Free Shop Till You Drop by Elaine Viets Page A

other clothes in the store.
    Helen was about to knock on Niki’s door when she heard Christina say in a low voice, “I’ll need fifteen hundred down and fifteen hundred when the job is done.”
    That’s what a hit man cost, Helen thought. Everyone in South Florida knew the price of a hit man. It was always on the news for some murder trial or other. But they can’t be talking about a hit man in a Las Olas dress shop. Niki must want some sort of body sculpting. Juliana’s women often resorted to surgery after they broke up with a man.
    “I want her dead and him back in my arms!” Niki wailed.
    “Shhh! The others will hear you. If you’re serious, I’ll need the money in cash tomorrow.”
    Cash? Hit men didn’t take checks. But some of the doctors Christina recommended for her regulars took cash only. Like Doctor Mariposa, the illegal Brazilian face fixer.
    Niki lowered her voice so much, Helen only caught the words “next Saturday.” She couldn’t figure out the rest of their conversation. Niki’s voice was too soft, too clogged with tears and anger. Christina’s was too cautious. But the two women seemed to have reached some sort of agreement. Niki raised her voice a notch. “I want her dead. And I want the Chloe jumpsuit and camisole.”
    Had the woman just ordered a camisole and a killing in the same breath? Helen wasn’t sure what she’d heard, but she couldn’t knock on Niki’s dressing room door now. Helen was so rattled, she grabbed the first thing she saw off a nearby rack and went back to Melissa.
    “Uh, sorry, we don’t have that size two after all,” she said. “But I thought you might like this instead for the barbecue.”
    Melissa looked at her strangely. Her slightly popped eyes bulged a bit more. No wonder. Helen was holding a green Versace evening gown.
    “Er, I’m sorry,” Helen said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    “We all have those days,” Melissa said. “Anyway, while you were gone, I tried on this top. I really like it instead.”
    Helen finally noticed what Melissa was wearing: a skin-tight black top slit up the side and laced with slim satin ribbons.
    “Very sexy,” Helen said, and it was.
    “It’s only two hundred and fifteen dollars,” Melissa said. “Rick gave me five hundred, so I can keep the change.”
    Change, Helen thought. Melissa’s change is more than I make in a week. And I’m working at a place that could be arranging contract killings.
    She rang up Melissa’s purchase in a daze, all the while trying to understand what she had heard. Helen knew Christina fiddled with the books a bit, but she wasn’t a murderer, she told herself. Of course, Christina did arrange things. Face lifts. Designer drugs. Collagen injections. Contract killings.
    Should she go to the police? But what would she tell them? All Helen knew was that the supposed victim was named Desiree. She didn’t know her last name or where she lived. Did Desiree live in Fort Lauderdale? Boca? Miami? South Florida covered three counties and had millions of people.
    Helen needed more information. She waited until Niki left, looking hopeful. Even her perfume seemed lighter. Then Helen walked back to Niki’s clothing-crammed dressing room and began delicately digging.
    “Was Niki really a Playboy centerfold?” she asked. She could still smell Niki’s powerful perfume.
    Christina was putting a skinny belt through the loops of a pair of flared pants. “No, just an inside feature. And that was five years ago. Old news now. You ask me, she showed too much and got too little. Niki couldn’t turn the exposure into a modeling or movie contract. All she ever did was snag Jimmy.”
    “And now she’s lost him,” Helen said. “Poor Niki. She was a wreck. Whatever you did for her, she left here smiling.”
    Helen waited for Christina to say Niki was getting some high-priced plastic surgery. Instead, she started buttoning a sheer pink blouse with dozens of slippery pearl buttons. “I