15 Minutes

by Larissa Reinhart

  "I saw a stairway in the kitchen." I didn't like walking through more of the house than needed.

  "Just checking for bodies on the way."

  At my gasp, he grinned. The dimple almost melted my anxiety.

  Almost.

  We mounted the stairs, then traipsed down a longish hall. Nash nosed behind each door before swinging a right into the master. A sitting room led into a spacious bedroom done in chocolate and aqua with more mahogany pieces.

  I followed Nash into the large master bath. Glancing in the mirror, I saw my freckles stand out against my more-than-usual pale skin. I wondered if LA HAIR did spray tans.

  "Housekeeping comes on Mondays." Nash's voice emerged from the toilet stall.

  "What?" I said, smoothing my hair from Lucky's helmet head.

  "Trash has been emptied, but it's Friday." Nash flicked a finger over a toothbrush and looked at me. "Miss Albright, can I tear you away from your reflection to search Sarah's closet before David comes home?"

  I watched flames lick my neck and cheeks. My eyes met his in the mirror. "Of course."

  Nash strode across the bathroom, swung open the closet door, and held it. I pulled in a deep breath of cedar, leather, and fabric softener. The room had been lined with racks and shelves. I missed my walk-in system. I glanced longingly at Sarah Waverly's color coded and seasonally organized clothes and shoes, but I pointed at a tall, narrow dresser.

  "Lingerie?"

  Nash shrugged.

  I moved to the dresser and began opening the drawers. Each one had been sectioned with a frame. And as many women do, the undergarments were organized by style. Less desirable pieces were found in the back. Everyday and more delicate items in the front. Gaps on both sides of the divider showed missing pieces.

  "Dirty laundry?"

  Nash found a hamper by the door. He popped the lid to glance inside. "Empty."

  "You said housekeeping comes on Monday?"

  "That was the schedule the past month."

  We retreated down the back stairs in silence. After a brief stop to look at the kitchen trash, we continued into the laundry room. I spied the dainties hanging from a tiny clothesline over the sink. Four pairs of undies. Still damp. They’d been washed today. More clothes had been washed and folded, waiting in laundry baskets.

  "Housekeeping did come today unless David Waverly has a side hobby of washing his wife's delicates."

  Nash studied the door jamb, refusing to look at the hanging panties.

  I eyed him with a hearty bout of suspicion. "Are you embarrassed to look at Sarah's undies? You don't seem like the modest type."

  "This is the trouble with a girl assistant. Finding problems where there aren't any." He turned into the hallway. "I'm going outside to check their garbage."

  I followed him into the hallway. "I'm not a girl. I'm twenty-five. How old are you?"

  "Thirty-two." His voice was gruffer than usual.

  "Thirty-two's not that old."

  "A lot older than twenty-five."

  "My ex-boyfriend Oliver Fraser was thirty-five."

  "Before or after he went to prison?"

  "What do you know about that? I thought you didn't care about celebrity news."

  "I can't miss your face plastered all over the tabloids in the grocery store."

  "I can't help that." I took a deep breath. "Besides, I have put all that behind me."

  "See that you do, Miss Albright. Here's an investigator training tip. It's a little hard to do undercover surveillance when the investigator is front page news." He shoved through the mud room door, leaving me in the hall.

  I hoped that didn't mean I was about to be fired. Even if Nash were guilty of canoodling, I had to keep my job or face legal consequences. Unless I took up Vicki’s offer of help.

  A craving for sugary trans fats flashed through me.

  I stared at the kitchen, jonesing for something unhealthy. Nash was busy with the trash. Maybe I could find a clue to Sarah's whereabouts in the kitchen. Like the pantry. Or the fridge.

  At the bottom of the pantry, I found the cooler David Waverly had been carrying from the Playbuoy. It had been wiped clean, the interior still damp and shiny, and smelled like bleach. I resisted the snack bags of Dixie Cakes and left the pantry to find Nash. In the mud room, I heard the garage door rumble. Thinking Nash must be ready to leave, I opened the door.

  No Nash.

