The Inheritance, page 7
The crane on Twenty-second Street whirred into life, and she stopped to watch as it lifted an I-beam slowly into the air. The whir, coupled with the beam’s gentle twirling, lulled her into a meditative state until a pedestrian shoved her aside and snarled, “Watch on your own fuckin’ time, asshole. Some of us got places to be.”
Sirens wailed in the distance while she moved into and out of the random conversations of strangers she passed along the way. She hadn’t realized how far she’d walked or how long until she passed a vaguely familiar window with several antique clocks arranged on pedestals of varying heights. Most had pendulums swinging back and forth in rhythmic patterns that drew her in, calming her mind and slowing her thoughts.
“Ash?”
Ash turned to see her best friend, Darby, standing next to her, looking worried. When Darby glanced down to Ash’s waist, Ash followed her gaze and only then realized Diva was standing on her hind legs, hugging her waist and pinning her head up against her stomach.
Guilt immediately washed over her, and she knelt and took Diva in her arms. “I’m sorry, Baby. I’m okay. Really. Look.” She put on a big smile and held the dog back so Diva could see the grin. “See? All good.”
Darby sounded amused when she put her hand on Ash’s shoulder and chuckled, “As if a smile can hide your feelings from her. She’s a PTSD support dog, you goof. You think grinning at her like a fool is going to trick her into thinking all is suddenly great in your world?”
“Does it work with you?” Ash grinned up at her friend, who had more of a shorter bulldog physique when compared to Ash’s taller, broad-chested boxer build.
Darby studied Ash’s hair and new clothes. “You know, from across the street, I wouldn’t have known it was you if I hadn’t seen Diva. Look, I’m just opening up the club. Why don’t you come in and have a soda, and we can chat as the people start wandering in? Besides, Diva looks like she could use a drink. How long have you been walking around like a zombie? Because that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this hot chick moving up the street, completely oblivious to everyone and everything around her.”
“The club?” Surely, she couldn’t have walked that far in…she looked at the clocks in the window. “Six o’clock? Holy shit, Darby. I left the M building at three.”
“The M building? I thought your meeting was in the Loftquist. The M is what? Five, six miles from here?” Darby put her hand around Ash’s shoulders. “Jeez, girl. Come on. Let’s get you inside, and you can tell me all about it, okay?” They walked to the corner and waited for the pedestrian light to blink green. Traffic was heavy this time of day. As they crossed, horns blared, and people yelled for no other reason than that Darby and Ash had the temerity to cross in front of their cars.
Darby flipped them off and yelled right back, but Ash was too caught up in the crazy events of the day to pay them any mind. The red door of Darby’s club, Code One, stood out from the clean white bricks that made up the front of the building. Darby pulled a ring of keys out of her tan cargo pants and opened the door. Without waiting for an invitation, Ash walked into the small reception area where one of Darby’s employees waited to answer knocks and welcome people to the club.
Darby was very careful about who she allowed inside. If the employee answering the door was unfamiliar with the guest, the guest was always carded, and they were always asked whether they knew what type of club they were entering. Tonight, Cassie, a tall ex-softball player who didn’t take crap from anyone, sat behind the desk.
Cassie saw Ash and blinked several times, trying to mesh Ash’s usual attire and messy hair with the woman who’d just stepped through the door. “Damn, girl. You clean up good.” Cassie had only worked for Darby the last year or so and hadn’t seen Ash before she’d been sent back to Iraq for a third tour several years earlier.
Darby had known Ash before that, though. In fact, the two had been best friends and lovers in high school and roommates in college, eventually realizing that they made much better friends than lovers. Both were muscular without being too masculine, soft butches who both liked being in control during their sexual encounters. That was the main reason they hadn’t worked out as lovers, but really, Ash preferred femmes over butches any day of the week.
Darby’s eyes held a hint of amusement as she steered Ash past the desk. She grinned down at Cassie as they walked past. “Down girl. And wipe that drool off your lip.”
