Under Covers Read online

  Naomi was grateful for the success of what had started out as a side hobby for her and her friend, but sometimes the knowledge of how many people depended on her made her panic. Today was one of those days. She took a deep breath and stepped to the railing.

  “Okay listen up.” Movement stopped as all eyes turned to look at her. “As you guys know, today is my last day before I go off and marry that gorgeous man that just walked out of here.”

  Naomi grinned at the cheers and whistles she received.

  “While I am gone, Natasha is going to run the ship, which she is more than capable of doing,” Naomi said with a smile as she glanced over at her friend. “She does it most of the time anyway. But if you absolutely need me, I’ll be here in office until 1:30 so get in where you fit in while you can. That is all.”

  Naomi turned towards her door even as the movement started downstairs. She knew that she would spend most of the next four hours hand holding her staff, but that was fine with her. Everything major that needed to be done was already taken care of or passed off to Natasha, so she had the time.

  “You’re still doing the whole afternoon thing with Amanda and Charlie?” Natasha followed Naomi into her office.

  “WE are doing the whole afternoon thing,” Naomi sunk down into her chair and opened up her laptop. “You know I need you to help me navigate those two.”

  “So we’re both going to ditch the office this afternoon?” Natasha asked, her eyebrow rose. “Think the kids can manage without us?”

  “They’re old enough,” Naomi pulled up some documents. “By the way, Camille was supposed to be there too but she was going to call me back for the location. Have you heard anything from her?”

  “No, but I’ll text her the details,” Natasha retrieved her Blackberry out of her back pocket, just as a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in, David,” Naomi waved him inside. “Connie called back, didn’t she?”

  “In less than ten minutes,” David said with a grin.

  Naomi laughed. It was going to be a busy four hours.

  Chapter Three

  “Yes! Yes! Right there! Oh yes! That’s it...that’s it exactly.”

  “Girl, you need to stop with all that,” Natasha said, her voice sounded muffled as it floated up from a foot above the floor. “People are going to think something freaky is going on in here.”

  After lunch, Amanda had taken Naomi and the other girls to the Cornelia Day Resort where they received the full bridal package. They had done a quick body treatment and then massages. The next round would be a skin soak and facial. Naomi couldn’t remember the last time she had been so pampered. Though the weekend getaway at a luxury resort Jordan had given her for her thirty-second birthday last month came pretty close.

  “What’s freaky is the way my muscles have melted under this massage,” Charlie murmured from her similar face down position. “Aleksi, whatever they pay you at this place, I’ll double it if you come work for me.”

  The Russian massage therapist chuckled and continued to press his hands into Charlie’s bare shoulders.

  “There you go again, Charlie. You think you can buy people onto your side,” Amanda commented from her own massage bed. “Not everyone has a price tag.”

  “Of course they do. You just have to keep going higher until you find it,” Charlie quipped. “Isn’t that right, Naomi?”

  “Uh-uh. Y’all leave me out of this. I am too relaxed right now to get drawn into other people’s arguments. It’s been a long time since my body’s felt this good,” Naomi said.

  “What? Jordan’s not taking care of that?” Charlie said cheekily. “What you marrying him for then?”

  “Eww! I am right here!” Amanda said with a shudder. “I do not need that mental picture of my brother.”

  “I am marrying him because I love him,” Naomi replied. “Because he is the best thing that ever happened to me, and because he loves me. I think that’s good enough.”

  “I do too,” Natasha said. “Everything else is none of anyone else’s business.”

  “Agreed,” Amanda said so enthusiastically that Naomi and Natasha both started laughing.

  Charlie scoffed. “You guys are no fun.”

  “No, you’re just too nosy,” Natasha said. “Get your own man and stop nosing around other people’s. And by your own, I don’t mean that ratchet mess you brought to the engagement party.”

  “Ouch,” Amanda murmured.

  “Owen is not a ratchet mess. He’s a wonderful guy,” Charlie responded, not the least bit miffed.