  Instead, a yellow Corvette rolled into the garage.

  twelve

  #FallenAndCanGetUp #HeilCujo

  I shut the door and threw my back against it. This is where it ended. David Waverly was about to catch me snooping around his house and would have me arrested. Judge Ellis would tell the local D.A. to throw the book at me. I probably couldn't buy a cushy jail cell in Georgia like I could in the overcrowded California prisons.

  Who was I kidding? I had no money for a pay-to-stay. I spent everything on legal fees and celebrity lifestyling in California. I'd share a cell with a toothless meth user who would shiv me with a spork when I refused to act out scenes from Kung Fu Kate. Was it despair or pride that kept me from the prison talent show? Shiv or no shiv, I just couldn't hop like a show biz monkey anymore. Besides, I was way too pale to wear orange. They probably didn't allow self-tanner in prison. My roommate might try to siphon the chemicals to get high.

  "Snap out of it," said an internal Julia Pinkerton voice. "And get out of the mud room."

  The threat of prison had split my personalities.

  The Corvette’s growl echoed, then cut off. I dashed into the kitchen. The mud room door opened. Fingers tapped the keys on the security pad.

  David Waverly was in the house.

  I opened the French door and prayed the porch had another exit. Hiding behind a glass door would not work.

  Behind a fern, I found a screen door and steps leading to a flagstone patio. I was outside. And still visible if David Waverly happened to look out a window. A six-foot metal fence topped with spikes enclosed the yard.

  Where was I? Compton?

  Wait. The back wall must have been fenced by a neighbor. A six-foot brick wall concealed behind a row of magnolias. With no spikes.

  Much better.

  Afraid to look behind me and see David Waverly standing before one of his many windows, I sprinted for the brick wall, passing a kidney-shaped pool with a waterfall. Behind the pool house, I paused to rest my elbows on my thighs and pant. Jerry, my trainer, would be disappointed. He'd insist on intensifying my cardio work.

  I supposed Jerry was correct.

  Keeping the pool house at my back, I approached the magnolias. Smooth cement capped the brick wall about six inches above my head. Not an easy climb, but better than six feet of iron with poky things at the top.

  However, I would have liked a chain link. For some reason, every Julia Pinkerton city chase scene had a tall chain link fence blocking her escape.

  In the distance, a frenzy of barking began. Tuning my focus to the wall, I scanned for footholds between the bricks. Standing on my toes, I hooked my arms over the wall cap and pushed my feet against the magnolia behind me. Working my feet up the magnolia, I hugged the cement top and heaved my torso to meet my arms. With a fair amount of wiggling, my legs met my upper body and I found myself on top of the wall, staring into another backyard. Near the neighbor's house, I spied a wooden gate covered with some flowering vine. Below me, a border of azaleas grew in a pine straw bed.

  I jumped, aiming for the pine straw, and fell into an azalea. Unhurt, I popped up and began walking toward the gate.

  The barking intensified.

  I paused, swung my gaze away from the lovely flowered gate, and noted a German shepherd standing some fifty yards away. Then saw the doggy door cut into the basement door. The barking had been Mr. German Shepherd giving me fair warning from his inside digs. And now he was outside.

  "Oh no," I whispered. "Oh, please no."

  The German shepherd pricked his ears forward.

  My eye
s swept to the gate and back to the dog.

  He flicked his ears back and bared his teeth, uttering a low growl.

  I looked over my shoulder, toward the Waverly wall. I could not climb an azalea to scale that wall. I needed a tree for a boost. At the side wall closest to me, a leafy, low-branched cherry tree stood in the corner. Better than an azalea, but not close enough for comfort.

  On Julia Pinkerton, I had worked with a German shepherd during an episode where Julia had befriended a K9 officer. The officer had a daughter in a wheelchair and Julia used the dog to stand up against the daughter's high school bullies. That particular episode had been after-school-special-ish, but I had learned a few things about attack dogs from the animal handler. Happy, the K9 actor, had been Schutzhund trained. German shepherd's and the like had three drives: prey, defense, and social.

  If I ran, this dog would go into prey mode. He would chase me, pull me down, and eat me.

  My heart beat in my throat. I needed to stay calm. I had to pee in the worst way. Where was Wyatt Nash when you needed him? Hiding in the Waverly garbage can?

  The dog began barking again. Warning me to leave.

