The Devil's Dance Read online

  What Others Are Saying

  “Kristen Lamb is a word demon. Sardonic, humorous and afoul of propriety, her fiction takes no prisoners. The Devil’s Dance is fun stuff, written by a born novelist with a maverick sensibility.”

  - Joel Eisenberg, Hollywood producer & award-winning novelist

  “Kristen Lamb had me by the first page. Her humor is top-notch, her heroine best-friend material, and her hero to die for. The Devil’s Dance is a winner!”

  - Christie Craig, New York Times bestselling author of the Divorced & Desperate

  “I picked up Kristen Lamb’s debut novel, The Devil’s Dance, fully expecting to be reading what I anticipated as a decent first effort at fiction—and was instantly dissuaded of that notion—finding instead I was totally mesmerized by a book of the quality normally reserved for those best-selling, rave review-garnering, masters of thriller novels.

  “I was totally gobsmacked. Lamb has crafted a work of immense worth. It’s truly remarkable in its maturity, level of writing, and most important, level of entertainment. We often see reviews where they trot out that hoariest of clichés—‘It was so good I couldn’t put it down,’ except in this case that’s not even close to an exaggeration, but the honest damned truth.

  “Be assured this is no “beginner’s first effort.” This is leagues above that. Already, I’ve placed it on the shelf of “Best Books of the Year That I’ve Read.” It most certainly is. Make room on your bookshelf for a writer of uncommon and rare talent. And… what a totally entertaining book!”

  - Les Edgerton,, author of Hooked, Finding Your Voice, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping, The Death of Tarpons and others.

  THE DEVIL'S DANCE

  Kristen Lamb

  Copyright © 2017, Kristen Lamb

  Kristen Lamb, Author

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or featured names are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or in part, mechanically or electronically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Published in the United States of America in May 2017; Copyright 2017 by Kristen Lamb. The right of the Authors Name to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with The Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988.

  Published by Bad Lamb Books

  Copyright 2018© Kristen Lamb

  Language: English

  Print ISBN-13: 978-1546727019

  Print ISBN-10: 1546727019

  To Mom

  Chapter One

  I stepped into the Texas Employment Commission and had to stifle an expletive. Angry Bird. A sour-faced woman sat behind the desk scowling at her computer. Maybe she wasn’t scowling, but she had these tattooed eyebrows that looked like the Angry Birds had attacked her with a wide black Magic Marker to make her one of their own. It was all I could do to not stare, though out of politeness I hid it. I knew she hated me, though I’d tried many times to befriend her. I needed her but she always had this way about her. Like a schoolyard bully who holds your homework up over your head and just out of reach, relishing in your panic. She was clearly a woman who felt powerless and, for some reason I had yet to figure out, I was to pay for that injustice.

  “Oh, it’s you, Miss Romi Lachlan,” she said without even glancing up from her screen. How could that not be creepy? Angry Bird made lots of you’re-bothering-me-by-making-me-actually-do-my-job sounds and dramatically shuffled through drawers for a clipboard and the appropriate forms.

  I fussed with my folder, reorganized copies of my résumé and thought about my meantime so I didn’t panic and run. Yes, my meantime. That’s what I’d decided to call the span of suck right before my breakthrough.

  Angry Bird shoved the clipboard my way, but I was a little slow on the uptake and missed. The clipboard crashed to the floor, papers flying every direction. I crouched to gather the forms and give myself a moment to swallow my anger, then felt the seams in the back of my skirt try to give way.

  “You just going to stand there?” Angry Bird said.

  I didn’t need attitude. I needed a paycheck, and a couple safety pins. I wanted to yell, Yes, maybe I am broke and I do look like the cat sucked on my head, but I can get a conditioning treatment. There is no going back on that eyebrow decision! But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. There was no sense in both of us being petty. I forced a polite smile and sat down with my pen and clipboard, moving as little as possible so my pencil skirt’s dry-rotted threads wouldn’t give way. That was all I needed, to be showing my ass in a literal sense. Angry Bird resumed scowling at her computer screen without so much as a sorry for throwing a clipboard at you.

  For the next two hours, I poured over every job listing and typed in every search term I could think of, but I was so screwed. I steeled my resolve and went to consult The Angry Bird.

  “Excuse me,” I said as pleasantly as I could muster.

  “Yes,” she said, never taking her attention away from what I strongly suspected was a game of Candy Crush.

  “Are these all the jobs that are available?” I asked, chewing the lipstick off my bottom lip. Again.

  “Yes, Miss Lachlan. Just like the last time, and the time before that, and oh, the time before that.” She peered over her reading glasses and all I could see were those freaking eyebrows. Did she tattoo them herself? Lose a bet?

  Finally, I found my voice. “It’s that, I, uh, can’t find anything that, well, fits.” I smoothed the creases in my suit so I’d have something to do with my hands other than choke Angry Bird for being a bloated ugly waste of taxpayer money.

  She simply stared at me, and I smoldered under her gaze.

