Party Crashers (20 page)

“How do you know Pam Vanderpool?” she asked.

But his answer was thwarted by the flash of a camera. “Mr. Underwood, over here!”

Flash! Flash!

Jolie blinked at the huddle of reporters and cameras gathered, her mouth opening and closing like a guppy’s.

“Are you Jolie Goodman?” someone yelled.

“Are you under arrest for murder?”

“Mr. Underwood, is this woman your lover?”

“Come on,” Beck growled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, putting himself between her and the cameras. Frozen with shock, she stumbled to keep up with him, blindly walking forward to the parking lot until they stopped next to a dark-colored SUV. He swung open the door and helped her up into the seat. She didn’t miss the concern on his face as he closed her door and glanced over his shoulder. The security guard had stopped the reporters at the mouth of the parking lot, but they were still shooting footage, and Beck would have to drive past them to get out of the lot. Dismay hit her like a slap when she realized how juicy a story it was for the media to cover one of their own. Rival networks of Underwood Broadcasting would be rubbing their hands with glee.

She covered her mouth with her hand, choking back a sob. The man had gone above and beyond the call of duty to help her for no legitimate reason and at great professional risk to himself.

He opened the driver’s side door, climbed in, then slammed it shut.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I got you involved.”

“
I
got me involved,” he said, his voice brusque. And regretful? “Put on your seat belt,” he said, doing the same. “And look away from the cameras when we drive by.”

Sensing that talking would only make matters worse, she nodded and stared at her shaking hands. By the time they drove to the exit, reporters were on both sides, so Jolie looked down and shielded her face with her hands. Beck slowed enough to take the curve, then they were speeding away. At the street, he slowed and gave her a wry little smile. “Where do you live?”

“Roswell,” she said, pointing left, then gave him the street address and name of her apartment complex. She idly
wondered how Carlotta and Hannah had gotten home, feeling yet another gush of remorse for involving them…and for trusting them. Their actions—and police records—made her look more guilty.

Beck pulled into the sparse pre-predawn traffic, slowing to allow an indigent pedestrian to cross illegally. “Hope he makes it until morning,” Beck said ruefully.

With a start, Jolie wondered if that was how he saw her—as a poor person who needed a break? A handout? She gulped air. Pity? Waves of shame washed over her as they drove down the street. She didn’t want the man’s charity, but she was in no position to turn it down.

“I assume this will make the news,” she said quietly. “You…with me, I mean.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make a couple of phone calls, pull in some favors. With any luck, it won’t hit the air.”

She leaned her head back on the headrest. “Is that how things are done?”

“What do you mean?”

“Favors are owed, favors are exchanged.”

He shrugged. “I suppose that’s life, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t want you to waste a favor on…me.”

She felt his gaze on her, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. “Oh,” he said finally. “Well…there’s my family name to think of, too.”

Jolie wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse. “I owe you an explanation—I…I didn’t kill Gary Hagan.”

“I suspected as much,” he said. “And we can discuss everything later, after you’ve had a chance to recover.”

Although she was grateful for the reprieve, Jolie had never been so thoroughly miserable in her life. Gary was dead, and the people who should believe in her innocence
didn’t, and the one person who shouldn’t did. She felt like a glove that a hand had been ripped from—her right side turned in, her insides exposed. Her body ached with the intensity of a profound wound laid open, but she didn’t have the energy to cry.

She concentrated on the rhythm of the engine and tires, the sound of her own breath entering and leaving her body. She closed her eyes, yielding to the hazy sense of nonbeing that sleep promised. Tension drained from her spine, sending the dead weight of her body into the seat.

Her next conscious thought was that the vehicle had stopped. A distant, dark feeling of dread came zooming back, jolting her upright. Moonlit hedges hemmed the nose of the SUV. Slowly Jolie became aware of streetlamps, sidewalks, connected two-story buildings. Her apartment complex.

“We’re here,” Beck said. “I think.”

She nodded.

“You didn’t say what your apartment number was.”

She looked around to get her bearings, trying to shake the cobwebs from her brain, then pointed. “I’m in that building over there. We can walk.”

