by Quinn Avery
“We still are,” she promised without turning around. She had a hot date with a shower and a boatload of concealer.
6
The moment she stepped inside Iman Rihan’s studio, Bexley was fully aware that she was way out of her league, and wished she'd coerced Kiersten into coming along as her interpreter. Bexley tugged at the navy blouse that had been laundered and pressed by Dean’s staff while she was away. A handful of patrons browsed through the high-end boutique, admiring the untraditional displays like they were a rare work of art at Museum of Modern Art. The open-air space with a friggen live magnolia tree smack in the middle of the building threw her off more than the little man in a colorful suit with spiky hair who rushed to greet her at the double doors like she was toting a grenade launcher. “Can I help you?” he prodded in a nasally tone. “I’m sorry, but…are you lost?”
“Aren’t we all?” She peered around him to watch as a stream of water against a wall suspended in calculated spots to spell out the designer’s name. “I’m Bexley Squires. I have an appointment with Iman.”
The man shot his arm out to consult with an oversized watch strapped to his wrist. “You’re early, Miss Squires. Perhaps you’d feel more comfortable waiting outside with the other vagabonds.”
Bexley reached into her bag. “Sounds to me like someone could use a Snickers.”
His tight scowl lifted when he saw the king-sized candy bar she’d purchased earlier at the gas station. He plucked it from her hand. “Ohmygod, you have no idea. I’ve been here since six a.m. without any break whatsoever. I’m tempted to gnaw my own arm off before my body kicks into starvation mode.” When he leaned back and took her arm in his, his demeanor dramatically shifted. He was all at once bright and bubbly, as if they were the oldest of friends. “Tell you what, Bex…I’ll hook you up with a glass of champagne while you wait for Iman.”
“Now you’re speaking my language,” Bexley sang, scurrying to keep up with his determined pace. If she’d learned one valuable life lesson during her career as a journalist, it was that people who took themselves too seriously simply needed a reminder to lighten up or eat.
The man escorted her back to an even more bizarre room painted purple from top to bottom. A set of live doves cooed from an intricate cage front and center as Prince trilled their theme song from speakers expertly camouflaged somewhere within the walls.
“He was Iman’s favorite musician—she never quite got over his death,” the man disclosed in a scandalized whisper. “She had this room redecorated immediately after she visited Paisley Park. She says it helps others to better understand the significance of his work.”
As the man retrieved a champagne flute and a bottle from a hidden bottle cooler, Bexley shook her head. She doubted she would ever understand the quirky spending habits of the rich and famous. If she had that kind of money, she’d be happy with a simple house with an actual backyard, and the kind of privacy in which she didn’t have to listen to the boisterous neighbors’ shenanigans all hours of the night. The most elaborate item she’d be willing to splurge on would involve a vacation on an island that came with unlimited umbrella drinks and her own cabana boy.
“Drink up, sweetie,” the man said, handing her a sparkling glass filled to the rim. His eyes flickered to her poor attempt at hiding the discoloring around her eye. “Looks like you could use a pick me up and a facial.”
The same moment Bexley swallowed her first sip of the bubbly liquid, a willowy woman with silky black hair down to her elbows and flawless caramel skin came into the room. Glided in would be a better way of putting it. The woman’s simple gauze dress in a bright coral covered her feet, adding to the illusion that she was floating.
“You’re Bexley Squires?” the woman asked in a rich, rolling tone that would insinuate she was amused by a commoner’s presence.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Rihan. This shouldn’t take much of your time.” Bexley held the champagne flute against her chest while scrambling to retrieve her phone from her handbag. The weight of the woman’s impatient stare sent a nervous rush through her chest as she quickly retrieved the images. “I merely wanted to ask what you know about the last whereabouts of these shoes. I was told they played a significant role in your career.”
The woman bent over Bexley’s phone, sending her dark hair cascading around her bare shoulders. Shock registered in her cappuccino-colored stare for a mere second before she straightened, perfectly poised. The look she gave Bexley was tinged with displeasure. “May I ask where you procured these images?”