  “He’s married...”

  “Separated,” Charlie corrected. “And we’re just hanging out.”

  Natasha snorted. “Okay, Alicia Keyes. Whatever you and Swizz B. need to tell yourselves to sleep at night.”

  Naomi closed her eyes and tuned out her two friends. If she didn’t know better she would think those two hated each other. But she did know better. The three of them had grown up together in New Jersey. Since they were ten years old, they had went to the same schools and slept over at each other’s homes. In fact, when it was time to start Street Life magazine, all three of them had put in the capital necessary to get it going. Charlie opted to be a silent partner. Naomi knew they never would have been able to get things off the ground without Charlie’s input and she was always thankful to her for that.

  They had always been pretty close, until three years ago when Charlie had suddenly decided she wanted to sell her stock in Street Life at a time when neither Naomi nor Natasha could afford to buy it back. Naomi had to put her house on the market and go back to renting. Natasha had to borrow money from her family to make it happen. Naomi didn’t really mind selling her first home because it required more of her than she initially anticipated when she purchased it. But Natasha had not gotten over the way Charlie had stretched them thin. Her relationship with Charlie had been tenuous at best since then.

  Still, they were the closest women to Naomi and she couldn’t imagine getting married without either of them. In fact, she kind of owed Charlie because she had been the one to introduce Jordan and Naomi at a barbeque for the board members of the Thirty Under Thirty Awards. It was a fact Charlie rarely let her forget.

  “Nay-Nay, you really gonna let her do me like that the week of your wedding?” Charlie asked. “After all, if I hadn’t introduced you to Mr. Lennox, we wouldn’t even be here right now.”

  “Actually, you all wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me,” Amanda said. “None of you even knew this oasis existed before I pulled up to the entrance.”

  “Very true,” Naomi said. “Props to the sister-in-law.”

  “Thank you,” Amanda said. She sounded pleased. “But if I knew your sister would be this late, I would have booked for four instead of five. Where is Camille?”

  “That’s the million dollar question,” Naomi said. “I have called her all morning and nothing.”

  “She didn’t text me back either,” Natasha said. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “Two days ago,” Naomi said. “She was finishing up a paper she needed to submit before the end of the semester. I know she was a little stressed out over it but I don’t know why she would just fall off the grid like that.”

  “Are you worried?” Amanda asked.

  Naomi didn’t answer right away. All morning, after every unanswered call from Camille, something heavy had settled in the pit of Naomi’s stomach but she had tried to ignore it.

  “Don’t be,” Charlie said. “You know Camille. Always disappearing deep into something. She’s twenty-one, what do you expect? She probably pulled an all-nighter to hand in her paper, then partied with her friends. I bet she crashed, dead asleep at her dorm or at your mom’s...”

  “...or with that boyfriend of hers,” Natasha said dryly.

  “Yeah, I meant to say something about that,” Amanda said as they sat up from the massages and put on their robes. “I had an odd feeling about him at the engagement party. He�
�s a tad creepy.”

  “Who, Andre? Why?” Charlie flipped her long dark hair over her shoulder as she turned to frown at Amanda. “Cause he’s not New York royalty like the rest of your clan?”

  “No,” Amanda said defensively. “It’s just...I just got a weird feeling that’s all.”

  “No, I know what you mean,” Naomi slipped on the plush spa slippers as she pulled the belt on her robe tighter. “I don’t know much about him. But I’m not too fond of him either.”

  Something about Camille’s latest boy toy made Naomi uneasy. There was a hardness about him. An edge. He reminded Naomi of her own brother. And that scared Naomi in more ways than she cared to think about.

  “I don’t know,” Natasha said. “He was pretty polite during the evening. He stayed close to Camille...”

  “...or smothered her.” Amanda said as she led the way out of the massage room. “I didn’t even know she was seeing someone. If I had known, I wouldn’t have invited my nephew-in-law to meet her. I thought they would have hit it off.”

