Inside the ballroom, people were milling around as the dessert service concluded. The award presentations would start in a few minutes. I spotted Doug striding toward me, looking concerned.
See? That’s how a date is supposed to act.
“Haley, could I speak with you for a moment?” he asked.
Doug touched my elbow and guided me to a corner of the room. He paused for a moment and cleared his throat.
“Well, Haley,” he said. “We’ve been at this for a while now and, frankly, it’s not working.”
I just stared at him.
“We’ve given it a try—a good try,” Doug said. “I think we need to admit to ourselves that it’s over.”
“You’re…you’re dumping me?”
“I believe this is for the best,” he said.
“You’re dumping me?”
Heads turned at the closest table. A waiter with a tray of dirty dishes stopped and stared.
Doug nodded. “In time, I know you’ll get over me.”
“What?”
“You’re hurt now,” he said. “But you’re strong. You’ll find someone.”
Doug patted my shoulder, then left.
Oh my God. Oh my God. I couldn’t believe this. Doug just broke up with me? Doug, with his junior high jacket, his wimpy white Kia, his you-make-me-want-to-slit-my-wrists conversation skills? He’d broken up with me?
Everyone around me stared. The waiter shook his head in sympathy. Two women at a nearby table bent their heads together and whispered.
Stop! I wanted to scream. I’m not some loser. I have a Judith Leiber purse, for God’s sake.
I squared my shoulders, put my nose in the air, and walked back to my table.
“Where’s Doug?” Mom asked as I sat down.
I was tempted to say he’d wet his pants, but didn’t.
“Family emergency,” I said.
The award presentations got under way with their droning introductions, long-winded acceptance speeches, and polite applause. I didn’t hear any of it, my thoughts bouncing back and forth between Ty and Doug.
Ty wasn’t willing to give me the kind of relationship I wanted, the kind I thought I deserved. I didn’t think of myself as demanding—jeez, asking someone to show up on time for a date wasn’t reaching for the moon—but he couldn’t manage it. He had something else in mind for our relationship. I knew I’d done the right thing with him tonight.
Doug? I guess I hadn’t provided the kind of relationship he was looking for—although just what that might be, I hadn’t a clue. Not that I really wanted to date him, but still.
I snapped out of my relationship dilemma as Rebecca Gray took the stage to accept her Westbrook Crystal Recognition of Achievement Award. She got an exceptionally loud round of applause, but I knew it was mostly because everyone knew her sister had been murdered.
Her acceptance speech was brief. She came off the stage and into the waiting arms of her dad, who gave her a big hug, and her mom, who managed to look her in the eye and smile with something that approached pride. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing: if only Claudia could be here tonight to share this.
Rebecca sat down with her parents as the presentations continued, and I saw her showing the crystal statuette to her mom. They whispered back and forth for a few seconds, and that was it.
While her mom watched the next person receive her award, Rebecca studied her mom. Her smile dimmed, faded, then disappeared. Rebecca glanced at her dad. He gave her a nod, then turned away. She left the table.
I figured Rebecca was heading for the ladies’ room, but I wanted to make sure. If Detective Shuman received the voice mail I left earlier, he might show up. I didn’t want to have to tell him I had no idea where she was. I followed her.
The south galleria was a very long, very wide corridor with a gorgeous ceiling and thick red and green carpet that led from the hotel’s main galleria, past the Heinsbergen Room, the stairs to the Biltmore Bowl and the Regency Room, to the doors that exited onto Grand Avenue. I expected Rebecca to hang a right toward the ladies’ room, but she didn’t. She kept going.
I went after her. She picked up her pace. So did I—not easy, given the way both of us were dressed. She teetered down the staircase positioned halfway through the south galleria. I followed. Rebecca glanced back, saw me, then started to run.
I yanked my dress up past my knees with one hand and turned on the speed.
“Rebecca, wait!” I called. “It’s okay! I understand!”
