“Wow, there’s so many holes in that chain of evidence it makes my head hurt,” Stella said. “Almost makes me want to give them their padlock back so they’d have somewhere to start.”
“Nah, probably quicker if you just find them the real killer and then they won’t have to worry about it.”
“Ain’t that the truth… Listen, before I go digging for dirt on Bryant’s personal life, I guess we should also rule out anyone you might have pissed off concerning unrelated matters. Ian got any ex-wives or girlfriends who might have an issue with him seeing you?”
“Nope, and you can bet I checked.”
“Hmm.” That was a scary thought—ever since Chrissy had blazed her way around the Internet, picking up hacking skills like a vacuum cleaner picks up toast crumbs, she’d learned how to find things that most people were shocked ever got recorded. “I’m tempted to ask what all kinds of secrets you turned up on the man, but just in case you decide to keep him around I guess you can keep them to yourself. I don’t need to be looking across a Scrabble board one day knowing all his dirty laundry.”
Chrissy followed her out to the golf cart, jumping in rather daintily for someone who’d just endured a kidnapping. “What if it was Goat? Would you want to know then?”
“Chrissy! You haven’t—”
“Naw, course not. Just saying, what if I had?”
“No,” Stella said shortly. A year back, Goat’s ex-wife Brandy had turned up and caused a fair amount of trouble for Stella, including an automotive explosion, not to mention a ruined dinner date. If the man had any more surprises like that up his sleeve, she figured they could just stay hidden. “I already know what I need to know about him.”
“Which is what?”
Stella jammed the pedal all the way to the floor, causing the cart to take the bumps and ridges in the road a little more forcefully than necessary. “Only that he’s—well, he’s good, and kind, and fair, and strong, and he does things with a pair of polyester pants that I’m not sure are entirely legal.”
“Stella Hardesty, it’s about time you came out and admitted all this,” Chrissy exclaimed. “Usually you won’t say boo about the man. What’s got into you?”
“I’m not sure,” Stella admitted. “I guess maybe, what with BJ all laid up, I’m thinking about what I’m really looking for in a man. I’m not sure I even really want a man if he’s going to need me to wait on him and take care of him. I already done that, for thirty years, and I don’t need to spend one more damn day being anyone’s servant. I mean, not that that’s what BJ expects from me, but thinking about him there needing Jorge to fetch him his clicker just makes me want to run the other direction. And besides, I got everything I need already—friends, family, a job I like—maybe throwing a man into the mix would be like putting a purse on a pig, you know?”
Stella’s phone rang, and she squinted at the display. “Imagine that,” she sighed. “BJ, just like I conjured him. Here, take the wheel, will you?”
Chrissy obliged, steering them around the long way toward the pro shop, which Stella had to admit was a better idea than returning to the resort’s entrance with a stolen vehicle.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Stella, it’s me. BJ.” He sounded like a man trying to be cheerful. “Thought I’d call and see how the party’s going.”
“It’s fine. You aren’t missing anything, though, it’s pretty tame.” Stella winced, trying to put images of Goat standing in the back of the room, with that ironlike jaw and glinty glowering gaze, out of her mind. “I mean, don’t waste any time worrying about not being able to come up here for the wedding. Things have gotten a little complicated, anyway.”
“I heard that one of the guests got himself shot up in the woods. They figure out if it was a hunting accident yet?”
“Well, that’s—” Too much to go into, Stella thought, and she didn’t feel like taking the time to explain. “Yeah, looks that way. Wrong place, wrong time, too much camouflage, and not enough common sense. You know, same old story. It’s just that since he, ah, was close to the family, they’re going to have to delay the wedding. Dotty and Kam decided they’re just going to do a little ceremony on Monday.”
“Really?” BJ’s voice brightened. “Well, the doc says I can get up out of bed soon. I got to start slow, of course, but maybe by Monday I could get on up there. We could still have us that nice romantic time you was talking about.”
Even over the phone Stella could tell the man was blushing—his voice got a little thready whenever he ventured into sexy territory, which unfortunately meant that when he said her name in moments of passion it sounded a bit like he’d sucked down helium.
