The snow was two days old so roads were clear. Laurel made it from her house to the store in fifteen minutes. As always when she saw it, pride flooded through her. Located in the historic district of Wheeling, West Virginia, Damron Floral inhabited a three-story Victorian structure painted robin’s egg blue with ornate white shutters. She was the third generation of Damrons to manage the store. When her grandfather started it shortly after World War II, he and his wife and son lived on the third floor. During the fifties when business flourished and his family expanded to four children, he built the sprawling log home north of Wheeling, near the beautiful Oglebay State Park, where Laurel now lived.
She always entered by the back door and went into the tiny kitchen off the workroom to start coffee before her assistant Mary Howard arrived. She liked the store to seem inviting, even to employees. Especially to Mary. She was the best designer Laurel had ever hired. She was also the younger sister of Laurel’s friend Faith. Faith, so beautiful, so insouciant, so bold. Faith, dead now for thirteen years.
Laurel felt a chill and pushed the image of Faith from her mind. Good Lord, was she sinking into some kind of holiday depression? For some reason, she wasn’t allowing herself to be happy. She seemed determined to dwell on dark thoughts, the memory of Faith’s death being the darkest.
She went through the store turning on lights. She’d recently replaced the bland tan carpet that had covered the floor of Damron Floral for as long as she could remember. Every five to ten years when new carpet was needed, her father chose the same nondescript shade. Now floors of deep smoky blue stretched before her and soft pearl gray walls replaced the former shade of bisque. Her parents planned a trip home in the spring. She hoped her father would approve of her decorating innovations, but she doubted it. Hal Damron didn’t like change.
A quick glance out the front window assured her the street was nearly deserted. Good. She wouldn’t put up the open sign for twenty minutes, giving her time to go over the day’s orders. Aside from the usual holiday trade, three funerals were being held tomorrow. They were swamped with work.
Laurel took a quick inventory of the store’s interior. The glass shelves were loaded with lush poinsettias and holiday planters decorated with various colored ribbons and silk flowers. Grape vine wreaths hung on the walls along with the more traditional pine wreaths. Laurel breathed in the scent of pine mixed with potpourri coming from little sachet bags scattered throughout the store. The place definitely smelled of Christmas.
She heard the back door close and in a moment Mary Howard called out, “Good morning, Laurel.”
Laurel went to the back. Mary shrugged out of her long, heavy brown coat and smiled at her. She was a tall young woman of twenty-six with pale, frizzy red hair pulled back in a ponytail, light blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles over her high-bridged nose. She was attractive in a strong, rawboned way but certainly not the beauty her sister Faith had been. She didn’t come close to Faith’s vivid, sensual, almost Rita Hayworth look. Laurel had always thought of Faith as red satin, Mary as blue gingham.
“Hi,” Laurel said. “You’re early.”
“Busy day ahead.” Mary held up a bulging white paper bag. “Doughnuts.”
“Bless you! I only ate half a piece of toast this morning and I know I’ll be starving in a couple of hours.”
“Have one now with a fresh cup of coffee. In a couple of hours you won’t have time.”
Laurel hesitated, then smiled. “Okay. You twisted my arm. Any chocolate-covered ones in that bag?”
“Are you joking? I know they’re your favorite.”
Mary was right. Two hours later the phone rang every few minutes and three customers browsed. Mary worked on arrangements in the back with Laurel’s other designers, Penny and Norma, while Laurel manned the front. She’d just sold a set of artificial holly and pine candle rings when the phone rang for what seemed like the twentieth time. Sighing, she reached for her order pad. “Damron Floral.”
A moment of silence spun out before a husky female voice asked, “Laurel, is that you?”
“Yes.” The voice was familiar, but Laurel couldn’t place it. Some customers were offended when she didn’t immediately recognize their voices so she asked carefully, “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Well, actually I’m not fine this morning.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t know who this is, do you?”
