Once down the hallway, we power walked past Sweater Vest with our heads down. Luckily, since it sounded like he was simultaneously on four different calls, he didn’t even notice.
Marco was bouncing on his toes in the lobby waiting for us. We quickly filled him in on what Summerville had told us as we walked back to the parking garage.
“I still think he’s a possibility,” Marco said when we’d finished.
“I don’t know.” Dana shook her head. “From what I heard on CSI, stabbing indicates a crime of passion. Summerville didn’t seem all that passionate.”
“You do know that the shows on TV are fiction, right?”
Dana waved me off. “It’s all art imitating life.”
I shook my head. But I did have to agree that Summerville seemed about as over Gigi as a man could get. Which didn’t leave much in the way of motive.
“What about the new guy? The musician?” Marco asked.
“Maybe her assistant would know who he is?” I said, remembering the way Gigi’s right-hand gal had been the designated keeper of the schedule.
“Any idea how to contact her?” Dana asked.
I shook my head. “Other than at the studio, no.” And considering that place was probably still crawling with real police officers, that was not an option.
“Google to the rescue,” Marco piped up, pulling something from his pocket.
“You carry Google around in your pocket?” I asked.
“iPhone. Hello, honey, who doesn’t have internet in their pocket these days?”
I was ashamed to admit the only thing lurking in my pockets was likely lint and a stale sick of gum.
“What’s her last name?” Marco asked, already punching things into his touch screen.
I scrunched my nose up as I thought back to when Gigi had first introduced us. “Quick. Allie Quick.”
I watched Marco’s lips move as he typed it into his phone, silently spelling the name out. A few clicks later, he hit pay dirt. “I’ve got a MySpace page for an Allie Quick in Glendale. This her?”
Marco passed the phone forward and I squinted down at the photo on the screen. Sure enough, it was the same blue-eyed blonde who graced Gigi’s front office.
“That’s her! Can we call her?”
Marco snorted as he took his phone back. “Yeah, like she’d put her number on her page. We’ll friend her, then message her. What’s your username?”
“Username?”
“Yeah, your MySpace name?”
“Um… I don’t have one?” I said. Though it sounded more like a question.
Marco rolled his eyes at me.
“Geeze, Maddie. I bet you still dial 411 instead of doing Yahoo Local, too,” Dana said.
I declined to answer. Mostly because I had no idea what Yahoo Local was. “I don’t do networking sites for twelve-year-olds, so sue me.”
“Well, you do now,” Marco informed me, stabbing at his phone with his index finger. “I just signed you up. You are now Maddie626 and your password is Manolo.”
“Swell,” I mumbled under my breath. I was now officially a member of the cyber age.
“K, I messaged her-” He paused. Then enunciated very slowly as if he were talking to a two year old. “Which means sending her an email…”
I gave him the finger.
“…telling her that you need to speak with her as soon as possible.”
“Great. So, now what?”
“Actually,” Dana said, stealing a glance at her watch, “I’ve got to get home. Ricky and I have class tonight and I promised I’d go over our scene together first.”
She was right. It was getting late and, on the off chance Ramirez actually came over tonight, I wanted to be at my studio to pump him for information.
“Okay, let’s wait till we hear back from Allie and go from there tomorrow,” I said
Marco agreed, hopping into his little day-glo yellow Miata with a promise to call me for updates tomorrow from the salon. I jumped on the 101 and dropped Dana back off in Studio City before pointing my Jeep toward the ocean. Of course, it being rush hour (meaning gridlock the entire way down the 405) it took me over an hour before I pulled my Jeep up to my own apartment.
Where I almost hit my neighbor’s trashcan with a lurching halt.
While I’d been expecting Ramirez’s SUV to fill the other half of the drive, the beat up blue Dodge Neon parked there instead had me swerving in surprise.
As did the man lounging against the dented back fender. White button-down shirt, wrinkled khaki Dockers, shaggy rumpled blond hair, and a kill-all cocky grin that became ever so slightly bigger as I gaped at him.
