Kyle looked tired as he mouthed I want to go home.
Me, too, I mouthed back.
Sorry, he mouthed. He looked pointedly at my arm and knitted his eyebrows.
I’m okay, I replied, waving one bruised hand. Then I started looking around for an escape route.
While Tony was distracted with the nurse, I twitched a divider curtain out of the way and made my exit.
The hospital was quiet that Tuesday night, and I didn’t encounter anyone I knew on my way outside.
Night had fallen. The parking lot looked creepy in the darkness, as did the hill I would need to traverse to return to the police station to get my car and phone. I switched my purse to my left shoulder, which wasn’t as sore, then back to my right, where I could use it as a makeshift sling. I was lucky my injuries hadn’t been worse, but acknowledgement of fortune doesn’t do much to diminish pain. At least the pills the doctor had given me were kicking in.
By the time I crossed the park and traversed several neighborhoods, I was feeling fine. Fine enough to run a quarter marathon. In a furry monster suit.
I retrieved my car and my phone and drove home, my mind pleasantly blank.
After a long day that had started with Tony banging on my door and only gotten crazier from there, all I wanted to see was my cat and my pillow, preferably at the same time.
It was nearly ten o’clock when I reached my driveway and first obstacle since the billboard that tried to kill me. I couldn’t park in my usual spot due to it being occupied.
The vehicle was a lime-green Volkswagen Beetle I knew well. I’d seen the car all over town, still sporting dents in the front bumpers. The dents had been acquired back in February, when the Beetle’s owner used the car as a battering ram to push my car out of her way. That had happened right after the mud wrestling. My ribs, which hadn’t been injured in the evening’s car crash, ached in memory of the pummeling I’d taken.
I parked on the street and walked up the driveway toward my front door, watching the Beetle warily.
The car’s front doors popped open, and two women stepped out.
My day of craziness wasn’t over yet.
Chapter 27
All I wanted was a hot bath... to use for drowning anyone who stood in the way of me hitting the hay.
The driver of the green Beetle was exactly who I expected: Della. And with her was another raven-haired woman I’d never seen before.
Della ran toward me. I’d never wanted a cane sword of my own so badly.
“Stormy,” she gushed. “I found her. I found our witness.”
“Our witness?” I turned to the other woman and asked, “You work at the Koenig Estate?”
She blinked, frowned, and answered, “No, ma’am. I’m Saundra, and I work at the Turtledove, up in Seattle.”
Della’s eyes caught the light of the streetlamp and blazed at me. “Do you even know what’s going on?” she demanded. “Do you know who this is?” She pointed to Saundra. “Do you know what she’s worth?”
Saundra wore the gray-and-white uniform of the Turtledove, a prestigious boutique hotel in Seattle, Washington. She didn’t seem to be alarmed by people discussing her value. She looked at me with a hopeful expression.
“That’s Saundra,” I said to Della slowly, buying time to put the puzzle pieces together. “Saundra... from the Turtledove. It’s a lovely hotel, by the way. I’ve stayed there twice, once for business and once for pleasure. We were in the presidential suite.”
Saundra looked even more hopeful. “Was it after the renovation? That suite has its own steam room now.”
“Really? I’ll have to make another trip up there someday.”
Della made an exasperated sound as I shook hands with Saundra, the three of us still standing in my driveway.
“It’s nice to meet you, Saundra,” I said. “You must be the witness for the wedding. And Della brought you here to get a notarized statement.”
Saundra looked at Della for guidance. For a moment, I worried I had guessed wrong.
Della answered for her, “Yes, of course. And she was the witness to the will, too.”
I nodded slowly. “A witness for the wedding and the will. Saundra, you look like you left town in a hurry.”
“Yes. In a hurry,” she answered. The whites of Saundra’s eyes were quite visible, giving her a frightened appearance and causing me some concern.
Leaning in so I could ask her a question without Della overhearing, I whispered, “Are you here of your own free will? Blink twice if you’ve been kidnapped.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners, but she didn’t blink. Either she was there of her own volition or she was just scared of Della. I was actually glad to see Saundra was nervous. It meant she was a legitimate witness. If Della had paid off an accomplice to lie for her, they would act more confident and eager to help.
Della, meanwhile, was on my front step, standing under the motion-sensing safety light as though it were a stage spotlight. She seemed to come to life under the brightness.
“Oh how I miss my boo, my sweet, silver-haired boo!” Della’s words had a melodic quality, as though she were singing. “Deets wanted to take care of me, good care of me, sweet tender care of me,” she spoke-sang.
Saundra said to me, “He really did. I was there to sign their papers to witness the marriage, and he said since I was there anyway, I could put my name on his Last Will and Testament. I thought the old guy was joking around.” She gave me a knowing look, eyebrows raised. “Rich people get up to all sorts of crazy stuff. I’ve seen things.”
Della continued to speak-sing about her boo, some of it nonsensical, transitioning into humming.
“Della, what was the champagne for? Dieter was getting a caterer for a party at the mansion.”
