Badger Game Read online

  BADGER

  GAME

  ABERNATHY ROSS

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

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  The events, characters and firms depicted in this ebook are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual firms, is purely coincidental.

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  Dedication

  For A. Thank you for being you.

  One

  “She can’t find out about this.”

  “She won’t.” Langston took the envelope out of Griffin’s hand and flipped open the flap, peering into it. There was a thick wad of money inside, and she ran her fingers across the top of the worn bills, pulling out the first few with her thumb. They were real. She could tell. She couldn’t count them in front of him, that would be rude, but she could tell that he was serious about this operation.

  “So, can we go over the plan, then?” he asked, his finger absentmindedly messing with a string in the stitching of the leather on the side of the car door. “Just to be sure.”

  Langston closed the envelope and folded it up, tucking it into her interior pocket of her gray Herringbone coat.

  “Of course,” she said. She glanced up into the rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind her, and caught a glimpse of her swept back blond hair and her icy blue eyes reflected back at her. It wasn’t typical of her to let people keep their car on during an exchange like this, but it was just too cold to turn off the heat. She felt confident that no one was watching them, even though they were sitting in the middle of a U-haul storage center parking lot in broad daylight on a Tuesday.

  She had instructed him to come here to have this meeting. At first, he was confused about why they had to meet in a different borough even though they both lived in Manhattan, but she insisted that it was the best thing to do to make sure they weren’t followed or watched. This was in Brooklyn, where everyone had been hard-wired to not pay attention to anyone else’s business but their own. They were surrounded by people moving furniture and boxes, and trucks being led around so that they could be loaded. There were no cameras on this side of the lot, she was sure of that.

  “All right,” said Griff, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and passing his hand through his long salt-and-pepper hair. “So, you’ve got the photos of her and you know where she works. What else are we missing?”

  “Interests,” said Langston. “What is she into?”

  “Right, right,” said Griff, nodding slowly. “She likes uh—you know, the normal girl stuff.”

  Langston curled her lips into a small smile at this. “I’m supposed to be seducing her,” she said. “You’ve got to give me more information than that.”

  “Right,” said Griff with a sigh, turning his head up as he tried to think. “She likes to be wined and dined; you know? The fancier the better. Basically, the more money you spend on her the more she’ll like you. And everything you do has to be with emotion. Not like a normal amount—but like just overly emotional. She’s into that sort of stuff.” He looked over at Langston whose eyes were fixated in front of her, staring out of the windshield.

  “Shouldn’t you be writing this down or something?” Griff asked.

  “I’ve got it,” said Langston, doing her best not to keep her voice short. “What else?”

  Griff paused for a moment, but then shook his head and blew out a small puff of air through his lips and kept talking. “She’s sort of pretentious so look out for that,” he said. “Talks a lot about obscure movies and operas and random stuff like that. So be prepared for that.”

  Langston could barely keep from rolling her eyes. Cultured and pretentious were vastly different things. “Her turn-ons,” she said, trying to divert the conversation. “That’s the important stuff. What does she like in bed?”

  “The normal stuff,” said Griff. “Touching, kissing...I don’t know, just regular foreplay. I know she’s got a couple of sex toys—or dildos, I guess you would call them. All of them seem to be for uh—penetration, I suppose.”

  “But when it comes to women? You said you’ve caught lesbian porn on her browser history. What’s she been searching for?”

  She glanced over at him and could see his cheeks growing slightly reddened. She stifled a chuckle through her nose.

  “The best way I can describe it is just domination type stuff,” he said quietly. “Not the type of stuff where you get tied up, just the type where someone gets—I guess bossed around during sex. I don’t know if she wanted to be the boss or the recipient. So, you’ll have to figure that out. Sorry.” He added the last word hastily, like an afterthought.

  “I’ll manage,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to confirm that this will be done within a month. I understand that you probably need to set stuff up and get your ducks in a row before starting everything, but the sooner the better, you know? I’ve got a business trip in Montreal at the end of the month and I really wanted to do the whole reveal before then. The plan is still for me to catch you guys in the act, right?”

  “Yep,” said Langston. “Once she’s comfortable enough with letting me into your home, we’ll set up how you’re going to catch us having sex. I’ve just got to get to that point first. I’ll aim for a month. Hopefully, it’ll be sooner.”

  “Perfect,” said Griff. “Then I’ll pay you the rest once I serve her with divorce papers.”

  “Works for me,” said Langston. “I’ll keep you updated.”

  “Ok good,” he said, giving her a tight smile. “This is great. I like where this is going. I’m really excited to work with you.”

