“And then I got a call about an obnoxious fan downstairs, so I finished my sweep and left the scene.”
“Did you see Johnny come downstairs?” I asked.
“The argument got my attention, but it wasn’t disturbingly intense or anything out of the ordinary for Mr. Pikes. Professionally speaking, it wasn’t my concern. A crazed fan who needed to be removed from the premises? Now that was my concern. So I left to take care of it.”
“What do you mean an argument wasn’t out of the ordinary for Mr. Pikes?” Sylvie asked.
His face resumed its impassive mask. “I’ve said enough. Please see yourself off the premises and have a nice day.”
Frannie pointed to her cupcake box. “I can have a dozen more of those babies delivered to you in half an hour. Extra frosting.”
Diane cleared his throat and considered the offer. “Mr. Pikes is very particular about his clients. He has input on everything from their song selection to their shoes. When someone has that much control, I imagine it can be a bit chafing. I work mostly for Jaz, but my team has done plenty of gigs for Pikes and his stars. America didn’t seem to like anyone’s input into her image, and I think when she arrived in Sugar Creek, she’d had enough.”
“Enough of what?” I wanted details.
“Look, ladies, I don’t know. Like I told the cops, I heard America tell Pikes she was done keeping her mouth shut.”
America sure seemed to be in on a lot of secrets. “Was she referring to the facade of being friends with Jaz for the concert?”
“I’d assume so,” Diane said.
“Or . . .” Sylvie let the word linger. “Did she have a deep, dark secret that Pikes didn’t want her to share?”
Diane shrugged his super-sized shoulder. “Beats me. Pikes is a quirky bird, but he’s at the top of his game, takes care of his clients, and most importantly, pays his security well. I’ve never had a problem with the guy.”
Leaving the cupcakes behind, the three of us walked back to my car, each of us lost in thought.
The radio played an old country song as I pulled the seatbelt across my body. “What do you think?” I regarded my partners in sleuthing.
“Definitely some things we need to follow up on,” Sylvie said. “Especially after what Alaina said about Johnny. Something certainly shifted in America’s working relationship with her manager.”
“It makes sense that America was just referring to her part in the image repair for Jaz.” Frannie started the van. “That’s a lot to ask of the young woman. But what if Johnny Pikes does have something to hide? Maybe he has a big, fat skeleton in his closet and America knew it.”
Then I guess it was time to dig up some skeletons.
Chapter Sixteen
The evening sky hung dark and sleepy when I parked next to Beau’s truck in the driveway and pulled my tired, achy body from the car. With heels in hand, I walked to the front door, my ears perking at the loud music seeping from the walls. I hesitantly stepped inside, my eyes struggling to focus and make sense of the vision before me.
“Pop that hip, Ellen! There you go. You got it!”
Jaz’s latest song played at a volume, loud enough to shake the floor and rattle my teeth.
“Paisley, join us!” Jaz stood in my living room and threw her arm around my mother. “I’m just catching Mrs. Sutton here up on the latest dance moves. I think even you could do them.” She and my mother shared a laugh.
“And we baked brownies.” My mom’s smile lifted her flushed cheeks. “It’s been such a fun evening, hasn’t it, Jaz?”
I’d worked another sixteen hours on this stinking fest today, and Jaz was in my living room doing some sort of bootie-shake with my mother? Who gave her the right to have fun? And in my house!
“Ellen is just the best.” Jaz turned her beaming eyes to me. “Isn’t she the best, Paisley?”
“The best.” I dumped my laptop bag on the couch and eased back to the doorway. “I just remembered I need to check on my neighbor. I’ll be back later.”
“But you just got here,” my mom said. “Come dance!”
“I’ll see you later. You two . . . carry on.” I slipped back outside and knocked on Beau’s door. Surely when I returned, the world would be right again. Because Ellen Sutton did not dance and Jaz was still somehow sleeping under my roof.
I knocked again, this time louder and more desperate.
No answer.
Come on, Beau! Help a girl out.
