Top of the Hour

by Anina Collins

  “Not working?”

  “Nope. Or there’s some other problem with them. He wouldn’t have been so awkward if there wasn’t an issue with the cameras.”

  Frustrated, I sighed. “We can’t seem to catch a break with this case, can we?”

  Stopping at the car, Alex gently touched my shoulder. “Don’t get discouraged. We’ll figure out what’s going on with Jessica and who killed Lee.”

  On our drive back to Sunset Ridge, I tried to imagine where Jessica Reynolds could be getting two thousand dollars each month. She didn’t work even part-time, so if she wasn’t making the money, someone had to be giving it to her.

  But who?

  “You’re uncharacteristically quiet, Poppy. You okay?” Alex asked as we rolled down the two-lane highway toward home.

  Turning to face him, I adjusted my seat belt and explained what I’d been thinking about. “Where is she getting the money each month? I’ve gone through it, and all I can think of is someone’s giving it to her. The question is who and why?”

  Alex slowly shook his head as he stared out the front window of the car. “I don’t know. I do know people don’t give money away for nothing, so that makes me think Jessica has been up to something in her spare time.”

  “Do you think it’s another man giving her the money? Or maybe it’s Cherise who was paying her to poison Lee.”

  Turning to look at me, Alex looked confused. “That’s a lot of money over time to kill someone who ended up dying of a gunshot wound last week. I’m not sure that makes sense.”

  As he turned back to look at the road, I had to admit he was right. “Okay. So sometimes my theories don’t work out. Don’t I get credit for trying?”

  He pulled his cell phone and notepad out and handed them to me. “I’ve got something of my own I’d like to try. Do me a favor and find Kevin Nash’s number and call him. Put the call on speaker so I can ask him a question.”

  I did as he asked and held the phone near him as he continued to drive. Kevin Nash answered quickly and Alex said, “Mr. Nash, it’s Alex Montero from the Sunset Ridge police. I had a question about when the station pays its employees.”

  “We pay every other Friday.”

  That didn’t help to explain why Jessica had two thousand dollars to deposit on the tenth of each month. Disappointed, Alex thanked him for his help once again.

  “My pleasure. I wanted to tell you that we here at the station have started a fund for Lee’s widow.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” Alex said flatly, looking over at me and raising his eyebrows to show his amusement at more people giving Jessica money.

  “We feel terrible for her since he had no life insurance or anything to leave her taken care of. He was part of our WXSN family, so we want to do whatever we can to help her. Please let me know if you need any more information to solve this terrible murder.”

  I pressed END on the call and set Alex’s notebook and phone on the seat next to him. “I guess we can cross off the motive of killing him for the insurance money from our list since there was none to have.”

  “I never had the feeling this was a murder for money. No, this has always been a personal attack, a murder of one human being by another for reasons far deeper than just money.”

  “Like?” I asked, wondering where he was going with this. He’d never said anything about his theory of the case.

  He turned to look at me and then back at the road as we entered Sunset Ridge. “Revenge for a broken heart. Revenge for a betrayal. A crime of passion.”

  “That sounds a lot more like wife number one than wife number two, don’t you think?”

  He pulled up in front of the Sunset Ridge police station and turned off the car. His two hands still on the steering wheel, he looked over at me and grinned. “I’d say so, and as soon as I can convince Derek that I need a search warrant for Cherise Reynolds’ house, I’m going to see what I can do about proving my theory. Until then, I’ve got some ideas about this case I want to look into.”

  “Care to share with your partner, or do you plan to keep her in the dark for the second time today?”

  I waited as he stared straight ahead and said nothing, knowing that I’d have to find a way of bowing out of any more road trips he wanted to take that day. I had a few hours before my date with Jack Reynolds, but since I hadn’t actually had a real date in ages, I’d planned to spring for the works—mani/pedi, facial, and maybe even a massage.