  “That little light-skinned cutie was your husband’s nephew?” Charlie asked, the interest in her voice obvious.

  “Down girl, he is way too young for your cougar behind,” Natasha glanced behind her at Charlie.

  “Then someone should have told him, cause I couldn’t get rid of him all night,” Charlie said with a grin. “Besides, I think thirty-three is too young to be a cougar.”

  Naomi answered Amanda’s initial question. “She just started seeing him a couple months ago. She met him at some campus event. Although, he doesn’t exactly strike me as university material.”

  “Now that, I can’t argue with,” Charlie said knowingly. Though Camille’s boyfriend had been pretty quiet, the scars on his face, tattoos and hood-life aura suggested a lot.

  Naomi rubbed her arms. She felt chilled all of sudden. “I just hope this one passes as swiftly as the last couple of them.”

  “Ladies! I hope you have enjoyed your treatment thus far.”

  The tall blonde who served as their host for the afternoon stood just outside the doors of the massage area. She smiled serenely at them.

  “Yes, we have.” Naomi smiled. “It’s been amazing.”

  The other women murmured their agreement.

  “Excellent,” the host clasped her hands together. “Then let’s continue, shall we?”

  “Up next is our Zen ginseng facial treatment and milk bath. Both are designed to soften, moisturize and replenish your skin, making it supple and giving you a fresh, healthy glow.”

  “Milk bath,” Natasha murmured to Naomi. “Fancy, fancy. I am going to enjoy having you married into the family of a former New York governor. The perks are amazing.”

  Naomi chuckled and followed her friends through a wide archway into a covered garden area. Beautiful flowers and lush thick foliage surrounded six stone beds built into the ground. They were filled with a pure white milky liquid.

  The host had said, “Well ladies, go ahead. In a few minutes our beauty therapists will come in and begin applying your facial masks.”

  Then she disappeared into the main building. The four women looked at each other curiously.

  Naomi grinned. “Well, who’s going first?”.

  “You’re the bride,” Natasha folded her arms.

  “Amanda, this was your idea,” Naomi looked over at her friend.

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “The lengths I have to go through to get you all to try something new.”

  Amanda disrobed and slipped down into the milk bath. She let out a deep sigh as she laid her head back on the headrest.

  “You sold me, “ Charlie followed suit.

  Within minutes, they all soaked in the warm creamy liquid. Although it felt a little strange, Naomi had to admit it also felt really great. She had heard about milk baths before, but this was the first time she’d ever experienced one personally. She really wished Camille were here. She would have gotten a kick out of all of this. Growing up with a mother who had migrated from Trinidad to New York, Naomi had known what it was like to struggle. Her mother often worked two or three jobs. She left Naomi to learn how to take care of herself from very early on, and later when Camille arrived, she had to take care of her too. Though Naomi’s brother was six years older than her, his adjustment to life in the USA had been a harder transition for him at age sixteen than it had been for Naomi as a ten year old. He had been too caught up in his own issues to be around much for her. And then after a while, he wasn’t around at all.

  Naomi’s thoughts began to cloud over as her mind wondered to Nigel. Some days she felt like she hadn’t known him at all, and other days she feared that she was nothing more than a hare’s breath away from being just like him. They had grown up the exact same way and yet were so different, or so Naomi liked to tell herself. Maybe they weren’t really that different after all. Maybe your gene pool condemned you to certain destinies and there was nothing you could do about it. Look at Camille. She had the least contact with Nigel out of all of them and yet their personalities, their approach to life was so similar it sometimes kept Naomi awake at night, and kept her tense with worry. Kind of like she was right now.

  Naomi sat up and reached for her robe, abandoned on the marble next to her soaker. “Maybe I should call her again.”

  Natasha reached over and grabbed Naomi’s hand before she got to her cell phone in the robe’s pocket.

  “Relax, Nay-Nay. This whole spa afternoon is for you. Don’t spend it worried about Camille.”

