Deadly Notions (24 page)

Nina gasped.

“Remember how I was late returning from lunch over the weekend?”

“Yes.”

“They were having a picnic lunch together.”

“A picnic lunch?”

“It was her doing. But halfway through the lunch, he called me and I happened to be on the Green, too. Within three seconds of me being with him, this one starts screeching about someone watching her from the woods.”

“So Milo runs off and away from you.”

Tori nodded, Nina’s recap bringing a burn to her eyes. “And as he’s running, she’s smiling.”

“
Smiling?
” Nina echoed.

“Why not? Her mission was accomplished.”

“Tell him, Miss—Tori! Tell him she’s pulling his strings. No man wants to be someone else’s puppet.”

She closed her eye against the memory of their late night phone call the night before, the encouragement of her sewing sisters still fresh in her mind. “I did. Or, at least, I tried to. Last night. After everyone left.”

“And?”

“He got quiet. Maybe even a little angry . . . though that’s hard to tell for sure with Milo. He’s not one to get angry.”

Nina’s hands rose and fell above her lap. “Did he say
anything
?”

“Just that I was being unfair. That I wasn’t the one who saw the soaped threat on her car, that I wasn’t the one who saw her shaking in her room at the inn, that I wasn’t the one who saw the relief on her face when he invited her to stay at his house.”

Nina snorted. “I’ll
bet
there was relief.”

She waved aside her assistant’s implication. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am over reacting.”

“Do you think you are?”

Did she?

Did she really imagine the smile on Beth’s face as Milo ran into the woods? Did she jump to conclusions regarding Beth’s stay in his house or had there truly been leading innuendos designed to take her in that direction?

The answer was as crystal clear as it was when she had dialed Milo’s number before bed.

Beth had an agenda—one with Milo’s name dead center.

“No.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Focus on clearing everyone’s name in Ashley Lawson’s murder; work on this high school book club with you; hold down the fort here; finish up Operation Play Food before Abby’s and Sophie’s birthdays.” She met Nina’s eyes before letting her focus drift to the woman’s stomach. “And pamper you for the next six months.”

Nina nodded, yet said nothing, her eyes wide as she peeked around the library. When her visual inventory came back the same as Tori’s, she pushed off her chair and stood. “If Milo loses you over someone this conniving, this calculating, it will be his loss. And he will regret it for the rest of his life.”

It really should have come as no surprise. Pageant Creations, after all, was located out of Sweet Briar, South Carolina, not Manhattan or Chicago, Dallas or Los Angeles. But still, based on what she’d seen of Regina Murphy thus far, Tori imagined a modern office building or even an elaborate storefront of some sort.

Not a converted garage that had seen better days.

Yet there it was, in all its non-glory.

Inhaling every ounce of determination she could muster, Tori stepped out of her car, her eyes drawn to the now empty parking spot in front of the door—a reserved parking spot that no longer had an owner. The sight brought her up short, making her swallow over a lump she wouldn’t have expected when she first pulled up.

Somehow, some way, she’d allowed herself to get caught up in all the drama that was Ashley Lawson—the meanness, the pettiness, and the over-the-top one upmanship. And then, when the woman turned up dead, she’d turned her focus toward finding a way to clear her friends of any suspected wrongdoing.

Yet she’d forgotten something. Something she’d pushed from her thoughts until just that moment, as she stood staring at the pink lettered sign that depicted a side of the victim she’d all but forgotten.

Ashley Lawson had been someone’s mother.

And that someone had to be hurting in a way Tori couldn’t even begin to imagine. Especially considering the fact that that someone was only five years old.

There was absolutely no doubt in her mind concerning the innocence of her friends in the death of Penelope’s mom. Sure they disliked the woman, maybe even hated her. But kill her? No.

Yet someone had.

Someone who strangled the victim inside her own car.

Someone who, as of that moment, had gotten away with murder.

Someone who robbed a little girl of a mother.

And someone who needed to be caught. For the sanity of those who weren’t guilty and for a little girl who deserved to know that justice had been served.

She pulled her gaze from the sign and fixed it, instead, on her intended destination. All day she’d deliberated the notion of calling Regina and asking for an appointment, yet, in the end, had opted instead to simply show up, unannounced.

Now, as she turned the knob and stepped inside, she couldn’t help but doubt that decision just a little. Especially when she considered the notion that Regina might get upset. Then again, what’s the worst she could do? Call Chief Dallas?

“Hello? Is anyone here?” she called as she pulled her hand from the door and let it click behind her. “Regina?”

Her mouth gaped open as she looked around at the lavishly decorated waiting room—the freshly polished wood floor, oriental rug, and leather lounge chairs in stark contrast to the building’s exterior. Strewn around the walls were pencil-sketched designs of little girls’ pageant dresses and the year they were created, their increasing sophistication evident along with the passage of time.

“Welcome to Pageant Creations, how can I help you?” Regina strode into the room and stopped, her carefully modulated greeting disappearing from her lips as her gaze came to rest on Tori. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I came to talk to you. We got off on the wrong foot with everything going on and I want to apologize. I realize Ashley was your friend and I also realize that it had to hurt to hear some of the things that were being said about her at Sally Davis’s birthday party.”

Regina’s mouth opened only to close just as quickly.

Tori gestured toward the window and the parking lot beyond, her mouth putting words to her epiphany. “I’ve been so busy trying to figure out how best to convince you and Chief Dallas that my friends are not guilty of her murder that I missed the fact that you lost a friend. For that, I’m truly sorry.”

