It was almost ten o’clock. Most of my friends wouldn’t get home from their performances until close to midnight. I pulled the faculty contact list out of my bag and scanned it. Devlyn was my first choice, but calling a guy, even a gay one, and asking him to sleep over felt wrong. Asking Larry to keep me company fell into the Hell No category. That left Felicia. She said she was on a date tonight, but it couldn’t hurt to give her a jingle. Just in case.
Felicia picked up on the first ring. I explained that an intruder had broken into the house and that my aunt had gone to the emergency vet with the dog, leaving me alone. Biting the edge of my nail, I asked if she would be willing to stay the night.
“I would be happy to. Just give me a few minutes to throw some things in an overnight bag and I’ll be right there.”
Yippee. For the first time since I was fifteen years old, I was having a slumber party. Only, this one was designed so I could actually sleep. How strange was that?
I went into the living room to wait for Felicia. The pugs looked up at me as if excited about the party. Too bad they weren’t going to be participating. Hoisting an immobile dog under each arm, I tromped up the stairs and deposited them next to the border collie in my aunt’s bedroom. I then snagged the poodle from my bathroom and added it to the doggie eternal-slumber party. Only one more poodle to go. I looked in the two guest bedrooms and baths. Nope. Not in the living room, dining room, or in the kitchen. I was about to check Millie’s office when the doorbell rang. Felicia was here, and she was dressed to kill in a tight black miniskirt, a shiny fitted red tank, and matching red stilettos.
The minute she walked in the door, she dumped her very large overnight bag on the floor, wrapped her arms around me, and squeezed. “You poor thing. First you walked in on Greg, and now this. I’m just glad you called me.”
“Thanks for coming.” I extricated myself from her arms and took a step back. “Are you sure you don’t mind staying over?”
“Not at all.” She grinned. “This gives us a real chance to get to know each other before school starts. Things have been so crazy with…well, everything this week. A girls’ night is just what the doctor ordered.” She picked up her purple overnight bag. “Where do you want me to sleep? I can change out of these clothes, and the two of us can order a pizza. Do you like hot peppers and pepperoni?”
My stomach did a happy dance. Felicia was a girl after my own heart.
I showed Felicia to one of the guest rooms and called the pizza place. Having the pizza delivery on speed dial was the one good thing that came out of Aunt Millie’s cooking adventures. Twenty minutes later, Felicia strolled into the kitchen wearing gray shorts, a white T-shirt, and no makeup. She had lost the heels and was now sporting fuzzy black sequined slippers.
I grabbed a bottle of white wine from the fridge, popped the cork, and poured two glasses—figuring, if Felicia didn’t want hers, I’d drink it. After the last couple days, I needed to take the edge off.
Felicia hopped onto a stool and took a sip of her wine. “Thanks. I really needed that.”
“Bad date?” I slid onto the stool next to her and took a large gulp of Chardonnay.
She shrugged. “I think I’m doomed to be attracted to the wrong type of man.”
“Broke?”
“Married.” She sighed. “The guy tonight claimed he was divorced.”
“How do you know he’s not?”
She drained her wine. “Trust me. After all the men I’ve dated, I know. The wedding ring tan is a dead giveaway. So is the out-of-the-way date location. Romantic back table my ass. The guy isn’t being romantic. He just doesn’t want to get caught.” I filled her glass, and she smiled. “I guess this one was better than the last one. It’s easier to get rid of a guy after one date. Once you’ve been dating a while, it takes a lot more to shake him loose.”
The doorbell rang, and I went to get the pizza. I tipped the delivery boy, grabbed the very warm, somewhat greasy box, and went back to the kitchen. Felicia grabbed her glass and walked over to the kitchen table as I headed for some plates. I heard the sound of a chair moving on the hardwood floor, then a bloodcurdling scream.
I grabbed a knife out of the butcher block and spun around, ready to do battle with an unwanted intruder. Only there wasn’t anything there.
