The Price of Greed

CHAPTER 16

Jill Spence looked up when the office door opened and she glanced meaningfully over the top of her glasses at the wall clock as Jarlayne came in. Noticing the silent scold, she stuck out her tongue.

"I know the time, Jill." She crossed the room to the desk and picked up the mail, already opened and sorted. "Anything interesting?"

"Cartwright finally paid his bill in full." She stuck a pencil in the side of her red hair and crossed her arms.

"Halleluiah. Better get it in the bank right away."

Scanned and mentally sorted for action, Jarlayne set the material back on the desk. "Nothing you can't handle in that mess. Tell the Hopkins that I'll rebate them for the last visit since they found their own means of dealing with the credit fraud."

Jill began typing again. "That's not fair. You did all the work."

"If they had used the same approach before they wouldn't have needed us at all. They're a nice couple on limited income. Just call them and let's get it closed."

"So how come you're late?"

"You wouldn't believe me." She tapped the corner of the desk and smiled.

Jill stopped typing and leaned forward. "Try me." She said with mounting interest. The pencil moved from her hair to her mouth.

Jarlayne recounted her early morning visit from the policeman... the cute policeman, and finished by getting herself a coffee from the tiny kitchenette built into one wall of the reception area.

"Who was he?"

"The cop or the victim?"

"Either. Both." Jill grinned and wiggled on her chair.

"The victim was a kid I went to high school with. I never finished there and I never saw or heard of him again."

"But he found you?"

"Apparently." Jarlayne drank some coffee. "He wanted to hire me for something. I wasn't interested at the time. Maybe I should have paid more attention."

"Meaning you are now?"

"It suddenly got interesting. Now the cop—Detective Keith Hood—he was actually kind of yummy."

Jill laughed and shook her head, pulling the pencil from her mouth and jotting some reminder notes for herself. "I don't see any man stirring your coals, boss; business is what turns you on." She resumed working at her computer, her grin accompanied by a clucking sound.

Jarlayne paused and stared at her secretary over her mug. Was that true? Is that what others saw when they looked at her? She drifted backwards into her office and closed the door, sitting behind her desk and staring out her window at nothing particular.

Jill's remark was a jolt that stirred some old, sad memories, memories of a man that actually had stirred her coals. An old friend and a lawyer, Gil Petchorik was her client on the Spenser-Forbin case, a high profile combination of fraud and murder. Jarlayne herself had been attacked in her home, barely managing to escape, and wound up in a hostage situation in a washroom at the airport arrival level.

She swallowed hard thinking about the affair she began with Mike Aznavsous, the detective who saved her life in that showdown and how it tragically ended when he was killed a few years later in a similar hostage situation. The memories bothered her and she pushed them from her mind. Now here she was unintentionally flirting with another cop. Madness.

A serious relationship was the only thing of any consequence missing from her idyllic life now. Jarlayne found most men too eager, too simple, and all with one-track minds, which she concentrated on exploiting instead of cultivating. One or two clients had tried to personalize their association but she had quashed those attempts with almost brutal refusals.