I stopped listening.
I held the phone to my ear until Mom wound down, then hung up.
I mean, really, how was I supposed to compete with that? Oh my God, this wedding was going to be a complete nightmare for me, my worst fears realized in front of every relative on Mom’s side of the family.
I drew in a big breath, gritted my teeth, and hardened my resolve. No way was I going to crash and burn in a flaming heap of humiliation at that wedding. I was getting that Domino clutch.
Somehow, I’d forced myself to calm down by the time I walked into Darby’s shop. I spotted her waiting on a customer, a woman with super-short it’s-gray-now-so-why-should-I-care hair, wearing a floral print dress and a crocheted shrug.
Darby’s smile was frozen on her face, and I could see it wasn’t going well. The woman peppered her with questions and didn’t seem to like any of the answers—when you get old, it seems, you hate things for no good reason—then finally left without buying anything.
Darby heaved a small sigh of relief and asked, “Come to visit your bag again?”
“I can’t stay away,” I admitted.
Even though I’d planned a subtle run-up to my latest sure-fire attempt to get Darby to make my bag immediately, I ditched that idea and jumped right in.
“You know, I’m planning the fashion crawl,” I said. “I can get you a kiosk in a prime location. I’d be happy to do it. It’s no trouble.”
Okay, it would be a lot of trouble—but well worth it.
“No, thanks anyway,” Darby said. “I’m not showing at the crawl.”
For a few seconds, I thought I hadn’t heard her correctly.
“But your business is local,” I said. “Why aren’t you participating?”
“I won’t be at this location much longer,” Darby said. “The landlord is increasing the rent.”
Jeez, you’d think that at hundreds of dollars a pop for a handbag, she could afford to shell out a little more every month.
Darby must have read my mind, somehow, because she said, “The building has major problems. All the tenants have complained, but the landlord refuses to fix anything. Honestly, I’ve had enough of it.”
A thread of high-panic whipped though me.
“You’re not going to quit making the bags, are you?”
“I’ll continue with my business, but I’m going to do everything online,” Darby said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get your bag to you on time, as promised.”
“Or sooner?” I asked.
She gave me an indulgent smile. “Sorry, no sooner.”
Damn.
“How much longer will you be in your shop?” I asked.
“Just until the end of the month,” she said. “I’m trying to tie up loose ends before I go. You know, get all the bags picked up that I repaired, handle the appointments I’ve already scheduled. I want the transition to go as smoothly as possible.”
“If something changes and you decide to participate in the fashion crawl, let me know,” I said. “You design beautiful handbags. I’d be happy to help show them to the world.”
Darby smiled and said, “Thanks.”
I left the boutique feeling more than slightly bummed. Not only had my awesome plan gotten me no closer to having my Domino, Darby was actually leaving the area.
With a quick look at Starbucks across the street—it called my name, I swear—I knew a mocha frappuccino was the only thing that could really lift my spirits today. I decided to get my meeting with Peri over with, and treat myself.
As I rounded the building, I spotted Clark standing at the rear entrance, dressed in his rainbow-splattered white pants and shirt. I was about to stroll over and chat for a bit—I felt a lot better about him since I decided he hadn’t murdered Rayna—when I saw an SUV roll up next to him. A woman got out and started yelling at him, waving a cell phone, and pointing to the rear seat of the vehicle.
Obviously, something major was going down.
Maybe I’d been wrong about Clark.
I eased closer. The woman was young, dressed in stretched-out sweats, no makeup, with her hair pulled back in what had probably started the day as a ponytail. She hovered by the back door of the SUV. Inside, I saw the top of an infant seat.
I didn’t need intel from Jack or Shuman to understand what was going on here. She was Clark’s wife, and she was mega-upset with him because he’d left his cell phone at home and she’d had to load up their new baby to bring it to him—again, I gathered, from the way she screamed at him.
I did an about-face and headed for the front entrance of the building. No way did I want to get too close to all that. But it did explain why, on the day of Rayna’s murder, Clark had been yo-yoing from the office suite to the hallway.
My already low spirits plummeted further. I’d thought Clark was really good looking and, except for suspecting him of cold-blooded murder, I’d wondered if something might spark between us. But he was married—and not simply married, married with a new baby.
Oh, crap.
***
After work I met Marcie for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory located in the super-cool Galleria across the street from L.A. Affairs. It had definitely been a cheesecake-desperately-needed kind of day. I always said you never knew when something good was going to happen. Well, not to sound selfish, where was my something good? Where was my great mojo? Why did these crappy things keep happening?
“Okay, talk,” Marcie said when we sat down in a booth. “You’re upset. What’s going on?”
The waitress stopped by and we ordered drinks—not only was it a cheesecake night, but a beer night.
“That gorgeous Domino clutch I wanted to take to my cousin’s wedding,” I said. “I talked to Darby again, trying to entice her to make my bag right away, but it’s still a no-go. She’s adamant about keeping to her production schedule.”
“But that’s good,” Marcie pointed out. “You can be sure she won’t push your bag back to make one for someone else.”
Marcie was right, of course.
Marcie was almost always right.
