Killer Deal

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “Daniel has his pride,” Lindsay continued, oblivious to our concerns. “Maybe too much. You can’t imagine what it took for him to go see Garth and explain our situation. He never intended to hurt Garth. He just wanted to make an impression on him, make sure Garth knew how serious we were about being willing to do anything …” She sniffed again, wiping her eyes and nose with the napkin.

  “But Garth laughed at him,” Lindsay resumed, her jaw tightening. “Daniel can’t stand it when people laugh at him. So Daniel took out the gun and made Garth drink for his charm. But Garth kept laughing. That’s when Daniel hit him—while he had my charm in his mouth. Which is why I didn’t take it back to Tiffany to get it fixed. I was afraid they’d be able to tell there’d been blood on it. But after Daniel broke Garth’s tooth, Garth got really angry. They started fighting. And Daniel shot him.”

  “What about the blouse and the perfume?” Detective Donovan, the only one who wasn’t speechless, asked.

  “Daniel came home and started tearing apart my closet, telling me I couldn’t go back there, couldn’t work there anymore, because they didn’t respect me. He took the sample bottle of Success and poured it all over my favorite blouse and told me how they were all pissing on me and I shouldn’t have to take that, I was better than that.” Her voice caught momentarily, but she took a deep breath and continued. “Then he told me what he’d done. And I told him I’d clean up the mess.”

  Lindsay looked at me expectantly and all I could say was, “Thank you for telling me.”

  “I enjoyed our dinner together. Daniel really liked your boyfriend,” she said.

  At first I thought it was a non sequitur, but then I understood she was expressing her regret for how things had turned out. I nodded and said, “Me, too.”

  Detective Donovan flipped his notebook closed. “Molly, the paramedics took Kyle, too. St. Luke’s.”

  I looked over guiltily, not having seen him leave, as Cassady answered him. “Thank you, Detective. We’ll get her there.”

  Detective Donovan held his hand out to Lindsay. “We should go now.” She took his hand and stood up. We all stood, out of some instinctive etiquette, and watched Detective Donovan escort her out, past the billowing banners of women seducing Success. Or was it the other way around?

  “You’re barefoot,” Cassady pointed out.

  I looked down. I’d forgotten I’d kicked my shoes off in my final effort to catch up with Daniel. “Never leave a man behind,” I said, summoning my resolve and leading them backstage. Fortunately, my shoes were pretty much where I’d left them. Tricia steadied me while I slid them back on. As I straightened up, I caught Aaron watching me with such a purely puzzled expression that I had to smile. “We know how to party, don’t we, Aaron?”

  “The partying is exceptional. The stopping needs a little work,” he said, earning another smile for frankness.

  “Okay, St. Luke’s it is,” I said. “And let’s hope different nurses are on duty.”

  This time, Tricia, Cassady, and Aaron waited outside while I went into the E.R. examining room. Kyle was sitting on the side of the gurney, looking tired and miserable, while a freshly starched doctor tried to get him to lie back down. “You’re not going anywhere,” the doctor said.

  “I can’t take him home?” I asked.

  The doctor looked at me in surprise. “You the girlfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor looked back at Kyle. “You said she wasn’t coming for you.”

  I tried not to wince while Kyle said, “I said I didn’t know when she was coming for me.”

  The doctor’s expression made it clear he didn’t think he’d heard Kyle wrong the first time, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. Instead, he recited discharge orders to me: to wake him periodically, and bring him back immediately if he showed signs of lethargy, disorientation, or nausea. “Sounds like a fun night,” I said as cheerily as possible.

  Kyle was gracious to Cassady, Tricia, and Aaron, but everyone knew he needed to get home. I urged them not to let their fancy duds go to waste as we got into a cab and headed back to my apartment.

  “So it was the dweeb we had dinner with,” Kyle said after several blocks, just at the point where I thought he wasn’t going to say anything at all. “Because he tried to pimp his wife and it didn’t work. What the hell’s wrong with people?”

  “You didn’t like him. You’ve got good instincts,” I said.

  “If I had good instincts, I wouldn’t have wound up on the floor,” he said. “Damn sucker punch.”

  I stroked his hair and he caught my hand, not pushing it away, but holding it tight against his head, as though he were leaning into it. Worried I was hurting him, I tried to pull my hand away, but he wouldn’t let me. He held it there until the cab pulled up in front of my building.

  I set the alarm clock so we’d wake up every two hours, but I wound up not needing it. I couldn’t sleep. I lay beside him for a long time, watching him breathe, studying his profile in the twilight of the bedroom. He woke up quickly at each alarm, but went back to sleep just as quickly. After a while, I sat up and pretended to read, but I didn’t absorb anything.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the empire Garth had created, one where people had stopped valuing themselves for their talents, their individuality, and started measuring themselves by their appeal to one megalomaniacal tyrant. In the scramble for success, they’d lost their bearings. No wonder some of them had crashed. It wasn’t just Lindsay and Daniel. Look at the knots Wendy had tied herself in, or Gwen and Ronnie trying to revive an old affair to convince themselves they could create something special in the rest of their lives. And these were the people who told the rest of us what we were supposed to want out of life.

