Текст книги "Trigger Snappy"

Автор книги: Camilla Chafer

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Nineteen

"I love a fake wedding," said Lily. We sat in my car, watching a steady stream of people flowing in and out of Juliet and Rob's house. I was impressed. It did not look like a fake wedding at all. It looked like the real deal; and I had to admit, it was fabulous. "I hope there's cake," Lily continued, completely nonplussed about the real reason for the fake wedding. "Maybe you'll catch the bouquet."

"Been there, done that. Still not married."

"You did have a brief engagement," pointed out Lily.

I swallowed. "Maybe it'll be really good cake," I said, trying to sound more optimistic.

"A really yummy, really big cake." Lily pointed to a large box being lifted out of a van by two people dressed in white chef coats. "They are the best cake makers in all Montgomery. I couldn't even get them for my wedding! How did Juliet manage that?"

"I have no idea," I replied, wondering what kind of check Juliet was prepared to write in order to have a chance at catching her stalker. Since I once ate an exorbitantly priced, but utterly amazing, cupcake from that very bakery, I guessed it had to be a pretty big one.

"I hope they save us a slice. Is that the caterers? I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"It's the baby. The baby is always hungry."

"You are eating for two."

"It feels like two thousand. I can't stop. I'm not just going to give birth. Eventually, I'll explode and… ta-da! There will be a baby."

"Call me when it's about to happen."

"I'd love for you to be there!"

"No, I meant so I could get out of the county. If you're going to explode, I don't want to see it."

"I bet I'll taste of buttercream." Lily sighed. "What a way to go."

I checked my watch. "We have two hours until the wedding. I don't think anything will happen until then."

"Does that give us enough time for lunch?"

"We just ate lunch!"

"Oh." Lily's shoulders dropped in disappointment. "I forgot. How about a snack?"

"I could do with a coffee."

"Me too, except no caffeine. I could drink a green tea. Do you think we could get a slice of that cake to eat with it?"

"No."

"It's not even a real wedding! They will never notice two missing slices. Or even four." Lily paused as the catering truck opened up and uniformed staff began to unload dozens of dishes. Her belly rumbled. "This is really unfair! Lexi, how could you do this to a pregnant woman?"

"I thought we were getting the easiest job. All we have to do is sit here in the car and watch over the house, just in case anyone tries to sneak in with the food deliveries."

"Like we'd even know if someone did. They're all strangers," Lily pointed out.

"We're not looking for a stranger. We're looking for someone we know. Someone acting suspicious."

"The only suspicious people I see right now are us. That's a nice blouse you're wearing. Can I borrow it when I'm not the size of a tanker?"

"Sure. I'll go get you a green tea," I told Lily. "You stay here and watch over everyone."

"And some cake," Lily called weakly as I stepped out of the car. I pressed my back against the car door as a florist van squealed past before screeching to a halt at the curb. Two people jumped out of the cab and raced around to the side, pulling back a sliding door. The heady scent of lilies and roses bombarded my senses as I crossed the road, walked past the truck, and made my way towards the house.

Juliet's house had morphed from a quiet prison to a busy command center. The door stood wide open and I stepped through, looking around in amazement and awe. The house was quite a vision, a miracle of transformation. A beautiful ivy garland dotted with cascading flowers was draped around the banister, and tall floral arrangements stood at the base of the stairs. The dining room furniture was missing; and in its place, stood a bar and rows of gleaming glassware. A bartender clad in black and white, with his back to me, was unpacking cases of wine and beer. I turned away, looking for my client. I didn't have to wait long as Juliet hurried down the steps, wearing a silk wrap dress. Smiling when she saw me, "What do you think?" she asked, waving a hand around.

"It looks great. Very authentic."

"I think Rob is blown away. He said we should have planned our wedding like this all along. He says it's very us."

I nodded my agreement. Quiet, understated and elegant; the fake wedding was just what I imagined for the couple. "I like all the decorations."

"You should see the back yard. It's like something out of a fairytale. Come see," Juliet said, grabbing my hand and drawing me to the back of the house. What I saw stopped me dead. Fairytale was a good description. Far from the dark, shadowy scene of a recent shooting, this yard was festooned with ribbons and fairy lights, along with colorful sets of decorated chairs that flanked a petal-strewn aisle. Somewhere, wind chimes tinkled in the breeze. Thankfully, someone successfully scrubbed all of my blood droplets from the deck.

"I don't know how you planned all this. It's so amazing."

"I had a lot of time on my hands. Plus, the stalker actually helped. I got to use a lot of the stuff they insisted I pay for, or was already sent to me. I just added a few things and voila! So... in their face, right?"

