LITMIR.BIZ

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girlfriend instead of the blackmailer?

      Rick should have listened. He had nothing to go on, not even the most rudimentary details of the blackmail attempts. He didn’t know when, how often or why. But there was another reason Rick needed access to Ned’s house. Years ago, he’d given Ned a package for safekeeping. The police may have found the eight-by-eleven bubble pack in Ned’s safe, and Rick had to get it back, if it was still there. A part of him hoped this investigation was as cut-and-dried as the officer had suggested. It was why Rick hadn’t mentioned Ned’s concerns about blackmail, and wouldn’t.

      3

      Lane Chandler was doing four things at once, which was about two less than she normally did. She’d pulled up Gotcha.com, a tabloid Web site, on her computer screen, praying not to see any of her clients featured there. She was also mentally updating her to-do list, a never-ending task, and she was undressing…all while chatting with her favorite client on her cell-phone headset.

      “She wants gangsta rappers for her sweet-sixteen party?” Lane draped her suit jacket over the back of her office chair and then perched on the edge of her desk, easing the pain of her obscenely overpriced new high heels. She turned enough to continue searching the Gotcha home page, but so far no clients in jail or rehab—and no mention of the one she was specifically looking for.

      “Thank you, God,” she said, mouthing the words. She felt lighter, but it was too soon to relax. She had yet to check Jack the Giant Killer’s column.

      “Jerry,” she implored her headset, “say no! Someday your daughter will thank you for refusing to book the Gutter Punk Bone Dawgs for her special day.”

      “Say no to my Felicity? I’d stand a better chance against the Bone Dawgs.”

      Jerry’s loud snort of laughter made Lane wince. She turned away from the computer screen to give her shoes a dark look. The way her day had gone, if her high-profile clients didn’t kill her the Manolo Blahniks would. Fortunately, she had Jerry on the phone rather than in her office, so he couldn’t see her torturing the side slit of her skirt as she bent over and pulled off the exotic footwear that was cutting her insteps to ribbons.

      She sighed with relief as she sank her feet into the plush office carpet. Who invented these stilts, the Marquis de Sade? A woman in high heels was supposed to be a sexual thing, creating an inviting tilt to the pelvis and a sensual swivel when she walked. But only a guy into serious S&M could love the pain on this woman’s face.

      “Lane, is that heavy breathing?”

      “That’s me, in ecstasy. I took off my shoes, and I’m warning you, the Spanx are next.”

      Silence. She couldn’t have shocked him. Not Jerry. He wasn’t shockable, and they often bantered. It was all in good fun. He was a big sweet bear of a man with a thick head of brown hair and a matching beard. He ran one of the largest discount chains in the country and he was among her top five clients, if you ranked by sheer business clout, but he was also her mentor and someone she could let down her hair with, which she was about to do right now, before the tightly embedded hair clip gave her a migraine.

      She reached into the back of her upswept do and freed the claws that held the heavy mahogany waves off her neck.

      “Spanx are panty hose, Jerry.”

      “I know,” he chided. “I have a daughter. But you should know by now that I don’t have a thing for feet. Now, if you’d said earrings, that would be different. A woman’s naked lobes make the back of my neck sweat.”

      “Earrings next, my love.”

      “You tease.”

      She laughed and was suddenly glad he’d called, even though she’d been trying desperately to close up shop and go home. She ran a private concierge service that had been growing like topsy up until very recently. But this had been another day from hell in a week of days from hell. She couldn’t believe anyone could make her laugh, but Jerry had. He always did, which was why she’d taken his call at this late hour instead of letting the service put him through to Zoe, his own private concierge.

      Jerry was one of forty-five top-tier clients, who paid up to fifty thousand dollars a year for Lane’s Premiere Plan. They each had a private concierge devoted solely to their needs, who oversaw no less than six rotating concierges with different specialties, who were also at their beck and call around the clock. But Jerry wouldn’t necessarily be able to talk freely with Zoe about his very spoiled daughter—and Lane owed him so much anyway. He really was more than a mentor, much more, but not in a romantic way. They flirted a bit, but he’d never even come close to making a pass at her. Sometimes she wondered why not.

      She slipped off her clip earrings and shook her head, aware of the caress of her hair, cool against her burning face. It had been a hard day, a terrible day, possibly the worst of her career. Normally she would have been frustrated at having to deal with a sweet-sixteen party when it felt as if everything she’d struggled and sacrificed for was imploding. She would have done it, though, because that was her job description. She took care of all her clients, and Jerry was a vital one.

      But right now, maybe she needed one client she could actually help.

      “Seriously, Jerry, you should consider saying no to Felicity.” She spoke softly, pleadingly, as she worked her kirt up, hooked her thumbs into the waistline of her ultra-stretchy Spanx and dragged them down. “I know how much you love her,” she went on, making her case as she peeled off the panty hose, “but the Bone Dawgs have a criminal record, and more important, if you don’t draw the line somewhere, Felicity will never learn to respect her limits—or others’.”

      “Lane, when did you turn into Mother Superior?”

      “Actually, I was trying for Dr. Phil.” So much for reasoning with Jerry. She stepped out of the Spanx and wanted to moan it felt so good. Her flesh was celebrating. Why was everything so tight? If stress caused water retention, then she was a dam about to burst. “How many are coming to this party?”

      “Felicity hasn’t given me the final count, but I’m estimating half her class at St. Mary’s, which is a hundred, another twenty-five from her church group and that many again from company friends, my various clubs, colleagues and vendors.”

      Lane began to calculate, adding up numbers and aware that the amounts her clients were willing to spend on lavish parties could still shock her, especially with the country’s struggling economy. Still, she had a job to do and a payroll to meet for her own employees, who now numbered several hundred around the country.

      “Okay,” she said, “let’s say two hundred guests to allow for long-lost cousins, last-minute invites and party crashers. Kids love to crash these things. That’s half the fun. Does she still want the Avalon ballroom in Catalina? That means a charter cruise ship for transportation—and the talent will have to be flown in and flown out the same night, or put up at the island’s luxury condos. The guests are staying over, aren’t they?”

      “Some will, I’m sure. As you said, whatever they prefer.”

      She undid the button of her skirt and tugged at the silk camisole. “We’ll get a count when they RSVP. It’s good of you to be this involved, Jerry.” He could have had a personal assistant do it, or hired a party planner to work with his daughter. Most single dads with his bank account would have.

      “It’s for Felicity.”

      Anything less wasn’t an option. His voice said that, unequivocally. Lane could hear rap music playing on his end and smiled. At times like now, she worried how far he would go to make Felicity happy, and whether he was trying too hard to compensate for what had happened when Felicity was twelve. Her mother, Jerry’s ex-wife, had become despondent during their custody battle, knowing she was almost certain to lose custody of her child because of her drug use, and she had taken an overdose that proved fatal.

      “This is going to be a great party, Jerry.” Lane walked across the carpet, bare of foot and shoulder, aware of her image flickering from the

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