Drop Dead Gorgeous (12 page)

“I’m not judging you, Andrew, honestly.”

He shook his head angrily. “Okay, so I’m judging myself, and I’m disappointed in me.”

“Andrew—”

“Let’s get out of here. I didn’t expect to see anyone I work with here—I do my adult stuff in other counties most of the time.”

“Andrew, look, I’m really sorry. If I can help, let me know. I won’t tell anyone—”

“Oh, some of our friends know,” he said dryly. “Old Brad needed money once, and he ‘acted’ for me.”

“What?” Lori said, startled.

“He said he needed the money. I think he had a good time. The girls all thought he was just drop dead gorgeous, and they fawned all over him.”

“Did—did Jan know?”

“No, of course not! He’d die if his daughter ever found out! Lori, you wouldn’t
—”

“No, I wouldn’t say anything!”

“And don’t forget, our folks would have heart attacks on the spot—”

“Andrew, I won’t say anything. Anything at all.”

“I’m quitting as soon as I can.”

“You’re all grown-up, Andrew. That’s a decision you
have to make for yourself.
”

He’d been so anxious to leave. He suddenly settled back. He smiled at her. “You know what, little sister?”

“What?”

“It’s sure good to have you home.”

She smiled. “It’s good to be home.”

She wasn’t sure if she meant it or not. But one thing was sure; home was just chock-full of surprises.

When they finally left, Andrew kissed her cheek before she slid into the driver’s seat of her car. “I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Nine-thirty?” she asked.

“Ellie’s funeral,” he reminded her. “Bright and early.”

“Ellie’s funeral, bright and early.”

“Hail, hail. I’ll bet the gang will all be there,” he said.

He closed her door, waved, and walked away.

8

E
llie’s coffin was brass with handsome crosses at the edges. When Lori and Andrew arrived, a soprano was singing a sad lament about God’s will, and the priest was consoling her family in the front pew. Andrew urged his sister toward a rear pew. By rote, Lori slid to her knees at the pew and lowered her head. She tried to say the right words for Ellie, yet she couldn’t really remember her friend, and in her mind, her prayers sounded hollow. When she thought about the horror of the murder, however, she was able to pray that Ellie had found peace. She then found herself raising her eyes, though her head remained bowed, and she watched as others began to pour into the church.

There were a number of women who were sobbing with a true emotion that tore at Lori’s heart. She was startled when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and realized she had been studying the women so fiercely that she hadn’t realized that her cousin, Josh, had come to sit next to her. She rose from her knees to the seat, offering Josh a warm hug. She sat back a little, looking at him. She hadn’t seen him in several years, but he hadn’t changed much. He was a striking man with reddish hair, green eyes, and a handsome tan. Her mother had told her that his folks were proud of him, but deeply dismayed. He had a great state-of-the-art bachelor condo, a red Prowler, and a yacht—
but no steady girlfriend, and no prospects for fatherhood in the near future. He looked happy and healthy to Lori, however, and she was convinced that Josh was doing just fine. He certainly wasn’t over the hill, and his only real problem was that he was an only child and his folks were really anxious on the grandchildren issue.

“Good to see you, kid,” Josh told her.

“You, too,” she whispered.

“You look great.”

“Thanks. You’re not bad yourself.”

She stared forward again, and saw a man rising from the front pew to greet another man.

“Two of her exes,” Josh whispered to her. He shrugged. “I worked on her last divorce.”

Lori nodded, then asked Josh, “Do they think that any of the men in her life might—”

“Those guys were both out of state,” Josh whispered.

“How do you know?”

“Ricky has headed up a lot of the investigations,” Josh said simply.

“Ah.”

“There’s your old friend Susan Nichols,” Andrew said, nudging Lori from the other side.

Lori had kept up with Jan, but she’d only heard about Susan through Jan now and then. She leaned forward. Susan was still very pretty, petite and well built, with long dark hair, dark eyes, and beautiful ivory skin. Right now, however, she looked rough. Like the other women who had come in earlier, Susan
was suffering real, close, and personal grief, crying so that rivers of tears fell down her cheeks, no matter how she tried to staunch them.

“They hung out now and then,” Josh offered, whispering in Lori’s ear.

“Did they?”

“They were both divorced, no children, you know.”

