Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  "What are you doing?" asked Serena, her condescending tone barely spared from becoming a sneer.

  "Hello to you too," I said, stifling a yawn.

  She cut right to the point. "We need to talk baby shower."

  "Aren't I supposed to be planning it?"

  "You are, but I want to make sure you get it right. I have a scrapbook of ideas and a list of places you need to scope out for the venue."

  "How thick is this scrapbook?"

  "Seventy-six pages." My brain winced. "It's divided into boy, girl and neutral. We don't know what it is yet though."

  "So we just need to look at neutral?" I asked hopefully.

  "No! We need to look at everything because maybe we'll do a boy/girl theme with neutral elements. We need to decide on food and drinks. I'm thinking mocktinis."

  "What's a whattini?"

  "A mocktini. It's a cocktail, but without alcohol."

  "Won’t you be the only pregnant one there?" I asked, because it seemed unfair that the rest of us should be punished for Serena's nocturnal activities.

  "No, there will be other ladies from my birthing group. Ted and I are doing Lamaze."

  "Did you find your way out yet?" I joked. I could almost imagine Serena wrinkling her forehead trying to decide if I were sassing her, or really just as thick as she thought.

  "Very funny," she said, with a sigh. "We'll need to decide on five hors d'oeuvres, three mocktinis and games."

  "There are going to be games?" I wondered if we could do a murder mystery. It seemed appropriate.

  "Of course. It's traditional."

  "We're not doing the melted chocolate in the diaper one," I said, putting the kibosh on the grossest game known to adult women, bar dating. "Anything but that one."

  "That is not a problem," said Serena, in agreement for once. "We'll probably do a crafts table instead."

  "Are babies into crafts?"

  She thought about it. "I don't know. We've only signed the baby up for Mandarin, classical music appreciation, and baby ballet so far."

  Sheesh. Poor kid. "Don't babies love all that finger-painting stuff?"

  "It's not exactly Ivy League," Serena pointed out. "Plus, we've already passed womb Beethoven, so classical appreciation is the next stage; the ballet is to encourage fluid movement; and given the state of world affairs, Mandarin immersion is essential from birth. Maybe we’ll do art appreciation, too. Thanks for the suggestion."

  "Whoa! Back up! Your baby's not even born yet and it already passed a class?" Boy, did I ever feel like a failure. At this rate, the baby would probably earn a decent salary before I did.

  "Ted and I want to be very proactive parents. So, can you meet me at Alessandro's at one and we'll go through the scrapbook?"

  I thought about all my other plans for the day. Spinning with Lily to assuage last night’s pizza guilt, maybe some yoga for the wine guilt, and shopping to cheer me up after all the guilt. On the other hand, Alessandro's was pretty nice; the type of place where ladies lunched and men took their dates when they wanted to impress them. They served the best lasagna in the world, the waiters were polite and deferential, and everyone was smart and pretty. I didn't go there a lot because it was pricey and I was on a temp's budget, but Serena was on a first name basis with most of the staff.

  Serena sweetened the deal. "Lunch is my treat and we can get the dough balls you like for an appetizer."

  "See you at one."

  Hanging up, I glanced over at the clock and realized I had scant minutes before Lily would come knocking at the door. I got out of bed with a groan, padded into the kitchen to add fresh grounds, which I'd scrounged from Lily to the coffee pot, and then into the bathroom to brush my teeth, wash my face and tie my hair into a high ponytail. As a concession to Anton, the hot instructor, I added a slick of mascara and a swipe of lip gloss before putting on my yoga pants and a stretchy top that was starting to look unforgiving around the middle. Just as I laced up my sneakers, Lily knocked on the door and I let her in.

  Despite our late night, Lily was impossibly perky. Dressed in knee-length, stretch pants and a short, cropped top, she displayed as much toned flesh as she could get away with. She'd matched the look with a sports watch and a cute headband in stretchy material. There wasn't a pimple or eye bag on her flawless face, but I loved her anyway.

  "Ready?" she said.

  "Ugh."