I blinked in surprise at Juliet's perkiness. "You seem..."

"Happy?" finished Juliet. "You know what? I am. I refuse to let this beat me. All those threats. All that nastiness. Everything my stalker did is unraveling. Rob and I are going to beat this. I am going to beat this."

"That's my girl," said Rob, coming up from behind us. He draped an arm around Juliet, pulling her against him, and planting a kiss on her cheek. Juliet smiled as she relaxed against him. "There's someone at the door for you," he told her.

"Who is it?"

"Go see."

"I best go see," Juliet giggled, slipping out from Rob's embrace.

I gave Rob a pointed look, wondering whom exactly Juliet was about to greet. Rob simply smiled and nodded towards the door. Since people close to Juliet were exactly the kind of people I was worried about, I followed her to the door. I stopped in the kitchen doorway and watched Juliet hugging and exclaiming her greetings to the group at her door. "Her friends are here?" I asked Rob when he joined me. Rose, Chloe and Rebecca were all standing together.

"Juliet called everyone yesterday. Every single one."

"That must have been hard.

"It was, but she persisted. She told them all what was happening... and there was a lot of crying, but... I think everything is okay. Thanks to you, they all understand now and also are relieved that Juliet wouldn't ever do any of those nasty things to them."

"Another win."

"Yeah, Juliet is definitely winning this battle."

"You stood by her when many wouldn't... and didn't."

"It wasn't easy. Some of it, anyway," added Rob. "This stalker tried to come between us too, but Juliet and I... we communicate with each other. We always have. No one can ever come between us."

"Keep that in mind today," I reminded him.

"I am."

Despite the pleasing sight, a cold chill ran through me. We were waiting for people, exactly those kind of people. We were waiting for Juliet's friends and family, knowing that someone close to her wanted to harm her, and would do anything to accomplish that. "Don't leave her alone," I warned him softly as Juliet hugged an old friend. "Not for a second! Not with anyone! I don’t care how much you trust them."

"I won't."

"I mean it."

"I won't!" Rob pulled on a long breath. "Did you come in for something? Other than to see our crazy, fake, fabulous wedding?"

"I only came to check on you and to see if I could get a green tea for my pregnant friend who's assisting with surveillance."

"I can get you a cup."

"And a coffee too, if you don't mind?"

"Coming right up... Uh, if I can leave Juliet alone for one moment?"

I laughed since I just contradicted my own orders, and all to appease Lily's cravings. "Sure, just this once."

"Lexi..." Rob hesitated as he turned away.

"Yes?"

"What if it doesn't work? All this... Is it all for nothing?"

"I can't make you any promises," I told him honestly, wishing I could say otherwise. Sure, I wanted to give him more hope. I could only set the trap, and couldn't account for the stalker's actions. "This is our best chance to draw her into the open. We're so close. So close."

"This had better work." Rob stepped into the kitchen before I could answer, which was just as well because I didn't have any more answers to give him. I had only platitudes and raw hope. I crossed my fingers and made a silent wish that I was right, and this wedding would prove to be the ultimate happiness, something the stalker couldn't resist interfering with. It had to be just too tempting for her to ruin. There was no way the stalker would not try to eclipse it.

That was exactly the thought I had in mind when I knocked on the window of my car five minutes later. I gestured to Lily she should get out. "What happened?" she asked, her eyes filled with hope.

"Absolutely nothing. I thought you might like to go for a walk? We've been sitting here for a long time."

"But who's watching the front? What if we miss something?"

"We won't. Solomon called. He's here too, watching."

Lily looked around. "Where?"

"I wish I knew."

"Remind me to never play hide and seek with him."

"I will."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Play hide and seek with him?"

"Is this going to descend into one of those kinky sex conversations?"

Lily restrained a smile as she wrinkled her nose. "Only if you want it to."

"Maybe later." We crossed the street and I handed her the green tea. "We played hide and seek in the dark once. He found me really fast." I raised my hand and Lily high-fived me.

"Thanks for the tea. I wish it were wine."

"Me too."

"How's Juliet?"

"Bizarrely happy. She seems to be enjoying all the preps for the wedding."

"Did you see the cake?"

"No, but they had a bar."

Lily pouted. "Cruel."

"You work in a bar!"

"I curse it every day. Also, I'm going to stop working behind the bar. I think the baby is putting off customers."

"Why?"

"It's a reminder of what happens if you drink too much."

I laughed and took a sip of my coffee.

"Ruby is taking over. I'm staying in the office until I take maternity leave, then Ruby is going to co-manage until I come back."

"Ruby will be great."