  I couldn't cross his territory. I glanced back at the tree. Only twenty feet away. I'd already climbed a brick wall. I could do it again.

  The barking grew louder.

  I took a deep breath and lunged toward the cherry tree.

  Behind me, the dog galloped, ready to drive me from his property. Or kill me. Probably the most excitement he'd had in ages.

  The cherry tree trunk was too far from the wall for my tested scaling approach. I grabbed the thickest branch overhead and walked my feet up the bricks. Grabbing for a higher branch, I swung my right leg on top of the wall.

  Below me, the dog snapped and snarled.

  I flung my left leg onto the cement cap. I now hung lengthwise over my attacker, my heels caught on the smooth cement wall. My butt dangled above a dog with serious teeth.

  The dog jumped. His wet nose grazed the exposed small of my back. The teeth snapped, but didn’t catch.

  Biting my lip to keep from crying, I stared at the branches above me. How long could I hang like this? Would the dog's owner eventually come out to examine the kind of squirrel her pet had treed?

  I hoped the owner was a Julia Pinkerton fan.

  "Nice doggie," I called in the calmest, happiest voice I could muster. Which was neither calm nor happy. I wished I knew German. Kung Fu Kate had encountered an evil German scientist once, but because that show was meant for the six to twelve demographic, we’d only used fake German accents.

  I summoned my best German. "Halt. Wiener schnitzel. Heil."

  Why were there no Spanish attack dogs? I knew enough Spanish to get around LA.

  The dog growled and barked. He leapt and caught the hem of my shirt in its teeth.

  At the rip, I jerked my body north, snatching another tree limb. I had managed to move from straight line to acute angle but lost a chunk off the back of my Isabel Marant Étoile tee. A two hundred dollar doggy dinner.

  Panting, I turned my head to catch a glimpse of the shepherd. He sat with his head cocked, studying me. The strip of cloth had caught on one incisor. It hung from his mouth like a long tongue. His ears lay flat. Our eyes met. His lip curled back, exposing his teeth. The cloth dropped to the pine straw.

  I almost peed my pants. Almost.

  "Help," I whispered. "Mr. Nash. Please help."

  The cherry branches were not strong enough. The one I currently grasped thinned as it grew from the trunk. No hand-over-hand push toward the wall would work. My thighs burned with the effort to keep my heels on top the wall.

  "Okay, Maizie," I said to myself. And to Rin Tin Tin, who was also listening. "What would Julia do?"

  As a tumbler, Julia would have used her core ab strength (and a stunt double) to fling herself on top the wall. My core abs had had more workout with fried chicken than Pilates lately, but somewhere beneath the layer of donuts and pickles, there had to be a muscle or two left from my trainer's whip cracking.

  Stretching toward a higher branch, I wiggled forward until the branch bent.

  I really hoped I didn't fall on top of the dog. I didn't want to hurt him.

  Or get eaten.

  Pushing my knees out, I rocked onto my toes. I ducked my head, grunted, and thrust forward, letting go of the branch. My hands windmilled, slashing at the branches and leaves.

  I was on top of the wall.

  And over.

  I couldn't stop. A flower bed rose to meet me. I tucked, slamming into the ground. I continued to roll down a slight incline and stopped in a tangle of sticky shrubbery that left a pleasant, sharp scent in my wake.

  Rosemary.

  I lay for a long minute, panting and accessing bodily damage. Nothing broken. Thank God for tumbling muscle memory.

  Julia Pinkerton's cheerleading had saved my life.

  I dragged myself upright, scratched and bruised, but unbroken.

  From a trampoline, a group of kids watched me, their jaws disengaged from their mouths. This house didn't match Platinum Ridge's glitz. I had landed in the backyard of a neighboring subdivision.

  At my feet were a trampled rosemary bush and a lot of crushed parsley and thyme. I brushed off the herbs, climbed out of the flower bed, and ran for the street.

  My walk through the neighboring subdivision, along the main road, and back to Platinum Ridge was fraught with musings.

  And repeated horn honking. My shirt was ripped and I had accumulated enough foliage on my person to fill a small botanical garden.

  I tried not to think about my evident failures but focused my concentration on the case at hand. Where was Sarah Waverly? Did she run off with the milkman? Or with Nash? Perhaps she was kidnapped. Or maybe Waverly had snapped. Lured her on the boat and threw her overboard.

