had taken her career in that direction, it would certainly explain the Mercedes and the fancy clothes and all that gold on her wrists and the olive-sized diamonds in her ears.
None of this, however, explained what Priss was doing hiring people to build up a collection of incriminating evidence on her.
And Stella didn’t like to be threatened. While being in the presence of a sharp and calculating criminal mind such as Priss’s might once have shaken her to the very core, now that she herself was a deliberate flouter of the law, Priss Porter didn’t scare her so much as make her very, very irritated.
“Tell me, Priss,” she said calmly, handing the photos back. “Do you think my butt looks big in them pictures?”
Priss made a funny sound, a sharp sucking-in of breath that Stella supposed meant she was reaching the end of her tight-assed fancy-talking rope. Oh, well. Not her problem.
“These are the only printed copies,” Priss said, tucking the photos back in the envelope. “But if you are considering some sort of retribution, I’ll have you know that there is a digital copy on a flash drive in a secure location which, I assure you, you will not find. If any misfortune befalls me tonight, a series of events will be put into play that you will very much regret. Authorities will be notified. Justice will be served. Perpetrators will be punished.”
“Oh, cut the drama, Priss,” Stella snapped. “You think I’m going to kill you over a few amateur photos? I told you I’m not in the murder business.”
“And I told you my name is Priscilla, ” she retorted, her voice going a little shrill. “Nobody calls me Priss anymore.”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong,” Stella said, standing and slipping her fuzzy sparkly jacket back on. “Just about everybody still calls you Priss around here. That is, whenever anybody remembers to talk about you at all, which isn’t very often because, to tell you the truth, under all that expensive makeup and clothes and shit, you just really aren’t all that memorable.”
“I can make serious trouble for you,” Priss said, standing up herself and glaring at Stella. With her high-heeled boots on, she was a good three inches taller, and Stella had to tip her head back to return the poisonous gaze, but she took her time zipping up her jacket and slipping on her mittens.
“And I guess I could make trouble for you, ” she said. “Tell you what, though, why don’t we just put this whole evening behind us. You drive on back up to Kansas City and find you some other sucker to clean up after your mess, and we’ll just pretend we’ve been sitting here exchanging casserole recipes.”
“I’m giving you one last chance, Stella Hardesty,” Priss hissed as Stella walked toward the door.
“Give Liman my regards.”
Only when the door slammed behind her did her heart start pounding like it wanted to bust right out of her chest. She sprinted for the Jeep and peeled out, wondering if she’d finally made the mistake that would land her in jail.
Chapter Five
By the time she pulled up Mindy’s sloping drive, Stella’s panic had simmered down to nail-spitting irritation. How the hell had Priss come across those photos? There were a fair number of people who could tick off a list of illegal things that Stella had done, but they were all clients, with ample reason for keeping the information to themselves.
Priss’s threats of exposure hit closer to home than she could possibly know, since the front line in dealing with a situation like the one the photos seemed to reveal would be the sheriff, and he had let her slide several times when suspicions had pointed her way. Goat knew more than Stella wished he did, since he had on more than one occasion stumbled into the aftermath of a case that didn’t wrap itself up neatly, though he had yet to put the pieces together and come up with a picture of Stella that he couldn’t live with. That was a delicate balance right