It was dark, and I figured maybe I'd beaten him there. I leaned to the right to flip on the light switch, illuminating the room. It was much the same as I'd seen it before—minus Gia's personal effects. The bags and suitcase were gone, and the makeup table had been moved out. But the dusty filing cabinets still sat against the wall, along with the built-ins, and a couple of wooden chairs. I wasn't sure if it was the still silence in the air or the fact that a woman had died there, but a round of goose bumps erupted on my arms as I shifted from foot to foot, hoping Grant arrived soon.
Luckily, the sound of another pair of footsteps echoing off the polished floors of the ballroom alerted me that someone was approaching. I shook off the creepy vibe as they approached the dressing room door.
"I'm glad you're here," I started, turning toward the figure entering the doorway. "I was just starting to get a little creeped out—"
But the rest of that thought died on my lips as I saw the figure was not my favorite tall, dark, and imposing member of law enforcement, but the Grecian goddess–clad Jada.
With a shiny black gun in her hand.
Pointed right at me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dozens of thoughts ran through my head at a rapid pace as the barrel of the gun stared back at me. Not the least of which was that I'd been a fool to jump at Jada's bait and walk blindly to an isolated, dark corner of the club. One where a woman had already died. I licked my lips, not wanting to think that the presence of a gun was about to up that body count.
"Wh-what are you doing?" I asked, hearing my voice come out shaky and confused.
Jada shook her head. "I'm so sorry it's come to this, Emmy."
That made two of us.
"Come to what?" I hesitated to ask.
Jada let out a sigh. "If you'd just left it alone, I had everything under control. Everything was going to get better with her gone."
"Her? You mean Gia?" I asked. I took a tentative step backward, trying to create some distance between the weapon and me. Sadly, in the confined space of the dressing room, there wasn't much of anywhere to go. I felt my back come up against the built-in cabinets.
"Gia." Jada said the name on a sneer. "She was poison! Ruined everyone she touched. Hurt everyone around her!"
"So you killed her?" I asked. While the fact she had me at gunpoint was a pretty good clue that I was on the right track there, I was still drawing a blank when it came to why.
"I had to," Jada said, shaking her head again. "She had to be stopped." She sucked in a breath, her nostrils flaring. "She was evil. She deserved it."
From all I'd learned about Gia over the past few days, I had to agree that she hadn't been the most innocent of people. Or scrupulous either. But I wasn't sure anyone deserved to be strangled to death.
However, I had a strict policy never to argue with people with guns. So I kept that opinion to myself.
"What happened?" I asked instead.
Jada shook her head, as if replaying the scene in her mind. "It was all my fault, really. I mean, I never should have trusted her. I should have known better, but I…I was weak." Her face lifted to meet mine, her eyes imploring, as if begging me to understand. "A person can only take so much, you know?"
No, I didn't know. In fact, I was having a hard time piecing together what she was saying. "Take so much of Gia?" I asked.
But she shook her head. "Of being cast aside. Ignored. Of him pretending I don't exist."
"Him? You mean Costello?" I guessed.
She nodded vigorously, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to be someone's dirty little secret? What it feels like to live that way? To be in love and have to hide it? To pretend you're happy the man of your dreams is fawning all over someone else?"
"That must be very difficult," I said, trying at sympathy. Which wasn't too hard to fake. I had, in fact, been sympathetic of Jada's plight. Of course, that was before I'd known she'd murdered her friend.
"Difficult doesn't begin to describe it," she responded. "Every time I have to watch Carl play up to that idiot Fabio, it's like a piece of my heart dies. You understand, right? I was dying inside, and I had no one to turn to!"
"Except Gia," I said, finally putting it together. "That's how she found out about your relationship. You told her?"
The tears spilled over Jada's eyelids, making wet tracks down her cheeks as she nodded. "I-I thought she was my friend. I thought I could confide in her. She pretended to care."
"Maybe she did?" I offered.