  And I was certain hearing me chose those over whatever work he wanted to do on the case was the last thing Alex wanted to hear.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex closed the car door and looked over at me. “I’m going to head out to the crime scene. Craig still hasn’t had any luck finding that piece of chalk, and I want to scour the place myself. Would you grab a couple coffees from The Grounds and I’ll meet you back here in say ten? Twenty if Derek’s waiting for me.”

  Part of me wanted to join him and go out to the woods to look for evidence. However, another part of me wanted to go home and take a long, luxurious bubble bath and fantasize about my date with Jack in a few hours.

  That part had all but stifled the other part of me on the drive back, but now as I saw the eager look in Alex’s eyes as he talked about us working together out there in the woods to find some lost sliver of evidence, I couldn’t help feel bad about what I was about to tell him. I felt guilty, even though I wasn’t sure why.

  “I wish I could. I do. I have to take care of a few things this afternoon, though, so I’ll have to take a rain check. I’ll be back around tomorrow, though.”

  The words came out like someone was yanking each syllable out of my throat with pliers.

  “Your boss at The Eagle on your back like mine?” he joked with a sense of camaraderie at that moment I wished was the case.

  For a moment, I considered lying. He told me nothing about his personal life, so why should I have any problem keeping mine under wraps? We were just work partners. That was it. Nothing more. Well, we were friends too. At least I thought of him as my friend.

  That was the problem. Alex was more than just some guy I spent time with tracking down bad guys. He was my friend, and lying to a friend, even about my going out with someone he didn’t approve of, felt wrong.

  So I told the truth.

  “Jack’s picking me up at seven and I wanted to spend the afternoon getting my nails done and other girly stuff you probably think is stupid.” Shrugging my shoulders, I added, “It’s a female thing. No biggie.”

  With each word he heard, his face morphed into a look of pure unhappiness. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look so miserable. He wasn’t so much sad as much as disgusted, or at least that’s what his expression told me. He said nothing in response to my explanation and simply nodded before walking into the police station, leaving me standing at the car with a hollow feeling inside.

  I thought about following him into his office, but what good would that serve? Alex clearly didn’t approve of my seeing Jack, and more talking about it wasn’t going to change that fact. He had a right to his opinion, and I had a right to date anyone I chose to. So without another word between us, I left and headed back to my house to get my car.

  Five minutes later, I was at Candy’s Cuts ready to splurge on a mani/pedi, something I did once in every blue moon. I hadn’t been there since my visit to investigate what she knew about Geneva Woodward’s murder over six months ago, so I was in dire need of some beauty help.

  Only one woman sat under a dryer off to the side of the shop, and Candy stood next to one of the stylist chairs sweeping away hair that had fallen to the floor during her last haircut. Wearing jeans and a brown sweater with practically no makeup on her face and her hair simply hanging down the sides of her head, she looked as plain as she ever did.

  She saw me as soon as she heard the front door close. “Poppy McGuire, are you here to talk to me about murder again?”

  Her smile told me she was teasing
me, so I laughed and shook my head. “No. This is a desperate-woman-needing-help visit.”

  Quickly, her eyes scanned me from head to toe. “You don’t look so bad. What’s the problem?”

  “I’m going out tonight and want to look my best,” I admitted, realizing I’d just opened myself up to a slew of questions about who I was going with and what we were going to be doing.

  “Oooooooh, going out?” she cooed. “Anyone I know? Could it be that sexy cop you’re always hanging out with? What’s his name again?”

  I rolled my eyes but felt my cheeks warm. “Alex is my partner, and no, he’s not the person I’m going out with tonight. Can you fit me in for a mani/pedi and maybe a trim?”

  “Going with the upsweep again like last time?” she asked, taking me back to that night I’d gone to dinner with Alex at Diamanti’s.

  “No, I thought I’d go with my hair down tonight. I’m hoping for a less sophisticated look, if you know what I mean.”

