Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Heather Graham

  You can’t go home again—wasn’t that what people said? But here she was, back again, despite all her resolve. And in a way it was wonderful. She had missed her old haunts. She loved the foliage, loved the old houses, Mediterranean and Deco, the bougainvillea that grew all over, crawling over houses and walls, the whole look and feel of the area. She liked heat, sunshine, her easy access to water, and even, at this stage of her life, her nearness to her folks and her brother. And, of course, to Gramps.

  Naturally, she’d miss New York, though she was pleased with her new job, taking over for one of the first-grade teachers at a highly acclaimed experimental grade school. Mrs. Linitz was due to give birth in two weeks, so come a week from Thursday, Lori would be teaching twenty-seven little darlings on a daily basis. Leaving had given her another source of income and expression—she’d been doing designs part-time for the up-and-coming fashion duo of Yolanda Peters and Elizabeth Woodly—Yoelle Designs—and when they’d heard she was leaving, they’d asked her to create an entire line of elegantly casual resort wear for tropical and semitropical climates. Things looked good; she loved designing clothing, and she loved teaching, and here she was going to have the best of both worlds. She’d been authorized to arrange shows with some of the leading retailers in the area, and with Bal Harbour, Coconut Grove, and Palm Beach easily accessible, there would be plenty of opportunities to do so. She could be excited about the future.

  Naturally, she was excited.

  Uneasy too, she admitted. And bitter still.

  The past went away; life went on. But a sore spot had been left, like a bruise, and it never quite healed.

  Get past it, get a life! she chided herself. She’d blamed an entire county for the events that had occurred long ago, and that was foolish. Still…

  She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was an adult woman, and she did have a life, and a super son. Her grandfather, who just happened to be one of the greatest people she had ever met, needed her. As a bonus, she’d made all her family happy as larks. She should have come back long ago with a simple fuck-you attitude toward anyone rude enough to plague her about the past. But that was ridiculous in itself—surely, everyone had forgotten the past. What had happened at the rock pit that day was just yellowed newspaper now, locked away in library files.

  Except, of course, for Mandy Olin’s family.

  And the Blacks.

  “Mom. Earth to Mom.”

  She turned. Brendan was staring, at her with the patience and resignation of a maturing young man.

  “Mom, we’re here. That usually means it’s time to get out of the car.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sure. What do you think?” she asked, glancing over at the passenger seat where he sat, now staring back up at the house as she had been doing. He gazed at it gravely, and she felt a sense of maternal pride stirring. He was a great-looking kid. He’d inherited her light hazel eyes, but his hair was dark whereas hers was a reddish blond, and at fourteen he was already two inches taller than her own height of five foot nine. He liked sports, and was slim and lithe, coordinated, and decently good at his studies as well. Watching him, she felt a sense of wonder swell within her. Her trip to England all those years ago had begun out of trauma and a desperation to escape. Brendan made up for any trauma she might have suffered.

  “Brendan,” she said anxiously, “what do you think about the house?”

  He shrugged. “It’s—neat. Looks kind of like a castle. Except that it doesn’t have any turrets—hey, it does kind of have a tower. Is that a tower?”

  She smiled, nodding. “Yeah, it’s a tower. There’s a winding staircase in the back, and it goes all the way up to a little tower room in the rear of the house. I don’t know what it was for—except that it gives you a great view of the area. I’d hoped you’d like the house. We’re probably going to have a few problems with it, but…”

  But, thanks to Jan finding the place for her, she’d found a house she could afford, in a neighborhood she liked, near her folks’ house—but not too close—and near the hospital where Gramps received his treatments. “Let’s bring our things in. We’ll work a few hours or until we feel like we’re going crazy. Then we’ll drive around and go into the Grove for dinner and a movie.”

  He grinned. “Are you going to show me all your old high school hangouts?” he asked her.

  “Maybe,” she murmured, lowering her eyes.

  Like the old rock pit? she taunted herself. No. Definitely not.

  “Well, then!” Brendan opened his door. “Mom, this is what you do to get out of the car—open door, step out. You look as if you’re afraid of sinking into quicksand or something.”

  “Hey, they do have quicksand here, out in the Glades. Quicksand, alligators, moccasins, rattlers, coral snakes, scorpions—”

  “All that in this house?” he teased. “Hey— cooler than I thought.”

  “The Everglades is one of the most unusual and beautiful natural environments in the country,” she informed him loftily. “You wait until you see just how neat. We’ll take a drive out next weekend.”

  He nodded, his eyes slightly averted, and she remembered that he had just left all his friends behind. The trip would be fun; he’d always been great about going places with her. But it was probably a sad thing for him to realize he might as well say yes to his mother, since he hadn’t a plan in the world for the weeks to come.

  He looked at her and grinned, hiding the fact that the move might have been in any way traumatic. “Next week, Mom. We’ve still got to get out of the Jeep now.”

  “Hardy, har!” she replied lightly.

  But she stepped out of the car and Brendan followed suit. She guiltily realized that she’d been brooding on this move, worried about adjusting to home again herself when Brendan was still a kid. She did have friends here. He didn’t. Hopefully, they’d fix that soon.