“Oh no, don’t bother,” she found herself saying. “I mean, it’s just going to be a handful of folks who stay over. Chrissy and I’ll probably share a room Sunday night and come back right after, anyway.”
“Oh.” BJ sounded crestfallen. “Well, what’re y’all doing tomorrow?”
Stella gave him a condensed rundown—Kam’s romantic gesture, the prewedding reception. “I mean, they got the caterers and what all already lined up. So I guess it made sense.”
“Well, what about during the day?”
It almost sounded like BJ was considering hobbling his way to the Ozark Shores resort, aches and pains and all, and Stella said the first thing that came to her by way of diversion, as Chrissy pulled into the end of a row of carts on the side of the pro shop.
“Golf tournament.”
Chrissy gave her a surprised look, and Stella winced and shrugged. She wasn’t good when she was put on the spot.
“But you don’t golf,” BJ said. “I’ve tried to get you to go with me any number of times.” After his truck and bowling, golf came in high on BJ’s list of passions.
“Ahh, you know, it’s for charity. Me and Chrissy, we got roped into it. I mean, I wouldn’t, except it’s for a good cause.”
“What’s that?”
Stella cast around wildly for ideas. That was the problem with lying—you got bogged down in the details. When she was on the job, truth stretching and outright fabricating came easy to Stella, since it was all in the name of justice, but when it came to personal matters, her own disloyal conscience tended to trip her up. “It’s, ah, um. I mean…”
Her gaze shot past the main building down the road, which was lit up gaily, music and laughter drifting out from the party. She took in the moon shining down on the piney Ozark hills, the water glistening in the distance down by the boat docks. Nothing, not one speck of inspiration. In front of her, the shop windows were full of golf clothes and clubs and all kinds of sporting paraphernalia. A flyer in the window caught her eye, and she made a desperate pitch.
“The Historical Society Fall Fairy Golf Event,” she read. Then, squinting, she realized that it read “Fall Faire,” which on reflection made a lot more sense. “It’s a fund-raiser. You golf, and, um, people sponsor you and the money goes to the historical society. They’re putting on a new roof,” she added hopefully; in her experience the little details added credibility and made all the difference.
Chrissy smacked her on the shoulder. Stella turned off the ignition and tried to ignore Chrissy’s eye rolling.
“How’s that got to do with fairies?” BJ said dubiously.
Stella, who nearly broke an ankle trying to get out of the cart while simultaneously ignoring Chrissy’s silent jeering, said the first thing that came into her head. “Oh, you dress up as a fairy. Fairy golf. It’s a thing. Started in L.A., you know how they are out there. They finish off with a parade Sunday afternoon.”
“Uh-huh.” Dubious had given way to outright incredulity. In the background, Stella heard a burst of rapid-fire, heavily accented English.
“Please say hi to Jorge for me,” she said quickly. “Oh, dear, I need to run; time for toasts.”
“You’re just now getting
around to the toasts?” BJ said. “Thought you said it was winding down.”
“Oh, these are just, the, um, closing toasts. You know. Okay, bye now.”
She clicked off before she could strain her own prevarication skills any further.
“You are the world’s shittiest liar,” Chrissy observed.
“Yeah,” Stella agreed morosely. “At least when it has to do with my own personal life. Well, now we got you rescued, I guess we might as well head back, or Lloyd’s liable to send out a search party.”
Chapter Ten
“Who all’s with you?” Chrissy asked. They’d taken a seat at the edge of the ballroom, where they could keep tabs on the comings and goings of the remaining partiers. She’d called Lloyd, who had apparently been dragged along on the stag party, which had accumulated all the male guests like a snowball rolling down a hill before heading out to a local roadhouse. The men had all evidently packed themselves into the back of Goat’s old Ford F-150 pickup, which was the sort of illegal that tended to get overlooked on country lanes, where speeds rarely exceeded leisurely and the man at the wheel was sober as a judge, with a badge to boot. “Uh-huh… uh-huh. And they been with you the whole time?”
