Secrets and Stilettos (Murder In Style Book 1)

by Gina LaManna

  It did matter, however, that she hadn’t bothered to introduce herself before getting out her walker and inching her way down to June’s Blueberry Jam Café to whisper about my visit from the police chief. From there, disaster had struck.

  All afternoon cars had driven by my new house at a slow crawl, stopping to stare for all the wrong reasons. I’d drawn the curtains, curled up in bed, and put Beyoncé on repeat, but even that hadn’t shaken me from my mood. I’d tried to do some online shoe-shopping therapy, but my cellphone had spotty service in the bedroom and my internet wasn’t yet hooked up. It was like living in Antarctica.

  I’d huddled under the covers until my mother came over and dragged me out of bed and over to her place. She’d caught me by surprise, and since my luggage still hadn’t been found, I’d been forced to wear flannel pants and high heels to her house thanks to my furry boots being soaked through and utterly de-fluffed. Which actually made dinner somewhat of a theme party, seeing as we were having my mother’s specialty pancakes, and I was in pajamas.

  “This would be a whole lot more enjoyable if it didn’t feel like The Last Supper,” I moaned, taking an absolutely mouth-watering bite and letting the tastes of syrup and butter melt and mix in my mouth. “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t even know the man. It was sheer bad luck that I happened to raise a shoe at him this morning.”

  “I know, dear,” my mother said. “What if we talk about something else at the dinner table? Sid, how was work?”

  Sid shrugged. “Fine.”

  Sid wasn’t a man of many words. Normally, that was fine by me, but today, it just felt like a wet blanket draped over the conversation. He also had the most boring job of all time. Something to do with numbers—and we’re not talking shoe sizes.

  “Well, I have something to talk about.” May preened, positively glowing with happy pregnancy. “And it’s good news.”

  “Thank the heavens.” My mother turned to her. “Have you picked out names yet?”

  “Oh, this isn’t about the baby. This is about the way Gran’s old neighbor was looking at Jenna.” She wiggled her eyebrow. “I think Matt is interested in your daughter, Auntie Bea.”

  “What makes you say that?” I gave a shake of my head and stabbed another pancake. “If anything, I probably scared him off. What sort of a first impression is it to meet your neighbor and find out they’ve been accused of murder?”

  “I can take care of that itsy-bitsy problem.” May waved goodbye to it, as if it were that simple to make problems disappear. “I’ll have Joe explain everything to Matt.”

  “Oh, no—no!” I saw where she was going with this. “You are not meddling in my life now that your life is all situated and gorgeous, okay? Leave me out of this.”

  “Come on! I’m an old married lady. I need to have some fun.”

  “You are not old and married,” I said to her. “You and Joe are more in love than anyone I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculous. And on occasion, gross,” I said, thinking that I preferred not to sleep in a hotel room that shared a wall with my cousin. It’d happened at my mother’s wedding, and I’d evacuated the premises to sleep on another friend’s couch.

  May wasn’t the slightest bit fazed, and neither was my mother. Both of them were in loving, healthy, gloriously romantic relationships. Which meant they needed to fix me, the broken one.

  “I am not broken,” I said quickly, before they could get the idea that there was, in fact, something wrong with me. “I just got out of a serious relationship.”

  “You were never going to marry that loser,” May said. “Forget about him, Jenna.”

  “He’s not a loser,” I said. “He’s on every movie poster across the country.”

  “He’s a loser,” May said, “if he dumped you.”

  “Well, our schedules—”

  “I call bull,” May interrupted. “He dropped you the second he caught his big break and started going out with that floozie from his new movie. That’s a douche-canoe move!”

  I couldn’t argue with her since the embarrassment was still fresh. I thought it had been love. The true, gushy romantic kind. We’d dated a year, after all, and lived together. I’d bought him headshots. He came as my date to red carpet premiers on my invitations. Hell, I’d introduced him to the connection that got him his breakout movie role.

  “Okay, so he pulled some loser moves,” I admitted. “But it’s in the past. I’m over it.”

