by Laina Turner
I’d had some bizarre requests before, but masks? Where on earth would I find masks? And what kind of masks did she mean?
“I have an example of the kind of masks we’re looking for,” she said and pulled out her phone and handed it to me.
OK, this wasn’t what had popped in my head when she said mask. But then I’d never been to a high society masked ball before either, so what did I know. The mask she was showing me was a very elaborate beaded number. Not a plastic mask with cut-outs for the eyes you could pick up for ninety-nine cents at the dollar store. These were gorgeous and as I scrolled down to see the price, also very expensive. Who would pay hundreds of dollars for a mask? That was clearly rhetorical. These people would. People with a lot of money. Though I couldn’t help but think if they each donated the price of a mask to the charity instead of wearing one that would be a healthy chunk of change right there.
Leigh took the phone back out of my hand, typed something else in, and handed it back to me. “These are for the men.”
Men wearing masks. I stifled a giggle. But it was for a good cause. As I looked at her phone the men’s were much plainer of course, but the price tag was still up there. I mentally rolled my eyes at the expense of these masks for a charity event. But each to his own.
“Can you find these and get them in your store?”
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t feel at all sure, but I knew turning her away would be ridiculous. The business this would generate would be worth the extra work. Not to mention the exposure. I would find a way to make this happen. “When is the ball?”
“A week from Saturday. Is that enough time?”
Was she nuts? Why had she waited so long? That wasn’t nearly enough time, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “Sure,” I said nervously.
“Good, then. I’ll stop back in next week to check in.”
As she turned to walk away, I called out. “Leigh?” She turned and looked at me expectantly, raising her eyebrows. “Did you know Susan Milford?” I saw a quick flash of anger cross her face, but it was quickly gone. So quickly in fact I thought maybe I’d imagined it.
She shook her head slightly. “Not really.”
Before I could say any more, she spun back around and walked out of the store.
I walked back to my office, wondering if her not really meant Susan had also slept with her husband. It was very similar to Bess’ response.
“Well, that’s good news. Can you find what she wants in time?” Molly asked, having followed me to the office. She knew as well as I did that sometimes it could take months to find the right supplier, place an order, and then get the shipment in.
“I have no idea, but we have no choice. This will be huge for us. We also need to see if we can get more formal gowns in next week because if these women are coming in to drop hundreds of dollars on masks at the last minute maybe they’ll need a new dress.”
“If we can find the product in time.”
I frowned at her. “Where’s your can-do attitude?”
“You sound like my boot camp instructor.” She laughed. “I’m just worried. What if we can’t do it?”
I loved how she said we. “Don’t worry. Where there’s a will there’s a way,” I said casually, but inside I was just as worried. Molly was right that this would be a huge undertaking.
As worried as I was about Leigh’s request, it didn’t stop my mind from wandering to her response when I asked if she knew Susan. What did she mean by not really? On its own an innocent enough comment, but combined with the expression on her face there was something more there. I’d bet on it.
“Well, just tell me what you need from me.”
Here was my opening. To talk to her about her not talking to the police.
“There is something I need to talk to you about,” I said nervously, not sure how this was going to go.
“Sure, what?”
“I know you didn’t go to talk to Willie like you told me.”
“Oh.” Her eyes started to fill with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Listen, I’m not mad. I know you had nothing to do with Susan’s death, but I have to admit it looks bad. The police might think you have something to hide.”
She hung her head for a few minutes, then finally raised it and started speaking. “I know it looks bad, but it won’t look any better when you find out the truth.” Molly started to cry.
I put my hand on her knee. “Try me. Keeping it to yourself and worrying is much worse than getting it out.”
Molly took a deep breath and proceeded to tell me what happened. It lined up with what Willie had told me, so I knew she was telling the truth and could understand from her point of view why she lied.
She finished talking and I handed her a tissue. “Listen, Molly. I am so sorry this happened. I feel for you and understand why you’re scared to tell the police. I don’t know if this helps or not, but the detective on the case is a friend of mine and he already knows all this.”
Her eyebrows raised and she looked very reassured.
“Willie doesn’t consider you a suspect, even with your history with Susan.”
“Really?”
Not exactly, but now she looked a little happier, so it was worth telling a little white lie. Plus, I knew once Willie talked to her she wouldn’t be a suspect. No harm, no foul.
“Yes. Now please do it and get it over with. The sooner you do the sooner you can put it behind you.”
“OK. I’m off in an hour. I can go then.”
“Go ahead now. I’ll come out to the floor.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m not making progress on the budget anyway, so you’ll actually be doing me a favor.”
“OK. Thanks for understanding.”
She gathered her things and I felt good to have the conversation over with.
Chapter 12
I was tired and this glass of wine wasn’t going to help wake me up, but I wanted it anyway. It had been a long day and I hadn’t got home from work until almost eight, having stayed late to set up for tomorrow’s sale. I looked at the clock and it was after ten, but I thought I’d return some emails to try and keep from getting more behind. Besides my new phone had arrived earlier today and I needed to let it connect to the Wi-Fi and sync to iCloud. The last twenty-four hours without a cell phone were enough to drive me batty. Which was ridiculous when you thought about it. I’d lived without a cell phone for more years than I’d had one. I went to grab my laptop off the antique credenza my mom had refinished for me in the living room. Except it wasn’t there.
