Tara Holloway 01 - Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly Page B

shoulders in phantom agony.
    “Listen up.” Christina put one finger in the air and waved it in a zigzag pattern in front of my face. “This undercover thang ain’t jus’ about wearing the right gear,” she said in a sassy voice. “It’s about puttin’ on the right attitude.”
    “And the ‘right attitude’ would be what, precisely?”
    “That everyone can kiss our sweet little asses.” She kissed her fingertips, cocked her hip, and gave her right butt cheek a resounding slap.
    Hmm. I kissed my fingers, stuck out a hip, and slapped my ass. “How’s that?”
    She frowned. “Needs work.”
    We snatched several pairs of seamless no-line underwear from the lingerie display. Didn’t want our sweet little asses to have panty lines in these tight clothes.
    We headed into the dressing rooms with our selections, choosing the largest room to share so we could swap the selections we’d squabbled over. Inside the room, I slipped out of my loafers, then removed my jacket and hung it on a hook.
    Christina glanced over at me, gesturing at the bandage on my arm. “What happened?”
    I explained the injury, giving her the basic details of Battaglia’s bust.
    “He didn’t know you carried a gun?” She slipped into a pair of skintight jeans and zipped them up. “What part of ‘IRS Criminal Investigations’ did he not understand?”
    Maybe if the word got out that IRS agents were armed, we’d have fewer problems. “Yeah. It was pretty stupid. He would’ve spent only a month or two in jail for the tax fraud. But assault on a federal officer will put him away for years.” I slipped the black top over my head, tugging it down into place. I didn’t know Christina well enough to openly discuss my concerns about my job, but I was curious to know if she’d been through the same experience, suffered the same doubts. “You ever been attacked?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Not yet? You expect to, then?”
    Christina turned to look at her butt in the mirror, performing a series of squats to test the flexibility of the fabric. Satisfied, she stood and looked at me. “If you don’t expect an attack, you won’t be ready for it.”
    “True.” I hadn’t expected Jack Battaglia to do what he did. And I hadn’t been ready for him. I’d never make that mistake again.
    After trying the clothes on and finding the right shoes to complete our outfits, we paid for our purchases with our government-issued credit cards and headed back to the dressing rooms to change into our new panties and outfits. We emerged from our separate rooms and gave each other the once-over. Christina appeared all of eighteen in the teeny pink shorts and tank top.
    “It needs one final touch.” I reached over to her shoulder, pulled her black bra strap out from under the tank top, and let it hang off her shoulder. “There.”
    Christina took in my tight black T-shirt, the hip-hugging Capri pants that showed my belly button and very nearly revealed my coin slot, and the over-the-top flip-flops embellished with sparkling silver sequins. “You’ve got the clothes right, and your manicure is cute, but we’ve got to do something about your hair and makeup. Too conservative.” She pushed me through the lavender curtain back into the dressing room.
    While Christina had glitzy, striking cover-girl qualities, I was more like the attractive but less showy sort of woman on page sixty-two of a magazine, in an ad for floor polish or tampons. I decided to let Christina have her way with me, makeup wise, that is.
    She whipped lipstick, blush, and eye shadow out of her enormous purse and set to work, pausing occasionally to evaluate her progress. After emboldening my features with a metallic rose lipstick and thick black liquid eyeliner, she put one last dab of powder on my nose and declared my face “Done.” Putting her hands on my shoulders, she turned me around to face the mirror.
    I took one look and gasped. “I look like a—”
    “Ho.” Christina dropped the