“And you’re a painter,” I said, waving my fingers at his paint-splattered clothing.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that,” he said. “I’ve been working in one of the offices at the rear of the building for the last couple of days.”
Since he seemed willing to talk, I decided to see if I could find out anything more in case the homicide detectives wanted to question me again.
“Did you see anything unusual today?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Hear anything?” I asked. “Loud voices? Shouting, maybe? An argument?”
“It’s pretty quiet back there. None of the offices are occupied.” Clark paused for a few seconds then said, “You were right. That girl didn’t fall accidentally. I heard the detective say her shirt was torn and there were scratches on her arm like she’d been grabbed and had struggled with somebody. They think she was pushed down the stairs.”
Being right about a murder didn’t exactly perk up my day.
He glanced at the building again. “I’d better get back to work. Maybe I’ll see you again?”
“I’m involved with the fashion crawl so I’ll definitely be around,” I said.
He grinned. “Good.”
After a few steps he turned back, his grin gone.
“I overheard the security guard talking to the detectives, trying to make something out of you being in the building so often,” Clark said. “He claims you always used the staircase at the front of the building. He didn’t know why you were on the one in the middle where the girl was murdered. The cops wondered the same thing.”
Oh, crap.
***
“Something’s going down,” Bella told me.
We were standing in line inside the Holt’s Department Store employee breakroom waiting for another three minutes of our lives to tick by so we could clock-in. Around us, other employees were heating meals in the microwave, munching on snacks from the vending machines, and wondering where it had all gone so wrong.
Or maybe that was just me.
After a full day at L.A. Affairs, I’d morphed into my much less cool persona of part-time sales clerk at Holt’s, a seriously crappy midrange store. I’d taken the gig during my pre-L.A. Affairs days when I’d been desperate for money, then stayed because the company had purchased a chain of high-end boutiques that gave an astounding eighty-percent employee discount on designer clothing and accessories.
Call me shallow.
“We’ve got to go to a meeting,” Bella said, nodding to the sign posted over the time clock.
Damn. Another butt-flattening, mind-numbing meeting.
“What now?” I murmured.
“It’ll be some b.s.,” Bella said.
“Something that will benefit management,” I said.
“Yeah. Like I said, b.s.”
I didn’t disagree.
Bella, mocha to my vanilla, was tall, about my age, and worked at Holt’s to save for beauty school. She intended to be a hairdresser to the stars, and practiced unique styles on herself. Tonight she’d sculpted her hair into what looked like a blooming flower atop her head.
The line moved forward. I punched in my employee number and pressed my fingertip to the scanner, and trailed behind everyone out of the breakroom.
The Holt’s job had brought me not only a terrific employee discount at our sister store but an unexpected perk, my ex-official boyfriend, Ty Cameron, who ran the company that his family had owned for five generations. Ty was handsome, generous, kind, intelligent—there wasn’t anything Ty couldn’t do well, except be a decent boyfriend. His duties to Holt’s came first. We’d broken up. I was putting maximum effort into not thinking about him.
It helped that I was kind-of seeing somebody else. Liam Douglas was an attorney. Our relationship was moving at a glacial pace, making it unlikely he’d achieve official-boyfriend status any time soon. It suited us both.
I moved along with the other employees down the hall, past the store managers’ offices, and into the training room. The chairs were set up theater-style. I slipped into a seat on the back row behind the big guy who worked in menswear, my usual spot where I could drift off unnoticed if necessary.
Jeanette, the store manager, stood at the front of the room.
Yikes!
I turned away, hoping I hadn’t sustained retina damage looking at her outfit.
Even though Jeanette was a full-figured gal and her best years were behind her—figuratively and literally—she could have still pulled off some awesome looks. But she insisted on dressing in Holt’s dreadful so-called fashions. And as if that weren’t bad enough, tonight she’d put her own spin on her outfit by dressing head-to-toe in leopard print. Pencil skirt, blouse, jacket, shoes, earrings, necklace, and bracelet—maybe even her underwear, too, only no way did I want to know for sure.
All the employees found seats and settled down. Jeanette started talking and I drifted off.
I mean, really, how could I not?
That thing at KGE today had been taking up a lot of space in my head—the murder, not that hot guy, Clark.
Well, okay, I was thinking about him, too.
But mostly I was thinking about the murder.
As Jeanette yammered on I thought back to this afternoon when I left the KGE office after my meeting with Peri, then witnessed Katrina’s tirade over whatever it was everyone—including me—was accountable for, and had headed down the hallway toward the restroom. I hadn’t seen anyone. I’d heard nothing, either.
When I’d discovered Rayna Fuller lying at the bottom of the staircase it hadn’t occurred to me that she was connected to the KGE agency, even though she was plus size—meaning that by decree of some unseen but all knowing fashion gods she’d been deemed as such because her dress size was a double digit—and looked good, despite being dead.
I figured that some sort of confrontation had taken place at the head of the staircase. Clark had overheard the detectives say her shirt had been torn and there were scratches on her arm. Obviously, there’d been a scuffle.
