“I’ve been taking self-defense at the community college since that nasty letter was sent to my boss,” Gayle said, demonstrating some of her moves. “Hey, Dylan, c’mere. I’ll use you as an example.”
“You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” Lizzie asked.
“Ah, see,” Gayle said. “You do have faith in my ability!”
Lizzie’s eyes widened and she smiled. “I guess I do.”
“Gayle’s going to be fine because she’s going to have security watching her at all times,” Dylan said. “Lizzie, sweetie, we’ve got the best bodyguards in the county shadowing all of us.”
Lizzie headed to the window and peeked through a space in the curtain. “In that black car?”
“Yup,” Dylan said. “Right out there in the open.”
“That does make me feel better,” she said. “And there’s someone watching Gayle’s and Flea’s houses too?”
Dylan nodded. “And my apartment and my mother’s house.”
But your mother managed to slip out the night of the engagement party, Holly wanted to say. Security isn’t guaranteed. Security hasn’t stopped a single thing from happening.
She hadn’t wanted to bring that up; questioning the effectiveness of security with a roomful of frightened people wouldn’t have done any good. Holly had simply cautioned everyone to be careful despite the security, not to feel safe just because they were being guarded.
“So how does the dress look?” Gayle asked out of the blue, muffin in hand.
All eyes swung to her. “What dress?” Holly asked.
“Lizzie’s wedding gown,” Gayle explained.
Last night, Flea had brought over the wedding gown that she had made for Lizzie. When Flea had unzipped the dress bag and taken out the dress, Lizzie and Holly had gasped. The gown was an exact copy of the one Lizzie had fallen in love with at Bettina’s Bridal. But Lizzie hadn’t been in the spirit to try it on last night.
“You still haven’t tried it on?” Gayle asked. “Lizzie—the wedding is in less than one week. What if it needs alterations?”
“I’m just not feeling very brideish,” Lizzie said. “I want to put the gown on and feel happy. But I’m afraid I’ll look at myself in the mirror and cry.”
“Oh, Lizzie,” Holly said. “You’re getting married. To the man of your dreams. Go ahead and try on your dress. You deserve to be happy. Remember that. This psycho isn’t allowed to take anything away from you.”
“Holly’s right, Liz,” Flea said. “It’s a joyous occasion to try on your gown. I’m dying to see what it looks like on you.”
“Flea! I’ve been so incredibly self-absorbed. Did I even thank you for the gown?”
“Of course, you did,” Flea said. “Profusely. And making it was my pleasure. I wish I could have made the bridesmaids gowns, too, but with all the orders I have, there was just no way.”
“I like what we came up with for the bridesmaids dresses,” Lizzie said. “I like the idea of all of you wearing a dress of your choice of the same color even if it is from your closets. It’s more special that way.”
“Well, at least it adds the ‘something old,’” Gayle kidded.
“Go ahead, Lizzie,” Holly said. “Run upstairs and try on that beautiful gown!”
Lizzie smiled. “All right.” She got up, and hurried out of the kitchen.
“I can’t wait to see how it looks on her,” Holly said. “Flea, you’re amazing. I wish I had your kind of talent.”
“It’s more just practice,” Flea responded modestly, picking at her muffin. “Since I was a teenager I’ve spent most nights sewing. One of the plusses of not having dates.”
Holly glanced at Flea. Flea very rarely spoke of her love life—or lack thereof. She was quite lovely, if you really took the time to look, which most people didn’t. Flea walked with her head down, and she dressed in black baggy clothes, a black scarf always tied around her neck, and not necessarily in a fashionable way. The way she wrapped it around her neck almost seemed to accentuate it. All the black, though, did highlight her beautiful skin, pale, Snow-White skin, and the fine bones of her face. She had pretty blue eyes and shoulder length brown hair that she teased out at the ends, most likely, the friends had once decided, to cover her neck even though a scarf always did the job. During all of her teenage years, she’d never had a boyfriend, and from what Holly had heard from Lizzie over the last ten years, she never dated.
