Revenge for Hire (The Get Even Agency) (22 page)

Marcus told him he was either a fool or brilliant.

Marcus. What would he have done without his friend? Marcus not
only provided a place to stay, cash to spend, but had been right about Jude’s
apartment being ransacked. All his financial documents disappeared.

Other than that, his apartment had been clean as a whistle and
no trace of any cockroaches. Not that he believed there ever had been.

Marcus also held off on filing a suit of his own since
technically they had no proof of anything at this point.

“Jude, love, will you get me another glass of wine?”

Jude nodded and motioned for their waiter.

She’d already drunk several. Perhaps the alcohol would loosen
her tongue. Up to this point, nothing else had, although she’d dropped a few
hints she knew more than she let on. Enough that he knew he was on the right
trail.

Right trail? Hell it was the only trail he had. Angela had
disappeared from his life as quickly as she’d shown up.

Part of him wanted to believe it was because she was
disillusioned by what happened at Playhouse and the lies the media printed. Unfortunately
he couldn’t buy into that belief. There were too many coincidences, too many
unanswered questions for him to think her entering his life hadn’t been planned.

Which meant he’d been used.

If he found her, and he would, he didn’t know if he’d strangle
her or kiss her senseless. Possibly both. The gaping hole in his chest demanded
she pay for whatever her part in all this was.

The waiter filled Mandy’s glass, then hurried on about his business.

She sipped her wine, staring at him with half-closed eyes. There
was no denying that she was a beautiful woman on the outside, but it was the
frigid inside that chilled Jude’s soul.

“You going home with me tonight, love?”

Did she have any idea how much he hated her calling him that? Or
how much he hated that he was essentially whoring himself in hopes of gaining
access to whatever that pea-sized brain of hers held?

An image of Angela flashed through his mind.

“You sure a woman like you wants a man who’s not yet back on
his feet?” he covered, hoping his eyes didn’t convey his thoughts.

Her gaze dropped, running over the expanse of his throat
exposed above his button-down shirt. “Oh, I want you,” she purred.

He’d done her before, tried to care for her even, but that had
been months ago and before his life went to hell. When he’d respected Simon and
carried that respect over to a daughter who deserved nothing. Mandy left him
cold.

So cold that he would do her to get what he wanted? God, he
hoped it didn’t come to that, hoped he could keep putting her off with comments
on how he needed to be back in control of his life prior to restarting their
physical relationship.
 

Anger heated his insides and provided one hell of a motivator.

One way or another, he’d discover the truth, then revenge would
be his.

Chapter Eighteen

From across the Dallas club’s table, Avery batted her lashes at
the swine she’d been sent to set-up. A jerk who’d cheated on his wife of
fifteen years and given her Herpes. Through the buddy system, the well-connected
guy had gotten most everything in the divorce settlement, including custody of
their two children. The woman wanted vengeance and hopes of regaining custody
through proving what an unfit bastard the man really was.

She’d contacted the agency through the regular means, but
hadn’t had the funds to pay. They unanimously opted to take the case anyway. They’d
never turned a case down based on whether or not a person could pay. Not ever.

Avery had hired a local private investigator to tail the jerk
for the past two weeks, done her homework in between her Arizona doctor mark,
and then dressed like a high class hooker and wearing a short-cropped blond
wig, she’d moved in for the kill.

“Jerry, I
wanna
go back to your place,”
she said in a semi-whine while running her foot up his thigh. Jerry had a
penchant for cocaine that he’d somehow managed to hide from his wife and from
the judge. It had only taken talking to a few of his ex-girlfriends to discover
his habit. She’d already checked his coat pocket and he was packing the white
powder. Avery hated drugs, never used them, but she excelled at using men’s
weaknesses against them. Jerry’s weaknesses were loose women and coke. “I need
a fix.”

She cradled her foot in his crotch, disgusted at how he leered.

“A fix of me?”

Oh yeah, like that would get a woman off. She mentally rolled
her eyes and giggled out loud. “Uh-huh.”

Jerry paid their check. “My nanny,” who he was reportedly screwing,
“is at my place with my kids. We’ll have to go to your place.”

“My roommates are at my apartment.” Avery leaned forward giving
him an unrestricted view down the front of her skintight tank top. His tongue
practically dropped out of his mouth.

“A hotel room perhaps?” he suggested, his eyes never lifting
from her cleavage. “Unless you think your roommates would like to join us?”

Gag.

