It was going to be a busy week, so she had to enjoy these stolen moments of peace when and where she could get them. She was anxious to look into the files Lange brought her on the disappearances of those seven young women, but now was not the time. In fact, now was not the time to think of mysterious gifts or stalkers or severed feet. It wasn’t the time to think of Jasmine or those seven girls from the past, not even the time to think of Lange.
Right now, Ashli wasn’t thinking of anything. She was simply enjoying nature and her few moments of solitude, high on her balcony on an early summer morning.
***
It proved to be the only solitary moment of the entire week, which was full of chaotic schedules and surprise visitors.
Typical of a Monday, the county health department chose a particularly busy lunch hour to make an inspection. Though the Tea Party passed with a perfect score, their surprise visits were always stressful.
On Tuesday, reporters flocked to the restaurant for interviews and restaurant reviews. The publicity generated by the upcoming awards was terrific for business, but hard on Ashli and her staff. She posed for dozens of photographs and had just herded the last of the reporters out the door when she spotted her newly made friend, Diane McIver, coming in.
“Hi stranger!” she smiled. She hadn’t seen the lady lawyer since their conversation two weeks ago.
“I only have a minute, but I was in the neighborhood and wanted to bring this by to show you. I heard there was some sort of fancy Banquet this weekend, and I thought your Romeo might be taking you. Is he?”
“Yes.” Ashli couldn’t help but smile.
“Then I have found the perfect dress for you!” With a dramatic flair, she pulled an ad slick from her briefcase and presented it with a triumphant smile. “In this dress, you’re guaranteed to catch your man!”
Ashli took the glossy paper from her friend and looked down at the dress featured. She gave a small gasp. “That’s not all I’d catch! What about pneumonia?”
“It’s not that skimpy. I’ve worn less to Christmas mass!” Diane quipped.
“And I’ve used more wrapping than this on a Christmas present! I couldn’t possibly wear this out in public!”
“Why not?”
“It’s too ... sexy.” That was the only word to describe the daring red dress.
“Exactly,” her friend said with a sly smile.
“I don’t know. I think I need something a little more traditional, a little more ... sedate.”
“You want to open his eyes, not put him to sleep! I may not be an expert on love, but I know what makes a man tick.” She tapped the paper with a long red nail. “This dress right here.”
“I’ll think about it,” was all Ashli could commit to.
“Good. But don’t think this little tip comes without strings. I’m thinking of calling my ex and inviting him over for a ‘home cooked meal’. Be thinking about what you can whip up for me!” she grinned.
“I’ll work up a menu and get back to you.”
“Great. Look, I’ve got to go. Promise me you’ll buy the dress.”
“I promise I will at least go look at it.”
“Between this dress I’ve found for you and the meal you’ll cook for me, we’ll both get our man. And then we can see about a completely different kind of ‘cooking’.” She sailed out the door with a wicked smile, leaving Ashli with a very provocative advertisement in her hand.
***
Wednesday’s surprise visitor was Detective Sullivan, who dropped by the Tea Party ‘just to say hello’. Ashli used the opportunity to pump him for information about Jasmine’s case, but nothing new had been discovered. Even though the crime tape was still across the door of her apartment, no one had been inside for days. The rest of her body had still not been found, and the case was growing colder by the minute.
Thoughts of Jasmine weighed heavily on Ashli’s mind as she went dress shopping that afternoon. At Diane’s suggestion, she visited the boutique to see the infamous red dress. Modesty would not allow her to even ask about the dress featured in the ad, but she did find another one, and somehow she ended up buying it. When she tried it on again at home that evening, she blamed her temporary lapse in judgment on worry over Jasmine. The dress was hardly ‘her style’, and time was running out to find another one.
Again, thoughts of her friend and her own troubles with a stalker took some of the luster from Thursday’s bright spot. It was a big day for her career, the day contracts were signed to launch Ashli’s Kitchen into syndication. As a surprise, Brandon from Florida was on hand for the occasion. Of course he was part of their group as they celebrated afterwards with dinner and cocktails. He pressed for an invitation into her apartment when he saw her home that night, but Ashli begged off, saying she had to be ready for an early morning interview on Wake Up, Richmond.
By the time Friday rolled around and Ashli spotted Lange sitting at one of the tables eating a late lunch, she wasn’t sure she could handle one more surprise.
She didn’t even say hello. “If it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear it,” she said instead.
Lange looked up in surprise, not realizing she had even seen him there. He gestured to the papers in front of him. “Actually, I’m just here for lunch. This isn’t even your case I’m working on.”
Never mind that he could have gone to a half dozen other restaurants closer to his office. It had nothing to do with the empty feeling gnawing at his gut all week long, or with the jealousy he had been dealing with, knowing that Sullivan and Pretty Boy from Florida had both spent more time with her in the last few days than he had. He was just hungry, pure and simple.
Yeah, right.
“Oh, sorry,” Ashli said with a contrite shrug. “In that case, I’ll let you get back to work.”
