“Can you tell me your name, please?”
“My name?” Arie squeaked.
O’Shea glanced up from his notes, and his lips tilted up slightly on one side. He closed the notebook and slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Just trying to be friendly.”
“Oh,” Arie said. Good lord, couldn’t she think of any other word? Fortunately, she remembered the dress. She was even able to sound reasonably coherent when she described what she’d found and why she’d set it aside.
O’Shea was already nodding by the time she’d finished telling him about the footprint. “Thanks, we know about it. The dress snagged on the coroner’s gurney when they were wheeling her out. One of the guys stepped on it. It’s not evidence.”
Arie resumed feeling stupid. The reprieve had been far too brief.
“And you still haven’t told me your name.”
“Arie.” Since he was a cop, she added, “Like the initials—R.E.”
“What do the initials stand for?”
“You’d have to shoot me first.”
This time, he let the smile go, and it spread across his face like the sun. “I’d hate for it to come to that.”
Grady ruined the moment by walking into the living room.
“Listen, while you guys were cleaning, did you come across anything like a journal or a diary? Appointment book? Anything like that?” O’Shea asked.
Grady shook his head no, but Arie stiffened at the mention of a diary.
Flash.
Red leather. A tiny silver lock. The smell of bleach fills her nostrils.
It was a mere moment, but the detective’s eyes locked on hers. They weren’t smiling anymore.
“I don’t know where it is,” Arie said.
“But you’ve seen something like that? Which was it?” O’Shea’s tone was crisp and professional. He pulled the notebook back out.
“No. Of course not. I don’t . . . . no.”
O’Shea stared at Arie, his pencil still poised on the notepad. She stared back.
Grady laughed. “Dude, you are so weird.” Turning to O’Shea, he said, “This is only like her third day. She’s still freaked out. You should’ve seen her yesterday. Barfed all over the bathroom, and I’d just sanitized it.”
O’Shea didn’t look convinced, but he slowly put his notebook away. His eyes slid back and forth between Grady and Arie.
When the blue orbs landed back on Grady, Arie’s coworker shook his head ruefully. “Newbies.”
“Yeah,” O’Shea said. “Newbies.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Guts showed up as expected right after lunch. He and Grady yanked up the bloodstained, four-by-eight sheet of plywood and then sprawled out on their stomachs to peer into the hole. The flashlight beams darted about while they examined the floor trusses. Arie hung back, trying to stay out of the way. The strobe-like effect of the flashing light bothered her. When the doorbell rang, they all jumped.
“Hey, get that,” Guts said. “If it’s reporters, send them away. In fact, send anybody else away. We can’t have people traipsing around in here with a hole in the floor. Some jackass will fall in and sue me.”
“It’s been three weeks,” Grady said. “It’s not going to be reporters.”
“Oh, yeah? It’s not like it’s been solved or anything. The cops have had this place completely sealed off, so now’s the time for them to sneak in. I’ve seen it before. Plus, this chick was kinda famous.”
The two went back to examining the trusses while Arie went to the front of the apartment. She opened the door to a middle-aged woman almost as height-deprived as herself. To compensate, the woman had piled her hair into a complicated topknot that wobbled whenever she moved her head. Behind her stood a tall, heavily made-up blonde in her late teens. Despite her youth, she’d acquired a pouty look that seemed permanent. Something about the girl made Arie’s skin prickle into goose bumps.
A reflection from the woman’s glasses caught Arie’s eye, and a faint sibilant hiss whispered . . . So lossst.
“Oh, my gosh.” The woman gasped. Her eyes rounded in astonishment. At first, Arie thought she’d heard the whisper, too, but she realized the woman was merely reacting to the banana suit.
“The super said I would find someone here, but when no one answered, I thought maybe he was lying. I don’t know what I would have done. If I don’t get back to these people—”
“Can I help you?” Arie said.
“I hope so, if you’ll just let us in. We have permission.”
Arie hesitated, looking over her shoulder to the bedroom. She turned back to the woman. “Let you in to do what?”
