by Gina LaManna
“What she didn’t see coming was the possessiveness,” Mr. Ricker said. “The bursts of anger. The kid had a hot head—rich and cocky—and that’s what we saw. By the time Andrea figured it out, it was too late.”
“Too late?” My blood chilled. “What do you mean, too late? I thought you didn’t know much about him, but it sounds like you knew the situation fairly well.”
“She called me once,” Amaliyah said. “I wasn’t home. She left a message crying, asking what she could do to leave. To get out of Ryan’s life for good. The rest of the puzzle pieces we put together on our own.”
Amaliyah lapsed into silence. Glancing at Babs, I waited, we both did, for Amaliyah to wipe her eyes with an old, frayed flannel blanket that hung over the edge of the couch.
“I was in the garden and missed it. I missed the last call my daughter made to me,” she said. “By the time I called her back, she wanted nothing to do with me. She even sent me a letter saying that everything was sorted, and that she and Ryan had decided to get married—and not to wait for an invitation.”
“That’s when we knew it was over between her and us,” Mr. Ricker said. “For good. We never heard from her again.”
I sucked in a big gulp of air, the story beginning an ache in my soul. But I couldn’t allow it to show on my face, not now. We needed to find a murderer, and Ryan was looking more and more likely a candidate by the second. “How long ago was the phone call?”
“A year ago,” Mrs. Ricker said. “I don’t know if they ever got married. From everything I could find, it doesn’t appear they did. But what do I know?”
Babs and I shared a glance, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. What if Andrea had decided she wanted out of the relationship and Ryan hadn’t been as enthusiastic about the idea? Would he have been upset enough to hurt her? Kill her, even? It still didn’t explain the murder weapon, but a lot of pieces had yet to be connected.
“Do you know where he lives?” I asked Mrs. Ricker. “I think we’d like to pay Ryan a visit.”
“You girls watch your step,” Mr. Ricker said, a severe frown on his face. “That man is trouble. His temper is nothing to mess with.”
“I understand,” I said quietly. “Thank you for your help.”
“He lives outside of the Sunshine Shore,” Mrs. Ricker said. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry I can’t help you more.”
On an impulse, I crossed the open space and gave Mrs. Ricker a hug. Despite the smoke hanging heavy in the air, she smelled like Dawn soap and fresh lemons. “I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll find out what happened to her, I promise.”
Amaliyah’s eyes were damp as she pulled out of the hug and patted my cheek with a wrinkled hand. “Thank you.”
After saying goodbye to the Rickers, Babs and I climbed back into her vehicle, pleased to see that it still had all of its wheels. In this neighborhood, one could never be certain.
“Well,” Babs said. “Things don’t look good for Ryan Lexington. I don’t think I’m up for another emotional visit quite yet, though. I need my heart to stop pumping for a second. How about we grab burgers first? In fact, let’s pick up enough for the construction crew and swing by your place with a meal for the boys?”
“You just want to stare at Johnny.”
“Sue me. He’s nice to look at and that meeting left me sad. I want to feel happy again and stare at biceps—is that so wrong?”
“The burgers are on you then,” I said. “I’ll trade you burgers for twenty minutes of uninterrupted stare-time.”
Babs looked at her watch. “I’ve got time before my client meeting. Make it thirty minutes, and you’ve got a deal.”
Chapter 10
BABS CAME, SAW, AND left in a flurry of stubbed toes and flustered arm waving. Johnny and his crew showed their appreciation for the burgers with a huge round of man-hugs that sent Babs bumbling out the door, forgetting all about her promised thirty minutes of stare time at my construction crew.
“Your friend is hot,” Johnny said, staring after Babs as she climbed into her car and drove off. “Seems funny, too. Is she single?”
“She’s unattached,” I confirmed, grinning through my teeth. “And she’s super smart—a lawyer.”
“No kidding.” Johnny shook his head and let out a low whistle.
I shut the door. “Why don’t you ask her out on a real date so she doesn’t have to come over here and stare?”
“Is that what she was doing?” A cheesy grin turned Johnny’s lips upward. “I think I might, if that’s alright with you.”
“Fine by me, but then again, you don’t need my permission.” I plopped down in the chair and rested my head in my hands. “Can you tell me one thing, Johnny? Why are men so confusing?”
“Did someone say something to you?” Johnny put down his hammer, his stare landing on me in a way that told me to say the word, and he’d pick that hammer right back up and use it on the guy who’d done me wrong. “Why you looking so blue, Pink?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, my mind flashing back to Dane Clark and his smoking hot kisses, his meaningful glances, and then his lack of follow up. “Men.”
“We’re confusing?” Johnny thumbed at himself, then shook his head. “Nope. Women are confusing. We’re just dumb.”
“Maybe.”
“Is this about that rich guy you’re working for?”
My feathers ruffled some. “He’s way more than rich, Johnny. Don’t say stuff like that. He is brilliant. And he’s handsome, and successful, and he’s just...” I trailed off, realizing that I sounded like a high school girl on a crush. “He’s perfect.”
Johnny was staring at me with such a wide grin on his face that I stopped short.