  "Excellent. Let's get that coffee to go." She rooted through the shelves and pulled out two travel mugs, prepped our coffee, and dragged me out the door, leaving me just enough time to grab my tote bag.

  An hour and a half later, I felt like I was probably going to die. I'd gone from half asleep to feeling enthused about the class—especially when Anton bent over to pick up his class registration list and flaunted his taut buns—to all of my muscles screaming for mercy.

  "Maybe I should go back to the beginners’ class," I said, staring at the ceiling from my prone position on the dressing room floor. It seemed less embarrassing to pass out in here, should I need to, than in the gym lobby. Two skinny women stepped over me without breaking stride and carried on around the bank of lockers. Lily held a hand out and hoisted me back up onto my Jell-O legs.

  "No way, you just need to go more often. I spin three times a week."

  "You're a headcase!"

  "You still got through the class," Lily pointed out. "You weren't the first to wimp out."

  "But now I might die."

  Lily flicked water from her bottle at me. "You will not die."

  "I might not be able to move for the rest of the weekend. I hate Anton. He's a sadist."

  "Go home and take a bath and a nap. You'll feel better, I promise. Do you want to come to Body Pump tomorrow?"

  "I don't know what it is, but it sounds horrible."

  Lily drove me home while I muttered and winced, as I massaged my aching muscles. My thighs had stopped screaming, at least, but I felt, literally, like my legs had turned to rubber.

  I never “got” the exercise thing. I did it because I had to, because I was starting to feel the spread and I needed to fit into my clothes; but no amount of exercise could make me love it. Maybe if I saw the effects faster and had a bod like Lily's, I'd appreciate it more, but as it was, exercise and I enjoyed, in the loosest possible sense, a love/hate relationship.

  "Have you heard from Maddox yet?"

  "No, I kind of expected him to call last night, but nothing."

  "Maybe he called while we were out," said Lily, turning the Mini onto our road. "Did you check your cell phone before you went to bed?"

  Actually I hadn't. I'd crawled up the stairs, thrown my clothes on the floor; put my pajamas on inside out, and fallen asleep. "Want to come up and find out?"

  "You bet."

  We were both disappointed when I let us into my apartment and the answering machine didn't have a flashing light. My cell phone didn't show any messages either. "Maybe later," said Lily. "Maybe he's been to the morgue. Or maybe he's got loads of paperwork."

  "Maybe." Or maybe I wasn't as useful to Maddox as I hoped. Maybe I didn't have a part in this investigation at all. Maybe they were just humoring me so I didn't poke my head where it didn’t belong… like at Dean's house. I wondered if they’d found the body yet.

  "You want to go shoe shopping?"

  "I do, but I have to meet Serena at Alessandro's. We're going through her baby shower demands."

  "You mean, inspiration?"

  "Nuh-uh. Definitely, demands."

  "I'm going to check out that new club downtown later. Pecs. The one with the topless waiters."

  I brightened at that. Rumor had it all the waiters were part-time male models. The place was crammed opening night, so we didn't get in. Life was full of disappointments. "Okay," I said. "I have a great dress to wear."

  "It's going to be packed with women. We could go to O'Grady's afterwards, if we're going slutty."

  "No, my brothers might be there and they'll tell my mom." The last time I
'd been there, I'd worn a cute, little, black dress and was happily chatting with a really nice, smart guy wearing a hundred-dollar shirt when my brothers muscled in and he escaped. Turned out, Daniel had been present at the guy’s bail hearing for assault a month earlier and the guy was pretty dumb to choose to hang out at a cop bar after that. My mom got on the phone the next morning and tried to set me up on a date with the twice-divorced son of one of the classmates in her evening French cooking class.

  "Yeah, bad idea,” agreed Lily, who knew the full extent of my mortification. “Maybe we could try somewhere different. I know the girl working the door at Paradise tonight. I bet she could get us in free."

  "Great."

