Don’t look at me that way! I wanted to scream. I wanted to break up with Doug way before he broke up with me!
Oh my God. She had the gall to look like she felt sorry for me—and she didn’t even know what a Sinful handbag was!
“Are you okay?” Marcie asked.
No, I wasn’t okay.
I didn’t have a Sinful bag, a boyfriend who would walk through the mall with me, a gun under my car seat, a great job, or a cool new name.
I hate my life.
And, right now, I double-hated it because I was going to have to go see my mom tonight.
I pulled to a stop in the driveway of my folks’ home in LaCañada Flintridge, a fantastic area in the foothills overlooking the Los Angeles basin. The house had been left to Mom by her grandmother, along with a trust fund; we’d lived there for as long as I could remember.
Only Mom and Dad were there now. My older brother was flying F-16s in the Middle East and my younger sister attended college—she actually liked her classes, which was totally weird—and supported herself by modeling.
I never knew my great-grandmother, of course. She was long gone before I came along. I didn’t know much about her, either. Mom was always sketchy on the details about Great-Grandma, back in the day when I had enough patience to ask her a question.
Tonight I wanted to talk to Dad. He was always tight-lipped about his work in the aerospace industry—it went with the job—but if I could somehow find out if the project he was working on had anything to do with that whole super-cruise-digital-engine-control thing Ben Oliver had told me about, then I’d know if Doug really was involved with terrorism and espionage.
I just hoped it wouldn’t mean that Dad was involved, too.
I’d phoned him a couple of times and he’d returned my calls, but we kept missing each other. After seeing Doug—and the new girlfriend—tonight, I had to resolve this issue once and for all. Hopefully, Ben’s tip would prove bogus, Doug—and Dad—would be cleared, and I could move on.
Juanita, the housekeeper, let me into the house.
“Is my dad home?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Your mother is in the family room.”
I hadn’t really wanted to talk to Mom because I’d managed to miss—or blow off—all her phone calls since I got back from Europe. I figured she’d heard that I’d been there with Ty and wanted to start planning our engagement party right away.
Not something I wanted to talk about.
I found Mom on the chaise lounge in the family room surrounded by books of fabric swatches, paint samples, and home-decorating magazines.
No wonder Dad wasn’t home.
For a second, I thought about backing out of the room, but Mom looked up and saw me.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said.
Ten o’clock at night and my mom had on a Chanel dress, three-inch heels, earrings, a necklace, and bracelet, with full-on makeup and not a hair out of place, as if the E! channel might burst into the room at any moment to do a live interview.
Tall with dark hair, we sort of looked alike except that she was stunningly beautiful while I—as she’d pointed out many times—was merely pretty.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, hoping I could head off her inevitable questions about Ty and me.
“At work,” she said, flipping through the fabric samples. “I can’t decide which color I like best.”
“This late?” I asked. “What’s he working on?”
“Some new project,” Mom said, turning her head to examine a sample at a different angle.
Okay, it couldn’t be this easy—nothing was with Mom—but I went for it.
“Yeah? What sort of project?” I asked.
Mom studied the sample a few seconds longer, looked up as if concentrating hard, then turned back to the fabric.
“How’s Ty?” she asked.
Damn. She got me. Mom can be crafty sometimes. It’s her pageant training.
“He’s fine,” I said. I guessed he was fine. I didn’t know since he hadn’t called lately.
Mom was quiet for a few minutes as she turned pages and matched a paint sample to a different fabric swatch.
“Perhaps I should have a little dinner party and invite him,” Mom said.
Damn. I thought I was home free.
“Last I heard he was still in London. I have no idea when he’ll be back,” I said, which, thankfully, was the truth.
Mom grew quiet again and I figured her thoughts had wandered off to whatever room she was intending to re-decorate.
“Do you think Dad will be home soon?” I asked.
“This new project of his is very time consuming,” Mom said, tilting a fabric sample to catch the light. “It’s the new advanced version of the digital engine control, the heart of the super cruise. It’s designed to adapt to any aircraft engine for improved thrust vectoring capability. It redirects exhaust for a huge advantage in maneuverability. The project is quite involving.”
Oh my God. Oh my God. I didn’t know what startled me more: that Dad had told Mom about his top secret government project, or that Mom had listened—actually listened—well enough to repeat it.
“Mom, isn’t that info classified top secret?” I asked.
“Only the details, not the concept,” Mom said, and glanced up. “Besides, why wouldn’t your father tell me?”
“I’ve got to go,” I said, and left.
I got in my car and pulled away from the house, my head spinning.
My whole life I’d wondered what my dad—a brilliant aerospace engineer—had possibly seen in my mom, why he tolerated her, how he could live with her. Had I just discovered the answer?
She listened. She paid attention to what he said—and remembered it.
Was that the secret to a good relationship, a long marriage? Couples actually talking—and listening—to each other?
Did that mean that in order to have a long-term relationship with Ty, I’d have to learn about economics, stocks, and hedge funds?