Not sure whether her boss was kidding or not, the blonde bombshell quickly swiped at both sides of her mouth before getting up to answer the buzzer telling her someone was waiting at the door.
It had taken ten years, but Darby had built Code One from the ground up. It was the only place that felt like home to Ash. Every time she’d come home on leave, instead of getting a hotel or staying in a rented apartment, she’d made a beeline to Darby’s club.
Ash went behind the bar and grabbed Diva’s bowl from beneath the counter. She filled it with water and set it near the dog bed Darby kept in the corner just for Diva. With her best four-legged buddy taken care of, Ash sat on the end stool, crossed her arms on the bar, and lowered her head down onto them.
“Here.”
She heard a glass clunk down on the bar top, followed by a hiss as Darby shot a stream of soda into the glass.
“Sit up and talk to me. What happened? If Noah screwed you over, I’ll strangle him.”
Ash sat up and took a long drink, savoring the pain as the cola burned a swath down her throat. She set the glass on the bar, and Darby topped it up again. “Thanks.”
“So?”
“Harcourt’s finally rotting in his grave.”
Darby’s brows rose. She’d been the only person in the world Ash had confided to about who her father really was. After she’d run away, most people believed the lie that she lived with her old Auntie from Detroit. Even though she’d only been twelve years old, Ash, or Mari, as she’d been known back then, had planned well. She’d stashed close to a million dollars worth of art and bronzes her father had never even realized he’d owned and had never, ever missed and had used the proceeds from their sale judiciously over the years.
When it came time to register for high school, she’d paid a retired hooker to pretend to be her aunt, and no one had ever followed up on the story. She’d rented an apartment with a bronze of a lioness standing over her prey. The landlady had the piece appraised and had allowed Ash to stay in the apartment all the way through high school and the end of their senior year of college.
“And?”
“And, I don’t know. They took my DNA and treated me like shit. So I left.”
“You left? Did he leave you anything?”
“One lady said if I was who I said I was, I’d be filthy rich. I told them I didn’t want a penny of his money.” She glanced up at Darby, who just nodded.
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Anyway, it occurred to me that if I did inherit anything, you know, like, you know, businesses or something, I could completely dismantle everything the bastard spent his whole life building up. So I went along with things to see what was what, ya know?”
Again, Darby nodded. “And?”
“And for some reason, the lady who owns the M building was there, and after they took my DNA, she said she had a shower in her office I could use.” Ash glanced up sheepishly. “I smelled pretty bad.”
“You said you were gonna shower before the meeting. Put on clean clothes.”
“Well, it was cold, and this cop came to roust us, and I punched him so I’d have a warm place to kip for the night.”
“You idiot. How many times do I have to tell you that if it gets cold, I have a bed for you in the office? Or you can come stay with Pris and me.”
“Oh, right. Having an ex-girlfriend bunk on your sofa will do wonders for your marriage.”
Darby put a hand on Ash’s forearm and squeezed. “Hey. I was completely upfront with Pris that you and I are a package deal. Anytime you need help, we’ll both be there for you. You know that. Pris loves you like a sister. Don’t ever forget that.”
People had been steadily arriving while they talked. Under Darby’s strict rules and watchful eyes, Code One had become the go-to place for lesbians to socialize and/or have casual hookups with friends and strangers alike. It was a place for women to experiment with new and exciting people or to simply get the type of sex they weren’t able to get anywhere else.
Quite often, couples would come to find someone interested in a threesome, or maybe a dominant woman could hook up with women who liked it rough. The rough stuff happened in a whole other room Darby had kitted out with BDSM toys and straps and such, but pretty much anything was fine as long as it was one hundred percent consensual.
Ash glanced across the room and saw a friend of theirs sitting on a sofa fully clothed with a woman kneeling on the floor at her feet. Kelsey was a hard butch who wore her hair in a crewcut and dressed in men’s fashions tailored to make even her squarish body vibrant and beautiful. Tonight, she’d also donned suspenders and a red bow tie, a fashion statement Ash always thought looked hot. “When did Kelsey get back? I thought she was out of town on business.”