  “Likewise,” said Langston, forcing a smile. “Now, let’s get going before someone tries to sell us a truck.”

  They exchanged quick goodbyes and Langston got out of the car, plunging herself into the cold February air. March was just around the corner, yet the temperature didn’t seem interested in getting too high above freezing. She didn’t turn back to wave as she walked through the parking lot, heading towards the train station across the street.

  It felt good to secure a new job. Five thousand dollars just to seduce a man’s wife so that he wouldn’t have to pay her alimony on the divorce papers he was going to serve anyway. She couldn’t help but smirk as she dipped into the warm station and slid her $2.75 subway card on the turnstile meter with the same hand that had a hundred-dollar matte manicure on it.

  Life was good.

  Two

  She didn’t mind taking the train. Being able to hide in a crowd of people all packed into a subway car allowed her to feel safe. There was nowhere to sit, so she moved to the center of the car and grasped the overhead bar. The people sitting in the seats across from her were a young couple, their hands clasped together and their foreheads pressed against each other.

  Langston smiled down at them. She liked to see how easy it was for human beings to fall in love, especially when they got to the point where they weren’t afraid of showing their affection for each other in public. It was a way to cement her idea that she would always have a nice, long list of clients in the future. She was in a never-ending business. Human beings so easily gave in to their need for dop
amine that they couldn’t see the red flags that would cause their inevitable demise. There was a reason the divorce rate was the way it was, and once the honeymoon phase wore off, that’s where she would come in.

  She had been doing this for five years, and it had been a wonderful payoff so far. When the love fractured, people tended to go back to focusing on their own self-interests and they would need her to set up a scene, if you will. Typically, it was something straightforward—meet at a bar, whether it be the husband or wife, flirt a little, and make sure to get a kiss at the end, making sure to do it in perfect view of the security camera. She didn’t discriminate, she didn’t ask questions, and most importantly, she didn’t talk to gossip blogs.

  This new job was different. Griffin had approached her telling her that he was going to need a little more than a kiss at a bar to solidify his divorce plans. He was going to need someone to have a full-blown fling. She was skeptical at first, but once she saw what he was willing to offer, she changed her tune.

  Langston checked her watch as the train conductor made an announcement. “This is a Bronx-bound 5 train—next stop, 86th street...next stop, 86th street in Manhattan.” Langston moved down the train aisle and stood by the door, leaning against the bar next to it, watching the small flashes of the tunnel lights through the window as she ran her hand through her hair.

  She went through everything Griffin had told her. It was a typical story. They got married after knowing each other for only a few months, him looking for a trophy nearly a decade younger than him, and she looking for a way to move up in the New York social scene. Both of them had hoped for at least a bit of a love story, but it had fallen apart instead. Divorce was the easy way out for her, but he was determined not to let her get away with his money. Of course, he could have avoided all of this by not jumping into a marriage, but who was she to judge?

  “86th street,” came the conductor’s crackly voice through the intercom as the train slowly pulled into the station. The doors slid open and Langston stepped out, pulling out her phone now that she was able to get a signal. She pulled up an app, one that halted any sort of encryption if her phone activity was ever to be delved into. From there she could log into a third party file drop account, and scroll through the files that Griff had sent her prior to their meeting. She tapped on the first file. Photos. Three of them. She swiped through them slowly as she walked down the quiet, tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side.

  His wife was beautiful, at least in these photos. She had dark hair that flowed around her shoulders in loose, elegant curls, and dark brown eyes that seemed to shine. She wasn’t smiling in any of the photos, her red-painted lips were in a slight purse, looking as if she had just been caught off guard and wasn’t keen on taking a photo.

  Her name was Bethel, but Griffin had been referring to her, with a sigh, as his Bette. She had taken her husband’s last name, making her Bette Simon, a name that sounded like it was made to belong to a wealthy socialite. Langston quickly moved on to the next file. This one simply had the details of where Bette worked and other places she liked to frequent. All of that would come in use later. She closed the apps on her phone and tucked it back in her coat pocket. She had arrived to her building.

  The doorman gave her a small tip of his hat, a testament of how archaic Manhattan tended to be. “Ms. Todd,” he said in a greeting, then moved to open the door for her. “How has your day been?”

  “Hello Chester,” she said. “I’ve been having a fabulous day. Thank you.”

  “Wonderful, Ms. Todd,” he said with a smile. “I hope you’re staying warm.”