She looked back again and I saw tears in her eyes. But she kept running. I caught up, grabbed her elbow, and spun her around. She offered little resistance.
“It’s okay,” I said again, in the most calming voice I could muster, considering I’d been running in a strapless bra. “I know what happened. With Claudia.”
Rebecca just stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out crying.
“I didn’t mean it! She wasn’t supposed to die!” Rebecca wailed.
Detective Shuman had told me that whoever murdered Claudia had thrown every beauty and cleaning product they could get their hands on in the RV that day into the mix, to make sure she died. I saw it differently.
“You just wanted to make her sick, didn’t you?” I asked.
Rebecca sobbed louder. “Yes! I just wanted her to stay home. Not go to Europe. So Mom wouldn’t leave.”
“So she’d come here tonight and see you get your award,” I said.
“I worked so hard to get good grades, get into a good school, get the award, but it was never enough!” Rebecca said. “Everything was always about Claudia!”
She cried harder. I didn’t try to console her. Better to get her emotions out. We were alone in the corridor, not disturbing anyone.
“It was Mom’s fault,” Rebecca declared. Her tears stopped and her expression turned angry. “That day. The day of that stupid luncheon at that stupid store. I was studying—studying—for a big test, and Mom made me quit. She made me drive all the way over there to give Claudia her passport.”
“So that’s when you got the idea to…make Claudia sick?” I asked.
Rebecca swiped at her tears with the backs of her hands, and her expression morphed from angry to creepy.
“I told you not to get involved with this,” she said. “I told you I was watching.”
The notes at my apartment and on my car windshield. Rebecca had sent them.
A wave of fear swamped me. The rooms along the south galleria weren’t in use tonight. I heard no one else in the corridor behind us. Through the glass doors ahead I saw Grand Avenue. One car went past. This time of night, few people came to this part of town.
My thoughts skipped ahead and I gasped aloud.
“Jamie,” I whispered. “The Missing Server. You killed her, too.”
“What else could I do?” Rebecca exclaimed, flinging out both hands. “She saw me around those fruit bouquets. Then she got sick. She must have known I’d poured that stuff onto Claudia’s food. I thought she’d keep her mouth shut! She was nobody—nobody—just some scholarship kid scrabbling for money! She’d even served at our house for one of Claudia’s stupid modeling things!”
“Did Jamie call you? Threaten to tell?” I asked.
Rebecca shook her head. “I knew she’d figure out what I’d done. I couldn’t take a chance. I asked around campus, found out where she lived. I had to do it.”
Poisoning her sister—or just trying to make her sick—on the spur of the moment was one thing. Understandable, maybe. But hunting down Jamie Kirkwood, lying in wait, then running her down?
I realized I was standing in front of a cold-blooded killer—and I wasn’t feeling so great about it. If she attacked me, I figured my intricate updo and the multiple layers of spray would protect me from any long-term brain damage, but other than that, I was vulnerable.
Where was Shuman?
I ended up here tonight with two—count them: two—dates and neither of them was here when I might need him.
Then suddenly, without warning, one of my mom’s crisis management techniques popped into my head and I knew exactly what to do.
“You need to fix your makeup,” I said to Rebecca. “Let’s just slip into the restroom.”
The ladies’ room would be full of women. I didn’t want to throw anyone else into harm’s way, but I figured Rebecca had enough of her own mother in her not to make a big scene—or kill me—in front of people who mattered.
She didn’t move. Her eyes narrowed.
“You’re going to tell, aren’t you,” Rebecca said.
It wasn’t a question. She already knew the answer, so I didn’t lie to her.
“You need to tell your mom,” I said. “Explain it to her so she’ll know you didn’t mean to really hurt Claudia. It would be better coming from you.”
Rebecca shook her head frantically and her eyes got wide. “No. No, I can’t. She’ll—”
Her gaze lurched to the corridor behind me. She broke for the door.
