With her ears cocked to their conversation, Marla noted Georgia kicking her foot under the draped table. Sidling over, she raised her hands in question.
“I’m hitting something solid under there,” Georgia whispered. “We should take a look.”
“Hey, Marla,” Larry said, his crinkly eyes alert with curiosity. In the dappled greenhouse light, he appeared thinner, his cardigan sweater loose on his slim shoulders. His face had the kindly look of a gaunt schoolteacher. “This is odd.”
He’d noticed the pots, too. They seemed incongruous for growing grass, tall ceramic containers with short green blades. She glanced over her shoulder at the manager, who had his back to them while he spoke to Justine.
“Seville, Bitter Blue, Palmetto varieties are more shade-tolerant than St. Augustine,” he was saying. “They can also be used in full sunshine, so if you have a yard that’s part shade and part sun, you might want to cover the whole area with one of these grasses.”
“When is the best time of year to lay new sod?” Justine said as though this were the most interesting topic in the world.
While Georgia stooped to push aside the drape and see what was under the counters, Marla plunged her hand into the soil in one of the pots.
“I wouldn’t install shade grass in the warmer months because you might encourage fungus. We’ll only sell this type from the fall to spring. Bahia grass is less expensive, with a higher drought tolerance. It spreads by sending up long, narrow stalks with black seed pods at the end.” A silence, during which time Marla didn’t dare turn around. “Y’all stay put, I’m going outside to make a phone call.”
While Marla sank her forearm deeper into the pot, she noticed Justine following the guy from the corner of her eye.
“Wait,” the older woman said. “How do you take care of the Bahia grass? Does it need as much water as St. Augustine?”
“Lady, you can have a nice, thick lawn with regular watering and use of fertilizer. Gather your friends. You’re leaving.”
Marla didn’t know if he was making a cell phone call or continuing his discussion with Justine, because just then her fingers touched an uneven shape amongst the dirt
“Oh, heck,” she said, taking the pot and dumping its contents upside down on the ground.
A small object, less than a foot long, slid out amid clumps of soil. She tore open its waterproof wrapping, her eyes widening at what was inside.
A stone statuette of a warrior with distinctly Asian eyes.
Chapter Twenty
Thrusting the statue into her large handbag, Marla signaled to Georgia that it was time to go.
“Not yet,” Georgia said. “Look what I found. Cartons that haven’t even been opened. They’re stashed under these counters.”
Grabbing a pair of pruning shears lying nearby, Marla hastened in her direction. Larry came along to peer over her shoulder. ‘That label says those are hairbrushes from China,” she noted upon closer examination. She couldn’t leave without seeing what was inside. But when she went to move the box, it wouldn’t budge. Must be something awfully heavy in there, she thought.
Georgia leaned forward, adding her muscle. Together they dragged one of the boxes into the light.
“Let me help,” Larry said when she had trouble opening the heavy container. Marla cried out when she chipped a fingernail. That tape was too damn tenacious. She rocked back on her heels while Larry wrestled with the packaging. Grunting in triumph when he managed to cut a slit in the seam, he threw down the gardening tool and pried open the box.
Layers of shiny new boar-bristle hairbrushes were nestled inside. Disappointment sagged her limbs. ‘This can’t be all.” Digging in up to her elbows, she scrabbled around but felt nothing except the soft bristles tickling her fingers.
“What are you expecting to find?” Georgia asked, her dark eyes dancing with excitement.
“More of these.” Marla stretched her handbag so Georgia could see what was inside.
“Way cool. Let’s open another one.”
Marla glanced at the entrance, but Justine must have been doing a bang-up job of getting the manager’s advice on growing grass. Neither one had reappeared. Good. It was imperative that she find where the statue had come from and what it meant.
Larry made a fast job of opening the second carton, but then he gave a groan and rose. “My knees,” he explained. “Will you be much longer? I’m going to see what my wife is up to. That fella probably knows she’s spinning a tale.”
