Love Sold Separately

by Ellen Meister

  Marks shook his head. “Leave that to me. Don’t talk to anyone else about this.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything stupid,” Dana said.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

  “Dana can be an asset to you, Detective,” Chelsea said.

  “I appreciate that. But you need to let the police handle the investigation.”

  “She’s also single,” Chelsea said.

  Dana kicked her sister under the table.

  The detective put down his coffee and reached for his wallet. “I’m well aware of Ms. Barry’s marital status,” he said, and signaled the waitress for the bill.

  Well aware, Dana repeated silently to herself. If she was interested in him, it was just the kind of remark she would want to dissect. She wasn’t, of course, but thanks to Chelsea, he’d be leaving with the wrong impression entirely. She had to try to set the record straight.

  “I’m sorry about my sister,” Dana said to him. “You’ll have to excuse her. Sometimes she’s...an idiot.”

  “I doubt that very much,” he said, and Chelsea kicked Dana under the table.

  He smoothed his collar. “Is there anything else?”

  Dana wanted to ask about Lorenzo—to find out if this meant he was off the hook. But she knew that the more interest she showed, the worse it would be for him.

  “Are you going to pursue this?” she asked.

  “We pursue everything that’s appropriate,” he said, standing.

  “What about Charles Honeycutt?” Chelsea asked. “Is he a suspect now?”

  The waitress put the check on the table. Marks grabbed it and thanked her. “That’s not something I can discuss with you,” he said.

  “I think he means that everyone’s a suspect,” Chelsea said. “Is that right, Detective?”

  “Have a good night, ladies,” he said.

  As they watched him walk away, Dana thought about Charles Honeycutt and swallowed against a knot in her throat. She hoped she had done the right thing.

  “What do you think?” she asked her sister.

  “I think he likes you.”

  15

  “I forgot to ask,” Megan said. “How did your Sweat City friends take the news?”

  It was the next day, and they were at the Shopping Channel, sitting in Dana’s dressing room. Megan had insisted it was her job to run interference with Sherry, so when Dana called to explain how tense things were, she insisted on coming in.

  “They were...supportive. Of course. Everyone was happy for me.”

  “What are they doing about that play? The one where you were the horrible grand dame.”

  There was no way she could tell Megan the truth—that she was still playing the role, albeit under a stage name. “Uh, not sure. Recasting, I suppose.”

  “I hope you’re not too upset,” Megan said, her eyes soft with sympathy. It was clear she wanted to help Dana work through her grief over leaving her beloved group.

  Dana dismissed it with a wave. “I’m dealing with it,” she said, and made a quick pivot. “So how are things at the restaurant?”

  “You don’t have to change the subject.”

  “I’m fine with it, really.”

  “And you don’t blame me?”

  Dana shook her head emphatically. “I’ve moved on.”

  Megan gave her a dubious look, and Dana went mute. It was a tough moment. She knew she could convince Megan she was bereft at having left Sweat City behind—she was an actor, after all. But that would mean digging deeper into the lie, and guilt tugged at her.

  “You used to be honest with me about everything,” Megan said. “I don’t want that to change just because I’m your manager.”

  Dana sighed and committed to pushing the fiction just as far as she had to, and not an inch more. “Okay. Look, I’m still upset. I’d just rather not dwell on it. Don’t take it personally.”

  “But you forgive me?” Megan said.

  “Yes, I promise. I forgive you.”

  There was a soft knock on the door. It was Ollie.

  “Miss Felicia is ready for you, Dana,” he said.

  “Come in, Ollie,” she said. “I want you to meet Megan Silvestri, my manager.”

  “If I can be of service, I hope you will let me know,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “Kind of you,” Megan replied, smiling, and Dana could tell she was amused by Ollie’s odd formality.

  “You like Dana’s dressing room, yes?” he asked. “It was painted just for her. Nice green walls.”

  “Lovely,” she said. “What color was it before?”

  “First white, then Miss Kitty says no, she likes coral.”

  Dana’s breath caught in her throat. This was news to her. “Are you saying this room was Kitty’s?”

  “You didn’t know?” Megan asked.

  “I thought it was Vanessa’s.”

  Ollie shook his head. “Miss Vanessa has same dressing room as before.”

  A wave of nausea pressed on Dana as she pictured the gruesome murder scene. The blood on the window. Bits of Kitty’s brain. She had no idea she’d made herself comfortable in a murdered woman’s private space. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  Megan put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  Ollie looked stricken. “Dana, I am so sorry. I thought that you knew. Please. Don’t be sad for this. Everything is new. The police took away all of Miss Kitty’s things in boxes, and then everything is replaced. Everything but counter and drawers and mirrors.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, imagining the police storming the room in rubber gloves, placing evidence in baggies and boxes. She glanced up at Ollie, who looked worse than she felt.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. He had gone as white as copy paper.

  “I... I am just remembering that bad day,” he said.

  Me, too, she thought. But of course, she had barely known Kitty. And certainly hadn’t worshipped her. “Sit down, Ollie.”

  He did as she said, and Megan got him a glass of water.

