High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5)

by Gemma Halliday

  I almost shouted “Ah ha!” at Felix, until the study partner explained it was because she’d been sick that day and missed class herself. But she said we could check with the computer lab where Allie sometimes did her homework to see if she’d been in that morning.

  More traipsing. More vague answers. The small man with thick glasses in charge of the computer lab knew Allie, but couldn’t remember for certain if he’d actually seen her that day. But he said we could try the snack shop next door to see if she’d been in for her usual Red Bull breakfast.

  One guess what the pimply kid manning the snack shop said?

  Apparently everyone on campus knew Allie, but no one could say for certain if she’d been there the day her mother was murdered.

  My feet were killing me by the time we finally made our way, defeated, back to the parking lot. To find a ticket plastered to my windshield. I said some really nasty words under my breath.

  “You kiss Ramirez with that mouth?” Felix asked.

  I sent him a look that clearly said, Don’t mess with the blonde right now.

  “Right.” He cleared his throat. “So, where to now, love?”

  “I think it’s time we talked to Allie,” I decided.

  Felix opened his mouth to protest, but I ran right over him.

  “Look, I know you don’t think she did this, but if she is innocent, we might as well rule her out, right?”

  He clamped his mouth shut again. “I suppose.”

  I could tell as he got back into the Jeep he was not all that thrilled at the prospect of seeing the object of his unrequited desire again. Tough nubs. I was tired of talking to her voicemail.

  I pulled onto the 405 north, cursing rush hour traffic (i.e. the parking lot that all freeways became between three and seven p.m.) as we threaded our way east via the 101 and 134.

  As we hit Verdugo, the sun was just sinking down behind the hillside, the sky a dusky blue, not yet dark, but growing deep shadows along the tree line and softening the edges of the utilitarian architecture. Occupants from the neighboring complexes were trickling home from their day’s work, parking suddenly at a premium as I searched the street for an empty spot. Finally Felix spotted a space up the block and I did the parallel-parking thing, holding my breath as my back bumper inched ever so close to the front of a souped-up Chevy. After a couple of tiny forward then back maneuvers I was pretty sure I was in. Could I get out? Now that was another story. I clubbed my steering wheel and followed Felix down the sidewalk back toward Allie’s building.

  Again the overpowering smell of curry wafted from unit D, and the poor overtired mother in E was dealing with the cranky toddler, her wails so high-pitched a dog in a neighboring yard yapped in answer. I hoped that kid popped the tooth soon. For everyone’s sake.

  Felix rang Allie’s bell as I stood on the step and waited, listening to the baby/dog duet. And waited. And waited. No answer.

  He rapped his knuckles loudly against the door frame. Again nothing.

  I tried to get a look in the window, but the room was dark, her renter’s blinds shut tight.

  “Looks like she isn’t home yet,” Felix said, stating the obvious.

  But I wasn’t ready to give up that easily. Allie was the last solid lead we had left. There was less than forty-eight hours until I was supposed to walk down the aisle with Ramirez. That is, if I could even stand living with the man after he won our little bet. Which was debatable.

  I stared down at the lock on Allie’s door.

  “Any chance you’ve got your trusty picks with you?” I asked Felix.

  He frowned. “Yeeees,” he slowly admitted. “But, Maddie, it’s one thing to slip into a dead woman’s house. It’s not as if she’s going to mind now, is she? But I’m not sure I feel comfortable breaking into Allie’s.”

  I spun around and pinned him with a look. Seriously? He decided to grow a conscience now?

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not really, no.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. But this time he didn’t budge.

  “Fine.” I held my hand out, palm up. “I’ll do it, then.”

  “Maddie, I don’t think this is such a good idea…”

  “I don’t care what you think. It’s not your future on the line here.”

  “Maddie…”

  “Hand. Over. The. Pick.”

  The desperation of my situation must have seeped into my voice, as, instead of arguing, Felix sighed loudly, then slid a hand into his pocket and returned with one of his little screwdriver thingies. He slapped it into my outstretched palm.