I was trying to keep my Beau reliance to a minimum, but desperate times and all that.
He had to be home.
I could hear the Mutual Admiration Twins coming toward the door, ready to hunt me down like their next victim, so I hopped off the porch and ran around the house, tripping once on a rock and nearly impaling myself on an unsuspecting shrub. Reaching the back deck, I lumbered up the steps, and . . .found no Beau. I pounded on his back door, an incessant rhythm meant to rouse him, but not alert my houseguests inside.
I swiveled in the dark and stared into our shared backyard.
Where Beau stood next to a flaming firepit wearing a rogue’s grin on his lips.
He tipped a bottle to his mouth and took a sip. “If this is a bootie call, you could’ve just texted.”
Departing the vacant deck, I meandered down the slope of the yard. “Did you hear me knocking?”
“Maybe.”
If it weren’t for that ornery look, I’d worry that he was avoiding me. What if he was enjoying the fact that we’d slowed things down and I saw him less? “Did you know my mom and Jaz are new best friends?”
“Might’ve heard something about it. Through the walls.”
I stole the bottle from his hands and took a sip. “Root beer?”
“Yep.” He nodded to the bottle. “If I make any untoward advances, we can blame the hard stuff.”
I bit my lip on a laugh and eyed one of the four chairs surrounding the pit. “Is this a private party or can any incessantly knocking neighbor join?”
He took back his drink, his fingers brushing over mine. “You don’t want to join their dance party?”
“Would you?”
“It’s definitely not for me. So far they haven’t played one George Strait hit.”
The evening breeze danced through his wavy, light-brown hair, and the fire made his blue eyes sparkle. “How is this my life? It’s like a bad episode of Twilight Zone in there.”
Beau sat in the turquoise Adirondack and patted the yellow one beside him. “You might as well sit. Unless you’d like to go back in and escalate this anxiety attack you’re working on.”
“I’m fine, I—”
Beau grabbed my hand and pulled me to his lap. “You were saying?”
This didn’t seem like the actions of one who wanted more space. “I wasn’t saying anything.” My, he sure had sturdy, working-man muscles beneath that shirt. And I didn’t even have to lean in to smell the sunshiny detergent on his t-shirt or the hint of soap at the base of his neck.
“Paisley?”
“Yes?”
“You’re staring.”
Too tired to lie, I simply smiled. “You’re a handsome man, Beauregard.”
His arms tightened. “You get awful complimentary when you’ve got squatters.”
“Just one of my layers.”
“Is there a reason you’re out here with me instead of in there with your guests?”
“I think the ladies are one mud mask away from forming a cult. What if they try and suck me in? You know how weak my resistance is, but right now I don’t have time for a cult. Especially one in which we get matching Jaz tattoos and braid each other’s hair.”
Beau rested his stubbly chin on top of my head. “So tell Jaz to go somewhere else.”
“Her rental at the golf course is closed indefinitely due to the investigation.” I drew a circle on his pale green shirt. “I sure would love to get in that house.”
“That sounds about as wise as putting red clay on your face and taking a b
lood oath with your coven.”
“Everyone had to leave their stuff. It’s just sitting in that mansion. Waiting for someone to go through it.”
“Yeah, like the police.”
“We tried to get in today, but it didn’t happen.”
“Darn those laws and procedures.”
“There could be valuable, revealing information in that house.”
“Guess you’ll never know.” He poked my ribcage. “Right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My spare bedroom is still open.”
“Jaz snores.”
“I meant for you.”
That was definitely not on the Slow Things Down Plan. Hadn’t he seen any rom-coms? First, we started as roommates-by-necessity, then by the final act, we wore matching plaid shirts to a holiday festival where we announced our quickie engagement. I assumed he wasn’t ready for a Hallmark happily ever after. “No, I can deal with Mom and Jaz.”
“But?”