But no way did I want to hear anything reasonable or sensible at the moment.
“I’ve got one idea left to try and convince her,” I said.
Marcie must have sensed a Thelma-and-Louise moment coming, because her expression darkened.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, as if a little afraid to hear my answer.
“Darby told me there’s some big anniversary party happening in her family and she doesn’t have anybody to take,” I said.
Marcie held up her hand and said, “Don’t go there.”
“I’m going to find her a date.”
“No.”
“I know a lot of good-looking guys,” I said.
“Don’t do it.”
“I know I can find somebody she’ll like, who’ll impress her family. All I have to do is—”
“Forget it, Haley.” Marcie said it kind of loud, as only a BFF can. “Don’t get involved in her personal life.”
“But I need that handbag,” I insisted.
“No, you don’t,” she said, sounding way too reasonable.
The waitress served our drinks and a basket of bread. I chugged some of my beer.
“Look,” Marcie said. “You don’t need a Domino clutch, or any other kind of bag, to prove you’re worthy of attending your cousin’s wedding. You’re not giving yourself enough credit. You look great, you have a terrific job, and you’re dating a handsome, successful man.”
At any other event, that might have been enough. But not with my mom’s family. Marcie had a great home life, so she didn’t fully understand what I was up against. If I didn’t soon come up with a way to outshine my high achieving cousins, I’d have no choice but to fake my own death.
“Besides, what if you do find Darby a date and the whole thing goes sideways,” Marcie said. “She might refuse to make your bag, cancel your order.”
Yikes! I hadn’t thought of that.
>
“Promise me you won’t try to find her a date,” Marcie said, then added, “Or do anything else to get her to make your bag sooner.”
Jeez, having a best BFF was really irritating sometime—especially when I knew she was right.
“Okay,” I said, which I think I kind of whined, but it was the best I could do.
Marcie was quiet for a moment then, thankfully, changed the subject.
“I want to hear everything that’s going on with you and Liam,” she said. “But first, let me give you this, before I forget.”
Marcie dug in her tote—a terrific Fendi that looked awesome with her gray suit—and passed me several sheets of paper.
“The property search you asked for,” she said. “So who’s Katrina Granger, anyway?”
“She owns the KGE Model Agency, the fashion crawl’s major sponsor,” I said, glancing over the printout. “I heard that the agency is having financial—oh my God, did you look at this?”
“Impressive, huh?” Marcie said.
Listed were the addresses of six properties that Katrina owned. I could hardly believe my eyes.
“Two are residential,” Marcia said. “The others are commercial.”
The commercial properties were all located in North Hollywood. I looked closer at the addresses and realized three of them were being used for the fashion crawl. They were vacant buildings, part of the homeless situation that Jack and his security team were struggling with.
It didn’t take an MBA to know that Katrina had a ton of money wrapped up in these properties, and was losing a ton of money on them every month. Was that why the model agency was cutting back on expenses and payroll, screwing over the employees, and taking a nosedive?
Money was one of the biggest motives for murder, and Katrina seemed to be eyeball-deep in financial problems. It made me think that her situation was somehow linked to Rayna’s murder.
I just had to figure out how.
Chapter 14
Just as I whipped my Honda into a parking space in the L.A. Affairs garage the next morning, my cell phone rang. Jeez, the day had barely started and somebody was making a call already? No way could something important have happened, not this early.
“Katrina is having a meltdown,” Peri said when I answered.
It seemed to me that Katrina was always having a meltdown so I figured that whatever was up with her now was nothing of consequence. Still, Peri sounded majorly stressed, which was totally unlike her.
I immediately morphed into event planner superhero mode.
“What happened?” I asked.
I used my I-can-fix-any-problem voice because, when it came to staging events, I really could fix any problem.
I like to think of it as another of my superpowers.
“The fashion crawl is disintegrating,” Peri told me. “Katrina wants to fire the security firm because of the homeless situation. She’s re-thinking all of the menus. She wants to completely revamp the VIP reception. And if those things don’t happen, she wants to move the entire event to Santa Monica.”
Oh my God—oh my God—that crazy Katrina couldn’t be serious.
Fortunately, I hadn’t said that aloud, only thought it.
“I’ll be right there,” I told Peri, and hung up.
All kind of plans, backup plans, contingency plans, suggestions, and recommendations pounded in my head as I drove to North Hollywood. No way could I allow Katrina to make any of those changes this close to the event. It simply could not be done. Not now. Not with the crawl merely days away.
I swung into a parking space outside the KGE building, thoughts of how to save the crawl roaring in my head. I had to stay focused and be persuasive when I talked to Katrina. It would take all my event planner superpowers to pull this off.
As I got out of the car and headed for the rear entrance, my cell phone rang. Figuring it was Peri, probably having a major meltdown herself by now, I grabbed it from my handbag and answered.
“I got that info for you.”
It was Detective Shuman.
I didn’t pause, didn’t slow down. I had no time for this. I didn’t even know what the heck he was talking about, and I had to get upstairs to KGE before Katrina lost what was left of her mind and did something really outrageous, like cancel the crawl completely.
