Never Have I Ever(48)

Blackmail her back.





8




I got to Roux’s house half an hour before her deadline, feeling as if my stomach had been filled with bees. I was here to promise her the money and buy myself some room to maneuver. This morning, in the scant time between Maddy and Davis leaving and my meeting Char for our power walk, I’d called Boyce Skelton and instructed him to convert my investments into cash, just in case. I was going to play, but I could lose. I needed to be liquid, with all my options open.

Boyce had started in with all the same arguments he’d given me when I’d asked him to liquidate the first half, but I’d cut him off. I wasn’t interested in taking life advice from Boyce Skelton. He hadn’t exactly put me in this situation, but he hadn’t helped. He’d sloppily given a criminal access to a computer containing my files, and the files of God-knew-how-many other clients.

He had paid, though, a little. On a hunch I asked him what kind of car he was driving these days. He fell silent, then mumbled something about its having been stolen. I pressed, asking what kind of car it had been. He described Roux’s red convertible. Stolen my ass. Boyce was married. I was willing to bet that Roux, with her penchant for recording, had gotten more out of her time with Boyce than a peek at his files. I could hardly stand to talk to him long enough to get the wheels in motion. If I ended this with any of Nana’s money left, I was damn well moving it to another firm.

While we talked, I put Roux’s name in Google to see what the Internet might know. There were a few people on social-media sites with that name, but none of them were her. Only one was American, and she looked about thirteen. It was disappointing, but I supposed “blackmailers” were like the least likely professionals to join LinkedIn.

The door opened even as I was reaching for the bell. Had she been watching for me from behind the ugly blanket over the big picture window, as anxious as I was? I hoped so, even though I could not imagine Roux antsy. She seemed cool as a cat as she stepped outside, pulling the door closed loosely behind her. She wore another set of black Lycra gym clothes that showed every line of her honed body. My own clothes gave her pause, though.

“Is that a pool cover-up?” she asked, looking me up and down.

“It’s a jacket,” I said.

It was cousin to a jacket anyway, a lightweight, baggy thing that came down to midthigh. I peeled it off so she could see that underneath I had put on her game’s required uniform. Yoga pants, sheer and fitted, with a half tank that I wore as a jog bra and she’d wear as a shirt. I didn’t want her hands all over me again. She twirled her finger in the air, and I spun slowly, feeling like her fun-house mirror image, shorter, squatter, thicker in the hips.

“Good. Good job. Now pass me that abomination,” she said, holding her hand out for the jacket.

“Can we go in?” I asked.

I didn’t like standing in the scant shade of her azaleas in what, truthfully, was underwear. Char was two doors down, and what would she think if she came outside and saw me playing strip-’n’-spin on the porch with this woman she so disliked?

“Hand it over,” Roux insisted, so I did. She began feeling along the lining and then checking the pockets.

I waited, fidgeting, looking all around for passing neighbors.

Roux ignored me, pulling my phone out and making sure it was powered down.

“Now can we go in?” I asked again, glancing around, my arms crossed over my bra top.

Roux handed my things back. “You don’t want Kanga to see us together. Is that it?”

Well, yes. That, too.

I downplayed it, shrugging my way into my jacket and repocketing my dead phone. “You went out of your way to make her feel jealous at book club. So.”

Her voice shifted into a singsong chant. “Amy and Roux, sittin’ in a tree, cheatin’ on Char, and Phillip makes three. . . .” My eyes narrowed. Phillip makes three what? Cheaters? Had she connected Phillip and Tate? I’d promised myself that I would find out if Phillip was embroiled in a full-blown affair, and here was Roux, a professional at digging up secrets. She might already know, definitively. That was a topic worth exploring. But she was still talking, saying, “She’s very small-town, your little friend. They’re like that. Territorial,” as if she and I were one thing and Charlotte was another. “Luca’s in the den right now. We could slip off behind her back to a cheap motel? By which I mean a coffee shop.”

I ignored that. “Does Luca not know? What you do for a living, I mean.” I kept my voice as casual as I could.

She paused, her eyes sizing me up before she spoke. “Amy, did you come to play?” I saw it then. She had been antsy, waiting for me. She still was, and I thrilled to it, though I worked hard to keep it off my face. She honestly didn’t know which way I was going to swing.

I decided not to answer directly. “This isn’t a game, Roux. This is my life.”

She steepled her fingers, and her smile went wolfish. “Everything is a game. Asking if you can use my job against me is a play. You think you can threaten to tell Luca. Make me back down.”

I could feel a blush heating my cheeks, but I kept my chin up, met her eyes. “Maybe I’m trying to see if you have any shame.”

That made her tilt her head, her eyes gone sharp and bright, like a bird catching a glimpse of something shiny.