After a bit more chatting, followed by Chrissy’s evasive promises to see Lloyd later if she happened to still be up and needing to talk—an amateur’s ploy for sure, as Stella was not aware of any female who longed to bare her soul to a man who’d come stumbling out of a bachelor party in the wee hours—she hung up and confirmed what they’d suspected. “It wasn’t anyone from the party.”
“Okay. So whoever attacked you, we got it narrowed down to either male or female and probably not a close personal friend or relation to Dotty or Kam.”
Chrissy frowned. “Well, when you put it that way it don’t sound like much.”
“That’s ’cause it ain’t.” Stella took a long, contemplative sip of her drink, a double Johnnie Walker Black she’d bribed the bartender to fetch for her from the hotel bar in place of the well whiskey they were serving for free in the ballroom. “Which is sure inconvenient, because if someone wasn’t trying to kill you, I’d say our job was done, seeing as Divinity’s likely going to get free Monday and nobody’s too shook up about Bryant, and now Dotty’s going to have her wedding after all and Mrs. Rangarajan will be able to calm down.”
“Well, I will have Ian with me tomorrow,” Chrissy said. “He can protect me, I’m sure.”
They were silent for a moment, the attempt on Chrissy’s life nagging at Stella. If indeed it was Bryant Molder’s killer who’d kidnapped her, he had somehow managed to find out they were on his trail. Had he been hidden in the forest, drawn back to the killing field by curiosity or some sort of twisted pride in his accomplishment? Had he seen them head down the road toward the state park, and managed to follow them without drawing Stella’s attention?
Neither seemed likely, but the fact remained that someone wanted very much to dissuade them, and Stella was not about to let the matter drop in hopes it would just go away on its own. Maybe it was the fact that she and Chrissy had narrowly escaped death together not that long ago, recovering in side-by-side hospital rooms from injuries that might have killed weaker-willed women. Granted, whoever’d tied her assistant up this evening hadn’t been made of much, but sometimes luck favored the bad guys. If he hadn’t dropped the rope… if Chrissy hadn’t been able to call Stella… if he’d decided to take on the pair of them, even with a seriously underpowered sidearm… how far would he go to shut them up?
“Well, listen,” Stella finally said, coming to a decision when there was little left in her glass but she had a pleasant buzz. “Now that the ladies are taking care of Dotty’s dress, and she ain’t even going to need it until Monday anyway, I don’t suppose I have to stay holed up here all day tomorrow. Noelle and Cinnamon aren’t coming down until the afternoon, so that gives me all morning to see if I can figure this out.”
“Don’t be looking to drag me along.”
“I know, I know, you got a tantric morning planned.”
“What are you gonna do, anyway?”
“Thought I’d head over to Branson and see if I can find out who all Bryant’s pissed off lately. And I thought I could talk to that Lexie girl. Maybe she’s been making day trips out this way.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. I don’t get why she’d want to kill someone she just stole from his old girlfriend.”
“Well, it’s a tangled web, ain’t it? You got your love and money mixed up together, that’s pretty powerful.”
“You could just wait and talk to her on Monday, couldn’t you?”
“Well, if she’s even still coming to sing at the service. I don’t think Dotty’s got all the details worked out yet. Besides, waiting around just gives someone a couple extra days to come after you. And me, too, you gotta assume, so this is a preventive-type measure.”
Stella and Chrissy watched the party wind the rest of the way down. Dotty, exhausted from being the center of attention but still wearing the lovestruck expression that seemed permanently pasted onto her face, headed upstairs with her future sisters-in-law, who had promised to show her adorable baby pictures of Kam, as well as embarrassing adolescent school shots from before he got his hair under control. Novella and Gracie polished off the remaining shrimp puffs and wrapped up the leftover cheese cubes in a napkin before departing, and soon it was just the weary waitstaff, cleaning up the dregs of the celebration.
“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Stella sighed. “Ain’t much sense waiting up for the boys to come back. You don’t want to be here when Lloyd comes in—I don’t think there’s enough Pabst Blue Ribbon in the world to take the edge off his fix on you.”
