A Grand Seduction (33 page)

Ridelle picked through her salad, bypassing olives and tomato wedges to spear crumbles of blue cheese. The trio hadn’t completely fallen apart. They still spoke by phone, and they’d stuck together when it had counted most—when the police investigation had landed on each of their doorsteps. They kept their stories straight. Lanie had not been able to finger the second accomplice, and the truth of the seduction for hire scheme had remained hidden.

Still, they’d all been pulled from a dream to a distorted reality of what their lives truly were. Meanwhile, there was always the threat that more facts would come out. That Dominique would be apprehended and would take the rest down with her. Though part of her hated the woman for lying and stealing from them, she knew Dom had given them a reprieve—at least for the time being. So for that she cheered on Dominique Trudeaux, wishing the sleazy bitch God speed to run far and keep running.

“
Get anything else for you, Miss?” the waiter asked.

She shot him a look. “Very funny. No thanks, Ronald.”

He regarded her for a moment, then nodded toward the vacant window table. “Still can’t get used to you sitting anywhere other than table eight.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I miss my Wednesday regulars.”

She snorted. “You miss the tip, you mean.”

“
Decided to stop doing the lunch thing?”

She leaned forward, twiddling a salt shaker. “Busy schedules. You know how it is.”

He nodded. “Couple of them still come in. Always alone. They won’t sit at table eight, either.”

She shrugged. “Kind of a big table if you’re dining alone.”

“
Haven’t seen that one woman, though. Dark hair, fancy dresser. Whatever happened to her?”

Ronald obviously suffered from a news deficit. Dominique’s picture had been plastered all over the papers back when the whole mess went down. Ridelle offered a wan smile. “She moved away. We lost touch.”

“
Oh.” He flashed the trademark smile that convinced many a woman to fish deeper into her wallet when pulling out his tip. “You know, you don’t have to sit there alone. If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

“
I don’t.” The words bit harder than she intended, and she leaned toward him to recapture his downcast eyes. “But hey, thanks.”

The chirp of her cell phone ended an awkward pause, and with a quick nod Ronald was gone.

“
Hey.” Fran’s voice was thin these days, devoid of her trademark ditzy twitter.

“
Hey yourself. I was just thinking about you.”

“
Me too. How’s life?”

“
One toe in front of the other. Business?”

“
Slow, but I’m expecting it to pick up for last minute holiday panic. Women always want to redecorate before company comes.”

“
Heard from Twyla lately?”

There was a sigh on the other end. “That’s why I called, actually. She and Andy are getting a divorce.”

Shock twanged through her stomach. “What? Never saw that coming.”

“
I know. And with the kids and all. Glad I didn’t have that problem.”

“
How’s she taking it?”

“
Okay, considering.”

An unpleasant thought hit. “It’s not because of, you know. He didn’t find out about anything?”

“
No, no. I’m sure she would have told me.”

One would think.

“
I should call her.”

“
She’d like that. She’s at the house. Andy moved out.”

“
Weird.”

“
Yeah.”

Time ticked by in silence.

“
Well, I just thought you’d want to know.”

“
I do. Thanks.”

When she clicked off, Ronald was back at the table. “Time’s up.”

“
Yeah. Sorry. Important call.”

She rose, tucking the phone back in her pocket and picking up her salad plate.

“
You don’t need to do that,” Ronald chided. “Armand can bus the table for you.”

The entry door opened to a gaggle of seniors.

“
Ah, the blue-haired gamblers,” he said. “That’ll be good for a party of ten to fifteen. Why don’t you take it?”

Ridelle blinked. “You sure?”

“
Yeah. Go get ’em.”

He winked and moved off as the hostess shoved three tables together for the group. Ridelle watched Ronald go, wondering whether she should change her mind about dating. The panic of dating a cop who was on her trail had yet to fade, even four months after she discreetly broke things off. No, she didn’t have the stomach for a relationship just yet. But perhaps, maybe giving “too nice” a try was something she would consider. Someday.

A final glance out the window revealed the Delaware, winking and rippling with laughter and whispering secrets that no one else could hear. She could only hope her secrets remained just as safe.

Lifting her gaze above the New Jersey horizon, she wondered whether a certain missing friend was looking back, wishing for happier days and friends and that their mysteries would remain forever buried in silt.

Moving alongside the tour group just back from taking their risks on Atlantic City, Ridelle fished inside her apron pocket and whisked out a pad and pen.

“
Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Ridelle, and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you ladies off with something?”

From her vantage spot on the golden crescent of beach, the green-blue jewel of the sea appeared deceptively calm. But beneath, a whole other world shifted and pulsed with a rhythm of chaos and ever-changing movement.

Oversized sunglasses and a giant straw hat tied with a filmy Hermes scarf could not wage sufficient battle against the harsh glaze of the sun as it hit the water, so the dark-haired woman turned her attention back to a slender glass in the armrest of her lounge. Sipping the exotic, multi-colored concoction left a perfect ring of red around a straw that was little wider than a coffee stirrer.

Glancing around, a shining knight appeared on the horizon in the form of the waiter in short white jacket and pants. He delivered drinks off a tray to a group of vacationers nearby. Catching his eye, she lifted her glass and tapped it with one impatient but impeccably manicured fingernail.

