I nodded.
I looked back at the Rock Chicks as Tex, Shirleen and I headed to the Navigator. There were smiles, waves and chin lifts.
I waved back but didn’t smile.
I was too busy freaking out about what I was going to do next.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Octuple Revenge
Tex drove his bronze El Camino into the parking garage under the Nightingale Investigations offices and I saw Olivia wheeling Winnie’s wheelchair around the side of her Lexus.
Tex parked and barely had the car shut off when he shot out, hauling ass over to Olivia. I followed as fast as I could which wasn’t very fast in four and a half inch, spiked heels.
“Shee-it, girl, you’re about five foot two and wearin’ pumps. You shouldn’t be doin’ transfers. It ain’t safe. Get outta my way, I got it,” he boomed to Olivia and I watched with surprise as he pushed her aside while he explained to Winnie, “Don’t worry. Jet taught me how to do this. Nancy, my girlfriend, Jet’s Mom, was still recoverin’ from a stroke when we got together. She’d get tired, she’d need her chair.”
Olivia and I stood back as Tex expertly transferred Winnie from car to chair.
“You’re good at that,” Winnie said when she settled in.
“Nancy don’t need her chair now,” Tex shared. “But it ain’t somethin’ you forget how to do.”
See, told you Tex was a good guy.
Winnie gave him a grin and patted his hand then looked at me. “You ready?”
No. No, I was not ready. But I had to be ready. Luke had given me one option, and I was going to take it.
Luckily, Daisy was right about Tod and Stevie knowing how to shop. Not only was I wearing the Fuck-Me Outfit of All Time, I had on Manipulate A Macho Man Underwear that would make John Rambo forget that Vietnam even existed.
Not to mention, Indy and Ally showed up at Roxie’s and Indy gave good hair and Jet was a dab hand at makeup – experience gleaned from her days working at a strip club. Daisy stepped in and did a cover up job of my black eye that was so good, if someone took a before and after photo, it would win awards.
Therefore I was vamped out like nobody’s business.
Indy had curled my hair in tight banana curls then she ran her slimed-up-with-hair-gunk-fingers through it, shaking it all around so my head was a mass of sexy, wild, soft curls.
Jet had done my makeup sultry, giving me dark, smoky eyes, barely there blusher and lots of lip gloss.
Tod and Stevie’s Fuck-Me dress was a deep, forest green. It was strapless and fit like a glove from cleavage to hips. It stopped just above the knee and on one side had a deep slit nearly up to my hip. The shoes were killer, totally sex on heels. They were black with pointed toes, high, pencil-slim, spike heels and a thin, complicated ankle strap that took me (and Roxie) ten minutes to figure out how to fasten.
But it was the underwear that made the outfit and you couldn’t even see it. You just felt sexy wearing it. Way sexy. Off the charts sexy.
The undies were two-piece in a deep green, one shade down from forest, a strapless bustier and skintight, satin panties. The bustier was covered in black lace and the panties were also heavy on lace in all the right places. The backs of the panties were cut high (not thong high, but close) so they showed lots of ass. The back of the bustier was dipped low so it showed lots of skin.
The underwear wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’d ever worn but what the hell. No pain, no gain.
“Yeah. I’m ready,” I answered Winnie.
“She ain’t ready,” Olivia muttered.
I decided to ignore Olivia. I had to focus and I didn’t need negative thinking.
We took the elevator up and went to the offices. Shirleen was sitting behind the reception desk talking on the phone.
When we walked in, her tawny eyes came to me, bugged straight out of her head and she said, “Dorothea, I gotta go. My girl’s here and shit… I don’t even know what to say. Words won’t describe it. I’ll get my phone, take a picture. You have got to see this.”
Shirleen hung up and dove under the desk, coming up with her bag at the same time digging out her phone.
“Shirleen, I don’t have time for pictures,” I told her.
“Girl, you want a photo record of this. Trust me,” she returned, pulling out her phone, dropping her bag on her desk and bleeping buttons, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. “Now how does this thing work?”
“Give it to me,” Olivia said, sashaying toward Shirleen. “I got the same phone. I take pictures all the time.”
I looked at Tex, beginning to feel desperate. By my calculations I had, like, a minute before Luke and the boys “finished” with Noah.
“Will you go get Luke?” I asked Tex.