I looked at the empty spot and pursed my lips in confusion. I retraced my steps in my head; the last time I used it and when I remembered plugging it in. So where was it? Then it dawned on me. I took it to work yesterday, which wasn’t normal. I had a computer at work, and I hated lugging that laptop around. So, unless I knew I needed to use it outside of my house or the store I left it at home. Almost everything could be done with my iPhone these days. But I’d taken it because I’d bookmarked a few sites that I wanted to research more for potential vendors. Instead of emailing the links to myself—as now I realized would have been a much smarter idea—I’d just taken my laptop.
Because I wasn’t used to taking it to work, I forgot it was in my bag when making a list of everything missing. This was a big deal. Much bigger than the credit cards or my phone. Not the actual computer itself, that was replaceable, but all the information on it. I felt panic set in.
First, I needed to call the police and add the laptop to the list of items stolen. That was easily dealt with and I was soon left to sit and stew about what to do next. It didn’t have a password on it. Something Cooper had bugged me about a million times, but I didn’t want the extra step when using it. I regretted that decision now. I mean really, how lazy was I that I couldn’t take a few more seconds to make sure my information was safe? But there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. Besides change all my passwords. Except I would never be
able to remember them as I had passwords saved to my keychain.
I looked at the new phone in my hand. If I needed to connect it to iCloud to download data, couldn’t I do the same thing for my laptop? Access it through iCloud?
I got my iPad and logged into iCloud. I looked around to find the Find My iPhone app and clicked on it. This brought up the location of all my Apple devices. Normally that was four. My iPhone, iPad, the iMac at work, and my laptop. Only my iPhone and iPad came up. Silk was closed so that computer would be off and apparently the mugger wasn’t currently using my laptop. Or at least he wasn’t using it connected to the internet. Damn. I’d just have to keep checking. Why couldn’t this just be easy? I went and changed my banking and credit card passwords along with my social media. The rest I would try to figure out tomorrow.
I decided to distract myself by seeing what dirt I could dig up on Theresa Douglas and Kitty Davin. And maybe even Leigh, though I felt a little guilty about that one since she was bringing me business. But she acted so oddly when I asked her about Susan.
Like when I researched Susan I started with Facebook, but it didn’t tell me anything except all these ladies were friends. At least on Facebook. I did get to see what they all looked like though. And not that Susan was unattractive, I didn’t see why these women’s husbands would cheat. All these women were beautiful. Though beauty wasn’t everything, that was for sure. I did notice that all these ladies were on the zoo board. They each had their charity work listed under jobs. Which made me wonder if they were all on the gala committee? Maybe I could wrangle an invite to that? It would give me access to ask questions.
My phone vibrated on the table and I saw a text from Willie telling me Molly had come in and all was good. I set the iPad down and texted him back a thank you, then sat there with phone in hand, wondering if I should tell him what I knew about Susan. The information I’d found out from Bess. I decided to wait. I didn’t have any real information. Just gossip. I would wait until what I had, if anything, was more concrete. Plus, if Willie knew I was poking around he’d try to stop me.
Chapter 13
“Thanks for meeting me, Presley. I know you’re busy, but I wanted us to get to know one another better since our guys are going to be working so closely together,” Andrea said.
“I never say no to making time for coffee.”
Andrea had texted me this morning to ask if I wanted to get together for coffee and, even though today would be a busy day at Silk because of the sale, I still felt bad about how her husband had commented about her shopping habits so was happy to meet her. I wanted to get to know her better, plus a nosy part of me wanted to find out why her husband had been a little snippy and called her out on her shopping habits. I couldn’t help it. I’d admit I was a bit of a nosy person.
“Me either. People who aren’t coffee drinkers must be a little crazy, don’t you think?”
“Agreed!”
“So, listen. I want to apologize for Bill the other night.”
“No need to apologize,” I said. It wasn’t her fault he’d acted the way he did. She certainly didn’t owe me an apology for it. If anything, I hope Bill had apologized to her when they’d got home.
“Yes, yes, there is,” she said looking down and fiddling with her stir stick. “I could tell you felt uncomfortable and I told Bill as much. He thought he was being funny and his sense of humor, well, it doesn’t always translate that well.”
“Listen, it’s fine. Honestly. I think maybe you saw me react because I’m sensitive about how much people spend in my store, even though that’s the whole point.” This was the quickest excuse I could think of because I didn’t want her to feel bad and it sounded somewhat plausible.
“I don’t want you to think badly of Bill. I want us all to get along.”
“Don’t even worry about it. I enjoyed dinner and also hope we’ll be seeing more of each other. So, now that the men aren’t around, tell me more about you? You’re from St. Louis, right?”
“Yep, we both are. We’ve moved around a lot for Bill’s work, but we always make it back to St. Louis.”
