Duffel Bags And Drownings (8 page)

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Oh my God. It was Ty, my official—former—official boyfriend.

I swayed against the railing. We’d broken up and it was over between us. Really. We’d
seen each other only a couple of times, and it hadn’t gone well, but still.

An image flashed in my head, taking my breath away: what if he was sitting at the
table waiting for his date to show up?

I didn’t know how I’d bear to see him jump up from his seat as she approached, greet
her, probably kiss her. My whole body ached at the thought.

No way could I stand here and watch that happen.

I turned to go, then saw Ty rise from his chair. A man approached. They shook hands,
then sat down.

Business, I realized. It was only a business meeting.

Marcie always said she doubted things would ever be over between Ty and me. I hadn’t
believed her.

But maybe, just maybe, she was right.

As I headed through the parking garage toward the elevators the next morning, my cell
phone rang. Kayla’s name appeared on the caller I.D. screen.

Not a great way to start my day.

A phone call from Kayla when I was only minutes from arriving at L.A. Affairs could
only mean that something major had gone down this morning—already.

Jeez, what now?

Really, I had enough on my mind. That whole thing with seeing Ty last night at The
Grove was still bouncing around in my head. I’d told Marcie about it—as a BFF would—and
she’d been sympathetic and understanding. She’d also told me that Ty and I would probably
never be done with each other—which was also something a BFF would do, only this time
it was kind of annoying.

I didn’t want her to be right.

Our evening had ended on a high note when we’d gone into Nordstrom and—yahoo!—found
that a friend of Marcie’s had just gotten a sales clerk job there. She’d confided
that another shipment of the totally awesome Flirtatious satchel was expected in a
day or so, and promised to hold back two of them for Marcie and me—making her, of
course, our new BFF.

I was tempted to ignore my ringing cell phone—it’s hard to face a problem before my
first cup of breakroom coffee—but Kayla wouldn’t be calling me so early if it weren’t
important. I hit the green button and answered.

“Something major is going down,” Kayla said in a low voice.

I pictured her crouched under her desk, cupping her hand over her phone.

“I just heard that Edie and Priscilla have decided who’s going to handle the annual
luncheon for the Daughters of the Southland,” Kayla whispered.

“Is it me?” I asked.

Okay, I guess it was kind of crappy to think of myself first but, jeez, it was early.

“I don’t know,” Kayla said. “I’m telling you, Haley, working with these grouchy, cantankerous
old women is a death sentence. You’ll end up as gray-haired and wrinkled as they are.”

That wasn’t a look I was going for.

“If Edie and Priscilla stick you with this event, you can still try to get out of
doing it—and you should,” Kayla said.

I wasn’t worried. I have excellent I-can-get-out-of-anything skills.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, and ended the call.

Just as I was about to drop my phone into my handbag—a Gucci tote I’d paired with
my killer gray suit and crisp white accessories—it rang again. Jack Bishop’s name
flashed on the screen.

I wasn’t in the best mood this morning—thanks to that whole Ty thing and those horrible
Daughters of the Whatever that Edie and Priscilla might try to stick me with—and it
kind of annoyed me that he’d taken so long to get back to me—which wasn’t reasonable
but there it was.

“Where have you been?” I barked, when I answered the phone.

“Miss me?” Jack asked.

Oh my God, he was using his Barry White voice. I’m totally helpless against his Barry
White voice.

Still, I pushed on.

“You might want to start returning your calls,” I told him. “You could want a call-back
one day when you need to find me for something.”

“I can always find you,” Jack said.

He sounded so sure of himself—which was totally hot, of course—but it annoyed me.

“Yeah?” I asked. “Like you’re such a fabulous detective?”

“Turn around.”

Oh, crap.

I whirled around and spotted Jack leaning against a support pillar, looking awesome
in jeans, CAT boots, and a black polo shirt—and way too sure of himself.

He walked toward me and tucked away his cell phone with a casual flip of his wrist.
He was early thirties, tall with dark hair, a good build, and a killer grin.

I melted a little—but, jeez, I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee yet.

Anyone in my position would have done the same thing.