  “I am very sorry,” he said. “I try not to think about Miss Kitty but sometimes I am too weak.” He rubbed his sweaty hands on his mauve skinny jeans.

  “You’re allowed to be upset about this,” Dana said.

  “She would have been so angry to see the police take her things. But what can I do? I cannot protect her.”

  “There was nothing you could do,” Megan said. “And I’m sure the police will return her things to her family after the investigation.”

  “I do not know what they got,” he mumbled.

  Dana studied him as he stared down at his bitten nails, and realized what he was talking about. The gifts. The ones Kitty got from Charles Honeycutt. If Marks had them, he could trace them to the source.

  “Ollie,” she said gently, “those gifts Kitty got from...from her lover—did she keep them here at the office?”

  He gave a sideways glance toward Megan.

  “It’s okay,” Dana said. “You can trust her.”

  “I don’t know. I think she had them somewhere hid. She did not tell me where they were. But she was so careful.”

  If they had been hidden in this room, the police surely found them, as everything had been emptied and cleaned. And given how carefully the detectives had combed Kitty’s office, Dana doubted there was anything unfound there, either. She hoped Marks was taking a close look at Kitty’s possessions.

  * * *

  After calming Ollie down, Dana went to the hair and makeup department, while Megan went up to see Sherry.

  “I’m going to give you a French,” Jo said to Dana as she removed her pale pink nail polish with a saturated cotton ball that felt cold on her skin.

  “I thought that was off-limits,” Dana said.

  “Not anymore,
” she said. “You’ve heard the expression, ‘You can’t take it with you’? That applies to manicures, too. Kitty’s dead. I can give a French to whomever I want.”

  Whomever. Dana smiled at the proper grammar usage, even though Jo had pronounced it whomevah. The woman sounded like a character from Guys and Dolls.

  “It’s hard to find anyone who’s broken up over her death,” Dana said. “Other than Ollie, I mean.” Regardless of Marks’s warning, she was determined to find out as much as she could.

  “She was a witch,” Felicia said.

  Jo clucked. “I was thinking of a different word entirely.”

  “What about the men?” Dana asked. “You had said she was sleeping around.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jo said. “They hated her the most.”

  “She held it over their heads,” Felicia added.

  Dana looked at her. “Over their heads?”

  “She used them,” Jo said. “You know, like give-me-what-I-want-or-I’ll-tell-everybody.”

  Felicia dabbed blush onto Dana’s cheeks. “That’s why she went after the married ones.”

  “She was one twisted lady,” Jo added with a nod. “They say she had at least a couple of breakdowns.”

  “While she worked here?” Dana asked.

  Jo turned to Felicia. “Remember that time she went to Paris? For a whole month?”

  “I heard she was committed,” Felicia said.

  “What brought it on?” Dana asked.

  “Love,” Jo said. “What else? Most of us just bawls our eyes out for a few days when our hearts is broken. But Kitty? When she don’t get what she wants, she falls apart.”

  “Goes completely crazy,” Felicia added.

  “So these guys she sleeps with—you don’t think any of them were in love with her?” Dana asked.

  Felicia made a face. “How could anybody love Kitty?”

  “Was that a constant thing for her?” Dana asked. “Falling in love?”

  Felicia and Jo shared a look.

  “What?” Dana asked.

  Felicia leaned forward. “Honeycutt,” she whispered.

  Dana’s heart sped up. “What about him?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Of course!”

  “Well,” Felicia said, “there’s this girl, Micaela. You probably met her—she’s Robért’s assistant?”

  “Does his blowouts sometimes,” Jo added.

  “She’s best friends with Brooke, Honeycutt’s assistant.”

  “Like sisters,” Jo said, pushing at Dana’s cuticles.

  Felicia fished around for something in her makeup kit. “Brooke told Micaela that she heard the two of them fighting in his office. Kitty and Honeycutt, going at it. Said she was hysterical. Screaming and everything.”

  “What was she saying?” Dana asked.

  “Something like, ‘You said you loved me, you bastard.’”

  “I think it was ‘prick,’” Jo corrected. “‘You said you loved me, you prick.’”

  “Right,” Felicia said. “Prick.”

  “So, like, a week later she’s got this massive gold bracelet,” Jo said. “An alligator bangle.”

  “Alligator?” Dana asked, searching her memory for where she had seen it.

  “You know—a bracelet shaped like an alligator that wraps around your wrist. Frigging thing was huge. With emeralds for eyes and diamonds down the tail. Like supershowy, you know?”

  At that, Dana remembered exactly where she had seen it. It was in the dish with Kitty’s rings on the day she was killed.

  “And you think Honeycutt gave it to her?”

  “I know he did,” Jo said.

  “How?”

  Jo held up the white ceramic bowl she kept on her manicure table. “She put it right here when I was doing her nails. Took it off with her rings. And there was an inscription inside—Love, Charles.”

  “Hey, relax your forehead,” Felicia said, rubbing the spot between Dana’s brows.

  “Sorry,” Dana said, and tried to smooth out her confusion. “Why would a married guy want that kind of proof lying around? It doesn’t make sense. I mean, if he was trying to keep the affair a secret...”

