The Good Girl's Guide to Murder (21 page)

I must’ve dozed off, because when I opened my eyes again, the shower was off and I smelled toast. Yawning, I fumbled for my glasses on the coffee table and put them on. I finger-brushed my hair and ignored the foul taste on my tongue.

Wrapping the throw around me, I struggled off the sofa and shuffled into my tiny kitchen to find Malone there, wearing his khaki pants and Polo T-shirt from the day before. He stood at the counter, buttering a pair of browned slices of wheat bread.

“I love a man who can cook,” I said as I settled down at the table, into one of the refinished oak chairs I’d picked up at the Junior League rummage sale for five bucks a pop. All they’d needed was a bit of elbow grease to bring out their natural beauty (not so different from the rest of us).

He brought the toast over on a chipped Pier One plate, and I greedily reached for a slice. I’d forgotten to eat at Marilee’s studio opening, though I had swallowed my share of champagne as the dull ache behind my eyes reminded me. I was such a wuss when it came to liquor.

“You should go back to bed, Andy, unless you’ve got something pressing on your agenda. You deserve a day off after last night.”

His hair was still damp from the shower, brushed back from his clean-scrubbed face. I could see the glint of my reflection in his glasses and wondered if he could see himself in mine.

“I was hoping you’d drop me off at the studio to pick up my Jeep. My purse is there, too.” I hesitated, wondering if I’d assumed too much. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine.” He swallowed a bite of toast and brushed crumbs off his fingers. “I’ll take you over on my way home. Better still, I’ll hang around, wait for you to do whatever you need to do.”

It was clear by his tone of voice that he was worried. Mother had doubtless scared him to death with her tales of mishaps on Marilee’s set.

After the fire and Kendall’s collapse, I was feeling a little jittery myself.

Still, I put down my toast and touched his hand with buttered fingertips. “Nothing to worry about,” I assured him. “I’ll grab my purse and the Jeep, then I’ll be out of there. Besides, I promised Mother I’d come down for her Diet Club meeting this afternoon. Marilee’s crew is filming a segment for her show, and I want to make sure Cissy doesn’t have a meltdown if someone spills on her Persian rugs.”

He laced his fingers together with mine. “Be careful, Andy. I mean it.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Defense Attorney.” I dredged up a smile. “I promise to call you if someone dies.”

Funny, but he didn’t smile back.

A
half-hour later—after I’d had a hot shower and two Extra-Strength Excedrin—Brian pulled his Acura coupe into the parking lot of Marilee’s studio in Addison.

The place was nearly as full as it was a dozen hours before but, instead of a hook and ladder truck, paramedics vans, and police cruisers, a host of repair trucks filled the yellow grids.
HARVEY
&
SONS WATER DAMAGE RESTORATION
read the painted side on one,
FEINSTEIN ELECTRICAL REPAIR
another. Though my favorite was
BIG BOY
’
S STEEL ERECTION
. A flatbed truck held stacks of lumber, and I tried not to dwell on the number of trees that had sacrificed their lives to rebuild Marilee’s studio kitchen.

The front entrance had yellow
CAUTION
tape stretched across it to keep us regular folks away. A big white sign on the glass front doors read,
USE BACK ENTRANCE
! The repairmen obviously had a different set of instructions entirely, and strutted back and forth, dragging gear inside and hauling small dumpsters swollen with debris out.

There was no sign of any media activity, and I figured the news jockeys had gotten enough tape after the fire to last them a while. Besides, they’d surely had more fun poking their mikes up the nose of Marilee’s party guests in their drenched designer attire than they would interviewing the fix-it guys in their wife-beater shirts and crack-baring blue jeans.

“Doesn’t look to be much damage from the outside,” Brian said.

“It was pretty much contained to the one set,” I explained. “The sprinkler system kept it from spreading, I guess, but there was water everywhere.”

Besides, the worst of the damage wasn’t caused by the fire or the artificial rain, I mused, thinking of Kendall.

I asked Malone to drive around to the rear, and I glimpsed my Wrangler parked against a chain-link fence without a lick of shade. I hated to think how hot the inside was. Though it was barely past ten, the sun crept ever upward in the sky, unfettered by clouds of any kind, save for a few feckless wisps no more solid than gauze.

