Sucker Punch (27 page)

I nosed around through the paint shop, the lighting shop, and the sound shop, but everything I found looked innocent to me. Knowing that I was running out of time, I abandoned the shop area and headed for Laurence’s office. I had one hand on the doorknob when the sound of furtive footsteps reached me from somewhere nearby.

My heart shot into my throat, and instinctively I ducked behind the long rack of costumes pushed up against the wall. A second later, Colleen Brannigan came around the corner. With a silent laugh at my own foolishness, I started to climb out from behind the rack when Colleen paused and tilted her head to listen. She glanced over her shoulder, as if she worried that someone might see her, and I decided to stay right where I was.

Hoping she wouldn’t notice me hiding, I shrank deeper into the shadows. My arm brushed a spider web, and I fought to suppress a shudder. I’m not afraid of much, but spiders are right up there on the top of my short list. I closed my eyes and tried to calm the rapid-fire beating of my heart. Told myself I wasn’t trapped in a dusty old corner that had been left to the spiders for too long.

Dust rose up from something I touched and tickled my nose. I held my breath and willed the sensation away, but it was no use. The battle to avoid sneezing made my eyes water, and I was breathing so loud, it was a miracle Colleen didn’t hear me.

She crept toward the small room that had been Laurence’s office and let herself in the door. All those high school memories made it hard to think of her as a possible murderer, but now, here she was, sneaking around like . . . well, like me. Only I didn’t think she was there to clear someone else’s name.

After glancing around once more to make sure she wasn’t being watched, she disappeared inside the room and closed the door behind her. I dashed out from behind the wardrobe rack and brushed wildly at my clothes and hair to make sure I hadn’t brought any crawling friends with me.

Once I was reasonably sure that I was alone, I tiptoed across the prop room and put my ear to the door. I heard drawers opening and closing, and paper rustling as Colleen searched for something. From the sounds of it, she was conducting a pretty frantic search, too. But what was she looking for?

I considered knocking on the door, but if I interrupted her before she was finished, she’d only lie again. I’d have a much better chance of learning the truth if I let her find it first.

I made myself comfortable on a rolled-up rug and waited for about ten minutes until the door opened. Colleen inched outside, pulled the door shut with a soft click, and turned. When she saw me sitting there, she gasped and one hand flew to her chest. She recovered quickly, and laughed as if I hadn’t just caught her rifling through a dead man’s office.

“My gosh, Abby, you scared me half to death. What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you.”

“For me? Why?”

I stood and put myself at eye level with her. “What were you looking for in there?”

“In there?” She bought a second by glancing over her shoulder at the office door. “Oh, Laurence’s office? Vonetta asked me to look for his copy of the script.” She looked down at her empty hands and back up at me. “It wasn’t there.”

“Really? Vonetta sent you to look? Then why were you hiding?”

The smile slipped from her face, and she tried to step around me. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“I saw you go inside, Colleen. I sat here while you ransacked the office. You weren’t looking for a script.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But Vonetta does. Should we ask her?”

Colleen’s shoulders slumped and resignation darted across her face. “No, let’s not.”

That’s what I thought. “You want to tell me about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then let me guess. Laurence had something of yours and you want it back. What was it? Pictures?”

Her eyes flashed fire. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“This
is
my business,” I said. “I don’t like it when people frame my friends for murder.”

“I didn’t kill Laurence,” she snarled, “and I would
never
frame an innocent person.”

“Then what are you looking for?”

She glared at me for a long time. Maybe she could tell that I wasn’t going to back down. Maybe she sensed my desperation to clear Richie. Whichever, she let out a sigh heavy with resignation and said, “Letters. I wrote them years ago. I thought they were gone until I took this job and found out Laurence still had them.”

I didn’t know whether to be disappointed in her or happy to find someone else with a motive. “So Doyle is right. You and Laurence
were
lovers.”

“Yes, but a long time ago. Ten years. Doyle and I were going through a rough patch. I was young and unhappy, and Doyle seemed so dull and ordinary . . . I was convinced I’d made a mistake marrying him.”

“So you did cheat on him.”

Her head drooped. “Laurence and I were in a production together. He was everything Doyle wasn’t. Young. Handsome. Exciting. He’d just booked a job as a producer on a production in Seattle and that seemed so exotic to me—” She broke off and flushed with embarrassment. “I know. It sounds silly now. And it didn’t take long to figure out that I wasn’t the only woman he was seeing, or that he didn’t really care about me. I ended the affair after about six weeks, but it lasted long enough to give him ammunition.”

“He was threatening to share the letters with Doyle?”

She nodded miserably. “I begged him not to, but he was such a bastard, he wouldn’t listen.”

“What did he want for them?”

“That’s just it. He didn’t want anything. He just wanted to make me miserable. It would have given him great pleasure to rip my marriage apart.”

“Why would he do that if he didn’t care about you?”

“Because Laurence didn’t like losing. It wasn’t that he cared so much about me, but he did care about being the winner, and he was very protective of his reputation. He had to be the one who called the shots, and he never forgave me for dumping him. If I’d been patient a few more weeks, he would probably have tossed me aside, and that would have been that.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. Any man who’d hang onto love letters that had no sentimental value for ten years was probably much more ruthless than she gave him credit for. “Did you find them?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t know where they are. If the police find them before I do, Doyle will leave me.”

“If it’s been ten years—”

“Doyle will understand?” Colleen cut me off with a harsh laugh. “Get real, Abby. Would
you
understand?”