  “Personally,” Jo said, “I think she made him do it.”

  “That’s what Brooke told Micaela,” Felicia said. “That she thought it was a...what do you call that?”

  “An ultimatum,” Jo said.

  ‘Yeah, a ultimatum. Kitty said something like, ‘Prove you love me or I’ll go to your wife.’”

  Dana leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes as Felicia feathered on some eyeliner. She felt herself unwinding. Going to Marks about Honeycutt had been the right thing to do. The guy had a perfect motive for murdering Kitty Todd.

  * * *

  “Next week I want to put in a few highlights,” Robért said as he shook a can of hairspray. “Just in the tips. It’ll look gorge. Close your eyes, honey.”

  He encircled her in a cloud of suffocating mist. She waited until it settled before speaking. “Just in the tips? Won’t that look a little weird?”

  “You’d be surprised. You know Emily up in Sherry’s office?”

  “Emily Lauren,” she said, nodding.

  “I did it for her just before she auditioned.”

  “Auditioned? For what?”

  “For Vanessa’s spot—just like you.”

  Dana paused, trying to process the news. “Emily auditioned? Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I did her hair. Felicia gave her to-die-for boyfriend eyebrows. She looked like a Vogue model.”

  Dana let out a long breath as it sunk in. Sherry’s beloved assistant had auditioned—with her boss’s blessing, no doubt. If Sherry had lobbied for Emily to get the job that went to Dana, it would explain her animosity.

  “How did she do?”

  “Not as good as you, obviously.”

  “But Sherry thought she was better?”

  Robért shrugged. “I can’t get inside that bitch’s head. All I know is, those two go at it like sisters but are twice as loyal. So if Sherry wanted Emily to have the job, I promise you she fought for it.”

  “I didn’t think anyone could overrule her on casting.”

  “Only one person, love. Honeycutt.”

  16

  It was almost 9:00 p.m. Dana had showered, changed and straightened up her apartment. Lorenzo would be there any minute.

  They had been unable to get any time to talk at work that day, and she wanted to tell him what she learned, especially since he looked even more strained than usual. So she texted him her address and told him to come by “around nine.” She tried to sound casual, like it wasn’t a date. Or a booty call. But in truth, she wanted him in her bed. She liked Lorenzo—liked him more than Marks. And yes, sure. Marks was good-looking. And okay, he had a certain enigmatic appeal, especially since he looked at her so intensely while she spoke. But no, he was not her type. Divorced. And a cop. A suit-wearing rule-follower. No, thank you. She wanted to wipe him from her thoughts.

  Meanwhile, Lorenzo was late. Dana looked out the window to check the weather. The delicate spring rain had morphed into an uncompromising downpour, and was pounding First Avenue with furious force. She pushed open her window and inhaled. The spring rain in New York was one of her favorite smells—like metal and brine and hope.

  She tried to imagine Lorenzo on his way to her apartment in this weather. Maybe he was standing under an awning somewhere, waiting for it to let up. Then again, Lorenzo didn’t seem like the kind of guy who cared about getting wet.

  At twenty after nine, her cell phone buzzed with a text.

  On my way.

  That was it—no apology. No explanation. She tapped her foot, wondering if she should be irked, and decided no, it was fine. Tw
enty minutes wasn’t such a big deal. He probably thought she meant any time after nine. In his mind, he was just stopping by to talk. And anyway, she didn’t want to be the kind of woman who whined over such things.

  At nine-thirty, Dana blew out the candles on her tiny bistro table. Then she lit them again. Then blew them out again. At 9:45, he finally rang from downstairs.

  Lorenzo entered her apartment in the same clothes he had worn to work that day—a denim jacket, gray T-shirt and black Levi’s—but they were soaked. His only concession to the weather was a baseball cap, which dripped when he moved his head.

  “Sorry,” he said, watching the water trickle onto the mat in front of her door.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Do you want to borrow a sweatshirt or something?”

  He shook his head, unaware that doing so sprayed her with droplets. “I’ll just sit on a towel.”

  She sighed. This did not seem like a man who planned on taking off his clothes anytime soon.

  “At least let me take your jacket,” she said.

  He shook it off and handed it to her, along with his hat. Dana liked the way he looked in his T-shirt—lean and ropey. She laid his wet things on a chair, then smoothed a long towel onto the sofa and handed him a smaller one to dry himself. He wiped his face, patted the back of his neck and sat.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “How about a glass of wine?”

  “No, thanks. I can’t really stay long.”

  “Oh?” So much for romance. A guy who came late and left early had other things on his mind. Maybe other women. She thought about that truckload of baggage he mentioned.

  “Things are a little tense for me right now,” he said.

  “I have weed,” she offered.

  He held up his hands. “That’s the last thing I need.”

  Dana glanced at his face. Usually, when she was alone in her apartment with a man, he was looking at her, thinking about when to make a move. But Lorenzo was so engrossed in his stress it was as if he didn’t even see her. She poured herself a glass of wine. “What’s going on?”