Tree frogs and crickets sang choruses from the darkest recesses of the yard. A magnolia tree that had been rooted here before electricity and indoor plumbing waved its branches. “But I hate how my mom trips all over herself to heap praise and pride on Jaz. She never even approved of the band, yet still always thought Jaz was just the cat’s pajamas. And now that Jaz is the reigning queen of pop, movies, and weird boyfriends, it’s new levels of torture. She probably even thinks Jaz’s murder suspicion is cuter than mine.”
“I’m sure your mother is proud of yours too.”
My harumph vibrated with hot air and hostility. “You don’t know Ellen Sutton. She uses other people’s successes to run me down.” I turned in Beau’s lap ’til we were eye to eye. “I’ll never be good enough for her. I’ve learned to accept that—or I thought I had. I’m nearly thirty. I should be used to this, able to let it roll off my back. But ten minutes of her jabs and passive-aggressive digs, and I want to choke myself on her pearls.”
“No matter your age, you’ll always be her daughter.,” Beau said. “And that daughter’s always gonna want her mom’s approval.”
“Wow.” I threaded my fingers through his, loving what the evening did to his voice. He talked lower, huskier. And his twang became less controlled as if he was too tired to keep it in check. “Those therapy sessions are really working.”
Beau smiled and slipped a chunk of curl behind my ear before kissing my cheek, his lips warm and soft. “Your mom will be gone soon. In the meantime, you’ve got me, Sylvie, Frannie, and Emma.”
“I know.”
“And you haven’t been accused of murder in at least a week, so you have that going for you.”
“Sister Fortune has been generous.”
Two shadowy figures appeared on the back deck, calling my name.
“Oh, geez.” I swallowed a lump of dread. “They probably want me to make them a snack before I tuck them in.”
Beau kissed my temple. “I’m only a wall away.”
I nodded slowly and stood. “I once performed in Madison Square Garden dangling from one faulty pulley and a broken wire. Surely I can handle these two for a few days.”
“I know you can, Pop Princess.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
“At some point, you’re going to have to meet them.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inducted into their nefarious gang. Swoop right in and save you.”
“It might be too late then. I might be too far gone. Then who will you date?”
“Opal Atchinson’s newly single.”
“She’s seventy-nine and sports a mustache.”
“But runs a profitable pig farm and drives her own tractor. I do appreciate a woman who comes with a dowry.” Beau rose and kissed me before I told him where he could stick his enterprising ideas. “You’re never too far for me to save, Paisley.”
I leaned into his embrace, holding his words in my hands like precious flower petals. “You haven’t met Jaz.”
“I can take her.” He stepped back, his eyes holding a challenge. “The question is, can you?”
Chapter Seventeen
There were a few absolutes in my life: I got myself to the Sugar Creek Community Church on Sundays, I believed in the healing powers of ice cream, and I never missed Sexy Book Club.
Sexy Book Club was the brainchild of my grandmother and Frannie. Since retirement, they’d tried out nearly every hobby created (and semi-legal), but the only one that had stuck was their bi-monthly meeting to discuss romance novels. We didn’t read sad books, and we didn’t read anything without some heat and smolder. The group had grown to over twenty-five women from all walks of life. Among others, we had stay-at-home mommies, a former NASA engineer, an elderly children’s librarian, a few brave college kids, and, of course, me and my family. It was a time to catch up with my cousin Emma, eat some creatively themed snacks, and leave work at the threshold of the door.
Even though Jaz’s fans were on their own most nights after five, I still made sure Henry was available tonight to handle any calls or emergencies. Knowing my partner, he was probably watching his phone and praying Jaz would phone him in a time of need. I, on the other hand, just wanted a few hours with my literature-loving friends.
“This meeting of the Sexy Book Club will now come to order.” Sylvie banged a Rice Krispy treat on her plate and waited until the room of women gave her their full attention. “Tonight we’re discussing the gripping space love story, In Orbit for His Amnesiac Bride.” She held up her dog-eared paperback and smiled. “Good stuff. I’d like to thank Marcie Phibbins for the freeze-dried ice cream and Sandra Patel for the star-shaped cobblers. Who’d like to start with some feedback?”
