“Damn, girl,” Keisha whistled. “I just made you the hottest sister around.”
Kimani studied the braids, dozens of them, with dark browns and gold woven subtly into them. It was the most amazing weave she had ever had.
“If this guy doesn’t jump all over you, there’s something wrong with him,” Tara agreed.
That’s what I’m afraid of, Kimani thought to herself.
Then why’d you get your hair done?
After paying Keisha more than double, Kimani had Wong drive her to a coffee shop near the San Francisco Tribune’s offices in the South of Market district.
“You do something different with your hair?” Sam asked as they sat down at a table, he with a latte and she with a cup of green tea.
“I got braids,” she answered.
“Cool. So I looked into what PACs had been formed recently. And there’s one called Oakland Forward: A Coalition of Community Members for Oakland’s Future. Sounds nice, right? Well, looking at the donor list, it’s almost all developers. I’m going to try to talk to Ezra Rosenstein. He’s speaking at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon today.”
She knit her brows. “What do you expect to find?”
“It’s against the law for an independent expenditure to communicate with a candidate or his campaign.”
“What about the Scarlet Auction? Or Jake Whitehurst? You dig up anything there?”
“Nothing interesting about Whitehurst. His father founded the Whitehurst Agency, and they represent a number of players in the NBA and NFL. Jake graduated cum laude from USC and went straight to work for his dad’s sports agency.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. What did you think I was going to find? A criminal record?”
She thought of the college athlete who had been caught raping a drunk woman outside a party. The judge had sentenced the young man to time served. An uproar had followed from people who’d thought the perpetrator had gotten off easy because he was a student at an elite university.
“I guess not,” she sighed.
“Is the guy dangerous?”
“I’m pretty sure he is. Just like the guy who beat up my roommate.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Did he hurt someone?”
“It’s just the way he treats the woman he bid on, who’s really young.” Kimani wasn’t ready to admit what had happened between her and Jake because she didn’t want Sam to pull the plug on the story, which he would if he thought she was in danger.
“Are you up close to all this?”
She nodded. “All of us, four couples total, are staying at a remote lakeside cabin somewhere about an hour from Weaverville. It’s Jake’s cabin. Or at least his dad’s.”
“And the women are forced to have sex?”
“No, it’s consensual. They get paid.”
“What about you? How’d you end up there? You said Benjamin Lee wasn’t at the auction.”
“I was bid on first by Jake. Ben came along and took me off Jake’s hands.”
“Why did he do that?”
“He saw I didn’t like my situation.”
“So he’s a good Samaritan?”