“Tell me about it,” Marla muttered, thinking she’d never heard Larry speak so many lines at once. Maybe boredom caused his silence at home, not indifference. She let Georgia search the box while she listened for an exchange outside. Silence reigned, prickling the hairs on her nape.
Her attention was diverted by Georgia’s sharp intake of breath.
“Omigosh, Marla, we’ve hit the jackpot Look at this.” Georgia buried her arm in the second carton brimming with hair-care items. She surfaced with another wrapped statuette.
“I have a hunch—But we need to get out of here,” Marla urged. “It’s unlike Justine to be so quiet.”
“Sampson has to be responsible, right? He’s the one who ordered these things, and his family owns the farm.” Rising, Georgia stuffed the weighty object into her bag.
Marla got to her feet, wincing as a muscle spasmed in her lower back. “We can talk about it later. Obviously Sampson is involved. Chris must have known, and she was blackmailing him.” She brushed dirt off her pants. “That would account for the check he wrote to her that he didn’t want anyone to know about. I assume it’s the reason why he killed her.”
“Hey, that’s good, but you’re only partially right,” said a familiar voice from the entrance.
Ron Cassidy strolled inside, pointing a gun at them. Behind him, the manager ushered Marla’s companions in his wake.
Marla’s pulse skipped. “You! Why are you here? We expected Sampson York. Or are you in league with him?” Their rivalry could have been a front, playacted to serve us a diversion.
Ron sauntered closer, a smug grin on his face. “This is my operation. When York started bringing in the shipments from China, I saw the possibilities. I’d made some contacts during my time in the slammer, and I got in touch with them.”
“You were in jail?” Marla motioned behind her back to Georgia, whose gaze fixated on the gun barrel pointed at them. They both had cell phones in their purses. If one of them could call for help…
“I’d pissed some people off in my rise to fame,” Ron said, scraping a hand through his spiky hair.
“You mean the Great Rinaldo, hairdresser to the stars, won’t have a spotless reputation? What if word of your background gets out?”
“A little notoriety can’t hurt. It may even attract clients when I open my Beverly Hills salon.”
“I imagine the overhead is quite costly there,” Marla said in a wry tone.
He gave a harsh chuckle. “No kidding. Smuggling in Asian artifacts is quite a lucrative sideline, but I won’t be doing this forever. I’ve almost got enough cash to bid for a place.”
Marla’s glance fell to the pruning implement on the ground. “And here I thought you wanted to remain under Sampson’s wing,” she taunted.
“I needed York for this location. If anyone discovered it, they’d blame him, especially when they exposed his lie.”
Waving his gun, Ron motioned her back against the counter. Marla slid her foot toward the shears, a single nudge at a time so he’d believe she was fidgeting. “You mean he’s not part of your scheme?” she said, anxious to keep him talking.
Ron scowled. “He’s just a dupe. The only thing York gets out of the deal is a legitimate payment from Luxor for use of the premises.”
“Sampson did his own share of duping people, though, didn’t he?” Marla said quickly when she saw his jaw clench. “When did Chris find out that Sampson is a fraud?”
“A couple of years ago.”
“You mea
n he’s no better than you?” she said, hoping to goad him when his gaze flickered with impatience.
“Don’t think I’m stupid, Marla. I know you’re stalling, but while we’re chatting, I’m thinking about what to do with you.”
Marla ignored his remark. ‘Tell me about Sampson.”
“Ha! Sampson York, the great educator, is nothing more than a farm boy whose chutzpah exceeds his ego.” Ron sneered. “York saw a way to make money when he visited Miami Beach one summer. Stylists in upscale salons who catered to wealthy customers were getting rich enough to own boats and such. Given that York had some talent, he presented a forged license to get his first salon job. The rest is history.”
Marla shifted her hips while edging the shears closer. “Did Sampson kill Chris because of what she learned about him?”
His eyes hardened. “Chris was blackmailing Sampson. She donated the money to the melanoma society, figuring his deceit could be put to good use. I’m the one who eliminated her. But it’s going to be more difficult to get rid of four people than two.”
