The Naked Truth (The Honeybrook Hamdens)

“Fine, but don’t leave anything out.”

“I won’t.” Julie bounced from the table so quickly that the plates in front of her clattered as she moved. Then, just as she scooted into the hallway, she turned around and added, “Oh, and Mom?”

Her mother’s head of greying curls moved in her direction.

“No chainsaws today, okay?”

After her mother nodded (and added a less-than-surreptitious eye roll), Julie sprinted up the stairs, grabbed her cell phone, and then popped a cigarette in her mouth.

Let the haggling begin.

Between doing everything in her power to clean the living room short of dousing it in gasoline and calling the whole operation a bust, Julie somehow managed to find the time to call everyone in her office--including the custodial staff.

Their response was unanimous. Not one of them was willing to help.

Rhonda, Jerome, Bethy--they all claimed mysterious, vague responsibilities far too pressing than the indie fashion show in two short weeks.

At her wit's end, she made a last ditch effort and called her former assistant yet again.

She didn't bother waiting for Trina to say a word. Instead, when the line clicked to life, she said, "Don't hang up."

"Julie." Trina's shaky voice sounded over the line.

In the twenty times Julie had called, the line somehow magically managed to go dead mid-sentence. If it happened this time, she was going to go to New York and check all the damned power lines herself.

"Don't say that. Say you're talking to someone else." She didn't know why she was whispering. Probably because the whole thing felt so covert. Either way, when Trina said, "But why--" Julie hissed back, "Just do it."

"Oh, I'm sorry Mrs. Melanoma. I thought you were someone else."

"Melanoma? Are you calling me a cancer?"

"I'm doing my best,” she hissed. “I was reading an article and..." There was a pause, and then Trina's lowered voice came over the line, "You really shouldn't be calling here."

"Make an excuse and go in my office."

"Of course. Let me see if I can find that for you. Please hold." Trina hummed softly into the phone and then after a tiny click she said, "We're all under threat of death if we talk to you."

"It can't be that bad."

"I'm telling you, Troy wants blood."

"But you know what he did--"

"It doesn't matter. You don't have any proof. Just come back, please. He'll give you back your job. You still have time."

"No." Julie huffed out her nose, then picked up a brush from the floor and scrubbed the hardwood with as much strength as she could muster.

After a long pause, Trina's voice came over the line again. "What can I do?"

"I need you to look for proof."

"I can't--"

"Listen, if I'm gone, they won't have need of you. I know I'm asking a lot but..." But what? Trina had no reason to help her. She was a young kid in a city she couldn't afford. Putting her job on the line would be lunacy. Beyond lunacy. It would be--

"What he did was wrong," Trina said.

"Yeah." The image of those perfect jackets rippled through her mind again. They were hers. Or, at least they had been.