Still, Felicia kept shrieking. “Get it off! Get it off!” She pushed her chair back so hard the chair tipped backward, sending her to the floor. That got her screaming even harder. Legs flailing, she struggled to her knees. I hurried over to help her up. She took one look at the knife in my hand and went white.
Oops. I put down the knife and hauled her up. “Are you okay?”
Her frown said no, but she nodded her head yes as she backed away from the table and plastered herself against a wall.
“What freaked you out?”
“I think there’s something alive down there.” She pointed to underneath the table, and I squatted to take a look.
Oh God. I shook my head and groaned. Sadly, the thing was most definitely not alive. Sitting under the table, as if waiting for scraps, was the missing taxidermied poodle.
“The good news is there is nothing alive under here,” I said, trying not to feel ridiculous. How do you explain a lifeless animal camping out under your kitchen table? “My aunt really loves her pets, and well…” I was at a loss for words so I kneeled down and hauled the poodle out into the open.
Felicia’s eyes opened wide as she and the glass-eyed dog stared at each other. She clapped a hand over her mouth, and her shoulders started to shake. Giggling, she asked, “Your aunt had her dog stuffed?”
“Technically, this isn’t even her dog. But most of the ones upstairs are.”
“There are more?”
I nodded.
Felicia let out a surprised, spitting laugh. When she recovered, she asked, “How many?”
As far as embarrassing moments went, this ranked up there with the time a college date took me to the zoo and a llama spit in my face. The llama managed to lodge a loogie in the top of my hair, which I learned about after walking through most of the zoo looking for a bathroom. I gave my date credit for not laughing at me. The rest of the people in the park weren’t as kind.
Cringing, I looked at Felicia and slowly held up four fingers.
“Can I see them?”
I tried to decide whether she was just humoring me. Nope. Felicia looked fascinated. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as the llama after all. I smiled and asked, “Can we eat pizza first?”
After six slices of pizza (they were small, I swear), Felicia and I tromped up the stairs in search of Millie’s prize petrified pooches. Felicia swayed going up the stairs. She had finished the rest of the bottle of Chardonnay and started in on a bottle of Bordeaux. Felicia was feeling no pain.
I hit the light switch in Aunt Millie’s room and put the stray poodle on the floor with the rest of the clan. I’d unconsciously arranged them so they were in a circle facing one another. If I got a deck of cards and a couple of visors, they would look like the Dogs Playing Poker picture my college boyfriend had hanging on his wall.
Felicia snorted. “I should have thought about taxidermy for my last boyfriend. The glassy eyes would have been a good look for him.”
Yikes. “Stuffing someone with sawdust is a pretty stiff price to pay for adultery.” Although not the worst idea I’d ever heard.
“Maybe.” She frowned and sat down on the edge of Millie’s bed. “You probably don’t have the same guy problems I do.”
She was right. I didn’t have a guy so there were no problems to be had. Of course, Aunt Millie thought that was the problem. “Is it a problem that I’m attracted to gay men?”
Her eyes lit up. “Devlyn?”
I sat down next to her on the chartreuse bedspread. “Is it obvious?”
“Not at all. I just know the feeling. He’s sweet and considerate and sexy as hell. I tried to jump him at a faculty party when I first started working at Prospect Glen three ye
ars ago. Then he introduced me to his boyfriend, Phillip.” She sighed. “I should have known better. All the good guys are gay or taken.”
“I’ve only known Devlyn for two days, but he seems like a great friend.”
She smiled. “He is. Nobody worries more about my bad dating habits than Devlyn. He wants the whole world to be happy.”
“That’s the vibe I got.” After the violence and threats of the past couple of days, it was nice to have my impressions confirmed. “Funny, but he actually said the cops should be considering him as a suspect in Greg Lucas’s murder.”
“Makes sense to me.” Felicia nodded her head so hard she almost fell over.
I caught her and returned her to a seated position. “Devlyn doesn’t seem like the type to hate anyone enough to kill them.”
