“Pizza,” I say with a small smile.
“I took you for a pizza girl.” He smiles back. Detective Sanford gets up from his chair and starts walking toward the door. He stops and turns back toward me, hesitating for a moment.
I knew he really needed my help. Buckhead was complicated, intricate, like a spider’s web—so beautiful to look at, but so easy to get entangled in. Only the spiders knew how to navigate the web without getting stuck. And I was a spider.
“What do you know about Crystal’s life . . . before Buckhead?” he asks.
I try to recall the small tidbits I had learned here and there. She was a bartender in Texas. That was about all I had known about her. No one ever really asked about her past, unless it had to do with how her relationship started with Bryce.
“Actually, not a whole hell of a lot.”
Detective Sanford purses his lips and nods. “I thought so. It seems she had a complicated history of her own.” He opens the door and closes it behind him, letting his words hang in the air.
39
Karen
I wrung the mop out into the sink of the back closet one final time and left it propped up. Closing the door behind me, I walked back into the salon area. Shannon tossed a bag of used napkins, crumbs, and empty champagne bottles into the trash can. Jenny vigorously wiped down the tables and stations with a damp rag. Even though they were clean, she just kept on scrubbing. Keisha collected dirty dishes and put them all into a bin.
“You guys really don’t have to help,” Jenny said, blowing small pieces of hair out of her face and wiping her glistening forehead with her arm.
“Nonsense.” Shannon gathered the remainder of the trash.
“We’re not leaving you to clean up our messes anymore. We’re grown women,” I confirmed.
“Yeah, and you pay me,” Keisha added with a laugh.
“Okay. Okay.” Out of breath, Jenny took a seat in her salon chair and let out a huff.
The rest of us followed suit, so we were all sitting in a circle. We looked around the salon, which was pretty much spotless again. No evidence was left as to what had transpired an hour before. The blood from Mark was cleaned up, as well as everything that had been knocked over and left in disarray. The nail stations were all put away. The contract manicurists had packed up and left quickly.
“Are you going to the housewarming party, Shannon?” Keisha asked. Her question was sincere.
“No. You’d have to hold a gun to my head to get me to go to that.” Shannon took a sip of water and turned her nose up at the thought of it.
“I don’t blame you,” Jenny said. “What Bryce did today was completely out of line.”
“And let’s not forget the gala and the video.” Shannon crossed her arms in front of her chest.
I nodded. “It wasn’t just Bryce today though. My husband’s an idiot as well. I don’t understand his need to protect Olivia and this little feud he has going with Dean.” I folded my arms to my chest, matching Shannon’s posture.
“She is his client, right?” Keisha asked.
“Well, yeah . . .”
“And you two are friends?” Keisha crossed one leg over the other, bouncing her foot.
“Barely.” I rolled my eyes.
Before Shannon and Bryce split and Crystal entered the picture, Olivia, Shannon, and I were close. But our friendship had been fractured since it was made public that Shannon and Bryce were splitting, and we just drifted further and further apart. I still felt close to Shannon, even though at times she needed her space, but Olivia was driving a wedge between all of us.
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe he feels like he needs to protect her as a client and as your kind-of friend.” Keisha tried to make sense of my dilemma.
“Or he’s sleeping with her.” Shannon blurted out.
My eyes widened, and my mouth dropped open. “Do you think he is?” I stood from my seat and began to pace. Sitting still was always difficult for me, hence my need to run. I tried to piece together the last few months since Mark had really started acting strange.
“Ummm. No, I mean, I don’t know. I was just thinking out loud. You know me, Karen,” Shannon said with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Jenny chimed in.
I paced harder, my shoes smacking across the floor. Was he cheating? With fucking Olivia? Would he do that to me? Would he do that to Riley? Oh, Riley. My heart stung for a moment, thinking of my little boy. Could I even be mad after what Keisha and I did earlier?
“I should find out. Shouldn’t I? Like hire a private investigator or something?” I stopped and looked at each of them for confirmation.
Jenny nodded.
Shannon shrugged her shoulders.
Keisha pinched her forehead and looked at me with judgy eyes. She didn’t need to say anything. I knew what she was thinking.
“It couldn’t hurt,” Shannon said. “You know . . . to be sure.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a business card. “Here.”
“What’s this?” I took the card and held it up. It said, William Bellinger, Private Investigator.
“I used him a while back.” Shannon pulled out a tube of red lipstick. She slowly pressed it against her lips, tracing them back and forth.
“Wait—on Bryce?” Jenny asked.
“Among other things,” Shannon said with a flick of her wrist.
“Maybe I should hire a private investigator to figure out who broke into my salon. I think that’s the worst part, the not knowing. The feeling like they could come back at any time,” Jenny said, but I don’t even think she realized she was saying it out loud, because she wasn’t looking at any of us.
Keisha grabbed Jenny’s hand, snapping her out of her daze. “If it’ll make you feel better, you should.”
She looked at Keisha. “Oh, yeah, maybe I will. But Karen you definitely should,” Jenny said.
I nodded and slid the card into my pocket. I didn’t know if I would use it, but it didn’t hurt to have it. If Olivia was really sleeping with my husband, what else was she doing?
40
Crystal
Olivia sat across from me in a throne-like purple chair in her large and lavish living room. Opulent wasn’t a big enough word to describe her and Dean’s home. Everything was trimmed in gold and mixed with onyx and white marble. I’m not quite sure who her interior designer was, but I’m sure she had the Trumps’ number on speed dial. It was exactly how I pictured her decor taste would be. The house was a monstrosity of architectural design, big in every way imaginable—ten bedrooms, eight bathrooms, an outdoor pool, a walking garden, and tennis courts. Just like Olivia, it was over the top and in your face. I hadn’t known her long, but I knew that much about her.
She was holding a nearly melted ice pack against her eye. We had been sitting here for thirty minutes, talking on and off, mostly about the greatness of the house she resided in. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to abandon her like this. Olivia wasn’t a very kind person, but she was still a person. I knew what Dean had done to Olivia was an accident. However, what he did to Mark was deliberate, and I could see the rage boiling within him. I feared one day that anger would spill over onto Olivia, if it hadn’t already.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again for the hundredth time.
“Yes. It was an accident.”
“This time it was, but what about the next time?” I shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
Olivia took a deep breath and removed the ice pack from her face. She set it on the coffee table in front of her, leaned back in her chair, and gently pressed her fingertips to her bruised eye. She winced but continued to press her fingers into her skin. It was clear it was painful, but she kept doing it, which was rather odd. She stopped and looked directly at me.
“There won’t be a next time,” Olivia said.
“And you’re sure of that?”
“Yes, Crystal. I’m not some little girl who can’t take care of herself.”
“I’m not implying you are, and I thought the same thing . . .”