  Come morning, the gala was inescapable. Between the press that had been covering the event, Emile’s videographers, and all the camera phones, every outlet had pictures of some part of the melee. As a generally out-of-focus blur, I made out slightly better in the pictures than Eileen, who was generally caught in mid-fall with the expression of a small child whose large ice cream cone has just been snatched away by the neighbor’s German shepherd.

  She called bright and early, as she adores to do, to inform me that Emile was fashioning sleeves to slide over the cast she’d be wearing on her forearm for the next month and to ask me when my article would be ready.

  “I’m still sorting things out, Eileen,” I said. “Can’t we talk about this later?”

  “Don’t you get temperamental on me. Any other editor would fire a writer for doing what you did.”

  “Are you talking about solving the case or saving your life?”

  “I’m talking about assaulting me in front of hundreds of my dearest friends.”

  There were so many things wrong with that sentence, I barely knew where to begin, so I opted for the easy out. “I’m sorry about that part.”

  “And the other part is why you still have a job. Get to work,” she snarled and hung up. Expecting a thank you was too much, I knew, but a girl can hope.

  As I put down the phone, I saw that Kyle was awake and looking at me intensely. “Hey, did the phone wake you?”

  “Maybe. That Eileen?”

  “Yeah,” I said, suddenly self-conscious of my talk of breaking cases and saving lives. “Just the usual flinging of hyperbole. How do you feel?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “I’ll be fine.”

  He was quiet while we made breakfast, while we ate, and when the first bouquet of flowers arrived. It was a huge spray of orchids and other exotics and the card read: Thank you, Gwen Lincoln. The second bouquet, ridiculously large and rich with roses, was from The Publisher. The card read: Looking forward to the article. The third bouquet was from Peter: Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have scoop me.

  Kyle looked at the bouquets for a long time—couldn’t avoid it, actually, since they consumed half the living room—and then said, “Congratulations. You were right.” />
  “I wasn’t. I didn’t figure out it was Daniel until the last second.”

  “You knew it wasn’t Gwen and you stuck to your guns. Even when I told you to stop.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You shouldn’t be. And I shouldn’t put you in a position where you feel you should be.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m gonna take a shower.” He walked out of the room before I could stop him.

  I paced outside the bathroom for two full minutes, then took the plunge, stripping off my nightshirt and getting in the shower with him. It was a small shower and the physics of our both being in there would have amused Aaron, but I couldn’t wait another moment to wrap my arms around Kyle, to kiss him, to meld myself with him, and wash away his agitation.

  The rest of the day went well. We stopped answering the phone, watched old movies, listened to music, and lost ourselves in each other. It was wonderful to let everything else fall away. Until he said, late that night, “This works so well. Too bad there’s a world out there.”

  I felt like someone was choking the air out of me. “But it’s you and me against that world, right?” I managed.

  “I love you, Molly,” he answered.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Then we better figure out how to fix this.”

  I could taste the tears in my throat before I felt them in my eyes. “Fix what?”

  “You know what,” he said, gently and sincerely. “We both love what we do and we’re both good at it. But if it’s gonna have us crashing into each other all the time …”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know we will. Sooner or later.”

  I didn’t sleep much more that night, worried that I’d wake up and he’d be gone. But he was there in the morning. He didn’t start pulling his stuff together until after breakfast.

  “You don’t have to leave,” I told him.

  “A little perspective would be good for both of us.”

  “No, I need you,” I protested.

  He slid his hand up under my hair and pulled me to him. “It’s gonna be all right,” he whispered. “I’ll call you.” He kissed me with such tenderness that it hurt, picked up his duffel bag, and left.

  I stared at the closed front door for a long time. And thought about Lindsay and Daniel. They’d destroyed their relationship, their lives in their desperation to build what they saw as the perfect future. Willing to do anything, they’d lost everything instead. How much sacrifice should love demand? Wasn’t there a way to have passion and balance? Does there have to be a choice between who we love and what we love to do?

  I’d gone through two boxes of Kleenex by the time Tricia and Cassady arrived. Cassady quickly pointed out that Kyle had not returned my key and Tricia reasoned that a lesser man would have told me I needed to find a different job if we were going to stay together. Some solace, but not enough to get rid of the debilitating ache in my chest.

  Cassady insisted that brunch, with many mimosas, was the only sane course of action and they dragged me to the bedroom to persuade me into appropriate attire. “Where’s Aaron?” I asked as Cassady presented me with my favorite JCrew white blouse.

  “He had atoms to split or some such thing, so I told him I’d talk to him later.”

  “And you never got to spend any time with Detective Donovan,” I said to Tricia as she handed me my black slacks.

  “I think that was adrenaline, not attraction. Moving on,” she said brightly.

  “I’m not, am I? Moving on, I mean?”

  “Not if the man’s as smart as we’ve always given him credit for being,” Cassady said.

  Tricia swept my black Belle sandals out of the closet. “It’s the bumps in the road that make the trip interesting.”