Felix.
Chapter Five
My fingers clenched the steering wheel so tight my knuckles went white. I took two deep breaths and steeled myself for what might happen when I got out of the car.
Felix was the L.A. Informer’s star reporter, and we had what you might call a complicated history.
My first contact with him had been after my ex-boyfriend went to the slammer and I’d caught a killer by popping her breast implant with a nail file. Admittedly, it was the kind of sensational story the Informer lived for. But that still didn’t excuse the fact that Felix had run the article with a photo of my head pasted on Pamela Anderson’s body and the headline, Double D’s Beware!
He’d endeared himself to me even less when I’d had the pleasure of meeting him in person, this time while investigating the disappearance of my biological father, Larry. Felix and I had formed a reluctant alliance to outwit the mob, which had ended with us getting kidnapped and Dana blowing a hole through some thug’s chest. Again, not one of my finest hours.
Recently, however, Felix had been conspicuously absent from my life. Probably due to the fact that a completely accidental kiss in Paris had prompted me to realize that Felix’s feelings might go a bit beyond friendly. Rumor had it he was even in love with me.
I hadn’t seen Felix since we were backstage at the Jean Luc LeCroix show at fashion week. Right before someone had tried to kill me. (See what I mean? No exaggeration, I am a total trouble magnet.) Felix had been staring deep into my eyes, ready to confess his true feelings for me. It was a moment that was a little too honest, a little too intimate, and a little too fresh in my mind. One which should have made me feel icky, squeamish, and like washing my tonsils out with soap. Oddly enough, it didn’t. In fact, if he hadn’t been interrupted by a homicidal manic, I’m not sure how I would have responded to his confession.
As it was, my feelings toward Felix were… well… complicated.
And what all that translated into now that I was engaged to Ramirez, I had no idea. Though the word “awkward” immediately came to mind.
A knock sounded on my car window and I jumped in my seat, giving off a little terrier-esque yelp.
“Hey.” Felix’s crooked smile and dimpled cheeks filled my vision.
Willing my heart rate to return to normal, I cracked the window.
“Yeah?”
“You gonna come out?”
“I was thinking about it.”
His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and I was pretty sure they were laughing at me. “Come to any conclusions yet?”
I took a deep breath and shook off the part of me that wanted to put the car in reverse, pretend I’d never seen him, and drive straight to the nearest comforting Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor. I was being ridiculous. We were two grown adults. Well, I was grown. Sometime I wondered at Felix’s maturity level. He did work for a tabloid after all.
I opened the door, sliding out of the car and planting my feet on the sun-warmed pavement with as much dignity as I could after being caught cowering in my driver’s seat.
“Felix,” I said by way of greeting.
“Maddie. Nice to see you again,” he responded in his impeccably articulated Hugh Grant accent. Then he gave me a slow up and down, taking in every inch of me from my swanky suede boots to my barely B’s hinting at the neckline of m
y sweater tank.
I felt my cheeks flush, rethinking that whole getting out of the car thing.
“You look good, Maddie.”
“You-” I started, but for some reason my voice stuck in my throat. I cleared it loudly, trying again. “You, uh, you look good, too.”
Liar. He looked great.
Despite his lived-in look, even I had to admit Felix had a certain charm about him. He was such a study in dichotomy you couldn’t help but be intrigued by him just a little. You’d never know from his appearance that he was an actual British Lord with his own castle and a distant relation to the Queen of England. Felix was what I called a cheap rich guy. He was sitting on a boatload of old family money from his father, yet inherited the penny-pinching gene from his Scottish mother. And by penny pinching, I don’t mean buying the small yacht. I mean the driving-a-ten-year-old-beat-up-car, wearing-the-same-pair-of-wrinkled-pants-for-a-week, drinking-watery-gas-station-coffee-instead-of-Starbucks cheap. No joke, I’d actually seen him tip a valet in nickels once.