The blonde broke in. “We need to go through Marissa’s desk.”
“Uh, I’m sorry, but no one is allowed back there for now. If you come back tomorrow . . .” Arie started to ease the door shut, but the woman shot her hand out to stop it. The force of her action made her topknot bobble wildly. If not for her apologetic expression, the action would have seemed incredibly obnoxious.
“Detective O’Shea already said we could. You can call him if you want. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
At the mention of O’Shea, Arie flushed for absolutely no reason at all. She tried to cover it by fake coughing into her hand. “I’ll have to check with my boss. The desk is in the bedroom, and there might be some liability issues.”
“Well, if I need to talk to my lawyer, I can do that.” The blonde piped up for the second time.
Arie smiled, though it was as fake as her cough had been. She held the door open and stepped back as the pair swept past her.
At least they were willing to wait in the living room while she talked to Guts. He wasn’t happy. “This is going to suck balls.”
Although the room had been decontaminated, and there wasn’t a speck of blood to be seen, the cloying strawberry smell of the commercial disinfectant only camouflaged an underlying, murky scent of death. “If one of them faints, I ain’t responsible. Come on, Grady. Let’s go tell the super what we found. Arie, you stay here and watch over the two broads. Make sure they don’t fall in the hole.”
The woman started chattering the moment she set foot in the bedroom. “You know, I never even introduced myself. I’m June Shaw. And this is Kelli Armundsen, Marissa’s baby sister.”
Now Arie knew why she’d felt so funny when she first saw her. The murdered woman’s sister . . . . She stole a glance at the young woman. Although they had similar coloring, Arie didn’t think she would have guessed Kelli Armundsen was related to the murdered woman, much less her sister. Kelli seemed like the rough diamond to Marissa’s polished stone.
“We should only be a few moments,” June continued breathlessly. She made her way directly over to the desk, which, set off in the windowed alcove, hadn’t been contaminated. Kelli stood off to the side, not bothering to join the conversation. Her gaze darted around the room.
Oblivious, June chattered on. “I just need to make some notes on some of the contracts and agreements that poor Marissa made before . . . well, never mind. But the vendors are going crazy. And Chad, poor dear, isn’t able to help with this part. He didn’t even know which caterer they were using.”
“Caterer?” Arie asked. “For the funeral?”
“Oh, goodness, no. For the wedding, dear. They were getting married.” She picked up a small, framed photo of a couple from the corner of the desk and handed it to Arie. The light from the window bounced off the glass.
Flash.
My ring . . .
Flash.
Head bowed, his honey-blond hair hides his face. The ring . . . I stroke his hair.
The images kept popping up. Good lord, how long will this go on?
And what could she do about it? Apparently, closing her eyes and clicking her heels together three times wasn’t going to cut it. She knew. She’d tried. But that meant . . . Arie shuddered. She’d never been a take-action kind of girl, but heaven knew—literally—that she was going to have to figure someth
ing out. Soon.
June’s voice pulled Arie back to the real world. “I was their wedding coordinator. Did I mention that? As you can imagine, everything is crazy.” June waved her hands in the air as though churning up chaos.
Sweat tricked down Arie’s face. Luckily, June didn’t notice, and Kelli was too busy examining her sister’s bedroom.
“Detective O’Shea says we’re not to take anything, but I can take notes from Marissa’s files. I mean, not take them. But I can make notes. Chad will have to sort out the money situation later. Or maybe Kelli will.”
June glanced at the younger woman, but Kelli had moved to the dresser and was opening the jewelry box. She must have sensed their scrutiny. She stared back, her hand still on the lid.
“I thought you needed to check the papers? I have a hair appointment in less than an hour. I’m not going to be late for that.” She turned back to the jewelry.
June pulled a white binder from under a stack of papers. June pulled a white binder from under a stack of papers. It had been decorated with lace and ribbons and had a heart-shaped picture of Marissa and a man. Was that the same guy whose hair she’d been stroking in the vision?