Jada sniffed loudly. "Gia only cared about one thing—Gia. She used me. Used what I told her to…" She paused as a sob escaped her.
"To blackmail Costello," I finished for her.
She pursed her lips together to stave off more sobbing and nodded. "You see, it was all my fault?"
"Did Gia tell you she was blackmailing Costello?" I asked. While I was honestly curious how it had all played out, I was also hoping to keep her talking. To distract her long enough to think of some way to get away from the gun in her hand. Which, by the way, looked about as unsteady as her emotions. I couldn't help my eyes tracking its every movement as it bobbed up and down in her hands.
"No," Jada answered. "Gia didn't tell me a thing. She had me fooled. And Carl…he didn't want to worry me. He thought he was protecting me. I didn't know anything about the money he'd been paying her until…until the day of the runway show here."
"What happened?" I asked again. I moved my hands behind me, carefully feeling along the cabinets for anything I might be able to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, no stray letter openers or handy baseball bats had been left sitting around for just such an occasion. Unless I could distract Jada long enough to open a cupboard and throw spare paper towels at her, I was out of luck.
And with her standing between me and the only door out, the walls were suddenly feeling very close, claustrophobia kicking in. Or maybe that was my gun-aphobia.
"What happened?" Jada repeated. "What happened was Gia was greedy! A heartless, greedy woman who was bleeding Carl dry!" The weapon in her hands moved precariously close to me as she waved her arms in the air.
I tried to take another step backwards, but I was out of places to go.
"Gia was demanding more money," Jada went on. "Carl broke down right before we were set to go on stage. The stress—he just couldn't take it anymore. He was so distraught that I knew something was wrong. That's when he finally told me."
"That Gia had been exploiting your friendship for her own gain."
"Exactly!" Jada said, throwing her hands up and nodding as if I finally saw her side. "Poor Carl. I could see the strain of it all crushing him. And, I couldn't stand it." She shook her head. "I couldn't stand that I'd been the cause of it!"
"Gia was blackmailing him, not you," I said softly, trying to calm her. I wasn't a big fan of the way the gun continued to wave wildly. "What she was doing was not your fault."
"But I'd given her the fuel!" Jada argued. "So, I had to fix it. I had to make her stop."
"By killing her," I said.
"I didn't plan to! I-I just went to her dressing room to talk. I thought maybe if I told her how much damage she was doing, how the financial strain was killing Carl's creativity, that she'd see reason. She'd leave us alone, and we could just be happy."
"But she didn't."
"No." Jada almost sounded sad. "No. She laughed." She lifted her eyes to meet mine again, shimmering with tears. "She laughed at me. Said I was a fool. Said she'd take every penny Carl had and he'd have me to thank for it."
That couldn't have gone over well.
"So what did you do?" I asked, even though the answer was painfully obvious at that point. But the longer I kept her talking, the better the chance someone would come looking for me.
Though, how, I wasn't sure. For all Ava knew, I was safely tucked away somewhere having a private moment with Grant—not something a good friend would interrupt. David was probably fully engrossed with Daisy Dot. And Grant…
>
I swallowed down a lump of emotion when I thought of Grant. He'd been right. I should have left this all to him. I should have minded my own business, kept to wine making, let Grant figure out who had killed Gia and taken Ava's emerald. He would have. I had doubts that Jada had been on his radar any more than she'd been on mine, but at least if I'd listened to him, I'd be sitting at home right now with a pint of Chunky Monkey, watching Sandra Bullock fall in love, and not facing down a highly emotional killer.
"What did I do?" Jada said, repeating my question. "I stopped her. I had to. I couldn't let her destroy Carl that way. I love him!"
"So you strangled her."
Jada nodded and began to take deep breaths. So many that I feared she might be hyperventilating. "I-I didn't plan it. You know? I just…she just had to be stopped. She was wearing that chain. It looked so strong and heavy, and I just…I just pulled it. Tightly. And didn't let go."
Until her friend was dead.
