Probably because while Maizy and I had partnered up to investigate the murder of a shady psychic, her father had found the number on her speed dial for Honest Aaron, the shady rental car dealer who specialized in disposable cars for questionable purposes, bloodstains optional. Maizy's father was a cop. He knew what Honest Aaron's number meant: two to five years.
Maizy did another eye roll. "Well, in case you need me. Where can I find you?"
I gave her the address.
She did a low whistle. "You won't want to go back to work after staying there for a week."
I didn't doubt it. Work was Parker, Dennis, the personal injury mill—I mean the law firm that had seen fit to hire me, fire me, and then hire me again because my recent notoriety as a murder suspect had brought in a steady stream of clients not seen since the firm's halcyon days. Of course, those clients were the bottom-feeding sort, people looking for an autograph from someone they'd seen eviscerated in the newspaper, to go along with a fat undeserved payday. Not like me. I worked for paper clips and cheap pens, and less cash than you'd find between the cushions of the average sofa. It kept my feet firmly on the ground, mostly because I couldn't afford to put gas in the Escort. We'd made the trip to the shore thanks to Maizy's Sprint Cup driving and a twenty from Curt.
Occasionally, Howard Dennis, the managing partner, threw me a bone when he didn't want to gnaw on it himself. He'd grudgingly allowed four days of vacation time in his tony Ocean Beach palace on two conditions: that we'd be gone before eight o'clock Friday morning so that his housekeeping minions could sanitize the place for the weekend, and also that I drop a breadcrumb trail of Parker, Dennis business cards behind me everywhere I went. His hope was that by my scattering cards around town, he could cultivate a whole new client demographic: lawsuit-happy co-eds with a penchant for tripping and falling, being rear-ended, or falling litigiously ill due to tainted seafood or too many kegs. Howard was like that: always looking on the bright side.
All of which explained why a half hour later, after we'd deposited Maizy at her friend's home as the setting sun swept water colors across the sky, Curt and I, and two boxes of business cards rolled to a stop in the driveway of Howard's beach block estate. The place was swanky. Three stories with floor-to-ceiling windows, lots of decks, and an in-ground pool visible through a pristine white vinyl picket fence. Even the driveway and sidewalk were immaculate belts of white. The handkerchief lawn was neatly cut and emerald green, even under the wilting summer sun.
We got out of the Escort.
"Maizy was right," I said. "I don't want to go back to work already."
"Some people know how to live," Curt agreed. "I just didn't think Howard was one of them. Want to go for a swim?"
A bathing suit? In front of Curt? I suppressed a shudder. I wasn't ready for that on the first night. I had big plans, but I didn't have big nerve. I needed to work up to a bathing suit, starting with head to toe sweats.
"It's getting late," I said. "I'd rather go for a walk on the beach."
"Exercise? You?" Curt grinned. "Sure you want to do that?"
I could think of other things, but they'd have to wait for cover of darkness.
We got our bags from the trunk and let ourselves into the house. It was even more impressive on the inside. Shiny white floors that I could only assume were imported Italian marble. Granite counters in the kitchen and all four baths. Ginormous fresh flower arrangement on a round table in the center of the foyer beneath a gorgeous crystal chandelier that scattered rainbow prisms across the walls. A broad staircase lay beyond the flowers.
"Huh." Curt looked around. "Howard has better taste than I thought."
"At least in houses," I agreed. There was still no accounting for his hiring Wally Randall, the firm's associate, or for partnering with Doug Heath, one of the firm's founders and the poster child for lawyer jokes. "Maybe we should have stayed in a motel. I don't have the wardrobe for this place."
"Do you have a French maid's outfit? And a feather duster?"
I gave him a look.
He shrugged. "What do you mean, then?"
I gestured broadly at all the immaculateness. This was no place for leaving dirty socks on the floor or crumbs on the counters or soap scum in the shower. I wasn't comfortable with immaculate. It took a lot of work, and I tended to skate as close to the edge of slobbery as one could get without falling in. "It's too perfect," I said. "I feel like we should be wearing tuxedos and evening gowns."