“Miss Pink,” he drawled. “I think you’re in love.”
“You’re a nut, Johnny.”
“Am I?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“Look, Lola—it might not be my place to comment, but obviously you wanted to talk about him, or you wouldn’t have started up.” Johnny picked up his hammer and turned toward the wall, examining where he’d left off. “The dude is weird. I’ve met him. And to me, it sounds like you love his weirdness more than his normalness—if that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.”
“Holy guacamole.” I threw myself across the room and landed in Dotty’s chair in a heap. “I’m in love. Johnny, I can’t be in love! He’s still my boss. What do I do now?”
He shrugged, then let the hammer fly. It cracked loud against the wall. “I suppose you tell him.”
“That’s a horrible idea. He’ll run away.”
“If he’s running away from you, babe, that’s his problem.” Johnny raised a shoulder. “A real man ain’t afraid to say what’s in his heart, and I’m sticking to it.”
“You haven’t told Babs how you feel.”
“Lola, I just found out her name this morning. She’s been showing up and staring at me for a few days, and that’s the extent of our relationship.” He laughed. “That ain’t love. Not yet.”
“Maybe someday?”
He raised the hammer and smacked the wall again. “I’m gonna ask her out on a date first, and we’ll see how that goes.”
“Men.”
“What’d I do now?”
I was saved from responding by a knock on the door. Peeling my body off the chair, I made my way to the front entrance and yanked the handle to reveal none other than my former guest, Richard. He stood on my front steps holding a bouquet of roses. A very battered bouquet of roses.
“She did this! She did this to me, to the roses, and to my heart.” Richard pushed his small figure into the storeroom—again without an invitation—and turned to face me. “She destroyed me. Again.”
“What’d she do?” I asked wearily. “And why do you smell like beer?”
“I’m Irish,” he said. “I own a brewery. Don’t worry though, I walked here. I just needed to have a beer to calm down after what happened with Stephanie.�
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Johnny made a noise of surprise, pausing with his hammer halfway to the nail.
“What are you looking at, man?” Richard looked at Johnny, who resumed whacking the wall with renewed force. “You don’t have women problems?”
Johnny returned the hammer to the toolbox, gave me a look of sympathy, then muttered something about the bathroom. He disappeared to the rear of the house before Richard gathered his thoughts.
“What did Stephanie do this time?” I snapped my fingers to get Richard’s attention since he was about as focused as a puppy on a sugar high. At the moment, he was busy shooting daggers with his eyes at Johnny’s retreating back.
“Weren’t you listening?” Richard held up the roses, the petals limp and falling to the ground with every motion. “First, she stomped on the roses, then she battered my heart.”
“Is that the full story?”
“Yes,” he said. “I showed up this morning with a plan. Just like you told me. I was gonna give her flowers and ask her out on a real date. I showed up, asked her out, and she shut the door in my face after stomping a few times on the flowers. I paid six bucks for these.”
“You found roses for six bucks? That’s cheap.”
“I stole a few of them from Mrs. Fredericks’s garden because she’s got lots of them anyway, and she won’t miss a few. Plus, it was for a good cause. The rest of them I found on sale.”
“Okay,” I said, noting the browned edges. “Well, I suppose the fact that you bought some of the flowers is a start. Tell me—what exactly did you say when you showed up?”
“I told her real respectfully that I loved her.”
“Word for word, Richard. What did you say?”
“Okay, let me think.” Richard squinted his eyes shut as his brain worked really, really hard. Then his eyes flashed open. “I walked up to the door, knocked, and she opened it. Then I says, Hey woman, here are your damn roses.”
It was my turn to close my eyes. “That’ll do it, Richard.”
“Oh, crap,” Richard said, smacking a hand to his forehead. “You told me not to call her woman.”
“That’s right.”
“I just don’t get it!” He threw his hands in the air. “If you said to me, hey, man, here are your flowers, I’d be all like, thank you, Lola.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said sternly. “And if you come to me expecting advice, you have to listen. I’m going to stop helping you if you can’t listen to the words I say.”
Richard shook his head, an apologetic look crossing his face as his eyes narrowed in pain. “I’m so sorry. I screwed this one up bigtime. What can I do to fix it?”
“Don’t call her woman and don’t swear when you give her flowers. That would be the most basic of starting points.”
“But those words just slip out. I’m fluent in profanity. At least, that’s what my mom used to say to my teachers when I’d get sent to the principal’s office. I can’t help it!”
“Then write her a card,” I said, “and leave it on the front porch with the flowers. Take some time to write down how you really feel. Using really nice, respectful words.”
“Can you do it for me?”
“What, write the card?” I shook my head. “Nope. This is something you’ll have to do on your own.”
“I’ve got it!” Richard raised the roses above his head like the statue of liberty. “I’m going to write her a poem. I’ve always had a way with words. My mom said that too.”
“Only if you can write a poem that speaks from your heart. I can see that you want to fight for her, Richard,” I admitted, “but you’ll have to allow her to see that, too. You have to tell her how you feel inside.”