She undid her seat belt and ran her tongue over her dry lips, moving gingerly to allow her sleep-laden limbs a chance to catch up. Before she realized what was happening, Beck was at the passenger door, helping her down in the dewy darkness. His hand against her waist, her back, sent a perilous feeling spiraling through her chest—she wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of how good his touch felt. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had touched her just to comfort her instead of as a prelude to a sexual encounter. She leaned on Beck liberally while walking to her apartment door. She unlocked the door and
pushed it open, overwhelmed with a sense of relief at being home.

Flipping on lights, she stumbled inside, not caring what Beck thought of her crocheted coasters and shabby furniture. He looked around, hands on hips, his expression unreadable, then he finally nodded toward her ancient sofa draped with a camouflaging throw. “Looks like a comfortable couch,” he said, and from the tone of his voice she realized with a start that he was looking for a spot to crash.

“You want to stay?” she asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

He turned over his wrist to consult his watch. “Well, it
is
four in the morning.” Beck cleared his throat. “And considering everything that’s happened, I thought it best if someone stayed with you.”

Was he afraid she would do something to hurt herself, or like Vanderpool, that someone else might? At the moment, Jolie didn’t care. “That would be nice.”

He returned to the door to check its security, then walked over to the picture window above the couch, pulled up the blinds, and tested the closing mechanisms. “Do you have any other windows?” he asked.

“Only in the bedroom,” she said, pointing. “Come on, I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.”

“Just a pillow will be fine,” he said, following her into the bedroom.

He scrutinized the room where she slept, but his expression was devoid of personal interest in her intimate space—he seemed more concerned about the layout of the room. He strode to the window and nodded at the two-foot cactus she’d set on the floor beneath the sill.

“Nice touch,” he said approvingly. He raised the blinds
and ran his hands along the closure, then frowned. “Have you had this window open lately?”

Jolie shook her head and walked over, her heart jumping in her chest.

“This latch is open.” He leaned down to peer at the window sill, then indicated the clean scrape in the dust. “Looks like someone has either come in or left by this window in the past few days.”

Her lungs squeezed as she remembered the finger swipe in the dust on her bookshelf headboard. She really needed to dust more often.

“Have you noticed anything missing?”

“No.” Although she hadn’t looked. She gasped and hurried to her hand-me-down dresser, lifting the lid of her jewelry box with trepidation. Her shoulders fell in relief when she removed the little felt bag holding her pearl choker. “Everything’s here,” she said.

She turned to find him studying her, and she flushed when she realized how meager her “everything” must seem to him. “They were my mother’s,” she murmured.

He nodded, then gestured vaguely toward the other rooms. “Any stereo equipment missing? Computer? Cash?”

She shook her head. “There’s only the computer on my desk, and it’s almost as outdated as my television. And…I don’t keep cash here.”

Nor in her bank account, but that was off topic.

He scratched his head, then spotted the fire extinguisher on her nightstand. “Have you had a fire recently?”

She flushed to the roots of her gritty hair. “That’s the closest thing I had to a weapon.”

He looked incredulous. “You’ve been sleeping here alone and afraid, with a fire extinguisher to protect you?”

She sagged onto the foot of her bed. “I didn’t feel as if
I was in imminent danger.” She nodded toward the window. “If someone was in my apartment, they obviously didn’t mean me harm.”

“This time,” he added, his mouth drawn downward. “I’ve probably obliterated any prints,” he said, but used the hem of his sweatshirt to refasten the window. The movement gave her a glimpse of the planes of his brown stomach, and she remembered the way he’d looked climbing out of Sammy’s pool, his boxers clamped to his body, water streaming off his powerful shoulders. A wholly inappropriate pang of lust hit her, and she stood abruptly to distract herself, turning her back to remove one of the two pillows from her bed.

“You should report the entry to the police,” he said, coming up behind her.

“I will,” she said, then turned and smiled up at him. “Thank you for…thank you.” She handed him the pillow and their fingers brushed. His eyes were dark with concern and other emotions she didn’t want to investigate—regret? The most eligible bachelor in Atlanta probably could have found a more entertaining way to spend his evening, and with a less complicated partner. Or two.