“The cell phone caller,” Shuman said. “The person Rayna was talking to when she was murdered.”
I stopped on the sidewalk.
“It was Chyna,” he said. “It’s a person, not—”
“—the country,” I said.
My heartrate picked up a little.
“Yes, Chyna Baine,” Shuman said. “You know her?”
“She’s a senior tech designer at Emerald Graffiti,” I said.
All of my thoughts spun in a different direction now, abandoning the fashion crawl and Katrina and her meltdown.
“Why was Rayna talking to her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Chyna hasn’t been interviewed yet. She’s at the factory where they make the clothes in, get this, China.” Shuman was quiet for a few seconds, thinking cop-thoughts, probably, then asked, “Do you know why they were talking?”
“No,” I said.
“Haley?” He was using his cop-voice now.
“No, really, I don’t know,” I told him.
“But you have an idea?” he asked, as if he could read my thoughts.
Maybe he could because bits of information were flying around in my head, trying to connect.
“Nothing definite, just random thoughts that don’t fit together,” I admitted.
“Call me if something clicks.”
“I will,” I mumbled.
But honestly, I wasn’t paying much attention to Shuman. I ended the call, my brain buzzing.
Rayna had been on the verge of turning her life around thanks to Colleen’s departure from the KGE agency and only Ivy standing in the way of her taking over Colleen’s long, lucrative list of clients. What a thrill Rayna must have felt, after eking by on the few fit modeling jobs that were available and settling for what amounted to crumbs, to suddenly know things were on the verge of turning around for her big-time at KGE.
So why had she been on the phone with Chyna?
Emerald Graffiti didn’t use agented models, only girls who worked independently. Rayna had no reason to talk to Chyna. Unless, of course, Rayna was planning to quit KGE—but why do that, and give up all the other clients the agency could set her up with?
Still, there had to be a reason, something I’d missed. Since finding Rayna’s body I’d felt like there was a loose end dangling that I couldn’t identify. I’d thought it was her cell phone, but—
Wait. Hang on.
Rayna’s backpack. Oh my God, her backpack.
A major lightbulb lit up my brain.
Her KGE-issued backpack wasn’t with her at the foot of the staircase. That’s what had seemed off about the crime scene. Oh my God, how could I have missed that?
Okay, I had to get my hands on that backpack. Maybe I could find something inside it that would indicate what was up with Rayna and Emerald Graffiti, and lead to her murderer.
Of course, the homicide detectives might have found it among Rayna’s personal effects in her car or apartment. If so, they would have seen any evidence there that would have indicated who killed her, and closed the case by now.
But nobody had been arrested, and I doubted the detectives knew enough about fit modeling to realize Rayna should have had the backpack with her, and make it a priority.
So where would it be?
From what I’d seen, the models always had their backpacks with them.
Had her murderer taken it? That would mean it held incriminating evidence and, surely, was long gone by now. But if not—
Then it hit me.
I’d seen some KGE backpacks in Darby’s workroom, left there for repair. Could Rayna’s bag be there?
I hustled over to Darby’s shop and went inside. Luckily, no cus
tomers were there. I spotted her in the workroom.
“Just can’t get enough of that Domino clutch, huh?” she said, and walked over.
“You know me pretty well,” I said, and managed a small laugh.
Mentally, I’d already shifted into private-detective-wannbe mode. I had to play it cool now, play it smart. I was desperate to find out if Rayna’s backpack was here and get my hands on it—but I had to do it without looking like I was desperate, of course.
Oh my God, why hadn’t I asked Jack to come along? We’d be so awesome together on a covert op.
“I was on my way to KGE to handle a couple of things for the fashion crawl,” I said, pleased that I sounded casual. “I remembered you’d said you were trying to tie up loose ends so you could close your shop, and I know you have backpacks from the KGE models here for repair. I’ll be happy to drop them off.”
Darby hesitated, apparently feeling uncomfortable, and rightly so, about handing over someone else’s property to me. A few seconds dragged by, just enough that I was seriously contemplating grabbing the backpacks and taking off.
“Well, okay,” Darby finally said.
She stepped into the workroom, then reappeared a few seconds later with a backpack, and passed it to me.
“This is the only one left,” she said. “The others were picked up already.”
I glanced at the repair tag looped around one of the straps. Rayna’s name was on it.
It took everything I had not to do an I’m-awesome fist pump.
“The models always want them back the same day, since they never know when they’ll be called for a fitting,” Darby said. “I don’t know why this model hasn’t come for hers.”
I saw no reason to mention that the backpack’s owner was dead.
“Thanks for taking care of this, Haley.”
“Glad to help,” I said, then waved and left the shop.
I had to go through Rayna’s backpack immediately, and I had to do it some place where nobody would see me. I slung it over my shoulder and headed toward the KGE building, just in case Darby was watching.
Inside, the old guy security guard gave me major stink-eye as I crossed the lobby. I ignored him and walked down the hallway. As I approached the rear doors, I smelled paint and figured Clark was still working. I dashed into the ladies restroom, relieved to see that no one else was in there. I locked myself in a stall.
Backpacks and Betrayals (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Page 11
