1 Hairspray and Homicide (3 page)

"Don't know if Harroway can handle you," he finally said with a troubled sigh. "You might turn out to be a bad influence, you know."

"Me, a bad influence?" Bekki asked with a devilish smirk as she polished off her second brownie. "Oh dear detective, I do recall some not so legal brownies..."

"Bekki!" he glared at her and then glanced around to see if anyone was walking down the street. "That was just a rumor," he hissed.

"Mmmm," Bekki grinned, enjoying teasing him. "Just a rumor."

"See I knew you'd be dangerous," he chuckled as he shook his head. "You young lady, just know a little too much."

"Maybe," she smiled lightly. "But if you keep bringing me brownies, I promise that I will keep all those secrets to myself."

"All of them?" he asked, his voice growing a little husky around the edges as he lifted his eyes back to hers. She stopped the swing suddenly by planting her feet against the wooden slats of the porch. She met his eyes boldly, feeling all of her determination flood into her expression.

"It's all in the past Nick," she promised, her words delivering a dual message that he sighed when he realized it.

"All right then," he smiled casually. "Better get back to making some more brownies," he stood up from the swing and nodded his head slightly to her.

"Good night Bekki."

"Good night Nick," she replied as casually as she could. She watched as he walked down the porch and out onto the walkway. She wondered if it was going to be a bit of a problem having him live so close by, but at the same time it actually did make her feel safe to know that he was near.

Chapter Three

When she arrived at the salon the next day she was surprised to find her mother already there.

“Mama, you're supposed to be on vacation,” she reminded her with a frown.

“I know, but that Daisy has been up to no good again. I called to replenish the supplies that you needed and all of our distributors are refusing to sell to us or have raised the price.”

“Why?” Bekki asked with surprise, this was certainly not how business was done in the city. “How can they do that?”

“Daisy told them the salon was changing hands and was likely going to be closed down, so now they're afraid they won't get paid,” her mother lamented as she shook her head. “I don't know what that woman has against me but I wish she would just give it a rest,” she sighed with frustration. “The grudges that people hold onto are just ridiculous.”

When she looked back up at her daughter there were tears in her eyes. “I'm so sorry Bekki, I wanted this to be a good thing for you, not a stressful thing.”

“Don't worry about it Mama,” she said firmly and scrounged up a smile. As far as she was concerned, Daisy had no idea what was about to hit her. “You just let me handle this.”

She picked up her cell phone and began dialling her business contacts, then she called the distributors that had changed their prices or denied service. Once she explained the situation and dropped a few names in the industry, the distributors were more than happy to return to their previous price or offer bigger discounts. She also noticed that a lot of the customers they had scheduled for the day and the upcoming week had cancelled.

“Don't worry,” she assured her mother. “They'll be back when they see what Daisy has to offer, or more importantly, what she doesn't have to offer. Now please, go home, spend some time with Dad, or go out shopping, just get this off your mind. I'm going to take care of it,” she promised. Her mother was still sniffling a bit when she left the salon. The sight of her so upset left Bekki furious. She spent her entire day fuming as she thought of Daisy.

By the time the salon closed for the night Bekki was enraged. She could not believe that Daisy would sink to such a low. It wasn't the business aspect that angered her, but the fact that her mother had been sent into such a panic over everything that was happening. Determined to put an end to it once and for all she decided to pay Daisy a visit.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Sammy offered with a frown as she watched Bekki lock the salon.

"No, I think it's better if it's just me," Bekki shook her head. "I just want to make sure she understands that I won't tolerate this kind of behavior. I'm not a kid anymore, and if she wants to fight dirty she's going to have to do it face to face."

"All right, well call me if things get out of hand," Sammy said quickly as they began to walk towards the parking lot. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Remember Sammy, I'm the one with the black belt," she winked at Sammy and headed for her car.