"You would look kind of cute in a tuxedo," Curt said.
I sighed. "You know what I mean. This is too fancy."
"It's a house, Jamie." He headed for the stairs. "Four walls and a roof. And hopefully a Jacuzzi."
I traipsed along behind him, a little dispirited to discover I wasn't made for this kind of living. I'd have to remember that next time Howard granted me my annual five dollar a month raise. "I want to walk on the beach," I said again. I liked the beach, especially at night. I liked the softness of the sand under my bare feet, the kiss of the waves lapping the shoreline, and the caress of a gentle ocean breeze on my face. I'd like to see Curt in a Jacuzzi, too, but that was one of the things I'd have to work up to. Howard's Shangri-La had sucked some of the moxie out of me. Maybe I hadn't had as much moxie as I'd thought.
Curt stopped at a set of French doors. "This must be the master." He went in.
I stood at the threshold with my mouth open. This just kept getting worse. The master bedroom was plush. Lots of pillows on the California King-sized bed, carpet as thick and soft as marshmallows, a color palette in breathtaking shades of blue.
"Check this out," Curt called from across the room. He tapped a button on the remote in his hand and privacy shades rolled smoothly down in unison over the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Okay, that was pretty cool.
Curt had already moved away from the windows and into the master bath. "Sweet!" he yelled. "There's a jetted tub in here!"
I frowned. What was wrong with a simple glass block shower? Get in, get out, get dressed. The master bath was a stupid place to put a jetted tub. There were enough lights in there to illuminate a stage. Hadn't Howard ever heard of mood lighting? Maybe I could find some candles to use instead. Small ones, with short wicks.
Curt poked his head out of the doorway. "Wanna get naked?"
Yes, yes, yes! But not yet. Later, when I'd gained a few pounds and some confidence. I could feel heat creeping into my cheeks. Some seductress I was turning out to be. I couldn't even talk about getting naked without blushing.
"Let's check out the deck," I said. I hurtled across the room and threw the heavy glass doors open. The deck was huge, naturally, with overstuffed chaise lounges, and a retractable awning to provide total shade, probably installed because Howard might burst into flame if exposed to sunlight.
We looked over the railing. The in-ground pool lay beneath us, along with my greatest fear next to spiders and Brussels sprouts: a Jacuzzi. I hadn't seen it before, because Howard had hidden it at the far end of the pool and sunk it into the ground besides.
Curt grinned. "Howard's stock is rising by the minute."
Not in my book.
"Let's go for a walk." I turned away from the awful view.
"Good idea." Curt closed the doors behind us and slid the deadbolt. "We have all week to get naked." He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I managed a weak smile, thinking things weren't turning out quite like I'd hoped. But then again, we'd only been here for fifteen minutes. I had four whole days to work on the crippling psychological issues that had been percolating over the course of my lifetime.
CHAPTER TWO
"I'm surprised there aren't more people out here," Curt said a couple hours later, after an extra-large pizza with green peppers for him and sausage for me, when we'd finally gotten around to that walk on the beach. By then, the beach was empty, and the ocean was nothing but an endless mass of black. The night sky was purple and studded with stars, and the breeze had picked up ju
st enough to make my gauzy white ankle-length skirt billow romantically out behind me like a fluffy cumulus cloud…if I'd been wearing a gauzy white skirt.
I was actually wearing denim shorts that stopped just short of my knees. My hair was mostly in a ponytail, except for the strands that had worked themselves free and kept blowing into my mouth, along with the sand, which was somehow getting into other places it had no business being. Not really what I'd imagined when I'd envisioned a walk on the beach with Curt.
On the other hand, things could only improve.
Which they did, considerably, when I glanced at Curt. Of course he looked fabulous. The ocean breeze didn't slap him in the face; it ruffled his hair gently and adorably. He had a five o'clock shadow that managed not to look scruffy and just enough of a tan to make his arms practically glow in a turquoise T-shirt. He was wearing low-slung jeans, and his feet were bare. He didn't even seem to notice the broken shells crunching underfoot. I was scoping out every step, hoping there were no jellyfish lying in wait. I hated jellyfish. So far, so good.