“You got it,” Richard said with a salute. Then he extended the browning roses toward me and shoved them into my hands. “These are for you, Miss Pink. Thank you, thank you. I’ve gotta put my poet hat on.”
“Good luck,” I said weakly as Richard flew out the door. A movement from the corner caught my eye, and I turned to catch Johnny staring at me, hanging onto every word. “What are you looking at?”
“You are good at this love business,” Johnny said. “Any advice for me?”
“You want to ask Babs out?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’d better treat her like a queen—and that’s not advice, it’s a threat.”
“I’d never dream of treating her any other way.”
I sized him up for a moment and determined he was telling the truth. “Then she’s single and interested. And here’s her cell phone number.”
“I don’t need the number from you.” Johnny rose to his feet with a crooked smile. “What do you say about my taking a long lunch break, boss? I’ve gotta see a girl about a date.”
“Sure.” I threw my arms up. “Go ahead. It seems that everyone except the love guru can get a date around here.”
Johnny walked over and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Your turn will come, Pink. And when it does, you just make sure he’s worth it, okay? You deserve that much.”
I nodded. “Go get her, Johnny.”
I CRAWLED INTO BED early that night, having emailed Dane to let him know I’d be working from home the rest of the afternoon. It was nine o’clock before I’d exhausted my list of venues and catering places within fifty miles of the Sunshine Shore and once again, struck out on the list.
Not a single venue promised potential for the charity gala. It wasn’t a matter of cost, either, it was a matter of availability. The festivities planned for the Sunshine Shore festival—fashion shows, carnivals, dinners and lunches and breakfasts and happy hours—had eaten up most available resources nearby. I was left scrambling with the crumbs.
The only catering company who’d volunteered to do the party on short notice was a sushi place that had a Grade B rating. One search on Google told me that the restaurant had sent ten people home with food poisoning in just the past month. I briefly wondered what Mrs. Clark would say if I booked them. The thought brought a brief smile to my face before it terrified me completely, and I shut down the computer.
In its place, I picked up my phone and dialed the castle. “Hi Dane,” I said when he answered. “I am running out of options on the venue. I’m tearing my hair out over here. I really hate to admit it, but I thought I’d give you the heads up.”
“Why didn’t you come back this afternoon?” Dane asked. “I was surprised to receive your email. We missed you here.”
“We?”
“Mrs. Dulcet, Gerard. The rest of the staff,” he said. “Everyone loves you.”
The sentiment was sweet, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “What about you?”
“Of course I missed you, too,” he said. “And I would’ve helped with the venue list. Leave it alone, Lola—I’ll hire a planner with connections, throw enough money at it, and the problem will go away.”
“Nope,” I said. “I only called to tell you I’d exhausted my current options, but I’m not done trying. I’m hopeful I’ll have an update for you tomorrow.”
“Fine, but that’s not necessary.”
“You gave me until the end of the week, did you not?”
“I did.”
“Then give me until the end of the week,” I said, smiling on my end of the phone. “Like I said, I have something lined up in the morning that might give me a lead. What’s your schedule tomorrow afternoon?”
Dane hardly hesitated before responding. His schedule was as rigid as a cement sidewalk. “I have time set aside to eat from one to one thirty. Then I’ll be making the rounds on the Warehouses until three. I have a conference call until four, then swimming until five. Stretching, weights, shower until six. Dinner at six thirty sharp.”
I gasped. “You have half an hour unaccounted for at six! What will you do with all of your free time?”
He let an extended pause take over. Then, he gave a curious laugh. “Sarcasm?”
I laughed. “Yes. Any chance you could clear an hour for me to show you a few things?”<
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While he considered, I said a little prayer that Melinda would have recommendations like Babs had promised. If she did, there was no doubt we’d have to move on them soon. Plus, the idea of spending some time alone with Dane tomorrow sent a little sizzle of electric current down my spine.
Finally, he exhaled. “Two to four, I can be free.”
“But your call—”
“I’ll move it.”
“You didn’t even ask why!”
“You’ll be there, right? That’s why you’re asking?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I want to go over a few things with you.”
“Then it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. I’m happy to go anywhere with you.”
Whatever feelings of frustration had cropped up earlier this afternoon in front of Johnny evaporated on the spot. Dane might have his own way of showing affection, but when he did, it was the best thing in the world.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the castle.”
“Goodnight, Lola.”
I sighed in relief, stretching out in bed with a grin on my face. Before I fell asleep, I sent off one more text to Annalise asking if she’d be up for a haircut tomorrow—aka a gossip buddy in the salon. Babs had already said she’d be busy all day at work. Plus, I’d bothered her enough.
Annalise responded quickly in agreement.
Tomorrow is a new day, I thought, shutting off the light. And I had a haircut scheduled, a lead on Andrea’s murder, and two hours alone scheduled with my very attractive boss-slash-kissing buddy.
Life could definitely be worse.
Chapter 11
“YOU’RE GETTING A WHAT?” Annalise stared open-mouthed at me. “Oh, Lola, you can’t do that to yourself.”
I left the smile frozen on my face. “What’s wrong with a perm?”
“What made you think a perm was a great idea?”