  “Great—then you won’t mind if Joe sets you up on a date with Matt.” May said it like a statement, not leaving room to argue. “How does Saturday sound?”

  “Um, horrible? How will that look if I’m accused of murder and then seen dating my neighbor? Give this time to settle down first,” I said. “One thing at a time. My skin looks all washed out in orange, so that’s my first concern.”

  My mother gave me a sad sort of smile. “You’re using this as an excuse, Jenna. You’re pushing opportunities away.”

  Exasperated, I reached for a fourth pancake. Arguing burned lots of calories. Also, it’s not like my shoe size changed if I put on a few pounds, though that little red dress in my bag might be tighter than I’d like. Which would probably never be a problem seeing as my bag might not find its way to Blueberry Lake—a scenario that was looking more and more real by the hour. To compromise, I put on half the amount of butter and syrup and called it even.

  “Guess who else is single?” My mother spoke to May, as if I wouldn’t catch the fact they were talking about me over the table. “Chief Dear.”

  “Wasn’t he dating that girl from Butternut Bay?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Do you guys live in a Dr. Seuss book?”

  My mother ignored me. “He was going steady with her, but they broke up—it’s very hush-hush. Even Angela Dewey hasn’t gotten the gossip, and she’s Chief Dear’s great aunt once removed.”

  “Oh, golly gee, they must be close,” I said dryly, “with a family tree like that.”

  “I’m just saying, he’s a very nice young man,” my mother said. “And very cute. The two of you were just darling when you’d play together over the summer.”

  “I knew him?” I frowned. I hadn’t remembered that little tidbit, which was odd. I would have thought I’d remember him. (And not because he was cute, but because he was a giant pain in the blueberries!)

  “Oh, sure, you guys played together when you were babies. He left the summer before you turned ten and just moved back a few years ago—actually, some say he moved back to be with Hilary. The girl from Butternut Bay.” She whispered the last few words, as if it were a secret. “I think she broke it off with him, poor guy.”

  “Poor-schmore!” I said. “Did you forget I’m your daughter? You’re supposed to love me more than him. We’re mad at the chief—remember? He barged into Gran’s house accusing me of slamming a heel into a man’s throat today. Which—I would like to point out—I would never do. I would never ruin a pair of shoes like that.”

  May contemplated for a moment. “I could see that, but don’t you think Chief Dear is a little too serious for Jenna? Matt seems more...friendly. Joe loves working with him down at the station. They get along like a pair of mischievous boys.”

  She had a cute smile on her face as she said this, and it was clear she adored her husband. I had a fleeting thought that their little nugget would be the luckiest baby of all time. Plus, this baby would have me as an aunt (hello, baby shoe shopping!). He or she would be spoiled rotten.

  While I’d been lost in my musings, my mother and May had continued the conversation about my love life without me.

  “I really think Jenna could use a little serious in her life right now, after that—” she held up a hand and hissed—“jerk!”

  “He was a jerk,” May agreed. “That’s why Jenna needs Matt to bring some fun into her life. She doesn’t want to sit around and mope with the chief all day.”

  “The chief isn’t a moper. He’s probably just sensitive!” My mother argued back. “And you have
to admit he’s very handsome.”

  “Matt is handsome too! And—” May paused, giving a salacious wink. “We all know how much I love a man in a firefighter’s suit. I’m telling you, Jenna, you want to choose Matt.”

  “If the chief falls in love with her, then he’ll see my daughter’s heart of gold,” Bea explained. “He’ll know she can’t have killed Grant, and the mystery will be solved.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I interrupted, but nobody listened. Sid gave me a sympathetic gaze. I liked Sid and his silence. “Okay, carry on without me. Don’t worry about what I think.”

  “I’m her mother,” Bea was saying. “I know what’s best for her.”

  “But I’m her cousin, and I know Matt better than you do. He’s perfect for her.”

  “Why don’t you let Jenna settle this for herself?” Sid sounded exasperated at having his pancakes interrupted with talk of the bachelorette-hood. “She’s an adult.”

