Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

Matt and Molina together? At her door. At an ungodly hour of the morning. Both looking equally desperate.

Now, that was a story she was dying to cover, chapter and verse.

Apparently they’d heard about her rip-roaring abduction.

She expected Matt to care about that, but Molina?

Okay. The woman was a law enforcement official. No matter how much she harassed Temple about Max, she certainly didn’t want an innocent bystander like Temple spindled, folded, or mutilated by some anonymous druggie biker. Maybe.

Temple still felt twinges about turning Matt away from her door.

He’d just gotten off work, poor guy. He comes home and hears about Temple’s spectacular vanishing act. From Molina, probably. He must have been frantic. He would have been tired, but maybe not too tired to demonstrate just how frantic he had been… .

Arrgh! Temple yelled at her own overripe imagination. Just get in the car and go to work like the rest of the working stiffs. Do not

go there.

Go to Maylords, and do your job. Especially the part that is none of your business.

At least this time shattered glass didn’t strew the store’s public areas.

All the damage had been done out back, where it didn’t show, as she ought to know.

The storescape seemed oddly peaceful, especially without Beth Blanchard around to bully the staff.

Temple peeked her head into the designers’ area, and noticed a lot of empty cubicles. Either madly out working, or …

mad at the management and … out, for good. Hard to tell which.

Rafi wouldn’t be here. He’d been let go a day early. So she’d lost her inside man.

Molina would love the inside man on the drug deal to have been Raf, but Temple didn’t think he was. Last night was not an act. The incriminating thing was that he had her gun, and no one knew it was her gun. She was sure Molina wouldn’t think to ask, and Rafi would be too stubborn to say so if she had.

Of course there were fingerprints, but Temple had never been printed, although Raf probably had, even if just for the police job. If Molina tried to say he was part of the biker gang, and if he didn’t kill her for it and end up with a murder charge, Temple might just have to come forward and speak up for him.

Imagine. She was not often a potential advocate for everybody’s worst enemy.

She shrugged to herself as she wandered the circling stone path, hearing Amelia Wong’s fountains and bells tinkling in the distance. They were pleasant sounds in a sere desert city, Temple had to give feng shui that.

Some people laughed at the idea that fountains and hanging bells could affect an environment. Not Temple. She had read that feng shui translated to “wind” and “water.” Look what those unseen and liquid elements had done to shape the desert landscape and the life upon on it: animal, insect, reptile, and human. Sometimes it seemed that reptiles and some humans were more closely related than thought possible.

But that was giving reptiles a bad name.

Tonight Amelia Wong would end her duties with a bang and another cocktail reception. This event would climax with the drawing for the winner of the Cadillac CTS.

Wouldn’t it be great if tonight would also unmask the inside man? Or woman. Too bad Beth Blanchard wasn’t around anymore to take the rap.

And she would miss Simon, just because he had been so nice to have around.

It didn’t make sense! The nicest and nastiest Maylords employees had been killed. They had nothing in common except their workplace.

Now that the drug deal was history, the inside person had to be nervous. And angry. Money was not going to be forthcoming. Rafi had helped queer the deal (would he love that expression!), but he was gone. Temple had done it too. She still had one more night to work, and then she’d be gone as well.

She stopped’ near the kelly green vignette, again aware of how easy it was to get lost and isolated in this circuitous floor plan equipped with several dozen rooms leading into each other or sudden dead ends.

She heard a shoe scraping stone, as if someone had abruptly turned. Or ducked off the path of the hard surface flooring, so as not to be heard.

Ooh. She was as good as alone here.

The inside person would know she had suspicions about the operation, or she wouldn’t have been out by the loading dock

last night.

That person would have no idea how much she knew. Temple turned in a circle, seeing only gorgeous, empty rooms.

Water pattered into bronze bowls. Bells swung and rang in the draft from the air conditioning.

Temple examined every dust ruffle in sight, the sides of every entertainment unit or bookcase, hunting a lurker. Whoever had stabbed Simon and Beth or just Beth if Beth herself had stabbed Simon), was still in the store.

Another sound. Temple jumped. Then followed it, setting her rubber-soled clogs down flat and silent on the polished stone.

The rustling had sounded almost like an animal worrying at something. Maybe the cat colony from last night had sneaked

into the store during the confusion.

Temple moved into a room setting filled with heavy furniture perfect for lurking behind. The sounds seemed to come from

there.

She peered around the false wall dividing the setting from its neighbor and saw a pair of suede shoes protruding from the bed’s brocade dust ruffle.

Another victim!

But then a shoe moved, and the owner backed out into the room.

“Jerome! What are you doing here?”

He turned to see her over his shoulder, looking startled. And guilty as sin.

“M-Miss Barr. What are you doing here?”

“I asked first.”

He pushed up on his knees, then pulled himself upright by a bedpost.

Jerome’s plaid shirt and baggy khaki pants made him seem like a little boy, but she noticed that his upper body strength when he pulled himself up was pretty effective. He’d done a lot of carting and toting for the late Beth Blanchard.

“I was replacing the lamp.” He pointed to a floor model topped by a fringe-draped shade. “There’s supposed to be an outlet

under the bed, but I can’t find it.”

“I guess it’s tough not to have Beth Blanchard around to direct the displays.”

“You must be kidding. Nobody misses that woman but the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Now I can get some real work done, instead of undoing everybody else’s at her command.” He gave Temple a pointed look.

“I’ll leave you to it. We do want Maylords nice and shipshape for tonight’s gala.”

“At least it’ll bring the press in. They always show up when there’s free food. As for customers, looks like the only steady clients we had were the ones ripping off the place from the loading dock.”

“Do I take it you won’t be working for Maylords long?”

“Oh, they won’t can me. I do the daily grunt work around here when I’m allowed to, and I don’t have any stockpiles ofcustomer names to feed into the computer for the Furniture Fairy to download.”

Temple nodded. Rafi had told her the same thing. The interior designers had been hired only to be ripped off and abandoned.

One could have figured that out, and decided to get even.

She edged away from Jerome’s area. It was like talking to prussic acid, he was so bitter. Part of his irritation was no doubt because she was Matt’s friend, and he was just an old acquaintance.

Temple started down the beige brick road, and then stopped at the next vignette.

This one had busts of Caesar and his legions everywhere, with rounded columns marking its boundary.

And around one column a string of pearly fingertips protruded.

Temple stopped. Watched. Someone had been watching her. Someone was still there, lurking. Inside accomplice? Temple