The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

THE CASE OF THE FLASHING FASHION QUEEN

A Dix Dodd Mystery

by

N.L. Wilson

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Norah Wilson, writing as N.L. Wilson

Copyright © 2011 Norah Wilson

All rights reserved. Note re Bonus Material

Please note that bonus material in the form of an excerpt from Family Jewels, A Dix Dodd Mystery by N.L. Wilson, appears at the end of this book. That bonus material will make this book appear several pages longer than it actually is. Bear that in mind as you approach the end and are anxiously trying to judge how much story is left!

Chapter 1

A lot of people specialize.

If you have a toothache you go to the dentist, not the doctor (unless he’s a really hot doctor and then you go there first). If you need a new roof, call the roofer. Groceries? Call the grocer. You wouldn’t go to a mechanic for your annual pap smear, nor have your OB-GYN under the hood of your … um … car. Okay, bad analogy. But you see where I’m going, right?

The point is, when you have a special job in mind, you call a specialist. And if you live in Marport City and need someone to get to the truth of a matter — and when the matter is private and dear to your heart — you call me.

You see, I’m a private detective. I’m not so new to the business itself, but new to being out on my own. Six months’ new. I worked for years at a private detective company called Jones and Associates. The number one company in Marport City. All professional. All business. All men. And no matter how hard I worked there, how brilliantly I put things together (and that would be damn brilliantly, thank you very much), I was always the ‘girl’. The one sent to do the coffee runs. The one who ordered office supplies and hunted down the lost files. I never had a real shot at advancing there, despite my many years of service and their many years of promises. So a few months before my fortieth birthday, I set out on my own. Hung up my own shingle.

The boys at Jones and Associates told me I’d never survive, that I’d be hauling my skirted butt back there within the year. Well, it’s been six months, and I’m still hanging onto that shingle. Hanging on by my fingernails, mind you, but hanging on.

These days, I specialize in trailing men who cheat, or who are suspected of cheating. I trail them for wives who are wondering about girlfriends, and girlfriends wondering about wives. Overprotective moms, neurotic dads, and yeah, the occasional jealous ex-girlfriend who just has to know. I find out where, when, with whom and if you’re really interested — how. I take pictures. I take notes. I check gas gauges, tire treads and odometers. I follow trails left by credit card receipts and miscellaneous bills. I check out alibis.

As you can imagine, it isn’t always pretty. But it’s always interesting.

And some cases aren’t always as they seem.

Take for example the case of Jennifer Weatherby, or as I like to call it, The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen. Who would have known that one phone call, that one seemingly ordinary phone call, would turn into such a mess?

But then, death is always messy. Or rather, murder is messy. Especially when I’m caught smack-dab in the middle of it.

+++

“Hey, Dix. Jennifer Weatherby just phoned to double check our address. I’m guessing her ETA is about two minutes.”

Oh, thank God! I glanced up at my assistant. “Thanks, Dylan,” I said, as though I’d never doubted she’d show.

Jennifer Weatherby had called me two days ago, on May 30. Called, in fact, just as I was writing out the rent cheque for the landlord, and wincing at how pitifully few dollars remained in my account.

Five thousand dollars. That’s what she’d offered me. I’d just about dropped the phone. But Mrs. Weatherby had been clear: five large for a week’s worth of work.

But here’s the thing — sometimes these hot new clients don’t show. Sometimes they call in a fit of anger or jealously, but when they calm down, they decide they don’t need a private detective after all. And often they’re too embarrassed to call and cancel. So, yeah, I was more than happy when Dylan told me she was en route.

His message delivered, I expected him to turn and leave. Well, kind of. Dylan Foreman rarely did what was expected.

Good thing he was the best assistant I’d ever had.

Okay, the only assistant I’d ever had. And strictly speaking, he wasn’t really an assistant. He was an apprentice. All aspiring private investigators have to complete a period of apprenticeship. I’d done mine with Jones and Associates. When Dylan Foreman knocked on my door just a month after I opened for business and laid his story on the table, I couldn’t refuse him.

The man had a law degree, on top of a degree in communications and another in criminology. After passing the bar, he was scooped up by one of the top firms in the city and had been well on his way to making a name for himself in criminal law. But all that changed one day when he got a call from a scared kid.

The kid had been abducted by his father, a client of the law firm and a suspected child abuser. Bastard had picked the boy up at school and driven him five hundred miles to another city. Police were searching for him frantically. Dylan had been working late that night when the call came in from the missing child. The kid had hit re-dial on the phone while his father had left him alone to go out for beer. Scared and crying, he’d told Dylan things his father had been doing to him.

So Dylan called the police, gave them the number that had come up on the call display and they’d had the kid within the half hour. Found the little boy alone and scared, battered and bruised.

Dylan knew what he’d done. The minute he’d picked up the phone to call the cops, he knew his career was effectively over before it ever really got started. But all he could think about was the fact that the client had called earlier in the day and the senior lawyers had done squat to protect that kid.

Needless to say, he got flack. Then he got fired. Eventually, he got disbarred.

“If you had it to do over, would you do the same thing?” I’d asked him.

“In a heartbeat.”

I’d hired him on the spot. He worked hard; and thankfully, he worked cheap.

And omigod, he was handsome! And young — all of twenty-eight. Okay, yeah, I had sort of a crush on him, but nothing serious. Nothing that kept me up at night. He was just … nice to look at.

He was pretty good on the computers, too, up to and including some minor hacking when the situation demanded. He also made a mean cup of coffee (and I liked my coffee mean), and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when it came to that. Plus, holy hell, my clients loved him. If I had a dollar for every time I’d come out of my office to find a dejected damsel crying on his broad shoulders, the male strippers at The Nuts and Bolts next door would be some happy young men. Except the Canadian mint stopped making dollar bills years ago, and it’s damned hard to make a loonie stay inside a G-string unless you tuck it…. Well, you get the picture.

Where was I? Ah, yes, Dylan Foreman, and why I tolerated his idiosyncrasies.

Simply put, we were well matched. What I lacked in compassion, Dylan more than made up for. I could deliver the bad-tasting medicine, but it was Dylan who had the bedside manner. He had a sympathetic ear, a compassionate nature, and a way of really listening to women that few men possessed. While I told the women their men were cheating, he told them they deserved so much better than the dogs who cheated on them. They left my office feeling low, and his desk feeling relieved.

“We’re in perfect proportion, Dix,” he told me once, when I’d remarked on this.

Dylan was handsome in that I’m-not-trying way — chocolate brown eyes, shoulder length brown hair begging to have fingers ran through it. He was built like a basketball player, long, lean and muscular.

And all six foot four of him now stood in my doorway.

Perfect proportion indeed.

“Was there something else you wanted, Dylan?” I fought down the fluster that I was really too old for. Knowing, dammit, that I could always blame it on a hot flash, if need be.

“I was thinking about the business cards.” Dylan entered my office and closed the door behind him.

“Oh, no, not again.” I leaned back in my chair, coffee cup in hand, and clunked my feet up onto my desk. We’d been making do with those print-it-yourself, perforated thingies, but the time had come to order some real business cards. It was kind of fun, but also kind of becoming a pain in the ass getting them perfect. “I told you, nothing fancy on the cards. Just plain simple: Dix Dodd, Private Detective. Address and phone number.”

He frowned. “Boring. We need something people will remember. Something that’ll make you stand out. You know … something with flair.”

“Such as?”

“Dix Dodd, Private Detective. Call me if you think you’re getting screwed, or know you’re not.”

I groaned.

“Come on, Dix! It’s perfect. To the point. Unforgettable.”

I shook my head. “And completely not going to happen.”

We both heard the footsteps in the hallway and our conversation halted. The door to the outer office opened to admit a female. I could see her silhouette through the frosted glass window of my office as she stood beside Dylan’s desk. She tipped a hand to her hair, then back down again. She raised a cigarette to her lips, lit a lighter, but pulled both away before she lit the smoke, and before I needed to run out to remind her of the building’s no smoking policy.

“Don’t worry,” Dylan said, heading for the door. “I’ll think of something else for the business cards.”

“Thanks, I just want something—”

Without benefit of a knock, my door flew open. Dylan stepped aside before the doorknob caught him in a place that could do damage. My feet thumped to the floor; my chair tipped forward as I sat up straight.

“Dix Dodd?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Jennifer Weatherby.”

Beside me, Dylan stood dumbstruck. A first, in my experience.

Of course, I didn’t acquit myself much better. I pride myself on my unflappable self-control. Pride myself on my smoothness in dealing with all kinds of clientele. I didn’t fidget. I didn’t blush. And I didn’t stutter out of nervousness. But I have to admit I was a little stunned by Mrs. Weatherby’s appearance. It’s nothing for women to come into the office a bit overdressed to hide from prying eyes. After all, as much as I may not like to admit it, paranoia often plays a large role in the lives of the women who called upon my services. But this chick had gone just a tad overboard. Like, jumped-off-a-cruise-ship-in-the-middle-of-the-Pacific overboard.

Jennifer Weatherby stood just a few inches short of six feet tall in her modest heels. Modest height, that is. Nothing else about those violet velvet puppies could be called modest. The hem of the purple dress she wore stopped just above the knee. She wore a wide black belt cinched at the waist, and broad shoulder pads that would have made Darth Vader envious. While the neckline of the dress didn’t exactly plunge, it didn’t need to. The lady was well endowed. If Mr. Weatherby was cheating, he certainly wasn’t a boob man. Mrs. Weatherby tipped a well manicured index finger to the rim of her wide glasses, pushing them back up on the bridge of her nose. Her blond hair was piled high in a feat of engineering that must have required a ton of product. I braced for the reek of hair spray, but all that wafted toward me was perfume. Lavender perfume, of course.

Dylan recovered before I did from this first encounter with the Flashing Fashion Queen.

“Mrs. Weatherby,” he said. “Can I get you a coffee?”

I held my own cup protectively close.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I … I don’t tolerate caffeine well. Makes me jumpy.” The last thing I wanted to see was this lady jumping.

“Perhaps a juice, Mrs. Weatherby?” I offered.

“No … thank you,” she said shakily. “Nothing for me.”

On this cue, Dylan left, closing the door behind him. He’d give us time. Enough time for me to get to the heart of the matter: enough time for an S.O.B. fest, but not enough for a sob fest.

“Please have a seat Mrs. Weatherby.”

I could tell she was nervous. She moved to cross her left leg over her right as she sat, then her right over her left. She finally settled on pressing her knees so tightly together I just knew they’d have those little round, red circle things on the inside if and when she ever relaxed them again.

She cleared her throat hoarsely. Man, she must have been crying for days.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

That was my cue to cut to the chase. “Why do you believe your husband is cheating, Mrs. Weatherby?”

“Jennifer … please call me Jennifer.”

I nodded. “Okay, Jennifer. Why do you believe your husband’s cheating?”

“Oh, I don’t believe my Ned’s cheating.” She pressed her hands to her impressive chest as she drew a deep breath. “I know he’s cheating.”

I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the pad and paper. I’d long ago learned that clients do not like tape recorders on the best of days, and I didn’t bother suggesting one to Jennifer Weatherby. The Weatherby name was well known in Marport City. Ned Weatherby had positioned himself to make a fortune on personal computer safety before anyone even suspected there was a need for such things. But when the viruses and spyware started to hit, he launched his product to the panicking masses just in time to save the businesses that had become so technology-dependent. He’d been a shrewd businessman, buying out his partners just months before he’d patented and launched the product — convincing them cleverly that the company was doomed. Some said Ned Weatherby had unleashed the viruses himself, but nothing was ever proven. Whatever the cause, the effect remained — the Weatherbys were loaded. And in Marport City, loaded meant life in the proverbial fish bowl. Mrs. Weatherby would want her privacy.

“Tell me about the cheating, Mrs. Weather … I’m sorry, Jennifer.” I looked down at my notepad, as always placed upon my lap so the client couldn’t see what I was writing. Some people talked more with the eye contact, needing the comforting encouragement to go on. Others, I’d found, talked more without it, needing the smallest pretense of detachment and privacy as they spilled their stories.

“Ned and I have been married for a long time. Almost twenty years. And I … I thought it was a good marriage. I thought he was happy. I know I was. Who wouldn’t be happy with a man like my Neddy?”

Good. She was an eyes-averted talker. As long as she kept talking, I’d keep my gaze lowered.

“But you don’t think so anymore?”

I heard her pull a tissue from the box strategically placed on my desk.

“He has a mistress. I’m one hundred percent sure he does.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Oh, yes. Many times.” Her words were muffled through the Kleenex she held to her face, but in my job you get used to tissue-speak.

I was beginning to think Jennifer Weatherby needed a divorce lawyer more than she needed a private dick. The vision of the five thousand dollars growing wings and flying away popped into my head. If she was that sure her Ned was cheating, why did she need me to gather the proof? “Do you have a name?”

She looked up at me startled. “Er, I told you, Jennifer Weatherby.”

“No, I mean, do you have a name of the other woman.”

She sat up straight. “No, no name. But I’ve seen her many times. She drives by the house all hours of the day and night. Once when I was out in the front garden having my tea, she slowed her car down, and stared back at me.”

I was beginning to have real doubts about this client. “That really doesn’t mean—”

“And I’ve seen them coming out of a motel together. The Underhill Motel.”

“The Underhill?”

She nodded, anxiously. “Yes, I was out shopping one day and saw Ned leaving there with this … this floozy.”

‘Floozy’. That word always struck me funny and I bit down on my lip to kill the giggle. I always pictured an intoxicated duck whenever I heard it.

I knew the place. The Underhill Motel was one of the older motels in the city, known for its cheap rooms and its hourly rates. A lot of the call girls work out of it. I made a mental note to check with some of my contacts. But it struck me that whatever Ned Weatherby was up to, and whomever he was up to it with, he apparently wasn’t out to impress them — not at the Underhill.

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that your husband was employing a prostitute? Maybe this was just a one-time thing? Not a mistress but a—”

“No! Absolutely not! I’m sure she’s more than just a prostitute. She loves Ned. She has to love Ned. I mean, who wouldn’t love my Neddy-bear.”

I looked down on the doodles on the legal pad — tight circles usually grouped in two, and ladders going to nowhere. Something that looked like demonic chicken tracks. No, wait … those were webbed feet. Duck tracks, then, wending crazily around the bottom corner of the page. And one big, block lettered word — NOTACHANCE.

Well, now it was a word.

I had serious doubts about this case. Usually clients wanted proof and confirmations of suspicions. Mrs. Weatherby appeared to have both. The other angle, I knew, would be that she wanted blackmail material. And, okay, though it wasn’t my favorite thing to participate in, it did up the ante a bit more. “What is it you’re looking for from me then, Mrs. Weatherby? I mean, if you’re sure Ned is cheating, what can I do to help you out?”

“I want you to follow Ned for a week. I want his every move documented. His whereabouts recorded.

“Here’s what you need.” The Flashing Fashion Queen snapped open her purse and dumped its contents onto my desk. Holy Hannah. I could not believe what this woman toted around. Six paper-wrapped tampons (in different sizes, no less), four different shiny tubes of lipstick, foundation, blush…. There were packages of bobby pins and even a small can of hair spray. The woman was a walking feminine first-aid kit. Of course, among the jumble was an envelope marked for Dix Dodd. This she handed to me as she began piling the rest back into her purse.

“I’ve enclosed Ned’s itinerary for this week. Or rather what he says he’ll be doing this week. And I need you to photograph him everywhere.”

“When he’s with another woman?”

“Even when he’s not.”

I looked at her skeptically. Now the winged five thou was flying above my head twittering, ‘Catch me if you can!’

“I know my husband, Ms. Dodd. And I love him desperately.”

“But if he’s—”

She handed me the second envelope — this one pulled from a deep pocket of her purple dress. “That’s five thousand dollars. And there’ll be five thousand more at the end of the week. That’s ten grand for one week’s work, Ms. Dodd. Surely, that’s worth a few extra rolls of film. And a few less questions.”

Surely it was. I picked up the package.

“I just have one question, Jennifer. What does this woman … this other woman, look like?”

She swallowed hard, and wet her lips. “She’s … she’s about your height. Slender. Blond hair, hazel eyes.”

Hazel eyes? How close of a look had Jennifer Weatherby gotten?

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s threatened me. Several times she’s called the house telling me she wanted me out of the way.”

I blinked, then stared at her. “This might be a matter for the police then, Jennifer.”

“No, it’s a matter for you, Dix. I have faith in you.

Chapter 2

To say I did the happy dance when Jennifer Weatherby left my office would be the understatement of the year. I did the cookie-dough-right-out-of-the-package two step, the I-got-the-pool-to-myself cha cha cha.

Ten thousand dollars in cold, hard cash for a single week’s work! And five of it already warming my pocket.

This would be my biggest payday ever. And all I had to do was follow one of Marport City’s most successful citizens around for a week. From what I knew of Ned Weatherby, I really didn’t think I’d be digging up all that much dirt, but what the heck? Despite his reputation for being a bastard in business, he didn’t have one for being a bastard with the ladies. But it was Jennifer’s money. And for ten large, I’d give the lady what she wanted. Lots and lots of pictures. Documentation. Proof was in the pudding, as they say. I just wasn’t so very sure the pudding was going to be licked off any interesting body parts.

According to the itinerary she’d left me, Jennifer Weatherby wanted me to start checking out her husband that very night. That gave me just hours to get my digital camera ready, the voice recorder charged. We only had two other cases on the go, and I left them in Dylan’s capable hands. I even managed to sneak in a few hours sleep before I started what I assumed would be a long, boring case. A long, boring week.

For the most part, it was just that. When Ned was home with Jennifer, I dozed in vehicles (the various cars and vans I borrowed from those who owed me favors, or those to whom I was now indebted), always parking nearby so that when Mr. Weatherby left, Dix Dodd was on his tail. I lived on greasy fast food and coffee so mean it spit back.

Thanks to a listening device Mrs. Weatherby volunteered to plant on the phone in her husband’s den (the legality of which was questionable, strictly speaking), I recorded conversations between Ned Weatherby and his mother (loved the flowers dear but you really shouldn’t have), Ned and his old army buddies (did men never outgrow toilet humor?), his lawyer Jeremy Poole, whom I’d heard of, his accountant Tucker Flaherty, whom I’d never heard of, and three conversations with an unfortunate caterer — a Mr. Kenny Kent — who just couldn’t seem to get it right. And I recorded endless conversations between Ned and his secretary Luanne Laney.

On hands and knees, I snuck through the bushes on the golf course as I followed Ned Weatherby around. I trailed my mark into his church when he went for choir practice, slinging on a gown and auditioning myself when the pastor — a serious young fellow by the name of Pastor Fitz Ravenspire — found me lurking in the pews. (I must say, for a man of the cloth, he sure didn’t mince words when it came to my singing talents.) I waited outside the men’s room at so many ball games, the beer-and-nuts guy thought I was trying to pick him up. Boring few days. Yep, exactly what I expected. And when Ned Weatherby’s lights went out at night, I lay down exhausted in the car seat and drifted off with the smell of vinyl and ass drifting up my nostrils. Drifted into complacency. Boring. Boring. BORING!

So anyway, did I mention I’m an idiot?

Because boring lasted all of five days, then went out with a bang.

+++

Every evening, Dylan met with me. Between six and eight, when Ned Weatherby headed home and I followed at a discreet distance in whatever vehicle I could wangle, I would call my assistant. As soon as Ned turned down Ashfield Drive with its row of humongous houses, I’d hit #1 on my autodial. Dylan would meet me down the block from the Weatherby home — close enough that we could see the driveway, far enough away so that we appeared to be visiting elsewhere. And of course, always parked in a slightly different location.

