Tote Bags and Toe Tags (12 page)

Authors: Dorothy Howell

BOOK: Tote Bags and Toe Tags

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Ty stood up straight and gestured around the room, then announced, “I cleaned out your cabinets for you.”

Heâwhat?

“You said you wanted a whole new you, and you wanted to eat better,” Ty said, nodding and smiling. “So I threw away all your bad food.”

He threw away myâwhat?

“Haley, you wouldn't believe what I found in your cabinets,” he said, shaking his head. “Some of your spices had expired.”

Spices had an expiration date?

“There was an open package of Oreo cookies,” Ty said. Oh my God, my emergency Oreos.

“It was hidden up on the top shelf,” Ty said. “I knew you didn't want that stuff anymore.”

Oh my God, he didn't throw them away?

“So I tossed them out,” Ty said.

Oh my God!

“Youâyou threw them out?” I might have yelled that.

Ty put his arms around me and drew me closer.

“You bet I did. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't support you in this new direction your life is taking?” he said. “And don't worry, Haley, you can count on me to do this kind of thing from now on.”

Great.

C
HAPTER
12

S
moking-hot Jack Bishop called me the next morning at the exact moment my smoking-hot boyfriend stepped into the shower. Do I have the coolest life of anyone on planet Earth, or what?

I answered my cell phone as I stood in my kitchen searching for the sugar in the cabinets Ty had so thoughtfully rearranged for me yesterday.

“Any luck with my DMV search?” I asked, opening yet another cabinet door.

“I don't need luck,” Jack told me in his I'm-way-hot voice.

I love that voice.

“So what's the story?” I asked.

“Meet me,” Jack said. “Your favorite place in an hour.”

Oh my God. Private detective lingo was so cool.

“I'm buying,” I told him.

“Damn right you are,” Jack said, and hung up.

I turned and ran smack into Ty standing in my kitchen wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. His hair was damp, and that freshly shaved smell wafted from him.

“I made coffee,” he said.

“Yeah, I saw,” I said. “I can't find the sugar. Where'd you put it?”

“I threw it out.”

“Youâyou what?”

“Sugar's really bad for you, Haley,” he said. “And it's certainly not part of your better-eating commitment.”

Ty moved around me and opened the drawer beneath the coffeemakerâthe one that
used
to have take-out menus in it.

“I bought you these,” Ty said, proudly pointing to a stunning array of tiny pink, blue, and yellow packets stacked neatly in the drawer. “Sugar substitutes.”

“You bought sugar ... subâsubâ”

I couldn't even say the words “substitute” and “sugar” in the same sentence.

“Wait until you taste this coffee,” Ty said. He pulled two mugs from the cabinet, filled them from the pot he'd put on earlier, and presented one of them to me. “Try it black. It's great.”

I took a sip. Yikes! It tasted like liquefied chewing gum scraped off the sidewalk outside a Middle Eastern sushi restaurant, or something.

“I bought it for you,” Ty said, sipping his. “It's a special blend of zinc, magnesium, and folic acid, and has lots of great health benefits.”

“Wow, that's really something,” I said, setting the cup aside. “Listen, I have to go out for a while.”

Ty sipped more of the coffee. “No problem. I have some things to take care of this morning.”

I was tempted to ask him what kind of things he was taking care of, but then I'd be obligated to tell him what I was doing, and I didn't think mentioning that I was getting info on a car that I suspected had been following me was the right move to make.

And I wasn't using that as an excuse not to tell him I was meeting Jack Bishop. Really.

“We'll have dinner together,” Ty said. “I heard about a new place I know you'll love.”

“Sounds great,” I said.

I dashed into the bedroom, threw on a sundress and sandals, freshened my makeup, twisted my hair into an oh-so-casual updoânone of which had
anything
to do with my meeting Jack Bishopâgrabbed a totally awesome Fendi bag, and left.

