by Gina LaManna
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That doesn’t work. The cops think you’re guilty. If you’re wandering around town looking up Andrea’s family and friends, that will be suspicious.”
“But—”
“No,” I said, returning Dane’s hand to his side and straightening the collar of his shirt. “You have meetings, and so do I. Plus, I need to get Babs’s advice on this whole party business.”
“I can hire someone else to do it,” Dane said. “A company or a venue. With enough money, anyone has an opening in their schedule.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“So they say.” We shared a smile, but it left my face as I walked toward the door. “Give me until the end of the week. If I can’t come up with anything suitable for your mother, I’ll hand over the reins to whatever company you want.”
He nodded, his eyes struggling to read mine. “Fine,” he said. “And Lola?”
I turned at the doorway, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
I nodded, then left Dane leaning against the edge of his desk. As I walked down the hallway, I could feel his eyes on my back. When I turned around before I started down the stairs, he raised a hand in a wave, a stiff wave that was now familiar.
I shook my head at him and laughed. Whatever weird, strange thing was happening between us didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. All I knew was that I liked it.
Chapter 8
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE,” Babs said, raising her cell phone. “I need to document this.”
She snapped a picture, the flash so bright I blinked. “Stop it!” I said. “I don’t want this moment documented.”
“Say it,” Babs said, grinning behind her office desk. “Say it loud enough for the receptionist to hear you.”
I cleared my throat and glanced down at the two mugs in my hands. One of them had a smiling Santa’s face on it, the other a gigantic pumpkin. “I stole your mugs.”
“And?”
“And I promise I’ll buy you a root beer float if you drive me to Glassrock.”
Babs squealed and clapped her hands. “Hooray! Martie, we’ll be right back! I have an errand to run with Lola.”
“You have a client meeting at five,” Martie said. “Be back before then. And have fun.”
It took twenty minutes to get in the car, take the wrong exit three times, and purchase root beer floats from the longest line in fast food history.
“Now we’re really on our way,” Babs said, slurping on her beverage. “So, give me the scoop. Why’d you decide to come to Mama Babs for help?”
“I didn’t feel like biking.”
“Yeah, well, there’s something else. You’re stubborn enough to bike these roads.”
I looked ahead at the winding, twisted rocky paths that seemed to hover in the air above a hundred yard drop straight to the ocean. No railings anywhere on these roads.
“Fine,” I sighed. “There’s one more thing. A party.”
“Ooh! Did Dane ask you to go as his date?”
“No,” I said. “The other way around. I’m planning it for his company. It’s a charity gala in two weeks that’s supposed to be this whole fancy shebang with almost two hundred people in attendance. Rich people who expect things like caviar and champagne or—well, I don’t even know what they expect. I’m so out of my league, Babs!”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted out.”
“Did you hear me? It’s in two weeks.”
“That’s during the hubbub of the Sunshine Shore festival!” Babs’s lips pinched together. “Nothing will be available then in terms of venues or caterers. Why the short notice?”
“Because Dane completely forgot about it. He’s not interested in anything public. Parties, media, whatever else he’s required to do, so it slipped his mind, and if his mother hadn’t reminded us this morning, he would’ve never remembered.”
“So, you saw his mom again?”
“Yes, and it sucked. She’s not staying at the house anymore because she thinks it’s a brothel. She and Mr. Clark went to stay with Dane’s uncle.”
Babs, in the middle of sipping her float through a straw, laughed so hard the drink bubbled at the surface. “Well, that’s handy. Now you can sleep over.”
“I’m not sleeping anywhere. I have this party to plan, a murder to look into...” I massaged my forehead. “I’m not cut out for a high intensity career.”
“You’re more cut out for it than anyone I know. Here, write this number down.” Babs paused while I fished out a notebook and pencil from my purse. Once she’d spilled the digits, she reached over and tapped it with a manicured finger. “Make yourself an appointment to get your hair done.”