“You know the saying about the fine line between love and hate?” she whispered. “It’s true.”
I blinked. “Devlyn and Greg?” Ewwww. The thought made the pizza in my stomach roll.
“You never saw Greg in action. He always knew just what to say to make men and women want to please him. Why else do you think Devlyn agreed to work on North Shore’s musical last year?”
“Money?” That’s why I was doing the show choir thing.
She shook her head. “I know love when I see it. Devlyn wanted to please Greg because he loved him. Greg used that love to get what he wanted and then threw it away. Being hurt like that can make a person do things they never thought themselves capable of.”
“Do you actually think Devlyn killed Greg?”
“I don’t know. He could have. His office is right next to the theater. It would have been easy for him to do.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “But Larry’s been acting really strange, too, and he and Greg have hated each other since their college days.”
“Larry and Greg went to college together?”
“Greg told me they met their freshman year and were best friends.” Felicia yawned. “They even created a singing group together that won a bunch of awards. Hard to believe, right? Like I said—a fine line between love and hate.”
A liquored-up Felicia was a fount of knowledge. I wanted to keep asking questions, but her eyes were getting droopy so I walked her to the guest room instead and said good night. Then I checked all the locks to make sure they were latched, while wondering whether Devlyn could really be a murderer. If he had the kind of feelings for Greg that Felicia claimed, he might actually have a motive.
Heading back to my own bedroom, I checked my phone for messages. Maybe Millie had called again or maybe Detective Mike. Nothing. Drat. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the kitchen knife still sitting on the desk and moved it to the end table just in case. Then I turned off the light, trying not to feel strangely unsettled that Killer wasn’t hogging the covers.
I was on my third cup of very strong coffee when Aunt Millie slowly walked through the kitchen door. Her makeup was freshly done, helping her look like she’d had a good night’s rest. I wasn’t fooled. I could see shadows underneath the expertly applied concealer. Aunt Millie had a tough night.
Swallowing hard, I asked, “Is Killer all right?”
She looked at me and smiled. “He’s fine. They want to watch him for a few more hours. I’ll bring him home this afternoon.”
My heart did a happy dance as I crossed the room to give Aunt Millie a hug. Then, knowing she needed it, I grabbed the coffeepot and poured her a cup. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“More than I thought I would.” She sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh. “I was going to call you when I got the news, but it was after one. I didn’t want to wake you.”
That wouldn’t have been a problem. Even with Felicia in the house, I jumped at noises until well after two.
Aunt Millie sipped at her coffee and leaned back in the chair. She stretched her feet out and frowned. “Where’s Leopold?”
“Who?”
“LouAnne’s poodle, Leopold. Oh my God.” She sat up straight in her chair. “The intruder must have taken him.” Millie pulled out her BlackBerry and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?”
“The police. They have to know there’s a dognapper on the loose.”
I stopped her before she hit send. “The intruder didn’t take Leopold. I didn’t want to spend the night alone, so I asked a friend to come over. Leopold startled her.”
“That’s a relief.” Millie clapped a hand over her chest. “Who’s the friend?”
“Me.” Felicia walked through the door and headed for the coffeepot. I’d left a bottle of aspirin on the counter just in case she needed it. From the way she was holding her head, I was guessing she did. She shook a couple aspirin out of the bottle and washed them down with coffee. Turning, she smiled at Aunt Millie. “I’m sorry to hear about your dog. Is he going to be okay?”
“He is.” Millie straightened her shoulders and no longer looked tired as she beamed. “I was just telling Paige that he’ll be coming home later today.”
Felicia added four spoonfuls of sugar to her coffee and took a hit. “I’m happy to hear that. Head wounds can be really dangerous.”
“That’s what the vet said. Killer is lucky he’s got such a hard head, and Paige is lucky to have a friend like you to stay with her after last night’s ordeal.”
“It was nothing.” Felicia waved her off. “Actually, she did me a favor. I was looking for a way to ditch my date early. Paige gave me a great excuse.” She looked down at her watch and sighed. “I have to get going if I’m going to get my workout in this morning. Call me later and let me know if the police have any leads about your intruder.”
