She still hadn’t explained her emergency.
“So what’s up?” I asked, as we cruised out of her neighborhood.
“I’m thinking of making new curtains for my kitchen windows,” she said.
This was her emergency?
“You want me to take you to the fabric store or something?” I asked.
“Oh, no, that’s not why I asked you to come pick me up,” Evelyn said. “Something’s come up and, well, I need your advice.”
Oddly enough, people don’t usually come to me for advice. Now I was completely lost.
“I’ve been invited to a party,” Evelyn said.
I nearly ran my car up onto the curb.
Evelyn was considering going to a party? A real party? She hadn’t been the party type even back before “the incident” last fall. She’d hardly been out of her house in months—and now she thought she was ready to party?
I decided this wasn’t the best time to point that out.
“Do you think I should…attempt it?” Evelyn asked.
“What kind of party are we talking about?” I asked.
“I don’t have all the details yet,” she said. “It will be a large event. Lots of people, I understand.”
“A big crowd won’t…bother you?” I asked, and was pleased that I hadn’t said freak you out instead.
Evelyn didn’t answer. I glanced over and saw that she was staring out the windshield, but didn’t seem to be seeing the freeway entrance ahead of us.
“I think…I think I’d like to go,” she finally said.
“You’re sure you’re up to it?” I asked.
“Yes, I believe that I am,” she replied, then drew in a breath. “I believe that it’s…time.”
If Evelyn thought the time had come to hit the party scene, who was I to discourage her?
“Then you should do it,” I told her. “And, you know, if you get there and don’t like it, you can call me. I’ll come pick you up.”
I glanced over and saw that she was looking at me. Evelyn gave me a gentle smile.
“Thank you, Haley,” she said softly.
“So, where would you like to go today?” I asked.
“Actually, I’m thinking about going to the mall,” Evelyn said.
I nearly ran the car up onto the curb again.
Evelyn wanted to go to the mall? To go shopping? After she’d just told me she wanted to go to a party?
Jeez, if Evelyn got any wilder, I didn’t know how I’d handle it.
I shifted immediately into shopping mode as I merged onto the freeway.
“What kind of dress do you need?” I asked.
“Cocktail length,” she replied. “But I think I’d like something that looks young, and fun.”
Immediately, a dozen stores flashed in my mind, prioritized by location, driving distance, and cost.
“What kind of budget are you thinking of?” I asked—translation, how much are you willing to spend?
Evelyn thought for a moment. “Since it’s a special occasion, I think I’d like to buy something extra special.”
Translation, unlimited budget.
My favorite kind.
“Great,” I said. “We’ll get you the perfect dress. Don’t worry. I’m all over it. And we’ll get you the perfect shoes to go with it—and, of course, the perfect handbag. And the day of the party we’ll schedule you for a mani and a pedi and get your hair done.”
“Oh…”
I glanced over to see that Evelyn had gone considerably paler.
Committing to going to the party was a big deal for her. I guess facing a battery of spa pampering on the same day might be too much for her.
“I know a place that will send someone to your home for those things,” I said. “My mom uses them all the time.”
“Really?” Evelyn said, sounding slightly less traumatized.
“It’s a specialized service,” I said—translation, it will cost a fortune—“but it’s really worth it.”
Evelyn was quiet for another moment. I glanced over to see if she was considering it.
“Yes,” she finally said. “That will be fine. Thank you, Haley. I knew you were the right person to ask for help.”
“So, who are you going to the party with?” I asked, and made it sound really casual.
I was still wondering if Evelyn was seeing the vice president of the GSB&T. I figured this was the perfect time for her to admit to it.
“A friend,” she replied.
“Yeah? Who?”
“Do you think a red dress would be too much?” Evelyn asked.
My cell phone rang. I checked the I.D. screen and saw that it was Jack Bishop. I gave Evelyn an apologetic look and answered.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Now.”
“I’m kind of busy,” I said. “Where can I meet you later today?”
“You’re not that busy,” he said. “Pull over.”
I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw Jack’s black Land Rover hugging my back bumper.
Jeez, where had he come from? How long had he been following me? I’d never even noticed.
I’ve really got to get better about looking around.
I took the next exit and pulled into a Chevron station. Jack swung in behind me.
“This will just take a minute,” I said to Evelyn as I got out of my Honda.
“Well, all right,” she said, twisting her fingers together.
As I walked away, I heard the car doors lock.
Jack stood at the hood of his Land Rover. Today he wore really nice-looking black trousers, a green silk shirt, and sunglasses. He looked way hot.
“How did you find me?” I wanted to know.
“It’s all part of the service,” he told me with a grin that was also way hot. “Talk to me about Emily.”
I figured Jack had learned something but was cautious about spilling it all at once.
I didn’t get a good feeling.
“Like I said, she’s dating Doug, a guy I went out with a few weeks ago,” I said. “He’s an aerospace engineer and Emily looked just as dull as him—until I saw her at Nordstrom looking totally different.”