She sang her response, “A party? For me?”
“Probably to announce the marriage,” I said. “Did you know about the party?”
Her eyes grew sad. “There won’t be a party,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t know, or I’d be even more brokenhearted now.”
“I should warn you that Dieter’s sons are trying to figure out what the party was for. They’re not going to be very happy when they find out.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Not very happy at all. Silly boys.”
“I wonder if the party was just about the announcement or if he was planning to have another ceremony. Are you sure that first one was legal?”
Della only laughed.
I looked around my dark driveway sheepishly. She wouldn’t have gone up to Seattle to kidnap Saundra if the ceremony hadn’t been legal.
Either way, this wasn’t a conversation for my driveway.
I asked Saundra, “Are you two here to see Della’s lawyer? The lights on his side aren’t on, so he’s probably still at the office.”
“Doesn’t he live here? This Logie guy? Della told me we’re staying here tonight.” She looked me up and down, stopping at my bruised arm, which was resting atop my purse. “She said we’d be safe here, because you’re a detective and you have special training. Like a bodyguard.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Well, if you’re staying at Casa Day, I guess I should unlock the door and let you in.” I stepped into the spotlight with Della and nudged her out of the way so I could get my key in the lock. Jessica was working a late shift, and we’d locked up when we left for our trip to see the countess.
As I pushed open the front door, Saundra pointed at my arm. “Did you get those bruises beating someone up?”
“Yes,” I said, stretching the truth. “But you should have seen the other guy. I left him in pieces.”
Chapter 28
"This is where you live,” Della said, more statement than question.
“Thanks,” I said—automatically, since people usually offered a compliment when they entered my home.
“You just moved in,” she said.
“Almost a year ago.”
“Maybe you should hire a decorator,” she
said. “Does that big wall have to be there?” She pointed to the wall separating my side from Logan’s.
“Not forever,” I said. “Make yourselves comfortable. Would you like some tea? The kettle’s right here, and the tea’s in the cupboard.”
“Do you have mint tea?” Della asked. “That’s what I’d love right now.”
Saundra, who was in the living room petting Jeffrey, chimed in, “Mint tea sounds great.”
With a sigh, I filled the kettle. I’d been hoping to escape their company to have a hot shower and rinse off the grime that had settled on me during the car chase and crash, but no such luck.
I got the two women settled in the living room with big, steaming mugs of mint tea. The mint must have been chemically similar to catnip because Jeffrey snagged a dry teabag and carried it off to be destroyed in private.
I reviewed the messages that had accumulated on my phone. There was a request from Logan that I “babysit" Della and the star witness for a few hours while he lined up a place for Saundra to spend the night.
I send him a text message: They’re here now. If it’s just one night, she’s welcome to my sofa. I hope she likes having a cat groom her eyebrows.
Logan messaged back immediately: Saundra is skittish and only agreed to come to Misty Falls if we provided a bodyguard. Don’t sweat it. I’ve already got one lined up.
Me: Do I dare ask who?
Logan: I’ll be home soon.
Me: Is it you? Are you the bodyguard? Or is it me?
Logan: It’s a professional. I have to get some work done now. Call me if there’s an emergency.
I sent him one of my favorite signoff emoticons—a gray cat waving one paw—and plugged my phone into the charger.
I joined the two women in my living room, saying, “Sorry for the lack of organization and communication. I’ve had a very hectic day.”
Saundra looked at my arm again. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“Already been. I’m not broken.” I wiggled my fingers to show her the arm was still working, albeit sporting some funky shades of purple.
Della showed no signs of concern over my arm. “At least you’re still alive,” she said. “Unlike my old boyfriend, who died too young.” She explained to Saundra, “He was murdered. And now my new boyfriend, my sweet boo, is gone. He was old, but he was still too young. I don’t think he was murdered, but you never know, do you?”
Saundra, who’d been sitting on the front edge of the room’s armchair, abruptly stood. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “My mama told me to stay clear of this crazy business. I should have listened to my mama.”
“Everything’s going to be fine,” I said. Then I grabbed all of my emergency junk food and started spreading it out across the coffee table like a kid’s Halloween haul of trick-or-treat candy. “You just need a snack after your long road trip.”
By the time the coffee table was covered in a rainbow of the finest snack foods money could buy, Saundra had settled back into the chair.
I sat next to Della and told her, softly “You might want to lay off on the M-word in front of your star witness. Besides, only one of your boyfriends has been murdered so far. What happened with Dieter might have been an accident.”
She turned to me, her brown eyes glossy, and I caught a glimpse of the vulnerable girl underneath the larger-than-life stage personality.
“Do you really believe it was an accident?” she asked.
“People do have accidents,” I said. “Can you think of any reason why he might have slipped on the diving board? Did you ever use the board right after applying suntan oil?”
“I don’t like diving in,” she said. “My hair takes forever to get straight again if I get it wet.”
“How do you think your suntan oil got onto the diving board?”