“If you’ve got a minute, why don’t you sit down? You look like you could use a break.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the half of it.” She groaned wearily as she sat down in the chair next to him.
“Too much partying last night?” he asked with a wry crook of his brow.
“I thought that was you!” she said with a triumphant lift of her eyebrows.
“You made me? I thought I was rather discreet.”
“In all fairness, I knew you were there before I actually saw you.”
“How did you... oh, I forgot. The warm blanket theory.” His tone was dry, but a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Hey, don’t make fun of me. I was right, wasn’t I?” Her sassy smile turned into a grimace as she slipped off her shoe and massaged her foot beneath the table. “Of all days for me to break in a new pair of shoes,” she moaned.
“Busy day?”
“Busy week. Every day this week has been crazy. It doesn’t help that I’ve been up late every night, reading those old case files you dropped off.”
“Find anything?” Lange pushed his plate toward her, offering to share his potato chips. Neither seemed to notice the casual intimacy of the gesture. They were enjoying a rare camaraderie between them, a light flirtatious atmosphere.
Munching on one, Ashli rested an elbow on the table and sighed. “Not really. Like you said, they didn’t seem to have a thing in common. All seven were different ages, different professions, different backgrounds. Four of them had blond hair and blue eyes, but the other three were black or Hispanic. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“And Jasmine is Oriental. So even if it was a copy-cat, he’s seeing a connection that we obviously can’t make.”
“Hey, get this. I was reading through the files and I noticed they had interviewed one of the local business owners. Apparently some of the disappearances and/or the places where the feet were found where within a four or five block radius. At the time there was a movie theater in the area, I think about where that Lee’s Station strip mall is. You know, where there’s a Zales, Kay’s Jewelry and Gordon’s, all in a row? Sparkle Station, some people call it. Anyway, you
’ll never believe who the owner of the theater was.”
By now accustomed to her wandering way of telling a story, Lange just shrugged. “Who?”
“Henry Parnell.”
“The old man from your condo?”
Ashli nodded, biting into another of his chips. She just realized how hungry she was and that she hadn’t eaten today. “I guess that’s how he got all those Doris Day posters and autographed photos.”
“So did you talk to him about it?”
“I tried, briefly. He said, and I quote, ‘little darlin’, I can hardly remember what happened thirty minutes ago, much less what happened thirty years ago’.” She gave her best imitation of his shaky old voice. “He did, however, remember what movies were top box office hits in the years of 1960, ‘62, ‘63, and ‘64. They were all Doris Day movies, by the way.”
“What is it with that old man and Doris Day?” Lange muttered.
“Obviously a severe case of starstruck-itis that he never outgrew. Anyway, I don’t think he’ll be much help. If he didn’t have any valuable information at the time of the murders, I doubt he could add something new after all this time, even if he could remember anything. Which, apparently, he can’t.”
“Maybe I’ll try to talk to him, even though he doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
“He’s really a sweet old man.”
“He’s a control freak, if you ask me. He refuses to consider putting up surveillance cameras.”
“You can’t really blame him. The house is a historic landmark. I think there are guidelines on what can and can’t be done to the property.”
“It didn’t originally have electricity or fancy kitchens like the one you have, but look at it now.”
“You have a point. Maybe I could talk to him about it.”
“Yeah, he obviously has a soft spot for you. Another reason I don’t think he likes me. He was acting like an over-protective father the other night.”
Ashli laughed out loud, thinking he sounded just like a sulking teenager. As another thought popped into her head, she sobered. “Oh, another thing. I saw an ad the other day about flowers and their meaning, so I did a search on rhododendrons. Took me three times to spell it correctly, but turns out rhododendron means ‘beware’. Do you think that has any significance?”
“Only if someone sent you a rhododendron bush,” he said nonchalantly, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth.
Ashli frowned. “Not a bush, but a bloom. It was on my verandah one morning. Didn’t I tell you?”
Lange nearly choked on the last bite of turkey and rye. “Damn it, Ashli,” he sputtered, coughing into his hand. He took a gulp of iced tea, his eyes furious. “When did this happen? And why are you just now telling me?”
She thought back to when she had found the flower. “It was... oh, yes, it was a week ago Monday. I didn’t call you because I thought maybe it just blew up there by chance, and because ... because that was the day after we came back from my parents’.” She didn’t have to explain any further; he knew all too well how things were left between them that weekend. “That - That was the morning that Jasmine .... Oh my Gosh, Lange, do you think he was warning me about Jasmine? Do you think I could have somehow stopped it from happening? What if I could have done something, but didn’t? What if ...”
He pulled her hand away from her mouth and held it determinedly. “Look at me,” he said firmly. He waited until her stricken eyes were focused upon his. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. There is no way you could have possibly known what was in store for Jasmine, so there is no way you could have stopped it. Even if you had told me about the flower that morning - which you definitely should have done - there is no way either one of us would have made the connection between a flower blossom and a severed foot. So get that frantic look out of your eyes. This isn’t your fault. End of story.”