Once, in high school, Flea had been invited to a dance. He’d asked her in the school cafeteria, in the lunch line, Lizzie, Gayle and Holly right there to witness it. Flea had stuttered a yes to the boy, an Up Hiller, and then had practically fainted when the boy smiled and headed away.
“Did I fantasize that?” Flea had asked. “Or did that cute guy just ask me to the junior semiformal?”
The friends had assured Flea that he had indeed asked. For the first time, Flea was going to a dance with a date, as were all her friends. Holly and Jake were going as friends, Lizzie was going with a boy who worked after school as a dishwasher at Morrow’s, and Gayle was going with a boy she’d started dating a few weeks before. Flea had spent a week making the dress of her dreams. For once, it wouldn’t be black. It would be pale yellow, her favorite color. It would be feminine and floaty. She’d sewed and sewed and when it was done, Lizzie, Gayle and Holly’s jaws had dropped to the ground at her talent. The dress was exquisite. And Flea, a matching pale yellow scarf tied playfully around her neck, looked absolutely beautiful in it. Lizzie had insisted on making up Flea’s face—just a little mascara and lip gloss, and when her date came to pick her up, even his jaw had dropped to the floor.
“Wow,” he said, staring at her. “Wow.”
She’d blushed and smiled up at him.
“Look, why don’t we just go have some dinner in town,” he said. “My uncle owns a fancy restaurant. Let’s go there instead.”
“But this is my first dance,” Flea managed to say. “I really want to go. Maybe we could go to the restaurant after.”
The boy bit his lip and seemed to be ruminating about something. “All right,” he said.
And off they went.
But when they arrived at the dance, the boy was patted on the back. Handed ten-dollar bills.
And Flea had discovered that he’d been dared to invite her and bring her as his date.
He’d made over two hundred dollars that night.
He’d tried, very hard, actually, to tell Flea that he felt terrible about the whole thing; he’d even flung the money up in the air and insisted that he didn’t want it. He’d said over and over that he was sorry, that if he could take it all back and ask her again, for real, he would.
But the damage had been done. The boy had tried to apologize again the next day, but Flea wouldn’t come to the door.
On her way to visit Flea the day after the party, Holly had seen the beautiful yellow dress and scarf in the trash bin in front of Flea’s house. She’d wanted to take the dress out and clean it and save it, but she’d left it there. Lizzie and Gayle had come over, too, and Flea had cried for hours. Then that Monday, at school, she’d said she was over it, that she wasn’t going to think about it anymore, and she’d never brought it up again. She’d also never gone to another dance again. A few times before, she’d gone solo when at least one of her friends was solo, too.
A scream shook Holly from her memories.
“Lizzie!” Gayle shouted.
The three friends jumped up and raced up the stairs into Lizzie’s bedroom.
Lizzie was on her knees, holding her wedding gown.
What was left of it.
The beautiful dress was slashed. And across the bodice, in Magic Marker, was written: Whores don’t wear white.
“Whoever slashed the dress came into the Lizzie’s house last night or early this morning,” Holly told Jake as she paced back and forth in his office. “How is the psycho getting past the security guards? I don’t understand this!”
“Holly, sit d
own,” Jake said. “You’ve got to calm down. I understand why you’re so upset and rightly so, but I need you calm.”
She took a deep breath and sat down. “I just don’t get it. Who is behind this? And why can’t we find them? Why aren’t there any clues? Why?”
“Because it’s an inside job,” he said without thinking.
Her eyes opened wide. “Inside job? Meaning Pru?”
“Meaning any one with easy access to Lizzie. Anyone who’s able to slip in undetected.”
“But how is anyone able to slip in undetected?” Holly asked. “The security guards have completely failed us. Whoever it is is slipping right past everyone!”
Including me, he thought, frustrated. This case wasn’t making any sense.
He’d painstakingly conducted handwriting analyses of the major suspects—no matches. He’d even analyzed Lizzie’s friends’ handwriting, Dylan’s, his own, to check if the psycho was clever enough to frame someone in Lizzie’s circle.
No matches.