Dylan would slide into the passenger seat and the two of us would go over what was happening at the office. A quick study, he knew not to bring the overdue bills along, not even the ones where the friendly reminders had turned considerably more hostile. Those would be taken care of soon enough anyway. Mostly he would fill me in on our other two cases that were on the board.

Why not do that whole thing over the phone, you’re thinking, rather than arranging this nightly tête-à-tête? Because I’d have starved to death. Mrs. Weatherby had insisted I conduct the entire surveillance personally, and given how much money she was paying me, I wasn’t about to quibble. So to keep continuity, I was reliant on Dylan to bring me enough stakeout food to get me through the night. When this case was over, I never wanted to see another wrapped burger or oversized shake as long as I lived.

Each evening as we met up, Dylan left his window down a little lower, and pushed up against the passenger door a little closer. By this fifth night, he was practically hanging his head out the window. “Gee, Dix,” he said, exaggerating a gag and waving a hand in front of his nose. “Wonder why you’re alone on a Friday night.”

Did I mention I desperately needed a shower?

It was just after seven and my mark was home. It had been a busy day for Ned, but I’d known that going into it. Jennifer had inked it in on the now grease-stained and worn itinerary she’d provided. Friday: meet with J. Poole 9am his offices, 11:30 lunch meeting with potential clients from Toronto — expected to go into the afternoon, 4:15 massage at gym/meet for racquetball if time permits.

Dylan picked up the wrinkled itinerary and looked it over. “Did you follow him into the massage?”

“Hardly!”

“Dix, I’m surprised at you,” he said. “And frankly, a little disappointed.”

I sighed. “It’s a restricted gym. Men only. Even the staff are men.”

He waited.

I opened the glove compartment and pulled out my fake mustache. “Good thing I can pass for a guy when I have to.” Which of course, is really quite easy — memorize a random fact about some big-boobed starlet, tell a good flatulence joke (and under pain of death, never use the word flatulence), and say, “How ’bout them Blue Jays/Leafs/Raptors?”. And of course, pray you don’t have to go for a pee.

Dylan lifted an eyebrow. “Tell me you didn’t give him the massage.”

“Hell, no. But I was the bungling incompetent trainee who delivered the towels to the room.”

He nodded. “Now, that’s the Dix Dodd I know and respect. And did our Mr. Weatherby behave?”

“Model customer. Just what you’d expect from a choirboy. He even kept his t-shirt on.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m not.”

This had surprised me. In fact, a lot of things I found out about Ned Weatherby this week had surprised me. The stories around Marport City always painted him as not just a shrewd businessman, but a bit of a prick about it. Before trailing him, I could have easily pictured this guy elbowing little old ladies aside if he spied a quarter in the middle of the street, or cheerfully drowning puppies if puppy-killing paid. But I’d witnessed no such bad conduct. If anything, Ned Weatherby was too good to be true. Literally. Because I’d seen too much to believe too good to be true could be true.

I watched as Dylan — a good six feet with a few inches to spare — attempted to get comfortable in the passenger seat of the vehicle-du-jour, a subcompact Hyundai. He put his left ankle on his right knee then down again. With one foot on the floor, he attempted to hike the other up on the dashboard, but that wasn’t about to happen. Finally, he just gave up and let his feet stay flat in the nut-crushing confines of the car.

Good. Served him right for so indelicately pointing out that I stank. It sort of leveled the playing field, seeing him sitting there with his folded knees nearly touching his chin. My satisfaction was short-lived, however, because he found the lever on the side of his seat and reclined it.

Oh, yikes!

In this half-reclining, totally sexy pose, he sipped his own super-sized drink and rattled the ice in the cup. “You’ll be pleased to know things are under control at the office.”

The office. Right. I paused to sip my drink. “The McGarvie case?”

“You nailed it. The guy was cheating with her best friend.” Dylan said. “Lori Lee McGarvie won’t be marrying that dog. She’s moving on and not looking back.”

“Your words?”

He beamed with pride. “Hers.”

“What about Roberta Street?”

“Hitting the road.”

Ha ha. I poked the ice in my drink with my straw. “Without her cheating boyfriend, I hope.”

“Actually, with Lori Lee McGarvie.”

“Excuse me?”

I blinked wide as Dylan flashed a sugar-eating grin. He locked his hands behind his head. “I have a sense about these things. And I just love happy endings.”

He did. Believe in happy endings, that is. Of course, if he stayed in this business long enough, he’d wise up.

Dylan nodded toward the house where Ned Weatherby had yet to enter. The millionaire was outside still, wandering around the gardens in the early evening light. He picked at the flowers and examined the shrubs. He pulled the rare weed that the gardener had missed.

“Why doesn’t he go in?”

“He does this every night,” I said, sticking my cold drink in the cup holder and wiping my condensation-dampened fingers on my jeans. “Fiddles around outside for a while. He’ll stay out there until the sheers pull back and Jennifer knocks on the window.”

“Regular green thumb, is he?”

“He’s a lot of things.” I hauled out the photographs from the week and handed them to him. Most of them were taken with a very sharp telephoto lens that would have given any paparazzi an orgasm. Ned in meetings with his staff looking annoyed at times, perplexed at others, never quite happy about the discussions on the table. Ned with his lawyer having a business lunch at Chez Lenore, and heading to the racquetball court after. Ned at the dentist, the jewelry store. But never at the Underhill Motel. And the closest he got to a blonde babe all week was his ready-to-retire secretary Luanne Laney, and she was more silver than blond.

There was one photograph that was out of place. A hellishly angry one that I’d shuffled to the bottom of the pile before handing the pics to Dylan. I watched his eyes as he riffled through them and came to this picture.

“This guy….” Dylan pointed to an older gentleman standing beside Weatherby in the photo. “This guy I’ve seen before.” The two were standing beside Ned’s BMW. And even from the still shot, the anger of the stranger was evident. His hands were fisted, his face red.

“That’s Billy Star,” I said.

“Did you get an audio on this exchange?”

“No. Wasn’t close enough. And he’s obviously no blond chick so I don’t think Jennifer would be too concerned with that.”

Dylan flipped once more through the pictures. “Here,” he said, pointing to the one of the boardroom gathering. It had taken some roof climbing, fancy angling and a fifty dollar bribe to get that shot through the window, but I was nothing if not resourceful. “That’s the same guy sitting to the left of Weatherby.”

“Good eye.” I smiled like a mama cat watching her kitten nab its first mouse.

No, not a mama cat. Definitely feline, though. Hell, as I sat there with Dylan, I could almost hear myself purring.

“Man, he even looks angry here in the boardroom,” Dylan said. “Controlled but pissed-off. That guy’s got some serious attitude with ol’ Ned.”

“Billy Star works at Weatherby Industries. Top floor. His office is right next door to Ned’s.”

“Not after this, I take it.” Dylan flipped again to the picture of an angry Star giving Ned the one finger salute.

“That’s what I would have thought too. But this gentlemanly exchange happened yesterday, Thursday. And I saw Billy strolling back in to Weatherby Industries again this morning.”

“Wonder what they were fighting about?” Dylan mused, echoing my very thoughts.

I was curious, too. Damn curious. Mentally I began building scenarios and checking off possibilities. Were they fighting about business? Old money? New money? Maybe the blond bombshell Mrs. Weatherby suspected her husband of boinking was playing honey in the middle — hottie in the middle? — with these two. But then I thought Mrs. Weatherby was being paranoid, didn’t I? Didn’t I? The only way I’d know for sure would be to check it out. The winged money Jennifer Weatherby had given me, coupled with that she had promised, tweeted their chastisement as they flew above my head.

“We’ll never know what they’re fighting about, because that’s not what we’re being paid to find out.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t it drive you nuts, Dix? The not knowing stuff like this. Isn’t that why you got into the business in the first place?”

I got into this business because after twenty years of working in an office with chauvinistic men, they still treated me like the new kid on the block. No, the new girl on the block. I got into the business because I was tired of watching newbies come in and get promoted over me just because they had dicks. I’d had enough of not being taken seriously because of the way I looked. I knew I could do better. Damn right well knew it.

I shrugged the tension from my shoulders. “Yeah, a little. It comes with the territory — insatiable curiosity. The need to know more than you need to know.”

“What’s your intuition saying about this Billy Star guy? How do you read him?”

That’s another thing I liked about Dylan, he didn’t laugh off female intuition the way some guys did. I let my head roll back into the seat and closed my eyes, not just because they were tired, but sitting this close to Dylan … sometimes I just needed the pretense of privacy myself.

“He’s a hothead. That I’ll give him, but….”

As I pondered how best to sum up my feelings about Billy Star, Dylan must have figured I’d drifted off, because the next think I knew, I felt his hand on my arm and his low-voiced whisper in my ear.

“Dix? You asleep?”

The tingle that went down my spine crawled around me, gripped me. I felt my nipples tighten under my t-shirt.

Holy frig!

It had been a long time since the touch of a man had made me react like that. And that had ended badly. In heartache and anger and many nights cursing myself as much as I cursed him. And damn it, as much as I hated to admit it, a night or two wondering where he’d gotten to. I was the one who always searched the faces at the airports, and glanced back over my shoulder at the movies when I heard a certain laugh. And, I reminded myself, the one who’d sworn never again.

“I’m awake.” I sat up straight.

“Ned Weatherby just went inside.”

“Did he pick a rose from the garden?”

“Yeah, but Jennifer didn’t knock on the window. Ned just— “

Dylan’s words were cut off by the panic-stricken scream of Ned Weatherby,

“Help! Somebody help!”

My eyes saucered as I looked at Ned Weatherby running down his neat stone-paved driveway. His face was contorted with shock. Blood reddened his shirt. He still held the rose in his hands — the thorns cutting into it, his blood dripping down from it.

“My wife … somebody’s killed my wife. Somebody help!”

Even as we jumped from the car and ran, I was on my cell dialing 911.

“77 Ashfield Drive. Yes, Ashfield Drive, and hurry. I think there’s been a murder.”

I hung up quickly before the emergency dispatcher could ask me a million questions I didn’t have the answers to. Yet.

Yes, I’d be speaking to the police. I had no doubt about that. I had to tell them what I knew, about Jennifer’s visit to my office a few short days ago. But for now, I had to get into that house before they did. See for myself. And it was more than insatiable curiosity; this was personal. This was my client.

Dylan and I ran up the driveway together, but he reached Ned first. Reading my intent, he turned Ned around so that his back was to me as I dashed into the house through the open front door.

The Weatherby home was impressive. Even in my heart-thumping state, I couldn’t help but take in that fact. Great high ceilings, marble flooring in the foyer. The house was huge, and from where I stood, there must have been four or five different doorways or hallways before me. It was like a maze. But I didn’t need a map to tell me which way to find Jennifer Weatherby, I just followed the trail of blood. The trail that started right at my feet.

Already I could hear the sirens, and from just outside the door, the sounds of Dylan gently grilling Ned about what he’d seen.

Quickly I followed along the foyer and through a set of open double doors.

And oh shit, there she was. Jennifer Weatherby lay face down on the floor of what appeared to be a study. A fire burned in the fireplace, incongruously cheery. Two glasses of wine — one full, the other half full — sat on an occasional table between two tall wingback chairs. The plain white pantsuit she wore was soaked through with blood — two dark bullet holes torn in the fabric. One tan sandal remained on her foot, while the other lay askew on the hardwood floor.

I rushed to her and bent to check for a pulse. But before my fingers even touched her neck, I knew what I’d find. No pulse. No life. Just the cold feel of death on my hands. And Jennifer’s blood.

“Oh Jennifer,” I whispered. I knew I’d get no response, but I had to say it. “I’m so sorry.”

Her words rang in my ears. The words I’d so easily dismissed as she’d said them when leaving my office. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s threatened me. Several times she’s called the house telling me she wants me out of the way.”

Guilt lumped itself into an indigestible ball in my stomach. Dammit, I should have done something.

Oh, sure, I’d warned her it sounded like a matter for the police, but when she shrugged it off, I hadn’t pressed it. Mainly because I was convinced Jennifer Weatherby was just being paranoid. And now she lay dead before me. All because I hadn’t taken her seriously.

I stood up, a new determination burning in my gut. I would find that mysterious blond mistress no matter how long I had to tail Ned Weatherby. No matter what it took. Because Jennifer’s other words rang through my mind also.

“It’s a matter for you, Dix. I have faith in you.”

Chapter 3

Yes, I’m cynical. I’ll be the first to admit it. And I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to some men. Okay, most men. But for good reason. Some days just go from bad to worse to argh!, and when they do, damned if there isn’t always a man smack in the middle of it.

Detective Richard Head was one such man. To say that he’d been a thorn in my side from time to time would be like saying Johnny Depp was just a little bit hot in that pirate costume.

You see, Richard Head and I had a history. No, not a romantic one. God forbid! I wasn’t his type, and he sure as hell wasn’t mine. Our history was one based on mutual dislike, and mutual distrust. We’d flipped each other the finger so often it had become automatic, a reflexive action.

Police Detective Head didn’t like private detectives, and he liked female private detectives even less. And he absolutely loathed a certain female private detective who happened to catch him getting a little too close with the new dispatcher at the 10th precinct awhile back. Actually, Richard’s ex, Glory, had been a client of Jones and Associates two years ago. Or rather had attempted to be a client. But when she couldn’t pay the hefty retainer fee, I’d volunteered my services — off hours and off the books. I know, I know, not very business like. But Glory was a sweetheart. She was only working part time and just didn’t have the money. So I helped her out. And it worked out for both of us. She found out her suspicions of a cheating husband were true. And when I went out on my own, she sent a couple of her friends my way — she had been that impressed with my work.

But Detective Richard Head had not been impressed by my work. Glory had kicked him out on his ear when I handed over the incriminating evidence. Saddled with alimony payments, Richard had been forced to move in with his mother.

His mother. God, I’d almost forgotten that part. No wonder the man hated me.

But my point is, Richard Head never forgave me for doing my job and catching him red handed (or ass handed, if you prefer).

And I’d never wanted him to.

Did I mention I have a chip on my shoulder?

By now, you’ve no doubt figured out which police detective caught this call.

Yep.

By the time Detective Head arrived, the patrol response guys had been there probably five minutes. Ned Weatherby had gotten control of himself. Sorta. By that I mean he wasn’t screaming now so much as crying softly (thank you, Dylan). The police had gotten him inside before too much commotion was caused. Ned kept shaking his head and asking, why, why, why would someone want to do this to his Jennifer? He looked bewildered, lost, his bottom lip quivering as he snuffed back the tears. At least he was acting that way. For all I knew, he and his mistress were jointly responsibly for Jennifer’s demise.

I would find out. I sure as hell wouldn’t leave it to Marport City’s finest.

Of course, Detective Head looked about as thrilled to see me as I was to see him. When the first officer on the scene explained that I’d touched the victim to check for a pulse and that the bloody tracks on the floor were mine, Detective Head launched into a furious attack on me for contaminating his crime scene, compromising the evidence, etc. I fired back that if I hadn’t checked for life signs, he’d be tearing my head off right now for failing to come to the aid of a victim whose life might have been saved by some timely first aid.

Midway through my counter-attack, I saw his expression change. The fury that twisted his features just moments ago was gone. And just like that, it clicked: he’d like nothing more than to pin this murder on me! Considering I was standing beside the dead body, the victim’s blood on my hands, it’s a wonder he wasn’t standing there with a first class woody.

Oh boy.

+++

Minutes behind the many wailing police sirens (guess the boys in blue figured they could afford a few extra cars to a murder scene on Ashfield Drive), came the flashily painted media vans. They parked all along the street, contrasting startlingly with the BMWs and Hummers and Lexuses (Lexi?) of Ashfield Drive. Tanned reporters in their fresh pressed suits and their gelled hair leapt from the vans before they’d barely rolled to a stop. They grilled the neighbors, who were now milling about, for details, staying off the Weatherby property, but precariously close to the yellow police tape. A few officers — the younger ones — strolled into camera range, trying to look appropriately serious and authoritative in the background. But hell, all they needed was a “Hi mom, it’s me!” sign.

No one was admitted to the Weatherby house, of course, except for officials — cops, forensic specialists, ambulance crew, the ME from the Coroner’s Office. Well, hardly anyone. I was still inside. From where Detective Head had parked me on the living room couch with a less-than-polite ‘stay there’, I watched the activity outside through the picture window, gazing through sheers that made everyone look ghostly.

Right behind the news crews, a brand-new Porsche pulled up and an anxious-looking Jeremy Poole leapt out. Gawd, he looked just like his media pictures. Did he ever take off his suit and tie? The lawyer approached one of the uniforms on crowd control, nervously running a hand though his hair as he did. From where I sat, I could hear the conversation between Poole and the young officer drifting in the front door, which still stood open.

“I’m Mr. Weatherby’s lawyer. I demand to see my client.”

In his grief-stricken state, Ned Weatherby had called his lawyer? Interesting.

“I’ll need some identification, sir,” the officer said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Obviously ticked that the officer hadn’t recognized him, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. He began fumbling through cards, dropping one after the other while the young officer waited, and the media zoomed in.

“It’s all right, officer. I can vouch for Mr. Poole.”

I glanced up to see Ned Weatherby framed in the open doorway. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d been watching Jeremy Poole’s arrival. I flicked my gaze back to the scene outside in time to see every cameraman and reporter snap their heads in Ned’s direction as though their necks were rigged together.

“Shut the fuckin’ door!” Detective Head yelled.

But it was too late. At least a dozen photographs had been snapped and every newspaper in the province — hell, every newspaper in the country probably — would have a picture of a distraught Ned Weatherby admitting his lawyer into the house. Speculation would roll like a donut down hill.

“Oh, Jeremy, it’s horrible!” Ned said, clutching his lawyer’s arm and drawing him inside. “Someone’s … someone’s killed Jennifer.”

“There, there, Ned. I know,” Poole said. “I’m … I’m so very sorry.”

“Who would want to do this to Jennifer?” Ned looked like a child asking if the boogeyman had really snuffed out Santa Claus — desperate for answers in the land of disbelief.

“Who’s in charge here?” Even in trying to be commanding, the lawyer’s voice sounded edged with panic.

Detective Head stepped forward. “I am.”

“Your name, sir?”

“They call him Dick Head,” I called from my assigned seat on the sofa.

If looks could kill, the medical examiner would have had another body to deal with, but I held my ground under the detective’s glare. Okay, that probably was not the smartest thing for me to have done, but I wanted Detective Head to get the message loud and clear. I wasn’t about to roll over and do tricks for him on this. I wasn’t scared because I had nothing to be scared of. And I wasn’t looking for an ally in him.

And I sure as hell wouldn’t be intimidated.

“I’ll deal with you later, Dodd,” Head scowled at me before turning to Jeremy Poole. “I’m in charge, and the name’s, Richard Head.”

“Yes, very funny,” Jeremy said, obviously thinking the name was a joke of some sort at his expense.

I snorted a laugh.

“Goddamn it—”

“Jeremy,” Ned Weatherby interjected, “This is Detective Richard Head.”

The lawyer paled. “Really?”

“Really.”

“My apologies, Detective Head.” Poole cleared his throat. “I’m Mr. Weatherby’s lawyer. If you have any questions for my client, you’ll ask them in my presence. We’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Why do you think Weatherby needs a lawyer?”

Good one. Damn, I hated giving that guy credit, even in my mind.

