“Which was thriving. Only once they divorced, there went his cash cow,” I added.
Ramirez nodded. “Exactly. So, he came up with an even more lucrative idea. Kill Gigi and inherit her entire estate. He’d been carrying on an affair with Anne ever since she’d started delivering cookies to his building, back when he and Gigi were still together. He promised Anne he’d finally be free to marry her if she killed Gigi for him.”
The puzzle pieces were rapidly falling into place. “Only he wasn’t the one to inherit. Her daughter was. He really hadn’t known about Allie.”
“No. Not until you told him.”
I winced. Geeze, had I tipped everyone off? That was it, I owed Allie free pedicures for life.
“So, they kidnapped her?”
Ramirez nodded. “When Summerville found out he wasn’t inheriting, he said he couldn’t marry Anne after all. She got desperate. The plan was to force Allie to sign a will leaving everything to Summerville, then kill her.”
I bit my lip. “Did she?”
Ramirez shrugged. “Like I said, Summerville swore he didn’t know where she was. The kidnapping was all Anne’s doing.”
I looked over at Anne, resisting the urge to go kick her broken leg until she gave it up.
Beyond her, I saw a figure in khakis and a white button-down jogging toward us from the parking lot, his mussed hair floating around his flushed ears.
Ramirez followed my line of vision. “Is that who I think it is?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
I punched him in the arm. “Don’t start.”
Considering I’d already crushed one person that night, he complied. Smart man.
Completely ignoring the crime scene tape, Felix came at us, almost as out of breath as I’d been a few minutes ago.
“Maddie, you okay?”
“She’s fine,” Ramirez answered for me, wrapping a possessive arm around my shoulders.
Oh brother.
Luckily Felix either didn’t notice or had perfected his ignoring Ramirez technique. “Any sign of Allie?” he breathed.
I shook my head.
His entire body immediately went slack, the hope draining out of him as he slumped into a wooden chair. “What happened here?”
I took a deep breath, trying to rewind to the beginning of the evening again.
“Well, after I went back to the bakery, I saw Anne leaving. I followed her from the bakery to here, where she put my wedding cake in the kitchen. Then I had the idea to check out her van. Only I didn’t get a chance because just as I was opening the door she whacked me on the back of the head with a cookie sheet…”
I trailed off. And felt my eyes grow big as it hit me.
It must have occurred to Felix at the same time as he sat bolt upright. “The van!”
He jumped from his seat, toppling over the chair, and took off for the bakery van at a full on sprint. Ramirez and I followed a step behind, covering the expanse of lawn to the back parking lot.
Fauston’s van was still in the same place it had been, sitting three spaces from the front of the building. Felix hit it first (who knew Tabloid Boy could run so fast?) and fairly ripped the back door off in his vigor to open it. I closed in a few steps behind Ramirez, my right side cramped from way too much exertion in way too short a time span. That’s it, after this I was permanently off exercise.
I strained to see around Ramirez’s broad shoulders, pushing in front of him.
Then froze.
There, sitting in the back of the van, amongst pink boxes of peanut butter cookies and chocolate fudge squares, her feet bound, her mouth covered with duct tape, sat Allie.
Chapter Twenty-One
Felix jumped into the van and started tearing at her bindings before Ramirez could stop him. Not that I’m entirely sure anything could have stopped him at that point. I’d never seen cool, collected Felix so frantic before. Allie winced as he ripped the duct tape off her mouth in one band aide like motion, but as soon as her hands were free, she threw both arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, tears flowing like they’d never stop.
Felix carried her out of the van as Ramirez hailed a paramedic team over. After a thorough head to toe, they said she was a little dehydrated, and the cut on her head where Anne had knocked her out in her apartment needed a couple stitches, but she was basically okay. Physically, that was. Mentally, I had a feeling it would be awhile before Allie looked at cookies the same way again.
It was a good two hours later before the last of our wedding party was bundled into their cars and the police officers had finished their interviews, clearing Allie and me to go home. Felix insisted on taking Allie home with him so he could keep an eye on her overnight.
“But,” he assured me as he bundled her into his Neon, “she can sleep in the guest room. No funny business, I swear.”
I grinned. “Hey, your funny business is your business, Felix.”
He nodded, that odd emotion flitting behind his eyes again. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
I gave him a wave and turned to go.
“Maddie?” he called.
“Yeah?” I spun back around to face him again.
“Happy Valentine’s Day.”
I looked down at my watch. 12:03. I guess it was technically Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it?
“Thanks,” I said. Then looked over his shoulder to where Allie sat waiting for him. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too, Felix.”
“Thanks. Oh, and by the way,” he said, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “She’s twenty-five.”
I couldn’t help the answering tug at my lips. “Well, I guess that makes it all okay then.”
He didn’t answer right away, instead giving me a long look that I wouldn’t dare to try to interpret. Then finally just said, “Goodbye, Maddie,” and walked away. He slid into the driver’s seat of his car, pulling out of the parking lot.
I watched his taillights disappear around the corner, trying to ignore the little empty spot in the pit of my stomach.
“Hey.” I felt Ramirez’s warm hands rest on my shoulders.