  I let Lily out, then showered and washed my hair, quickly blowdrying it before fastening it back into a high ponytail. This time, however, it was smooth and sleek and my face wasn’t bright red from all the exertion earlier. I picked out a beige shift dress with black panels on the sides, black pumps and finished it off with a cropped, black jacket. I fished a nice purse out of the wicker basket sitting on the floor of my closet and got my tote, transferring my cell phone and wallet. In doing so, I noticed the matchbook and the little black notebook I pilfered from Dean's house.

  I opened the notebook, peering at the rows of numbers inside. They seemed to be divided into sections, the long rows of numbers further separated by slashes; but other than that, none of it made sense. They didn't look like any number sequence I’d ever seen; not phone numbers, bank accounts or dates; and there was page after page of them. I did, however, recognize Dean's cramped handwriting. Once, when Dominic was overwhelmed, he had asked me to type up some of Dean's notes and this was clearly the same hand.

  Glancing at my watch, I realized I didn't have time to sit and ponder the numbers or I would be late. I stuffed the notebook and matchbook into my dresser drawer, snatched my purse, and hurried to meet Serena.

  By the time I got to the restaurant, Serena had already arrived and was seated at a window table that overlooked the street.

  "You're late," she said, glancing up from the menu.

  "I couldn't find a parking space." Serena's Mercedes was parked directly outside, but I had to circle the block three times before finding a space, then hike back to the restaurant on my three-inch heels. Now in addition to my residual spinning aches, my feet were also sore. I slid onto the seat opposite her and picked up my glass of mineral water, taking a sip.

  "Well, you look nice," she said. "I had my fingers crossed that you wouldn't turn up in jeans."

  "You sound like Mom." I don't think I've ever seen Serena in jeans. She's very much a skirts and dresses, no matter the weather, kind of woman. In summer, it's linens and cottons with neat little pumps; in winter, wool and tweed with long boots. Today, she wore a flared skirt in raspberry pink with a loose fitting, white top, as a concession to the neat bulge rounding out her belly. A thick scrapbook lay on the table ominously between us.

  She picked it up, flipped to the page she wanted, and after running her eyes over it, passed it to me. I took it and placed it on the pristine white tablecloth. Serena, apparently, had thought of everything, from colors and fabric swatches to recipes and images she had neatly clipped from magazines. I kept my thumb on the page she marked and flipped through the book.

  "You did all this when you found out you were pregnant?" I asked. Serena had always been a bookish sort, but more of the read-and-auto-transcribe-a-textbook type. Somehow, I couldn't imagine her sitting on her living room floor, surrounded by baby magazines, eagerly clipping and gluing into the scrapbook.

  "A couple of years," she replied and her eyes closed for a moment. "We've been trying for a while."

  In an uncharacteristic moment of sisterly bonding, I reached across the table and held her hands in mine. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know."

  "Well, you wouldn't," she sniffed. "You have your own life."

  "I would have still come with you, if you needed someone to go to the hospital with you, or, you know, stuff." I didn't know what stuff, but I would have found out.

  "Thank you, Alexandra. It didn't quite get to IVF, though we talked about it. The baby is natural," she finished proudly. God forbid Serena should ever have to get help for anything, even her martyred ovaries.

  We both looked a bit sick then. Serena: because she was pregnant. Me: because I had a mental flash of she and Ted getting it on. "So, tell me what you want," I said, steering the conversation away from Ted in the buff. Humping.

  Serena looked equally relieved. "I thought you could host it here. Alessandro's has a private room upstairs that would be perfect. Mindy Laws had her shower here last year."

  "Do you really want to have the shower here after Mindy?" I had no idea why she and Serena remained friends. Even by Serena's standards, Mindy was a spectacular bitch. She was mean too.

  Serena's mouth twitched downwards. "No, she'll never let me forget it." She took out a pen and a neat, little, leather notebook and crossed Alessandro's off the list. "Where else could I have it?"

  "What about at your house? You have lots of space."

  "Ted hates messes."

  "Ted's not invited. We can clean up before he gets home. Garrett, Daniel and Jord could take him to a bar."

  "Ted doesn't like bars."

  I made a mental note to get Jord to take Ted to a strip bar. "The boys can work it out."