“Try to get some sleep,” he said. “But yell if you suspect that anything is wrong.”

Everything
was wrong, but Jolie nodded. He walked out, leaving the bedroom door ajar and a warm feeling of assurance in the cool air. She flipped off the light and crawled on top of the bed covers fully clothed. Hugging her remaining pillow, she willed her body to indulge in as much rest as possible, because she suspected the light of day would only reveal more and bigger dilemmas.

The dilemma sleeping on her couch notwithstanding.

J
olie awoke to a sound alien to a single person—the shower running. Adrenaline shot through her, bringing her upright. Then she saw the “Property of Fulton County, Georgia” sweats she was still wearing, and the horrific events of the previous evening came crashing back down on her. Her first instinct was to pull the covers over her head, but her mother had once told her that the only thing that went away faster if a person ignored it was time.

The clock read 11:47
A.M
. The day was already almost half gone.

She pushed herself up and took stock of her physical condition, running her finger over the knot on her forehead—better, but tender. The bandage on her hand seemed a little tighter, but the absence of dried blood indicated that the wound had not reopened during the night. Her throat and adenoids felt raw from the pool water she’d ingested and expelled violently.

She dared a glance in the mirror and cringed. Her fine, frizzy hair had exploded to new heights, and there wasn’t
enough concealer in Neiman’s makeup department to neutralize the circles under her eyes. The sweat suit hung off her like a feed sack on a scarecrow.

She had never been a woman who rolled out of bed looking particularly good, and this morning was especially unkind.

She straightened the covers on her bed and ventured into the hall. The shower was still going full blast and she hurried past so as not to dwell on the fact that Beck Underwood was standing naked in her shower, using her soap and her towels. Her face burned when she thought about the relative inelegance of her bath accoutrements, but at least he would have found everything clean—it was only dusting that she abhorred.

She scanned the couch where he’d slept and wondered if the big, lumpy sofa had afforded him any rest at all. Her extra feather pillow was still indented from his head. She returned it to her bedroom, thinking Gary had been the last person to share her bed or her pillow, although he had spent the entire night on only one or two occasions.

Tears filled her eyes when the breathtaking sadness of him not being alive hit her anew. Maybe Gary Hagan wouldn’t have saved the world, and maybe he’d been in his share of trouble, but he didn’t deserve to be shot in the chest and abandoned under a pile of outerwear.

The cordless phone rang, jangling her nerves. She couldn’t think of anyone she wanted to talk to at the moment—unless it was Detective Salyers saying the murder had been solved and she was off the hook. But without caller ID, she had to take her chances and hit the button to receive the call. “Hello?”

“Jolie?” a man asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Michael Lane. I just opened my paper—I called to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” she said breezily, wondering if she should ask what the paper said. “A little shaken up, but fine.”

“Yes, well, under the circumstances, I was thinking it might be better for you to take some time off from Neiman’s.”

She gripped the phone. “Michael, please—I
need
this job.”

He sighed. “After the incident at the Manolo event yesterday—”

“Give me another chance,” she pleaded. “Michael, to be blunt, I need the money.” Else, how would she pay off the nightclothes?

He sighed again. “Okay, but only because I’m a wonderful person.”

“Yes, you are,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She disconnected the call before he could change his mind, but the phone rang again almost instantly. She punched the
TALK
button. “Hello?”

“Jolie? This is Trini Janklo, upstairs.”

Jolie rolled her eyes upward. “Hello, Mrs. Janklo. How are you?”

“Shocked, frankly. I opened the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
this morning to find your name connected with the murder of a young man. Is that the same man I heard you arguing with?”

Her heart fluttered and she closed her eyes briefly. “We weren’t arguing, Mrs. Janklo. This is all a big misunderstanding. You can’t believe everything you hear…or read.”

“It says you were so distraught that you tried to drown yourself.”

Her eyes widened—no wonder Michael had been concerned. “That’s simply not true—”

“I want you to know that I’ve already contacted management about having you evicted.”

Her jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

“How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing there’s a murderer living right underneath me?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mrs. Janklo, I’m
not
a murderer.”