Damn.
He was ninety-nine percent sure they could cross off Arianna Miller and Jimmy Morgan unless they had accomplices. He’d tailed them both for the last two nights, and neither had gone near Lizzie’s home. Last night, when Lizzie’s dress must have been slashed, Jimmy was at the arcade at the pizza parlor, and Arianna had been making out with two different men at a party to which Jake had also been invited; he’d gone because he knew Arianna would be there and he wanted to watch her every move. During the hours that someone could have sneaked into Lizzie’s house and slashed the dress, Arianna was straddling a wealthy businessman in the front seat of his Mercedes on Lover’s Lane. It was past midnight when Jake saw her removing her shirt and bra and then bouncing up and down with a smile, her hands in the man’s hair. Hey, at least she’s not holding her breath for me, he’d thought. He’d tailed the car until Arianna was safely back at her apartment. He watched the man and Arianna embrace as they said their good-byes. Jake had had the feeling that this was a relationship and not a one-night stand or just a pickup. But the guy was probably married—otherwise why would he sneak around and do it in the car?
He shared all this with Holly. “But if it’s not Arianna and Jimmy, and it’s not Bobby, and it’s not Mrs. Dunhill, then who?” she asked.
“Well, unless it’s you, Gayle or Felicia,” Jake said, “I’m afraid to say I don’t have any idea. I’ve been stumped by cases before, but this is one of the toughest.”
Holly sat back and seemed to be taking it all in. “Jake, what do you think of the fact that Dylan and his groomsmen haven’t been threatened or attacked? Only Lizzie and her bridal party are being hurt.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Jake said. “But that brings us back to Jimmy Morgan and Pru and Arianna. Jimmy wants Dylan and me to have time for him again, so he figures by scaring Lizzie and you out of town, he gets us back. He doesn’t get what he wants by hurting Dylan or me.”
“Do you think it’s Jimmy?” Holly asked.
“He has a motive,” Jake said. “And he was there in the park with you fifteen minutes before you were attacked. Trying to hurt a stray cat doesn’t bode well for him, either. But I saw him at the pizza parlor during the time that Lizzie’s dress was shredded. As for our other suspects,” Jake said, “Arianna, Mrs. Dunhill, and Bobby Jones all have alibis for at least three of the incidents.”
“And Pru?”
“She’s been tougher to trail,” Jake said. “In the past three days, I lost sight of her twice. I was tailing her, and it’s like she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“I can’t make sense of what happened,” Jake said. “I followed her as she walked along Troutville Plaza. She went into a store and then never came out.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t, either,” Jake said. “The store was crowded, and maybe I missed her leaving, but I don’t think so. That happened twice. Right before you came, I saw her just sitting down to lunch in the Troutville Café. I’d like to tail her when she leaves.”
“Can I help?” Holly asked.
Jake nodded. “I’ll need an extra set of eyes for Pru.”
She offered a grim smile. “Jake, I’m just going to throw this out there. It doesn’t mean anything, okay? I’m just thinking out loud.”
“What?” he asked. “Go ahead.”
She hesitated, then said, “Is there any chance, any at all, that Dylan Dunhill could possibly be behind all this?”
Jake let out a deep breath. “As much as it’s pained me, I have considered him. He’s like a brother to me, Holly, but I’ve run him through the mind mill of suspects. He’s had alibis for several incidents. I really don’t think it’s him. In fact, I know so. He loves Lizzie like mad.”
She nodded. “I think so, too.” Tears came to her eyes, and they slid down her cheeks.
“Holly?” he asked gently, coming around his desk. He knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”
“Jake, I’m so scared,” she said. “For Lizzie, for everyone.”
Me, too, he thought. He took her hand and held it and they stayed that way for longer than either intended.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Pru Dunhill looked left, then right, seemed satisfied that no one was paying her any attention, and then walked into Wanda’s Wig Salon.
Jake and Holly, sitting low in Jake’s parked car across the street, stared at each other. Holly’s mouth dropped open.