The woman’s jaw tightened as a parade of emotions marched across her face. There was anger, surprise, uncertainty, and something else Tori couldn’t quite identify. But, in the end, Regina simply gestured toward the hallway from which she’d just come. “I can give you a few minutes, I suppose.”

“Thank you.” She pointed toward the pictures that encircled the waiting room. “It’s amazing to see the way your designs have taken off over the past”—she leaned toward the oldest picture—“five years. It has to be very satisfying.”

“It is. Especially now with the likes of Fredrique Mootally noticing Pageant Creations.”

“Fredrique Mootally?”

Regina waved her French-manicured hands in the air, beckoning Tori to follow. “Fredrique Mootally is only the most well-known adult pageant designer in the country. He is
the
go-to person for anyone wishing to win Miss America or Miss Universe or Miss Anything for that matter.”

Trailing behind the woman, Tori couldn’t help but take in the sights along the way—the framed designs found in the waiting room morphing into actual photographs with each passing step. “And now he’s noticing your company?”

“He wants to forge a
partnership
. A very lucrative, very prestigious partnership the likes of which will change everything in my life. And I do mean
everything
. Not the least of which is this dump.” Regina’s pace slowed momentarily as they approached an open door on the left, the narrow gold plaque above the entryway leaving no guesswork as to the room’s occupant.

Tori peeked inside, the stack of books and picture frames in the middle of the desk bringing a lump to her throat as Regina’s voice continued. “Not that Sweet Briar isn’t . . .
lovely
. . . for some people, because I know it is. But I’ve spent quite enough time here. It’s time to move somewhere bigger.”

At the end of the hall, Regina turned right, the click of her stiletto heels disappearing as they left the hardwood floor in favor of a plush wall-to-wall carpet. “Somewhere where people know what fashion is . . . and what it isn’t.”

Tori looked around, her mind absorbing every detail of the white walls and black lacquered furniture, their overall absence of color offset by the bright red carpet and red-matted artwork. “You don’t have to explain. I’m not from Sweet Briar. And while I appreciate many aspects of small-town living, there are quite a few things I miss about Chicago.” Leaning forward, she studied the impressionist painting on the wall behind Regina’s desk. “Namely the culture—the shows, the galleries, the museums, that sort of thing.”

“Then you can appreciate what an association with Fredrique Mootally can bring.” Regina dropped into her desk chair. “It’s like the difference between cooking hamburgers and dining on filet mignon every night.”

Tori nodded, her feet leading her toward the next crop of artwork. “I get that. I really do. And I’m happy for you.” She stopped as her gaze fell on a park sign propped against the far wall. “What’s that?”

Regina stiffened. “That’s something Ashley didn’t live to see.”

She stepped closer, the red and black signs beckoning to her from across the room. “Penelope’s Park? What does that mean?”

“It was the next step in Ashley’s ongoing quest to immortalize her daughter’s name.”

“Next step?”

“You saw the parking spot, didn’t you?” Regina flipped her laptop open on her desk and began tapping on the keyboard, her tone rising and falling with each click of the mouse. “Well, the park was the next logical step. She shelled out good money to have Sweet Briar Memorial removed from the sign and replaced with her daughter’s name.”

“Wow. I had no idea.” She soaked up every detail of the sign, imagined it hanging from the metal post she’d driven past countless times over the past year.

“That was the problem. The sign she insisted on erecting in the parking lot kept her happy for all of about two days—until she realized the only people who would see it were people who happened to come to the office.” Regina pulled her top desk drawer open and rummaged around inside before finally extracting a brown leather date book. “Then she came up with the park idea. She offered to update all of the equipment on her own dime if the town would rename the park in her daughter’s honor.”

“Lots of people would see that,” she mumbled.

Regina snorted. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But even before the signs came in, she started talking about how the only people who would see the name were people who came to the park.”

She looked from Regina to the sign and back again. “What did she want? To have her daughter’s name in lights?”

“Until
that
wasn’t far-reaching enough, either, regardless of the mountains she moved, or destroyed, in the process.”

Aware of the stress building in Regina, Tori changed topics. “How is Penelope doing? Do you know?”

The tweet of Regina’s phone prevented her from answering. “Excuse me. I need to take this.” Regina flipped her phone open and held it to her ear. “Pageant Creations, how can I help you? Oh yes, Natalie. I’m fine; how are you?”

Tori continued around the room, her attention vacillating between the artwork in front of her and the conversation taking place behind her, the notion of Ashley’s devotion to her daughter more than Tori could comprehend. What happened to hugs and kisses or special trips to the ice cream shop? When did things like that stop being special enough? Did children really care whether their name was on a parking sign?

Regina stood and crossed to the drafting table beneath the window, her hand gliding across an artist’s folder. “The first six have been . . .
misplaced
. But I’m sure they’ll turn up. Soon. In the meantime, the ones I have are absolute showstoppers.”

It was hard not to notice the rise in Regina’s pitch. Tori had been there herself, many times. Sure, she hadn’t lost a friend in such a brutal way as Regina had lost Ashley, but she knew about trying to shoehorn heartache into a life that insisted on moving along at its usual pace.

“Does it really matter whether there’s five or ten, or six or twelve?” Regina argued. “Dynamite is dynamite, isn’t it?”

She turned just in time to see the woman’s face fall. “That’s it? Just like that? No chance to . . . Okay . . . Okay . . . I’ll be in touch.” For a moment the woman simply sat there, motionless, the tension from earlier replaced by a palpable disappointment evident by one single word. “Damn.”