“From an anonymous source.” Bexley waved a hand through the air to dismiss the subject from any further speculation. “I understand you normally keep them under lock and key. I’m assuming you were already aware they were missing?”
“They’re not missing,” Iman snapped. “They’ve been entrusted to a valued client.”
“Then you might want to have a chat with this client of yours, because they were last seen in the possession of a pothead who considered them a catchy prop for his vlog.”
Iman wavered on her feet for a moment, almost as if she would faint. Her assistant rushed to her side dramatically and gripped her arm. “I’m fine, Andrew,” she insisted. “I just need a moment.”
“I’ll fetch a mineral water,” he told her. Andrew eyed Bexley with a cautious glance before leaving the two women alone.
Bexley took a small, cautious step closer to the distraught woman. “Look, Ms. Rihan. I understand that you can’t treat your client’s anonymity lightly, but these shoes—”
“Stilettos,” Iman hissed.
“—stilettos are unfortunately involved in something rather grim. It would help immensely if I could speak with the person who last had them in their possession. My employer is determined to get to the bottom of this situation by any means necessary. I know he’d be willing to provide you with a financial reward for any helpful information you had to offer.”
“No amount of money is going to persuade me to break my client’s confidence.”
Bexley huffed, her patience wearing thin. She was so close to having a breakthrough in the murder. “What if I told you the life of a young woman depended on it, and you’re the only one who could help her?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Would that change your mind?”
Iman turned her back on Bexley and stepped away, regarding the pair of doves up close. Wistfully running her fingertips along the delicate bars of the white cage, she released a slow, careful breath. “I don’t want to cause any trouble. He’s been so kind and supportive of my brand. When I recently inquired as to why the stilettos hadn’t been returned, he sent a check for half their worth, and asked that I allow him to keep them awhile longer.”
“Who is it?” Bexley prodded. “Who’s this client?”
“What is this about? What grim matter are you investigating?” Iman spun around, looking rather pale. “Does this have something to do with Dean Halliwell’s recent arrest?”
Bexley’s heart stuttered. “Why would you ask that?”
Eyes hard, Iman crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “Because he’s the client who was last in possession of the stilettos.”
Since catching the man watching her with binoculars on the beach, Bexley still felt the persistent suspicion that she was being followed. In route to the address Dean provided where he was meeting with his agent, she was sure she was being tailed by a black sedan. With a start, she noticed it was the same make and model as Grayson’s detective car. Had he been upset enough to follow her when she wouldn’t disclose the details of her conversation with Tehya? She made a few unnecessary turns in case she wasn’t just being paranoid.
Less than a half hour after leaving Iman’s, she spotted Dean outside a contemporary coffee shop at a small table beneath an umbrella. It was obvious he was trying to mask his identity with dark aviators, brim of his baseball hat pulled low, but there was no mistaking the deep timbre of his voice as Bexley neared. She was taken aback w
hen he shoved away from the table to rush to her side, curling an arm around her and resting it on the small of her back. The gesture was so intimate, like there was something more complex to their relationship, and the concern on his face made her stomach fold over itself. “What the hell happened?”
Belatedly, she remembered her eye, and brushed it off with a nervous laugh. “The perils of finding a decent parking spot in this city.”
He held her gaze, practically oozing with concern. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded more forcefully.
She scoffed, deciding he was also one of those who took himself too seriously—aside from being accused of murder. “Relax. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”
Grinding his teeth together, he gestured to the middle aged woman still seated across from him. “Bexley Squires, this is my agent Paula Adams.”
Thin lips drawing down in a grimace, his agent glared in Bexley’s direction. From the deep wrinkles that creased the woman’s cheeks and the space between her deep-set eyes, Bexley got the impression she wasn’t the happy-go-lucky type even before her client’s exile from Hollywood. “I’m going for a smoke,” she told her client. “Try not to draw any attention while I’m gone. Last thing you need is to be linked to another tragic, hot piece of ass.”
