The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

IN HELL.

I could feel the cold along my spine.

While all of Jennifer’s entries had consistently been written in a dainty peacock blue, this one was written in dark black. Bold. Commanding. Right under the ‘called to cancel caterer’ … NO WAY IN HELL.

Someone had found Jennifer’s journal before I had. My eyes moved slowly up to the date on the page. It was May 30. Exactly six days before Jennifer had been murdered. And exactly one day before the Flashing Fashion Queen had made her way into my office.

The phone rang, but it didn’t startle me so much this time. I didn’t snap at it to ‘shut up’. Which was a good thing, because just then from the hallway beyond the office, beyond the locked doors that were just now being rattled by the sound of a key in the lock, someone else did hiss, “Shut up!”

Oh, shit.

Third ring, answering machine, Jennifer’s ghostly voice, then Dylan’s panicked one.

“Okay, I NEED a freakin’ pizza. Yes, pepperoni. Yes, smokin’ freakin’ hot pepperoni. I need it with the works. But I need it now. Do you understand. NOW!”

Click.

I clutched the journal to my chest. Why the hell hadn’t Dylan called me on my cell? Why hadn’t he…. Oh shit! Just as I dove under the desk, I realized my cell was in my red ‘realtor’ jacket. The very same red jacket that was draped over the chair on the other side of the room when I had entered. Shit. There’d be at least a dozen calls on that cell from a freaking-out Dylan warning me I was no longer alone in the house.

I slid myself under the desk — thank God for the desk’s modesty panel that went practically to the floor — and pushed myself up against it, both surprised and grateful that leather slides well on carpet. My heart beat so loudly I was sure whoever was on the other side of that door could here it. Certainly would hear it as they approached. I thought again of my red jacket? No way in hell did I dare crawl back out to make a mad dash to retrieve it. Geez, Dix, why didn’t you just leave a damned banner? Maybe hire a marching band to announce your presence. Hire a sky writer. Hire a bus with a bullhorn. I pulled my knees up close to my chin, scrunching myself up tightly as the rattling of key in lock stopped, and someone entered the room.

Silence. But not the comforting silence of being alone. This was the silence of someone crossing the room on very expensive, cushy carpet. I watched the chair glide out from the desk on noiseless casters, and the intruder — no, wait I was the intruder … make that Intruder Number Two — sat down. Sneakered feet inched toward me, coming within a gnat’s hair of brushing against me. I tried to shrink smaller, feeling the bite of the journal’s edges clutched so tight to my chest as I did. Were they looking for this? What would happen when they didn’t find it? Crap! Worse, what would happen if they found it attached to me?

I waited (okay, there wasn’t much else I could do, was there?) as this second intruder rattled keys, opened drawers, and rummaged through the desk. I heard the distinctive thump of papers being plopped on top of the desk. Were they cleaning Jennifer’s desk out? Oh my word, I’d be here all day!

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Because I realized whoever it was above me, was moving things around at one hell of a fast pace. Not a tidy/organized pack things up pace. But a my-life-depends-upon-it pace.

Drawers began opening with a sharp yank and closing with a loud bang. Papers were shuffled through frantically. A few fell on the floor and were left there at the intruder’s feet/my knees. I heard an audible gasp above me and a few panicked words. “Where the hell is it! Jesus Christ, I’ve got to find that damn journal.”

A chill needled along my back, down my arms that cradled the journal. Holy shit! My grip on the book tightened, and I crunched back a little further. How the hell would I get out of here? How the hell would I—

The doorbell rang.

Thank you, Dylan!

At least, I hoped it was Dylan. That would be all I needed to be caught in the middle of a meeting here or some damned thing. What if it was Bert Cartsell, real estate agent in the flesh who’d driven by and happened to notice he was selling a house he wasn’t selling? Maybe old Ned would have Jennifer’s wake here and the caterer’s were coming in? Caterers and mourners. In this very room. Hell, I could be stuck under this desk for days!

The doorbell rang a second time. Then a third and fourth time, frantically. The chair pushed back so hard it tipped over. Quickly the second intruder gathered the papers that had fallen onto the floor (and I pushed a few into the grasping fingers rather than have them venture further under the desk toward me), before running the hell out of there. Not via the front doors, but by the way I entered, through the sliding glass doors, and past the red jacket without so much as a glance.

I let out a breath and knew I had to get the hell out of the Weatherby home myself. Fast. But I was good with that as I clutched the journal tighter.

I slid out from under the desk and raced — or as close to racing as one can manage in a too-small leather skirt — for the door, grabbing my jacket on the way out. I could feel the vibration of the cell phone in the jacket pocket like a recrimination as I did.

Yes, it had been a close shave, thanks to my brain cramp in separating myself from my phone, but I’d escaped detection. I had Jennifer’s journal clutched tightly in my arms. And bonus upon bonus: I knew the identity of the second intruder, one who apparently had a heck of a lot to lose.

Chapter 17

Dix is my nickname, of course. Short for … well, short because my mother is weird. When she named me, she did so … um, originally. I swear my late father must have been having a Frank Zappa flashback when he went along with her on that one. She actually told me once that she’d scoured every baby name book, every telephone book, every birth announcement in every newspaper she could get her hands on — all to make sure that my name was ‘one of a kind’. And it is.

Thanks, Mom.

At the age of five, I’d sworn her to secrecy on that name. I wanted to pinkie swear (it seemed appropriate), but she said a pinkie swear wasn’t real unless we did it over chocolate-frosted cupcakes and Mountain Dew. Then we had a burping contest. She won.

Yes, my mother is weird.

But to get to the point of this preamble, I’ve been called a lot of things besides Dix over the years. Dickhead had his favorites, Dixieshit of course being a most recent addition to the ever-growing list. My first boyfriend used to call me DixieDoo. I know — gag. But I was thirteen and in love. In my defense, I called him Pookieboo, which made the love poems easier to write. But even back then when I dubbed him Pookieboo, it was largely in case I needed to blackmail him at some future point to keep him quiet about DixieDoo. (Hey, I might have been young and in love, but I was always a realist.) And then there was “the girl”. That’s what the guys at the old detective agency used to call me. And let’s not forget the men I’ve busted the last six months of business. Oh, you’d better believe they all had colorful names for me.

Yet, what Ned Weatherby called me when he came home to find me scooting around from the back of his house, hell-bent on grabbing the real estate sign and getting my butt out of there, I’d never heard before. And sincerely hoped to never hear again.

+++

“Oh, go ahead, Dylan. Just do what you’ve got to do. Just get it over with.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” He nodded firmly, resolutely, but I could see the strain on his face.

“Dylan, you’re about to explode. So just go ahead and—”

He didn’t need anymore coaxing.

He exploded, all right — with laughter.

And not with a manly ha ha chuckle or even a curled-lip snort. He collapsed on the