He materialized by her side, leaving her a moment’s wonder at how they managed to get to and fro so readily through the dense sand. “Yes, Mrs. Walters?”

“
Trudy, my dear. Ms. Trudy Walters. What does one have to do to get an actual straw?” To his confused glance at hers she added, “One that does not require collapsing my cheeks under the strain of acquiring a single drop?”

“
Right away.”

He headed off, managing to almost float above the sand unlike the wealthy and self-important guests who shuffled like walruses through it. Setting her glass in the armrest, Dominique-slash-Trudy leaned back in her reclining chaise and closed her eyes. For the briefest of moments, an image of a summer-tinged Delaware River rippled into place. She pictured three remaining friends laughing together over barbecued ribs and Twyla’s homemade potato salad. Or were they shuffling along in chains and orange jumpsuits in a prison courtyard?

With a frown, her eyes slid open, reorienting her to the sea and the freedom she’d found across that endless stretch. Thoughts of her past life were useless. She could never go back.

A new and improved straw arrived, and she dunked it into her rainbow-colored beverage. Much better, though now the drink was nearly finished. A sex on the beach next, perhaps.

She laughed aloud at the thought. That’s what some of this was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? She’d done all the work, made all the plans. That she would be making her escape alone and on the run, well, that hadn’t been part of it.

What a fool she’d been. Or rather, that he’d been. He’d passed up a life in the lap of paradise for a cheap screw with a broken-down bar tramp. Bastard. Dominique had taken considerable risk for that man, lying to her friends and his dense excuse for a wife. She’d insisted he had never strayed, when in fact they’d nobbed each other raw the very first night and many times since. He was a man of some means, with the giant cock of an eighteen-year-old porno star and promises of undying allegiance to her. They’d decided to run off together with some of his liquid assets and her risky client investments, including the seduction scheme earnings the quartet was supposed to share. At the time, she didn’t figure the group would miss it. There was plenty more to be made after she was gone. She knew they meant more to each other than the money she’d squirreled away. After all, women’s happiness in the wake of ugly divorce was what it had all been about. They wouldn’t have begrudged Dominique using that money to ride off into happily ever after with her charming, erotic prince. Not once they thought about it.

Then it had all gone wrong. When the group decided someone else should take a stab at Chester, she couldn’t talk them out of it. She took matters into her own hands by contacting a plain, stringy loser she knew he would never fall for. Yes, she could have just warned him. But something inside had nagged at her. Would he?

And so, instead of delivering the fee as she’d told the others, morbid need drove Dominique to the motel that night. She used an alias to get a room and lie in wait, bitterly hoping she was wrong. Part of her had already known, and that part had come prepared. Entering the room to find that trollop with her lover, Dominique found that the gun was already in her hand. It went off so easily, much more than one might expect. She would have made an end of his cheating whore, too, if she hadn’t had bigger plans.

While the girl stood waiting for death, eyes squeezed shut in terror, Dom stuffed a pair of gloves into the girl’s purse. A pair she’d bought to match her own perfectly. The gun was left in the room, too, as evidence of Lanie’s guilt. Lanie’s punishment would not be death, but consequence for it.

Though she’d though everything had gone off flawlessly, something led police too close to her door. Thank God she already had her runaway plan. Now she had no wealthy man along to split the bill, but what she’d gained by those risky, high yield investments should keep her solvent for a while.

Chester not being here to share it bothered her, but better she found out what he really was before running off together like some lovesick fool. Besides, there was no shortage of handsome, willing, and wealthy men on the island. So yes, she’d had a narrow miss but had landed on her feet. Such was the story of her life. She just hoped that her friends had been smart enough to cover up the rest so their lives would be full of barbecues, not prison bars.

Silencing her thoughts for another sip of her drink, a conversation wafted to her over a gentle current of afternoon breeze stirring off the bay.

“
I know he was with that skinny little tramp from the Mambo line. I could smell her cheap perfume on him.”

Turning in on the chat, Trudy found the words attached to a gaudy brunette with a gaudier cocktail diamond and a pointy bikini top. Her abundant waist was mercifully sheathed in a sarong. She sat with two other hens, bobbing their heads in female commiseration.

“
I mean, does he have any idea what I could do to him if I caught him cheating on me?”

A simple-eyed blonde blinked at her. “What could you do?”

“
Take half of all he’s worth, for starters,” she said.

Her other companion frowned. “Thought you signed a prenup?”

Laughter bubbled out without warning, and the three women turned their stares in Dominique’s direction, each wearing varying stages of incredulity.

The wife in question leaned forward in her lounge. “Find this amusing, do you? Not that it’s any of your business.”

Smile never wavering, she nodded. “My apologies. But I find it downright reminiscent.”

Lowered voices whispered of busybodies before returning to the subject of infidelity, and the new Trudy Walters returned to her drink. Perhaps she might hang up her invisible shingle someday, and A Grand Seduction would be back as a sole proprietorship. Casting a glance sideways at the women, she chuckled to herself. Next time, however, she wouldn’t make the same mistakes. She’d offer the same service to men looking to dump gold-digging wives.

After all, sometimes women were the ones who had it coming.

THE END

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