Until I tripped and fell flat on my face, which could only enhance my sex appeal. I spit out a mouthful of beach and lay there for a few seconds, wishing I could burrow right into the sand, out of sight like a flea. And speaking of sand, when had it gotten to be so lumpy and hard? I must have tripped over a horseshoe crab.
But it didn't feel like that under my hands. It felt more like…
I looked down and saw a bent knee.
I let out a shriek and scrabbled backward, away from what I was pretty sure went with a bent knee sticking up out of the sand at night on a lonely beach. I stayed on my hands and knees, gulping deep breaths. I'd seen knees before. I'd even seen dead knees before. Well, they'd been wearing clothes, but they'd been there, attached to their owners, who'd also been dead.
I took another peek. Light pink, no hair, on the small side. So a woman's knee.
Curt grabbed me under the armpits and hauled me to my feet. "Are you all right?"
I shook my head and pointed. "Is she…?" Why couldn't I say dead? Of course the knee's owner was dead. She wasn't moving. No one took a nap underneath a foot of sand.
Curt immediately dropped to his knees and started clearing sand away with frantic strokes. "Help me uncover her head. She might still be alive. Move it!"
Right. She might still be alive. I crab-walked over to him and moved some sand around. I didn't think so. Nothing about that knee said alive. Sure, it looked perfectly normal, but then how long did it take for knees to decompose? Probably a while, since it was exposed to all that healthy salt air. Probably salt air helped to preserve a body.
"I can't believe you found another body," Curt muttered.
"I didn't find it," I said. "It found me. And can we talk about that later?" It's not like I'd meant to trip over a knee. Who expected to trip over a knee during a walk on the beach? Naturally it couldn't have been Curt who'd done the tripping, because Curt never tripped over anything. You could tie his ankles together and he'd still probably move like Baryshnikov.
"Stop grinding your teeth," Curt told me.
"Do you have to be so damned graceful?" I snapped. Okay, I wasn't handling this well. But I wasn't ready for any of it. If I wanted to fall over dead bodies, I would have stayed home. This week wasn't supposed to be about murder and—
My pulse ticked up a notch. What had made me jump straight over tragic accident to murder?
It could easily be a tragic accident. I'd read awful accounts of people who'd dug trenches in the sand only to have the walls collapse and suffocate them. It was possible. Godawful, but possible.
Curt had stopped digging. I nudged him. "Don't stop now. Maybe she's still alive."
"You can stop now," he said. His voice was flat.
I glanced up at him and then down at her, and right away I saw what he meant. He'd uncovered the head and shoulders, and I could see ligature marks encircling her throat.
This had been no tragic accident.
I glanced at her face and my jaw went slack. "I know her," I said in a faint voice.
Curt frowned. "What?"
"I know her," I repeated. "At least I knew her. We went to school together." I sat back heavily, my head hanging down. Curt's arm went around my shoulders. He didn't say anything. "Her name is Annie Hollander," I said. "I haven't seen her in years, but she hasn't changed much." The absurdity of that made me want to shriek. Hasn't changed much, except now she's dead.
Curt's arm tightened slightly.
I pulled in a shaky breath. "It's not like we were friends or anything. Not really. I mean, she was nice enough, but in every class there's someone that, I don't know, doesn't quite fit in. That was Annie." I took another peek at her face, smooth and blank in death. That little mole below her right eye was still there, as was her blonde hair. Annie hadn't had natural golden blonde hair in school. She'd been more a dishwater blonde. She didn't have the California girl blue eyes, either. Annie's eyes were brown. And she'd been a little heavy all through school. She didn't look heavy anymore.
"She's prettier than I remember," I said softly. I reached out to touch her hair, but Curt's hand on my forearm stopped me.
"Don't," he said. "You want the police to be able to find out who did this."