“It was lovely meeting you,” Bexley called out as the woman stomped away. In all honesty, she was a little flattered. She wasn’t sure she'd been called “a hot piece of ass” since college. With a plastic smile, she turned to Dean. “She must be fun at parties.”
He let out a short chuckle, proving he wasn’t a lost cause after all. Then he touched one of her shoulders. “Everything all right? You sounded a little…worked up on the phone.”
Bexley noticed two teenage girls at a table nearby, extending their cellphones to document the train wreck chatting with America’s former heart throb. His agent was right. They needed to be careful not to tarnish his reputation any further. She lightly pushed on Dean’s arm, gesturing toward the parking lot. “This is the kind of conversation you don’t want going viral anytime soon.”
She led him to her car, hyper aware of the fact that his hand slid from her shoulder to her back, before anchoring around her waist. She supposed he was only being gentlemanly, but his touch awakened a part of her that had no business making an appearance. Especially if he was truly linked to the shoes, the stilettos, found on the victim.
Once they were seated behind closed doors, Bexley showed him the pictures on her phone. “What can you tell me about these?”
Dean flinched. It was obvious he recognized them on first glance. “Where’d you find them? They’ve been missing for months!”
“First tell me when you remember last seeing them.”
“Iman loaned them to me for a charity benefit put on by one of my former costars.” He removed his hat and slowly dragged a hand through his hair, eyes flickering to the ceiling. “Temperance and I were going through a rough patch…I thought maybe the shoes would be a nice gesture. She was easily impressed by expensive things—especially anything that was one-of-a-kind.”
Based on what she'd read about his ex’s style of living, Bexley didn’t doubt what he was saying was true. Rumor had it; the social media goddess once dropped a cool million on a rare breed of ankle-biter. “Iman mentioned that when she inquired about their whereabouts, you paid her an obscene amount to keep them a little longer.”
He turned to face her, eyes darkened. “Because I couldn’t find them! My ex must’ve taken them with the rest of her things when she moved out. I was worried Iman would sue me for their full value. It was only supposed to be a security deposit. You can imagine my dismay when she cashed the damn check.” Again, he ran a hand through his hair while shaking his head. “I don’t understand. Why were you talking with Iman? What do these shoes have to do with anything?”
“The witnesses who first found the victim claim she was wearing them.”
“What do you mean ‘claim’? Where are the shoes now?”
“They were destroyed.”
“Dammit!” he roared, slamming a fist into the dashboard. When he caught Bexley’s surprised reaction to his outburst, he tossed his cap onto her dashboard and muttered, “Iman’s going to have my ass.”
“The cops are unaware of their existence because the witnesses stole them off her feet before they got there. Still…this doesn’t look good, Dean. From an outsider’s perspective, all signs indicate you’re more involved than you’re letting on.”
As if he was barely able to contain his anger, his lips drew into a quivering line. “Do you think I would’ve hired you to clear my name if I had actually killed that woman? I asked you to do this because I believe you’re the best at what you do! I knew you’d be able to uncover things the police haven’t! I swear to you, Bexley, the last time I saw those shoes, they were on my ex’s feet!”
She had already weighed the chances that he was guilty once armed with the damning evidence. Since the police didn’t know about the stilettos, Dean could’ve assumed they fell off the victim’s feet, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. She wanted to believe he was innocent, and that she wasn’t working for a cold-blooded killer, but she didn’t have enough evidence. For the time being, she had to assume he was telling the truth, and investigate all other possibilities.
Bexley crossed her arms, sighing. “Is there anyone who has access to your place that maybe has a grudge against you? Or maybe someone who might not be as trustworthy as you thought? A maid? Security guard? Pool boy?”
“You think someone from my staff stole them?”
“I’m not sure. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. What about your brother?”
“What about him?”
“You said he was recently caught stealing.”
“Yeah well he wouldn’t steal anything from me! Besides, he lives in Iowa. I only see him a few times a year, if I’m lucky.”