“Is that Chad?” Arie asked.
“Yes. Don’t they make a lovely couple? I wonder where he’s staying now.” June looked around the room. “I can’t imagine being able to sleep in the same room as . . .”
“They were living together?” Arie looked around at the incredibly feminine decor.
June didn’t seem to hear her question. She opened the binder and leafed through the paperwork. “She was so organized. She liked everything just so. Most brides do, of course. And it is their special day. Of course, having their own way can sometimes cause problems, too. That’s why I don’t have any of this information. Usually I would, but Marissa liked having it all at her fingertips and everything shipshape.”
June absentmindedly handed Arie a stack of papers to hold so she could jot down the information in her notebook.
Arie glanced down. The top page was an invoice from an upscale florist. She gasped at the amount. Then, out of curiosity, she quickly scanned the form.
“She was just using roses and orchids for her bouquet, huh?” Arie’s forehead crinkled. Orchids—not lilies-of-the-valley after all. The roses fit with what the visions had shown her, but the orchids didn’t.
“Yes, well, not just roses and orchids. The roses were a special hybrid called ‘Secret.’ Isn’t that delicious? Rich cream ruffled petals with a delicate blush-pink color on the edges.” June sounded as though she quoted from a catalog. “We picked them especially for their fragrance. And the orchids! Oh, my gosh, don’t get me started. What a time we had deciding on those. They were chosen for their fragrance, too. They’re called . . . oh, let me see.” June took the invoice back. “That’s right—‘Lady of the Night.’”
Interesting choice. ‘Secrets’ and ‘Lady of the Night’ for a woman who had just been murdered. Freud would have had a field day.
“I didn’t know people chose their flowers for the fragrance. That’s kind of neat.”
“That was Marissa. She thought of everything down to the last detail. And even though she loved the scent of lily-of-the-valley, she wanted something different than the usual accent flower. Leave it to her to find an orchid that smelled just like them.” June laughed and handed a new sheaf of papers to Arie.
Arie took them automatically, fighting off a bout of nausea. Lily-of-the-valley? She swallowed hard against a rising tide of bile and, desperate for distraction, turned to see what Kelli was up to. The younger woman was busily separating Marissa’s jewelry into various piles. Arie took a deep, shaky breath and felt a little better. Apparently, watching someone’s greed was a stabilizer.
“Oh, gosh,” June whispered. She shot a glance at Kelli then turned to Arie. “I guess this won’t be an issue anymore.”
In her hand she held a legal document. A prenup.
“He was sure kicking up a fuss,” June said, still in a whisper. “She was getting so angry . . .”
“She wanted him to sign?” Arie asked.
June flicked another look over at Kelli, who, still oblivious, was trying on a pink cameo ring and holding it up to the light. The subtle elegance of it contrasted with the girl’s rather harsh makeup.
“Oh, definitely,” June whispered. “She had scads of money, all from that book.”
“Rich Bitch, right?” Arie whispered, too.
June nodded. “I couldn’t begin to tell you how many reporters have been after me for a scoop. Not that I would say anything, of course. I’m a professional, you know.”
Then in a high-pitched, phony, we-are-so-not-gossiping voice, she said, “Marissa had the most exquisite taste of any bride I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Everything she chose—”
“Of course she did,” Kelli said. “And she had the money to buy it. In fact, where is her dress? I wanted to put that away . . . for, um, sentimental reasons.” Kelli picked her way around the hole in the floor, making for the closet. She flung open the door and peered inside. “It’s not here.” She swung around to stare at the other two women.
“It was damaged,” Arie explained. “We had to—”
“Damaged? Do you know what that dress was worth? It was a Vera Wang. That dress was probably worth a year’s salary at your crappy little cleaning job. How exactly was it damaged?”
Arie bit her tongue. For real. She’d always thought that was a cliché, but it really worked. She struggled to stay professional. She needed this job.