After I walked Felicia out to her car, I went back to the kitchen. Millie had her head on the table. Her eyes were closed, and she was snoring softly. For the first time in a long while, I could see all sixty-four years etched on her face. The strain of almost losing Killer had taken its toll. Seeing my aunt looking so tired and fragile made the fear I’d been carrying since last night disappear. Now I was pissed.
I marched into the living room and called Detective Mike on my cell, hoping he had information about the murder, the break-in, or both. The way he barked his name when answering fueled my anger. It wasn’t a rational reaction, but I didn’t particularly care.
Skipping the niceties, I asked, “Do you have any leads on the break-in at my aunt’s house?”
“I would have called you if I did.”
Somehow I doubted that.
Mike didn’t give me a chance to fire off a witty comeback. “Is your aunt home? I’d like to stop by and ask her a few questions.”
I peeked back into the kitchen. Aunt Millie was still out cold. “You’ll have to wait.”
“The sooner I talk with her, the sooner I solve this case.”
Yeah, right.
I snapped my phone shut, nudged Millie awake, and helped her up to her bedroom. Covering her with a quilt, I realized the killer breaking into Millie’s house was my fault. I’d put her at risk. Maybe Mike was doing everything he could to solve the case, but he had to do things by the book. That took time. Who knew how much time I had until the killer decided to come after me and my family again? I had no other choice. I had to find Greg’s murderer first.
Grabbing another cup of coffee, I trudged up the stairs to my room. The bright red stain on the carpet strengthened my resolve to find the person behind Killer’s attack. I took a seat at my desk and opened a game of solitaire. The mindless clicking gave me something to do while I let my brain think.
So far I’d been talking to people who would make good suspects. Unfortunately, while all of them had a motive, none of them were itching to confess. Maybe it was time to go at this a different way and start taking a better look at Greg Lucas himself. If I could figure out why he was killed, that would help me narrow down the suspect pool. Felicia mentioned that Larry and Greg were the best of friends during their college years. That seemed as good a place as any to start digging i
nto Greg’s past.
Shutting down solitaire, I opened up Facebook and typed in Larry’s name. He had friended me as soon as I was hired. His posts were mostly about his allergies and his dietary habits so I rarely paid attention. Now I was interested in his school history.
Ha! Larry had attended the University of Illinois, which meant Greg had, too. I typed Larry’s and Greg’s names into a search engine along with the U of I and hit enter. Yikes. There were thousands of entries. A lot of guys named Larry and Greg had passed through the University of Illinois over the years. I started clicking on the entries.
Drat. None of the mentions on the first three pages featured my guys. I added music to the search and hit enter. Now there were hundreds of entries. Better, but this was still a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack. I took a swig of coffee and started scanning the entries.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Wait.
On the bottom of the fourth page was a link to a U of I alum’s blog called Barbershop and Buddies. I clicked through and read the bio of blog owner, Jimmy Waldorf. He was a business manager by day and a barbershop singer by night. He listed lots of groups he’d sung in, including Members Only—a male a cappella group from University of Illinois. I rolled my eyes at the name.
I searched through the blog for any mention of Members Only and learned that the group had a lot of success on and off campus. They performed at schools around central Illinois, at corporate events, and at U of I music concerts. Judging by Jimmy’s posts, his entire college experience was wrapped up in Members Only. Too bad for him. But good for me, because Jimmy had taken lots and lots of pictures. Twenty years had passed and hairlines had changed, but standing in the middle of the group were Larry and Greg.
Huh. Now that I’d found young Larry and Greg, I wasn’t sure what to do with them.
I clicked around the blog entries trying to decide. Maybe I could talk to Jimmy about the Members Only golden days. If Larry and Greg started their feud during college, chances were Jimmy would know about it. The blog said he was from the Chicago area. I wondered if he was still here.
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