"Oh well, in that case, I don't want anything to happen to Daisy!" she shouted out with a laugh. A few customers that were still leaving the parking lot glanced up at the remark, and laughed along with Sammy. As Bekki pulled out of the parking lot she rehearsed in her mind just what she was going to say. One thing was for sure she didn't want to lose her temper. If she did Daisy would win. She was going to handle it in a businesslike fashion, at least that's what she promised herself.

***

When Bekki reached Daisy's salon she was closing as well. She had a few customers in the reception area that were settling their bills. When she saw Bekki walk in she smirked and pointed to the hours on the window.

"Sorry honey, we're closing, though it does look like an emergency," she guided her eyes over Bekki's hair critically.

Bekki rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her stomach. "I'd like to speak with you Daisy," she said firmly.

"Then speak," Daisy shrugged. "No one's stopping you."

"Okay I will," Bekki said, ignoring the customers who were now hanging around just to be nosey. "I think it's extremely immature of you to behave this way. Obviously your business isn't doing well enough to handle a little competition, otherwise you wouldn't need to cause such chaos at my salon."

"Your salon?" Daisy fired back, her eyes gleaming. "Excuse me, are you talking about that rinky dink barber shop your mother runs? That is nowhere near able to compete with my salon," she offered a disdainful laugh.

"Then you'll have no problem knowing that I have already struck an even cheaper bargain with the distributors of our products, and no matter how many customers you poach, there are many more that will come directly from your salon to ours so that someone can fix the mess that you and your stylists have made on their head," Bekki was more than fired up as she stepped closer to Daisy. "Because when you have my mother so upset, it becomes personal."

"Aw, it's not my fault your mother is so unstable, I mean, look at the man she married," Daisy offered a high pitched giggle. "It's no wonder she's so depressed."

"How dare you!" Bekki shouted and lunged towards Daisy, her instincts to protect her mother were overriding her years of discipline that karate should not be used unless it was in self-defense. The customers gasped and hurried out of the salon, while Teddy rushed in from the back office.

"What's going on here?" he asked as he got in between Bekki and Daisy. "What have you done now Daisy?" he sighed with frustration. He was obviously tired of all of the confrontations his wife caused.

"You just stay out of it," Daisy snapped and pointed her finger directly at Bekki. "You get out of my salon, and if I ever see you back here, I will make sure that you leave in handcuffs. You have no right coming over here and threatening me!"

"Oh it's not a threat," Bekki snapped back, her heart still pumping with anger. "If you do anything to harass my mother again I will be back, that's a promise."

As she turned and walked out of the salon, she heard Daisy pick up the phone and dial the police station.

"I want an officer out here right now!" she shouted into the phone. "I want to file a complaint!"

Bekki was so angry when she reached her car that she couldn't bring herself to drive. She was afraid she wouldn't pay attention to anything but her fury. All of her training was telling her that she could easily make Daisy understand what a real threat was, but she knew better. If she got herself into any serious trouble it would reflect poorly on the salon, not to mention complicate her life. But Daisy's demeaning remarks reminded her a little too much of Trevor, and touched a wound that had yet to heal. After a few minutes she finally pulled out of the parking lot.

Bekki was never someone who went to bars a lot. She did visit some clubs in New York City because that's what everyone did. It was a great way to get new customers and it also kept her up to date with the trends and interests of the younger generation. However, tonight wasn't about trends or fashion, it was about needing to calm down. She decided to stop at the only little bar in town.

There weren't too many people in the bar as it was a Thursday night, but those that were there appeared to be regulars. It seemed like a safe place to blow off some steam. As she settled in at the bar, the bar tender walked over.

"Well if it isn't Rebekah Wilson!" the man announced with surprise.

"Mr. Matthews?" Bekki replied with equal surprise. "Not teaching math anymore I see?" she laughed.

"No, I won't say that teaching school led me to drink, but it did push me into a bar!" he laughed and offered her a beer on the house. Bekki accepted it and took a big swallow of it. She began to relax as she chatted with Mr. Matthews, who insisted she call him Doug, about how the town had changed and how it had stayed the same. By her second beer most of the regulars had left and it was just her and Doug. That was when she confessed the real reason she was there, and he commiserated with her about Daisy's behavior being disruptive to the entire town. They talked for quite some time until Doug excused himself to start preparing the bar for closing, and Bekki was finishing off her beer. When the door to the bar opened, Doug called out.