  “Be more specific,” she said with that special sarcastic tone usually reserved for the DMV.

  “I can’t apply for these jobs,” I said in a low, tight voice. I was trying to be as PC as possible, but she wasn’t going to let me out of this without saying it out loud. Other people in the lobby were watching me, the kind of people who’d be thrilled to land a janitorial job with dental benefits and who probably all now thought I was an uppity bitch.

  “Why can’t you apply for these jobs, Miss Lachlan?” she said, her smile taunting.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t true.” I pushed my bangs out of my eyes. “I’m not too good to work those jobs, but I know…”

  “You know what?”

  “I know they won’t hire me,” I mumbled.

  “How do you know they won’t hire you?” she said loud enough for France to hear. Jerk.

  “They won’t. Trust me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “I don’t think I’m too good to work at these places, but they’re hourly wage jobs that require a high school degree and I have a college degree. Suma cum laude, actually.”

  “And?”

  In my effort to be discreet, I leaned so close I worried I might topple into Angry Bird’s lap. “I’ve tried. That’s how. I’ve tried everything. I tried headhunters for well over a year, but corporations all want someone with an MBA, and I don’t have an MBA or the money to get one. A year and nothing.”

  “Maybe you’re being too picky,” she said. She began texting and I wanted to rip the phone out of her hands and brain her for bad man
ners.

  “I’m not being too picky.” I straightened the sign-in sheets and rearranged the pens in the cup. “I tried getting a cashier job at a grocery store, and I was honest on my application. I told them I had a degree, and they told me I was overqualified.” Panic seeped into my voice, making it pick up speed and volume. “Then I applied at Denny’s, only that time, I lied on my application and said I never went to college. Unfortunately, I’m the world’s worst liar. Ask my sister.”

  “And?”

  “The manager at Denny’s thought I was on drugs because I was so nervous.”

  Angry Bird rolled her chair back and opened her mouth to say something, but it was too late. Months of frustration and disappointment bubbled up inside like a soda bottle shaken to the bursting point.

  “I’ve tried. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I applied at Applebee’s— Two Applebee’s-es.” The plural for Applebee’s made me stumble, but then I was off again. “And even, for the love of God, begged for a job as a roller-skating waitress at Sonic. Not exactly the career path I’d imagined when I chose my degree,” I said and my nose started to burn like it always did right before I cried.

  Angry Bird said nothing and I plunged ahead, the governor on my mouth gone. “Honest, I have no pride. I can’t afford it. I’ve lost everything. I worked for a technology firm who apparently got their playbook from Enron. The execs, one of which happened to be my now ex-fiancé, disappeared with all the company assets and everything in my checking and savings to Switzerland, or Grand Cayman, or someplace really awesome with no extradition. My ex is on a beach somewhere wooing young Swedish models with all of my savings.” I knew I was a babbling idiot, but I couldn’t make myself shut up. “I just want a job, but then they can tell that I have a college degree and that I’m overqualified, but I can’t lie and not tell them about my degree. But then they think I’m crazy for wanting to roller-skate hamburgers to people’s car windows and I am all, like, I don’t care because dammit I get fifty percent off tater-tots and I need to eat —”

  And that was when it became painfully clear I’d hit rock bottom.

  All I needed was a bottle of Strawberry Hill and a crack pipe, except I didn’t precisely know where I could buy some crack. I clamped one hand over my mouth so I couldn’t say anything else, and backed away from Angry Bird. I couldn’t take her judgment. I set the clipboard down on a coffee table piled high with battered issues of Forbes and Sports Illustrated and held my leather folder close to my chest like some pathetic Spartan warrior with no fight left.

  I slumped into the closest chair and the room pulsed and throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I bent forward to ease my dizziness wondering if this day could get any worse.

  A gentle touch on my shoulder made me jump, a man who seemed vaguely familiar, his smile a triumph of modern cosmetic dentistry. It was the first encouragement I’d seen from anyone in over a year and I latched hold.

  “Miss Lachlan, are you okay?” he said.

  I nodded dumbly. The man wore a custom-tailored suit that seemed grossly out of place in a government office. He was tan, his hair salon-styled and highlighted, but his friendliness helped me ease out of my tailspin.

  “My name’s Mark Cunningham. I’m one of the senior case agents. Come chat with me in my office.” He politely averted his eyes while I gathered my things. I noticed he shot Angry Bird a warning stare that made her start acting busy. I scooped up my purse and folder then followed him down a long hallway, a mixture of hope and terror clawing at my insides. What could he want?

  Cunningham’s office wasn’t what I’d expected, rich with mahogany and leather and smelled like the men’s cologne counter at Neiman Marcus. His office walls were artfully decorated with degrees from SMU and Duke, football trophies, and then I saw a picture that stole my breath. A framed D Magazine society page, Mark in a photo with two members of the Masse family, one of the most powerful families in Texas, his arm around Claire Barrington, heiress to a vineyard. Why did it have to be such a small freaking world?