Justine, who’d been standing motionless under the watchful gaze of the brawny manager, gasped. Larry held her arm, as though he feared she might topple over. His mouth was set in a firm line, and Marla hoped he wouldn’t try anything foolish. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the muscular younger men.
“Two people?” she queried Ron. “So you were responsible for Heather’s death, also.”
“No shit. Chris wanted to cut costs by removing the middleman for Sampson’s shipments. She would have sent the hairbrushes directly to company headquarters, but I needed Luxor to repackage the stuff here.”
Marla tilted her head. “Of course, you had to retrieve your illicit cargo. Listen, there’s something else that puzzles me. Do you know who was stealing from the melanoma society? I’d just like to hear it wasn’t Dr. Greenberg.” The shears touched her sandal. Now if only she could devise a way to snatch the tool and toss it at Ron’s gun hand.
“Don’t worry, the good doctor wasn’t involved. It was my idea,” Ron boasted, patting his chest with his free hand. “I recruited Heather to help. The Luxor bookkeeper wrote the contribution check, which Heather deposited in a dummy account. Then she transferred a lesser amount into the society’s bank account. We split the difference.”
You ‘re a rotten egg all the way, aren’t you? “So when did Heather become a liability?”
Ron snorted. “She wanted money to boost her modeling career, but the chick became a problem when she noticed the bottle of antidepressants in my hotel bathroom. You didn’t know that my mom, like Chris’s mother, lives in a home for the aged. She’s been taking those pills for years, the old kind, since they always worked for her. Heather put two and two together. I tried to brush her off, but then she became annoying.”
“So you followed her to the Turkish Bath?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t have to. I already knew that she went there on a regular basis, so I hid and waited for her.”
“How did you poison Chris?” Marla wondered if this might be one question too many, but Ron seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to boast of his cleverness.
“I understood the toxic side effects from the older drug because of my mother,” he explained with satisfaction. “Chris had no need for precautions with the newer dose. It was easy to buy a couple of glasses of wine at our cocktail party, slip the drug inside one of them, and direct the waiter to deliver that glass to Chris. She wouldn’t refuse a gift from an admirer. I couldn’t risk her closing down my little operation here.”
“Were you afraid of what Heather told me? Is that why you attacked me in the Keys?”
“You’re too nosy for your own good,” he said with a snarl. “Snooping around, asking questions. When Heather set up a meeting with you, I realized your turn came next.”
“Did you mistake Georgia for me because she wore my jacket?”
“Yeah, but then I decided it wasn’t such a bad thing to take her out, too. You might have shared everything you knew with her. When I heard you were both safe, I decided to let you come to me. Sooner or later you’d figure things out and show up here.” His eyes were cold as he raised his weapon. “Outside, everyone. I’ve thought of the perfect method of disposal. A car accident will work if we find a deep enough canal. People crash into the water all the time around here. Gunther, what do you think?”
“Works for me,” the thug growled. “There’s a canal running along the main highway.”
Frozen to the spot, Marla heard Georgia cough beside her. She needed a decoy, but what? Her glance met Justine’s. The older woman’s eyelids fluttered. Then she crumpled.
“It’s my heart,” Justine cried. Larry caught her, and they both hit the deck.
At the moment when Ron’s attention wavered, Marla bent, scooped up the shears, and slung them with all her might in his direction. He howled in pain when the blunt end hit his forehead.
She and Georgia bolted for the door.
A wild gunshot rang out.
Georgia had the foresight to snatch a ceramic pot along the way. She crashed it onto Gunther’s head as he stood aiming his weapon at the elderly couple on the ground.
“Come on,” Marla shouted, knowing they only had minutes before the two vermin roused themselves.
Making a swift recovery, Justine staggered to her feet.
Larry helped her stumble along as Marla scavenged for the keys in her purse. Georgia was already dialing 911 on her cell phone when Marla unlocked the car doors, tumbled inside, and switched on the ignition. As soon as her passengers were in, she tossed the car into gear and zoomed down the dirt road.