“You okay, Stella? You want me to stay with you tonight?”
“No, that’s all right, you got to get up early,” Stella said with a heavy heart. She was thrilled for her assistant—and her best friend, Dotty, and her daughter and everyone else who’d found love. Only, it was kind of lonely, being the one left over. Which was stupid, because there was BJ, just as soon as he was up off his back, anyway, and that was one boyfriend more than a lot of ladies had. “You get your beauty rest so you’re at your best tomorrow when your sweetheart shows up.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Chrissy said. “But just call if you want company, okay?”
Stella tried to keep a spring in her step as she retreated to her room. It took her a few minutes to shimmy and wriggle out of her dress—she was certain she’d split one of the seams Novella had tailored—but once she was in her nightgown with her makeup scrubbed off and her hair combed out, she felt a little better. She snuggled under the covers and dug her book out of her suitcase. She found the passage where she’d left off in Nora Roberts’s Heaven and Earth—saucy female cop Ripley was being pursued around the island by a madman and that delicious Dr. MacAllister Booke was nowhere to be found—when there was a knock on her door. Not the gentle tapping that Dotty employed or the no-nonsense rap-rap-rap of Chrissy, but an impatient pounding.
Stella sighed and padded to the door and peeped through the peephole and just about fainted.
“Very funny, Big Guy,” she muttered. Naturally, He would wait until she’d taken off every speck of makeup and unsprung the flesh that had been imprisoned in the tight dress, to bring the man of her dreams to the door. Stella pinched her cheeks and ran her tongue over her lips to shine them up a bit. She bent at the waist and fluffed her hair with her fingers and, when she straightened up, sucked in her gut and gave her breasts an encouraging pat to make sure they were resting more or less evenly under her nightie. At least she had packed a decent gown, a scalloped-hem lavender floral knee-length number with a satin bow at the neckline.
Which wasn’t the least bit sexy, of course, which suddenly struck Stella with the force of revelation. Because there was another nightgown in her dresser at home, one that still had
the tags on it, one that was not the least bit nice or respectable. It was black as sin with straps about as wide as a whisper, and it barely grazed her thighs, and she’d bought it not long after the last time Goat kissed her and had tucked it into the drawer, where it had stayed, untouched. She’d had to reach right past it to get the lavender gown, and there could be only one reason for that decision: Her subconscious mind didn’t feel like getting sexy with BJ.
“Um,” she said, her hand on the doorknob.
“Stella, open up!” Goat’s face loomed in close to the peep hole. “It’s important!”
She took one last deep breath and pulled open the door. Goat pushed past her into the room, then spun and glared at her. He held up a length of electrical cord.
“What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?” he demanded. He held up the cord, which had been roughly cut at one end. Stella took it from him and held it up close, squinting to make out the frayed wires. “This thing was connected to a sensor at one end and a propane tank on the other. Would have caused a hell of an explosion if it went off.”
“Where’d you get this?” she asked, suddenly full of fear. “Chrissy’s room?”
“Chrissy’s . . . what? No, Stella, this was in your Jeep. The tank was wedged in between all that crap you keep in the back and the sensor was jammed under your back wheel, where you would’ve drove right over it. All it would’ve taken was you putting that damn thing in drive, and bam, it would’ve blown sky-high, and you in it.”
“My Jeep? What were you doing there? I mean, not that I’m not grateful…” She examined the cord before wadding it up and tossing it toward the trash can in the corner of the room. Like the rope, it was cheap and generic; their would-be kidnapper-killer was shrewd enough not to make beginner mistakes, even if he or she had struck out twice now.
Stella’s temper was starting to be tested. Whoever’d taken Chrissy had been industrious enough to rig up a bomb in the time it took for the party to wind down—even if it wasn’t much of a bomb, by any kind of standards. Whoever it was, they clearly weren’t going for style points—they just wanted Stella and Chrissy out of the picture. “How’d you even get into the Jeep, anyhow?”
Sophie Littlefield - Bad Day 05 - A Bad Day for Romance Page 10