Darby studied her for a while. The worried look told Ash she’d said something wrong. “What?”
“Ash, that was two months ago. You haven’t been in here since early October.”
That couldn’t be right. “No. We just talked….” She tilted her head, trying to remember when they’d last gotten together.
“We talked on the phone, but I haven’t seen you since the last time you were in here.” She hesitated, “Well, not officially, anyway.”
A grin quirked up the sides of Ash’s mouth. “You’ve been spying on me again?”
“Not spying. Checking up. Now tell me why you were wandering around downtown in a daze.”
“I wasn’t in a daze. I just had a lot to think about.”
“Oh yeah? What do you remember between three and six?” A warning spark of anger flashed in Ash’s eyes, and Darby knew to back off. She held up both hands. “Okay, okay. Just tell me what happened at the meeting. You got a shower, a haircut, and some new clothes. Then what?”
“The M lady, McGuire, I think her name was, had her assistant bag up my clothes. They were gonna throw them in the trash. What the fuck did they think I was gonna wear when it got down into the twenties tonight? This?” She plucked at the white cotton shirt.
“Wait. Phyla McGuire was the lady you went to meet?”
“Well, yeah, her and some attorney. Allegra something.”
Darby blinked. “Allegra Saint-Germaine? You’ve gotta be shitting me.” She leaned her forearms on the bar so she could look directly into her eyes. “Ash. Those are two of the most influential women in the country. Hell, McGuire’s one of the most powerful women in the world. Well, at least in the real estate and business world. What did they want?”
A woman sitting at the other end of the bar called out, “Hey, Darby. What’s a woman gotta do to get a beer?”
Darby grinned at the lady and then turned to Ash. “Hang on a second. Gotta earn my pay.…”
While Darby worked the bar getting newcomers their drinks, Ash checked Diva, who was racked out on her bed, sleeping. For some reason, Diva always sensed that Ash was safe around Darby and she could relax. Diva probably figured this was her home base, too, where she could kick off her shoes, stick her nose in her front paw, and catch some z’s. They’d had an unsettling day, and Ash was glad her pup could catch up on some much-needed rest.
Darby returned and placed a plate of mini chimis in front of Ash. “Here, eat. So, I guess Saint-Germaine was handling Harcourt’s estate, right? But what was McGuire there for?”
That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Ash shrugged. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me anything before the DNA results came back, and then McGuire pissed me off by trying to burn my clothes, so I left.”
Another woman called for Darby, and she held up a finger, asking them to wait. “Sorry. Look, I’ll get Lynn to handle the bar for a bit, and we can talk.” She picked up Darby’s bag of clothes. “And I’ll throw these in the wash.”
The murmur of conversations happening throughout the room was interspersed by soft moans as women wasted no time getting whatever they came for. The left side of the room was strictly for talking and visiting, while the right side was open for women to explore their sexuality. Ash’s eye was again drawn to Kelsey, who had taken a cigarillo from a pack on the table and was twirling it back and forth in her mouth.
She was relaxed and had the air of someone completely in charge of the moment. The woman at her knees unbuckled Kelsey’s belt and pulled it open. Kelsey must have felt Ash watching them because she turned and met her eyes, grinned around the cigar, and lifted her chin in greeting.
Ash returned the gesture just as the other woman pulled the zipper down. When Kelsey raised her hips, the lady slid the pants down off her legs and onto the floor. With one hand on the table and the other on her thigh, Kelsey opened her legs and pointed to her knees.
The woman immediately began kissing first one and then the other knee, gently massaging Kelsey’s thighs with deft movements of her long, graceful fingers. When Kelsey tapped her thigh with her finger, the woman moved up and kissed there.
Kelsey apparently hadn’t told the woman to move on because, when the lips strayed upwards, Kelsey rapped on the table and wagged a finger in the woman’s face. The woman immediately gave her a pouty-faced look and began licking the spot she’d just kissed.
Ash dragged her gaze away when Darby returned. The amusement she found in her friend’s eyes made her smile. “What?”