“Well, I never,” Justine said from the backseat.
“It’s not the best environment in which to raise a child,” Justine told Dalton on Saturday night. Marla could hear them talking in the family room while she worked on the finishing touches to dessert in Vail’s kitchen. Her fiancé had invited them to dinner at his house. He didn’t seem to mind anymore that his former in-laws would see the boxes stacked in the hallway.
“Marla loves Brianna as though she were her own daughter,” Vail said. “She just has this propensity for attracting trouble.”
“Home life won’t be enough for her. She’s too restless. That’s why she gets involved with these criminals.”
Gritting her teeth, Marla sliced the warm brownies she’d baked, crisscrossing the pan with knife marks that gouged the metal. Just one more night, she told herself. Justine and Larry were leaving Sunday morning, and then she’d finally have the town house to herself. Georgia had left on Thursday after a tearful farewell. She’d enjoyed her visit, despite the bad things that had happened. Marla promised to keep in touch and expressed her hope that they’d meet at another hair show if Luxor kept her on the team.
Now she felt like an outsider again, with Brie chatting on the telephone in a bedroom and Vail discussing her as though she weren’t there. Even the dogs, Lucky and Spooks, played with each other and ignored her. Blinking away a sudden sheen of moisture, she set aside the knife and drew a cake dish toward her.
“Marla means well. She just has an impetuous nature,” she heard Vail claim in her defense.
“You don’t say.” Justine’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Brianna needs someone more stable to supervise her. Don’t get me wrong. I like Marla. She’s a lovely girl, and I can see why you’d be taken with her. But Pam would never go gallivanting about town chasing crooks, and she certainly would be home every day after school. Any woman you marry has to uphold—”
“Justine, put a sock in it. You have to trust Dalton to make the right decision. He’ll do what’s best for his daughter.” Larry’s sardonic tone caught Marla by surprise. She crumpled the brownie in her fingers. Reaching for another to put on the plate, she swallowed hard. Brownie points for you, Gramps.
“He’s right,” Dalton said. “I’m not trying to replace Pam. I’ll always love her, and nothing can take that from me. But I also l
ove Marla. She’s a great role model for Brie with her people skills and business savvy, and I think she’ll make a great stepmother. Brianna already looks to her for advice. Most importantly, Marla will go the extra mile when Brianna needs her. She’s a caring person, and both of us have come to rely on her more than you know.”
Marla’s throat clogged with unshed tears. Careful not to brush crumbs on her face, she swiped her eyes. Wow, he’d never told her all those things.
“There are other differences between you,” Justine pointed out with a sniff.
“Such as religion?” Dalton retorted. “That’s not an issue where we’re concerned. We respect each other’s traditions.”
“How about moral values? Brianna is overly focused on appearance for a girl her age. Did you know that she wants to highlight her hair? She’s way too young to start destroying her natural beauty.”
Vail cleared his throat. “I would agree with you, except Marla made me see the light. There’s nothing wrong with Brianna wanting to look more feminine. We’re learning to compromise.”
Justine clucked her tongue. “Well, be aware that we’ll be keeping close watch on how things progress. If Brianna doesn’t get the care she needs or starts hanging out with the wrong crowd, Larry and I will make our presence known.”
“Brownies, anyone?” Marla breezed into the family room, pretending she hadn’t heard a word. Later, when she had a private moment with her fiancé, she’d tell him exactly what she thought about their conversation.
“I heard every word,” she said when the opportunity finally arose and they found a few minutes alone. “I appreciate your defense, but I think, in retrospect, you should have insisted Larry and Justine stay here for the week.”
She’d just emerged from the master bathroom where she’d refreshed her makeup after clearing away the dinner dishes. Dalton had trailed after her into the bedroom while Brie and her grandparents watched a movie on TV.
“Justine was the one who insisted on staying at your place to get to know you,” he replied.
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