Oh, crap.
a cognizant v5 original release september 18 2010
CHAPTER 9
“So what’s the big news?” Detective Shuman asked, as he stood over my umbrella table outside my favorite Starbucks in Santa Clarita.
I’d phoned him late last night on my way home from Mom’s house and persuaded him to meet me this morning with the promise of new info—a detective can’t resist following a clue. He hadn’t sounded all that excited about it, though, and he didn’t look pleased to be here.
Ty, Doug, and now Shuman. I’d had it with men who didn’t want to be around me.
“Look,” I told him, “are you going to get over it, or what?”
Shuman glared down at me—his bad-ass cop stare. It was kind of hot.
I stared right back, probably because I was buzzing pretty good from my second mocha frappuccino, and finally he dropped his tough-guy expression and sat down.
“Are we going to be friends again or not?” I demanded. “I’ve apologized to you for what happened before, but I’m not doing it again. You’re just going to have to get over it because I still want us to be friends. Okay?”
Shuman looked at me for a couple of seconds, then grinned. Shuman’s got a killer grin.
“Okay,” he said.
“My final peace offering,” I said, and presented him with the cup of coffee I’d bought for him when I’d first arrived. It was probably kind of cool by now, but Shuman didn’t seem to mind as he gulped down a couple of swallows.
“Did you talk to Virginia Foster?” I asked.
“I’m off the case,” he reminded me.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “So what did she tell you?”
“Probably the same thing that she told you,” Shuman said.
I knew Shuman had talked to her—especially since he’d been forced off the case.
“Tiffany was a lawyer back home,” Shuman reported. “She broke wild one day and moved to California. Left her family wondering what happ
ened.”
He was right. That’s pretty much what Virginia had told me.
“Did she mention Tiffany’s brother-in-law Ed?” I asked.
It had hit me as weird that she’d brought up Ed that day in the breakroom at Holt’s, and more so since those FBI guys had asked about him, too.
Shuman nodded. “She made a point of it.”
He did cop-face pretty well, but I’d known him long enough to realize he knew more.
“The FBI’s got Tiffany Markham’s case,” I said.
Shuman choked on his coffee.
“I went in for questioning,” I told him. “Voluntarily.”
It was sort of voluntarily. I drove myself down to the Federal Building.
I didn’t see a need to mention any more details than that.
“What gives?” Shuman asked, wiping his chin with a paper napkin.
“They showed me a photo of that Ed Buckley guy and asked if I recognized him,” I said.
I could see that the homicide detective gears in Shuman’s brain were turning big time.
“Did you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Then they asked if I’d seen him in the parking lot the morning Tiffany was murdered.”
Shuman rocked back in his chair.
“Last I heard,” I said, “Ed was supposed to be dead.”
Shuman sat still for a few minutes and so did I.
“Tiffany must have been at Holt’s that morning to talk to Rita. I mean, why else would she have been there? Maybe Rita saw something,” I said. “Did you and Madison question her?”
“The case got pulled before we heard from her,” Shuman said.
“She didn’t return your call?” I asked.
Shuman shook his head.
Okay, that was weird. Rita was supposed to be Tiffany’s friend. Why wouldn’t she help out with her murder investigation?
I got a yucky feeling in my stomach.
“Rita hasn’t been at work since the day Tiffany was killed,” I said.
Shuman frowned and I was sure I could read his mind.
Maybe Rita was just on vacation. Maybe she was in mourning.
Or maybe Rita had been there when Tiffany had been killed. Maybe she’d seen everything.
Maybe she was in hiding.
Or maybe she was dead and stuffed in the trunk of somebody’s car.
“Oh my God, don’t you just love clocking in?” Christy asked, bouncing on her toes.
She stood in line ahead of me at the time clock in the Holt’s breakroom along with about a dozen other employees, all of us waiting for another few hours of our lives to grind mindlessly past so we could get on to something interesting.
Christy didn’t wait for my reply—which was probably wise on her part—and said, “I can’t wait to get out there! Can you? I mean, gosh, just being on the sales floor is so cool!”
She kept blabbing on about how much she loved working retail, but I blocked her out easily and checked the work schedule hanging next to the time clock.
Rita’s name wasn’t listed.
I wondered if anyone—like those two crackerjack FBI agents, maybe—had realized Rita hadn’t been to work and figured out there might be a connection to Tiffany’s murder. For a moment I thought about contacting them, asking if they knew anything, but I figured they wouldn’t tell me, no matter what. And it would probably be better—for me, of course—if they forgot I existed.
The line moved forward and everyone clocked in as Shannon came into the breakroom.
“Gather around, people, gather around,” she called, waving her arms as if there weren’t fifteen people squeezed into a room meant for eight, who had no idea where to go.
Like trained dogs, all the employees formed up in a circle ready to begin our preshift stretches. As always I drifted to the rear of the group.
“Hey, Haley,” Troy said.
He sidled up next to me, his mouth sagging open a little.
Troy worked my nerves big time. Why couldn’t he be missing, instead of Rita? I wouldn’t feel obligated to go looking for him.
I edged away from Troy and positioned myself behind that big guy who works in men’s wear.