“So,” Felix said, “I hear we’ve had some excitement, yes?”
I guiltily looked down at my diamond-clad left ring finger. “Yeah, about that…” I trailed off, clearing my throat again.
“Yes? Care to fill me in?”
“Look, Felix, I was going to tell you. But it just all happened so fast. We were in Paris, and there was the Eiffel Tower, and it was all so romantic, and then there was the ring, and, well, I just kind of said yes without thinking. I mean, I wanted to say yes, I’m glad I said yes, but I didn’t really think about saying yes before I said yes, I just said it. And then, well, afterward, I didn’t really know what to say to you and, like I said, it all happened just so fast. It wasn’t like I’d planned it or thought about it or anything like that. It just kind of happened. Fast.”
I paused for a breath to find Felix chuckling softly, shaking his head at me.
“What?”
He continued laughing, letting the question hang in the air just long enough for my cheeks to heat again before replying.
“Actually, I meant Gigi’s murder.”
Oh. Great.
What was it about men that made me instantly stick my size-seven pumps in my mouth?
“Right.”
“But congratulations on the upcoming nuptials. Sorry I won’t be able to attend. Got big plans that day.”
“Oh hell, don’t tell me my mother invited you too?”
“No. She didn’t.”
“Well, then who… Oh.” I blamed it on the effect of those two dimples still staring back at me from his grinning cheeks that I didn’t detect his sarcasm straight off. Felix was apparently the only person in L.A. County not on my guest list. Damn if I didn’t blush even harder. “Sorry. I was going to invite you, but, well, I wasn’t sure… I mean after… well, you know…”
Felix cut me off, his grin widening considerably at my discomfort. “You know you’re adorable when your face goes all red like that. Kind of like a choking victim.”
The words every girl longs to hear.
I shook off my guilt and embarrassment, reminding myself that Felix was the kind of guy who made up stories about Bigfoot’s secret love child with the crocodile woman. He was a big boy. He could handle a little rejection.
“Exactly what are you doing here, Felix?”
“I told you. Wanted to hear your big news.”
“Wanted to hear as in you’re a concerned friend, or a nosey reporter?”
Felix cocked his head to the side. “Oh, you know me better than that, Maddie, love.”
“Right. Just as I thought. Reporter.”
“Cute and smart. Ramirez really is a lucky guy.”
For a fraction of a second I could have sworn I saw real emotion flicker across his face. Something like regret mingled with envy mingled with just enough of a hint of unexplored lust to make me blush again.
But just as quickly as it came, it was gone, the teasing glint in his eyes returning so quickly it made me wonder if I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
“So, how about it, Maddie? Want to unburden your day on the Informer’s most sympathetic ear?”
“Hmm. Tempting.”
I brushed past him, heading up the flight of wooden stairs to my second story studio.
“Was that a note of sarcasm I detected in your voice?” he asked, following a step behind me.
“Oh, look who’s the clever one now.”
I fit my key in the lock, and before I could stop him, Felix slipped into the apartment behind me.
“Just tell me one thing: is it true she was facedown in buttercream icing?”
I bit my lip, images of the scene that morning flooding my brain. I nodded.
Felix threw his head back and laughed. “Too delicious, the irony. What ultimate revenge for the lovelorn.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but something in Felix’s words sent the little hamster running on my mental wheel. Could this have been a case of revenge against the wedding planner? A jilted bride or groom? A ceremony gone terribly wrong? I made a mental note to look into that. Had aborted wedding plans resulted in someone with a grudge against Gigi?
“What color?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, Felix’s voice jolting me back to the present.
“What color icing?” His eyes were shining with the kind of glee usually reserved for a six-year-old with a shiny new Christmas bike.
“This is not some joke, Felix. A woman is dead.”
“It most certainly is not a joke. Do you know how many copies the Informer will sell once this story breaks?”
