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for it later. I would swig some Pepto before work and hope for the best.
    I headed for the bathroom to start the shower.  The thought of hot water made me almost giddy. I stripped to my birthday suit and turned on the stereo. 
    The water felt as wonderful as I’d imagined. The chamomile shampoo almost forced me to relax.  I lathered my entire body, foregoing the usual body soap most people use.  I never understood that. In my mind, soap was soap. After my twenty minutes of bliss, I shut off the tap, dried and wrapped my long hair in a towel.  
    When I opened the bathroom door, I heard the phone ringing. I ran and had to nearly dive to catch it before the machine picked up. Just as I panted, “Hello?” the line went dead. I hate that, but it gave me an idea. I decided to take things into my own hands.  I looked around, trying to remember where I put that damn card.
    I ran back into the bathroom and grabbed my work skirt from the previous night. Fishing around in the cargo-style pockets, I came out with the small black rectangle. “Yes!” I yelled and fisted it as I ran back into the kitchen. Moving the card back and forth, I dialed the number.
    The phone rang only once.
    “McPhee Estate, Nadia speaking,” a female voice answered sweetly. “How may I help you this afternoon?”
    Oh-yeah, this guy was definitely loaded.
    “Yes, this is Grace Allen. I’m calling to speak with Seth, er.. Mr. McPhee; is he available?”
    The woman was silent. The silence stretched and I began to wonder if she were still there. “Yes, Ms. Allen,” she finally began in a skilled office tone. “We have been expecting your call, but, unfortunately, Mr. McPhee is out for the day.” However, he left a message for you, should he be unavailable when you called.
    Okay, I guess that was normal. What did I expect her to say? “Seth isn’t here, because he’s on his way to your house. He will be there presently to chop you into tiny little pieces.” I giggled to myself, but only half of me thought it was funny. 
    “Ah…Thank you.” I puzzled. “What’s the message, please?” I felt a little better. She sounded like someone’s mother. How could he be an insane murdering psychopath with such a nice sounding receptionist?
    “He has instructed me to inform you that he will be at a bar called The Edge, if you wish to speak to him this evening.”
    Well, hell. “Tonight? But how will I know who he is?” I lied, feeling only a little guilty.
    “He said he would come to you.”
    I felt the blood drain from my face.  My hand shook, jiggling the receiver against my ear. Lucian said Seth was given a full accountof what I looked like . I wondered if he already knew the bartender at The Edge was really me. Lucian didn’t believe Seth was fooled. He seemed a little surprised, actually.
    Super.  Well, so what if he already knew who I was! If that were the case, then he let me lie to him. What was he playing at? I must have looked like the biggest fool!  There was still a small chance that he was duped, but I wasn’t really counting on that. Damn, I felt dumb.
    While I pondered all of this, Nadia was giving me directions to my job, in case I got lost. She said she would let Seth know I would be joining him, even though I hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She promptly thanked me for calling and hung up before I could voice a single protest.
    I stared at the phone in my hand, and then tried several times to fit it into the cradle. Cripes! I had another set of shitty options presented to me in another shitty situation. I could go to work as my normal self and possibly risk my job, which didn’t seem all that intelligent; or I could go in my everyday work wear and just say, “Screw it.” The sad fact was that no matter what I wore, I was going to look like a total lying dip-shit! I was really starting to hate my life!
    I heaved a frustrated sigh and pulled the towel from my hair. It spilled down my back in a wet tangle as I walked