“I don’t have time—”
“Melinda, the best stylist in town, runs a wedding planning business on the side. She hates doing it though, so she refuses to plan a party for anyone but her family these days. But she is the best.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Her first love is styling hair,” Babs said. “Make yourself a long appointment—a perm or highlights or something—and get her talking. Mention you’re struggling to plan an event and the suggestions will start flowing. She’ll know where to look and what to book, I guarantee it.”
“But I’ve looked into all the venues. They’re booked.”
“Not these.” Babs shook her head. “She finds these unique, charming little places that nobody could ever imagine might be beautiful. Once she’s got her hands on it though, the setting transforms like magic.”
“That sounds a little too much like a fairytale to me.”
“It works! I gave my aunt the same recommendation,” Babs said. “She ended up dying her hair five different times in three months in Melinda’s chair, but she had her entire wedding planned with her help. It was actually cheaper than hiring a wedding planner.”
“Fine,” I said. “I suppose it can’t hurt, and I need a haircut.”
“Dial.” Babs held her phone out. “Now. She books up quickly, so let’s see if anything’s open.”
I pressed the green call button despite all my doubts. If nothing else, I’d get a haircut out of the deal—and if I was running the social event of the season in less than two weeks, it couldn’t hurt to spice things up.
“Hello?” I asked when a perky receptionist answered. “I’m looking for an appointment with Melinda tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Melinda is full for weeks but let me double check.” She paused and tapped on a few keys. “Actually, we have one appointment at nine that just opened due to a cancellation. Will that work? What service are you looking to have done?”
“That’s perfect! Which service?” I glanced at Babs. “What are your longest appointments? Sure, a perm sounds great—see you tomorrow.”
When I hung up and handed the phone back to Babs, she had a wide-eyed gaze fixed on me. “What the hell did you just do?”
“I made an appointment.” I shrugged. “Just like you said.”
“A perm?”
“It was the longest option, and I need a lot of advice.”
“Perms are so nineties!”
I shifted under her look of horror. “I’ll ask for a tame one.”
“Fine,” Babs said. “But when you come out looking like a poodle, don’t blame me.”
“A poodle?” I said faintly, but Babs had already parked the car and climbed out. “Hold on, a poodle? I can’t look like a poodle. Should I cancel?”
“Nope,” Babs said. “You need the advice.”
“Well, what should I do?”
She scanned me up and down. “Pray to the curly gods that they take care of you tomorrow.”
I stared open-mouthed after her as she marched into Glassrock, a community that had never been known for luxurious mansions or fancy beaches. Instead, as the name suggested, this city had been built on a large, barren rock, and the atmosphere reflected its origins.
The last time I’d been here, it was to face off with Graham Industries—a company that’d tried to ruin my boss’s entire business, along with his reputation. Though they hadn’t succeeded, it’d left me with a bitter taste in my mouth for the whole place.
This time, we stuck to the residential area and found most of the homes to be ramshackle little fixtures. Many people lived in clusters of trailers, their small, communal yards interspersed with clothing lines, bonfire pits, and random junk such as spare tires and halfway spray-painted bicycles. There wasn’t even a hotel in town, since this wasn’t a place where tourists stopped.
Crime rates had skyrocketed in this area of town, and I gave a nervous shiver as I stepped from Babs’s vehicle, feeling glad I hadn’t let my stubbornness win out—better I didn’t bike around these parts. The only activity I could see from our place in the parking lot consisted of one or two women hanging clothes on the line. The rest of the community disappeared the second outsiders arrived. It was quiet here, too quiet.
“Babs,” I whispered. “It doesn’t feel right to be here.”
Babs put a hand on her hip. “Maybe not, but if you want to meet Andrea’s parents, you’ll follow me to their trailer. Are you coming? I swear, Lola, if you made me drive all the way out here for nothing, you’re buying me a burger and a milkshake on the way back.”
I raised my eyes to the sky, shook my head, and followed her through a beaten-down gate that had Beware of Dog signs tacked on every square inch of space. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“You’re still buying me that burger,” Babs said. “For the tip on Melinda.”
