Lacey Luzzi: Sparkled: A humorous cozy mystery! (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries Book 2)

by Gina LaManna

  She did. She wiped her cheeks with my favorite yellow sweatshirt, newly replaced after my car exploded in my first assignment, and I bit my tongue to hold back a groan of dismay. I went through yellow sweatshirts like people went through cups of coffee. And we’re talking disposable cups.

  “It’s Kiki,” she said.

  “Oh, Vivian. Ignore her. She didn’t mean what she said last night.” I pulled Vivian in for a gigantic bear hug, and she accepted it gratefully. I patted her back, firmly. “She’s an annoying B-word, anyway.”

  Vivian looked revolted as she took a step back. “What? How could you say such a thing?”

  I opened my mouth, and then shut it. Had Vivian been so wasted that she’d forgotten all of the horrible things that Kiki had said? That was a possibility.

  “What about Kiki?” I asked, hoping for an innocent face.

  With a bit of a defensive edge to her voice, Vivian leaned back. “I’m not sure I should tell you, if you think she’s a B-word.”

  I sighed. “She’s not a B-word. I was trying to stick up for you.”

  “She’s a bitch,” Joey said, appearing behind me in nothing but his workout speedo.

  I put a hand to the side of my face to shield the X-rated view.

  “Shut up, Joey!” Vivian reached into her hair, withdrew a bobby pin and pelted it at Joey, who cringed an excessive amount for such a tiny object. Vivian sank to the floor in sobs, her voice hysterical. “She’s been kidnapped!”

  “What? Are you sure?” I sank to the floor next to her, lightly patting her back as Vivian hiccupped.

  “P-p-positive,” she said. “I’ve looked everywhere for her. Nobody’s seen her since last night.”

  “It’s okay, we’ll get her back. She probably went for a walk this morning to clear the hangover. Or maybe she met someone and stayed in their room,” I said, already dismissing the idea. Anthony had locked her in place. Plus, Kiki had been in no shape to score a man last night.

  Anthony suddenly appeared in the hallway, bursting out of the stairwell. He wasn’t even a titch out of breath, and I was a teensy bit jealous even though it was a highly inappropriate time to be analyzing such physical feats. Though it was hard not to watch him approach, remembering the sweet, passionate kiss we’d shared against this doorframe just a few hours before.

  “Have you heard the news?” Joey laughed caustically.

  Anthony gave a quick shake of his head. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s really quite a shame.” Joey shook his head irreverently. “Vivian here thinks Kiki’s been kidnapped.”

  I turned for a long second, giving Joey a death stare.

  Then, with a foreboding ball of dread in my stomach, I grabbed Anthony’s hand and walked a few paces away. “You didn’t.”

  I poked his chest. He was again wearing a beautiful black suit, a red tie and sharply fitted pants, bulging in all the right places.

  “Didn’t what?”

  “You didn’t kidnap Kiki and fit her with those cement shoes we talked about, did you?” I prayed against all the odds he hadn’t.

  “Of course not.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Though I thought about it.”

  “Not a funny time to think that.” I took a step closer.

  He gave a little smile. “She’s not one of the Family, is she?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Some flaky friend. I’ve never even met her before. Vivian’s girlfriend du jour. She goes through them like I go through sweatshirts.” I sadly held up my blackened sleeve.

  Anthony’s face had turned serious again. “Do you think this could be related to the other events?”

  I shrugged. “Any word on the kid?”

  His expression turned downright grim. “Nothing. It’s as if he’s a ghost.”

  I gave a sharp nod. “I just hope the note didn’t signify Kiki’s end. I mean she’s annoying as heck, but I’ll take her alive over dead any day.”

  “Less paperwork.” Anthony nodded, and I wasn’t exactly sure if he was making a joke. I decided not to press.

  “I’ll go console Vivian,” I said. “I hope this won’t push the wedding back.”

  “Push the wedding back?” Anthony looked horror-stricken. “No.”

  “But she was the Maid of Honor.”

  “Disposable.” Anthony stood stock straight. Then he coughed. “In terms of the wedding, that is.”

