Drop Dead, Gorgeous Part 3

Lonnie made a mental note of the license plate number, and repeated it over and over again in her head until she had it memorized. Instinct was a b.i.t.c.h, or was it paranoia? Either way, she'd learned to listen to them both, because both of them were usually dead-on.

Panic threatened to take over when she made an abrupt turn at a stop sign down a side street, and the car followed.

Lonnie took several deep breaths, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She willed herself to try and stay calm, and to focus. She was being followed, and yeah, her a.s.s was scared s.h.i.+tless. How long had this fool been following her? Did he know where she lived? Even if he knew the building, there was no way he'd know which loft she lived in. The thought gave her some solace, but not much.

Jordan was trying to be slick. Who else would put a tail on her but him? She swallowed and took another sudden turn, right into the parking lot of a police station. Lonnie pulled into one of the parking lanes facing the street, and watched the gray sedan slowly drive past her.

Lonnie pulled out her cell phone. "Yeah, I need a taxi," she said, giving the dispatch the cross streets.

A knock on her window made Lonnie d.a.m.n near jump out of her skin. She reluctantly rolled down the window.

"Is everything alright, Miss?" the policeman asked, concerned.

Lonnie must've looked crazy, but the lie came almost immediately. "I think my ex-boyfriend is following me." She swallowed, glanced quickly out at the street, and spotted him parked half a block down. "He's uh-" She looked helplessly at the officer. "He's got a bit of a temper."

"Is that him?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the car that was following her.

She nodded. "He can't know where I live, officer," she said, playing up that damsel-in-distress role to the max. "I'm afraid that if he finds out-"

"Calm down. Calm down. I'll go talk to him."

The car pulled away from the curb and drove away before the police officer could get to him.

"Would you feel safer if I followed you home?" he asked kindly when he returned.

She nodded again, and smiled. "Yes, sir. Oh, thank you. Yes."

Lonnie waited for the officer to climb into his car before pulling back out onto the road. This was real now. Jordan had just showed her a card in his hand. And Lonnie needed to pull up her big-girl panties, and get ready to show him hers.

Back inside her loft, Lonnie bolted the door shut, took some deep breaths, and poured herself a drink.

"You're okay," she chanted over and over again until she was finally convinced. This was her game, not his. Lonnie had this. She pulled her new cell phone from her purse and dialed the number to Jordan's office. Of course, she got his voicemail.

"You've got me confused with an idiot, Jordan!" she said angrily. The thought that she'd gotten complacent and let her guard down, even for a moment, infuriated her. "I'm not a f.u.c.kin' amateur, you sonofab.i.t.c.h! This is my script! I wrote it, and I know how this is going to end!" She abruptly ended the call.

Jordan was devious and capable of anything. Lonnie had to pay attention. Because she knew the consequences of underestimating him better than anyone.

We're a h.e.l.l of a Nation Marauders made the best pan-roasted sea ba.s.s in the city. Jordan had spent his whole morning in meetings, so by lunch time, he was famished.

"It's been a while, Mr. Gatewood," the pet.i.te, brunette hostess said, leading the way to his table. "We have your favorite table waiting. Can I bring you your usual lager?"

"Please," he said cordially, as he took his seat next to the window.

She set the menu down in front of him. "Carlos will be your waiter today, and I'll send him right over."

"Thank you."

Half an hour after arriving, and well into his meal, Jordan suddenly lost his appet.i.te.

"Mmmmm, that smells good."

Lonnie sat down at his table, across from him. Long, dark waves of hair cascaded past her shoulders. A simple but brilliant diamond hung from a thin chain around her neck and the red wrap dress fell open at her thigh as she crossed her shapely legs.

Jordan put down his fork, leaned back, and wondered how the h.e.l.l she knew he'd be here.

Lonnie seemed to read his mind. "'The ba.s.s is always the freshest on Tuesdays at Marauders,' you told me once." A wave of hair strategically hid the left half of her face. "You never miss the sea ba.s.s unless you absolutely can't help it." Lonnie slightly leaned over the table, exposing that pretty neckline of hers. "You showed your a.s.s," she said casually. "I figured I'd stop by and give you a quick view of mine."

Edgar had told him about the tail he'd put on Lonnie and about how she'd shaken him by pulling into that police station. The message she'd left on Jordan's office phone was her idea of a warning. She was no amateur. But neither was he.

"She saw him because she was looking for him, Edgar," he'd told the old man, agitated. "It was a mundane move. A bit of a cliche. I expected better from you."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jordan spotted the waiter start toward his table. He put up his hand to stop him. Lonnie noticed, and poked out her bottom lip.

"d.a.m.n. Can't a sister even get a gla.s.s of water?"

"I thought this visit was all about a.s.s-showing, Lonnie. You can drink water someplace else."

She casually leaned back in her seat. "You really should be nicer to me, Jordan."

"When was the last time you saw nice in me?"

The question quickly wiped that c.o.c.ky expression off of her face. Loving Lonnie had gotten him played by her and Desi Green. Being weak for Lonnie had left him looking like a fool. Jordan was over being nice and foolish.

"I try not to think about it," she muttered, vulnerably. "But you had your moments."

"We had our moments, Lonnie," Jordan said, surprising even himself. Jordan pulled his napkin from his lap and tossed it on top of what was left of his ba.s.s. "I wanted you," he said bluntly. "I needed-you."

"Having somebody followed is tired and old-fas.h.i.+oned, Jordan. If you want to know where I live, why not just ask?"

He leaned forward. "So, where do you live?"

"If I didn't know better I'd think that you wanted me to hurry up and get this over with."

"Yes," he said, with certainty. "I want this to be over, Lonnie."

"But not too soon, Jordan," Lonnie said coyly. "I want to see you squirm."

