Shakespeare's Counselor Read Online Free PDF Page B

before.” She tried to squeeze out some tears, but couldn’t quite manage. “I just have such bad money problems, please don’t call the cops! My mom would die if I had a record!”
    â€œYou already have a record,” I observed.
    Her face flashed up from her hands and she glared at me. “What?”
    â€œYou have a record. For shoplifting and passing bad checks.” The computer had told us what employees and guests had been present at Marvel during the time the various thefts had occurred, and twenty-three-year-old divorcée Mandy Easley’s name had recurred. Jack had run a check on her.
    â€œWe’ll be glad to refund your membership money by mail after you hand us your card,” I said, as I’d been instructed to do. “When I have your card in my hand, you can go.”
    â€œYou’re not going to call the police?” she asked, unable to believe her good luck. I felt exactly the same way.
    â€œIf you return your card, then you can go.”
    â€œAll right, Robocop,” she said furiously, relief shoving her over the edge of caution. “Take the damn card!” She turned to yank it out of the pocket on her shorts, which were draped over the bench behind her. She extricated the plastic card and threw it at me. Mandy didn’t look like a well-groomed young matron any more as she yanked my twenty out of my purse and thrust it into the same pocket. She was sneering in my face.
    I had seldom seen anyone look quite so ugly, male or female. I thought Mandy Easley was just as much a waste of space as Byron, and I wished her out the door. I was sick to death of her.
    She read something in my face that stopped her manic rant. Yanking off the towel, she let it drop to the floor while she pulled on her shorts and a T-shirt and thrust her feet into sandals. She gathered up her purse, spitefully knocked over the stack of towels as her parting shot, and headed out the door to the hall leading to the main room. She spun on her heel to fire some comment my way, something that could be heard by everyone in the weights room, but I began moving toward her with all my disgust in my face. She hurried out of the gym for the last time.
    I had to straighten up the locker room, of course, and though it made me sick to do so, I had to pick up the card Mandy had thrown at me. While I was refolding the towels and placing them in the resurrected rack, I pictured many gratifying ways to make Mandy pick up her own card. By the time I had to take my place beside Byron again, I was in at least an equitable mood.
    â€œWhat happened to Mandy?” he asked casually, taking a moment away from his absorbed fascination with his own face reflected in the gleaming counter. “She took outta here like a scalded cat.”
    I couldn’t tell him she’d been stealing. That would jettison the whole idea. But I could tell him something else. “I had to take her membership card,” I said, even more seriously and quietly than normal.
    He goggled with curiosity. “What? Why?”
    I was drawing a blank.
    â€œDid she…make a pass at you?” Byron supplied his own scenario. I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. “Did she actually…was she actually doing something? In the shower?”
    I wasn’t supposed to disclose Jack’s business arrangement with Mel Brentwood. I looked away, hoping to indicate embarrassment. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said truthfully. “It was really ugly.”
    â€œPoor Lily,” Byron said, laying his hand on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “You poor girl.”
    Was he blind?
    Biting the inside of my lips to keep from snarling, I managed to indicate to Byron that I wanted to go work out, and he let his hand trail off my shoulder while I went to the leg press. After I’d warmed up and put the first set of forty-fives on, I dropped down into the sleigh-type seat and