“Mr. Weatherby is not merely a client. He’s also a personal friend.” Poole laid a hand on Weatherby’s shoulder. “Come on, Ned. I’ll fix us some tea.”

I guess Poole wanted Head to know where things stood also, because with that they turned their backs on the detective and headed toward the kitchen.

“Did you call Billy Star yet?” I heard Poole whisper as they passed me.

My ears perked up as I recalled an angry Billy Star from the pics I’d shown Dylan earlier.

Ned’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, Christ, no, I haven’t called anyone. I .. I suppose I’d better call him. That’s one call I sure as hell don’t want to make. And … and I need to call Luanne too. I need to call her first.”

The kitchen door swung closed slowly behind Ned and his lawyer, and all Head could do was watch it close him out.

He kicked the sofa. “Pansy. Did you see the shoes on that lawyer guy? He must spend on loafers what I spend on my whole fuckin’ wardrobe.”

“It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it, Detective?”

“Shut up, Dodd.”

By the time midnight rolled around, every light in the Weatherby mansion blazed. Almost every inch of the house had been dusted for fingerprints. Detective Head had personally overseen the CSI’s work as they swabbed my hands and seized my bloody-soled runners and neatly tagged and bagged the evidence. He looked on as they fingerprinted me, and smiled as they took a hair sample (more like a handful of it). If there had been a way he could have gotten away with it, I’m sure he would have ordered a cavity search.

“Let’s go over it one more time, Dodd.” Detective Head chewed on a toothpick like he was warming up for an Olympic sport. Oh, geez, he must be trying to quit smoking again.

Could this day get any worse?

“Shall I go slower this time, Detective?”

“Just keep it up.” He glared at me. “You’re in serious shit here, Dodd. And your smart mouth isn’t doing you any favors today. But that’s just fine with me. Just fine. I’d like nothing better than to throw you away for a good long time.”

“You can’t just—”

“I can do what I damn well please.”

“Ah, there’s this little thing called ‘the law’. You might have heard of it.”

Head leaned in close. Close enough so that no one else could hear him, and so that I could smell mint on his breath. Apparently, his toothpicks were flavored. “I never liked you, Dodd,” he said. “I don’t like anyone who makes their living by being a rat.”

Sure, blame the rat for nailing the snake.

He leaned closer still. “Which is why it’s going to give me so much pleasure to personally see to it that you rot in jail for this crime.”

“Even though I didn’t do it, Detective?” I kept my voice calm; I didn’t so much as twitch a muscle. My eyes were clear and steady. But on the inside, things were liquefying as fear spread. “We both know I didn’t kill Jennifer.”

He eased back, a tight smile on his face. “I know no such thing.”

“I told you — several times, in fact — Jennifer Weatherby hired me to follow her husband.”

“Yeah right! She hired you to trail her husband, because of some mysterious blond mistress that nobody else has ever seen or heard tell of. How do we know she exists? Maybe she’s one of them ET types, huh? Straight from the planet Pleasesavemyass.”

“You’re an asshole, Head. And you look the part, too. It’s a wonder your mother doesn’t dress you better.”

His fists clenched, but he was smart enough to unclench them. “You know what I think, Dodd? I think you’ve got a thing for Ned Weatherby yourself.”

My jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t think anyone hired you. I think you’ve got the hots for moneybags and that’s why you’ve been stalking him. That’s why you had the pictures and all those notes. Jesus, you followed him into the locker room! We got laws about stalking in Ontario. You might have heard of that.”

I tried for calm. Fought for control. “You know you’re reaching for straws, don’t you, Dick?”

He glared at me.

“Jennifer Weatherby came into my office just this past Monday,” I continued. “She was extremely upset. She was convinced her husband was cheating on her. And she wanted me to follow him for a week to see if her suspicions were correct. That’s what I did. Thus, the pictures.”

“How convenient. What did you do Dodd, sneak back here when Ned was in a meeting? Wait till he left for work then sneak in here and shoot Mrs. Weatherby? Get her out of the way so you could have her husband?”

I bit down on the other words — harsh, angry, four-letter words — that threatened to color the room. I was losing my patience. “Look,” I said. “You can waste your time harassing me. You can diddle the night away because of some personal vendetta. So be it. But damn it, Dick, there is a murderer out there. She threatened Jennifer, and apparently has made good on those threats. So what are you going to do about it?”

The smile on his face slowly widened as he stared at me. He chuckled. Chuckled deeper. Then he laughed out loud.

Okay, when Richard Head laughs out loud, everyone hears him. Everyone turns and stares. And he knows it. He starts out putting his hands on his belly. He squares his shoulders. And he tosses his head back as if his thick, red neck were made of rubber. Then he bellows his ha-ha’s. Red-face roars them. This theatrical-grade performance will go on for a good minute, while everyone within hearing distance — let’s say about eight square miles — runs to see what’s so damn funny.

And yes, every damn cop in the house came into the living room where he sat across from me.

He wiped the laugh-tears from his eyes. “Okay, then Dixieland, or whatever your name is….”

“My name is Dix. “

“I don’t really give a rat’s ass what your name is. Listen to me very carefully, Dodd,” he said. The room was so still and quiet his words couldn’t be mistaken. Nor could their meaning. “Let me tell you a story…. Let me tell you what I’ve got here. I’ve got one dead woman, to wit, Jennifer Weatherby. I also have one wealthy widower. And I look at a woman like you, alone and wanting a man. Needing a man — if you know what I mean. A woman like yourself would find Ned Weatherby quite appealing. Quite the catch for an old—”

“Now, wait a minute—”

“I’m not finished.”

“Fine. What’s your theory?” I sat back. “Go on then, Dickie.”

He let the name slide. He was having too much fun. Everyone watched the exchange.

“So we have one dead woman. One wealthy man, and one stalking spinster.”

The fucker was so baiting me.

“And what do we find in the possession of the obsessed stalker? Photos. Notes. Evidence that she’s been going out of her way to follow a married man — one that she could only love from afar.” He put the back of a hand to his forehead in a mock swoon. “Hell, Dodd, you’ve even been sleeping outside his house! How pathetic is that?”

Damn him! I’d offered up my notes and photos, figuring they’d prove I was working for Mrs. Weatherby. Instead, Dickhead was twisting the evidence against me. Good thing I hadn’t told him about bugging the phone. He’d have slapped the cuffs on and carted me off to jail already for that alone.

I took a deep breath, spoke slowly, deliberately. “I told you, Jennifer Weatherby hired me to follow her husband. She said he was cheating on her.”

“Ned says they were happily married.”

“Jennifer said they weren’t.”

“So that’s why they were planning their 20th wedding anniversary party for tomorrow? That’s why the invitations were sent out, and Kenny Kent, the caterer, booked? That’s why Ned bought a $50,000 diamond ring?” He held up a receipt, one he’d apparently found in Jennifer’s study. “And why she bought him a Rolex watch just last week? Because they weren’t getting along?”

Holy shit.

“Holy shit.”

“It was getting to you, wasn’t it, Dix? It was getting to you to watch the man you secretly love so in love with his wife. That’s why you killed her, wasn’t it, Dodd?”

I waited for a sound. There wasn’t one. No one would have breathed out loud at that moment. Especially not me.

“I was hired.”

“Prove it.”

“I will,” I said. “Just as soon as I get out of here.”

The toothpick broke between Detective Head’s teeth.

“Look, I’ve cooperated with your investigation. Now, either charge me with something or let me go, Detective. I have work to do. I have a job to do. A job I’m damn good at, as you’re well aware.” Not to mention that I had to get my ass out of the fire. My grin ached, but it held. And I stared at Head just as hard as he stared at me.

“Get out of here, Dodd,” he snarled. “But don’t leave town.”

A half dozen retorts jumped to mind, all ending in ‘fuck you’, but for once, I said nothing.

I grabbed my jacket, and crossed the room on legs of rubber from sitting too long. My ass had fallen asleep, and I hated that. My hand was on the doorknob, and I was almost out, when Detective Head had to toss one more piece of crap my way.

“I’ll need the proof, Dodd. I’ll need the paperwork.”

I turned. “What do you mean?”

“You claim that Jennifer Weatherby hired you for ten thousand dollars, and that she already paid you half. I’ll need to see something. Carbon of the receipt you gave her, the copy of the contract for services.” He smiled. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem for you.”

“Of course it’s not a problem!” I snapped back at him.

Big problem, big problem, big problem.

Often clients don’t want any paper trail back to them. Jennifer was — had been, rather — one of those. Thus we had no contract, and she hadn’t wanted a receipt. My mind whirled. I could still produce a receipt. I’d just started a new receipt book two weeks ago. I could re-copy the other receipts, then slide Jennifer Weatherby’s in on the right date, in the event my receipt books were seized by the police. Of course, if the thought occurred to me, it would occur to Dickhead, too. No way he’d buy it, especially without a corresponding deposit record. He’d just go looking for the other people to whom I’d issued receipts and do a forensic comparison of the carbon with the original. I cursed myself for not depositing the cash the very next day. Instead, I’d pocketed five hundred, stashed the rest of it in the monstrosity of a fireproof filing cabinet at the office, and headed out to tail Ned Weatherby. Dylan had even offered to deposit it for me, but I told him to leave it there for a few more days. That way he could bring me more cash if I needed it, which he’d done when I’d had to come up with another hundred to buy access for that boardroom shot. Dammit all to hell.

“Good,” Head said. “Because otherwise, I’d have to believe I was right about you, Dodd. That you had the hots for Ned Weatherby, and that’s why you were stalking him. And that’s why you murdered his wife.”

Detective Head snapped another toothpick into his mouth.

I turned on my heel and left, imagining the shit-eating grin he was no doubt wearing.

Oh just smoke, damn you!

Chapter 4

Earlier in the evening, after Dylan had been grilled by Detective Head, I’d told him to go home. By that time, it was already 10 p.m., and since we’d need to be sharp in the days ahead, I ordered him to get some rest.

“Home. Straight home. Do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. Home, Mr. Foreman.”

It was well after midnight before I got away myself. Of course, I had no intention of taking my own advice. I stopped by my place just long enough for a power shower (not to mention the first leisurely pee I’d had since I began this case) and a change of clothes before driving to the office.

When I pulled into the parking lot and saw a light shining from my office window.

Dylan. I should have known he’d ignore my instructions.

Despite myself, I felt a little warm and fuzzy.

Then I caught the drift of my thoughts and got a grip. Oh, man, it must have been a harder night than I’d thought. Dix Dodd didn’t do warm and fuzzy. I was cynical. Chippy. Tough as shoe leather.

To underscore my ’tude, I climbed out of my car and slammed the door. Then slammed it again because the freakin’ thing never did close right.

I spat on the asphalt because that felt about right, squared my shoulders and marched across the moonlit parking lot towards the building. And I mean across the parking lot. I’d parked as far away from the building as I could, a practice I’d started in an effort to work some much-needed exercise into my day, but which had become habit.

It had rained and the asphalt shone black beneath my feet. The air was fresh, clean and damp. And appreciated. Really appreciated for the first time in … ever. Fear of jail can do that to a person — make them take notice of the finer things.

Yes, it was true. Dix Dodd, hard-assed PI, was scared this time. Not that I’d cop to it. Nosiree. I could hide it very well, thank you, under my smart-mouth and fuck you attitude. No one would be the wiser.

But, dammit, things didn’t look good for me.

There was no paperwork from Jennifer Weatherby to prove that she’d hired me. And Richard Head would do whatever he could to prove my guilt.

I dashed moisture from my cheeks. Goddamn rain.

It was shortly after one in the morning when I let myself into the building and climbed the dimly lit stairway to my office.

+++

“You look scared,” were the first words out of Dylan’s mouth.

I snorted a laugh. “Nah. That’s just caffeine withdrawal.”

He handed me a cup of coffee and perched himself on the edge of my desk. He half sat/half stood with one foot firmly planted on the ground and the other dangling lazily off the side of the desk. He looked tired. Tired and scruffy at this late hour. He’d not shaved in a day or two judging by the stubble that roughened his face. I suspected he was dying for a shower. He ran a hand through his hair, then across his face, making that uniquely masculine rasping sound. He crossed his arms easily over his chest. I swallowed, and out of ever-growing necessity, I crossed my arms over my chest too.

“How did it go with Head?” he asked.

“He’s an asshole.” I leaned back in my chair and rubbed the crick in my neck that just wouldn’t give. I let my eyes drift shut, just for a second.

“I thought he was a dickhead?”

“He is.” I nodded as if this were perfectly logical. Perfectly feasible. “He’s both.”

“That would give a whole new meaning to ‘go fuck yourself’, wouldn’t it?”

My eyes shot open wide. “Okay, now that’s funny.”

“Good to see you smile, Dix.”

So that’s what that strange sensation in my cheekbones was. Hmm, go figure.

“Head’s a lot of things, Dylan,” I said. “But one thing he is not is stupid. This could be very bad for me. Head’s been waiting for a long time to even the score.”

“Yeah, but you and I both know he can’t pin this murder on you.”

“Really? Let’s see what he’s got — my fingerprints and footprints all over the crime scene, a connection to Jennifer Weatherby, opportunity, since I knew when she’d be home and Ned wouldn’t, and let’s not forget, a motive fabricated out of thin air by the man who probably hates me more than any other in Marport City. And that’s a pretty long list to be at the top of.”

“And don’t forget the week’s worth of trailing evidence they got from the car,” Dylan added.

As if I could.

“Did they find the bug?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a mercy.”

“Yeah, a small one.” I closed my eyes again. “Even if he can’t pin the murder on me, he’ll do his damnedest to put me out of business. I’m so humped on this one, Dylan.”

The silence was uncomfortable. Hard and heavy.

The desk creaked as Dylan stood. He strode over to the filing cabinet and picked up a yellow legal pad. “I’ve been thinking on the business cards, Dix.”

I opened one bleary eye. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Why would I be kidding?”

“I don’t really think this is the time for that.”

He ignored me. “I’ve got a couple ideas.” He cleared his throat. “How about this: Dix Dodd, Private Investigation Service. If clues were shoes, we’d be wearing Prada.”

I opened the other eye. “Ahhhhh … no.”

“If clues came in two’s, then we’d tango for you-s.”

“Big no.”

“If clues were booze, we’d be drunk on your doorstep.”

I groaned. No, I mean it, I really, really groaned. “That’s awful, Dylan.”

“Okay, well that was just my first three shots. I have more.”

He stood taller, drawing himself up to his full six four. Damn, the man looked good.

“What’s your next shot?”

“Dix Dodd, private detective, keeping your man your man for over twenty years.”

“I’ve only been in business solo for six months.”

“Yeah, well, I’m thinking ahead.”

Dylan looked at me, straight on. Steady and so sure of himself. So sure of me. It was the least I could do to be the same. Screw this feeling sorry for myself shit! Pity party over; there was work to be done.

I slammed down the last drink of coffee, then slammed the empty mug on my desk. “Okay, we need a plan.”

“Right.”

“We have to find this mistress Jennifer was so sure about. My money’s on her. Now more than ever.”

Dylan went to the large whiteboard that hung on the wall beside my desk. He erased all that was on it, signaling — whether consciously or unconsciously — that he too knew the severity of my situation. He drew a stick figure, putting a triangle skirt on her to mark her as female. “Okay, what do we know about this mysterious mistress of Ned Weatherby’s?”

I just stared at him for a moment while he waited for my reply. “Thanks,” I said. “About the business cards.”

“You mean you liked my ideas?”

“Oh, hell, no. They were gawd-awful.” I hesitated. “Thanks for your faith in me.”

“Any time, Dix.” I caught the flash in his eyes before he put up his own guard again. But for a moment those brown eyes had been softer, and if I’d let myself believe it, for a moment there was more there. He turned towards the whiteboard. “Any time at all.”

We worked into the wee hours of the morning. I reprinted the digital pics that I’d emailed to the office. Detective Head had confiscated the originals of course. As he had with my notes, but I’d sent backup copies of the same to the office every day (thank you, digital technology). Dylan and I went over every little detail. We brainstormed theories. Charted possibilities. Had wild, passionate sex on my desk.

Okay, that last part was just in my mind. Again and again and again.

The sun was just coming up as Dylan grabbed his keys and with a, “Back in a few minutes,” headed out the door.

Despite the adrenaline rush of the last few hours, despite the pounding headache, and the coffee I’d consumed, I soon realized if I was going to function at all, I needed some good old-fashioned sleep. Luckily, I’d installed a cot at the office for just that purpose, given the crazy hours I keep. It wasn’t the comfiest thing in the world, but I’d been sleeping hunched up in cars for days, so if felt like the most decadent of pleasures just to lie prone and stretch out.

My body was ready for sleep, but unfortunately my mind just wouldn’t cooperate. Where would I find her, this mysterious mistress? As my tired mind finally relented and began drifting from consciousness to sleep, I could almost see her turning the corner of it. Walking like a ghost along the streets as I pictured them. Dancing on the edge of my grasp and the edge of my vision.

“You’re never going to find me!” Her voice was singsong, but not singsong-sweet. More that singsong mocking kind of thing, as she danced around me. Of course, I knew I was dreaming, but she still pissed me off.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” I reached to grab her, catching only a wisp of her gown before it slipped through my fingers. I wanted to turn her around to face me. Wanted to push the flowing locks of hair back from her face to get a good look at her.

Somehow she knew this, and evaded me with ease.

“I’m too smart for you, Dix Dodd. I’m too smart for all of you.”

“Don’t count on it, Blondie.” It’s not that I’m prejudiced against blonds, and I never partake in the dumb blond jokes. Well, almost never. Hell, I’m a blond myself. But until I knew the mystery mistress’s name — a detail Jennifer hadn’t been able to supply — Blondie would have to do.

Blondie tittered. “Don’t let the hair color fool you. I’m one smart cookie.” She flounced away from me.

I woke up with my right hand swinging, and my butt on the floor.

And the smell of hotcakes and sausage drifting in from the outer office. I shook my head, rubbed my hands over my face. Then I got off my butt and followed the aroma.

Over breakfast Dylan and I formulated a plan of action.

“So where do we go from here, Dix?”

Dylan speared yet another sausage. He’d scored our breakfast from the shop around the corner, and already he’d put away twice as much of it as I had. Still, I knew he’d not put an ounce onto that lean frame.

“Objective remains the same as when the Flashing Fashion Queen hired us.” I took a sip of the latte Dylan had brought. Heavenly. “We have to find Ned Weatherby’s mistress.”

“Our boy Ned was pretty clean this week, wasn’t he? Kind of makes you wonder….”

I swallowed a syrupy, buttery bite and refrained from licking my fork. Somehow, when someone else unwraps the fast food, it doesn’t seem so bad. “I know what you mean. Ned was practically — no, he was literally — a choir boy this week. It was almost as if he knew he was being watched.”

“You think Jennifer told him she’d hired us?”

“I doubt that very much.” The logic behind a wife telling her husband he was being tailed was, well, non-existent. That would negate the whole purpose of the exercise. I couldn’t see it happening, especially considering how much dough Jennifer Weatherby was paying me. “However, if I blew cover while I was trailing him, then Ned would certainly modify his behavior.”

Even as I offered that possibility, I knew it wasn’t very likely. I’d never been made by a mark before. At least, not to my knowledge. The one and only benefit of being so ordinary, so average, so nondescript, was that I could blend in practically anywhere. But what other explanation was there?

“Maybe Jennifer told someone she hired you,” he offered. “And they told Ned. Women often have close friends they confide in.”

“That’s good.” I nodded. “That’s very good. Can you check on that?”