I glanced back and saw Detectives Madison and Shuman ambling toward us. Rebecca must have remembered them from their visits to her parents’ house.
I took off after Rebecca. Shuman dashed past me—I could have run that fast if I had on his outfit—caught Rebecca’s arms, and wrenched them behind her. Rebecca collapsed against him, sobbing, and confessed everything.
Detective Madison trotted up a moment later, huffing and puffing. He gave me a smug smile, and said, “So you two were in on this together, huh?”
Chapter 26
Detective Madison insisted I not leave the scene, so I stayed in the south galleria. I don’t know how long I stood there, exactly, but I had on three-hour shoes and my toes had been screaming for a while now.
Someone on the hotel’s manage staff had discreetly gotten Rebecca’s parents from the ballroom and brought them here. At the sight of their daughter in handcuffs, Cynthia fainted. After hearing the story, her dad staggered outside and threw up. Paramedics came. Both were transported to the hospital, leaving Rebecca in the back of an LAPD squad car parked at the curb.
The one saving grace was that no one in the Crystal Ballroom had learned what was happening, so the Gray family was spared from being a spectacle in front of their friends and colleagues. That would happen tomorrow when the reporters who’d gathered on the sidewalk along Grand Avenue blasted the story to every imaginable media outlet.
I sent a message to my parents in the ballroom telling them to go home without me, I’d arranged for a ride with a friend. It was a total lie, of course, but I didn’t want either of them anywhere near this mess.
I gave a statement to Madison and Shuman and, luckily, Rebecca backed me up by chanting that she didn’t mean to kill Claudia, only Jamie. Madison was definitely disappointed I wasn’t involved.
Detective Shuman walked over. It was just the two of us. Everyone else had gone. Madison was outside the door on his cell phone.
Shuman looked as if he wanted to say something. Thank me, maybe, for solving the murder, or blast me for all the secrets I kept from him. I thought about apologizing, but didn’t. This was our relationship now. We could be friendly, but we couldn’t be friends.
I didn’t like it, but there it was.
“We found Debbie Humphrey, the woman who runs your mom’s fruit bouquet business,” Shuman said.
A jolt went through me. I really hoped he wasn’t about to tell me she was dead, and Madison was outside on the phone calling for a squad car to come and pick me up.
“She’s got a sheet a mile long,” Shuman said. “Fraud, embezzlement, mostly. You should get an accountant to look at your mom’s books.”
So Mom had hired a criminal to run Edible Elegance. Not surprising. No wonder Debbie had disappeared after I stopped by the office and mentioned that the police would want to question her in connection with Claudia’s death. She wasn’t guilty of murder, but dozens of other crimes—including robbing Mom’s business of every cent, probably—and didn’t want to be there when the cops came around.
“Honestly, I’ve about had it with that business. I’m sure I won’t have any trouble getting Mom to close it,” I said. I didn’t add that she probably wouldn’t even notice.
Shuman and I just looked at each other for a minute. Neither of us liked the way things had turned out between us, but there was nothing to be done. He joined Madison outside. I headed back through the hotel.
I glanced inside the Crystal Ballroom. Staff was in there cleaning, everyone else gone. I decided my evening definitely needed a boost. The liquid kind.
The Gallery Bar off the main galleria boasted a rich wood interior and elegant furniture. A long polished granite bar served signature martinis, fine wines, and exclusive liqueurs.
I just wanted a beer.
The bar was dimly lit, nearly deserted when I walked in. Two guys sat at the bar, one watching a basketball game on the wall-mounted TV, the other huddled over a drink. In the back of the deep room, I saw a couple cozied up together on one of the leather benches.
I slid onto a stool at one of the high tables near the adjacent Cognac Room, a sultry-looking lounge with soft couches and wooden cabinets stuffed with Biltmore memorabilia, and ordered a beer from the waitress. I desperately wanted to kick off my shoes, but was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get them on again.
