Page 128 of Sunset Beach
“Oh, hell no,” Rae Hernandez said.
The three of them were standing in the parking lot of the Waffle House on Gulf Boulevard, clustered around the hood of Hernandez’s Honda Odyssey.
“I hate to agree with your father, but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of. Neesa Vincent is a wild card,” Hernandez said.
“Which is why it makes sense to at least give it a try,” Drue urged. “Rae, I honestly think this could work. The night I met her, we clicked. She approached me, not the other way around. And if this doesn’t work, you can still do it your way.”
“Come on, Rae. Admit it. You never would have figured any of this out without me. I found Neesa and got her to admit to her connection with Byars. You owe me that much. You owe Jazmin.”
“No! I absolutely forbid it.” Brice slapped the hood of the minivan with his open palm.
“Easy there, Perry Mason,” Hernandez said. “Watch the paint job.”
“Dad?” Drue spoke up. “No offense, but I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t need a signed permission slip for this field trip.”
She turned pleading eyes toward Hernandez. “I’ll call her later this morning, after we’ve both gotten some sleep.”
“I don’t know,” Hernandez said uneasily. “Let me think about it. There’s no rush, right?”
“We don’t know that,” Drue said. “I mean, right now, Brian Shelnutt probably has no idea why a woman named Drucilla Campbell was skulking around that room at the Gulf Vista earlier tonight. But if we wait, he might put it all together and realize why I was trying to get into that particular room. We don’t know if he’s involved in Jazmin’s murder or not.”
Hernandez ran her hands through her dark hair, still shaking her head, but Drue knew the detective knew she had a point.
“Okay,” Hernandez said finally. “But there’s gonna be ground rules. And you’re gonna do exactly as I say, or the whole thing is off. Understand?”
“Perfectly,” Drue agreed.
Brice glared at Hernandez as she got into the minivan. “You better have a backup plan to your backup plan, Hernandez.”
It was surprisingly easy to convince Neesa Vincent to make a hair-color house call, especially after Drue proved amenable to Neesa’s unconventional pricing system.
“Ooh yeah, I remember you,” Neesa said, when Drue mentioned how they’d met. “You’re the girl I met at Mister B’s, with the good hair texture. But now, listen, Saturdays are my busy day. Where’d you say you live?”
“Sunset Beach,” Drue said.
“That’s right, you did tell me that,” Neesa said. “Okay, I think I can move some appointments around, but if I come all the way out there, on short notice, on a Saturday, I’mma have to charge you my surge price.”
“That’s fine,” Drue said. “Just how much is your surge price?”
“Three hundred,” Neesa said promptly. “You know, because that’s a lot of chemicals to take you from ebony to ivory. And just so you know, I don’t take checks or cards. Cash only, okay?”
“I can do that.” Drue gave her the address, and they set the time for two o’clock.
Neesa Vincent showed up at two-thirty, at almost the exact moment Drue was about to give up hope.
She bustled into the house carrying a large plastic shopping bag and an open liter bottle of Mountain Dew. The platinum-blond wig was gone today, and her long hair hung straight past her shoulders in ombré shades of lavender to violet.
“Ooh, this is a nice house,” she said, fanning herself as she unloaded her supplies onto the tiny kitchen counter. “But how come you don’t run the AC up in here?”
“I don’t have air-conditioning,” Drue said.
“Girl, that’s crazy! A house like this, right on the water?”
“I inherited it from my mother. My grandfather built this house back in the 1950s,” Drue said. She looked at the line-up of bottles emerging from the plastic bag and felt a new twinge of anxiety. “Wow, that’s a lot of chemicals.”
“That’s why I got to charge you my surge price,” Neesa said. “I spent a hundred dollars on supplies at Sally’s just now.” She turned and took a strand of Drue’s hair, rubbing it appreciatively between her fingers. “You got a lotta hair, you know? I bet you got more hair on your bathroom floor than some of these old lady clients I get at cosmetology school put together.”
“Thanks,” Drue said. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got some beer and some prosecco in the fridge, and I’ve got a bottle of Tito’s too.”
