Heat

Chapter 4: Rebecca Rexx/Rita Redd

Chapter 4: Rebecca Rexx/Rita Redd

Hurricane Bay Investigative Agency (HBIA)

2:57 P.M.

Rebecca Rexx let herself into my agency, rushed into my office, and placed three eight-by-ten color headshots on the surface of my desk. Three handsome men stared at me with smoldering smiles. The first had a bald head, a rugged physique, and aquamarine-colored contacts. The man in the center looked like a college-aged cub. And the last one—a gray-haired, weathered stud with glasses—passed as handsome. She stood over my desk, faced me, and pointed at the pictures.

“One of these three men is my future husband.”

“The fifty-plus guy is out of the question, Rebecca. You’re only thirty-three and far too young for a geriatric.”

“I’m twenty-eight-years-old, Axle. Tell no one the truth.”

I looked at the out-of-work actress and thought her stunning at five-eight and one hundred pounds. Rebecca had the frame of a dancer, steel-colored eyes, plump lips, and golden hair. Never had I seen her not wear four-inch high heels, short skirts, or flowing blouses. The friend of eons looked stunning as always, smart, and powerful.

“Whatever.” I grunted, studied the pics on my desk, and turned two over without further judgment: the old coot and the bald man. Then I said, “I choose the cub.”

She giggled and waved a hand at me. “Isn’t he darling? I just love baby bears. They can be so cuddly.”

“Don’t forget that baby bears can bite.”

She growled in a playful tone. “I can only hope.”

Rebecca Rexx had three previous full-grown and adult bears in her past, all of which were deceased. Her first bearlike husband of two years, Hennington Hampton, had been a real estate tycoon who died from a heart attack at forty-three. Hennington left his entire fortune (nineteen million dollars) to his twenty-one-year-old girlfriend/stripper, Trixie. Rebecca’s second husband, a professional boxer named Julius Sphinterelgio, had been accidentally gunned down in Miami following a title win. Julius just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had willed his three million dollars to Rebecca Rexx, which enabled some monetary comfort in her life. Rebecca’s third husband, her second bear, named Raphael Brochette, had been a Frenchman who designed and produced high-end yachts. When Brochette drowned in the Mediterranean at the young age of thirty-seven last year, after accidentally sinking one of his prized yachts, Rebecca became a distinguished member of the super-rich and had über-loads of money, a sum no less than two billion dollars, or thereabouts.

No matter how much money Rebecca’s bank account accrued, she still wanted to be an actress. The woman could have bought her fame, or course, purchasing a number of directors to hire her, or a film production company, but she prided herself in being humble and headstrong. She wanted to create a name for herself as an actress, all on her own. To reach that goal, she went by the alias Rita Redd, a nobody with just a few acting jobs in commercials on her resume.

“What’s this guy’s name?” I asked her, fingering the cub’s glossy headshot. He had dark eyes, curly hair, and a close beard.

“Clifton Monigal.”

“That’s a rugged name. Where is he from, and what does the cub do?”

“He’s from Stockton County, Oklahoma, and sells Mustangs.”

“Horses or cars?” I admired the young man’s broad shoulders, the tiny scar through his left eyebrow, and his rounded face.

“Horses. He owns three ranches in Colorado and two near Tulsa. He breeds, raises, and sells the equines.”

“How old is he?”

“Old enough to f**k me,” she said, giggling and blushing.

“How rude,” I snapped at her. “Show some manners, Rebecca.”

She snatched the picture out of my hands. “I know he looks like he’s eighteen, but he’s twenty-eight. Both of us look younger than we are.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “How did you meet him, and where is this conversation going?”

“He’s visiting Laura Monigal, his grandmother, in Turtle Bay.”

“The Laura Monigal?” I asked, stunned, believing that she had been speaking of the wealthy arsonist from Turtle Bay, a sister city to Hurricane Bay.

Rebecca nodded. “Yes, that Laura Monigal. And stop thinking that she’s an arsonist. The woman deemed herself innocent. She is not a criminal.”

“Laura only got off because of her money and crooked lawyer, Henrey Henreys. Rumors have spread like wild fire around Turtle Bay that she secretly paid off her jurors. Notice how three of them are driving Bentleys?”

“Tsk.” She waved a hand in my direction. “I don’t care what that old prune has done. I’m more interested in her cub of a grandson.” She pointed to the picture in my hands. “Look at the little bear eyes on that man, Axle. Don’t they just make you melt?”

Indeed, they did. Clifton Monigal came across as being strikingly cute, boyish, and a cowboy. How could Rebecca go wrong in an attempt to bed him? Just as I was about to tell her to chase after the young man, her cell phone jingled in her jeweled purse at her right side. She fetched the phone out of the handbag and viewed the incoming number.

Excited, she glowed and said, “It’s Clifton. I must run, my love. Chat soon.”

She snatched the headshots off the desk in front of me, including the one in my hand. She waved goodbye to me with the trio in her left hand, flew out of my office, and went on her marry way, leaving me behind.