"She's uber reliable and you know how hard it is to find good employees."

"I do," I said, thinking back to a recent case where an employee of Lily's staged a robbery, and relieved her of a large amount of cash. "Let's patrol around back. There's a lot going on here." We stepped onto the opposite sidewalk as another van sped past and halted behind the florist van.

"More flowers?" Lily frowned. I simply shrugged and tried not to make a show of enjoying my coffee while Lily pulled a face at her tea.

"She really took me literally when I said 'put on a show'."

"We do get to watch the show, right? It would be very disappointing to just sit watching the house all this time, without eating any cake, or seeing the wedding."

"You know the wedding won't actually take place?" We watched as two large terracotta pots with pink patio roses wrapped in gauzy, white ribbon were unloaded from the second florist van. They were carried over to the house and positioned on either side of the stoop.

"Are you sure about that? Juliet has a wedding dress."

"I think she has five."

"Exactly. He looks like a minister," Lily added, pointing to a man in a dark suit.

"That's one of Solomon's men," I said, recognizing him. I never had much interaction with the man, but I knew he worked in the risk department. It was on the floor above the private investigators' office where I formerly worked. I guessed Solomon had all eyes on the case today, since Lancaster Friedland could afford it, especially if we caught their insider trader at the same time as our stalker. I still harbored a hope that the two were really one person. "Solomon offered me my job back."

"I'm not surprised."

"Why? It's not like the agency has suffered in any way by my absence."

"Of course, it has! You were the only pretty one there."

"There's a nice looking woman in Risk."

"Do you think Solomon sexually harasses her too?"

"No!" I fixed Lily with my sternest look and she recoiled. "Just askin'," she said. "Don't hurt me. So are you going back to work for him again?"

"I don't know. Maybe. It's been harder than I thought to work alone, and I don't have any more cases lined up after this one."

"Maybe Juliet's friends will hire you. She must know a lot of people with money who have skeletons in their closets. Even if she doesn't, word will get around."

"I don't think the mortgage company will wait for word to get around."

"You can always pick up some shifts at the bar."

"Thanks, but no. That feels like a slide backwards."

"Even if it's my bar?"

"As soon as I left the temporary jobs, I worked really hard. I don't want to go back to casual work. I want to do this. I want to be a PI."

"Then take Solomon's offer and be a PI with a salary and a dental plan."

"Maybe I should."

"Did he ask you about his other offer?"

I sighed. "No."

"Have you spoken to him about it?"

"No, but I've thought about it a lot."

"That's not the same thing; and you know it, Lexi. Quit stalling and give the man an answer. It's not fair to keep him hanging."

"I'm not stalling. I'm thinking."

Lily stopped dead at the corner of the street. "Sometimes, Lexi, you think too much."

"No one's ever said that to me before." I looked around, catching sight of one of Solomon's men in a car at the intersection on the block opposite. I waved and Fletcher waved back. "Let's go this way," I said, indicating the opposite direction. "Penelope said she walked along here the night someone broke into Juliet's house."

"Yeah, you said she took a shortcut through the alley at the rear. Don't you think that's weird?"

"Taking a shortcut? No."

"I think it is. Since when do we ever walk in an alley at night?"

"This is Bedford Hills. It's not exactly Frederickstown," I said, echoing Penelope's words right before she was loaded into the ambulance.

"Even so, it's practically ingrained into us to never walk somewhere isolated."

"Yeah, it is strange; but Penelope was shot. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"All the same..." Lily and I paused at the entrance to the alley. We both gazed into the neat service road, bordered by tall fences and electronic gates.

"How did she plan on entering the house?" I wondered out loud. "There's no entry to the rear of the house, except via the garden gate, and that was locked. Plus, knowing your friend is already scared, you wouldn't go tap on the kitchen door, or would you?"

"Hell, no. You and I would scream the place down. Is there another access to Blossom Road?"

"Not that I recall. Let's walk the alley. Maybe we'll come up with an idea that makes sense. Penelope mentioned something about a side access. Maybe she intended to take that route around front."

"How is Penelope?"

"She's okay. They're keeping her in the hospital for a couple days just to make sure she recovers without complications. She was lucky."

"Is she coming to the wedding?"

"I don't know. Juliet and Rob invited her. I'm going to call the hospital again to check on her."

"We could give her a ride."

"That's generous of you."

"I thought we could keep an eye on her."

"We already eliminated her as a suspect." I speed-dialed the hospital and asked to be put through to Penelope's room. "Solomon interviewed her and she claims the person who shot her was a man, but she didn't get a good look."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Cera checked out this morning," said the nurse who answered when I asked for Penelope.