Clark had been ducking in and out of the office he was painting, watching the hallway, when he’d spotted Rayna’s body. She must have been pushed shortly before I spotted her, and she must have been pushed hard to have tumbled all the way down to the first floor.
Yuck. Not a great picture in my head.
Still, the image circled through my mind. Something didn’t seem quite right about it but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Bella nudged me with her elbow, bringing me back to the moment, only marginally better than thoughts of a murder.
“Do you believe this?” she whispered and bobbed her brows toward Jeanette still blabbing at the front of the room.
I had no idea what she was talking about, of course, so I answered her eyebrow bob with an eye roll. She nodded wisely.
It hit me then that Rayna’s murder must be connected to KGE—I don’t know why but the thought popped into my head. That sort of thing just happened from time to time. But it made sense. Why else would Rayna have been in the building?
I flashed on my visit to the KGE office. I’d arrived on time. Peri had come in late, even though she was very punctual and knew I’d be there. When I’d finished my meeting and walked back to the lobby with Peri, one of the three models who’d been there earlier was gone. Misty was manning her post behind the reception desk. Libby, the beleaguered personal assistant, rushed in. Katrina was there, having just arrived.
My thoughts shot in a this-could-be-bad-for-me direction. I started to feel kind of panicky.
Oh my God, Katrina was there. Had the homicide detectives talked to her about Rayna’s death? Had they let on that they suspected I was involved?
I went into semi-panic mode.
What if Katrina fired me? What if she raised such a stink that L.A. Affairs fired me, too?
For a few seconds—a very few seconds—I considered beating Katrina to the punch by telling the office manager at L.A. Affair
s exactly what had happened, but I came to my senses. No way was I doing that.
Another of my personal policies was to never pass along unfavorable info unless it was absolutely necessary or benefited me in some way. This situation met neither of those criteria.
L.A. Affairs lived or died by its reputation. If they detected even the slightest hint that something was amiss, they might pull me off the fashion crawl. And worst still, the bad publicity might jeopardize the entire event—which could be seen as being my fault.
Yikes!
I absolutely couldn’t lose my fabulous job at L.A. Affairs. Who would hire me again with that on my record? What would become of me? How would I live? I’d have no money except—
Oh my God. Oh my God.
I’d have to work at Holt’s forever.
No way could I let that happen.
I was going to have to find Rayna’s killer myself.
Just as a zillion ideas popped into my head, the big guy from menswear stood up. Everybody stood up.
Jeez, the meeting was over already?
Everybody chattered and seemed kind of happy, which was really odd after leaving a meeting. Even Bella looked stunned.
“Can you believe it?” she muttered, as we moved out of the training room and down the hallway.
Maybe I could, if I had any idea what had gone on in the meeting.
When we reached the sales floor, Sandy, my other BFF at Holt’s, spotted us and rushed out of the women’s clothing department holding the stack of everybody-shield-your-eyes T-shirts she’d been folding.
“You got the news? I heard all about it in the noon meeting,” she said, smiling and bouncing on her toes.
Sandy was about my age with red or blonde hair, depending on her mood, that she most always wore in a ponytail. She’d worked at Holt’s since before I’d come on board, although I didn’t know why she stayed.
She could have done a lot better elsewhere. Really, Sandy could have done a lot better with a number of things, mainly her tattoo artist boyfriend who treated her like crap. I’d encouraged her to dump that idiot but, for some reason, she continued to ignore my oh-so-brilliant advice.
“Isn’t it the coolest thing?” Sandy said, her ponytail bouncing.
“No, not really,” Bella grumbled.
“Come on,” Sandy insisted. “Contests are fun.”
Holt’s was having another contest for the employees? That’s what the meeting had been about? Just as well I hadn’t been listening.
“Some of us have done really well in the contests,” Sandy pointed out, giving me a you-know-I’m-right look.
It was true that I’d scored pretty well on past contests but, well, let’s just say it hadn’t gone smoothly.
“Unless we get stuck with one of those beach towels again,” Bella said.
We all groaned.
The Holt’s beach towel—white with a huge blue cursive “H” in the center that served as the company’s logo—was the go-to consolation prize for every contest. Apparently some genius in the marketing department had decided it was a good way to advertise the store, and it might have worked if they had thought the idea through completely.
Or they could have simply asked me.
Really, why wasn’t I running the entire world?
“Well, yes,” Sandy agreed. “The beach towels weren’t the best quality.”
“Mine started to fray the second time I washed it,” Bella said. “The blue on that big “H” ran, then it fell apart before I’d used it a half dozen times.”
“Still, a contest is fun,” Sandy said. “And you might win one of the big prizes. They’re pretty cool.”
Judging by Bella’s eye roll, I knew it was just as well that my thoughts had been elsewhere during the meeting. No way was I putting any effort into trying to win a Holt’s contest. Plus, I didn’t want to take a chance that I would end up with a Holt’s beach towel because no way was I showing up at the beach or pool with that thing and have everybody think I actually shopped at a place like this. I was working here for the awesome discount at the Nuovo boutique—and that was prize enough for me.