  Cassady laughed. “Which maiden aunt taught you that?”

  Tricia frowned. “Aunt Jessica. And I’ve always thought it was quite astute.”

  “It belongs on an embroidered pillow, underneath a Persian cat that eats shrimp twice a day.” Cassady threw her arm around Tricia’s shoulders and glanced over at me. “I don’t know about taking any advice from this one, but not to worry, I’ll get you through this.”

  “We both will,” Tricia said, her arm around Cassady’s waist.

  “Whether I like it or not, right?” I said. They laughed appreciatively and I smiled a bit, reassured by knowing that, with faith in the people you love, you can get through anything. At least, that’s the hope.

  ALSO BY SHERYL J. ANDERSON

  Killer Cocktail

  Killer Heels

  PRAISE FOR SHERYL J. ANDERSON’S MOLLY FORRESTER NOVELS

  Killer Deal

  “Elements of chick lit—the New York setting, the many brand names, lots of shopping, the emphasis on relationship problems—give the novel appeal beyond mystery fans … A quick, fun read.”

  —Booklist

  Killer Cocktail

  “Fashion commentary, urbane asides, and witty characters keep the pages turning.”

  —Library Journal

  Killer Heels

  “Sure to please Sex and the City fans.”

  —Booklist

  “Mix a splash of Carrie Bradshaw, a dash of Stephanie Plum, and a wee bit of Kinsey Millhone and you have Molly Forrester, advice columnist (‘You Can Tell Me’) for Zeitgeist magazine by day and amateur sleuth by night … Ample laughs help propel a well-crafted plot.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly

  “Delicious.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Killer Heels, Sheryl J. Anderson’s hip debut mystery, sparkles like fine champagne, an intoxicating mix of wit, perception, and insouciance, and a wickedly clever but genuine depiction of single life in the city. Killer Heels will tap right to the top of the Best First lists.”

  —Carolyn Hart, author of Death of the Party

  “A fun, ‘girls’ night out’ type of book that blends humor, craziness, and mystery.”

  —Mystery News

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  KEEP READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM SHERYL J. ANDERSON’S NEXT MYSTERY

  Killer Riff

  COMING SOON IN HARDCOVER FROM

  ST. MARTIN’S MINOTAUR

  1

  “I CAN’T BALANCE MY DIET, so how am I supposed to balance my life?”

  Tricia nodded sympathetically. “Everything you’ve been hoping for. For it to all happen at the same time—it’s just criminal!”

  Coming from anyone else—in fact, coming from my other best friend, who was also at the table—it would have sounded at the very least snarky. More probably, it would have sounded like a righteous putdown. But coming from Tricia Vincent, it was a sincere and heartfelt expression of how Fate can take something that should be glorious and turn it into a major kick in the teeth.

  Cassady Lynch pushed a glass of champagne across the table to me. “I thought we were here to celebrate.”

  “That was before I had two things to be happy about.” Two things that clashed with each other with all the vigor of freight trains colliding at top speed. On the one hand, I had the professional promotion I’d been dreaming of. On the other, the romantic redemption I’d been yearning for. But since professional issues were responsible for derailing the romance to begin with, I felt smacked by an Olympian dose of irony, with no clear vision of how—or if—I could make this work.

  Things had been much more promising earlier in the afternoon as I’d stood nervously in my editor’s office, listening to her proclaim, “M
olly, I’m going to make you happy and it just kills me.”

  Gotta give the boss lady this: You always know where you stand with her. Usually, that place is akin to the crumbling lip of a rumbling volcano, but there’s never any question it’s exactly where Eileen wants you to be. So she gets points for honesty, if nothing else. The problem is, from that point, it can be pretty tricky to see where she’s headed and, even though I should know better by now, I always try to figure that out. For the most part, it’s an exercise in futility, but it’s the only regular exercise I get.

  On this particular occasion, looking ahead was especially tempting because Henry Kwon was somehow part of the equation. He was slouched on the couch in Eileen’s office. I couldn’t tell if that was an expression of how relaxed he was about what was happening or about how impossible it is to sit properly on that ridiculously unyielding piece of furniture. Even so, he looked great—he always looks great—and he was smiling. What could that mean? I looked him in the eye and his smile grew.

  Having a handsome man smile at you is rarely a bad thing. But this particular handsome man was also the associate publisher of our magazine, so the potential reasons for his smile were all the more intriguing. And the fact that he was flat-out gorgeous didn’t hurt. Especially since I had been painfully single for seven and a half weeks and deeply missed having someone gorgeous smile at me.

  Pushing that distraction from my mind, I did my best to concentrate on decoding what Eileen and Henry were up to. Even though I’ve been out of school more years than I care to admit, I still feel like I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office when I have to go into Eileen’s lair. So, even though Eileen was suspiciously proclaiming that she was going to make me happy, my perpetually fluctuating self-worth and guilty conscience were conspiring to make me nervous. That annoyed me because I don’t like letting Eileen get to me. I particularly didn’t want Henry to think of me as anything but cool and controlled.