Killer Hair Read Online Free PDF Page A

pleasure. Hence, its popularity.”
    “I can’t believe you actually read my column.”
    “You write it for real women. I’m a real woman.”
    “Yeah, but you don’t need my help.”
    Brooke had flair that Lacey admired. Far from the stereo-typical dumpy D.C. attorney, Ms. Barton, Esquire, knew how to wear a suit and still look feminine, adding touches like antique lace handkerchiefs and lace blouses that on another woman would look silly. Tonight she was wearing a cherry red sweater with jeans and pearls. All blondes think they look good in red, but Brooke really did. It made her eyes look more blue. More innocent. Looks can be deceiving.
    In contrast, Lacey looked far from innocent. Her delicately arched brows gave her a knowing look she didn’t feel. Tonight she wore comfortable old blue jeans, two or three washings away from ripping through, and a black V-neck sweater. You can never have too many black sweaters, according to Lacey. One of her rules for life, along with: Never let anyone take pictures of you naked. Never keep a diary you would not want published in a family newspaper. And never secretly tape-record your conversations, even in Virginia, where it is legal.
    “I’ll tell you one thing.” Brooke broke into her thoughts. “It’s just as well you don’t get involved. You don’t want to wind up dead, do you?”
    “No one involved with Marcia Robinson has died.”
    “Until now.”
    “And that may have nothing to do with Marcia.”
    “That we know of.”
    “You have to keep in mind there could be jealous stylists, unhappy clients, psycho boyfriends. And maybe it was suicide, after all.”
    “Point taken. Of course if you do look into it . . .”
    “If I do?”
    “Be interesting to see if Marcia has serious hair issues,” Brooke suggested. “I wonder what she told her stylist. You know, ‘Only her hairstylist knows for sure.’ ”
    “Who knows? It’s way too easy to blab away while someone is massaging your head,” Lacey said. “Remind me to gag myself the next time I get my hair cut. You don’t really think it’s dangerous, do you?”
    “Not really. But I’d like to think so.”
    “So tell me, Brooke, about that Marcia Robinson mess. Tell me why, instead of actually trying to talk to a real woman, men will spend hours on the Internet surfing Web sites where virtual women take off their clothes?”
    “Pheromone jammers.” It was Brooke’s current favorite theory of why men and women in Washington, D.C., could not connect with each other. Obviously the Pentagon had installed pheromone jammers on its roof, beaming relationship-killing Romance Death Rays at every man within the Beltway. “It does something to their testosterone. Something weird. Turns it into decaf.”
    “Makes perfect sense to me,” Lacey said. “My signals have been jammed for years.”
    “Romance Death Rays. We’ve been irradiated. You have to admit, it’s pretty crazy purveying naughty photos of the Small Business Committee staff on the Internet. Good Lord! More of a horror show than erotica. Here in the Capital City of dweebs, geeks, and nerds.”
    “No one actually believed that was the attorney general wrestling nude with an alligator on Marcia’s Web site,” Lacey said. “Did they?”
    “You had to buy the video for a better look. That was just a teaser. I was pulling for the alligator.”
    “Washington, D.C., the only place on earth where Henry Kissinger could be considered a sex symbol.”
    “There’s a woman in my office who has a crush on James Carville,” Brooke said, passing the popcorn.
    “Oh please, the Human Snake Head? You just killed my appetite.” Lacey swallowed her last handful and wiped off her hands.
    “People think D.C. is full of sex scandals. The real scandal is that’s all the sex there is,” Brooke said. “I haven’t had a date in two months. How’s that cute cops reporter of yours?”
    “Trujillo? Stomping on women’s hearts with his new armadillo