I shuddered, trying not to picture the aftermath of Jada's actions that I had been the unlucky person to find. "And the emerald?" I asked. "Why did you take it?"
Jaded blinked back a fresh round of tears. "It was just sitting there. On her vanity. I-I don't know how it got out of the pendant, but it was on her makeup table." She licked her lips. "Once I realized she was…realized what I'd done, I panicked. I wasn't sure if anyone had seen me go into her dressing room. So I grabbed the gem. I figured it would make everyone think Gia had been killed by a thief and not…not someone like me."
Which they had. At least, almost everyone. It was little comfort in that moment that Ava and I had been right—the theft had been secondary all along and Gia had been the killer's real target.
"So you took the emerald then met up with Costello at the cabanas by the pool," I said, picturing it in my mind.
She nodded. "I almost told him everything. I was shaking so badly, I was sure he'd notice."
"But he didn't?" I asked, trying to keep her talking as my eyes scanned the four corners of the room, desperately searching for some magical portal out of this situation. I could feel the moments slipping away, Jada's narrative running down. And I knew I was almost out of time before she did something with that gun.
"No, he didn't." Jada shook her head. "I said I'd just had some nerves left over from the show, and he believed it." Her eyes misted again. "I hated lying to him, but I'd already caused him so much pain. I didn't want to add more."
"That was very thoughtful of you," I lied, trying to keep her calm and delay the whole now you know too much, and I'm going to have to kill you scenario that I knew was coming.
Jada sniffed and nodded. "Anyway, we weren't there very long before we heard the police sirens, and I knew someone had found her." She paused, her eyes meeting mine again, this time a new emotion behind them. One that was far less imploring and much more accusatory. "I didn't know that someone was you."
"Sorry?" I croaked out.
She shook her head. "And why you couldn't just leave it alone, I don't know. It had nothing to do with you!" she yelled, the sound echoing through the open door behind her and out into the cavernous ballroom.
"Except that you took my best friend's emerald," I pointed out.
"She would have gotten it back eventually," Jada said, shrugging off what appeared to be a minor detail in her mind.
"But you were backstage after the police arrived," I said. "I saw you there. And the police searched everyone before they left the fashion show. What did you do with the gem?"
Jada's face broke into a slow, wicked smile, and I suddenly glimpsed the slightly deranged murderer who had been lurking behind the role of the beautiful victim she'd been playing thus far. "So you haven't figured it out?" She let out a laugh. "I wasn't sure how long it would take you, but I guess I overestimated your intelligence."
I wasn't sure if I should be glad or insulted. Though I was having a hard time summoning up any emotion other than fear as she kept that gun trained on me.
"No," I admitted. "I didn't figure it out. How did you get the emerald out of the Links?"
She shrugged. "Easy. I gave it to the one person I knew the police would never suspect and wouldn't search." She paused, sending me a smirk as her wide, crazed eyes met mine. "You."
"Me?" I said, genuinely surprised.
Jada threw her head back and laughed again. "Clever, right? I noticed immediately the way that detective acted with you. It was clear you two were close. So, I figured you'd never be suspected of taking the gem."
"B-but I don't have it," I sputtered, my mind trying to play catch-up.
"Don't you?" Jada grinned at me again, as if she was enjoying playing this little mind game with me. "I was afraid you'd found it when you showed me those photos you took backstage. The ones with that guy you thought was stalking Gia?"
"The photos…" I still wasn't getting it.
"That you took on your camera? The same one you had backstage? In that camera bag of yours that you left unattended while you cried into the arms of your detective friend?"
"My camera bag." Mental forehead smack. "You put the emerald in my bag?"
Jada nodded. "Stuffed it in the inside pocket. I figured it would get the gem out of the building at least."
"But then what?" I asked. "I mean, like you said, the police weren't going to think I stole it and killed Gia. As soon as I found it, they'd have known someone put it there and that the gem wasn't the real objective."
"Sure," Jada agreed. "You're right. But I figured it would be a lot easier to retrieve the gem later from you than from a sealed crime scene."