  “I can’t help it,” Naomi closed her eyes and rested her palm on her forehead. “I hate when she does this. She knows she should call. Or at least send a text message. Something to let me know what’s going on.”

  “Yes, she knows,” Natasha said. “And if she wanted to be in touch, she would. But this is how Camille is. This is how she’s always been. Getting worked up about it hasn’t changed her in the past and it won’t now.”

  “At least I’ll know where she is.”

  “That’s assuming she even answers,” Natasha argued. “Given that she hasn’t bothered to the last seven times you called, I don’t think she will now.”

  “Just give her some space, Nay-Nay,” Charlie said from two baths down. “Remember how we were at that age? You gotta give her some room to breathe. Let her make her own choices and deal with the consequences. Let her go.”

  Naomi let out a deep breath and sank back into the bath. “You’re right. I just need to give her some room. I’m sure she’ll call tonight. She probably just...forgot.”

  As she closed her eyes and laid her head back, she tried to let go of her anxiety. Everything would be fine. She worried way too much.

  “Ugh! What is that!”

  Three pairs of eyes popped open and turned towards Amanda, whose face was twisted in disgust.

  “What’s that in your bath, Naomi?”

  Naomi followed Amanda’s eyes to the foot of her bath. Her throat began to close when she saw what her friend exclaimed about. A small black pool infected the creamy white liquid near where her feet should be. Naomi couldn’t tell where it came from. It was almost as if it had floated to the top of the liquid from somewhere underneath, but it slowly spread out from the darkest point, like a drop of ink on a damp cloth.

  Naomi scrambled back and out over the edge of the stone bath. She scraped her bare legs along the way as cold dread poured through her.

  “Something’s wrong,” she gasped.

  “Something’s definitely wrong,” Amanda said outraged as she stood up. “This is disgusting. I am getting a manager.”

  “No, no,” Naomi shook her head as her eyes stayed glued to the infected liquid. “Something bad...something very, very bad!”

  She didn’t notice the look Charlie and Natasha exchanged as they pulled on their own robes, but she did catch the grim look in Charlie’s eyes as she looked at Naomi. They knew her. They knew that worry was one thing but panic was something entirely different, and she d
idn’t panic for nothing.

  “What do you want to do?”

  Naomi stared at the tainted image, but all her mind saw was what she had ignored that morning before she left home. All the signs that something was off that she had brushed aside. Maybe they were old wives’ tales. Maybe they weren’t. But right now there was too much coincidence for it to just be nothing.

  “Camille.” She got up, grabbed her robe, and hastily pulled it over her barely clad body. “I need to find Camille now.”

  Chapter Four

  Camille was not in her dorm.

  In fact, the resident assistant for the dorm had informed Naomi that Camille had already moved out for the summer. A quick glance into her empty room confirmed that she was indeed gone and not coming back.

  “Did she tell you she was checking out?” Charlie asked.

  “No,” Naomi answered as they pulled up to the front of Naomi’s mother’s home.

  The only thing Camille had told Naomi was that she would be staying in the dorm during the summer while she redid a couple courses she had failed the semester before. The check that Naomi had given her to cover the extra dorm expense had already been cashed. She tried not to think about where Camille and that money actually were.

  “Okay, let’s try not to panic Momma Savoy,” Natasha said before they got out of the car. “She has had enough to deal with.”

  Naomi nodded. She was glad they had convinced Amanda to handle things at the spa and the final wedding prep. She wouldn’t have understood this part of Naomi’s world anyway. Amanda was all Manhattan and Long Island. New Jersey - especially the part where Naomi grew up - was a long way away from Amanda’s world.

  The drive to South Trenton, New Jersey, from Fordham University took a little over an hour. During that time, Naomi talked herself down from her hysteria. She was still convinced that something was terribly wrong, but at least she had a plan. If Camille wasn’t here, she would search her room and find the address for that worthless scum of a man Camille had hooked up with. She was certain that he was involved in this somehow. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Call it a sixth sense.