To Die For

“She was always making mysterious hints. My guess is she was running around with married men, because you know how she was. She always wanted what some other woman had. She wouldn’t have been interested in some single guy, other than as a temporary boost to her ego. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but she was a piece of work.”

“Married men. That makes perfect sense,” I said, and it did. Lynn had nailed Nicole’s personality.

I said good-bye, and called Wyatt’s cell phone. He answered immediately, not even saying hello. “Is something wrong?”

“Do you mean other than being shot and someone trying to kill me? Not really.” How could I have resisted that line? “Anyway, I checked out something and the word is Nicole was seeing a married man.”

He paused. “I thought I told you to stay out of police business.” There was an edge of anger to his voice.

“Kind of hard to, in this situation. Are you going to be so stubborn you aren’t going to check this out?”

“You didn’t leave the house, did you?” He didn’t answer my question, instead asking one of his own.

“No, of course not. I’m still tucked away nice and safe.”

“Good. Stay there. And, yes, I will have this checked out.”

“It isn’t exactly something the guy will admit to, running around on his wife. Want me to try finding out-”

“No! No. I want you to do nothing, understand? Let us handle the investigations. You’ve already been shot once, wasn’t that enough?” He hung up.

He hadn’t exactly been gracious about my pointer. Okay, so he was worried something else would happen to me, and I wasn’t crazy about the idea of putting myself in danger, either. But I could call people, couldn’t I? I was using my cell phone, so there was no way I could give away my location. The ordinary person didn’t have cell-phone tracing capabilities.

And if you can’t win one battle, go find a battle you can win.

Chapter Fifteen

Belatedly it occurred to me that the detectives had already questioned all my employees, so Lynn should have already told them her married-man theory. In that case, had Wyatt been trying to spare my feelings by saying he’d have it checked out? Oh, that was galling.

I called Lynn back. “What you said about Nicole seeing married men, did you tell that to the police?”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “For one thing, I don’t know anything; I’m just saying she’s the type. Actually, what the detective asked was if I knew who she had been seeing, romantically speaking, and I said no, because I don’t. He didn’t chat and say, hey, was she likely to do this or this, you know? But I was thinking about it later, and that’s when it hit me that she was always flirting with the married guys at Great Bods, you know, and while she came on to every man breathing, there was still something about the way she went after the married ones. You saw her in action; you know what I’m talking about.”

I knew exactly. Nicole had been forever touching, whether it was to ostensibly straighten a collar or a pat on the arm or an arm around the waist as she walked beside a guy-touching. Men aren’t stupid; they knew exactly what she was offering. The smart ones had maybe been flattered, but they hadn’t been hooked. The ones who weren’t so smart, or who were sleazeballs, had responded, so you just knew there was contact going on away from Great Bods. Once she bagged a guy, though, Nicole had always been ready to move on.

“Did you notice any one guy in particular who paid a lot of attention to her?” I asked Lynn because at Great Bods I was tied up doing office work a lot, so she saw more than I did. “It would also be great if you knew what color car he drives.”

“Let me think. No one recently, because it’s been mostly our regulars and they were wise to her. A couple of months ago I did spot Nicole coming out of the men’s bathroom, looking so smug I just wanted to bitch-slap her, and a few minutes later one of the guys came out, so I figure they were getting it on in the john.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I shrieked. “I’d have tossed her ass out right then!”

“You could do that? For doing it in the john?”

“She was in the men’s john. I’m surprised they didn’t get caught.”

“I doubt she would have cared. They were probably in a stall. Maybe she was giving him a blow job, but that wasn’t her style, either. At a guess, I’d say she did all the taking and none of the giving.”

“Do you remember the man’s name?”

“Not offhand. He didn’t come often, and I don’t think he’s been in at all since then. He wasn’t one of the regulars; he paid for a month and worked out a couple of times, then didn’t renew. I’d recognize his name if I saw it, though. Do you keep a separate file on the ones who didn’t renew?”

“Not a paper one. He’d be in the computer, though. Do you have any plans for the rest of the day? I’m going to put a call in to the cops”-my cop, specifically-“and they might want you to meet them at Great Bods to go through the computer files.”

“No, I’ll be around. If I do happen to be out, you can catch me on the cell phone.”

“Okay. I’ll get back to you.”

“That sounded interesting,” Mrs. Bloodsworth said, her green eyes bright with interest. She didn’t bother to pretend that she hadn’t been eavesdropping. After all, I was sitting in the same room with her.

“I hope so. Now, if Wyatt just won’t hang up on me again-”

“He hung up on you?” Now the green eyes fired. “I taught him better manners than that. Let me drop a little word in his ear-”

“Oh, no, don’t do that. Come to think of it, it would be best if I didn’t call him again. I’ll just call Detective MacInnes.” I found the detective’s card, and dialed the number on it.

When he answered, I said cheerfully, “Hello, this is Blair Mallory-”

“Uh-wait just a minute, Ms. Mallory, and I’ll get the lieutenant-”

“Oh, there’s no need. I’ll just talk to you. The thing is, I was just now talking to my assistant manager, Lynn Hill, about her taking over for me at Great Bods when it reopens tomorrow-it is reopening, isn’t it? You have all of that ugly yellow tape down?”

“Uh-let me get back to you on that-”

“Never mind. I’ll find out about that later. Anyway, Lynn is the one who mentioned that she thought Nicole had a sort of thing for married men. You know-the challenge, taking something away from another woman. Lynn said she didn’t say anything about that to the detective who interviewed her because she didn’t think of it at the time, but later on she was running things through her mind and thinks it’s very likely, because of the way Nicole acted.”

“Uh-” He tried to interrupt again, but I just plowed right over him.

“Lynn and I were talking about possibles, and she said a couple of months ago she caught Nicole and this guy in the men’s john doing, well, each other. She can’t remember the man’s name, because he only came to Great Bods a couple of times and hasn’t been back, but she’s sure she’ll recognize the name when she sees it, and if you want, she can meet you over at Great Bods and she’ll go through the computer files of the