  “Be my guest.”

  “Thank you.”

  I turned my back to him, biting my lip as I tried to remember the way I’d seen Felix do this. I put one hand on the knob, and, with the other, slowly inserted the pick into the keyhole. I turned the knob to the right…

  … and the door cracked open.

  I froze. No way was I that good.

  “I think it was already unlocked,” I said, looking up at Felix for confirmation.

  He frowned. His face mirrored the same apprehension slowly building in my gut. Anyone who has ever lived in L.A. knows better than to leave the front door unlocked. Especially when planning to be gone all day.

  I licked my lips, shoving the pick deep into my pocket as I gingerly pushed open the door.

  “Hello? Allie?” I called.

  The interior was dark, the blinds letting in little of the fading sunlight outside. I ran my hand along the wall beside the door, searching for a light switch. My fingers collided with one and I quickly flipped it. The room instantly flooded with cheap, buzzing florescent lights.

  My eyes roved the room, the apprehension building. The flowers on the coffee table had been knocked over, water from the vase spilling into a dark puddle on the gray shag. The happy red and yellow throw pillows were strewn across the floor, and one of her kitchen chairs had been knocked over, lying in the middle of the floor on its side.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  I sucked in a breath, grabbing Felix’s arm for support.

  In the middle of the kitchen floor, on the ugly, nineteen-seventies olive green linoleum, was a thick puddle of dark red liquid.

  And I’d bet my Manolos it wasn’t Kool Aid.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I heard a scream, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was coming from me. I tried to take a deep breath, but it felt like a brick was sitting on my chest.

  “Is that…? Is that…? Ohmigod.” The room started to spin as I tried to form a coherent sentence.

  I went to lean against Felix for support, but realized he wasn’t there. He’d shaken me off his arm and stepped over me, immediately rushing through each room of the tiny apartment, calling Allie’s name. Great, what was I, chopped liver?

  Instead, I leaned against her kitchen wall, sliding down until my butt hit the linoleum. I wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them to my chest, watching Felix duck into the bedroom, the bathroom, check in all the closets.

  “She’s not here,” he said, his face a ghostly shade of white.

  I looked back at the puddle. “Do you think she’s… dead?” I squeaked out.

  Felix didn’t answer, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes for once unreadable behind stony features. “Call Ramirez,” he said.

  Right, Ramirez. Good idea.

  I shoved my hand into my bag for my cell. Only my fingers were shaking so badly, I couldn’t get a good grip on it. After rifling unproductively through my possessions, I turned my pursed upside down and dumped the entire contents onto the gray shag. Lipstick, compact, credit cards, pens, a little mini calendar from the bank. And my cell. I grabbed it, my clumsy fingers dialing as I watched Felix examine the door frame, suddenly shifting into CSI mode.

  Three rings into it Ramirez answered.

  “Hey,” he said, obviously recognizing my number.

  “Youhavetocomerightaway,” I slurred, rushing my words together into
one sentence.

  “Whoa. What happened? You okay?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. But I’m not sure Allie is.”

  “Allie?”

  “The wedding planner’s assistant.”

  “Jesus, don’t tell me this is another one of those place card emergencies. Maddie, just pick whichever one you like. I really don’t care, okay?”

  I tried to swallow down the immediate hurt at the way he said he didn’t care about our wedding, telling myself that wherever Allie was, her situation was a whole lot worse.

  “Look, I’m at Allie’s place. She’s bleeding. Or someone was. In her apartment. She’s in trouble. You have to come right away.”

  I think “bleeding” was the magic word, as his tone changed immediately. “What do you mean, bleeding?”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, willing my thoughts to settle into an organized pattern. “Her front door was unlocked, there’s a puddle of blood on her kitchen floor and she’s not here. It looks like there was a struggle.”

  “Are you somewhere safe?” he asked, and I could hear the sound of him grabbing his keys.

  I nodded at the room. “I think so.”