But the woman had already hung up, leaving an angry dial tone in her wake.

Jolie stabbed the
DISCONNECT
button and exhaled, dragging her hand down her face. She went to the door and unlocked it in search of her own Sunday paper. She opened the door and retrieved the paper, but when she straightened, a reporter was sprinting down the sidewalk toward her, his cameraman running behind him. “Ms. Goodman! Will you answer a few questions? Is there a love triangle between you, Gary Hagan, and Beckham Underwood?”

She was stupefied. “No!”

“Didn’t Mr. Underwood spend the night here?”

She spun and scrambled back inside the door, slamming it hard. The door to the bathroom opened and Beck came out dressed in his jeans, pulling the sweatshirt over his head. He was frowning. “What was that?”

“A TV reporter,” she said, distracted and comforted by his appearance…and self-conscious about her own.

He picked up his cell phone from a side table and began punching in a number. “What station are they from?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“What did he say?”

She wet her lips. “I don’t think you want to know, but they’re aware that you spent the night here.”

He put down the phone before he finished dialing, then jammed his feet into his sneakers and strode toward the door. “I’ll take care of this.”

She wanted to watch, but decided she’d better take a peek at the paper. There she was, bottom half of page two:
PARTY CRASHERS TERRORIZE BUCKHEAD HOME
—
BODY DISCOVERED
.

Her heart dropped. Peppered with appropriate amounts of “allegeds” and “unnamed sources,” the article mentioned her name (“questioned for the murder of the boyfriend for whom she filed a missing persons report a month ago”), Carlotta’s name (“questioned in connection to widespread looting in the host’s home during the party”), and Hannah’s name (“reportedly assaulted a guest and held other guests hostage”). The article stipulated that no charges had been filed and hinted that it was due in part to “Goodman’s unexplained association with Atlanta socialite, Beckham Underwood.”

She closed the paper with a crunch just as Beck walked back in the front door. “That guy won’t be bothering you anymore,” he said.

“What did you do?” she asked, biting into her lip.

“Smashed his camera.”

She held out the paper. “You might want to read this before you…do anything else on my behalf.” She jerked a thumb toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower. If you’re gone when I come out, I’ll understand.”

He gave her a pointed look. “I thought we were going to talk.”

“Oh.” She tried to smile. “Right. I’ll hurry.”

She closed the door behind her and stripped off the offensive
sweat suit, tossing it into a heap in the floor. Beck’s towel was draped neatly over the shower-curtain rod. She withdrew a fresh towel from a tiny closet, then stepped under the shower spray and adjusted the head back down to her level. Her skin tingled at the intimacy of sharing a bathroom with Beck, and her mind reeled at the series of events that had brought them together in this—how had the newspaper worded it?—“unexplained association.”

Protecting her bandaged hand from the water as much as possible, she scrubbed her hair and skin, then toweled off and shrugged into a long terry robe to make the dash to her bedroom to dress. When she opened the door, the smell of strong coffee reached her, as well as the sounds of cooking. She poked her head around the corner to see Beck, his back to her, tending to something on the stove that smelled wonderful. At least the article hadn’t scared him off. He caught sight of her and waved her forward. “I made grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches—hope that’s okay.”

Jolie’s stomach growled and she nodded. “Let me change.”

“You’re okay,” he said. “Let’s eat while the food is hot.”

If he was so nonchalant about her being in a state of near undress, she didn’t want to overreact. She joined him in the kitchen nook and withdrew plates and napkins from the cabinets, maneuvering around him with an ease that belied their impending discussion. A few minutes later they were settled at the rectangular plain maple table that doubled as her desk, sharing the space with her desktop computer. The chairs were mismatched, a collection of odds and ends from her parents’ home that she’d painted white. Beck claimed a chair, seemingly unaware that he looked out of place in the quaint domestic scene.

Jolie sipped the coffee, murmuring in appreciation
when the warm liquid spread through her. She waited until she had eaten one sandwich and Beck had eaten two before she said, “I guess you read the article.”

He nodded. “Want to fill in the holes?”

She set down her cup and retold the story, starting from when Gary had first disappeared.