"I don't squirm."

"You will."

He smiled. "I'll never put my hands on you again, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I let you f.u.c.k with me and get away with it."

"That's your problem, Jordan. You think too small. Of course I'll f.u.c.k with you, and I'll get away with it." Lonnie stood up to leave, relis.h.i.+ng the dismal expression on his face. "You lack vision. You always have, and that's to my advantage." Lonnie picked up his gla.s.s and took a sip of his beer. "Mmm. Always could count on you for the good s.h.i.+t." Lonnie winked and walked away.

Turn It Loose Frank should've known better than to bring up the encounter he had with Lonnie Adebayo to Colette. There was no such thing as casual chitchat with a cop, even an off-duty one lying naked and next to you in bed, hot and sweaty after thirty minutes of oral foreplay. When he worked on the force, she was his partner. At the time, both of them were married to other people, and both of them were cheating on their respective spouses with each other. Frank's wife divorced him four years ago, and Colette and her man were in the process of going through.

She was a big, white girl with green eyes and jet-black hair that she wore cut short and spikey. Colette was five-ten, had melons for b.o.o.bs, and at least a dozen tattoos all over her body. The first time he laid eyes on her, he thought she was a lesbian, but Colette was far from it. She loved d.i.c.k every which way but loose, and had him knotted up like a pretzel, drooling, and sucking his thumb. He'd been her love slave ever since.

"Jordan Gatewood is your brother?" she said in a tone that pretty much said she didn't believe it.

He shrugged. "If what that woman said was true, then technically, he's my half brother."

"And you believed her?" she asked, smirking.

No. He mostly didn't. "She said we had the same father."

"His father had the last name of Gatewood, as in Julian, as in dead millionaire. Is your father a dead millionaire?"

Frank cut his eyes at her. "What did I tell you about sarcasm? Didn't I tell you I hate sarcasm? I know I told you that."

"I'm sorry, but this s.h.i.+t is hilarious. So, who is this woman? What's her game? Blackmail?"

"Basically," he said matter-of-factly.

"No, for real."

He looked at her. "Yes."

"She wants to blackmail him?"

"I told you yes."

"And what did you say?"

"I left."

Colette raised herself up on her elbows. "So, she was serious?"

Frank sighed, staring down at his dissipating erection. "She seemed to be."

He could feel her studying him, the way cops tend to do to people when they're looking for signs that someone might be keeping something from them. "You believe her."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to try and profile me?"

"It's second nature, Frank. I can't help it any more than you can. You believe her? You believe that Gatewood is your brother?"

"Half."

"Whatever. Do you?"

s.h.i.+t, Lonnie had been pretty convinced and convincing. Maybe he hadn't believed her in the beginning, but ever since then, he'd been pulling up pictures of Gatewood online, and there was a resemblance, if not to Frank, then definitely to Malcolm, Joel Tunson's oldest son.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"What do you mean you don't know? You don't know if it's true?"

"It was how she said it. She knew things."

"Like what?"

"Like, she knew about my father sending money to my mother for child support for me every month. He still sends it, like clockwork, a hundred and fifty bucks, every month on the fifteenth to the credit union."

"So, have you ever met your real father?"

"Oh yeah. He'd come through every once in a while. I'd spend a day or two with him here and there. He'd bring pictures of my brothers and show them to me."

"That's f.u.c.ked up."

Frank thought about it. She was right. It was f.u.c.ked up. It was especially f.u.c.ked up finding out that the motha f.u.c.ka was being paid sick money and was only coughing up one fifty to Frank's mother.

"Was Jordan Gatewood in any of those pictures?"

"h.e.l.l, I don't know. He didn't mention a Jordan. He talked about Woody and Malcolm."

"So why is she so convinced that there's a connection between you and Gatewood? I don't get it."

Frank didn't get it either. And that's the part that didn't make sense no matter how many different ways he spun it. How would a man like Joel Tunson, factory worker, end up with a woman like Jordan's mother, socialite Olivia Gatewood? He'd seen pictures of that woman in her heyday and she was definitely out of his league.

"I mean," Colette continued, "she'd have to have some kind of proof. Right?"

He nodded thoughtfully. "She would."

"So, what is that proof, Frank?"

Frank's gaze drifted over to meet Colette's. "Where you going with this?"

"Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know if it's true or not?"

Sure he was curious, but- "Lonnie Adebayo could very well be crazy."

Colette nodded. "She could be. But you said she tracked you down and plucked you out of the crowd. She could've found a bodyguard anywhere. Dallas is full of them. Why you?"

Colette's imagination always did work in overdrive, even when they were partners. She had a tendency to spin these crazy-a.s.s theories, hoping that s.h.i.+t was more fantastic than it really was. Colette was the reason he'd left the force, and the reason she was looking for her own way out without raising suspicion.

"Stop it, Colette," he warned.

She knew what he meant, and he could see in her eyes that he'd struck a chord. "You need to look at the possibilities, Frank. All of them."

"No, I don't. And neither do you. I'll cut you short the same way I did her. Leave it alone."

"But what if it's true?"

"And what if it isn't?"

Most of the time, Colette was good at hiding it, but it was never far enough away from the surface, that desperation, that fear that the two of them would be caught. Frank had told her to just be cool and bide her time.

"You didn't bide yours," she'd snapped when they had last talked about it. "You f.u.c.kin' left, Frank! You left me here, hanging, by my d.a.m.n self, so don't you sit here and try and tell me to bide a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing because I'm the one who has to check in at that precinct every day and pretend like I don't know what happened! I'm the one who has to play this role wondering if they know what we did, and worrying that every d.a.m.n time someone knocks on my door that it might be the f.u.c.kin' police!"