“My suntan oil was on the diving board?” She frowned and looked away. “The pictures,” she said. “On the day before he died, on Saturday, Dieter took some pictures of me posing on the diving board.”
“Standing? I’m trying to figure out how much of your body might have been touching the diving board.”
Della looked to Saundra and then to me. “A lot,” she said shyly. “I’d say a lot of my body was touching the diving board.”
“You were nude?”
“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” She sat up straighter. “But I didn’t like how the pictures turned out, so I made him delete them off his phone. He was going to take more pictures, but I wouldn’t let him. I felt like I was being watched. More than usual.”
“Were the staff watching you? Who was it? Erica the maid? Randy the butler?”
Della crossed her arms. “I think the sons were watching me.”
“But they were in New York on Saturday. They only flew home on Sunday.”
She kept her arms crossed and rubbed her upper biceps. “It’s just a feeling I got. You know how sometimes you walk into a room and you feel like someone you don’t like was just there a minute before? It was like that. I felt like the brothers were watching me on the diving board that day.”
“How about the staff? How did you get along with them?”
“Just fine,” she said. “I’ll probably keep them all. Except the butler. Randy gets a little too invested in organizing the drawer where I keep my underwear, if you know what I mean.” She winked.
Saundra interjected, “Perv?”
“He takes a lot of cold showers,” Della said. “If I give him any attention at all, he’s got to run off on some errand, and when he does come back, his hair’s wet.”
Saundra nodded. “Perv. I know the type. At the hotel, we keep them away from the guests. Most wind up in the kitchen, where they can perv on each other to their heart’s content.”
“Randy’s hair was wet on Sunday,” I said. “And he wasn’t fully dressed.”
Della laughed. “Sounds like Randy. I probably gave him too much eye contact.”
“But you couldn’t have, because you were asleep,” I said. “Weren’t you sleeping during the accident? And then sleeping straight through until the police showed up?”
The smile fell off her face. “My memory is foggy,” she said. “I did get up for a bit. Deets woke me up because we had that breakfast meeting with Logie. I started getting ready, and I had to go wandering around searching for whichever bathroom I used the night before, to get my hair stuff.”
“Were you wandering around naked? I heard the police found you sleeping in a guest room without a stitch of clothes on.”
Her nostrils flared. She spat out, “What are you saying?”
“I’m just trying to get a feel for what happened that morning.”
“That’s not what I’m paying you for,” she said.
I leaned back and held my hands up. “My bad. Hazard of the trade. I ask too many questions.”
Saundra interjected, “You are asking her a lot of questions.”
I offered her a friendly grin. “I hope you’re not feeling left out. I have questions for you, too.”
She ripped into a bag of M&Ms. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” she said. “Shoot.”
“Did you really witness the wedding?”
She crunched on the candies. “Of course I did. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I can prove I was there.”
“You have photos?” I asked.
“No,” she said, crunching away on the candies as she put her phone into her purse quickly. “Della said she didn’t want any pictures, because she was afraid of people selling them to the gossip sites.”
I nodded. “Sure, that’s what she told you. But that only made you more interested in pictures, didn’t it?”
Saundra gave me a dirty look. “You really do ask a lot of nosy questions.”
“Doesn’t change the fact you’ve got photos,” I said. “You took another half a dozen of Della on the sofa when she wasn’t paying attention. I saw you from the kitchen.”
Saundra crossed her legs. “S
o what?”
Della jumped up and launched herself at Saundra. Lucky for the hotel maid, I’d anticipated such a thing and caught Della with my good arm before she could get a handful of Saundra’s dark locks.
Saundra grabbed her purse, clutched it to her chest, and gave me a wild-eyed look. I sensed that she was a good person, just young and in way over her head.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I said as I wrangled Della back down onto the sofa and sat myself on her lap to keep her there.
Della squawked in protest, but she had no leverage.
I told Saundra, “You’re not in trouble, I promise. Just email me a copy of the photos so we have them for the file.”
Della squawked angrily, “Those pictures are illegal!”
Saundra retorted, “I have to look after myself! I don’t have a sugar daddy!”
“You’re going to delete those photos!”
“Maybe I will,” Saundra said. “I’ll delete them right now and tell everyone I was nowhere near your suite that night. I don’t know who forged my name on the paperwork.”
Della practically screamed.
“Don’t be hasty,” I said to Saundra. “Send me the photos. Then let Della look through them and delete the ones she doesn’t like. You can sell the rest.”
“I can sell them?” Saundra looked surprised.
“You’ll have Della’s blessing, but don’t tell the press that.”
“No!” cried Della. “I won’t let you. Those pictures are personal and private.”
I turned to put my face in hers. I was close enough to smell her lip gloss. “You can delete the bad pictures if you don’t like how you look in them. Let her keep a couple good ones that she can sell. Does that work for you?”
Della gave me a confused look. “Why would I let her sell the pictures?”
“Because you can’t buy publicity like leaked scandal photos. And don’t you want your own TV show?”
Della’s expression gradually softened, and she stopped trying to get out from underneath me.
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