“Have you seen the Holt’s new spring fashion line yet?” Bella asked and shook her head.
I wondered if this was something else Jeanette had mentioned in the meeting and—yikes!—I was glad I hadn’t been paying attention. Holt’s clothing lines had nothing to do with fashion.
“It’s under wraps in the stockroom,” Sandy said.
“Yeah, and it should stay covered up,” Bella said. “I looked at it—”
“Nobody is supposed to see it yet,” Sandy insisted. “Not until the grand reveal when the contest winners are announced.”
Before Bella could respond, Rita, the cashier’s supervisor, walked up looking grumpy and cranky, as usual.
“You’re not going to win anything in the contest standing around and talking,” Rita barked. “Not that you’ll win something, anyway.”
She hates me.
“Especially you, princess,” she said to me.
I hate her back.
Rita was dressed in her usual stretch pants and T-shirt with a farm animal on the front, this one featuring sheep embellished with orange glitter for no apparent reason.
“You’re going to have to put in some effort, if you expect to qualify for anything,” Rita said, giving me major stink-eye.
What the heck? Why was she giving me such a hard time?
“And not cause any problems,” Rita said.
Well, okay, there’d been a few incidents in the past that involved me here at Holt’s, but everything had turned out okay in the end … kind of.
Besides, I didn’t have time to think about a Holt’s contest, or anything else at the store. I had to get going on my investigation and figure out who’d murdered Rayna before I lost my job at L.A. Affairs, and my life—the cool part of it, anyway—came to an end.
Chapter 4
I loved my office at L.A. Affairs. It was situated on the third floor of a high rise at the intersection of Sepulveda and Ventura in Sherman Oaks, one of L.A.’s many upscale areas. It was decorated in neutrals with splashes of blue and yellow, and featured a big window that overlooked the Galleria shopping center as well as an impressive number of office buildings, restaurants, and businesses.
The thing I liked most about my office was that it was private. This afforded me the opportunity to handle all my responsibilities without interruption—and it kept anyone wandering past from seeing exactly what I was doing.
When I got to the office the next morning I immediately jumped into my routine, which meant that I dropped off my handbag—a totally awesome Prada satchel which I’d paired with a gray business suit, accessorized with silver and white—and headed straight to the breakroom.
This was a crucial step in my day. I took more than the usual fifteen minutes required to prepare a single cup of coffee and listened for any indication that word had made it back to L.A. Affairs that a KGE model had been murdered. Luckily, nobody said anything. I hung out in the breakroom for another ten minutes just to be sure—and to eat a chocolate doughnut.
Just because the staff wasn’t gossiping about it didn’t mean management hadn’t been informed. It was way too early in the day to relax completely. I’d have to stay on my toes and not draw attention to myself in any way.
My usual morning routine included updating my Facebook page, so that’s the first thing I did when I settled into my office. I mean, really, was there a need to do actual work first thing in the morning when I might get fired at any moment?
I followed up my Facebook post by looking at my bank balance and booking a facial. My checking account was in good shape and I got the exact appointment time I’d requested, a sign that things were going my way. Then I got a text from Liam, my sort-of-kind-of boyfriend, saying he hoped my day was going well. Wow, was that nice, or what? I texted back an oh-so-clever response.
Just as I was thinking that nothing bad would happen, my c
ell phone buzzed. Mom’s name appeared in the ID screen.
Crap.
An all too familiar wave of dread washed through me but I shook it off. So far, I’d experienced no problems today. Seemed I was on a roll. My mojo was working. I had to stay positive.
“There’s news,” Mom declared when I answered.
From her tone, I knew I was in for a pre-wedding update involving one of my cousins.
I braced myself.
“You remember your cousin who dropped out of college and went to live in some ridiculous artists’ colony in Ecuador?” Mom asked.
My spirits lifted. Yes, I remembered her. She was one of the few family members who actually made me look good.
“I just found out that she’s turned herself around,” Mom said. “She graduated from medical school.”
I slumped down in my chair.
“She’s a pediatric cardiologist.”
Why had I answered my phone?
Really, what’s wrong me sometimes?
Mom blabbed on but I wasn’t listening because a miniscule ray of hope suddenly beamed into my head.
Maybe I could get out of going to the wedding. After all the relatives heard about my sister’s move to Paris and my cousin’s altruistic career, would anyone even notice if I wasn’t there?
“You know, Mom, I might not be able to—”
“I’ve got to call your sister with the news,” Mom said and hung up.
Yeah, now my day definitely needed a boost.
Nobody here at the office had mentioned Rayna’s death so I figured Katrina hadn’t pulled me off the fashion crawl. Maybe the homicide detectives hadn’t told Katrina that I’d found the body or that they were suspicious about my involvement. Maybe Katrina, if she’d been told and wanted me fired, had assigned the task of ratting me out to Libby, who’d been too overwhelmed to get to it yet. Maybe something else was going on—or maybe nothing was going on.
Either way, I couldn’t sit around waiting and worrying that my life might be ripped apart at any moment. That’s not how I roll.
I gathered my things and left the office.
Backpacks and Betrayals (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Page 3