She nodded, then leaned forward frowning as she tried to place the man who followed in after Susan, tapping her on the shoulder, then holding her in a close, comforting embrace when she turned to him. The man was tall, brown-haired, with clean-cut, yet ruggedly handsome features; he wore an expensive Armani suit very well, being both well muscled and lean.

“Don’t you recognize him?” Andrew asked her.

“Jeff Olin. Mandy’s brother,” Josh offered.

Jeff looked good, really good, tanned and healthy, and prosperous. Andrew had said that he was an attorney. Lori was glad for him; he had taken his sister’s death hard, and the last time she had seen him, he had been stunned and numb, a lost little boy.

“And hail, hail, as I said
…
” Andrew added as someone else entered the church.

Lori turned. Ricky Garcia, Ted Neeson, and Sean and Michael Black were entering together. Lori found herself smiling slightly. They looked like a team out of
Bayw
atch,
all dressed up for the church shot. Big guys,
young, handsome, bodyguards out of the
Bold and the Beautiful.

She remembered they were there for a funeral, one of their own. Ellie lay in that box, sewn back together the best the mortician could manage. There had been viewing hours the night before, but her coffin had never been open. Lori turned back to look toward the altar. A picture of Ellie in life, bright and laughing, sat atop the coffin. Somehow, it made it all the sadder.

The priest left the pew with Ellie’s family and headed for the pulpet. He folded his hands together. “Let us pray,” he invited the gathering, and they all rose.

Sometime during the service, she became aware that Ricky, Ted, Michael, and Sean sat in the pew behind them. Before mass, one of Ellie’s workers gave the eulogy, and broke down in the middle. One of Ellie’s exes rose and finished, saying that she was full of life, giving, warm, and generous, and that her friends would all miss her very much. He left it to the priest to tell the gathering that they must somehow try to understand God’s will, and that there was an eternal justice—her murderer would surely be caught, and in truth, Ellie now rested in a better place than this earth.

The coffin was taken from the church. The congregation rose, and exited.

Lori was somberly leaving when she felt a touch on her shoulder. “Lori! Lori Kelly, oh, my God, it’s so good to see you!”

She turned to find Susan Nichols staring at her, trying to smile despite her blotchy cheeks and tearstained eyes.

“Susan,” Lori said.

Susan threw her arms around Lori’s neck, still in a highly emotional state. Lori hugged her back tightly.

“Ladies, we should move on out, shouldn’t we?” Josh suggested.

Her cousin’s hand at her back, Lori started on out from the church.

“Are you going to the graveside?” Susan asked Lori.

“I—” Lori began.

“Yeah, sure, of course, Sue,” Andrew answered for her.

“Good. We’ll talk after,” Susan said.

Ellie was buried at Woodlawn. The drive from the church to the graveyard wasn’t long, but Josh decided to ride with Andrew and Lori, explaining as they rode that Susan was especially upset because she might have joined Ellie and her friends the evening she was killed, but backed out at the last minute because of a headache.

At Woodlawn Andrew led her toward the graveside. Somehow, their old crowd formed a group toward the right of the coffin and tent. They greeted one another discreetly, Andrew and Josh shaking hands with Michael and Sean, Susan kissing Sean, and Jeff Olin coming up to offer Lori a warm hug. Jan and Brad arrived together, and the handshakes and kisses went around again.

The graveyard service began; it was brief and bittersweet. One of Ellie’s exes tossed the first handful of dirt into the grave, and then family members tossed flowers into the grave. The company had been invited to the home of one of Ellie’s cousins; her folks having died in the last few years and her exes now living out of town.

Lori didn’t know Ellie’s cousins; at the graveside she offered her condolences, and went to the car to wait for Andrew. Jeff Olin found her there. He reached for her hands. His smile was warm and confident, though duly somber for the occasion.

“Lori. Lori Kelly. You look like a million bucks! What brings you home—not that it isn’t wonderful that you’re here.”

“Thanks, Jeff. Gramps is really sick, that’s why I’m home. You look great, of course. But I’m sorry to see
you under these circumstances…
”

“I know, this is really bad, isn’t it?”

She nodded glumly. “Had you seen much of Ellie lately?”

He shook his head. “Not a lot. Now and then, in passing. I cared about her, though. She’d been Mandy’s best friend. It’s funny, though. Seems we all have some kind of bond from way back when, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said softly, then hesitated. “How have y
ou been, really, Jeff? What hap
pened with Mandy was tough on everyone, but in a way, the rest of us were just bystanders, you were the one really hurt, you and—” She
broke off, realizing that not just Jeff, Mandy’s brother, but Sean, Mandy’s accused killer, were both attending this funeral.