  I sighed again. “I’ll talk to Vivian. Maybe we can convince her to shape up and see the light. I think they’ve got honeymoon tickets booked already.”

  “Where?”

  “Vegas. Where else?”

  Anthony blinked. “I’ll wait here while you talk to Vivian and get your things ready for the wedding. You’re not leaving my sight.”

  He added the latter as I opened my mouth to retort that it wasn’t necessary.

  “Go,” he said. “The wedding will wait for no one.”

  “Anxious to get off this love boat?” I winked as I headed back down the hall.

  Anthony took a long time to respond. I could tell he was struggling to come up with a politically correct answer in front of Vivian. “We already have the security detail planned out. It’d be a shame to waste all these resources rescheduling the damn thing.”

  “Flexibility,” I called over my shoulder. “Ever heard of it?”

  I didn’t wait for a response as I rejoined Vivian. But even as I snuck a glance at the formidable figure in the corner of the hallway, I felt an odd mixture of emotions playing tug of war in my mind.

  I knew for a fact that Anthony had brought her upstairs and locked her in her room. But a niggling feeling in my stomach made me slightly uncomfortable. Hadn’t he been the last person to see her alive? Plus, he would’ve had access to her room, since he’d used her card key to bring her upstairs and place her in bed. I couldn’t believe it, not really, but still. Would he really have disposed of a woman—a human being—for being an annoying twat of a bridesmaid?

  “Didn’t lover boy over there bring her up to bed last night?” Joey asked.

  “What about it?” I said.

  “What if he was the last person to see her alive?” He stepped closer to us, leaning his muscled body against the wall.

  Vivian let out a fresh wave of sobs at the word alive.

  “Who said anything about her being dead?” I said furiously.

  To his credit, he reddened slightly. “I’m just saying, she’s gone, disappeared.”

  “Go away,” I said to him. “This is none of your business. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  I patted Vivian’s arm as she heaved another giant hiccup. “How do you know she’s gone for sure? Tell me everything.”

  Vivian wiped her nose with my sleeve once more, my arm a helplessly limp noodle in her grasp. She sniffed. “Well, this morning I woke up on my bed, and my headache was murdering me. And then I had a sudden memory of Kiki screaming at me and hitting me last night. I think maybe she took off her shirt. I walked right on over to her room—” Vivian paused and walked two of her fingers over the carpeted floor to illustrate her point.

  “Got it,” I said seriously. “Great demonstration.”

  “Yeah, and so I walked right on over to yell at her and demand an apology. After all, I’m the bride here.” She stuck her thumb in her direction.

  “Right you are.”

  “But she had a room with one of the other bridesmaids. The quiet one who went to bed early since she’s pregnant.” Vivian paused to demonstrate where the bump would go on a pregnant woman’s stomach. “So I asked her about it, and she said that man over there—” Here, she pointed to Anthony. “He came in last night and dumped her in the bed, then said Shut up and stomped out. He shut the door behind him, and when Debbie woke up in the morning, this note was where Kiki’s head should have been.”

  Vivian bent in half and cried for a moment.

  “What note was there?” I asked.

  Vivian reached inside her bl
ouse and dug around in her bra for a moment. The movement pushed her plastic D’s easily into the double D category.

  “Nice,” Joey commented from behind me.

  I grunted in disgust, told him to go away again, and waited for Vivian to unearth the piece of paper from between her jiggling breasts.

  “I just wanted to keep it safe,” she explained.

  “Great spot,” I said.

  The letter had makeup sprinkled on it—smudges of foundation, blotches of lipstick and mascara smears. It was crumpled and a bit sweaty, but the block letters were depressingly familiar. Typed in plain black font on plain white paper, probably not traceable even if we had the time, were the words: WEDDING MUST HALT IF YOU WANT TO SEE KIKI ALIVE AGAIN.

  “Who knows she’s called Kiki?” I asked. “Either this person knew her or did their research very thoroughly. And neither is a good option.”

  “Psh, everyone knows she’s called Kiki,” Joey said. “It’s obvious. Probably on her driver’s license.”