“I’m on it. I’ll check with some of the neighbors. At times like these, neighbors are often ready to share what they know.”

Certainly any female friends of Jennifer Weatherby would be more than willing to share some time and information with the young, handsome Dylan Foreman.

“While you’re at it, ask if she belonged to any health clubs. Or charities or anything like that. Might find something out there.”

“You bet.”

Dylan stood, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. He never dawdled, but the speed with which he wanted to attack this particular assignment moved me. I knew he was worried about me. I stood, tossed the plastic breakfast trays and utensils in the trash and grabbed my own jacket from the coat tree in the corner.

“Where are you off to?” Dylan shrugged into his leather jacket.

“The Underhill Motel.”

He hesitated but knew better than to question me, or try to stop me. The Underhill was in a rough part of town, but we both knew I could handle myself.

We locked the office, and headed our respective ways. Whereas I always parked at the far end of the lot, Dylan parked his bike as close to the building as he could get it. He gave me a mock salute before starting the bike and roaring off.

I reminded myself to get him a set of motorcycle chaps for Christmas. Surely that would be an acceptable employer-employee gift? Not too formal. Not too personal. Not too expensive. Not too cheap. And I could just picture them on him — protecting his legs should he fall on the pavement. Keeping him warm when he drove at night. Perfectly framing his denim-covered….

Gawd, I’d better knit him a sweater. Something loose fitting and long-sleeved.

I just hoped I wouldn’t be sending it to him from a federal prison.

Chapter 5

Believe it or not, things got stranger.

A person learns a lot in this business — the kind of stuff that could never be found in any academic textbook. You won’t find Lying Jerks 101 among the possible course selections at your local university; they offer no degree in Psychology of Cheaters. I’ve yet to come across anyone with a Masters in Bullshit Busting, or a PhD in Intuition. But all of these and more are available to your average PI, if you’ve got the knack for reading people and are prepared to study their behavior.

Curse or gift? Damned if I know. Maybe a bit of both.

For example, I’ve learned that insecure men often laugh a lot, especially if they’re insecure businessmen, and they’ll watch you the whole time you’re laughing back to see if you really think that they’re funny. People who say they want to be left alone, often really do just want to be left the hell alone. Men with small dogs in the park are looking to get laid, especially if they put a ribbon in the dog’s hair. And oh, by the way, the pinker the ribbon, the hornier they are. (The men not the dogs). Yeah, if you watch closely you’ll learn a hell of a lot about people, but you’ll learn even more if you watch with sideways glances.

But here’s the trick of it. Sometimes it’s just as important to not let first impressions fool you. At least not when it comes to the way people look.

Because I’ve also learned that people come in all shapes and sizes, and in the long run, that means diddlysquat about their character. That is to say, we judge people by their external appearance at our peril. The most doe-eyed of women are often the strongest. The most macho seeming of men can be brought to their knees with a good solid kick to the … whoops, I mean with the right words. Although that foot-to-gonads thing does come in handy sometimes. So, okay, though I may mentally dub a person on first sight (e.g., Jennifer Weatherby as the Flashing Fashion Queen), I don’t judge on first sight. Maybe that’s why I’m rarely surprised.

Rarely, but Mrs. Jane Presley, the owner/caretaker of the Underhill was one of those people who managed to surprise me. Because on first sight — God, it was years ago now, when I was first running errands for Jones and Associates — I’d pegged her as a pushover. A sweet little old lady who probably had cookies baking out back and rescued kitties on the weekend.

Not.

To this point in my career, I’d probably been to the Underhill Motel a few dozen times. Posing as a hooker, running surveillance, chasing leads, following up on suspicions that so often proved true. That’s where I learned a lot of what I wanted to know, and the one thing I didn’t the first night I drove by here, so long ago. But hey, we all have our heartaches.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I’d been to the Underhill so often, Mrs. Presley was on my Christmas card list.

She was a tiny woman, all of four feet ten and maybe ninety pounds with a brick in each pocket. When you entered the Underhill, it was she you encountered — standing under a sign that read, “No I don’t know Elvis”. She always wore flower-patterned, short-sleeved blouses with a pencil-pen-pencil combination tucked into the front pocket. Her skirts flowed from her hips nearly to the floor. I’d never seen her don the glasses that hung from the chain around her neck, but their granny style fit her image perfectly. Her make-up was understated, and her smile was wide and genuine. Friendly. Easy. Geez, you just wanted to give her a hug.

Unless you pissed her off. Because despite first impressions, Mrs. Presley was as tough as freakin’ nails.

She had a no-nonsense reputation, and her two hulking sons — Cal and Craig — each of them six feet tall, helped her keep the Underhill no nonsense. She had rules and they were ironclad. Once you were barred from her place, you stayed barred. No exceptions. No second chances. A person could come to the Underhill Motel, take care of business and pleasure, but keep it clean. The cops knew it was a local hooker hangout, but as long as things didn’t get out of hand, then they left it pretty much alone. Better to have things under one roof on the outskirts than under many near the ‘better’ parts of town. Plus, Mrs. Presley had been known to help the police out on occasion.

Oh yeah, and she always wore blue suede shoes. Really.

But like me, Mrs. Presley could read people with sideways glances. And she used this instinct of hers to help keep the place out of trouble. It was somewhat unnerving to stand with someone who could read you as well as you could read them. I have often wondered what her first impression of me had been.

There was no doubt that Mrs. Presley’s keen eye for detail helped keep things under control. No one wanted to bite the hand that housed them. But as I learned, the prostitutes actually appreciated Mrs. Presley’s eagle eye. Once she saw a face, she never forgot it. She looked after ‘her girls’, too. She wasn’t a madam, she once told me, but she was a mama. And it gave the girls who worked the Underhill a small sense of security to know that she was looking out the curtains with her binoculars when they checked in with their johns.

I’d packed a few photos. If Mrs. Presley knew anything, if she’d seen anything, she’d tell me.

This was the scenario I envisioned: I’d show Mrs. Presley the pictures of Ned Weatherby, she’d identify him as a client (a Mr. John Smith, no doubt), and if she knew who the mistress was, she’d tell me. Especially when I told her that murder was involved. Then I could prove to Detective Head once and for all that I wasn’t lying. Prove that I didn’t imagine the whole freakin’ thing. That I wasn’t totally stalking Ned Weatherby like some love-starved fool. I’d locate the mistress, get a confession and present the evidence to the police by noon.

Damn, I was good! In my own mind, I had it all sewn up. Supper at Donatta’s on 33rd Street would be an appropriate celebration afterward. I’d order the grilled shrimp with a nice unoaked chardonnay.

Why, I was actually smiling when I walked into the Underhill.

But like I’d said, things got stranger.

+++

“This guy?” Mrs. Presley paused. “You’re sure it’s this guy you’re looking for?”

“Yes.” My answer came out with more exasperation than I intended to show. My finger pressed into the first photo of Ned Weatherby — outside his house, picking a rose from the garden.

When I’d first walked into the Underhill Motel, Mrs. Presley had been anxious to see my pics, and just as anxious to offer me a commentary of her thoughts on all of them. “Oh this guy looks angry. Look at the legs on that one, will you. I’ve seen chickens with more meat on their bones. Why the hell don’t men wear hats anymore? Hats are classy, don’t you think, Dix?”

“Excellent questions, Mrs. P, but right now, I just need to know if you’ve seen this guy.”

“Ned Weatherby.”

Great! She recognized him! I knew it. “Yes, Ned Weatherby!”

She pushed the photos back across the counter. “Never been here.”

My jubilance evaporated. Of course. Mrs. P knew him from the local rag, the front page of which he made every other month in recent years. She didn’t need my private eye pics to ID him. “You’re sure about that?” I asked, maybe a little too pleadingly.

“Positive. Ned Weatherby has never been to the Underhill.”

I’d been so sure she’d tell me Ned and his blonde bimbo had been frequent guests. Damn.

“Could you please go over the photos just once more?”

“Don’t see what good it’ll do,” she grumbled, but she pulled the photographs closer and studied them again.

“Ma,” the distinctively male voice rose from the back room. “Ma, you got any of that spicy pepperoni left?”

“Don’t you dare, Cal,” she called back over her shoulder. “You know damn well that’ll give you the heartburn.”

“Ah, ma. Come on!”

“Forget it. I’m not going to be up rubbing your back again tonight, young man.” She looked up at me. “Kids.”

“How old are your sons?” I asked. “They’re twins aren’t they?”

“Yes, they’re twins,” Mrs. P answered. “And they’ll be twenty-eight in November.”

“Really?”

“Just babies, eh, Dix?”

Babies? Those hulking creatures? “Full grown, I’d say.” I pushed towards Mrs. Presley the pictures from Ned’s choir practice — the one of him sitting with the other choir members, the one of him talking to the serious-looking Pastor Ravenspire. They were deep in conversation in this one, and I had the feeling they were discussing more than Amazing Grace. The pastor looked concerned; Ned looked tired.

Mrs. Presley looked over the pictures quickly. No matter. I knew she wasn’t missing a thing. She glanced up at me. “How old is that young fellow you got working for you, Dix? That good-looking one you had with you that time when you followed that deadbeat who was cheating on his pregnant wife.”

I cleared my throat. “Twenty-eight.”

“Yep, full grown man. But I don’t have to tell you that.” She winked.

Damn her and her sideways-glancing intuition!

I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “Mrs. Presley, if we could go back to the pictures. Let’s go through them one at a time.”

She slung out a dramatic sigh to emphasize what I already knew — she was losing patience. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My intuition told me I was missing something. Something vital. Something I’d find here.

The picture I pointed to now was one of Ned and his lawyer leaving the gym. An easy, casual picture. Both held racquetball rackets held loosely at their sides. But that’s where the similarity ended. Ned was tall, while Jeremy was shorter than average. Their legs stuck out under the white of their gym shorts, but while Ned’s legs were hairy and dark, Jeremy’s were nearly as white and smooth as his shorts. In the photo, he bent to scratch his ankle, his finger digging into the socks as he walked. He looked more like the bell-ringing Hunchback of Notre Dame than one of Marport City’s finest young lawyers.

I directed Mrs. Presley’s attention to the picture of Ned and a red-faced Billy Star angrily exchanging words in the parking lot, tapping my finger on Ned’s image.

Mrs. Presley shook her head. She handed the pictures back to me and I let my breath out slowly.

“Ned Weatherby has never been here, Dix.”

I resigned myself to defeat on this point. The motel was a dead end. Damn! I’d been so sure. “Thanks anyway, Mrs. Presley.”

“You didn’t have to bring the pics in, Dix. You could have just asked me if I’d seen that guy who’s been all over the news.”

I cringed. Ned Weatherby was indeed all over the news. And no staid head-and-shoulders file shots needed — every camera had flashed towards the house when he’d stood in the open doorway.

“It’s on every channel. Here, I’ll find it for you.” Mrs. Presley picked up the remote control and aimed it at the small television that sat high and muted in the corner. No sound came over the speakers as the thin-faced, big-haired weather girl in the corner mouthed the latest weather report, while the caption gave all the information anyway.

“That’s okay, Mrs. Presley,” I said. “I’ll catch the news later.”

And I certainly would. I sighed. And I just hoped later in the day I wouldn’t be the news. God, I hoped Dylan had had better luck. As it stood now, Detective Richard Head would be having me for breakfast.

“Dix, you look like hell all of a sudden. What’s up?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “I was just so sure that you’d recognize Ned from visiting the motel. But I’ve got other leads.” I gathered the photos up again and tucked them back into the folio. “Thanks for the help.”

“Any time.”

I turned and headed towards the door.

“And Dix,” Mrs. Presley called to my retreating form. “If you want me to tell you about the other person in those pictures — the one that used to come here all the time, just let me know.”

“Other person?” I turned to face Mrs. Presley again. “What other person?”

“That one you didn’t ask about. But you’re the detective, Dix Dodd. I’m just the lady at the desk. You go on now. Have a nice day.”

I’m an idiot. “I’m an idiot.”

I should have just handed Mrs. Presley the pictures and let her fill in the blanks — all the blanks, any of the blanks. Instead, I’d told her what blank I wanted filled in and with whom. My intuition was right on track; my brain had simply derailed.

“What did I miss, Mrs. P?”

“Sit down, honey.” She nodded towards the small sofa and coffee table in the small lounge. “I’ll ask Cal to make us some lunch. We’re gonna be here awhile.”

My face dropped.

Mrs. P looked at me and grinned. “Ah, come on, don’t look so sad. This isn’t some kind of Heartbreak Hotel, you know.”

Chapter 6

Now, I’m not saying Mrs. Presley is one to gloat.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? She sat there with a sandwich in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, and a self-satisfied smirk on her face. Yeah, yeah, I guess I asked for it. And man, did she make me suffer, talking about the weather and countless other trivialities before getting to what I was dying to hear.

Damn, I was blown away.

“You can close your mouth now, sweetie,” she said when she’d finished dishing.

I closed my mouth. “Sorry, Mrs. Presley.” Like any well-chastised schoolgirl, I mumbled my apologies.

The frequent visitor to the Underhill Hotel was none other than the fist-shaking, hostile, bristling Billy Star of my surveillance photos. And get this — he always appeared in the company of a blonde. A blonde who crouched low in the seat while he signed in (W.P. Smith). Mrs. Presley even had the dates and room numbers — Room 10 (that was the mirror-ceilinged room) February 5,12, and 19. Room 108 (vibrating bed) on March 12, April 2. Room 101 — that was April 9 — had a notation beside it: Fix light fixture, customer complained of shock. Briefly, I got sidetracked wondering what the hell they were doing in that room to get a jolt off a light fixture, but forced my focus back to the issue at hand.

There were other rooms and other dates. Usually twice a week, sometimes more. Until about a month ago, when the rendezvous ended suddenly. My mind roiled with questions. Who was the blonde? Why the Underhill Motel? And why did it end so abruptly?

And most importantly, how was this connected to the murder of Jennifer Weatherby?

No, wait — the most important question was, how was this all going to save my ass?

Afterward, I’d driven back to the office with a death grip on the steering wheel and Mrs. Presley’s spicy pepperoni churning on my insides. I think she’d spared her son the poison and fed it to me!

But no matter, I would surely live. I had to, if only to impart this juicy tidbit to Dylan. I couldn’t wait to catch up with him, to find out what he’d found out, completely certain that my information could trump his information, in my best school-yard nyah-nyah, my-snitch-is-better-than-your-snitch-so-there mentality. Because, well, I was one to gloat too.

But Dylan had some pretty good information of his own.

+++

The phone was just starting to ring as I took my coat off. My first thought was that it would be the police with more questions. Or worse, the press with some questions of their own.

“Not now, damn you.” I decided to let it click to voice mail. But no sooner had it rung four times and flipped into voice mail, then it started ringing again. Then again.

Damn it. A glance at the display simply showed “Outside Call”, which meant the caller was blocking caller ID. No messages either.

I’d been half surprised to see that Dylan wasn’t back yet, but when I looked out the window I could see him pulling his bike into the parking lot. Damn, he looked good on that thing. My gaze took in long legs straddling the powerful bike. I also took in the fact that he didn’t have his cell phone pressed to his ear. Whoever was calling, it wasn’t Dylan Foreman.

“Oh, just give it up will you. Or leave a message already.”

Who the hell calls ten times?

Truthfully, I didn’t want to answer it. I just couldn’t get my mind around the concept of new clients right now, not while the murder of Jennifer Weatherby still hung over my head. Worse, I thought it might be Detective Head asking me why the hell I’d not brought Jennifer Weatherby’s receipt, deposit record and contract (yes, the non-existent paperwork) in to the station yet.

So I glared at the ringing phone and willed it to stop, scrunching my eyebrows in concentration. I wanted it to stop. Specifically, I wanted it to stop before Dylan walked in. The only thing worse than avoiding a call I really didn’t want to take was having someone else know I was avoiding it. Having Dylan know it….

The door to my office started to swing open. Shit. I dove across Dylan’s desk and lunged for the phone, making a very unflattering oomph/slide across the oak surface.

“Hello, Dix Dodd speaking.”

Dylan arched a questioning eyebrow. I mouthed the words ‘had to pee’ and pressed the phone back to my ear in time to hear a female voice.

“Oh.” A pause. “Oh, I was just about to hang up.”

Well don’t let me stop you.

“Just got in the door,” I lied to the still unknown caller. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m calling for Dylan Foreman. Is he there?”

“Oh.”

“Ma’am? Is he there?”

“Certainly. Just a moment, please.”

I was just about to hand the phone over to Dylan when she said, “And er, sorry to rush your pee break.”

Grrrr.

Oh, great, THIS I was able to mouth silently.

I handed the phone to Dylan.

“I’ll be just a minute, Dix.” Dylan hooked a leg casually over the edge of his desk. With the mouthpiece end of the receiver pressed against his shoulder, he waited. And waited until I got the message.

I turned and walked into my own office.

I closed the door between our offices. Well, almost closed it. I heard him laugh deeply, while my leather chair made a rude sound as I plunked my ass down on it. Nice, Dix. Chances were Dylan heard that, if not the caller on the other end of the line. Great, now they’ll think I’m incontinent and a farter!

All I needed now was to … oh, crap!

Mrs. Presley’s hospitality came back to haunt me. I belched spicy pepperoni.

Feeling about as attractive as Steve Buscemi, I sighed and turned my attention to my desk. Picking up the yellow legal pad I’d used when Jennifer Weatherby had been in the office, I examined my doodles. Stairs going nowhere; tight little circles. The crazy, meandering duck tracks. For some reason, I wanted to laugh. And not a good laugh.

“That’s it! I’ll just hand this over to Detective Head,” I muttered to myself. “There you go, Detective! Proof positive Jennifer Weatherby was in my office. Case closed against Dix Dodd, your friendly neighborhood ball-buster!”

“Dix?” Dylan called from the outer office. “Did you say something?”

Damn. “I said I need another good … wall duster.” The smack of my hand to my forehead felt just about right.

He resumed his conversation, and I went back to glowering at my yellow pad.

About five minutes later, Dylan’s voice went lower and I couldn’t even make out bits and pieces of the conversation. Not that I’d been listening — like, a lot. I heard his deep chuckle — the one that just rolled itself up my spine. He hung up and before I could adjust my position from straining forward in my chair to casually leaning back with my feet up on the desk, the door opened.

“Sorry about that,” he said, looking anything but sorry. “We’re busy as hell, I know, but I really had to take that call.”

“No problem,” I said. “You know I don’t mind personal calls at the office. Not at all.”

Now was the time for Dylan to tell me it wasn’t a personal call. I waited. I waited some more.

“Thanks.” He smiled.

“Sure.” I couldn’t resist. But nor could I look at him as I asked. “How is your mother, anyway?”

“Great, Dix. Mother’s great.”

“So nice of her to call.”

“She didn’t.”

Oh, wonderful, Dodd. Real mature!

It wasn’t that I couldn’t read his expression, it’s that he didn’t really have one. He was offering neither excuse nor explanation.

But I noticed he wasn’t looking at me either as he’d answered — his eyes were staring into his own yellow legal pad full of notes.

I quickly (quickly before I said something even more stupid) told Dylan what I had learned from Mrs. Presley: that Billy Star had been a frequent visitor to the Underhill. With a blonde. Dylan, of course, pointed out there were lots of blondes in the world.

“Maybe our boy Billy was with a hooker,” Dylan offered. “A blonde favorite, perhaps?”