  “Don’t move, I’ll be right there.” And he hung up.

  I flipped my phone shut, holding it close to my chest. Despite the adrenalin still doing a Daytona 500 thing through my veins, I felt a little better knowing he was on his way.

  “It isn’t forced.”

  I pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked up to find Felix still examining the doorjamb.

  “There’s no sign anyone muscled their way in here. Whoever was in here with her, she must have let them in voluntarily.”

  I stood up, testing out my shaky legs (which felt like I’d just done an entire Step and Sculpt class with Dana) and joined him. I looked at the bit of wood where the door met the wall. He was right, not even a scratch in the paint.

  “So, she knew whoever did this,” I said. “Just like with Gigi.”

  Felix nodded.

  He stepped outside, eyes on the ground as he surveyed Allie’s porch.

  I followed him like a shadow. There was no way I was staying in that apartment alone for even a second. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for signs of a struggle as they left.”

  I looked to the right. Rows of sickly looking grasses, which might have once been considered decorative, now jutted up from the landscape in rows of untamed tufts. To the left of the pathway a few worse-for-the-wear succulents hovered close to the ground. One near Allie’s door had been trampled flat, oozing a green goo. The grasses to the left of the door had a pronounced tilt to one side.

  “If she struggled, it means she was alive when she left,” I said, hanging on to that little bit of hope.

  “Maybe.” Felix looked down the drive as if the empty street would somehow tell him where she’d gone. “Or someone struggled hauling her body away.”

  I winced. As much as I had my doubts about Allie, I didn’t want to see the perky blonde six feet under.

  Besides, the fact that someone had attacked her made me rethink my whole theory. Generally it was the guilty people who attacked the innocent, not the other way around. If someone had gone after Allie, our killer was still out there somewhere.

  I shivered, instant goose bumps forming in the cool evening air as I heard the distant sound of sirens racing up Verdugo.

  Half an hour later Felix and I had been corralled out to the street, behind a ream of yellow crime scene tape that ran the length of the apartment complex. The Indian couple from unit D were talking animatedly to a uniformed cop who was struggling to write down their every word. The tired mom from E stood with baby on hip on the sparse lawn, shooting daggers at Felix and me as if it was our fault sirens and plainclothes officers were keeping her baby awake. And Ramirez and his crew of boys in blue were going over Allie’s apartment inside and out for any clue to her disappearance.

  When he’d first arrived on scene, Ramirez had made a beeline toward me, taking me into a full-bodied hug that threatened to crush my ribs and asked again if I was okay. One quick affirmative was all the invitation he needed to leave me outside and transform into cop mode, his attention immediately drawn to the possible crime scene inside. He’d dropped a rushed kiss on the top of my head, spared a moment to scowl at Felix, then was gone, swallowed up into Allie’s apartment. Where he’d yet to appear from.

  I sat down on the front bumper of a police cruiser, chewing at my bottom lip as I watched a guy with a metal evidence-collecting kit make his way inside.

  “How much longer you think they’ll be in there?” Felix asked. I could tell he was itching to get away from the place, partially because Ramirez was in the vicinity but mostly due to his quickly approaching deadline for making the morning edition of the Informer .

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends what they find, I guess.”

  “Great.” He folded his arms over his chest, stealing a glance at his watch.

  Luckily, Ramirez emerged minutes later, a frown creasing his brow. He did one quick survey of the scant yard before his eyes landed on us. First me, then Felix, then me again.

  Oh boy.

  He stalked toward us with purposeful strides and paused just inches from me.

  “What happened?”

  I shrugged. Felix did the same.

  Ramirez’s eyes narrowed.

  “Okay. Why are you here?”

  “We wanted to talk to Allie,” I answered.

  “And?”

  “And she wasn’t here.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Much the same thing you can see now,” Felix said. “We’re not stupid enough to disrupt a crime scene.”

  Ramirez shot him a look that clearly said he wasn’t convinced that was true.

  “What did you want to talk to Allie about?” he asked.

