Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

Darla saw them off at the front door, feeling curiously like a parent seeing her daughter off on a date. She resisted the impulse, however, to suggest that Jake take a sweater with her. Instead, she locked her new lock after them; then, finishing the last of the closing process, she set the alarm and went out the side door.

Hamlet was waiting for her behind the newel post at the foot of the stairs. This time, he let her get halfway to the first landing before he rocketed up the steps, using her as a human croquet wicket on his way to the top.

“Damn it, Hamlet,” she called after him. “Someday, you’re going to trip me, and Jake will find my broken body lying at the bottom of the stairs. And then who do you think will feed you your kibble?”

Hamlet made no reply to this dire prediction, for he was already sitting at the apartment door waiting for her to drag herself up the final flight. As soon as she reached that spot, however, she wondered if she should have had Jake check out her apartment, too, beforehand. Of course, Lizzie didn’t have a key to either the downstairs door or this one. But with all that had been going on, Darla decided to let Hamlet enter the apartment first.

He charged inside before she could get the door open all the way. Darla moved more slowly, poking her head around the edge for an experimental look. No hideous caterwauling ensued, and all the books appeared to be in their proper places. So far as she could tell, it was safe to enter.

As always, the first order of business was to feed Hamlet—that, or listen to his official starving-kitty lament that could go nonstop for a good hour (once, feeling in an evil mood, she actually had timed it). That accomplished, she nixed the yogurt and instead made a veggie omelet for herself, which she ate while watching her favorite weekend cable news host expound on the day’s issues. She managed to get through almost the entire hour show before the host gave a recap of the Valerie Baylor saga. He mentioned that the private service had been held a few days earlier, and to Darla’s surprise she saw a bit of video that obviously had been taken with a long-distance lens.

“No escaping the press,” she muttered, scanning the footage for a glimpse of herself . . . or, more likely, her hat. She didn’t see either, but the camera had captured a clear view of Morris escorting out his parents.

The sight of Valerie’s brother brought back her previous suspicions that the whole Lizzie situation had caused her to put aside as unimportant. Now, however, both Lizzie and Janie had been scratched off the suspect list; neither appeared to have had any involvement with the actual accident leading to Valerie’s death. Maybe it was time to put Morris back on the list.

“Yes, yes, assuming that what happened was anything other than an accident,” she said aloud to Jake in absentia, since she could almost hear the ex-cop telling her that the whole push-shove question was still up in the air.

Since there was nothing to be done about Morris now, however, given that her one attempt to question him had led to nothing, Darla instead went over to her desk. Feeling virtuous, she accessed the store security software on her laptop. Ted had suggested she make a habit of doing so, at least until she was comfortable that her unknown intruder was no longer a threat. Given what she’d spent on the software, she told herself she might as well get her money’s worth out of it.

Once she’d again determined that all was well in the store, she left the screen up and found a nice nonthreatening travel memoir that she’d been meaning to read, and curled up in bed with it. She put it aside only to pick up the phone when Jake checked in a little later, as promised.

“How did your date with James go?” Darla asked her in a bright voice.

The other woman gave a dismissive snort. “Please. We were two friends having dinner together, and it just so happened he was kind enough to pick up the tab. Don’t read anything more into it than that.”

“Whatever you say,” she agreed, grinning to herself at this rare opportunity to needle her friend. She had no doubt that what Jake said was one hundred percent true, but it was far more fun to let her think otherwise. Then, sobering, she asked, “Everything okay down in the store?”

“Locked up tight as a drum, all the alarms are functioning, and there’s no one suspicious hanging around. Oh, and only a few hardcore Valerie minions are holding vigil at the flower shrine. No sign of Lizzie or any of the Lord’s Blessing Church protesters, so I think you and Hamlet are good to go for the night.”

Which hopefully meant that Lizzie was staying put, and that Marnie and company were long since on their way back to Texas in their repaired van.

“Thanks, Jake. I really do appreciate all this. I’d probably be a basket case right about now if I didn’t know you were downstairs.”

“Just doing my job, kid,” the woman replied, but Darla could hear the pleasure in her voice over the compliment. “I’ll be back up to the store in the a.m., like I said. Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she finished, laughing.

Since bedbugs were currently a scourge in the city, Darla shivered at the very idea. She hung up the phone and picked up her book again. Hamlet deigned to join her in the room, but he made due with the dresser as his lounging spot rather than curl up on the pillow beside her like any normal cat. Darla met the feline’s disapproving green gaze with an amused look.

“You know, I don’t think a bedbug would dare take up residence here with you running the place,” she told him and then settled back into her book.

Interesting as the author’s account of his India journey was—so vivid were his descriptions that she could almost taste the boiling chai tea and smell the lackadaisical sacred cows—she found herself nodding over every page. She sprang back to full wakefulness, however, when the sound of a ringing phone had her almost leaping from the covers. She glanced over at her alarm clock. Quarter before ten—too late for polite callers where she came from, but still prime time on the East Coast.

“Oh, thank God you’re there, Darla!” Lizzie wailed through the receiver.

“Lizzie?” Darla said. “Why are you calling? I don’t think after all that’s happened that you and I really should be talking again.”

Her rejection launched a dramatic sob from the other woman, while Darla felt the fluffy omelet she’d eaten earlier settle into an uncomfortable lead platter in her stomach. This was not what she needed tonight. She clung grimly to the receiver and waited for Lizzie’s storm of tears to dwindle to a gentle sprinkle. Finally, when she was certain the woman could hear her, she took charge of the conversation.

“I’m going to hang up now, Lizzie, unless you have a really good reason for calling.”

“But I do. I have information about something that happened at the signing.”

“Then call Reese. I’m sure he gave you his card, didn’t he?”

“He won’t believe me,” Lizzie complained between sniffles, “but you’re a reasonable person, so I’m calling you. Besides, you know me, and he doesn’t.”

Knowing someone didn’t necessarily mean knowing all about them, however, as Darla had so recently found out. She made a noncommittal noise, and Lizzie continued.

“Well, you remember how busy it was during the signing, with all those kids running about, and Valerie with her whole entourage. She was being a big show-off, if you ask me, with all those people hanging around her.”

“Cut to the chase, Lizzie,” Darla warned, feeling the lead platter morphing into a concrete block now.

“Oh, all right.” Lizzie’s sniffling took on a distinctly offended note, but she went on, “Maybe I told you this already, but right before Valerie disappeared that last time, I saw her makeup person sneak away upstairs. She came down a minute later wearing a black cape, with the hood pulled up over her head and everything.”