"Are you sure? I thought she was supposed to stay in today. She came in with a gunshot wound."

"She was healing very well; and the doctor was quite pleased with her progress."

"Okay, well, thanks." I hung up, turning to Lily as I stopped. "Apparently, she left already."

"That's good news!"

"Penelope said she was in agony last time we spoke. She must have improved substantially."

"Maybe a near death experience gave her a new lease of life," suggested Lily, adding darkly, "or maybe she was milking the injury?"

"Why would she do that?"

"She's the only one who stuck by Juliet when all her friends and her employer abandoned her, yet she's not getting any of the praise and credit. Maybe she wants a little attention for herself."

I could understand that. It was a selfish thing if that were the case, but it was human. "I felt sorry for myself when I got shot too. Let's walk this way and see if we can find that alley Penelope claimed to have used."

"Do you know which is Juliet's house from the back?" Lily asked as we turned from the sidewalk, walking in the general direction of it. All the crime scene tape was gone, but the trash hadn't been emptied yet, judging by the full cans at the rear gates.

"I think it's that one," I said, pointing to a flutter of white ribbon attached to a fence. I jumped up and down, trying to see over, and caught a glimpse of pennants hanging across the yard. "Yes, it is."

"Is that blood?" Lily asked, pointing to a small dried pool on the ground.

I shuddered as we stared down at it. "Yes."

"I expected more."

"Penelope got lucky. I didn't see an alley. Did you?"

"Maybe it's further ahead," Lily said, pointing as she moved off, leaving me to survey the fence as my cell phone buzzed. I ignored it as she called, "There's more blood over here."

"There shouldn't be."

"Maybe it's yours?"

"No, I didn't go over there. I stopped right here when I saw Penelope." I jogged over to Lily, following her finger as she pointed to the scattered spray of blood spots. Judging by the flattened grass, something heavy was very close to the spatter. "This must have been partially concealed by a trashcan. No wonder we didn't see it in the dark."

"There's blood on the trashcan too. Ohmygosh! Lexi, I think it's a fingerprint."

We both leaned down, peering at the smear. I grabbed my cell phone and snapped a picture of what did look very much like a bloody fingerprint. Grabbing a glove from my pocket, I slipped it on and lifted the lid. A rancid waft drifted upwards and we recoiled. Gingerly, I reached inside and pulled out the first trash bag, heaving it next to the fence. We peered inside again. "I see something," I said, snapping another picture, this time of a scrap of black fabric. I reached in, tugged it and it slipped free.

"A jacket?"

"With blood on it. There's something else." I held my breath and leaned in, pulling out a mask. Something dislodged in the bin and clattered.

"I'd volunteer to get the next load, but I can't bend," said Lily. "Which reminds me, pedicure soon?"

"Awesome." I pulled out the second garbage bag and hefted it over to rest next to the first bag. We peered inside again and I smiled. There, inside the can, was a pair of flat-soled boots. I was pretty sure they were a women's size seven. "I need to call Solomon."

"No need," said a voice behind me. "I was just coming to find you. The realtor angle was a bust."

"Huh?" I said, the moving in discussion flashing to the forefront of my mind. "What realtor?"

"From the vacant house. Had no clue what I was talking about."

"So we're no closer to knowing who was using that house as a dead drop?"

Solomon nodded.

"We found a bloody jacket, boots, and a mask," squealed Lily, clapping her hands. "I mean, Lexi found it. She noticed the blood on the trashcan and just knew!"

"Lily spotted it," I said honestly, even though I appreciated her enthusiastic attempt to pin the good work on me. "We found it together. We haven't found any kind of side access route that Penelope said she was going to take either. You know what this means, right? That I was right all along."

Solomon nodded. "I know exactly what this means. I have other evidence to back it up. The hospital just called."

"Does anyone want to catch me up?" asked Lily. "What does this mean?"

Solomon and I exchanged a look. Since Solomon didn't seem in a chatty mood, I took the lead. "It means our stalker dumped the jacket and boots, then switched clothes to throw us off the scent. And if it wasn't for you spotting that blood, it would have worked. We've been duped. Penelope had this planned all along. She must have stashed her clothes in the trashcan when she realized I was still chasing her. And then she shot herself to make it look like she was attacked. She probably meant to remove the clothing later when she had a chance, or hoped the trash would get collected and consequently, destroy the evidence."

"So go get her," said Lily. "Let's take the bitch down! Stalking totally violates the best friend code."

"By a million miles," I agreed.

"There's just one problem," said Solomon as his cell phone began to ring. "I called the hospital and she already discharged herself. We don't know where the hell she is and she's got a gun."