“So the day I first met you, the detective had come to tell you about Hagan’s car being recovered.”

“Right.” Then she told him about agreeing to attend the party with Carlotta on the chance she’d meet someone who had known Gary. “I didn’t know we had crashed until we were already there,” she felt compelled to explain, then realized the ridiculousness of minding that she’d been labeled a party-crasher in the larger scheme of things.

“I recognized Roger LeMon from a picture I found in one of Gary’s photo albums. And later, Kyle Coffee.”

“Do you have the photo?” Beck asked.

She nodded and rifled through papers next to her computer until she found it. “That’s Gary next to LeMon, and Coffee is in the middle.”

When Beck looked at the photo, he blinked.

“Do you recognize someone?” she asked.

He glanced up. “Besides Russell Island?”

She frowned. “Hannah’s boyfriend? Let me see.”

He pointed. “Different hair and he was heavier, but that’s him. And that’s his wife next to him.”

She gasped. “So there were two more people at the party who knew Gary. Is the woman next to LeMon his wife?”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I never met his wife.”

“How about the woman standing next to Kyle Coffee?”

“I don’t know her either.”

“Do you know the fifth man?”

He studied the picture, then rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I’ve seen him before. I want to say his name is Gordon something.”

Jolie’s head whipped around. “Gordon?” Gary’s scribbled note on the pad rose in her mind:
Extra door key for Gordon
. It was too pat to be a coincidence. “Beck, please—can you remember his last name?”

He scratched his head. “I want to say it was a German name—something like ‘bear,’ but an unusual spelling.” Then he shook his head. “I can’t say for sure, but I can find out.” He held up the picture. “May I borrow this?”

She hesitated, then felt foolish—Beck had done nothing but help her. “Sure. Do you know how these men are connected?”

He splayed his hand. “Movers and shakers, second-generation family businessmen. Like me,” he added wryly. “They might belong to the same country club, or live in the same neighborhood.”

“Have you ever heard of them doing anything illegal?”

Beck cleared his throat and sat back. “Like what?”

Surprised by his retreating body language, she spoke carefully. “Detective Salyers told me that Gary had a record for dealing cocaine in Orlando.”

“And you think he might have gotten back into the business?”

“I don’t know.” She wet her lips. “Do you remember last Wednesday when you found me sitting in my car outside the High Museum?”

“Yeah, you were spooked.”

“I was spooked because when I got in the car, Gary was waiting for me. He had just gotten out of the car before you walked up.”

His head jutted forward. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. He told me he’d been set up, that he hadn’t murdered the woman who was found in his car.”

“I take it he didn’t say
who
had set him up?”

“No. But I wondered if drugs might be involved.”

Beck pulled on his chin. “I guess it’s possible.”

There was that hesitation again, that reluctance. Beck had a lot of money at his disposal—perhaps he had dabbled in drugs himself. Unease invaded her chest and she decided to change the subject. She pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from the office clutter on her table and did a rudimentary sketch of the tattoo on Roger LeMon’s wrist. “Does this symbol mean anything to you?”

He squinted at the paper, then shook his head. “What is it?”

“A tattoo that LeMon and Coffee both have.”

“Fraternity?”

“Friday night at the media reception, Carlotta and I cornered Coffee and asked him about the tattoo. He said it had ruined his life.”

“What did he mean?”

“I don’t know—Roger LeMon interrupted us, made some joke about Coffee’s wife not liking the tattoo, then put Coffee in a cab. I think by that time LeMon had recognized me.” She took a long drink from her mug. “Last night LeMon filed a restraining order against me.”

“
What?
”

“He told the police that I’ve been harassing him, that he came to Sammy’s party but had to leave because he was afraid I would ‘accost’ him.”

“I was there, and it was clear you were trying to avoid him. Do you think he had something to do with the murder?”

She nodded. “I think he did it and set me up, then filed the restraining order to prove he left the party.”

“To give himself an alibi.”

“Right.” Jolie stood and began clearing their impromptu meal.

He joined her, his expression thoughtful…and bemused. “So your theory is that LeMon killed the woman in your boyfriend’s car and set him up for it, then killed your boyfriend and set you up for it?”