Christine moved across the floor. It couldn’t really be described as walking since she moved with an eerie grace that made it seem as if she were floating.
She stopped in front of Mel. Being on the tall side, Mel was unaccustomed to looking up at people. Christine, also tall, was wearing the same shoes as her staff, stiletto pumps that added five inches to her already impressive height. Mel craned her neck to look up at her.
“Fibbed, maybe,” Mel said.
Christine was so close Mel could see the individual hairs of her eyebrows, the tiny pores on the end of her nose, and the teeny tiny crack of a wrinkle on her upper lip. She felt a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her face. If Christine tossed them to the curb, she had no idea where she was going to take Angie to have her hair and makeup done. Panic began to thrum inside of her like the beat of a drum.
To her surprise, Christine tipped her head back and laughed. Mel blew out a breath. She was laughing. That had to be good, right?
She and Angie exchanged a panicked look. Mel would have relaxed except Christine’s staff looked equally nervous at her laughter.
“Fibbed. You’re funny, Melanie Cooper,” Christine said. “Good thing I have an excellent sense of humor.”
Yeah, that was the first thing a person thought of with Christine. Not.
“Come on back,” Christine said. “Your wedding party is already here.” She frowned at Mel. “But you owe me two dozen forgiveness cupcakes.”
“Done.” Mel sagged a little in relief.
“Angie!” Kaylee, her niece, called out to her and waved from the pedicure station. “Good thing you’re here. Mom started to freak out.”
Kaylee gestured to her mother, Angie’s sister-in-law, who was under an industrial hairdryer. Angie waved to her and the other bridesmaids, who were in various stages of maintenance, as Christine led them to the changing rooms in back.
“There are robes for you to change into,” Christine said. She gestured towards the little closets built into the wall. “Then we’ll start by managing those lashes and brows.”
“What does she mean ‘manage’?” Angie whispered to Mel. “I didn’t realize they were having a rebellion.”
Mel smiled. “You’re fine. You know how Christine is. When she’s done, your hair won’t have any fight left in it.”
“Which is why I love her,” Angie said. “I’m just worried the same will be said of me.”
They changed and found Christine and the redheaded assistant waiting for them. Mel and Angie sat in the two reclining chairs and Mel had the feeling she always got when she put herself in a beautician’s hands: The result was out of her hands and all she could do was hope for the best.
While Samantha, the redhead, stripped the stray hairs from her face, Mel scarcely breathed. She was afraid a brow might go missing if she made any false moves. Then it was time to glue on the false eyelashes, and Mel tried really hard not to blink or pull them off. She didn’t think beauty should be this much work.
Once their eyes were done, Mel and Angie moved to the hair portion. Mel’s short hair required very little work. It was puffed up and shellacked into place. The one whimsical touch Samantha added was fastening tiny sparkly flower-shaped hair clips randomly on Mel’s head, making it look as if the flowers had just drifted down on the breeze to nestle into her hair.
While Samantha began to work on Mel’s makeup, Christine was taming Angie’s thick dark hair with an intricate series of loose braids across the top of her head that trailed into waves of thick bouncy curls that ended halfway down her back. Angie had opted not to wear a veil and instead had sparkly flowers like Mel’s woven into her braids.
While Christine had a mouthful of hairpins, Mel figured it was as good a time as any to talk about Elise’s murder and see if the hairdresser knew any of the players. Christine’s was a favorite salon to many of the residents in the Palms. She might have heard a rumor or two worth knowing about.
“Angie, did you hear that the county prosecutor is planning to charge Cassie Leighton with Elise Penworthy’s murder?” Mel asked.
Angie glanced at her and Mel knew she was thinking that of course she knew, because Mel had told her. Mel darted her eyes in Christine’s direction and Angie gave a slight nod.
Christine spat out the hairpins. “What? That’s ridiculous!”
“Really?” Mel played dumb. “What makes you say that?”
“Because everyone knows who killed Elise Penworthy,” Christine said.
Seventeen
“They do?” Mel asked.
Christine gave her a look that said she was not buying what Mel was selling. Mel made her eyes big, and not just because Samantha was coming at her with eyeliner.
“I thought it was her ex-husband,” Samantha said.
“See? Me, too,” Angie said. “It’s always the spouse, and given what she wrote about him in the book, I’m betting Hair Plugs was full of rage, and stabbing her in the back with a pen had to be a fitting end in his mind.”
“It’s too obvious,” Christine and Mel said together.
They looked at each other and Mel felt as if Christine was looking at her with heightened respect.
“It was pretty cold-blooded to stab her with her own pen,” Mel said.
“Agreed,” Christine said.
“But don’t forget the other victims,” Angie said. “Hair Plugs could be a stone-cold killer who was out for revenge on anyone who told Elise details about his life with the Child Bride. That’s the only reason I can think that he’d kill her caterer, driver, and photographer.”
“If it was him,” Mel said. “Whoever it was, they must have believed that those people gave Elise material for her book.” She glanced at Christine, who had fished more hairpins out of the container on the counter. “Did you ever talk to Elise about
