The Honey Well by Gloria Mallette

Author:Gloria Mallette
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2012-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

The loud knock at the door to Esther’s suite awakened Arnell. She opened her eyes and looked right at the back of Esther’s head. Esther hadn’t stirred. She was sleeping soundly. It was probably the first sound sleep she’d had since Tony died. Arnell raised her head and looked down at herself fully clothed. She remembered stretching out on the bed around two-fifteen after Esther had cried herself hoarse and after she had asked her to stay a little longer. Arnell fell asleep listening to Esther talk about all the good times she’d had with Tony.

The knock came again.

Arnell quickly rolled off the bed and rushed into the front room to the door. She opened it just enough to see that it was Jeanette, whose eyes showed her surprise at seeing Arnell.

“Arnell, what are you doing here?”

None of your damn business was on the tip of Arnell’s tongue, but she was too tired and sleepy to get into it with Jeanette. “What do you want, Jeanette?”

“I need to speak to Queen Esther.”

“She’s sleeping.”

“Can you wake her up? This is really important.”

“No.”

“But there’s a problem upstairs with one of the girls that Queen Esther needs to take care of.”

“Jeanette, I am not waking my mother. Whatever the problem is, it will have to wait, or better still, you take care of it.” Arnell started to close the door. Jeanette wouldn’t let her. She pushed back against the closing door.

“Arnell, I already tried. Trena won’t come out of the bathroom. She locked herself in.”

“Trena?” That name got Arnell’s attention. “Is that the new girl?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She says that she’s not going to have sex with any more clients. Andrew Peebles has been waiting to get with her for more than twenty minutes and he’s pissed. He came late tonight because he was in the studio and Trena had already been with four other clients.”

“Who were the clients?”

“I don’t know all of them but Larry Bradley and Woodruff Parker were the last two.”

“Oh, God,” Arnell said, remembering her scary night with Woodruff Parker.

“What’s wrong?” Jeanette asked.

“Did Trena say if anything unusual happened with Woodruff Parker?”

“No. But after he left, she did say that she wasn’t ever doing it with him or Andrew Peebles again. Then she got hysterical and started crying and saying she wasn’t doing it with anyone ever again. Arnell, she’s acting like a child. Queen Esther needs to talk to that little girl.”

“Jeanette, Trena’s acting like a child because maybe she is a child, but my mother won’t be talking to her tonight.” Arnell glanced over her shoulder at the bedroom door. Even if Esther were awake, she wouldn’t be up to overseeing the running of her house. Which was probably a good thing. She’d only pressure Trena into having sex with several more men before the night was over. “Let me get my shoes. I’ll talk to her.”

“Fine, she’s up in Kitt’s room.”

“I’ll be up in five minutes.”

This time Jeanette let Arnell close the door. Arnell hurried to Esther’s bedroom to make sure she was still asleep.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.