“Sure, if we make it out of Glassrock alive.”
Babs’s eyes glittered with the thrill of it all. “In order to get out, we have to get in. Come on, I see their home.”
I sent a prayer up to the curly gods and anyone else who was listening. And for the briefest moment, I debated following Dane’s advice and letting the lawyers and cops handle everything.
Then I remembered the quiet smile to curve his lips, the softness hidden in his icy blue eyes, and the huge heart behind his cold exterior. With a shuddering breath, I stepped through the gates.
Chapter 9
“I DON’T KNOW WHERE we went wrong,” Amaliyah Ricker, Andrea’s mother, informed us as she sat back on the couch. “But something went wrong between the time she was born, and the time she left us.”
Amaliyah’s husband, Bill, rested a hand on his wife’s knee. “No clue,” he said, exhaling a huge breath of smoke. “She used to be such a good girl.”
“Really,” I said, waving a hand in front of my face to clear the scent of illegal plants that were most definitely growing by the couple’s window. “Tell me about those days. What was different? What made her go from being a good girl to... not being one?”
Amaliyah Ricker looked like a woman who’d experienced a good chunk of life’s illegal offerings. Her skin was tanned and ragged, and even as we spoke she puffed on a substance that wasn’t allowed in most states. Stringy hair framed her face, her eyes a dull shade of gray. “She got all C’s in school. She was going someplace. Most kids around here don’t even go to school, but not our girl—she showed up, and she tried.”
“What did she want to do when she grew up?” Babs asked. “Did she ever say?”
“She wanted to be a star,” her dad said. “She wanted to be rich and famous more than anything.”
I nodded, scribbling a few things down on the notepad. “We’re so sorry—again—for your loss. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”
“Me neither,” Amaliyah said. “It’s like I’m in this haze. None of it seems real.”
“I bet,” Babs muttered for my ears only. “I think I’m in her haze too. The whole place is a hazy cloud.”
“When you said she wanted to be rich, what did you mean?” I asked. “I think it’s fair to say that most people want to be comfortable in their lifestyle.”
Rick shook his head. “She hated our life. Hated everything about it. She couldn’t get out of here fast enough. We couldn’t afford college, but she went anyway and tried to pay on her own, even though we told her it wasn’t worth it. One semester, and then she dropped out. What did she study? Men. Rich ones.”
Her mother nodded. “We never heard why she dropped out. She’d cut ties with us by that point, but I always assumed she’d met some guy who’d be a doctor or a fancy-ass lawyer out for blood.”
I hid a small smile as Babs frowned at Amaliyah’s assessment of her career. “Yeah, those lawyer types are the worst,” I said, hurrying to agree, even as Babs pinched the back of my arm. “Did you ever find out if she’d met someone?”
“I’m sure she did,” Mrs. Ricker said. “But I don’t know if it was before or after she left school.”
“Why did Andrea cut ties in the first place?”
“She was embarrassed of us,” Mr. Ricker said, so matter-of-factly it rang sad, but true. “We live a freestyle life. We go where the wind blows us and work when jobs speak to our souls. Sometimes, if there’s no job speakin’ to my heart, I don’t work for a year, and Andrea—she didn’t like having to go without.”
I hurt inside, a rush of sympathy for both parties. My mom might not have been interested in sticking around for my life, but Dotty had been there—always. We never had a lot of money or all of the trendy things, but our lives had been full.
For the Rickers to lose their daughter, for Andrea to grow up with such want—the circumstances were devastating. I wasn’t a psychologist, but it was pretty easy to see why Andrea sought the company of wealthy, respectable men with booming careers. I could hardly blame her.
“And then she met this someone,” I prompted.
“He wasn’t good for her,” Amaliyah said, and her husband shook his head in agreement. “He wasn’t good for anyone. Nothing but trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” I asked. “And apologies for asking, but could he have had a motive to kill your daughter?”