I shook my head. “Hookers don’t hide down in the seat and send the john in to register. It works the other way around. No, Mrs. Presley was positive she wasn’t a prostitute, a regular or otherwise. And with her years at the desk of the Underhill, she would certainly know.”

“Maybe Star had himself an under-aged girlfriend.”

I considered that for a moment. But only a moment. I knew Mrs. Presley. If there were any underage hanky-panky going on, well, it wouldn’t be for long.

But what was the connection between Billy Star, Ned Weatherby, the late Mrs. Jennifer Weatherby and the blonde mistress we sought? I guess it could be coincidental, but it sure as hell didn’t feel coincidental. It felt like there should be a connection there.

“Maybe we were right,” I mused. “Maybe Billy and Ned were fighting over the same woman.”

“Our mysterious mistress?”

“Yeah, Blondie gets around.”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, that theory was just some wild speculation. And well, it kind of seems far fetched.”

“Far fetched is all we’ve got to go on, Dylan.”

I cleared my throat.

As if reading my mind, Dylan strode to the coffee pot in the corner. Ever ready, he flicked a switch and the hardest working thing in the office kicked into gear.

“What did you find out from talking to the neighbors?” I asked.

“It was interesting, to say the least.”

“How so?”

He ran a hand over his chin, drawing it long. He often did this when carefully arranging his words. “According to everyone I talked to, they hardly knew Jennifer Weatherby.”

“Hardly surprising. I mean in this day and age, it’s not like people sit out on their front porch swings and chat over lemonade.”

“Still, you’d think she’d have at least one friend in the neighborhood. But there was … I don’t know … almost an animosity towards Jennifer.”

I could feel my eyebrows arching. “Anything specific?”

The coffee gurgled and started sputtering into the pot and I silently blessed it.

“From what I understand, Mrs. Weatherby didn’t much get along with the other rich ladies on Ashfield Drive. She wasn’t one of them.”

“Old money versus new money?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The homes are new out that way, so it’s all new money. No, I think Jennifer was just one of those women that didn’t fit in. You know, not the wine and cheese and charity ball kind of chick.”

Dylan Foreman was one of those rare guys who could say ‘chick’ and not have it sound condescending. Actually, he made it sound downright sexy. Granted, he could probably make rice pudding sound sexy.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Any specific incidents that would have made her enemies?”

“None that I could uncover. Just general stuff. You know, not attending neighborhood functions, not sending cards at Christmas, or pretending she didn’t know the neighbors when they met at Ryder’s.”

“Ryder’s on Main?” Ryder’s was about as high end as it got, unless you wanted to jet off to New York or Paris.

He nodded. “Apparently, that’s where all the ladies of Ashfield Drive shop. And apparently, whenever Jennifer bumped into one of them, she’d duck out of the store as quickly as possible. Wouldn’t even say hi.”

“Ryder’s,” I repeated.

On the one hand, it didn’t really surprise me that Jennifer Weatherby shopped at Ryder’s. She could certainly afford it. On the other hand, when she’d come to my office, she’d looked anything but stylishly dressed.

Stress? Maybe. It could do a helluva number on a person.

The coffee was ready, and I poured Dylan a mug as I got my own. “So Jennifer Weatherby wasn’t popular with the ladies of Ashfield Drive. But did anyone hate her enough to kill her?”

“They’re a cliquey bunch,” he said. “But no. I don’t think anyone wanted her dead.”

I steered the conversation back to Billy Star, frequent flyer at the Underhill, and his skulking blonde date. Again we tossed around the theory that the heated argument between Billy Star and Ned Weatherby had been over the same woman.

“Long shot,” he said.

“It’s a shot though.” I held the cup in both hands, warming them even though they were far from cold.

Dylan nodded. “Okay, where do we go from here?”

The phone rang just exactly as I opened my mouth to speak.

Dylan rose to get it in the outer office. A bit too quickly.

“Here,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

I thought it must be the same woman calling for Dylan again. This time, I was determined to show how mature I was. Coolest boss EVER. How what-a-great-boss-who-isn’t-hot-for-her-much-younger-assistant I was. And this time, I wouldn’t ask if it was his mother. I picked up the receiver before the second ring finished.

“Dix Dodd speaking.”

“Well if it isn’t the she-stalker herself.”

Ah, fuck!

“Hello, Dickhead,” I said. “How goes the quitting smoking? Bet you’d like one right now, huh?” Yes, it was dirty, but a girl had to score her points where she could. “Why don’t I go pick you up a pack? I could have them delivered. Ahhh, can’t you just feel that lovely tar filling your lungs right now?”

He laughed. Not his belly-shaking, everyone-run-here laugh, but a deep chuckle that unnerved me.

“Funny, Dixieland,” he said. “Very funny. And here I was calling to give you some information. Just trying to be friendly.”

Said the python to the rat.

“What’s up?” I asked, cautiously curious.

“I just got off the phone with Ned Weatherby. He gave me his wife’s itinerary for the last week.” Detective Head paused, dramatically. My heart began to race.

“Well, good for you, Dick!” I said. “Itinerary’s a pretty big word! Five syllables! Call back next week and we’ll work on….” — oh, shit, what was a good six-syllable word? — “…an even bigger word.”

Okay, yes, the world’s dumbest retort. But I was getting a little stressed here; he was so happy. Just what did Dickhead know that I didn’t?

I forced up a chuckle.

“Laugh all you want now, Dix Dodd,” Detective Head said. “You won’t be laughing for long.”

“You going to get to the point today, Detective?”

“The point is that Jennifer Weatherby wasn’t anywhere near your office on Monday. The late Mrs. Weatherby was at the Bombay Spa for her weekly treatments. Left early in the morning, came home late at night. You lied, Dix. There is no way in hell that she was in your office.”

I could feel my grip on calm slipping. Dylan moved closer, his gaze intent on my face, no doubt reading the growing panic there. “There has to be a mistake….”

“The mistake is you messed with the wrong people, Dix. I’m going to haul you in.”

“Give me forty-eight hours.” The words were out before I’d clearly thought them over.

“Why should I?” Dickhead asked, clearly enjoying himself.

“Because I’ll deliver the murderer to you by then.”

Now I appreciated his pause. He was thinking it over. And then I realized: there were no blaring sirens on the way to pick me up. No cops banging on the door. No police dogs sniffing my car. Detective Head, through he would dearly love to see me in jail, wouldn’t let the real killer get away.

“Okay,” he grumbled. “You got your forty-eight hours.” Then he hung up the phone.

“Where do we go from here, Dylan?” God, was it just two minutes ago that he’d put that question to me? It felt like hours. I swallowed hard, but when I spoke, my voice was as strong as I could make it. “I’ll tell you where we’re going. To the Bombay Spa.”

Dylan slowly nodded, erased the whiteboard and we began again.

And when the phone rang, we ignored the damn thing.

Chapter 7

Forty-eight hours.

Not too damn much time to save my butt. But it would be enough. It had to be.

As we sat down to brainstorm, it was clear that Dylan shared my anxiety.

Here’s the thing about Dylan — he’s not just good to look at; he’s pretty damned good at this job. He is always intensely committed to solving the mystery at hand. I’ll confess that over the period of our association, I’ve enjoyed watching him apply himself to a puzzle. There is something positively fascinating about watching an intelligent guy think. You can almost see the wheels churning, the adrenaline rushing. But this time, with this case … well, I’d never seen him look so fiercely focused as we went over the details and attempted to chart the life of Mrs. Weatherby.

You’d think at first glance that Jennifer Weatherby had lived a fairytale existence. She’d grown up dirt poor, the stereotypical girl from the wrong side of the tracks. When she was barely twenty-one, she’d married the dashing young businessman, Ned Weatherby. Rumor had it that Ned’s parents had never thought Jennifer was good enough for their Neddy, but he had fallen head over heels for the young and beautiful Jennifer. And some say it was Jennifer’s fear of being poor again that lead Ned to work so hard, and be so ruthless in business over the years. To keep the dragons at bay.

After Ned had made the millions, Jennifer’s life seemed to revolve around shopping at the most exclusive boutiques and spending her days at the Bombay Spa. Literally rags to riches. Safe and perfect.

But I never trusted fairytales. Too simplistic. Too black and white.

I’d been the one in grade school who’d scoffed all the way through the Sleeping Beauty play, finally yelling, “Wake the hell up!” After which, of course, I was escorted out of the tiny gymnasium. Little Red Riding Hood drove me nuts; she should have pulled a gun out of her handbag and just shot the damn wolf. Now that would have been happily ever after. Clint Eastwood style happily ever after, but … well, it would have put a smile on my face.

And I really, really didn’t like Cinderella.

I never thought of it as a story of princess meets prince, falls in love. It just drove me crazy that Cinderella morphed into something to capture the heart of her true love, and that the fairy Godmother helped her do it! I mean, shouldn’t she have shown up in her everyday clothes and seen what old Prince Charming thought of her then?

But yet, we all do that, don’t we? We dress to impress. Play the part according to the audience. And yeah, okay, we judge on first impressions.

And whereas I was on my way to the Bombay Spa, I knew I’d have to play the part too. No way could I go in as Dix Dodd, Private Detective, with her assistant, Dylan Foreman. That would make me an outsider.

No, I would enter the spa as Dixie Davenport, rich bitch, needing a day of pampering. Rest and relaxation. Small talk and gossip. I had the wardrobe for it (okay, one outfit, an authentic Chanel charcoal blazer and pant suit that made me look like a million bucks rather than the hundred bucks I’d paid for it at a fire sale, and a decent pair of black pumps), and I could fake the attitude. Just throw those shoulders back, lift the chin and pretend you smell something vaguely unpleasant. And gossip? I could hold my own with the best of them. If there were any juicy details to be learned about the fairytale life of Jennifer Weatherby, I’d ferret them out.

When I called the spa and told them that I wanted to book for that very afternoon, I was told there was nothing available. The waiting list to get in was at least a month long. Remember those winged bills that had been flying overhead? My big payday? Well, they started flying toward the spa.

I told a few lies about being the wife of a movie producer from Hollywood, a producer who hoped to be shooting a Matt Damon thriller in the area. But, maybe I should tell hubby dearest to reconsider. No way could we make our temporary home in a podunk town where I couldn’t get an appointment at the spa when I so desperately needed one.

The little squeally shriek that followed half convinced me the receptionist was having an orgasm. She put me on hold. Less than two minutes later, she came back on the line to inform me that they would certainly make an exception for any friend of Mr. Damon’s.

That’s how I got myself into the Bombay.

Dylan? Well, no way in hell would he sit around and be left behind.

“And just how,” I’d asked, “do you propose to get in there? The clientele are all female.”

“Way ahead of you, Dix.” He had smiled. “I called the head of personnel. They’re hiring.”

“You got yourself an interview, just like that?”

“An interview?” He looked insulted. “Are you kidding? With my qualifications, I was hired on the spot, over the telephone.”

I didn’t even ask which qualification he was referring too.

+++

I was appropriately gushed over as I entered the spa. One attendant took my coat, which I shoulder-shrugged out of perfectly. I caught the staffer sneaking a glance at the coat’s tags, which made me glad I’d had the forethought to stitch a Hilary Radley label scavenged from a vintage coat I’d picked up at a yard sale over the real label. Another staffer offered me an herbal tea, which I declined with a wordless wave. I was then escorted to the office, where a nervous, bone-thin redhead in a thousand dollar pantsuit did her best to accommodate. Her name was Ms. Pipps, and she was as efficient as her name sounded. Crisply efficient. On such short notice, they’d put together a pretty comprehensive spa day. I’d start with a massage, move on to a mud wrap, followed by a manicure and pedicure, then a full facial. I ordered the lemon chicken for lunch, which I’d have out on the terrace.

But even as I made these elaborate arrangements, I had no intention of sticking out the day. I’d stick it out only as long as it took to get what I wanted. Then I’d pay up, drop the rich chick persona, grab a Big Mac and head back to the office.

“So a friend of mine comes here,” I said, hoping to pique the interest of the redhead.

“Oh? Who would that be?”

“Jennifer Weatherby.”

Ms. Pipps clapped her hands together forcefully, which scared the crap out of me, for I thought I heard something snap in her bony hands. “Yes, Jennifer Weatherby has graced the Bombay Spa with her presence on many occasions. She’s taken advantage of not only our wonderful services and full line of beauty and relaxation products, but also the warm hospitality that is the Bombay’s trademark.”

I’d get nothing here. And it wasn’t just the canned promo that the Redhead no doubt gave to everyone. It was the expression on her face — or rather lack of expression.

“I have another friend who’s spoken of this place.”

“Oh? Who would that be?”

“Justine Smithee. Married to Alan Smithee, the famous Hollywood director. Does that ring a bell?”

She clapped her hands again. “Oh, my goodness, yes. Justine has graced the Bombay Spa with her presence on many occasions….”

I tuned her out after that. I mean, I could have said Fanny Fartsalot or Ima Hoare and she’d have given me the same spiel.

Redhead insisted I must start with the top-to-toe relaxing massage. She assured me the Bombay was famous for their massages. Surely I’d heard that from Mrs. Smithee? I’d agreed, mainly because I wanted to play the part well. I mean, every day at the spa began with a relaxing massage, didn’t it?

But here’s my problem. Getting a full body massage means getting naked, and I don’t like being naked around other people.

I’m not a prude by any means, and I’m certainly not ashamed of my figure. Sure, I could drop twenty pounds and it wouldn’t kill me. And granted, things weren’t as perky as they were when I was twenty, or even thirty, but I was happy enough with myself, a byproduct, I think, of turning forty and deciding this is me, baby, and I like it. But unless the circumstances are right — which reminded me they hadn’t been for quite some time, dammit — I just have this … uncomfortableness about being naked around strangers. Bottom line, if the Jerry Springer Show had to depend on me, they’d be in bad shape.

So lying face down on the massage table in room 102 of the Bombay Spa with just a thin white sheet over my naked butt wasn’t exactly the highlight of my week. Well, actually, maybe it was the highlight, considering how badly my week had sucked so far. Right after cleaning the bird crap off my car and that call from my mother (shudder) to tell me she’d nearly got caught skinny-dipping. Again. Now, that’s a show for Jerry Springer. My seventy-year-old mother could do naked in a heartbeat.

Just then, the door opened. I reached back to make sure the sheet was covering my derriere, and in the process looking, I have no doubt, like an awkward flapping seal as I raised myself and slapped the sides of the sheet into place. With a sigh (oh God I hoped it didn’t sound like a moan) I set my chin in my hands.

“Hi,” said the petite young woman who now stood before me. I assumed she was the masseuse. “I’m Elizabeth Bee!”

“‘B’ as in….”

“Just Bee, you know, like the bug. But don’t say that, it drives me nuts.”

She was in her bare feet.

“You’re not going to walk on my back, are you, Elizabeth?” I glanced down at her feet and the toe ring that looked particularly menacing.

“No, Ms. Davenport.” She smiled but gave the slightest suggestion of an eye roll at the same time — which didn’t endear her to me. “I’m here to prepare the room.”

“Prepare the room?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll get the full pampering at the Bombay Spa. Scented candles, warm towels, music.” She sent me a sidelong glance. “You’ll be sure to pass all this along to your friends?”

She meant to my non-existent Hollywood friends.

I assured her I would.

“Actually,” I said. “Another good friend of mine is a client here. Someone from Marport City.”

“Oh, who’s that?”

“Jennifer Weatherby.”

There was no rocking back on the bare heels. There was no change in the expression, except for a shift of light in the eyes. A fast blink. And I knew, sure as anything, Elizabeth knew something about Jennifer Weatherby.

“Well,” said Elizabeth, “Jennifer was certainly an … interesting lady.”

Yes, I caught it: Was.

“Wasn’t it awful, what happened to her?” the young woman whispered in that hushed tone that habitual gossipers use, as if the walls might overhear and collapse with the news. As if the hushed tones made it less terrible. Or that much worse.

Okay, now she was endearing herself to me.

“It was terrible,” I agreed. “And Jennifer was such a … such a sweet lady.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows crinkled skeptically, but she quickly recovered. “Why, yes. You’re so right.”

Mentally, I urged her to say more. With any luck, I could get the information I needed and get out of this popsicle stand before ten. But obviously my Jedi Mind Trick was not quite up to snuff this morning. She didn’t say another word.

I knew the next step. I had to build up a friendly little atmosphere with Elizabeth.

“So tell me about yourself,” I invited.

She blinked at me, clearly startled to be asked about herself by a client. “Oh, well, I’m twenty-three. I’m from Maine originally, but you know, just didn’t seem to be anything left for me there anymore, once my mom died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to heart that.” And I genuinely was.

“Oh,” she said, “there were other things too.”

That usually meant a man. And I knew at Elizabeth’s age, that could sting.

“Have you been here at the spa long?” I wanted to change the conversation, from heavy to lighter.

“About two years now. I love it here. And, well, the pay’s pretty good. With the tips I make, of course.”

Yes, I caught the hint. And I’d tip her well.

“It must be an interesting job.”

She smiled. “Oh, you’ve no idea! But I don’t want to just assist forever, you know. I want to go back to school and take some courses in reflexology. I just … you know … need the cash first. I really don’t have anyone to help me. My Dad is gone, too. And both sets of grandparents.”

Why the lying little…. Then I smiled.

This was going to work out fine.

“Hand me my wallet, will you?” I’d left my purse behind, since it would never pass muster here, but I figured the Gucci-inspired wallet might be mistaken for the real thing.)

She did. I withdrew the fifty as though it meant nothing, folded it twice and handed it to her. “For your education fund.”

“Oh, my gosh, Ms. Davenport I couldn’t. I just—”

“Nonsense, Elizabeth. And at the end of the session, if I’ve enjoyed the services here, there’ll be another of those.”

“A glass of wine, Ms. Davenport?” Elizabeth asked me, smiling so wide I thought her face would crack. “Champagne? Fresh orange juice, perhaps? They’ll have it down at the restaurant. Shall I go and get you some? It would be my pleasure.”

“Actually, Elizabeth, what I wanted—”

My words were cut short by a knock on the door. Argh! Of all the crappy timing for the masseuse to arrive.

Then the door swung open and Dylan Foreman walked in with a mile-wide, unapologetic grin.

“Wine would be good, Elizabeth,” I croaked.

Good? Wine would be necessary under the circumstances!

So this is the job he’d convinced the Bombay he was completely qualified for. It must have been a helluva sell-job he’d done for them to send him in to serve their newest VIP client. After all, I was Dixie Davenport, from Beverly Hills, wife of a Hollywood movie producer. Friend of Matt Damon’s! And though he’d been hired over the phone, I had every confidence his good looks upon presentation had landed him with me. Movie star caliber eye candy for the woman who rubbed shoulders with movie stars.

Why couldn’t I have thought of a more modest lie?

But even as I fumed about the situation (to wit, me lying naked on a table with my employee as my masseuse), I couldn’t help but be a little proud. I’d trained Dylan well. If Harvard had a PhD in massage, he’d claim to have the same, and be able to identify all the professors. He’d have read up on everything he could.

“Oh, you’re new,” Elizabeth said.

Well, duh!

Dylan crossed the room to shake her hand. “I just started here this morning. I’m Dylan Pulse.”

Pulse? That’s the pseudonym he came up with?

“Wonderful!” Elizabeth gushed. “We’ve been short staffed for months now. I’m Elizabeth Bee. Like, you know, the bug.”

Huh?

God, the girl was flustered.

I watched as she gave Dylan the once over. Then the twice over.

“Well,” Dylan flirted. “You’ve got to be the cutest bug I’ve ever seen.”

