“My turn, Kitten.”
I roll my eyes even though every time he calls me that my insides quiver. It’s so not fair to feel one way emotionally about someone and have your body respond in the opposite sexual direction.
Shep leans in just enough and takes in a full breath.
“Excellent,” he whispers as he pulls back. His eyes snap back to mine as if they never left. “I like this one best.”
A spear of heat drives through me, and I can’t help but shoot a gloating smile over to Regina.
Kiera curls her finger at Shep. “All right. It’s the boys’ turn.” She quickly dabs a new batch of her bubbling brew onto their necks, and before we know it, every woman in the facility flocks around them for a quick—or rather not-so-quick sniffaroo.
Tilly and Regina get quickly crowded out as Kiera calls us over.
“Please, girls”—she pets one of Tilly’s chunky highlights as if it were a cat—“there’s a bin of all three scents, bottled and ready to go right over there.” She points to a chocolate brown woven basket sitting on the counter. “And next to it are samples of my harmless harvest cocoa lipsticks with a propriety blend of ingredients that are guaranteed to garner a kiss from your man.” She points to a stack of hot pink bags stacked in the corner of the workstation. “Grab a tote bag and fill it to the brim.”
Both Tilly and Regina waste no time flying over to the bins in question with their promises of casting just the right spell on unsuspecting men. But I don’t move a muscle. Instead, I flex a brief smile at the blonde before me while she examines both Shep and Jackson as if she couldn’t make up her mind between the two. Or more to the point, as if she couldn’t make up her mind which one to cast a pox on first.
“I’m sorry about your friend.” I wince because, honestly, it feels as if I’m having to remind her about it. You would never know she was grieving—if, in fact, she is.
She looks momentarily confused.
“Oh right. The masquerade ball.” She makes a face as if the ball in question was a disaster for far less mortality-laden reasons. “That’s just like Maddie—making a dramatic exit.” She averts her eyes as if the thought truly irked her.
Wow. Not only did she potentially slip the girl a deadly Mickey, but she’s unremorseful about it, too. A classic sociopath if ever there was one. A socialite sociopath if you want to get technical.
“That she did.” I lean in. “I bet she had it coming, right?” I tip my ear her way, hungry for a confession, but Kiera groans instead as if my words were in poor taste.
They were, but that’s beside the point.
“She did, though.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “That was our Maddie. Always stirring the pot. Always having her way with whoever’s boyfriend she wanted.”
So that’s the bee that’s buzzing around in her bonnet—a cheating boyfriend with a wayward stinger.
“Is that what she did to you?” I cluck my tongue. “My old fiend Gina Gillespie thought she’d take my boyfriend Johnny out for a test drive, and do you know what I did to her?”
Here’s the part where she suggests the cyanide solution.
But Kiera doesn’t follow the script. Instead, she leans in with a curious look as if she were morbidly interested in what happened to Gina.
I shrug. “Gina was getting her hair colored at my aunt’s salon. Let’s just say I used my familial connections to make sure she had an unusual allergic reaction that left her with a few strategically placed tufts of hair.” True story.
But in hindsight, I should have let her have Johnny. Then she would eventually be wanted by the feds and the Morettis, and I could have jumped into one of my luxury cars and driven up to Starry Falls in style.
I sigh at the thought.
It’s hard not to envision Starry Falls as a part of my story with or without my legal debacle.
Kiera’s mouth rounds out like an oval as she gives me a high-five.
“I knew I liked you.” She gives a sly wink.
“So what did you do?” I nudge her with my elbow. “You know, to the woman who tried to steal your man?” I think we both know we’re talking about Madeline, but I don’t dare mention her name and break the bond I just procured with the killer at hand.
Kiera pouts at the thought. “I didn’t get a chance. The wicked witch bit the big one before I could carve her up the way I wanted.”
So she’s saying she would have preferred to use a knife? I’m not falling for it. Kiera must know I’m onto her. Why else would she make something up like that if she didn’t want to throw me off?
“So who do you think did this to Madeline? I mean, certainly it wasn’t you. Who else had a bone to pick with her?”
She gives a brief glance around before scooting in a notch.
“I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d point that hot homicide detective in Sophia Hathaway’s direction. Sophia had been acting strange around her ever since Maddie took that philanthropy position at the Hathaway Foundation.”
“The Hathaway Foundation? Sophia’s family owns it?”
She nods. “Her father. Anyway, I’m not really sure if that actually had anything to do with it. But around the same time, Sophia started making the moves on Lucas.”
“Lucas Lane?” That was the guy in the red suit last night—Madeline Swanson’s boyfriend.
“That’s him.” Her cheeks heat with color, and that vision I had comes to mind.
It was of Kiera and Lucas outdoors at night and he said, “Nobody needs to know,” while shaking her.
And then she said, “Nobody tells me what to do. I should have done this the very first night and saved myself the trouble.”
Saved herself the trouble…
What could that mean?
“So don’t keep me in suspense,” I say. “Did