  David Waverly's house had been cleaned on the wrong day. Which could mean...his housekeeper needed Monday off. His cooler had been cleaned with bleach. Which could mean…he'd caught a bunch of smelly fish.

  Or had gotten rid of smelly evidence.

  I jumped to conclusions too easily. Most likely, Sarah Waverly would return with a reasonable explanation for her disappearance. Her friend had grabbed her and they had driven two hours to Atlanta for a big sale at Saks. In her excitement, Sarah had forgotten her purse.

  Yeah, right. I sighed. Who forgets their purse when they're going to Saks?

  I trudged to Platinum Ridge's adorable guard box, got in line, and sucked in a Lincoln's exhaust fumes before approaching the guard. I recognized Hector from my failed bout of surveillance earlier that morning. Hector didn't care about celebrity autographs. However, personal security detail was something Hector had been familiar with in his country of origin. That Mr. Waverly wanted someone keeping tabs on his wife did not ruffle Hector's wavy hair in the least.

  "Hey Hector. I need back in."

  Hector's eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. "What happened to you?"

  "Your community is well protected," I said. "No need to test the walls. Listen, has Mr. Waverly talked to you about Mrs. Waverly today?"

  "Not following, Maizie. Mr. Waverly hasn't talked to me about anything today. What's going on? Anything I should know?" He paused, narrowing chocolate brown eyes. "As one security person to another?"

  I'll admit that gave me a thrill. "Remember when I was tasked with keeping an eye on Mrs. Waverly's movements?"

  "You mean your surveillance duty this morning?" He smirked. "You lost her."

  "I know where her car is."

  Hector shook his head. "If you were in my country and you lost the boss's wife, the boss would have cut off at least one of your fingers. Maybe cut your throat, depending on how much he liked his wife."

  I fingered my throat. "When you say boss, are you talking boss of a company or more of a cartel?"

  Hector rolled his eyes. "So what’re you gonna do?"

  "Keep your eyes and ears open, Hector. I'll keep you po
sted. Right now, I've got to walk back to the Waverly house."

  "Mr. Waverly is there now.”

  I nodded. "Please tell me a Silverado truck has not exited. If Mr. Nash left, I'm just warning you that I will most likely cry and I get very blotchy."

  "He hasn't left. Probably still talking to Mr. Waverly." Hector pressed the buzzer for the gate lift.

  Obviously, the sacking of Nash hadn't been discussed with Hector. "Thanks Hector," I said and jogged through the gate.

  "Hey Maizie," Hector called after me, "nice bra."

  I looked like I just climbed a tree, was attacked by a dog, fell off a wall, and rolled down a hill into an herb garden. And still the focus was on my boobs. So Hollywood of Hector.

  After sweating up the massive hill to Granite Drive, I found Nash's truck parked in Waverly's driveway. I stood next to the truck considering reasons why Nash would move his truck to the conspicuous driveway setting. Giving up, I approached the door. Nash must have gone back inside in a less sneaky, more invited capacity. However, I couldn't bring myself to ring the bell. My tee hung lopsided in two big flaps, and at my attempt to feel my back I realized the tear had rent to the collar. My black La Perla bra was available for the world to see.

  Hector wasn't as pervy as I thought.

  I raised my knuckles for a gentle rap and saw a figure shimmer behind the frosted glass. With a quick prayer that anyone other than David Waverly would answer the door, I shrunk behind the topiary.

  The front door swung open. Nash stood on the threshold in his Scorpions t-shirt and huggy jeans. His eyes narrowed then widened.

  "What in the hell happened to you?" he whispered.

  "I don't want to talk about it." I felt a tear form and pinched my thumb so hard I cried out.

  "Are you okay?" Nash stepped out the door. "Holy hell, you look like crap."

  "What are you doing in there?"

  "I thought you were trapped inside, so I drove up and asked Waverly if I could speak to him. Criminy, it's been almost an hour. I was headed out, thinking I'd have to get back in later tonight to look for you." Nash studied me, then wiped his thumb across my cheek. "Dammit, you're bleeding. First you get socked in the nose and now this. I don't think you're cut out for this business."