God, I hate it when people make me guess their identity, Laurel thought in irritation. It’s so rude and I’m so busy…Suddenly a face with clear green eyes flashed before her. “Monica! It’s Monica Boyd.”
“Right. Pretty quick after not having seen me for twelve years.”
“We were close. Besides, you’re a hard person to forget.” A woman was holding up two pots of poinsettias, tilting them until dirt began sprinkling to the carpet. Laurel stiffened, wanting to snap, “Watch what you’re doing!” Instead she asked pleasantly, “Are you still in New York, Monica?”
“Yes. I’m on my way to making partner at Maxwell, Tate, and Goldstein.”
“Wonderful.” More dirt fell. Laurel was ready to tell Monica to hold for a moment when Mary came to ask a question, immediately saw the problem, and rushed to the woman’s side with a gracious smile and large, firm hands that relieved her of the poinsettias. “Big plans for the holidays?” Laurel asked.
“A change in plans. I’m coming back to Wheeling.”
“After all these years?”
“Yes. I think it’s important that I talk with you.”
“Me?” Laurel was genuinely puzzled.
“Yes. You, Denise, and Crystal.”
They’d all been friends growing up. Friends forever, they thought. When they were twelve, they’d formed a club called the Six of Hearts—Monica, Laurel, Crystal, Denise, Angela, and poor dead Faith. Anxiety abruptly gripped Laurel. “Monica, what’s wrong?”
“You know Angie’s been living here in Manhattan, too?”
“Of course. She’s always kept in touch. I just got a card from her. She’s the lead in a Broadway play.”
“Not anymore.” Laurel could hear Monica take a deep breath. “Laurel, Angie was murdered night before last. She wasn’t found until yesterday, when she didn’t show up for an interview and the theater couldn’t reach her. It was…brutal. She was bludgeoned to death in her own bed.”
“Oh, my God,” Laurel gasped, her stomach clenching as she pictured Angie’s lovely face, remembered her beautiful voice. “How horrible!”
“Yes. But there’s more, Laurel. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Angela’s death had something to do with the Six of Hearts.”
Two
1
Laurel’s face slackened in shock. She saw the quick look Mary threw her way before she managed to speak again. “Monica, have they caught her killer?”
“No.”
Laurel spoke softly. “Then what makes you think this had something to do with the Six of Hearts?”
“On the mirror in her bedroom the murderer drew a six and a heart. In Angie’s blood.”
“Oh,” Laurel said weakly. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m good friends with a detective on the case. He knows I knew Angie. He gave me the details. They aren’t known to the general public, but he thought I might have some idea of what they meant. I said I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
“Because we never told anyone the truth about the Six of Hearts. Besides, I don’t want to get involved in this. I doubt if any of us do.”
Laurel realized she was clutching the receiver and forced herself to relax her grip. “Monica, the stuff on the mirror has to be some sort of coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” Monica’s husky voice rarely rose and Laurel heard the tension in it. “It’s a coincidence that the killer just happened to put a six and a heart on her mirror when Angie used to be a member of the Six of Hearts? And something else. There was a tarot card lying b
eside her body—the judgment card.”
“Judgment?”
“Yes. It seems to me the killer might want revenge for an old deed committed by the Six of Hearts.”
“Judgment? Revenge? Monica, this is crazy. We were a secret club. No one knew about us.”
“Laurel, we weren’t CIA operatives. We were a bunch of young girls playing around with the idea of having a secret club because we were bored. It made us feel important even though most of what we did was just harmless, stupid stuff. Who says one of us didn’t talk about the club at some point? It wasn’t as if someone was going to get a bullet in the brain for revealing the Six of Hearts.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
“I didn’t, either, but that leaves four others.”
“Not Faith. Faith is—” She broke off as she saw Mary standing in front of her, a frown creasing her pale forehead. “Monica, I’m afraid I have to go now. We’re very busy today.”