“She’s an actress,” Jack said. “She’s worked a little. Mostly she’s a cocktail waitress.”
This hardly seemed like info I needed to drop everything to hear about. I knew there was more.
“I saw her with your old friend Kirk Keegan,” Jack said.
For a second, I thought Jack had slapped me, that’s how hard his words hit me. I went from stunned to shocked to angry in less than a minute.
“Damn it, I knew something wasn’t right about her,” I said. Then my anger gave way to confusion. “If she’s hanging out with Kirk, why is she dating Doug?”
“You tell me,” Jack said.
Then it hit me.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
“Kirk said he was going to ruin my life, starting with my boyfriend,” I said. “Kirk thinks Doug is my boyfriend.”
It made sense. Almost nobody knew I was dating Ty. Doug was the last man anyone had seen me with. Sandy had thought the same thing. Why wouldn’t anybody else?
“Kirk used Emily to try and set up Doug, thinking Doug was still my boyfriend,” I said. “Kirk used Emily to steal my boyfriend, which was easy since we’d broken up. Then Kirk intended to ruin Doug’s career so we could never get back together again.”
Jack nodded. “That’s Keegan’s style.”
“Kirk had this whole terrorism-espionage accusation thing going against Doug. He must have used Emily to make it happen,” I said.
The whole nasty business came clear to me.
“Emily pretended to be Doug’s girlfriend to learn a little about the project he was working on, then tipped off the newspaper reporter that he was selling our government secrets to a terrorist group. Even after the accusation turned out to be nothing, Doug’s career would still have been trashed.”
Jack was quiet for a moment.
“Any chance this Eisner guy was doing that?” he asked.
“No, I don’t see it happening. Not his style,” I said. “But you know it’s Kirk’s style to get a girl to help him with his dirty work.”
Jack didn’t comment, but we both knew it was true—long story. Kirk had a way about him that women—most women—couldn’t refuse. Emily, an aspiring actress and struggling cocktail waitress, would be easy prey for him.
“When I saw Emily at Nordstrom, I figured she was pretending to be someone really different just so Doug would want to date her,” I said. “I told her to stay away from him or I’d rat her out big time. I didn’t know Kirk was behind everything.”
“But Emily thought you did,” Jack said.
I got a yucky feeling in my stomach.
“She went straight to Keegan,” he said. “Told them they were busted.”
The yucky feeling got a little better. In fact, I felt really relieved.
“That means the end of Kirk Keegan’s threats against me,” I said. “So, good news, huh? It’s over.”
“Not so fast,” Jack said. “If you think Kirk was out to get you before, just wait until he finds out you’ve screwed him over—again.”
Oh, crap.
I wish I could say Jack’s prediction about Kirk coming after me again didn’t bother me. It did.
Kirk would probably think I’d deliberately provoked him, after Emily reported to him what I’d said to her when we’d run into each other at Nordstrom.
Just my luck. I’d thought she was simply deceiving Doug into thinking she’d be his perfect girlfriend. But, instead, she’d thought I’d figured out what Kirk was up to.
No wonder she’d looked so scared when she saw me.
Well, nothing I could do about that now.
Of course, Kirk might figure out that Ty was my official boyfriend now. He’d worked for Pike Warner and he knew that Ty’s family had lots of money and lots of connections. Hopefully, he wouldn’t go after Ty.
Hopefully.
Anyway, there was nothing I could do about that now, either.
Right now I had something important to do. Right now, I had to ruin someone’s life—again.
Evelyn had wanted to go back home—I think seeing Jack kind of scared her—so I’d dropped her off with the promise that we’d go shopping for her party dress another time, and called Ben Oliver at the newspaper. He wasn’t in, but the same woman I’d talked to before—I got the feeling they’d dated, which explained a lot—was more than happy to once again tell me in great detail that Ben wasn’t at his desk or in a meeting and probably wasn’t out covering a story, either, even though that’s what he was being paid to do at that particular moment. She also told me where I could more than likely find him.
I needed to tell Ben that the big terrorism-espionage-digital-engine-thingy story he was working on—the one that would surely put him back in the good graces of his editor, change his life, and possibly propel him to journalistic stardom—was going nowhere.
I wasn’t great at delivering bad news, but I didn’t have a choice.
I hate it when I have to do the right thing.
Ben sat in the back corner of the Starbucks on Wilshire—where did people meet before Starbucks opened?—typing furiously on his laptop. I got a mocha frappuccino—a grande, which I needed for moral support—and approached his table.
He spared me a quick glance and kept typing.
“Go away,” he said.
“I need to talk to you,” I said, and sat down.
“Not now.”
Ben looked really intense, and I got a really bad feeling.
I leaned around a little trying to get a glimpse at the screen.
“That’s not your Doug-might-be-a-terrorist story, is it?” I asked.
Ben’s fingers froze on the keyboard. I guess something in my tone must have tipped him off.
“Yeah. What about it?” he asked, in that way that dared me to answer.
“Well, I, uh…”
“You stuck your nose in it, didn’t you,” Ben said.