“Yes, I was hurt. Mandy was my sister. And yes, you’re right, Sean was hurt, too, wasn’t he?”

“You didn’t think that he killed her, did you?” she asked, dismayed at the anxiety she heard in her voice.

Jeff smiled, shaking his head. Age had done wonders for him. He was really handsome, with a smooth, warm charm. “I
couldn’t
think that, could I? If I did, I wouldn’t have shook his hand, I’d be over there trying to strangle him now. I can’t begin to tell you how bad it was at first, my mother crying night after night, my father praying constantly, trying to soothe my mother. I guess, in a way, it’s good they’re both gone.”

“Gone? They left the area?”

He shook his head. “Gone, passed away. They were in a car crash, just a few years after Mandy died.”

Lori clamped her hand over her mouth, stunned, then drew it away and managed to stutter out an apology. “Oh, God, Jeff, I’m so sorry. Your sister, and then your folks like that, together
…
I am sorry, I didn’t know, my folks never told me
… Andrew didn’t…
”

“They might not have known, Lori. I went away to
school, and only came back sum
mers. They died right after one of my school breaks, and if your family didn’t read the name in the obits, they wouldn’t have known. I wasn’t really talking to anyone back then.”

“It’s really amazing that you’re talking to us now.”

He smiled. “I need friends,” he told her.

She offered her hand. “Well, I am your friend, you know.”

“Thanks, Lori. And you can call on me anytime you need me, too.”

“You’re an attorney now, right?”

“Right. A good one. I defend rich crooks, but only the ones who go out and commit white-collar crimes. I admit to keeping them out of jail, but since our jails don’t have room for the violent offenders, I can do my work well and feel entirely guilt free.”

“I thought you were a corporate attorney.”

He grinned dryly. “I am.”

“Ah!” Lori murmured, looking past him to where her brother and cousin stood with Sean and Michael, Brad and Jan, Ricky Garcia, Ted Neeson—and Susan Nichols.

“Susan has taken this really hard,” Jeff commented.

“Well, she and Ellie were still rather close, I take it.”

He nodded, then looked at her. “And she’s scared. She’s divorced and alone.”

“It’s scary enough out there these days without something like this,” Lori murmured.

He nodded. “I know, it is. It’s really a shame that folks just don’t seem able to stay together in our society. I hear you have a son.”

She smiled. “Yep.”

“Congratulations. A little late.”

Her smiled deepened. “Thanks, it’s never too late.”

“But your husband…
?”

“He passed away.”

“Oh. Now it’s my turn to be sorry.”

“Thanks. He was very sick, and we knew it w
as just a matter of time, and…
”

“And?” he inquired.

“And I think we made the time we had
together a whole lot easier for one another,” Lori finished. “Anyway, Ian Corcoran has been gone a long time now, so you needn’t be sorry. Brendan and I do very well, and it seems like coming home has actually been good.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He sighed softly, glancing at the others. “Listen, I’m going to go and see if I can give Sue a ride home, ease her mind a bit, let her know she has friends around.”

“That would be nice, Jeff.”

“Hey, don’t you go forgetting that you have friends around.”

“I won’t.”

Jeff left her, walking over to join the group. She was glad to see him talking to Sean, as if nothing in the past had ever come between them. Sean was wearing dark glasses, but he grinned at something Jeff said. Maybe time did heal wounds. And maybe Jeff really thought that what was done to Sean was just as much a crime as his sister’s death.

Someone in the group laughed, then she heard her brother say, “I don’t know. Let me check with Lori.”

Andrew strode toward her. “Lori, we all thought we’d slip over to the old Italian place on Coral Way and have coffee, food, alcohol, whatever. Have you got a little time? What’s the story with Brendan?”

“Brendan’s all right—he’s got a number for the folks if he has any problems.”

“You up to lunch?”

Was she? Sure.

I
t was strange. Damned strange. The last time he’d been together with this group it had been in the courthouse, Sean realized as they were brought to a table and took their seats.

He was at one end, Susan on one side, Ricky on the other. Lori was down at the other side. Somehow, Michael wound up next to her on the one side, Ted Neeson on the other. She seemed comfortable enough between them.