My favorite place, which Jack had so cryptically mentioned on the phone, was the Starbucks about a half-mile from my apartment. It was a great Southern California morning and sitting on their patio sipping a mocha frappuccino would be awesomeânot to mention having hot, hot, hot Jack beside me, making everyone who saw me totally jealous.

Yeah, okay, I knew a mocha frappuccino was a total no-no in my whole-new-me plan, but, jeez, I couldn't sit at Starbucks and drink water. It went against everything Starbucksâand Iâbelieve in.

Since Jack wouldn't be there for a while, I had some time to kill. My first thought was to go to the mall, of course. But the stores weren't open this earlyâwhich was just plain crazy, if you ask me. I mean, really, was that any way to do business? Why couldn't they stay open 24/7? Where was their concern over a customer with a fashion crisis?

Anyway, I decided this was a good time to check out another suspect in Violet's murder. I pulled out of my apartment complex and hung a right on Via Princessa as I accessed the info on my cell phone.

Tina Sheldon lived in Canyon Country, an area just a few miles from my apartment. I figured I could run by her place, perhaps find evidence of Violet's murder lying on her lawn, or something, and still have plenty of time to meet Jack.

I punched her address into my GPS and took Whites Canyon Road past Soledad Canyon Roadâ
everything
out here was some sort of a canyonâto Stillmore Avenue.

It was an older, settled neighborhood with most of the houses in okay condition. Some peeling paint here, an overgrown planter there, but generally a nice place to live. It was early on a Sunday morning so not a lot of people were outside, and there was little traffic on the street.

I cruised down the block until I found Tina's place. Her house looked a little better than those around it. Somebody had put in a lot of time on the shrubbery and intricately planted flower beds. A gnome garden and a birdbath sat in her front yard.

No evidence of Violet's murderer in sight.

Darn. I hate when that happens.

I rode past her place, hung a U at the corner, and pulled in at the curb about four houses down, angled so that I had a good view of Tina's front yard and driveway. I scrunched down in the seat a littleâI'm pretty sure that's mandatory in the private detectives' handbookâand waited for something incriminating to present itself.

Nothing presented itselfâincriminating or otherwise.

A couple of cars drove past me, a guy fired up his motorcycle across the street and took off, and that was about it. I figured I could devote forty-five minutes or so to my stakeout, then I'd have to leave to meet Jack. About ten minutes in, I was done.

I just don't have the patience for this sort of private detective work.

Maybe I could go to the mall instead.

My spirits lifted. Yeah, that was way better. I could run by Macy's, even though they weren't open yet. Their handbag department was near the entrance. Maybe I could spot a Temptress in a display case.

No wait, even betterâmaybe employees would be in the store getting ready to open, and they'd see me and let me in early. Wow, I can picture it now. The whole store to myself. A new, huge shipment of Temptress bags just arrived. Me touching the buttery leather, gazing at the silk lining, trying on bag after bag, having my pick of them all until Iâ

The garage door at Tina's house rolled up. A white panel van backed out into the street and I spotted Tina behind the wheelâcompletely shattering my fabulous Temptress fantasy.

I hate it when that happens.

The van headed straight toward me. Yikes!

I slumped farther down in my seat and was considering diving into the floorâa hot private detective move, I'm sureâas the van rolled closer to me. Oh, yeah, it was definitely Tina behind the wheel. My heart rate picked up, as I bordered on total-panic mode.

Oh my God, she'd recognize me for sure. My covert op would be blown to bits. And what would I tell her when she hit the brakes, rolled down her window, and gave me a what-the-heck-are-you-doing-here look? How would I explain why I was here?

I've got to get better about thinking things through.

But Tina didn't notice me. She was gazing down at something, like she was adjusting the radio or maybe fooling with a GPS, and didn't even look my way as she passed my car. Whew!

I watched in my side mirror and saw her turn left at the intersection, and my wanna-be private detective gene kicked in. Oh my God, I could follow her. I swung away from the curb in hot pursuit.

My undercover operation was suddenly cool againânot as cool as having alone time with an entire shipment of Temptress bags at Macy's, of courseâbut still pretty darn cool.