So, this was what my life had become, I realized, sipping my beer. Drinking alone. Zero-for-two for the night in the date department. No clear idea of where my life was headed.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. At least my hair had held up.
A face, other than my own, stared back at me from the mirror.
Ty.
I whirled on the stool as he walked out of the Cognac Room. He looked impeccable. Bow tie perfectly straight, shirt crisp, not a hair on his head out of place.
Obviously, he hadn’t fallen to pieces after our confrontation in the main galleria earlier this evening.
He placed the drink he carried on my table.
“I heard about Rebecca,” he said.
“I know that was tough for you, since you’d been close to the family,” I said. “Especially since you wanted to get back together with Claudia.”
Ty frowned. “Who told you that?”
I shrugged. “It’s understandable. You and Claudia dated for a long time. She was really beautiful and—”
“Who told you that?” Ty asked again, a little more forcefully, which was kind of hot.
“Detective Madison.”
Ty snorted a bitter laugh and looked away.
My hopes rose. I’d wondered if Madison had made the whole thing up just to rattle me—which he’d succeeded in doing.
“I don’t know where he got the idea, but—”
“I told him,” Ty said.
Oh my God. It was true. Ty had wanted to get back together with Claudia all along. My heart sank.
“Well, I guess that explains why you never wanted to have sex with me,” I said.
Ty looked confused—I got that from him a lot—and said, “I told Detective Madison about my relationship with Claudia at the store, the day she was killed. He asked. He was investigating her murder. I had nothing to hide, so I told him.”
“Okay, okay, slow down,” I said. I know it sounded crappy, but I was sick of hearing about Claudia. “You can date whoever you want. It’s not like we—”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Ty said. “I’m not the one who wanted us to hook up again. It was Claudia. She wanted to get back together with me.”
I sat up straighter on the stool, stunned. I hadn’t even considered that it had been Claudia’s idea.
“She came to me a few weeks before she died,” Ty said. “I told her no. I wasn’t interested.”
I let that sink in for a minute. I’d been living with the certainty that Ty wanted to get back together with Claudia for so long now, the idea wasn’t easy to shake.
Then I realized that, even if I accepted it, it wouldn’
t change anything between us.
“I had one of my assistants phone you, let you know I’d meet you here tonight,” Ty said. “Didn’t you get the message?”
Oh, crap.
The message I’d seen on my cell phone when I’d gone to call Shuman. I hadn’t recognize the name, so I didn’t listen to it.
“I sent you flowers,” Ty said. “You didn’t get those, either?”
“No,” I said, stunned that he’d gone to the effort.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “I made arrangements before I left. Sarah promised me she’d take care of it.”
I perked up. “Sarah Covington? She was supposed to handle it?”
Okay, this was kind of cool. Not getting the flowers would be worth it if it got Sarah in trouble with Ty.
But, really, I knew that a phone call or floral bouquets wouldn’t change anything.
“Flowers would have been nice, and so would the phone call,” I said. “But face it. We’re still not right for each other.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“What’s my favorite color?” I asked.
Ty just looked at me.
“What day did we first meet?”
He kept staring.
“What’s my favorite sports team?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Why do you want to date me?” I asked.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Tell me one thing we have in common,” I said.
Ty looked annoyed.
“If I’d known I was going to take a test,” he said, “I would have studied.”
“But you shouldn’t have to study. That’s my point. You should know these things about me,” I said.
Ty stewed for a few minutes. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, or hurt. Maybe a little of both.
“So that’s it? You’re saying we’re through?” he asked.
A little lump rose in my throat, making it tough to talk, but I managed a quiet, “That’s what I’m saying.”
Ty walked out of the bar.
My eyes burned and I wanted to cry. It was late in the evening, too late to worry about my makeup, but I still needed to get a ride home somehow and I didn’t want to look like a raccoon if I had to take a cab.
Purses and Poison Page 21
