The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

motel-room bed with peels of helpless mirth. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. He held onto his sides.

Did I mention he was rolling on the bed?

He’d seen the whole lovely scene unfold outside the Weatherby house as I’d made my hasty, and not so graceful exit.

“Oh, you vulture!”

That was the name that greeted me when I came barreling around to the front of the house. I stopped — or rather, skidded to a stop — in my high-heeled tracks.

Shit, shit, shit!

Ned was back. Back with grieving parents in tow. Right freaking in front of me! With mouth gaping open, he kept looking, first to me, then to the real estate agency sign I’d propped against the house. His parents had to have grabbed an earlier flight, one that hadn’t been available when Dylan had checked for me. Or maybe Ned had chartered a private plane.

His shocked parents gave me — that is to say, the dark haired, pink-sunglasses-wearing, tight-skirted real estate agent me — a look of utter disdain. Cockroach-on-the-dinner-plate revulsion.

“Who are you?” Ned demanded.

Wordlessly, I held the real estate sign up in front of me. Partly as a shield, and partly to hide Jennifer’s journal, which I’d tucked into the (ever more tight now — circulation slowly becoming non-existent) waistband of my skirt.

“Oh, you work for that Cartsell fellow, do you?”

“Yes.” After my initial squeak of an answer, I lowered my voice to what I liked to think of as my slow, breathy, lets-have-phone-sex voice. Not because I was feeling particularly sexy. But because, apparently, Ned hadn’t yet made me. True, the night we’d met, the night he’d found Jennifer dead, he’d been somewhat distracted. But even so very cleverly disguised as I was (God, I hoped I was cleverly disguised!), I wasn’t taking any chances. “Yes, that’s right, Mr. Weatherby.” I could literally feel the words purring in the back of my throat as I spoke. “I work for Mr. Bert Cartsell. And he—”

“Well, doesn’t that beat all! That son of a bitch just doesn’t give up, does he!” Ned’s face turned so red, it looked as if his head might explode. “That no-good, rotten, money-grubbing bastard!”

‘Breathe, breathe’ I silently coached. To both of us.

“Mr. Weatherby.” I took my phone-sex voice a notch lower, added a deep-south accent. “I assure you that Mr. Cartsell—”

“I told him to stay the hell away!”

Oh shit! Of all the real estate agents in Marport City, this was the one from whom Craig had to steal the sign!

Ned continued to rant, “I’ve no intention of selling this house. Not now, not ever, and not for any amount of money. The first day Jennifer’s obituary was in the paper, you goddamned people start nosing around, trying to make a buck off my wife’s murder. Well let me tell you, missy, I’ve had enough.” Ned opened his jacket. For the briefest of moments, I thought he was going to haul out a gun. Worse luck. He hauled out his cell phone. “I’m calling that Cartsell son of a bitch! No, wait, I’ll call Luanne! She’ll get his boss on the phone. She won’t let him get away with this. She’ll—”

“M-Mr. Weatherby,” I stammered. “I really don’t think—”

I could tell by the flick of his thumb, he’d pushed number one on the speed dial. And as he waited, and waited, he pointed a demanding finger at me. “And you stand right here.”

Not in this lifetime.

There was no way in hell I was going to maneuver down the walkway, past Ned and his parents (his mother’s walker looked dangerous, like a weapon now, in her grip), so I veered off across the rain-soaked lawn, making a mad dash for the street.

Bad idea.

My spiked heels sank to the hilt in the soggy lawn, causing my hips to move in ways hips weren’t meant to. After a few more heel-sinking, Frankenstein lurches, I stepped right out of them (my shoes not my hips). Barefoot now, I pulled Jennifer’s journal from the waistband of the skirt, clutched it to me with one hand, hiked the skirt up to my ass with the other hand, and with the red blazer fanning out behind me, I ran like hell to Mrs. Presley’s Hyundai. I peeled out of there so quickly you’d think I was trying to qualify for the Indie 500.

Well, at least Dylan was getting a good laugh out of it now.

“Asshat,” I mumbled, loud enough for him to hear me. I faked annoyance even as I bit down on my own grin.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “But all I can see is you trying to run across that lawn in that skin-tight skirt and those high heels. The look on your face when the shoes stuck in the lawn! Omigod, it was priceless. And when you hiked up your skirt and really ran….” He started laughing again, so hard the bed shook.

“Look who’s talking.” I sat on the red sheets beside him, giving him a poke (okay, a damn good knuckle jab) in the ribs. “You were a sight yourself, Boy Wonder. Creeping along on your hands and knees, peeking through the neighbors’ bushes.”

The laughter subsided, but the smile remained. “Oh, you caught that, did you?”

“Ha!” My turn to tease. “How could I not catch that! All six foot four of you, crawling along the length of the hedge like some kind of long-legged, studly bug or something.”

As soon as the words passed my lips — the very freakin’ millisecond — I realized what I’d said. Studly. Should I try a quick recover and say ‘ugly bug’? Like, five times really fast. That would sound intelligent!

Dylan said nothing. Didn’t so much as falter in his grin, or blink. But I could tell by the glint in his eyes that he’d caught my slip of the tongue.

And I wanted to slip my tongue….

Whoa, Dix.

I busied myself re-belting the old brown housecoat Mrs. Presley had provided, cinching it even tighter, telling myself I needed the extra bit of warmth after the long, increasingly cool shower. It had taken so many shampoos to get the temporary dye out of my hair that I’d used up all Mrs. P’s hot water. But at last, I was blond again. And though I was fully clad in underwear (no, not the be-tasseled stuff that Dylan had brought over), jeans and t-shirt, the housecoat felt good around my shoulders. Protective. Defensive.

Butt-ugly.

“Had to make sure you got safely out of there, Dix.” His voice dropped a notch. Though his eyes still showed a bit of teasing, he’d stopped laughing altogether. “I’d crawl through worse than a few bushes to do that.”

“Well, thanks. If you hadn’t been watching my ass—” Oh, just shut up, Dix! “—I’d still be stuck under that desk.”

“Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat, then said, “If you need a hand checking up on the man, I’m the one to call.”

“Let me guess — another business card?”

He pulled himself up on the bed so both of us were leaning against the headboard. “It’s a good one, don’t you think? Straight-shooting from the hip. Gets right to the point. Clever and witty.”

“Ummm, that would be a no.”

“Geez, you’re hard to please, woman. We gotta come up with something.”

“I know, I know. But it has to be the right thing. The exact thing.”

And it felt kind of good just then, when I realized what I’d said. Dylan felt it too, I could tell by the impish grin on his face. We were talking positively about the business cards again. Talking about the future. Hope.

Things were beginning to look up. Jennifer’s journal had been an amazing find. And though I was far from out of the fire, I had maybe moved a little to the periphery of it. Maybe.

I heard a siren in the distance growing closer. Dylan’s eyes widened along with mine. Only when the siren sound began to fade again did I realize I’d been holding my breath. I let it out again. Just a little reminder that I was far from burn-free yet. This was no time to get lazy. No time to let my guard down.

It was time to get to work.

I told Dylan about the second intruder to the Weatherby home — Luanne Laney. Turns out it wasn’t news, of