  “No, that would be Katie,” said Vivian.

  “Or Kathryn, or whatever her real name is,” I added.

  In unison, Joey and Vivian looked at me in confusion.

  “How long have you actually known her?” I asked. “Do you even know her real name?”

  “Bout two months,” Vivian said. “She was a bartender at a nice place. Real nice. They serve two dollar PBR’s every Tuesday.”

  “And why did you pick her to be in the wedding?” I asked.

  “Because I kept the same wedding dates as when I was gonna marry him,” Vivian pointed an accusatory finger at Joey. “And I didn’t want the same maid of honor. Well, I couldn’t, ‘cause of the fact that it was Joey’s sister.”

  “I see,” I said. “My apologies.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said. “If it weren’t for Joey, none of this would’ve happened.”

  “No,” he retorted. “If you hadn’t married the stupid banker none of this would’ve happened.”

  “I haven’t married him yet.” Vivian stood and walked towards Joey and soon they were arguing nose to nose. “Which should be obvious.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he said. “Believe it or not.”

  “You don’t notice anything,” she spat. “You never did. That’s why we had to break up. You stopped noticing me.”

  “Stop it, you two.” I stepped between them. “Vivian, you’re getting married today, so forget about Joey. Joey, just shut up. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  The two stared at each other, shoulders raising and falling with angry breaths. Anthony sauntered over and stood between them. “Problem, ladies?”

  Joey glared at him.

  “Vivian found this on Kiki’s bed,” I said. “It looks like we might have to postpone the wedding.”

  “We have to. I need Kiki by my side,” Vivian pleaded.

  Nobody agreed or disagreed, we all just silently found other places to look.

  “We’ll find her,” Anthony said, his voice flat. “I’m going to send a man up here to watch you get ready for the ceremony, as I have a few things to attend to.”

  He turned and stalked out of the room. The air became silent and still, and suddenly whatever they’d been fighting about seemed irrelevant. Joey led Vivian to his bed where they sat like an old married couple, his arm around her shoulder, her head resting on his chest. I wandered over to the window to think. I needed to clear my mind and put everything into perspective.

  Who was the kid working with? Or was it somebody else entirely? Had I been wrong about everything?

  I massaged my temples and quickly changed out of my sweatshirt into a thin tank top. I wasn’t in the mood to wear a sleeve with someone else’s snot on it. After pulling on the tank, I paced back and forth in front of the window, the sun’s rays warming me nicely from the outside in. I let my mind wander for… I don’t even know how long. Staring at the expansive green lawn before me, trees surrounding the averagely manicured lawn, I was jolted from my gaze at the sight of an orange blur bobbing in my peripheral vision.

  “Hey, Viv, you okay?” I asked without looking back. “When did Joey leave? Listen, I’ve been thinking…”

  The room behind me was quiet, except for a few of Vivian’s sniffles every few moments.

  “I’m here.” Joey’s voice startled me. “I haven’t left.”

  I looked back at the window, and the splotch of reddish-orange tottered into view again. But it certainly wasn’t Joey. It was him. It was the killer.

  Chapter 9

  “It’s him. He’s here!” I started to run towards the door, but made it only to Joey’s bed before I stopped and took stock. Well, at least I took a deep breath. This perp was clever, and I needed to be the same. I couldn’t run out screaming like a chicken with my head cut off, for multiple reasons. The main one being he was much faster than me, I was willing to bet.

  I slowly crept back to the window and peered through the curtain. Alfonso was sitting at a picnic table off in the corner, a hoodie pulled up over his hair. He looked like any other 15-year-old child ironically trying hard to look the part of a slacker.

  I watched for a few moments while letting my brain slow cook a plot. An idea was unraveling in my mind, layer by layer, like a three-tiered wedding cake. I’d eventually call Anthony, but I needed to get started on said plan, stat.

  Alfonso shifted his eyes around every few moments, taking stock of those surrounding him, but the only people in sight were small children that had been dragged to the wedding by their overtired parents who couldn’t or didn’t want to pay for a babysitter.