“So what’s up?” he asked, stopping in front of me.

It took me a few seconds to recall why I’d thrown a kind-of-sort-of fit about trying
to contact him, and I finally said, “What were you doing cruising through that shopping
center on Ventura two days ago?”

“You were following me?” Jack grinned.

Like I could be such a good P.I. he wouldn’t know I was tailing him. Something to
shoot for, I guess.

“I was at Cady Faye Catering,” I said. “I’m coordinating a St. Patrick’s Day party
for a Hollywood couple, the Brannocks. Cady Faye is handling the food.”

Jack tilted his head. “You were desperate to contact me so you could hand-deliver
my invitation?”

“What were you doing there?” I asked.

Jack shrugged. “Working a case. A rather nasty divorce.”

I resisted the urge to do a nah-nah-nah-I’m-working-a-murder, and said, “You were
following someone?”

“My client suspects her husband is involved with another woman. I was confirming it
for her,” Jack said.

Jeri’s married boyfriend popped into my head and, for a few seconds, I wondered if
it was his wife who’d hired Jack. Then I remembered that Sierra had told me the soon-to-be
ex-wife was already involved with someone else. Still, she could have had a change
of heart.

“Does your case involve Jeri Sutton?” I asked.

Jack wouldn’t easily give up info in an investigation, but I knew he’d tell me if
it were important.

“Jeri was killed inside Cady Faye Catering,” I said. “I saw your Land Rover on the
surveillance video.”

Jack tensed. “You’re not investigating the case, are you?”

His chest puffed out and his shoulders squared, so I figured he already knew I was
involved. But no way was I getting into it with him—not this early in the morning—so
what could I do but lie?

“No,” I insisted.

His eyes narrowed, as if he thought I wasn’t telling the truth, so what could I do
but amp up my lie?

“The employees at Cady Faye are worried about their safety,” I said. “I thought maybe
you saw something when you were in the parking lot.”

Jack’s gaze lingered on me for a few more seconds—but not in a good way—and finally
he said, “What happened?”

I gave him a rundown of what I knew, leaving out everything about how I was actually
investigating the murder.

Jack shook his head. “There’s no connection with your murder victim.”

“But the guy you were following was cheating?” I asked.

“He was cheating,” Jack said.

I’d hoped for a red hot lead that would take me to Jeri’s murderer but it seemed that
another of my theories had fizzled.

“Stay out of this,” Jack told me. I didn’t promise that I would—Jack wouldn’t have
believed me anyway. I said good-bye and took the elevator up to L.A. Affairs.

The office was unusually quiet—I guess all the planners were lying low, afraid Edie
or Priscilla would capture them in the hallway and give them that dreadful event to
handle—so I went to the breakroom. No one else was there. I made myself a cup of coffee—which
took no time at all, oddly enough—and went to my office.

I was disappointed that Jack hadn’t been any help with my investigation into Jeri’s
murder, but I still had another source of information I could turn to.

Sierra, who worked at Cady Faye Catering and had been in culinary school with both
Jeri and Lourdes, had told me that an attorney named Horowitz was handling the divorce
of Jeri’s married boyfriend, and that Jeri’s roommate who worked in his office could
confirm everything. Since I didn’t have much else to go on, I decided to check her
out.

I spent a couple of hours doing some actual work, then looked up the attorney on the
Internet, gathered my things and headed out.

* * *

The office of attorney Rowland Horowitz was located on Alameda Avenue in Burbank.
It was an older, one-story stucco building that looked as if it had been there for
a while. I parked in the rear and went inside.

The reception area was small with hardwood floors, nice furniture, a year’s worth
of magazines on a side table, and a little glass window where the receptionist sat.
Nobody was waiting. The place was silent. I figured most everybody was out for lunch.

Sierra had told me that Jeri’s roommate was named Molly. The girl behind the glass
could definitely have been a Molly. She was about my age, with red hair she’d styled
in a ponytail.

She looked like an open, honest person, not someone who’d hold back the info I was
after concerning Jeri’s married boyfriend who, hopefully, had a psycho wife that might
have attacked and killed Jeri.

