Read Online The Hinky Velvet Chair by Jennifer Stevenson - Free Book Online

before the words were out of
their mouths. “My dear, thank you for your cooperation. Perhaps it is time to
say good night.”
    “You think I’m drunk,” she blurted. “Well, I’m not so drunk
I can’t tell this thing is a big old drunk of junk. Very impressive, but a junk
of hunk,” she enunciated.
    “Coffee, Griffy?” Virgil said, putting his arm around Jewel.
    Griffy sent Jewel a wounded look and poured a cup.
    “How do you feel?” Clay said.
    “You’re a phony, too!” Jewel accused, then put her hand over
her mouth. Would Julia Hess say that to
the person Clay was pretending to be?
    “Any ill effects?” Virgil ushered her to a lab stool by his
workbench.
    Her ears buzzed. “I’m telling you, that thing’s a fake.”
    “Check the settings,” Clay said, and Virgil went to fiddle
with the Venus machine. Randy leaned on the bench beside her, sleek and dangerous,
like a Doberman pinscher guarding a baby carriage. Virgil called out numbers
and Clay wrote them down.
    Sovay didn’t say a word. She stared at Jewel with loathing.
    Jewel ignored her. She could have told her the men were
hoping she would fall on her ass again.
    She felt itchy. One of those low, slow, tingly itches.
    Everybody drank coffee while Clay and Virgil conferred.
    “—Calibrated too high, or else we’re seeing a placebo effect
of extreme magnitude,” Clay said.
    “Shouldn’t think so,” Virgil said. “Still, I’d like to
measure the green tones in her aura. I have a Kirlian camera here somewhere.”
He blinked around the collection room.
    Clay said, “In fact, you and I and Lord Darner could spend
the morning recalibrating. If we can get rid of the women for a few hours,” he
added in bald English. Jewel’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Why don’t you ladies
hit a spa tomorrow? When you get back, we’ll be ready to take a Kirlian shot of
Julia’s aura.”
    “I have an account at Giorgio lo Gigolo,” Griffy said.
    “There’s that new place up in the Hancock Tower,” Clay said
even more brazenly. “I hear they do colorimetry. Newfangled aura reading,” he
explained to Jewel. “Get a second opinion.”
    Somebody had better explain to this dope how to conduct a
fraud investigation before he dug a hole they couldn’t climb out of. “You,” she
said, “are babbling.”
    Griffy said, “No, I’ve heard of them. They tell fortunes.
And you get a massage!” She turned to Jewel. “We’ll all go. My treat.” After a
pause she said to Sovay, “You’ll come, won’t you?” with what Jewel considered
heroic niceness.
    “Of course.” Sovay inclined her head as if she were doing
Griffy a favor.
    Griffy looked cheerful.
    The pressure of all the suspicious looks flying between
Virgil, Clay, and Sovay was giving Jewel a headache. “I’m going to bed,” she
announced.
    “I’ll take her downstairs,” Clay said.
    Randy glared. “There is no need for you to trouble.”
    “Clay will take me downstairs,” Jewel told Randy. “Go flooze
with your English flirty.” Besides, she needed a chance to remind Clay exactly
who was senior partner on this gig.
    Randy turned his shoulder and offered Sovay coffee-sugar.
    “Hunk of drunk,” Jewel muttered as Clay held the collection
room door for her. “Bunco hunk of attitude.”
    “That coffee was awful weak, wasn’t it?” Clay said,
supporting her down the marble staircase to the second floor.
    “I’m not a cripple,” she grumbled. They were out of earshot
now. “Listen, buster. You do not, not,” she drew breath, “commingle cases!”
    “You’re tiddly, officer.” As he opened a bedroom door, he
twinkled at her, and she felt an urge.
    “What I mean is, we’re working on two cases but we mustn’t
mix them together.” She flumped down on the bed.
    “More efficient, I would think.” He helped her off with her
shoes. Then he squeezed her right foot in both hands.
    “Oh my God.” She groaned. “What were you thinking,
initiating contact with Thompson? You