  I bit my lip. And looked to Felix. I wasn’t sure spilling all to Ramirez now that he was in official cop mode was such a hot idea.

  On the other hand, the way that vein in the side of Ramirez’s neck was starting to bulge had the words “handcuffs” and “holding cell” ringing in my ears. In the end, the vein won. Hey, I’ve been in a holding cell before. Hanging out with gang members and hookers and peeing in public is not my idea of a good time.

  So, I told him everything. I spilled all about our checking into suspects’ alibis and how Allie’s hadn’t panned out and how, her being Gigi’s daughter, we wanted to chat with her, only when we got there she was gone and a puddle of red gooey stuff was in her place instead.

  Ramirez listened to it all with his stoic poker face in place, only pausing the narrative to ask the occasional question or clarify an exact time.

  By the time I was done, he just looked at me.

  “Um, so… we’re good?” I asked.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The bet. We’re done.”

  “Wait,” I held up a hand. “What do you mean, ‘done’?”

  Ramirez ran a hand through his hair. “Maddie, it’s too early to say what really went on in there, but I can tell you that’s human blood on her kitchen floor. If you had walked in a few minutes earlier… Jesus, I don’t want to think what might have happened to you.”

  While the sentiment was touching, I was still stuck on his first statement. “We shook on it. You can’t back out on the bet now.”

  “Goddamit, Maddie, this is not a game.”

  “I know it’s not!” I shouted. Drawing looks from both the Indian couple and the sleepless mom. Not to mention Felix, who was fidgeting nervously and slowly inching away from us.

  “Maddie,” Ramirez warned, his voice low and deceptively calm.

  But he had me worked up now.

  “The fact that my fiancé thinks I’m some helpless, brainless chick is not some game,” I spat back.

  “Please, you know I don’t think that.”

  “No, Jack. I d
on’t. I know that anytime things get difficult, you try to shut me out, send me home, handcuff me to your car-”

  “I only did that once!”

  “-and not even one measly time have you ever asked my opinion about a case. Why? Because you think I’m a bimbo.” I gulped back the last word as tears started to back up behind my eyes.

  “Oh hell.” He ran his hand through his hair again until it stood up in little spikes.

  “I don’t want to marry someone who things I’m a bimbo,” I cried.

  “Maddie, I don’t think you’re a bimbo. I just don’t want to see my girl hurt.”

  “Woman. I am not some little girl, Jack, I’m a grown woman.”

  He sighed. Deeply. “Okay. I don’t want to see my woman get hurt.”

  He reached a hand out to wipe at my wet cheeks. “Come on,” he said, his voice soft. “I hate seeing you cry.”

  “The bet’s still on.” I sniffed, crossing my arms over my chest, then narrowed my eyes, squinting through watery tears. “And you better believe I’m going to win.”

  Ramirez pursed his lips together, letting a long breath out through his nose. “Fine.”

  I lifted my chin a fraction of an inch in triumph.

  “But promise me one thing?” he said.

  “What?” I hedged.

  “Just quit hanging out with that guy.” He gestured toward Felix, now a few feet away, pretending to be really interested in a hangnail on his thumb.

  “Felix is a friend.”

  “He’s a sleaze.”

  “He’s a friendly sleaze.”

  Ramirez narrowed his eyes. “How friendly?” he asked, his stance quickly shifting from loving boyfriend to Caveman.

  I threw my hands up in surrender, so not going into that territory again. “Fine. I’ll try to ditch Felix.”

  “Good.”

  “Emphasis on ‘try’. The guy’s like a bad fungus you can’t get rid of.”

  He grinned, Caveman retreating.

  “I’ll take ‘try.’”

  He took a step closer, dropping a tender kiss on my forehead. “So, stick around and we’ll go to my place tonight?” he whispered.

  While part of me would have liked nothing more than to spend the evening curled up in Ramirez’s arms, the fact that Allie was missing, my theories were all shot to hell, and Felix was hanging on our every word somehow caused me to shake my head in the negative.