“Nope.” She shook her head and ran her gaze over him as if he
were dipped in chocolate and not the grossest thing she’d ever come across. How
dare the jerk screw around and bring Herpes home to his wife? “I’m not sharing
any of you.” She giggled again. “Not tonight, at any rate.”

He licked his lips. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Avery laced her hands with his, mainly to keep him from groping
her bottom again. She’d swear the man had more hands than an octopus had arms.

At the cheap motel, a woman who’d smoked one cigarette too many
took in Avery’s barely there white mini-skirt and bright red tank top. She
caught Avery’s eye and winked.

Avery winked back. Everything was in place.

Thirty minutes later, she stared at the half-comatose jerk
while she placed a call to 911.

“Yes,” she drawled in an accent that would make any Texan
proud, “you’ve
gotta
help. My boyfriend’s passed out
and I think he might be dead.”

She listened to the operator tell her to remain calm and then
ask her location.

“The
Cheatin
Heart Motel, room 19B. Oh,
please send an ambulance. I think he’s dead,” she whined, sounding almost
hysterical while she inspected her wig to make sure it was still perfectly in
place. “I’ve tried to get him to quit using this stuff for months.”

The operator asked more questions, including what Avery’s name
was, which she ignored.

“Cocaine. I think he might have overdosed. Please hurry. Oh,
someone’s at the door.” Avery hung the phone up before the woman could ask more.

She slipped out and into the room three doors down where
Cassidy watched television.

“Everything set?” she asked, clicking the remote’s mute button.

Avery nodded and pulled off the blond wig. “It’s set. He should
come to in about fifteen minutes. Just in time to tell the paramedics why
there’s white powder in his nostrils and in his bloodstream. Felicia shouldn’t
have any trouble getting custody of her children after this. If she does, we’ll
come back.”

Avery walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She
stood waiting for the water to warm, rubbing her palms over her bare arms.

“You okay?” Cassidy asked from the open doorway.

“Fine.” She straightened, shot her friend a smile. “Just feel
dirty from that slime ball touching me.”

“You didn’t?”

Avery frowned. “Not that. Yuck. The guy was a total creep,
besides…”

She didn’t finish. She couldn’t. Cassidy already saw too much.

“Besides he’s not Jude? Is that what you were going to say?”

Just hearing the name out loud caused her heart to squeeze
painfully. She shrugged, refusing to give voice to anything that might fuel
Cassidy’s inquisition.

“He’s dating again.” Cassidy dropped the words casually but
nothing about the way Avery’s head shot around was casual.

“What did you say?” Damn it. She didn’t want to care.

“Jude.” Cassidy looked smug. “He’s dating again.”

Avery snorted, attempting to hide how much the news bothered. “Was
there ever any doubt that he would?”

“Actually he started seeing this woman on the day after we left
New York.”

The day after? The bastard.

“Figures.”

“Don’t you want to know who?”

“No.” She didn’t. Just the thought of Jude touching another
woman, loving another woman drove ice picks into her chest. How could he?

Because he’s a low-lying devious snake. That’s why she’d done
what she’d done to begin with.

If she could fully convince herself of that maybe she’d quit
thinking of him all the time.

She turned her back to Cassidy and pulled off her tank top. She
needed a shower to wash away Jerry’s nasty scent. His heavy cologne still made
her eyes water.

It was the cologne doing that. Nothing more.

Certainly not thoughts of Jude with another woman.

“Mandy Sims.”

The name scraped her heart with the impact of shard glass.

She crossed her arms over her bosom and faced Cassidy. “You
can’t be serious.”

“He took her out that Saturday evening and spent a lot of time
at her apartment on Sunday.”

Avery paced across the small bathroom. “How do you know this?”

Cassidy grinned. “Let’s just say Randi and I decided Jude bore
watching for a while longer.”

“You’ve had him followed?”

Cassidy grinned. “Since he was escorted from Playhouse on
Friday morning.”

Avery didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You dogs,” she accused, playfully tossing a towel at her
friend. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Let’s see. One, you said you didn’t ever want to hear the name
Jude Layman again.” Cassidy ticked off her fingers. “Two, you said if I dared
mention his name again you were going to use my Nair on me. Three, you said
if…”

“Okay, I get the picture.” She glanced at the steaming water. “Let
me take a shower then you are going to tell me everything.”

Cassidy smiled a bit wickedly. “Need me to wash your hair?”

Avery’s eyes went to the hotel shampoo. The seal wasn’t broken.
“No thanks.”

Cassidy laughed, flipped her hair over her shoulder in a
pretend huff, and closed the door.

Avery finished stripping her clothes and slipped into the
shower. The hot water sluiced over her skin, washing away the stench of the
evening. Another job well done.