I nodded and withdrew my hand, but I kept looking at Annie and thinking about high school and about mean girls and bullies. I hadn't been a mean girl or a bully. That would have been hard for someone with my looks, and I'd had no desire to foist my insecurities on someone else anyway. But high school was a cruel place, and both mean girls and bullies had found Annie, at various times, in various ways.
"Listen to me," Curt said. "We have to go back to the house to call the police. I can do it, if you want to stay with her."
I shivered. "I don't want to wait here. I'll come with you." No way was I waiting alone in the dark with a dead person. That had cheesy horror movie written all over it. I took Curt's hand and let him pull me to my feet. I gave Annie one last look before we headed back to the house. My sadness was overwhelming. It wasn't fair that this should happen to someone like Annie. Even though she'd moved like a wraith through high school, I knew she'd been in AP classes and had been accepted to almost every college to which she'd applied. She'd had a future.
And now she didn't.
CHAPTER THREE
I let Curt make the call to the police while I sat at the kitchen island trying to drink Howard's brandy. I'd heard brandy calmed frazzled nerves. I'd heard wrong. I poured it down the drain, rinsed the glass, and stood staring at the flat screen television on the wall. There was an infomercial pushing life-altering megavitamins. The pitchman was yelling at the top of his lungs about how my life would suffer beyond all imagination if I didn't plunk down $49.99 per month for auto shipment. At the moment I couldn't imagine it getting much worse.
Curt appeared in the doorway. "Come on. We have to go meet the cops on the beach."
I didn't want to go back to the beach. Annie was on the beach.
"You don't have to see her," he told me, as if he'd read my mind. "I'll take them to her while you wait. But they'll want to talk to both of us."
I shut off the TV and switched off the light. Curt set the alarm, and we left the house. On the way back to the beach, he said, "Are you absolutely sure it's Annie Hollander? People do change as they get older. High school was a long time ago."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Not that long ago. And yes, I'm sure." I thought back. "She always had this look about her, this timidity. She was unsure of herself, and I think that some kids saw that as a weakness, and an opportunity."
Curt squeezed my hand. "I'm sure she wasn't the person you knew in high school."
That was the thing. I hadn't known Annie in high school, not really. I'd seen her every day, passed her in the halls, probably shared a class with her along the way. But it hadn't gone much beyond that. I hadn't exactly lit the cliquish high school world on fire myself. I'd had strong opinions about every
thing but had been too shy to express them. My grades had been good, but not great. I wasn't an AP student or a stellar athlete. I hadn't stood out in any way.
Come to think of it, maybe I was the same person I'd been in high school.
We heard sirens approaching and hustled across the sand in the direction of Annie's body. The east wind had stiffened, blowing in off the ocean, picking up sand and grit along the way and flinging it in our faces. A storm might be moving in. Sudden thunderstorms were par for the course in the summertime. I only hoped the police were finished with their business before the sky opened up.
The sirens mrllled down to a stop behind us. Flashing red lights scraped over the beach. Up ahead, I could see a set of headlights as a police department four-wheel drive bumped across the sand in our direction.
"She's right around here," I called over the cacophony of wind and crashing waves. "Look for her knee."
We looked. No knee.
"Maybe we came too far," Curt said.
I shook my head. "We were just to the right of that jetty. Maybe the wind covered her up again."
Two officers got out of the four-wheel drive. They left the head beams on, giving us a clear view of the foot-deep crater in the sand where Annie's body had been.
The crater was empty.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Who steals a dead body?" I asked. "Who does that?" I stared through the glass doors at the drenching thunderstorm. Thunder was growling. Lightning was clawing at the sky. We were a power failure and a knife-wielding maniac away from a slasher movie.
Curt shook his head. He hadn't said much since the lecture by the police about wasting police resources. His knuckles were white on his bottle of beer. His jaw muscles were bunched. "Thing is, did the cops get pranked," he said, "or did we?"
I looked at him. "You think this was a prank?"
He didn't answer.
The obvious question occurred to me. "We're sure she didn't get up and walk away," I said finally. "Right?"
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