  Candy set her broom aside and waved me up to sit in the chair. “Less sophisticated, huh? So you want to look sexy and wild instead of sexy and demure. I think we can do that for you.”

  Sexy and wild. Was that what I was going to attempt to be that night? Even though Candy knew nothing of my plans or who I had them with, she’d hit the nail right on the head. Jack had awoken a desire in me to be free and go after what I wanted, and wild was definitely a good word to describe what I planned to do.

  Never before in my life had I set out to seduce a man. Not that I didn’t know how to. Well, technically I knew how since I’d read every article available on the subject since women’s magazines featured that topic in every issue. Clearly, I wasn’t the only woman in the world who wanted to be wilder but just never felt right doing it.

  But tonight I would be that seductress every magazine claimed I had inside me. Tonight I would show Jack that I didn’t care about anything else but having him in my bed.

  I looked in the mirror as Candy talked about something concerning the split ends in my hair and blushed a deep red just thinking about wanting a man solely for sex. I was no prude, but for me, sex had always involved some level of togetherness, some sense of commitment from the man to me and vice versa.

  I didn’t want that from Jack Reynolds, though. From him, I wanted the far baser act of sex. I knew he wouldn’t be around for much longer, and I didn’t mind that. He’d ignited a fire inside me to be with a man sexually but not romantically, so his leaving worked perfectly. I didn’t love him or want to spend the rest of my life with him.

  I just wanted to sleep with him.

  Candy jabbed my shoulder with her fingertip. “Did you hear what I asked you, Poppy?”

  Looking behind me, I saw her staring back at me with frustration in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I was lost in a daydream there for a second. What did you say?”

  “I asked you if you were going to just get a trim or did you want something more?”

  Hair stylists always seemed to want to do more. I guessed they were like artists, in a way, and got tired of doing paint by number when they knew they had it in them to create something far more wonderful. I didn’t want one of her creations, though, so I politely begged off a completely new look and stuck with the trim to get rid of the split ends.

  She was silent while she washed my hair in the sink, but it didn’t take long after I sat back in her stylist’s chair for her to mention the Lee Reynolds’ murder. Since she wasn’t a potential suspect in this case, she was far freer with her ideas on this one.

  “I can’t believe what happened to Lee Reynolds. What’s this town becoming when a man like him is killed like that?”

  Her tone sounded genuine. I didn’t know how well she knew our victim, but maybe through gossiping with her I might find out something useful to our investigation. So despite the fact that I knew talking about the case wasn’t what Alex would want me to do, I took Candy’s bait and answered her.

  “From everything I hear, he was a nice man who everyone seemed to love.”

  I watched her face for any reaction, but all I saw was a frown as she nodded her agreement.

  “I only knew him through his wife, but she never said a bad word about him, and trust me, wives come in here all the time to bitch about their husbands. Never once with her, though.”

  Even though I was relatively sure she was referring to Jessica, I played dumb and asked, “Do you mean his first wife or his second?”

  For a moment, Candy seemed surprised by my question, stopping the scissors as they cut the ends of my hair, but then she resumed her work and said, “His second, Jessica. I didn’t know his first wife.”

  Hoping that I wasn’t giving out important information, I said, “Well, even she’s sad about what happened. For an ex-wife, she’s awfully fond of him. I wonder how that made Jessica feel.”

  Candy quickly jumped to her defense. “Oh, she had no problems with the first wife. I know that for a fact. She isn’t that type of person.”

  “Were they friends?” I asked, intrigued by the idea that it was obviously common knowledge that Jessica and Cherise weren’t enemies. But how close were they?

  Once again, Candy stopped cutting my hair. She thought about my very simple question and then answered, “I don’t know if they were friends, but it wasn’t like it is with many ex and current wives. I have a feeling they were very civil whenever they met.”

  For the first time in our investigation, Jessica and Cherise actually spending time around each other had been mentioned. Working to keep my interest tamped down, I merely nodded at her comment and told myself to remember it for later to tell Alex.

