Killer Deal by Sheryl J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

of papers on my desk when the intercom line on my phone rang.
    “It’s Suzanne. Could I see you please?”
    I took a moment before answering because I was debating whether to speak into the phone or turn around, look the ten yards to Suzanne’s desk outside Eileen’s door, and just yell, “What?” Trying to start my morning off as politely as possible, I said, “Be right there” into the phone, then strode to Suzanne’s desk in under three seconds.
    Being Eileen’s assistant is a tough gig and Suzanne Bryant made sure we all knew it, wearing the squinted eyes and pinched smile of a martyr who can endure her pain as long as others notice her struggle. She’d only been on the desk a couple of weeks, so we were cutting her some slack
due to the freshness of her suffering, but I was starting to sense a little enjoyment of the role on her part. This one bore watching.
    “It’s awfully early in the morning for me to have already done something wrong,” I said to test the waters.
    “Who said you’d done anything wrong?”
    “Am I not being called to the principal’s office?”
    “That’s not really fair, to Eileen or to me,” she huffed.
    “I never intended to be unfair to you,” I promised her. She cast a significant look at Eileen’s door, but I let my statement stand as is. “Did you need something?”
    Suzanne handed me a message slip. “You better hurry. She’s waiting for you.”
    “Eileen?”
    “Gwen Lincoln.”
    The message slip had a Central Park West address on it. Only catch was, I’d been planning on calling and setting up the interview with Gwen Lincoln once I’d finished all my research. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d be summoned at her convenience.
    “Why are you still here?” Eileen shrilled before her office door was even fully open.
    “I just arrived.”
    “Emile called minutes ago and said they were ready to see you. Go quickly, before they change their minds.”
    “Emile and Gwen?”
    “That’s not a problem, is it?”
    Actually, it was sort of a problem to have other people dictating that the first interview of my first real investigative assignment had to happen before I was fully prepared, but I knew there was no room for argument. Making sure Suzanne had my cell number in case of another imperial summons, I threw a tape recorder and notepad into my bag and flew back downstairs and into a cab. Jotting my questions down in as organized and clear a manner as the lurching of the vehicle would allow, I managed to catch my breath by the time I arrived at Gwen Lincoln’s apartment.
    She promptly took it away again. I’d seen pictures of her,
but was still unprepared as she stepped into the doorway of her apartment’s drawing room. It was a high-ceilinged room done in creams and golds and she was a luminous redhead, clear-skinned and statuesque, dressed in an amazing yellow Versace suit and a wicked pair of orange patent leather Brian Atwood pumps that showed off her yoga-sculpted legs to great advantage.
    I was perched on the edge of the brocade settee to which the maid had directed me, still trying to decide what nonchalantly professional pose to strike, when Gwen appeared. She looked me over boldly and smiled. I tried to figure out what amused her more—my outfit or my look of surprise.
    She strode over to me and I stood instinctively. Instead of offering her hand, she picked up the recorder from where it sat on the cushion next to me and flipped it on. “Molly Forrester,” she said into it with a tone that implied if that hadn’t been my name before, it was now. Tossing the recorder back to me, she indicated with the flick of an acrylic nail that I should lower myself back to the settee.
    “Ms. Lincoln, thank you for seeing me.”
    “Did I have a choice, kiddo? That was never clear to me.” She was in her mid-forties, but the “kiddo” seemed more a reference to our relative social standings than our ages. Taking the armchair across from me, she called,