  Okay, now I really, really liked Sid. I gave him a hearty nod of agreement and passed him the pancakes.

  “Great idea,” my mother said. “How about we both set Jenna up on a date, and then she can choose.”

  “How about we—” I started.

  “Deal.” May stuck out her hand, and they shook.

  Sid looked disgraced, and he put the pancakes back. I gave him a shrug of apology and nodded for him to take one anyway. At least he’d tried.

  “Sure—while you do that, I am going to retrace Grant’s steps to figure out who killed him,” I said. “Because if you were listening, my highlights will not look good against orange. I hate to mention that I won’t be dating anyone if I don’t find out how a stiletto ended up in Grant’s neck with my fingerprints on it.”

  “Hang on a sec!” May raised her fork and drizzled syrup everywhere. She quickly set it down and continued with her breakthrough. “Joe is always pointing out how crime scenes are all wrong on TV. There’s no way that the chief could know your fingerprints were on the stilettos.”

  I sucked in a huge gasp. “You’re right! I styled Danny Sloane on NCIS for three seasons, and I picked up a lot of useless facts while he ran lines. It takes weeks for most reports to come back from the lab!”

  “That means the chief was bluffing.” May stuck her finger toward my mother. “I told you she’ll choose Matt.”

  “Cooper was just doing his job.” My mother pursed her lips daintily. “It means he’s a good cop. Of course she’ll choose him.”

  “Something must have happened in order for him to think my fingerprints were on the shoe,” I said, thinking aloud. “Do you think the killer used a pair of my shoes? Maybe ones from my missing luggage?”

  “How would he know the shoes are yours?” Sid asked. “Men don’t pay attention to shoes.”

  “I know, Sid,” I said lovingly, glancing at his feet. “I can see that.”

  Sid especially doesn’t care much about shoes. He has the unfortunate habit of wearing those ugly ones with individual toes built right into the shoe like thick socks. I am ashamed to admit I generally pretend not to know him when he wears them to a public event. He hasn’t done it yet this trip, so hopefully he’s progressed past the toe-shoe stage of life.

  “Then why would he think your fingerprints are on them?” May asked. “That’s a pretty big bluff.”

  I snapped to attention. “The powder blue vintage heels! Mother, did someone buy them?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll have to check,” she said. “Why?”

  “Those are the ones I threatened Grant with!” I exclaimed. “If someone bought them, then it might not be a bluff at all—my fingerprints could still be on them! I slipped them off at the store this morning. Anyone could have them.”

  “I’ll check tomorrow,” my mother said. “I leave the records there.”

  “We really need to get you a computer,” I said. “But if you’ll excuse me for the abrupt departure, I have a quick errand to run. Thanks for the pancakes. No thank you for pimping me out to your choice of single men.”

  “Jenna—”

  “I’ll be back,” I hollered, running to the door and slipping into my high heels. “Can I take the car, mother?”

  “Keys are in the ignition,” she called. “See you for dessert, sweetie.”

  “Mom, lock your door!” I said, pulling it open. “And don’t leave the keys in the car. There’s a murderer on the loose!”

  “Sure, honey,” she breezed. “Chief Dear will protect us, don’t you worry! Just remember that on your date with him, okay, darling?”

  Chapter 4

  Cooper Dear lived in a perfectly normal house, on a perfectly normal street, in a perfectly normal neighborhood. He had rose bushes along the sidewalk, an apple tree hanging over his lawn, and a yard situated cozily between two neighboring houses that looked equally normal.

  In summer, I imagined it to be a bright and happy sort of place. Under a coating of snow, it looked a bit like Narnia with the glowing streetlamps and white flecks falling from the sky. (Speaking of Narnia, do they sell Turkish Delights in Blueberry Lake? Must check Flora’s candy store.)

  It looked like the sort of street where one might find a children’s game of kickball going on at all hours of the day and well into the evening, until dinner bells rang from front porches at dusk. I imagined young couples out for their evening strolls, ice cream cones in hand and their dogs happily trotting beside them.