Shannon led the group through our usual stretching routine, then tensed us all up again—well, me, anyway—by talking.
“I know you’ve all seen the customer satisfaction thermometer,” she said, pointing to the chart on the wall.
Our satisfaction rate had plummeted to 20 percent. Wow, how had that happened?
“We’ve lost a lot of ground. We’re losing those flat screens, people,” Shannon said. “If we don’t turn this around, we’ll be lucky to win those beach towels.”
She glared right at me, mad-dogging me big time. A few people turned, too.
“Thanks a lot, Haley,” somebody grumbled.
“Yeah,” someone else said. “We’d better not get stuck with those beach towels.”
Jeez, why was everyone looking at me? What did I do?
“Because some of us don’t seem to know the program,” Shannon said, “all of us are going to have to go through the training again.”
Everybody moaned. Several more people looked at me.
“Check the schedule,” Shannon said, and jerked her thumb toward the breakroom door. “Now get out there and let’s earn those flat screens.”
I eased my way around the knot of people hovering in the doorway and headed out to the sales floor. I’d barely made it halfway through the women’s section when Christy bounded up beside me.
“Haley, I have to confess something,” she said.
Unless she was about to admit to shooting Tiffany and dumping her body in Ada’s trunk, I wasn’t much interested. I kept walking.
“It was me,” she declared.
I stopped. No way could I be this lucky.
“I did it,” Christy said. “I was the one who told Shannon you didn’t know the Halt for Holt’s customer service points.”
Where was Bella’s gun when I needed it?
“It was for your own good—and the good of the store,” Christy declared. She smiled and her eyes got big. “But it’s going to be so great when you know the program! You can wait on customers all the time and you’ll know exactly what to say! You can really help them!”
Maybe I’d start carrying my own gun.
“I mean, I’d just die—die—if I couldn’t help a customer find the right size or color, or help them with a problem!” Christy said. Her smile got bigger. “You’ll see, Haley, it’ll be great!”
She bounced away and I plodded on to my assigned department.
Perhaps Holt’s knew, after all, that the women’s clothing they stocked was hideous beyond all reason, because the store had recently installed a sewing and fabric department and hired elderly, feeble Marlene—one of the last women on the planet, evidently, who remembers America’s pre-Singer days—to give classes.
I knew this because, for no apparent reason, I was frequently assigned to work in that department. That was okay with me, though, because every time a customer asked a question, I could just refer them to Marlene; I guess I gave off an I-don’t-know-a-bobbin-from-bias-tape vibe.
I got busy straightening a display of ribbon while Marlene gave instructions to a class of beginners on how to make a pair of pajama pants. I’d heard her spiel so many times, I could make them myself, in my sleep. Not that I’d be caught dead in them, but still, I could make them if I had to.
Two other customers wandered up and watched as Marlene explained the intricacies of sticking straight pins into fabric. One of them, apparently enthralled, suddenly looked at me and headed my way. Sensing a question, I left the department.
I’d seen on the schedule in the breakroom that Bella was working in housewares tonight. I found her folding a couple dozen cloth napkins somebody had thrown into the aisle.
“What’s up with Rita?” I asked. “Have you heard why she hasn’t been at work?”
Bella shrugged. “All I can say is
good riddance.”
“Did she quit?” I asked, my heart suddenly beating faster. I could stand a little good news.
“Like we’d get that lucky,” Bella said.
She had a point.
“Listen, Bella,” I said, “when I borrowed your car, I found a gun under your seat.”
I’d wondered about it for a while and, since I’m not big on suspense, I decided to just come out and ask her.
“Oh, yeah,” Bella said, and waved her hand like it was no big thing. “I always keep a gun in my car. Don’t you have one?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Everybody in my family has one. My sisters, my brothers. My nana’s got a forty-four Magnum she carries in her handbag. She’s stuck back in the seventies and that old Dirty Harry movie,” Bella said. “You don’t have one? Really?”
Jeez, even Bella’s nana was cooler than me.
And just to prove that things could always get worse, Shannon stomped up.
“Haley, what are you doing over here?” she demanded, planting herself in front of me.
“I was helping a customer,” I lied.
“You’re supposed to be on a register,” Shannon told me. She waved her hand toward the ceiling. “I’ve been paging you. You’re backup cashier tonight.”
I was?
“Didn’t you read the backup cashier schedule?” she demanded.
There was a backup cashier schedule?
“Tonight’s our Ginormous Coupon Event,” she told me.
That had to be Sarah Covington’s big—ginormous—idea.
“Come on,” Shannon said, and walked with me toward the front of the store. “Now listen. The secret shopper could be anybody, so you’d better do a good job. Be sure you ask every customer if they want to open a Holt’s charge account.”
I had no intention of doing that.
“And remind them to complete our online questionnaire,” Shannon told me.
I wasn’t going to do that, either.
“And you’d better follow the Holt’s six-step customer satisfaction program—or else,” Shannon said. “Now, go. Open register five.”
Three checkout lanes were open and customers were stacked twelve deep in each line. Christy was running register four.
Dorothy Howell Page 8