“Laurel, this is serious. You can’t brush me off.”
“I’m not trying to. It’s just that—”
“I’m coming to Wheeling,” Monica said firmly. “I’ll be there tomorrow. Tell Denise and Crystal.”
She hung up. Laurel stood mutely holding the phone.
“Was that bad news?” Mary asked. “It’s not your sister, is it?”
“What?” Laurel blinked at her, then slowly put down the phone. “No, Claudia is fine. It was just someone telling me that an old friend of mine was murdered.”
“Murdered! Who?”
“Angela Ricci. You wouldn’t know her.”
“She was a friend of my sister,” Mary said promptly. “Is that why you mentioned Faith?”
Laurel nodded and Mary went on. “I remember Angela. Very pretty. Very talented. My goodness, what a shame!” Laurel nodded again. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine, Mary, really.”
But she wasn’t fine. She was more horrified and frightened than she had been for thirteen years.
2
Laurel spent the rest of the day in a fog. She saw Mary, Penny, and Norma watching her closely and even some of the customers threw her curious glances when she didn’t help them with her usual efficiency. She closed the store at five, forced herself to stay until six-thirty helping Mary with some last-minute arrangements, then gratefully headed for home.
April and Alex met her with one of their customary exuberant greetings. She petted both absently, rewarded each with a dog biscuit, threw her camel hair coat on a chair, and dropped onto the couch.
All week she’d felt odd. Had she somehow sensed something was going to happen to Angie? Impossible. Although Angie sent her Christmas cards and had even called when her mother told her about Laurel’s father’s heart attack, they weren’t close. In fact, if not for Angie’s efforts, they would have drifted completely apart, just like she and Monica had. After all, what did she have in common with a talented Broadway star?
Nothing. Not a thing except a shared youth in Wheeling and membership in a silly club formed by the precocious Monica when they were only twelve years old.
The Six of Hearts. Monica had come up with the name. She said symbolically the heart was the center of power and intelligence. When Crystal argued that she thought intelligence had something to do with the brain, Monica had snapped, “I said symbolically. Don’t you even know what symbols are? Besides, do you want to be called the Six of Brains?” Sufficiently quelled, Crystal had ceased arguing. Never sure of her own intelligence, Monica had completely overwhelmed gentle Crystal. Lord, she overwhelmed all of us, Laurel thought. Monica was always a force. Apparently she still was, announcing that she was coming back here to talk to her and Crystal and Denise about Angie’s murder, a murder she was certain had something to do with the Six of Hearts.
The club had started out so innocently. There had been a “secret” initiation, which consisted of eating foods blindfolded after being told olives were eyeballs and raw cow’s liver was a human liver. Then they’d played harmless practical jokes on students they’d unanimously decided they didn’t like. Sometimes they made anonymous phone calls to older boys, throwing their voices deep and sexy, then hanging up before they collapsed in giggles. When they were fifteen, everyone except Denise celebrated Bastille Day by sneaking out in the night armed with wire cutters, breaking out a window, crawling inside, and liberating nearly fifty dogs and cats from the local pound. That prank made the newspaper, but no one ever suspected them. It was all such fun. But as they got older, the games became darker.
The doorbell rang. Laurel frowned, wondering who it might be, then sat up slowly. Of all the evenings when she didn’t want to be disturbed, unexpected company had arrived.
But it wasn’t unexpected. “Hi,” Kurt Rider said. “Hungry? I sure am.”
Laurel closed her eyes briefly. “Oh, Kurt, I completely forgot we were supposed to have dinner.”
“Oh, well, no harm done,” he said easily, stepping inside, his six-foot-two frame towering over her. “Ready to go?”
“No, Kurt, I’m afraid I’m not feeling up to it tonight.”
Disappointment flashed over his long, good-looking face and shone in his brown eyes. “Not up to it? Are you sick?”
“Not really.” Laurel waved a hand at the big living room. “Come in.”
