Dead Case in Deadwood by Ann Charles Read Free Book Online Page B

you into the
sack yet?"
    Her bluntness caught me off guard. As much as I wanted to
confide to a peer about the crap I’d dealt with from Ray, I thought of Jane’s
policy about badmouthing coworkers. For all I knew, Ray could be using Tiffany
to set me up for a fall.
    "Ray’s been a perfect gentleman for the most part."
That lie even tasted bad.
    Tiffany’s sculpted eyebrows raised. "We are talking
about the same Ray Underhill, right? Fake tan, fake smile, fake charm, fast
hands?"
    Yep, that was the same dickhead. Although, I’d only
witnessed Ray’s charm when he’d used it on his clients. "I think so."
    "Hmmm. Maybe I have him pegged wrong." She frowned
at my hair. "Or he’s not into blondes."
    "That’s probably it."
    He would never be into me, mind or body, not as long as I continued
to stand upright and breathe oxygen.
    Wait! Maybe that’s what Ray was doing with the Mudder
Brothers crates—necrophilia. I cringed at the morbid nosedive I’d taken and
tried to pull out of it.
    "I think he prefers redheads." Like Mona. And
Tiffany.
    "They all do," she said with a smirk, "at
first."
    And we were back to the "Tiffany Does Doc" show in
my head, damn it. How much did lobotomies cost these days? Maybe I could sign
up for a payment plan.
    I tried to steer my head away from the images of tangled
legs and focus on learning more about Ray, the lesser of two evils. "Have
you worked with Ray a lot?"
    "A little bit here and there over the years."
    "He’s a good salesman," I baited.
    She shrugged. "He knows a lot of people with money to
burn."
    "I wish I knew what tree he was finding them in,"
I muttered. "I could use a few more hanging around my desk at work."
    Tiffany looked me up and down, her alabaster forehead wrinkling.
"Violet, can I be honest with you?"
    Oh, crudmeister. This couldn’t be good. Where’d I leave my
Kevlar vest? "Sure."
    "I don’t understand your hair."
    My hair? I hadn’t seen that coming. I tucked some loose
curls behind my ear. "What’s to understand?"
    "You’re not using it to its potential."
    My hair had potential? For what besides ensnaring small
flying animals?
    "You should put some volumizer in it, fluff it up a bit
more, work the Dolly Parton angle."
    Make it bigger? Was she serious? I wouldn’t be able to fit
through doorways.
    Tiffany looked down over my hips. "You definitely have
the curves for it."
    I looked down over my so-called curves, trying to suck in
the extra speed bumps. "I don’t know. I’m a little light up top to pull
off Dolly." Make that a lot light.
    "Nah. You just need a push-up bra."
    In addition to the one I already had on? My chin would be
resting on my boobs. A blush raced down my neck, bee-lining toward my substandard
cleavage.
    "Or you need a better one." Tiffany added. She
must have smelled the embarrassment smoking out of my pores. "In the
meantime, try this."
    She adjusted the knot of fabric at my sternum, tugging it and
refitting, and then pulling on some of the fabric near my armpits, exposing
cleavage I didn’t realize I had. She stepped back and eyed me again. "That’s
better."
    I frowned down at the tops of my boobs puffing out of the
dress, looking a cup size bigger. How’d she do that? I had a hell of a time
just making them point in the same direction most days.
    "Now shake your hair out, like this." She did a
shake and fluff with her red locks and motioned for me to try it.
    Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, I took out
my hairclip and followed her directions, curls flying everywhere.
    "That’s it." She scrutinized me like a sculptor
eyeing a big pile of clay. "Now you look like a woman who knows how to get
what she wants."
    Right. I shoved some curls out of my face. Just like that,
buyers would start lapping at my feet. I wished.
    "Trust me," she said. "I know what I’m talking
about. I haven’t won all of my awards for my brains alone. I know how to flip a
property—any property. And dressing the part is half of the