Tina might have been going out for the Sunday newspaper or to pick up doughnuts for the family, but I followed her anyway. I caught up with her as she took Whites Canyon to Via Princessa, then hit the 14 freeway south. I followed as she merged onto the southbound 5 a few minutes later.

The 5 freeway ran east of Los Angeles, through Orange County, and ended in San Diego, about two hours away. I stayed a few car lengths behind her and changed lanes a couple of times, so as not to look suspicious. Tina drove in the middle lane and kept her speed steady at just two miles over the speed limitâwhich was kind of annoyingâso I figured she must have set her cruise control.

Not exactly the kind of behavior of someone who had a lot to hide.

I hung in there for a while, then gave up and headed back to Santa Clarita to meet Jack.

I swung into the parking lot of the little shopping center that included Starbucks, some fast-food restaurants, doctors' offices, and mom-and-pop shops, and did a quick check of vehicles already there. No sign of Jack's black Land Rover or the way cool convertible BMW he'd offered to let me drive back from Las Vegas a few weeks agoâlong story.

I pulled into a space, killed the engine, and flipped down the mirror in my visor. Yeah, okay, I knew it was kind of bad to worry about my appearance before meeting Jack, since I have an official boyfriend, but, well, there it was. I dug a brush from my purse and ran it through my hair, thinking I could use a touch of lipstick, when my passenger-side door opened and a man got in.

For a second I thought it was Jack.

It wasn't.

My heart nearly flew out of my chest and I almost launched myself through the roof.

It was Mike Ivan.

Now I was even more scared.

Oh my God. What was he doing here? In my car. Outside my favorite Starbucks.

Had he simply been here? He didn't really look like a frappuccino-cappuccino-latte kind of guy.

Was he in one of the other stores and saw me? Had he just wanted to be sociable and walked over to say hi?

I doubted it.

“Did I scare you?” Mike asked.

I guess that in Mike's maybe-connected-to-the-Russian-mob world, springing unannounced into someone's car was no big deal. But I was clutching my chest, breathing like I had a front row seat at every Milan Fashion Week show, thinking I was about to be killed and that Marcie darn well better find a Temptress to bury with me.

“Yeah ... you ... scared ... me.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

I panted for a few more minutes, then forced myself to calm down.

Mike sat beside me, his gaze scanning the parking lot. To look at him you'd never think mobbed-up. Mike was nice looking, with brown hair and eyes. I figured him for mid-thirties, about my height, with a good build. He wore khaki pants, loafers, a blue short-sleeve shirt, and a necktie.

He looked like a claims adjuster.

“You need something,” Mike said. It wasn't a question.

I got the feeling he wasn't referring to the items on the Starbucks menu.

My mind was spinning, trying to figure out how Mike knew I wanted his help with Juanita's disappearance and the woman who'd showed up at Mom's house speaking what I was afraid was Romanian or Russian. I'd mentioned it to Jack Bishop, but he'd been adamant about not approaching Mike. No way had I mentioned it to Detective Shuman, the only other connection to Mike I could think of.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“You called me,” Mike said.

Then I remembered calling him from my cell phone, but hanging up after just one ring. Now I realized he'd seen my name on his caller I.D. screen.

“I told you,” Mike said. “I don't forget a favor.”

When I met Mike for the first time a few weeks ago in Las Vegas, he'd insisted that, though his family was rumored to be in the Russian mob, he was not. He claimed he ran a completely legitimate import-export business. Still, when it all hit the fan in Vegas, I'd made sure Mike Ivan's interests were protected. He said he wouldn't forget what I did, and I could see now that he meant it, but, jeez, did he have to give me a heart attack to prove it?

“How did you find me?” I asked.

Mike glanced out the window. “I didn't want to bother you at your apartment.”

Oh my God. Mike Ivan knew where I lived.

“Not with your boyfriend up there,” he added.

Oh, jeez, he knew about Ty, too?

“So I found you here instead,” Mike said.

He
found
me? No way. He must have followed me. Oh, crap.