He was good; I’d give him that.

He looked good, too. The outfit for the male masseuses at the Bombay Spa was simple but classy — white t-shirts and crisp white twill pants. I’d known that from the brochures I’d looked through when I’d selected the day’s services in Redhead’s office. But apparently Dylan’s six foot four frame wasn’t what they were ready for. The t-shirt was about two sizes too small. The inch-high Bombay Spa logo (palm trees and happy coconuts) rode higher on his chest than I imagined it was supposed to, and the material hugged his abs like a second skin. And while I’m sure I’d noticed his biceps at one time or another, they’d never been displayed to quite such advantage before, the skin dark against the startling white of the t-shirt’s snug sleeves. As for the trousers … well, his narrow waist let him get into them, but I suspected the inseam wasn’t equal to his long legs. He’d obviously solved that problem by rolling them up almost to the knee, managing to look casually rugged while escaping the flood pants look.

If the Bombay Spa thought this was going to impress me….

Shit, how smart was that? They were going to be devastated when they discovered he wasn’t going to stay.

“Elizabeth? My wine?”

“Oh, sorry.” The girl dragged her attention away from Dylan, and in record time, she’d pulled a bottle of chilled Chardonnay from the mini-fridge, poured a glass and put it in my hands.

I tipped up my chin, completely conscious of my bare breasts against the table and lifted myself only enough to take a sip. An awkward sip. I had more of a slurp/drool thing happening.

“I think you’re all set,” Elizabeth said, “but I’ll be back in about an hour to check on things.”

“Wait!” Damnation! I couldn’t let her get away. I’d buttered her up, but I had yet to get the dirt on Jennifer Weatherby. “Couldn’t you hang around?”

She glanced at Dylan, then back to me, giving me a look that said, ‘What, are you nuts, lady?’

“I … I wanted to ask you some questions about the spa,” I said. “And if … Mr. Pulse was it?”

“Yes,” Dylan lied. “Dylan Pulse. As in heartbeat.”

Oh good grief!

“If Mr. Pulse is a new hire here, I doubt he could help me as well as you would be able to.”

Elizabeth brightened like I’d just slipped her another fifty. (And of course knowing I would). “I’d be pleased to. Just let me clear it with Ms. Pipps and I’ll be right back.”

Elizabeth made her exit, hips swiveling in the kind of model’s runway gait I’d never get away with in a million years (or try in a million years).

With the world’s coyest grin, Dylan turned to me. “Cool or what?”

“Or what!”

He put a finger to his lips, silently reminding me we were undercover. Well, I was undercover. Naked under cover. Dylan was fully clothed.

“How the hell did you get in here?” I hissed.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the massage table. “Easy. I told them I was a graduate of the Cornick School of Massage in Chicago, class of 2003. Top of the class, mind you.”

“And they took your word for it?”

“Once I showed them my credentials, resume and the glowing recommendations from two of my teachers.” He shook his head. “Of course, I had to give a demonstration massage to the office administrator.”

“Ms. Pipps?”

“The very one. Is that one uptight redhead or what? But she seemed impressed enough to hire me.”

“What do you know about massage?” I demanded.

He feigned hurt. “Plenty.”

“Let me guess, you really did attend the Cornick School.”

“Nope.” He linked his fingers, extended his arms, and cracked his knuckles. “Just the Dylan Foreman School. It’s not that hard, really. I just kind of go on … instinct. Slowly. Deeply. Instinctually.”

I made a mental note to tell Elizabeth the first thing I needed upon her return was the heat turned down in here. “And that works?” I mocked. “Slowly. Deeply. Instinctually?”

“Well it certainly worked enough to fool Ms. Pipps.”

Checkmate.

Elizabeth knocked and waited until Dylan called permission to enter. As if she didn’t want to interrupt something. Was that why this place was so popular with the ladies?

“It’s fine. Mrs. Pipps says I’m to accommodate your stay completely, Ms. Davenport.”

“Thank you, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth went over to the prep area in the corner of the room and started shuffling through the bottles of lotions, towels and candles, trying to make herself look busy and efficient. To me, of course, but also to Dylan, I had no doubt.

“Well.” Dylan cleared his throat. “I guess we’d better get started here.”

Great. Just freaking great.

I closed my eyes and retreated into my brain. “Hello, is this the Springer Show? I have an idea for you. Why don’t you do a show where a forty-year old woman lies buck-naked on a table at the hands of a handsome, young, totally studly employee. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!”

Oh well, Mother would watch that episode.

And then I felt Dylan’s hands on me. My eyes flew open as his hands glided up my back. Oh, yikes! I took a deep, steadying breath. This did not have to be awkward, I lectured myself. It didn’t have to be sexual. I’d just close my eyes and pretend it was Elizabeth kneading my shoulders.

There. I let my breath out slowly. That was the trick.

Except Elizabeth’s soft little hands could never feel like this. These hands were large and hard, the fingers strong. Despite my own lecture, I felt myself react to his touch. Then, because there didn’t seem to be a damned thing I could do about it, I decided to just let myself feel. He started at my shoulders, finding and rubbing free the knots that I didn’t even know were there. I could feel the strength of the man, but also the gentleness within the power. I felt the slickness of the oil, warm and penetrating, the lovely friction….

“Anything I can get you two?”

I startled and tensed beneath Dylan’s touch. How much time had passed? How many minutes had I allowed myself to fall under the spell of his hands. Oh my God! What was I thinking? This wasn’t what I’d come here for!

Dylan’s hands left me for a second, and when they returned to my back, his touch was much more clinical. More buddy-buddy than … whatever that other thing was. I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. If I concentrated hard — baseball, baseball — surely it would abate in other places.

I cleared my throat. “Elizabeth, thank you for sticking around. You know, now that you mention it, my friend Jennifer told me about a particular incense that she always liked when she came here. I think it was….”

“Jasmine! Mrs. Weatherby loved it. Whenever she was here, I made sure it was readied in the burner for her.”

“Yes, Jennifer was a creature of habit.” I forced a knowing chuckle.

Elizabeth smiled. “She liked room 102 always. She wanted the towels warmed, but not too warm. Sweet almond massage oil. She never wanted a glass of wine before or during the massage, but she always enjoyed a coffee afterward. She loved her Columbian dark roast. Then she’d have a seaweed body wrap just before lunch.”

“Same routine every time?”

“Oh, yes. We had a standing appointment for her every Monday for the full day. She tipped well. Even the times she didn’t make it, she made sure to send a cheque along.”

Dylan’s hands stilled. He’d caught the same thing I did. Not only the words, but the teasing little rise in Elizabeth’s voice as she said the latter.

I tried to match it. “Yes,” I said. “She was sometimes … otherwise occupied.”

“You know?”

I shrugged my shoulders, watching Elizabeth as she shot a look at Dylan. Whatever look he gave her back must have been encouraging, because she started talking.

“Oh, thank God! I thought I was the only one and that maybe I should go to the police with the information.”

“Yes, well that was my instinct too.”

“So you know about the affair.”

Holy shit! “Oh, she told you, too?”

Elizabeth nodded vigorously. “She came in one day and I could tell she was very upset. And she … she just broke down crying, you know? Said she just didn’t fit in this society, and as much as Ned tried, she still felt so out of place. And she felt so horrible about the affair, but didn’t know how to make it stop.”

Apparently, someone did.

“It must have been so hard on her,” I said, “to know that her husband was cheating on her.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Cheating on her? No, that’s not right. She was cheating on him.”

My eyes shot wide, and I forced myself to blink.

“With whom?”

“She never said his name. Only that she didn’t know how to break it off. Actually, I think she was scared to break it off. But over the last month or so, she started keeping her spa appointments again, so I guess she finally dumped the asshole. She seemed kind of sad after that. Guilt, maybe. Worry. But she never said anything more about the guy.”

I wet my lips. Things were falling into and out of place in my mind. “Elizabeth,” I asked, nervously, “did Jennifer have an appointment here last Monday?”

“Yes, she did.”

I prayed she’d say she hadn’t kept it, but my prayer went unanswered.

“She kept it.”

I wrapped the sheet around myself and sat up, turned to Dylan. “We’re out of here.”

He grabbed a towel and started wiping the oil from his hands while I headed for the change room.

“Oh!” Elizabeth looked startled. “Is … is something wrong?”

“No, you did everything right. Perfect, in fact.” I stopped long enough to tip her the fifty I’d promised. Dylan flashed her a smile. “Tell Ms. Pipps that Mr. Pulse and I hit it off extremely well,” I called over my shoulder. “So well, in fact, I’m taking him with me.” I shut the door behind me, but not before I turned and took a look at the dropped jaw, wide-eyed look from Elizabeth.

Chapter 8

So, I blew off the pedicure and manicure and everything else I’d booked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly so easy to brush off the memory of that massage. Dylan’s hands on me, firm and soft at the same time. Commanding yet gentle. Powerful yet….

Shit.

It had been awhile since I’d been touched that personally. That deeply. And I just hoped that young Mr. Foreman couldn’t see through me as easily as he seemed to see through most everyone else, considering how utterly aroused I’d been. Feelings had stirred that had not been stirred in a long, long time. And as every woman knows, there’s danger in that. And now it was driving me crazy. But I knew I had to put such thoughts aside. I had more important things on my plate, like saving my backside before Dickhead’s deadline expired.

I’d shot out of the Bombay spa, waving a goodbye to Ms. Pipps, calling out a wonderful recommendation of Elizabeth’s services over my shoulder.

“Say hello to Mr. Damon!” Ms. Pipps called after me. “Please be sure to put in a good word for the Bombay Spa.”

Right, good ol’ Matt. “Absolutely!”

And if I ever had the good fortune to meet Matt Damon, I surely would.

So according to my well-tipped source, Ned Weatherby wasn’t having an affair, but Jennifer Weatherby was. Or, maybe Elizabeth was lying to me in order to get the good tips? She could obviously tell I was a gossip hound. Maybe she lied to me. Or maybe Jennifer had lied to her?

Yet one thing seemed certain: Jennifer Weatherby had been at the Bombay Spa on Monday. Elizabeth backed up the information that Ned had given Dickhead, and which he’d been so delighted to give to me.

Double damn.

So who the hell had that been in my office that day? And why?

And that was just the beginning of the questions rolling through my mind.

Dylan and I agreed to meet at my apartment. Was I hiding out? Not yet. But I didn’t want any interruptions. Dylan volunteered to go by the office before we met at the house. He’d pick up all the notes, all the pictures and recordings, and we’d start from scratch. While I changed from Rich Chick to Dix, he would check on the mail and the messages, and bring along only what needed my immediate attention.

You’d never guess what immediately needed my attention.

+++

When my buzzer rang, I pushed the button to unlock the door without bothering to ask who it was. Yes, it could have been a mass murderer or burglar or someone selling salvation door-to-door, but the way I was feeling, any of the above would do. I’d tear a strip off them a foot wide.

Of course, it was Dylan.

I’d grabbed a change of clothes out of the small dryer — jeans and an oversized t-shirt. After having seen me in my birthday suit with only a sheet over my butt, I wanted to show him something as far away from that vision as possible. I was just coming out of the bedroom, baretting my hair high on my head, when he let himself in the unlocked door. I could tell instantly that something was wrong.

“What is it?”

Juggling the McFood he’d picked up for our lunch, he pulled a letter from his back pocket and handed it to me. An official looking letter, from the law offices of Constantine, Trodbridge and Poole.

“Shit.” I tore it open and read it quickly. I could feel the tension in my jaw as I finished.

“What is it, Dix?”

“Apparently, Mr. Jeremy Poole has convinced the court that I’m a threat to his client.”

“What?”

“It’s a restraining order. I’m to stay at least a hundred yards away from Ned Weatherby, the Weatherby residence and Weatherby’s office at all times.”

I fell onto the sofa. I could feel the headache coming.

I looked at the damn document again. Dated today. Signed: Judge Stella Q. Stephanapoulis. Ordering me to stay away from Ned Weatherby and his home and business.

I’m not one to feel sorry for myself. I have never labored under the illusion that life was fair. But holy shit, this was so wrong! How was I supposed to investigate, to clear my name, if I couldn’t even access one of the main suspects?

“How about this, Dix?”

“How about what?”

Kicking off his boots, Dylan walked into the dining room with the fast food. “Dix Dodd: call if your man is missing in action, or you’re missing his action.”

“What?” I followed him to the dining room table.

“Yeah, that wasn’t my favorite, either. Let me run this one by you, then.” He cleared his throat. “When the men are being pricks, it’s time to call Dix.”

I groaned, rolled my eyes.

“Come on, Dix! I have to order the business cards next week.”

“Why?”

“Because we’ll need them.”

I had to admire his faith in me. More and more I was concluding that there wouldn’t be a business by next week.

“Let me think it over, Dylan,” I said, to pacify him.

“Oh, you liked one of those? Nicccce.”

“No,” I said. “They both suckkkked.”

“That’s it!” Dylan shouted. “Pay us the bucks if you think your guy sucks … and we’ll find out if you’re right!” He said it in a singsong voice that sounded more like he was planning business cards for Dr. Seuss rather than a private detective currently specializing in busting cheating men.

“That sucks too.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. But I’m not giving up on this, Dix.”

Knowing his way around my apartment, Dylan deposited the burgers, fries and shakes (his strawberry, mine chocolate) on the dining room table. I pushed the pile of accumulated newspapers, magazines and un-ironed clothes (are there any other kind?) aside.

We sat to eat, but neither of us did so with much enthusiasm.

“I don’t understand it.” I chewed on a salty fry. “If Jennifer Weatherby kept her appointment, at the spa, then it can’t have been her who hired me. And if that wasn’t Jennifer who came to the office, then who was it?”

“There doesn’t appear to be any if about it.” Dylan reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out a rolled up copy of today’s Marport City Morning Edition.

I took the paper from him, and there above the fold was a picture of Jennifer Weatherby.

Dammit. The fry I’d just swallowed turned leaden in my stomach. The women smiling back at me looked nothing like the woman who’d hired me. Now that I thought about it, even as her dead body had lain sprawled on that Persian rug, she hadn’t looked anything like the woman who’d hired me.

“I’m a fucking idiot.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Dix.”

“Oh, come on! That pantsuit, Dylan. The one she was wearing when she got plugged. It was definitely a quality garment, tasteful, understated, expensive. Jesus, why didn’t I see it sooner?”

“You were upset,” he said soothingly. “We all were. And you didn’t see her face. I mean, you told the cops she was face down when you found her, right?”

Well, he was right about that. My first instinct had been to roll the victim over and do CPR, but one touch of that cold flesh and I’d known the woman was beyond help. And I’d had no desire for a closer look at death. Still, there were other things I should have noticed.

“No, I didn’t see her face, but her clothing — I should have twigged to it then.” My eyes widened as I remembered another detail. “And her shoe! For God’s sake, it was right there in front of me! She’d lost one of her shoes, and it was normal-sized. Well, a little on the big side, maybe — a size 10, maybe — but nothing like the purple canoes that imposter bitch wore.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Dylan advised. “Besides, maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t know. Maybe if you’d told the cops that, it might have gone even worse for you. I doubt if your favorite detective would have believed you, for starters.”

Dylan was right. I really wasn’t any worse off than I’d been before. And at least now we had another piece of the puzzle. “You’re right.” I tossed the newspaper and picked up my fries again. “So, Jennifer kept her spa appointment last Monday, but what about all the other Mondays she cancelled? What’s with that? She paid in advance to keep the appointments. Heck, she tipped in advance. But then she cancelled without seeking refunds. I know money is no object to the Weatherbys, but shit, that’s not a cheap place.”

“Covering her ass?”

“That’d make sense if she was having an affair. Pretty smart, actually. All she’d have to do is show the receipts and debits on the accounts to prove to Ned she was at the Bombay.”

“If they had a joint banking account or credit card account, Ned would see the transaction going through every week and have nothing to suspect.”

“And….” I raised a salty french fry as I concluded the point. “Whoever was in our office posing as Jennifer Weatherby … maybe they knew this too. That Jennifer was at the Bombay on Mondays. So….”

Dylan’s eyes widened. “So — holy shit! — they set us up.”

Us. Yes, I caught that. Amazing how comforting “us” sounds when your ass is in a sling.

And dammit, Dylan was bang on. I’d been set up, all right. That, of course, put a whole new spoon into the pot. And the pot was getting so freakin’ full already! “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Hold on, Dix. Let’s not get too carried away.”

Technically, he was right, but I didn’t want to waste a good pissed off. “What the hell is it with people?” I ranted. “Okay, fine, I know I’ve made my fair share of enemies since I’ve been in business, but I only ever caught red-handed those with red hands.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Dix, we don’t know that this is about us. We still have to assume it’s about Weatherby.”

Okay, he had a point. Nobody would kill someone solely for the purpose of framing me, no matter how much they disliked me. Or if they did, they’d pick a victim I actually knew, someone I cared about one way or another, to make the frame job more plausible.

“Let’s take the facts one at a time,” he said. “What we do know is that the Flashing Fashion Queen who came to you posing as Jennifer Weatherby was not Jennifer Weatherby.”

Dylan stood and took his milkshake with him over to the whiteboard I’d propped up on a dining room chair. He drew one of his famous stick figures on the board, and we started filling in the details. About five ten in low heels, dressed horribly, a purse full of feminine hygiene products and five thousand dollars in cash. Dylan drew some dollar signs floating above the stick figure’s head.

I sipped my shake. “How old do you think she was?”

He scratched his chin. “Hard to say with the big glasses on. Mid-forties, maybe.”

Geez, he made mid-forty sound Jurassic. “That old?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

Bummer.

“And here’s a thought,” I said. “We don’t even know for certain our imposter was a female. If I can pass for a man, whose to say a man couldn’t pass for a woman?”

Dylan lifted an eyebrow. “You might be onto something there. I mean, remember what she looked like?”

“I know, I know. A purple Amazon with the feet to match.” My stomach sank. I’d only thrown the idea at Dylan because I was always trying to impress on him the need to keep an open mind on an investigation, but dammit, I think I was right. “Christ, Dylan, it could easily have been a man. Probably was a man.” I reached for my yellow pad, looking at the tight pairs of circles I’d drawn, again and again. “Oh, for—” I ground back a curse. “Gonads. That’s what I was doodling while she … oh, hell — he — was talking.”

“Stones?” Dylan leaned close to look at the pad. “Ya think?”

“I think.” I tossed the pad back on the desk in disgust. “How could I have missed something like that?”

“Hey, I missed it, too.”

It was the money, of course. I’d been blinded by all that cash. How many times had I said it? People see what they want to see, and I’d wanted to see an easy payday.

“Or maybe not.”

I glanced up at Dylan. “Huh?”

He shrugged. “Maybe she was just a masculine looking chick. My uncle married a woman who could pass for RuPaul, if you squint your eyes. And if RuPaul were a foot and a half shorter. And white. And quite a bit pudgier.”

I rolled my eyes. “The spitting image, I’m sure.”

“It’s true. I swear. And you know how it can be with some women as they get older.”

I resisted the urge to touch my upper lip. I’d had the latest go-round with the electrolysis needle less than a month ago. I did not have a moustache. Well, not much of one.

“Okay, I get the message. It might have been a woman. It equally well might have been a man. Which means we’ve effectively doubled our suspect pool.”

He grimaced. “Looks like it. But it doesn’t really change what we need to do, does it?”

“Not really.”

We had to find out who Jennifer Weatherby had been seeing. Yes, this assumed that Elizabeth had been telling the truth, but I had little else to go on at this time.