He strode forward, then turned to look at her. “Why is it so dark in here?”
“Because I haven’t turned on any lights?”
He grinned. “You’re hilarious.”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to make all the brilliant deductions.”
“Hey, I’m just a simple deputy sheriff, not one of your flashy television detectives. And here I am, exhausted after a hard day of fighting crime, and my girl forgets we have a date.”
“I’m really sorry, Kurt.”
He flipped on a lamp and sat down on the long leather couch. “Stop apologizing and tell me what’s wrong. You’re pale. Getting the flu?”
“No. I got bad news.” She sat down beside him. “Do you remember Angela Ricci?”
“Angie? Sure. She was just a year younger than me. She was in your class. Her mother’s been telling everyone in town she made it big in some play in New York.”
“Angie’s dead, Kurt. Murdered.”
Kurt stared at her blankly for a moment. “Murdered? What happened?”
“Angie was beaten to death in her own bed.” And it seems to have something to do with a club we were in when we were kids, Laurel thought, although she said nothing. She didn’t want to talk about the Six of Hearts with Kurt. Besides, Monica only had a theory.
“Laurel?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you were still friends with her. I don’t remember you mentioning her since we’ve been dating.”
“I heard from her occasionally.”
“How did you find out about her murder?”
“Monica Boyd. She lives in New York, too.”
“Monica. I remember her. Tall. Bossy. Isn’t she a lawyer now?”
“Yes. She’s coming to Wheeling tomorrow.”
“Why?”
Laurel paused. “The funeral,” she said abruptly. Monica hadn’t mentioned the funeral, but the Ricci family had been summoned to New York and had called back to tell a few people about their daughter’s death and the funeral arrangements. Angie would be buried in Wheeling. Orders for funeral baskets and wreaths had begun trickling in a couple of hours before she closed the store.
Kurt frowned. “Well, it’s a real shame Angie’s dead, but you seem awfully upset about someone you hardly knew anymore.”
“But I used to know her so well. We were friends for ten years. And the way she died…Kurt, it’s awful.”
“I know. But then murder is always awful.” He put his arm around her. “Honey, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“I know there’s nothing I can sa
y to make you feel better, but you’ve got to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Your stomach is growling.”
“It is?”
“Yes. Loudly.”
Laurel smiled. “I didn’t notice, but come to think of it, I haven’t eaten anything except a piece of toast and a doughnut.”
“No wonder you feel lousy. My mother is a firm believer in eating, no matter what.”
“Your mother weighs two hundred pounds,” Laurel said absently, then flushed in embarrassment. “Kurt, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “What an awful thing to say! I didn’t mean…I don’t know where that came from,” she blundered. “Your mother is a lovely person.”
But Kurt laughed good-naturedly. “She is a lovely person who weighs two hundred pounds. It’s okay, Laurel. Facts are facts. And the fact is that you’re too thin to be skipping meals. If you don’t feel like going out, how about if I order a pizza for us?”
Laurel hesitated. “A pizza does sound pretty good.”
“Great. Got any beer?”
“A couple of six-packs.”
“I won’t need that much. You go feed those hungry hounds of yours that are giving me such dirty looks from the doorway, and I’ll call in the order. I guarantee that in an hour you’ll feel like a new woman.”
Kurt insisted on building a fire in the large flagstone fireplace. After feeding the dogs, Laurel sat on the hearth, clutching a pillow and warming herself. She hadn’t realized until then that ever since Monica’s call, she’d been freezing. When the pizza arrived, she ate ravenously. “Thought you weren’t hungry,” Kurt teased. “Glad I ordered the super size.”
Laurel laid down a half-eaten piece. “You’re right. I’m eating like a pig.”
“No you’re not. It’s kind of nice to see you eat like this. You usually pick at your food.”
“I don’t have my sister’s looks, but I can still stay slim.”
In the Event of My Death Page 2