“I’m sorry, but you misunderstood. Nobody at BioClean was responsible for damaging the wedding dress. That happened during the—”
“Oh, bull. You probably recognized it was a Vera Wang and decided nobody would notice if it happened to disappear.”
The blonde crossed her arms and rocked back on her heels, glaring at Arie. Then she smirked.
“On the other hand, I don’t suppose you could even dream of fitting into it. Your tits alone would bust the seams.”
Suddenly, Arie understood, on a purely visceral level, why she saw red during a death vision after somebody was murdered. Red went well with murder. She made a point to stare at the girl’s teensy breasts, then gave her a dripping-with-pity smile.
“Kelli!” June gasped. “I’m sure that’s not true. You shouldn’t—”
“The wedding dress was found lying on the floor, contaminated with blood,” Arie said through gritted teeth. “Per procedure, it was placed in a biohazard bag and removed with the rest of the contaminated materials. If you would like, I can check with my boss and see if we can dig it out of the waste and return it to you or to the next-of-kin. Given that it is considered biohazardous waste, you’ll probably need to sign some kind of document absolving the company of responsibility.”
Actually, Arie still had the bag set aside in the living room where she’d brought it to Detective O’Shea. Still, the “digging it out of the waste” line had been a nice shot.
Kelli narrowed her eyes at Arie and seemed ready to snap off another insult. Then a glint of calculation sparked in her bright-green eyes, and she covered her face with her hands as though about to sob.
June rushed over and wrapped her arms around Kelli, although since she was shorter by at least six inches, she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. She patted Kelli’s back as though she was trying to burp her and turned to Arie. “I’m sure she didn’t mean that. This has all been so horrible, and on top of all that, the funeral is tonight. She’s been so upset.” June’s gaze flicked to the hole and then back to Arie with a help-me-out-here pleading look.
Arie felt a wellspring of guilt rise up in her chest. After all, Kelli’s sister had just been murdered. Then she caught the girl’s smirk through her fingers.
Still . . .
Arie ungritted her teeth, and even though Kelli had fired the first salvo, forced herself to apologize. “I’m sorry. I know that was probably very hard to hear, but I didn’
t want you to think that our company or anyone in it would stoop so low as to steal a victim’s wedding dress.”
“Of course not,” June said.
Kelli flung off June’s arm and flounced back to the jewelry box, where she picked up several pieces.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to take anything yet,” June said in a small, tentative voice.
Kelli screwed her eyes shut, and her hands clenched into fists. She seemed about to explode into a Veruca Salt-style meltdown. Then, just as suddenly, she slid a plastic smile on her face and strode from the room. Over her shoulder, she said, “Hurry up, June. I’m not going to miss my hair appointment for this.”
“Boy, she’s all kinds of scary, isn’t she?” Arie said quietly.
“You have no idea.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I can’t believe we’re about to crash a funeral.” Arie rubbed her forehead, behind which an ominous throbbing had started. “And I can’t believe you’re so excited about it.”
“This was your idea, not mine,” Chandra said. “But you have to admit, this detective stuff is cool. I mean, we’re probably going to be in the same room as Marissa’s killer. We might talk to him, and we wouldn’t even know.”
“That’s not exciting. It’s . . . stupid.”
Chandra took a hand from the steering wheel and patted Arie’s knee. “Look, you’re going through a lot. I can’t even imagine. But you’re the one who wanted to do this.”
Arie leaned her head against the cool glass of the passenger-side window. “I don’t feel like I have a choice. Besides, this feels personal to me. I’m connected to these people, Chandra. Their memories are inside me. When Marissa was being murdered, it felt as though I was being murdered. It’s not like a movie. It’s like I’m really her. And now I’m going to my funeral. I mean, her funeral.”
Chandra was silent. She reached over and rubbed her friend’s back. “I’m sorry.”
The funeral home was packed. A line of mourners ran along the side of the room and then curved around the back row of folding chairs. The cloying smell of funerary flowers clashed with the aftershave and cologne scents emanating from the crowd.
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