  She was startled when she felt him beside her, an arm around her waist. He gave her a little squeeze. “It’s going to be all right, Mom.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. You’ve been great about this,” she said softly. “Well, come on, kid, let’s get cracking, huh?”

  But he’d already left her side and was busy pulling his in-line skates out of the back of the Jeep. “Well, come on, Mom, let’s get cracking, huh?”

  At somewhere around fifty-five years of age, Kate Gillespie was trim, slim, silver-haired, and smooth. She accepted Michael Shayne’s latest thriller with thanks, but he discovered that it was his degree in forensic anthropology which had actually allowed him entrance to her autopsy.

  She was professional to the core, commenting on his presence as well as Ricky’s into the small recorder that was clipped to her white lab coat. She then walked around the gurney that held the dead woman and described the victim as a young woman in her late twenties to early thirties, five feet six, approximately one-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds. Cause of death appeared to be strangulation, contusion and trauma to the throat being obvious, the appearance of the bruising such that it must have occurred prior to death. Dr. Gillespie described the contusions and abrasions on the body, including the trauma to the head which had damaged the skull and facial bones. She took samples of blood, fluid, pubic hair, and scraped beneath the victim’s fingernails. While she was so occupied, her assistant was busy taking mud samples from the face and then carefully cleaning away the remaining blood and dirt.

  Midway through the gentle facial bathing, before Dr. Gillepsie could slip her scalpel into the corpse, Ricky gasped out loud and Sean felt the blood drain from his face—it felt as if all oxygen were being ripped out of his lungs.

  “What is it?” Gillespie asked sharply, staring at Ricky.

  Ricky cleared his throat, looking at Sean. “I know her. Knew her. We—” He paused again, then gave himself a shake, still staring at Sean.

  “We both knew her,” he said.

  2

  There was no way out of the fact that unpacking was a pain in the butt. By four o’clock Lori and
Brendan were both grouchy and tired. She called it quits for the day, amazed to realize that most of their things were still coming by way of professional movers and UPS. She’d brought most of their clothing, Brendan’s various pieces of sports equipment, and her portfolios and the majority of her fabric samples for the lines she was working on.

  The house needed central air; now it was on units. Thankfully, since it seemed as if it was going to be a killer spring, the main unit was working really well.

  Brendan showered, and she had just stepped out of the master bath herself when she heard voices downstairs. She walked carefully to her door in her towel—she and Brendan were taking her folks to breakfast in the morning, and she hadn’t expected to see them until then. But just as she tiptoed to the stairway, Jan Hunt, standing below, looked up. “Hey!”

  “Hey, yourself!” she said, with just a little bit of false cheer. She’d wanted to spend some time adjusting with just Brendan tonight, but then, Jan was a good friend. None of them had really kept in touch right away after their senior year. Lori had left for London almost immediately, and most of the others had carried through with their college plans. But when Lori had left London for school in New York City, Jan had written. She’d eloped. With Brad Jackson, of all people. She’d wanted Lori’s forgiveness—which Lori, who’d barely remembered Brad by that time—readily gave.

  The marriage hadn’t lasted more than two years. Jan and Brad were still on-again, off-again lovers, and even when Jan was ready to kill Brad, she mused philosophically that Brad had given her Tina, their daughter, and Lori could understand that reasoning. Especially when she’d met Tina. The girl was just thirteen, and stunning. Like both of her parents, she had huge blue eyes and, like her father, platinum-blond hair. She already had quite a little shape on her, and she had a very sweet way about her. From Jan, Lori knew. She didn’t remember a whole lot about Brad, but ‘kind’ was one adjective she never would have cast in his direction.

  “I wanted to introduce the kids!” Jan called up. She grinned and started up the stairs. “I’ve introduced them. Brought in your paper, too!” she added, lifting the Miami Herald high in her hands.

  “I didn’t even know I got the paper.”

  “It was on your lawn.”

  “Well, good, I guess. Give me just a second, Jan, I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “Oh, come on, our lockers were next to one another in the old showers!” Jan laughed immodestly, ignoring Lori’s bid for privacy and barging on up the stairs. She hugged Lori, wet towel and all, and curled up on the bed—one of the few pieces of furniture she’d arranged to buy and have delivered for Lori—and waited, stretched out on an elbow.

  “Damn, you look good for thirty-two!” Jan told her, shaking her head. “But then you’re tall. Tall always makes people look skinny. Except that you are thin3 too, anyway. Good shape. You always had a good shape. I’d kind of hoped you’d have gotten at least some cellulite by now.”

  Lori arched a brow and rummaged through the hastily arranged closet for a halter-top knit dress, glancing at Jan as she slipped it over her head and dropped the towel. “I’ve got cellulite, everyone does. And we’re only thirty-two. We’re not supposed to have decayed already, you know. Besides, aren’t we supposed to be getting better, not older, or something like that? Look at what Jane Fonda did for women and the process of aging? Hmm?”

  “But thirty is over the hill,” Jan said with a sigh, idly spreading out the newspaper. “I’m wrinkling. It’s like I’ve been folded, spin-dried, and mutilated already. Gray hairs are settling in! I’ve got crow’s feet that slash through my zits—since I can’t seem to quit breaking out.”