“If you didn’t give them to the victim, someone removed them from your home.”
Expression becoming relaxed, Dean let his head drop back against the headrest. “I can tell you still doubt me. What’s it going to take for you to believe that I’m telling you the truth?”
“It would help if you showed me where you kept the shoes, and gave me a list of everyone with the security codes to your house, along with their schedules.” Mirroring his pose, she leaned back against the headrest. “And I’ll need to talk to your ex.”
7
With a few calls, Dean learned that Temperance wasn’t scheduled to return to town from a trip overseas for a few days. Bexley left him with his agent, and took advantage of the lull in her schedule to organize a few things. It was likely she wouldn’t be leaving Papaya Springs any time soon, and she needed to quit living out of a suitcase as Dean’s guest. It made her uneasy for too many reasons. She wanted the freedom to spread the evidence out without worrying his staff was spying on her every move, or messing with things while she was gone. And she hadn’t completely ruled Dean out as a suspect. She doubted she could sleep another wink knowing he could have a key to every lock in his house. Besides, it was well within her budget to rent something since confirming Dean’s payment had been deposited.
She called to inquire about a few rental properties, and made an appointment to visit one. Then she stopped by a discount store to print several hard copies of the pictures from Tehya. She sealed an extra set in a manila envelope and sent it to her own post office box in Brooklyn, just in case anything were to happen to her while in California. After Richard Warren’s thugs tried to burn down her last apartment, she’d learned the hard way to cover all her bases.
The sun had sunk far below the horizon by the time she met with the property manager and toured the reasonably priced, fully furnished apartment near Sandy’s diner. The one-bedroom with direct access to the beach seemed almost too sweet to be true. Shortly after she signed the sublease, she was certain the same black sedan she’d seen tailing her in L.A. was pa
rked across from her new residence, its owner nowhere in sight.
Once safely behind the locked door of the apartment, she zoomed in on the vehicle’s license plate with her phone’s camera. It was always best to err on the side of caution. She would check the number against Grayson’s plates during their next visit.
With the meager contents of her suitcase unpacked, and a set of the photos stashed in a ceiling tile in the hallway, she headed a few blocks down to grab a bottle of red wine and Chinese takeout. It had been a long, trying day, and she was famished. Settled into one of the property’s cheap plastic Adirondack chairs, she dug her bare feet into the sand and dined on General Tso's chicken while taking in the stunning view of the moonlight dancing over the dark body of water. She was alone aside from the occasional passing of couples strolling along, hand-in-hand. She missed having direct access to the ocean and loved the way it put her in a Zen-like state of mind, allowing her to think more clearly. If she had the kind of money it took to be one of Papaya Springs’ finest, she’d spend every day for the rest of her life with her feet buried in the sand, doing nothing other than staring out at the breathtakingly beautiful gold and purple sunsets reflected against the ocean.
After meeting with Iman and Dean, her thoughts hadn’t stopped racing. While it was entirely possible someone working for Dean could’ve stolen the stilettos, something that valuable wouldn’t go missing without someone noticing. Wouldn’t he have filed a report with the police if it were as innocent as that? Perhaps he actually had given Iman a check for the purpose of insuring his word. But why wouldn’t he have contacted his ex by now, demanding their return? Something didn’t add up. Someone had to know how those shoes ended up on the victim’s feet.
Once again, her thoughts eventually drifted off to her sister’s whereabouts. After Cineste slept with one of the men under his command, their father had shunned her and cut her off financially. She had been forced to drop out of college, and was in the process of starting a nanny gig. According to their father, Cineste ran off with the man after he stole money from his father—her new employer—at gunpoint. When Bexley tried reaching out to the couple that hired Cineste, the wife refused to engage in conversation, claiming no such thing had happened before abruptly ending the call. Bexley wasn’t convinced the woman had been truthful. She later searched the police reports filed in the couple’s area the night of her sister’s disappearance, and hadn’t found any mention of a domestic disturbance or anything about a robbery.