I yawned behind my hand and entertained lustful thoughts about being curled up in bed with clean sheets and my TV remote.
“I saw that,” Emma whispered beside me. “How’s the fan fest going?”
“Aside from a murderous start, not bad.” I paused to listen to Hazel Denton read her favorite passage from chapter ten. The children’s librarian always made lots of eye contact when reading kissing scenes. It gave Emma and me the giggles every time.
“Sylvie said Jaz is staying at your house.”
“Yes, it’s pretty much my nightmare come true. This morning Officer Matt said he was hopeful I’d somehow gain valuable information with her as my new roomie.”
“And have you?”
“Other than the unsolicited tutorial Jaz gave me on contouring, no.” I walked Emma through all the details I had so far, including our attempt to talk with the body guards at the mansion. “Those two guys seem pretty disgusted with how America and Jaz each handle security.”
Emma bit into a cookie shaped like the planet Saturn. “I bet I know why.”
I turned to the chapter Sylvie had just referenced. “I’m all ears.”
“Tom Cantrell does the security for our offices.” Emma scooted closer, and I knew if my cousin was brave enough to talk over Sylvie, I was in for some good gossip. Emma worked in city hall as head of marketing. You’d think a small town wouldn’t need a marketing manager, but our little village had evolved into a tourist attraction with its quaint Victorian homes, access to nature, and its evolution into one of the South’s top Christmas destinations. If something was buzzing about at city hall, Emma was in the know. It also helped to be married to the dashing mayor.
“I know Tom,” I said. “We’ve used him for a few events.”
“Today he was fixing a burned-out fuse when he mentioned that the mansion Jaz had rented belonged to one of his clients. He said all the security cameras were removed for Jaz’s stay.”
My book fell from my limp hand and tumbled to the floor. “Why?”
“Because someone called the owner to demand it.”
“Do you know who?”
Emma’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Reese Riggins.”
Alarm bells clang-clanged in my head. “But surely she was acting by her boss’s directive.” Or someone’s.
“That’s no
t all,” Emma said. “Tom’s team was running behind, so they were still working when Jaz arrived at the mansion. Tom, himself, was taking out the final camera in a hall on the second floor when he heard two ladies yelling from a bedroom.”
“Jaz was staying on the second floor.”
“Tom said he was packing up his tools when both ladies shot out of the room. He turned around at all the ruckus and saw Jaz . . . and America.”
White-hot pokers of anger jabbed my every nerve. “Jaz denied talking to America any time after the arrival showdown. Emma, if she’d lie about that, what else is she hiding?”
My cousin picked up my novel and handed it to me. “She’s your roommate. I guess you’ll have time to find out.”
“Paisley, shug,” Sylvie called from across the room. The pinch of her lips told me she wasn’t a fan of our side conversation. “What did you think of Almando the Space Hunk?”
With a Herculean effort, I momentarily pushed aside Emma’s revelations and recalled the book. “He seemed intellectual and insightful.”
Frannie set down her plate and chimed in. “Translation: he was a fabulous kisser. And how about those love scenes on the moon, eh? Intergalactic love has got it going on.”
Sylvie addressed the whole group. “What were your thoughts on the obstacles our couple had to face?”
Soft-spoken Hillary Bangs rested her hands on her wheelchair. “Like the heroine’s absent memory, the return of the hero’s ex-fiancée, and the spaceship exploding?”
“I meant gravity,” Sylvie said. “Can you imagine making out in those space suits?”
“Super annoying,” Frannie said around a bite of cupcake. “He’d be kissing on her, and dang if she wouldn’t go sailing into the air.”
The doorbell rang, and Sylvie gave me a prompting look.
“I’ll get it.” My thoughts were so tangled in the web of America’s murder, a sloth could’ve beat me to the foyer. Jaz had lied to me. The question was, why? While it seemed we had a few people with motive to murder America, it was not looking good for Jaz.
When I opened the door, rain fell from the night sky, and I startled at the woman standing on the welcome mat. “Mom?”
Fanatically in Trouble Page 11