Before I got out of the car, Brian grabbed for my hand. “I’ll be working at home all day, so I’m easy to find.”

I squeezed his hand and said, “Um, just what kind of trouble do you expect me to get into?”

“Well, if you’re going to your mother’s, it could be any number of things.”

“You never learned how to look on the bright side, did you?”

“I’m an attorney, Andy,” he said, as if I’d forgotten. “If I looked on the bright side, I’d be out of a job.”

“Right.”

I bent over the console for a kiss, and it was worth the glove box digging into my hip. Just a good old-fashioned lip-lock, nothing French. Perfect for ten o’clock in the morning.

Reluctantly, I slid off the Acura’s leather seat and out the door, giving him a loose-fingered wave before he slowly drove off.

When the little red car disappeared around the corner of the warehouse, I stood on the warming asphalt with the sun hot on my neck, and I stared at the rear exit door, propped open with a brick. I drew in a few calming breaths, before I tucked my hair firmly behind my ears and headed in.

Goosebumps rose over my skin as I entered, and it wasn’t because of the air conditioning, humming from the vents. At least the electricity was running in this part of the building, a vast improvement over the last time I’d been here.

Though now well lit, this was the path I’d taken last night after I’d discovered Kendall in her mother’s office. It seemed odd to retrace my steps and recall how frightened I’d been, fumbling in the darkness.

It was reassuring to hear voices, to see office doors that stood wide open with lights on within and people at their desks.

I wondered if Marilee had ordered her staff to come in this Saturday morning, to keep on top of things despite the mess on the sound stage. I’m sure she didn’t care if Twinkle Productions had to pay her staff and the repairmen overtime, so long as they returned the place to perfection as soon as possible. Marilee wasn’t exactly what I’d call patient. I figured it was a blessing that she planned to take her crew to film at Mother’s.

Heads looked up as I passed, but no one smiled or waved.

Usually when I’d scheduled appointments with Marilee, the folks I encountered looked preoccupied, or maybe harried was a better word.

This morning, they just looked grim.

Not exactly the kind of place I’d want to work, day in and day out, unless I was a masochist. Marilee was not my idea of a dream boss, and I couldn’t wait until she hired a permanent webmaster to take over my job.

As I approached Marilee’s slightly ajar office door, I heard raised voices and hesitated in the hallway, not wanting to interrupt, particularly since I anticipated Lady Mabry’s mood would be foul. I wondered how many brown noses had already tried to tell her, “Nice party,” only for her to pop them in the kisser?

Okay, an exaggeration. But Marilee did take failure personally—or rather, took it out on every person—and last night had been the Mother of All Bombs.

I waited outside, not meaning to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing Marilee’s angry drawl raised in disagreement with the equally angry voice of a man. It didn’t take me long to figure out who the man was, not once he laid into her about Kendall.

“She’s my daughter, too, for Christ’s sake,” he growled. “How dare you not call me from the hospital. I didn’t even know what had happened to her until I saw a piece on the news this morning where they mentioned her by name.”

“She’s your daughter, too, huh?” Marilee snorted. “Is that why you dumped her on me after the divorce? Why you didn’t go for shared custody and never wanted her for more than a few days at Christmas? My God, Gil, I had to take you to court to get any kind of child support, and what I got barely paid for a bag of groceries.”

“That’s not fair . . .”

“You’re damned right it wasn’t fair. Nothing about our divorce was fair, not to me.”

“You would’ve preferred we’d stayed married when we couldn’t stand to be together anymore, when we were fighting like cats and dogs over every little thing . . .”

“You cheated on me, Gilbert. Don’t forget that. You cheated on me, and you cheated Kendall out of having a father . . .”

“You nearly killed me, Mari,” Gil snarled back. “How the hell was I supposed to live with a woman who just about nagged me to death. Nothing I ever did was good enough for you. I could never do anything as perfectly as you, from the laundry, to raising our daughter, to the way I touched you in bed . . .”

“Shut up . . . shut the hell up!”

“I couldn’t imagine for the life of me why you were so adamant that Amber Lynn and I attend your party. It was for Kendall’s sake, you said, so she’d see the two of us on friendly footing, see us both as equals.” His laugh was harsh. “I thought that you’d actually gotten over us and were extending the olive branch. Now I know you only did it to embarrass Amber and myself . . . and Kendall. You are the most self-indulgent bitch, and someday you’re going to get exactly what’s coming to you . . .”

