Suzanne Forster - The Private Concierge

Simon pressed the End button. He picked up the dagger and touched the blade again. No pain. No pain at all. A second later, he whipped the dagger over his head and with a crack of his wrist, launched it like a missile at the kitchen’s other doorway, the one off the hallway to the front door.

The tip of the blade stuck in the door frame, the handle quivering like the crossbar of an arrow. A strangled gasp came from the shadows of the hallway. Simon flipped on the overhead lights and strode toward the door. He was shaking. “Don’t ever come up on me unannounced.”

The tall, lithe creature he’d caught eyed him with a mix of fear and defiance. The material of her blouse sleeve was pinned by the knife blade, tethering her to the door frame. Simon didn’t free her. He didn’t trust her, either.

“I picked up the things you wanted,” she said, pointing to the magazines that had fallen to the floor. “I thought I could leave them without disturbing you.”

He unstuck the knife, ripping a chunk of lacquered wood from the door frame. His voice was frozen with rage at the world that had turned on him. “Give me another reason to think you’ve betrayed me, and you’ll die by this blade.”

“It’s a go, Ashley. Sign the lease.” A squeal on the other end of the line forced Lane to lower the volume of her earpiece. But she couldn’t suppress a grin as she walked briskly down the Avenue of the Stars, toward the Santa Monica Mountains in the distance. She’d just green-lighted the plans to open the TPC branch in Dallas. She’d been putting it off for weeks, and she was as excited as Ashley, who’d been stranded in Dallas, scouting locations. Probably as nervous, too.

“Make sure it’s the entire tenth floor,” Lane said, “and we’re good to go. Next step is getting the place staffed. You’re going to be running the show, so put together your short list of contenders for the key positions and set up the interviews. I can be there this Thursday. That gives you four days.”

“Will do! I’ll have everything ready when you get here, and thank you so much for this opportunity. This is it for me, the ultimate, really. My dream.”

“And your chance to make it come true,” Lane said, congratulating her warmly, even though Ashley was really Val’s choice. But that felt good, too. It was time to let go of the reins and give Val his head. He’d been pushing for the expansion, and he knew the staff better than she did, in terms of their leadership abilities. Besides, Lane was not the maverick that some people thought. She believed in teamwork. She’d played some beach volleyball when she was in college, and she’d admired the way the really good teams worked. One set up the shot, and the other one took it. That’s what she and Val had just done, although he still didn’t know it.

Lane excused herself, gently cutting the conversation short with Ashley. Lane’s next call was to their receptionist, letting Mary know the Dallas move was official and to order champagne. Lane had decided the office needed something to celebrate, given their latest client fiasco—the frightening business that very morning with Priscilla Brandt. But Mary reminded her that Val was holding staff meetings all afternoon, so Lane’s bright idea would have to be postponed.

She dropped her cell in her suit pocket and kept walking, oblivious to the fashion incongruity of white Nike Turbo Plus jogging shoes and a black spandex designer suit with a pencil skirt. She probably should have been a New Yorker. Walking was a requirement for her sanity. And today, she’d had no choice. She’d been stuck for too long, mired in doubt and indecision about the expansion. Walking helped clear her head and give her the perspective she needed to make decisions. It felt like she was moving forward in all ways, not just physically. She was charging, going somewhere.

But Jerry had told her never to venture out at night, so here she was, on her lunch hour, despite the obvious drawbacks of walking in L.A. at noon. Car exhaust, for one. It really wasn’t a good idea to walk in cities where you could see the air you were breathing. Worse, it was the middle of the day, and hot. Her breasts were sweating again. And walking was costing her a fortune, no matter what anyone said about it being the low-cost alternative to health clubs. She was paying dearly just for the privilege of living close enough to walk back and forth to work.

But who’d have thought she would ever have a fortune to pay. Not so terribly long ago she was penniless and homeless. She attended high school classes in juvenile hall and later tackled college on a scholarship, supplemented by multiple part-time jobs, one of which was helping a professor who’d penned a surprise bestseller and desperately needed someone to organize his life. He’d been so thrilled with her efforts he’d referred his entertainment lawyer to her, who’d referred more clients. It had started like that, a chain reaction. And then she’d dragged Darwin, kicking and screaming, into the fold, and he’d invented his crazy “electronic bodyguard” phone, as he called it in those days. Finally, after two years of abject toil, she’d bagged her first really big client, who’d become another source of referrals, and ready cash.

And she hadn’t stopped moving since.

Rick Bayless watched Detective Mimi Parsons take a huge bite of her PB & J on Wonder Bread, give it several distracted chews and then wash everything down with a slug of milk from a quart carton, which she’d probably swiped from the coffee room. She was glued to the tabloid magazine on her desk and hadn’t noticed him standing not six feet away, observing her and the otherwise empty police-station bullpen.

Everyone’s out to lunch, Rick thought, especially her.

At least she wasn’t into health food, like the rest of southern California. She had snack packages of potato chips and chocolate-chip cookies lined up for her second and third courses. Not into highbrow reading material, either. The article was upside down to Rick, but he could make out the title from where he stood by the door, and it had something to do with a transgender female prison inmate giving birth to a fur-bearing baby of questionable species.

Not much has changed, he thought, smiling to himself. Mimi was still a mess. Her desk was stacked high with case files, unfinished reports and research data. Her blazer jacket was wrinkled and too large on her petite frame, not that he was any expert on fashion. Most notably, though, she was completely tuned out to everything but what held her attention at that moment. That’s what had made her a stellar detective when they were partners, her avid, Peeping Tom–like concentration.

Rick had asked for Coop at the desk, but the clerk told him Don Cooper had been loaned out to the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department on a case. Rick figured that was apt punishment for Don’s loquaciousness. Not much to talk about at PVEPD. A big case there involved victims of rabid squirrel attacks on golf courses. Occasionally someone got nailed by a runaway cart.

Rick had done a little more digging with the clerk, found out that Mimi was peripherally involved in the Ned Talbert case, and used all of his considerable stealth to sneak in here and surprise her. He and Mimi had done their thing fifteen years ago, working juvenile vice out of the downtown L.A. bureau. A year or so after he resigned, in part because of remarks he’d made that were critical of the juvenile-hall system, Mimi had called and told him she was switching to homicide. She’d sailed through the requirements, eventually transferred down here to the West Side police station, and she’d been an integral part of their detective division ever since.

Rick had been instrumental in helping her get the job. She’d wanted out of the grinder, and he had pulled a few strings. Mimi actually did owe him for that, not that she’d ever admit it. Theirs had been a love-hate relationship, never romantic, sometimes trying, but always interesting.