was late Monday morning and the two women were in Chantal’s living room where, for the past hour, Chantal had been practicing slapping cuffs on Harrah’s wrists.
“You don’t pay me enough for this,” Harrah grumbled.
“Nonsense, I pay you three times what you’re worth. Now, come on, just one more time.”
“I go home with black-and-blue wrists and Lena will think I’m seeing somebody who’s into bondage,” Harrah exclaimed.
“Lena knows you’re devoted to her, now stop bitching and walk like a criminal.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Harrah walked in front of Chantal. Chantal grabbed one of her wrists and slapped the handcuff over Harrah’s smooth mahogany skin. Harrah twisted her wrist and the cuffs dropped to the ground.
“Damn,” Chantal muttered. She picked up the cuffs and threw herself onto the overstuffed burgundy sofa. “You know, they make it look easy in the movies, but apparently there’s a finesse to handcuffs that I still haven’t figured out.”
She frowned with irritation as she thought of how easily Coleman had cuffed Baker on Saturday night. “I still can’t believe he walked away with my prisoner. He’s the most irritating, arrogant man I’ve ever known.”
Harrah didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. Her full lips curved into a smile as she sank into the wing chair opposite the sofa. “He might be arrogant, but that bad boy is sexy enough to make me rethink my sexual preference.” Harrah was a self-proclaimed lipstick lesbian who had been in a relationship with her partner for over five years.
Chantal scowled. “He looks as disreputable as the people he hunts.”
“I hate to change the subject while you’re nursing a grudge, but I need to get those invitations in the mail today.”
“Invitations?” Chantal looked at her blankly.
“You know, the dinner party you promised your mother you’re giving next week for Mr. Barnes? They’re already going to be sinfully late. I’m going to have to overnight them. I’ve got Enrique catering and he’s also taking care of the cake.”
The dinner party was for Jeffrey Barnes, financial advisor and close friend of both Chantal and her mother. Jeffrey was turning sixty next week and Katherine had thought it would be nice if Chantal put together an intimate dinner party as a birthday celebration.
“I’ve got the list for you in my office. I’ll get it so you can get started.” Chantal got up and left the living room to go into her office off the kitchen.
The first thing that greeted her was the view, a stunning panorama of an exclusive golf course. Chantal didn’t play, but when she’d house-hunted a year ago she’d fallen in love with the four-bedroom, story-and-a-half home and the pleasant surroundings.
Besides, there was nothing better than sitting in her office on a hot summer day and watching sweaty, well-built men swing a golf club.
In addition to the floor-to-ceiling windows across one wall, the room sported a wall of bookcases that held her favorite novels and knickknacks, a massive desk and a computer with all the latest bells and whistles that money could buy.
It was in this room that she did not only her work for various charities and organizations, but also much of her bounty-hunting work. Most people thought bounty hunting was all about bursting through doors and hopping over fences in pursuit of a bail jumper, but that wasn’t reality.
Reality was long hours on the phone, using the Internet as a tool, talking to snitches and watching a particular location while fighting off sleep. The rush of a capture was the payoff for all the boring, tedious hours it took to get to that point.
She sat at the desk and opened a drawer to pull out the guest list she’d written out several days earlier. Thank God for Harrah, who managed to keep her life organized.
She leaned back in her chair and smiled as she thought of the day almost a year before when Harrah had shown up to apply for the position of Chantal’s personal assistant.
“I’m black, gay and named after my mama’s favorite casino, but I’ll be the best damned personal assistant you’ll ever have,” she’d pronounced.
She hadn’t lied. There were days Chantal didn’t know how she’d functioned before Harrah. Harrah was tall and beautiful and the most efficient person Chantal had ever met. Harrah not only kept track of Chantal’s appointments and social engagements, she also kept the house clean and occasionally cooked.
As if conjured up by mere thought, the woman appeared in the office doorway. “Got it?”
Chantal nodded and handed her the list. “Do I have anything on my schedule for today?”
“Nothing,” Harrah replied.
“Once you get the invitations mailed off you can take the rest of the day off. I think I’ll head to the Plaza and work out in the Gym, then go to Mimi’s and get a facial and a massage. I’ve been tense since Saturday.”
Harrah grinned, exposing perfectly straight white teeth. “Kicking his ass would probably do you as much good as a trip to Mimi’s.”
Chantal laughed. “Yeah, but a trip to Mimi’s is a lot less dangerous.”
With plans made for the day, Chantal left her office and headed for her bedroom to change clothes. It had been the master suite that had ultimately sold Chantal on the house.
The room was huge with windows that overlooked the ninth hole. She’d chosen melon tones to decorate: lush cantaloupe and cool honeydew colors that she found sexy yet restful.
In the center of the king-size bed, a large gray cat raised its head and hissed as if to protest her very presence in the room.
She’d found the cat six months ago in a box near the Dumpster behind Big Joey’s Bail Bonds. It had been a miserably bitter January day with snow in the forecast. Chantal had brought the cat home and named it Sam, after her beloved father.
When she’d first found him she’d entertained fantasies of a warm purring fur ball against her chest, a little creature who would coil affectionately around her legs the minute she got home.
She’d obviously been delusional. Savage Sam, as she liked to refer to her roommate, didn’t seem to have an affectionate bone in his body and she had yet to hear him purr.
It took her only minutes to change into workout clothes, pull her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail, then grab her gym bag and leave the house. It was a thirty-minute drive to the Plaza, a high-rent, beautiful shopping area of the city.
The gym where Chantal worked out wasn’t an exclusive one and catered only to the serious-minded exercise freaks. The Gym was as simple as its name, a place that smelled of sweat. It definitely wasn’t a place for social gatherings or chitchat.
Power shopping was as close as Chantal had gotten to exercise before going to work for Big Joey. But she’d realized that if she intended to be a successful bounty hunter, she needed to make sure she was in the best physical shape possible.
She worked out for a little over two