  All of it surprised me. Chief Dear seemed too grumpy to live on such a perfectly normal street. I was expecting something more along the lines of a haunted mansion tucked onto a dead and gloomy old cul de sac where he sat on his throne in starched pants and stiff shirts, cackling while he sentenced innocent people to orange jumpsuits.

  Too late, I realized my flannel pants didn’t look all that appealing with the only pair of heels I had left, but I wasn’t about to detour home to change. Tomorrow morning I’d grab some clothes from my mother’s store. I’d been far too distracted so far, what with my narrow escape from Grant Mark’s creepy little hands, to worry about whether flannel matched stilettos.

  I hugged my jacket tighter and slipped from the car, slamming the door behind me to announce my arrival. I marched right up Cooper Dear’s perfectly normal front walkway and rapped my knuckles on the solid wood door.

  I took a step back, careful not to twist an ankle on the ice. I half expected a monster to be waiting for me, all grouchy and big and ready to slap handcuffs on me, so I took a deep breath and steeled myself for whoever—or whatever—waited inside Cooper Dear’s lair.

  However, when the door opened and there was no monster, I found myself disappointed. Instead, there stood a strapping gentleman a few years older than me, dressed in a threadbare black T-shirt with worn jeans that made his butt look like a cowboy’s rear end. (Not that I have studied the subject matter extensively, mind you! P.S. If I have studied it on occasion, it was for work.) On impulse, I stepped backward.

  “Oh, my,” I managed to breathe, before my heel hit a patch of ice with my unexpected movement. And then I completely lost my balance.

  I was heading down like the luge in the Winter Olympics—fast and unstoppable and weirdly fascinating. Without thinking, I yelped and reached out my hands, waving them wildly for something—anything—to latch onto for stability.

  A pair of warm arms found me, wrapping around my waist and pulling me upward. The man belonging to the arms trapped me firmly against his chest, which at this moment felt like the most stable force in the world.

  “Whoa, there,” he murmured, his voice gentle and soothing in my ear. “You all right? What happened?”

  I huffed unladylike gasps in his face. “Nice house,” I said dumbly, hoping Chief Dear didn’t recognize the change of subject for what it was: embarrassment. “Sorry about that. Er—usually I’m more graceful. I’m not used to the ice.”

  As I inhaled, I caught the scent of his breath—cinnamon and a hint of red wine?—and felt the warmth of his body. The man
wasn’t as much of a monster as I thought, which was a bummer. I almost liked this version of Chief Dear. He was handsome, mysterious, and he caught me when I fell over. The other, snarlier version was much easier to dislike, and I was not interested in crushing on the man accusing me of murder.

  “What happened out there?” Cooper murmured, his hands still around my back. “Did you show up at my door just to fall into my arms?”

  “I was just trying to help you earn your salary,” I snapped. “At least when you’re catching people, you’re doing good work.”

  He blinked, shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  I tapped his chest again which gave a hefty sort of thunk. “Excuse me, your arms are still around my waist.”

  “You fell into me and didn’t seem keen on moving.”

  I reached behind my back and unclasped his hands at the same time he released me. As I stepped away, I found myself subconsciously missing the warmth shared between us. (Though I’d never tell my mother that, or she wouldn’t stop gloating.)

  “I have some unfinished business with you,” I said, tottering as I regained my balance four inches above his floor. “Hold on a second, will you?”

  My heels might make my calves look great, but there was a hunk of ice stuck to one that was being very stubborn, and eventually, I had to kick off both shoes and retreat to ground level to avoid falling again. Though a second trip into Cooper Dear’s arms wouldn’t have been the worst part of my day.

  “That’s better,” I said, pulling out my finger and giving it a wiggle. “I need to talk to you about what you said this afternoon.”

  Chief Dear was taller and broader than me in shoes, so without them, I felt like I was sinking into quicksand. At five feet, six and three-quarters inches tall, I landed on the chart just above average height for a female. (Reaching five feet, seven inches is a yet-to-be-accomplished item on my bucket list.)