“Okay, we’re done here. Out.” I pointed, straight-armed at the door. “I’m feeling sleazier just being in the same room with you.”
“Flatterer. I see why Ramirez scooped you up.”
“Oh, please. You were seconds from trying to scoop me yourself.”
The moment it was out of my mouth I regretted it, clamping one hand over my lips as if to stave off any further verbal diarrhea.
But before I had the chance to apologize, Felix threw his head back and laughed out loud again. “Wow, we do think rather highly of ourselves, don’t we, Maddie? Every man’s madly in love with you, eh?”
I bit my lip. “No! That’s not what I meant. I mean… well, at the LeCroix show… it seemed like you were about to… I mean I thought you were going to say…”
Felix’s blue eyes twinkled at me, mischief dancing through them like a cat with a fresh ball of string. “You thought I was going to say what, Maddie? That I was madly in love with you? That I’d been secretly pining for you all this time? That I couldn’t possibly live another day without you?”
His mocking tone turned that blush into a full bodied thing. “No,” I mumbled. “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”
And listening to him talk now, it seemed just that. Silly. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing in Paris. Maybe the romance of the city had done funny things to my perception. Maybe the way Felix looked at me was just what he said it was – lust over a juicy story.
Talk about feeling ridiculous. I said a silent prayer that the floor would open up and swallow me whole.
“Don’t worry, Maddie,” Felix went on as I marinated in mortification. “I’m well aware that you prefer the tall, dark, and caveman type.”
Hey! “Ramirez is not a caveman!”
Felix quirked an eyebrow my way as if challenging that statement.
“All right, so he can be a little macho at times. But at least he doesn’t make a living exploiting innocent people. He’s one of the good guys.”
“And I suppose that makes me a bad guy?” Felix took a step forward.
Instinctively, I took one back, my tush coming up against the cool tile of my kitchen counter.
“In this case, yes.”
He moved forward again, his smile taking on a decidedly wicked glint. “Goody. I always wanted to play the villain.”
Oh boy.
I licked my suddenl
y dry lips. “I-I think you should go now,” I squeaked, my voice coming out a full octave higher for some odd reason.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, emphasizing the one word I really didn’t want to explore.
I opened my mouth to respond…
Only it wasn’t my voice I heard.
“Yes, she does.”
I whipped my gaze to the front door and found Ramirez’s broad shoulders filling the frame. His hand hovered just over the gun I knew he kept strapped under his jacket, his brows hunkering down in a way that made his dark eyes fairly growl with menace.
I did a dry gulp. Then put on my best innocent face and did a little one finger wave. “Hi, honey.”
But Ramirez ignored me, his gaze locked on Felix like a homing device. On a bomb. About to go off.
I can’t say I completely blamed him. As complicated as my history with Felix was, throw Ramirez into the mix and… well, let’s just say that the last time Ramirez and Felix were in the same room, Felix’s lips were on mine and Ramirez was dumping me. A memory that, as evidenced by the vein starting to bulge in Ramirez’s neck, hadn’t faded from his mind.
“Felix,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“Jack, lovely to see you again,” Felix said breezily, as if the two were old friends meeting for a pint at the pub. He was doing an excellent impression of a man unfazed by a pissed-off cop, though how much was acting, I wasn’t sure.
He grabbed my left hand, holding up the two-carat rock resting there. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
Ramirez’s nostrils flared, his eyes shooting from Felix’s face to his hand holding mine, then narrowing. I had the distinct feeling if I squinted hard enough I could actually see the testosterone crackling in the air.
I shook off Felix’s grip, lest he tempt Ramirez into actually using that gun.
“Felix just dropped by to discuss Gigi’s death,” I said, trying to defuse the situation.
Ramirez tore his gaze from Felix’s smirk (with obvious difficulty) to me.
“Of course, I told him I had nothing to add and that he’d have to go sniff out a link to the Loch Ness monster on his own.”
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 106