I mean that in the nicest way.

“Hi,” I said, and introduced myself as I approached the window. “Are you Molly? Sierra
said I should talk to you. It’s about Jeri.”

She gasped and pressed her palms to her cheeks.

“I can’t believe that happened to Jeri. Getting killed like that, at the place she
loved,” she whispered. “She was so nice. I mean, really nice. The best roommate ever.”

“Everybody says that about Jeri,” I agreed. “Well, except for some people at the catering
company.”

Molly frowned. “I know. That one girl there, what was her name, Lourdes? Jeri told
me all about her.”

“Some people were talking crap about Jeri because her boyfriend was still married,”
I said.

“They shouldn’t say those things about Jeri and him,” Molly told me. “He was definitely
getting a divorce—not that he wanted one, to start with. His wife was cheating on
him. But he was totally onboard with ending it. Mr. Horowitz is handling the whole
thing.”

“So there wasn’t a future ex-wife in the picture who might have had it in for Jeri?”
I asked.

Molly gasped and her eyes widened. “No way. Absolutely not.”

Okay, so my theory hadn’t panned out.

“I can’t believe people are saying those things.” Molly seemed angry now. “Well, fine.
If the place goes out of business like Jeri thought it might, I guess they have it
coming.”

According to Fay, business had tripled in the last year. I’d seen for myself that
they were expanding into the two storefronts that bordered their current location.

Still, an oh-no vibe shook me. If Cady Faye Catering went under, they’d better hang
on long enough to complete my St. Patrick’s Day party for the Brannocks or I’d be
in major trouble.

“Why would Jeri think Cady Faye would go out of business?” I asked.

Molly pressed her lips together and her cheeks turned pink. “Oh, well, you know, there
were problems—but every place has problems. Right?”

That was a lame answer. But I figured Molly had decided she’d said enough so I didn’t
push it. I’d gotten the information I’d come here for—even if it wasn’t all that helpful
in finding a killer.

“So, you need a divorce, too?” she asked.

Her question took me surprise, though it would have been a great cover for coming
here to talk to her.

Wish I’d thought of it.

“Me?” I asked. “No.”

“Oh, I just thought that since you knew about Jeri and everything that was going on
at the catering company with—” Molly stopped. “Well, never mind. Sorry. Listen, I’ve
got to get back to work.”

“Sure,” I said.

I left the office and headed for my car with the distinct feeling that Molly had been
holding back on me. But was it something important?

I couldn’t be sure.

“It’s all b.s.,” Bella mumbled. “You ask me, it’s nothing but b.s.”

“What’s b.s.?” I asked, though I was more focused on the latest issue of
People
I was flipping through.

We were seated in the breakroom of Holt’s Department Store. So far Bella and I had
stretched our fifteen-minute break to twenty minutes—nice, but nowhere near our record.

Other employees came in, chatting, heating their food in the microwave or getting
a snack from the vending machine. Someone had decorated the place with paper leprechauns,
pots of gold, rainbows, and Irish flags.

I’d blown off my shifts at Holt’s for the last two nights, but couldn’t do it again.
Sad as it was, I needed this job—at least until my probation was up at L.A. Affairs.

“All of it,” Bella said. “All of it is nothing but b.s.”

Bella—coffee to my vanilla—had been talking for a while now about something. I wasn’t
sure what, exactly, because I’d drifted off. This in no way affected our status as
BFFs at Holt’s. We’d worked together long enough to understand each other, as only
BFFs can.

I’d picked up a word or two in her rant about the price of getting a good education.
Bella intended to be a hairdresser to the stars and was working here to save for beauty
school. In the meantime, she practiced on herself. Tonight, in what I could only think
was an ode to the Irish, she’d fashioned her hair into the shape of a shamrock atop
her head.

The breakroom door swung open and Sandy, another of my BFFs here at Holt’s, walked
in. Sandy was about my age, blonde, really cute, and had a boyfriend who should have
been smothered at birth. She met him on the Internet and he routinely treated her
like crap, something everyone but Sandy could easily see.