“At least Chicago isn’t far from home.”
“It’s not, which was part of the appeal. I’m not far from family and I’ve always loved Chicago, so I was excited when this opportunity came up.”
“Me too. A fan of Chicago, that is. I dreamed of living here since I was a young girl and, even though I’ve been here for years now it’s still exciting. There’s so much the city has to offer. There’s still a lot I haven’t got to experience yet.”
“Maybe we can experience some of those things together. You know, when our guys are working.”
“Sure, that’d be a great idea.” I don’t know why, but her repeated use of our guys was a little annoying. “Bill must be great at his job. Cooper wasn’t even sure he was ready to hire someone and when Bill contacted him, he completely changed his mind. Hopefully now he can spend less time traveling and more time at home. Though I guess that doesn’t help you any. Because Bill will be picking up that travel slack.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to him being gone.”
“You really get used to it? I’ve never been able to. Not that I don’t understand why he has to do it. I just hate when he’s gone.”
“I don’t mind. I like my independence. Plus, Bill’s excited to be part of a great organization like Sands Security and if he’s happy, I’m happy.”
“Then it’s a win all around.”
“Cheers to that,” Andrea said and held up her coffee cup and we tapped them in a toast.
“While I’m glad Cooper has Bill on his team, I know it’s hard to transition from a job you like to a new one.”
“Bill had been looking for the right opportunity for a few months now. He didn’t want to take a job he didn’t feel he could stay at long-term. I was glad when he got this one. I was used to him traveling so him being home was getting on my nerves.” She chuckled.
I was confused. “I thought Bill was looking because his company was bought out? I thought he was still working.” I thought that’s what was said at dinner, but then maybe I heard wrong.
“Oh yes. But I mean Bill was unhappy, he resigned a few weeks ago to focus more on his job search. So, tell me more about your shop.”
We spent the next twenty minutes discussing Silk. A topic I never got tired of when I realized it was almost ten. “I’m so sorry, Andrea. I have to run. I didn’t realize how late it was and the shop opens in a few minutes. We have a big sale today so I need to be there.”
“Of course! Go ahead. Text me!” she said.
As I rushed out to my car, I realized I still knew absolutely nothing about her. She’d sidestepped most of my questions and responded with questions of her own. I still felt there was something that didn’t seem right. And I couldn’t get past how out of character this whole thing was for Cooper, but that shouldn‘t make me paranoid about Bill or Andrea. That wasn’t fair. Maybe that’s what was wrong. Cooper’s out of character behavior made me think something was wrong with them.
I liked Andrea. She was a good conversationalist and that was probably the reason she asked so many questions about me. You were supposed to focus on the person you talked to, not talk about yourself.
As long as Cooper was happy, I should be happy. It’s not like I doubted his ability to hire. So why was I letting this get to me?
I got to the store and from the minute we opened, we were busy. Not only were we selling through a lot of the sale merchandise, but new fall products as well. I couldn’t have been happier with the turnout and subsequent sales.
At five o’clock the last customer walked out, and I locked the door behind her and leaned against it, kicking off my high heels.
“What a day. My feet are on fire,” I said, taking my foot out of my shoe and setting it on the cool floor for a moment.
“Mine too,” Molly said and Amy, our part-time sales associate, chimed in and agreed with us. We’d worked so hard al
l day, not even taking a break to do more than sip a Diet Coke. The day was exhausting, but fun.
“I’ll take the money to the back and count it while you guys try to restore some order to the front.”
“Sounds good,” Molly said.
I walked barefoot to the back where I had slippers I stepped into. Sore feet after a long day wasn’t an unusual occurrence. I couldn’t wait to get home and put my peppermint lotion on.
I put Pandora on the computer, brought up my favorite station and started the closing paperwork. It took me about twenty minutes to get everything completed and being tired with sore feet was totally worth it after I tallied the numbers. This was the best Saturday we’d had since the holidays. By the amount of people who came in today to shop it was clear they’d already forgotten about the murder. Surprisingly, only a couple of people even mentioned it.
Thinking about the recent bad events reminded me to check the Find My Phone App. I reached for the mouse and clicked on the app, but my laptop still wasn’t online.
I heard the front door chime. That’s weird, who were they letting in? Maybe one of them stepped outside for some fresh air?
I added the deposit slip and started to put the money in the safe when the intercom clicked, signaling someone was about to speak.
“Uh, Presley? Can you come up here?” Molly said.
“Sure. Is everything OK? I asked because she sounded like something was wrong.
“Can you just come up here?”
“I’ll be right there.” Now I was worried, and my heart started racing. Should I call 911? I put the money in the safe and twirled the knob, then grabbed my phone. I hit the numbers 911 but didn’t press the call button. I just onto held the phone.
I walked out and saw a young lady I didn’t recognize. She looked to be in her twenties. Very pretty brunette. I felt a little better since she didn’t look like someone here to rob us or anything. But Molly and Amy were both fidgeting nervously, which didn’t help my nervousness and I kept my finger on the call button.