“Well, sort of, but not exactly.”
Ben glared at me. He looked as if he could seriously kill me.
I get that occasionally.
And when I do, there’s no option left but to lie. It works best. Believe me.
“I talked to my dad,” I said. “He’s an aerospace engineer. He said that all the info you were tipped to is common knowledge.”
Yeah, okay, so my dad hadn’t said any of that. But, jeez, if my mom knew it, everybody on the planet probably knew it. Plus I wasn’t getting into the Emily-Jack-Kirk story. It would only cloud the issue.
“The whole thing with the anonymous tip was probably just somebody’s idea of a prank or something,” I said.
Ben kept glaring at me.
“So, essentially, the story is, well, it’s not a story at all,” I said.
“You did something,” he said. His jaw was set and I swear I could see steam coming out of his nose—which was kind of hot. “You screwed this up for me.”
“Look, don’t blame me if your anonymous tip turned out to be crap,” I told him. “And besides, I gave you a real story. Tiffany Markham’s murder—”
“Which is crap, too,” Ben said. He slammed his laptop closed. “I talked to a reporter in Charleston like you asked. He says nothing’s going on. Oh, yeah, he’d heard of that Ed Buckley guy and some wild story about him smuggling diamonds, but it was all cocktail party gossip because his wife couldn’t stay out of the jewelry stores.”
“But—”
Ben shoved back from the table and grabbed his laptop.
“So thanks again for making me look like an ass!” he shouted, and stomped away.
“I could still give you that makeover,” I called.
I don’t think he heard me. He was already out the door.
Customers in Starbucks were staring and, since I didn’t want the manager to come over and ask me to leave for causing such a ruckus, I grabbed my frappuccino and left.
No sign of Ben in the parking lot. I considered calling his boss at the newspaper and suggesting he be put on suicide watch but decided I should stay out of it.
I felt really bad about Ben’s big story turning out to be nothing. It wasn’t my fault, technically, but I still felt bad. And I had presented him with another fantastic story.
I doubted he’d take me up on my makeover offer.
I climbed into my car and pulled out of the parking lot. Really, Ben had a point. What more could he do about Tiffany’s murder? For that matter, what could the cops or the FBI do?
Sure, everybody was investigating, checking on things, doing whatever it was law enforcement people did. But they didn’t have much to go on. According to Detective Shuman, Ed Buckley was using an alias here in L.A., and since Virginia Foster had disappeared—jeez, I really hoped she wasn’t dead—nobody even knew what Ed looked like now.
Except for me.
Oh my God.
The signal light up ahead changed to red and I stopped in the line of traffic. A dozen thoughts flew through my head.
Not only had I seen the one and only photo of Ed that Virginia had snapped on her trip to L.A. last fall, but I’d also seen Ed in person the morning he’d shot and killed Tiffany in the Holt’s parking lot.
The guy behind me blew his horn, jarring me from my thoughts. I glanced in the rearview mirror thinking maybe it was Jack, but I didn’t recognize the car. I drove forward. By the time I reached the next corner I knew what I had to do.
I had to find Ed Buckley myself.
CHAPTER 20
I followed along with Shannon and the other employees in the Holt’s breakroom through the stretches that were supposed to make us better workers, trying not to think too hard about the next few hours of my life that would pass in a blur, never to be recovered.
“All right, people, listen up,” Shannon called. She gestured toward the customer satisfaction thermometer on the wall and its ba
rely discernible red line. “I know things look bad.”
She looked straight at me, for some reason. A few employees did, too.
“But we’ve still got time to turn things around and get those flat screens,” Shannon said. “I’ve got a feeling things are going to get better.”
She looked at me again. Several more employees glanced my way, too.
Jeez, what was going on?
“I’ve got a really good feeling things will get better,” Shannon added.
Now everybody looked at me.
“So let’s get out there and provide some flat-screen-quality customer service,” Shannon said, and jerked her thumb toward the breakroom door.
I lumbered along with the crowd and took a glance at the work schedule hanging near the time clock. I wasn’t assigned to a department tonight.
“Hi, Haley!” Christy appeared next to me, a ridiculously big smile on her face, her blond curls bouncing. “Wow, isn’t this great! We’re going to be the only Holt’s store to skyrocket all the way to the top of the customer satisfaction chart this close to the end of the contest! Isn’t it fantastic!”
“Yeah. Great,” I mumbled.
Why wasn’t I assigned to a department tonight?
“Gosh, I’m so glad I work here! This is a super place to work!” Christy said. “I love retail! Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, checking the chart once more.
Christy left the breakroom and I followed along behind everyone else, not sure where I should report. Then it occurred to me that perhaps Holt’s had come up with a new position—they could have covered it in a meeting where I’d drifted off. Perhaps the store now had roving employees who just walked around, checking on things, then jumped in where needed.
Obviously, I was the perfect person for that position.
I headed toward the shoe department—I really should check out the stock room there—when Shannon planted herself in front of me.
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