  Candy finished cutting my hair and explained she was going to let it air dry as she worked on my nails. I followed her over to the manicure area, and as I sat down in front of her, she said, “I feel so bad for Jessica. She’s a young woman left with nothing. No life insurance at all.”

  Curious as to how she knew this, I asked as she began her work on my fingernails, “Oh? How do you know?”

  “She mentioned it in passing once a few months ago. I told her she needed to change Lee’s mind about getting some, but she said he’d be around for a long time and she didn’t have to worry. If only he’d changed his mind.”

  I couldn’t help feel bad for Jessica Reynolds. If she wasn’t trying to poison her husband through the ill-advised method of using eye drops, she was just as Candy thought—a young widow left with little. Not that she was as poor as most people thought. That fifty thousand dollars in that Pennsylvania bank would help. In truth, though, fifty grand couldn’t replace a loving husband, which by all accounts Lee Reynolds truly was.

  “Did she come into the shop often?”

  Candy finished painting the nails on my right hand a color she said was sinful pink and focused her attention on my left hand. “More often than you,” she said looking up at me. With a smile, she continued, “She used to say that she liked to look pretty for Lee. He adored her too. He did everything for Jessica. She was practically helpless without him.”

  I thought about that statement and had a hard time imagining Jessica helpless. It was true that I had only seen her in grief, but even then she hadn’t looked helpless as much as distraught. Candy seemed to know her better, though, so perhaps she wasn’t the woman I’d made her out to be in my mind.

  “I remember one time last year when Lee had to go out of town he had his brother come stay with Jessica because he didn’t want her left alone even for a few days. That was the kind of man Lee Reynolds was. Always taking care of his wife.”

  “His brother Jack?” I asked, happy to hear something so noble about the man I was about to sleep with tonight.

  She looked up from my ring finger nail and nodded. “Yeah. He had him come stay with her so she wouldn’t have to stay in that townhouse of theirs alone. I remember Jessica telling me she didn’t think it was necessary and wanted Lee to tell Jack not to come, but I told her she deserved to be treated like a queen and to le
t Lee do this for her.”

  “That was very nice of his brother to do that. I don’t know Jack well, but he seems like a good man,” I said more for my own benefit than to further the conversation.

  Candy looked up at me as she swiped the last coat of nail polish on my left pinky finger and arched her eyebrow. “I don’t know how good he is, but he’s certainly good looking. I can’t help but wonder sometimes why Jessica never got together with him since he’s closer to her in age, but it was Lee she loved.”

  Unsure what to say as I suspected by the sparkle in her eye that I wasn’t the only woman in her shop who liked Jack Reynolds, I mumbled, “The heart wants what the heart wants.” It wasn’t particularly insightful and added nothing to our conversation, but Candy didn’t seem to mind my less-than-stellar gossiping skills. She was more than adept at them all on her own.

  She moved to work on my toes, choosing a fire engine red for those nails and explaining that a woman could go a little racier on them since they weren’t seen as often during this time of year. I rarely painted my toenails any color, so I was fine with whatever she chose. The reality was that even though Candy usually didn’t do much of anything with her own appearance, she had remarkable skill at helping others with theirs. So if she suggested red for my toenails, then red they would be.

  A half hour later, after all my nails had been painted and my hair had been styled in a sexy, wavy look that framed my face quite nicely, I was off to my house for that bubble bath I’d planned and a relaxing couple of hours before I had to dress for my date. As I slid into the water, careful not to ruin my hair after pinning it to the top of my head, I let the scent of the bubbles and the vanilla candles scattered around my bathroom ease me into complete relaxation. I couldn’t remember the last time I took a day just for me and treated myself to the works as I had this afternoon. It was long overdue.

  Ten minutes into my bath, my phone vibrated on the small tiled table I kept beside the tub. After drying my hand on a towel, I reached for it and saw a text from Alex.