  "I suppose I could hire a cleaning crew."

  "How about instead of ducks and baby animals, we do a spa theme?" I suggested, after scanning the page and flipping to the next. "It'll be totally original."

  Serena wrinkled her nose. "It's not very babyish."

  "It's about you! Everyone could get manicures and pedicures or mini facials. We could do a whole spa theme with those mocktini things you want, and cucumbers, and…healthy stuff." I trailed off, running out of ideas.

  "Well..."

  "Mindy will go crazy that she didn't think of it."

  That clinched it.

  "But we can still do games?" Serena asked.

  "Yes, we can still do games. It'll be very grown up and chic, but with traditional elements. You could change the way people do baby showers in Montgomery." And I'd get pretty toenails too. "Plus, if we do it at your house, the venue is free, so we can splurge on the fun stuff. You could ask Alessandro's to cater. They wouldn't say no to you."

  We paused to order, lasagna for me—corpse or no corpse, I was hungry—while Serena took a long time to discount anything with shellfish, soft cheese and nuts. She finally settled on a half portion of lasagna with a side salad, no dressing. If this was what pregnancy did to women, I'd probably starve before the first trimester was over.

  "Can you arrange everything?" Serena asked as she passed me her credit card. "I don't have time. My workload is huge. I was lucky to get today off."

  "You don't take Saturdays off?"

  "Not usually, but I figured, what the hell, the pregnancy has probably cost me the partnership anyway, I may as well take a Saturday off. They'll probably give it to that asshole, Jeff Walters, even though I've worked seventy-hour weeks for years." Her jaw stiffened.

  Sheesh. I never heard Serena swear. She seemed to shake herself, and the mask slipped back into place.

  "They're not going to promote someone over you," I said with certainty.

  "Sure they will. They've done it to every other woman in the practice. I thought if I worked harder than anyone else, if I put in my hours, worked more weekends, they wouldn't be able to pass me up. But since I told them I was pregnant, it's Jeff that my boss takes golfing, and Jeff whom he takes to dinner."

  "You hate golf," I pointed out. "It's a silly sport."

  "It's not the golf. It's the corner office and the salary."

  "Why don't you leave? If they're going to screw you over anyway? Why not just leave first?"

  "Did I mention the salary?"

  "Yeah. Right after you mentioned how they screw over every woman in the company who dares to have a
baby. Why don't you set up your own practice? Everyone needs an accountant."

  Serena tilted her head to one side. "I never thought of that. Ted would hate it."

  "Ted hates everything."

  Surprisingly, Serena laughed. "He is a little uptight."

  I wisely kept my mouth shut because Serena saying Ted was a little uptight was like saying Kim Kardashian's marriages were a little short-lived.

  Relaxing while the waiter delivered our plates and refilled our glasses with mineral water—Serena nixed the wine—I contemplated my sister. Serena had always known exactly what she wanted in life, and had gone all out for it. I was as surprised as anyone when she moved back to Montgomery, but by that time, she was already engaged to Ted. He was her college boyfriend, had a job here, and she was interviewing, finally settling on her current employers, and rising swiftly through the ranks. I knew she worked hard, but the crazy hours were a blow to me, not to mention her pinched lips when she talked about them possibly firing her for the pregnancy. There was an awful lot I didn’t know about my sister.

  Thinking about her number-crunching made Dean's notebook flash back into my mind. I was sitting opposite a person who loved number puzzles.

  "Serena, I want to ask you a question about numbers."

  She paused, a forkful of salad halfway to her mouth and arched an eyebrow. "Numbers?" she said. "Do you have a tax problem?"

  "No. It's more of a puzzle. I've got a list of numbers and I need to know what they mean."

  "Tell me about the list." The fork disappeared into her mouth.

  "Well, it's divided into sections which might mean something and the numbers are varying lengths, split into four parts. Eliminating dates and phone numbers, and I doubt they're bank account numbers, I have no clue what they could be."

  "Do you have the key?"

  "Huh?"

  "It might be an encryption and all keys have encryptions. Is it a work thing?"