  I sagged into one of the plush leather chairs, the cold leather against my calves as shocking as the familiar face in the photo. Seeing Claire made me hopeful and ashamed all in the same space. We’d once been friends, back when I was part of the ‘in’ crowd. Hadn’t seen or heard from her since I’d fled Turtle Creek, leaving no forwarding address. My spirits buoyed. Maybe this was my break. Maybe Cunningham recognized me from one of the charity events, and if he was a friend of my former friends, then perhaps he’d called me back to help me get my foot back into the corporate door. A door latched behind me and Cunningham sidled over to a private refrigerator and brought small bottles of Evian for each of us, then leaned against his desk and uncapped his water. He took a deep swig then his warm demeanor shifted to ice.

  “Romi Lachlan. I can see why my father fancied you,” he said, his words oiled with menace.

  “Excuse me?” I wiped away water I’d spit down my chin.

  His eyes narrowed. “But unlike my father, I’m no doddering fool who falls for a pretty face.”

  My synapses scurried to find the right connection. “Cunningham. Lonnie Cunningham? Lonnie’s your father?” My next question was going to be If you have a billionaire father, why the hell are you working here? But, instincts told me that was a bad move.

  He licked his lips. “A lot of people invested good money in Verify.”

  I gulped my water to keep me from saying anything stupid.

  He traded the bottle of Evian for a heavy silver letter opener, and played with the edge as he spoke. “In fact, my daddy bought your software system and surprise, surprise it worked right up until your boy disappeared,” he said, lowering the tip of the letter opener my direction.

  I swallowed hard.

  “And we spent twenty million dollars on additional software support until the system was fully integrated, and that vanished too. Guess who sold him that system?” Seconds felt like hours and all I could focus on was the freaking letter opener. Surely, he wouldn’t stab me. Not in the Unemployment Office. Wait, Angry Bird was big enough to help carry out my body, and how big was his personal refrigerator again? Just as my brain had my lifeless corpse wrapped in Cunningham’s Oriental rug and being stuffed in the elevator, he spoke again.

  “Guess who promised him that Verify’s state-of-the-art technology would give our family an edge in the coming boom?”

  An agonizing minute passed.

  “I did.” The words leaked out.

  “My daddy doesn’t make bad investments.” He ran a pink tongue over those perfectly veneered teeth. “You don’t get to be a billionaire by making bad investments, Miss Lachlan. But trailer trash like you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

  I said nothing.

  He cocked his head. “Was my family like some fun scratch-off ticket? Your personal lotto?”

  “Nossir,” I replied and stared at the floor. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth.

  “And it only took you a couple months to blow though the millions you stole.” He clucked his tongue.

  I felt something in me ignite. “Personal rollercoasters are on the pricey side. And who knew a solid gold toilet seat could be so comfy?”

  He lunged at me, stopping mere inches from my face. He had the knife, um, letter-opener still clutched in his hand. “This is not a game, Miss Lachlan. I am not playing here.”

  My breaths grew shallow as his face came closer, so close I could smell his breath mints.

  “You offend me. The smell of your second-hand silk offends me.” He plucked at my blouse collar with the tip of the letter opener. “Trash like you not knowing their place, offends me.”

  Words failed me as he came even closer, his eyes roaming over me, probing and plundering. His pupils were dilated like a cat with a kill in its sights.

  “The Valedictorian of the Duke MBA program is not groomed to work for the Unemployment Office,” he said and I felt a fine mist of his minty spit hit my face, but
didn’t dare wipe it away. Right as I thought Mark Cunningham was going to bite off my nose like Hannibal Lecter did to that security guard in the third Hannibal movie, he retreated.

  “This—” he waved a hand around his office, “—is my punishment. My way to earn my way back into my father’s good graces after I convinced him to trust Verify.” He returned to his desk and, to my relief, set down the letter-opener, which was good because I was envisioning him eating my brains with an escargot fork. “But then you keep coming here week after week, and now? I see a better way.”

  “A better way to do what?” I said.

  “Where’s the money? Where’s your fiancé?” He steepled his fingertips.

  “Do you think I’d be here if I knew? Phil scammed me along with the rest of you. Me and two hundred other employees. None of us knew.”

  “I’m no fool, Miss Lachlan. You can’t tell me you were engaged to the man and had no idea. You can’t be that stupid. No one is that stupid,” he said, and I hated myself for agreeing with him. I asked myself that same question every day. How could I be so stupid? How could I have believed Phil loved me?

  He hesitated then smiled. “Then again maybe you are. Your kind never wants to work for money, you just try to marry it.” He rapped his fingertips on the fine mahogany and laughed. “So, the bottle-blonde gold-digger got her just desserts.”

  Somehow, I rallied enough courage to defend myself. “First of all, this hair is natural. Secondly, I worked my tail off. I didn’t take a day off in two years. I believed in that company. Don’t you think I kick myself every day that I didn’t see something? That I didn’t know what Phil was up to?”