“Shall we talk to the neighbors again?” Dylan asked.

“No. If they haven’t told you anything before, chances are they won’t now. So let’s forget the new neighborhood and check out the old neighborhood.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Maybe Jennifer kept in contact with someone from her old days before she married Ned. If she felt out of place in Ned’s world, maybe she kept her place in the world she knew before him.”

“The other side of the tracks.”

I shrugged. “Worth a shot. We could talk to some of her old neighbors. See what the gossip was on that side of town.”

Dylan looked at me, his blue eyes boring into me with concern and energy. He was chomping at the bit to get going on this. “So you want me on this one, Dix?”

“Yeah. This one’s for you, Dylan.”

I did want him on this. But not for the reasons he probably thought. Sure, he might find out something of use to us. But I also wanted something else. I wanted him safe. Because I had the niggling feeling again, that gut instinct that told me things were about to get a little dangerous.

“I’m all over it.”

The minute I heard his motorcycle fire up and leave the lot, I grabbed my jacket.

Yes, I knew my next move. Knew who I had to talk to. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a pretty conversation. I located my smallest, most efficient tape recorder, slid it into my pocket, and grabbed my purse. I tucked my cell phone inside.

And lastly, I grabbed my gun.

Chapter 9

Something seemed odd about the restraining order. I’d seen a few of them over the years, both at Jones and Associates and since I’d been out on my own. Admittedly, I’d only glanced at the other orders, usually waved under my nose by agitated clients trying to underscore the danger they were in. But this order I had the joy (ha!) of examining more carefully.

I knew whose signature was at the bottom — Judge Stella Stephanopoulos. She was actually, one of the smartest judges in Criminal Court; I’d known her by professional reputation for a long time. But more importantly, I knew her secretary Rochelle. I’d known her for years, actually, and had even arranged some pro bono work (a rarity for Jones and the boys, I assure you) for her little sister years ago. Her sister’s husband was one hundred percent asshole with a pregnant girlfriend on the side, and exposing his assholic nature had been my pleasure. Rochelle’s sister had been heartbroken, of course. But like all women, she eventually did what she had to do. Cried herself out, dusted herself off, and made a better life without the jerk.

Rochelle and I had been friends ever since. She trusted me; I trusted her. At the very least, I thought she’d have given me a heads up to let me know the order was coming. Not so I could dodge it, necessarily; just so I wouldn’t be caught flat-footed. She’d been Johnny-on-the-spot (Jilly-on-the-spot?) on a number of things over the years, and, I was a little miffed that she hadn’t called me on this.

The feeling that my friends were abandoning ship niggled at me, and it took all the will I had to push it aside.

The order had been obtained by that scrawny little poop of a lawyer, Jeremy Poole. You’d think Ned Weatherby was his only client, the way he was hanging off of him. Well, okay, they were obviously friends as well as business associates, judging by the photos I’d taken during that week I’d bird-dogged Ned.

Then again, Ned had so much money, maybe he truly was Jeremy Poole’s only client.

Regardless, it was clearly the young lawyer’s doing to get Judge Stephanopoulos to sign the order. One hundred yards away from Weatherby, the home, the business.

Yeah, right!

All of this to say that as I sat in my car immediately outside the Weatherby offices waiting for my mark to come back from lunch, I was in full disguise. The last thing I needed was to find myself in jail for breaching the restraining order. I had enough of a jail threat hanging over my head as it was.

So my disguise had to be a doozie. Ah, but all my disguises are doozies!

During my surveillance of the Weatherby Industries when I was supposedly in the employ of Ned’s loving wife, I’d seen all kinds of workers entering and leaving. It was a twenty-story building, and it was fully occupied by Weatherby Industries. I’d memorized the faces of all the security guards first. That sorta came with the territory, noticing the ‘heat’ more than the others. But I’d managed to memorize a good chunk of the rest of the staff, too.

One thing I did notice was that the maintenance staff, a contracted service, wasn’t consistent. I was familiar with the traditional (and butt-ugly) uniform for Watership Building Cleaning & Maintenance. It was solid navy except for the big yellow Watership logo (which looks like a pirate ship loaded with mops for sails and brooms for oars) and the Watership name emblazoned on the back. There were pockets and loops on the pants for carrying a variety of tools and products. And I just so happened to have one of these outfits. It was bulky enough to conceal my figure as well as hide any small recording devices or other equipment I might need. Like a gun.

I tucked my hair up under the equally ugly Watership cap and pressed on a blond mustache to my make-up free face. I snorted and spit (albeit into a tissue) to work myself up into man-mode. And I checked myself out in the mirror.

Not bad.

One would have to look long and hard to tell that I wasn’t of the weaker (male) sex. But I didn’t really worry about it. Like I said, people see what they expect to see. Even me, it seemed. A glimpse of mustache, and they think guy. A dress equals female. (Damn, but it burned that I hadn’t looked harder at ‘Jennifer’.) What I’m saying is, as long as I didn’t stick around long enough for close investigation, I was safe. Sorta.

Shit, who was I kidding? Safe was the furthest thing from what I felt.

I crumpled the restraining order and stuck it in the glove compartment, and was just slamming it shut when I saw the reason for my trip to Weatherby Industries walking into the building. His head was bent and his strides scissored determinedly as he entered the front door. Two women stopped to talk to him, one going so far as to put a hand on his shoulder, but he just brushed past them and hurried away as if the devil himself were on his tail.

Nope, not the devil. Just me.

I got out of the car, and walked toward the building, determined to have a conversation with Mr. Billy Star.

And yes, as I walked toward the building, I checked for my gun, reassured by its cold weight. Even as I did it, I wondered if I was being overly paranoid.

On the other hand, someone had killed Jennifer Weatherby. The same someone had possibly set me up to take the fall. And I had no doubt that same someone wouldn’t think twice about seeing me dead, too, should I get in the way. And I was always getting in the way; it was my job.

Overly paranoid, my ass.

+++

I entered the Weatherby building directly after Mr. Billy Star — quickly enough so that I could see him getting on the elevator, lean to push a button, and turn with red-rimmed eyes to stare up at the top of the doors and watch the numbers. I had called his office right after Dylan left my apartment, and was only half surprised to find him working. Ned Weatherby would understandably be absent; Billy had to keep the business running smoothly. But there was more to his appearance at the office.

Red rimmed eyes didn’t surprise me. If anything, they confirmed my suspicions.

I watched the elevator lights, rising steadily and stopping on the top floor.

I took the next elevator up, waiting impatiently then standing as inconspicuously as possible beside the two suited men. It worked. They didn’t seem to notice my presence, or my listening in to their conversation.

“I heard Mrs. Weatherby had been shot three times.”

“Maybe it was a suicide?”

“Three shots?”

“I heard old Ned had a lover. Bet it was that new girl in accounting.”

“I heard Mrs. Weatherby was fooling around on Ned.”

“Holy crap! I can believe it.”

It didn’t surprise me rumors were flying already. Stuff like that was always flying at times like these. But how much was rumor and how much was truth? Damn elevator. It moved too quickly and dropped my loose-lipped fellow travelers off on the 18th floor.

I quickly found the maintenance closet and jimmied the lock. I grabbed some Windex and hooked it onto my uniform. I loaded a maintenance trolley with what surely looked official and started heading down the hallway. Star’s office, as I’d ascertained on my way down the hall, was the third to the right off the elevator. Right next to the corner office of Ned Weatherby. I cringed. That had to bite, considering that Star was the major partner just before the stock in the company went skyrocketing. Ned had made millions. And no doubt an enemy in the now under-his-employ Billy Star.

I passed a couple of other male janitors in the hallway, just as I was about to enter Star’s office — their navy and yellow WATERSHIP uniforms visible from a mile away. They looked at me strangely, trying to place me.

“‘lo,” I said with a manly nod of acknowledgment. I adjusted the rolls of TP on the cart (like what the hell else was I supposed to do?).

They nodded back. These guys could have been a father and son team, they looked that similar.

“You new here?” the older one asked.

“New? Yeah, very new. First day.” I deepened my voice and slowed my speech.

“Well, doesn’t that fuckin’ beat all.” His coworker cast me a disgusted look. “Takes us five years to get this floor, and this dude comes in and day one, comes up here.”

“Don’t seem right.”

I snorted a laugh and scratched my crotch. “Yeah, well, my uncle owns the company.”

“Is that right?” the young one said, grinning a smartass grin. “Your uncle is Sophia Maria Watership?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be stupid. My uncle is her husband,” I gambled. Poorly.

“You mean her late husband?”

“Yeah.” I squared my shoulders (thanking myself for remembering to add the shoulders pads to the uniform for the decidedly male appearance). “You got a problem with that?” I said it with so much attitude, Steve McQueen would have been proud.

“I do,” Shorty answered.

“Let’s call head office, son.” The old fellow shook his head. “Something isn’t quite right here.” They started walking away.

Aw shit!

“You do that,” I called. “And when you talk to Aunt Sophia, you tell her I’ll be over for supper at six tonight.”

They halted and looked back at me.

“It’s canasta night,” I said, “and Aunt Sophia don’t like me late on canasta night. Tell her I want her to make that seafood lasagna, but don’t use those cheapie small shrimp like last time. And tell her I’ll pick up some of the good rolls at the market on my way in. Oh, and tell her that if I catch my cousin Charlie cheating again, there’ll be hell to pay. Oh, and be sure to tell her—”

“I look like your message boy?” Shorty called. “Tell her yourself!”

“Yeah,” the other chimed in. “Tell her yourself! We’ve got work to do.”

It worked. For now. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think what I’d pulled on them would work for long.

They both gave me one last spiteful look before proceeding down the hall. And I had the sneaking feeling that though I wasn’t yet busted, it wouldn’t take Tweedledee and Tweedledumb long to check out my story.

I’d have to move fast.

Every indication I had of Billy Star from my week of running surveillance on his boss was that he was a hot head. And well, maybe there was a legitimate chip on his shoulder — I’d be pissed too if someone bought me out just before business skyrocketed. But really, what was Billy to do? He was well over fifty, had built the business along side Ned from the ground up; it was all he knew. With a mortgage and an aging father to look after, not to mention two kids in college from his former marriage, he had to keep working for Ned.

That’s why I packed the heat. Just in case I needed some motivation for him to calm down should he be inclined to go ballistic on me. He was a big man. Rugged. Obviously able to take care of himself, and though I wasn’t intimidated by his size, I wasn’t stupid either.

This was a murder investigation, after all.

And there had been tension, anger and hatred in the eyes of both Billy and Ned as they’d fought. It didn’t take a trained private eye to come to that conclusion. But why would Ned keep Billy around if they got along so poorly? And oh, wait a minute, didn’t I recall at the house when Jennifer’s body was found, Ned and Jeremy Poole discussing calling Billy? Yes, they had.

Oh, man, I was missing something here.

Plus there was the information Mrs. Presley had provided about Billy’s frequent trips to the Underhill Motel. Granted, that could be unrelated, but I was betting it wasn’t.

Actually, I was betting my ass it wasn’t.

Literally.

Suite 2002, Mr. William T. Star, Vice President.

His door was closed, but I doubted it was locked.

Slowly, quietly, I turned the doorknob right as far as it would go before I pushed the door open just enough to peek inside. I was hoping to catch a quick look at Billy Star before he noticed me, before his guard went up. I wanted an honest look at his emotions. An honest reaction.

I lucked out.

Now the scary thing about catching peeks at people is that you never know what you’re going to catch peeks of. I’ve seen more guys surfing the net for porn that one could shake a … okay, a stick at (no pun intended). I’ve caught more than a few people picking their noses and digging out their ears with their pens (these top my list of things I’d just as soon forget). I’ve overheard telephone conversations that would make a sailor blush. And certainly, I’ve caught people in all sorts of compromising positions. Hell, I’ve caught them in positions I didn’t even know were physically possible. But the sight of Billy Star sitting at his desk without the knowledge that I was watching him is one sight that I will never forget.

He sat hunched over his desk with his head in his hands, crying softly. He made very little noise, and his shoulders shook with the effort of containing it. For such a big, powerful man, he looked very vulnerable to me then. As if a feather falling onto his shoulder would just break him.

“Billy Star?” I dropped the fake voice. “We need to talk.”

Billy’s head shot up as I walked into the office, and closed the door behind me. “I don’t know who you think you are. But get the hell out of here right now.”

“That’s not possible, Billy,” I said. I ripped off my fake mustache, slowly. Not for sake of drama, but because I’d used too much damn glue and it hurt like hell.

He looked at me incredulously. “What the — who are you?”

“Dix Dodd.”

“And what the hell are you doing here, Dix Dodd?” He stood, all hulking muscle.

I braced myself as he started toward me, possibly to throttle me.

“I’m investigating the murder of Jennifer Weatherby,” I said in a rush. “And I’m damn determined to find out who’s responsible.”

He stopped in his tracks. “Who hired you?”

I fought the urge to preface my comments with Okay, here’s where it gets tricky. “Jennifer.”

He blinked. “Jennifer hired you to find out who killed her before she was killed? Are you nuts? Are you … you….” He looked me up and down. “What the hell are you, anyway?”

“In answer to your last question, I told you, I’m a PI. In answer to your other query, yes, I probably am nuts.”

“I’m calling security.” Billy picked up his phone and stabbed the first button.

I had to talk quickly. “Jennifer hired me to find out who was having an affair with her husband. She was sure Ned was cheating on her, and I think her curiosity got her killed. And the only way I’m going to catch who killed her, is if you help me figure things out.” I drew a shaky breath. “And dammit, I’m the only one who can figure this mess out. But not unless you help me, Billy.”

Billy sat down heavily into his chair. “Jesus Christ.” He put the phone back in the cradle, and shook his head. “Poor Jennifer. Poor, sweet Jennifer.”

He cried. Big Billy Star was a broken man.

Okay, I’ve never been good with the right words, unless of course the right words were ‘Aha, caught you!’ But somehow I doubted those would fit this particular situation. It was clear that Billy was heartbroken over Jennifer. Clear that he’d loved her, which didn’t come as a surprise to me. Because I was pretty damn sure which blonde he had been hanging out with at the Underhill Motel and pretty sure why Jennifer had missed so many appointments at the Bombay Spa.

I didn’t sit; that didn’t feel right. But I did walk closer to Billy, deeper into the office. It was large, as offices go. Billy sat behind a beautiful mahogany desk. Above him hung a huge picture of Billy and Ned Weatherby shaking hands. Happier days, when each of them was twenty pounds lighter and a few gray hairs shorter. Days before the buyout, no doubt.

“I … I can’t believe Jennifer hired you,” Billy said. He sat up straight and wiped a hand long over his face. “She had her suspicions of Ned, of course. Lots of suspicions over the years. And some of them, I know for a fact, were well founded. But….” He shook his head again. “I can’t believe it would matter to her anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

Billy hesitated. “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Because I think that you and I have the same interest here, Billy. We both want to find out who killed Jennifer.”

He sighed long and shakily. “I saw you at the Weatherby house the night … the night Jennifer was killed. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t believe it when Ned’s lawyer called me. What’s his name…?”

“Jeremy Poole,” I supplied.

“Jeremy Fool if you ask me. That guy hangs off Ned like white on rice, or….”

“Flies on crap?” I offered. Yes, I was truly starting to have a most negative opinion of the young lawyer, but my eloquent metaphor was an attempt to bring Billy more over to my side. Hopefully, it let Billy feel that I was a kindred spirit in his time of need. Hopefully, we’d semi-bond in our trashing of the lawyer.

He snorted a halfhearted laugh.

I drew a breath, and took the lead. “How long have you been sleeping with Jennifer Weatherby?” I asked with an authority I hoped to soon have.

He didn’t hesitate a heartbeat. “A year, six months, twelve days.”

“Continuously?”

His eyebrows knit. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Ms. Dodd, but not even I can keep it up that long.”

“I mean, were you having an affair the whole year, six months and twelve days, or did you have a hiatus in there?”

The look he gave me affirmed my suspicions that there had been a break, or at least an attempted break, by one of them. And if it was Jennifer, I could very well be sitting with her killer.

“Why do you ask?”

“Confirmation,” I lied. “Just confirmation of what I already know.”

“We … cooled things down for a while. It was all part of the plan.”

“What plan?”

His eyes misted over, and though I’m sure he realized he was still talking to me, it was as if he thought Jennifer could hear him herself. “I really loved that woman. With all my heart. And we were planning on making it happen. Planning on making a life together. Jennifer was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“And she loved you?”

He stirred in his seat. And paused for just one telltale heartbeat. “She did.”

“Then why do you think she hired me, Billy?”

“You see,” he said, clearly rattled, “that’s what I don’t understand. Why Jennifer would give a rat’s ass about whether or not Ned was fooling around when we were planning on running away together.”

“There’s a possibility, Mr. Star, that whoever came into my office last week was merely posing as Jennifer. And it’s possible that that imposter is responsible for her death.”

“Then you’d better find her before I do, Dodd.” I could see the clenching of his fists, a graphic reminder of his temper. “Because if I get my hands on whoever killed Jenny, I’ll kill them.”

I nodded, fully believing him.

“How did it start between Jennifer and you?”

Billy tensed visibly. “It was payback at first. Ned took from me, I wanted to take from him. For years, I wanted that bastard to hurt like he hurt me and so many others. So, I thought what better means of payback than to take his wife. Not that I had any initial interest in Jennifer.” He paused for my reaction.

Which would have been fuckin’ pig in other circumstances. “Go on,” I said evenly.

“I’d known Jennifer for years, but always as Ned’s wife. Nothing more. But I did know that she was lonely. And yes, I knew I could take full advantage of that. So I started to flirt with her whenever I saw her. I’d call her to say ‘hello’. And it led to more. But then … when I started to get to know her, how could I not fall in love with her? She was so smart, so witty and so very alone in the world.”

“Alone?”

“Jennifer never fit into Ned’s world. Not with his parents, not with the snooty neighbors. They all wanted her to be the same — quiet and polite and fucking plastic. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t a high-society snob. She wasn’t the shopaholic doting daughter-in-law. So she kind of retreated from everything and everyone in her world. Know what I mean? She retreated into herself. But once I got to know her….”

“Did Ned know about the affair?”

“He thought it was over,” Billy said. “We convinced him it was over. That was part of the plan, too. We didn’t want him suspecting anything while we got our ducks in a row to get the hell out of here. We were going to leave before the renewal of the vows this weekend.”

“I take it the vow renewing thing was Ned’s idea?”

“Worse.” Billy snorted with disgust. “It was the minister’s. Can you believe it? But Ned got caught up in this new preacher’s bullshit that that would make everything better. Renew the romance and all that. It’s bad enough Ned got in with that new church — all the money he’s donated to it would make your head spin — but now the minister is trying to re-cement the marriage? Just makes me sick!”

“So he knew about the infidelity?”

“Yeah.”

“Was Jennifer scared of her husband?”

Billy hesitated a moment too long. I could tell he was picking and choosing his words carefully. That always made me suspicious.

“Not really. She just didn’t want the public hassle. The pictures on page four, the in-laws growling her out….”

“Did Jennifer have a pre-nup?”

“No. When she and Ned were married, Weatherby Industries was in its infancy, hardly worth a thing. Actually,” Billy’s jaw tightened with anger, “it was Weatherby and Star Industries back then.”

“So once the divorce was through,” I offered carefully, “half the assets — including half the business would be Jennifer’s, and then yours and Jennifer’s if she married you. Financially, you’d be on top again. Right, Billy?”