“Hey.” I leaned back against his chest. It was warm and solid and I suddenly realized how exhausted I was.
His arms went around me. “You ready to go home?”
I nodded, then turned around and looked into his face. It was the first time I’d really stopped to get a good look at him in days. His eyes were tired, drooping a little at the corners, their tiny laugh lines more pronounced. His jaw was dusted with a fine sprinkling of stubble and I wondered when the last time was that he’d actually slept.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said.
He smiled down at me. “Happy wedding day.”
Oh, hell.
With all that had happened, I’d almost forgotten that we were supposed to be man and wife in just hours. I waited for those pesky panic hiccups to hit at the thought. Oddly enough, in Ramirez’s warm grasp, they didn’t. Huh. I guess maybe being chased around by a homicidal maniac had scared them out of me for good. Go figure.
Though, as I looked around at my shambles of a wedding site, I felt my heart sink.
“There’s no way we can get married here today,” I said.
Ramirez frowned. “It is kind of a crime scene now, isn’t it?”
I shook my head, watching uniformed officers tromp up and down my red, carpeted aisle. “The tamales are melting all over the reception tent, the guest book’s in the mud, the flowers are trampled, the altar’s wrecked, the butterflies are gone and the tiki head has blood on it!”
Ramirez chuckled. Actually chuckled.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You find our ruined wedding funny?”
“Who me?” Though he valued his life enough to stop laughing. “No way.”
“Everything is wrecked.”
He wrapped his arms around me again. “Well, not everything.”
I cocked my head at him. “Meaning?”
“I wanna show you something.”
He took my hand and led me out into the parking lot where he opened the back of his SUV. He pulled out a plain brown shoebox and handed it to me.
“Your shoes.”
I hesitated. On top of the day I’d just had, I wasn’t sure I could take another disaster. Especially if I had to wear it.
But the way he was watching me, like a little kid waiting for Christmas, I sucked it up and opened the lid anyway.
“Eeeeeeee!”
I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure that girly squeal came from me. Because inside, nestled between folds of delicate white tissue paper, were the most beautiful pair of shoes I had ever laid eyes on in my life. They were white satin with a two-inch heel that did a delicate inward curve to a perfect point. Tiny white beads had been sewn along the edge in an intricate pattern, trailing down the back of the shoe like a cascading waterfall. They were my dream shoes to a tee. I slipped one on. It fit perfectly, like it had been molded exactly to my foot.
I felt tears back up behind my eyes and I threw my arms round Ramirez’s neck.
“How did you…?”
He grinned. “Okay, I’ll admit, I cheated a little.”
“Well, duh!”
His smile widened. “You were right. Designing shoes is not easy. My attempt looked like they belonged on an elf. A deformed one. So, I found an old sketchbook of yours and kinda stole one of your designs.”
“Thief. I thought they looked familiar.”
“Forgive me?”
I looked down at my feet. “Are you kidding? How could I not?”
I reached up and planted a kiss on his lips. Which he heartily returned, his hands gliding down to my hips, pulling my body tight against his until I feared someone might shout, “Get a room!”
When we finally came up for air, Ramirez pulled back and looked me in the eyes. “I promise that as soon as we can get this whole mess cleaned up, we’ll try again. We’ll plan the most beautiful wedding you ever saw. Together. I promise you’ll get your perfect day.”
I loved the man, no doubt about it.
And I realized as I melted into his arms that I couldn’t wait for the perfect day. Any day that we were together would be perfect in my book.
“I have an even better idea,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“How would you feel about a little trip to Vegas?”
He grinned. All the way from his crooked smile to his wicked chocolate eyes.
“Honey, anything that gets us to that honeymoon sooner works for me.”
* * *
The first thing I did was call Dana and tell her to cancel the makeup and hair appointments. The wedding was off. To which she wailed out a long, “Noooooo!” before I could tell her the marriage was definitely still on, we were just eloping. Then she did a squeal so high pitched I was pretty sure she woke up every dog in L.A. County. Of course I should have known that she’d immediately call Marco, who called Faux Dad, who told Mom, who called Mrs. Rosenblatt and Larry, who then called Mama Ramirez who probably put an ad out in the Times because by the time Ramirez and I made it to the gate at LAX for our 3 a.m. flight to Vegas we were eloping with a party of twenty.
I shrugged. At least it was a “small, intimate” elopement.
Two hours, one flight, and seven hotel rooms later, we were all crammed into the Little Chapel of Love on Las Vegas Blvd. waiting for the Elvis-impersonating minister to make it official.
I’d changed into my wedding dress (hey, just because I was eloping didn’t mean I couldn’t do it in style) and Ramirez was wearing the billowy white guayabera over his tuxedo pants. Which, actually now that I saw the whole effect, was kind of nice. Casual chic even. I had to admit, it suited him a lot better than formal tux tails would have anyway.
As Elvis asked if we promised to “love each other tender” and “don’t be cruel” to one another, my eyes swept over our little wedding party. Mom and Faux Dad sat in the first row of the chapel, holding hands, both of them getting a little misty eyed. Though I had a feeling part of that was due to the fact that Larry and Mom had shown up in the exact same chiffon mother of the bride dresses. Sadly enough, Larry had accessorized it better.