  Lori laughed, then frowned as it appeared that Jan seemed earnestly worried. Jan had never been overly concerned about her appearance before. She was a beautiful woman with brunette hair she now highlighted with a sophisticated streaking, sky blue eyes, and a buxom figure.

  “Age is all relative, you know. My mom still thinks of Andrew and me as kids. And Jan, you look like a million bucks. Better than ever,” Lori assured her.

  “You think? You were always so decent to everyone, Lori. So nice. We could be so catty when we were kids, except that you didn’t say bad things about anyone. Beauty and decency— I hated you before I liked you, you know. You were just so damned perfect, and you had the nerve to be nice at the same time! In all honesty, when we were kids, I had to be your friend—or else eat my heart out with jealousy.”

  Lori grimaced. “Jan, we were kids. Don’t go making me sound like Mary Poppins— I’m not and I wasn’t. But honest to God, I like my thirties better than my teens—”

  “You can say that now because your teenager is a boy and mine is a girl. I just love my baby to death, but sometimes I look at her and see that she has the world before her, and I just feel all used up. That will teach me. If I ever bear a child again, it’s going to be a man-child!” She sobered suddenly, her eyes growing very grave. “Hey, but have I got news for you! Speaking of males in general—”

  She broke off, suddenly dead silent, her face pale. Lori realized she was staring down at the newspaper she had just brought into the house.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you remember Eleanor Metz?”

  Lori shook her head.

  “You must! You do, I know you do. How could any of us ever really forget.”

  “I don’t remember the name Metz—”

  “Wait, Metz was a married name! I know you remember Eleanor.”

  “Eleanor. No. Wait, you mean—Ellie?” Lori asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  Jan continued to stare at her, white as a sheet.

  “Jan?”

  “Eleanor is dead!”

  “So you like to read?” Tina Jackson asked, twirling a strand of her long blond hair around a finger and studying her newfound friend, Brendan Corcoran.

  Amazingly, this was coming out all right.

  She’d been irritated to death with her mother for making her come here to meet some awkward, friendless, clueless guy from New York. Not that she was mean or anything. She really had a fair amount of homework, she was a cheerleader and they had a game tomorrow, and her mother had a tendency to think that she should be a one-woman welcome committee for the kids of anyone from out of town to whom she sold a house. And she had really wondered about Brendan Corcoran. Her mom had been friends with his mom from way back, his grandparents were here, his uncle was here, his great-grandfather was here—but he’d never been to Dade County before. Weird. And he’d been born in London. She’d expected him to sound like the guys from Oasis or the girl from Republica—or the old Beatles. He didn’t have an accent, of any kind. He’d grown up in New York City, but he didn’t even have a New York accent—only certain areas really acquired that accent, he’d explained to her. New York City was great, he’d told her. Busier than she could imagine, with people from everywhere in the world. It was her personal opinion that nowhere in the world was as great as South Florida. They could water-ski, go boating, diving, lie in the sun, swim, play—on almost any day of the year. But though she explained that to Brendan, she didn’t argue about New York. Because she liked him. Really liked him. He was bright, fun, polite—and cute. Cute as could be. Gorgeous. Tall, dark, handsome, and cool. He had a great smile, a husky voice, and a lanky, laid-back way about him that sent her heart skittering wildly. He wasn’t going to have any trouble fitting in anywhere. Wait till her friends saw him. She definitely wanted first dibs.

  He was tired, having spent the day trying to make a home out of a new house, but he had been great anyway.

  Though he had kind of kept going, refusing to give up the concept of turning the house into his own place—mostly fooling with setting up his CD player on a bookshelf—he had talked with her all along.

  Now, at last, he took a break. They sat together on the antique sofa that had come with the place, drinking cans of soda.

  His hazel eyes
—great eyes, with little flecks of pure gold in them—focused on hers. “Love to read,” he admitted. They’d gotten into the conversation because she’d brought a sci-fi book with her just in case the two of them didn’t have anything to say to one another.

  As if!

  So far they hadn’t stopped talking. He grinned. “See all those boxes that say ‘Sports Stuff’ over there?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Books,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “So you don’t really play hockey?”

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing. “I play hockey. Or I did,” he corrected with a shrug. “Who knows what I’ll be doing now?”

  “Go to my school and you can play anything you want,” she said morosely. “It’s a private school, and you know, there just aren’t that many jocks for the coaches to choose from.”

  “I’m going to public school,” he told her.

  “Well,” she said philosophically, “you’re still in good shape. This is just your freshman year, and the teams don’t begin to get serious until you’re a little older, you know.”

  He grinned, shrugged, and shoved a long lock of his dark hair back from where it had fallen sleekly over one eye. “Who knows, we’ll see.” He lowered his voice, just in case the women upstairs could hear them. “Too bad I’m not going to your school.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather be in the public school. But hey, it doesn’t really matter. Lots of my friends go to Gables. We still hang out together on weekends and sometimes after school. We’ll get to see each other, and I’ll get to introduce you to lots of people. Like Friday night. A group of us are going to the movies in the Grove. Want to come?”