Another scorned woman avenged.

Jerry would go straight from the emergency room to where he
deserved to be, jail. The agency set right another wrong.

Avery shampooed her hair, cracked open the conditioner bottle,
and massaged the white cream into her hair. She sighed and gave in to the
thought pressing her. Jude.

So much for loving her. He’d already moved on with Mandy Sims.

Ugh. She hadn’t liked the woman before. Now, an emotion akin to
hatred ran through her. An emotion she didn’t like.

Avery knew that from time-to-time women got back together with
the men who they’d hired to have revenged. Occasionally a wife didn’t leave at
all but hired the agency to appease her wounded pride.

Mandy Sims’ case was different. What had the woman wanted? Revenge
on Jude for breaking her heart and taking a job that should’ve been hers to
begin with according to the woman. Since she’d read online articles saying Mandy
Sims had been named the new editor-in-chief of Playhouse Avery assumed the
woman’s claim was true.

The witch had taken Jude back. Had he gone crawling to her
thinking she would help him regain his job? Or had he discovered he cared for
the Miss December when he hit rock bottom? Sometimes it took losing everything
to realize what you’d had. Was that how it happened with Jude?

Was that what happened with her?

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back into the steamy
spray. Droplets of water ran down her face while she rinsed the almond scented conditioner
from her hair.

Never did she bathe that thoughts of showering with Jude didn’t
enter her mind. Thoughts of his golden chest glistening, thoughts of his
thorough wash of her body, her sudsy exploration of his.

She finished washing quickly and turned off the water.

Toweling dry, she snuggled into a terry cloth robe and twisted
her wet hair up with a towel. She went into the room and plopped down on the
bed opposite Cassidy.

Payback Puss lazily stared.

“Tell me everything,” she demanded.

Cassidy set her notebook down and met Avery’s gaze. “Jude’s
been trying to find you.”

After Cassidy’s earlier revelation about Jude’s quick rebound that
shocked her. “How do you know?”

Why would he be trying to find her if he was dating Mandy?

“The private investigator says he’s come by our apartment building
every single day at different times and hangs out around the entrance. He’s
still harassing the doormen. The P.I. wanted to know if Randi wanted him
arrested.”

Avery winced. “She didn’t?”

“If she wanted him to go to jail, he’d have been in jail during
the job.”

True.

“What did she say?”

“Just to keep letting her know what he was up to. He’s not looking
for a job yet, but two magazines have contacted him. He’s not met with either.”
Cassidy ran a finger over Payback Puss. “Randi thinks he’s holding out to get
his job back at Playhouse.”

“Is that a possibility?” Even as she asked, she knew.

“It is with him banging the owner’s daughter.”

Avery couldn’t quite hold back her wince. Was Cassidy speaking
with authority or assuming that Jude was having sex with Mandy?
 
Oh, who was she kidding? Of course he was. No
vow prevented him from doing exactly what he wanted. Exactly who he wanted.
Mandy. “The daughter who cost him the job to begin with,” Avery mused, acid
gurgling in her stomach.

“Exactly.”

Avery stared at the ceiling. “He acted as if he couldn’t stand
her at the Yamaguchi’s party.”

 
“Men don’t have to like
a woman to sleep with her. He’s probably just using her. It’s what men do.” Cassidy
looked thoughtful, lost somewhere in the past.

Avery took a deep breath. Odds were Cassidy was right. Jude was
a player of the worst kind. He played the game and he believed Mandy could help
get his life back. Perhaps she could.

“His accounts?”

Cassidy blinked, then she quasi-shrugged. “Randi released
access to his credit cards the Monday following our departure. His bank account
is still under lock down.”

“His apartment?”

“No more pest problems.” Cassidy smiled. “The media has moved
on to harassing that professional basketball player who crashed into a building
while under the influence. I can make a call to get Jude’s name splashed over
the papers again if you want.”

Avery grimaced. “No. His job is finished. No more revenge for
hire stuff. I’ll have Randi free up his bank account first thing when we get
home tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“It’s time.”

“For?”

“For me to completely put Jude behind me.”

“Haven’t you already?”

Avery stared at Cassidy through
slitted
eyelids. “What do you think?”

“That you love him.”

Avery fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Love? You
asked me what it was and I didn’t know how to answer you.” She bit the inside
of her lower lip. “Is dreaming about someone every time you close your eyes
love? Is thinking about him first thing when you wake? Last thing before you
sleep? Or looking at the sky and thinking it the exact color as his eyes?”