“Bailey’s been asking about you since you’ve been gone.” They both looked to a corner booth where a shapely brunette, whose olive skin perfectly complemented the shade of her long, wavy hair, sat staring directly at Ash. From past experience, Ash knew the woman was submissive elegance, from the top of her silky head down to the toes of her high-heeled shoes, and Ash felt a familiar ache start between her legs. Swallowing hard, she returned her attention to Darby and shook her head. “Too much on my mind right now.”
“Maybe that’s why some time with Bailey is just what the doctor ordered.”
The picture of Phyla McGuire flashed through Ash’s mind and sent such blatant desire coursing through her that she actually felt wetness seep between her legs. Despite herself, her eyes widened in surprise. “Whoa.”
She and Darby had been friends for over twenty years, and Darby’s eyes widened at the pink splotches that appeared on Ash’s cheeks. “Whoa? Looks like you’ve been missing Bailey, too?”
Ash shook her head. “No. Just too much happening all at once, that’s all. I’m a little off my game.”
“Right.” Darby picked up her glass of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and pointed at Ash’s soda. “Come on. Grab your drink, and let’s go sit in my corner and chat.” There was one table that everyone knew was off limits to anyone except Darby or people Darby invited into her inner sanctum. It sat in the far left corner of the room on a slightly raised platform that gave her an unobstructed view of her domain.
Darby had built a specially padded spot on the bench seat specifically for Diva, and as if on cue, the heeler trotted to her place and once more settled in for a nap. Ash slipped in on one side of her while Darby did the same on the other. When she’d had enough money, one of the first modifications Darby had made to the bar was to bring in a specialist in architectural acoustics to specifically deaden the sound into and out of her booth.
Knowing their conversation wouldn’t be overheard helped Ash to answer when Darby asked, “All right. So. You don’t know whether Harcourt left you anything, or I guess you don’t know specifically what he left or how much, but somehow, two of the most powerful women around wanted you to meet with them, and you walked out without finding out any details. Does that about sum things up?”
“Kind of.”
“What am I missing, then?”
“I guess I was on edge because McGuire’s office is on the seventy-fourth floor, and one entire wall is a floor-to-ceiling window.”
“Oh, fuck.” Darby pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “But you handled it okay, right?”
“Yeah. It just kind of put me on edge, that’s all. I was okay if I didn’t look at it or go near. That, plus the way McGuire and her assistant made me feel like a bug under their feet. I don’t know. Mostly, people don’t see us skags on the street, but when we get shoved under their noses, and they realize we exist, we disgust them or scare them or something.”
“You would have disgusted me if you were as filthy as the last time I saw you in the alley with old Barney. I can only imagine how bad you smelled. Have you been seeing your counselor?”
Ash sighed. “Not for a while. You can only describe things so many times before you get tired of hearing yourself talk. I can imagine Doc is just as tired of hearing the same old shit over and over. It’s just something I have to work through. Get my brain screwed in right.”
“Okay. When’s your next meeting with Saint-Germaine?”
“I don’t know. When I email them, I guess, and set something up.” She pointed a finger at her friend. “That was another thing. I’m walking out of the lobby, right? Of the M building. And Saint-Germaine’s walking in, and she orders me upstairs for some meeting she set up with McGuire without even asking me for any input, as though I mean shit in this whole deal. They cared about their schedules but didn’t give a shit about mine.”
A slow grin spread across Darby’s face, and she started to chuckle.
Ash’s cheeks pinked, and before long, her lips quirked up in an answering grin.
“Your schedule?”
“You know what I mean.”
Darby became serious again. “I do. And, believe it or not, I think you did the right thing. You’re somebody, Ash, and I always see you, even if other people don’t. You were telling them that you’re just as important as they are and deserve the same respect as anyone else.” She lifted her brows and shrugged, “Granted, I doubt those two women treat anyone as equals, and why should they? They’ve clawed and scratched their way to the top, and from where they’re standing, everyone else is beneath them.”