Good point. I knew firsthand it took some skills to break into a locked crime scene.
"Wait—retrieve it. You're the one who broke into my cottage last night!"
Jada nodded. "Took me some time to find it. The first night I visited your winery, I realized I had no idea where to look."
"The first night…" I thought back to the night after Gia had been found. "The motion detectors," I said, putting it together. "Hector said something set them off. He thought it was deer, but it was you."
Jada shrugged. "I don't know who Hector is, but yeah, I guess I did set something off. Lights flooded the place. I had to leave before I could even really look around."
"But you came back," I said, pieces falling into place. "David said he found you wandering around on my terrace the next day."
She laughed. "That was lucky I ran into him, wasn't it? After the sensor fiasco, I figured I'd come back during the day and play lost tourist to scope out the building for where you might have that bag of yours tucked away. Of course, after running into David, he graciously gave me a full tour of the winery, including pointing out where your private cottage was."
I resisted the urge to curse David's name. Clearly he hadn't known he was mapping out the road to my front door for a killer. To be honest, nothing about Jada had felt menacing to me at the time either. Proving just how deceiving her good looks had been.
"So you came back that night and broke into my cottage to get the emerald."
Jada nodded. "Only, I broke that ugly lamp—"
"That was my mother's!" I protested.
"—and I heard you come running up, so I had to get out quickly."
"And you shoved me on your way out." I shook my head. "I thought you were Stalker Guy." So had Ava. So did Grant, who was currently trying to run down his identity, going full tilt in the wrong direction. The direction I'd led him in.
Which meant I was totally on my own here. Just me, Jada, and that nasty little gun of hers.
I tamped down a whimper of fear as she took a step closer to me.
"So the emerald," I said, desperate to keep her talking. "Where is it now?"
Jada shrugged. "Still in your camera bag, I guess."
I could almost laugh at the irony. Ava and I had been running all over Northern California trying to find that emerald, and it had been tucked away in my own home the entire time.
"At
least, that's where it is for now," she added.
"For now?" I almost hesitated to ask what her plans were. Because as long as the gun was pointed at my head, I had a pretty good idea what her first step was.
"You're going to tell me exactly where you put that stupid camera bag." She took a step closer to me.
"I am?" I squeaked out.
"Yes." She nodded slowly. "That emerald is the key to keeping the police looking for a thief. I need it."
"They'll find it sooner or later, you know," I said. "Too many people are looking for it."
"Oh, I know they will," she said, her creepy smile growing again. "And they're going to find it right where I put it."
"Which is?" I asked, feeling distinctly like I was on borrowed time. My eyes flitted around the room, still seeing the same useless file cabinets, dusty corners, and blocked escape route.
"They're going to find the emerald on Hughie Smart."
I blinked at her. "Hughie?"
"Hey, it was your idea," she said. "Hughie is in financial trouble, right? He was at the show that day. Carl even told me he overheard Gia firing Hughie on the phone."
I figured now was not the time to point out how wrong Carl had been about who had been on the other end of that phone call.
"It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Hughie to slip into Gia's dressing room, kill her, and take the emerald. Sounds like he needs the money. At least, that was how it sounded at your winery when you asked me all about his financial situation."
"So you're going to frame him?"
Jada sighed. "It's my only choice. Look, I can't have the police looking my way. And you so nicely laid the groundwork for Hughie being guilty."
I had done that, hadn't I?
"And," Jada went on. "I'm sure the fact that you exposed his debts was the catalyst for Hughie killing you."
I felt a cold fear wash over my body. "Killing me?" I repeated, my voice little more than a whisper. While I wasn't totally naïve about the reason she'd been pointing that gun at me, hearing her say the words out loud was terrifying.
Jada nodded, taking another step closer until we were practically touching. "I'm sorry, Emmy, but you were getting too close. Asking too many questions. So Hughie had to kill you."
Fashion, Rosé & Foul Play (Wine & Dine Mysteries Book 6) Page 21