  The children ran around screaming, sprinting up the slide on the small, out of the way playground before crashing back down. They threw balls at one another and played a game that looked suspiciously like Red Rover. Alfonso kept shrinking further into his sweatshirt, his hands shoved in his pockets and his scowl growing deeper with each shriek from the children.

  None of the parents said anything to the kids as they ran and screamed and giggled during their games. In fact, the parents paid their kids little attention, probably hoping that they’d run themselves around and get so tired they’d sleep right through the ceremony.

  A ceremony that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t find Kiki.

  “Stay here,” I instructed Vivian and her ex. “I have work to do. I think I have a lead on Kiki.”

  Vivian nodded wide-eyed. “I knew there were rumors of you being Carlos’s new wild card, or golden child, or whatever, but I had no idea you worked this quickly. Even Anthony hasn’t found anything.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” I said. “And Carlos hates me.”

  “Didn’t you find that fifteen million dollars of flour for him?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I guess. I had some help.” I blushed, not used to praise of any kind. It wasn’t like I could brag about my job on first dates, and the Family wasn’t notorious for handing out pats on the back or even the odd word of encouragement.

  “Well, I’m sure you can do this,” Vivian said. “Find her.”

  “All right,” I said, oddly touched by Vivian’s confidence, unfounded or not. “Thanks a lot.”

  “‘Cause I can’t stand two more seconds of this man trying to interrupt my wedding.” Vivian lightly punched Joey on the shoulder, but there was no real emotion behind it. She was clearly distracted by Kiki’s absence.

  I grabbed the hotel notebook and a pen and hightailed it out of that room, just in case they lapsed into another heated argument.

  Once in the lobby, I sat at a table and quickly scrawled out a message. I crossed it out nine times, my writing looking like chicken scratch. Eventually I gave up and approached the front desk manager. “Can I use the computer and printer for a second? I just need to print one quick sheet.”

  “No.” The manager was short and twerpy, his wire-rimmed glasses making his large eyes look like golf balls.

  His bow tie was fastened so tight I worried it might be constricting hi
s air flow, especially as his voice was so high and yippy. He sounded like the human cousin of a Chihuahua.

  “Why? I’m a guest here.” I crossed my arm and thumbed towards the sign that said Business Center, Complementary Computer Usage for Guests!

  “Sure. Use the computer, but no printing.”

  “Why not?” I leaned closer.

  “Because the other man from your wedding party printed and dashed off without paying. I’m not taking that risk with any of you lot.” He said you lot as if we were a pack of wild, rabid dogs.

  “Oh, my goodness. What did he short you, a dollar?” I rolled my eyes.

  “30 cents. It was supposed to be two pages, but he messed up the word wedding and needed a third.” The guy cracked his knuckles menacingly. “It was a lucky thing that banker stopped by to use the printer, too. He left a big enough tip to cover everything.”

  “Banker—you must mean the groom? Wonder what he needed to print. Anyway, I’ll tell you what.” I leaned forward, knuckles on the counter as if negotiating with a dangerous drug dealer armed to the teeth.

  It was the same tactic, really—Show no fear. “I will pay you a dollar in advance to cover whoever shorted you printing costs. Take on an additional 10 cents for my sheet, and then we’ll call it even. Keep the change.”

  He considered, biting the tip of his thumbnail and eyeing me up and down.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “But I’m the one that hits the print key.”

  “Deal.” I raised my hand to shake his. “Glad we could come to an agreement.”

  He solemnly shook my hand. “Good doing business with ya.”

  I typed up my letter, asked him to hit print and watched as he sneakily slid the dollar into his back pocket when he thought nobody was watching, instead of putting it in the cash drawer where it belonged.

  “I saw that,” I called over my shoulder.

  The clerk turned bright red. “Don’t tell nobody, all right? Just supplementing the coffee habit.”

  “What? There’s free coffee right there.” I gestured towards the towers where three types of joe were prominently on display.

  “Not the kind with the steamed milk,” he whispered secretively. “The good stuff isn’t free.”