  “You as well,” she said, walking past him. She liked this building. Everyone was nice, and nobody asked any questions. It was quiet, not just New York quiet, but actually quiet. It was a perk of living right next to Central Park. She went up the elevator, taking out her keys. She got off on the fifth floor, and her apartment door was right in front of her. Putting the key in and pushing the door open, she could tell someone was home. There was the smell of something savory filling up the apartment and the sounds of pots and cutlery coming from the kitchen. Langston closed the door with a bit of a thud so that Kira would notice. She didn’t.

  “Kira?” Langston stripped off her coat and placed it on the hook, taking out the envelope of cash she had gotten from Griff and shoving it in her pants pocket. She didn’t get a response from the inside of the apartment, only the clangs of pots and pans getting shuffled through.

  A small ripple of fear ran down her spine. She wasn’t exactly working in a legal business, and that meant that she had to be on her toes, even if she was at home. She had never been caught, but she knew she had been responsible for the unhappiness of quite a few people. She had been painstakingly careful throughout all of these endeavors, but the fear that someone might figure out who she was and where she lived to exact revenge was always in the back of her head. She brought her hand up to her hip, finding the tiny holster on her belt that held a small can of pepper spray. She stepped quietly down the hall until she was able to get into the view of the white marble kitchen.

  She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Kira standing in front of the stove, stirring something as she danced, her white wireless earphones pressed into ears, blocking out the outside world completely. She took her hand off of the pepper spray.

  “Kira!”

  She jumped, yanking out the earphone and whipping around. “Holy shit, Langston, you scared the crap out of me.”

  Langston smirked, and walked up to the stove where a medley of vegetables were crackling in a cast iron skillet. “What are you cooking?”

  “Stir fry,” she said, turning the heat down on the burner. “You want some? I got some cooked noodles ready, but I can make rice if you want that.”

  Langston looked around at the cacophony of cooking that was occurring and smiled. Her stomach growled impatiently. “Noodles are fine,” she said. “I’ll eat anything at this point.” Langston walked into the living room, the open concept of her apartment making it so that she could toss herself onto the gray sectional couch and watch Kira use up too many dishes at the same time. Her laptop was still where she had left it this morning, and she pulled it towards her, booting it up.

  She and Kira had been living together for the past three years. Kira was in the same business, which made things easier and it made the money flow very well. Affording a combined six thousand dollars for their rent was a cinch when your job was to seduce people into giving it to you. The only difference was that Kira tended to keep it on the legal side—sugar mommies and the like. She was going to lose her mind when she heard about the job Langston had taken.

  Langston sighed, typing in her laptop password. Now that dinner was taken care of, she could focus on making her plans for how she was going to meet Bette. While Kira and her long, brown ponytail bopped around in the background, Langston started to formulate a plan.

  The idea was to run into her and keep it natural. It seemed that her preferred watering hole was in Gramercy, a swanky rooftop bar with views of the Flatiron. She clicked over to the bar’s website and found out that seats filled up quickly. The line opened at seven, unless you had VIP access. Bette had VIP access of course, and according to Griff’s notes, it wasn’t cheap. Langston was looking through the elaborate cocktail menu when Kira came up to the couch to hand her a plate of steaming stir-fry.

  “Thank you, Chef Kira,” Langston said, putting her laptop aside so that she could take the bowl. “This looks amazing.”

  “Oh, shoot, I forgot to get you some chopsticks,” Kira said, turning around. But before she did, she glanced at Langston’s laptop. “You going out for a drink tonight?”

  “Not tonight,” said Langston. “Tomorrow. It’s for a job.”

  Kira came back to her with chopsticks. “Ooh,” she said, smiling slyly. “You going on a date?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  Langston looked up at her, not knowing what to
say. She knew what Kira’s reaction was going to be to all this. “A guy’s hired me to seduce someone,” she said, digging her chopsticks into the food.

  “Who?”

  “His wife.”

  Kira raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “He’s going to divorce her and he’ll be able to protect his assets if she gets caught cheating,” said Langston with a small shrug. “So, that’s what I’m going to help him do.”

  “This sounds like a scam,” said Kira, going back to the stove to serve herself some of the food.

  Langston pulled out the envelope from her pants, pulling it open to reveal the neat stack of Benjamins. “It’s hard to call it a scam with this much money.”

  Kira whirled around, eyeing the cash. She looked impressed, but skeptical. “Well, you know me—I don’t mess around with stuff like that. But I’m glad you’re getting paid,” she said, coming back to sit on the couch and folding her thin legs under her. “What’s she look like?”

  Langston pulled her phone out, tapping through a few times to get to the photos and turning the screen to Kira. Kira’s eyes widened. “She’s gorgeous,” she said. “She’s just your type.”