He stared at me unblinking, and I stared back.

“I think you’d better get your ass out of here, Dodd. I don’t like what you’re implying.”

He stood, towering a good eight inches taller than me, his clenched fists shaking.

“I just have one more question?”

“We’re done,” he said coming around the desk and advancing toward me.

My mind shrieked skedaddle! but my gut told me to stay.

“Why didn’t Ned fire you?” I asked.

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, startled. “Christ! You’re not too damn good at this job, are you, Dodd?”

Ouch. “What do you mean?”

“He can’t. If that son of a bitch ever tried to—”

He shut up. Too quickly; too thoroughly.

And at the sound of the cigarette-scratchy voice from behind me, I realized why.

“What’s going on here, Billy?” Luanne marched into Billy’s office, followed by two burley security guards that looked absolutely clueless as to what to do. And bringing up the rear, of course, were Tweedledumb and Tweedledee.

Busted!

“Nothing, Luanne. Nothing at all. This lady was just leaving.”

She hissed at him. “I hope you weren’t telling any of your lies against Mr. Weatherby.” The woman stood close to him. He dwarfed her in height, but it was easy to see she was scaring the crap out of Billy.

“I … I didn’t say a thing, Luanne.”

“Gentlemen, you know what to do.” Luanne nodded to the security guards.

“Yes, Miss Laney.”

Left-side guy grabbed a little too roughly. The maintenance staff were dismissed with a wave. I expected to be steered toward the elevator, but was turned right and directed down the staircase, away from prying eyes. Unceremoniously, I was escorted/tossed/shoved out the back door.

“If you ever come back here, Dix Dodd,” Luanne said, “I’ll have a restraining order filed against you so fast your ugly little head will snap!”

I was about to tag her with my best “Ha! There’s already one against me,” but I thought better of it.

And I couldn’t help but wonder as I got to my feet and dusted off my butt, how the hell did she know who I was?

Chapter 10

I was sitting at my desk, reading and re-reading the notes I’d taken that day the mysterious blonde had come into my office when I heard the police sirens in the distance.

Uh-oh.

Tensing, I sat there and listened for the sirens to draw closer and closer until they converged in my parking lot. Just how many cruisers would Detective Head send my way when he heard I’d violated the restraining order? Two? Six? Would he call in the military from the nearby base? A helicopter and a half-dozen tanks, maybe? But as I sat there, the sirens peaked then faded until I could no longer hear them.

Huh.

I’d thought that Luanne Laney, a.k.a. Weatherby’s psycho secretary from hell, would have had the police on my doorstep in no time. Damn, she was like a crazed German shepherd on Red Bull. True, she didn’t seem to know about the restraining order being in place when she threatened to slap me with another one. But I figured when she raised the matter of my incognito visit with Ned, or worse, lawyer dude, my ass would be grass. I pictured Ned and his lawyer racing each other to the phone to call the cops to report my transgression.

I glanced down at the yellow legal pad I’d been studying. Too damn sunny of a yellow, if you asked me. It lay there on my desk, mocking me with its happy yellowness. I picked it up and looked over my notes and doodles again. Was I missing something? Maybe the answer was there, if I could just see it.

I stared into the pad, like when you’re looking at one of those 3D thingies and the hidden picture suddenly leaps out at you from behind all those dots and squiggles if you can let your eyes drift out of focus.

Nope. Nothing leapt out at me.

I looked at the pad again. The tight little circles I’d already decoded. That was my subconscious saying, Dix, honey, your client could be a dude. Although looking at them now, they could also be my nerves. Lord knows they were wound tight enough.

But the other stuff … stairs going to nowhere. Was that significant? Did it relate to the many floors of the Weatherby building?

I’d learned a long time ago that women were better off when they trusted their instincts. What had my intuition been telling me that day when I’d made those scribbles?

Damned if I knew.

With a sigh, I tossed the pad down and picked up the phone. I punched in my password and checked the voice mail. No messages, but there were 33 hang-ups since Dylan and I had last been at the office, all from an unknown number.

Dylan’s female friend? Something fluttered in my stomach.

Okay, Dix, what’d you think? That the guy was celibate? Ha! Not in a hundred years. But he’d never talked about anyone seriously, never invited a guest up to the office. Not that I’d be jealous if he did. Not that we had the kind of relationship where I had the right to be jealous. No, it was strictly professional between Dylan and me.

My mind flashed to the memories of the massage room and his strong hands….

The phone rang, scaring the shit out of me. I glanced at the call display. Unknown number. This should be fun. I picked up the receiver.

“Dix Dodd,” I said in my sweetest, I-am-so-not-jealous voice.

Click.

Grrrrr. All that feigned sweetness for nothing.

I thumped my boots onto the desk, and turned my mind to the more pressing matter at hand.

Apparently my hunch had been right. Billy Star’s frequent guest at the Underhill Motel was none other than his boss’s wife, Jennifer Weatherby. (I made a mental note to send Mrs. Presley a basket of goodies for her help.) I must admit, my stomach turned at the thought of Billy seducing Jennifer to revenge himself on Ned. What a selfish asshole. Yes, Billy Star was definitely a rat. But I really doubted that he was a killer rat. He’d said everything changed when he fell in love with Jennifer, and I believed him. He’d been torn apart when I’d come across him at the office. I doubted that he was that good of an actor, especially since he had no idea he’d had an audience.

Still, Billy Star knew something. Something that I’m sure he would have told me had Luanne not walked into the office just then. And the way his face dropped when she did told me something else. I’d never seen a man pale so quickly. Clearly Billy was scared of her.

She kind of scared me, too, in a knuckle-rapping Nazi-bitch teacher kind of a way. She was ferociously protective of her boss.

“Okay, Dix,” I muttered. “Just the facts. What do you know so far?” I was swimming in information; I had to compartmentalize.

The fact was, Ned was looking more and more suspicious to me. Maybe he wasn’t so in-the-dark on the affair continuing as Billy seemed to think he was? And even if he were, even if he truly believed it was over, there was bound to be residual jealousy. People didn’t just forgive and forget overnight, especially when it came to something as volatile as infidelity and sexual jealousy. Could Ned have orchestrated all the events that were now in motion? Could he have had Jennifer killed, and set me up accordingly?

If he did kill his wife and set me up, one thing was for certain. He’d hired an actress (actor?) to play Jennifer. Neddybear was at least 6’ 2” without heels. If he’d presented himself in drag, I’d have drawn a frank to go with those beans. And if he were responsible for Jennifer’s death, he would have hired out the hit, too. Made sense, really. Hire a PI to watch him all week so when the hit went down, he’d have a rock solid alibi.

And Billy had told me that he knew Ned had had mistresses in the past. Maybe he did again. Maybe someone he wanted to replace as the current Mrs. Weatherby? Was the planned renewal of vows all a hoax? Or was the mistress usurped when Ned ‘found’ the new religion and the pastor he seemed so very fond of?

Except Ned as the killer felt too neat. Plus he’d looked so horrified when he’d found Jennifer.

As I wrestled with all this, another fact dawned on me — I was hellishly tired. Sometimes the rush of adrenaline can backfire. It suits you fine when you need it, but the coming down from it usually means a crash.

I slouched down in my seat, my butt hanging precariously close to the edge of the chair. Before my bleary eyes closed, I looked at the coffee pot in the corner that seemed to be calling me. Ah, sweet, sweet caffeine. Dylan should be here any minute. I could start the coffee for us. Or I could grab a few minutes sleep, something I hadn’t had in almost 24 hours. It was a short contest. Within minutes I’d drifted into dreamland.

And of course, The Flashing Fashion Queen, was waiting for me there.

+++

She was as blond as ever, this dream lady of mine. But she no longer was the mysterious lady in my mind; now she was the Flashing Fashion Queen. Purple clad, hat wearing, Flashing Fashion Queen. And she was pissing me off.

It was not uncommon for me to dream of the cases I was currently working. It was not uncommon for ‘aha’ moments to come within the dreams. And even as I slept, I knew better than to dismiss the dream lady before me. I knew she wasn’t Jennifer, but she had something to tell me.

Again she flounced into my dream, swirling her purple skirt around. It flew up over her knees to about thigh-high on her smooth legs. The scene was hazy around her, and this time again, she twirled away and eluded my reaching grasp. Coyly, she turned from me, and I still couldn’t see her face.

“So what shall I call you?” I asked.

“Why, Jennifer, of course.”

“But that’s not your name.”

She giggled. “Jennifer’s a lovely name. I think I’ll keep it.”

“But you’re not her.”

“Oh, poop!” She stopped dead in her tracks. Her back was to me but I could see the stiffening of her shoulders. “Given the chance, I’d make a wonderful Jennifer.” Her voice turned pouty. “How did you know I wasn’t her?”

“I’m smarter than you think,” I said. “I figured it out.”

She laughed out loud. “Oh, you’re not half as smart as you think, Dix Dodd.”

I ran a hand through my hair. God, I knew I was dreaming … why was I so very tired? “What am I missing, Blondie?”

She began to walk away. “You’re not missing anything, Dix. Everything’s right before your eyes. Always has been.”

“But who are you?” I screamed at her. “Just tell me who the hell you are!”

It was then that she stopped and turned back to me. Her face was now obscured by the haze of the dream and by the same glasses, hat and ton of make up she’d worn into my office the day we’d met, the day I’d dubbed her the Flashing Fashion Queen. She snarled at me. “I’m you’re worst nightmare, Dix Dodd! Because you’re just too damn stupid to figure it out!” She ran then and I could barely hear her trailing-off voice.

I awoke with a teeth-rattling jolt as I slid from my chair and my butt hit the floor.

Damn! Even in my dreams I was thought of as incompetent.

I ran a hand over my sore rear as I stood and climbed back into the chair. My legal pad stared up at me. I grabbed it quickly and started to write under the doodles I’d drawn. I wanted to get all the elements of the dream before they drifted away.

She’s a bitch … and not in the good way.

Okay, now that that was out of my system:

She’d swirled and swirled and swirled.

She wore the same clothing: bright purple dress with the mile-wide shoulder pads (or mile-wide shoulders?), floppy hat and dark sunglasses.

“I would make a lovely Jennifer.”

Jealousy.

No, not me. My dream mind was telling me that jealousy was the motive for this whole mess. Responsible for Jennifer’s dying.

I pressed the pencil to breaking as I wrote down the last glimpse of dream I retained.

“You’re just too damn stupid to figure it out.”

The phone rang again.

I snatched up the receiver without looking at the call display.

“Dix Dodd,” I answered. And yes, to hell with the sweet voice. My tailbone hurt, dammit!

Silence.

Well, almost silence. I could hear someone breathing very heavily on the other end of the line. Okay, kind of breathing, kind of panting. I glanced at the call display, and surprise, surprise, it displayed unknown. Either Dylan’s girlfriend had worked herself into an, um … frenzy and had breathlessly been expecting him to answer, or the caller of the day had just finished running a marathon.

Or maybe he was some pervert looking for a little phone fun?

And if this latter reason was the plan, boy, did he have the wrong number.

The heavy breathing continued.

“Listen, pal, I don’t know what kind of kinky stuff you think you’re going to pull here. Maybe you get your kicks by shocking women, but I’ve heard it all. Hell, I’ve seen, it all, and it ain’t as pretty as they make it sound. And let me tell you, you depraved little shit, if you think for one fuckin’ minute—”

“Dix Dodd, don’t you remember me?”

Oh shit. It was her. For a moment I wondered if I was still asleep. Because the voice on the phone belonged to the one and only Flashing Fashion Queen. The self same lady who’d been in my office just a few short days ago, and in my dreams a few minutes ago.

“Ah, Jennifer Weatherby,” I said. “I thought you were dead.”

“Maybe … maybe I am. Maybe I’m calling from beyond the grave?”

“Beyond the grave? Wouldn’t that be one hell of a long-distance charge?”

“You don’t believe me?” She was mocking me in her slow, throaty voice. “Oh boo.”

“Boo?” I scoffed. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Blondie! Who the hell are you?”

She ignored my question. Not that I expected a direct answer, but a clue would have been nice.

“You might not believe in ghosts. But you do believe in money, Dix Dodd.”

Okay, she had me on that one. “What the—”

“I left the rest of the payment in your car. The other five thousand dollars for your week of service. You certainly earned it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you did what I asked you to do. And I always keep my promises.”

“I repeat, why would you do that?”

She laughed, one of those forced, out loud laughs that always bugged the shit out of me. “You’re not all that smart, are you Dodd?”

I had to retort with something professional. “Bite me.”

“No, thank you,” she replied, “you’re not my type.”

Okay, now I was ticked. “Listen, Blondie, I’ve had just about enough of this—”

“Just check the car, Dix. You left it open, again. And I left the envelope on the front seat. Your payment’s in there. The other five thousand dollars for a job well done.”

“You’re lying.”

She snorted a most unladylike laugh. “Go see.”

Click.

Ah … fffffff-hell!

I had every confidence that this mysterious caller was playing games with me. Every confidence this woman was having the time of her life, yanking my chain. And every freakin’ confidence that I’d find no envelope of money awaiting me in the car.

Yes, my car probably was unlocked, because nine times out of ten, I left it that way. Bad habit, I know, but how did the caller know this?

I had to go see, of course. Stopping just long enough to start a pot of coffee, I headed out the door. As I strode across the parking lot, it occurred to me the Flashing Fashion Queen was probably watching me. I paused, scanning every window, every doorway. Nothing. I could feel myself getting angrier by the minute. I almost turned in my tracks and headed back to the office, because, of course, there would be nothing there!

I glanced in the car window.

There was something there.

“Holy shit.”

On the seat, rested a plain brown envelope. Dix Dodd was printed on the package in wide black marker. It was thick — just thick enough to be a wad of bills equaling five thousand dollars.

Or possibly a bomb.

The thought froze my hand on the door handle. Softly, slowly, I started to back away. That’s when I heard the squeal of tires as a car came speeding around the corner. The engine revved as it changed gears and shot forward. It took me all of a heartbeat to realize it was coming straight for me. It took another heartbeat to realize it was her behind the wheel. She wore the same floppy hat, same blond wig and wide sunglasses. And a mile-wide evil grin as she sped toward me. The damned envelope, the call, it was all a set up to draw me out here!

I dove across the hood of my car, half on my elbows and half on my side, landing hard on the asphalt on the other side. I sat up, and watched as the car sped off. It had barely missed me.

YPC 389, YPC 389, YPC 389. I repeated it another half dozen times until it was burned in my memory.

“Shittttttttt!” I climbed to my feet, swearing as I looked at my bleeding elbow. “Okay, bitch,” I muttered. “I’ll bite.”

I opened the passenger door and retrieved the envelope, which was surprisingly heavy. I was so shaky I wanted to slip into the passenger seat, but I didn’t think that was prudent in case YPC 389 came roaring back to take another swipe at me. Instead, I closed the door and leaned on the car’s fender, letting it take some of the weight off my trembling legs. Ears tuned for a racing motor, I ripped the envelope open.

Of course, I was no longer expecting a bomb. Because — duh — had the Flashing Fashion Queen wanted me dead by means of a car bomb, she’d have slid it under the seat and used her phone call to prod me into hopping into the car to race off somewhere, triggering the big ka-boom when I keyed the ignition.

Nor did I expect the other five thousand dollars. And I sure didn’t expect a plate or warm cookies. But what I really didn’t expect was what slid out onto my hand as I opened the envelope.

A gun. A gun that I had no doubt had been recently fired.

I heard the sirens again, but this time, I had no illusion that the sound of them would drift off into the distance. And as I held the gun, the very gun that I knew had to have killed Jennifer, I could see the flashing red and blue bar lights of a squad car turning into my parking lot. It came to a stop squarely in front of my car. At the squeal of tires from another direction, I turned to see an unmarked Taurus barreling towards me. Instinctively, I raised my hands in the age-old gesture as the unmarked car swung in behind my vehicle, effectively blocking escape. And then — oh, God, my day just kept getting better and better — a snarling, toothpick chewing Detective Richard Head emerged from the second car.

She’d set me up. The Flashing Fashion Queen had planted the evidence, lured me to my car, and called the police to tip them off. And she had left me with the literal smoking gun.

And I couldn’t help but hear her words flipping me off in my brain: “You’re not all that smart, are you, Dodd?”

Okay, even I was beginning to wonder.

Chapter 11

You know, my high school guidance counselor, Mr. LeCarrier, had suggested I be a funeral home director. Or maybe a chiropractor. “How about orthodontics?” he’d said. Of course, he suggested the latter to everyone who managed to scrape by in science. The standing joke was that he was hoping at least one of us would become an orthodontist and remember him fondly by the time his six kids needed braces. As for the other suggestions for me, Mother and I had both laughed. And I’d rejected them all. Too boring, I’d told him.

A nice quiet life, Mr. LeCarrier suggested, would be perfect for a girl like me.

That’s what he told all the female students.

Well, this girl had gone into a different line of work. Dangerous, exciting, and anything but quiet.

But right now, I was beginning to think Mr. LeCarrier might have known his ass from his elbow after all. Right now, boring and quiet sounded pretty damned appealing.

Yes, she was one up on me. No, she was two … wait, make that … oh, fuck it. Let’s just say she was a few up on me. The Flashing Fashion Queen — a.k.a. impersonator of the late Mrs. Jennifer Weatherby, a.k.a. My Nemesis from Hell — had me by the short and curlies.

She was framing me big time. Hell, she was trying to kill me big time.

Okay, she hadn’t done so great with the killing me part, but the frame job … man, it was brilliant. Calling the office to get me out to the car (I now had a pretty good idea what the thirty three hang ups were about), putting the murder weapon into my hands, and tipping off the police. It was a masterpiece of timing.

Yeah, she was damned clever.

And I was getting damned worried.

+++

The police cars screeched to a stop, arrayed strategically around me, their blue and red bar lights flashing. Not having a death wish, I didn’t wait for an order to be barked over a bullhorn. I immediately raised my hands high, stepped away from my car, then slowly bent to deposit the gun on the asphalt. Still moving slowly, I stood and kicked the Glock toward the closest car.

The doors on the two cruisers popped open and the officers slid into position behind the safety of their doors, weapons drawn and trained on me. A curse dragged my attention to Detective Richard Head, who had just heaved himself from his unmarked Taurus. Unlike the patrol cops, he didn’t unholster his weapon. Nor did he hide behind the door of his car. Rather, he strode right up to me.

“What the fuck are you doing, Dix?”

“I’m counting my limbs, dammit, because someone just tried to deprive me of a few of them.” In a rush, I told him about the attempt on my life. Told him about the crazed imposter who just tried to run me down. And told him if he’d get his ugly ass in gear, he might catch her!

To his credit, Detective Head instructed the officers to stand down. He also sent a patrol car in the direction I indicated, and radioed in the vehicle description and plates I’d supplied. Of course, I would have felt better about these developments if I thought he believed me. Or if he hadn’t put me in bracelets.

“Standard operating procedure, until we sort this out,” he said. “Now, would you like to explain why you were waving a handgun around the parking lot?”

“Sure. Right after you explain why half the police force is here staring at me when some maniac woman just tried to run me down.”

“We got a 9-1-1 call about a maniac woman waving a gun around in a parking lot. Now, spill. What’s going on here?”

Which is when Dylan Foreman showed up. He pulled up on his motorcycle right in the middle of Detective Richard Head’s grilling of/yelling at me, as I tried to explain what had happened. And as I tried to explain why he’d come upon me in the possession of the gun that had most likely — shit, shit, shit — killed Jennifer Weatherby.