“Get out!” Marilee shrilled at the top of her lungs. “Get the hell out! And, by the way, you owe me three hundred and fifty dollars for that bottle of champagne your trophy wife broke . . .”

“That was my vintage Dom, wasn’t it? You stole it from the house before you moved out . . .”

“Before you kicked me out . . .”

“. . . so you owe
me
three hundred fifty dollars . . .”

“Over my dead body!”

“We’ll see about that.”

I glanced up the hallway, half-expecting to catch heads popping out of doorways, wondering what was going on. But I didn’t spot a one.

Maybe they were used to Marilee shrieking like a banshee.

The door flew open, and a body came barreling out. I didn’t have time to get out of the way, and Gil clipped my shoulder as he rushed by.

He didn’t bother to say, “Sorry.”

I rubbed my arm as he stalked off, gathering my courage before I turned back to Marilee’s now-opened door.

Not knowing how else to announce myself, I knocked lightly on the jamb before ducking my head in and saying, “Yoo hoo? Marilee, it’s Andy Kendricks. Are you busy? I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to collect my purse.”

When she didn’t answer, I dared to step in.

I cleared my throat. “Marilee?” I tried again.

I didn’t see her at first.

She was huddled on the butter-cream-colored sofa, wearing slacks and a blouse that very nearly blended in. Her head hung down in her hands.

“I don’t mean to intrude . . .”

“It’s all right.” She sniffled, raising her chin and wiping the back of her hand across her cheeks. “That was just my ex-husband, making an ass of himself.” Her face showed strain in the lines at her mouth and the hard set of her jaw. “The only good thing that’s happened this morning is the fire inspector proclaiming the fire accidental and allowing us to start repairing the damage. I’ve got the men working on twenty-four-hour shifts so we don’t lose too much time. Thank God we’re taping at your mother’s this afternoon.” She paused. “What was it that you came here for, Andrea?”

I’d been standing in the middle of the room, saying nothing, my hands clasped in front of me, afraid to interrupt or to speak until spoken to (blame it on being indoctrinated by Little Miss Manners all those years ago).

“What did I come for?” Thank God, she was giving me an opening. “My purse,” I told her. “A pink Escada bag on a chunky silver chain? I dropped it last night when I”—how should I phrase it?—“stumbled upon Kendall.”

“Ah, the purse, yes.” Marilee slowly rose from the sofa, smoothing her hands down the front of her silk pants. “I wondered who that belonged to. There was no ID in it, just a cell phone and a tube of lipstick. I nearly punched one of the numbers on speed dial to see who answered.”

“Then you might’ve rung up Cissy,” I said.

“Ah, dear, dear Cissy,” she murmured and went around the couch to a closet.

She pulled open the louvered doors to reveal shelves of mannequin heads wearing ash-blond hair in a variety of ’dos. No wonder she never had a bad hair day. I glimpsed scarves and gloves of every hue as she reached in and emerged with my pink bag.

“Here you go, honey.” After she closed the louvered doors, she crossed the room to give it back.

I took it from her and, without thinking, unclasped it and checked inside.

Yep, everything seemed intact, even the pair of quarters I’d thrown in just in case my cell phone did one of its dying acts.

“Okay, well, thanks, Marilee. I’ll see you later at Mother’s,” I said and started to leave. Then I stopped. “I was wondering how Kendall was doing? Is she feeling better this morning?”

Has she talked about what actually happened before she passed out?
I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“I assume you’ve already been by the hospital,” I continued when Marilee didn’t immediately answer. She had her arms crossed and seemed to be staring off into space, or maybe she was listening to the distant noise of drills and hammers. “Kendall? How is she?” I gave it another shot.

“Kendall? Oh, she’s fine, yes, thanks for asking.” She waved a hand. “I haven’t had time to go by the hospital yet. Too much going on here . . . too many things that require my attention, as you can well imagine.”

Too many things that required her attention . . . as opposed to her sick daughter, I was tempted to mention but bit my tongue just in time.

“I did call the nurses’ station on her floor, and they assured me she was doing much better. She’s doing well on her medication and her heart rhythm is back to normal. She was having a can of Ensure for breakfast, I believe.”