“So maybe I couldn’t have stopped what happened to Jasmine,” Ashli agreed. The light mood they had enjoyed, so rare between the two of them, was totally dark now. “But I definitely think he was sending me a message. Beware, because I just might be next.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was Saturday evening, and Ashli stood in front of the full-length mirror. “Good Lord, what was I thinking?” She tugged and pulled, attempting to cover more skin. “I think it shrunk,” she muttered. “What on earth possessed me to buy this dress?”
Not that it wasn’t a beautiful dress. The material was a fine cut of fire engine red silk, the design stylish and sophisticated. On anyone else, she would have thought the dress stunning. On her, it seemed somehow scandalous.
It was a strapless bustier affair with a wickedly alluring sweetheart neckline and a tight, trim waist that flared into a silk caress around her hips. Much shorter than anything she normally wore, the material swayed provocatively around legs that looked long and shapely and unusually bare in silky sheer nylon.
Even her hair was different tonight. She had curled it on hot curlers to give the ends bounce and body, then taken a section of hair and twisted it into a glamorous swirl, securing it with a glittering barrette of red and silver. Her only jewelry was a slender silver chain, its ruby studded pendant dangling just above a generous show of cleavage.
The intercom buzzed as she was applying a sheer matte gloss to her lips. She carefully maneuvered the stairs in her red high heeled pumps, praying she didn’t make a fool of herself tonight. Why, on why, had she listened to Diane and bought this dress?
What if Lange didn’t like the dress? What if he thought she looked like a tramp? What if... She opened the door, and all thoughts flew from her mind.
She had never seen a more beautiful man. The tuxedo jacket show-cased the perfection of broad shoulders and chiseled chest; the pants accentuated flat hips and long, lithe legs. Against the crisp white shirt, his skin was tanned and rugged. He looked like the full-color version of a golden Adonis statue. Dark hair brushed his collar, soft stubble shadowed his squared jaw, and his eyes... oh, his eyes. Hazel orbs, dark and steamy and alight with a fire she had never seen before. He was absolutely gorgeous. And so outright sexy. Something hot swirled inside her body, making her ache somewhere deep, deep inside.
It was a long moment before she remembered to breathe. Why didn’t he say something? He just stood there and stared at her. Was the dress that bad?
But stare was all he could do. Seeing her in a truly inspired creation for the first time, Lange felt his knees threatened to buckle. He was staggered by her beauty.
This was an Ashli he had never seen before: sultry and sensuous and sexy. She was absolutely intoxicating. There was no other way to describe it; his pulse surged, his ears buzzed, his mind slowed. She completely flooded his senses, inebriating him with her beauty.
Lange knew it was useless to deny their attraction any longer. After all the times he had managed to resist her, it came down to this little red dress. Even as he admitted defeat, he felt oddly victorious. Drunkenness did that to a man.
“I-I’m dressed all wrong, aren’t I?” she finally whispered in dismay, mistaking his silence for disapproval.
“No.” His voice was little more than a croak.
“But...”
He could hear the uncertainty in her voice. He stepped closer, bringing his long, tall body within inches of her own. Despite her heels, he was tall enough to gaze down into her upturned face. The deep timbre of his voice curled around her, caressing her entire body, but he resisted the urge to reach for her. “I have never,” he told her slowly, “in my entire life,” breathlessly, “seen a woman as beautiful as you.”
The air between them crackled. Sexual tension swirled thick, stealing the air from their lungs. A long, pregnant moment purled around them. The sweet ache deepened, tightening low in Ashli’s belly; Lange struggled to keep this overwhelming wave of passion in check. With breath ragged and uneven, they stared at one another, battling the urge to reach out and touch the other, fighting the crazy flame of desire
that threatened to burn them both alive.
“Thank you,” Ashli finally whispered. Her words were nearly drowned out by the hammering of their hearts.
With obvious effort, Lange swallowed hard and forced his drunken mind to function. “Are we ready?” he managed to ask.
“Uhm, I haven’t heard from Rachel yet.”
Right on cue, her phone rang. She struggled for normal as she spoke to her friend. Her fingers were clumsy as she hung up and slipped her cell phone into a small sequined bag. “The limo is here. They’re waiting for us downstairs.”
“Let’s get this party started.” There was already a wild party happening in his head. His own hand fumbled on the door knob as he opened the apartment door. “After you, my lady.”
As a nominee for the prestigious award, Ashli was treated like a star for the evening. A stretch limousine waited to transport them to and from the event, where she and seven guests had a special table in the front of the hall. The limited space meant not everyone from the Tea Party could share in the spotlight, so Ashli had done the next best thing; she bought a ticket for each employee to attend the night’s gala, and offered the last seat at the head table by way of random drawing. Amanda Kline, one of the baristas in the coffee shop, sat with Rachel, Molly and Ashli at the front, along with all of their dates.
He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Page 16