos for several different sites. If you’re with Hearts Afire, you must be Gemma.”

Gemma had to beat back her first inclination, which was to say, “Ms. Ralston to you.” She nodded. “I’m here for my ten o’clock,” she said, pulling out her Amex card.

“You’re aware of our charges?” the receptionist asked. “You’re paying for the shoot only, as well as your initial upload. We keep the videos on file, and you’re charged a nominal fee each time you ask to have them uploaded on another site.”

“Yes, yes,” Gemma agreed impatiently. “That’s fine.”

Now that she was here, what she wanted more than anything was to get the process over and done with, sort of like going to the dentist for a root canal. She already knew it was going to be bad. The only question was how long it would take.

The receptionist ran Gemma’s card, then passed back the card and receipt as the interior door opened again and yet another black-clad young woman appeared.

“This is Roxanne,” the receptionist announced to Gemma. “She’ll be your stylist today.”

Roxanne was young-probably not over twenty-five-but as Gemma examined the young woman’s hair and makeup, she could find nothing to complain about. Roxanne was naturally good-looking to begin with, and her carefully applied makeup and precision-cut bob added to her appeal. So maybe, Gemma thought hopefully, with any kind of luck, with someone like that doing the styling, it wouldn’t be all that bad.

Gemma picked up her coat and suitcase and allowed herself to be led into the next section of the building, which turned out to be a tiny but exceedingly well-equipped beauty salon. There were four stations in all, two for hair and two for makeup. Off to the side was a walled-off section with a door marked WARDROBE.

“Most people stop here first and choose their outfits. That way we can be sure we have the right makeup,” Roxanne explained, pointing toward the door. “Once you choose what to wear, we’ll select which of our backdrops you’ll want once we get to the studio.”

“I don’t need any of that stuff,” Gemma told her stylist. “I brought my own.”

As they walked by the wardrobe door, Gemma noticed that Rachel, the dishwater blonde, was inside trying on a Harley-Davidson jacket. A discarded stack of obviously fake furs lay on the floor beside her.