“Sorry we're closing,” but the two men who entered didn't listen. They just walked right up to the bar.

"Can I get a beer?" the larger of the two men asked in a gravelly voice. Bekki glanced up at him but she didn't recognize him. That didn't surprise her, since she had been gone for so long. The man that stood beside him was thinner but still quite muscular and both of them seemed to carry the air of trouble. Bekki wasn't one to make a snap judgement, but the way the larger man leaned against the bar and glared at Doug made it clear that he wasn't interested in leaving without his drink.

"I'm sorry pal, we're closing," Doug repeated and stood his ground behind the bar. While Bekki took the last swig of her drink the thinner man sidled up to her.

"Well, maybe this lovely lady will share hers," he suggested and leaned closer to her. Bekki stiffened and narrowed her eyes.

"No thanks," she replied calmly. She knew better than to engage someone she considered to be a threat.

"I wasn't really asking," he said in a slow, syrupy voice. He picked up the bottle of beer and drank the last drop. Bekki felt her heartbeat quicken as she realized that these two men had not stopped in for a drink at all. She noticed a gun tucked into the back of the larger man's pants. She started to reach for her cell phone.

"Don't do it," the skinny man warned and put his hand over hers. "Just stay calm pretty lady, you and I will have our time together soon, but first I need to take care of something."

He nodded to the larger man who withdrew his weapon and pointed it at Doug.

"Empty the register and the safe," he demanded. Doug glanced over fearfully at Bekki and then looked back at the man with the gun. "Okay, don't worry, I'll give you everything, just don't hurt anyone, okay?" he tried to stay as calm as he could.

Bekki had lowered her eyes and was pretending to be terrified. She didn't want to give the two men any idea that she had the skills she did. In truth she had only ever fought off a mugger once, but she had won plenty of competitions with much larger men, who had trained for much longer than she had. She had taken classes that involved knives, as well as guns, just in case she was ever faced with this moment. Her constant training was one of the reasons that she could eat anything she wanted. This wasn't a classroom, or a competition. Now it was real, and she felt a little nervous about whether she would truly be able to do what she intended.

As Doug began emptying the register, Bekki waited for the perfect moment. It came when the larger man with his gun in hand leaned over the top of the bar, and the skinny man glanced over at him to see what he was looking at. In that moment Bekki jumped up and shoved the skinny man into the larger man, making the two of them collide into the bar. Her eyes never left the gun, which was in the larger man's hand. As she expected him to, the larger man shoved back at the skinny man, bringing the weapon closer to Bekki as he did. Bekki seized that moment to land a blow so fierce to the man's forearm that his bone cracked. When it did, she watched his fingers spring back from the trigger and reached out with her free hand to snatch the gun from his injured grasp. Once it was in her hand, she began to hear again. She heard Doug crying out in fear, she heard the larger man scream in pain, and the skinny man begin to curse. She held the gun on both of the men, her eyes glinting as hard as rocks as she glared at them.

"On your knees," she demanded.

Doug grabbed the phone to call the police, and while he was on the phone Bekki held the two men at gunpoint.

"She's not going to shoot," one of the men said to the other. "We should make a run for it."

Bekki smirked and played her finger on the trigger. She wasn't going to let them think that she wouldn't shoot. Before she had the chance to prove it there were sirens outside. Nick and three uniformed officers burst into the bar, their guns drawn.

Nick automatically pointed his gun at the person with a weapon, and only noticed who it was after he glanced up at her face.

"Bekki drop the gun," he demanded, his voice catching in his throat slightly. Bekki lowered the gun as the other officers rushed the two men and began handcuffing them.

Nick reached out and grabbed the gun from Bekki's hand a little more roughly than he needed to.