Madonna sat next to Larry, Marco on her other side giving her the moon eyes. Behind him, Dana had her head on Ricky’s shoulder, mumbling the words, “So romantic,” every few seconds. Mama Ramirez, the aunts, and BillyJo sat beside her, all dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs. Mrs. Rosenblatt was blowing her nose loudly into hers.
“Do you, Madison Louise Springer, take this man as your hunka hunka burning love, to hold tight and be true until you both go to that big ’ol heartbreak hotel in the sky?” Elvis asked me.
I looked up at Ramirez. I could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh. His dark eyes crinkled just a little at the corners, his lips twisting upward. But as I stared up into his eyes, I could see something else there, too. Something that promised years of laughter. Of friendship and respect, of being challenged at every turn and growing into a better person for it. Of hot stolen moments in the dark, and long, lazy mornings in bed. Of always knowing someone’s got your back no matter what kind of trouble finds you.
And I’d never been so sure of any answer in my life.
“I do.”
* * * * *
About the author:
Gemma Halliday is the author of the High Heels Mysteries, the Hollywood Headlines Mysteries, and the Deadly Cool series of young adult books. Gemma’s books have received numerous awards, including a Golden Heart, a National Reader’s Choice award and three RITA nominations. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is hard at work on several new projects.
To learn more about Gemma, visit her online at http://www.gemmahalliday.com
Connect with Gemma on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gemma-Halliday/285144192552
OTHER BOOKS BY GEMMA HALLIDAY
High Heels Mysteries:
Spying in High Heels
Killer in High Heels
Undercover in High Heels
Alibi in High Heels
Mayhem in High Heels
Fearless in High Heels
Christmas in High Heels (short story)
Sweetheart in High Heels (short story)
Hollywood Headlines Mysteries:
Hollywood Scandals
Hollywood Secrets
Hollywood Confessions
Anna Smith-Nick Dade Thrillers:
Play Nice
Young Adult Books:
Deadly Cool
Social Suicide
Other Works:
Viva Las Vegas
Haunted (novella)
Watching You (short story)
Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit (short story)
* * * * *
SNEAK PEEK
of the next High Heels Mystery
by Gemma Halliday:
FEARLESS
IN
HIGH HEELS
Chapter One
I watched as the dark figure moved through the forest. Mist swirled at his feet, the glow of the full moon above casting shadows across his beautifully sculpted face, his black hair curling over his ears in the damp night air as he stalked his prey. She stood, unsuspecting, on the other side of the clearing. A dark haired woman, her back to him, her slim, pale neck exposed to the chilling night.
He spotted her. Then he smiled, showing off a pair of sharp, white fangs against his full lips.
I sucked in a breath, pulling my feet up to my chest.
Then I watched in horror as, in an instant, he was hurtling through the darkness toward the woman.
I covered my eyes with both hands. “I can’t look. He’s gonna bite her, isn’t he?”
Dana sighed next to me. “Yes. Again.”
I pulled my Snuggie up over my head. “Tell me when it’s over.” I burrowed into the pillows on my sofa where my best friend, Dana, and I were indulging in chocolate covered popcorn and hot cocoa w
hile watching Moonlight, last summer’s biggest blockbuster movie. I’d read all the Moonlight books but had made myself wait to see the movie until I’d finished the last one in the series. Which, as of this morning, I had. And I had to admit, it was worth the wait. The actress playing Lila was totally convincing as the naïve teenager who inadvertently falls in love with a local vampire.
Dana shifted beside me. “God, I hate this part.”
I peeked over the edge of my pink Snuggie at the screen. Lila was falling into the arms of her vampire would-be lover, Daniel, as his lips gently grazed her neck.
“Know what? I don’t think he’s biting her. I think it’s just a kiss,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Dana crunched down hard on a piece of chocolate covered popcorn. Which was a sure sign she was upset. Dana never ate chocolate. Ever. Her body was a temple that ran on wheat grass, tofu, and mass amounts of exercise.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Peachy. I love watching my boyfriend kiss other women,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm.
“Sorry.” I put a hand on her arm. “But you know it’s just acting, right?”
Dana didn’t answer, instead grabbing another handful of popcorn.
While I was caught up in the fantasy of the Moonlight world, Dana was stuck in the reality of it. Namely the fact that the sexy vampire currently caressing Lila’s neck was actually Ricky Montgomery, Dana’s boyfriend of the last two and a half years. While Ricky was no stranger to Hollywood, having begun his career as the hunky gardener on TV’s prime time soap, Magnolia Lane, “Daniel” was the biggest part he’d landed yet, the Moonlight phenomenon launching him from TV hottie to teen idol overnight. Something Dana was not overly thrilled with. Not only had reviewers commented numerous times on the undeniable chemistry between Daniel and Lila - who was actually played by Ava Martinez, the sultry new member of the young Hollywood elite - but the last time Dana had gone to Starbucks with Ricky, no less than three women had asked Ricky to sign their boobs.
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 125