“Nobody had a motive to kill our daughter,” Mr. Ricker said, his words twisted in anger. “She might not have liked us, but she was a good person. She had her issues—we all do—but she wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Not on purpose. If you’re looking for a reason someone would’ve wanted her dead, you won’t find one.”
“But the truth is that she was murdered,” Babs said gently. “And that’s a horrible, horrible thing. We’re trying to find the person responsible for it, so any information you have might be helpful.”
“Maybe she got mixed up in something. My husband is right. She is—” Amaliyah hesitated—“she was a nice girl. She wouldn’t get in trouble on purpose. However, if a man with a pretty face and a fat wallet were involved, she might have let herself be influenced. She always did follow trends. She wanted to be in with the cool kids, and we could never provide that for her. She craved it all her life.”
“Do you have a name?” I pressed. “Anything we might be able to identify him by?”
“Ryan Lexington,” Mr. Ricker said, and his wife’s face lit in surprise. “I remember it, though we met him only once. Andrea brought him around a few years back.” He paused and did some mental calculations. “Andrea dropped out of school at nineteen, and it was right around then. She had just turned twenty-five, so that would’ve made it about five or six years ago.”
“Why did they stop by?” I asked. “Just for a visit?”
“Oh, no,” Amaliyah said with a ghosted smile. “She had this blanket she’d gotten some time before from her grandmother, my mother. Andrea always did love that thing.”
“She stopped by to pick up a blanket?” Babs asked, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
“You don’t understand. My mother was everything that Andrea wanted to be. Wealthy, polished, a member of the highest of societies,” Amaliyah said, a tornado of emotions in her eyes. “Andrea loved her dearly—she idolized her.”
“Is she still a part of Andrea’s life?” I asked. “Do you kn
ow where we could find her?”
“She passed away when Andrea was ten,” Mrs. Ricker said. “Unfortunately, Andrea was old enough to remember the glamorous parts of her grandmother. But she was too young to remember the ugliness.”
“She was a horrible woman,” Mr. Ricker agreed. “I hate to speak ill of my mother-in-law, but she treated Amaliyah like dirt. Her own daughter was never good enough for her. I suspect that’s a reason Andrea became so fascinated with wealth at a young age—she wanted to be her grandmother, while we wanted to put as much distance between ourselves and Amaliyah’s mother as possible.”
Mrs. Ricker nodded. “When my mother died, she left us a chunk of her money. Not much compared to her overall wealth, but enough. I didn’t want it though, couldn’t take it. We put a little aside for Andrea’s funds and donated the rest to charity.”
“Andrea resented us after that,” Mr. Ricker continued. “Even though Andrea was too young to truly understand, she knew. Somehow, she knew we’d given away her chance at wealth, and I don’t think she ever forgave us.” Tears sparked in Mr. Ricker’s eyes. “I wish things had been different, but they weren’t. We made our choices, and Andrea didn’t like them. So, she left.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, struggling not to cough in the increasing cloud of smoke. “I’m so sorry.”
Amaliyah took a few puffs of her husband’s cigarette. As she blew out a steady stream of smoke, she shook her head. “Ryan promised her wealth, but he wasn’t rich like my mother. My mother had old wealth—the kind of money that was so deeply ingrained into her veins that it was a part of who she was.”
“Ryan had new wealth.” Mr. Ricker nodded as if it disgusted him. “Flashy cars, flighty attitude, the stuff that goes to a person’s head. That’s the sort of wealth Ryan had. Unfortunately, Andrea didn’t realize that Ryan promised her the moon and gave her its shadow.”
“She could have shot for the stars on her own,” Mrs. Ricker said. “But instead she was an accessory to him. Ryan talked a big game, but he couldn’t deliver on it. He’d never have been able to take care of Andrea like she wanted. It was doomed from the start. But he was handsome and confident, and that combination, with a bit of money, can be quite persuasive. Andrea fell for him, and she fell hard.”