“Why would a woman with gorgeous, long, thick blond hair need a wig?” Holly asked, narrowing her eyes. “Unless she wanted to be in disguise.”
“Let’s just keep our eyes peeled on that store,” Jake said. “Don’t take your eyes off the door. That’s how I lost her the last two times.”
No one entered or left for over ten minutes. Finally, a woman came out. She had long, curly brown hair and black sunglasses.
“Jake,” Holly said, sitting up, “That’s Pru! I recognize her shoes. She went in wearing knee-high black boots with laces up the back, and that woman is wearing those boots.”
“You’re right,” Jake said. “The hair and outfit are totally different, though.”
Pru had gone in looking the way she always did, in a very expensive designer outfit. Now, she had wild hair—the brown wig—and she wore a tight red shirt and a denim miniskirt. There was even a tattoo on her thigh, just above her knee.
“Does Pru Dunhill have a tattoo?” Holly asked, incredulous.
“Not that I know of,” Jake said.
“Well, she’s going through an awful lot to alter her appearance,” Holly said. “And my guess is that’s because she’s about to do something awful to Lizzie or one of us and doesn’t want to be caught!”
“It is suspicious,” Jake agreed. “I have a feeling she’s going to meet her mystery man. Let’s follow her.”
Jake and Holly got out of the car and trailed Pru down Troutville Plaza from across the wide boulevard. They watched Pru stop dead in her tracks and suddenly turn to face a store window. She was staring at a display of drugstore items on sale.
“What the—” Holly began. “Why is Pru so interested in dishwashing liquid all of a sudden?”
“Look who’s coming up the street,” Jake said, gesturing.
Mrs. Dunhill, walking Louis, her butler a few paces behind, was headed right for Pru. Pru seemed to be holding her breath. Mrs. Dunhill passed right by her own daughter.
Pru turned around as her mother passed by and let out a deep breath. Then she continued walking, picking up her pace.
“Jake, she’s headed Down Hill!”
“She seems to be,” Jake said, frowning. “Holly,” he added. “I think you should head to Lizzie’s and let me handle this.”
“No,” she said. “We’re in this together.”
“Holly, I have no idea what we’re walking into.”
“That’s why I’m not letting you walk into it alone,” she said.
“You were always very stubborn
,” he tossed back.
“Takes one to know one,” she retorted.
“Okay, now I know we’re back in high school.”
“Is she going into the auto body shop?” Holly asked. “She’s heading straight for it.”
“Without a car,” Jake said. “Interesting.”
“What the heck is going on?” Holly asked, doubting that Pru Dunhill would enter an auto body shop even if she were driving a car in need of work.
“Let’s go in,” Jake said.
Troutville’s Auto Body Shop was a large operation. Jake held open the door for Holly, and they waited in front of the reception desk for the woman sitting there to finish her telephone conversation.
“Could you hold on, hon,” she said into the phone, then placed it against her chest. “Yeah?” she asked.
“Did you see a brown-haired woman come in just a minute ago?”
“A brunette?” the receptionist asked. “There’s a brown-haired guy who works here.”
“No,” Holly said, “A brown-haired woman. Long, curly brown hair, wearing a skirt and high heeled, knee-high boots. You couldn’t possibly have missed her.”
The young woman wrinkled her face at Holly. “Well I must be blind, then, because I didn’t see her. No brown-haired woman came in here.”
“But we just saw her walk right through that very door,” Jake said, pointing at the glass doorway.
“Look, I gotta finish this call,” the woman said. “If you need a car fixed, let me know. Otherwise, I can’t help ya.” With that, the young woman went back to her call.
And Jake and Holly went back to scratching their heads.
How could Pru Dunhill, in a getup like that, not be noticed? And more, how had she managed to vanish into thin air?
After a half hour of hanging around outside the auto body shop, waiting for the woman formerly known as Pru to make an appearance, Jake leaned against a tree and let out a long breath.
“I know that Pru is a smart cookie,” he said, “but when she begins to outsmart me—or you, actually, one of the smartest people at Troutville High—something is seriously wrong.”
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