She had me there. “No, I probably wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t kill him, Abby. I swear it on everything that’s important to me. But now that he’s dead, I want those letters before someone else finds them. I can’t let Doyle find out
now
. It would ruin everything. Promise me you won’t say anything to anyone. Please.”

What could I say to that? We’d been friends once, and I wanted to believe that she was telling me the truth. Did she love Doyle? I thought she did. Yeah, maybe he deserved to know the truth. But after this long, what good would revealing it do?

“I won’t say a word,” I promised. “As long as you’re telling the truth, and those letters aren’t connected to the murder. If you’re lying to me, all bets are off.”

I hoped I wouldn’t regret my decision, but I couldn’t help thinking that Colleen had bigger things to worry about than my mouth. If she and Laurence had been lovers once, chances were Geoffrey Manwaring knew about their relationship. And I was pretty sure he had the letters she was looking for, and if he did, there was no telling what he’d do.

I didn’t think much about the murder for the next two days. Hearts and candy took all my attention and every waking hour. Luckily, I didn’t have much time to think about anything else either, including the fact that I would be spending Valentine’s Day alone after the shop closed. When the thought did cross my mind—which was inevitable, considering the nature of the holiday and the looks Karen and Liberty gave me when they thought I wasn’t looking—I consoled myself with the fact that I had Max. He’s warm, attentive, and completely devoted. Who could ask for anything more?

Karen and Liberty drove me crazy, chattering under their breath about their holiday plans with Sergio and Rutger whenever they thought I couldn’t hear them. I did my best to ignore their conversations, but I wasn’t sure which were worse: the whispers, or the sudden silence when they realized I’d come up behind them.

Wyatt came by after work both days and helped with all the grunt work behind the scenes, while I helped wait on the last few frantic customers who raced through the front door in a mad search for that perfect gift. One that looked as if they’d put hours of thought into their choice. And yes, you’re right. They were mostly men.

By evening on Valentine’s Day, business finally began to slow down. Wyatt left. Walk-in traffic slowed to a trickle, and I sent Karen and Liberty home so they could enjoy their own romantic evenings. Bone-weary and, frankly, tired of people, I closed up the shop at eight and climbed the stairs to my apartment.

My date was waiting for me at the kitchen door, ears perked, tail wagging, and bits of wicker clinging to his nose and mouth. In the living room, I found the remains of a basket that had once held a handful of magazines. The magazines themselves were mostly intact, even if several of them had teeth marks in the corners and two were missing their covers.

Okay, so Max isn’t perfect. But at least he doesn’t shack up with his ex-wife under the pretense of checking on his kids. Was I bitter? Hurt? Angry? Yes, to all of the above. Did I really think Jawarski was playing around with Bree behind my back? I wasn’t sure. Did I trust him? Apparently not. Or maybe it was myself I didn’t trust. Roger had been carrying on with Bimbette for a long time before I caught him, and that was the problem.

I should have known. I should have seen signs. I’m sure I
did
see signs. But I’d ignored them. And now I was terrified that if I let myself fall in love again, I’d become complacent again, and I’d miss something vital to my peace of mind. As a result, I was suspicious of everything.

I hated feeling that way, but I couldn’t just flip a switch and feel something else.

Grumbling under my breath, I picked up the tattered magazines and swept up the bits of wicker scattered all over the apartment. I dumped the trash into the can and sat on the couch to discuss dinner plans with Max. He’d grown bored with my cleanup efforts and had turned his attention to something more interesting. All I’m going to say is that it involved licking.

On second thought, maybe Max wasn’t the ideal partner. I’d have to work on that switch-flipping idea.

I wasn’t in the mood for fast food, but I wasn’t up to having dinner solo at any of Paradise’s restaurants. Not tonight. I could call for pizza or Chinese delivery, but I couldn’t face the possibility of looking pathetic to the delivery person. I was far too hungry to go to bed without putting something in my stomach, and my kitchen was bare, so that left Burger King.

Yeah, I know a Whopper alone has enough fat and calories for a full day’s supply, but I didn’t care. Those are what make it such terrific comfort food. Max and I hurried down the stairs, climbed into the Jetta, and set off for the north end of the valley. Paradise might be growing, but so far we’ve managed to keep fast-food restaurants and chain stores from reaching the downtown business area. You can find either if you want them badly enough, but you’ll have to drive to do it.

I wasn’t the only person in Paradise without a date. At least a date willing to spend more than twenty bucks on the evening. The line at Burger King wrapped around the building—lots of folks otherwise occupied on a night meant for love.

Waiting in the exhaust-filled procession left me way too much time to think, and my thoughts wandered about wildly. By the time I shoved money through one window and had food shoved into my car through another, I’d decided against going home to eat in my empty apartment. Instead I pointed the Jetta toward Jawarski’s house.

I told myself that I was only going to take in his mail and make sure everything was still secure, but I found myself wondering if he had any pictures of Bree hanging around—you know, for the kids. Or not.

It was crazy. I knew it was, even while I was gathering his mail and slipping on the ice that had formed on the driveway. I told myself to get a life as I turned the key in the lock, and again when I flipped on the light in the kitchen. I even managed to wolf down the Whopper and fries and toss the trash before I walked into the living room and started snooping.

Let me set the record straight by saying that I would
kill
Jawarski if I found him nosing around through my stuff. I’d end our relationship
right now
if I found out he suspected me of cheating on him. And I do not consider myself a crazy person—usually.